DUKE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 j 
 
 LIBRARY 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2015 
 
 https://archive.org/details/minnesotaitsstor31cast 
 
MINNESOTA 
 
 ITS STORY AND 
 BIOGRAPHY 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY A. CASTLE 
 
 and Board of Advisory Editors 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 VOLUME III 
 
 CHICAGO AND NEW YORK 
 
 THE LEWIS PUBLISHING CO. 
 1915 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
- 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 John Washburn. Around the name Washburn 
 revolve the most important industrial achievements 
 of the City of Minneapolis. Through a period be- 
 ginning in the pioneer times of St. Anthony down 
 to the present, the Washburn family have been active 
 as millers, industrial leaders and generous con- 
 tributors to the civic and social welfare, and along 
 with great enterprise and wealth they have measured 
 up to the highest standards of character and conduct. 
 
 The John Washburn above named is now presi- 
 dent of the Washburn-Crosby Company, which was 
 founded many years ago by his uncle, C. C. Wash- 
 burn. John Washburn was born at Hallowell, in 
 the State of Maine, August I, 1858. His parents 
 were Algernon S. and Anna (Moore) Washburn. 
 Algernon S. was a son of Israel Washburn, and 
 while a man of unusual character and achievement 
 himself, had his greatest distinction in being the 
 father of so many brilliant sons. Israel Washburn 
 was descended from one of the oldest families in 
 America, that of John Washburn, who was secretary 
 of the Plymouth Colony in England and afterwards 
 joined its settlement on the shores of Massachusetts 
 early in the seventeenth century. After arriving in 
 America he married Patience, daughter of Francis 
 Cook, who was a member of the Mayflower com- 
 pany. Israel Washburn was born in 1784, and was 
 the son of a Revolutionary soldier, while Martha 
 Benjamin, whom he married in 1812, likewise was 
 the daughter of a Revolutionary patriot. Israel 
 Washburn and wife lived on a farm at Livermore, 
 Maine, and it was in that vicinity that all his dis- 
 tinguished sons were born and reared, a group of 
 men who constituted perhaps the most distinguished 
 family, measured by their varied accomplishments, 
 in the United States. Israel Washburn and wife 
 had eleven children, and their seven sons all gained 
 high stations in affairs. Most of them gained signal 
 recognition in public affairs, and it will not be out 
 of place to indicate some of their stations in Ameri- 
 can public life. Israel Washburn, Jr., was elected to 
 Congress in 1850, served five terms, and in i860 was 
 elected governor of his native state. Elihu B. Wash- 
 burn was one of Illinois’ most distinguished men, 
 having represented that state in Congress from 1853 
 to 1869, and then filled the post of secretary of state 
 under President Grant. During the Franco-Prussian 
 war in 1870 he was minister plenipotentiary to 
 France. Cadwallader C. Washburn, the founder of 
 the great Washburn milling interests in Minneapolis, 
 was in Congress both before and after the war, 
 gained the rank of general in the Union army, and 
 in 1871 was elected governor of Wisconsin. An- 
 other son, Charles A. Washburn, held the post of 
 minister to Paraguay. Samuel B. Washburn was a 
 distinguished officer in the United States navy, while 
 
 Minneapolis and Minnesota only recently lost by 
 death former Senator W. D. Washburn, who was 
 prominent as a miller, railroad builder and in state 
 and national affairs. 
 
 Algernon S. Washburn, father of John Washburn, 
 was the second among these sons, and while never 
 active in politics, became well known as a banker 
 and merchant in the State of Maine. He was for 
 many years a banker at Hallowed, and prior to that 
 had been in the wholesale dry goods business in 
 Boston, Massachusetts. Algernon S. Washburn and 
 wife both died in Hallowed. 
 
 John Washburn acquired his early education in the 
 Westbrook Seminary and the Hallowed Classical 
 Academy, prepared for college there, and entering 
 Bowdoin College remained at his studies for one 
 year. During the second year his scholastic pursuits 
 were interrupted by the death of his father in 1879, 
 and in February of the following year he came out 
 to Minneapolis and at once launched into practical 
 affairs. He was given a place in the Washburn mills, 
 for a year performed manual labor, then was pro- 
 moted to the clerical staff, and after a time was 
 intrusted with the responsibilities of buying wheat 
 for the mills. His most important work has been 
 in this department of the business. With the energy 
 which has been the notable characteristic of the 
 Washburn family he spent years in mastering ad 
 the details of markets, grades and qualities of grain, 
 gained rank as an expert along these lines, and 
 became one of the best known figures not only on 
 the grain exchanges of the Northwest, but through- 
 out the country. 
 
 In 1887 Mr. jolm Washburn became a member of 
 the milling firm of Washburn, Crosby & Company, 
 and continued as a stockholder and director of that 
 corporation and also of its successor. While a mem- 
 ber of the operating firm, he was also director and 
 vice president of the C. C. Washburn Flouring Mill 
 Company, which controlled the mills, water rights 
 and real estate that were the basis of the practical 
 operations. He held those offices with the C. C. 
 Washburn Company until its property and business 
 were consolidated under the present corporate form of 
 Washburn-Crosby Company. Mr. Washburn was vice 
 president of the Washburn-Crosby Company, and 
 since the death of the late J. S. Bell has become 
 president of the greatest milling company in the 
 world. 
 
 Mr. Washburn is president of the St. Anthony 
 Elevator Company and president of the St. Anthony 
 and Dakota Elevator Company; president of the 
 Royal Milling Company of Great Falls, Montana; 
 vice president of the Imperial Elevator Company; 
 president of the Kalispell Milling Company of Kali- 
 spell, Montana; president of the Rocky Mountain 
 
 1273 
 
 52*7918 
 
1274 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Elevator Company of Great Falls, Montana; vice 
 president of the Huhn Elevator Company of Min- 
 neapolis; a director of the Brown Grain Company, 
 of the Barnum Grain Company of Duluth. He is 
 a director of the First National Bank of Min- 
 neapolis, is trustee of the Farmers and Mechanics 
 Savings Bank of Minneapolis, and director Min- 
 neapolis Trust Company. He has membership in 
 the Chicago Board of Trade, the New York Pro- 
 duce Exchange, the Winnipeg Grain Exchange, the 
 Duluth Board of Trade and the Kansas City Board 
 of Trade. For two years, 1900-01, Mr. Washburn 
 was president of the Minneapolis Chamber of Com- 
 merce and is still one of the honored members of 
 that organization. 
 
 He is president of the board of trustees of the 
 Church of the Redeemer, Universalist, at Min- 
 neapolis. His social relations are with the Min- 
 neapolis Club, the Minikahda Club, the Lafayette 
 Club, and the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce 
 Association. Mr. Washburn and family have their 
 city- residence at 2218 First Avenue South, and a 
 beautiful country home known as Spirit Knob at 
 Maplewood on Lake Minnetonka. 
 
 July 29, 1884, John Washburn was married at 
 Hallowell, Maine, to Miss Elizabeth Harding, 
 daughter .of Rev. H. F. and Mary Elizabeth 
 (O’Brien) Harding of Hallowed. Through her 
 mother Mrs. Washburn is connected with the 
 O'Brien family that has long been distinguished in 
 civil and military history of Maine. Not long after 
 the battle of Lexington which inaugurated the Revo- 
 lution, the commander of a British warship im- 
 prudently ordered the patriotic citizens of Machias 
 to take down a liberty pole that had been erected 
 by them on the common of the town. The patriots 
 refused, and in anticipation of sterner measures a 
 party of volunteers was formed and captured the 
 British vessel and turned over its captain and crew 
 as prisoners of war. The commander of that vol- 
 unteer party was the great-grandfather of Mrs. 
 Washburn. Mr. and Mrs. Washburn are the parents 
 of three daughters : Margaret is the wife of H. O. 
 
 Hunt of Minneapolis, and when their little son was 
 born July 4, 1914, he was given the name of his 
 grandfather, John Washburn Hunt; Elizabeth Pope 
 is now a student at Bryn Mawr College : while the 
 youngest daughter, Sidney, is a pupil of Stanley Hall 
 in Minneapolis. 
 
 Claude C. Campbell. Since 1902 editor and pro- 
 prietor of The Eagle at Ellendale, Mr. Campbell is 
 a newspaperman of broad experience in different 
 parts of the West and Northwest, and since taking 
 up his residence at Ellendale has identified himself 
 as a useful factor with the community. Mr. Camp- 
 bell is now postmaster of that city. 
 
 Claude C. Campbell was born in Garrettsville, 
 Ohio, January 19, 1875. His parents were Daniel 
 Richard and Arminta F. (Sapp) Campbell. The 
 Campbell family came from Scotland originally, but 
 settled a number of generations ago in Pennsylvania. 
 On the maternal side, William Sapp, Mr. Campbell’s 
 grandfather, was a veteran of the War of 1812, and 
 died in Danville, Ohio, at the age of seventy-five. 
 Daniel Richard Campbell was born at Danville, 
 Ohio, in 1841, and died at Winnipeg, Manitoba, Can- 
 ada, September 13. 1889. He was a substantial busi- 
 ness man and lived in a number of localities in the 
 Northwest. He was at one time in the marble busi- 
 ness, and for a number of years was engaged in the 
 
 manufacture of pottery, while during his residence 
 in Winnipeg he was in the insurance business. Early 
 in the Civil war, in 1861, he enlisted for service in 
 the Union Army, but at the end of a year and a 
 half was discharged for disability. He was a mem- 
 ber of the Twentieth Ohio Infantry, and the chief 
 battle in which he was under fire was at Shiloh. 
 His widow is now living with her only son and 
 child, Mr. Campbell, at Ellendale. The daughter, 
 Bertha M., died at the age of twenty-three. 
 
 Claude C. Campbell received his early education in 
 the public schools at Brookings, South Dakota, where 
 his father then lived, and for one year was a stu- 
 dent in the South Dakota Agricultural College, leav- 
 ing after his freshman year in 1891. Mr. Campbell 
 began learning the printer’s trade at Brookings in 
 1887, and worked along that line in Brookings until 
 1894. He then became editor and publisher of a 
 paper at Douglas, W3'oming, for six months, re- 
 turned to Brookings to publish the Individual with 
 Stacy Cochrane as partner for a j'ear and a half, 
 was next employed two years with a publishing house 
 at Pierre, South Dakota, and after returning to 
 Brookings again was connected with the Brookings 
 Register. Mr. Campbell located at Ellendale, Min- 
 nesota, in 1902, and bought the Eagle, of which he 
 has since been the proprietor and publisher. The 
 Eagle is one of the influential newspapers of Steele 
 County, maintains an independent position in politics, 
 and as a business proposition has been developed to 
 a growing concern under Mr. Campbell’s manage- 
 ment. 
 
 Mr. Campbell was appointed to the office of post- 
 master at Ellendale on May 9, 1909, and is still serv- 
 ing. He has also served as president of the town 
 council for two years, and as recorder for one year, 
 and is now secretary of the park board. Fraternally 
 he is affiliated with Blooming Prairie Lodge No. 123, 
 A. F. & A. M., with the Order of the Eastern Star 
 and the Modern Woodmen of America, and at one 
 time was a member of the Sons of Veterans. On 
 March 20, 1898, at Brookings, South Dakota, Mr. 
 Campbell married Miss Lillian Loretta Lewis, of 
 Brookings. Their two children are : Cecil Richard, 
 
 now a student in the Pillsbury Academy at Owa- 
 tonna : and Richard Valentine, in the public schools 
 at Ellendale. 
 
 Seabury Divinity School. Closely connected 
 with the fortunes and the history of Shattuck School, 
 a sketch of which is found on other pages, has been 
 the Seabury Divinity School. Both institutions 
 existed side by side for many years, and were the 
 outgrowth of the Bishop Seabury Mission. Since 
 1905 the Seabury Divinity School has been a separate 
 corporation. 
 
 The Bishop Seabury Mission as a corporate body 
 had its beginning on May 22, i860. In September, 
 1857, the Rev. J. Lloyd Breck, the Rev. Solon W. 
 Manney and the Rev. E. Steele Peake had visited 
 Faribault with a view to select a church schoal. On 
 the same day they formed an associate mission to be 
 known as “The Saint Columba Mission,” the work 
 of which was to extend around the communities of 
 Faribault, Owatonna, Northfield and Waterville, 
 with several of the intervening villages. The selec- 
 tion of Faribault was a strategic point for an educa- 
 tional center in the Great Northwest, due to the 
 natural advantages of the place, its central location 
 in the state, the favorable conditions for missionary 
 work, and the receptive attitude of its people. The 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1275 
 
 work of the mission was to include both the white 
 and the Indian fields, and was originally planned to 
 start a coeducational "university,” the women's de- 
 partment offering primary instruction to both sexes. 
 Later when Rev. Mr. Breck became identified with 
 mission work among the Chippeway Indians, his mis- 
 sion was called St. Columba, and to avoid confusion 
 it was deemed expedient to change the name of the 
 mission at Faribault to Bishop Seabury Mission, in 
 honor of Bishop Seabury, the first bishop of this 
 church in the United States. 
 
 While the work of instruction was largely confined 
 to the teaching of small pupils in the fundamentals, 
 the leaders in the mission endeavored so far as 
 possible to offer instruction for those preparing for 
 holy orders. At the opening of the school in a 
 vacant store building on June 3, 1838, fifteen pupils 
 were present, and three of them were preparing for 
 the ministry. Arrangements were made for the erec- 
 tion of a larger building for the use of the school 
 during the week and for a chapel on Sunday's. The 
 building was small and architecturally' of the "early 
 Minnesota pointed style.” It was the first building 
 of the "Bishop Seabury University.” Later addi- 
 tions were made of north and south transepts, and 
 in that building the entire academic work of the mis- 
 sion was carried on until the erection of Seabury 
 Hall on the present site of Shattuck School. The 
 instructors in the primary' school during the fall of 
 1858 comprised George C. Tanner as headmaster and 
 S. D. Hinman as a teacher, and these with George 
 Barnhart constituted the first class in the theological 
 department, under the Rev. D. P. Sanford. In the 
 fall of 1858 the work of the Divinity School and the 
 parish was legally separated, although the parish 
 remained connected with the mission for some tim£. 
 
 In 1859 the consecration of the Rev. Henry Ben- 
 jamin Whipple as first bishop of Minnesota marked 
 an important stage in the history of the Bishop Sea- 
 bury Mission, and it was through his instrumentality' 
 that this mission became known throughout the land 
 as the seat of Bishop Whipple's schools. Ar the 
 bishop’s suggestion the title of "Bishop Seabury' Uni- 
 versity” was changed to the simple name of Grammar 
 School, as more indicative of the real work done 
 there. In i860 the first graduates of the Divinity 
 School were ordained. They were Rev. George C. 
 Tanner, who remained in educational work, and Rev. 
 Samuel D. Hinman, who was the first missionary of 
 the Episcopal Church to the Sioux Indians. 
 
 During the following years several graduates from 
 eastern colleges were added to the staff of instruc- 
 tion. Seabury Hall was completed, and the fame of 
 the school and its enrollment were constantly' grow- 
 ing. In 1869 it was found necessary to provide a 
 building for the exclusive use of the grammar 
 schools, and from its chief donor it received the 
 name Shattuck Hall. 
 
 As told in the sketch of Shattuck School. Bishop 
 Whipple had succeeded in interesting Mrs. Shumway 
 of Chicago in his work in the Northwest, and after 
 her death in 1884 a provision was found in her will 
 bequeathing the sum of about a hundred thousand 
 dollars to the Seabury Divinity' schools, half of which 
 was to be used in the construction of Johnstone Hall 
 in memorial to her father. The cornerstone of 
 Johnstone Hall was laid May 15, 1888, and its com- 
 pletion provided a library and recitation rooms for 
 the daily work of the seminary'. The original Sea- 
 bury Hall had burned in 1872. and in May, 1S73, 
 the cornerstone of the Divinity College building was 
 
 laid by Bishop Whipple. The hall was completed 
 and occupied one y'ear from the date of the burn- 
 ing of the original hall. 
 
 By 1872 Seabury had supplied a third of the clergy 
 to the Minnesota diocese, and its work in preparing 
 men for the ministry has been of broadening scope 
 and efficiency' through all the successive y'ears. The 
 spirit and aim of the institution were expressed more 
 than forty y'ears ago by Bishop Whipple as follows : 
 "It aims to give y'oung men a thorough training in 
 every department of Christian science. It recognizes 
 no school in theology, it aims to inculcate that spirit 
 of love and charity' which allows men to differ upon 
 all questions where they have the right to differ. \Ye 
 design, each y'ear. to elevate our standard of scholar- 
 ship. for the times demand and the world needs an 
 educated clergy'. In these times we want men to 
 know what they' believe, and in their love for Christ 
 will labor to bring back unity' and peace to our divided 
 Christendom. The West needs men clergy' of a 
 peculiar kind of character. We need men who 
 understand the social problems, the reasonings of 
 science, and who can unravel human sophistry and 
 brush away the web of infidel reasoning.” 
 
 As the man whose spirit and work were so inti- 
 mately identified with the early growth of Seabury, 
 the following brief sketch is given of Bishop 
 Whipple. He was bom in Adams, New York, Feb- 
 ruary' 15, 1822, and prepared for college, but owing 
 to feeble health turned to business pursuits. Later 
 he decided to enter the ministry and followed the 
 course under Dr. William D. Wilson, and was or- 
 dained deacon in Trinity' Church in Geneva. New 
 York, in 1849, and a year later ordained_ priest in 
 Christ’s Church in Sackett’s Harbor, New York. He 
 remained as rector of the Church of Holy Com- 
 munion in Chicago until 1859. and was then conse- 
 crated the first bishop of Minnesota. Having many' 
 Indians in his jurisdiction, his time was devoted 
 largely to their improvement education and evangel- 
 ization. He was known among the tribes as 
 "Straight Tongue" and for many years was a recog- 
 nized authority' on Indian problems. For over forty- 
 one years Bishop Whipple was a central figure among 
 the citizens of Faribault, and was a man of rare 
 personality' and noble character. He died Febru- 
 ary 16. 1901. 
 
 Rev. Frederick F. Kramer. The present warden 
 of Seabury Divinity' School at Faribault is Rev. 
 Frederick F. Kramer. Doctor Kramer was born 
 at Erie. Pennsylvania, July' 13, 1861, and was grad- 
 uated from Trinity College at Hartford. Connecti- 
 cut. with the degrees A. B.. M. A. and D. D. He 
 graduated from the General Theological Seminary 
 at New York City'. B. D., and received his degree 
 Doctor of Philosophy- from the University of Colo- 
 rado. Doctor Kramer was rector of St. John's 
 Church at Boulder, Colorado, five years, and then 
 for fifteen y'ears was rector of All Saints Church in 
 Denver. In 1912 he became warden of the Seabury 
 Divinity School at Faribault, and occupies the chair 
 of professor of homiletics. 
 
 Johx I. Davis. Though a member of the Swift 
 County bar only twelve years, John I. Davis has the 
 reputation o.f possessing the largest law practice in 
 the county, and all his time and energies are taken 
 up with the handling of the splendid business which 
 has rewarded his talent. Mr. Davis is a native of 
 
 527918 
 
1276 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Minnesota and the product of its schools and col- 
 leges. 
 
 He was born at Judson, Minnesota, February 18, 
 1877, son °f Reese and Jennie (Jones) Davis. The 
 Davis family were Welsh people, and the paternal 
 grandparents came to the United States in 1848, 
 spending the rest of their lives in Ohio. The mater- 
 nal grandfather, John Jones, was an elder of the 
 Presbyterian Church and lived for a number of 
 years in the State of Minnesota. Reese Davis was 
 born in Wales in 1844, and his wife in Ohio in 1848, 
 and they are still living. Mr. Davis grew up in Ohio, 
 and when about seventeen years of age enlisted in 
 Company C of the Fifty-sixth Ohio Infantry and 
 served a term of three years, at the end of which 
 he re-enlisted and continued with the Union forces 
 a year and eight months, making an aggregate service 
 of almost five years, a very exceptional record among 
 the volunteer army. He participated in many of the 
 campaigns down the Mississippi Valley, including 
 the battles of Shiloh, Corinth, Iuka, Champion Hills, 
 siege of Vicksburg, Missionary Ridge and other 
 battles in the progress of Grant’s army through the 
 heart of the Confederacy. He suffered one severe 
 wound and also a sunstroke. After the war he was 
 married and then took up a homestead near Tracy in 
 Lyon County, Minnesota, lived there until 1883, 
 spent four years in the Village of Tracy, and has 
 since been a resident of Marshall. For many years 
 he combined the occupation of carpenter with that 
 of farmer and was in active work until 1899, since 
 which time he has lived retired and enjoying the 
 fruits of a well spent career. He and his wife are 
 members of the Presbyterian Church, he has been 
 active in church affairs, and in politics is a re- 
 publican. There were five children : Mrs. William 
 Russell, whose husband is a prosperous attorney at 
 Moorhead ; Mrs. Krook, wife of the postmaster at 
 Marshall ; Mrs. Rigney, whose husband is a civil 
 engineer and at the present time postmaster at Laurel, 
 Montana; John I. and Thomas E., twins, -the latter 
 also an attorney with residence at Marshall. Thomas 
 E. Davis finished the high school course in Marshall, 
 spent two years in Macalester College at St. Paul, 
 and studied law at Marshall and was admitted to 
 practice in 1901. 
 
 John I. Davis received the bulk of his public school 
 training at Marshall, where he graduated from the 
 high school in 1894. The following year he was not 
 in school, then spent two years in Macalester College 
 at St. Paul, was a teacher for two years, and on 
 resuming his studies was in the law department of 
 the state university two years. Once more he left 
 school to get some of the necessary names to finish 
 his education, spent a year as teacher at Donaldson, 
 and finished his law course in 1903 and was admitted 
 to the bar in the same year. Mr. Davis was asso- 
 ciated with his brother in practice for one year, in 
 September, 1904, located at Appleton, was elected 
 county attorney, and in 1907 removed to Benson, in 
 which city he has his offices and looks after his splen- 
 did practice. He served two years as county attor- 
 ney of Swift County. In his private practice Mr. 
 Davis has specialized in personal injury cases. and has 
 greater skill in handling this class of practice than 
 any other lawyer in Swift Count}^. 
 
 In 1906 Mr. Davis married Mrs. May Webster of 
 Appleton. There are two children : Thomas Edwin, 
 born May 5, 1907; and Willard John, born March 31, 
 tgn. Mrs. Davis is a member of the Congrega- 
 tional Church, is a leader in church work, and is also 
 president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance 
 
 Union. Mr. Davis is affiliated with the Masonic 
 Order, the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks in Lodge No. 952, and the Knights of the Mac- 
 cabees. Politically he is a republican. 
 
 Ernest G. Melander. The active citizenship of 
 the City of Moorhead has no more energetic factor 
 than Ernest G. Melander, whose chief business is 
 as proprietor and editor of the Moorhead Citizen, 
 whose various interests have also given him promi- 
 nence in the local city government, in fraternal work 
 both at home and over the state, and he is well 
 known in the local, state and national bodies of the 
 Improved Order of Red Men and the Knights of 
 the Maccabees. 
 
 Ernest G. Melander was born in St. Paul, Novem- 
 ber 23, 1872, and though still a young man, has 
 spent a great many years in the printing and publish- 
 ing business. His father, Andrew Melander, was 
 born in Sweden, and on coming to the United States 
 settled at St. Paul, being a carpenter by trade. His 
 wife, Johanah Melander, was also borii in Sweden, 
 and died in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1908. Their 
 children were : Ernest G. ; Hilda J., who lives in 
 
 Fargo, North Dakota, and married M. J. Burns : 
 Edward F., who married Mattie Engvik, is a printer 
 at Fargo ; Harry, who married Ida Dougherty, is 
 manager of the Pokegama Springs Bottling Works 
 at Detroit, Minnesota. 
 
 In 1877 Ernest G. Melander’s parents removed to 
 Lake Park, Minnesota, and in 1881 to Fargo, North 
 Dakota, and in these two places he received his edu- 
 cation in the public schools. However, his univer- 
 sity was a printing office, and at the early age of 
 fourteen he began vocational training for life, first 
 in the trade of harnessmaker, and afterwards as, a 
 printer’s apprentice with the Fargo Sun and later 
 the Fargo Argus. He was employed on the Call 
 at Superior, Wisconsin, for several years, and then 
 removed to Duluth, and worked in job printing 
 offices and also in the offices of the News-Tribune 
 and the Herald in that city. In 1896 Mr. Melander 
 became associated with the Fargo Forum, was con- 
 nected with several printing offices in that city, and 
 then came to Moorhead and for five years was with 
 the Independent. 
 
 On October 17, 1902, Mr. Melander established 
 the Moorhead Citizen, of which he has since been 
 proprietor and editor. At the beginning he had a 
 partner, Mr. Zeller, but became sole proprietor on 
 April 4, 1906. The Citizen is a democratic news^ 
 paper, and has a large circulation through Clay, 
 Becker and neighboring counties, and many sub- 
 scribers are located 1 ' in other states and in foreign 
 countries. The offices and plant are on Front Street 
 in the Kiefer Block. Mr. Melander is himself a 
 democrat. He has also been active in politics and 
 was at one time a candidate for coroner of Clay 
 County and at another time for mayor of the City 
 of Moorhead. Although he was defeated he made 
 an excellent run both times. 
 
 In local affairs he is a member of the Key City 
 Hook and Ladder Company, and has also served as 
 captain and treasurer of the company and treasurer 
 of the fire department. He belongs to the Com- 
 mercial Club, and both personally and through his 
 newspaper accepts every opportunity to do good to 
 his home city. Mr. Melander became affiliated with 
 the Improved Order of Red Men in 1900, in White 
 Cloud Tribe No. 53, at Moorhead, and with the 
 exception of the first year has been a representative 
 to the State Great Council fourteen consecutive 
 

 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1277 
 
 years, and has also been representative to the 
 Great Council of the United States three times, at 
 Norfolk, Virginia, in 1907; at Bridgeport, Connecti- 
 cut, in 1908, and at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1909. He is 
 a past great sachem of the State of Minnesota, is 
 deputy great sachem of the state at the present time, 
 and is also collector of the wampum of Tribe No. 
 53. In connection with this fraternity he has taken 
 the lead in stimulating interest in athletic sports at 
 Moorhead. Two years ago he organized the base- 
 ball team among the members of the Red Men, and 
 has since been manager of the team. This team 
 has played the strongest amateur baseball organiza- 
 tions in that part of the state, and in 1913 won eight 
 games out of twelve and in 1914 ten games out of 
 seventeen. 
 
 Mr. Melander is also prominent in the Knights 
 of the Maccabees, his local affiliation being with 
 North Star Tent No. 7, of which he is past com- 
 mander, and is now first master of the guard, and 
 is a past state commander of the State of North 
 Dakota. He is a past consul in the Hazel Camp 
 No. 3079 of the Modern Woodmen of America. 
 
 On June 3, 1896, at Fargo, North Dakota, Mr. 
 Melander married Miss Mary Musolf, daughter of 
 Martin Musolf, who is a molder by trade and lives 
 at Duluth. Their three children are: Norman F., 
 
 in the sophomore class of the Moorhead High 
 School ; Marguerite, a freshman in the high school ; 
 and Edna G., who is a student at Faribault, Minne- 
 sota, in the school for the deaf and dumb. 
 
 Alfred Emmett Haven is editor and publisher 
 of the Faribault Democrat. He is a veteran 
 newspaper man, of the older school of journalism, 
 began learning the printer’s trade when a boy, 
 and after a service from the beginning to the 
 end of the Civil war in the ranks of a Wisconsin 
 regiment, resumed the profession, and more than 
 forty years ago came to Faribault and is now one 
 of the oldest journalists in the state. In the Demo- 
 crat he has a newspaper which is an influential 
 moulder of public opinion, and a complete index of 
 the news in Rice County. 
 
 Alfred Emmett Haven was born in the Town of 
 Guilford, Chenango County, New York, February 4, 
 1840. His father, Asa Haven, was born in Benning- 
 ton, Vermont, in 1780, and died at Guilford, Chen- 
 ango County, New York, in 1858, his parents having 
 moved to Guilford when he was twelve years of age. 
 He was a wheelwright, a millwright, and also a 
 farmer, and a man of some substance and consider- 
 able influence in his community. Mr. Haven’s great- 
 great -grandfather, Richard Haven, was a native of 
 Scotland, and settled at Lynn, Massachusetts, 
 in 1746. Grandfather Asa Haven moved from 
 Lynn, Massachusetts, to Bennington. Vermont, 
 and was a New England farmer. Both Richard 
 and Asa Haven were volunteers during the 
 Revolutionary war in the Colonial forces that beat 
 back the ‘army of Burgoyne, and participated 
 in the brilliant victory at Bennington under Gen- 
 eral Stark. Richard Haven is twice mentioned in 
 the official records of the Revolution. Asa Haven, 
 the father, married Harriet Esther Clark, who was 
 born in 1800 on the Atlantic Ocean, while her parents 
 were coming from The Hague, Holland. She died 
 at La Crosse, Wisconsin, in April, 1866. 
 
 Alfred Emmett Haven, spent the first eighteen 
 years of his life at Guilford. New York. His father 
 died then, and his mother in the same year moved 
 west and located at La Crosse, Wisconsin, where he 
 
 continued his education in the high school for two 
 years. In i860 Mr. Haven took up the study of law 
 in the office of Judge Hugh and Angus Cameron at 
 La Crosse, and at the same time learned the printer’s 
 trade in the office of the La Crosse Democrat, which 
 was the first daily paper established in La Crosse. 
 This paper was established by Mr. Haven’s half- 
 brother, C. P. Sykes under the name of the Daily 
 Union. Subsequently Mr. Sykes bought out the 
 Democrat and merged the two papers under the name 
 The Democrat. Mr. Haven’s studies in law and his 
 training as a printer were interrupted by the out- 
 break of hostilities between the North and South. 
 Only a few days after Fort Sumter had been fired 
 upon, he enlisted on April 18, 1861, in Company B 
 of the Second Regiment of Wisconsin Infantry. His 
 service as a Union soldier continued for four years 
 and four months. A complete record of his 
 military experiences would cover many of the battles 
 and important campaigns of the war. He was 
 in the battles of Blackburn Ford, the first battle of 
 Bull Run, assisted in the building of the fort at 
 Chain Bridge, and in October, 1861, his regiment 
 became a part of the famous Iron Brigade, composed 
 of the Second, Sixth and Seventh Wisconsin regi- 
 ments and the Nineteenth Regiment of Indiana. 
 With the Iron Brigade he fought at the battles of 
 Sulphur Springs, Fredericksburg, Antietam, Gettys- 
 burg, the battles of the. Wilderness, and altogether 
 was in twenty-one major engagements. 
 
 After the war and after his return to Wisconsin, 
 Mr. Haven was soon ready for admission to the 
 bar, and it was his intention to follow a career as 
 a lawyer. The necessity for immediate provision for 
 his financial needs caused a change in his plans, and 
 directed his energies to a profession in which he has 
 perhaps served with better usefulness than in the 
 law, though perhaps not with as great financial 
 success. He returned to the trade of printer in the 
 office of the La Crosse Democrat, eventually became 
 associate editor, and for eight years was active 
 manager of the journal. In 1872 Mr. Haven moved 
 to Faribault, Minnesota, where he purchased the 
 Faribault Leader, changing the name to the Demo- 
 crat. For more than forty years that influential 
 journal has been under his direction as proprietor 
 and editor. The offices and plant are situated in the 
 Masonic Block at the corner of Third Street and 
 Central Avenue and have been in this one location 
 since 1878. 
 
 Aside from his work as an editor, Mr. Haven 
 has identified himself with many civic and social 
 organizations during his residence in Faribault. He 
 served as county superintendent of school for Rice 
 County for four years, and was postmaster at Fari- 
 bault five years and three months, having been ap- 
 pointed by President Cleveland during his second 
 administration and serving more than a year under 
 President McKinley. Mr. Haven is a democrat. He 
 was elected in 1872 a member of the board of trustees 
 of the Faribault public library, and has served in that 
 position more than forty years. For twenty-six 
 years he was a member of the school board, and 
 is now a trustee and vice president of the Soldiers’ 
 Home. In a business way he was at one time a 
 director of the Faribault Rattan Works. Mr. Haven 
 has served as a warden and vestryman in the Cathe- 
 dral Episcopal Church at Faribault for twenty-eight 
 years, and is a trustee of the Girls School, the St. 
 Mary’s Hall. Fraternally he is affiliated with Fari- 
 bault Lodge No. 9, A. F. & A. M., being the oldest 
 living past master, for twelve consecutive years was 
 
1278 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 high priest of Tyrian Chapter No. 6, R. A. M., and 
 for two terms was commander of Faribault Com- 
 mandery No. 8, K. T. He was formerly a member 
 of the Knights of Honor and belonged to other fra- 
 ternities. 
 
 On November 13, 1867, at La Crosse, Wisconsin, 
 Mr. Haven married Miss Mary Ann Meeker, a 
 daughter of Cornelius S. Meeker, a former merchant 
 of La Crosse, now deceased. Mr. Haven has two 
 children : Reide M., who was educated in the public 
 schools and the Shattuck Military School at Fari- 
 bault and has been foreman in the office of the Dem- 
 ocrat since 1898; Freeda M. is the wife of Andrew 
 B. Eddy, who is secretary of the Hope Club at Prov- 
 idence, Rhode Island. 
 
 Frank W. McKellip. Representative of a family 
 which since the earliest pioneer times has been iden- 
 tified with Minnesota, Frank W. McKellip since 
 leaving university has been engaged in engineering, 
 has been connected with the engineering depart- 
 ment of several western railways, and for the past 
 six years has been city engineer of Faribault. 
 
 Frank W. McKellip was born in Faribault, Min- 
 nesota, October 12, 1872, a son of Charles D. Mc- 
 Kellip, who was born in Pennsylvania in 1843 and 
 died in Chicago in December, 1906. It was Grand- 
 father William McKellip, whose ancestors came from 
 the North of Scotland who founded the McKellip 
 family in Minnesota Territory as early as 1855. 
 Charles D. McKellip was a boy when the family 
 came to Rice County, and they all lived as farmers 
 in that section. He was reared on his father’s farm, 
 and in 1864 enlisted for service in the Union army 
 in Company D of the Eleventh Minnesota Infantry, 
 and saw one year of service. Returning to Faribault, 
 he taught school for some time, but for many years 
 was connected with the Faribault Republican, and 
 continued in newspaper work until his death. He 
 married Emily Woodmas, who was born in Ohio 
 and now lives with her son Frank. The other son, 
 W. S. McKellip is outside superintendent of the 
 School for the Deaf at Berkeley, California. 
 
 Frank W. McKellip grew up at Faribault, grad- 
 uated from the high school in 1892, and after a 
 varied experience in other lines of employment pre- 
 pared for his regular profession by graduation from 
 the University of Minnesota in 1898 with the degree 
 electrical engineer. For a few months he was em- 
 ployed by the Minneapolis General Electric Com- 
 pany, then returned to Faribault, and practiced his 
 profession individually for two years. Then fol- 
 lowed six months of employment with the Chicago 
 Telephone Company in Chicago, and he was then 
 employed on the engineering staff of the Kansas City, 
 Mexico & Orient Railroad, in Old Mexico for a 
 year and a half. After that Mr. McKellip was an 
 engineer with the Great Northern Railway in Ne- 
 braska and Montana, and in 1908 returned to Fari- 
 bault, for one year was employed in making maps 
 of the county, and in May, 1909, was elected to his 
 present office as city engineer of Faribault. He has 
 planned and supervised practically every munici- 
 pal improvement at Faribault in the past five years. 
 
 For three months he filled an unexnired term as 
 auditor of Rice County. Mr. McKellip is a re- 
 publican, a member of the Congregational Church, 
 and has affiliations with Faribault Lodge No. q, A. F. 
 & A. M„ with Faribault Chapter, R. A. M., with Fari- 
 bault Commandery No. 8, K. T.. with Osman Temple 
 of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, with Faribault 
 Lodge No. 1166, B. P. O. E., and formerly was iden- 
 
 tified with the Knights of Pythias. Mr. McKellip 
 resides at 623 Third Street, S. W., Faribault. 
 
 James M. Punderson. One of the flourishing and 
 important industrial enterprises that is centralized at 
 Northfield, Rice County, and lends greatly to the 
 commercial prestige of the city, is that controlled 
 by the Northfield Seed and Nursery Company, and 
 of this representative corporation Mr. Punderson is 
 secretary and treasurer — known as a citizen of ster- 
 ling character and marked loyalty and as a business 
 man of strong personality and much initiative power, 
 orous in his chosen field of enterprise, he is a young 
 man of strong personality and much initiative power, 
 and he has proved himself eminently qualified for 
 the executive responsibilities that devolve upon him 
 in connection with the extensive business of the com- 
 pany with which he is identified. 
 
 Mr. Punderson takes distinctive pride in claiming 
 Minnesota as the place of his nativity and he is 
 fully appreciative of the manifold advantages and 
 attractions of this great commonwealth of the 
 Northwest. He was born in the City of St. Paul, 
 on the 24th of December, 1889, and thus became a 
 right welcome Christmas arrival in the home of his 
 parents, John W. and Mary (Soare) Punderson, the 
 former of whom was born at Hudson, Columbia 
 County, New York, in 1862, and the latter of whom 
 was a native of England. John W. Punderson was 
 reared and educated in the old Empire State, has 
 been a resident of St. Paul, Minnesota, since 1884, 
 and is one of the substantial and representative busi- 
 ness men of the capital city, where he is a director 
 of the wholesale hardware corporation of Farwell, 
 Osman, Kirk & Co., besides which he is pres- 
 ident of the Northfield Seed and Nursery Company, 
 of which his only son, subject of this review,, is 
 secretary and treasurer. He is a republican in his 
 political allegiance. The death of his wife occurred 
 in 1912. Of the three children, James M. is the eld- 
 est, and the two daughters, Carolyn Eleanor and 
 Dorothy Mary, remain at the paternal home in St. 
 Paul. 
 
 John W. Punderson is a son of James M. Punder- 
 son, who was born in the State of New York in 
 1830, and who died at Hudson, that state, in 1902. 
 For many years he was engaged in the freight for- 
 warding business along the Hudson River, and he 
 owned and operated a line of steamboats on that 
 great watercourse, his father, Frank Punderson, like- 
 wise a native of New York, having been identified 
 with the -same line of enterprise during the course of 
 a signally active and successful career. Frank Pun- 
 derson was a son of Rev. Ebenezer Punderson, a 
 clergyman of the Presbyterian Church and the third 
 of the name Ebenezer to have represented, in as 
 many generations, the family in the ministry of this 
 denomination, from which one of the number with- 
 drew to become a member of the clergy of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church. The Punderson fam- 
 ily lineage is traced back to fine old colonial stock in 
 New England, and the original American progenitor 
 was John Punderson, who immigrated from Eng- 
 land and settled in New Haven, Connecticut, in 
 1637. 
 
 He whose name initiates this review is indebted 
 to the public schools of St. Paul for his early edu- 
 cational discipline, and after his graduation in the 
 high school, as a member of the class of 1908, he 
 completed a two years' course in the Minnesota 
 State Agricultural College, at St. Anthony’s Park, 
 this training having been such as to fortify him most 
 

 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1279 
 
 excellently for the supervision of the scientific and 
 practical details of the extensive industry with which 
 he is now actively concerned. 
 
 In the spring of 1911 Mr. Punderson established 
 his residence at Northfield, where he passed one 
 year in effective service with the United States De- 
 partment of Agriculture, here maintained under the 
 auspices of the University of Minnesota. His atten- 
 tion was given principally to statistical work, and in 
 the same year he purchased an interest in the North- 
 field Seed & Nursery Company, this action definitely 
 signifying his deep interest in agriculture, horticul- 
 ture and allied industries. The business of which he 
 is now the active executive officer was established in 
 1906, under the title of the Nichols & Sherpy Seed 
 Company, which title was changed to that of the 
 Northfield Seed & Nursery Company in 1910. Under 
 the aggressive and effective direction of Mr. Punder- 
 son the enterprise has been greatly expanded in scope 
 and importance, and it was in consonance with his 
 ideas that the company was incorporated under the 
 laws of the state, in 1912. His father has been presi- 
 dent from the time of incorporation and he himself 
 has retained the dual office of secretary and treas- 
 urer. The company controls a large and substan- 
 tial wholesale seed business and makes a specialty 
 of the handling of seed corn grown under contract 
 and sold to dealers throughout Minnesota, North 
 Dakota. South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin, and the 
 Canadian Northwest. The company’s finely equipped 
 nurseries are situated three-fourths of a mile east 
 of the Northfield postoffice, and the warehouses and 
 offices in Northfield are at the corner of Fourth and 
 Washington streets. 
 
 Mr. Punderson is active and progressive not only 
 in connection with his business affairs, but also as a 
 citizen of broad views and distinctive public spirit. 
 He is an independent republican in his political pro- 
 clivities and thus far in his career has manifested 
 no predilection for public office. He is a communi- 
 cant of the Protestant Episcopal Church, is an active 
 and valued member of the Northfield Commercial 
 Club, and is affiliated with Northfield Lodge, No. 50, 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Mr. Punder- 
 son is distinctively a popular factor in both business 
 and social circles of his adopted city, and is num- 
 bered among the eligible young bachelors of North- 
 field. 
 
 Fred Stalley. Clay County has no more popular 
 citizen than Fred Stalley, who has been continuously 
 identified with the office of registrar of deeds for 
 sixteen years, the first five years as deputy and 
 since then as the elected official. Mr. Stalley was 
 one of the early farmer settlers of Clay County, 
 and while developing his land also took an active 
 interest in public affairs and from a township office 
 received promotion to the county seat at Moorhead. 
 
 Fred Stalley is a native of England, born in Hert- 
 fordshire, twenty-five miles north of London, April 
 18, 1851. His family has resided for many genera- 
 tions in England, but the original people of the 
 name were French Huguenots who after the revoca- 
 tion of the Edict of Nantes fled to England. Henry 
 B. Stalley, father of the Moorhead citizen, was born 
 in the same locality in 1820, was a general mer- 
 chant and died there in 1878. His wife, whose 
 maiden name was Anne Turner, was born in 1825. 
 and after the death of her husband came to the 
 United States in 188.3 and died in Clay County, 
 Minnesota, in 1893. Their children were : Henry, 
 
 who is connected with the Christ Hospital in Eng- 
 
 land; Fred; Mary A., who lives in Forest Grove, 
 Oregon ; William, who is connected with one of the 
 large stores of St. Paul; Alice M., wife of F. South- 
 well, a resident of Minneapolis and collector for the 
 Tri-State Telephone Company; Annie M., wife of 
 A. F. Burlingham, a seed merchant at Forest Grove, 
 Oregon; and Charles, engaged in the real estate 
 business at Vancouver, B. C. 
 
 Fred Stalley grew up and received his education 
 in England. Not long after attaining manhood he 
 emigrated to the United States, sought a new home 
 in Clay County, Minnesota, which was then almost 
 undeveloped, and contributed his share towards the 
 progress of the community by improving a home- 
 stead claim. His career as a farmer continued until 
 1897, when he accepted a position in the office of 
 the register of deeds and moved to Moorhead. Later 
 he was himself elected register of deeds and the 
 voters have seen fit to re-elect him at each succeed- 
 ing two years, while on November 3, 1914, he was 
 re-elected for the extended time of four years. 
 
 During his residence in the country Mr. Stalley 
 served as justice of the peace in the Town of 
 Hawley for thirteen years, and was also a member 
 of the school board. He is a republican, a member 
 of the Congregational Church, is secretary and man- 
 ager of the Clay County Abstract Company, belongs 
 to the Moorhead Commercial Club, and has fraternal 
 affiliations with Moorhead Lodge, A. F. & A. M., 
 with Moorhead Lodge Knights of Pythias, and with 
 the Royal Arcanum. At Hawley, Minnesota, in 
 1890, Mr. Stalley married Miss Nellie H. Axtell, 
 whose father was the late Doctor Axtell, a physi- 
 cian of Troy, Pennsylvania. To their marriage have 
 been born two children : Francis C., now attending 
 Fargo College at Fargo, North Dakota; and Harold 
 A., who graduated from the Moorhead High School 
 and took a business course in Concordia College at 
 Moorhead, and is now one of his father’s deputies 
 in the office of register of deeds. 
 
 Harry C. Howe. A native son of Owatonna, 
 judicial center and metropolis of Steele County, Mr. 
 Howe is a representative of one of the best known 
 and most influential pioneer families of this county, 
 and his father, a man of sterling character and dis- 
 tinctive ability, was one of the founders of the Owa- 
 tonna Manufacturing Company, which for nearly 
 half a century has conducted one of the most im- 
 portant industrial enterprises in Steele County. Of 
 this company, of which Harry C. Howe is now sec- 
 retary and treasurer, it is imperative that brief rec- 
 ord be made in this history, and the following ex- 
 tracts are taken, with but slight paraphrase, from 
 an interesting circular issued by the company, under 
 the virtual title of “Half a Century of Seeding Ma- 
 chinery” : 
 
 “The manufacture of Owatonna seeding machin- 
 ery was commenced in 1865, by Michael F. Lowth 
 and Thomas J. Howe, who built a factory in Owa- 
 tonna, Minnesota, and began making Owatonna 
 seeders, under the firm name of Lowth & Howe. 
 The following year Henry N. LaBare entered the 
 business. In 1888 the business was incorporated 
 under the name of the Owatonna Manufacturing 
 Company, by which title it has been known since 
 that time. The manufacture of Owatonna seeding 
 machinery has been under the same management 
 for almost fifty years. 
 
 “Fifty years is a long span in the history of the 
 United States. When the building of Owatonna 
 
1280 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 seeding machinery was initiated, the Civil war was 
 just over, the boundless prairies of our great West 
 were hardly scratched, Minnesota was a sparsely set- 
 tled western State, but recently admitted to the 
 Union, and the Dakotas and Montana were peopled 
 only by the Indians. The building of farm ma- 
 chinery was in its infancy. 
 
 “Among the first ten men who were granted pat- 
 ents by the United States government for seeding 
 machinery were Michael F. Lowth and Thomas J. 
 Howe. They were among the earliest pioneers in 
 the designing and building of force-feed grain seed- 
 ing machines. They started their modest factory in 
 the little village of Owatonna, in southern Minne- 
 sota; and there, in conjunction with Henry N. 
 LaBare, who joined them the following year, they 
 built for many years the Owatonna seeder, — crude 
 and awkward looking to modern eyes, but a machine 
 which would do the work for which it was designed, 
 and, above all, a machine that would last. We have 
 in our factory to-day an Owatonna seeder which 
 was built about 1867, which put in thirty-six con- 
 secutive crops, and which is capable of putting in a 
 crop of grain to-day. 
 
 “Many farmers in the Northwest will remember 
 the old-style Owatonna seeder with which their 
 father, and perhaps their grandfathers, put in their 
 crops thirty, forty, or almost fifty years ago. The 
 inventors and builders of those seeders always put 
 into them the best iron, the best lumber, the most 
 skillful labor they could buy. They gave an honest 
 dollar’s worth for every dollar they received, and 
 thousands of farmers to-day can testify to the 
 sturdy, lasting qualities of Owatonna seeders. 
 
 “And what the fathers founded, the sons have car- 
 ried forward and increased. It is a far cry from 
 the old-style Owatonna seeder, with its wood frame 
 and wood bars, to the latest type of the Owatonna 
 drill, built in over a hundred sizes and styles. But 
 the same sturdy, lasting qualities are in each. The 
 same care in selecting materials, in procuring labor, 
 in overseeing the manufacture of Owatonna seeding 
 machinery is found in our factory to-day. We were 
 never trained in building machines cheap. 
 
 "The building of Owatonna seeding machinery has 
 been under the same management for almost half a 
 century. The present officers of the company are 
 'on the job’ every day, watching, planning, experi- 
 menting, designing; personally supervising the con- 
 struction of every machine that goes out of the 
 factory. The Owatonna Manufacturing Company is 
 not a part of any giant combination or ‘trust.’ We 
 are not so large but that our officers give their per- 
 sonal attention to every detail of the business. 
 * * * Owatonna seeding machines are built to 
 
 meet every condition, it being well understood that 
 modern farming demands many different kinds of 
 seeding machines, and that what is adapted to one 
 locality is not adapted to another.’’ 
 
 The preceding quotations are more suggestive and 
 significant than would be any mere outline descrip- 
 tion of the company’s factory, details concerning the 
 processes of manufacture, and record of gradual 
 growth and development. It is necessary to say only 
 that the products of this splendid manufactory are 
 used in all agricultural sections of the United States 
 and Canada, with an export trade that has been of 
 broad scope. Of the founders of the business it may 
 be noted that Michael F. Lowth was born in 1823 
 and died in 1882; Thomas J. Howe was born in 
 T827 and died in 1008; and Henry N. LaBare, who 
 was born in 1835, died in 1906. Frank LaBare, son 
 
 of Henry N., is now president of the company; 
 George S. Barr, son-in-law of Thomas J. Howe, is 
 vice president ; and II. C. Howe, whose name intro- 
 duces this article, is secretary and treasurer. 
 
 Harry C. Howe was born at Owatonna, Minnesota, 
 on the 16th of November, 1873, and is a son of 
 Thomas J. and Sarah M. (Chapman) Howe, the 
 former of whom was born in Jefferson County, New 
 York, in 1827, and the latter of whom likewise was 
 a native of the old Empire State, where she was 
 born in the year 1831. The mother of Thomas J. 
 Howe was a lineal descendant of that historic New 
 England character, Peregrine White. The lineage 
 of the Howe family is traced back to sterling English 
 stock and representatives of the name settled in New 
 England in the colonial epoch of American history, 
 the name having been one of special prominence in 
 Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, and 
 also, in later generations, in the State of New York. 
 
 Thomas J. Howe was reared and educated in his 
 native state and early gave evidence of superior 
 mechanical and inventive talent. In 1848, shortly 
 after attaining to his legal majority, he came to the 
 West and established his residence in Wisconsin, and 
 though he thereafter passed varying intervals in 
 New York State, he continued virtually a resident of 
 Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, until his removal to Owa- 
 tonna, Minnesota, in 1865. Not only did he aid in 
 the upbuilding of a great industrial enterprise at 
 Owatonna, but his strong and noble influence was 
 potent in the furtherance of the social and material 
 progress and advancement of the town and county 
 which represented his home for many years and in 
 which his name and memory are revered and hon- 
 ored. He was eighty-one years of age at the time 
 of his death, in 1908. his loved and devoted wife 
 having been summoned to the life eternal in 1893 and 
 he having been an active and zealous member of the 
 LTniversalist Church. Mr. Howe was affiliated with 
 the York Rite lodge, chapter and commandery bodies 
 of the Masonic fraternity, in Owatonna, and his 
 political allegiance was given to the republican party, 
 though he had naught of aspiration for the honors 
 or emoluments of public office. 
 
 It may be stated that the fine modern plant of the 
 Owatonna Manufacturing Company is situated on 
 West Rose Street, the office number being 118 on 
 that thoroughfare. The output now includes grain 
 drills and seeders, which are extensively used 
 throughout the Mississippi Va'ley and Middle West, 
 and a department is now devoted also to the manu- 
 facturing of churns for creamery use, these improved 
 products finding sale in all parts of the Union and 
 in the principal countries of Europe, with substan- 
 tial export trade in other countries. 
 
 H. C. Howe, who as a citizen and business man 
 is well upholding the high prestige of the honored 
 name which he bears, acquired his early education in 
 the public schools of Owatonna, where he was grad- 
 uated in the high school as a member of the class 
 of t8go, after which he was for three years a stu- 
 dent in the University of Minnesota. In the spring 
 of 1803. when nineteen years of age. Mr. Howe as- 
 sumed the position of bookkeeper in the office_ of the 
 Owatonna Manufacturing Company, and with the 
 passing years he has familiarized himself with all 
 practical and executive details pertaining to the 
 carrying forward of the extensive and important 
 industry with which he has continued to be actively 
 identified. He is secretary and treasurer of the 
 company, is to be designated as one of Minnesota s 
 representative business men of the younger genera- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1281 
 
 tion, and commands a secure place in popular confi- 
 dence and esteem. 
 
 It may well be understood that Mr. Howe is ani- 
 mated by a spirit of unswerving loyalty to and ap- 
 preciation of the city, county and state that have 
 ever represented his home, and he gives his influence 
 and cooperation in support of those measures and 
 enterprises that tend to conserve the general welfare 
 of the community. He is found staunchly arrayed 
 in the ranks of the republican party, and both he 
 and his wife are communicants of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church. His is a deep appreciation of 
 the history and teachings of the time-honored Ma- 
 sonic fraternity, in which he is affiliated with the 
 following organizations in his native city : Star in 
 
 the East Lodge, No. 33, Ancient, Free and Accepted 
 Masons, of which he is past master ; Owatonna Chap- 
 ter, No. 15, Royal Arch Masons; and Cyrene Com- 
 mandery, No. 9, Knights Templar, of which he was 
 commander in 1913 and 1914. He was formerly in 
 active affiliation with the lodge of Elks at Austin, 
 Mower County. 
 
 On the 20th of June, 1900, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Howe to Miss Jane F. Semple, at 
 Marshalltown, Iowa. The parents of Mrs. Howe 
 are residents of Huntsville, Missouri, and she her- 
 self was born in the City of St. Louis, that state. 
 Air. and Mrs. Howe have two children — Sarah and 
 Samuel — and the attractive family home is at No. 
 387 East Main Street. 
 
 Willis E. Kenyon. Steele county is signally 
 favored in the personnel of its executive corps at the 
 present time, and the able and honored incumbent 
 of the office of judge of the Probate Court of the 
 county is he. whose name introduces this paragraph 
 and who has proved most circumspect and faithful in 
 the administration of the affairs of his important 
 office. 
 
 Judge Kenyon was born in Chautauqua County, 
 New York, on the 5th of November; 1852, and is a 
 son of Dr. Thomas Kenyon and Mary (Smith) 
 Kenyon, the former of whom was born in Otsego 
 County, New York, in 1823, and the latter of 
 whom was born in Chautauqua County, that 
 state, in 1818. Doctor Kenyon, an able ex- 
 ponent of the benignant homeopathic school of med- 
 icine, became one of the pioneer physicians and sur- 
 geons of Steele County, Minnesota, where he settled, 
 in Somerset Township, in 1856. He served as the 
 first coroner of Steele County and was a prominent 
 and influential citizen, a physician of high attain- 
 ments, and a man whose kindliness and self-abne- 
 gating service gave him secure place in popular con- 
 fidence and esteem, so that his memory is revered in 
 the county that was long his home. He retired from 
 the active practice of his profession several years 
 prior to his'death, which occurred at his old home in 
 Steele County, in 1882, his loved and devoted wife, 
 held in affectionate esteem by all who knew her, 
 having survived him by a decade and having been 
 summoned to the life eternal in 1892. The genealogy 
 of the Kenyon family is traced back to staunch 
 English origin and the founders of the American 
 branch were members of the Society of Friends and 
 came to this country in the colonial era of our na- 
 tional history. Though the Quaker or Friends’ faith 
 is opposed to warfare, it is virtually a matter of as- 
 surance that representatives of the Kenyon family 
 were found arrayed as loyal patriots and soldiers in 
 the War of the Revolution. From the old Empire 
 State members of the family finally came to the West 
 
 and established a residence in Illinois, and from the 
 latter state the parents of Judge Kenyon came as 
 pioneers to Minnesota, about two years prior to the 
 admission of the state to the Union. 
 
 Judge Kenyon was about four years of age at the 
 time of the family removal to Minnesota and he 
 acquired his early education in the pioneer schools of 
 Steele County, which has been his home from child- 
 hood. He eventually became a prosperous farmer 
 and influential citizen of Somerset Township, and 
 there he continued to give his personal supervision 
 to his fine landed estate until 1905, in the meanwhile 
 having served six years as treasurer of his school 
 district, eight years as township assessor, and twelve 
 years as chairman of the county board of supervisors. 
 Known as a man of broad information and mature 
 judgment and as a citizen of impregnable integrity 
 of purpose, he was naturally called upon to serve in 
 positions of public trust, and the maximum prefer- 
 ment along this line came in his election to the office 
 of judge of the Probate Court of the county, in 
 November, 1908. By successive reelections he has 
 since continued the incumbent of this exacting posi- 
 tion and this fact offers the best voucher for the effi- 
 ciency of his administration and the popular estimate 
 placed upon the same. He has maintained his resi- 
 dence in Owatonna since 1905 and the family is one 
 of prominence in the representative social activities 
 of the community. Within his regime as judge of 
 probate nine cases adjudicated by Judge Kenyon have 
 been appealed to the District Court, and in all save 
 one of these cases his decision has been confirmed. 
 The judge is a staunch advocate of the principles and 
 policies which have made the republican party the 
 conservator of the best interests of the nation and 
 has found no grounds for abating his allegiance to 
 the cause. He is a stockholder and secretary of the 
 Owatonna creamer and still owns his fine farm in 
 Somerset Township. Both he and his wife hold 
 membership in the Universalist Church. 
 
 On the 10th of January, 1883, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Judge Kenyon to Miss Annie Schwesio, 
 daughter of the late John Schweiso, who was born 
 in Germany and who settled in Steele County, Minne- 
 sota, in an early day ; he became one of the repre- 
 sentative agriculturists of this section of the state 
 and both he and his wife continued to reside on their 
 old homestead until their death. In conclusion is 
 given brief record concerning the children of Judge 
 and Mrs. Kenyon: Nellie and Jessie, both of whom 
 were graduated in the Owatonna High School, are 
 now efficient and popular teachers in the public 
 schools of this city; Orissa was graduated in the high 
 school and the Canfield Business College and is now 
 stenographer for her father in the office of the judge 
 of probate ; Irvin is engaged in the express business 
 in the City of Madison, Wisconsin; and Ferna like- 
 wise is a popular teacher in the Owatonna schools, 
 she also having been graduated in the high school 
 of this place. 
 
 Judge Kenyon takes a lively interest in all that 
 pertains to the state that has represented his home 
 from his early childhood and is well informed con- 
 cerning the conditions, incidents and influences of 
 the pioneer days. 
 
 Stephen B. Haessly, M. D. Both in the broad 
 field of good citizenship and in devotion to the inter- 
 ests of his profession. Doctor Haessly has made a 
 notable success, particularly as a surgeon and as 
 an authority and one of the successful practitioners 
 
1282 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 in Minnesota in the special branch of medicine and 
 surgery pertaining to the diseases of the eye, ear, 
 nose and throat. Doctor Haessly has practiced at 
 Faribault since 1912, and has been identified with the 
 profession in this state for the past ten years. 
 
 Stephen B. Haessly was born in Fond du Lac 
 County, Wisconsin, December 25, 1875. His father, 
 George Haessly, born near Reading, Pennsylvania, in 
 1839, was descended from ancestors who came from 
 the vicinity of Berne, Switzerland, and his father 
 was the American emigrant, settling near Reading in 
 Pennsylvania, where he was a farmer. George 
 Haessly died in Pierce County, Wisconsin, in 1900, 
 having located in that state in i860, and followed 
 farming as his vocation. George Haessly married 
 Mary T. Schurck, who was born in Ohio in 1842 and 
 died in Pierce County, Wisconsin, in November, 
 1913. Their children were: James A., a Pierce 
 
 County farmer ; Margaret, wife of Patrick Shannon, 
 a farmer in Pierce County, Wisconsin; Joanna, a 
 dressmaker in Chicago ; Phillip, a hardware merchant 
 at Ellsworth, Wisconsin ; Robert, who died at the 
 age of twenty-four; George M„ a farmer in Pierce 
 County; Stephen B. ; Thomas, an engineer in Pierce 
 County; Catherine, wife of E. P. Callahan, super- 
 intendent of concrete construction work lives in 
 Little Falls, Minnesota; Louis, died at the age of 
 fourteen; and John H., who resides in Faribault with 
 his brother, Doctor Haessly. 
 
 Doctor Haessly, the seventh in this large family of 
 children, removed to Pierce County, Wisconsin, in 
 1884, with his parents, spent his early life on a farm, 
 and while attending the public schools and develop- 
 ing a good constitution by farm labors, Doctor 
 Haessly attended the high school at Ellsworth, Wis- 
 consin, and spent four years as a teacher in Pierce 
 County. In 1900 he graduated M. D. from the medi- 
 cal department of the University of Illinois, and is 
 a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Greek Letter 
 Honorary Medical Fraternity. After his early expe- 
 rience as a general physician and surgeon, Doctor 
 Haessly in 1908 returned to Chicago and took post- 
 graduate special studies in the diseases of the eye, 
 ear, nose and throat. Doctor Haessly practiced in 
 Cannon Falls, Minnesota, from 1904 to 1909, was 
 located at Red Wing for several years, and in 1912 
 came to Faribault. Since then he has specialized in 
 surgery, particularly in the diseases of the eye, ear, 
 nose and throat, and is less and less engaged in gen- 
 eral medical practice. On coming to Faribault Doc- 
 tor Haessly became associated with A. M. Hanson, 
 M. D., and in their partnership they are probably the 
 ablest men in the special lines of medicine and sur- 
 gery in Rice County. They had constructed for their 
 use a building on Central Avenue at the corner of 
 Fifth Street, and have their offices as thoroughly 
 equipped as any in Minnesota. 
 
 Doctor Haessly served on the health board during 
 his residence at Cannon Falls, Minnesota, and is a 
 member of the County, State, American and South- 
 ern Minnesota Medical Association. Politically he 
 is a democrat, a member of the Catholic Church, and 
 affiliates with Faribault Lodge No. 1166, B. P. O. E., 
 and with the Knights of Columbus. Doctor Haessly 
 was married in 1907 to Miss Effie H. Johnson, daugh- 
 ter of C. B. Johnson, who is a retired merchant in 
 Minneapolis. Doctor Haessly and wife were married 
 in Cannon Falls. They have one child, Stuart, four 
 years old. Their home is at 610 Second Street. 
 
 George Molm. President of the Morristown State 
 Bank of Morristown, George Molm has been identi- 
 fied with this section of Minnesota upwards of half 
 a century, came to manhood here, worked at a trade 
 for several years, then engaged in farming, and from 
 agriculture and his live stock operations accumulated 
 the capital which he has now chiefly employed in the 
 Morristown State Bank. 
 
 George Molm was born in Wayne County, Penn- 
 sylvania, January 8, 1856. His father, J. W. Molm, 
 was born in Bavaria, Germany, in 1828, and is now 
 living retired in that kingdom, after having won a 
 modest fortune in the United States. He emigrated 
 to America in 1849, not long after the Revolution of 
 1848, settled in Wayne County, Pennsylvania, and in 
 1866 came out to the northwestern frontier, locating 
 in Morristown, Minnesota. There he became a pio- 
 neer merchant. In Germany he had learned the shoe- 
 maker's trade, and for a number of years made shoes 
 by custom order for the people in and about Morris- 
 town. Subsequently he moved to Dakota Territory. 
 Besides his trade and business as. a merchant, he was 
 a very successful buyer and seller of farm lands, and 
 also cultivated a number of farms, and in that way 
 accumulated the competence with which he finally 
 returned to his fatherland. J. W. Molm married 
 Elizabeth Edelheiser, who was born in Germany and 
 died while they lived in Morristown, Minnesota. 
 Their children were: George; Henrietta, wife of 
 
 William Downine, an editor at Millbank, South 
 Dakota; Fred, a butcher and farmer in the State of 
 Washington; and Howard, a merchant and farmer 
 at Gaylord, North Dakota. 
 
 George Molm was educated in the public schools 
 of Wayne County, Pennsylvania, was ten years of 
 age when his father located in Minnesota, and 
 finished his training in the public schools at Morris- 
 town. Leaving school at the age of fourteen, Mr. 
 Molm first learned the trade of shoemaker, which 
 had been his father’s occupation, and worked as a 
 cobbler six years, and then at the harness trade until 
 twenty-five years of age. He then turned to a field 
 promising more profit and a better scope for his 
 energies and ability, and from 1877 to 1881 was en- 
 gaged in the harness business at Morristown. His 
 next venture was the purchase of a farm, and farm- 
 ing has more than thirty years constituted his regular 
 business. At the present time Mr. Molm owns a fine 
 estate of more than two hundred acres one mile 
 northeast of Morristown, where he does general 
 farming, and for a long time has been a stock dealer. 
 Mr. Molm has been president of the Morristown 
 State Bank since 1910. This bank was established 
 in 1899, and for fifteen years has offered a reliable 
 service to the country in and about Morristown. Its 
 capital stock is $20,000, with a surplus of $5,000. 
 
 Mr. Molm is a democrat in politics, and for sev- 
 eral years served as town supervisor. His fraternal 
 affiliations are with Cannon River Lodge No. 52, 
 
 A. F. & A. M., of which he is now master, and alto- 
 gether has held that position in the lodge for seven- 
 teen years; also with Faribault Lodge No. 1166, 
 
 B. P. O. E. Mr. Molm is secretary of the Morris- 
 town Cemetery Association. 
 
 In 1880 occurred his marriage to Miss Cora Spauld- 
 ing, daughter of E. A. Spaulding, who was a promi- 
 nent business man of Morristown, a merchant, owner 
 of a sawmill and timber tracts, farms, and other 
 property. He is now deceased. Mr. Molm’s children 
 are : Harry G.. cashier of the Morristown State 
 
 Bank; and Gay L., bookkeeper in the bank. 
 

 
 
 
J. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1283 
 
 Robert J. Inness. Cashier of the Farmers State 
 Bank at Morristown, Robert J. Inness is a capable 
 young banker, a college bred man, and practically all 
 his business experience has been concentrated on 
 banking, in which profession his qualifications are 
 well recognized in Rice County. 
 
 Robert Inness was born in Shelby, Nebraska, 
 March 3, 1891. His grandfather John Inness, a na- 
 tive of England, established the family in Nebraska 
 about thirty-five years ago, and was a farmer at 
 Shelby. James M. Inness, father of Robert J., was 
 born in Wooler, England, in 1858, was about twenty- 
 one years of age when he came with other members 
 of the family to America, and followed farming at 
 Shelby, Nebraska, for a number of years, but is now 
 living there retired. James M. Inness married Miss 
 Mary A. Smith, a native of Racine, Wisconsin. 
 
 Robert J. Innes, the only child of the family, was 
 educated in the public schools of Shelby, spent two 
 years as a student in the University of Nebraska, and 
 then interrupted his college career to take employ- 
 ment with the Shelby State Bank as assistant cashier, 
 a position he filled for a year and a half. Mr. Inness 
 was then a student in the University of Nebraska for 
 another year, and in 1912 left college to take up his 
 active career. He is affiliated with the Sigma Phi 
 Epsilon college fraternity. After leaving school, Mr. 
 Inness found his first employment with the Arizona 
 Bank and Trust Company at Douglas, Arizona, but 
 the bank failed in a short time, and he then went 
 with the Bank of Douglas, the largest financial insti- 
 tution in that important mining center of Southern 
 Arizona. On April 1, 1914, Mr. Inness came to Min- 
 nesota and took his present position as cashier of the 
 Farmers State Bank of Morristown. 
 
 Mr. Inness is independent in politics, and has 
 taken his first degree in the Masonic order. On May 
 12, 1914, at Osceola, Nebraska, he married Miss Mar- 
 garet Kepner. Her father, W. F. Kepner, is a hard- 
 ware merchant and undertaker at Osceola. 
 
 John T. Shelland, M. D. A physician and sur- 
 geon who has practiced both with ability and distinc- 
 tion at Ada in Norman County for the past ten 
 years, John T. Shelland comes of an old American 
 family, with at least six successive generations rep- 
 resented in this country, and many of the name have 
 been successful in the professions as well as in -voca- 
 tions of farming and business. 
 
 Dr. John T. Shelland was born at Norwich, New 
 York, June 20, 1872. His father is Rev. J. C. Shel- 
 land,. D. D., Ph. D„ who is now living retired from 
 the ministry of the Methodist Church at his home, 
 1523 Sixth Street, S. E., Minneapolis. The Shelland 
 ancestry came to America from Scotland but a 
 number of generations prior to that the name appears 
 in Central Norway. For many years the Shelland 
 family lived in Otsego County, New York, where 
 J. C. 'Shelland was born at the Village of Worcester 
 in 1845. He came west and located at Huron, South 
 Dakota, in 1883. He has spent a long and active 
 life as a Methodist minister, and the chief places 
 at which he was pastor were Wyoming, Pennsyl- 
 vania, Huron, South Dakota, Aberdeen, South Da- 
 kota, Pierz, Minnesota. J. C. Shelland married 
 Annie Trickey, who was of a Boston, Massachusetts, 
 family. At her death in 1897 she left Dr. John T. 
 and Annie, who is now county superintendent of 
 schools in Koochiching County, Minnesota, and has 
 a state wide reputation in the larger phases of edu- 
 cational work. Reverend Doctor Shelland married 
 
 for his second wife Julia Bulkley, one of America's 
 foremost woman educators, who was for a number 
 of years dean of women in the University of Chi- 
 cago and prior to her connection with that institu- 
 tion was an instructor at Princeton University, New 
 Jersey, and among her pupils at Princeton was Doc- 
 tor Vincent, now president of the University of Min- 
 nesota. Miss Bulkley had the distinction of having 
 been the fifth woman educator in the United States. 
 
 Dr. John T. Shelland received his early education 
 in the public schools near Huron, South Dakota, 
 and in 1894 was graduated in pharmacy from the 
 South Dakota Agricultural College. After working 
 as a pharmacist for several years he entered the 
 Rush Medical College of Chicago, attended that insti- 
 tution two years, and then followed with two years 
 in the medical department of Hamline University 
 of St. Paul, where he was graduated M. D. in 1900. 
 Doctor Shelland for the first year practiced at For- 
 man, North Dakota, and then for four years was 
 one of the proprietors of the Hankinson Hospital 
 of South Dakota. Since 1905 he has had his home 
 and office in Ada, and is the leading physician and 
 surgeon of that village, his practice extending over 
 a wide radius of country in Norman County. Doctor 
 Shelland has taken post-graduate courses in surgery 
 at Hamline University, and a course in eye, ear, 
 nose and throat at the Chicago Policlinic. His 
 offices are in the Barlow Block at Ada. 
 
 Doctor Shelland maintains an independent posi- 
 tion in politics. For three years he served as coroner 
 of Norman County. He is affiliated with Norman 
 Lodge No. 151, A. F. & A. M., with Trinity Chapter, 
 R. A. M., at Ledgerwood, North Dakota ; past 
 chancellor of the Knights of Pythias ; a member of 
 the Modern Woodmen of America, and also belongs 
 to the Ada Commercial Club. In 1905 at Sauk Cen- 
 ter, Minnesota, Doctor Shelland married Miss Etta 
 Carpenter, daughter of A. D. Carpenter, a retired 
 farmer and land holder at Sauk Center. To this 
 union have been born three children : Beatrice and 
 
 David, both in the public schools ; and Hildred. 
 
 Security State Bank of Owatonna. The First 
 State Bank of Owatonna, the name of which has 
 subsequently been changed to the Security State 
 Bank, was incorporated December 28, 1895, with 
 Nicholas J. Schafer president; Pierce L. Howe, vice 
 president ; and Fred E. Church, cashier. The origi- 
 nal directors were Messrs. N. J. Schafer, F. E. 
 Church, P. L. Howe, B. J. Meixner and G. Bosshardt. 
 The bank opened its doors for business May 11, 
 1896, in the building now owned by James Lee on 
 North Cedar Street. Mr. Schafer continued as 
 president until 1902. Mr. Howe was succeeded as 
 vice president by Gottfried Bosshardt in 1898, and 
 was in turn succeeded in 1899 by J. E. Malone, who 
 served until 1902. Mr. Church was cashier until 
 1899, and after him W. J. Naylor served until 1902. 
 
 On January 14, 1902, financial interests of Fari- 
 bault secured a controlling interest and changed the 
 name of the bank to the Security State Bank of 
 Owatonna, thus indicating its association with the 
 Security Bank of Faribault, controlled by the same 
 group of financiers. The officers elected at that time 
 were: President, B. B. Sheffield, of Faribault; vice 
 
 president, N. J. Schafer, of Owatonna; cashier, 
 Lynne Peavey, of Faribault. In September, 1902, 
 the bank was established in a new home in the Kelly 
 Block at the corner of Cedar and Broadway. 
 
 In May, 1906, began a third period in the history 
 
1284 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 of the bank. J. H. Robson, a director of the First 
 National Bank of Owatonna, associated with T. H. 
 Kelley and others, secured two-thirds of the stock, 
 and the Faribault interests then retired. The officers 
 elected under the reorganization were : President, J. 
 
 H. Robson ; vice president, T. H. Kelley ; cashier, 
 Sidney Robson. In May, 1907, the present regime 
 came into existence. Norman and P. H. Evans, who 
 had previously been with the First National Bank, 
 sold their holdings in that institution to the Kinyon 
 interests and bought a controlling interest in the 
 Security State Bank. The officers since that date to 
 the present time, with beginning of service indicated, 
 are: President, Norman Evans (1907); vice presi- 
 
 dent, T. H. Kelley (1906); cashier, P. H. Evans 
 (1907); assistant cashier, R. J. Deinfnget, and assist- 
 ant cashier, O. M. Hegnes. Besides the first three 
 named officers the other directors are: Thomas E. 
 
 Cashman (1905) ; John Watowa (1903) ; B. J. Meix- 
 ner (1895) ; and J. H. Robson (1906). 
 
 Norman Evans. Prominent and influential as a 
 citizen and business man of Owatonna, Steele 
 County, Mr. Evans is one of the substantial capi- 
 talists and representative financiers of this section 
 of the state and is essentially loyal and public-spirited 
 in his civic attitude. He is president of the Security 
 State Bank of Owatonna, one of the leading finan- 
 cial institutions of Steele County, and one that has 
 exercised much influence in conserving the industrial 
 and general stability of the community throughout 
 which its business ramifies. 
 
 Norman Evans was born in the Village of Min- 
 erva, Essex County, New York, and is a son of 
 Richard and Cynthia (West) Evans, both likewise 
 natives of the old Empire State, where they were 
 reared and educated and where they continued to 
 reside until 1879, when they came to Minnesota and 
 established their home in Olmsted County, where 
 their son Norman had located in the preceding year. 
 In 1890 they removed to Owatonna, where they 
 passed the residue of their lives in the home of their 
 son Norman, of this review. The lineage of the 
 Evans family traces back to sturdy Welsh origin 
 and the progenitors of the American branch settled 
 in New York City in the early part of the eighteenth 
 century. The West family, of which the mother of 
 Mr. Evans was a representative, became identified 
 with New England in the colonial era of our national 
 history and the family record indicates that its first 
 representatives in America came from England on 
 the historic ship Mayflower. 
 
 He whose name introduces this review acquired 
 his early education in the common schools of his 
 native village, his father having been an extensive 
 land owner and lumber dealer in the Adirondack 
 Mountain district of New York and having been one 
 of the substantial and influential citizens of Essex 
 County for many years prior to his removal to Min- 
 nesota. Norman Evans was afforded also the advan- 
 tages of a high school in his native county and later 
 completed a course in the Bryant & Stratton Business 
 College at Troy, New York. In 1878, as a young 
 man, Mr. Evans came to Minnesota and engaged in 
 the general merchandise business in the Village of 
 Dover, Olmsted County, where he remained thus 
 engaged for three years. Thereafter he conducted 
 a general store at Blooming Prairie, Steele County, 
 for seven years, and finally he went to Sioux Falls, 
 South Dakota, where he conducted a shoe store until 
 1890, when he returned to Steele County, Minnesota, 
 
 and established his residence at Owatonna. For 
 eight years he was here engaged in the dry-goods 
 business, as one of the leading merchants of the 
 progressive little city, and he then indicated his en- 
 terprise and circumspection by turning his attention 
 to the banking business, in which his success has been 
 of unequivocal order and in connection with which 
 he has maintained inviolable place in the confidence 
 and esteem of the local public. He initiated opera- 
 tions by purchasing the business of an established 
 private bank at Dodge Center, and incidentally he 
 also developed an extensive real-estate business, his 
 operations being principally in Dodge County. 
 Finally he organized the Farmers National Bank at 
 Dodge Center, of which institution he became presi- 
 dent. In 1904 Mr. Evans purchased a large block 
 of stock in the First National Bank of Owatonna, of 
 which he was a director for three years. He there- 
 after made an extensive tour through the West, and 
 gave special study and investigation to civic and 
 business conditions in the leading cities which he 
 visited. His incidental impressions but vitalized his 
 allegiance to Minnesota and upon his return to 
 Owatonna he purchased the controlling interest in 
 the Security State Bank, of which he has since been 
 president and of which his elder son is cashier. A 
 specific record concerning this bank is given on other 
 pages of this volume, as is also a brief sketch of the 
 career of its cashier, Paul H. Evans. 
 
 Mr. Evans is a man of broad mental ken and ma- 
 ture judgment, has achieved pronounced success in 
 connection with normal lines of enterprise and has 
 stood exponent of loyal and progressive citizenship. 
 The Security State Bank was founded in 1895 and 
 Mr. Evans has been its president since 1907, when he 
 purchased a controlling interest, as previously stated. 
 In politics, though never ambitious for public office, 
 he is aligned as a loyal supporter of the cause of the 
 republican party, and both he and his wife are zeal- 
 ous members of the Owatonna Congregational 
 Church, of which he has served as a trustee since 
 1903. Mr. Evans is affiliated with Star of the East 
 Lodge, No. 33, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; 
 Owatonna Chapter, No. 15, Royal Arch Masons; 
 Cyrene Commandery, No. 9, Knights Templar; and 
 with Owatonna Camp, No. 387, Modern Woodmen 
 of America. While a resident of Dodge County he 
 served as a member of the board of education of 
 Dodge Center. 
 
 On the 7th of February, 1875, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Evans to Miss Helena M. Bradley, 
 daughter of Commodore Henry Bradley, a prominent 
 and distinguished citizen of Essex County, New 
 York. Of the children of this union the eldest is 
 Paul H., of whom individual mention is made on 
 other pages ; Robert K. is a member of the class of 
 19x6 in Pillsbury Academy, one of the fine educa- 
 tional institutions of Minnesota. The beautiful fam- 
 ily home, known as Gynnedd Crag, is situated on 
 South Cedar Street, Owatonna, and is a center of 
 gracious hospitality and of much of the representa- 
 tive social activity of the community. 
 
 Paul H. Evans. The efficient and popular cashier 
 of the Security State Bank of Owatonna has passed 
 the major part of his life in Steele County, Minne- 
 sota, in which state his parents established their resi- 
 dence when he was about two years of age, and he is 
 now one of the representative business men and 
 popular citizens of Owatonna, with deep and abiding 
 interest in all that concerns the civic and material 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1285 
 
 welfare of the community. On other pages of this 
 work is entered a brief review of the career of his 
 father, Norman Evans, who is president of the Se- 
 curity State Bank, and thus it is not necessary to 
 give in the present connection further data concern- 
 ing the family history. 
 
 Paul H. Evans was born at Minerva, Essex County, 
 New York, on the 5th of April, 1876, and in 1878 
 his parents came to Minnesota and established their 
 home in Olmsted County, whence they removed to 
 Steele County three years later, thereafter residing 
 for several years in Dodge County. Paul H. Evans 
 is indebted to the public schools for his preliminary 
 educational training and in 1895 was graduated in 
 Pillsbury Academy. Thereafter he continued higher 
 academic studies in Beloit College, at Beloit, Wiscon- 
 sin, in which institution he was a student for two 
 years. After leaving college Mr. Evans devoted 
 about one year to newspaper work, and he then be- 
 came bookkeeper in the Farmers National Bank at 
 Dodge Center, Dodge County, Minnesota, of which 
 his father was president, and with the executive 
 affairs of this institution he continued to be identi- 
 fied six years. In 1904 he assumed the position of 
 cashier of the First National Bank of Owatonna, in 
 which he and his father had become stockholders 
 and directors, and of this office he continued the 
 incumbent until 1907, when he became the cashier of 
 the Security State Bank of Owatonna, in which he 
 and his father purchased a controlling interest in 
 that year. He has proved a careful and conserva- 
 tive executive in the handling of financial affairs of 
 broad scope and importance and has done much to 
 make the Security State Bank one of the leading 
 financial institutions of Steele County. A brief re- 
 view of the history of this bank is given on other 
 pages of this work. Though essentially liberal and 
 public-spirited, Mr. Evans has manifested no predi- 
 lection for the honors or emoluments of political 
 office, his allegiance being given, however, to the 
 republican party. In addition to his interest in the 
 bank of which he is cashier he is a stockholder also 
 in the Ellendale Bank, at Ellendale, Steele County. 
 He is an appreciative and influential member of the 
 Owatonna Business Men's Club, of which he was 
 president in 1913. In the time-hinored Masonic 
 fraternity his affiliations are as here noted : Star 
 
 of the East Lodge, No. 33, Ancient, Free and Ac- 
 cepted Masons; Owatonna Chapter, No. 15. Royal 
 Arch Masons; Cyrene Commandery, No. 9, Knights 
 Templar; and Zurah Temple of the Mystic Shrine, in 
 the City of St. Paul. He is also a member of the 
 Phi Kappa Psi college fraternity. Both Mr. Evans 
 and his wife are most zealous members of the Con- 
 gregational Church in their home city, and in the 
 same he is treasurer, besides being superintendent 
 of the Sunday school. 
 
 In 1905 . Mr. Evans wedded Miss Adaline C. 
 Wheelock, daughter of Lewis L. Wheelock, who was 
 a prominent lawyer of Owatonna and an influential 
 citizen of Steele County at the time of his death. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Evans have four children — Norma, 
 Ruth, Martha, and Paul. 
 
 Thomas S. Morton. In the attractive little Vil- 
 lage of Blooming Prairie, Steele County, Mr. Morton 
 conducts an automobile garage and a general repair 
 shop for farming machinery, automobiles, etc. He 
 has been for many years known as one of the 
 skilled mechanics of Steele County and has been a 
 resident of Minnesota since boyhood, his father hav- 
 ing established a home in Olmsted County in 1856, 
 
 about two years before Minnesota became one of 
 the sovereign states of the Union. Mr. Morton is a 
 brother of Edwin Morton, another of the honored 
 and influential citizens of Blooming Prairie and one 
 of whom individual mention is made on other pages 
 of this publication. He whose name initiates this 
 review was one of the valiant soldiers who repre- 
 sented Minnesota in the Union ranks in the Civil 
 war, and his record in that great conflict is one that 
 will stand to his enduring honor. 
 
 Thomas S. Morton was born in the little City of 
 St. Helen's Lancastershire, England, on the 24th of 
 October, 1840, and is a son of George and Elizabeth 
 (Sharpies) Morton, of whom definite mention is 
 made in the sketch of the career of the younger 
 son, Edwin Morton, on other pages of this work. 
 In 1850, when Thomas S. Morton was about ten 
 years old, the family immigrated to America, his 
 rudimentary education having been acquired in his 
 native land and having been supplemented by his 
 attending the common schools in Ulster County, 
 New York, where his parents first established their 
 home after coming to the United States. Later the 
 family removed to New York City, and in the 
 national metropolis likewise Mr. Morton was ena- 
 bled to attend school. His mother died in the State 
 of New Jersey, the father having in the meanwhile 
 been identified with business activities in New York 
 City, and in 1856 the father came with his children 
 to the Territory of Minnesota and became one of 
 the pioneer settlers of Olmsted County, where he 
 reclaimed a farm from the virgin soil and continued 
 to reside until his death, in 1864. 
 
 Sixteen years of age at the time of the family 
 removal to Minnesota, Thomas S. Morton gave zeal- 
 ous aid in the development and other work of the 
 home farm, and his memory forms a connecting link 
 between the pioneer days and the present era of opu- 
 lent prosperity and progress in Minnesota. He 
 finally entered upon an apprenticeship to the black- 
 smith’s trade, to the work of which he gave his at- 
 tention until the outbreak of the Civil war, when he 
 soon subordinated all else to the call of loyalty and 
 tendered his services in defense of the Union. On 
 the 12th of August, 1862, Mr. Morton enlisted as a 
 private in Company K, Ninth Minnesota Volunteer 
 Infantry, with which gallant command he proceeded 
 to the front and with which he continued in active 
 service until victory had crowned the Union arms 
 and the weary struggle came to an end. He took 
 part in numerous engagements, including the battles 
 of Guntown, Tupelo, Nashville and Spanish Fort, 
 and proved himself a faithful and valiant soldier 
 of the republic. 
 
 After the close of the war and the reception of 
 his honorable discharge, Mr. Morton resumed the 
 work of his trade, in Olmsted County, where he re- 
 mained until 1872, when he established his home at 
 Blooming Prairie, which place has continued to be 
 his place of residence during the long intervening 
 period of more than forty years. Here he has con- 
 tinuously worked at his trade, besides developing 
 his ability as an expert general mechanic, and he 
 now gives his personal supervision to his large and 
 well equipped garage and repair shop. Strong of 
 mind and body, he is still active as a practical me- 
 chanic, and he stands as a sturdy, upright and liberal 
 citizen who commands the unqualified esteem of the 
 community which has long represented his home and 
 been the stage of his industrious and successful 
 endeavors. 
 
1286 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Mr. Morton is a stalwart in the local camp of 
 the republican party and is a man of strong and 
 well fortified convictions. When Blooming Prairie 
 was incorporated as a village he had the distinction 
 of being chosen the first president of the village 
 council, and he continued on the board as an efficient 
 and progressive incumbent for a period of six years. 
 He is now serving as a member of the school board, 
 and all that concerns the welfare of his home vil- 
 lage and county is a matter of lively concern to him. 
 Both he and his wife hold membership in the Baptist 
 Church, and he is affiliated with Prairie Lodge, No. 
 123, Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons, the while 
 he perpetuates the more gracious memories and asso- 
 ciations of his military career by retaining member- 
 ship in Goodwin Post, Grand Army of the Republic, 
 at Owatonna, the county seat of Steele County. 
 
 In 1874 was recorded the marriage of Mr. Morton 
 to Miss Ardelia Johnson, of Olmsted County, and 
 of the two children the younger, Anna E., died in 
 childhood ; Byron H. is associated with his father in 
 business and is one of the representative business 
 men of the younger generation at Blooming Prairie. 
 
 Edwin Morton. Engaged in the hardware and 
 farm implement business in the Village of Bloom- 
 ing Prairie and the owner of one of the fine landed 
 estates of Steele County, Mr. Morton is known and 
 honored as one of the substantial business men and 
 progressive citizens of the state that has represented 
 his home from boyhood and in which his father was 
 a pioneer, the family having come to the Territory 
 of Minnesota about two years prior to the admission 
 of the state to the Union. 
 
 Mr. Morton is one of a comparatively limited 
 number of Minnesota citizens who can claim the 
 “right little, tight little isle’’ of England as the place 
 of their nativity. He was born in the Town of St. 
 Plelen’s, Lancastershire, England, on the 1st of July, 
 1849, and is a son of George and Elizabeth 
 (Sharpies) Morton, both representatives of staunch 
 old families of Lancastershire. George Morton was 
 born at St. Helen’s, in 1812, and he died on his pio- 
 neer farm, in Olmsted County, Minnesota, on the 
 29th of June, 1864, his wife having died in the State 
 of New Jersey. In 1850 George Morton immi- 
 grated with his family to the United States and set- 
 tled in Rochester Township, Ulster County, New 
 York. Three years later he removed to New York 
 City, where he found employment in a wholesale 
 grocery establishment and where he remained until 
 1856, when he came with his wife and children to 
 the Territory of Minnesota and entered claim to a 
 tract of Government land in Olmsted County. He 
 gave himself with characteristic' energy to the devel- 
 opment of a farm and became one of the honored 
 and influential pioneer citizens of that county, where 
 he continued to reside until his death, in 1864. His 
 wife had died five or six years previously. 
 
 Edwin Morton was a lad of seven years at the time 
 of the family removal to Minnesota and he was 
 reared to adult age under the invigorating influences 
 of the old homestead farm, in Olmsted County. _ He 
 attended the pioneer schools until he had attained 
 to the age of eighteen years, and was fifteen years 
 old at the time of his father’s death, after which he 
 found employment at farm work and other occupa- 
 tions until he was nineteen years old, in the mean- 
 while attending school when opportunity offered — 
 principally in the winter months. At the age of 
 nineteen years Mr. Morton entered upon an appren- 
 
 ticeship to the trade of tinsmith, in a shop at St. 
 Charles, Winona County, and with the work of 
 this trade he continued to be identified nearly three 
 years. 
 
 On the 18th of February, 1873, as a young man 
 of limited means but distinctive energy and. ambi- 
 tion, Mr. Morton established his residence in the 
 little Village of Blooming Prairie, Steele County, 
 where he engaged in the hardware business on a 
 modest scale. From this nucleus he has, by energy, 
 progressive methods and fair dealings, developed a 
 business that is conceded to be the largest conducted 
 in any village of the same appreciable population in 
 the entire state, the while he has attained success of 
 the most worthy and substantial order. He has aided 
 in the development and upbuilding of the village and 
 county, has ordered his course along the line of 
 inviolable integrity and honor, and has the confidence 
 and high regard of all who know him. His business 
 enterprise stands today as the most extensive and 
 substantial in Steele County outside of the City of 
 Owatonna, the county seat. Such success comes to 
 no man without being justly due, and the career of 
 Mr. Morton should offer both lesson and incentive 
 to the younger generation. The well equipped estab- 
 lishment of Mr. Morton is located on Fourth Street, 
 not far distant from the railway station of the vil- 
 lage, and its trade extends over a territory of ten 
 miles _ radius, special attention being given to the 
 handling of farm implements and machinery, the 
 while the stock of heavy and shelf hardware is 
 larger than that carried in the average establish- 
 ments of the kind in places of many times the popu- 
 lation of Blooming Prairie. 
 
 Alert and liberal in supporting those measures 
 and undertakings which conserve the general wel- 
 fare of the community, Mr. Morton is a stalwart 
 supporter of the cause of the republican party, and 
 he served several years as president of the village 
 council of Blooming Prairie. He has been presi- 
 dent of the Blooming Prairie Separator Creamery 
 Association for a total of nearly twenty years, and 
 further evidence of the prosperity that is his is 
 shown in his ownership of a finely improved stock 
 farm of 330 acres, eligibly situated one mile south 
 of Blooming Prairie, and in his possession also of 
 another valuable farm of 200 acres, eight miles dis- 
 tant from the village. He is an extensive breeder 
 and grower of the best grades of livestock, including 
 Shorthorn cattle and Poland-China swine. 
 
 In his home village Mr. Morton is affiliated with 
 Prairie Lodge, No. 123, Ancient, Free and Accepted 
 Masons ; and in the county seat he holds member- 
 ship in Owatonna Chapter, No. 15, Royal Arch 
 Masons, and Cyrene Commandery, No. 9, Knights 
 Templar, besides which he is a member of Zurah 
 Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles 
 of the Mystic Shrine, in the City of Minneapolis. 
 Both he and his wife are zealous and influential 
 members of the Presbyterian Church in their home 
 village and he is serving as deacon in the same. 
 
 At St. Charles, this state, on the 20th of August, 
 1874, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Morton 
 to Miss Mabel Johnson, and they have three chil- 
 dren: Mabel is the wife of George L. Taylor, who 
 
 is county auditor of Dodge County, and they reside 
 at Mantonville, the county seat; Edna is the wife of 
 William, E. Carman, who is engaged in the jewelry 
 business at Blooming Prairie ; and George E. is 
 associated with his father in the management of the 
 extensive hardware and implement business. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1287 
 
 Rt. Rev. Timothy Corbett. The grovvth and 
 advancement of Catholic institutions in Minnesota 
 have gone forward apace with the development of 
 the state at large. Not many years ago the admin- 
 istration of the churches all over the state was under 
 the jurisdiction of one bishop. Now there are five 
 episcopal sees, and both Duluth and Crookston are 
 cathedral cities, and each the center of a great 
 Catholic population. The last of these to be created 
 was the See of Crookston, and its first and present 
 bishop is Rt. Rev. Timothy Corbett, who for more 
 than twenty years was rector of the Sacred Heart 
 Cathedral at Duluth. 
 
 Bishop Corbett was consecrated to his present 
 office in 1910. In five years time a magnificent work 
 has gone forward under his capable leadership. In 
 June, 1910, there was only one small Catholic Church 
 property at Crookston, valued at $7,000. Since then 
 has been built the beautiful Cathedral of Crookston 
 at a cost of $75,000, also the Cathedral High School, 
 at a cost of $60,000 and an episcopal residence cost- 
 ing $25,000, and through the direct influence of 
 Bishop Corbett the St. Joseph's Academy, a boarding 
 school for girls and young ladies, has been erected 
 at a cost of $60,000. Thus in five years the cathe- 
 dral property has increased in value from seven 
 thousand to more than a quarter of a million dollars, 
 with an indebtedness of only $15,000. In accom- 
 plishing this great work Bishop Corbett contributed 
 the savings of his lifetime, and his self-sacrificing 
 leadership was all the stimulus that was needed for 
 prompt response on the part of all the Catholic 
 families in the diocese. 
 
 Rt. Rev. Timothy Corbett was born in 1858 at 
 Mendota, the oldest town in Minnesota, near historic 
 Fort Snelling. When a boy he removed with his 
 parents to Minneapolis, and attended a Catholic 
 school in Bishop (then Father) McGolrick’s parish. 
 Here the youth came under the observation of 
 Bishop McGolrick, who observing his priestly voca- 
 tion, gave him a private course in Latin, Greek and 
 English, and in 1876 personally placed him in the 
 old college of Meximieux, in France, where Arch- 
 bishop Ireland and Bishop O’Gorman had completed 
 their classical studies. At the end of four years 
 Father Corbett returned to pursue his course in 
 philosophy and theology at the Grand Seminary in 
 Montreal and in Brighton Seminary at Boston. At 
 the latter place he was ordained a priest in 1886. 
 
 Bishop Corbett returned to Minneapolis to become 
 assistant to Bishop McGolrick, and remained in that 
 city until 1889. He then preceded Bishop McGolrick 
 to Duluth by a few months, and became pastor of 
 the Sacred Heart Cathedral, to the service and 
 upbuilding of which he devoted twenty-one years. 
 At the beginning of his work in Duluth he found a 
 very small church property and to build up almost 
 from the foundation. In 1892 his church and resi- 
 dence were burned to the ground, but almost imme- 
 diately he undertook the task of rebuilding. The 
 foundation of the church was laid, but owing to the 
 severe financial panic beginning with 1893 nothing 
 could be done towards further construction until 
 1894. The cornerstone of the Sacred Heart Cathe- 
 dral was laid in 1894 and the beautiful building was 
 dedicated in July, 1896. During all the years spent 
 at Duluth Father Corbett was incessant in his activi- 
 ties not only as a pastor but as a church organizer 
 and builder, and seldom have stronger ties of affec- 
 tion, loyalty and co-operation existed between priest 
 Vol. hi— 2 
 
 and people than in the case of Father Corbett and 
 the Sacred Heart Parish at Duluth. 
 
 Bishop Corbett’s work at Duluth was character- 
 ized by one of his fellow workers as follows : “In 
 
 reviewing the success of these twenty years, Bishop 
 McGolrick does not hesitate to give due credit to 
 the zeal and energy of the boy whom he selected 
 for the priesthood. As pastor of the Cathedral for 
 twenty years, and chancellor of the diocese for fif- 
 teen, Father Corbett has displayed ability of a high 
 order. His activity in the cause of religion has been 
 prudent, farseeing and disinterested. A dauntless 
 defender of truth and justice and a friend of the 
 working man. Father Corbett is nevertheless of a 
 retiring disposition. He has been called the ‘thun- 
 dering orator’ for the pulpit has been to him a 
 throne from which he ruled the minds and hearts 
 of his hearers. He does his duty without fear or 
 favor, making no compromise with error and ready 
 on all occasions to do battle for reason or religion, 
 letting the chips fall where they may. . . . His 
 
 activity and the material progress of church and 
 schools needs no comment, but over and above the 
 material edifice there is the higher edifice of con- 
 science and character, which by the patient labors 
 of over twenty years he has reared in the hearts 
 and homes of his people. His many friends, while 
 rejoicing to see his elevation to the episcopate, will 
 sincerely regret his departure and will miss in him 
 a model priest, a tireless worker and a gifted 
 preacher of the word of God.” 
 
 At the time of his elevation to the bishopric at 
 Crookston one of the secular press at Duluth spoke 
 of him as follows : “Father Corbett is distinctly an 
 
 organizer, and the new diocese will take shape, 
 coherence and orderly form very quickly under his 
 direction ; while his appointment is a boon to the 
 new diocese, it is a notable loss to the Cathedral 
 parish and to Duluth. Father Corbett's indomitable 
 energy, his courage, aggressiveness and persistence, 
 as well as his vigorous commonsense, his uncom- 
 promising fidelity to the right, and his tireless work 
 for church, parish and people, have made him a 
 strong figure in the community, and these qualities 
 furnish him with an equipment of personality that 
 fits him peculiarly for his new and higher duties.” 
 
 Bishop Corbett was consecrated in St. Mary's 
 Chapel of St. Paul Seminary May 19, 1910. The 
 solemn and imposing ceremony was attended by 
 many dignitaries of the church and also men of 
 prominence in civil and public life. There were 
 twenty-one visiting bishops, six bishops elect, three 
 archbishops, accompanied by the papal delegate. The 
 governor of Minnesota and his staff were also pres- 
 ent. 
 
 When Bishop Corbett was transferred to Crooks- 
 ton his pro-cathedral and residence were of a most 
 unimposing character. The St. Mary’s congregation 
 at Crookston was organized in 1885, the membership 
 consisting of English speaking Catholics that had 
 theretofore belonged to St. Anne’s parish. The 
 church building which was still standing when 
 Bishop Corbett arrived was erected during the sum- 
 mer of 1886, and the first resident pastor was 
 Fr. E. J. Lawlor. The greatest period of growth in 
 the parish was during the pastorate of Rev. Francis 
 Hufnagle, who came in 1900. He paid off the old 
 debt of the church, bought adjoining property, and 
 erected the parochial residence, and left the parish 
 not only out of debt but with considerable money on 
 hand as a building fund. Father Hufnagle went to 
 
1288 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Duluth in 1907 and was succeeded by Father Smiers, 
 who remained as pastor until the spring of 1910. 
 
 The present Cathedral of Crookston, which cost 
 altogether $75,000, is a beautiful edifice of the 
 Romanesque architecture, built of pressed brick with 
 stone trimmings, and remarkable for the beauty of 
 its three towers, each bearing a massive cross. The 
 seating capacity of the auditorium is 1,000, and 
 the interior decorations and furnishings are in 
 keeping with the high dignity of the cathedral. 
 
 Between the Cathedral and the Cathedral High 
 School is located the bishop’s residence. The Cathe- 
 dral High School is a two-story pressed brick struc- 
 ture which cost $60,000, and is an institution of 
 which Bishop Corbett may properly be very proud, 
 since it was largely under his energetic leadership 
 that it became possible to bring about its construc- 
 tion. Two older institutions in the cathedral city 
 which have also made great progress in the past 
 five years are St. Joseph’s Academy, which was 
 opened in 1905, and St. Vincent’s Hospital, which is 
 now one of the leading institutions of its kind in. 
 the entire Red River Valley and has been in suc- 
 cessful operation since 1902. 
 
 The Crookston Public Library. The present 
 building occupied by the Crookston Public Library 
 was erected in 1907. The site, beautifully and cen- 
 trally located, was donated by citizens ; and the build- 
 ing, which cost $17,500, was given by Andrew Car- 
 negie. The institution is under the control of a 
 board of nine members, appointed by the mayor. 
 They serve for a term of three years, without com- 
 pensation. Three members are appointed every year, 
 the other six holding over, thus securing continuity 
 in the policy of management. 
 
 The tax levy for the support of the institution 
 this year is $2,000. The librarian is paid a salary of 
 $55 per month and the services of a janitor are se- 
 cured at $25 per month. 
 
 The library contains at the present time 4,851 vol- 
 umes, of which 2,229 are general literature — history, 
 biography, sociology, scientific and technical works, 
 etc. — and 2,622 fiction. The number of magazines 
 received per month are thirty-two and the number 
 of newspapers eight. 
 
 The number of books loaned during the year 1914 
 were 16,934. The reading rooms connected with the 
 library are well patronized at all times, not only by 
 those who come to read the magazines and newspa- 
 pers which are not allowed to be taken out of the 
 building, but also by many who come to consult 
 works of reference. 
 
 The amount expended in the purchase of books 
 during 1914 was $509.65, and for magazines $75.60. 
 
 The amount collected in fines and for books lost 
 and injured the same period was $221.80. 
 
 Beside the library proper, and the reading rooms, 
 there are two lecture rooms which are used, free of 
 charge, by debating societies and other organizations 
 of non-commercial and non-religious nature. Taken 
 as a whole, the library forms the center of an intel- 
 lectual activity of much promise to the future wel- 
 fare of the city. 
 
 Peter M. Ringdal. A resident of Crookston more 
 than a quarter of a century, Peter M. Ringdal has 
 gained a prominent position both in business and in 
 public affairs and democratic politics. Many people 
 in the state will remember him as the democratic 
 candidate for governor in 1912. He has also served 
 
 on several state commissions, and as a business man 
 is president of the Crookston Marble Works and of 
 the Polk County State Bank. 
 
 Peter M. Ringdal is a native of Minnesota, born 
 in Goodhue County in 1861. Nineteen years were 
 spent on a farm and following that he was for a 
 number of years engaged in railway work. His home 
 has been in Crookston since 1888. In 1885 Mr. 
 Ringdal married Mary J. Shirley. 
 
 Since reaching his majority he has taken an active 
 interest in public affairs both of county and state. 
 In 1894 as a populist he was elected to the State 
 Senate, and during his term made vigorous efforts 
 for better control of common carriers and for re- 
 duction in transportation rates. It was Mr. Ringdal 
 who inaugurated the movement which resulted in 
 the establishment of a State Experiment Station at 
 Crookston in 1896, an institution that has since been 
 developed into a State Agricultural School. lie also 
 took an important hand in reorganizing the State 
 Labor Bureau on a more efficient basis. After his 
 first term in the State Senate he was unanimously 
 renominated in 1898, but withdrew his name from 
 the legislative ticket to accept a unanimous nomina- 
 tion for Congress by both the people’s and demo- 
 cratic parties. In that election he was unsuccessful. 
 In 1899 Mr. Ringdal was appointed a member of the 
 State Railroad and Warehouse Commission, and 
 during the following two years while he was on the 
 commission considerable progress was made in re- 
 ducing and equalizing railroad rates and removing 
 discriminations. In January, 1907, h,e was appointed 
 a member of the State Board of Control, having 
 charge of all the charitable and correctional institu- 
 tions of the state, and was on that board for more 
 than six years. At the present time Mr. Ringdal 
 is register of the LInited States Land Office in 
 Crookston, to which position he was appointed in 
 January, 1914. He has always been a radical demo- 
 crat, supporting all measures aimed at the equalizing 
 of opportunity and at the destruction of monopoly 
 and special privilege. 
 
 Christian C. Strander. At the age of eighteen 
 Christian C. Strander came to the United States 
 and soon found doors of opportunity open to him 
 in the great State of Minnesota. He possessed in- 
 dustry and capacity for real service, and his advance- 
 ment was only a matter of time. Mr. Strander is 
 now president of a large abstract and investment 
 company, and has numerous financial and business 
 relations with his home City of Crookston, with 
 which he has been identified as a resident more than 
 a quarter of a century. 
 
 Christian C. Strander was born October 31, 1870, 
 in Hamar, Norway, a son of Ole and Eline Strander. 
 His father was a Norwegian merchant. The son 
 came to America in 1888 and in the fall of the same 
 year located in Crookston. The next five years were 
 spent in work as clerk and as deputy register of 
 deeds for Polk County. That experience gave him 
 the training and equipment which he has since util- 
 ized in his chief business. After spending three 
 years as an abstracter with the firm of Christianson 
 Brothers, he bought a half interest in the business, 
 which was then conducted under the name Chris- 
 tianson & Strander. In 1905 Mr. Strander became 
 sole owner, and then organized the Strander Ab- 
 stract & Investment Company, capitalized at $40,000. 
 He has since been president of this company, which 
 has the only complete set of abstract books in Polk 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1289 
 
 County. It is a prosperous business, and the com- 
 pany owns its own building, 25x60 feet, two stories, 
 with the business headquarters on the first floor and 
 offices above. Mr. Strander is a former president 
 of the Minnesota State Abstracters Association. 
 
 He is also vice president of the Scandia-American 
 Bank in Crookston, is treasurer of the Valley Farm- 
 ing Company, which operates a place of 640 acres 
 near Crookston, and in addition owns considerable 
 city and country property in his own name. Mr. 
 Strander has taken the Knight Templar degrees in 
 Masonry, is a member of the Mystic Shrine, and also 
 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He 
 is well known in local affairs, is one of the popular 
 members of the Crookston Commercial Club, and 
 for recreation is a member of the Tennis Club. Mr. 
 Strander is a trustee in the Presbyterian Church and 
 active in its affairs. He was married September 
 12, 1895, at Crookston to Miss Inez H. Dahl. They 
 have a fine family of five children : Herman Chris- 
 
 tian, Helen Gertrude, Mildred Allette, Agna Elfrida 
 and Osmun Randolph. 
 
 FIon. Andrew D. Stephens. With a character 
 and exceptional ability as a financier, an experienced 
 executive in the handling of large business affairs, 
 the services of Andrew D. Stephens have been called 
 upon in the direction of six different banks, in each 
 of which he holds the office of president. Mr. 
 Stephens was born in Minnesota when it was a ter- 
 ritory, and for more than thirty years has been 
 active not only as a banker but as a public spirited 
 and useful citizen, has devoted himself to the im- 
 provement of Minnesota’s resources as an agricul- 
 tural state, and among other public honors is remem- 
 bered for his valuable work while a state senator. 
 
 Andrew D. Stephens was born in Carver County, 
 Minnesota, May 27, 1855, a son of Lewis and Hannah 
 (Peterson) Stephens. His father was a farmer, and 
 one of the pioneers in Carver County. Andrew D. 
 Stephens spent his early youth when Minnesota was 
 still on the frontier, and after public schools finished 
 his education in the Gustavus Adolphus College 
 at St. Peter. His experience in merchandising began 
 at the age of nineteen, and up to 1884 he employed 
 his energies as a store manager and as traveling 
 salesman. In that year he engaged in the real estate 
 business and farm loans, and conducted an office for 
 that service until 1891. In that year Mr. Stephens 
 entered the Merchants National Bank at Crookston 
 as cashier. Since then his advancement to promi- 
 nence in banking affairs has brought him not only to 
 the head of the Merchants National, in which he 
 was elected president in January, 1909, but also to 
 the executive management of five other banks, the 
 Mentor State Bank, the Fosston First National, the 
 Bagley First National, the Twin Valley State, and 
 the State Bank of Missoula, Montana. 
 
 The Merchants National Bank of Crookston was 
 organized in 1879 as a private institution under the 
 name of Merchants Bank. In 1884 it was incor- 
 porated under the national banking laws, with a 
 capital stock of $75,000, which has been preserved 
 to the present time. Besides the capital stock the 
 surplus in 1915 amounted to $51,000, and undivided 
 profits $6,000. It is a United States depository, and 
 the average deposits at the present time aggregate 
 $1,100,000. The bank also has savings department, 
 and also departments covering farm loans, building 
 and loan, and gives a general commercial service. 
 The bank pays 4 per cent interest on savings, and 
 
 5 per cent on time certificates of deposit. The bank 
 is located in its own building, a structure 26x140 
 feet, two stories, with offices above the bank. The 
 vice president is William E. McKenzie, the cashier is 
 V. L. MacGregor, and the assistant cashiers are 
 Marcus Stephens and C. E. Gildersleeve. 
 
 Several paragraphs might easily be used in speak- 
 ing of Mr. Stephens’ public services. Two terms he 
 was mayor of Crookston, has been a member of the 
 State Board of Immigration, and also served as 
 lumber surveyor for the Ninth District. In 1902 he 
 was elected a member of the State Senate, and re- 
 mained with that body until 1911. It was Senator 
 Stephens who first introduced the bill supporting 
 the somewhat unusual doctrine but manifestly hu- 
 manitarian principle of allowing state prisoners 
 while serving their terms in the penitentiary a salary 
 which should be paid to them upon their liberation. 
 However, both while in the Senate and as a private 
 citizen, Senator Stephens has been indefatigable in 
 his efforts in behalf of agricultural development. 
 Fie was instrumental in securing for Crookston the 
 first agricultural experiment station, and in honor 
 of his efforts the first building was named Stephens 
 Hall. The training school at Red Wing also owes 
 much to his earnest efforts in its behalf. Mr. 
 Stephens deserves probably the chief credit for se- 
 curing the abolition of corporal punishment in the 
 public schools of Minnesota. 
 
 Senator Stephens is affiliated with the Masonic 
 order, being a Knight Templar and a member of 
 the Mystic Shrine, and also with the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks and the Knights of Pythias. 
 He was married January 1, 1878, to Chrissie Cam- 
 eron, who was born in Canada. They are the parents 
 of three children : Marcus is assistant cashier of the 
 Merchants National Bank of Crookston ; and Marian 
 and Andrea both live at home. The son Marcus 
 married Ethel Mudgett of Minneapolis, and their 
 two children are Marion and Homer. 
 
 Frank A. Grady. A native of Minnesota and the 
 son of pioneer settlers, Frank A. Grady has for 
 twenty years been actively identified with the law, 
 and is now one of the leading attorneys of Crooks- 
 ton. Along with a large practice Mr. Grady has 
 found time to serve the community in various official 
 relations, and in whatever community has been his 
 home he has shown the qualities of leadership and 
 has exercised an influence commensurate with the 
 powers of his mind and character. 
 
 Frank A. Grady was born at Eyota in Olmsted 
 County, Minnesota, March 2, 1870, being a son of 
 James and Bridget (Doyle) Grady. His father was 
 a farmer, and came out to Minnesota in 1858, at a 
 date which classes him among the territorial pioneers. 
 The son Frank A. Grady was educated in public 
 schools, and was graduated from the college at 
 Brookings, South Dakota, with the degree Bachelor 
 of Science in 1889. The next three and a half years 
 were spent in the work of teaching, after which he 
 entered the law department of the University of Min- 
 nesota and was graduated LL. B. in June, 1894. Mr. 
 Grady practiced at Anoka until 1895, was located at 
 Thief River Falls until 1897, and for the following 
 fourteen years was one of the leading attorneys at 
 Red Lake Falls. While at Thief River Falls he 
 served one year as city attorney, and at Red Lake 
 Falls was county attorney of Red Lake County four 
 years. He was also a member of the board of school 
 examiners in Red Lake County two years. Mr. 
 
1290 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Grady located at Crookston and opened his law office 
 in 1911, and has a large and flourishing law business 
 in Polk County. 
 
 He is a member of the Polk County Bar Associa- 
 tion, of the Crookston Commercial Club, and frater- 
 nally is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective 
 Order of Elks. On December 29, 1897, at Anoka, he 
 married Harriet Ryan. Their three sons are named 
 Clarion, Willard and Lowell. 
 
 William E. Rowe. The professional career of 
 William E. Rowe has identified him with the law. 
 He has been in active practice at Crookston over 
 twenty years, has won high rank as attorney, and 
 has enjoyed many of the best rewards of the suc- 
 cessful lawyer. Through his varied relations out- 
 side his profession he is also well known as a citizen 
 of Crookston. 
 
 William E. Rowe was born in Chickasaw County, 
 Iowa, April 4, 1871, a son of William H. and Ellen 
 (Thompson) Rowe. His father was a farmer and 
 from Iowa moved out to South Dakota, where 
 William E. Rowe received his education in the 
 public schools of the Town of Gary. He subse- 
 quently entered the University of Minnesota, took 
 the law course and was graduated LL. B. in 1893. 
 Since 1894 Mr. Rowe has been a member of the 
 Crookston bar. He spent four years as clerk with 
 the law firm of Halvor & Steenerson, then' was 
 taken in as a partner, but since 1900 has been in 
 individual practice and now has a large and profit- 
 able clientage. He served as county attorney of 
 Polk County from 1900 to 1904 and was city attor- 
 ney of Crookston from 1902 to 1913. He is a mem- 
 ber of the Polk County Bar Association. 
 
 Mr. Rowe is affiliated with the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks and is an active member 
 of the Crookston Commercial Club. He is well 
 known over the state as a marksman, and during 
 1914 his record of performance gave him the dis- 
 tinction of being the best trap shot in the state, 
 while in 1911 he held the diamond badge as state 
 champion for that year. He is one of the leading 
 members of the Crookston Rod and Gun Club. 
 
 Mr. Rowe was married April 26, 1897, to Jose- 
 phine Elizabeth Kirseh of Crookston. They have 
 one son, Everett Paul, born October 23, 1898. 
 
 Ole O. Christianson. One of the oldest and best 
 known real estate men in Polk County is Ole O. 
 Christianson, who opened his office at Crookston 
 thirty years ago, and with energy and honesty on his 
 own side, and with the confidence of a large patron- 
 age in his integrity has enjoyed a success that places 
 him among the leading business men of that city. 
 
 Ole O. Christianson was born in Allamakee 
 County, Iowa, June 28, 1858, only a few weeks after 
 his father had come from the Scandinavian countries 
 to America. His father was an Iowa farmer. Mr. 
 Christianson received a public school education, and 
 also attended business college in preparation for his 
 career. He has been a resident of Polk County, 
 Minnesota, since 1879, and was first identified with 
 this community as a homesteader. He spent two 
 years in proving up and working his claim, and then 
 worked as clerk in a general store until 1885. In that 
 year he came to Crookston and has since been in the 
 real estate and insurance business. Other interests 
 have come in the course of time, and Mr. Christian- 
 son is now a director in the First National Bank 
 of Crookston and has given much time to public 
 
 service in his locality. For four years he held the 
 office of register of deeds in Polk County, having 
 been elected for two terms. For four years he was a 
 member of the city council and city treasurer eight 
 years, and is a former member of the school board 
 and of the library board. He is identified with the 
 Crookston Commercial Club. 
 
 On December 30, 1886, Mr. Christianson married 
 Ella Helland of Ada, Minnesota. They are the par- 
 ents of two children: Ole and Ella. 
 
 Edwin Teigen. The head of the Edwin Teigen 
 Land Company at Crookston is a native Minnesotan, 
 a young man of possessive ability and thoroughness 
 in everything he undertakes, and has already made 
 for himself a position as a business man and citizen 
 of Crookston. 
 
 Edwin Teigen was born in Pope County, Minne- 
 sota, October 13, 1885, a son of Ivor J. and Kari 
 Teigen, both of whom were natives of Norway and 
 came to Minnesota many years ago. The father was 
 a farmer. Edwin Teigen grew up on his father’s 
 farm, received a public school education, and in the 
 spring of 1910 arrived in Crookston, where he en- 
 gaged in the real estate business as the successor of 
 his brother Ole, who had first opened an office in that 
 line in 1901. Mr. Teigen is now the active head of 
 the Edwin Teigen Land Company, which has a large 
 business in both local and outside real estate. 
 
 Mr. Teigen is a member of the Commercial Club, 
 is active in the Masonic fraternity, having taken the 
 Knight Templar degrees, and also in the Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks. 
 
 Charles Edward Kiewel. One of Crookston’s 
 notable institutions is the Kiewel Brewing Company, 
 a business which was founded by Charles Edward 
 Kiewel and which has since been under his efficient 
 and experienced management. Mr. Kiewel is a 
 native of Minnesota and since early youth has been 
 identified with the brewing business. He has a num- 
 ber of other valuable interests in Crookston and 
 vicinity, including a fine stock farm near that city. 
 
 Charles Edward Kiewel was born at Moorhead, 
 Minnesota, October 28, 1875, a son of Jacob and Rose 
 (Niggler) Kiewel. His father was in the butcher 
 business at Moorhead, and later in the brewing busi- 
 ness at Little Falls, and the son after getting his 
 education in the public schools learned the business 
 under his father. He early demonstrated independ- 
 ent business capacity, is a hard worker, an excellent 
 manager of men, and by concentrated effort has made 
 himself a successful factor in Minnesota business 
 affairs. In 1899 he established the Kiewel Brewing 
 Company at Crookston, and has built that up as an 
 important local industry. The business was incorpo- 
 rated in 1906 and he has since served as secretary and 
 treasurer and manager. Mr. Kiewel is also presi- 
 dent of the Northern Sign Company, vice president 
 of the Crookston Cordage Company, and as a farmer 
 owns an estate of 600 acres three and a half miles 
 from Crookston, where he specializes in thorough- 
 bred stock. He is affiliated with the Fraternal Order 
 of Eagles, the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks, the United Commercial Travelers and with the 
 Crookston Commercial Club. 
 
 Mr. Kiewel was married November 17, 1896, to 
 Miss Catherine Blake of Little Falls, Minnesota. 
 They have two children, Dewey John and Charles 
 Blake. 
 

■sJ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1 
 
 r 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1291 
 
 Helvor Holte, M. D. While the extent of his 
 practice indicates his high standing as a physician 
 and surgeon, Dr. Helvor Holte is known outside the 
 limits of his own clientage on account of his promi- 
 nent associations with various medical bodies and 
 institutions and his activity as a civic worker in the 
 City of Crookston. 
 
 Helvor Holte is a native of Norway, born in 
 Stavanger July n, 1857. In 1873 his parents came to 
 America, locating on a farm in Fillmore County, 
 Minnesota. Doctor Holte himself was a farmer 
 until the age of twenty-five, and then started out to 
 get a college education and fit himself for a larger 
 work than could be found within the limits of a 
 farm. He attended St. Olaf College at Northfield, 
 and in 1893 was graduated from the medical depart- 
 ment of the University of Minnesota, and at once 
 removed to Crookston, where he has since been en- 
 gaged in general practice, with somewhat of a spe- 
 cialty in surgery. He is secretary of the Polk and 
 Norman Counties Tuberculosis Sanitarium Commis- 
 sion and served as county physician one year. In 
 1897 he built the Bethesda Hospital, which he owned 
 for a short time, and sold it to the Bethesda Hospi- 
 tal Association of Crookston, and it is now con- 
 ducted by the Lutheran Deaconesses. Doctor Holte 
 is an active member of the county and state medical 
 societies, the Red River Valley Medical Society, the 
 State Medical Association and the American Medical 
 Association, and is a member of the American Pub- 
 lic Health Association. He is a director of the 
 Scandia-American Bank at Crookston and is a for- 
 mer trustee and now a deacon in the English United 
 Lutheran Church. He is also a member of the 
 Crookston Commercial Club. Doctor Holte was 
 married to Henrietta Lunde of Franklin, Minnesota. 
 Their three children are Harold Oliver, Evelyn Irene 
 and Junius Augustin. 
 
 Sheldon Ward Vance. The late Sheldon Ward 
 Vance was a business factor of prominence during 
 his residence at Crookston. He was a manufacturer, 
 built up and developed a large brick and tile indus- 
 try, and at hi.s death left extensive interests which 
 have since been capably handled by his son E. W. 
 Vance. The late Mr. Vance was a scholar, a man 
 of thorough culture, and had been identified with 
 educational work prior to coming to Crookston. 
 
 Sheldon Ward Vance was born in Toronto, On- 
 tario, Canada, February 8, 1854. He was educated 
 abroad in different colleges, and on coming to the 
 United States spent several years as a teacher in 
 languages in Racine College at Racine, Wisconsin. 
 He was a resident of Racine about ten years, and in 
 1888 came to Crookston and began the manufacture 
 of brick with his father-in-law George L. Erskine. 
 Sheldon W. Vance married Ethel A. Erskine of 
 Racine. In Crookston Mr. Vance was an alderman 
 and for several years president of the city council. 
 He was affiliated with the Masonic order through 
 thirty-two degrees of the Scottish Rite, was a mem- 
 ber of the Mystic Shrine, and of the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks. He was an elder for many 
 years in the Presbyterian Church. His death oc- 
 curred June 19, 1914, and Crookston was thus be- 
 reaved of the services of a business man, manufac- 
 turer and public spirited citizen of unquestioned 
 integrity and broad capabilities. He was survived 
 by his widow, who is still living in Crookston, and 
 by two children : Erskine W. and Ethel G. 
 
 Erskine Ward Vance was born at Racine, Wiscon- 
 
 sin, August 12, 1889, and was liberally educated, at- 
 tending the Crookston High School and the Univer- 
 sity of Minnesota, where he was graduated with the 
 class of 1910. The year following his university 
 career was spent as cashier of the People's Security 
 Bank at Castleton, North Dakota, but in 1911 he re- 
 turned to Crookston to take the active management 
 of his father’s brick making industry. The Crooks- 
 ton Brick & Tile Company was incorporated in 1907, 
 and has a working capital of $50,000. Its products 
 are distributed all over Northern Minnesota and even 
 to other states, and about fifty men are given regular 
 employment. Mr. Vance also has the active manage- 
 ment of the S. W. Vance & Company, a real estate, 
 loan and fuel business. Mr. Vance is one of the 
 young and energetic factors in Crookston business 
 affairs, and stands high in social circles. He is a 
 member of the Commercial Club and of the Benevo- 
 lent and Protective Order of Elks. 
 
 Harvey Wells Misner. The name Misner has 
 been one of prominence in business affairs in the 
 Red River Valley of Minnesota more than thirty- 
 five years. The late Harvey Chase Misner was for 
 many years identified with merchandising at Euclid, 
 and for the last ten years of his life was in the 
 real estate and banking business at Crookston. His 
 son, Harvey Wells Misner, has succeeded to many 
 of the large interests controlled by his father, and 
 has also developed many of his own. 
 
 The late Harvey Chase Misner was born in 
 Batavia, Wisconsin, on a farm, January 9, 1854. 
 At the age of fourteen his parents located in Fond 
 du Lac, Wisconsin, and in April, 1879, he came to 
 Northern Minnesota and established a store at Euclid 
 under the firm name of Misner & Lindsley. Later 
 the business went under the name of E. Taylor & 
 Company and still later as Misner & Pitkin, chang- 
 ing from that to Misner, Chapin & Fisk and finally 
 to H. C. Misner & Company. In the spring of 1904 
 Mr. H. C. Misner moved with his family to Crooks- 
 ton, and organized the Wheeler-Misner Loan Com- 
 pany. In January, 1912, he was elected vice president 
 of the First National Bank of Crookston, but after 
 about a year resigned on account of failing health. 
 Mr. Misner died June 1, 1914. 
 
 Harvey C. Misner was married June 15, 1881, to 
 Miss Ida Taylor at Lyons, Iowa. Mrs. Misner, who 
 is still living at Crookston, was the mother of three 
 children, two of whom, Florence and Carl, died at 
 Euclid during the winter of 1893, aged respectively 
 nine and five years. The two surviving children are : 
 Harvey W. Misner and Helen M., the latter of 
 whom was an adopted daughter. Harvey C. Misner 
 will long be remembered both in business and social 
 circles in Northern Minnesota. He was devoted to 
 his family and home, was a man of practical charity 
 and generosity, and one who did good works without 
 ostentation but none the less effectively. He was 
 for two years president of the Crookston Commer- 
 cial Club, and a man of leadership wherever he 
 lived. Fraternally he was well known in Masonic 
 circles, was a member of Constantine Commandery 
 No. 20, K. T., and served a year during 190S-09 as 
 eminent commander. He was also affiliated with 
 Crookston Lodge No. 342, B. P. O. E., and was 
 venerable consul of Euclid Camp of Modern Wood- 
 men of America from the time of its organization 
 until he left Euclid to take up his home in Crooks- 
 ton. During his residence in Euclid he also served 
 as town clerk. 
 
1292 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Harvey Wells Misner was born at Euclid Minae- 
 sota, July io, 1883, was educated in the. public schools 
 there, attended the Crookston High School and fin- 
 ished his training in the McAllister College at St. 
 Paul. Two years with his father in the general 
 store at Euclid gave him the foundation of a busi- 
 ness experience, and from 1904 to 1911 he was 
 engaged in the real estate business at Pasadena, 
 California. In 1911 he returned to Crookston on 
 account of his father's failing health and became the 
 managing head of the Wheeler-Misner Loan Com- 
 pany and the other real estate interests of his father. 
 This company is incorporated with a capital stock 
 of $25,000, and Mr. Misner is now its secretary and 
 treasurer. The company has a surplus of $25,000 
 and is in the abstract business in Polk Countv. 
 Mr. Misner is also president of the Crookston 
 Investment Company, capitalized at $25,000, and sec- 
 retary of the Crookston Cordage Company, an incor- 
 porated company with $75,000 of capital stock. He 
 served as president of the Crookston Commercial 
 Club from January, 1913, to January, 1915, and as a 
 director of Crookston Commercial Club and North- 
 western Minnesota Fair Association. Like his 
 father, he is foremost in all civic enterprises and 
 hardly any important undertaking would be com- 
 plete without his active co-operation. 
 
 Mr. Misner is affiliated with the Masonic Order, 
 being a Knight Templar Mason, and with Lodge 
 No. 342 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks. Pie is treasurer of the First Presbyterian 
 Church at Crookston. On June 12, 1906, Mr. Misner 
 married Ethel L. Scott of De Pere, Wisconsin. 
 
 Edward Peterson. A man who has in the past 
 thirty years impressed himself and his work upon 
 the community of Crookston, with a growing capacity 
 for useful service and an increasing individual suc- 
 cess, Edward Peterson is serving as treasurer and 
 superintendent of the Crookston Waterworks, Power 
 and Light Company, a public utility with which he 
 has been identified for many years, and has official 
 relations with several other local industries and com- 
 mercial institutions. 
 
 Edward Peterson was born in Sweden August 7, 
 i860, a son of Peter and Anna Peterson. His par- 
 ents were farmers, and they all emigrated to America 
 in 1882, the father establishing a home at Thief River 
 Falls, Minnesota. Edward Peterson grew up on a 
 farm, was educated in the Swedish schools, and was 
 already a grown man when he came to Minnesota. 
 In 1886 he removed to Crookston, and entered the 
 employ of the waterworks department. It was 
 through that institution that he got his start, and 
 besides an efficiency in the technical management of 
 the plant has shown a capacity for large business 
 responsibilities. He finally became engineer of the 
 plant, and from that was promoted to superintendent 
 of Crookston Waterworks, Power and Light Com- 
 pany, in 1892, and has since been elected treasurer 
 of that company. 
 
 Mr. Peterson was one of the organizers and is 
 president of the Crookston Building and Loan Asso- 
 ciation ; is a director and president of the Crookston 
 Cordage Company, a director in the Electrical De- 
 velopment Company, a director and chairman of the 
 Industrial Committee of the Commercial Club, and 
 his counsel and cooperation are frequently sought in 
 any movement of importance for local welfare. He 
 is also a member of the Crookston School Board. 
 
 On January 1, 1888, at Minneapolis, Mr. Peterson 
 
 married Hannah Anderson, who died in 1892. On 
 August 22, 1894, he married Anna Pherson of Chi- 
 cago, Illinois. Mr. Peterson has nine children, named 
 as follows: Julia, who lives in Santa Barbara, Cali- 
 fornia; Esther, who is employed by the Light and 
 Power Company of Crookston ; Agnes, a graduate of 
 the University of Minnesota with the class of 1915; 
 Ethel, a student in the University of Minnesota; Al- 
 bert Edward, a graduate of the Crookston High 
 School; Herbert Kingsley, a high school student; 
 Florence, also in school; Adeline and Paul Malcolm. 
 
 Sivert M. Sivertson. One of the most active busi- 
 ness men in Northern Minnesota for the past twenty- 
 five or thirty years has been S. M. Sivertson, for- 
 merly of Atwater, and now of Crookston, where he 
 is identified officially and financially with several of 
 the leading commercial and industrial enterprises of 
 that city. Success in business has meant to the pub- 
 lic spirited mind of Mr. Sivertson only larger oppor- 
 tunities to serve the public, and his name has bfeen 
 associated in numerous capacities with local affairs. 
 His has been efficient leadership at all times. 
 
 Sivert M. Sivertson was born in Norway June 19, 
 i860, at Gudbrandsdalen, Lesje Parish. His father 
 brought him to America in 1869, locating near Dia- 
 mond Lake in Minnesota, where the father was a 
 blacksmith and later a farmer. Sivert M. Sivertson 
 was nine years of age when he came to America, 
 finished his education in the country schools and 
 later attended schools in Minneapolis. At the age 
 of sixteen he found employment as clerk in a gen- 
 eral merchandise store, and in 1878 went into the 
 store conducted by Marcus Johnson. With broaden- 
 ing experience and enlarging capacity his career has 
 been one successful progress of attainment since that 
 time. In 1887 he became associated in business as a 
 partner with Mr. Johnson at Atwater. Since taking 
 up his residence in Crookston Mr. Sivertson has 
 given his chief attention to the business of the 
 Crookston Milling Company and the Red Lake Falls 
 Milling Company, with offices at Crookston, in both 
 of which corporations he is secretary and manager. 
 He is also secretary and manager of the Johnson- 
 Marshall Land Company at Crookston. 
 
 In a public way Mr. Sivertson during his residence 
 at Atwater was president of the village five years, 
 also a member of the council ten years, and since 
 moving to Crookston, four years ago, has held a place 
 on the school board for three years and has been 
 its president two years. He still retains considerable 
 business interests at Atwater. Mr. Sivertson is 
 president of the Crookston Commercial Club, is a 
 past master of the Masonic Lodge at Atwater, and 
 also affiliates with the Benevolent and Protective 
 Order of Elks. He is a trustee and secretary of the 
 board of the Presbyterian Church of Crookston. 
 
 Mr. Sivertson married Margaret Sanderson of 
 Harrison, Minnesota, a daughter of Hugh and Isabel 
 Sanderson, who came to Minnesota about i860. They 
 have one daughter, Helen Isabel, now in s.chool. 
 
 James E. Montague. Some well earned distinc- 
 tions have come to James E. Montague during his 
 career as a lawyer at Crookston, and in the course 
 of ten years he has reached a place of leadership 
 in the Crookston bar. His father before him was 
 one of the distinguished men of early Minnesota, 
 prominent both as a lawyer and man of affairs. 
 
 James E. Montague was born at Shieldsville, Min- 
 nesota, January 9, 1876, and has lived in Crookston 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1293 
 
 since 1881. His parents were Robert J. and Mary 
 (Kelly) Montague. His father, who came to Min- 
 nesota in 1856, was a lawyer of many brilliant parts 
 and attainments, served as judge of probate and as 
 county attorney and as registrar of the United States 
 Land Office in Polk County. At Crookston he was 
 mayor of the city, and for a number of years a 
 member of the school board. He is still living, a 
 resident of Virginia, Minnesota, and serving that 
 city as attorney. 
 
 James E. Montague grew up in Crookston, was 
 educated in the public schools, later attended the 
 University of Minnesota, and for his professional 
 preparation enjoyed the peculiar advantages of a 
 student career in the Georgetown University at 
 Washington, D. C. He was graduated LL. B. in 
 1904, and in 1905 was admitted to the Minnesota 
 bar. Since then he has been engaged in building up 
 a general practice as a lawyer, and his practice takes 
 him into all the courts, and he has been retained as 
 attorney in some of the important litigation in Polk 
 County. 
 
 Mr. Montague is a member of the Polk County 
 and Minnesota State Bar associations, and is a 
 member of the Park Board of Crookston. He is 
 also on the roll of membership of the Commercial 
 Club, and has affiliations with the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks. On December 9, 1901, 
 Mr. Montague married Marion Chapin of Chicago, 
 Illinois. They are the parents of two children : 
 James and William. 
 
 Charles Lawrence Bang. One of the enterpris- 
 ing business men of Crookston with a good record 
 for accomplishment and public spirit is Charles Law- 
 rence Bang, who has spent most of his active career 
 in this section of Minnesota and has found oppor- 
 tunities for usefulness in different lines of business 
 endeavor. 
 
 Charles Lawrence Bang is a native of Norway, 
 where he was born August 17, 1874, but was reared 
 and received his education in the public schools of 
 Minnesota. For eight years he worked as cashier 
 for the Northern Pacific Railway, part of the time 
 at Crookston; and also at St. Paul and Duluth. He 
 was then associated for a time with his brother, 
 Gilbert H., in the restaurant business, and for four 
 years was a manufacturing and retail confectioner at 
 Crookston. Then followed eighteen months as cash- 
 ier of the Northwestern Telephone Company, and 
 since that time he has been associated with his 
 brother, Gilbert H., in the Crookston Bottling- 
 Works, a business which has been steadily growing 
 and no\y has a trade and distribution for its products 
 over a w’ide territory about Crookston. 
 
 Mr. Bang is affiliated with the Masonic order, 
 being past master of his lodge, and is also a member 
 of the Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He belongs to 
 the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the 
 Crookston Commercial Club, is secretary of Crooks- 
 ton Council No. 88 of the United Commercial Trav- 
 elers, and was formerly a trustee of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. 
 
 On January 1, 1906, Mr. Bang married Pearl Tone 
 Eox, who was born in Vinton, Iowa. They have 
 two children: Kenneth Oliver, born in June, 1907; 
 
 and Lillian Martha, born in November, 1908. 
 
 Gilbert H. Bang. One of Crookston’s successful 
 business men, well known in public affairs of that 
 city, Gilbert H. Bang has been a resident of that 
 
 section of Minnesota more than thirty, years and has 
 so ordered his activities as not only to give him a 
 substantial place and share in local prosperity, but 
 also to add to the advantages and the worth of the 
 community. 
 
 Gilbert H. Bang was born in Norway, June 24, 
 1869, a son of Thore H. and Anna Bang. The fam- 
 ily came to Crookston in 1882, and the education 
 which he had begun in the old country was com- 
 pleted in the local public schools. He started in life 
 with perhaps fewer advantages than most boys, and 
 for ten years was employed chiefly in restaurant 
 work. In 1908, with his brother, Charles L., he 
 bought the Crookston Bottling Works, and they have 
 since made this one of the local industries, have 
 raised the standard of excellence of the product, 
 and have a large business covering not only the 
 local territory but shipments to a considerable dis- 
 tance. 
 
 Mr. Bang has served three years as an alderman 
 in Crookston, and is one of the public spirited men 
 always ready to help out in any local enterprise. 
 He is a member of the Commercial Club, also of the 
 United Commercial Travelers and of the Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks. 
 
 In February, 1900, at Crookston he married Miss 
 Thora Guibrok. They are the parents of six chil- 
 dren : George Donald, born in May, 1901 ; Charles 
 
 Raymond, born in August,, 1903 ; Edmund Henry, 
 born in February, 1908 ; Irene Lucile, born May 22, 
 1910; Edna Louise, born in April, 1912; and Flor- 
 ence Anna, born in May, 1913. 
 
 Charles J. Servatius. Since 1904 Mr. Servatius 
 has held the responsible position of city clerk of 
 Owatonna, Steele County, and his long retention of 
 the office vouches for his ability as a municipal 
 executive and for his popularity in the attractive 
 little city which has been his home from boyhood. 
 
 Mr. Servatius was born on a farm near Faribault, 
 Rice County, Minnesota, on Christmas day of the 
 year 1868, and is a scion of a sterling pioneer fam- 
 ily of that section of the state. He is a son of 
 Henry and Margaret (Mayer) Servatius, both of 
 whom were born in Austria and both of whom were 
 children at the time of the immigration of the 
 respective families to the United States. Henry 
 Servatius eventually became a farmer in McHenry 
 County, Illinois, but in 1856 he came with his fam- 
 ily to the Territory of Minnesota and settled in 
 Rice County. There he entered claim to govern- 
 ment land, and by industry and careful management 
 he reclaimed and developed an excellent farm. 
 There he continued to reside until 1878, when he 
 removed with his family to Owatonna, the judicial 
 center of Steele County, where he engaged in mar- 
 ket gardening and developed a prosperous enter- 
 prise. With this business he here continued to be 
 identified until his death, which occurred on the nth 
 of April, 1885. His widow long survived him and 
 was summoned to the life eternal on the 14th of 
 January, 1914, both having been zealous com-, 
 municants of the Catholic church. Of their children 
 the present city clerk of Owatonna is the only one 
 living, he having been the seventh in order of birth. 
 The names of the deceased children were as here 
 noted: John, Christine, Eva Michael, Joseph, Susan, 
 Lizzie and Kate. 
 
 Charles J. Servatius was about ten years of age 
 at the time of the family removal to Owatonna, 
 where he was reared to manhood and where he was 
 
1294 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 afforded excellent educational advantages, — those of 
 the Sacred Heart Academy. After leaving school 
 Mr. Servatius assumed practical responsibilities and 
 became one of the world’s ambitious and productive 
 workers. In Owatonna he held various positions of 
 trust in connection with business activities and in 
 1904 he was elected city clerk, a position of which 
 he has since continued the able and valued incum- 
 bent, by seven successive re-elections. The term of 
 office was one year until 1909, since which time the 
 incumbent is elected for a term of two years. 
 
 Mr. Servatius is a staunch supporter of the cause 
 of the democratic party and has been an active 
 worker in its local ranks. His religious faith is that 
 of the Catholic church, of which he is a communi- 
 cant. He has been a member of the Owatonna fire 
 department for nearly a quarter of a century and 
 served eight years as secretary of the Owatonna 
 Commercial Club. He is at the present time serving 
 as secretary of the fire department, a position which 
 he has held for the past sixteen years. Until the 
 recent leasing of the Metropolitan Opera House of 
 Owatonna Mr. Servatius was associated with its 
 management for thirteen years, and was the active 
 manager for a considerable portion of this period. 
 He is a popular factor in the social and business 
 circles of his home city and still permits his name 
 to appear on the list of eligible bachelors, his resi- 
 dence being at 576 Oak Street. 
 
 Conrad George Selvig. As a Minnesota educator 
 Conrad George Selvig stands in the front rank. 
 From work in rural schools, beginning at the age of 
 eighteen, he has advanced to the position of super- 
 intendent of the Northwest School of Agriculture 
 and Experiment Station of the University of Minne- 
 sota at Crookston, and through his individual work, 
 through the institution of which he is now at the 
 head, and through his associations, with various 
 civic and technical organizations in Northwest Min- 
 nesota has identified himself conspicuously with the 
 forward movement in the country life and industrial 
 progress of the state. 
 
 Conrad George Selvig was born at Rushford, Min- 
 nesota, October ix, 1877, and is therefore still a 
 young man hardly yet in the prime of his life and 
 accomplishment. His father was Gunder C. Selvig, 
 and his mother, Marie Hogrestad, both born in Nor- 
 way. They were married a short time before emi- 
 grating to the United States. The father was con- 
 nected with the Great Lakes marine a year or so, and 
 in 1874 brought his family to Rushford, Minnesota. 
 
 Conrad G. Selvig was graduated from the high 
 school at Rushford, and in 1896 was appointed cadet 
 to the United States Military Academy by Congress- 
 man James A. Tawney of the First Minnesota Dis- 
 trict. In the intervals of his career as a teacher he 
 attended various summer sessions at the University 
 of Minnesota, then took up regular resident study 
 there, and was graduated A. B. in 1907 and Master 
 of Arts in 1908. Since then he has carried on fur- 
 ther postgraduate work. Mr. Selvig began teaching 
 rural school at the age of eighteen immediately fol- 
 lowing his graduation from high school. In 1901 
 he became superintendent of schools _ at Harmony, 
 Minnesota. He had previously been in the railway 
 mail service, was principal of schools at Granger, 
 Minnesota, and in 1898 served as a private in Com- 
 pany F of the Twelfth Regiment, Minnesota Volun- 
 teer Infantry, during the Spanish-American war. 
 He was for five years superintendent of schools at 
 
 Harmony, and after that remained as a student in 
 the University of Minnesota until his graduation. 
 From 1907 to 1910 he was superintendent of schools 
 and principal of Stevens Seminary at Glencoe, Min- 
 nesota. He has held his present position as super- 
 intendent of the Northwest School of Agriculture 
 and Experiment Station at Crookston since 1910. 
 
 His accomplishments as an organizer and admin- 
 istrator are of greater importance than as an indi- 
 vidual instructor. While he was at Harmony as 
 superintendent the schools advanced from the graded 
 list to the high school list. While at Glencoe he 
 urged successfully the introduction of practical lines 
 of work, resulting in creation of departments of 
 agriculture, home economics, manual training and 
 teachers’ training. At this time he was a member 
 of a committee that urged the adoption of a law 
 providing aid to high schools giving this work. The 
 organization of the agricultural extension work at 
 Glencoe was considered noteworthy at that time 
 when such work was new not only in Minnesota 
 but in the United States as well. 
 
 At Crookston Mr. Selvig has identified himself 
 with the agricultural movement in Northwestern 
 Minnesota, and has assisted in every way possible. 
 The Northwest School and Station has grown from 
 an institution enrolling 101 students to over five 
 hundred, including 179 in the regular course. There 
 are also students in the teachers’ training course, 
 summer course, in the farmers’ short course and in 
 the junior short course. In related lines he has 
 assisted in organizing and managing various so- 
 cieties and organizations, such as the Northwestern 
 Fair Association, the Red River Valley Dairymen’s 
 Association, the Minnesota Red River Valley De- 
 velopment Association, and others, in which he holds 
 important offices. In all of this work he has of 
 course been assisted by other efficient workers, all 
 cooperating loyally for the development of North- 
 western Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Selvig is a director of the Alumni Association 
 of the University of Minnesota, treasurer of the 
 Minnesota Educational Association, a member of the 
 American Association of Agricultural Colleges and 
 Experiment Stations, a charter member of the Amer- 
 ican Association for the Advancement of Agricul- 
 tural Teaching and a member of the National 
 Educational Association. He is a progressive repub- 
 lican, and was a delegate to the last republican state 
 convention in 1908 from McLeod County. He has 
 taken the Knight Templar degrees in Masonry and 
 is affiliated with Kaph Chapter of the Acacia Fra- 
 ternity of the University of Minnesota. His church 
 is the Congregational. 
 
 In addition to his many executive responsibilities 
 Mr. Selvig has been busy as a writer and lecturer, 
 and a number of his reports and articles have been 
 published. His university thesis presented in 1908 
 in connection with postgraduate work for the M. A. 
 degree was entitled “Federal Aid to Education." He 
 is author of the report on “The Use of Land in 
 Connection with Agricultural Teaching,” forming 
 Bulletin 522, United States Bureau of Education ; 
 of reports on “Home Project Work in Connection 
 with Agricultural Teaching,” in Bulletin 601, United 
 States Bureau of Education; of various other agri- 
 cultural bulletins and reports, numerous articles in 
 the daily and weekly press and the agricultural and 
 the educational press; and has delivered addresses 
 and lectures on various subjects relating to agricul- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1295 
 
 ture, agricultural economics, rural sociology and 
 education. 
 
 Mr. Selvig was married June 17, 1903, at Mabel, 
 Minnesota, to Marion E. Wilcox. Her parents were 
 George Aaron and Marietta (Rowe) Wilcox, and 
 several of her ancestors were ministers, while others 
 engaged in business and farming in Ohio and Michi- 
 gan. Mrs. Selvig is a graduate of the Central High 
 School at Minneapolis and was for a time a stu- 
 dent in the University of Minnesota. They are the 
 parents of three children: Helen Marion, born at 
 
 Harmony, July 31, 1904; Margaret Elizabeth, born at 
 Minneapolis, July 5, 1907; and Conrad George, Jr., 
 born at Glencoe, June 6, 1910. 
 
 David C. Lightbourn. Since the territorial days 
 in Minnesota the name Lightbourn has had active 
 association with the printing and publishing profes- 
 sion. The late Edward S. Lightbourn was a printer 
 in St. Paul back in the ’50s, and for many years was 
 connected with the press of that city. The chief 
 representative of the family now in the publishing 
 business is David C. Lightbourn, editor and proprie- 
 tor of the Index at Ada, Minnesota. 
 
 David C. Lightbourn was born at Pinebend, Min- 
 nesota, January 30, 1858. His father was Edward S. 
 Lightbourn, already mentioned, who was born on the 
 Bermuda Islands in 1831. The Lightbourns were 
 English settlers on the Bermuda Islands many gen- 
 erations ago. Edward S., who died at St. Paul in 
 1911, had learned the printer's trade in his native 
 islands, when a young man went to New York City, 
 thence to New Orleans, where he married, and in 
 1857 arrived in the young city of St. Paul, where he 
 worked as foreman on local papers, but at the begin- 
 ning of the war in 1861 enlisted in the Seventh Min- 
 nesota Regiment of Infantry, and remained with the 
 Minnesota troops until the close of the war. After 
 his honorable discharge he came to St. Paul, and for 
 many years continued his chosen calling. Edward S. 
 Lightbourn married Susannah S. Murray, who was 
 born in Illinois in 1834 and died in St. Paul in 1913. 
 Some of her ancestors were soldiers in the Revolu- 
 tionary war. The children were ten in number, and 
 individual mention of each is as follows : Leni, 
 
 widow of George H. Sheire, who was a newspaper 
 editor, now resides at St. Paul; David C. ; E. T., a 
 letter carrier in St. Paul; Emma, widow of Ed Van 
 Horne, now occupying her large farm. estate in 
 Stevens County; Susie, wife of George W. Harding, 
 chief clerk for the R. G. Dun & Company Mercan- 
 tile Agency at St. Paul ; Charles, a railway engineer 
 in California; Mary, who died at the age of sixteen; 
 Sophia, wife of M. J. Tyllie, a contractor and builder 
 at St. Paul; Amelia, wife of A. G. Kulander, a 
 merchant at Walker, Minnesota; and Lily, wife of 
 E. P. Hopwood, who is circulation manager for the 
 Portland Oregonian. 
 
 David C. Lightbourn grew up in St. Paul, was 
 educated in the public school, and completed the 
 course of the high school in 1875. In the meantime 
 he had become familiar with newspaper work and 
 printing shop, and after leaving high school was 
 employed on several of St. Paul s leading dailies, 
 the Pioneer Press, the Globe and others. In the 
 spring of 1883 he came to Ada, and bought the Index, 
 and is now one of the oldest editors in point of con- 
 tinuous service on one paper in Minnesota. 
 
 The Ada Index was established in t88i by Fred 
 Puhler, and is a republican paper. It has a circula- 
 tion in Norman and adjoining counties, and a con- 
 siderable list is mailed to other states and foreign 
 
 countries. Ihe plant and offices situated on West 
 Main Street near the depot are owned by Mr. Light- 
 bourn, who has succeeded in building up a successful 
 enterprise. 
 
 Mr. Lightbourn is a republican, and for many 
 years has been actively identified with public affairs 
 in Ada. He has served the city as mayor, for many 
 years was on the council and a school trustee, and is 
 now a member of the water and light board. For 
 ten years in his earlier career he was a deputy insur- 
 ance commissioner in St. Paul, and for one year 
 was acting insurance commissioner of the state. 
 Among other business interests he is director in the 
 First State Bank of Ada and in the Norman County 
 Telephone Company. He belongs to the Ada Com- 
 mercial Club, to the Knights of Pythias and to the 
 Modern Samaritans, and attends worship in the Con- 
 gregational Church. 
 
 In 1887 at Ada Mr. Lightbourn married Miss 
 Emily Ginsberg, whose former home was Mantor- 
 ville, Minnesota. At her death in 1902 she left three 
 children : Ada, wife of Arthur Mueller, assistant 
 
 cashier in the First State Bank of Ada; Alice, a 
 teacher of domestic science at Walker, Minnesota; 
 and Blanche, a student in the Ada High School. At 
 Denver, Colorado, in 1908, Mr. Lightbourn married 
 Miss Carrie Welley, daughter of Andrew Welley, 
 who is a farmer in Norman County, Minnesota. 
 Mrs. Lightbourn died in 1911, and in April, 1915, Mr. 
 Lightbourn married her sister, Miss Ragna Welley. 
 
 Peter A. Peterson. Under the governmental sys- 
 tem prevailing in Minnesota there is no county office 
 more important than that of sheriff, and on the 
 whole only men of marked capacity for executive 
 and administrative work and citizens enjoying to the 
 full the confidence of the county are chosen for such 
 responsibility. A remarkable record in this office 
 is that enjoyed bv Peter A. Peterson, now sheriff 
 of Norman County, who with one exception has had 
 the longest continuous service of any sheriff now 
 holding office in Minnesota. 
 
 Peter A. Peterson, who was one of the pioneer 
 homesteaders in Norman County, was born in Toten, 
 Norway, July 19, 1858. His father, Andrew Peter- 
 son, was born in Toten in 1835 and died there Janu- 
 ary 1, 1868, he was a farmer, and had served his 
 regular term in the Norwegian army. The mother, 
 Bertha Mary Peterson, born in Toten in 1835, and 
 in the year of her husband’s death brought her 
 two children to America, and located in Freeborn 
 County, Minnesota, where she lived nearly thirty 
 years until her death in 1897. Peter was her oldest 
 son and the younger son, Anton, is now a land owner 
 in California. 
 
 Peter A. Peterson received his early education in 
 Norway and attended the public schools of Freeborn 
 County from the age of ten. He early got into prac- 
 tical life as a farm workman, and in 1882 came to 
 Norman County, then practically an unoccupied dis- 
 trict, and took up a homestead. He proved his capa- 
 bilities as a farmer, and besides providing for the 
 needs of himself and family performed with fidelity 
 and good judgment every civic relationship. He con- 
 tinued the active cultivation of his farm until 1896, 
 and sold it in 1905. 
 
 Tn 1896 he was elected sheriff of Norman County 
 for the first time. Every subsequent two. years, a 
 laree majority of the people confirmed his choice 
 for the office, and on November 3, 1014, he was re- 
 elected for a term of four years. Sheriff Peterson 
 
1296 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 is now in the twentieth year of consecutive service, 
 and as already stated only one other sheriff in the 
 state has held office continuously for so long a period. 
 
 In Bear Paw Township, where his homestead was 
 situated, Mr. Peterson enjoyed many of the distinc- 
 tions and honors of public office prior to his assum- 
 ing the duties of sheriff. As a republican, he shared 
 as chairman of the board of supervisors, was assessor 
 and a member of the school board in his township, 
 and was also identified with public affairs as a mem- 
 ber of the creamery board and the insurance board. 
 He filled nearly every town office in that locality. 
 Mr. Peterson is a member of the Lutheran Church 
 and belongs to the Ada Commercial Club. 
 
 In the fall of 1880 in Freeborn County he married 
 Miss Helen Tronson, who was born in Iowa, a 
 daughter of Tron Olson, an Iowa farmer. To their 
 marriage have been born six children, practically all 
 of whom are now independent and carving their own 
 careers : Mary is the wife of Carl Stensgard, a but- 
 
 ter maker at McIntosh, Minnesota; Tilly is the wife 
 of Plans Aldal, a farmer at Fertile, Minnesota; Ber- 
 tina, who lives with her parents; Alby, manager of 
 the bakery at the Faribault Institute for the Deaf 
 and Dumb ; Carl, who lives at home but is employed 
 by a bridge company ; Arthur, attending school in the 
 Faribault Institute for the Deaf and Dumb. 
 
 Lycurgus R. Moyer, president of the Chippewa 
 County Bank at Montevideo, is one of the oldest 
 living pioneers in this section of Minnesota. He 
 came here forty-five years ago, when the town was 
 a frontier settlement, and has been identified with 
 almost every phase of development. He is a lawyer 
 of many years’ standing, has filled various offices 
 in his town and county, and is a 'fine representative 
 type of the older class of Minnesota people. 
 
 Lycurgus R. Moyer was born in Niagara County, 
 New York, in 1848, and has lived in Minnesota since 
 reaching manhood. His parents were Amos F. and 
 Cornelia (Rose) Moyer. Plis father was born in 
 Madison County, New York, in 1817 and spent his 
 last years at Montevideo, Minnesota. He was a 
 New York State farmer, and in the early days was 
 an abolitionist and republican. The mother was born 
 in Niagara County, New York, in 1823. There were 
 six children : Lycurgus R. ; Mrs. Mary Barber, who 
 
 is the only one of the family now deceased ; Dr. 
 Frank J. Moyer, a physician at Lockport, New York, 
 and bv his marriage to Loma Richardson has four 
 children ; Lloyd G., vice president of the Chippewa 
 County Bank, and the father of two children by his 
 marriage to Lillian Wright; Dr. Galen D., who lives 
 in Minneapolis and married Harriot Page and has 
 two children ; and Cornelia M. Budd, whose husband 
 is a banker, and they have three children. 
 
 Lycurgus R. Moyer attended the country schools 
 back in New York and also a union school at Lock- 
 port. After coming to Minnesota in 1869 he taught 
 school two or three years in Washington County, his 
 pupils being collected from the scattered homesteads 
 of the early pioneers. When he arrived in Minne- 
 sota he spent a short time in Duluth, and was there 
 before the railroads were built. In 1870 he came to 
 Montevideo, and walked the distance from Benson 
 to the new settlement. He took a pre-emption claim 
 in that year, and in 1872 acquired a homestead of 
 eighty acres. In 1870 the population of Montevideo 
 comprised twelve inhabitants, living in two log 
 houses and one frame house. At that time the post- 
 office was located across the river and bore the dig- 
 
 nified title of Chippewa City. There were two fami- 
 lies located near the postotnce. Two days after Mr. 
 Moyer's arrival in town he saw the removal of the 
 postoffice to what is now Montevideo. The postoffice 
 equipment was carried in a small box. At that time 
 the mail was brought from Benson on wagons along 
 with dry goods and other commodities. The rail- 
 road was not built to Montevideo until 1878. These 
 facts indicate that Mr. Moyer has known Chippewa 
 County practically from the time of its first settle- 
 ment. Mr. Moyer was admitted to the bar in 1872, 
 but his profession has been much interrupted by 
 other duties. He was a land surveyor and for thirty 
 years held the office of county surveyor of Chippewa 
 County. He was judge of probate twenty years. He 
 has served as president of the city council, as presi- 
 dent of the park board and as president of the library 
 board. 
 
 In 1876 Mr. Moyer married Anna Wightman. She 
 was born in Scott County, Minnesota, in 1857, a 
 daughter of Ira and Rebecca (Barrows) Wightman, 
 who were among the early settlers of Scott County. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Moyer became the parents of six chil- 
 dren, and the four now living are : Sumner L., assist- 
 ant cashier of the Chippewa County Bank, and mar- 
 ried to Ann Kieth ; Amos F., a mechanical engineer 
 at St. Paul, who married Marie Evans ; Catherine 
 C. and Rose E. are both students in Windom College. 
 
 Among his many interesting recollections of this 
 section of Minnesota, Mr. Moyer recalls that in 
 1870 Eli Pettijohn established a grist mill, which by 
 later development he converted into one of the first 
 important industries in America for the manufacture 
 of breakfast foods. Mr. Moyer is a member of the 
 American Association for advancement of Science, 
 of the Torrey Botanical Club, is a life member of 
 the Minnesota State Historical Society and the State 
 Horticultural Society, a member of the Minnesota 
 Academy of Natural Sciences, and these various af- 
 filiations indicate scholarly interests and pursuits 
 outside of strictly business affairs. He is a member 
 of Sunset Lodge No. 109, A. F. & A. M., and polit- 
 cially is a republican. 
 
 Clarence P. Carpenter. A resident of Minnesota 
 from early childhood, a representative of one of the 
 territorial pioneer families of this great common- 
 wealth of the Northwest, Mr. Carpenter has marked 
 the passing years with worthy achievement ; for years 
 he was the editor and publisher of a weekly news- 
 paper of wide circulation, and in that way exerted 
 a marked influence upon public thought and action 
 in connection with civic and political matters. While 
 conducting his newspaper he continued a systematic 
 course in the study of law, begun some time before, 
 while working at his trade, and is now engaged in 
 the practice of that profession at the City of North- 
 field. Rice County, Minnesota. 
 
 Clarence P. Carpenter was born at Eastford, Wind- 
 ham County, Connecticut, February 4, 1853; his 
 father was Fredus C. Carpenter, a member of a 
 family whose history goes back to the early colonial 
 era of that state. The family was of English origin, 
 with a trace of Scotch blood; one of the father’s 
 brothers, J. H. Carpenter, LL. D., was for many 
 years dean of the law faculty of the Wisconsin Uni- 
 versity, and Justice Carpenter of the Connecticut 
 Supreme Court was an uncle of his father. His pa- 
 ternal great-grandfather was a patriot soldier during 
 the Revolutionary war and among those who win- 
 tered with Washington at Valley Forge. His mother 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1297 
 
 was Mary A. (Gilbert) Carpenter, born in Massa- 
 chusetts; she was a cousin of Dr. J. G. Holland, the 
 distinguished author of “Bitter Sweet,” “Kathrina,’ 
 “The Mistress of the Manse,” and many other poet- 
 ical and prose works, and for many years the editor 
 of Scribner’s Magazine. 
 
 In 1855 the family came to Minnesota Territory, 
 where the father entered a claim on Government 
 land in what is now the Township of Lebanon, in 
 Dakota County, the old homestead being located 
 about six miles west of Rosemount. Before coming 
 to Minnesota Fredus C. Carpenter had been a school 
 teacher; he was a man of liberal education as such 
 matters were rated in those days, and he at once took 
 an active part in the organization of civic affairs in 
 the new county. He was the first town clerk of the 
 new township, serving for several years, and after- 
 ward served the township as chairman of super- 
 visors for many years. Before coming west he had 
 been one of those valiant argonauts who made their 
 way across the Isthmus of Panama to California, at 
 the time of the great hegira that was made to the 
 New Eldorado in 1849-50, following the discovery 
 of gold in that state. Many years later he again went 
 to California, where he was living at the time of his 
 death, October 18, 1891. His wife survived him, re- 
 turning to Minnesota, where she lived for some years, 
 later going to North Dakota, to live with a son, 
 where she passed away, June 26, 1901. 
 
 In 1867 the original farm was sold and the fam- 
 ily moved to another in the Township of Eureka, in 
 the same county, five miles from Farmington. This 
 farm is now owned by Clarence P. Carpenter, who 
 continued to live there until he was sixteen, enjoy- 
 ing only those educational advantages common to 
 frontier communities. His broader education was 
 gained entirely through self-discipline and availing 
 himself of advantages secured by his own efforts. At 
 the age of sixteen he began to learn the trade of a 
 printer in the office of the Western Progress at 
 Spring Valley, Fillmore County, Minnesota. Later 
 he worked for about four years in the office of the 
 Faribault Democrat, at Faribault, the county seat of 
 the county in which he now makes his home. Later 
 he worked at' his trade in St. Paul, Minneapolis, 
 Fargo, North Dakota; St. Louis, Missouri; Jack- 
 sonville, Florida, and other places, thus manifest- 
 ing somewhat the peripatetic proclivities of the old- 
 time craftsmen in this trade. 
 
 In 1877 he went west and entered a Government 
 homestead and tree claim near Herman, in Grant 
 County, Minnesota, where he opened a large farm 
 and remained for six years, following his trade at in- 
 tervals and teaching school during the winters. In 
 1880 he was appointed to take the United States cen- 
 sus in the south half of Grant County; in the fall 
 of 1883 he was elected court commissioner of that 
 county, but shortly after decided to return to Dakota 
 County. In March, 1884, he established the Dakota 
 County Tribune at Farmington, Dakota County, Min- 
 nesota, which he continued to edit and publish until 
 in August, 1892, when he sold the property and busi- 
 ness. The Tribune early took a prominent place 
 among the newspapers of the state, exerting a 
 marked influence in its civic and political affairs. Mr. 
 Carpenter was a natural born reformer, and in his 
 editorial work aided much in blazing the way for 
 those great reforms that have marked public affairs 
 in the last few years. It was while at Farmington 
 that he continued his study of the law, studying even- 
 ings and such leisure moments as he could get from 
 
 an active and strenuous life, finally taking a course 
 of reading under the direction of then Attorney Gen- 
 eral Moses E. Clapp. He was admitted to the bar 
 September 29, 1890. 
 
 After selling his newspaper business at Farming- 
 ton, in August, 1892, with his family he spent the 
 winter in the East, and they were interested specta- 
 tors at the inauguration of President Cleveland in 
 Washington, March 4, 1893. Returning to Minnesota 
 in the spring, he began the practice of law at Lake- 
 ville, Dakota County, and also took an interest in a 
 mercantile corporation. 
 
 In January, 1895, Mr. Carpenter moved to North- 
 field, Rice County, where he purchased the Northfield 
 Independent, which he edited and published alone 
 until September, 1908, and also gave more or less 
 attention to legal business that continued to come to 
 him from his old friends in Dakota County. In Sep- 
 tember, 1908, he joined in' the incorporation of the 
 Mohn Printing Company, which company established 
 a new weekly paper known as the Norwegian-Ameri- 
 can, and continued to publish the Independent. He 
 continued as editor of the Northfield Independent 
 and business manager of the company until Septem- 
 ber, 1910, when he sold his remaining interest in the 
 printing business to other members of the corpora- 
 tion. Since that time he has given his attention to 
 the general practice of law, in which he has won a 
 marked degree of success and a substantial business. 
 
 Politically, Mr. Carpenter was always a reformer, 
 early advocating those principles and reforms that 
 have occupied so large a share of public attention 
 during the past few years, when to do so required 
 a strong devotion to principle and a sacrifice of many 
 personal opportunities. 
 
 His first presidential vote was cast for that great 
 reformer, Samuel J. Tilden, and he has ever contin- 
 ued an ardent admirer of that great statesman. Later 
 he affiliated with the republican party, and during 
 that time was elected as the candidate of that party 
 to the office of second assistant clerk of the House 
 of Representatives in the Minnesota Legislature in 
 1887, and chief clerk of the House in 1889. Adher- 
 ing to his convictions and following the trend of 
 reform that was active in those days, he became 
 identified with the people’s party and was a delegate 
 from Minnesota to the first national convention of 
 that party, held at Omaha, Nebraska, in 1890. At 
 that convention he served as one of its temporary 
 secretaries. On purchasing the Northfield Inde- 
 pendent in 1895 he allied himself with the dem- 
 ocratic party, to which he has since adhered. He 
 was the candidate of that party for the office of 
 district judge of the Fifth Judicial District in 1910. 
 In 1906 he was elected judge of the Municipal Court 
 of Northfield and was re-elected in 1910, serving in 
 that capacity for eight years ; he had previously held 
 the office of special judge of that court. 
 
 Mr. Carpenter is a member of the Independent 
 Order of Odd Fellows, having held such member- 
 ship for forty years and attained the rank of past 
 grand. He was a charter member of a lodge of 
 the Ancient Order of United Workmen while living 
 at Lakeville, and served as its first master work- 
 man. In 1896 he represented that lodge in the 
 grand lodge of the state. He is a member of the 
 Northfield Commercial Club, was a member of the 
 charter commission that drafted the present char- 
 ter of the City of Northfield, and as a citizen has 
 ever been ready to give his aid and influence in 
 support of measures and enterprises tending to ad- 
 
1298 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 vance the civic and material welfare of the com- 
 munity. As editor of the Independent he was the 
 first one to advocate the building of a stone arch 
 bridge across the Cannon River at Northfield, an 
 improvement he has lived to see completed in the 
 spring of 1915. 
 
 On the 28th of July, 1885, Mr. Carpenter was 
 married to Miss Lulu M. McElrath, daughter of 
 the late William McElrath, a representative farmer 
 of Dakota County. Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter have 
 two children, Park and Delphine. Park Carpenter 
 was born May 5, 1890; he was graduated from the 
 academy connected with St. Olaf College, Northfield, 
 with the class of 1909, and took his freshman year 
 in college at St. Olaf, during which year he was 
 an active member of the famous St. Olaf concert 
 band. In the fall of 1910 he entered Carleton Col- 
 lege, Northfield, as a sophomore, and was graduated 
 with class honors in history in 1913. During his 
 senior year he won membership in the honorary 
 society of Delta Sigma Rho by securing a place on 
 one of the winning intercollegiate debating teams. 
 The next year he was appointed to a fellowship at 
 Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, 
 where he took post-graduate work. The succeeding 
 year he was awarded a scholarship at Harvard Uni- 
 versity, Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he is now 
 doing post-graduate work in history and constitu- 
 tional law. 
 
 Miss Delphine Carpenter was born September 2, 
 1896; completing the regular high school work in 
 three years, she entered the freshman class of Albert 
 Lea College for young women, Albert Lea, Minne- 
 sota, in the fall of 1914; she is now a member of the 
 class of 1918 in Carleton College, Northfield. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter and their children are all 
 members of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Mr. 
 Carpenter was for five years superintendent of its 
 Sunday school and a member of its official board for 
 many years. 
 
 James P. McMahon. For more than twenty-five 
 years James P. McMahon has practiced law at Fari- 
 bault and in North Dakota, and is not only one of 
 the oldest members of the local bar in point of con- 
 tinuous service, but his success has been of such 
 substantial nature as to place him among the leaders. 
 Mr. McMahon is now serving in his third consecu- 
 tive term as county attorney of Rice County. 
 
 A native of Faribault, James P. McMahon was 
 born May 23, 1866. His father, the late Thomas 
 McMahon, who was born in County Clare, Ireland, 
 in 1823, and died in Faribault in 1902, was one of 
 the prominent early contractors and builders in Min- 
 nesota territory and state. Emigrating when about 
 fourteen years of age to the United States, he lived 
 in New York until after he was grown, learned the 
 trade of carpenter there, and with a successful 
 experience behind him went west to Mount Pleasant 
 in Henry County, Iowa, and in 1855 was given the 
 contract for the construction of the state school 
 for the insane, a large and important work. In 1857, 
 Mr. McMahon moved to Minnesota, locating at 
 Faribault as one of the pioneer settlers in that then 
 village. There he spent the rest of his active 
 career, and is remembered as a public spirited citi- 
 zen of this community. Thomas McMahon married 
 Bridget Shanahan at Mount Pleasant, Iowa. She 
 was born in County Tipperary, Ireland. 
 
 James P. McMahon grew up in Faribault, attended 
 the public schools, finished his literary training in 
 
 the Shattuck Military School, and began the study 
 of law with the firm of Mott & Gipson. Mr. Mc- 
 Mahon was admitted to the bar November 27, 1887. 
 Since then a large general civil and criminal practice 
 has come to him, and he has enjoyed many of the 
 better distinctions of the able lawyer. For seven 
 years_ Mr. McMahon served as city attorney, and is 
 now in his third term as county attorney. 
 
 Mr. _ McMahon has a number of affiliations, is a 
 republican, a member of the Catholic Church, and 
 belongs to the following fraternal orders : The 
 
 Knights of Columbus, the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows, the Independent Order of Foresters, 
 the Modern Woodmen of America, the Woodmen of 
 the World, the Equitable Fraternal Union, the Fra- 
 ternal Order of Eagles, the Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks. He has membership in the 
 Rice County and Minnesota State Bar and American 
 Bar associations, and is also identified with the 
 Faribault Commercial Club. 
 
 Fred Spafford was born in Lake City, Minnesota, 
 December 17, 1865; was educated in the schools of 
 Lake City, removing to Minneapolis in 1881 ; entered 
 the banking house of Valentine G. Hush in 1883 and 
 the Security Bank of Minnesota in 1887. After 
 eleven years’ service as paying teller of that large 
 institution he was made assistant cashier in 1902; 
 cashier in January, 1913, and in March, 1915, was 
 elected vice president of the First and Security Na- 
 tional Bank, a combination of the First National 
 Bank of Minneapolis and the Security National 
 Bank, and having a capital and surplus of $10,000,000 
 and deposits of $50,000,000. 
 
 Mr. Spafford was a son of Dr. Heman W. Spafford 
 and Mary E. Spafford, who settled in Lake City in 
 1865, coming from Newburgh, Ontario, Canada. The 
 late Dr. Heman Wightman Spafford, father of Fred 
 Spafford, and in the seventh generation in descent 
 from John and Elizabeth (Scott) Spafford, was born 
 at Earnestown, Province of Ontario, Canada, April 
 27, 1828, and died at Lake City, Minnesota, on the 
 24th of November, 1877, the twentieth anniversary 
 of his marriage. Doctor Spafford was graduated in 
 1855 with the degree M. D. from Queen’s College 
 of the University of Toronto, Canada. He was a 
 man of excellent professional ability, and came from 
 his native province in Canada to Minnesota in 1865, 
 in which year he established his home at Lake City, 
 Wabasha County, and became one of the pioneer 
 physicians and surgeons of that part of the state. 
 He was faithful and efficient in his ministration, en- 
 dured many hardships in visiting his patients over a 
 wide area of country, and was honored and revered 
 in the community which continued to be his place 
 of residence until his death, in 1877. He was a 
 grandson of Col. John Spafford, who was born 
 August 31, 1752, and who died at Tinmouth, Rut- 
 land County, Vermont, on the 24th of April, 1823. 
 Colonel Spafford was a valiant soldier of the Con- 
 tinental Line in the War of the Revolution, in which 
 he was colonel of his regiment. He took part in 
 the battle of Bennington and the taking of Fort 
 Ticonderoga, besides having personally received the 
 sword of the commandant of Crown Point when 
 that place surrendered. This sword is still pre- 
 served by the family and is a valued historic heir- 
 loom. The ancestors of Col. John Spafford were 
 John Spofford and Elizabeth Scott, who immigrated 
 from England to America in 1638, and established 
 their home in Rowley, Essex County, Massachusetts, 
 
W QM'-M.c 
 
 f 
 

 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1299 
 
 he and his wife having come from Yorkshire, Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Dr. Heman W. Spafford was married at Belleville, 
 Province of Ontario, Canada, on the 24th of Novem- 
 ber, 1857, to Miss Mary E. Peterson, who was there 
 horn and reared. She survived the doctor for many 
 years, and was a resident of Minneapolis at the time 
 of her death in 1893. They became the parents of 
 two sons and two daughters, the subject of this re- 
 view having been the third in order of birth. 
 
 On the 12th of November, 1890, occurred the mar- 
 riage of Mr. Fred Spafford and Miss Elizabeth D. 
 MacLaurin, and they became the parents of two 
 children, Evelyn M. and Harriet, both of whom are 
 deceased. 
 
 Henry G. Wyvell. For nearly a quarter of a 
 century Henry G. Wyvell has occupied a distinctive 
 place among the members of the legal profession 
 of Wilkin County. His superior attainments and 
 ability attracted attention ere he had been engaged 
 in practice at Breckenridge many years, and, indeed, 
 from his initial steps in his chosen profession it was 
 manifest that his success was assured. Official posi- 
 tions have called him, and he has not been found lack- 
 ing in those qualities which are essential to public 
 service. 
 
 Mr. Wyvell was born at Delaware, Michigan, Feb- 
 ruary 16, 1868, and is a son of John Wyvell, a 
 native of Devonshire, England, who died at Los 
 Angeles, California, in 1911. The father emigrated 
 to the United States with the mother and their eldest 
 child, and first settled at Delaware, Michigan, where 
 Mr. Wyvell secured employment in the copper mines. 
 In 1872 he removed to Wadena, Minnesota, taking 
 up a homestead two miles west of that place, and, 
 being a carpenter by trade, built the first house in 
 that community. For over twenty years he carried 
 on agricultural pursuits on his property, then re- 
 moving to Battle Lake, Minnesota, where he engaged 
 in mercantile pursuits as a furniture dealer. In 
 1886 he came to Breckenridge in the same line of 
 business, here continuing as the proprietor of a suc- 
 cessful store until 1906, when he disposed of his 
 interests and removed to Los Angeles. California. 
 Mr. John Wyvell married Jane Peardon, a young 
 lady who had been reared in his home neighborhood, 
 and" who was born in 1842. She met her death in the 
 awful disaster at Long Beach, California, in May, 
 1913. John and Jane Wyvell were the parents of 
 eight children, namely: John T., who is engaged in 
 merchandise at Glendale, California; William H., 
 who died in Michigan when about six years of age ; 
 James, a dealer in real estate and loans, at Cassa 
 Verdugo, California ; Mary J., who married L. D. 
 Oliver, also engaged in the real estate business at 
 Cassa Verdugo; Henry G. ; Albert E., a banker of 
 Ogema. Minnesota ; Richard C., formerly engaged in 
 the real estate business in Minneapolis, but now a 
 resident of Long Beach, California; and Gilbert F., a 
 graduate of the North Dakota Law School, and now 
 a well known attorney of Los Angeles, California. 
 
 Henry G. Wyvell attended the public grammar and 
 high schools of the state, and as a youth assisted 
 his father in the work of the home farm, clerked in 
 his father’s store, and, in odd times, worked at the 
 carpenter’s trade. A predilection for the law guided 
 him to the University of Minnesota, from which in- 
 stitution he was graduated in 1891, with the degree 
 of Bachelor of Laws, and from that year he has been 
 engaged successfully in general practice at Brecken- 
 
 ridge, his offices being now located in the Benesh & 
 Pierce Block on Minnesota Avenue. A republican 
 in his political views, Mr. Wyvell has been frequently 
 called upon to serve in official capacities, and his 
 services therein have been of a nature to commend 
 him to the best citizen element. For six years he 
 was county attorney of Wilkin County, was for four 
 years city attorney of Breckenridge, served very ac- 
 ceptably as village recorder, was a member of the 
 council for several years, and for twelve years was 
 president of the school board. For a number of 
 years he was a member of the Republican County 
 Central Committee. Mr. Wyvell attends the Bap- 
 tist Church, and for a long period was one of its 
 trustees. Aside from his professional connections, 
 he is a 'member of Frontier Lodge No. 152, A. F. & 
 A. M., of Breckenridge ; Breckenridge Lodge No. 
 126, Knights of Pythias, of which he is past chan- 
 cellor commander; the Jacoby Chapter No. 44, Order 
 of the Eastern Star ; Wilkin Lodge No. 220, Degree 
 of Honor; and Wilkin Lodge No. 101, Ancient Order 
 of United Workmen, of which he is past master 
 workman. He is a director in and attorney for the 
 Red River Building & Loan Association, and the 
 Stratford Hotel Co., both of Breckenridge, and holds 
 the same positions in the Fraternity Hall Corpora- 
 tion of this city, and is local attorney for the Great 
 Northern Railway Company. 
 
 Mr. Wyvell was married af Breckenridge, in 1891, 
 to Miss Pauline C. Abendschein, a native of Ger- 
 many, and they have three daughters : Misses Alice 
 
 G. and Irene M., who are attending the Breckenridge 
 High School ; and Ruth M., who is still in the 
 grammar grades. A son, Milton H., died at Breck- 
 enridge, in 1895, at the age of 23 months. 
 
 John H. Leebens, M. D. The medical profession 
 is capably and creditably represented at Lismore, 
 Minnesota, by Dr. John H. Leebens, who has been 
 engaged in practice here since 1910. His ability has 
 attracted to him a large and profitable practice which 
 demands the greater part of his time and attention, 
 yet he has also taken an active participation in the 
 affairs of the community, as a public-spirited citizen 
 no less than as a talented member of the medical 
 profession. 
 
 John H. Leebens was born at Fulda, Murray 
 County, Minnesota, August 9, 1882, and is a son of 
 John and Johannah (Dobereiner) Leebens. His 
 father, a native of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, was 
 born in 1847, and was a lad of thirteen years when 
 he accompanied his parents in their emigration to 
 the United States. Their first location was at Chi- 
 cago, but subsequently Mr. Leebens removed to 
 Fulda, Minnesota, where he became engaged as a 
 hotel keeper and a pioneer in this line of business, 
 and here he still makes his home. Mrs. Leebens, 
 also a native of Germany, still survives, and has 
 been the mother of six children : George, who is a 
 retired real estate man and makes his home at 
 Fulda, Minnesota; Anna, who died at the age of 
 thirty-one years, as the wife of Olaf Martin, for- 
 merly a merchant and now a farmer of Gretchinger, 
 Iowa; John H., of this review; Martha, who married 
 Joe Oolman, residing at Lismore, on a farm ^Wil- 
 liam, who is' engaged in a variety of pursuits at 
 Fulda; and Johannah, who resides with her parents 
 and is a teacher in the public schools of Fulda. 
 
 John H. Leebens received his education in the 
 public schools of Fulda, where he was graduated 
 from the high school with the class of 1898. He 
 
1300 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 remained at home for several years, and then, de- 
 ciding upon a career in medicine, entered the medical 
 department of the University of Illinois, from which 
 he was graduated in 1907, with the degree of Doctor 
 of Medicine. He entered practice at Chicago, but 
 after three years left the Illinois metropolis and came 
 to Lismore, where he has been successful in build- 
 ing up a representative practice, having offices in 
 the State Bank of Lismore Building. Doctor Lee- 
 bens has continued to be a close and careful student, 
 keeping fully abreast of the advancements and dis- 
 coveries of his profession, and is a valued member 
 of the Nobles County Medical Society, the Minne- 
 sota State Medical Society, the Southwestern Minne- 
 sota Medical Society and the American Medical 
 Association. Independent in his political vitws, he 
 has served for several years as a member of the 
 health board. Fraternally, Doctor Leebens is con- 
 nected with Adrian Lodge, A. F. & A. M. His re- 
 ligious connection is with the Lutheran Church. 
 
 Doctor Leebens was married at Chicago, Illinois, 
 to Miss M. Moore, daughter of John Moore, a native 
 of England, who was for some years in the employ 
 of the LTnited States Government, under the civil 
 service, and is now deceased. One child has been 
 born to Doctor and Mrs. Leebens: John, who is 
 
 still too young to attend school. 
 
 Doctor Leebens possesses in generous measure 
 the qualities which make the personally popular as 
 well as financially successful physician, and, his repu- 
 tation is firmly established as an earnest, cautious 
 and painstaking healer of men. 
 
 Amos Marcicel. In his varied capacities as 
 proprietor of a hardware business, implement store, 
 lumber yard and automobile garage, Amos Marckel, 
 a resident of Perham since 1886, has shown him- 
 self one of the capable business men of Ottertail 
 County. When he first established himself in com- 
 mercial circles here it was in a modest way, but his 
 industry, persistence and business capacity have 
 caused his interests to grow and develop to large 
 proportions, and at the same time he has been able 
 to devote a part of his best efforts to the welfare of 
 the community. 
 
 Mr. Marckel was born on a farm in Columbiana 
 County, Ohio, June 11, 1863, and is a son of John 
 Lawrence and Mary Marckel, natives of Germany. 
 John Lawrence Marckel was born in 1812, was mar- 
 ried in his native land, and there served his time in 
 the regular army. He was in middle life when he 
 emigrated to the United States, and settled on a 
 farm in Columbiana County. Ohio, but did not live 
 long to enjoy residence in this country, passing away 
 near North Georgetown, Ohio, February 19, 1868, 
 aged sixty-four years. Mrs. Marckel survived him 
 until 1872. There were three sons in the family, 
 namely : Augustus, who was a hotel clerk and died 
 
 at Alliance, Ohio ; Amos ; and Ferdinand, who is 
 engaged in farming near Georgetown, Ohio. 
 
 Arnos Marckel was but four years of age when his 
 father died, and only nine years old when his mother 
 passed away, so that his boyhood was one in which 
 he had to rely largely upon himself. He attended 
 the public schools of Columbiana County until he 
 was sixteen years of age, in the meantime spending 
 the summer months in working on the farm, and 
 at that time secured a position as clerk in a hard- 
 ware store at Columbiana. There he remained, 
 carefully saving his earnings, until 1886, when he 
 came to the West to look for a suitable opening for 
 
 a young man with ambition. He finally decided upon 
 Perham as his place of future residence and the 
 scene of his labors, and he has never had reason to 
 regret his decision, for here he has steadily risen to 
 a place of prominence as a business man and citi- 
 zen. On first locating here, he bought a hardware 
 business, two doors from the situation of his present 
 business, to which he moved about 1895. This is 
 situated at the corner of Front and Seventh streets, 
 and here he has two floors, with about seven thousand 
 two hundred and fifty square feet of floor space, 
 stocked with an up-to-date assortment of first class 
 shelf and heavy hardware and all articles to be found 
 in a modern business of this kind. Across the street 
 is located his implement business, ' in a building 
 60 by 300 feet, as well as his lumber yard, also 60 by 
 300 feet, and an automobile garage, 50 by 90 feet. Mr. 
 Marckel’ s customers are attracted from the four 
 points of the compass in a radius of twenty miles, 
 one of the best and most substantial trades in these 
 lines in the country. While he has lost no oppor- 
 tunity to advance his interests, Mr. Marckel has 
 not been unmindful of others, and has made it a 
 policy to reward those who have served him faith- 
 fully. In this connection it may be noted that he 
 has incorporated his business by admitting to part- 
 nership his employes, who will ultimately come into 
 its ownership. Always an enthusiastic supporter 
 of the interests of Perham, he is an active member 
 of the Perham Advancement Club, and has taken 
 a stirring part in movements which have worked for 
 civic progress and betterment. In politics Mr. 
 Marckel is an independent republican. He has 
 served on the school board and village council at 
 various times, and during the four terms that he 
 was mayor of Perham, this village received able and 
 business-like government. As a delegate to the 
 national convention at Chicago, in 1912, Mr. 
 Marckel assisted in nominating Theodore Roose- 
 velt for Jhe presidency. With his family, he is 
 affiliated with Grace Reformed Church. Mr. 
 Marckel is well and favorably known in Masonic 
 circles, holding membership in Perham Lodge No. 
 157, A. F. & A. M. ; Detroit Chapter, R. A. M. ; 
 Wadena Commandery, K. T., and Osman Temple, 
 A. A. O. N. M. S., of St. Paul. 
 
 Mr. Marckel was married in 1888, in Columbiana 
 County, Ohio, to- Miss Emma A. Coblentz, daughter 
 of Moses Coblentz, now living retired at Columbiana, 
 after many years passed in mercantile pursuits. To 
 this union there has come one son : George E., who 
 is now a sophomore at the Perham High School. 
 
 Franklin William Murphy. While the profes- 
 sional position of Franklin W. Murphy has been in 
 the ranks of attorneys, and he is now one of the 
 oldest lawyers in active practice at Wheaton in 
 Traverse County, his interests have had such a 
 broad scope as to identify his name with almost every 
 movement of importance in the development of this 
 section of Minnesota during the last quarter of a 
 century. He is a well equipped lawyer, and pos- 
 sesses those faculties of civic leadership which are 
 of primary importance in any community. 
 
 Franklin William Murphy was born at Pleasant 
 Valley. Wisconsin, August 24, 1869. His father, Ed- 
 ward Murphy, was born near Belfast, Ireland, in 
 1832, and died at Hammond, Wisconsin, in 1895. He 
 was brought to America at the age of nine years, and 
 finally settled in St. Croix County, Wisconsin, moved 
 from there into Pleasant Valley, and later to Ham- 
 

 
 
 
 
OZIAS WILCOX 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1301 
 
 mond, where he lived retired before his death. He 
 was a pioneer farmer in Wisconsin, and reared and 
 provided for a large family of children. Edward 
 Murphy married Mary McCue, who was born in 
 Michigan in 1841 ,and died at St. Paul, Minnesota, 
 in 1914. Their seven- children were: Nellie, wife of 
 Henry *Hanloi^ living on a farm at Lawler, Iowa; 
 John, a farmer in the State of Washington ; J. W., 
 a larid owner and speculator of Lakota, North 
 Dakota.; Franklin W., who was the fourth child ; 
 Virgil, a grain buyer at Hammond, Wisconsin ; Lo- 
 retta, a teacher in Seattle, Washington ; and Bernie, 
 who married J. A. Doyle, a railway conductor living 
 at St. Paul. 
 
 Franklin William Murphy during his youth man- 
 aged to acquire a liberal education. Besides attend- 
 ing the district 'schools of Pleasant Valley, his birth- 
 place, he was a student in the normal school at River 
 Falls, Wisconsin, also in high school at Ann Arbor, 
 Michigan, and in 1893 took his degree LL. B. from 
 the law department of the University of Minnesota. 
 Mr. Murphy at once located for practice at Wheaton, 
 which was then a comparatively new town and in 
 a new and undeveloped section of the state. He has 
 since developed a large and profitable general prac- 
 tice both in the civil and criminal branches of the 
 law, and his services have been retained on one side 
 or the other in most of the important litigation 
 tried in the courts of Traverse and adjoining coun- 
 ties. Fie has his offices in The National Bank of 
 Wheaton Building on Broadway. He is a member 
 of the County and State Bar Associations and in 
 politics a republican. 
 
 Not all his time and ability have been devoted to 
 his private practice, but much of it has gone into 
 channels of benefit to the community. For many 
 years and at the present time he is president of the 
 school board of Wheaton, is one of the board of 
 managers of the State Fair Association, was for 
 three years president of the West Central Minnesota 
 Development Association, and has served as mayor 
 of Wheaton. Mr. Murphy was one of the organ- 
 izers and for three years president of the Traverse 
 County Fair Association. He is vice president of 
 the Minnesota -Commission to the Panama-Pacific 
 Exposition at San Francisco. He has done much to 
 promote agricultural and general rural development, 
 and for two years was president of the Traverse 
 County Farm Bureau. Among other interests he is 
 connected with the Weyburn Security Bank of Wey- 
 burn, Saskatchewan, Canada. 
 
 _ In 1895 at Stillwater, Minnesota, Mr. Murphy mar- 
 ried Miss Estelle M. McGray, daughter of W. F. 
 McGray, who is living retired at Stillwater. They 
 have one son, F. Mac. who was born December 27, 
 1899, and is now a sophomore in the Wheaton High 
 School. 
 
 Ozias Wilcox. One of the fine old pioneers of 
 the Plainview district of Minnesota was Ozias Wil- 
 cox, who settled in Wabasha County during the 
 decade of the ’50s and for over twenty years was 
 an enterprising factor in its development. While he 
 possessed the practical nature of the true pioneer, 
 he \va$ also known for his intellectual interests and 
 took an active share in the broader life of the com- 
 munity. 
 
 He was born in 1824 at Crown Point, New York, 
 and died January 1, 1876, at Plainview, Wabasha 
 County, Minnesota. His early life was spent at 
 Crown Point, where his father was a harnessmaker, 
 
 but partly from his nature and partly for reasons 
 of health he early sought changing scenes and 
 activities. At fifteen, going to Perry, Lake County, 
 Ohio, he became a sailor on the Great Lakes. The 
 years from 1852 to 1854 were spent in California, 
 and returning from the gold fields with a small 
 capital, he invested it in lake boats and other trans- 
 portation facilities and engaged in the forwarding- 
 business with headquarters at Fairport, his brother, 
 B. O. Wilcox, being his partner in this enterprise. 
 Ill health soon forced him from office management, 
 and he resumed the life of a sailor in charge of 
 one of his own vessels. At the end of a year he 
 was little improved, and then acting on the advice 
 of his physician came out to the northwestern woods 
 and prairies in Minnesota. 
 
 It was in the spring of 1856 that Ozias Wilcox 
 arrived in the territory. He bought forty acres from 
 Hugh Wiley, along the eastern side of the southwest 
 quarter of section 8 at Plainview. On that land 
 he erected a building divided into a storeroom and 
 dwelling, a structure that was afterward the home 
 of the Plainview Bank. At the same time he took 
 up a homestead claim south of the village in Wa- 
 basha County. He was soon accorded a position of 
 leadership in the new town, and up to the time of 
 his death his co-operation and counsel were always 
 sought in public matters. He was a successful gen- 
 eral merchant at Plainview, and prosecuted the busi- 
 ness actively until almost the end of his life. 
 
 In his youth Mr. Wilcox had limited opportunities 
 to gain an education, partly from the lack of good 
 schools and partly from the necessities which forced 
 him to become self-supporting when a boy. Through- 
 out his life his studious tastes led him constantly in 
 the pursuit of knowledge, and he became acquainted 
 with a much greater field of literature and science 
 than most men considered essential for their prac- 
 tical needs. His home for many years was per- 
 meated with the atmosphere of books and culture, 
 and on his reading table were found the best of 
 current magazines, which he read assiduously. 
 
 Mr. Wilcox was married in Northern Ohio Decem- 
 ber 15, 1854, to Miss Martha Stearns, daughter of 
 Asaph Stearns. She was born in St. Lawrence 
 County, New York, February 18, 1828, and died at 
 Port Allen, Oregon, May 23, 1893. After the death 
 of her husband she resided a number of years in 
 Minneapolis, where she had a large number of 
 friends, especially on the east side. About 1887 she 
 went west to live with her daughter, at whose home 
 she died. Her remains were brought back to Min- 
 neapolis, and then laid beside her husband at Plain- 
 view. Of the eight children five reached maturity, 
 and the three now living, all born and educated ac 
 Plainview, are: Dr. Asa S. Wilcox, of Minneapolis, 
 a sketch of whom is found in succeeding pages ; 
 Cassius C., of Minneapolis; and Frances L., the wife 
 of Frederick L. Washburn, professor and chief of 
 the division of entomology and zoology in the school 
 of agriculture of the University of Minnesota. 
 
 Dr. Asa Stearns Wilcox. Minnesota has hun- 
 dreds of capable and skillful physicians and sur- 
 geons, but as in every other profession and business 
 there are a few who rise above the uniformly high 
 level of attainment, and by general consent are 
 named among the first and foremost. A position in 
 such a group is enjoyed by Doctor Wilcox at Min- 
 neapolis, a native Minnesotan, son of a pioneer, and 
 both by native talent and most varied training at 
 
1302 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 home and abroad an accomplished authority in his 
 field. 
 
 Asa Stearns Wilcox was born July 9, 1859, on 
 Greenwood Prairie in the Village of Plainview, 
 Wabasha County, a son of Ozias and Martha 
 (Stearns) Wilcox, some account of whose pioneer 
 work in Minnesota has already been told in these 
 pages. Doctor Wilcox attended the public schools 
 of his native village until graduating from high 
 school. One of the first high schools of the state 
 was at Plainview. He is an alumnus of the Uni- 
 versity of Minnesota. Then followed two years at 
 Cornell University, where he took special science 
 course preparatory to the study of medicine. Re- 
 turning to Minneapolis, he spent an entire twelve- 
 month in the study of chemistry at the university, 
 and is exceptionally well grounded in the chemical 
 and other general sciences that are at the foundation 
 of medicine. Doctor Wilcox took his regular med- 
 ical course in the Hahnemann Homeopathic College 
 of Philadelphia, where he remained three full years, 
 summer and winter, in school and hospital, until 
 graduating M. D. with the class of 1885. Before 
 taking up regular practice he spent a year abroad, 
 most of it in Vienna, attending clinic and lectures 
 held by foremost specialists. 
 
 Doctor Wilcox began practice at Minneapolis, and 
 for a number of years was associated more or less 
 actively with Drs. D. M. Goodman and A. E. Higbee. 
 He was with Doctor Goodman about five years, and 
 then interrupted his work to return to Vienna and 
 Prague for another year of post-graduate study and 
 observation. His association with Doctor Goodman 
 was resumed, but for the most part he has been in 
 individual practice during the last twenty years. 
 During 1913 Doctor Wilcox was in Chicago, where 
 he was associated in practice with Dr. Lewis Y. 
 Bremerman, whose name is one of readily recog- 
 nized prominence in the profession. 
 
 Since the spring of 1914 Doctor Wilcox has 
 actively resumed practice in Minneapolis, with offices 
 in the Pillsbury Building. While formerly in gen- 
 eral practice, his work is now limited in office con- 
 sultation and specializing in kidney and bladder dis- 
 eases. In this specialty he is easily one of the ablest 
 men in the West. He has the distinction of having 
 been the first physician in the Northwest to admin- 
 ister antitoxin. He was formerly a member of the 
 staff of the City Hospital, for one year in general 
 practice and five years in surgery. For three years 
 he was professor of practice in the homeopathic col- 
 lege of the state university, and formerly did a large 
 business in casualty work, having all the work of 
 the Aetna Casualty Company in Minneapolis, and 
 representing over seventy firms at one time. 
 
 Doctor Wilcox is affiliated with Minneapolis 
 Lodge No. 19, A. F. & A. M., with Lodge No. 44, 
 B. P. O. E., at Minneapolis, and the Zeta Psi col- 
 lege fraternity, also the Knights of the Modern 
 Maccabees. He is a member of the Minneapolis 
 Athletic Club and St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. In 
 that church he was married, November 10, 1888, by 
 the Reverend Doctor Wells, to Miss Alice Hurd, 
 daughter of the late B. C. Hurd, of Minneapolis. 
 Their two children, both born in' Minneapolis, were 
 Helen, who died in November, 1909, and Asa S., Jr. 
 Mrs. Wilcox was educated in the Minneapolis public 
 schools and the University of Minnesota, and was a 
 woman of many activities and interests. She was 
 a charter member of the University Chapter of the 
 Kappa Kappa Gamma Sorority, and was prominent 
 
 in social affairs, being a member of the Woman’s 
 Club, tne Clio Club and St. Hild’s Guild in St. 
 Mark's Church. Mrs. Wilcox died December 9, 1914. 
 
 Clifford C. Leck, M. D. Since 1901 engaged in 
 the practice of medicine at Austin, Doctor Leck is 
 one of the leaders in his profession, has a thorough 
 knowledge of medicine, a high standing with other 
 physicians, and both his work and his associations 
 prove his high position. 
 
 Dr. Clifford C. Leck was born in Halifax, Nova 
 Scotia, October 28, 1873, a son of Henry and Ellen 
 (McLeod) Leck. His grandfather, William Leck, 
 was born in Scotland and emigrated to Nova Scotia 
 and reared his family there as a farmer. Henry 
 Leck, who was born in Nova Scotia in 1849, is now 
 living in the State of Washington. For many years 
 he followed his trade as a carpenter, but is now 
 somewhat retired and looking after a young orchard 
 in the State of Washington. He was married in 
 1869 in Nova Scotia to Ellen McLeod, who was 
 born there in 1848 and died in 1903. In 1885 they 
 moved out to Minnesota. His parents were mem- 
 bers of the Presbyterian Church, and the father is 
 a republican in politics and a member of the Inde- 
 pendent Order of Foresters. Of the eight children 
 six are still living. 
 
 Doctor Leck acquired his first training in the pub- 
 lic schools of his native city, and afterwards in 
 Minneapolis, where he graduated from the high 
 school in 1894. His home has been in this state 
 since he was twelve years of age. After finishing 
 the high school course he spent a year in the graded 
 schools of LeRoy, and in 1897 entered the medical 
 department of the University of Minnesota, and 
 was graduated M. D. in 1900. The following year 
 was spent as an interne in the City and County 
 Hospital of St. Paul, and in 1901 he moved to 
 Austin, and has since been in active practice. Doc- 
 tor Leck has been active in the organized move- 
 ments of the profession, has served one year as 
 president and two years as secretary of the Mower 
 County Medical Society, and also belongs to the 
 Minnesota State Society and the American Medical 
 Association. For one year he was county physician, 
 and has also served as examiner of Mower County 
 for the State Sanitarium for Consumptives and local 
 examiner for the Central Life Insurance Society of 
 Des Moines and the Mutual Benefit of New Jersey. 
 Fraternally he has affiliations with the Masonic 
 order, with the Knights of the Maccabees, and 
 belongs to the Phi Alpha Gamma college fraternity. 
 He is now acting as surgeon for the Chicago, Mil- 
 waukee & St. Paul Railway at Austin, and a large 
 part of his practice is in surgical cases. Politically 
 Doctor Leck is independent. 
 
 On January 1, 1903, Doctor Leck married Flora E. 
 Horn, daughter of W. S. Horn of LeRoy, Minne- 
 sota. Their four children are Ruth, Paul, Robert 
 and Ellen The three oldest children are in school. 
 The family are members of the Congregational 
 Church. 
 
 Leroy P. Sisson. For more than thirty-five years 
 the Sisson family have been identified with Lincoln 
 County, and besides their substantial efforts .as 
 farmers they have also been active in public affairs, 
 in teaching, newspaper work and other lines of 
 service. Leroy P. Sisson is the present county reg- 
 ister of deeds, and the record of his father as 
 county auditor is also well remembered. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1303 
 
 Leroy P. Sisson was born in Lincoln County, De- 
 cember 1 7, 1880. His father, R. H. Sisson, who 
 was born in Erie County, Pennsylvania, in March, 
 1853, and now resides at Tyler, is descended from 
 ancestors who came over from France about the time 
 of the Revolution. R. H. Sisson came west at the 
 age of sixteen, locating in Martin County, Minne- 
 sota, and in 1877 located in Lincoln County. His 
 career has been passed quietly, in the main as a 
 farmer, but for eight years he filled with honor the 
 office of county auditor, from 1903 to 1911. He 
 married Marguerite Jane Starr, who was born near 
 Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and is still living. Their 
 family of children are: Leroy P. ; William A., 
 
 editor of a newspaper at Cottonwood, Minnesota; 
 Maud J., wife of Ernest Paul, a farmer near Tyler; 
 Mary E., wife of Herbert Soderlind, at present 
 occupying the old homestead of the Sissons in Lin- 
 coln County; Alice J. and Esther, both living with 
 their parents on the home farm; and Frank H., a 
 teacher in Lincoln County. 
 
 Leroy P. Sisson, after attending the common 
 schools of Lincoln County to the age of eighteen, 
 with incidental rearing and training on a farm, be- 
 gan his practical career by learning the carpenter’s 
 trade, which was his occupation for several years 
 in that county. He next became identified with 
 the county government at Ivanhoe, as deputy in 
 the clerk of court’s office, and in 1903 was made 
 deputy county auditor under his father. His ability 
 came to be widely appreciated, and in November, 
 1914, he was elected register of deeds, beginning 
 his four-year term in January, 1915. 
 
 Mr. Sisson is a democrat in politics. He is a 
 trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church. August 
 29, 1904, at Tyler, he married Miss Clara Larson, 
 daughter of Louis Larson, now deceased, who was 
 for many years , a prosperous farmer in Lyon 
 County. Mr. and Mrs. Sisson have one child, Ruth 
 Bernadine. 
 
 Dr. Byron Walter Parrott of Long Prairie, 
 Minnesota, was born at Faribault, Minnesota, Feb- 
 ruary 3, 1869, and is a son of William and Melissa 
 (Hammond) Parrott, being of French-Canadian 
 descent on his father’s side of the family, and on 
 his mother’s side a descendant of Irish ancestors 
 who located in New York long before the War of 
 the Revolution. William Parrott was born in the 
 Empire State in 1831 and came to Faribault, Minne- 
 sota, as a young married man, here establishing him- 
 self in business as a miller. He had hardly started 
 upon his career when death called him, in 1872. Mrs. 
 Parrott was born in New York in 1842, removed 
 her family to the City of Minneapolis in 1881, and 
 died in Long Prairie in 1913. She was the mother 
 of three children : O. W., who resides in Minne- 
 
 apolis and is a foreman in the plant of the Com- 
 mercial Bulletin ; Herbert D., also a resident of 
 that city and employed by the proprietor of a fuel 
 and ice business ; and Byron Walter, of this review. 
 
 Byron Walter Parrott received the degree of Doc- 
 tor of Medicine in 1897 from the University of 
 Minnesota. He entered upon the practice of his 
 profession at Browerville, where he remained until 
 the fall of 1899, when he came to Long Prairie, 
 his present field of practice and place of residence. 
 He has offices in the Reichert Building. He has done 
 post-graduate work at clinics at St. Paul, Minne- 
 apolis and Chicago, and in 1898 was interne for three 
 months in the City and County Hospital, St. Paul. 
 Vol. in— 3 
 
 He has served as coroner of Todd County three 
 terms, and is at present village health officer of 
 Long Prairie, and belongs to the various organiza- 
 tions of medical men, including the Upper Missis- 
 sippi Medical Society, the Minnesota State Medical 
 Society, the American Medical Association and the 
 University General Medical Alumni Association. 
 His political support is given to the republican party. 
 Fraternally Doctor Parrott is a Mason and belongs 
 also to Camp No. 2564, Modern Woodmen of Amer- 
 ica, and Camp No. 143, Ancient Order of United 
 Workmen, both at Long Prairie. 
 
 While a resident of Minneapolis, in 1890, Doctor 
 Parrott was married to Miss Clara Y. Chapman, 
 daughter of the late Benjamin Chapman, who died 
 in 1913 as a retired farmer of Fond du Lac, Wis- 
 consin. One child has been born to Doctor and 
 Mrs. Parrott: Earl C., who is studying for a career 
 in dentistry, at Marquette University, Milwaukee, 
 Wisconsin. 
 
 Blanche L. Brennin. The responsibilities of the 
 executive position of county superintendent of 
 schools are nowhere more fitly bestowed than in the 
 case of Blanche L. Brennin, who has the general 
 supervision and direction of the public school sys- 
 tem of Grant County, with residence at Elbow 
 Lake. Miss Brennin has been in school work nearly 
 fifteen years, has had experience both in country 
 and village schools, and has made a splendid record 
 of efficiency in her present office. 
 
 She was born in Grant County, Minnesota, June 
 13, 1880, a daughter of John Brennin. Her grand- 
 father, John Brennin, was a native of Ireland, 
 whence he emigrated to Canada, and in 1846 re- 
 moved his family to Solon, Maine, and lived there 
 until his death. By trade he was a stone mason. 
 Miss Brennin’s father was born in Ontario, Can- 
 ada, in 1845, and died in Grant County, Minnesota, 
 in 1902. it was in 1875 that he emigrated from 
 Solon, Maine, to Grant County, Minnesota, where 
 he took up a homestead farm, developed its acres for 
 general farming purposes, and died there. He mar- 
 ried Mahala Jewett, who was born in Solon, Maine, 
 in 1850, and died at Elbow Lake, November 30, 1914. 
 Their children were : Viola, now deceased, who 
 
 married D. J. Dunn, who was formerly a teacher 
 in Grant County; James, a Grant County farmer; 
 Grace, wife of Fred Luckman, in Elbow Lake; 
 Blanche L. ; and John H., who spends his winters 
 with his brother James on the farm and during 
 the summers is- engaged in the automobile business. 
 
 Blanche L. Brennin received her education in the 
 public schools of Grant County, attended the nor- 
 mal school at Moorhead, and was graduated from 
 the North High School of Minneapolis in the class 
 of 1900. On leaving high school she took a teacher’s 
 training course at St. Paul, and then began her prac- 
 tical work as a teacher in Grant County in 1901, 
 having brought to her work a thorough training and 
 many natural talents and qualifications for this pro- 
 fession. She was employed in three different rural 
 schools and also in the graded school at Hoffman, 
 and in November, 1912, was elected county super- 
 intendent of schools, beginning her duties in that 
 office January 1, 1913. On November 3, 1914, she 
 was re-elected to the same position and is now on 
 duty for a term of four years. Miss Brennin is a 
 member of various teachers’ associations, keeps in 
 close touch with educational progress and is one of 
 the busiest women in Grant County, looking after 
 
1304 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 the interests and welfare of the many schools under 
 her charge. She is a member of the Woman’s Chris- 
 tian Temperance Union. 
 
 William H. Zeiher. One of the younger bankers 
 of the State of Minnesota is William H. Zeiher, 
 now president of the First State Bank of Dumont. 
 Mr. Zeiher has spent most of his active career in 
 banking, and that has been his vocation since com- 
 ing to Dumont about thirteen years ago. He be- 
 gan at the bottom in the business, knows banking 
 in all its details, both as a business and a technical 
 profession, and now is at the head of one of the 
 most substantial institutions in Traverse County. 
 He is also active in citizenship and is filling the 
 office of mayor of his town. 
 
 William FI. Zeiher was born in Buffalo, Iowa, 
 September 5, 1880. His father, Lewis Zeiher, who 
 was born in Pennsylvania in 1845 and is now living 
 retired at Buffalo, Iowa, was brought out to Sibley 
 County, Minnesota, when a boy, the grandparents 
 having been homesteaders in this state in the_ early 
 days. Lewis Zeiher as a young man engaged in the 
 rough and venturesome work of rafting on the 
 rivers in the lumber districts, but later moved to 
 Buffalo, in Scott County, Iowa, and is now retired 
 from active affairs. Lewis Zeiher was married in 
 Buffalo, Iowa, to Theresa Neuwirth, who was born 
 in Austria in 1852. Their family of children are 
 briefly mentioned as follows : John, who was a far- 
 mer and died at the age of thirty-three in Buffalo ; 
 Anna, who was a teacher for several years, and 
 then married George E. Egel, now a retired res- 
 ident of Buffalo, Iowa; Emma, who also taught for 
 several years before her marriage, is the wife of 
 John Brus, a farmer at Walcott, Iowa; Elizabeth, 
 who is a sister in the convent at Ottumwa, Iowa; 
 Charles, a carpenter and builder at Buffalo, Iowa; 
 William H., who was the sixth in order of birth; 
 Frank J., a ship carpenter in the United States navy; 
 Albert, cashier of a bank in Oklahoma; and Helen, 
 still living with her parents. 
 
 William H. Zeiher grew up in Buffalo, attended 
 the common schools, and at the age of seventeen 
 took a business course in the college at Davenport, 
 Iowa. Most of his work was done on a farm until 
 1900, and he was then employed one year in the 
 elevator and machinery business in Western Iowa. 
 Mr. Zeiher came to Dumont, Minnesota, in the- fall 
 of 1902, and became bookkeeper in the private bank 
 of Chrisman & Wells, which had been established 
 in April, 1902. The company took out a state char- 
 ter in April, 1903, and the institution has since been 
 known as the First State Bank of Dumont. Its 
 modern bank building was erected on Main Street in 
 1910. With the incorporation as a state bank Mr. 
 Zeiher became assistant cashier, was advanced to 
 cashier in 1904, and after seven years in that posi- 
 tion his fidelity and his extending interests advanced 
 him to the presidency in 1911. Mr. J. Heidelberger 
 of Wheaton is vice president, and the cashier is 
 Ole D. Fuglie. The First State Bank has a cap- 
 ital stock of $10,000, well fortified by a surplus which 
 has now accumulated to the amount of $8,000. 
 
 Mr. Zeiher is an active republican in national pol- 
 itics, but in local affairs is strictly a good citizen 
 and primarily interested in the development of the 
 community. He has served as village treasurer and 
 on the school board, and since March, 1914, has been 
 mayor of Dumont. Mr. Zeiher is a member of the 
 
 Catholic Church and belongs to the German Roman 
 Catholic Insurance Society of St. Paul. 
 
 In 1904, at Dumont, Mr. Zeiher married Miss 
 Mary W. Danneker, daughter of Joseph Danneker, 
 now deceased, who was a farmer at Dumont. Into 
 their home have come three children : Hildegarde 
 
 and Helen, both attending the public schools, and 
 Clara. 
 
 Harry T. Miller. The great New York Life 
 Insurance Company, one of the most substantial and 
 popular in the United States, controls a large and 
 well ordered business from its Minneapolis branch 
 office, which is established in the New York Life 
 Building, at the corner of Fifth Street and Second 
 Avenue, South. With this branch Mr. Miller is 
 identified in a prominent and responsible capacity, 
 as he is agency director for this district, and he is 
 known as one of the representative life-insurance 
 men of the Northwest, with a reputation gained 
 through ability and admirable service in his chosen 
 sphere of endeavor. 
 
 Harry T. Miller was born near Harrisville, the 
 judicial center of Ritchie County, West Virginia, 
 on the 19th of November, 1881, and is a son of 
 Henry P. and Mary S. (Dotson) Miller. Henry P. 
 Miller was born in Selters, Germany, where he was 
 reared and educated. At the age of seventeen 
 years, in company with his father and mother and 
 other kinsfolk, he came to America, and the family 
 home was established in West Virginia. When the 
 Civil war was precipitated on the country of his 
 adoption he showed distinctive loyalty to the cause 
 of the Confederacy, by enlisting in Company K, 
 Third West Virginia Infantry, and he later became 
 identified with the Sixth West Virginia Cavalry. 
 Fie served four years and made a record as an 
 able and valiant soldier. His entire active career 
 was devoted to agricultural pursuits and in 1882 he 
 removed with his family from West Virginia to a 
 farm near Blair, Washington County, Nebraska, 
 where he continued his earnest and well directed 
 labors until his death, in 1887. He was a man of 
 strong individuality and sterling integrity, so that 
 he ever commanded the confidence and good will of 
 his fellow men. His widow, now venerable in years, 
 maintains her residence in the City of Omaha, Ne- 
 braska. She was born and reared in West Virginia, 
 in which state her ancestors were prominent as own- 
 ers and operators of lumber and flour mills. The 
 Dotson family, of which she is a representative, was 
 founded in Virginia prior to the War of the Revo- 
 lution, and the lineage is traced back to English 
 derivation, the name in England having been spelled 
 Dodson, and the change in orthography having, for 
 some reason now unknown, been made by the 
 American branch. In the section of the Old Domin- 
 ion now constituting the State of West Virginia the 
 record of the Dotson family is traced back to 1798. 
 Representatives of the name were gallant soldiers 
 of the Continental line in the War of the Revolu- 
 tion, but owing to incidental records having been 
 destroyed by fire the descendants of the present day 
 have not as yet been able to make authoritative 
 research and learn the names of these patriot sol- 
 diers. A sister of the subject of this review is at 
 the present time giving attention to tracing back the 
 record through various sources, and there is assur- 
 ance that her investigations will eventually render 
 her and other members of the family eligible for 
 membership in the patriotic organizations commemo- 
 
r 
 

 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1305 
 
 rative of the revolutionary epoch — the Sons of the 
 American Revolution and the Daughters of the 
 American Revolution. Henry P. and Mary S. Miller 
 became the parents of three sons and five daughters, 
 all of whom survive the honored father, and of 
 the number Harry T., of this review, was the sixth 
 in order of birth. 
 
 Harry T. Miller was an infant in arms at the 
 time of the family removal from West Virginia to 
 Nebraska, and he was about six years of age at the 
 time of the death of his father. When he was eight 
 years old the family home was established in the 
 City of Omaha, and there he duly availed himself 
 of the advantages of the public schools. On the 
 1 8th of September, 1899, about two months prior to 
 his eighteenth birthday anniversary, Mr. Miller 
 assumed a clerical position in the Omaha office of 
 the New York Life Insurance Company. After an 
 effective service of two years he was transferred to 
 the company’s office in the City, of Burlington, Iowa, 
 where he assumed the position of cashier. Six 
 months later, however, he returned to Omaha as 
 cashier of the Nebraska branch office of the com- 
 pany, and his record with this great corporation has 
 heen one of consecutive advancement. After re- 
 maining two years in Omaha, he was transferred to 
 the general office of the company in Chicago, where 
 he had charge of a department for the ensuing 
 three years. He was then made cashier of the com- 
 pany’s branch office in the City of St. Paul, Min- 
 nesota, and six months later was assigned to a 
 similar post in the branch office at Milwaukee, Wis- 
 consin, where he continued as the incumbent of this 
 position for four years, at the expiration of which 
 he was promoted to the office of agency organizer 
 for Wisconsin. During his residence in Milwaukee 
 Mr. Miller devoted two years to the study of law, 
 in the night school of the law department of Mar- 
 quette University, this laudable work having been 
 done not with the intention of entering the practice 
 of law but as a means of fortification for the respon- 
 sibilities that might devolve upon him in connection 
 with business affairs. 
 
 On the 1st of January, 1912, Mr. Miller received 
 merited promotion to the position of agency director 
 of the Minneapolis branch office of the New York 
 Life Insurance Company, and in this capacity he 
 had direction of a large and important field, com- 
 prising thirty-two counties. The production of busi- 
 ness within his regime in this capacity has been 
 double the amount allotted to the Minneapolis office 
 by the company of which Mr. Miller is a valued 
 representative, and this fact bears its own sig- 
 nificance, -as indicating his exceptional initiative and 
 executive ability. When he assumed his post with 
 the Minneapolis office this branch could boast of 
 only two agents in its territory, and at the present 
 time sixty agents are employed, each giving appre- 
 ciative co-operation to Mr. Miller as agency director. 
 
 Mr. Miller is a young man who has had the ability 
 to recognize and make the most of opportunity, and 
 the great company by which he is employed consid- 
 ered him the most efficient of its cashiers during the 
 period that he was in tenure of such position, in 
 different fields. Mr. Miller has gained a wide circle 
 of friends in business and social circles in Minneapo- 
 lis. He is a member of the Minneapolis Civic & 
 Commerce Association and also holds membership in 
 the Minneapolis Athletic Club. In the metropolis of 
 Wisconsin he still retains membership in the Mil- 
 waukee Athletic Club. His political allegiance is 
 
 given to the republican party and he is loyal and 
 public-spirited in his civic attitude. Mr. Miller still 
 permits ms name to be enrolled on the list of eligi- 
 ble bachelors and in Minneapolis he resides at the 
 Leamington Hotel. 
 
 Shattuck School. The City of Faribault, not 
 only among the members of the Episcopal Church, 
 but among all residents of the Northwest, has its 
 most familiar associations as the seat of the Epis- 
 copal diocese and as the educational center of two 
 noted schools, the Shattuck School and the Seabury 
 Divinity School. About 1857 the Episcopal mission- 
 aries, who were then prominent in the religious and 
 educational work among the whites and Indians in 
 Minnesota, determined upon Faribault as the best 
 location for educational and missionary church work. 
 It was a town centrally located, from which the 
 services of the church could be carried to a number 
 of outlying villages. In that way it became the 
 seat of an important church mission. Out of the 
 mission grew the parish, now known as the cathedral 
 parish. In addition to their labors in evangelization, 
 the pioneer ministers undertook to maintain schools, 
 one of which became a parish school for boys and 
 under the same auspices was conducted a school 
 for the training of young men for holy orders. For 
 many years the day school and boarding academy 
 and the divinity school were maintained side by 
 side, but for the past ten years the Shattuck School 
 and the Seabury Divinity School have been sep- 
 arate incorporations. 
 
 From an article written by Rev. James Dobbin, 
 who became rector of Shattuck School in 1867, are 
 taken the chief facts with regard to the history of 
 this institution, as stated in the following par- 
 agraphs. 
 
 No men have been identified more prominently 
 with the making of Faribault an educational center 
 of national reputation than Bishop Whipple and 
 Doctor Breck. In point of time the name of James 
 Lloyd Breck is first in the annals of the church and 
 of education in Faribault. He was a pioneer in the 
 territorial days, having come to St. Paul in 1851, 
 thence to Gull Lake as a missionary to the Indians 
 until 1857, and came to Faribault to found a mission 
 and with it a parish school in 1858. The former 
 developed into the cathedral parish, and the latter 
 continued as a part of the mission and was largely 
 supported by it until 1868. Out of it grew all the 
 church schools. It was this feeble beginning and 
 Breck’s influence that turned the attention of Bishop 
 Whipple to Faribault and convinced him this was 
 the point at which to begin his great work. With 
 this in view he at once secured a charter for the 
 Bishop Seabury Mission, with ample powers for 
 schools of all grades. The first to receive attention 
 was the divinity school, but means for its building 
 were not secured until 1864-65. The funds for build- 
 ing the first hall were secured elsewhere, and the 
 location of the building was on the grounds now 
 occupied by Shattuck. 
 
 An important step leading to the establishment of 
 Shattuck was taken when a few boys from the Twin 
 Cities and other points were admitted to live with 
 the divinity students, and they, with others selected 
 from the parish school to attend as daily pupils, 
 were organized into what was called a “grammar 
 school.” It was put in charge of the Rev. George 
 C. Tanner as principal, with James Dobbin and 
 Charles Plummer, then studying theology, as his 
 
1306 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 assistants. Doctor Breck, as dean of the mission 
 school and head of the household, resided in Sea- 
 bury from the winter of 1866 to April, 1867, when he 
 resigned and moved to California. Professor Tan- 
 ner at the same time took charge of the parish in 
 Owatonna. 
 
 Meantime the bishop’s plans were matured and 
 greatly expanded. He had been impressed during 
 a visit to England by the remarkable history and 
 influence upon national affairs of the ancient schools 
 that had been founded and endowed centuries be- 
 fore — Winchester as far back as 1387. Eton in 1440, 
 Rugby in 1567 and Harrow in 1571. The efficiency 
 of these schools in training the character of boys 
 seemed to him one of the best features in English 
 life. With the conviction that what was done in 
 the earlier days in England can be done now, he 
 came home with the faith and courage to under- 
 take it, although he was utterly without means to 
 attempt so great a work. It was a tremendous 
 responsibility to place upon a young man inexpe- 
 rienced in such work and with no assurance of 
 financial help that would be necessary. Nothing 
 but the keen sense of duty which long continued 
 urging of the bishop and his optimism awakened led 
 Mr. Dobbin to devote his life to building it up. 
 
 The new organization and management began in 
 April, 1867. Owing to poverty of resources, it was 
 necessary for the students of Shattuck Hall to live 
 in Seabury with the divinity students. On Thanks- 
 giving Day, 1872, Seabury . Hall was burned, and 
 the divinity school was then moved to its present 
 site. Meantime a building had been erected in 
 1868-69 for the increasing needs of the boys’ school, 
 so the separation of the two departments was more 
 easily made. For a time the grammar school build- 
 ing served both as a schoolroom and a dormitory, 
 with the dining room and the kitchen in the base- 
 ment. By far the largest contribution for this 
 building having been made by Dr. George C. Shat- 
 tuck of Boston, the building was called Shattuck 
 Hall in recognition of that and other benefactions 
 to the bishop’s work. As it was the mam building 
 for some years, and no official action was taken in 
 the matter of a name until it was separately incor- 
 porated thirty-six years later as Shattuck School, 
 this name naturally clung to the school as the suc- 
 cessive buildings were added. A frame building 
 subsequently constructed was finally converted^ into 
 a dormitory and is now known as The Lodge. 
 
 While in France during the winter of 1870-71 
 Bishop Whipple met Mrs. Augusta M. Shumway of 
 Chicago. The school had begun to show signs of 
 success that confirmed the bishop s hopes of its be- 
 coming one of the permanent institutions of the 
 great Northwest, and he talked with such enthu- 
 siasm of his plans as to excite a lively interest in 
 her mind. This led her to offer him $10,000 for a 
 chapel as a memorial to her little daughter, and 
 the amount was ultimately increased to nearly $3°>- 
 000. The chapel was consecrated in 1872 and was 
 for a time one of the notable buildings of the state. 
 
 The military teacher at Shattuck School, was one 
 of those incidental facts which so often arise unex- 
 pectedly and shape the future of institutions. Among 
 the early students of the mission was one who had 
 enlisted in the Civil war and had gained some 
 knowledge of military tactics. He formed the pupils 
 of the school into a military organization, and the 
 boys at first used sticks for muskets. Though in- 
 cidental, it was from the first regarded as a valuable 
 
 factor in school life, and when the act was passed 
 by Congress allowing each state to have an army 
 officer to teach military science Bishop Whipple 
 made application to the War Department to secure 
 the appointment for Shattuck School. Thus in 1868 
 Maj. A. E. Latimer of the regular army was detailed 
 as first commandant of the school, and Shattuck was 
 the first school to obtain the privileges of this act. 
 
 The burning of Seabury Hall had made necessary 
 an additional dormitory, which need was supplied 
 by the erection in 1873 of Whipple Hall, named in 
 honor of Bishop Whipple. With the exception of 
 the cottages for Professor Whitney and the com- 
 mandant and a comparatively small drill hall and 
 gymnasium in 1880, no further building was pos- 
 sible for upwards of twelve years. The gymnasium 
 and drill hall, known as Manney Hall, was burned 
 in 1893, and the insurance money of $15,000 was ap- 
 plied to the erection of a basement story of a build- 
 ing to replace it. This, however, was never com- 
 pleted according to the original plan, the school 
 having outgrown it. However, it served as a drill 
 room fifteen years. In 1907 the Samuel S. Johnson 
 Hall, an armory and drill hall, was erected on 
 entirely new plans from a gift of $70,000 received 
 from the widow and two sons of Mr. Johnson. 
 
 In the meantime Shattuck School was enjoying 
 a period of growth and strengthening influence, and 
 its needs received responses from various sources. 
 Every summer that Mrs. Shumway was not traveling 
 abroad found her at the commencement exercises, 
 her last visit having been made in 1884, only two 
 months before her death from accident in Colo- 
 rado. The previous year she had rewritten her will 
 and provided a bequest of $200,000 for the benefit of 
 Shattuck, besides an additional amount of $100,000 
 to the divinity school. It was to be divided between 
 a building as a memorial to her husband and the 
 endowment of a fund to assist poor boys to enjoy 
 the advantages of the school. The portion of the 
 estate that was available for this bequest realized 
 about $170,000, of which $88,000 was placed at inter- 
 est and the remainder devoted to the erection of 
 Shumway Hall, which was opened for use in the 
 fall of 1887. 
 
 During his visit to England in the fall of 1888 
 Bishop Whipple received from his friend, Junius S. 
 Morgan of London, a gift of $50,000 for Shattuck 
 School. This was devoted to the long-felt need of 
 a suitable refectory. The foundation was laid in the 
 fall of 1888, and the building was ready by Septem- 
 ber, 1889. During its erection funds were received 
 from Mrs. J. S. Smyser for the adjoining building, 
 the Smyser Memorial, in memory of her son, a for- 
 mer cadet. 
 
 In 1905 a plan long contemplated of severing the 
 corporate relations of Seabury and Shattuck was 
 brought about, and a new board of trustees was 
 formed and incorporated under the name Shattuck 
 School. This corporation received from the bishop 
 Seabury Mission, under which the school had been 
 previously conducted, a net property of nearly half a 
 million dollars, which had been accumulated for the 
 benefit of Shattuck. To commemorate this impor- 
 tant event in its history it was proposed by the 
 alumni members of the board, who numbered five 
 of the nine trustees, that plans be prepared for a 
 gymnasium and office building, and an effort made 
 by them to secure funds from the old boys and 
 patrons as their gift to the new corporation. The 
 cost, including the connecting corridor to Shum- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1307 
 
 way Hall, was $60,000. It is absolutely fireproof 
 and sanitary, with swimming pool, shower baths and 
 toilet rooms, and the gymnasium and office are 
 equipped with every appliance desired. The upper 
 story provides two class rooms and sleeping rooms 
 for boys. 
 
 Besides this building, which is one of the notable 
 structures on the school campus, the Johnson Armory 
 and Hall is a building with scarcely an equal for its 
 purpose in any schools in the country. It contains 
 a drill room and an indoor earthen athletic court 
 and running track, also a beautiful reading room and 
 library, and other rooms. Together with the gym- 
 nasium building, it marks Shattuck in physical ap- 
 pointments, as it already^ was in rank and reputa- 
 tion, as one of the foremost boarding schools for 
 boys in America. 
 
 With an adequate building equipment and grounds, 
 the next step of improvement at Shattuck was plan- 
 ning for an endowment to reach half a million dol- 
 lars, and the authorities are at present engaged in 
 work toward that end. With such an endowment 
 Shattuck’s value to the community and to the coun- 
 try will be greatly increased, and the school will 
 be able to realize those fine ideals cherished for 
 it by Bishop Whipple, who had in mind the fine 
 old English schools that have been training English 
 boys for 300 or 500 years. 
 
 In this connection the words of Reverend Doctor 
 Dobbin at the close of his article should be quoted: 
 “By this far-reaching policy of building for the 
 future, the founders and builders are preparing that 
 Shattuck shall contribute, as the years and genera- 
 tions go by, to the increase and betterment of the 
 local prosperity infinitely more than anyone is yet 
 able to comprehend. There is no other enterprise 
 of so great and varied importance. What helps the 
 school helps the town ; for it is put here to stay. It 
 can never move elsewhere as anj? commercial bus- 
 iness can. The names of the benefactors of Shat- 
 tuck School will be preserved for all time in the 
 archives and in the names and usefulness of the 
 buildings or endowments. It opens a way for any- 
 one interested in the future of his home city to 
 make an investment in the interest of education 
 that will contribute in all the years to come to the 
 benefit and credit of Faribault, while exerting a long- 
 lasting influence on the country at large through the 
 multitude of boys who will go out from its walls 
 better and more useful men.’’ 
 
 In 1907 Dr. James Dobbin completed his fortieth 
 year as rector and head of Shattuck School. As 
 Doctor Tanner in his “Fifty Years of Church Work 
 in the Diocese of Minnesota” said : “Every building 
 
 now standing on the grounds (1908) has been erected 
 under his personal supervision. To the oversight of 
 this important work he has given days and nights 
 of constant thought. The summer vacations have 
 been devoted to the erection of buildings or to 
 plans for extending the usefulness of the school. 
 In the early days he discharged the duties of rector, 
 headmaster, financial manager and instructor.” On 
 September 1, 1914, Reverend Doctor Dobbin resigned 
 the rectorship of Shattuck, and the Rt. Rev. F. A. 
 McElwain was elected to succeed him. 
 
 Bishop McElwain was born at Warsaw, New 
 York, December 14, 1875, graduated A. B. in 1899 
 from Trinity College at Hartford, Connecticut, and 
 later from the same institution received the degrees 
 of A. M. and D. D. In 1902 he graduated B. D. 
 from the Seabury Divinity School at Faribault, and 
 
 has the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the same 
 school. His parochial experience has been in the 
 diocese of the Episcopal Church, in West Mission, 
 as professor and warden of the Seabury Divinity 
 School and as dean of the cathedral at Faribault. 
 In 1912 he was elected suffragan bishop of Min- 
 nesota and still holds that position in addition to 
 his duties as rector of Shattuck School. The pres- 
 ent headmaster of Shattuck School is Col. V. E. 
 Stolbrand, formerly of the United States army, who 
 has had large experience both as an engineer and 
 as an instructor in and head of military schools. 
 
 David L. Evans. Now cashier of the Farmers 
 State Bank of Delavan, Mr. Evans is a native son 
 of Faribault County, and prior to entering banking 
 was a druggist in different parts of the state for 
 several years. Mr. Evans has exceptional financial 
 ability, the thorough confidence of the community, 
 and was the organizer and has been the chief factor 
 in the. success of the Farmers State Bank. 
 
 David L. Evans was born in Faribault County, 
 Minnesota, September 1, 1872. His father, John 
 Evans, was born in Wales in 1832, came to the 
 United States at the age of twenty, settled in Penn- 
 sylvania, moved to Wisconsin in 1859, and in 1865 
 became one of the pioneer settlers and farmers of 
 Faribault County, Minnesota. His death occurred in 
 that county in 1906. John Evans married Maria 
 Owens, who was also of Welsh stock, and was born 
 at Liverpool, England, and now lives on the old 
 homestead in Faribault County. She was born in 
 1834 and has now attained the good old age of four 
 score years. Their children are: William J., a 
 farmer at Montevideo, Minnesota; Edward O., on 
 the homestead farm ; Samuel, who is living retired 
 at Mapleton, Minnesota ; Richard, a stock buyer and 
 farmer at Delavan; David L. ; and Henry, a farmer 
 at Mankato. 
 
 David L. Evans was educated in the public schools 
 in Faribault County, finished the high school course 
 at Wells, and in 1900 graduated from the pharmacy 
 department of the University of Minnesota. After 
 nine months of practical experience in the drug trade 
 at Blue Earth, he opened a drug store at Ceylon, 
 conducted that four years, and in 1905, moved to 
 Fairmont and continued in the drug trade there for 
 six months. Since 1906 Mr. EvansTas given all his 
 time to banking, having become assistant cashier 
 of the Securities State Bank at Delavan in that year. 
 In 1909, in association with other local business men, 
 he organized the Farmers State Bank of Delavan, 
 and has since been cashier. The capital stock of 
 the bank is $10,000, and it has a surplus of $2,000. 
 The president is T. J. Lien. 
 
 Mr. Evans is a republican, and is affiliated with 
 Blue Earth Valley Lodge, A. F. & A. M., with the 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Winnebago 
 and with Lodge No. 813, B. P. O. E., at Albert Lea. 
 
 Oil June 26, 1912, at the home of her parents in 
 Faribault County, Mr. Evans married Miss Blanche 
 Thayer, daughter of C. W. Thayer, a well known 
 farmer of this county. They have one child, 
 Nadine. 
 
 Jacob H. Heimaric, M. D. Both in the character 
 of his practice and the value of his service to the 
 community, Doctor Heimark is recognized as one 
 of the leading physicians of Clay County, and has 
 been attending a growing practice at Hawley for 
 the past six years. Both there and at Gary his name 
 
130S 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 and influence have been associated with many local 
 affairs outside of the immediate domain of his pro- 
 fession. 
 
 A native of Minnesota, Doctor Heimark was born 
 in Yellow Medicine County May n, 1877, a son of 
 Halvor and Cecilia (Storebo) Heimark. Both 
 parents were natives of Bergen, Norway, and his 
 father was born in 1846 and died August 8, 1914, 
 while the mother is still living at the homestead in 
 Yellow Medicine County. Halvor Heimark came 
 to this country in 1865, settled first in Winneshiek 
 County, Iowa, and subsequently became a home- 
 steader and pioneer farmer in Yellow Medicine 
 County near Granite Falls, where he lived and 
 worked and made a home. The children were : Ole, 
 a hardware merchant at Warwick, North Dakota; 
 Dr. Jacob H.; John, a merchant and manager of 
 a lumber yard at Warwick, North Dakota; Andrew, 
 a farmer at Hawley ; Carrie, Henry and Carl, all 
 living with their mother; and Selmer, clerk in a hard- 
 ware store at Hawley. 
 
 One of the older children of the family, Dr. Jacob 
 IT. Heimark, grew up in Yellow Medicine County, 
 with a farm for his physical environment and dis- 
 cipline, and after attending the public schools entered 
 St. Olaf College at Northfield, and in 1903 graduated 
 M. D. from the medical department of Hamline 
 University at St. Paul. In 1903 Doctor Heimark 
 interrupted his practice in order to take a post- 
 graduate course for six months in the Chicago Poli- 
 clinic. After getting his degree in St. Paul he re- 
 moved to Gary, and was in active practice there for 
 five years. Since 1909 he has looked after a general 
 medical and surgical practice at Hawley, with offices 
 in the State Bank Building. 
 
 Doctor Heimark is a member of the County and 
 State Medical societies and the American Medical 
 Association. Politically he is identified with the re- 
 publican party. During his residence in Norman 
 County he served as coroner four years and for 
 two terms was mayor of Gary. He is health officer 
 at Hawley. Doctor Heimark is a member of the 
 Lutheran Church, affiliates with Hawley Lodge No. 
 256, A. F. & A. M., and is a thirty-second degree 
 Scottish Rite Mason of the Fargo Consistory. He 
 is also a member of the Sons of Norway. At Litch- 
 field, Minnesota, September 30, 1903, Doctor Hei- 
 mark married Miss Cordelia Thompson, whose 
 father, Thomas Thompson, is a farmer in Meeker 
 County. They have two children : Viola and Thelma, 
 both students in the Hawley public schools. 
 
 Gideon Hollister Pond. A place of peculiar dis- 
 tinction in Minnesota history belongs to the life of 
 Gideon Hollister Pond. He was one of the first 
 white men to become a permanent settler in that 
 state. For thirty years or more prior to his arrival 
 there had been explorers, trappers and hunters, In- 
 dian traders, soldiers and missionaries, but their rela- 
 tions with the country at the headwaters of the Mis- 
 sissippi were of a temporary character, and when 
 their work was done for the most part they moved 
 on to other scenes. Mr. Pond also came to Minne- 
 sota, in the year 1834, for a definite purpose, as mis- 
 sionary to the Indians, but after serving the Indian 
 tribes in the vicinity of the present Minneapolis for 
 twenty years or more then became identified with the 
 church organization of civilized men, and was a 
 farmer and minister until the close of his long and 
 eventful life. 
 
 Gideon Hollister Pond was born in Washington, 
 
 Litchfield County, Connecticut, June 30, 1810. His 
 parents, Elnathan Judson and Sarah (Hollister) 
 Pond, were farming people in Connecticut, and were 
 descended from old English stock. Gideon H. Pond 
 had only a common school education, and lived at 
 home until 1834. Prior to that time his brother 
 Samuel W. Pond had been a teacher in Galena, 
 Illinois, then a frontier community on the Illinois 
 and Mississippi rivers, and Gideon H. accepted a 
 proposal from this brother that they should go to the 
 extreme frontier, along the headwaters of the Mis- 
 sissippi, and take up missionary work among the 
 Dakota tribes of Indians. Thus these two men, 
 young and unschooled in the ways of the wilderness, 
 arrived at Fort Snelling on May 6, 1834. Though 
 without means of their own, and working as lay- 
 men, without the regular support of any organiza- 
 tion, they came to be numbered and deserve memory 
 as two of the most faithful and energetic workers 
 among the uncivilized tribes of the North. They 
 had gained permission from the commandant at 
 Fort Snelling to build a log house, which was erected 
 on a high bluff on the east shore of Lake Calhoun 
 and in the vicinity of Lake Harriet. At that time 
 that was the first dwelling on the present site of 
 the City of Minneapolis. The Village of St. An- 
 thony was yet to be founded, and the fort was the 
 only settlement for a radius of many miles. A 
 lumber mill had been built at Fort Snelling in 1820, 
 but as no one was allowed to settle within the con- 
 fines of the fort, it could not properly be called 
 the first building in Minneapolis. For three years 
 the brothers carried on their work at Lake Cal- 
 houn, and then spent another two or three years 
 among the Indians at Lac qui Parle. 
 
 It was at Lac qui Parle on November 2, 1837, that 
 Gideon H. Pond married Miss Sarah Poage, who 
 was also a missionary to the Indians. After a few 
 years Mr. Pond returned to Lake Harriet. In 1843 
 the Dakota Indians, constituting the Sioux tribe, 
 moved from the vicinity of Lakes Harriet and Cal- 
 houn to the vicinity of the Minnesota River to 
 what is now known as the Township of Blooming- 
 ton. Mr. Pond followed them on this migration, 
 and located there a farm which is still in the family 
 possession. On that land he erected a humble home 
 and also a schoolhouse for the Indians. 
 
 In 1849 Mr. Pond was elected a representative to 
 the First Territorial Legislature, which met at St. 
 Paul on September 3d. His constituents wished to 
 send him back for another term, but he felt obliged 
 to decline this honor in order to devote himself 
 to his more important labors. Politically he was a 
 republican after the formation of that party, and 
 was a man of great public spirit in his relations to 
 the community. For a number of years he served 
 as superintendent of schools, and discharged other 
 duties of public trust outside of his immediate work 
 as a churchman. In 1852, as a result of a treaty 
 with the Federal Government, the Sioux Indians 
 were removed from Bloomington Township, and 
 Mr. Pond’s labors were then, continued for nearly 
 twenty years, thus ended. After that he became a 
 farmer in Bloomington, and also accepted a call as 
 minister to the Presbyterian congregation in that 
 locality. He had been ordained as a minister of 
 the gosoel by the St. Paul Presbytery. 
 
 His first wife died in 1853 and in the following 
 year he married Mrs. Sarah Hopkins. This vener- 
 able woman, now nearly ninety years of age, and 
 regarded as the oldest Minneapolis settler, has like- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1309 
 
 wise an interesting career of experience in the Min- 
 nesota country. She was born in 1825, and married 
 Robert Hopkins, who in 1843 brought his wife out 
 to Minnesota, driving with two horses all the way to 
 Lac qui Parle, and locating at St. Peter, then called 
 Traverse des Sioux. Mr. Hopkins was also a mis- 
 sionary and preached to the Indians along the St. 
 Peter River. In 1851 Robert Hopkins was drowned 
 in the St. Peter River, and his widow returned to 
 her old home at South Salem, Ohio, where she re- 
 mained until her marriage in 1854 to Mr. Pond. 
 The old home at Bloomington now owned by Mrs. 
 Pond was constructed by Gideon H. Pond with such 
 material as he was able to obtain, and he made the 
 bricks in a kiln of his own construction, after dig- 
 ging the clay and sand out of the river bank. Gideon 
 H. Pond by his first marriage had seven children, 
 five daughters and two sons, and six children were 
 born to his second wife, four sons and two daugh- 
 ters. One of the sons by his first wife was Edward 
 Robert Pond, who was born at Lake Harriet in 
 Minnesota in 1840. In 1864 he married Mary 
 Frances Hopkins, who was born at St. Peter in 1843, 
 a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hopkins. Thus 
 were united the destinies of two families that were 
 among the most prominent in the early settlement 
 and Indian history of Minnesota. Mrs. Gideon Pond 
 now lives with her son H. H. Pond. 
 
 The late Gideon H. Pond spent twenty years as 
 an active minister of the Presbyterian Church at 
 Bloomington, and died January 20, 1878. His 
 brother Samuel Pond, who had been associated with 
 him as an Indian missionary, died at Shakopee De- 
 cember 12, 1891. Gideon H. Pond was a man of 
 remarkable attainments, considering his early ad- 
 vantages and the fact that he developed his re- 
 sources through his own ambition and labors. With 
 a common school education, he afterwards in the 
 intervals of his busy career studied Greek, French 
 and Latin, and became familiar with all those 
 languages. He also learned the Dakota tongue, and 
 was able to preach to the Indians in their own 
 language. In association with his brother Samuel 
 he reduced the Dakota language to writing. In 
 this connection - he deserves mention as the first editor 
 and publisher in Hennepin County, Minnesota. In 
 November, 1850, he began the publication of the 
 “Dakotah Tawaxitka,” the translation of which 
 means the Dakota Friend. It was a monthly paper, 
 printed partly in English and partly in the Dakota 
 tongue, and was published in St. Paul. It was con- 
 tinued for nearly two years, but in its main purpose, 
 to furnish a medium of communication and educa- 
 tion for the Indian, it was largely a failure, since 
 the Indians showed little appreciation of the journal- 
 istic enterprise. 
 
 The labors and experiences of the Pond brothers 
 as Northwestern missionaries are described in a book 
 called “Two Volunteer Missionaries among the Da- 
 kotas,” which was compiled and written by S. W. 
 Pond, Jr., and published in 1893. It is a valuable 
 contribution both to the religious and secular history 
 of the Northwest. The author in his preface classi- 
 fies the white men from whom the Dakotas received 
 their first impressions of civilization as the military, 
 including Government officials, the mercantile, largely 
 traders and trappers, and the aggressively religious. 
 In the last named class Gideon H. Pond was prob- 
 ably one of the most persistent and careful laborers 
 in improving the conditions and morals of the Indian 
 tribes of Minnesota, and however the results of his 
 
 work may be estimated, his name must always be 
 given a high place among the missionaries who en- 
 deavored to uplift the native tribes of America. He 
 not only preached to the Indians, but worked with 
 them and for them in planning cultivation of land and 
 in teaching the best methods of using the soil, and 
 in building their houses. He accompanied them on 
 their hunting and war expeditions in order to fa- 
 miliarize himself with their language and customs, 
 and there were few men who had so intimate and 
 practical knowledge of the red men of Minnesota. 
 For many years he gave an unstinted outlay of time, 
 patience and enthusiasm to the work. He often ad- 
 mitted discouragement himself, and realized that the 
 Sioux nature was probably the most intractable 
 among all the American tribes. In some, of his 
 writings he says : “What troubled me most was 
 
 the apprehension that the mission money that I was 
 spending here might be more profitably applied in 
 some other field, and I endeavored to get along 
 with as little of that money as possible. * * * 
 
 Before the outbreak of 1862 I saw very few Dakotas 
 who seemed to give evidence of piety.” The early 
 Catholic missionaries had likewise abandoned their 
 attempts to civilize the Sioux, and it was with the 
 realization of this superhuman task that Mr. Pond 
 finally gave up his early labors for the conversion 
 of the Indians to Christianity, and turned his atten- 
 tion to efforts that yielded better results. Neverthe- 
 less, these labors were not without profit, since he 
 succeeded in converting many individuals of the 
 tribes with whom he worked, and there are not lack- 
 ing evidences of the benefits of his instruction. 
 While little progress was made towards the con- 
 version of the Indians during the first twenty-five 
 years of his missionary work, the author of the 
 little book above named says :* “The seed of truth, 
 during these years, seemed to lie dormant, and as 
 the War of the Rebellion was an element in God’s 
 plan for the abolition of African slavery, so the 
 bloody insurrection of the Sioux in August, 1862, 
 and the retribution which folllowed seem to have 
 been necessary to break the rule of tradition and 
 superstition which prevented an ever present obstacle 
 to the civilization and Christianization of the Dako- 
 tas.” It was found that none of the Christian 
 Indians had participated in that insurrection, and 
 several had even risked their own lives to save the 
 lives of white persons. After the rebellion had been 
 put down many of the Indians were not only willing 
 but eager to accept the Christian faith, and they and 
 their descendants have remained steadfast in the 
 religion ever since. Concerning the fruits of this 
 early missionary enterprise, one of the oldest and 
 most competent among the workers of the Dakotas 
 of Minnesota, Doctor Williamson, wrote in 1891 to 
 Mr. S. W. Pond, Jr., as follows: “I can say with 
 
 all sincerity that the results of their faithful labors 
 prove that they were not in vain in the Lord. 
 * * * Among the Sioux who lived in Minnesota 
 
 previous to 1862, we now have nine Presbyterian 
 and two Congregational churches, with a member- 
 ship of one thousand. There are also four or five 
 Episcopal churches, with membership of over three 
 hundred. * * * As to civilization, the scale is a 
 
 sliding one, but the Sioux among whom the first 
 missionaries labored have made long strides in that 
 direction, and are far in advance of any other Sioux.” 
 The work of Gideon H. Pond as a pioneer of 
 
 *This quotation is from a letter of G. H. Pond. 
 
1310 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Minnesota is impressive, from whatever point of 
 view it may be considered, and his personality is 
 one of the most interesting found in the pages of 
 early Minnesota history. He was the author of 
 several school books, and of hymns which were 
 translated into the Sioux language, and also of the 
 earliest translation of the Gospel of Luke. 
 
 Charles R. Christenson, M. D. Long ex- 
 perience, professional associations and his broadly 
 recognized skill as an operator place Dr. Charles R. 
 Christenson of Starbuck among the leading sur- 
 geons of the State of Minnesota, a state which 
 hardly yields to any in the Union in point of superi- 
 ority in its medical and surgical profession. 
 
 It was on a farm in Columbia County, Wiscon- 
 sin, September 29, 1867, that Charles R. Christen- 
 son was born, and is a son of Danish people. His 
 father, Hans N. Christenson, was born in Denmark 
 in 1836 and died at Owatonna, Minnesota, in 1891. 
 He served as a soldier in the Danish army during 
 the War of 1864 against Germany and had a leg 
 shattered by an exploding shell, an injury which 
 ultimately shortened his life. He came to America 
 in 1863, lived in Columbia County, Wisconsin, sev- 
 eral years, and in 1868 identified himself as a pioneer 
 farmer with Owatonna, Minnesota. Hans N. Chris- 
 tenson married Matilda Hansen, who was born in 
 Denmark in 1841 and died at Owatonna in 1913. 
 Their children were: Hans H., on the home farm 
 at Owatonna; Dr. Charles R. ; and Peter E., who 
 is principal of schools at Woodburn, Oregon. 
 
 Dr. Charles R. Christenson had the wholesome en- 
 vironment of a farm at Owatonna, attended the 
 public schools of Owatonna City, graduating from 
 high school in 1889, and after one year in the 
 academic department of the University of Minne- 
 sota and three years in the medical department was 
 graduated M. D. in the class of 1896. Doctor Chris- 
 tenson has twice interrupted his practice to visit 
 Europe, where he has spent much time attending 
 the clinics of the leading hospitals of the great med- 
 ical centers. He began his private practice in 1896 
 at Starbuck, and has since developed an exclusive 
 surgical practice. Doctor Christenson is chief sur- 
 geon of the hospital staff at Starbuck. His reputa- 
 tion as a surgeon is such that his patients come 
 from all over Minnesota and even from neighbor- 
 ing states. The hospital in Starbuck was established 
 in 1897, and in 1912 a new building was erected at 
 a cost of $20,000. This hospital accommodates 
 twenty patients, and there are eight attending physi- 
 cians on the staff. The success of the institution 
 has largely been due to Doctor Christenson’s work 
 as its chief surgeon. 
 
 While devoted to his profession, he has been active 
 in local affairs. For three terms he served as mayor 
 of Starbuck, has been president of the school board, 
 health officer at Starbuck and coroner of Pope 
 County. Politically he is an independent republican, 
 and worships in the Lutheran Church. Doctor 
 Christenson has membership in the various medical 
 and surgical bodies, and is affiliated with St. Cloud 
 Lodge No. 156 of the Benevolent and Protective 
 Order of Elks and also with the Knights of Pythias, 
 and the Modern Woodmen of America. 
 
 In 1897 Doctor Christenson married Miss Nellie 
 Grant. The three children of that marriage are 
 Franklin, Grant and Helen, all of whom are now 
 in the public schools of St. Paul. Doctor Christen- 
 son’s present wife, whom he married in Minneapolis 
 
 in 1911, was Miss Marion Norstrom, daughter of 
 J. E. Norstrom, who is a commercial photographer 
 at 700 Temple Court in Minneapolis. 
 
 Andrew Mason Smith was born on the 4th of 
 February, 1841, near the town of Holding, Den- 
 mark. His family, as shown by official records, 
 has been of unmixed Danish blood for several hun- 
 dred years past. His ancestors have all been sol- 
 diers in the Danish army, and sailors in the Danish 
 navy and merchant marine. His grandfather was 
 a lieutenant in the Danish battalion of heavy ar- 
 tillery which accompanied Napoleon in' his famous 
 Russian campaign. 
 
 A. M. Smith early in life followed the sea. After 
 making several voyages to South America, he joined 
 the United States navy in Brazil, sailing in the S. S. 
 Mary Comet on the Paraguayan expedition. He was 
 discharged from the navy on the return of the expe- 
 dition to the United States, and, after experiencing 
 many trials and hardships, found himself at the out- 
 break of the Civil war at Galveston, Texas. He 
 immediately made his way north, and on the 22d of 
 April, 1861, was one of the first volunteers to enlist 
 on the books of the first company mustered in the 
 State of Indiana. This was originally a three 
 months service, but it was mustered into the Thir- 
 teenth Regiment of the Indiana Volunteers for the 
 duration of the war and was in over twenty engage- 
 ments in Virginia. In October, 1862, being severely 
 wounded, he was honorably discharged from the 
 army, and in 1863 again enlisted in the United States 
 navy, shipping on the gunboat Conestoga, and after- 
 wards being transferred to gunboat No. 13, Fort 
 Hineman, of the Mississippi flotilla, and was at the 
 surrender of Vicksburg, and took part in the Red 
 River expedition. At the attack of Fort De Russey, 
 he was mentioned for bravery by Captain Pierce, 
 and was shortly after severely wounded, and in 
 July, 1864, honorably discharged from the United 
 States army. He went to California, and shortly 
 after his arrival there enlisted in the Second Cali- 
 fornia Volunteers, whose entire term of service was 
 spent in fighting the Indians. In 1866 his regiment 
 was mustered out of service. 
 
 Shortly after this Mr. Smith became engaged in 
 the construction of the Central Pacific Railroad 
 from Cisco to Elko, Nevada. After this he started 
 in business in Salt Lake City, but was forced by 
 Brigham Young to leave on account of his strong 
 and outspoken anti-Mormon sentiments. He then 
 removed to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, remaining 
 there until 1886, when, realizing the opportunities 
 of the Northwest, he transferred his business and 
 family to Minneapolis. While in Philadelphia he 
 wrote and published a “History of the United States 
 Mint,” “History of the United States Coins,” “A 
 History of Colonial Coins,” and also edited and 
 published the. “Coin Collector’s Guide and Illus- 
 trated Magazine,” and an autobiography entitled 
 “The Luck of a Wandering Dane,” and finally ended 
 his literary labors by writing and publishing the 
 “Encyclopedia of Gold and Silver Coins of the 
 World,” which is still a standard work on the sub- 
 ject, and in fact is the only work on the subject 
 published which so thoroughly and exhaustively 
 covers the ground. Mr. Smith spent seven years 
 and many thousands of dollars in preparation of 
 this work in collecting the original of every gold 
 and silver coin. While in Utah, Mr. Smith married 
 a Miss Elberg, a young lady whose parents lived a 
 
V 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1311 
 
 short distance from his home in Denmark. He has 
 two sons, the older of whom, George Washington 
 Smith, is residing in New York City. The younger 
 son, Author Mason Smith, is now the active head 
 of the business which his father founded. 
 
 Mr. Smith is a member of the Ancient Order of 
 United Workmen, of the Grand Army of the Repub- 
 lic, of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Royal 
 Arch Masons, and the Knights Templar. He is also 
 a life member of the Numismatic Society. Mr. Smith 
 is a large property holder of Minneapolis and in 
 his active days had great faith in its future develop- 
 ment. His coin collection is one of the finest in the 
 United States. In his active days he was a great 
 traveler, having visited every country of the world. 
 His principal business was that of a dealer in Cali- 
 fornia wines at 247 and 249 Hennepin Avenue. This 
 business, together with a fine delicatessen establish- 
 ment in connection, is now being managed success- 
 fully by the younger son, Author Mason Smith. 
 
 Thomas Pearson Kellett. Zumbrota is one of 
 the flourishing small cities of Minnesota, and more 
 than any other one individual the late Thomas Pear- 
 son Kellett was identified with the growth and devel- 
 opment of that locality from the time it was a house- 
 less site on the prairie until it was a town of sub- 
 stantial proportions surrounded by prosperous and 
 thrifty community of farming people. The origin 
 of the town was largely due to a company of settlers 
 who came in under the Stafford Western Emigra- 
 tion . Company and also the Stafford Western Immi- 
 gration Company, in both of which organizations Mr. 
 Kellett was an active member. He had many rela- 
 tions with the growing town, kept the first store 
 there, was the first postmaster, was one of the early 
 chairmen of the board of supervisors, and in a 
 history of the community his name would appear 
 more frequently than that of any other pioneer citi- 
 zen. 
 
 Thomas Pearson Kellett was born at Leeds, Eng- 
 land, August 1, 1814, and died at Zumbrota, Minne- 
 sota, May 21, 1892. His father, Samuel Kellett, was 
 a woolen manufacturer at the industrial City of 
 Leeds, and the 'son grew up there and learned the 
 same business and at the age of eighteen was placed 
 in charge of his father’s factory. He had left school 
 when about twelve years of age, and the rest of his 
 education was acquired through rigid economy of 
 time. At the age of twenty-one, in 1835, having mar- 
 ried, Mr. Kellett put in execution a long cherished 
 plan to seek his fortunes in the New World. The 
 first two years in America were spent in the manu- 
 facturing business at Laurel, Chester County, Penn- 
 sylvania, and from there he went to Lowell, Massa- 
 chusetts, a center of textile industries, and there 
 became overseer in the woolen mills of the Middle- 
 sex Corporation. 
 
 Mr. Kellett remained in Lowell until 1856 and then 
 joined the Stafford Western Emigration Company, 
 and with half a dozen other men came out to Min- 
 nesota to select a site for a town. In the summer of 
 that year they located at Zumbrota, and in Septem- 
 ber Mr. Kellett aided in surveying and platting 
 the village. He devised .a name for the place by 
 adding one syllable to the name of the River Zumbro 
 flowing by the site. Two months later, in Novem- 
 ber, 1856, Mr. Kellett opened a general store in a 
 house 19 by 25 feet, built of rough boards and 
 batten. For many years he continued in the mer- 
 chandise business, carried the largest stock of goods, 
 
 and in that time saw Zumbrota grow into a prosper- 
 ous town. He acted as president of the Stafford 
 Immigration Company, which co-operated with the 
 company in the East, and made his influence felt 
 in every department of the town’s activities. He 
 served as a justice of the peace for six years, was 
 president of the -school board, represented Goodhue 
 County in the State Legislature in 1872-73, and in 
 politics was first a whig and later a republican, and 
 frequently attended state and other conventions as 
 a delegate. He was a member of high degree with 
 the lodge and chapter of the Masonic order in 
 Zumbrota, and for seven consecutive years was 
 honored with the office of master of his lodge. He 
 was also one of the organizers and an active mem- 
 ber of the Congregational Church. Mr. Kellett was 
 married in Leeds, England, in 1835, to Miss Anne 
 Barker, who died in 1872, leaving five children. A 
 year after her death he married Mrs. Frances M. 
 Cummings, of Bunker Hill, Illinois, and later con- 
 tracted a third marriage with Mrs. Louise M. Still- 
 man, of Galena, Illinois, who survived him one year. 
 
 Throughout his life Mr. Kellett stood high as a 
 citizen, and was highly respected as a man of un- 
 usual strength and probity of character, and one 
 whose influence was invariably found on the right 
 side of every issue of public or moral importance. 
 
 Everett A. Kellett. At Zumbrota, in Goodhue 
 County, where Everett A. Kellett was born March 
 27, 1871, there is no family name more closely and 
 prominently associated with the history and develop- 
 ment of that section than Kellett. Mr. Kellett’s 
 grandfather and great-grandfather were the leaders 
 of the pioneer colony that located the town fully a 
 dozen years before Minnesota became a state, and 
 when Goodhue County was on the very fringe of 
 the frontier settlement. 
 
 For the sake of local history it will be appropriate 
 to consider some of the early fortunes and activities 
 of the Kellett family before taking up the present 
 status and career of Mr. Kellett of Minneapolis. 
 The Kelletts came from England, where Grandfather 
 Thomas P. Kellett was born, a son of Samuel Kellett, 
 both of whom were subsequently identified with the 
 early settlement of Zumbrota. Thomas P. Kellett 
 was one of the organizers of a colony known as the 
 Stafford Western Emigration Company, which came 
 out from the East about 1850 and founded the Town 
 of Zumbrota. The different members of the colony 
 took up land from the Government, and Thomas P. 
 Kellett after acquiring title to a portion of the 
 wilderness engaged in business at Zumbrota and 
 at the time was regarded as the wealthiest man in 
 that locality. For forty years he was proprietor of 
 a general store and was also postmaster at Zumbrota. 
 His store was one of the general merchandise estab- 
 lishments so common in a new country, but was 
 conducted on an unusually extensive scale, and was 
 really prototype of a modern department store. 
 Practically every article of merchandise that was 
 needed by the settlers all over the country could be 
 found in the Kellett establishment. Many of the 
 articles found on its shelves would now be regarded 
 as fit objects for preservation in a museum. The 
 general merchant of those days had to depend on 
 wagon transportation from the central markets, and 
 owing to lack of railroad facilities, telephones and 
 other facilities of the modern merchant, had to lay 
 in a large stock at varying intervals, and perishable 
 goods and novelties that would command only tempo- 
 
1312 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 rary attention were out of place. As a merchant, 
 banker, land owner and citizen Thomas P. Kellett 
 was one of the finest examples of pioneer days in 
 this state. His integrity was secure beyond all 
 cavil, and his wealth represented the soundest prin- 
 ciples of fair and square dealing. Thomas P. Kellett 
 died in May, 1892. He was three times married, but 
 all his children were by his first wife. Of the three 
 sons and two daughters all are living except one 
 daughter. 
 
 Albert H. Kellett, father of Everett A., was the 
 third of Thomas P. Kellett’s children. He was two 
 years old when the family settled in Minnesota, was 
 educated in the pioneer schools of Goodhue County, 
 and spent a number of years on the old homestead. 
 Later he engaged in merchandising, and is now 
 one of the successful business men of Zumbrota, 
 continuing the same activities followed by his 
 father, although his store is not in strict succession 
 from the enterprise of the older merchant. Albert 
 H. Kellett was married at Rochester, Minnesota, 
 January 1, 1869, to Ida C. Leonard. She was born 
 in New York State, while her husband was a na- 
 tive of Lowell, Massachusetts. She was brought 
 as a child to Minnesota, and is still living at Zum- 
 brota. 
 
 Everett A. Kellett is the only child of his father 
 and mother, and is the only male child in three 
 Kellett families descended from Grandfather Thomas 
 P. Kellett. He was educated in the public schools 
 of Zumbrota, was employed for a time in the store 
 of his grandfather, and later was associated with 
 his father. Albert H. and Everett A. subsequently 
 bought the old establishment of the grandfather, and 
 conducted the business under the name A. H. Kellett 
 & Son. They finally closed out the establishment, 
 and the father several years later established a gen- 
 eral merchandise store in another locality of Zum- 
 brota. 
 
 Since leaving Zumbrota Everett A. Kellett has 
 been engaged in the land business, as a dealer in 
 wild and unimproved property and other classes of 
 real estate both local and in various parts of the 
 country. For a man of his age he has had many 
 and varied experiences, vicissitudes, and set backs in 
 his progress toward the achievement of prosperity. 
 He possesses all the indomitable traits that marked 
 his pioneer forefathers in this state. A complete 
 recital of his varied career would fill a volume. Mr. 
 Kellett is a born organizer and money ma.ker, and 
 his bent toward organization and leadership is not 
 the result of education or any special preparation, 
 but is as native to his character as an appetite for 
 food. Through all the ups and downs of his career 
 he has followed a policy of fair and square-dealing, 
 but has not always been fortunate in choosing busi- 
 ness associates of equal integrity. Mr. Kellett has 
 again and again looked on the dark side and the 
 rosy side of life, and few men know so well the 
 sensations of quick transition from abundance to 
 being completely “broke.” For several years past 
 Mr. Kellett has enjoyed a successful business in 
 the handling of lands, and has his office in the Ply- 
 mouth Building at Minneapolis. 
 
 Lie is a member of the Minneapolis Athletic. Club, 
 the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Association, 
 and various other orders, and religiously believes in 
 the Christian Science doctrines. On October .31, 
 1904, at Minneapolis Mr. Kellett married Catherine 
 W. Channell. She is the daughter of the late Leroy 
 and Susan M. (MacCraken) Channell, and her 
 
 mother now lives in Joplin, Missouri. Mrs. Kellett 
 is eligible both through her mother’s and her father’s 
 lineage to membership in the Daughters of the 
 American Revolution. Mrs. Kellett was born near 
 Fort Worth, Texas, and was educated in a convent 
 in Kansas City, Missouri. They are the parents of 
 one daughter, Jean Catherine. 
 
 Mr. Kellett is a good type of the energetic, aggres- 
 sive, clean living American citizen. As a “native 
 son of Minnesota,” he has done his share to upbuild 
 and maintain the high ideals of his state. 
 
 David Lewis Curtice. An accurate history of St. 
 Paul in its municipal growth and improvement 
 could not be written without frequent reference to 
 the late David L. Curtice, who was for a number of 
 years at different times city engineer and in that 
 capacity had supervision of the work of public im- 
 provements carried on in the city thirty or forty 
 years ago. He was also identified with the building 
 of several early railroads through the Middle West 
 and the Northwest, and ranked high as an engineer 
 and deserves to be remembered as one of the pioneers 
 of St. Paul and Minnesota. 
 
 David L. Curtice was born in Auburn, New York, 
 November 12, 1828, and died at his home in St. 
 Paul, April 15, 1902. His parents were Amasa and 
 Hannah (Thorpe) Curtice. Llis father was a con- 
 tractor and builder and was born in New York 
 State in 1792. £)avid L. Curtice as a boy attended 
 the old academy at Auburn, and some of his class- 
 mates were among the most distinguished men of the 
 generation immediately preceding the Civil war, in- 
 cluding Roscoe Conkling and Augustus and Fred- 
 erick Seward. While Mr. Curtice prepared for col- 
 lege he abandoned the idea of taking the regular 
 collegiate course and instead studied engineering. 
 He was connected with the building of the first 
 railroad in Canada, and was an engineer on one of 
 the New York lines from 1852 to 1855. It was In 
 1856, two years before Minnesota became a state, 
 that Mr. Curtice first came to St. Paul. He was in 
 service under J. Case, then city engineer, during 
 1856-57, filled the office of city engineer in 1858-59, 
 and in 1862 was employed to locate the line of rail- 
 way from Big Lake to St. Cloud. He was again 
 city engineer from 1869 to 1874, and it was during 
 that five-year period that the present street grades 
 were established. Another important improvement 
 was the leveling of the old Baptist Hill, where the 
 wholesale district of the city is now located. Much 
 opposition was encountered in this improvement, 
 since many of the property owners claimed that the 
 city authorities were crazy, and yet the only proof 
 needed of the saneness of the plan is the fact that 
 in that vicinity, then worth between $75 and $100 
 per front foot, land is now valued at between $700 
 and $1,000 a front foot. Mr. Curtice also served as 
 county surveyor, and in many other ways his tech- 
 nical ability brought him into active relation with 
 the great constructive movement in his home city 
 and in the Northwest. 
 
 Mr. Curtice was a democrat of the old-fashioned 
 type as represented by Andrew Jackson. He was 
 a member of Christ Episcopal Church, and his widow 
 was confirmed in that church by Bishop Kemper 
 when Minnesota was still a territory. Mr. Curtice 
 was affiliated with the lodge of Masons at Auburn, 
 New York. 
 
 On February 1, 1859, at St. Paul, David L. Cur- 
 tice and Harriet M. Richardson were united in 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1313 
 
 marriage. Her father, Ahira Richardson, brought 
 his family to St. Paul in 1853, arriving by steam- 
 boat, and Mrs. Curtice is now one of the very few 
 living residents whose recollection goes back to the 
 period of the ’50s. Mr. Richardson from the out- 
 break of the Civil war for fifteen years had charge 
 of the military stores of the Government at St. 
 Paul, and was otherwise prominent in local af- 
 fairs. His death occurred at St. Paul in 1877, and 
 as a mark of respect for his memory and as in- 
 dicating his prominence in the city the flag on 
 the state capitol was kept at half mast for a day 
 or two following his death. The three sons born 
 to Mr. and Mrs. Curtice all died in infancy. Mr. 
 Richardson, like Mr. Curtice, was an ardent Jackson 
 democrat. Mrs. Curtice, who now resides at 875 
 Laurel Avenue, has the publishing privilege of St. 
 Paul's street maps. Her only brother is W. D. 
 Richardson, who is now an invalid, but for sixteen 
 years managed the Ramsey County morgue, and 
 that business is now attended to by Mrs. Richard- 
 son. Mrs. Curtice’s father came to Minnesota in. 
 the early territorial days on a commission from 
 the United States Government to teach the Indians 
 practical agriculture, and was associated in the vicin- 
 ity of Fort Ridgeley, in the vicinity of Brainerd, 
 with Bishop Kemper, who was one of the early 
 Episcopal missionaries among the Indians of the 
 Northwest. For twenty years the late Mr. Curtice 
 was grand tyler of the Grand Lodge of Minne- 
 sota Masons. 
 
 William Bradford Brooks, who has for fourteen 
 years been editor and proprietor of the Comfrey 
 Times, at Comfrey, Minnesota, deserves to rank 
 with the prominent and influential of those men 
 who have assisted in the development of the news- 
 paper press of Brown County. From the time that 
 he left the schoolroom, when a mere lad, he had 
 steadfastly devoted himself to the highest ideals of 
 journalism, and not only the press, but the com- 
 munities in which his labors have been prosecuted, 
 have benefitted by his conscientious and persevering 
 efforts. 
 
 Mr. Brooks was born at Dunbar’s Camp, Pennsyl- 
 vania, June 16, 1872, and is a son of Capt. E. M. 
 Brocks, a native of Vermont. The Brooks family 
 originated in England, from whence its earliest rep- 
 resentatives came to America on the Mayflower. 
 On both the paternal and maternal sides Mr. Brooks 
 traces his family back to participants in the struggle 
 for American independence. As a young man Capt. 
 E. M. Brooks migrated to Illinois, and when eighteen 
 years of age, in 1862, enlisted in Company C, One 
 Hundred and Thirteenth Regiment, Illinois Vol- 
 unteer Infantry, as a private for service in the Civil 
 war. He participated in numerous engagements dur- 
 ing that struggle, and through brave and faithful 
 service rose to the command of a company of 
 colored troops, considered one of the most dangerous 
 services at that time. Later he was given charge of 
 the Federal arsenal, located at Memphis, Tennes- 
 see, and continued to act in that capacity until peace 
 was declared. Captain Brooks remained in the 
 South until 1876, when he removed to Washington 
 County, Kansas, there engaging in agricultural pur- 
 suits until 1881, when he went to King’s Point, 
 Tennessee, and in 1887 came to Redwood Falls, Min- 
 nesota. He continued to engage in active busi- 
 ness operations until several years ago, when he 
 retired and returned to his native state, at this time 
 
 being a resident of Rutland, Vermont. While 
 located at Memphis, Mississippi, Captain Brooks was 
 united in marriage with Miss Mary Ellen Waters, 
 who was born at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1841, 
 and who was at that time engaged in teaching in the 
 schools for negroes established by the North. Six 
 children were born to this union, as follows : War- 
 
 ren, who resides at Long Prairie, Minnesota, and is 
 engaged in agricultural pursuits ; Asa P., a resident 
 of Minneapolis, where he is the proprietor of a job 
 printing establishment; Juliet, who became the wife 
 of C. P. Cooper, New England manager for the 
 Creamery Package Company, at Rutland, Vermont; 
 William Bradford, of this review; George W., an 
 employe for a real estate concern at Pacific Beach, 
 California, and also a member of the police force 
 there; and Fannie, who is the wife of Dr. G. W. 
 Rudolphi, a practicing physician and surgeon of 
 Cooksville, Illinois. 
 
 William Bradford Brooks was a small child when 
 taken by his parents from Pennsylvania to Wash- 
 ington County, Kansas, and there his primary studies 
 were prosecuted in the public schools. Subsequently 
 he attended the public schools of King’s Point, Ten- 
 nessee, and Redwood Falls, Minnesota, and when 
 about nineteen years of age began his connection 
 with newspaper work when he started to learn the 
 printer’s trade in the office of the Redwood Falls 
 Reveille, a newspaper which is still published, but 
 now under the name of the Redwood Falls Sun. 
 Mr. Brooks continued to be identified with this sheet, 
 on and off, until 1898, when he went to Tracy, 
 Minnesota, and had two years of experience in the 
 same line. 
 
 During this time Mr. Brooks studied the news- 
 paper business from every angle, having decided to 
 become the proprietor of a paper of his own, and 
 in December, 1900, when the opportunity offered, 
 came to Comfrey and purchased the Comfrey Times, 
 which had been founded by W. R. Hodges, now a 
 newspaper man of Sleepy Eye, Minnesota. Mr. 
 Brooks has continued in the management of the 
 Times to the present, and has made it one of the 
 leading papers of this part of the county, with a 
 large circulation and an excellent business in adver- 
 tising. Its political policy is of an independent 
 character, its editor aiming to present a fair and un- 
 biased opinion of all important events and issues. 
 Its columns have been freely given to assisting 
 movements for the' advancement of Comfrey, in 
 which Mr. Brooks has taken a decidedly helpful 
 part. The offices and plant of the paper are located 
 on Brown Street, in the business section of the 
 town, and in connection therewith is operated a 
 fully-equipped, up-to-date job printing establishment, 
 capable of turning out the best class of work. In 
 his political views Mr. Brooks is a republican, and 
 for three years has served Comfrey in the capacity 
 of recorder. He is a Presbyterian, but as there is 
 no church of that faith here he has affiliated him- 
 self with the Congregational congregation. Frater- 
 « nally Mr. Brooks belongs to Comfrey Camp No. 
 7306, Modern Woodmen of America, of which he 
 has been worthy adviser and is now venerable con- 
 sul. He is unmarried. 
 
 Charles L. Kane. A lawyer at Benson since 
 1899, and a former mayor of that city, Charles L. 
 Kane is a native Minnesotan, and has been a mem- 
 ber of the bar nearly twenty years. 
 
 He was born at Green Isle, Sibley County, Minne- 
 
1314 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 sota, September 27, 1869, a son of Patrick and Anne 
 (O’Neil) Kane, and a grandson of Michael Kane and 
 James O’Neil, both of whom died in Ireland. He 
 was sixth in a family of ten children, eight of whom 
 are living: James, judge of Probate Court in 
 
 Wilkin County, Minnesota; T. R., formerly county 
 attorney of Ramsey County, Minnesota, for many 
 years and now engaged in the successful law prac- 
 tice of St. Paul ; Mrs. F. M. Dolan, whose husband 
 is proprietor of the Crown Mattress Manufacturing 
 Company of St. Paul; Charles L. 1 ; W. V., who is 
 engaged in the practice of law at International 
 Falls, Minnesota; Henry, in the real estate business 
 at St. Paul; Miss Minnie, unmarried, and living in 
 St. Paul ; and George, in the real estate business at 
 St. Paul. 
 
 Charles L. Kane acquired his education in the 
 public schools of Green Isle, Minnesota, and after 
 graduating entered upon his career as a teacher. 
 He had already determined to make the law his 
 profession, and school work was only a means to 
 that end. He was principal of schools at Fair- 
 fax and Winsted, and while teaching was also con- 
 tinuing his studies preparatory to his profession. 
 He completed his legal training in the law offices 
 of McClelland & Tifft of Glencoe, Minnesota, where 
 after an examination he was admitted to the bar 
 in 1896. He at once opened an office at Fairfax, 
 and was engaged in practice there from 1896 to 
 1899. In the latter year he removed his home to 
 Benson, where he has continued in the enjoyment 
 of a constantly increasing professional business to 
 the present time. As a citizen he has been leader 
 in advocating progressive movements and has con- 
 tributed freely to them of his time, ability and 
 means. 
 
 Mr. Kane was married in June, 1911, to Miss 
 Helen Hoban of Benson, daughter of Michael 
 Hoban, an early settler of that place, where he is 
 still engaged in general merchandising and banking. 
 To their marriage have been born two children: 
 Michael Hoban, born in May, 1912 ; and Mary Ellen, 
 born March 1, 1915. Mr. Kane is an active member 
 of several social and fraternal organizations, and 
 with his family attends the Catholic Church, of 
 which he has been a member since boyhood. A 
 democrat in politics, he has frequently been honored 
 by his fellow citizens with election to public office, 
 having twice served as mayor of Benson, and at 
 present being a member of the hospital and other 
 municipal boards. 
 
 Gustave A. Will. A Minnesota lawyer to whom 
 have come many of the successes and distinctions of 
 civil practice during the last eighteen years, Mr. Will 
 has also been a capable leader in a public way, par- 
 ticularly in the good roads movement. He repre- 
 sents a family that through residence and solid busi- 
 ness interests, has been identified with the City of 
 Minneapolis for the last thirty years. 
 
 Gustave A. Will is a native of Germany and was 
 born on the 31st of December. 1871, the place of his 
 nativity being the Town of Kroterschoen. He is a 
 son of Reinhold and Amelia (Schumacher) Will, 
 the former of whom was born in the City of Berlin 
 and the latter in Brumberg. In his native land 
 Reinhold Will acquired thorough training in floricul- 
 ture. and in the spring of 1873 he emigrated with 
 his family to America. From the City of New York 
 he proceeded directly to Henderson, the judicial 
 center of Sibley County, Minnesota, and in 1883 he 
 removed with his family to Minneapolis, where he 
 
 engaged in business as a florist under the firm name 
 of R. Will & Son. The enterprise was conducted 
 along wholesale lines, and after the lapse of thirty 
 years it continues representative in its domain of 
 operations, the business being now incorporated and 
 conducted under the title of Will Brothers Com- 
 pany. The founder of the business died November 
 28, 1906, and his widow died June 17, 1914. Of the 
 children eight survive the honored mother and 
 father, namely: Mrs. John Taylor, of Minneapolis; 
 Gustave A., of this review; O. A., of Roswell, 
 New Mexico; Claire E., a teacher in the Clay School 
 of Minneapolis; H. S. Will, a member of the Will 
 Brothers Company above mentioned ; Eleanor ; H. C. 
 Will, another of the interested principals in the 
 Will Brothers Company; and Elsie. The three old- 
 est children were born in Germany, and all the rest 
 in the State of Minnesota — the two youngest in 
 Minneapolis and the others at Henderson. All re- 
 ceived the advantages of the public schools of Min- 
 neapolis and attended the University of Minnesota. 
 
 Gustave A. Will was graduated in the old Central 
 High School of Minneapolis as a member of the 
 class of 1890, and thereafter he continued his 
 studies in the academic department of the University 
 of Minnesota, from which he withdrew to identify 
 himself with the banking business, at Shell Lake 
 and Washburn, Wisconsin. Later he became man- 
 ager for the largest logging company operating in 
 the vicinity of Washburn, and these experiences 
 have proved of distinctive value to him in connec- 
 tion with his professional career. In 1893 Mr. Will 
 returned to Minneapolis, where he became manager 
 of the City Ice Company, the business of which he 
 assisted in making a substantial success, in associa- 
 tion with the late Col. John T. West. After the 
 business was sold he entered the law department of 
 the University of Minnesota, in which he completed 
 the prescribed curriculum and was graduated as a 
 member of the class of 1896. He was granted the 
 degree of bachelor of laws and was forthwith admit- 
 ted to the bar of his native state. He has since 
 been engaged in the successful practice of his pro- 
 fession in Minneapolis and has confined his practice 
 to civil law, with no wish to identify himself with 
 criminal cases, his work being chiefly in corporation 
 and real estate law business. He is a member of 
 the Minneapolis Bar Association, the Minnesota 
 State Bar Association and the American Bar Asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 Mr. Will is interested also in the floral business 
 founded by his father, and probably every resident 
 of Minneapolis is familiar with the name of the Will 
 family in connection with the high-class establish- 
 ment conducted by the Will Brothers Company. 
 While interested in public movements generally, Mr. 
 Will has come to be regarded as the father of the 
 good roads movement in Minneapolis and vicinity, 
 and for the past fifteen years he has given a great 
 deal of his attention to the advocacy and practical 
 establishment of better highways. He belongs to 
 the Minneapolis Automobile Club and the Minneapo- 
 lis Athletic Club, and in a fraternal way is affiliated 
 with Hennepin Lodge No. 4, A. F. & A. M. ; with 
 the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and with 
 the Ancient Order of United Workmen. Mr. Will 
 is a bachelor, but he maintains a fine summer home 
 on Lake Minnetonka, where, with the aid of his 
 Japanese valet, he enjoys his leisure hours through 
 the summer months. His law offices are in the 
 Andrus Building. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1315 
 
 Lewis H. Wilcox. For many years a well-known 
 resident of Hastings, Minnesota, was the late Lewis 
 H. Wilcox, who was a New England man, in early 
 life had studied for the bar, but whose career in 
 Minnesota was chiefly identified with farming and 
 dairying. 
 
 Lewis H. Wilcox was born in Halifax, Vermont, 
 October 3, 1847, and died at Hastings, Minnesota, 
 October 3, 1901. At the place of his birth on May 
 19, 1867, he married Miss Emma A. Niles. In 1886 
 they came west and located in Benton Harbor, Mich- 
 igan, and in the fall of 1888 removed to Hastings, 
 Minnesota. Mr. Wilcox was a man of studious incli- 
 nation, and had read law at Hartford, Connecticut. 
 At Hastings he was proprietor of what was known 
 as the Lakeside Dairy Farm, and in its manage- 
 ment and improvement he spent his last years and 
 was a man of no little prominence in that section 
 of the state. . 
 
 He was long a member of the Baptist Church m 
 Hastings, and was devoted to the interest and wel- 
 fare of his home and family. Mrs. Wilcox since 
 the death of her husband has resided in Minne- 
 apolis with her son, Archie N. Wilcox. The oldest 
 child in the family was a daughter, Linnie E., who 
 died in childhood in Michigan before the family 
 came to Minnesota. Besides Archie N. of Minne- 
 apolis there are two other sons: Burton T. of 
 
 Hastings ; and Charles L., who lives on a farm near 
 Amery, Wisconsin. 
 
 Dr. Josiah R. Dartt. The first resident phy- 
 sician of Dodge County was the late Dr. Josiah R. 
 Dartt, but this distinction as the pioneer representa- 
 tive of medicine in that vicinity was only one of 
 the many that are associated with his name and 
 character. Doctor Dartt was a strong man, his fac- 
 ulties were exercised in behalf of the developing 
 country in which he settled more than sixty years 
 ago, and with all his practical accomplishments he 
 was even more noteworthy for the strength of the 
 friendship with which he bound men to him in 
 lasting ties. Doctor Dartt at his death was un- 
 doubtedly the foremost man of his county, and the 
 wealth of personal affection which was poured out 
 in his memory completely justifies this assertion. 
 
 Josiah R. Dartt was born in Weathersfield, Wind- 
 sor County, Vermont, September 11, 1824, and died 
 at Mantorville, Minnesota, September 11, 1874, on 
 his fiftieth birthday. His father was Erastus Dartt, 
 who was born April 5, 1792, and died December 6, 
 1831. The mother was Rebecca Jackman, who was 
 born April 15, 1792, and died November 9, 1877. 
 Both were .natives of Windsor County, Vermont, 
 and spent their lives there. Doctor Dartt was the 
 fifth in a family of seven children, and his was 
 the first death after that of the father to break 
 the family circle. 
 
 The first twenty-two years of his life was spent 
 in his native town, at which time he removed to 
 Groton, Massachusetts, and on September 3, 1850, 
 was married there to Miss Philomela Lawrence, 
 who died in Minneapolis, March 29, 1913- an< l is 
 buried beside her husband in the cemetery at Man- 
 torville. 
 
 After about two years of residence at Groton, 
 Doctor Dartt removed to Kingston in Marquette 
 County, Wisconsin, and there took up the study of 
 medicine with a Doctor Johnson. He completed 
 his studies in the Chicago Medical College, from 
 which institution he held a diploma of graduation. 
 
 It was in the fall of 1854 that Doctor Dartt located 
 in Minnesota, and in Dodge County, and his com- 
 ing was really in advance of permanent settlement, 
 since most of the white population at that time 
 were largely transient, engaged in prospecting over 
 the country and in preparing for the reception of 
 their families. The Town of Mantorville had not 
 yet been surveyed. On going to Dodge County, 
 Doctor Dartt took up a homestead claim, which he 
 developed into a farm east of Mantorville. For 
 several years in his capacity of pioneer physician 
 the early settlers demanded the greater part of 
 his time and attention in the practice of his pro- 
 fession. He also owned a drug store at Mantor- 
 ville. Gradually his early business interests as- 
 sumed such importance that he abandoned his prac- 
 tice wherever possible and eventually retired from 
 it altogether. 
 
 In December, i860, Doctor Dartt enlisted as a 
 private in Company A of the Fifth Minnesota Vol- 
 unteers, but before leaving the state for service 
 in the South was promoted to captain of the same 
 company. In that position of leadership he did 
 his duties as a soldier with promptness and cour- 
 age, but ill health finally obliged him to resign his 
 commission and he returned home in the fall of 
 1864. From that time until his death ten years 
 later he lived in Mantorville. 
 
 Doctor Dartt joined the Masonic Order in Man- 
 torville in 1856, and in 1867 was made a Royal 
 Arch Mason at Red Wing. After the formation of 
 a Royal Arch Chapter in Mantorville he became affil- 
 iated with that chapter, and for the year preceding 
 his death held the office of high priest. In 1871 he 
 joined the Home Commandery of Knights Templar 
 at Rochester, and in every body of Masonry with 
 which he was affiliated stood as an exemplar of 
 the intrinsic spirit and principles of the Ancient 
 Order. Doctor Dartt was a man with whom friend- 
 ship strengthened with acquaintance. In his death 
 the community lost one of its most useful factors. 
 He was survived by his widow and one son, George 
 B. Dartt, now one of the leading real estate men 
 of Minneapolis, and mentioned on other pages. A 
 daughter, Ella M. Dartt, was born June 6, 1853, and 
 died at Mantorville, March 4, 1872. 
 
 Doctor Dartt’s was the largest funeral ever wit- 
 nessed in Dodge County. It was held on the Sun- 
 day following his death, a beautiful day in early 
 fall, and one favorable to the gathering of his hun- 
 dreds of friends and admirers. He had been for 
 many years master of Mantorville Lodge No. 11, 
 A. F. & A. M., and prominently affiliated with other 
 Masonic bodies, and his funeral was held under 
 Masonic auspices. A special train came from Roch- 
 ester bringing the Home Commandery No. 5, in full 
 regalia, and also the Rochester lodge. In the pro- 
 cession which was formed near the Masonic Hall 
 and proceeded thence to the church, the hearse was 
 preceded by the following Masonic bodies : Relief 
 
 Lodge No. 108 of Dodge Center; Huram Abi Lodge 
 No. 83 of Kasson ; Washington Lodge No. 38 of 
 Wasioja; Mystic Tie Lodge No. 37 of Pine Island; 
 Rochester Lodge No. 21; Mantorville Lodge No. 11; 
 and Home Commandery No. 5, K. T., of Rochester. 
 The Methodist Church where the funeral services 
 were held was much too small for the great con- 
 course that followed him to his last resting place 
 and the windows having been removed the minister, 
 Rev. R. Forbes, standing in one of the openings, 
 delivered a short and impressive sermon both to 
 
1816 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 those assembled within and the many hundreds 
 crowded around the edifice. The Masonic cer- 
 emonies were held at the grave. Doctor Dartt's son, 
 George B., of Minneapolis, has erected a fine granite 
 monument to the memory of his father and mother 
 in the cemetery at Mantorville. 
 
 George B. Dartt. One of the Minneapolis real 
 estate men who have made their business a real 
 service in the development of the city and in pro- 
 viding homes for the growing population is George 
 B. Dartt, who is one of the loyal native sons of Min- 
 nesota and has spent all his active career in either 
 the mercantile or the real estate business at Minne- 
 apolis. Mr. Dartt has his offices in the Phoenix 
 Building, and now handles a general business in 
 first mortgage loans, exchanges, rents and insurance. 
 A work for which he should be given permanent 
 credit was the platting and marketing of the beauti- 
 ful residence district known as Browndale, an ex- 
 clusive Minneapolis suburb situated in the lake dis- 
 trict west of Lake Calhoun and Lake Harriet. 
 
 George B. Dartt was born in Mantorville, Minne- 
 sota. April 15, i860, and is a son of Josiah R. and 
 Philomela (Lawrence) Dartt. His parents were pio- 
 neers at Mantorville, and on other pages wdll be 
 found a sketch of Josiah R. Dartt. It was in his 
 native village that George B. Dartt spent his boy- 
 hood, with an education in the public schools and 
 with a business training at the old Curtis Business 
 College of Minneapolis. 
 
 His first independent venture in the business field 
 was as a grocery merchant, under the firm name of 
 George B. Dartt & Company. For nine years his 
 establishment at the corner of Nicollet Avenue and 
 Tenth Street was one of the finest grocery houses 
 in Minneapolis. Since leaving the grocery trade Mr. 
 Dartt has been identified with real estate lands for 
 the past twenty years. Some years ago he platted 
 the Reeves South Shore Addition, also platted the 
 Sunrise Addition, and then took up the work which 
 he considers his best achievement, the platting of 
 Browndale Park of 100 acres. This is a high class 
 residence district with building restrictions such as 
 to preserve a high grade neighborhood and secure 
 the most desirable class of people as residents. Mr. 
 Dartt successfully promoted the sale of this subdi- 
 vision. and after disposing of many of the lots 
 sold the balance to the firm of Tingdale Brothers. 
 Minneapolis real estate men, who are now the ex- 
 clusive agents for the property, and have issued a 
 handsome booklet describing the site. Among the 
 various illustrations of homes found in Browndale 
 as published in this booklet is one of the attractive 
 California Mission style residence of Mr. Dartt, a 
 modern home that cost him more than sixteen 
 thousand dollars to build. Mr. Dartt owns consider- 
 able Minneapolis real estate and also some farm 
 lands. 
 
 Politically he is a republican, and fraternally is 
 affiliated with Minneapolis Lodge No. 19, A. F. & 
 A. M. His church is the Congregational. On June 
 14, 1902, Mr. Dartt married Miss Alice Bannochie, 
 daughter of Alexander and Alice (Smith) Ban- 
 nochie, who are now living at Vine Grove Nursery 
 in Minneapolis. Mrs. Dartt was born in Aberdeen, 
 Scotland, from which country the family came to 
 Minnesota many years ago. Mrs. Dartt is a sister 
 of Frank Bannochie. who owns the ideal summer re- 
 sort at Lake Pulaski near Buffalo in Wright County. 
 
 Daniel Colfax Bennett. A resident of Minne- 
 apolis since 1901, Daniel C. Bennett has his work as 
 an architect exemplified in both the Twin Cities as 
 well as in various towns of Minnesota. His busi- 
 ness and professional experience has brought him a 
 large acquaintance, and his friends have a high ap- 
 preciation of his sterling qualities. 
 
 Daniel Colfax Bennett was born in Sonora Town- 
 ship, Hancock County, Illinois, December 9, 1868, a 
 son of John F. and Agnes L. (Luce) Bennett. His 
 father was born in Pennsylvania and his mother in 
 Illinois. The former came to Illinois in 1850 with 
 his parents, who settled in Hancock County, and 
 in that section he has spent his life, largely as 
 a farmer. He and his wife became the parents of 
 seven children, six of whom are still living. 
 
 Daniel C. Bennett has had a varied career as 
 farmer, traveling salesman, architect and builder. 
 ITis work in the latter profession has been done in 
 Minneapolis, St. Paul and other Minnesota cities, 
 and many of the modern homes in the Twin Cities 
 are examples of his creditable skill as an architect. 
 
 Mr. Bennett can claim some of the best American 
 stock in his ancestry. One branch of his family 
 traces its descent from Stephen Hopkins, who came 
 to America on board the Mayflower, bringing his 
 family and servants, and on the voyage a son was 
 born to him, and the name Oceanus was given the 
 child. In the same line is found a descendant of 
 the Stephen Hopkins whose name appears in the 
 list of signers of the Declaration of Independence. 
 For several generations the Hopkins family fur- 
 nished many seafaring men. 
 
 Mr. Bennett married Miss Marion H. Robinson, 
 who was born at Marshalltown, Iowa, a daughter of 
 Richard and Abbie (Coon) Robinson, both natives 
 of New York State and of Revolutionary ancestry. 
 Mrs. Robinson died at her home in Iowa in 1912, 
 and Mr. Robinson is now a member of the Bennett 
 family at Minneapolis. Mr. and Mrs. Bennett have 
 one child, Dorothy Agnes Bennett, born at Minne- 
 apolis August 31, 1909. 
 
 Jacob Deutsch. A sterling pioneer arid honored 
 citizen who left a benignant impress upon civic and 
 business activities in Minneapolis during a residence 
 of more than forty years in this city was the late 
 Jacob Deutsch, who here resided for thirty years 
 in the home, 1209 Second Avenue, South, where his 
 death occurred on the 28th of March, 1914. He was 
 a man of impregnable integrity, of strong charac- 
 ter and marked generosity, and it is altogether con- 
 sistent that in this history of Minnesota be entered 
 a brief tribute to his memory. 
 
 Jacob Deutsch was born in the County of Kaschau, 
 Austro-Hungary, on the 28th of March, 1845, and he 
 was reared and educated in his native land, where 
 he continued to reside until 1867, when, shortly after 
 attaining to his majority, he severed the ties that 
 bound him to home and fatherland and set forth 
 to seek his fortunes in America, where he felt as- 
 sured of better opportunities of gaining independence 
 and success through individual endeavor. He first 
 settled at Cleveland, Ohio, but soon removed thence 
 to Davenport, Iowa, where his marriage occurred 
 and where he continued to reside until 1873. when 
 he came to Minneapolis, the arrival of the family in 
 the Minnesota metropolis, which then had a popula- 
 tion of only 24,000, having occurred on the 27th of 
 August. Lie was one of the first to engage in busi- 
 ness on lower Nicollet Avenue, and he had much 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1317 
 
 to do with the development and upbuilding of that 
 section of the city. His first store, devoted to dry 
 goods principally, was at the corner of Nicollet Ave- 
 nue and Third Street, where the Lincoln Building 
 now stands, and his next place of business was on 
 the site of the Kaiserhof, 244 Nicollet Avenue. He 
 continued as one of the representative merchants of 
 Minneapolis until his retirement, about ten years 
 prior to his death, and for many years his was one 
 of the largest dry goods establishments of retail 
 order to be found in the city. Mr. Deutsch was in- 
 sistently liberal and public-spirited as a citizen and 
 his influence and. co-operation were ever to be 
 counted upon in support of measures and enterprise 
 projected for the best interests of the community. 
 He ordered his life upon the highest plane of in- 
 tegrity and honor and no shadow rests upon any part 
 of his career. He won success through industry 
 and uprightness and no citizen commanded more 
 secure place in popular confidence and esteem than 
 did this strong and noble man and honored pioneer. 
 He was a Republican in his political allegiance and 
 his religious affiliation was with the Reformed Jew- 
 ish Church in Minneapolis, of which his widow is a 
 devout member, both having taken zealous part in 
 the upbuilding of this church organization. In a 
 fraternal way Mr. Deutsch was identified with the 
 Knights of Pythias, the Ancient Order of United 
 Workmen, and the Modern Woodmen of America. 
 His circle of friends was coincident with that of 
 his acquaintances, and his name merits enduring 
 place on the roster of the most worthy and valued 
 pioneers of Minneapolis. 
 
 At Davenport, Iowa, on the 12th of June, 1870, 
 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Deutsch to Miss 
 Malchen A. Valfer, who was born and reared at 
 Karlsruhe, Kingdom of Baden, Germany, and who 
 came to the United States in 1869, about one year 
 later than he arrived in America. Mr. Deutsch is 
 survived also by two children : Henry, of whom in- 
 dividual mention is made on other pages of this 
 work; and Josephine, who is the wife of Barney 
 Burton, of Little Falls, Minnesota. 
 
 Henry Deutsch. It has been given to Mr. 
 Deutsch to gain' distinctive prestige as one of the 
 able members of the bar of his native city and state, 
 and he controls a representative practice in Minne- 
 apolis, where he has his professional headquarters in 
 suite 805-810, Plymouth Building. Further interest 
 attaches to his career as a citizen and representative 
 lawyer by reason of the fact that he is a scion of 
 a well known and esteemed pioneer family of Min- 
 nesota, and in this connection it should be noted 
 that on other pages of this publication is given ade- 
 quate review of the family history, in the sketch 
 dedicated to his father, Jacob Deutsch. 
 
 Henry Deutsch was born in Minneapolis on the 
 28th of August, 1874, and is a son of Jacob and 
 Malchen A. (Valfer) Deutsch. He gained his early 
 educational training in the public schools of his 
 native city, where he was graduated in the old 
 Central High School, as a member of the class of 
 1891. The youth had in the meanwhile formulated 
 definite plans for his future career, and in harmony 
 with his predilection he entered the law department 
 of the University of Minnesota, in which he com- 
 pleted the prescribed course and was graduated as 
 a member of the class of 1894; he received from this 
 institution the degree of Bachelor of Laws. Further 
 technical honors of a similar order were to be his 
 
 ere the initiation of his professional career, for he 
 completed, in 1895, a post-graduate course in the law 
 department of historic old Yale University, which 
 gave to him the degree of Master of Laws, magna 
 cum laude. He was admitted to the Minnesota bar 
 in October, 1895, shortly after attaining to his legal 
 majority, and his professional novitiate of practical 
 order was served in association with Hon. Stephen 
 B. Howard, of Minneapolis, who was at that time a 
 member of the State Senate. Later he formed a 
 partnership with Albert J. Smith, who afterward 
 served as county attorney of Hennepin County. Mr. 
 Deutsch proved himself well fortified in his profes- 
 sion and in power of applying the same, so that he 
 made rapid and substantial advancement and became 
 known as one of the strong practitioners at the 
 Minnesota bar. In 1907 he became associated in 
 practice with Hon. Frank M. Nye, and soon a part- 
 nership was formed under the firm name of Nye & 
 Deutsch. In 1908 this alliance was dissolved, owing 
 to the fact that Mr. Nye had been elected a member 
 of the LTnited States Congress, and shortly after- 
 ward Mr. Deutsch became allied with Edward P. 
 
 * Allen and Alfred M. Breding in forming the law 
 firm of Deutsch, Allen & Breding. Since 1912 Mr. 
 Deutsch has conducted an individual law business, 
 and the same is one of broad scope and importance, 
 in commercial, probate, corporation and trial depart- 
 ments of legal work. 
 
 Mr. Deutsch is actively identified with the Amer- 
 ican Bar Association, the Minnesota State Bar Asso- 
 ciation, the Hennepin County Bar .Association, and 
 the Minneapolis Bar Association. In 1910 he was 
 president of the Commercial Law League of America, 
 the representative organization of its kind in the 
 United States and Canada, and one that has on its 
 membership rolls the leading commercial legists of 
 the two nations. 
 
 A stalwart advocate of the principles of the re- 
 publican party, Mr. Deutsch has given effective serv- 
 ice in behalf of the cause, though he has not been 
 imbued with ambition for political office. He was 
 formerly a most active factor in the work of the 
 Minneapolis Commercial Club, of whose public en- 
 tertainment and convention committee he was chair- 
 man for two years, besides having served as a mem- 
 ber of* its board of directors and as its second vice 
 president in 1905. He was chairman of the enter- 
 tainment committee of this organization at the time 
 when it gave a distinctive ovation to Colonel Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt, who was then president of the 
 United States. Mr. Deutsch was a member of 
 the Minneapolis Executive Committee in charge of 
 the national encampment of the Grand Army of the 
 Republic held in this city in 1906. He is at the 
 present time an active and valued member of the 
 Minneapolis Civic & Commercial Association and is 
 serving as a member of the board of education of 
 Minneapolis, besides which he was formerly a mem- 
 ber of the board of trustees of the Minneapolis 
 public library. 
 
 In the Masonic fraternity Mr. Deutsch has re- 
 ceived the highest grade of the Scottish Rite, and 
 he has been a most zealous and appreciative worker 
 in the various Masonic bodies with which he is 
 affiliated. He is past master of Hennepin Lodge, 
 No. 4, Free & Accepted Masons and also past master 
 of St. Vincent de Paul Chapter, No. 2, Rose Croix, 
 of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, in which 
 body he was elevated to the thirty-third and supreme 
 degree, in the City of Washington, D. C., in 1910. 
 
1318 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 In his home city he holds membership in the adjunct 
 Masonic organization, Zuhrah Temple of the Ancient 
 Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and here 
 also is he affiliated with the lodge of the Benevolent 
 & Protective Order of Elks. Mr. Deutsch and his 
 wife are members of the Second Church of Christ, 
 Scientist, in Minneapolis, and he is president of the 
 same at the time of this writing, in 1914. He was 
 first reader of this church for three years and for 
 the past five years he has been Minnesota State 
 Publication Committee of this religious denomina- 
 tion. He and his wife are popular in representative 
 social activities of their home city, and their attract- 
 ive residence is known for its hospitality. 
 
 On the 2d of May, 1898, was solemnized, the mar- 
 riage of Mr. Deutsch to Miss Grace A. Levi, of Phil- 
 adelphia, Pennsylvania, and they have three chil- 
 dren; Clarence S., Maria N. Hope and Henry Noel. 
 
 On other pages of this publication is entered brief 
 memorial tribute to Henry Deutsch, the honored 
 father of the subject of the foregoing sketch, and to 
 the article in question reference may be made for 
 further data concerning the family, Henry Deutsch 
 having been a sterling pioneer and successful mer- 
 chant of Minneapolis. 
 
 Oliver F. Warnes. A scientific and practical 
 experience covering more than forty years has made 
 Mr. Warnes one of the leading representatives of 
 the great flour-milling industry in Minnesota and 
 a recognized authority in the important field of 
 enterprise in which he has brought his energies 
 and fine ability to bear. He is one of the well known 
 and popular citizens of Minneapolis, has maintained 
 his home in Minnesota during the major portion of 
 the time since 1877 and is now the valued incumbent 
 of the responsible office of superintending miller 
 for the Pillsbury Flour Mills Company, as a rep- 
 resentative of which he has the general supervision 
 of the great mills designated as the Anchor, the 
 Palisade, the Lincoln and the “B” — plants that in 
 equipment and capacity are excelled by none in the 
 world. In prefatory way may be briefly given the 
 data of the incumbencies held by Mr. Warnes dur- 
 ing his career in the milling business, the names 
 and locations of the various mills with which he 
 has been connected being given, together with the 
 periods of his service in each: Smith & Proctor 
 
 mills, Neenah, Wisconsin, September 15, 1872, to 
 May 1, 1876; Foote Brothers’ Mill, Oshkosh, Wis- 
 consin, May 1, 1876, to May 1, 1877; Otto Troost 
 Mill, Minnesota City, Minnesota, May 1, 1877, to the 
 1st of the following September ; Greer & Hunter Mill, 
 Decorah, Iowa, September 1, 1877, to February 1, 
 1878; Stillwater Mill Company, Stillwater, Minne- 
 sota, February 15, 1878, to September 15, 1884; 
 Crown Roller Mill, Minneapolis, thereafter until 
 June 1, 1885; Florence Mill Company, Stillwater, 
 June 1, 1885, to May 1, 1886; “B” Mill of the Pills- 
 bury Flour Mills Company, May 1, 1886, to Novem- 
 ber 15, 1889; head miller at the same company’s mill 
 at Anoka, Minnesota, from that time forward to 
 August 15, 1909, when he returned to Minneapolis 
 and was placed in charge of the “B,” Anchor and 
 Lincoln mills of the company; and since August I, 
 1910. he has had continuous charge of the four mills 
 first mentioned, in the capacity of superintending 
 miller. His record has been one of admirable service 
 and continuous advancement, and his various im- 
 portant preferments indicate alike his exceptional 
 technical ability, his executive power and his posses- 
 
 sion of those personal characteristics that ever beget 
 objective confidence and esteem. 
 
 Oliver Franklin Warnes was born in Michigan on 
 the 19th of June, 1856, and is a son of Ishmael and 
 Melissa (Llouse) Warnes, both of whom were born 
 and reared in the State of New York, whence they 
 removed in the early ’50s to Michigan, the father 
 having been a miller by trade and having become a 
 pioneer in this line of business in Michigan, where 
 also he was actively identified with agricultural pur- 
 suits for a number of years, as the owner of a farm 
 in the county in which his son Oliver F. was born. 
 When the latter was a lad of nine years the family 
 removed to Neenah, Wisconsin, where the father 
 continued in charge of a flour mill about ten years. 
 Removal was then made to Oshkosh, that state, 
 where Ishmael Warnes was in charge of the opera- 
 tion of the old Wakefield mill for one year. He 
 later removed to the southern part of the state, 
 thence went a few years later to Tennessee, and 
 eventually he became a resident of Oregon, though 
 he did not follow the work of his trade after leaving 
 Tennessee. In Oregon he developed a small fruit 
 ranch, and when well advanced in years he returned 
 to Wisconsin and established his home in its capital 
 city, Madison, where he died at the age of seventy- 
 two years. His first wife died when their son 
 Oliver, of this review, was seven years of age, and 
 he later contracted a second marriage. Of the two 
 children of the first union Oliver F. is the elder, 
 and the younger, Amy L., is the wife of Norman 
 Emerson, of Minneapolis. Three children were born 
 of the second marriage — William Wallace, who was 
 drowned when seven years of age; Miss Jessie, 
 who resides in the City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin ; 
 and Miss Sabina, who maintains her home at Madi- 
 son, that state. 
 
 Oliver F. Warnes was afforded the advantages of 
 the public schools of Neenah, Wisconsin, and from 
 the age of sixteen years to the present time he has 
 been actively identified with the milling industry, 
 his initial training having been received under the 
 able and punctilious direction of his father. While 
 employed at his trade in Oshkosh, Mr. Warnes com- 
 pleted an effective course in the night classes of the 
 business college there conducted by William W. 
 Daggett, and thus fortified himself further for the 
 large responsibilities that later were to devolve upon 
 him in his signally active and successful business 
 career. 
 
 In May, 1877, about one month prior to attaining 
 to his legal majority, Mr. Warnes came to Minne- 
 sota and obtained employment in the mill owned and 
 operated by Otto Troost, at Minnesota City, where 
 he served as stone dresser during the summer of 
 that year. In the autumn he went to Decorah, Iowa, 
 where he was employed as a general miller by the 
 firm of Grier & Hunter until the spring of 1878, 
 when he returned to Minnesota and identified him- 
 self with the newly erected mill of the Stillwater 
 Mill Company, in which he held the position of 
 second miller. He remained at Stillwater until 
 September, 1884, and in the meanwhile had been 
 employed in three different mills in that city. From 
 September, 1884, until the following June Mr. Warnes 
 was an attache of the Crown Mill in Minneapolis, 
 the same being now one of the plants operated by 
 the Northwestern Consolidated Milling Company. 
 Thereafter he was again a resident of Stillwater 
 about a year, and his subsequent changes have 
 already been noted in the opening paragraph of this 
 


 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1319 
 
 article. It should be emphasized, however, that for 
 nearly twenty years he retained the position of head 
 mider for the Pillsbury mills at Anoka and that 
 since that time he has had charge of the three Min- 
 neapolis mills of the Pillsbury Flour Mills Company, 
 the while he retains the supervision also of the 
 Lincoln Mill, at Anoka. Mr. Warnes’ long associa- 
 tion with one of the greatest flour mill corporations 
 in the world bears its own significance, in that it 
 attests his exceptional technical and executive abil- 
 ity and denotes fidelity, integrity of purpose and 
 inviolable place in the confidence of those with whom 
 he is thus associated. Incidentally it may be stated 
 that of the four mills of which he is the superin- 
 tending miller, the “B” Mill has a daily capacity for 
 the output of 4,000 barrels of flour; the Anchor Mill, 
 2,100 barrels; the Palisade Mill, 2,300 barrels; and 
 the Lincoln Mill, 1,500 barrels. 
 
 In the Masonic fraternity Mr. Warnes is affiliated 
 with the blue lodge and chapter at Anoka and in 
 the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite he has received 
 the thirty-second degree, besides holding member- 
 ship in Zurah Temple of the Ancient Arabic 
 Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, in Min- 
 neapolis. While a resident of Anoka he served 
 two terms as a member of the board of education 
 and about six years as a member of the board of 
 trustees of the public library, of which he was sec- 
 retary and treasurer, besides which he was a direc- 
 tor of the State Bank of Anoka about ten years. 
 In politics Mr. Warnes is not constrained by strict 
 partisan lines, but gives his support to the men and 
 measures meeting the approval of his judgment. 
 His wife is a member of the Order of the Eastern 
 Star, with which body he likewise is identified, and 
 at Anoka he passed the various chairs in his Masonic 
 lodge and chapter, of which latter he served as 
 high priest. 
 
 At Stillwater, Minnesota, on the nth of April, 
 1882, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Warnes 
 to Miss Laura Weatherbee, who was born and 
 reared at Springfield, Maine, and who came from 
 Bangor, that state, to Minnesota in company with 
 her mother and stepfather, when about fourteen years 
 of age, the family home having been established at 
 Stillwater, where she completed her educational 
 studies in the public schools. She is a member of 
 the Church of the Redeemer, Universalist, and is 
 active in its work. Mr. and Mrs. Warnes have one 
 daughter, Carrie W., the wife of Russel L. Fair- 
 bairn, who is general passenger agent for the Ca- 
 nadian Northern Railroad, with residence in the City 
 of Toronto. Both he and his wife were born at 
 Stillwater, Minnesota, and Mrs. Fairbairn was 
 graduated in the high school at Anoka, after which 
 she completed a thorough course of piano study in 
 the Northwestern Conservatory of Music, under 
 the personal tutorship of Prof. Emil Oberhoffer, 
 and continued to take private lessons for two years 
 thereafter from Prof. Emil Oberhoffer, director of 
 the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. 
 
 William H. Leonard, M. D. For more than half 
 a century the late Doctor Leonard was known in 
 his profession, in military circles and as a citizen 
 of Minneapolis. His death occurred on the morn- 
 ing of April 29, 1907, at his home, 2121 Blaisdell 
 Avenue, Minneapolis, at the venerable age of eighty- 
 one. Such were his character and services that his 
 memory shall rest on the Minnesota metropolis as 
 
 a lasting benediction. Probably the best tribute to 
 Vol. in— 4 
 
 his life and work is that found in the memorial 
 prepared and published by the Minnesota Command- 
 ery of the military order of the Loyal Legion of 
 the United States, of which he was a loved and dis- 
 tinguished companion. The following is a quotation 
 from that article : 
 
 “Dr. William Huntington Leonard was born De- 
 cember 2, 1826, in Mansfield, Tolland County, Con- 
 necticut, and was therefore in his eighty-first year 
 of age. His father was Dexter M. Leonard, a 
 farmer and merchant. His mother was Electa 
 (Owen) Leonard. His mother died when he was 
 an infant and he lived with different ones of his 
 kinsfolk until he was nine years of age, when he 
 was ‘bound out’ to a distant relative, one Daniel Russ, 
 in whose family he lived until he was twenty-one 
 years of age. His early education was obtained in 
 the district and select schools of the neighborhood 
 in which he was born. His medical education was 
 initiated as a student in the office of Dr. Orrin 
 Witter, of Chaplin, Connecticut, and was continued 
 in the medical department of the University of New 
 York, in New York City, being finally completed in 
 the medical school of Yale College. 
 
 “He married Jane Augusta Preston of Eastford, 
 Connecticut, the same year that he finished his 
 studies, and he commenced the practice of his pro- 
 fession at Orangeville, Wyoming County, New York. 
 Here he practiced for two years, having bought out 
 a relative, Dr. Charles Fuller. From Orangeville 
 he came to Minneapolis, and he lived a short time 
 on a claim near what is now known as Robbinsdale. 
 From there he moved into what is now the City of 
 Minneapolis. The date of his original coming to 
 Minneapolis was May 1, 1855, antedating the day of 
 his funeral by just fifty-two years. In Minneapolis 
 he practiced medicine until November 22, 1862, 
 when he was commissioned assistant surgeon of the 
 Fifth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. He served as 
 such until May 1, 1865, when he was promoted to 
 surgeon, with rank of major, and he served with 
 that rank until mustered out of service with his regi- 
 ment, on September 6th of the same year. 
 
 “His regiment was in the Second Brigade of the 
 Third Division of the Sixteenth Army Corps. He 
 served in the Army of the Tennessee. The Doctor 
 was with his regiment through the entire siege of 
 Vicksburg, as was he also in the Red River expedi- 
 tion, the battle of Nashville, and the siege of Mobile. 
 He was elected a companion of the first class original 
 of this order (Loyal Legion) March 3, 1886, entering 
 through the Commandery of Minnesota, Insignia 
 4544 - 
 
 “When he was mustered out of the service of 
 his country Dr. Leonard returned to Minneapolis 
 and resumed the practice of his profession, in addi- 
 tion to which he became associated with Thomas 
 Gardner in establishing the first wholesale and retail 
 drug store in the city. As a physician he was 
 highly esteemed by all of his professional confreres. 
 In his dealing with all men it can be said of him 
 that he was fair-minded, honorable and conscien- 
 tious. As a citizen he was progressive and public- 
 spirited. He was a charter member of the Athen- 
 aeum, of the Hennepin County Medical Society, and 
 of the Hahnemann Medical Society of Hennepin 
 County. He was the first health officer of Minne- 
 apolis after the union of Minneapolis and St. An- 
 thony. For nearly twenty-five years he was a mem- 
 ber of the State Board of Health. He was a member 
 of the first State Lunacy Commission, was prominent 
 
1320 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 in the establishment of the State Board of Charities. 
 He was three times elected president of the Minne- 
 sota State Homeopathic Institute, of which he was 
 a charter member. He was a senior member of 
 the American Institute of Homeopathy and the 
 only Minneapolis ' member of the International 
 Hahnemann Association. He was an active member 
 of the Minnesota Academy of National Sciences. He 
 was one of the oldest members of John A. Rawlins 
 Post, Grand Army of the Republic, and the oldest 
 member of Minneapolis Lodge No. 19, A. F. & A. M. 
 
 “Dr. Leonard was not only a moral man but also 
 a man entitled to be characterized a Christian gentle- 
 man. He was one of the charter members of the 
 Plymouth Congregational Church of Minneapolis. 
 This church he served as a deacon for more than 
 twenty years, and at his death was its oldest mem- 
 ber. The Doctor's first wife having died, he was 
 again married in October, 1886, to Josephine Kehoe, 
 who survives him, as do also a son, Dr. William 
 E. Leonard, a member of this commandery, and a 
 daughter, Gertrude J., and two granddaughters. 
 
 "Resolved, That this commandery, as well as other 
 societies of which he was a member, has lost in the 
 death of Dr. Leonard a valued and loved member. 
 That the State has lost an honorable and useful 
 citizen. That his family has lost a thoughtful and 
 kind husband and father. Resolved, That we do ex- 
 tend our very warm sympathy to the family and that 
 a copy of these resolutions be sent by the recorder 
 to the bereaved ones.” 
 
 In conclusion, a few other statements of fact9 
 should supplement the above. Dr. Leonard com- 
 pleted his medical studies at Yale University in 1853. 
 His lineage is traced back to English origin, the first 
 representatives having settled in New England dur- 
 ing the colonial days. The grandfather of Dr. 
 Leonard was Dr. Recompense Leonard, a prominent 
 early physician of Connecticut. Dr. Leonard's first 
 wife died in July, 1885, being the mother of the two 
 children now living. The widow of his second mar- 
 riage and daughter now reside at Hollywood, a 
 suburb of Los Angeles. 
 
 On February 27, 1903, Dr. Leonard was tendered 
 a complimentary banquet in Minneapolis in honor 
 of the fiftieth anniversary of his entrance into the 
 practice of medicine. The occasion was a most in- 
 teresting one, and the Doctor’s many friends, in- 
 cluding leading members of his profession and other 
 representative citizens, vied in doing him honor. 
 After a well spent life, filled with large and worthy 
 accomplishment, Dr. Leonard passed to his reward, 
 and well may it be said that “his works do follow 
 him.” 
 
 William E. Leonard, M. D. The most conspic- 
 uous name in homeopathic medical circles in the 
 Northwest for over half a century has been Leonard. 
 The position and services of the late Dr. William 
 H. Leonard have been described on other pages, 
 and it is also important that space should be given 
 to his son, Dr. William E., who for upwards of 
 thirty years has practiced at Minneapolis, and has 
 been prominent both as a practitioner and as a 
 teacher and contributor to medical literature. 
 
 William Edwin Leonard was born at Minneapolis, 
 July 27, 1855, and is among the older of the native 
 sons of this city, which at that time was known 
 on the maps as St. Anthony. His education came 
 from the public schools and from the old prepar- 
 atory school of the state university. He was grad- 
 
 uated in 1876 Bachelor of Arts from the University 
 of Minnesota. He was salutatorian in the fourth 
 class to be graduated from that institution. At the 
 university Doctor Leonard was a charter member 
 of Alpha Nu Chapter of the Chi Psi fraternity. 
 
 Inspired by the counsel and example of his father, 
 Doctor Leonard early determined upon his career 
 and also chose homeopathy, in which school his 
 father had also practiced. Entering the Hahnemann 
 Medical College at Philadelphia, he completed a 
 thorough three-year course and was graduated M. D. 
 in March, 1879. Then followed clinical experience of 
 one year as interne in Ward’s Island Homeopathic 
 Hospital at New York City. This is now the Met- 
 ropolitan Hospital, and is and has been for many 
 years the largest homeopathic hospital in the world. 
 Doctor Leonard is as much a student today as thirty 
 years ago and has always been eager to accumulate 
 knowledge and perfect himself in the practice of 
 his profession. He has taken a number of post- 
 graduate courses, and spent the fall of 1907 in the 
 New York Post-Graduate Medical College and the 
 New York Polyclinic, and in 1912 was abroad in 
 Europe for three months in study and travel. After 
 returning to Minneapolis Doctor Leonard became 
 associated with his father in practice, and they con- 
 tinued together in mutual sympathy and helpfulness 
 until the death of the elder Doctor Leonard in 1907. 
 
 Doctor Leonard has been prominent in the edu- 
 cational side of his profession, both as instructor 
 and as an editor and contributor. He was one of 
 the leaders in the movement which resulted in the 
 establishment of the College of Homeopathic Med- 
 icine and Surgery at the University of Minnesota 
 in 1888, and from that time until 1908 was a mem- 
 ber of the faculty, filling the chair of materia medica 
 and therapeutics. From 1886 to 1889 he was editor 
 of the Minnesota Medical Monthly. For two terms, 
 or twelve years, he was a member of the Minne- 
 apolis Health Department, and for four years senior 
 medical inspector. He was for two years on the 
 surgical staff of the Minneapolis City Hospital, is a 
 senior of the American Institute of Homeopathy, 
 and a member and former president of the Minne- 
 sota State Institute of Homeopathy. Doctor Leon- 
 ard is the author of “The Healthy Woman,” a book 
 widely circulated and read and bearing high recom- 
 mendations from the profession. For a quarter of 
 a century he has been a contributor to leading 
 periodicals of the profession, and is the author of 
 many individual articles containing the results of 
 his experience and personal research. 
 
 Doctor Leonard is a member of the Masonic fra- 
 ternity and of the Royal Arcanum. As a public- 
 spirited citizen he has placed himself in nearly every 
 movement for the welfare and best interests of his 
 native city and state. He is an independent in poli- 
 tics and a member of the Minnesota Academy of 
 Natural Sciences, the Minnesota Historical Society, 
 the Native Sons of Minnesota and the Saturday 
 Lunch Club. He and his family belong to the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church. Doctor Leonard’s 
 offices are in the Donaldson Building. 
 
 In October, 1881, Doctor Leonard married Miss 
 Marian L. Marshall of New York City. Mrs. Leon- 
 ard died in 1905, being survived by two daughters, 
 Elsie P. and Miriam L. Miss Elsie was graduated 
 from the University of Minnesota in 1906 and from 
 Simmons College at Boston in 1907, was director of 
 Sanford Hall at the University of Minnesota up to 
 1914, and is now a member of the faculty in the 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1321 
 
 Teachers’ College at Columbia University, New York 
 City. She has given special study and attention to 
 institutional management. Miriam, the younger 
 daughter, was graduated at Wellesley College, Mas- 
 sachusetts, in 1910, completed one year’s course in 
 the New York State Library School at Albany, and 
 was for three years on the Minneapolis Public 
 Library staff as cataloguer and later as manager of 
 the city’s industrial libraries, as established in de- 
 partment stores, in the stations of the fire depart- 
 ment, in manufactories and other places where this 
 extension of the library service brings books within 
 ready reach of the readers. Miriam married Rob- 
 ert Silas Fowler, April 28, 1915, and lives at Lake 
 Minnetonka. 
 
 Capt. William H. Donahue. It is characteristic 
 of the members of the Minneapolis bar to have 
 varied and important interests outside their profes- 
 sion, and in the case of William H. Donahue, who 
 has practiced since his admission in 1902, his chief 
 distinction aside from success as a lawyer is in mil- 
 itary affairs. Captain Donahue has-been for many 
 years identified with the Minnesota National Guard, 
 and is one of the most prominent officers in that 
 organization. 
 
 William H. Donahue was born in 1879 at Gold 
 Hill, Nevada, then an isolated and frontier mining- 
 district, when it required thirteen days to make the 
 journey from there to Bangor, Maine, which was 
 the old home of Captain Donahue’s parents. His 
 father and mother were William J. and Honora 
 (Quinn) Donahue. Captain Donahue and his mother 
 both reside in Minneapolis, and he confesses an in- 
 debtedness to her gentle influence and motherly am- 
 bition for his early instruction and for much of his 
 success since entering his profession. Another son, 
 Frank, died in infancy at Minneapolis. Both parents 
 were natives of Bangor, Maine. 
 
 Captain Donahue s home has been in Minneapolis 
 since 1881, though at about the age of fifteen he 
 returned with his mother to Bangor and was in 
 school there for one year. Captain Donahue took 
 preparatory work under a private tutor, and much 
 of his early training was received directly from 
 his mother. Before entering the University of Min- 
 nesota he studied law in the office of Louis K. Hull, 
 and was also a night student of law in the uni- 
 versity. In 1902 he graduated LL. B. from the uni- 
 versity, and in 1903 received the degree LL. M. 
 Admitted to the bar in 1902, his practice began in 
 the same year in partnership with George W. Meyer 
 under the firm name of Meyer & Donahue, and was 
 continued until the death of Mr. Meyer in 1910. 
 Since that time Mr. Donahue has practiced alone, 
 and now has a reputation and clientage which rank 
 him among the most successful lawyers of Minne- 
 apolis. For several years Captain Donahue and his 
 partner had offices in the Temple Court Building 
 and for the past three years his office has been 
 in the Palace Building. Besides his regular law 
 practice, Captain Donahue is president and treas- 
 urer of the Minneapolis Roofing and Cornice Works. 
 
 Captain Donahue first became identified with the 
 National Guard in 1896, and was a member of the 
 ° Ca ^ , battery at time of the Spanish-American 
 war, but that organization was not called into active 
 service. After six. years he left the National Guard, 
 but joined again in 1908. His enlistment in both 
 instances was with Battery B. At the second enlist- 
 ment, after three months, he was made a corporal, 
 
 and in six months became sergeant, and at the end 
 of the first year was promoted to second lieutenant. 
 In 1913 he was made captain of Battery D and 
 appointed captain and commissary on the colonel's 
 staff. His interests in military theory and practice 
 have gone much beyond that of most men who take 
 service in the National Guard, and this is indicated 
 by his attendance for one year in the garrison 
 school at Fort Snelling, where he secured a cer- 
 tificate for efficiency, and for twenty-eight days dur- 
 ing July, 1913, he was in the Fort Riley School of 
 Instruction in Kansas. Fort Riley is one of the 
 largest posts of the United States army, and the 
 school is conducted primarily for the officers of the 
 regular forces. In 1913 Captain Donahue was elected 
 secretary of the Officers’ Association of the Minne- 
 sota National Guard. 
 
 Captain Donahue is unmarried and is devoted to 
 the welfare and comfort of his mother, who in 
 earlier years sacrificed herself so uncomplainingly 
 to give him a home and proper instruction. They 
 reside at 1600 West Lake Street. Captain Donahue 
 is affiliated with the Minneapolis Lodge of Elks, 
 with the Hennepin County Bar Association, with 
 the Knights of Columbus, the Modern Woodmen of 
 America, the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the 
 Athletic and Boat clubs of Minneapolis. 
 
 William E. Flynn. A Minneapolis lawyer, with 
 offices in the Temple Court Building, William E. 
 Flynn, though one of the younger members of the 
 bar, has already established himself securely in his 
 profession, and gives promise of a large career of 
 usefulness before him. 
 
 William Edward Flynn was born in Caledonia, 
 Minnesota, March 6, 1889. His father is Judge 
 Arthur J. Flynn and his mother Mary (Murphy) 
 Flynn. Judge Flynn is one of the prominent cit- 
 izens of Caledonia, served twelve years as post- 
 master, and for twelve years was judge of probate 
 in Houston County. He now lives retired at Cal- 
 edonia. He was born in Waterford, Ireland, June 
 27, 1843, came to the United States with relatives 
 when about eight years of age, lived a time and at- 
 tended school in Chicago, and then moved to Min- 
 nesota. His wife was also a native of Waterford, 
 Ireland, came to this country with her parents, and 
 they were married at Rushford, Minnesota. Of the 
 eight children in their family all lived to grow up 
 but one, and six are now living : Arthur P., who 
 was an attorney at Colorado Springs, died at Cal- 
 edonia, Minnesota, about 1900, at the age of thirty; 
 Margaret is now Mrs. Charles M. Leighton of* Aus- 
 tin, Minnesota; George F. is a traveling salesman, 
 with headquarters at La Crosse, Wisconsin; Anna, 
 lives at home; Pierce J. is a conductor on the North- 
 ern Pacific Railway, with headquarters at Dickin- 
 son, North Dakota; Robert E. is a physician and 
 surgeon at La Crosse, Wisconsin, and at the present 
 time county physician. All the children were born 
 in Minnesota and William E. is the youngest of the 
 family. 
 
 His early education was acquired by attending the 
 schools of Caledonia, ending with "his graduation 
 from the high school in the class of 1908. Mr. 
 Flynn is an alumnus of the University of Minnesota 
 law department, having received his degree LL. B. 
 in 1 91 1. His career as a practicing lawyer began 
 at Minneapolis with the late Fred H. Ayers, under 
 the firm name of Ayers & Flynn. This partnership 
 was dissolved by the death of Mr. Ayers on March 
 
1322 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 27, 1913- Mr. Flynn now looks after a large and 
 growing general practice and is a member of the 
 Minneapolis Bar Association and the Minnesota 
 State Bar Association. His fraternal orders are the 
 Knights of Columbus, his membership being in the 
 Hennepin Council, the Order of Camels of the 
 World, and his church home is the Catholic Pro- 
 Cathedral of St. Mary’s. Mr. Flynn is unmarried 
 and resides at 1775 Hennepin Avenue. 
 
 Ferdinand A. Kranz. Through continued effort 
 and the closest application some individuals event- 
 ually achieve success along certain lines and in 
 various professions, but theirs is a distinctively dif- 
 ferent order of success than that which is gained by 
 the men who are born to their work, their natural 
 leanings and marked talents pointing unmistakably to 
 the career in which they subsequently attain distinc- 
 tion. Some obey the call of the theological domain ; 
 others find the science of healing their natural field; 
 the business mart or the political arena engage many, 
 while still others early see in their visions of the 
 future achievements in the law as the summit of 
 their ambitions. To respond to this call, to bend 
 every energy in this direction, to broaden and deepen 
 every possible highway of knowledge and to finally 
 enter upon this chosen career and find its rewards 
 worth while — such has been the happy experience 
 of Ferdinand A. Kranz, numbered among the rising 
 young attorneys of the Minneapolis bar. 
 
 Mr. Kranz was born April 6, 1879, and is a son of 
 Nicholas Frederick William and Anna M. (Bohrn) 
 Kranz, natives of Germany, who accompanied their 
 parents to the United States as young people and 
 were early settlers of Dakota County, Minnesota. The 
 grandfather, Nicholas Kranz, was a man of superior 
 educational attainments and in his young manhood 
 was a teacher in the schools of Germany. During 
 the early ’40s he emigrated to America and settled 
 in Dakota County, Minnesota, as a pioneer of Hamp- 
 ton Township. Fie was one of the first justices of 
 the peace in Dakota County, if not the first, and per- 
 formed the ceremony for the first couple married in 
 that vicinity. Nicholas Frederick William Kranz was 
 the seventh son of his parents, and, according to 
 custom, had he stayed in Germany would have been 
 educated by the crown. He was given a good educa- 
 tion here and like his father early adopted educa- 
 tional work, teaching the first school in the Town- 
 ship of Hampton. He and his father named the 
 Town of New Trier, Minnesota, where they had 
 located in the early ’40s, and there he was married to 
 Anna'M. Bohrn, who had become acquainted with 
 him while on a visit to relatives, although her own 
 parents were early settlers of Kenosha County, Wis- 
 consin, where they had located in the early ’40s. 
 During the ’70s and ’80s N. F. W. Kranz was a prom- 
 inent man of Dakota County, and served as register 
 of deeds there for a period of about eighteen years, 
 or longer than any other man in the history of the 
 county. During his active career he was engaged 
 successfully in the real estate and insurance business 
 at Hastings but in 1908 retired from business cares 
 and moved to Crookston, Minnesota, where he now 
 makes his home. The mother passed away at Hast- 
 ings in 1903. There were nine children in their 
 family as follows: Nicholas W. who died in 1908, 
 
 at the age of forty-one years, was engaged for a 
 number of years in the hardware business in St. 
 Paul ; Charles B., who is engaged in the real estate 
 business in St. Paul, Minnesota; John V., who is as- 
 
 sistant superintendent of the register department of 
 the Minneapolis Postoffice ; Mrs. Frank Bellerman, of 
 Mount Angel, Oregon ; Mrs. Graham W. Munch, of 
 Crookston, Minnesota; Daisy M., who is a teacher in 
 the public schools of Grand Forks, North Dakota; 
 Leonard J., a resident of that place; Ferdinand A.; 
 and James P., who is secretary of the Associated 
 Charities of Memphis, Tennessee. 
 
 Ferdinand A. Kranz received his primary educa- 
 tion in the German parochial schools, following 
 which he entered the high school at Hastings, Min- 
 nesota, and was graduated with the class of 1898. As 
 had his father and grandfather before him, he then 
 taught school for a period, but after five years gave 
 up educational work to accept employment in the 
 United States railway mail service. It had always, 
 however, been Mr. Kranz’s ambition to enter the 
 legal profession, and through the hardest and closest 
 application he managed to secure a training in the 
 calling while working in the postal service. He en- 
 tered the University of Minnesota in 1908, and in 
 1911 was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of 
 Laws, but this could have only been achieved by one 
 who had a natural predilection for a profession 
 which demands the most thorough preparation. Mr. 
 Kranz immediately opened an office at No. 814-16 
 Metropolitan Life Building, and from that time to 
 the present has been in the enjoyment of a steadily 
 increasing and desirable practice. Hard work has 
 been a constant companion to Mr. Kranz; his office 
 hours are seasons of activity in which not a moment 
 is wasted. He seldom drops the woes of his clients 
 during his waking hours, has never shirked a respon- 
 sibility, and no effort has been, with him, too great to 
 gain new light. He belongs to the various organi- 
 zations of his profession, and his standing among 
 his professional brethren is high. His religious con- 
 nection is with the Catholic Church. Mr. Kranz is 
 unmarried. 
 
 Samuel Hewes Chute, M. D. The many years 
 spent by the late Doctor Chute in Minneapolis, from 
 1837 until his death on October 12, 1913, were accom- 
 panied by the practical service to his fellowmen 
 and the community such as is only possible to one 
 who has positive character, courage of thought and 
 action, and the real welfare of others at heart. 
 Anyone who has followed the growth of the village 
 at St. Anthony to the City of Minneapolis knows in 
 how many different ways the work and influence of 
 Doctor Chute were identified with that growth, and 
 often so intimately as to make him chiefly responsi- 
 ble for reforms and undertakings that mean much 
 to the modern city. 
 
 Samuel Hewes Chute was born in Columbus, Ohio, 
 December 6, 1830, and was already a man of wide 
 experience when he arrived at St. Anthony on May 
 1, 1857. He was a minister’s son. His parents 
 were Rev. James and Martha Hewes (Clapp) Chute. 
 Soon after his birth they moved to Fort Wayne, 
 Indiana, where his early youth was spent. His edu- 
 cation, begun in the Fort Wayne schools, was con- 
 tinued as a student in that noted old Indiana college, 
 Wabash, at Crawfordsville. His medical studies 
 were pursued under Drs. C. E. Sturgis and J. H. 
 Thompson at Fort Wayne, beginning in November, 
 1849, followed soon afterward by his matriculation 
 at the Medical College of Ohio in Cincinnati, which 
 gave him the degree of M. D. in February, 1851. 
 
 Hardly was the ink on the parchment dry when 
 he found opportunity for professional experience in 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1323 
 
 a novel and adventurous way. He accepted the 
 nominal post of physician and surgeon to a party 
 of friends who had organized an expedition bound 
 for far-off Oregon. The Oregon trail had all the 
 spice of adventure and hardship such as are now 
 associated with journeys to the few unexplored 
 regions of the earth. In later years the sight of a 
 luxurious overland express, passing through Min- 
 neapolis, would recall to the doctor’s mind the scenes 
 of that long and often perilous struggle over the 
 wilderness of plains and mountains, suggesting the 
 remarkable contrasts wrought by a few decades in 
 the great West. Reaching Portland, Doctor Chute 
 spent the winter of 1852 in that city employed at 
 his profession, and in the spring of 1853 rode horse- 
 back to California. Six months as a miner, and he 
 then exchanged pick and shovel for the implements 
 of his profession. For four years he had charge of 
 the hospital at Yreka besides his general practice, 
 and was the only graduate physician in that locality. 
 His return to the “States” was made by sea from 
 San Francisco to Panama and thence to New York, 
 where he Arrived in 1857. 
 
 Without delay Doctor Chute set out from New 
 York for the frontier village of St. Anthony in Min- 
 nesota Territory. A steamboat carried him from 
 Prairie du Chien to St. Paul. At St. Anthony he 
 became associated with his brother Richard, another 
 pioneer whose sketch is found on other, pages, and 
 they entered the real estate business. The firm name 
 of Chute Brothers was assumed in 1865, and after 
 the death of Richard Chute in 1S93 the business was 
 incorporated as the Chute Brothers Company, of 
 which Doctor Chute was president until his death. 
 
 From 1857 the name of Doctor Chute appears all 
 through the records of the development of Min- 
 neapolis. His business interests were extensive. At 
 one time he and his brother owned the St. Anthony 
 Falls Power Company. In 1869 occurred the dis- 
 aster, the caving in of a tunnel under the falls, 
 which threatened to ruin the power plant. The 
 doctor and his brother labored to repair the damage 
 through their individual resources and were after- 
 wards influential at Washington in obtaining an 
 appropriation for the reconstruction of a dam on a 
 larger scale. During the course of these early im- 
 provements, Doctor Chute, as executive officer of 
 the board of construction, was in charge, with 
 J. H. Stevens as engineer, and continued that respon- 
 sibility until relieved by Colonel Farquhar, sent out 
 by the Government to take charge of the permanent 
 construction. He was agent of the St. Anthony 
 Falls Power Company from 1868 to 1880, at which 
 time the property was sold to James J. Hill and 
 associates. He had also been one of the directors 
 of the company. 
 
 In the days when the log cut concentrated at 
 Minneapolis aggregated hundreds of millions of feet 
 annually, Doctor Chute was associated with the Mis- 
 sissippi and Rum River Boom Company, first as its 
 vice president and director and from 1879 to 1886 
 as president. However, his most important inter- 
 ests were in real estate, and numerous subdivisions 
 and additions have been platted and developed by 
 the company of which he was the head. 
 
 In political affiliation Doctor Chute was a repub- 
 lican. But his chief concern was the betterment 
 of the city, and during his long residence held many 
 municipal offices, both elective and appointive. In 
 early St. Anthony he was superintendent of the 
 poor, in 1858, and city treasurer, and later a member 
 
 of the council. His services were especially note- 
 worthy in connection with the founding of a real 
 public school system. From 1861 to 1864 he was a 
 member and for the greater part of the time presi- 
 dent of the board of education. He was again a 
 member of the board in 1878, when the separate 
 educational boards of the east and west divisions 
 were consolidated. From March, 1883, to April, 
 1885, he was a member of the park commission. In 
 all his public positions he displayed the same ability 
 and earnestness which characterized him in his 
 private business. His church was the Presbyterian. 
 
 One year after his arrival in St. Anthony, Doctor 
 Chute was married, May 5, 1858, to Miss Helen E. 
 A. Day. Six children were born, four daughters 
 and two sons. The sons, Louis P. and Fred B., are 
 both lawyers and carry on the Chute Realty Com- 
 pany. The surviving daughters are Mary J., Eliza- 
 beth and Agnes. Their mother is now seventy-nine 
 years of age and living in Minneapolis. 
 
 Louis P. Chute. Senior member of the firm of 
 L. P. & F. B. Chute, lawyers, and also of the Chute 
 Realty Company, Louis P. Chute is the oldest son 
 of the late Dr. Samuel H. Chute, and since leaving 
 college has been instrumental in continuing the large 
 business established by his father and uncle and in 
 forwarding many improvements and public spirited 
 endeavors in the City of Minneapolis. 
 
 Louis P. Chute has lived in Minneapolis all his 
 life, was born there October 17, 1868, and while 
 growing up had his first instruction from private 
 tutors. He afterwards took a course in the Archi- 
 bald Business College, and completed both the clas- 
 sical and legal courses in the Notre Dame University 
 at South Bend, Indiana. He was graduated A. B. 
 in 1890 and LL. B. in 1892, and in 1893 the Univer- 
 sity of Minnesota awarded him the degree of Master 
 of Laws. Since that time, Mr. Chute has been active 
 in the real estate business, and since 1902 the business 
 has been conducted under the name of the Chute 
 Realty Company. He and his brother Fred B. have 
 been particularly active in the upbuilding and devel- 
 opment of the east side business district, and among 
 their more conspicuous improvements was the erec- 
 tion of the Princess Theater, and about three hun- 
 dred feet of business frontage on Central Avenue 
 between University and Fourth Streets. 
 
 Louis P. Chute is identified with the more promi- 
 nent organizations in the civic and social life of 
 Minneapolis. He is a member of the Minneapolis 
 Club, the Minneapolis Athletic Club, the Minneapolis 
 Civic and Commerce Association, the St. Anthony 
 Commercial Club, the Minnetonka Yacht Club, the 
 Knights of Columbus, the Lafayette Country Club, 
 the Society of Fine Arts, the University Club and 
 his church is the Catholic. Mr. Chute is also a 
 member of the Sons of the American Revolution. 
 
 Fred B. Chute. The young son of the late 
 Dr. Samuel H. and Helen E. A. (Day) Chute, Fred 
 B. Chute, has for nearly twenty years been associ- 
 ated with his brother Louis P. Chute in the prac- 
 tice of law and in the management of the extensive 
 interests acquired by his father, whose achievements 
 as a Minneapolis pioneer, and activity in real estate 
 development and city upbuilding, have been recited 
 in preceding paragraphs. 
 
 Fred B. Chute was born at Minneapolis Decem- 
 ber 21, 1872. His early education was received under 
 a private tutor and in the local schools, and at the 
 
1324 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 age of twelve years he was sent to the sub-prepara- 
 tory department of the Notre Dame University in 
 Indiana, and continued there as a student until 
 graduating from the academic department with the 
 degree Bachelor of Letters in 1892, and afterwards 
 for one year in the law department. In September, 
 1893, Mr. Chute entered the law department of the 
 University of Minnesota, and was graduated LL. B. 
 in June, 1895. The following June he received the 
 degree Master of Laws, and in the fall of 1896 
 re-entered the university with the intention of con- 
 tinuing his studies with the degree Doctor of Civil 
 Laws as his object. However, owing to the accumu- 
 lation of responsibilities due to his father’s increas- 
 ing age, it became necessary for him to discontinue 
 his studies and devote himself entirely to business 
 and his profession. Both brothers are officers and 
 directors in the companies conducting the interests 
 of the original Chute Brothers, which was estab- 
 lished nearly fifty years ago, and of the Chute Broth- 
 ers Company and the Chute Realty Company. In 
 recent years they have conducted a number of 
 building operations in the business center of East 
 Minneapolis, and large blocks of valuable and promi- 
 nent real estate are controlled and managed through 
 the offices of the Chute Realty Company. 
 
 Mr. Fred B. Chute has been active in public affairs, 
 and from 1904 to February, 1910, served as a mem- 
 ber of the board of education of Minneapolis, until 
 the pressure of private business obliged him to re- 
 sign. He is a member of the Catholic Church, and 
 belongs to the Minneapolis Club, the Minneapolis 
 Athletic Club, the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce 
 Association, the University Club, the Minnikahda 
 Club, the St. Anthony Commercial Club, the Min- 
 netonka Yacht Club, "the Knights of Columbus, the 
 Sons of the American Revolution, the Minneapolis 
 Automobile Club, the Society of Fine Arts, and the 
 State Bar Association. Mr. Chute was married 
 May 26, 1909, to Miss Elizabeth McKennan Hawley, 
 daughter of Dr. Augustin B. and Harriet (Black- 
 stock) Hawley. 
 
 Louis FI. Joss. In well appointed offices in the 
 Minnesota Loan and Trust Building, 311-13 Nicollet 
 Avenue, Minneapolis, are maintained the professional 
 headquarters of the firm of Joss & Ohman, who con- 
 trol a substantial law business and are recognized 
 as representative members of the bar of the Minne- 
 sota metropolis. Mr. Joss is a native son of this 
 state and within its borders is finding ample oppor- 
 tunity for the achieving of success in his chosen 
 profession. 
 
 Louis Harvey Joss was born at Northfield, Rice 
 County, Minnesota, on the 27th of October, 1880, and 
 is a son of Rev. Augustus Adolphus Joss and Mary 
 (Powell) Joss, the former of whom was born in the 
 City of Antwerp, Belgium, and the latter at Little 
 Falls, Herkimer County, New York, their marriage 
 having been solemnized in the City of Buffalo, that 
 state. Rev. Augustus A. Joss was about five years 
 of age at the time of his parents’ immigration to 
 America, and the family home was established at 
 Constantine, St. Joseph County, Michigan, where he 
 was reared to adult age and acquired his early educa- 
 tion. He later received excellent training along 
 higher scholastic lines and finally was graduated in 
 the theological department of Princeton University, 
 New Jersey. He then entered the ministry of the 
 Presbyterian Church, but about a decade later he was 
 confirmed in the Protestant Episcopal Church, in 
 
 which he soon afterward received holy orders, after 
 his graduation at Seabury Seminary, the theological 
 institution of the Episcopal Church at Faribault, 
 Minnesota. Since the time of ordination as a clergy- 
 man of the Episcopal Church Rev. Augustus A. Joss 
 has continued his pastoral services in the Northwest, 
 and he is now rector of the church at Redwood 
 Falls, the metropolis and judicial center of Redwood 
 County, Minnesota. He has also held rectorships in 
 the states of Illinois and North Dakota since first 
 coming to Minnesota, in 1880. He is a man of high 
 attainments and of great zeal and earnestness, and 
 both he and his wife have the affectionate regard of 
 all who have come within the sphere of their gra- 
 cious influence, the subject of this review being 
 their only child. 
 
 Louis H. Joss was graduated in the high school 
 at Little Falls, Minnesota, in 1899, and thereafter he 
 attended the academic or literary department of the 
 University of Minnesota for a period of i )4 years, 
 simultaneouly pursuing the night course in the law 
 department, in which he was graduated as a member 
 of the class of 1906 and from which he received the 
 degree of Bachelor of Laws. For one year after his 
 graduation he was in the employ of the well known 
 law firm of Henderson, Wunderlich & Henderson, 
 of Minneapolis, and having thus gained valuable ex- 
 perience in a preliminary way he then engaged in 
 practice on’ his own responsibility. After one year 
 he formed a professional alliance with Charles M. 
 Stockton, under the firm name of Joss & Stockton, 
 but this partnership was terminated after the lapse 
 of about eighteen months. In June, 1908, Mr. Joss 
 and John N. Ohman formed a partnership, and the 
 firm of Joss & Ohman. He is a republican in his 
 political allegiance, is a member of the Minneapolis 
 Bar Association, and both he and his wife are com- 
 municants of Floly Trinity Church, Protestant Epis- 
 copal. 
 
 On the 2 1st of September, 1910, was solemnized 
 the marriage of Mr. Joss to Miss Kate Townsend 
 Bennett, who was born at Sterling, Illinois, and who 
 was a child at the time of the family removal to 
 Minneapolis, where she was reared and educated. 
 She is a daughter of William H. and Kate Brascott 
 (Wright) Bennett, and her father was one of the 
 prominent members of the Minneapolis bar at the 
 time of his death, in 1908; he was a member of the 
 representative law firm of Koon, Whalen & Bennett, 
 and since his death his widow has continued her resi- 
 dence in Minneapolis. Mrs. Joss was graduated in 
 the East High School of Minneapolis and the Uni- 
 versity of Minnesota, in which she became affiliated 
 with the Phi Beta Kappa and Delta Delta Delta 
 sororities, and she holds membership also in the 
 Society of the Daughters of the American Revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 William H. Bennett. From 1888 until his death 
 on October 14, 1908, the late William H. Bennett was 
 prominently identified with the Minneapolis bar, and 
 during that time was one of the ablest corporation 
 lawyers in the state. On moving to Minneapolis Mr. 
 Bennett became a partner in the firm of Koon, 
 Wheelan & Bennett, and that relation was continued 
 until 1907, from which time for about a year Mr. 
 Bennett devoted himself extensively to the trial of 
 cases for the Minneapolis Street Railway Company. 
 The firm of Koon, Whee’an & Bennett had also en- 
 joyed a large and important corporation clientele. 
 They were attorneys for the Minneapolis Street 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1325 
 
 Railway Company, the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault 
 Ste. Marie Railway Company, the Pillsbury-Wash- 
 burn Flour Mills Company, Limited, the Northwest- 
 ern National Bank, the Minneapolis General Electric 
 Company, and a number of other leading business 
 houses and corporations of the city. The late Mr. 
 Bennett was a lawyer of eastern ancestry and train- 
 ing, had come west to Illinois, in 1868, and with a 
 broad foundation and thorough experience in gen- 
 eral practice had for a number of years confined his 
 attention largely to the law dealing with corpora- 
 tions. For a number of years before his death he 
 had never taken a criminal case. 
 
 William H. Bennett was born in Scotland, Wind- 
 ham County, Connecticut, June 28, 1843, the only 
 child of Samuel F. and Harriet (Spaulding) Ben- 
 nett, both natives of Connecticut. The Bennett fam- 
 ily was established in America of English ancestry, 
 the first representative of the name, William Henry 
 Bennett, having settled at Ipswich, Massachusetts. 
 In 1740 the family moved to Connecticut, bought a 
 farm in Windham County, and that land was handed 
 down from one generation to the other and its last 
 owner was the late William H. Bennett of Minneap- 
 olis. Grandfather William Bennett was a loyal sol- 
 dier of the American cause during the Revolutionary 
 war, and for a business followed farming, dying at 
 the advanced age of ninety-five years. His wife was 
 Sarah Giddings, of Welsh lineage. Samuel F. Ben- 
 nett, one of the five children of William Bennett and 
 wife, followed farming as a means of livelihood and 
 remained a resident of Connecticut until his death 
 in 1889, when about eighty-three years of age. His 
 wife, Harriet Spaulding, who died when about thir- 
 ty-six years of age, was a daughter of Benjamin 
 Spaulding, also a native of Connecticut and a Wind- 
 ham County farmer. His first wife was a Miss 
 Ingalls, who became the mother of Mrs. Samuel F. 
 Bennett. After her death he married Pamelia Car- 
 ter, a native of Canterbury, Connecticut. The home 
 of the Spaulding family for many years was at Pom- 
 fret, Connecticut. Mr. and Mrs. Samuel F. Bennett 
 were members of the Congregational Church. 
 
 William H. Bennett spent his boyhood, youth and 
 early manhood in Connecticut, chiefly at Hampton, 
 where after his death he was laid to rest. He ac- 
 quired a liberal education, pursuing a preparatory 
 course in the Phillips Academy, and was graduated 
 from the Yale College in 1866. After a year of 
 teaching at Easton, Connecticut, he entered the Al- 
 bany Law School, and was admitted to the bar at 
 Albany in 1868. Mr. Bennett was one of a number 
 of Albany Law School graduates who sought a field 
 for practice in Illinois, and in the same year of his 
 graduation located at Sterling in Whiteside County, 
 where his services as a lawyer and a citizen are 
 still gratefully remembered. He then formed a part- 
 nership with Frederick Sackett, under the firm name 
 of Sackett & Bennett, which continued until the re- 
 moval of Mr. Sackett to Chicago. During his rela- 
 tions with the Whiteside County bar Mr. Bennett 
 controlled a large clientage and had a share in much 
 of the important litigation tried in the courts of the 
 district. He was subsequently in practice with Henry 
 Green, and the firm of Bennett & Green was only 
 dissolved in the fall of 1888, when Mr. Bennett 
 removed to Minneapolis. The late Mr. Bennett was 
 an active republican, and during his residence at 
 Sterling was elected mayor of the city, was for sev- 
 eral terms an alderman, and also a member of the 
 board of school trustees. He regarded a public 
 
 office as a public trust, and made his influence felt 
 for good and improvement in both the Illinois city 
 and in Minneapolis. 
 
 In January, 1873, at Sterling, Mr. Bennett married 
 Miss Frances Green, daughter of John and Caroline 
 Green. She died in November, 1873, after the birth 
 of her daughter, Frances. In 1876 Mr. Bennett 
 married Miss Kate Prescott Wright of Bridgeport, 
 Connecticut, daughter of George A. and Jane (Pres- 
 cott) Wright. There were two children of this mar- 
 riage : Kate Townsend And Jane Prescott Bennett. 
 The late Mr. Bennett was a Unitarian in religious 
 belief, while Mrs. Bennett, who survives with her 
 three daughters, is a member of the Episcopal 
 Church. Mrs. Bennett is still living at Minneapolis 
 at the family homestead. She is a member of the 
 Daughters of the American Revolution. Her three 
 daughters are : Mrs. H. F. Marston, Miss Frances 
 
 L. Bennett and Mrs. Louis H. Joss. 
 
 William S. Dwinnell. The measure of ability 
 in the legal profession is most effectively defined 
 by the success attained, and by this metewand Sen- 
 ator Dwinnell has held secure prestige as one of the 
 representative members of the bar of Minnesota, 
 though he has now retired from the active practice 
 of law to meet the demands placed upon him by 
 his private interests of business and capitalistic 
 order. He has been a resident of Minneapolis since 
 1889 and is at the present time a member of the 
 State Senate — known and honored as a citizen of 
 distinctive loyalty and public spirit and as one of 
 prominence and influence in professional, civic and 
 business circles. 
 
 William Stanley Dwinnell was born at Lodi, Co- 
 lumbia County, Wisconsin, on the 25th of December, 
 1862, and thus became a right welcome Christmas 
 arrival in the home of his parents, John Bliss Dwin- 
 nell and Maria C. Dwinnell. His father was one of 
 the early merchants and influential citizens of Colum- 
 bia County, and later turned his attention to agri- 
 cultural pursuits. The Dwinnell family is of English 
 lineage and the founder of the American branch set- 
 tled at Topsfield, Essex County, Massachusetts, in 
 1660, the ancestral homestead at that place being still 
 in the possession of his descendants. On the ma- 
 ternal side Senator Dwinnell is a lineal scion of the 
 prominent old Dwight and Day families of Connecti- 
 cut and New York. The parents of Senator Dwin- 
 nell continued to reside in Wisconsin until the close 
 of their lives. 
 
 He whose name introduces this review acquired 
 his preliminary education in the public schools of 
 his native town, and after completing the curriculum 
 of the high school he took a two years’ undergrad- 
 uate course in the academic or literary department of 
 the University of Wisconsin. He completed in this 
 great institution thereafter the course prescribed in 
 its law department, in which he was graduated as a 
 member of the class of 1886 and from which he 
 received the degree of Bachelor of Laws, with con- 
 comitant admission to the bar of his native state. 
 For two years after his graduation Senator Dwinnell 
 was employed by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin m 
 the preparing of opinions of that tribunal for publi- 
 cation, and incidentally, during his student days at 
 Madison, the capital of the state and the seat of 
 the University of Wisconsin, and during the period 
 he was in the service of the Supreme Court he en- 
 ioyed the close friendship of the late Gov. Jeremiah 
 M. Rusk. Upon invitation of the governor he ac- 
 
1326 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 companied the latter and his staff to the funeral of 
 Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, in New York City, and he 
 was with Governor Rusk in a confidential relation 
 during the .Milwaukee riots of 1886. 
 
 .After completing his work for the Supreme Court 
 Senator Dwinnell established his residence at Black 
 River Falls, judicial center of Jackson County, Wis- 
 consin, and after serving as district attorney of that 
 county, in 1888-89, he came to Minneapolis as attor- 
 ney, under contract, for a large building and loan 
 association. On account of. radical objection to cer- 
 tain policies adopted by this corporation the senator 
 soon resigned his position, and he then engaged in 
 the practice of his profession in Minneapolis, where 
 he became specially prominent and influential as a 
 corporation lawyer. He built up a very large and 
 important law business, to which he gave punctilious 
 attention for fully a decade, but since 1900, largely 
 to avoid the close confinement of his offices and the 
 exacting demands placed upon him in connection 
 with law practice, he has devoted himself largely to 
 the supervision of his outside interests, his definite 
 retirement from his profession having occurred in 
 1904. 
 
 Senator Dwinnell has been influential and notably 
 successful in the field of real estate operations and 
 through his liberality and progressiveness has done 
 much to further the civic and material advancement 
 of the Minnesota metropolis, as well as the capital 
 city of the state. He is treasurer of the Urban 
 Investment Company, of St. Paul, and he has been 
 most successful in the handling and improving of 
 city realty in both Minneapolis and St. Paul, as well 
 as "timber lands in California and British Columbia. 
 Senator Dwinnell has exercised large and benignant 
 influence in connection with governmental and gen- 
 eral civic affairs in the state of his adoption,. notably 
 in his advocacy of the direct primary election law, 
 which was enacted by the Legislature of 1899, and 
 the passage of the effective anti-trust law. He has 
 been vital and insistent as a champion of good gov- 
 ernment, and has spared himself neither time nor 
 effort in the supporting of men and measures meeting 
 the approval of his judgment having been specially 
 active in his endeavors to aid in the choosing of 
 worthy candidates for municipal, state and federal 
 offices. He is a zealous and valued member of the 
 Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Association, and 
 prior to its dissolution was equally prominent in the 
 affairs of the Minneapolis Commercial Club, both 
 of these organizations standing sponsor for high 
 civic ideals and progressive policies. The senator 
 was for several years a member of the public, affairs 
 committee of the Commercial Club, and was its vice 
 chairman in 1906. He was elected to the State. Senate 
 in 1910, and in this important body his service has 
 been characteristically earnest, faithful and circum- 
 spect. his record being one that will reflect lasting 
 credit upon him and that has been of benefit to the 
 state at large as well as to his specific constituency. 
 He was reelected and his present term will expire 
 in November, 1918. 
 
 Senator Dwinnell holds membership in the Ameri- 
 can Bar Association, the Minnesota State Bar Asso- 
 ciation and the American Economic Association, and 
 in a local way he holds membership in the following 
 named and representative orsanizations : The Min- 
 
 neapolis Club, Minnikahda Club, Six O’Clock Club, 
 Minneapolis Automobile Club and the Lafayette 
 Country Club. He and his wife are zealous com- 
 
 municants of St. Alark’s Church, Protestant Epis- 
 copal, and he is a member of the vestry of this 
 parish. 
 
 On the 24th of April, 1889, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Senator Dwinnell to Miss Virginia Ing- 
 man, and they have four children — Stanley W., 
 Katherine, James B., and William S., Jr. Stanley W. 
 Dwinnell was graduated in Yale University as a 
 member of the class of 1912, and in the same year 
 his sister Katherine was graduated in the Rosemary 
 School for Girls, at Greenwich, Connecticut, a vir- 
 tual suburb of the City of New York. 
 
 William Fryberger. A publication of this order 
 exercises one of its most important and consistent 
 prerogatives when it enters due memorial tribute to 
 such honored pioneers and sterling citizens as the 
 late William Fryberger, who contributed his quota 
 to the civic and industrial development and progress 
 of Minnesota and whose life was dominated by the 
 highest principles of integrity as well as by a deep 
 appreciation of the true values of human thought and 
 action. He became one of the substantial agricul- 
 turists and influential citizens of Goodhue County, 
 and he continued to reside on his well improved 
 homestead farm until his death, which occurred on 
 the ioth of April, 1890, about one month prior to his 
 sixty-seventh birthday anniversary. 
 
 William Fryberger was born in Goshen, Cler- 
 mont County, Ohio, on the gth of May, 1823, and 
 this date indicates with due significance that his 
 parents, Andrew and Katherine (Roudabush) Fry- 
 berger, were numbered among the pioneers of that 
 favored section of the old Buckeye State, where the 
 family was one of no little prominence. The lineage 
 of William Fryberger traces back to sturdy German 
 origin on both the paternal and maternal sides, and 
 it is supposed that the early American ancestors of 
 both families settled in Pennsylvania, which state 
 contributed a most numerous and valuable element 
 to the pioneer settlement of Ohio. William Fry- 
 berger removed in 1831 to Indiana, where he re- 
 mained until the year 1855, when he removed, with his 
 family to Minnesota where he established himself as 
 one of the early settlers in the southeastern part of 
 the state. He entered claim to 160 acres of Govern- 
 ment land in Featherstone Township, Goodhue 
 County, and there he developed one of the model 
 farms of the county, marking the passing years with 
 large and worthy achievement as a man of industry, 
 thrift and civic loyalty. He was one of the first set- 
 tlers in Featherstone Township, in the organization of 
 which he assisted, and during the long period of years 
 that intervened before he was summoned from the 
 stage of life's mortal endeavors he wielded a large 
 and benignant influence in the community that rep- 
 resented his home for nearly two-score years. No 
 resident of Goodhue County had more inviolable 
 place in popular confidence and esteem than did this 
 sterling pioneer, and such a verdict placed upon the 
 man gives the most effective voucher for his true 
 worth as we’l as for his kindliness and consideration, 
 which in turn beget abiding friendship. Though he 
 never sought prominence and was essentially unas- 
 suming, his ability and character made him especially 
 eligible for positions of public trust, and he was not 
 permitted to remain in obscurity along this line. His 
 loyalty prompted him to respond to the wishes of his 
 fellow citizens and for many years he held unmis- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1327 
 
 takable leadership in public affairs in his township, 
 which he represented as a member of the county 
 board of supervisors, of which body he was chair- 
 man for eighteen years. His record in this respon- 
 sible office was remarkable, as he was retained as a 
 member of the board for a total of thirty-three years 
 — covering the major part of the entire period of his 
 residence in Goodhue County, where his name and 
 memory are held in lasting honor. He was also 
 elected and served as one of the county commis- 
 sioners of Goodhue County. Mr. Fryberger was a 
 democrat in his political allegiance and was a mem- 
 ber of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 The home life of Mr. Fryberger was one of ideal 
 associations. At Cloverdale, Putnam County, In- 
 diana, on the 27th of November, 1853, was solem- 
 nized the marriage of William Fryberger to Miss 
 Margaret Burroughs, who was born in Illinois, in 
 which state her parents settled in the pioneer days. 
 Of this union were born seven children, the first of 
 whom died in infancy and five of whom are still 
 living: Clara F. is the wife of Janes A. Johnson, 
 
 of Minneapolis; Dr. William O., an able physician 
 and surgeon; Margaret died in August, 1913; Her- 
 schel B. is a representative lawyer of Duluth, this 
 state; Harrison E., engaged in the practice of law in 
 Minneapolis, is individually mentioned on other pages 
 of this work; and Helen also resides in Minneapolis 
 with her mother. 
 
 Harrison E. Fryberger. The bar of Minnesota 
 has enlisted the allegiance of many of the native 
 sons of the state, and they are, almost without ex- 
 ception, honoring both their profession and the com- 
 monwealth which they claim as their native heath. 
 This is significant^ true in connection with the pro- 
 fessional career and personal characteristics of Mr. 
 Fryberger, who is a representative of a sterling pio- 
 neer iamily of Minnesota and who is engaged in the 
 successful practice of law in the City of Minneapo- 
 lis, with a clientage whose scope and prominence 
 vouches for his ability and his command of popular 
 confidence and esteem. Concerning his parents and 
 the family genealogy adequate record is given on 
 other pages of this work, in the memoir dedicated to 
 his father, the late William Fryberger. It may be 
 noted that of the seven children, five are living, and 
 Harrison E. was the sixth in order of birth, all hav- 
 ing been born on the old family homestead farm, in 
 Goodhue County, this state. 
 
 Harrison Earl Fryberger was born on the home- 
 stead farm, in Featherstone Township, Goodhue 
 County, and his early life was compassed by the in- 
 vigorating and benignant influences of the farm, in 
 connection with the work of which he acquired his 
 initial experience in the practical affairs of life. He 
 made excellent use of the advantages afforded him by 
 the public schools of his native county, and his ambi- 
 tion was quickened to the point of desire for broader 
 education and a determination to prepare himself for 
 the legal profession. He became a student in the Uni- 
 versity of Minnesota, in the academic department of 
 which he was graduated in 1890, with the degree of 
 Bachelor of Arts, after the completion of the classical 
 course. In the law department of the university he 
 was graduated as a member of the class of 1892, 
 which year marked his reception of the degree of 
 Bachelor of Laws and his admission to the bar of 
 his native state. From the time of his graduation 
 Mr. Fryberger has been engaged in the practice of 
 
 his profession in Minneapolis, and the passing years 
 have been marked with earnest and effective appli- 
 cation on his part, with the result that he has ap- 
 peared in connection with a large amount of im- 
 portant litigation, has won distinctive contests in the 
 presentation of causes before both court and jury, 
 and has, in short, achieved success worthy of its 
 name. Mr. Fryberger has conducted an individual 
 law business with the exception of a few months 
 during which he was associated in practice with 
 his brother, Herschel B., who is now one of the 
 leading lawyers engaged in practice in the City of 
 Duluth, this state. 
 
 While he has subordinated all other interests to 
 the exacting demands of his profession, Mr. Fry- 
 berger has shown a lively concern in public affairs, 
 especially in those of his home state, and he served 
 one term, 1903-05, as a representative of the Minne- 
 apolis district in the State Legislature, in which his 
 record was one of signal loyalty and zeal, marked 
 by active and influential service in the deliberations 
 of the house and those of the various committees 
 to which he was assigned. He had the distinction 
 of being the author of the bill providing for the in- 
 crease of railway taxation in the state from 3 to 
 4 per cent, having - introduced this bill, which was 
 presented to the people of the state for approval or 
 rejection through popular election, and which gained 
 a heavy affirmative vote, with the result that the law 
 was enacted and has proved of great benefit in in- 
 creasing the just revenues of this commonwealth. 
 
 Apropos of the precedence of Mr. Fryberger in his 
 profession, it may be noted that he has recently suc- 
 ceeded in winning for his clients a decisive victory 
 in the celebrated litigation concerning the Swedish- 
 American Publishing Company, which is one of the 
 most important pieces of litigation in the history of 
 legal procedure in this state, the litigation having con- 
 tinued for more than six years and numbering eight 
 appeals to the Minnesota Supreme Court, the record 
 finally covering more than ten thousand pages. He 
 has also recently won a number of large cases of al- 
 most equal importance in both the state and federal 
 courts. Mr. Fryberger is an appreciative and valued 
 member of the Minneapolis Bar Association and the 
 Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Association, holds 
 membership in the Church of the Redeemer (Univer- 
 salist) and is a member of the University Club, the 
 Minneapolis Athletic Club and the Minneapolis Auto- 
 mobile Club. Mr. Fryberger is a bachelor and resides 
 at the Plaza Hotel. 
 
 Adolphus Louis Dornberg, M. D. For over 
 thirty-five years Doctor Dornberg was in active 
 practice as a physician and surgeon at Mankato, 
 Minnesota. He located in that city in 1866, and when 
 in his prime enjoyed the best practice in Mankato, 
 and was always successful as a physician and sur- 
 geon. His life was a busy, active one, he enjoyed a 
 wide acquaintance over the country about Mankato, 
 and had hosts of warm friends. In his civic rela- 
 tions he was always public spirited and is kindly 
 remembered by a large portion of the people still 
 living in Mankato. He was a member of the Pres- 
 byterian Church. 
 
 Adolphus Louis Dornberg was born at Breiten- 
 bach, Germany, June 30, 1828, and died at his home 
 in Mankato August 20, 1900, at the age of seventy- 
 two. He came to America when sixteen years of 
 age, having previously been educated in Germany, 
 
1328 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 and at Cleveland, Ohio, entered the Homeopathic 
 Medical College and was graduated in 1854. He 
 practiced for one year at Erie, Pennsylvania, then 
 for ten years in Indiana, and from 1866 until his 
 death had his home and professional relations with 
 Mankato. 
 
 Doctor Dornberg was married in 1857 to Miss 
 Ellen Bryan, a descendant of the same family to 
 which William Jennings Bryan belongs. Since Doc- 
 tor Dornberg’s death Mrs. Dornberg has resided in 
 Minneapolis, she and her widowed sister living to- 
 gether at 2414 Garfield Avenue. Her sister has 
 prepared and has published in a small pamphlet the 
 history of the Bryan family. Mrs. Dornberg was 
 eighty-three years of age in October, 1914, and for 
 one of her years still active with an excellent mem- 
 ory. She became the mother of five children, one 
 of whom resides on a farm in South Bend Town- 
 ship near Mankato, Minnesota, and the other four 
 sons are residents of Minneapolis. The names of 
 the five sons are : Herman, Richard, Bernard and 
 
 Walter, of Minneapolis; and Elbert, of Mankato. 
 
 Herman Bryan Dornberg. A resident of Min- 
 neapolis for twenty-nine years, Mr. H. B. Dornberg 
 is the son of a long prominent physician and sur- 
 geon at Mankato, Minnesota, and his own business 
 and private career has been one that is distinctive 
 for its accomplishments and influential relations 
 with his home city. 
 
 Herman Bryan Dornberg was born in Mishawaka, 
 Indiana, a twin city of South Bend, on, July 7, 
 1864. His father, whose career is sketched else- 
 where in this work, was Adolphus Louis Dornberg, 
 for thirty-five years active in the practice of medi- 
 cine and surgery at Mankato, Minnesota. The 
 mother was Ellen (Bryan) Dornberg, who is living 
 at Minneapolis and was eighty-three years of age 
 in October, 1914. She is a descendant of the same 
 family as William Jennings Bryan. Herman B. 
 Dornberg was one of five children, four of whom 
 are in Minneapolis, and the other is a farmer in 
 South Bend Township, Blue Earth County, Min- 
 nesota. 
 
 Plerman B. Dornberg was educated in the Man- 
 kato High School, and from the close of his school 
 days to the present has been an energetic worker 
 and steadily progressing in prosperity and influ- 
 ence. He began employment in the Mankato post- 
 office as mailing clerk, and then spent three years as 
 a railway mail clerk with a run on the Omaha road 
 between St. Paul and Sioux City. In 1886 Mr. 
 Dornberg came to Minneapolis, was a bookkeeper 
 with several establishments, and subsequently be- 
 came office manager for the late Col. R. M. New- 
 port, who for many years conducted a real estate, 
 ioan and insurance business where Mr. Dornberg is 
 now located in the Phoenix Building. Colonel New- 
 port died at his home in St. Paul in 1911, and after 
 his death Mr. Dornberg bought the Minneapolis 
 branch of the business. Under the name of H. B. 
 Dornberg & Company Mr. Dornberg handles fire 
 insurance, real estate, loans and rentals, has a large 
 clientage in the care and management of property, 
 and also looks after local property for non-resi- 
 dents. 
 
 Prior to his removal to Minneapolis Mr. Dornberg 
 was for five years a member of Company F in the 
 Second Regiment of Minnesota National Guards at 
 Mankato, and with his honorable discharge he also 
 received exemption from jury service. During his 
 
 childhood back in Indiana his father’s home was in 
 the locality made famous by the enterprise of the 
 Studebaker Brothers, and Clem Studebaker, one of 
 the most prominent of that firm, often would take 
 the boy Herman and other children of the Dornberg 
 family and trot them on his knees. Another neigh- 
 bor of the Dornberg family at South Bend was 
 Schuyler Colfax, who served as vice president of 
 the United States with General Grant as president, 
 and was the most distinguished man in public life 
 to live in South Bend. An interesting fact in this 
 connection is that when Schuyler Colfax dropped 
 dead in Mankato, Mr. H. B. Dornberg was detailed 
 as one of the guard who watched over the casket 
 at Doctor Harrington’s residence there. Neither 
 Mr. Dornberg nor anyone else knew of the presence 
 of this celebrity in Mankato until it was reported 
 that he had dropped dead at the depot while passing 
 through the city on a lecture tour. In politics Mr. 
 Dornberg is an active republican, and at the age of 
 twenty-one cast his first vote for James G. Blaine 
 and John A. Logan. In the fall of 1910 Mr. Dorn- 
 berg was endorsed for park commissioner at Min- 
 neapolis, but on account of the multitude of candi- 
 dates from the primaries was not elected. His in- 
 terest in public affairs and improvements has been 
 much greater than that of the ordinary citizen, and 
 he is both a student of local conditions and at every 
 opportunity uses his influence to secure those things 
 which make for a larger and better city. Mr. Dorn- 
 berg served as president of the Linden Hills Im- 
 provement Association, and is now an active mem- 
 ber of its successor, the Lake Harriet Commercial 
 Club, and chairman of three of its important com- 
 mittees. He is also a delegate of the Joint Improve- 
 ment Association from the Lake Harriet Commercial 
 Club, and has been identified with the Joint Im- 
 provement Association movement for the past thir- 
 teen years. Through these organizations and as a 
 private citizen he has done much active public work 
 for the good of the Thirteenth Ward in particular 
 and the city as a whole. Mr. Dornberg has made a 
 study of parks and boulevards, and it was due to 
 his thorough qualifications for the position that the 
 citizens of the west side of the Thirteenth Ward 
 prevailed upon him to permit his name 10 go before 
 the primaries for the office of alderman as succes- 
 sor to Doctor Parks in 1914. Mr. Dornberg advo- 
 cates the immediate improvement of all unimproved 
 parks so that the present generation may have use 
 of them, and particularly favors the extension and 
 establishment of playgrounds for the children, near 
 the public schools wherever possible, and also ath- 
 letic fields and a larger number of public bathing 
 places and better facilities for winter sports. An- 
 other feature of his program for public improve- 
 ment is the completion of the proposed boulevard 
 for the encircling of the city. Pie advocates artesian 
 wells in all parks and better lighting in parks and 
 parkways all the year around. Mr. Dornberg, it 
 may be stated, is one of the city’s tax payers, and 
 his advocacy of these progressive improvements is 
 entirely disinterested and sincere. 
 
 Mr. Dornberg has many prominent associations 
 with the social and civic life of his city, is a mem- 
 ber of the Knights of Pythias, the Lake Harriet 
 Commercial Club, the Minneapolis Athletic Club, the 
 Minneapolis Real Estate Board and the National 
 Association of Real Estate Exchanges, the Minne- 
 apolis Civic and Commerce Association, the Min- 
 nesota Association of Local Fire Insurance Agents, 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1329 
 
 and the Minneapolis Underwriters Association. His 
 church home is Westminster Presbyterian. 
 
 In September, 1895, Hr. Dornberg married Miss 
 Honoria Lennox, in Minneapolis. Mrs. Dornberg 
 was born at Sligo, Ireland, and came to Minneapolis 
 with her parents when about eight years of age. 
 They have three children, all born in Minneapolis : 
 Wallace Lennox, Alice Muriel and Elizabeth Lucile. 
 The son Wallace is now a student in the West High 
 School. 
 
 Alexander C. Mengelkoch. As bonded collectors 
 and adjusters, the firm of Mengelkoch & Culhane 
 have the chief business of the kind in Minneapolis. 
 The present partnership has existed five years, but 
 the business was established in 1905. Mr. Mengel- 
 koch, the senior partner, is a young man of college 
 training, and thoroughly experienced in the field 
 where the scope of his present activities is found. 
 
 Alexander C. Mengelkoch was born in Minneapolis 
 October 3, 1889, and is a son of the late Hubert and 
 Cecilia (Weidenbach) Mengelkoch. The Mengel- 
 koch family came from Germany, and were among 
 the early settlers of Minnesota, having located west 
 of Minneapolis while the Indians were still there and 
 still hostile. The late Hubert Mengelkoch was born 
 in Medina Township, at Golden Valley, Minnesota, 
 about fifteen miles west of Minneapolis, on the Per- 
 kinsville Road. He was born January 14, 1866, and 
 died at Minneapolis April 15, 1909, at the age of 
 forty-three. The old homestead is now owned by 
 his brother William. Hubert Mengelkoch was one of 
 the most prominent of the German citizens of the 
 north side in Minneapolis. He was educated in dis- 
 trict schools, was reared on a farm and when about 
 twenty-seven years of age came to Minneapolis and 
 engaged in the grocery business on the north side, 
 and at the time of his death was proprietor of a 
 large store at 329 Plymouth Avenue. In September, 
 1907, he was a candidate for alderman on the demo- 
 cratic ticket from the Third Ward, his opponent be- 
 ing George V. B. Hill, the present alderman of that 
 ward, and was defeated by only forty-seven votes. 
 He is quite interested in politics and had varied 
 relations with city affairs. He was a stockholder in 
 several manufacturing institutions in Minneapolis. 
 Fraternally he was affiliated with Minneapolis Lodge 
 No. 169, I. O. O. F. ; with the Catholic Knights; with 
 the Ancient Order of LTnited Workmen ; the German 
 Catholic Aid Association ; the Loyal Order of 
 Moose; the Fraternal Order of Eagles; and the 
 North Side Commercial Club. His funeral was held 
 from St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, of which he had 
 been a member for many years. He and his wife 
 were married at St. Boniface German Catholic 
 Church on the north side. Hubert Mengelkoch is 
 survived by his widow and two children. The daugh- 
 ter Irma was born in Minneapolis, was educated in 
 St. Joseph’s Catholic School and graduated from St. 
 Margaret’s Academy at Minneapolis. 
 
 Alexander C. Mengelkoch acquired his education 
 in St. Joseph’s Catholic School, in the public high 
 school, and was graduated in St. John’s University 
 at Collegeville, Minnesota, in 1907. In June, 1909, 
 he took up his present branch of business in partner- 
 ship with M. C. O’Donnell, an attorney, having 
 charge of the collection business. After six months 
 Mr. E. J. Culhane bought Mr. O’Donnell's business, 
 and since December 15, 1909, the firm has been Men- 
 gelkoch & Culhane, with offices in the Andrus Build- 
 ing. They handle a large business as collectors and 
 
 in adjustments, while Mr. Mengelkoch individually 
 is engaged in the real estate and insurance business. 
 
 Mr. Mengelkoch is affiliated with the Brotherhood 
 of American Yeomen, with the Fraternal Order of 
 Eagles, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and 
 the West Side Commercial Club. He and his family 
 worship in the pro-cathedral at Minneapolis. On 
 October 4, 1911, Mr. Mengelkoch married Miss Jes- 
 sie June Scott, daughter of Mrs. Anna Scott of 
 Minneapolis. Mrs. Mengelkoch was born and edu- 
 cated in Minneapolis. Their home is at 2420 Garfield 
 Avenue, South. 
 
 Eugene J. Culhane. As bonded collectors and 
 adjusters the firm of Mengelkoch & Culhane, of 
 Minneapolis, has built up a substantial and import- 
 ant enterprise of admirable functions, the business 
 having been established in 1905 and the offices of 
 the firm being at 635 Andrus Building. Of this firm 
 the junior member is he whose name initiates this 
 paragraph, and he has gained place as one of the 
 progressive and reliable business men of the younger 
 generation in the Minnesota metropolis. 
 
 Eugene Joseph Culhane was born at Kilkenny, 
 LeSueur County, Minnesota, on the nth of August, 
 1889, and is a son of Thomas E. and Bridget 
 (Hickey) Culhane, the former of whom was born in 
 Ireland and the latter in the City of Buffalo, New 
 York. Thomas E. Culhane was a lad of about nine 
 years at the time when he came with his widowed 
 mother from the Emerald Isle to America, and his 
 mother established a home in the City of Buffalo, 
 New York, and having bravely faced the burden 
 imposed upon her in providing for the support of 
 her two sons and five daughters. Thomas E. Cul- 
 hane was reared and educated in Buffalo, where he 
 learned the trade of carpenter and where he became 
 a successful contractor and builder. In 1867 he came 
 to the West and established his home in Wisconsin, 
 but shortly afterward he removed to Minnesota, 
 where he has for many years been successfully en- 
 gaged in contracting and building. He resides at 
 Kilkenny, LeSueur County, and is now one of the 
 oldest pioneer citizens of that section of the state. 
 It may be consistently said that there is not a single 
 square mile of land in the county within the border 
 of which he has not erected at least one house, and 
 he built up a large and prosperous business as a 
 contractor, besides gaining place as one of the lib- 
 eral, progressive and public-spirited citizens of the 
 community in which he has long resided and in 
 which he commands unqualified esteem. He is now 
 living retired, and both he and his wife are devout 
 communicants of the Catholic Church. The mother 
 of Mrs. Culhane bore the maiden name of Sweeney 
 and was a first cousin of Gen. Philip Sheridan. Mr. 
 Sweeney was a native of Ireland, where he had 
 served as secretary to one of the distinguished lords 
 of Great Britain, and upon coming to America he 
 became one of the first Irish settlers in Buffalo, New 
 York. He was a man of wealth and large influence 
 in Buffalo, made an early and effective survey of the 
 city, as a practical surveyor, and broke the ground 
 for the first Catholic Church in the city, — St. 
 Michael’s Church, the parish of which remains the 
 most important of the Catholic denomination in Buf- 
 falo, where this sterling pioneer continued to reside 
 until his death. 
 
 Prior to his removal to the West Thomas E. Cul- 
 hane had served as a valiant soldier of the Union 
 in the Civil war, in which he was a member of a 
 
1330 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 ' New York regiment of volunteer infantry. He took 
 part in numerous engagements of important order, 
 was wounded at the battle of Spottsylvania, and after 
 more than three years of faithful and meritorious 
 service he received his honorable discharge. His 
 continued interest in his old comrades in arms is 
 shown by his active affiliation with the Grand Army 
 of the Republic. Thomas E. and Bridget (Hickey) 
 Culhane became the parents of thirteen children, and 
 of the nine now living Eugene J., of this review, 
 is the youngest. 
 
 Eugene J. Culhane is indebted to the public and 
 parochial schools of his native town for his early 
 educational training, which was supplemented by a 
 thorough course in De La Salle Institute, in the City 
 of Minneapolis. In this institution he was gradu- 
 ated as a member of the class of 1909, and he soon 
 afterward entered the St. Paul College of Law, in 
 which he continued his studies three years, his exact 
 and comprehensive knowledge of the law having 
 proved of inestimable value to him in the business to 
 which he is now devoting his attention. In Decem- 
 ber, 1909, Mr. Culhane engaged in his present line 
 of enterprise, the enterprise having been established 
 by his associate, Mr. Mengelkoch, about four years 
 previously. Giving attention exclusively to collec- 
 tions and" adjustments, the firm has built up a large 
 and representative business, with an appreciative 
 clientele including many of the prominent business 
 men and capitalists of the Minnesota metropolis. On 
 other pages of this work is given a brief sketch of 
 the career of Alexander C. Mengelkoch, the able and 
 honored coadjutor of Mr. Culhane. 
 
 Mr. Culhane is affiliated with the Yeomen and is a 
 communicant of the Catholic Church, in which he 
 holds membership in the Church of the Incarnation. 
 He is a bachelor. 
 
 Clayton D. Bacon. Of the native sons of Minne- 
 sota who have attained to official position and the 
 esteem of their fellow-citizens, none is better known 
 in Cass County than the present incumbent of the 
 office of county auditor, Clayton D. Bacon. A long 
 experience in public life, combined with a practical 
 knowledge of business affairs, commended him to 
 the people as an acceptable candidate for this office 
 in the November elections of 1914, and he entered 
 upon the duties of his position in January, 1915. 
 While he has been in charge of the county’s affairs 
 as auditor for only a comparatively short period, he 
 has already demonstrated that the people will have 
 no reason to regret their choice. 
 
 Clayton D. Bacon was born on his father’s farm in 
 Alberta Township, Benton County, Minnesota, July 
 23, 1878, and is a son of A. G. and Margaret (Don- 
 nell) Bacon, and a member of a family which origi- 
 nated in England and whose first American repre- 
 sentative came to this country during colonial times. 
 A. G. Bacon was born at Whitehall, New York, in 
 1838, and at the outbreak of the Civil war enlisted 
 in the band of the Ninety-sixth Regiment, New York 
 Volunteer Infantry, which was attached to the Army 
 of the Potomac, and with which he served bravely 
 and faithfully for one year. About the year 1871 
 Mr. Bacon came to the West, locating at Ottawa, 
 LeSueur County, Minnesota, where he established 
 himself in business as the proprietor of a photog- 
 rapher’s studio, but subsequently turned his atten- 
 tion to farming and located on a property in Alberta 
 Township, Benton County. Agricultural operations 
 there occupied him until 1884, when he came to Cass 
 
 County and settled on a farm, and continued to cul- 
 tivate the soil until his retirement, at which time 
 he located in the Village of Pillager, his present 
 home. Mr. Bacon married Miss Margaret Donnell, 
 who was born at Moriah, New York, and they be- 
 came the parents of three children, namely: E. P., 
 
 who is postmaster and a merchant at Pillager; Wil- 
 liam, whose death occurred when he was two years 
 of age; and Clayton D., of this notice. 
 
 Clayton D. Bacon received his education in the 
 country schools of Cass County, and was reared on 
 his father's farm. It was not his intention, however, 
 to devote his life to agricultural pursuits, and at the 
 age of eighteen years he secured a position as clerk 
 in a store at Pillager, being thus employed until 
 1900. In that year he started a grocery store of his 
 own at that place, which he conducted with a fair 
 measure of success for five years, but in 1905 dis- 
 posed of his interests therein and became manager 
 of a creamery company and cold storage plant. He 
 also traveled in the interest of several ventures of 
 this kind, from Wadena, Minnesota, and Jamestown 
 and Kulm, North Dakota, and at Jamestown was 
 manager of a branch plant. Returning to Pillager in 
 1911, he entered a store for a time, and then was 
 appointed clerk of the schools of Cass County, a 
 position to which he was subsequently elected, and 
 which he held until elected county auditor of Cass 
 County, November 3, 1914, for a term of four years, 
 his official duties beginning January 1, 1915. In 
 December, 1914, he removed with his family to the 
 county seat, at Walker, and here his offices are lo- 
 cated in the courthouse. Mr. Bacon maintains an 
 independent stand in regard to political matters, and 
 has friends and admirers in all parties. While a 
 resident of Pillager he served as village recorder for 
 two years, and wherever he has resided he has been 
 an active co-operator in beneficial movements. With 
 his family he belongs to the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. Mr. Bacon is well and favorably known in 
 fraternal circles, belonging to the Modern Woodmen 
 of America, Camp No. 6171, Pillager, of which he 
 was clerk for four years and venerable consul one 
 term, and to the Brotherhood of American Yeomen, 
 No. 848, Pillager, of which he served as treasurer 
 for one year. 
 
 Mr. Bacon was united in marriage in 1899, at 
 Pillager, to Miss Edith M. Wright, daughter of 
 Charles H. Wright, who is engaged in agricultural 
 operations in the vicinity of Pillager. To this union 
 there have been born four children, all of whom are 
 attending the public schools of Walker, Vera E. being 
 in the eighth grade; Glen in the seventh grade; Lila 
 in the sixth grade and Warren in the second grade. 
 
 Thomas Kneeland. Among the able members 
 contributed to the Minnesota bar by New England, 
 that cradle of much of our national history, is the 
 public-spirited citizen and representative Minne- 
 apolis lawyer whose name introduces this review. 
 Pie has been engaged in the practice of his profes- 
 sion in the Minnesota metropolis for nearly forty 
 years and has long controlled a substantial and im- 
 portant law business. He was elected representative 
 of the Forty-first District of the State Legislature 
 in the autumn of 1908, was reelected in 1910, 1912 
 and 1914, his election for a fourth consecutive 
 term offering the most emphatic evidence of the 
 value of his services to his constituency and the state 
 at large and of the popular estimate placed upon his 
 work in the Legislature. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1331 
 
 Thomas Kneeland was born at Harrison, Cumber- 
 land County, Maine, on the 19th of June, 1851, and is 
 a scion of a sterling colonial family of New Eng- 
 land. After due preliminary preparation Mr. Knee- 
 land was matriculated in historic Bowdoin College, 
 at Brunswick, Maine, from which he was graduated 
 as a member of the class of 1874. After due prepa- 
 ration for the work of his chosen profession he was 
 admitted to the bar, at Portland, Maine, in 1879, and 
 in the following year to the Minnesota bar, and has 
 also been admitted to practice in the Supreme Court 
 of the United States. 
 
 Mr. Kneeland has been continuously engaged in 
 the practice of law in Minneapolis since 1880 and 
 has appeared in much important litigation, with high 
 reputation for resourcefulness in the trial of cases 
 and for broad and accurate knowledge of the science 
 of jurisprudence. Mr. Kneeland was special counsel 
 to the attorney general of Minnesota in the cele- 
 brated gross-earnings tax case against the Great 
 Northern Railway Company, which was won by the 
 state after a most strenuous litigation. This victory 
 resulted in adding millions of dollars to the revenues 
 of the state. 
 
 Mr. Kneeland has been one of the vigorous and 
 influential advocates of the principles of the repub- 
 lican party. His record has been admirable and as a 
 legislator he has done much to conserve and for- 
 ward the best interests of the state. He has served 
 on important House committees, and in the session 
 of 1911 was chairman of the Judiciary Committee. 
 He has given earnest efforts in promotion of the 
 improvement of the Mississippi River, particularly 
 for its navigation to the foot of the Washington 
 Avenue bridge in Minneapolis. He assisted in draft- 
 ing the public-domain bill, which abolished several 
 useless state boards and aimed to conserve for 
 the people of Minnesota the 3,000,000 acres of 
 state land. He was the author of the graduated- 
 inheritance tax measure that was passed by the 
 Legislature of 1911; and he also wielded much 
 influence in securing the legislation that served to 
 take the state fair board out of politics and put 
 its activities on a business basis. He was also 
 prime mover in the attempted legislation to place 
 state employes on a civil-service basis. In the Legis- 
 lature he has shown broad-minded zeal and deter- 
 mined civic loyalty and progressivene§s, and few 
 have entered the governing body of the state with 
 greater eligibility or better equipment for the exer- 
 cising of large influence and beneficent functions. 
 
 In 1887 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Knee- 
 land to Miss Josephine Underwood, daughter of 
 Judge William H. Underwood, a distinguished law- 
 yer and jurist of Illinois. 
 
 Burdett C. Thayer. Associated with Thomas D. 
 Schall, with offices at 552 Security Bank Building, 
 Minneapolis, Mr. Thayer is actively engaged in prac- 
 tice as an attorney and counselor at law and is one 
 of the able and representative members of the bar 
 of the metropolis of his native state. 
 
 Mr. Thayer was born at Spring Valley, Fillmore 
 County, Minnesota, on the 2d of September, 1877, 
 and is a son of Burdett and Sarah (Lyman) Thayer, 
 his mother having died when he was a lad of eight 
 years. Burdett Thayer was born in fine old Craw- 
 ford County, Pennsylvania, on the 5th of December, 
 1856, and he has been a resident of Minnesota since 
 November 8, 1864. He was long one of the leading 
 members of the bar of Fillmore County, with a large 
 
 and important law practice, and was an influential 
 and honored citizen of Spring Valley. He repre- 
 sented the Fifth District of the state in the Minne- 
 sota legislative sessions of 1883, 1905, 1907, 1909 and 
 1911, and his retention of this important official pre- 
 ferment for so long a period vouches for his dis- 
 tinctive ability and for his impregnable hold upon 
 popular confidence and esteem. He served three 
 terms as prosecuting attorney of Fillmore County, 
 was a republican presidential elector from Minnesota 
 in 1896, when the lamented President McKinley was 
 first chosen as the nation’s chief executive. Both 
 Burdett Thayer and his wife were children at the 
 time of the settlement of the respective families in 
 Spring Valley, Minnesota, and they were reared and 
 educated in Fillmore County, Mr. Thayer also hav- 
 ing availed himself of the advantages of the Univer- 
 sity of Minnesota. He is a son of Pliny Thayer, 
 who was one of the pioneer settlers of Fillmore 
 County, where he obtained Government land and re- 
 claimed a productive farm, this old homestead con- 
 tinuing to be his place of residence until his death. 
 Mrs. Sarah (Lyman) Thayer was born in the State 
 of Massachusetts and, as already intimated, was a 
 child at the time of the family removal to Fillmore 
 County, Minnesota, in the pioneer days. 
 
 Burdett Thayer was for many years one of the 
 influential figures in the councils and maneuvers of 
 the republican party in Minnesota and he continued 
 in the active practice of his profession at Spring Val- 
 ley until 1912, since which time he has lived virtually 
 retired. As a youth he studied law under the able 
 preceptorship of Judge John Q. Farmer and the lat- 
 ter’s brother, James D. Farmer, who were engaged 
 in the practice of law at Spring Valley, under the 
 firm name of Farmer & Farmer. After the eleva- 
 tion of Judge John Q. Farmer to the bench, Mr. 
 Thayer became actively associated in practice with 
 James D. Farmer, under the firm name of J. D. 
 Farmer & Company, but during the major part of 
 his active career at the bar Mr. Thayer conducted 
 an individual practice, in which he appeared in con- 
 nection with much important litigation in the various 
 courts, but before his retirement he had the satisfac- 
 tion of gaining as a professional coadjutor his son 
 Burdett C., with whom he was for a time associated 
 under the firm name of Thayer & Thayer. In 1885 
 Judge Burdett Thayer was elected county attorney 
 of Fillmore County and of this office he continued 
 the incumbent for twelve . consecutive years. In 
 1903-4 he served on the bench of the Municipal Court 
 of Spring Valley. Upon his retirement from active 
 practice, in 1912, he removed to the City of Portland, 
 Oregon, where he has since maintained his home. 
 In 1890-91 he was general agent for the United States 
 land office at Portland, Oregon, and incidental to this 
 service he became so favorably impressed with the 
 attractions and advantages of Oregon and its metrop- 
 olis that he purchased ten acres of land in the im- 
 mediate vicinity of Portland and decided to estab- 
 lish his home there at some future date. On this 
 land he erected his present modern residence, in 
 1912. He finds that in the new home, while every 
 prospects pleases, he is not able to abate his deep 
 appreciation of the older home and many friends in 
 Minnesota, and he finds great satisfaction in his 
 occasional visits to the state which was his place of 
 residence from early youth until recent years. In 
 1889 Judge Burdett Thayer contracted a second mar- 
 riage, when Miss Flora Fleming, of Fillmore County, 
 became his wife, she being a daughter of the late 
 
1332 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Robert Fleming, who was one of the leading pio- 
 neers of that county, having served as county com- 
 missioner and as a member of the Legislature in the 
 early days, and having been an ardent supporter of 
 the greenback party during the comparatively brief 
 period of its existence, after which he espoused the 
 cause of the populist party. Of the three children 
 of the first marriage of Judge Thayer, Burdett C. 
 of this review is the eldest; George is engaged in 
 the hardware business at Flemington, Missouri ; and 
 James G. is state manager for South Dakota of the 
 International Correspondence School, with headquar- 
 ters at Watertown. 
 
 Burdett C. Thayer attended the public schools of 
 Spring Valley until he had completed the curriculum 
 of the high school, in which he was graduated in 
 1896, and thereafter he virtually completed a course 
 in the law department of the University of Minne- 
 sota. in which he attended the night sessions, and in 
 which he would have been graduated had he not 
 withdrawn shortly before the completion of his 
 course, to tender his services as a soldier in the 
 Spanish-American war. While attending the law 
 school Mr. Thayer also held a position as a member 
 of the editorial staff of the West Publishing Com- 
 pany, of St. Paul, publishers of law books, and in 
 1899 be was one of the clerks of the House in the 
 State Legislature. The year prior to his graduation 
 in the high school he had the distinction of winning 
 the state oratorical contest in which the various high 
 schools of Minnesota are represented, and after his 
 graduation he taught school for one year, 1897, at 
 Carimona, Fillmore County. 
 
 After having served three years as a member of 
 the Minnesota National Guard, in which he held the 
 office of corporal of his company, Mr. Thayer joined 
 his regiment in its entering the United States service 
 at the inception of the Spanish-American war. On 
 the 28th of April, 1898, he was mustered in as a 
 member of Company F, Twelfth Minnesota Volun- 
 teer Infantry, in which he won promotion to the 
 office of second lieutenant from that of battalion 
 sergeant major. The regiment was sent to the re- 
 serve camp at Chickamauga but was not called into 
 action at the stage of active warfare. The members 
 of the regiment were mustered out in November, 
 1898, and duly received their honorable discharge. 
 Mr. Thayer is not at the present time in active 
 affiliation with the Minnesota National Guard but is 
 an appreciative member of the Spanish-American 
 War Veterans’ Association. 
 
 In the spring of 1899, at the age of twenty-one 
 years, Mr. Thayer was admitted to the bar of his 
 native state, and his active professional career was 
 initiated when he associated himself with his father 
 in practice, at Spring Valley. At this juncture in his 
 career he was given his first taste of official service 
 for the public, in that he was elected justice of the 
 peace, a position of which he continued the incum- 
 bent for only a short time, since, in 1900, he went to 
 the West as special agent for the United States gen- 
 eral land office, an office in which he served four 
 years. At the expiration of this period he was ad- 
 mitted to the bar of South Dakota and engaged in 
 the practice of his profession at Pierre, the capital 
 of the state, where he continued his residence two 
 years and where he held the office of city attorney. 
 He then returned to Minnesota, and established his 
 residence in the City of St. Paul, where he was iden- 
 tified with the legal department of the street-railway 
 company for a time and thereafter engaged in pri- 
 
 vate practice until 1909, in October of which year he 
 removed to Minneapolis. In the metropolis of his 
 native state he has since been engaged in general 
 practice. Mr. Thayer is a staunch and effective ad- 
 vocate of the principles of the republican party and 
 holds membership in the Minneapolis Bar Associa- 
 tion. 
 
 E. Luther Melin. One of the prominent young 
 professional and business men of Minneapolis, E. 
 Luther Melin, is successful as a lawyer and is like- 
 wise president and counsel of Melin Brothers, Incor- 
 porated, a firm of extensive operations in the build- 
 ing and real estate field, acting as brokers in in- 
 surance, mortgages, rentals and real estate, and also 
 maintaining a service as architects, builders, con- 
 tractors, engineers and promoters. This company 
 cares for, improves, rents, mortgages, insures and 
 sells properties in all parts of Minneapolis and else- 
 where. 
 
 Ebin Luther Melin was born September 6, 1883, 
 on a farm near Harcourt in Webster County, Iowa. 
 
 His parents, August G. and Sarah C. Melin, were 
 both natives of Sweden. Mr. Melin went through 
 the grade schools in Iowa, spent four years in the 
 Minneapolis High School and almost six years in the 
 University of Minnesota, having taken both the lit- 
 erary and the law courses, graduating from the law 
 department and being admitted to the bar in 1911. 
 Since his admission to the bar he has been in 
 active practice and has also been associated with his 
 brothers in extensive real estate operations. 
 
 He is unmarried. Flis successful career is ex- 
 plained by the two words study and work, and he 
 is already one of the leading men in business though 
 only in his early thirties. 
 
 Clarence A. Jones. Lawyer, editor and scientific 
 farmer, Clarence A. Jones is one of the young pro- 
 fessional men of Minneapolis, and has an interesting 
 record. 
 
 He was born in Madison, Wisconsin, June 7, 1885, 
 a son of Solomon and Ann (Williams) Jones. Both 
 parents were natives of Wales. Flis father came to 
 the United States when about eighteen years of age, 
 after receiving his early education in Wales, lived 
 in Pennsylvania several years, continued his school- 
 ing there, and afterwards located in Milwaukee, 
 where he married Ann Williams. She came as a 
 child to the United States, her parents settling in 
 Milwaukee. After his marriage Solomon Jones went 
 to Madison and entered the University of Wiscon- 
 sin, and was graduated in law with the class of 1886. 
 Following his graduation he practiced at Milwaukee, 
 later in Superior, Wisconsin, until about 1907, and 
 has since been retired from the active work of the 
 law. He now lives at Iron River, Wisconsin, and 
 spends most of his time in looking after his farm 
 property. For many years he has been prominent 
 in York Rite Masonry. There were five children in |j 
 the family, three sons and two daughters, all living, j 
 and Clarence was the youngest son. 
 
 His early education came from the public schools 
 of Superior. Wisconsin, and his inclination for scien- 
 tific agriculture led him to enter the Minnesota 
 School of Agriculture at St. Anthony Park, where 
 he was graduated with the class of 1908. He sebse- 
 quently entered the St. Paul College of Law and was |l 
 graduated LL. B. in 1913. Admitted to practice the 
 same year in Minneapolis, Mr. Jones now occupies 
 an office in the Metropolitan Life Building, and is 
 
I 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1333 
 
 one of the rising young attorneys of the city. For 
 the past four years Mr. Jones has been editor of the 
 Minnesota Farm Review, the official publication of 
 the Alumni Association of the Minnesota School of 
 Agriculture. He served as its editor while a student 
 in law school, and his official relations with the paper 
 were continued until March, 1915. The Farm Re- 
 view, while devoted primarily to the instruction and 
 the dissemination of interesting news among the 
 alumni, is a standard farm publication, and is now 
 in its nineteenth volume. 
 
 Mr. Jones owns a small truck farm of five acres 
 in Plymouth Township of Hennepin County, and for 
 several years has made a specialty in the raising of 
 garden truck for the Minneapolis market. While the 
 increasing demands of his profession may interfere 
 with his business as a farmer and truck grower, 
 Mr. Jones has a deep and sincere interest in prac- 
 tical agriculture, and has done some valuable work in 
 that line both for himself and for others. 
 
 Mr. Jones is affiliated with Minneapolis Lodge No. 
 19, A. F. & A. M., with Northern Light Lodge, No. 
 121, I. O. O. F., at Minneapolis. On February 21, 
 1914, at Stillwater occurred his marriage to Miss 
 Gale L. Clarke, daughter of Lewis W. Clarke. Mrs. 
 Jones is a graduate of the University of Minnesota 
 with the class of 1911, and was born and reared in 
 Stillwater and graduated from the high school of 
 that city in 1907. Her father has been for many 
 years city engineer of Stillwater. 
 
 John W. Bell, M. D. Among the medical men of 
 Minneapolis Doctor Bell has long enjoyed a position 
 of commanding respect. He has practiced in that 
 city forty years, and for a number of years has been 
 largely engaged in consultation practice and was 
 one of the first members of the faculty of instruction 
 in the medical department of the University of Min- 
 nesota. He now holds the rank of professor emeri- 
 tus with that institution. 
 
 Dr. John W. Bell was born at London, Ohio, 
 March 18, 1853, a son of Robert J. and Ann Bell. 
 His father was a farmer. Reared on a farm, with an 
 early education in the public schools of Ohio, Mr. 
 Bell followed his 'inclinations for a professional life, 
 and most of his early efforts and experiences were 
 directed toward the attainment of one aim. After 
 getting the foundation of a literary education, he 
 entered the Ohio Medical College at Cincinnati, and 
 graduated M. D. in 1876. Doctor Bell also took post- 
 graduate work in New York City, and went abroad 
 and studied in the hospitals and clinics of Germany 
 and Austria. With this thorough equipment he 
 came to Minneapolis, and began oractice. soon estab- 
 lishing himself securely in his field. From 1886 to 
 1889 Doctor Bell was professor of theory and prac- 
 tice of medicine in the Minnesota Hospital College 
 and was professor of ohysical diagnosis and clinical 
 medicine in the medical department of the University 
 of Minnesota from its ooening until 1910. At the 
 present he is consulting physician at the Northwest- 
 ern Hosoital. Probably no other physician is more 
 freouentlv called into consultation than Doctor Bell. 
 
 Notwithstanding the demand of his profession. 
 Doctor Bell has been somewhat in public life, and 
 was a member of the State Senate from ioot to 
 1903. He is a member of the Charter Commission, 
 and in politics an independent democrat. Doctor 
 Bell has been honored with the office of president 
 in the Minnesota State Medical Association, the 
 Minnesota Academy of Medicine, and the Hennepin 
 
 County Medical Society, and is a member of the 
 American Medical Association and the American 
 Gastro-Enterological Association. Other civic and 
 social relations connect him with the Minneapolis 
 Civic and Commerce Association and the University 
 Club. 
 
 Doctor Bell was married November 11, 1890, to 
 Kate M. Jones. They have two children: Warren 
 and Robert. Doctor Bell’s residence is on Lake Har- 
 riet Boulevard and his office is in the Andrus 
 Building. 
 
 Bryan W. Place. A young attorney of Minneap- 
 olis whose reputation for ability and thoroughness 
 in his work is already well established, Bryan W. 
 Place is a native of this city, son of an old and well 
 known member of the bar, and has been in practice 
 for the past four years. 
 
 Born at Minneapolis, January 26, 1888, Bryan W. 
 Place was the only son and child of William H. and 
 Jewell M. (Bryan) Place. His father is a prac- 
 ticing attorney with offices in the Sykes Building. 
 The father was born in Iowa and the mother in 
 Wisconsin. 
 
 Bryan W. Place was educated in the public schools 
 of Minneapolis and also at Menominee, Wisconsin, 
 and graduated from the Central High School at Min- 
 neapolis with the class of 1907. For two years he 
 was a student in the law department of the Lffii- 
 versity of Minnesota, and in the spring of 1911 was 
 admitted to practice after taking the state bar exam- 
 inations. Mr. Place began practice in the office of 
 C. D. Gould, although he has always practiced alone. 
 His offices are in the Andrus Building. Mr. Gould 
 is now city attorney, and Mr. Place has been one of 
 his leading and most vigorous supporters first in his 
 candidacy for the office of maYor of Minneapolis, 
 and also when Mr. Gould was appointed city attorney 
 in 1912. Mr. Place is a republican and one of the 
 progressive young men in municipal affairs. He is 
 unmarried and resides at 810 East Fourteenth Street. 
 He finds his recreation in all kinds of athletics. 
 
 George T. Blandford. One of the largest general 
 agencies in Minnesota in the life insurance business 
 is that at Minneapolis representing the Mutual Ben- 
 efit Life Insurance Company of Newark. New Jer- 
 sey. Its volume of business aggregates $2,300,000, 
 and it is one of the chief centers in the activities of 
 the company which has finished sixty-nine years of 
 activity in the life insurance field. The Mutual Ben- 
 efit of Newark is one of the older and most sub- 
 stantial of American companies. Beginning with 
 something over six hundred policies and total in- 
 surance of $2,000,000 in 1843. the company at the end 
 of tot a had upwards of three hundred thousand poli- 
 cies in force, representing nearly seven hundred mil- 
 lion dollars of insurance. Mr. Blandford has been 
 with this one company since doing his first work as 
 an agent, and on his record was promoted from one 
 agency to another in advancing responsibilities until 
 he came to Minneapolis at the beginning of 1914. 
 
 George T. Blandford was born in Lebanon, Ken- 
 tucky. 'Mav 17. 1878, a son of T. W. and Alice 
 ( Colvin) Blandford. Both parents were natives of 
 Kentucky, and his father was for manv years en- 
 gaged in the life insurance business at Lebanon, and 
 is now living- retired in that city. Of the eight chil- 
 dren. five sons and two daughters are now living. 
 
 George T. Blandford is the only member of his 
 family in Minnesota. His early education was ac- 
 
1334 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 quired in the public schools of Lebanon, and after 
 graduating from the high school in 1898 he entered 
 merchandising at St. Louis as an employe in the 
 firm of Ferguson & McKiney Dry Goods Company. 
 He was with them about three years, and then chose 
 the work which has brought out his best talents and 
 advanced him to large business responsibilities when 
 still a young man. Representing the Mutual Benefit 
 Life^ Insurance Company, Mr. Blandford went out 
 to New Mexico, and was local and district manager 
 for New Mexico with headquarters at Albuquerque. 
 In 1907 the company made him general agent for 
 Arizona with headquarters at Phoenix. In 1909 
 came a distinct promotion when they sent him to 
 the general agency at Lincoln, with jurisdiction over 
 the southern half of Nebraska. He was promoted to 
 the state agency at Omaha in 1910, and in January, 
 1914, came to take charge of the general agency at 
 Minneapolis and St. Paul, with jurisdiction over all 
 the state except Duluth and a few adjoining coun- 
 ties. Mr. Blandford is business successor to the late 
 Col. Frank M. Joyce, who formerly represented 
 the Mutual Benefit Company in Minneapolis and who 
 died there in 1912. 
 
 Mr. Blandford was married December 26, 1901, 
 to Hattie M. Marshall of Lebanon, Kentucky, daugh- 
 ter of the late Dr. Adire Marshall. Mrs. Blandford 
 was born and educated in Lebanon, and also was a 
 student in the University of Kentucky. 
 
 Robert J. Seiberlich. Among Minnesota’s life 
 insurance men, one of the most successful, judged 
 from his record as a business getter, is Robert J. 
 Seiberlich, state agent for the Fidelity Mutual Life 
 Insurance Company of Philadelphia. Mr. Seiberlich 
 was born and reared in Minnesota, and until taking 
 up life insurance as a business worked at the trade 
 of boiler maker. Personally he is a man of quiet 
 manners, but with his quietness goes a great ef- 
 ficiency and an inexhaustible reserve of tactful abil- 
 ity, which is undoubtedly the secret of his success. 
 Among the many hundreds of Fidelity representa- 
 tives in different states of the Union, Mr. Seiberlich 
 stands in the very front ranks. In the year 1914 
 he was first on the Fidelity honor roll among the 
 fifty leading agents ranked according to first-year 
 cash premium settlements, and his agency was second 
 among the leading ten ranked according to settled 
 premiums. In the annual convention of the Fidelity 
 agents, in the absence of the president, Mr. Seiber- 
 lich was chosen to open the convention and was one 
 of the speakers and active men in its proceedings. 
 A special mark of consideration by his fellow asso- 
 ciates was paid him in election as president of the 
 Fidelity Leaders Club for 1914-15. 
 
 Robert J. Seiberlich was born near Chaska, Min- 
 nesota, June 28, 1875. a son of Frank and Margaret 
 (Schlegel) Seiberlich. His father was born near 
 Boston, Massachusetts, while his mother was a native 
 of Switzerland and came alone to the United States 
 when about nineteen years of age, being attracted 
 by the many wonderful stories she had heard about 
 the New World. She settled in Milwaukee, Wiscon- 
 sin, and was married there about 1874. In 1874 the 
 parents came out to Minnesota and located near 
 Chaska in Carver County, which was their home for 
 about twenty-five years. They now live on a farm 
 three miles west of Hopkins. Of the seven chil- 
 dren, five daughters and two sons, all are living 
 except one daughter. Robert J. is the oldest; Emma 
 is Mrs. J. E. Coleman of Minneapolis ; Edward lives 
 at Hopkins ; Lena is Mrs. Vern Lonkey of Minneap- 
 
 olis ; Ella is Mrs. Theodore Reiter of Minneapolis; 
 and Lynda lives at home. All the children were 
 born near Chaska and received their education in 
 the public schools there. 
 
 When his school days were ended, Robert J. Sei- 
 berlich went to Hopkins and found employment in 
 the boiler shops of the Minneapolis Threshing Ma- 
 chine Company, learning the trade of boilermaker 
 and following it with the same company for about 
 eight years. Mr. Seiberlich got his first experience 
 in the life insurance business in 1901 at Minneapolis, 
 representing the Mutual Life Insurance Company of 
 New York. After five years with that company as 
 a solicitor, in 1906 he became identified with the 
 Fidelity Mutual Life Insurance Company of Phila- 
 delphia, being appointed state agent for Minnesota. 
 During the past eight years he has kept this agency 
 well to the front in the production of business, and 
 has shown remarkable ability in training and han- 
 dling men in this business. 
 
 Mr. Seiberlich has taken considerable interest in 
 politics in behalf of his friends, but never as a can- 
 didate himself. He is a republican, and Governor 
 Eberhart in November, 1914, appointed him to the 
 office of major on his staff. Mr. Seiberlich is a 
 member of the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce 
 Association, the Minneapolis Athletic Club, the Inter- 
 lachen Country Club, the Minneapolis Lodge No. 
 44 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, 
 and the Automobile Club. 
 
 On October 1, 1902, Mr. Seiberlich married Miss 
 Alida P. Cheney, daughter of John and Laura M. 
 Cheney. Her mother now lives at Appleton, Minne- 
 sota, and her father is deceased. John Cheney was 
 a farmer and the family were among the pioneers 
 of Minnesota, the town of Cheney being named in 
 their honor. Mrs. Seiberlich was born near Dodge 
 Center, Minnesota, was educated at Appleton and in 
 the State University. To their marriage have been 
 born four children : Irene, Zella and Marion, all 
 
 born at- Hopkins and now attending public schools 
 in Minneapolis ; and Jane, who died at the age of 
 eight months. Mr. Seiberlich and family reside at 
 2424 Dupont Avenue, South. 
 
 T. Maxwell Thompsen. A resident of Minne- 
 apolis for the past five years, T. Maxwell Thompsen 
 is in a well established business as a dealer in se- 
 curities, with offices in the Plymouth Building, and 
 is also interested in the contracting firm of Anderson 
 Whitson Company of Minneapolis. Aside from his 
 associations as a business man, Mr. Thompsen has 
 some interesting distinctions in birth, residence and 
 accomplishments. He is a native of Japan, a son 
 of Danish parents, and is probably the only white 
 man in Minnesota who possesses a thorough and 
 fluent knowledge of the Japanese language. 
 
 T. Maxwell Thompsen was born in Japan, October 
 29, 1889, a son of William P. and Lovise (Clausen) 
 Thompsen. His mother was born at Rudkjobing, 
 on Langeland Island, Denmark, and his father at 
 Nyborg, Denmark, where both are now living re- 
 tired. His father spent fifty years on the sea, and 
 for twenty-six years was captain of a vessel for the 
 Nippon Yusen Kaisha (Japan mail steamship com- 
 pany), and for many years his home was in Japan. 
 The parents never resided in the United States, al- 
 though the father has considerable interests on the 
 Pacific Coast at Seattle, and also has investments in 
 Japan. He retired from the sea about three years 
 ago. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1335 
 
 T. Maxwell Thompsen is the only survivor of 
 three sons. He received his early education in a 
 French school at Yokohama and Tokio, and there 
 studied French and English. While still a boy he 
 accompanied his father on a voyage around the 
 world, and during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904- 
 
 05 spent about two months in and about Manchuria 
 and witnessed from' a safe distance the siege and 
 naval battle at Port Arthur. After leaving school 
 he spent two years in the employment of Taylor, 
 Cooper & Company, Ltd., of Yokohama, Japan, im- 
 porters and exporters of general merchandise, their 
 business including the handling of everything from 
 a needle to a locomotive. In 1909 Mr. Thompsen 
 came to the United States and has since been em- 
 ployed in different occupations at Minneapolis. For 
 about a year he was with the firm of R. H. Merriam 
 
 6 Company, investment securities and brokers of 
 St. Paul and Chicago, and for a short time repre- 
 sented the eastern banking house of P. W. Brooks 
 & Company, New York and Philadelphia bankers. 
 Since September, 1914, he has had an office for him- 
 self as a dealer in securities. In Minneapolis he 
 attends the Westminster Presbyterian Church. 
 
 A reporter of the Minneapolis Journal recently in- 
 terviewed Mr. Thompsen with regard to his ac- 
 complishments in the Japanese language. He was 
 reported as saying that by diligence, perseverance 
 and pluck, a fairly good and workable knowledge of 
 that language might be acquired in a dozen or fifteen 
 years. On this theme he said in part: “Japanese is 
 peculiar and is essentially a language of courtesy. 
 To acquire it the student would have to study first 
 the peculiar construction of the tongue, and couple 
 that with a thorough understanding of the social 
 conditions of the country before he could commence 
 anything like a study of the intricacies of Japanese 
 speech. A close study of class distinctions is neces- 
 sary, for a different style and type of speech is 
 used with each social division, and of the latter 
 there are many. The difference amounts almost 
 to a separate language for each class and grade ot 
 the Japanese people. I have known missionaries 
 in Japan who, after a residence of a dozen years 
 or more, and living among Japanese people, acquired 
 a fairly good speaking knowledge of the tongue, but 
 never have I known one who mastered the accent, 
 excepting such as were born, like myself, in the 
 islands and learned its twists and turns as a child. 
 Japanese is really a score of languages, for each 
 subdivision of it amounts to something different than 
 a mere dialect. Each has its distinct courtesy, and 
 each must be carefully observed. To address a 
 naval officer in the same courtesy employed in speak- 
 ing to a jinrickshawman would be utterly unheard 
 of, and do not understand this to mean that there 
 are not certain courtesies to which the humble trans- 
 portation man of Japan is properly entitled. The 
 instant a Japanese speaks, you know from his ac- 
 cent and courtesy the station in life he occupies, and 
 I never heard- of one attempting to assume that he 
 was of a higher degree of society by imitating the 
 speech of the better classes. If humble he is born, 
 humble he will remain to the end of the chapter.’’ 
 
 Concerning the type or class of Japanese found 
 most numerously in America, Mr. Thompsen had 
 this to say : “The Japanese in this country are 
 
 not from the lower classes. The reverse is true, 
 with a possible exception here and there. The Jap- 
 anese who come here make the visit either to get 
 money to accomplish a purpose or to get an edu- 
 
 Vol. Ill — 5 
 
 cation. Possessed of a wonderful energy, they can 
 work harder, study more intensely and get along on 
 less sleep than any other race in the world. I 
 know several Japanese young men employed in 
 local hotels who come from not only wealthy but 
 very excellent families, and for the most part all 
 speak the better Japanese, although not that em- 
 ployed by the army, navy, university teachers and 
 dignitaries generally.” 
 
 On April 3, 1915, Mr. Thompsen married Miss 
 Alma A. Goranson, of Kiester, Minnesota. Fra- 
 ternally he is a member of the Elks, and his club 
 membership is with the Minnesota Athletic Club. 
 
 Fred Elmer Wheaton. One of the pioneer men 
 in the printing business in the Northwest, Fred 
 Elmer Wheaton is the founder and has for thirty- 
 two years published and edited the Pythian Advo- 
 cate at Minneapolis, and during this period has also 
 taken an active part in democratic politics and has 
 filled several positions of public responsibility with 
 distinction and credit. 
 
 A native of Maine, Fred Elmer Wheaton was 
 born in Machias, Washington County, September 24, 
 1862, a son of Benjamin Franklin and Lovina H. 
 (Clark) Wheaton. Educated in the common schools 
 and high school at Machias, his early opportunities 
 and inclinations led him into the newspaper business 
 and the printing art, and he served an apprentice- 
 ship and learned his trade on the Machias Union. 
 About the time he reached his majority he left Ma- 
 chias and came to the Northwest, locating in Min- 
 neapolis and found plenty of work to do in his 
 special line as a job printer. He was associated for 
 a time with the Minneapolis Tribune, arid also with 
 the St. Paul Pioneer Press. It may be recalled with 
 special interest that in St. Paul Mr. Wheaton had 
 charge of railroad and theatrical printing and printed 
 the first time card or railroad time folder for the 
 Northern Pacific Railway. For a number of years 
 he has also been engaged in the business of law 
 blank publishing at Minneapolis. It was in 1883 that 
 he founded and established the Pythian Advocate. 
 Along with his special business from time to time 
 he has invested and acquired holdings in valuable 
 boulevard residence property in Minneapolis and 
 also in iron and agricultural lands in Northern Min- 
 nesota. 
 
 Outside of his regular business Mr. Wheaton 
 served a full term of five years in the Minnesota 
 National Guard in Company I of the First Regiment. 
 Under appointment and commission from the late 
 Governor John Albert Johnson he was for five years, 
 1905-1910, surveyor general of logs and lumber in 
 the Second Minnesota District. He has long been 
 one of the active leaders in the democratic party. 
 He was at different times nominated for city comp- 
 troller of Minneapolis, for clerk of the District 
 Court in the Fifth Judicial District of Minneapolis, 
 and clerk of the Supreme Court of Minnesota. For 
 two years, 1912-13, Mr. Wheaton was treasurer of 
 the State Central Committee, and at this writing 
 is a member of the executive committee of the 
 Democratic State Central Committee. 
 
 He is well known in fraternal circles, having mem- 
 bership in the Knights of Pythias, the Independent 
 Order of Odd Fellows and the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks. His chief work has been 
 with the Knights of Pythias, having served as grand 
 chancellor of Minnesota three terms, as grand keeper 
 of records and seal sixteen years, and for the past 
 
1336 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 five years has been supreme keeper of records and 
 seal. He was founder of the National Association 
 of Grand Keepers of Records and Seal and of the 
 National Pythian Press Association. Mr. Wheaton 
 is also a member of the Athletic Club and of the 
 Civic and Commerce Association of Minneapolis, and 
 while not a member, is an attendant of the Meth- 
 odist Church. 
 
 September 24, 1890, at Fort Dodge, Iowa, Mr. 
 Wheaton married Grace Merrill, daughter of Carlos 
 A. and Sarah Anne Merrill. Her father formerly 
 was in the lumber business in Michigan and was for 
 many years a hotel proprietor in both Minnesota and 
 Iowa. Mrs. Wheaton has taken much interest in 
 music, being an active member of the Ladies’ Thurs- 
 day Musical of Minneapolis. To their marriage have 
 been born a quartette of boys, young men of much 
 promise and all of them still calling the home of 
 their parents their own home. The names of these 
 boys are: Elmer Merrill Wheaton, Grier Franklin 
 
 Wheaton, Carlos Frederick Wheaton and Frederick 
 Warde Wheaton. 
 
 Benjamin Seth Bull. The following sketch of 
 the late Benjamin Seth Bull appeared in the “His- 
 tory of Minneapolis and Hennepin County” (1914) 
 and is reproduced here without change : 
 
 “Among the early settlers of Minneapolis was 
 Benjamin S. Bull, born October 19, 1832, in Essex 
 county, New York. His ancestors were of English 
 Quaker origin, settling in Vermont. His father, 
 Henry Bull, was a man of moderate means, so the 
 son’s education was necessarily confined to the dis- 
 trict schools of his neighborhood. 
 
 “At the age of twelve years it was necessary that 
 Benjamin Bull support himself and as he grew 
 towards manhood he developed such energy and 
 capacity that he was soon operating for himself in 
 various enterprises. 
 
 “At the age of twenty-one years he married Miss 
 Mary Stickney of his native village and, following 
 the example of others in the neighborhood, jour- 
 neyed West to Illinois. Before very long, the glow- 
 ing accounts of Minnesota became alluring and 
 yielding to the pioneer instinct he made the trip 
 with his wife and infant daughter by team, as there 
 were no railroads running to Minneapolis at that 
 time. He arrived at Minneapolis in 1855 and soon 
 identified himself with the active life of the town. 
 
 “Three years after arriving in Minneapolis Mrs. 
 Bull died and two years later Mr. Bull married Miss 
 Beulah Newell, who was also a native of Essex 
 county, New York. 
 
 “He now entered the grocery business with a store 
 near Bridge Square. The project prospered, busi- 
 ness increased rapidly and soon a partnership was 
 formed with Mr. Hugh G. Harrison, a capitalist who 
 had recently arrived in Minneapolis. This partner- 
 ship resulted in the Harrison Block at the corner 
 of Washington and Nicollet avenues, which building 
 was in those days one of the prides of Minneapolis. 
 After several vears of success, the companv sold out 
 to Stevens & Morse, Mr. Bull and Mr. Harrison con- 
 tinuing their partnership in the lumber business with 
 sawmills at the Falls of St. Anthony. 
 
 “About this time there was great excitement over 
 Montana mining and several leading citizens of Min- 
 neapolis, Mr. Bull being among them, made a jour- 
 ney of investigation. This trip resulted in a mining 
 partnership being formed with Mr. Isaac I. Lewis, 
 the enterprise centering in the ‘Legal Tender’ mine 
 of the ‘Silver Bow’ district. This was before the 
 
 days of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern 
 railroads, and it was necessary to make the trip 
 via the Union Pacific to Salt Lake City, thence north 
 by stage to Montana. 
 
 “The ‘Legal Tender’ was a mine of remarkably 
 rich ore, but capricious, as is often the case, and 
 finally, the flour milling business at Minneapolis 
 attracting his attention, Mr. Bull disposed of the 
 Montana mine and erected the ‘Humboldt Mill,’ the 
 business being conducted under the name of Bull, 
 Newton & Co. The original LIumboldt Mill went 
 down in the great mill explosion of 1878 but was 
 immediately replaced by the present structure now 
 operated by the Washburn-Crosby Co. Flour from 
 the Humboldt Mill received gold medal and first 
 prize at the World’s Paris Exposition in 1878. 
 
 “Discontinuing the milling business, Mr. Bull took 
 up what was then known as bonanza farming. His 
 farms were located in various parts of western Min- 
 nesota and North Dakota, the principal, however, 
 being the ‘Hancock Farm,’ comprising some 14,000 
 acres in Stevens and Pope counties, Minnesota. 
 
 "In the year 1869 Messrs. Bull, Gilson 1 and others 
 introduced the first street railway into Minneapolis, 
 the concern being incorporated as the Minneapolis 
 Horse Railway Co. Cars were run on a track laid 
 along Second street, connecting the Milwaukee and 
 Manitoba depots. The project was a little prema- 
 ture as a street railway and the tracks were used 
 mainly for the purpose of transferring cars between 
 the two systems of roads. Soon Mr. Gilson died 
 and it was decided to abandon the enterprise, thus 
 ending the first street railway of Minneapolis. 
 
 "Mr. Bull was a quiet man, keeping much with his 
 family and working with unceasing energy and in- 
 terest on the various business ventures of his life. 
 He was a member of the First Baptist Church when 
 that church occupied a location at the corner of 
 Nicollet avenue and Third street. 
 
 “Benjamin S. Bull died November 21, 1889, and 
 there survives him, his widow, two daughters and a 
 son — Mrs. Louis F. Menage, Mrs. William G. 
 Crocker and Benjamin S. Bull, a sketch of whom is 
 embraced in this book.” 
 
 Benjamin S. Bull has the administration of 
 the advertising department of the Washburn-Crosby 
 Company, and directing the expenditure of hun- 
 dreds of thousands of dollars for printing and 
 advertising. He is particularly well known in peri- 
 odical circles. In this field he has earned a reputa- 
 tion for being a sagacious and discerning judge of 
 publicity. 
 
 Born in Minneapolis on June 21, 1869, Mr. Bull 
 received his education in the public schools of the 
 city. His first business experience was with his 
 father in the real estate business in 1887 and 1888. 
 From 1889 to 1895 he was associated with the First 
 National and other Minneapolis banks. 
 
 It was in the latter year that he took employment 
 with the Washburn-Crosby Company, expending 
 large sums of money for advertising, the company 
 found it necessary to create a department for its 
 systematic and judicious handling and Mr. Bull was 
 made, manager of it. His success in this position 
 is attested by the fact of his being made one of the 
 eight new directors elected by the company at its 
 annual meeting on September 19, 1910, and also his 
 being elected secretary of the company. 
 
 Aside from the publicity department, Mr. Bull is in 
 charge of the auditing and clerical forces of Ihe 
 company. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1337 
 
 Christian Maas. One of the fine old pioneer 
 characters of Minnesota was Christian Maas, who 
 died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Frank Ebel, 
 in Faribault, Minnesota, November 29, 1914. His 
 was a life of quiet effectiveness, marked by a record 
 of many duties well done and many responsibilities 
 faithfully performed. He was one of the men who 
 helped to develop the wilderness of Minnesota and 
 deserves the honor that can be shown by placing 
 his name and record in the history of the state. 
 Though never in the conspicuous activities of ab- 
 normal events of the world, he was faithful and 
 intelligent in the performance of every task allotted 
 to him during his long life, and his career may well 
 be an inspiration to generations that follow him. 
 
 Christian Maas was born in the Province of Han- 
 over, Germany, November 13, 1833, and was a few 
 days past his eighty-first birthday when death came 
 to him. He was the youngest son in a family of 
 three boys and four girls, and the only one now 
 living is Mrs. Carlton Hawkes of Elmira, New 
 York. His parents were Mr. and Mrs. Henry Maas. 
 The father was a farmer in Germany, and after 
 coming to the United States was employed by the 
 Methodist Episcopal Book Concern. Henry Maas 
 died in Galena, Illinois, at the home of a daughter, 
 Mrs. Schulz, about 1884, at the age of seventy-seven. 
 
 Christian Maas was educated in Germany, and 
 was the. first of the family to leave the fatherland 
 and seek a home in the New World. He came to 
 the United States when about seventeen years of 
 age, lived for about three years in New York, and 
 while there sent for his parents and brothers and 
 sisters. From New York he went south to Georgia, 
 lived in that state about six months, and then went 
 to the Far West to the new country of California. 
 At Grass Valley in that state he did mining and also 
 conducted a sawmill. On returning east he fol- 
 lowed the route that led him around the Isthmus of 
 Panama, having gone out the same way. He re- 
 turned to New York after an absence of about three 
 years, and in 1857 joined the pioneers of the North- 
 west in Minnesota. He located at St. Peter, and for 
 a time was employed in driving an ox team for the 
 Government between St. Peter and St. Paul, hauling 
 Government supplies, and later was also in the trans- 
 portation business, hauling supplies for individual 
 merchants between the then small villages of St. 
 Peter and St. Paul. In his reminiscences of this 
 experience he often spoke of the speed of his ox 
 team, which he said could trot so that he did not 
 have to take the dust from any horse team. During 
 the Indian outbreak of 1862 he was a member of the 
 Home Guard and helped to defend St. Peter from 
 the hostile red men. From St. Peter he removed to 
 the vicinity of Cleveland in the midst of the big 
 woods of Minnesota, and there took up farming. In 
 1878 he located in Sibley County, near Le Sueur, 
 and there his later years were spent in retirement. 
 He had acquired considerable farm land and was 
 prosperous not only on the score of his material 
 accumulations but also as the father of a fine family 
 of children. For many years he had an active part 
 in the German Methodist Episcopal Church at Le 
 Sueur, and served as steward or trustee most of the 
 time while a resident there and was also one of the 
 class leaders. In January, 1911, he and his wife 
 went to Orange, California, but his old home state 
 was more attractive as a place of residence and he 
 returned in April, 1913, to Le Sueur, where his wife 
 died August 7, 1913. After the death of his wife he 
 
 lived with his daughter, Mrs. Ebel, in Faribault 
 until his death. 
 
 Christian Maas was married at St. Peter, Minne- 
 sota, to Miss Henrietta Eggers, who was born in 
 Germany and came to the United States alone when 
 about nineteen years of age. The old sailing vessel 
 on which she made the journey across the ocean was 
 three months en route, and she often told many in- 
 teresting reminiscences of the trip. She was one 
 of the real pioneers of the Minnesota Valley, and 
 was a few months over seventy-seven years of age 
 at the time of her death. Her body was laid to rest 
 in the family lot at Le Sueur. She and Mr. Maas 
 were married October 24, 1857, and in 1907 they cele- 
 brated their golden wedding anniversary at their 
 home in Le Sueur, surrounded by their six sons and 
 two daughters, and the grandchildren, nine in num- 
 ber. Mrs. Maas was always a faithful assistant to 
 her husband in all his undertakings. Their indus- 
 try and good management gave them in time a fine 
 country place, and some years before Mrs. Maas 
 died they sold the farm and built a fine new home 
 in Le Sueur. Mr. and Mrs. Maas were the parents 
 of a large family of children. Had all the sons lived 
 they would have numbered an even dozen. They 
 reared six sons and one daughter, and these chil- 
 dren are briefly mentioned as follows : Christian, 
 
 Jr., of Springville, California; Charles, of Lindsay, 
 California; Henry, of Alberta, Canada; William, of 
 Glen-Ullin, North Dakota; Andrew H., of Minneap- 
 olis, a sketch of whom is found on other pages of 
 this work; Mrs. Frank Ebel of Faribault; and Theo- 
 dore, of Lowell, Wisconsin. All the children were 
 born and received their education in Minnesota. 
 
 Andrew H. Maas. The A. H. Maas Company, of 
 Minneapolis, which is incorporated under the laws 
 of the state, has become one of the important Min- 
 nesota corporations engaged in the real-estate busi- 
 ness, of which line of enterprise Mr. Maas, the foun- 
 der of the business, is now one of the most successful 
 and influential representatives in the metropolis cl 
 the state. He is president of this company, with 
 office in the Andrus Building and is also affiliated 
 with other corporations. Mr. Maas, through his own 
 efforts, defrayed the expenses of his professional 
 education and is an able member of the bar of his 
 native state, but he has found it expedient to with- 
 draw from the active practice of law and devote his 
 attention to the business enterprises in connection 
 with which he has shown exceptional initiative and 
 executive ability and achieved large success. 
 
 Andrew H. Maas claims as his native heath the 
 “big woods” district of Minnesota, as he was born 
 at Cleveland, LeSueur County, this state, on the 20th 
 of April, 1874, his parents, Christian and Henrietta 
 (Eggers) Maas, having become pioneer settlers of 
 that county and individual mention of them being 
 made on other pages of this publication. He whose 
 name initiates this article is the fifth in order of 
 birth of the seven surviving children, — six sons and 
 one daughter, six sons having died in infancy and 
 all of the children having been born in Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Maas acquired his rudimentary education in 
 a little pioneer district school near the homestead 
 farm, but located across the line in Sibley County, 
 west of Le Sueur, and this discipline was supple- 
 mented by a course of study in the high school at 
 Le Sueur and by attendance in the German Meth- 
 odist Episcopal College at St. Paul Park, Minnesota. 
 After leaving this institution he put his scholastic 
 
1338 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 attainments to practical test and utilization by num- 
 bering himself among the successful teachers in the 
 district schools of his native state. He devoted vir- 
 tually six years to the work of the pedagogic profes- 
 sion, principally in the district schools of Nicollet 
 and Sibley counties, in which latter he taught for a 
 time in the Village of Rushriver, whence he was 
 called to a similar position in his home Village of 
 Cleveland, LeSueur County, his final term of service 
 having been in the village schools of Dresselville. 
 
 Mr. Maas finally determined to prepare himself 
 for the legal profession, and his ambition was one 
 of self-reliance and action, as he was dependent upon 
 his own resources in the acquiring of the requisite 
 technical training. With his cash capital represented 
 in the sum of $90 he entered the law department of 
 the University of Minnesota, and while diligently 
 and effectively prosecuting his studies he so employed 
 himself outside of study and class hours that he not 
 only was able to defray all incidental expenses but 
 also to come forth with a capital of $450 at the time 
 of his graduation, as a member of the class of 1900. 
 Simultaneously with his reception of the degree of 
 Bachelor of Laws he was admitted to the Minnesota 
 bar. While a student in the university Mr. Maas 
 served as president of Law Literary Society and was 
 a member of the Federal Debating Society, in which 
 latter relation he early manifested special facility in 
 dialectics. 
 
 On the 2d of August, 1900, Mr. Maas opened an 
 office at Hutchinson, McLeod County, Minnesota, 
 where he confidently displayed his ‘‘shingle” and en- 
 gaged in the practice of his profession. He is the 
 type of man to whom success comes as a natural pre- 
 rogative and he built up a substantial practice at 
 Hutchinson, where he continued his professional 
 services until the spring of 1907. On the 1st of April 
 of that year, impressed with the splendid opportuni- 
 ties offered in the domain of real-estate operations in 
 Minnesota, Mr. Maas established his residehce in 
 Minneapolis and turned his attention to this import- 
 ant line of enterprise, in which his success has been 
 pronounced and unequivocal, the two companies with 
 which he is identified as an executive maintaining a 
 spacious and well appointed suite of offices in the 
 Andrus Building. He became the organizer of the 
 Maas Land Company, of which he was president, 
 as was he also of its successor, the Maas-Tifft-Has- 
 kins Company. Later another reorganization oc- 
 curred and the business was incorporated under the 
 present title of The A. H. Maas Company, Mr. Maas 
 having been president of the company from the time 
 of its incorporation. He became also, in 1911, one of 
 the organizers of the Sulflow & Maas Company, of 
 which he was secretary and treasurer and with which 
 he had the special supervision of the mortgage, land 
 and exchange departments, besides which he has be- 
 come an interested principal in other well ordered 
 business corporations in Minneapolis. The two com- 
 panies which owe their organization and advance- 
 ment largely to his energy and progressive policies 
 are now among the foremost concerns of the kind 
 in the Minnesota metropolis and control a real- 
 estate business that ramifies through all sections of 
 the state, as well as into other states of the North- 
 west. Their various departments of business are 
 thoroughly systematized and both have exercised 
 much influence in the furtherance of civic and indus- 
 trial progress in the Gopher State. Though he has 
 been eligible for practice in the Supreme Court of 
 Minnesota since June 8, 1900, Mr. Maas has been 
 
 retired from the practice of his profession during the 
 period of his residence in Minneapolis, save when his 
 professional interposition is demanded in connection 
 with his business affairs. The two companies with 
 which he is identified hold membership in the Min- 
 neapolis Real Estate Board. 
 
 Mr. Maas and his wife are most zealous members 
 of the Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church of Min- 
 neapolis, and both are specially active in various de- 
 partments of church work. Mr. Maas was primarily 
 instrumental in effecting the organization of the 
 Groveland Institute at Groveland, Lake Minnetonka, 
 same being a training school in religious work for 
 the young people of the organization of the Minne- 
 sota State Epworth League, of which he served as 
 president three years, 1907-9. He is most earnest 
 and zealous in the promotion of high ideals and gen- 
 eral uplift work. Masonically Mr. Maas is a mem- 
 ber of Hennepin Lodge No. 4, A. F. & A. M., a 
 Knights Templar York Rite Mason, and a member 
 of Zurah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. Mr. Maas is 
 actively identified with the Minneapolis Civic and 
 Commerce Association and the Minneapolis Art So- 
 ciety, besides which he is a popular member of the 
 Minneapolis Athletic Club, his political allegiance 
 being given to the republican party. At the time of 
 the Spanish-American war Mr. Maas enlisted in a 
 company of volunteers that was organized at LeSueur 
 and that was there drilled effectively in military tac- 
 tics, but the services of the company were not re- 
 quired on the stage of the conflict and it was never 
 mustered into the United States service. 
 
 On the 27th of December, 1899, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Maas to Miss Emma Achterkirch, 
 who was born near Faribault, Rice County, this state, 
 where her parents settled in the pioneer days and 
 where her father became a prosperous farmer, both 
 he and his wife being now deceased. Mrs. Maas is 
 a daughter of Henry and Elizabeth (Lindeman) 
 Achterkirch and her father was a valiant soldier of 
 the Union in the Civil war. In addition to being 
 accorded the advantages of the public schools of 
 Faribault Mrs. Maas attended also the German Meth- 
 odist Episcopal College at St. Paul Park, where she 
 was a student at the same time as was her husband. 
 
 First State Bank of Ely. This institution merits 
 specific mention since it is one of those that give 
 ability and prestige to the financial activities of the 
 Vermillion Iron Range in St. Louis County, which 
 is the oldest iron range in the state. The bank 
 was incorporated September 30, 1912, and opened 
 its doors for business on the 12th of the following 
 March, in a fine modern building erected for the 
 purpose. Operations are based on a paid in capital 
 of $25,000, most of the stock being held by citizens 
 of Ely and vicinity, and that the bank has been 
 exceptionally successful is shown by the fact that 
 its deposits are now in excess of $350,000. 
 
 The board of directors comprises the following 
 well known citizens : M. J. Murphy, George L. 
 
 Brozich, James Moonan, A. S. James, A. D. Ellef- 
 sen, G. H. Good and Theodore Albrecht. The ex- 
 ecutive officers are : M. J. Murphy, president ; Theo- 
 dore Albrecht and A. S. James, vice presidents ; 
 George L. Brozich, cashier; and Arthur Toms and 
 Andrew Harri, assistant cashiers. The bank con- 
 ducts a general commercial banking business and 
 its savings department pays 3 per cent interest 
 on time deposits. The correspondents of the bank 
 include the following well known institutions : Union 
 

 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1339 
 
 Investment Company and the Northwestern National 
 Bank of Minneapolis, First National Bank of Du- 
 luth, National Park Bank of New York City, and 
 Continental and Commercial National Bank of Chi- 
 cago. 
 
 George L. Brozich. The cashier of the First 
 State Bank of Ely, regarded now as one of the most 
 substantial financial institutions of St. Louis County, 
 is George L. Brozich, who is also one of the di- 
 rectors. In large measure his progressive qualities 
 and able executive methods have brought about the 
 advancement of the bank to its present high stand- 
 ard and marked prosperity. 
 
 George Louis Brozich was born in Austria, 
 March 12, 1878, a son of George and Katherine 
 Brozich. His father emigrated to the United States 
 in 1882, followed by his family in 1888. They 
 established their home in Upper Michigan, where 
 the father became a successful carpenter and builder, 
 his trade having been learned in his native land. 
 From that state they moved to Minnesota in 1892, 
 and the parents are now living on their homestead 
 at Ranch, Minnesota. 
 
 George L. Brozich acquired his early education in 
 public and private schools in Michigan and Minne- 
 sota. At the age of fifteen he entered the services 
 of the First National Bank of Virginia, Minnesota, 
 and later attended 'the St. John’s University, where 
 he graduated in 1898. Upon graduating he was em- 
 ployed as chief bookkeeper in a large department 
 store at Joliet, Illinois, for three years, from where 
 he moved to Ely, Minnesota, in 1902, to be identi- 
 fied with the Bank of Ely as assistant cashier, which 
 position he held for five years, resigning to estab- 
 lish himself in real estate and insurance business 
 which he conducted until he organized the First 
 State Bank of Ely, in 1912, of which he is now 
 cashier. 
 
 Mr. Brozich has exemplified broad-minded and 
 progressive citizenship, has been active and liberal 
 in support of measures and enterprises advanced for 
 the general good of the community, and served two 
 years as city treasurer of Ely, and for a similar 
 period was in the office of special municipal judge. 
 Both he and his wife are communicants of St. An- 
 thony Catholic Church, and since 1902 he has held 
 the office of .supreme secretary of the Slavonic 
 Catholic Union, a fraternal organization numbering 
 about ten thousand members and operating in 
 twenty-seven different states. He is affiliated with 
 the Knights of Columbus, the Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks and several other clubs and 
 societies. In addition to his interests at Ely, Mr. 
 Brozich is president of Slovenian Printing and Pub- 
 lishing Co., in the City of Duluth, Minnesota. 
 
 On June 9, 1908, was solemnized the marriage of 
 Mr. Brozich to Miss Anna M. Horwat, at the time 
 a resident of Joliet, Illinois. The one child of their 
 union is Robert Julius, who was born on November 
 4, 1911- 
 
 Norman A. Emerson. Civic and industrial devel- 
 opment and progress in the Northwest continue to 
 be hastened and solidified through the well directed 
 efforts and enterprise of reliable and far-sighted 
 real-estate men, and Norman A. Emerson, who main- 
 tains his offices at 703-5 Metropolitan Life Building, 
 Minneapolis, has made splendid achievement in the 
 exploiting and sale of realty in both Minnesota and 
 Wisconsin, especially in the disposition of new land 
 
 well adapted to varied agriculture. Through his in- 
 terposition many desirable citizens have become 
 settlers of Minnesota and Wisconsin, as well as cer- 
 tain other states of the Northwest, and he is con- 
 sistently to be designated as one of the progressive 
 and representative real-estate men of the City of 
 Minneapolis. He handles city property, farm and 
 timber lands ; is special agent also for the land and 
 industrial department of the Minneapolis, St. Paul & 
 Sault Sainte Marie Railway Company, which, through 
 control of valuable land grants of the Wisconsin 
 Central Railway, now a part of the “Soo” system, 
 offers to settlers most excellent investments in Wis- 
 consin' lands. In the handling of Wisconsin lands 
 Mr. Emerson represents also the American Immigra- 
 tion Company, of Chippewa Falls, that state, and his 
 independent or individual operations have grown to 
 be of wide scope and importance, he being one of 
 the early members of the Minneapolis Real Estate 
 Board. 
 
 Norman Asa Emerson claims the Badger State as 
 the place of his nativity and is a representative of 
 one of its sterling pioneer families. He was born 
 at Iron Ridge, Dodge County, Wisconsin, on the 26th 
 of April, 1863, and is a son of Norman and Nancy 
 (Chapman) Emerson, members of families that were 
 founded in America in the colonial era. Norman 
 Emerson was born near Rochester, Windsor County, 
 Vermont, where the family home was maintained for 
 four generations, and his wife was born near Lake 
 Champlain, in Clinton County, New York, a repre- 
 sentative of one of the pioneer families of that sec- 
 tion of the Empire State, where she was reared and 
 educated and where her marriage was solemnized. 
 In the ’50s Norman and Nancy (Chapman) Emerson 
 came to the West and established their home in Wis- 
 consin, where they were early settlers in the Village 
 of Iron Ridge, Dodge County. There the father fol- 
 lowed his trade, that of cooper, but in 1866 he en- 
 tered claim to a tract of Government land in Clark 
 County, that state, where he developed a fine farm 
 of 160 acres, the property being valued today at 
 $100 an acre. 
 
 When the Civil war was precipitated on the nation 
 Norman Emerson promptly tendered his aid in de- 
 fense of the Union. He enlisted as a private in Com- 
 pany C, Twenty-ninth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, 
 with which command he served about two years and 
 took part in numerous engagements, including a num- 
 ber of the important battles marking the progress 
 of the war. In later years he never consented to 
 dpply for a pension, though he was justly entitled 
 to one. He was a man of large mind and large 
 heart, tolerant and generous, and he ever held the 
 high regard of those with whom he came in contact 
 in the various relations of life, both he and his wife 
 having enjoyed unequivocal popularity in the state 
 that was long their home and Mrs. Emerson having 
 been a devoted member of the Baptist Church. She 
 died on the old homestead farm, near Loyal, Clark 
 County, in 1887, and her husband passed the closing 
 period of his life near Tomahawk, Lincoln County, 
 Wisconsin, where he died in the spring of 1891. 
 They became the parents of three sons and four 
 daughters, and of the number three are living. Mary 
 Isabelle, who died in 1902, was the wife of Joseph 
 C. Dunn, of Loyal, Wisconsin ; Martha E., who died 
 May 15, 1914, in Madison, the capital of Wisconsin, 
 was the wife of Daniel J. Kinne; Amanda is the 
 widow of Albert E. Wheelock, of Algona, Iowa; 
 Nettie died on the old home farm, about twenty 
 
1340 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 years ago; John W. was killed by lightning, in 1907, 
 in Vilas County, Wisconsin; David W. is a resident 
 of Ashland, that state; and the subject of this review 
 is the youngest of the number. 
 
 Norman A. Emerson acquired his early education 
 in the public schools in the Town of Loyal, Wiscon- 
 sin, and in addition to gaining experience in connec- 
 tion with the work of the home farm he was actively 
 identified with the lumbering operations which were 
 carried forward on an extensive scale in Wisconsin 
 during the period of his youth and early manhood. 
 He worked in lumber camps and in the driying of 
 logs down the rivers, and the sturdy discipline did 
 much to develop the physical powers which have 
 made his a strong and vigorous constitution. For a 
 score of years Mr. Emerson has been identified with 
 the real-estate business, in which his operations have 
 been of broad scope and of varied order. For five 
 years prior to becoming associated with this import- 
 ant line of enterprise he had been engaged in the 
 lumber business in his native state. 
 
 In 1899 he came from Wisconsin to Minnesota and 
 established his residence in Minneapolis, where he 
 has since continued to be successfully engaged in the 
 real-estate business. He has been a member of the 
 Minneapolis Real Estate Board since 1902 and is 
 identified also with the National Real Estate Ex- 
 change. He takes loyal interest in all that concerns 
 the welfare and advancement of his home city, and 
 is an active member of the Minneapolis Civic and 
 Commerce Association. 
 
 Mr. Emerson finds special satisfaction in being a 
 life member of the Minneapolis Athletic Club, which 
 has recently completed a clubhouse that is conceded 
 to be one of the finest in the West, the same having 
 been erected at a cost of $735,000. The club has 
 an enrollment of fully 2,6bo members and all of the 
 life memberships, 300 in number, are now taken. In 
 the Masonic fraternity the ancient-craft affiliation of 
 Mr. Emerson is with Cataract Lodge, No. 2, Ancient 
 Free and Accepted Masons, and his maximum York 
 Rite affiliation is with Zion Commandery, Knights 
 Templars, besides which he is a member of Zurah 
 Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles 
 of the Mystic Shrine. 
 
 At Madison, Wisconsin, on the 16th of February, 
 1889, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Emerson 
 to Miss Amy L. Warnes, of Neenah, Winnebago 
 County, that state, and they became the parents of 
 four children: Elsie M. is now the wife of Arthur 
 S. Swenson, of Minneapolis; Helen E. is (1915) a 
 student of domestic science, in a representative edu- 
 cational institution in the City of Philadelphia, Penn- 
 sylvania; Norman F., who remains at the parental 
 home, is a graduate of a well ordered military acad- 
 emy ; Paul W. was with his uncle, John W. Emerson, 
 in Vilas County, Wisconsin, at the time both were 
 killed by lightning, on the 27th of July, 1908, and the 
 tragic termination of this fine youth and devoted son 
 was a source of irreparable grief to his parents. The 
 eldest of the children was born at Loyal, Clark 
 County, Wisconsin, and the others at Tomahawk, 
 Lincoln County, that state. Both of the daughters 
 were graduated in the Central High School of Min- 
 neapolis, and Norman F. was graduated in St. John’s 
 Military Academy, at Delafield, Wisconsin. 
 
 Melvin Bailey Stone. As a designing and con- 
 struction engineer, M. B. Stone, whose offices are in 
 the Andrus Building at Minneapolis, has a record 
 of substantial accomplishment that places him among 
 
 the leaders in his profession in the Northwest. Mr. 
 Stone’s specialty is the designing and construction 
 of bridges, and while in the course of his career his 
 work has included hundreds of the smaller and or- 
 dinary examples of bridge fabrication, there are 
 several large and conspicuous structures which serve 
 to validate his skill in both the technical and prac- 
 tical branches of his profession. 
 
 Melvin Bailey Stone was born at Darien, Wal- 
 worth County, Wisconsin, January 10, 1874. His 
 father was Avery H. Stone, a native of Pennsyl- 
 vania, and his mother Amelia (Bailey) Stone, who 
 was born in Wisconsin, in which state they were 
 married. The father came with his parents to Wis- 
 consin during the ’50s, and afterwards served two 
 years in the Second Wisconsin Cavalry during the 
 Civil war. He was a miller and engaged in the grain 
 business at Darien, his father having followed the 
 same line before him. Later the family removed to 
 Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 1878, and the mother 
 died there in 1879. Avery H. Stone spent the last 
 year of his life in New York City, and died at the 
 home of his daughter there March 18, 1914. There 
 were three children in the family: Jessie G., who 
 
 married Edgar D. Stone of New York City, of the 
 same name but not related ; Maurice H., of Minneap- 
 olis; and Melvin B. All the children were born in 
 Wisconsin, and the older sons were educated there. 
 
 M. B. Stone attended the schools at Sioux Falls, 
 South Dakota, and on leaving school learned the 
 printer’s trade, and was employed in that line at 
 Sioux Falls and in Chicago. While in Chicago he 
 abandoned the printing business and in 1896 entered 
 the University of Wisconsin, taking the civil en- 
 gineering course and graduating in the class of 1900 
 Bachelor of Science. Returning to Minnesota, he 
 located at St. Paul, and for one year was in the 
 engineering department of the Northern Pacific Rail- 
 way, and since 1901 has been a resident of Minneap- 
 olis. Here he was with the American Bridge Com- 
 pany in the civil engineering department, and then 
 spent nine years with A. Y. Bayne, contractor. 
 
 Since January 1, 1913, Mr. Stone has been in busi- 
 ness for himself, with offices in Minneapolis, though 
 his professional work has been done all over the 
 Northwest. Mr. Stone designed the Thirty-second 
 Avenue, North, bridge at Minneapolis, a structure 
 that reflects credit upon his engineering and artistic 
 skill, and another piece of work performed by him 
 is the Soldiers’ Home bridge at Minnehaha. A 
 number of years ago he drew the plans for the large 
 bridge across the Mississippi at Dubuque, Iowa. 
 Hundreds of small bridges designed by him are to 
 be found all the way from Toronto, Canada, to the 
 coast, notably at Winnipeg, Calgary, and Yellow- 
 stone Park. 
 
 Mr. Stone has a large acquaintance with business 
 and professional men in Minneapolis, is affiliated 
 with Minneapolis Lodge No. 19, A. F. & A. M., has 
 taken thirty-two degrees in the Scottish Rite and 
 belongs to the Zurah Temple of the Mystic Shrine 
 at Minneapolis. He is also a member of the En- 
 gineers’ Club of Minneapolis, the Civic and Com- 
 merce Association of Minneapolis and the Lake Har- 
 riet Commercial Club. 
 
 June 22, 1896, Mr. Stone married Miss Fanny. M. 
 Way, daughter of Merritt M. Way. of Vermillion, 
 South Dakota. Mrs. Stone was born at Murphys- 
 boro, Illinois, but received most of her education in 
 Vermillion, South Dakota, being a graduate of the 
 high school there in 1896. Both her parents are now 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1341 
 
 deceased. Mrs. Stone takes an active part in social 
 affairs, and is a member of the Thursday Musical 
 Club of Minneapolis. Three children have come 
 into their home circle : Doris G. and Ellen L., both 
 now attending the West High School at Minneapo- 
 lis; and Margaret W., still in the grade school. 
 
 Francis Stillman Pollard. A native son of 
 Minnesota, where his family were among the pio- 
 neers, Francis Stillman Pollard in early life learned 
 the printer’s trade, was connected with several jour- 
 nals in this state, but for the past ten years has given 
 most of his time and attention to the duties of the 
 office of postmaster at Morgan. 
 
 Francis Stillman Pollard was born in Penn Town- 
 ship, McLeod County, Minnesota, March 13, 1874. 
 His father, Stillman Pollard, was born in East Troy, 
 Walworth County, Wisconsin, in 1846, and at the 
 age of twenty years settled at New Auburn in Sibley 
 Countv. Minnesota. War had only recently closed, 
 and that part of Minnesota was still in almost a 
 pioneer condition. From 1866 to 1876 he was em- 
 ployed as a teacher in country schools of Sibley 
 County, much of his work being done in Penn Town- 
 ship. From 1876 to 1879 he followed farming, and 
 in the latter year removed to Brownton, and was 
 manager of a lumber yard there, and later went to 
 Redwood Falls, where his death occurred. Stillman 
 Pollard married Sophia Lewis, who was born in 
 1854 in Prussia, Germany, and is now living at 
 Hutchinson, Minnesota. When she was six months 
 old her parents came across the ocean and settled 
 in Illinois, and soon afterwards removed to Sibley 
 County, Minnesota, and were living there during the 
 Indian troubles of 1862-63. 
 
 The only child of his parents, Francis Stillman 
 Pollard acquired a public school education and lived 
 at Brownton until the age of eighteen. His first 
 work in earning his own way was on a farm, until 
 he entered the office of the Redwood Gazette at Red- 
 wood Falls and learned the printer's trade. The 
 Gazette at that time was owned by the firm of 
 Aiken and Small. Mr. Pollard was connected with 
 the Gazette altogether for eight years. In 1902 he 
 came to Morgan and bought the Morgan Messenger, 
 editing that substantial old journal until 1906. In 
 that year he sold out to C. C. Eaton, who is now pub- 
 lisher of the Winthrop News. 
 
 Mr. Pollard in October, 1904, was commissioned 
 postmaster of Morgan, and has been the efficient 
 incumbent of that office down to the present writing. 
 Politically he is a republican, is a member of the 
 Presbyterian Church, and has affiliations with An- 
 tiquity Lodge No. 91, A. F. & A. M., and with 
 Morgan Camp No. 2226, Modern Woodmen of 
 America. 
 
 In October, 1902, at Redwood Falls, Mr. Pollard 
 married Miss Catherine I. Stewart. Her father was 
 the late Donald Stewart, a farmer near Redwood 
 Falls, and of Scotch ancestry. Mr. and Mrs. Pol- 
 lard are the parents of three children : Willis and 
 Evelyn Leona, both of whom are in the public 
 schools _ in Morgan ; and Eugene Chafin, who was 
 named in honor of Eugene Chafin, a second cousin 
 to Mr. Pollard, and who several years ago was a 
 candidate on the prohibition ticket for the presi- 
 dency of the_ LTnited States. As a matter of ances- 
 tral history it is also interesting to note that Still- 
 man Pollard was a descendant through his mother 
 of General Prescott, the gallant leader of the Revo- 
 lutionary forces in the battle of Bunker Hill. 
 
 Erik Waldeland. One of the largest publishing 
 houses in the Northwest is the Augsburg Publishing 
 House, which furnishes a business and mechanical 
 facilities for the publication of all the periodicals 
 and literature of the United Norwegian Lutheran 
 Church of America, and the house also acts as gen- 
 eral publishers, Importers, printers and bookbinders. 
 Erik Waldeland is manager and treasurer of the 
 Augsburg Publishing House, is treasurer of the- 
 corporation known as the United Norwegian Lu- 
 theran Church of America, and one of the most con- 
 spicuous laymen in this denomination in the North- 
 west. Mr. Waldeland is a practical printer, a busi- 
 ness man of wide experience, and has been an active 
 resident of Minnesota for more than a quarter of a 
 century. 
 
 Erik Waldeland was born in Christiansand, Nor- 
 way, January 15, 1861, a son of Erik and Karen W. 
 Waldeland. His father was an educator, and for 
 many years taught in the town where his son was 
 born. The latter grew up in his native country, 
 attended school until the age of fifteen, and with 
 this preparation gained employment which furnished 
 him a thorough training and qualifications for his 
 present position. He remained in Norway until the 
 age of twenty-one, and in 1882 on coming to the 
 United States engaged in business at Decorah, Iowa, 
 was there until 1887 and in that year accepted the 
 position of manager of the Northfield Publishing 
 Company of Northfield, Minnesota. This business 
 kept him at Northfield three years, and he devoted 
 all his time and energies to the establishment of a 
 progressive and successive publishing concern. 
 
 In 1890 the business at Northfield was sold to the 
 Augsburg Publishing House at Minneapolis, and on 
 the consolidation Mr. Waldeland was appointed as- 
 sistant general manager of the Minneapolis house. 
 In 1904 came his promotion to the office of general 
 manager, and he now has entire charge of the busi- 
 ness, which is one of the most important of its class 
 in Minneapolis. 
 
 In 1904 Mr. Waldeland was also appointed treas- 
 urer of the United Norwegian Lutheran Church of 
 America, an office he still holds, and handles most 
 of the business administration of this corporation. 
 In 1908 the corporation erected a large and handsome 
 business building at 425-429 South Fourth Street, on 
 the corner of Fifth Avenue, known as the LTnited 
 Church Building, which has been occupied since the 
 fall of 1908 by the general offices of the church and 
 the editorial offices of the Augsburg Publishing 
 House. The Augsburg Publishing House through 
 its offices and plant in this large building issues all 
 the official papers of the Lutheran denomination. 
 They are four in number, two published in the Eng- 
 lish and two in the Norwegian language. They are 
 the Lutheraneren, the Luthersk Borneblad, the 
 United Lutheran and the Children’s Companion. 
 
 During his many years of residence in Minnesota 
 Mr. Waldeland has in many ways shown his public 
 spirit, and while never active in politics has inter- 
 ested himself in the various measures tending toward 
 civic improvement. Among several agencies which 
 promote such end, he is a member of the Minneap- 
 olis Civic and Commerce Association and the South 
 Side Commercial Club. He also belongs to the Sat- 
 urday Lunch Club. He is a member and president 
 of the board of trustees of the Bethlehem Nor- 
 wegian Lutheran Congregation of Minneapolis. In 
 July, 1886, Mr. Waldeland married Miss Edvine 
 Osmundsen, who died in 1887, leaving a son Karl, 
 
1342 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 who is now living in Norway. In October, 1891, 
 Mr. Waldeland married Miss Ida G. Ness. By this 
 marriage there are six children: Leonora, Dorothy, 
 Edmund, Marie, Henry and Valborg, all except the 
 first at home. The daughter Leonora is now Mrs. 
 August Nelson, of Sanborn, North Dakota; and by 
 the birth of a daughter named Constance, in March, 
 1915, Mr. Waldeland gains the happy title of grand- 
 father. All the children by the second marriage were 
 born in Minneapolis and all have received their edu- 
 cation so far in the schools of that city. The son 
 Karl was born in Decorah, Iowa. 
 
 Hon. Thomas D. Schall. In 1914 Minnesota was 
 startled by the announcement that Thomas D. Schall 
 had been elected upon the progressive ticket from 
 the Tenth Congressional District, which was nor- 
 mally republican by over ten thousand. Dr. Richard 
 Burton of the University of Minnesota says, “Schall 
 will be for Minnesota what the blind Senator Gore is 
 for Oklahoma. He is a self-made man, of sterling 
 character. His remarkable success as a practicing 
 lawyer demonstrates his business and professional 
 qualities. He is a man of exceptional ability and an 
 able and brilliant speaker. As a congressman he will 
 be a credit to our state.” Dr. Cyrus Northup, presi- 
 dent emeritus of the University of Minnesota, says, 
 “He is one of the best, if not the best speaker we 
 have ever graduated from the University of Minne- 
 sota.” 
 
 Judge M. D. Purdy says of Mr. Schall, “Thirty- 
 seven years old, the orphan of a Civil war veteran, 
 from the age of nine, he has earned every dollar of 
 his way through all the public schools of our state, 
 with no kith or kin to contribute one dollar to his 
 education, or to lend their influence to his success. 
 Lie is a Minnesota product; educated in the common 
 school. Wheaton, Minnesota, Ortonville High 
 School; Llamline University; University of Minne- 
 sota, and completing his law studies at the St. Paul 
 College of Law. He began the practice of law in 
 Minneapolis, where without influence and pull it is 
 truly a survival of the fittest. He was successful 
 and had acquired a fair practice which enabled him 
 and his life-mate to live comfortably. The goal of 
 success as a practicing lawyer was almost within his 
 grasp. His self-sacrifices, his years of privation, 
 his hard days of work and long nights of toil for 
 his education had not been in vain. He would soon 
 have the wherewithal that he might take time from 
 his strenuous life for some relaxation. Just when 
 the object for which he was contending was within 
 his grasp, seven years ago, like a bolt from a clear 
 sky, he received, while lighting a cigar at an electric 
 cigar lighter, an electric shock that seared out his 
 sight. 
 
 “For a year Mr. Schall sought all over the country 
 medical aid for his blindness and, having spent in 
 this search what money he had accumulated in the 
 three years of his law practice, and all he could bor- 
 row, and finally realizing there was no hope to re- 
 cover his sight, he returned to Minneapolis broke, 
 worse than broke, in debt and blind, but the indom- 
 itable courage of the man was undaunted and by 
 the use of his wife’s eyes he again began to practice 
 law. He is successfully coping today with the best 
 legal minds of this and other states. He is not the 
 ordinary blind man. He has had thirty years of 
 sight and his success during those thirty years in 
 the conduct of his own affairs was unusual. His 
 
 success in the conduct of his own affairs during the 
 seven years of darkness is phenomenal.” 
 
 Charles W. Drew, Ph. B., M. D. During a resi- 
 dence in Minneapolis of more than thirty years Doc- 
 tor Drew has been, in earlier years, actively identified 
 with the practice of medicine and surgery, has been 
 a member of the faculty of the Minnesota Hospital 
 College and of the medical department of Hamline 
 University, was the original investigator on the sub- 
 ject of food adulteration in the state, served for sev- 
 eral years as state chemist, and has in many ways 
 been prominent in the educational and scientific 
 phases of his profession. Lie is the director of the 
 Minnesota Institute of Pharmacy, which is now in 
 the twenty-ninth year of its existence. Doctor Drew 
 also has offices as an analytical and consulting chem- 
 ist and assayer and is extensively employed in expert 
 chemical work. 
 
 Charles Wayland Drew was born at Burlington, 
 Vermont, January 18, 1858. His father, Llomer C. 
 Drew, was a successful contractor and builder in 
 Vermont. The family name has been identified with 
 that state for several generations, and the first repre- 
 sentative, of English descent, moved from Connecti- 
 cut to Vermont about the time of the War of the 
 Revolution. Doctor Drew attended the public schools 
 in Burlington, and at the age of fifteen was qualified 
 for admission to the University of Vermont. Even 
 at that age he showed a marked fondness for the 
 sciences, and in the university gave special attention 
 to chemistry and related sciences. He was graduated 
 from the University of Vermont in 1877 as a bache- 
 lor of philosophy, Ph. B., and was elected a member 
 of the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity. After graduation 
 he continued the study and practical work of chemis- 
 try in various laboratories, and finally returned to 
 the University of Vermont in the medical depart- 
 ment, where he was graduated as a doctor of medi- 
 cine, M. D., with the highest honors of his class, in 
 1880. During the following year he practiced at 
 Brattleboro, Vermont, in association with one of the 
 leading physicians and surgeons of the state. 
 
 Doctor Drew came to Minnesota and located in 
 Minneapolis in 1881. He was soon in the enjoyment 
 of a good practice, and in 1882 his scientific attain- 
 ments were recognized in his appointment as pro- 
 fessor of chemistry in the Minnesota Hospital Col- 
 lege. He held that position seven years, and in vari- 
 ous ways helped advance the interests of the college. 
 In 1884 he was appointed city physician of Minne- 
 apolis, an office he held two years. 
 
 Mention has already been made of the fact that 
 Doctor Drew was a pioneer in the investigations of 
 food adulteration in Minnesota. He began his work 
 in 1886, and the report of his investigations, which 
 was published and distributed, did much to awaken 
 public interest at a time when little thought was given 
 by most people to such matters and long before pub- 
 lic opinion had expressed itself in the numerous laws 
 relating to the purity of food products which are 
 now found on the statute books of the various states 
 and the nation. This report led to the appointment 
 of Doctor Drew as state chemist to the Dairy and 
 Food Department of Minnesota, and during the six 
 years he held that office he did much effective work 
 in continuing his investigations and in educating pub- 
 lic opinion and bringing about the enactment of laws 
 which with modifications are still on the statute books 
 of Minnesota. 
 
 Doctor Drew established the Minnesota Institute 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1343 
 
 of Pharmacy in 1886, and for twenty-nine years has 
 been its director and executive head. The general 
 purpose of this school is indicated in the following 
 sentences taken from its public announcement for 
 1914: “A school of pharmacy giving short courses 
 
 of instruction for the benefit of pharmacists who 
 desire to prepare themselves for registration by ex- 
 amination, and for beginners without experience who 
 wish to study the principles of the science of phar- 
 macy.” The Institute of Pharmacy has accomplished 
 a valuable work over a large field. Its graduates are 
 now numbered by the hundreds, and it is a matter 
 of statistical record that more than a half of all the 
 legally qualified and registered pharmacists of Min- 
 nesota were graduated from Doctor Drew’s institute. 
 He has maintained its standards at the highest plane, 
 and his personal enthusiasm and high individual at- 
 tainments as a scientist have had much to do with the 
 success of the institute. Its graduates are now found 
 not only in Minnesota but in many other states of 
 the Northwest. 
 
 Doctor Drew was appointed city chemist of Minne- 
 apolis in 1895, and filled that office seven years. In 
 1898 he was appointed professor of chemistry and 
 toxicology in the medical department of Hamline 
 University. Thus for practically thirty years Doctor 
 Drew has been one of the leading educators in the 
 Northwest in those sciences which constitute the 
 basis of the professions of medicine and pharmacy, 
 and hundreds of their practitioners have drawn in- 
 spiration as well as solid instruction from associa- 
 tions with Doctor Drew. He resigned his chair in 
 Hamline University in 1902, and has since given prac- 
 tically his entire time to the Minnesota Institute of 
 Pharmacy and to his profession as an expert chemist 
 and assayer. He has not been in the regular practice 
 of medicine and surgery for a number of years. 
 
 Doctor Drew is a member of the Hennepin County 
 Medical Society, the Minnesota State Medical So- 
 ciety, the American Medical Association, the Minne- 
 sota State Pharmaceutical Association and the Amer- 
 ican Chemical Society. In politics he is aligned with 
 the republican party, but has never entered politics 
 for the sake of office, and his only services in public 
 office have been in direct line with his profession. He 
 is a member of the Society of the Colonial Wars of 
 the State of Minnesota and of the Sons of the 
 American Revolution, also of the Phi Rho Sigma 
 medical fraternity. 
 
 Doctor Drew is one of the leading Masons of Min- 
 neapolis. He was raised to the sublime degree of 
 master mason in 1879 at Burlington, Vermont, and 
 on coming to Minneapolis became affiliated with 
 Khurum Lodge, from which he withdrew to become 
 a charter member of Minnehaha Lodge, A. F. & 
 A. M., of which he is past master. His present 
 affiliations are with Ark Lodge, A. F. & A. M. ; Ark 
 Chapter, R. A. M. ; Minneapolis Mounted Command- 
 ery, Knights Templar, of which he is past com- 
 mander; Zuhrah Temple of the Nobles of the Mystic 
 Shrine; and for six years was treasurer of the Min- 
 nesota Grand Commandery of Knights Templar. He 
 is a member of Minneapolis Lodge, B. P. O. E., and 
 of the Minneapolis Athletic Club. He and his wife 
 are members of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 
 On September 18, 1884, Doctor Drew married Miss 
 Annah Reed Kellogg, daughter of the late Henry 
 Kellogg of Boston, Massachusetts. Their two chil- 
 dren are Julia Kellogg Drew and Charles Wayland 
 Drew, Jr. 
 
 Andreas Hans Southerland. For twenty years 
 a prominent' attorney at Cambridge, A. H. Souther- 
 land came to this state from a foreign land, an un- 
 trained American, in early manhood, worked on 
 railroads, sawmills, and in other lines which re- 
 quired physical strength and endurance, and with 
 growing adaptibility to circumstances and with some 
 increase in material prosperity he was finally able 
 to realize his ambition to become a lawyer. Mr. 
 Southerland has for a number of years been one 
 of the leading men of ’Cambridge. 
 
 Andreas Hans Southerland was born in Sweden, 
 September 14, 1862. His father was a farmer. 
 Educated in Sweden, Mr. A. H. Southerland arrived 
 at Cambridge, Minnesota, May 18, 1882, when not 
 yet twenty years of age. The first year was spent 
 as a small contractor for the grading of railroads. 
 He was then in sawmills, worked both in the woods 
 and in the mills, followed- that with clerking in a 
 general store, and after a course at a business col- 
 lege in Minneapolis became bookkeeper. Mr. South- 
 erland completed his course in the law in Minne- 
 apolis in 1895, and at once took up active prac- 
 tice in Cambridge, where he has since enjoyed a 
 good business in the general branches of the law. 
 
 Mr. Southerland was honored by election to the 
 office of probate judge in 1904, and his retention in 
 that office by re-election is high proof of his effi- 
 ciency and the confidence felt by the people in his 
 management of the interests entrusted to his charge. 
 He also served one term as county attorney, and for 
 four years was president of the village council. 
 Judge Southerland is a republican, has served on 
 the central committee, and in addition to his general 
 law business also handles fire insurance and farm 
 loans. He is a Scottish Rite Mason and a member 
 of Helios Lodge No. 273, A. F. & A. M., of Cam- 
 bridge, being a past master of this lodge. He is also 
 affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America 
 and the Knights of Pythias, being a past chancellor 
 of the latter order. Judge Southerland is married 
 and has one daughter, Mae. 
 
 Wesley Sherman Foster. Representing some 
 of the oldest and most rugged of New England stock, 
 the Foster family, exemplifying the same qualities 
 which in early generations sent them as colonists to 
 a new world and prompted them to fight for its 
 freedom, had its share in developing the northwest- 
 ern frontier in Minnesota during the decade before 
 the Civil war. A son of the Minnesota pioneer, and 
 himself a native of the state, Wesley Sherman Fos- 
 ter has wrought a career that may well be consid- 
 ered to have advanced the dignity of the name and 
 the achievements associated with his forbears. About 
 fifteen years ago, fresh from university studies, he 
 took up the practice of law in Mille Lacs County. 
 To a large degree the law has been superseded by 
 his voluminous interests in real estate and finance, 
 and he now directs his operations from Minneapolis. 
 In each line of endeavor, his ability, resourceful- 
 ness, good judgment and energy have allowed him 
 to be a leader where others have followed. In suc- 
 cession the law, finance and the real estate business 
 have responded to his efforts, and in all his rela- 
 tions he has displayed the same marked character- 
 istics of absolute integrity and honorable dealing 
 which have placed his reputation above the sugges- 
 tion of stain or blemish. 
 
 Mr. Foster was born in the Town of Elmira, 
 Olmsted County, Minnesota, March 3, 1872, a son 
 
1344 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 of Alonzo and Sophia (West) Foster. The family 
 was founded in America by Reginald Forster, who 
 came to this country from England with his five 
 sons and two daughters and settled at Ipswich, Mas- 
 sachusetts, in 1636. Daniel Forster, a descendant of 
 that emigrant, fought bravely as a soldier during 
 the Revolutionary war, and his grandson, Captain 
 Asa Foster, served as an officer in the War of 1812. 
 The family has always been noted for its military 
 valor. The family coat of arms, adopted at the time 
 of the Crusades, bears the inscription “Sequor 
 Agnum,” together with powder horns and broken 
 spear. The name as originally spelled was “Fors- 
 ter,” but with Daniel, the son of the Revolutionary 
 patriot, was changed to its present style. 
 
 Alonzo Foster was born at Canterbury, New 
 Hampshire, January 30, 1838, and died at the old 
 home farm in Olmsted County, Minnesota, March 7, 
 1895. His wife, a native of Minerva, New York, 
 was born November 15, 1847, and still survives, mak- 
 ing her home with her son Wesley S. Alonzo Foster 
 became one of Olmsted County’s best known cit- 
 izens, and held numerous offices of minor import- 
 ance in his township. He was frequently urged to 
 make the race for higher offices, but always refused. 
 Although he saw much active service in the Union 
 army during the Civil war he would never apply for 
 a pension, always considering that he had but done 
 his duty by his country and his family, and declin- 
 ing any reward for a service which he regarded as 
 one of the responsibilities of citizenship. He enlisted 
 in September, 1861, in Company A, Second Regiment, 
 Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, as a private, and his 
 subsequent service covered a period of four years 
 lacking two months. His record was that of a 
 brave and valiant soldier, cheerful and faithful, win- 
 ning the regard of his officers and the esteem of his 
 comrades. His bravery and faithfulness won his 
 promotion to corporal and later to orderly sergeant, 
 and with the latter rank he received his honorable 
 discharge when the struggle had ceased. Mr. Foster 
 saw some of the hardest fighting of the war, par- 
 ticipating in such sanguinary engagements as Mill 
 Springs, Kenesaw Mountain, Chickamauga and Mis- 
 sionary Ridge, and was with General Sherman on 
 his famous march to the sea. Fie escaped capture 
 by the enemy and was never wounded. When the 
 war closed, like a good soldier turned citizen, he 
 returned to the peaceful pursuits of the farm' and 
 through industry and hard work succeeded in ac- 
 quiring and developing a handsome farm of 400 
 acres in Elmira Township, Olmsted County. This 
 farm is still in the family, and is now owned by 
 Wesley S. Foster and his mother, being used as a 
 stock farm on which general farming is conducted 
 and high grade cattle, hogs and sheep are raised. 
 Alonzo Foster was a Unitarian in his religious be- 
 lief and lived an honest and God-fearing life. Mrs. 
 Foster, his widow, traces her ancestry also back to 
 Revolutionary days, being a descendant of Samuel 
 West, who with three brothers enlisted in the Con- 
 tinental army and fought through the war for 
 American independence. Of the children born to 
 Alonzo and Sophia (West) Foster, Wesley Sherman 
 is the eldest; May, who died in 1899, was a teacher 
 in Olmsted and Winona counties for nearly ten 
 years ; and Milton, who carried on operations on the 
 old homestead in Olmsted County for many years, 
 passed away in 1907. 
 
 After completing the curriculum of the district 
 schools of Olmsted County, Wesley Sherman Foster 
 
 entered St. Charles High School and was gradu- 
 ated in 1892. At that time he came to Minneapolis 
 and entered the University of Minnesota, being grad- 
 uated from the academic department in 1896 with the 
 degree Bachelor of Literature and from the law 
 department of that institution in 1899 with the de- 
 gree Bachelor of Law. Thus fully equipped, he 
 entered the practice of his profession at Milaca, 
 Mille Lacs County, being attracted to this beautiful 
 country by promising resources. In Olmsted County, 
 where he spent his boyhood days, there were no 
 lakes where boating, fishing and swimming might 
 be enjoyed, and he had always determined that when 
 he was ready to settle down to the serious business 
 of life it would be in some spot adjacent to a large 
 body of water. He has never regretted his choice 
 of locality, for in this lovely Mille Lacs Region he 
 has achieved his greatest success. Mr. Foster was 
 first in partnership in law with Albert F. Pratt, 
 under the firm style of Foster & Pratt, a combina- 
 tion which continued for about five years. Mr. Pratt 
 is now county attorney of Anoka County, Minne- 
 sota. Subsequently Mr. Foster was associated with 
 his brother-in-law, L. G. Sperry, as Foster & Sperry. 
 
 During the period of his successful legal practice 
 Mr. Foster had become interested in the develop- 
 ment of the realty interests of his locality, and his 
 holdings in this line became so large and the duties 
 of the management of his business so heavy that 
 he finally decided to give up the active practice of 
 law in order to devote a greater part of his time 
 to the real estate business. His favorite work has 
 been the preservation of natural beauty and the 
 development of lake shore properties for summer 
 resort purposes on the shores of Lake Mille Lacs, 
 located in Central Minnesota, in the northern part 
 of Mille Lacs County, his headquarters being at 
 Milaca, where he remained until 1911. The follow- 
 ing description of this delightful section will give the 
 reader some idea of its many charms : “Lake Mille 
 Lacs, as its name implies, is associated with the 
 earliest French and Indian history of the North- 
 west. It marks the end of the trail of such explorers 
 as Father Hennepin and Radisson, and its shores 
 form a setting for much interesting tradition. No 
 lake with a greater variety of charm lies within 
 the boundaries of Minnesota. Limpid bays, long 
 stretches of inviting sandy beach, shimmering har- 
 bors, rugged rock-bound shores, and surging surf all 
 combine to form a grand panorama of nature in her 
 happiest mood. Magnificent groves of oak, maple, 
 elm, and linden supply an abundance of restful 
 greenery throughout the long summer ; and a ka- 
 leidoscopic riot of color in the autumn. Many of 
 these giant trees were saplings at the time the 
 Pilgrim Fathers began the conquest of the forests 
 on the far eastern coast of the continent. While 
 Minnesota is rich in charming lakes of varying 
 size and beauty, there is but one Mille Lacs. This 
 great lake in all its varied charms lies within one 
 hundred miles of Minneapolis and is of easy access 
 to city dwellers. Here the bracing atmosphere of 
 the north woods invites to rest and recreation ; and 
 it is no longer difficult for anyone to avail himself of 
 this invitation. The obstacles which heretofore pre- 
 vented the occupancy of these shores have all been 
 removed, and it is now of easy access both by rail 
 and automobile.” 
 
 Mr. Foster’s summer home is on the shores of 
 Lake Mille Lacs, and he makes the trip twice a 
 week from Minneapolis by automobile or over the 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1345 
 
 Soo Line. The time is not far distant when an 
 electric line will afford direct and convenient trans- 
 portation from the Twin Cities to this attractive lake. 
 Mr. Foster has already platted two extensive prop- 
 erties, embracing about miles of water front, 
 known as “Izatys” and “Waldemere,” the last 
 named being just developed. Waldemere, lying 
 about one mile westerly from Wahkon, embraces 
 nearly two miles of most entrancing shore line. 
 Mr. Foster is also interested in Crescent Point, one 
 of the choicest and most beautiful spots on the 
 lake, which will be developed about the year 1916. 
 He is also handling farm land extensively in the 
 Mille Lacs locality and perhaps no one has been so 
 actively identified with the settlement and develop- 
 ment of this rich region. Wonderful results are 
 being obtained there by the industrious farmer. 
 Mr. Foster was largely instrumental in starting the 
 Milaca Creamery, now one of the largest in the 
 state. Through his efforts drainage ditches have 
 been constructed which have reclaimed 6,000 acres 
 of fertile muck land in the counties of Kanabec and 
 Isanti. 
 
 He came to Minneapolis in 1911, from which city 
 he has since continued to direct his operations. He 
 is president and owns a full half interest in the 
 Mille Lacs Investment & Improvement Company, the 
 office of which is at 517 Marquette Avenue, South. 
 Mr. Foster’s own office is in this same building, the 
 State Institution for Savings, of which he is a di- 
 rector and stockholder. He was also one of the in- 
 corporators of the First State Bank of Onamia, Min- 
 nesota, and a director several years, in addition to 
 which he was vice president and a director of the 
 Milaca State Bank for five years. The State Insti- 
 tution for Savings of Minneapolis is one of the 
 strong financial concerns of the city, is capitalized 
 at $400,000, and has paid 4 per cent interest on 
 savings accounts continuously since 1888. Its state- 
 ment issued June 30, 1914, shows the following fig- 
 ures : Assets : Bonds and mortgages, $804,497.63 ; 
 real estate and office building, $184,362.05 ; insurance 
 and taxes advanced, $187.10; bill receivable, $6,- 
 §55-75; furniture - and fixtures, $8,842.24; accrued 
 interest, $10,100; cash on hand, $80,263.45. Liabili- 
 ties : Capital stock, $400,000 ; reserve and undi- 
 
 vided profits,, $39,571.01 ; deposits, $627,937.41 ; bills 
 payable, $27,500.00. Total, $1,095,008.22. 
 
 Mr. Foster has always taken a keen interest in the 
 advancement of education, and while a resident of 
 Milaca was president of the village board of edu- 
 cation for ten years, during which time, principally 
 through his efforts, there was erected the $60,000 
 high school building. Fraternally he is connected 
 with Lincoln Lodge No. 221, A. F. &r A. M„ at Milaca, 
 and is past master of the Blue Lodge and past high 
 priest of the Chapter. He is a noble of Zuhrah 
 Temple of the Mystic Shrine, arid a thirty-second 
 degree Scottish Rite Mason. He also belongs to 
 the Sons of the American Revolution. 
 
 On October 21, 1899, at Wasioja, Dodge County, 
 Minnesota, Mr. Foster married Miss Halesia Sperry, 
 who was born at Washington, D. C., a daughter of 
 A. M. and Thyrza (Garrison) Sperry. Her mother 
 was of Pennsylvania Dutch stock and a descendant 
 of the noted Garrison family of which the great 
 abolition leader and editor, William Lloyd Gar- 
 rison, was a member. A. M. Sperry was treasurer 
 of the Freedmen’s Bureau, during the Civil war, at 
 Washington, D. C., and came to Minnesota in the 
 ’70s, subsequently serving as superintendent of 
 
 schools of Dodge County, Minnesota, for sixteen 
 years. He is now retired from active life and is 
 living quietly at his home at Indianapolis, Indiana. 
 Mrs. Sperry died in Dodge County, Minnesota, in 
 1908. 
 
 Mrs. Foster was a child when brought by her 
 parents to this state and her education was secured 
 in the schools of Wasioja Seminary and the Uni- 
 versity of Minnesota. She is a talented writer along 
 historical lines, and her literary work is largely an 
 expression of her sympathetic studies of local his- 
 tory and of her enthusiasm for the wonderful beau- 
 ties of Minnesota scenery. Probably the best 
 example of her literary style will be found in an 
 article, valuable for its historical contents, published 
 on other pages of this work, entitled “Izatys, where 
 Nature reigns,” descriptive of the historical asso- 
 ciations and the natural beauties found on the south 
 shore of Lake Mille Lacs. Two daughters have been 
 born to Mr. and Mrs. Foster, of whom one, Imogen, 
 survives. She was born at Milaca, Minnesota, and is 
 being given excellent educational advantages. The 
 other child, Eleanor Emily, born at Milaca, died 
 in September, 1913, aged six years, and a beautiful 
 cemetery has been platted at Mille Lacs Lake, which 
 bears her name and is known as Eleanor Foster 
 Cemetery. 
 
 Foster Coat-of-Arms 
 
 Izatys. The American is gradually becoming ac- 
 customed and disciplined to an appreciation of Na- 
 ture’s beauty as a national asset of life and living, 
 along with the wealth of mines and fields, factories 
 and business exchanges. While the generations of 
 practical men who have developed Minnesota from 
 a wilderness have been primarily concerned with 
 lumber and minerals, grain and live stock, there has 
 also been manifest a quiet pride in the wonderful 
 excellence of climate and the unlimited variety of 
 landscape with which Nature has endowed the state. 
 
1346 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 In the course of this history the narrative of the 
 historian has not failed to take account of these 
 among the proper resources of the state. While in 
 this survey references have been made to the at- 
 tractive Mille Lacs region of Central Minnesota, it 
 is a matter of good fortune that a special contribu- 
 tion has been secured for this publication of a piece 
 of descriptive writing, characterized by a rare 
 felicity of expression in keeping with the subject. 
 Under the title of “Izatys, where Nature reigns,” 
 Halesia Sperry Foster has written an account of the 
 lake and surroundings of “Mille Lacs” which, though 
 quoted elsewhere, deserves publication in its en- 
 tirety. The article of Mrs. Foster, who for a num- 
 ber of years has had her home at Mille Lacs, is 
 as follows : 
 
 “Of all the lakes of Minnesota, by far the finest 
 and most impressive is the large body of water to 
 which, two hundred years ago, the French explorers 
 gave the name of ‘Mille Lacs’ it being then, as now, 
 chief in size of the ‘Thousand Lakes’ of the region. 
 
 “I well recall my first impression of this lake. 
 Unaccustomed, as are most westerners, to large 
 bodies of water, it was with a feeling almost of 
 amazement that I stood at the top of the high tree- 
 clad embankment overhanging the beach, and saw 
 before me the wide-spread waters flashing back the 
 smile of the blue sky above. Gazing for the first 
 time upon such a scene, imagination could readily 
 give one at least a partial realization of what Bal- 
 boa’s feeling might have been, as he broke through 
 the last obstacle that shut from his view the broad 
 Pacific; for truly it is a new sea of promise that 
 spreads itself before the vision, and though less gi- 
 gantic, none the less certain are the possibilities 
 it represents. 
 
 “I have since watched the effect of the first sight 
 of Mille Lacs upon other amateur discoverers, and 
 it is interesting to see that the impression is always 
 the same. The question often arises, ‘How is it 
 that the spell of seclusion has so long kept this 
 enchanted spot from the knowledge of the world? 
 These waters spread their beautiful expanses within 
 a few hours’ journey from the busy cities that cen- 
 tralize our western commerce ; why have they not 
 been long since appropriated by the railroads, the 
 excursionists and all the crowding life of the cities?’ 
 
 “The answer of course is the familiar statement, 
 ‘This is a big country.’ We are only now at the 
 dawning of the day when the ever-increasing stream 
 of population and industrial development shall de- 
 mand the complete opening of its vast treasure 
 houses. It has been the expansion of a single gen- 
 eration that has revealed the West to the East. By 
 the growth of great railway systems there have been 
 opened up to the uses of commerce and agriculture 
 vast territories hitherto practically unknown. The 
 result has been an increase in national wealth and 
 power that is the marvel of the world. 
 
 “And what the swift expansion of railway enter- 
 prise has done for the prairies of the West, it is 
 now doing for these fertile and promising regions 
 surrounding _ Mille Lacs, which needed only to be 
 made accessible in order to prove their great pos- 
 sibilities. This is already an accomplished fact; 
 thrift and industry have here brought about a de- 
 velopment that marks sure advancement toward a 
 great prosperity'. Coincidently there has been made 
 accessible a place of refreshment and delight for 
 the Nature-lover, the sportsman and the pleasure 
 seeker, to which the state can show no equal. 
 
 “To the mind given to philosophizing on the vari- 
 ous aspects of life, the wide and sparkling waters 
 of Mille Lacs with their forest-fringed shores and 
 shining beaches inevitably call to mind the familiar 
 truth that ‘God made the country and man made 
 the town.’ The contrast suggested is not only phys- 
 ical; it is more. A touch of Nature lingers in the 
 mental constitution of even the most sophisticated, 
 and there are few persons, however absorbed in the 
 stimulating activities of our modern life, to whom 
 there does not come at times a longing for transi- 
 tion from the uproar of Man’s world to the peace 
 of the good green world of Nature. This universal 
 craving for relief from the life of the town finds one 
 expression in the general rush to ‘the country’ as a 
 place for Sunday relaxation. It is becoming the 
 custom among people of all classes and habits to turn 
 more and more from our conventional Sabbaths to 
 ‘God’s first temples.’ 
 
 “And here the divine Architect has surely built 
 in splendor. As I trod the rustling gold and crim- 
 son carpet spread by September, or watched the 
 mellow autumn light sift through the interlacing tops 
 of majestic pillars, or looked down long aisles whose 
 broad and shadowy peace might well hush into rest 
 the discontent of even the most world-weary, I 
 thought, surely here is something better than the 
 traditional golden streets and gates of pearl — a 
 type in miniature of the earthly paradise, where 
 abides not only peace, but the active and conscious 
 joy of life in its freest and most natural form. 
 
 “It would be hard to guess just how much of this 
 philosophy of the ‘outdoor’ life was breathed into 
 the stolid minds of the original dwellers of these 
 shores, but certainly the love of outdoor freedom is 
 so ingrained in the Indian character as to make his 
 obstinate resistance to the advance of ‘civilization’ 
 at least comprehensible. 
 
 “Since the day when Groseilliers and Radisson, 
 leading the van of this civilization with fearless 
 zeal, first penetrated this remote and unknown wil- 
 derness, the attitude of the primitive holders of the 
 land has been of stubborn though silent opposition 
 to all the claims and exactions of the new world 
 that then began to thrust itself upon them. When 
 the two adventurous Frenchmen, bent upon opening 
 up to Europe these spacious and mysterious ex- 
 panses of forest and plain, first came within their 
 hitherto unsought confines, the tribes of the new 
 found territory sent to the explorers, it is true, 
 gifts and tribute, and listened at least passively to 
 their counsel of peace and commerce. Evidently, 
 however, their toleration of the invaders was based 
 only on self-interest and perhaps the perception of 
 the irresistible forces behind them. 
 
 “When, a few years later, the brave and high- 
 minded soldier and patriot, DuLuth, saw the tre- 
 mendous opportunities for his country in this same 
 wilderness, and gathered his little handful of young 
 Frenchmen to make the long journey to the western 
 extremity of Superior, the tribes thereabouts soon 
 found in him not only a friend and counsellor, but 
 undoubtedly recognized the invincibility of the 
 power he represented, for he obtained a mastery of 
 their stubborn and unapproachable nature that ex- 
 tended even to the breaking down of their inter- 
 tribal hostilities. Even this, however, was temporary 
 policy rather than any change in their impenetrable 
 opposition to the new civilization for which he was 
 to pave the way. 
 
 “It was in 1678 that the little band of eight men 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1347 
 
 found and claimed the region now centralized in the 
 city called by DuLuth’s name. A year later, stand- 
 ing on the spot where Mille Lacs finds its outlet, in 
 the great village called Izatys, capital town of the 
 Sioux, the explorer claimed the entire territory, in- 
 cluding the beautiful lake, sparkling like a _ great 
 jewel in its dark setting of primitive forest, in the 
 name of France. In his report made later to the 
 French Minister of the Marine, he announces the 
 achievement in these words: ‘On the 2nd of July, 
 1679, I had the honor to plant his Majesty’s arms in 
 the great village of the Nadouesioux, called Izatys, 
 where never had a Frenchman been.’ 
 
 “It is easy, here by the same waters, in the midst 
 of the new Izatys, to imagine the scene of two and 
 a quarter centuries ago; the sparkling lake and 
 shadowy forest, the picturesque and squalid village 
 stretching far back from the shore, the eight daring 
 Frenchmen, unafraid in the midst of the host of 
 savages, the dark and sullen warriors, undoubtedly 
 comprehending the meaning of this first act of in- 
 terference with their ancient sovereignty, yet showing 
 no open hostility. For DuLuth was allowed to go 
 back in safety to the headwaters of the Great Lakes, 
 where he demonstrated his remarkable influence by 
 convening and controlling a great assembly of these 
 Sioux with the nations of the north — a peace con- 
 gress as truly as those of today. 
 
 “A year later, in 1680, he and his companions 
 found themselves again on the shore of Mille Lacs, 
 on another patriotic and dramatic mission. He had 
 learned, while on one of his numerous exploring 
 trips along the Mississippi Valley, of the capture of 
 his fellow-explorer, Father Hennepin, by the Sioux 
 of the Mille Lacs territory. He found the mis- 
 sionary held in captivity, of a semi-kindly nature, by 
 the ‘people of Issatti,’ as he called them. The 
 priest’s experiences, as described by himself, strip 
 the romance from our ideas of the early red man, 
 who certainly, as a ‘child of nature,’ found in her 
 none of the beauty and little of the beneficence 
 that she shows to the more enlightened vision of 
 the race that has supplanted him. 
 
 “Whether or not the legend, long established, of 
 the imprisonment of Hennepin on the rocky island 
 that lies far out toward the eastern shore, be true, 
 there is the direct report from both his own and 
 DuLuth’s hands, of the finding of the priest and 
 his two companions here on this shore, and of the 
 stern rebuke which DuLuth administered to the sav- 
 ages for this affront to France. His words were ap- 
 parently accepted as from one in authority, and in 
 the autumn the Frenchmen, rescuers and rescued, 
 journeyed down the Rum River to the Mississippi, 
 and thence back to Green Bay and Mackinaw. 
 
 "It was nearly a century later, at about the time 
 that the French and their Indian allies were con- 
 tending with the English for the mastery of the 
 eastern part of the continent, that the long struggle 
 between the Sioux and the Ojibways for the pos- 
 session of these great hunting and fishing grounds 
 culminated in a terrific battle at the outlet of the 
 lake. All about the great village the Sioux furiously 
 but vainly resisted in a three-days’ fight, the bloodiest 
 Indian battle of the west, the advance of the Ojib- 
 ways, who then drove them out to the south and 
 west and dispossessed them forever. The conquered 
 Sioux, in accordance with a treaty made after they 
 were driven across the Mississippi near where now 
 the village of Anoka stands, never again set foot in 
 this territory, moving on toward the western plains. 
 
 The victorious Ojibways, or Chippewas, to use the 
 modernized name, here found the final limit of 
 their western advance. ‘The great village called 
 ‘Izatys’ gradually disappeared even in name, for the 
 first translator of DuLuth’s letter mis-read it as 
 ‘Kathio,’ transcribing the ‘Iz’ as ‘K’ and the ‘ys’ 
 as ‘hio.’ 
 
 “Fortunately the original and characteristic Indian 
 name is not to be lost, being preserved as the name 
 of the park-like shore that lies at the base of the 
 promontory long known as ‘Mozomonne Point’ in 
 the remembrance of old Chief Mozomonne. So 
 strong did his followers and descendants find the 
 chain of ancient association that for thirty years 
 after their claims to the lands about the lake had 
 been, by their own consent, abandoned to the gov- 
 ernment, a remnant of the tribe, under the leader- 
 ship of Mozomonne’s son and grandson, lingered in 
 their old haunts, obstinately clinging to the home 
 of their ancestors in the face of the encroach- 
 ments of white settlers and promoters of civiliza- 
 tion. I understand that only very recently did Ain- 
 dhu-so-ge-shig, the last of Mozomonne's race of 
 chiefs, submit to the inevitable and depart from his 
 native shores forever. In fact, there is among the 
 last handful of loiterers on the shore the belief 
 that one part at least of the lake is theirs forever 
 by supernatural authority. The shining white rock 
 island, far out in midlake, represents to them the 
 last stronghold of Indian tradition. They tell the 
 story of the maiden who long ago met a tragic death 
 on this island and point with superstitious awe to 
 the bloodstains still visible on the rocks, firmly con- 
 vinced that the sounds that issue by night from the 
 depths of the island are the lamentations of the 
 spirit that lingers forever on the spot. To the eye 
 of the skeptical, however, it appears merely. a white 
 and shining island, animated only by the flight of 
 gulls, making a pleasing break in the expanse of 
 the blue water rolling far toward the horizon, and 
 giving the additional charm of romantic legend to 
 the beauty of the world that opens before the 
 shores of Izatys. 
 
 “The promontory thus left to the uses of civiliza- 
 tion stretches its bold arm far out, embracing a bay 
 of great size and quiet beauty, whose waters lie in 
 peace and security, even when storms are lashing the 
 white-capped waves in noisy tumult against the far- 
 ther side of the protecting arm of land. It is an ex- 
 perience worth while to row across the gently undu- 
 lating surface of the harbor, lying almost landlocked 
 between its enclosing shores, to the wooded point, 
 there to beach the boat and follow one of the broad 
 and beautiful ways, each with its musical Indian 
 name, the future thoroughfares of Izatys, to the 
 opposite side of the promontory. The contrast is so 
 sudden as to be thrilling; the heaving, white-crested 
 waters hurl themselves in oceanic fury up the beach 
 and against the rocky point ; yet in the quiet enclosed 
 harbor behind us, no trace of the tumult is to be dis- 
 cerned. save for the distant noise of the waves and 
 the gleam of the whitecaps far out beyond the en- 
 closure. Nowhere in the entire hundred miles of 
 shore line can a condition of such complete contrast 
 be found as here on the shore of Izatys, where on one 
 hand is the wide and open sea, and on the other a 
 perfect refuge from all its turbulence in time of 
 storm. 
 
 “Here, too, Nature’s spontaneous charms have al- 
 ready received added grace at the hands of Man, 
 the lover of beauty. Artists have here expended 
 
1348 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 their skill, intensifying without altering the natural 
 graces of grove and shore. Here one looks down 
 gently curving avenues under noble elms, oaks and 
 maples, the successors of the ancient pine forest that 
 long since disappeared before the axe of the lumber- 
 man. These winding avenues furnish to the discern- 
 ing eye the certain promise of the future. Fine 
 boulevards will soon make of the driveway that now 
 encircles the lake a pleasure-course of over a hun- 
 dred miles through beautiful groves and smiling 
 meadows always with the great waters sparkling 
 close by. Even now to follow this driveway, as I did 
 for thirty miles along the southern side of the lake, 
 is to fly on the wings of delight through the bright 
 freedom of a fresh new region full of charm for the 
 present and cheerful anticipation for the future. No 
 one can fail to foresee the time, already near at hand, 
 when this delightful spot shall be eagerly sought from 
 every side, situated as it is, centrally for the entire 
 state. 
 
 “And just as life and beauty here abound in all 
 possible variety so here also waits pleasure in every 
 guise, adaptable to humanity in all its moods and 
 phases. Truly nature here speaks a various language 
 and calls to her human children in numberless ways. 
 Here the Nimrod, regardless of the degree of his 
 skill, forgets the chill of the late autumn days in the 
 keen fascination of the great duck passes or the leaf 
 stripped haunts of the wild deer. The follower of 
 that more quiet sport celebrated by ‘good Ike 
 Walton' can bask in the mellow philosophies as well 
 as the active excitement of the fisherman's life; the 
 dreamer of dreams floats on a fairy sea as his boat 
 drifts over mirrored cloud and grove; the artist’s 
 or poet’s eye sees miracles of beauty in the sunset 
 colors that turn the glassy bay into an immense 
 opral ; the student of the life of the wild finds new 
 worlds both infinite and infinitesimal in the ever 
 changing sky, in the shifting beauty of forest-reaches, 
 in the busy life of the tiny dwellers of tree, meadow 
 and shore, in the Sabbath-like quiet of sun-flecked 
 grove or the uproar of stormy waves breaking on the 
 rock-bound beach. 
 
 “The happy voices of children playing on the wide 
 sand beaches or answering the frolicsome call of the 
 little waves, the lovers strolling through shady walks, 
 the merry shouts of bathers, the launch skimming 
 like a sea bird between blue water and blue sky, the 
 graceful canoe with its dark occupants — a picture of 
 the strange and alien past still lingering in the midst 
 of the bright present — all these activities fill earth 
 and sky and the soul of the onlooker with the sense 
 of universal, joyous life in the midst of a quiet so 
 deep and peaceful as to be suggestive of our notions 
 of eternity. 
 
 “This in a general way is the impression produced 
 on the mind given to meditative enjoyment of the 
 outdoor world. Not every visitor to Izatys would 
 feel the inclination to rhapsody or metaphor, but even 
 to the mind most prosaic and least inclined to en- 
 thusiastic expression, the place makes its appeal along 
 the lines of freedom and out-of-door pleasure. 
 
 “Most people plan or at least dream vacation jour- 
 neys to some place that shall furnish complete con- 
 trast to the routine of every day life. To me it came 
 as a surprise and relief to learn that I need not have 
 sighed for Alpine lakes or Italian bays so long, and 
 to find in this great native lake and the charming 
 nook with the quaint Indian name, nestling on its 
 
 shore, possibilities for all the forms of outdoor hap- 
 piness that our town life makes us desire. 
 
 “What the future may bring to Izatys and its 
 environment rests alone with the future to show, but 
 the promise is as certain as it is attractive ; meantime 
 the place offers pleasure and peace to all who have 
 the good fortune to find it.” 
 
 Rev. John W. Powell, Sr. One of the earliest 
 clergymen and circuit riders of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church in Minnesota was the late Rev. John 
 W. Powell, Sr. A full half century of his lifetime 
 was devoted to evangelical and missionary labors. 
 Forty years were spent in Minnesota, where he ar- 
 rived during the territorial period, and gave him- 
 self with admirable fortitude and consecrated zeal 
 to the task of extending Christianity and upbuilding 
 churches, a work which called for an even greater 
 degree of industry, self-sacrifice and endurance than 
 the enterprise of developing individual homesteads. 
 To his work he brought no inferior powers of intel- 
 lect or heart, but the strength of a great mind and 
 an untiring devotion. Much of his best work was 
 accomplished amid adverse conditions and in obscure 
 places, but through it all he fought the good fight, 
 kept the faith and brought light to those that sat in 
 darkness. Among the many tributes paid to him at 
 the time of his death one may be quoted : “In the 
 
 passing away of Mr. Powell the community and state 
 in which he lived have lost one of their most devoted 
 benefactors, one of those early preacher-pioneers 
 whose zeal for the cause of Christianity and civiliza- 
 tion yielded to no obstacles.” 
 
 It will be appropriate to mention briefly the ances- 
 tral stock from which he inherited some of his in- 
 dividual powers and virtues. For many generations 
 the Powell family was identified with the history of 
 Northern Wales, and the old Powell estate is still 
 owned by members of the family in Chester County, 
 England. Thomas Powell, a member of the Society 
 of Friends and one of the sturdy Welsh followers 
 of William Penn, came from Chester, England, to 
 America in 1685, as one of the colonists under the 
 leadership of the great Penn. He was accompanied 
 by two sons, and from one of these, Joseph, the 
 descent is traced in direct line to the late John W. 
 Powell. The family settled in what was known as 
 the Welsh tract in Chester County, Pennsylvania, 
 a county named in honor of the old home in 
 Cheshire, England. Joseph Powell acquired land at 
 East Fallowfield, Chester County, purchasing from 
 John, Thomas and Richard Penn, kinsmen of Wil- 
 liam Penn. The property was deeded to Joseph 
 Powell, February 22, 1734. Joseph Powell had two 
 sons, John and David, the only descendant of John 
 being a daughter. David, to whom his father deeded 
 the land in East Fallowfield, was married in 1748, 
 and had a family of seven sons and three daughters. 
 One of these was Nathan, who became a pioneer 
 settler in Southern Indiana. Next in line from 
 Nathan was his son Erasmus Powell, father of John 
 W. Powell. 
 
 Rev. John Walker Powell was born in Dearborn 
 County near Shelby ville, Indiana, August 15, 1822. 
 In the fullness of years and honors his death oc- 
 curred at his homestead near Mankato, Blue Earth 
 County, Minnesota, July 29, 1904. His early life was 
 spent in Southern Indiana at a time and under con- 
 ditions which have been frequently told in fiction and 
 history. He attended common schools when they 
 were supported by subscription for only a few 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1349 
 
 months each year, and had a brief experience as a 
 student in the Shelby County Academy. While his 
 knowledge of books was largely the result of ex- 
 tensive study and .reading in later life, he possessed 
 from early youth the qualifications of a leader 
 among men, and came to know the heights and 
 depths of human character with a rare insight. His 
 deep Christian faith finally prompted him to conse- 
 crate his life to the work of the ministry.. In Feb- 
 ruary, 1845, he was made a member of the Indiana 
 Conference of the Methodist Church, and thus began 
 the half century of his service. He was ordained a 
 deacon in 1847 and was made an elder in 1849. As 
 a young minister he was well trained for the duties 
 which he afterwards assumed in Minnesota by cir- 
 cuit riding in Indiana. There were few railroads in 
 Indiana at that time, and practically all travel about 
 his circuit was performed on horseback. He minis- 
 tered to the needs of widely scattered settlers, mak- 
 ing his way in summer’s heat and winter s snow, 
 often fording or swimming rivers, plunging through 
 virgin forest and crossing pathless prairies. It was 
 a lonely and arduous life, and for months at a time 
 his only possessions and conveniences were such as 
 could be carried in the saddlebags. 
 
 While at work as a circuit rider in Indiana Mr. 
 Powell was married September 27, 1847, to Miss 
 Rhoda B. Gray. Before they left Indiana two chil- 
 dren were born to them. Mr. Powell felt that his 
 true work as a minister was on the frontier, and his 
 church recognizing his fitness for this difficult and 
 responsible task, gave its encouragement to his pur- 
 pose to become a missionary on the Northwest fron- 
 tier. He and his little family arrived at Mankato, 
 Minnesota, October 10, 1855. He was made the first 
 regular pastor of the Methodist Church at Mankato, 
 and thereafter for forty years was diligent and faith- 
 ful in the performance of his duties both as a regu- 
 lar pastor and as a circuit rider. Not long after 
 coming to Minnesota he obtained a tract of land in 
 Fillmore County, erected a primitive log cabin, 
 worked whenever opportunity afforded in cultivating 
 his fields, and thus combined two of the most ardu- 
 ous occupations of pioneer days. That early farm 
 was not far distant from the homestead in South 
 Bend Township, where he spent the closing years 
 of his life. 
 
 In later years Reverend Mr. Powell frequently de- 
 scribed his circuit as having been bounded on the 
 north by the British possessions, on the south by 
 the Conference of Iowa, on the east by the Confer- 
 ence of Wisconsin, and on the west by the Pacific 
 Ocean. As the country settled up and developed his 
 circuit became more circumscribed and his labors less 
 onerous, though even in later years he traversed a 
 large area of country. The requirements of the 
 church caused a frequent change of place of resi- 
 dence, and at different times the family lived at 
 Eagle Lake, Mantorville, Pine Island, Blue Earth 
 City and other points. 
 
 In 1856 Mr. Powell assisted in laying out the 
 townsite of Shelbyville. That became a thriving 
 village, but declined after railroads were built and 
 left the site to one side. The Village of Amboy 
 took its place, being a railroad station, and pros- 
 pered at the expense of its early rival. For a number 
 of years Reverend Mr. Powell lived at Shelbyville 
 and took an active part in its affairs. He was busily 
 engaged in preaching and in organizing of churches 
 in the vicinity of Shelbyville and Blue Earth City, 
 and at the latter place was the regular pastor in 
 
 charge for a considerale time. In 1877 he built the 
 first chapel in Blue Earth City, and was pastor of the 
 Methodist Church there in 1887 when the present 
 fine church was erected, at that time one of the best 
 in that part of the state. In the latter half of his 
 service as a minister, Mr. Powell in addition to per- 
 forming the duties of a regular pastorate also 
 preached in adjacent towns and villages that had no 
 regular ministers. During this time one of his 
 charges was at Delano in Wright County, and from 
 that location he also served the church needs at 
 Montrose and Watertown. He was pastor of the 
 church at Delano when his wife died in 1894. That 
 was the greatest bereavement of his entire career. 
 
 Mr. Powell continued in the active work of the 
 ministry until 1895, just fifty years after he had 
 joined the Indiana Conference. He then retired 
 and shifted the heavy burdens he had long carried 
 to younger shoulders. Even after retirement he con- 
 tinued to travel about aiding other clergymen in 
 their work, and his services were in demand on the 
 lecture platform both in Minnesota and Indiana. 
 The subject of his favorite address was “The Pioneer 
 Preacher’s Early Experience.” For a number of 
 years prior to his death he spent the summer seasons 
 on his farm at Spring Island, where he gave his 
 time to cultivating berries, making a specialty of 
 black raspberries. During the winters he was a wel- 
 come member of the family circle of one or another 
 of his sons. 
 
 Reverend Mr. Powell is survived by four sons and 
 one daughter : Erasmus W., a ranchman and contrac- 
 tor at Hulett, Crook County, Wyoming; Mrs. Alice 
 Councilman, a teacher in the Minneapolis public 
 schools ; Ransom J., a member of the Minneapolis 
 bar; Rev. John W., Jr., pastor of the Lowry Hill 
 Congregational Church, Minneapolis ; and Arthur E., 
 a resident of Medford, Oregon. 
 
 Rev. John W. Powell. A son of the pioneer cir- 
 cuit rider and Methodist minister of Minnesota 
 whose full name he bears, and whose services and 
 career are enumerated in other paragraphs, Rev. 
 John W. Powell has for practically twenty years 
 been identified with pastoral and other religious 
 work in Minnesota. Until recently he was director 
 of religious work at the University of Minnesota, 
 and has also done much to vitalize the activities of 
 the Christian associations. At this writing he is in 
 active charge of one of Minneapolis’ leading 
 churches. 
 
 John Walker Powell, Jr., was born at Blue Earth 
 City, Minnesota, March 22, 1872, the tenth in a fam- 
 ily of eleven children, of whom four sons and one 
 daughter are living. He is the only one of the chil- 
 dren who followed in the footsteps of the father 
 and entered the ministry. After completing the high 
 school course at Mankato he was for two years a 
 student in Hamline University at St. Paul, then 
 entered the University of Minnesota, where he 
 was graduated A. B. in 1893. During the 
 next year he was in active religious work princi- 
 pally in rural districts, and then completed his divin- 
 ity course in Boston University, where he received 
 the degree Bachelor of Sacred Theology. His prac- 
 tical services and intellectual attainments were rec- 
 ognized by Syracuse University in 1911, when it con- 
 ferred upon him the degree Doctor of Divinity. 
 Since leaving Boston University Reverend Mr. 
 Powell has been active in his ministerial duties. For 
 about eighteen months after his ordination he was 
 
1350 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Nor- 
 wood, Massachusetts, and subsequently for one year 
 was associate pastor of the Methodist Church at 
 Malden, a Boston suburb. Returning to his native 
 state, Doctor Powell was pastor of the Western 
 Avenue and Park Avenue Methodist Episcopal 
 churches at Minneapolis, and for thirteen years was 
 a resident minister in Duluth. In 1912 he returned 
 to Minneapolis from Duluth to become director of 
 religious work at the University of Minnesota under 
 the direction of the Young Men’s and the Young 
 Women’s Christian associations. He resigned from 
 this office in September, 1914. In the meantime he 
 had supplied the pulpit of the Lowry Hill Congrega- 
 tional Church, and in September, 1914, became the 
 regular pastor of that organization. 
 
 He has done much to promote the service of the 
 University Extension Bureau, and is generally recog- 
 nized as one of the most high-minded churchmen 
 in the Northwest. While most of his career has 
 been devoted to the so-called practical affairs of life, 
 he has also given expression to his literary tastes and 
 talent, and is the author of two small volumes. One 
 is “The Poets’ Vision of Man,” published in 1901 
 by T. Y. Crowell & Co. of New York; the other 
 is “The Silence of the Master,” published by Jen- 
 nings & Graham, the Methodist Book Concern at 
 Cincinnati. He is also well known on the lecture 
 platform, particularly in the states of Minnesota and 
 Wisconsin, most of his addresses being on literary 
 subjects. 
 
 While a resident of Duluth, Doctor Powell served 
 three years as a member of the city board of edu- 
 cation. As pastor he had the satisfaction of bring- 
 ing about the erection of the fine edifice of the 
 Endion Methodist Episcopal Church of that city. 
 When he became pastor of that society there were 
 only eight members. At the end of ten years he had 
 gathered under his supervision a fine and flourishing 
 church, with a membership of 150, church property 
 valued at $50,000, and with the pastor’s salary at 
 more than four thousand dollars a year. If the wish 
 of the members had been granted he would still have 
 been pastor of the church, but he felt that a decade 
 was sufficient and that the best interests of the 
 society would be advanced by his retirement. In 
 Duluth Doctor Powell is affiliated with the Knights 
 of Pythias, is a member of the University Club of 
 Minneapolis, and of the Delta Upsilon fraternity of 
 the University of Minnesota. He is also active in 
 the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Association 
 and in the national organization known as the Re- 
 ligious Educational Association. 
 
 At Malden, Massachusetts, May 6, 1897, Doctor 
 Powell married Miss Louise Pettay, daughter of 
 Francis A. Pettay of Sarahsville, Noble County, 
 Ohio, in which state Mrs. Powell was born and 
 reared. She graduated Bachelor of Arts from Scio 
 College in Ohio, later studied music and dramatic 
 reading under private instruction in the City of 
 Boston, where she became acquainted with her fu- 
 ture husband. Doctor and Mrs. Powell have three 
 children : Raeburn Pettay, who was born at Malden, 
 Massachusetts ; Margaret, who was born at Minneap- 
 olis ; and John Walker III, who was born at Duluth. 
 Doctor Powell and family reside at 819 University 
 Avenue, Southeast. 
 
 Jesse Van Valkenburg. The sturdy characteris- 
 tics of the fine old Holland Dutch stock that played 
 so important a part in the early history of New 
 
 York have been carried into the Northwest and have 
 been exemplified in the profession of law by Jesse 
 Van Valkenburg, one of the prominent and honored 
 members of the Minnesota bar. Mr. Van Valken- 
 burg has practiced at Minnesota for the past twenty 
 years, and his position in the profession has been 
 estimated in the following words : “He has a gen- 
 
 eral practice, but his success in realty problems has 
 been so marked that he has gained the reputation of 
 being a specialist in those lines.” 
 
 Though a resident of Minnesota since childhood, 
 Mr. Van Valkenburg takes some pride in the fact 
 that he was born in the State of New York, and is a 
 representative of the Holland Dutch stock that was 
 founded there during the colonial epoch of our 
 nation. The old homestead farm on which he was 
 born lies in the beautiful Mohawk Valley of New 
 York, and has been in the possession of the Van 
 Valkenburg family for six generations, and is now 
 owned and occupied by an uncle of the Minneapolis 
 lawyer. The first Van Valkenburgs in America were 
 colonists at New Amsterdam, the old Dutch town 
 that was the nucleus of the present City of New 
 York. 
 
 Jesse Van Valkenburg was born at the ancestral 
 home in Sharon Township, Scoharie County, New 
 York, December 31, 1868. His birthplace was not far 
 distant from the City of Albany and in that section 
 of the Mohawk Valley early settled by the Dutch. 
 The parents, Joseph and Hattie (Seeley) Van Valk- 
 enburg, were natives of the same township. The 
 mother’s ancestry was of New England stock, and its 
 first representatives were early settlers in Connecti- 
 cut. In earlier generations the Van Valkenburg fam- 
 ily furnished patriot soldiers during the War of the 
 Revolution, and loyalty to country and duty has been 
 a characteristic of all succeeding generations. Joseph 
 Van Valkenburg was a farmer, devoted practically 
 all his active career to that vocation, and was one 
 of the family that broke away from the long estab- 
 lished associations in New York and found a pioneer 
 home in the Northwest. He came out to Minnesota 
 with his family in 1869, when the son Jesse was three 
 months of age. Locating as a pioneer in Dakota 
 County, he acquired virgin land, and employed his 
 energy and time in its development. With the Van 
 Valkenburg family also came Nathan Seeley and 
 wife, parents of Mrs. Van Valkenburg. Nathan 
 Seeley entered a tract of Government land in Dakota 
 County, developed a valuable farm, and lived upon it 
 until his death in 1910 at an advanced age, while his 
 widow, who celebrated her eighty-fifth birthday in 
 1914, still resides at Farmington in that county. 
 Joseph Van Valkenburg had five brothers who were 
 soldiers of the Union during the Civil war, and was 
 himself only fourteen years of age at the beginning 
 of the war and hence ineligible for service. Joseph 
 and wife are still living, with their residence in the 
 attractive Village of Canby, Yellow Medicine County. 
 The father has now retired from the active manage- 
 ment of his farm, and is enjoying the fruits of many 
 years industriously and honestly spent in Minnesota. 
 There were five children, and of these a daughter 
 died in infancy, and a son, Wynne, died at Farming- 
 ton, Minnesota, in 1912. Jesse Van Valkenburg is 
 the oldest of the surviving children, while Harry J. 
 is the cashier of the First National Bank of Brown 
 Valley, Traverse County, Minnesota, and Walter is 
 a student of law in the office of his brother. 
 
 Jesse Van Valkenburg spent his boyhood on a 
 Minnesota farm, and his early education was 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1351 
 
 afforded by the public schools. His activities and 
 experiences prior to taking up the law gave him a 
 liberal education and a broad knowledge of men and 
 affairs. Mr. Van Valkenburg completed the classical 
 course and was graduated in 1887 from the Minne- 
 sota State Normal School at Mankato, then entered 
 the literary department of the University of Minne- 
 sota, was graduated in 1894 Bachelor of Arts, and at 
 the same time had taken his law course in the univer- 
 sity and was given the degree LL. B. in 1895. In the 
 meantime four years had been spent as a teacher, 
 as principal of the public schools at Granite Falls, 
 county seat of Yellow Medicine County, and later 
 he was a reporter with one of the leading newspapers 
 of Minneapolis. 
 
 Since graduating from the law department of the 
 university Mr. Van Valkenburg has been in active 
 practice at Minneapolis, and has won a secure repu- 
 tation as a resourceful and able member of the bar 
 in that city. He has become especially prominent 
 in the field of real estate and banking law, and 
 among his associates and clients his thoroughness 
 and his devotion to the interests intrusted to his 
 management are now accepted as a matter of course 
 and are doubtless among the chief reasons for his 
 success. Mr. Van Valkenburg has been intrusted 
 with a large amount of legal business, including work 
 as administrator of the large estate of the late John 
 T. Lund. He has been attorney and counsel for this 
 estate for twelve years, and practically all his atten- 
 tion was required in its management for three years. 
 
 While he has never sought the honors of politics 
 to any extent, Mr. Van Valkenburg has been for 
 many years closely identified with those movements 
 which indicate the real progress of any community. 
 Politically his allegiance has been with the repub- 
 lican party. He is affiliated with the Masonic fra- 
 ternity and with the Minneapolis Temple of the 
 Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, is a member of the 
 Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Association, the 
 Minneapolis Athletic Club, belongs to the Sigma Chi 
 college fraternity, and by reason of his old American 
 ancestry is a member of the Society of the Sons of 
 the American Revolution. He and his wife belong 
 to the Lowery Hill Congregational Church, which he 
 has served as trustee. 
 
 Mr. Van Valkenburg has his offices in the North- 
 western ' Bank Building at Minneapolis. While 
 usually found there, busied with the numerous en- 
 gagements of his profession, he finds both pleasure 
 and profit in the supervision of a splendid stock 
 farm of 400 acres, situated partly in Scott County 
 and partly in Dakota County. His land joins the 
 beautiful Orchard Lake, is reached by an electric 
 interurban line, and besides these advantages its 
 value is enhanced by its location only twenty miles 
 away from Minneapolis. Mr. Van Valkenburg has 
 recently completed a fine modern farm home costing 
 $3,500, with equipment including a hot water heat- 
 ing system and other features which make it as 
 comfortable as many city homes. He has taken pride 
 in improving his farm until it is a modern stock 
 farm, and is known far and wide as headquarters 
 for the raising of high-grade live stock. 
 
 At St. Paul, on January 14, 1900, Mr. Van Valken- 
 burg married Miss Grace Jerrems, who was born 
 at Joliet, Illinois, finished her education at Chicago, 
 where her father, Thomas W. Jerrems, lived for a 
 number of years, and later the family came to St. 
 Paul, Her father is still living in that city. Mr. 
 
 voi. ni— 6 - 
 
 and Mrs. Van Valkenburg have three children: 
 Horace Joseph, Grace Jerrems and Luella May. 
 
 E. A. Meyerding, M. D. Success in public and 
 private practice has been the good fortune of Dr. 
 E. A. Meyerding of St. Paul not only with the 
 routine work of the aurist and oculist, but also as a 
 factor in the modern and progressive movement for 
 public health. Doctor Meyerding has been espe- 
 cially useful through his office as director of hygiene 
 of the St. Paul public schools in supervising the 
 medical inspection of the schools, and is regarded 
 as an authority on the subject of public sanitation 
 and health. 
 
 Dr. E. A. Meyerding was born at St. Paul, De- 
 cember 25, 1879. His grandfather, Henry Meyer- 
 ding, was a German by birth, and was a member 
 of the early German community at New Ulm, where 
 he located during the early ’50s. At the time of 
 the Indian outbreak he removed to St. Paul and 
 lived there until his death. He was a physician by 
 profession, served St. Paul for a number of years 
 as health commissioner, and was also honored by 
 election to the Legislature. Though a busy profes- 
 sional man, he found opportunity to take an active 
 and intelligent interest in the cause of public edu- 
 cation, and served several terms on the school 
 board. The work of this honored ancestor has 
 proved an inspiration to his grandson, who has 
 filled in his generation a place somewhat similar 
 to that of this pioneer physician. Henry Meyer- 
 ding, Jr., father of Dr. £. A. Meydering, was for 
 many years a member of the St. Paul police force. 
 He married Miss Rosenkranz. Another of their 
 sons, Dr. Henry W. Meyerding, is of the Mayo staff 
 at Rochester. 
 
 Dr. E. A. Meyerding graduated from the Me- 
 chanic Arts High School in 1898, and at once entered 
 the University of Minnesota and in 1902 was grad- 
 uated M. D. Since that year he has been active in 
 the practice of his profession at St. Paul. Doctor 
 Meyerding is a studious follower of his profession, 
 and specializes in the disease of eye, ear, nose and 
 throat. He has pursued post-graduate studies in 
 Chicago, Boston and New York, and is affiliated 
 with all the various medical organizations repre- 
 sented in his home, city and state. For several years 
 he has had charge of the division of hygiene of 
 St. Paul public schools, and in that capacity has 
 introduced a number of changes which are directly 
 related to the better health and comfort and the 
 efficiency of the pupils. Acting on his advice the 
 seating arrangement in the school buildings have 
 been changed, better lighting and ventilation systems 
 have been introduced, and he was the pioneer in 
 introducing the penny or recess lunch into the public 
 schools. He was author of the North bill, providing 
 for state aid for the deaf, blind, defective speech 
 and mentally subnormal children in day classes and 
 was active in its passage by the Minnesota Legisla- 
 ture of 1915* This is perhaps the most progressive 
 legislation of a social and educational character in 
 the United States today. Doctor Meyerding has 
 made a close study of various public health prob- 
 lems, has contributed different articles to profes- 
 sional and general literature, and has frequently lec- 
 tured on specific problems. For several years he has 
 been a member of the free dispensary staff of St. 
 Paul. 
 
 For twelve years Doctor Meyerding served as cap- 
 
1352 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 tain and surgeon in the medical department of the 
 Minnesota National Guard and also as captain of 
 Battery A, First Field Artillery. He is a member 
 of the Masonic fraternity and the Independent 
 Order of Odd Fellows and is one of the vigorous 
 and effective factors in the modern life of his home 
 city, popular both in professional and social circles. 
 
 John H. Devenney. It would be difficult to name 
 an essential element in the progress and development 
 of Morris and West Central Minnesota, that does 
 not bear the impress of the strong individuality of 
 John H. Devenney, president of the Morris National 
 Bank. 
 
 He has been a very important factor in the com- 
 mercial, industrial and financial activity of this com- 
 munity, has advanced its moral and educational in- 
 terest, has been one of its prominent representatives 
 in the field of politics and has contributed to its im- 
 portance and prestige as a financial broker, and ex- 
 tensive operations in improving his many farms with 
 substantial buildings, fences, etc., in a way that 
 inspires confidence in future values. 
 
 Mr. Devenney was born in the City of Brooklyn, 
 New York, August 24, i860, and is the son of H. J. 
 and Catherine Cahill Devenney. H. J. Devenney 
 was born near the River Rhine in Germany of French 
 and Irish parentage, while Mr. Devenney’s mother 
 was born of Irish parentage, in the County Longford 
 in the Parish of Karre Kedmund, Ireland. Early in 
 life, Catherine Cahill Devenney, with her two sisters, 
 Margaret and Mary, emigrated to America and took 
 up their residence in Brooklyn, New York. At 
 Brooklyn, New York, she first met and married H. 
 J. Devenney, then employed on the staff of the Jour- 
 nal of Commerce, a leading newspaper then and 
 now. H. J. and Catherine Cahill Devenney were 
 the parents of four children, viz. : Charles J., Thomas 
 H., Mary S., and John H. of this notice. 
 
 John H. Devenney began his education in the 
 public schools of Brooklyn, and was eight years of 
 age when he accompanied his parents to Jackson, 
 Minnesota, where he graduated from high school in 
 1876. In the following year he took up a home- 
 stead in Grant County, Minnesota, taking a declara- 
 tory statement as he was not then of age, this being 
 160 acres of land. At the age of twenty-one years, 
 he filed upon a homestead, occupied and culti- 
 vated same until making final proof several years 
 later. Mr. Devenney’s home farm in Grant County 
 is considered among the best improved and is now 
 owned and occupied by Tom Haley and family, who 
 resides thereon. 
 
 In 1884 Mr. Devenney formed a partnership with 
 E. J. Hodgson of St. Paul, Minnesota, and entered 
 in the land business, loan business, stock raising and 
 operating farms. This combination continued until 
 the time of Mr. Hodgson’s death in igoq. In the 
 meantime, Mr. Devenney resided at Kandiyohi, Min- 
 nesota, until 1889. and then moved to St. Paul, 
 Minnesota, where he resided until 1897. Following 
 this, for one year, he made his home in Denver, 
 Colorado, and in the spring of 1898, took up his 
 residence at Morris, Minnesota, where he has since 
 lived, although for ten years prior to 1898, he had 
 maintained an office at Morris, Minnesota, while 
 he was engaged in traveling for the land and loan 
 companies. 
 
 In 1891 Mr. Devenney assisted in establishing the 
 Security Trust Company now known as the Capital 
 Trust Company, of St. Paul, Minnesota, and was 
 
 actively associated with this concern until 1900, 
 when he took lands in exchange for the company’s 
 stock, although he is still considered one of the con- 
 fidential agents and looks after the investments for 
 the company in West Central Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Devenney is doing a large and successful busi- 
 ness in the handling of lands, negotiating first mort- 
 gages on improved farms in Stevens and neighbor- 
 ing counties, and maintains offices in the Morris 
 National Bank Building. 
 
 He became associated with this institution at the 
 close of the year of 1913, and since that time, has 
 continued as its president; the other officers being 
 Julius R. Kreuger, vice president, and F. R. Putnam, 
 cashier. Under the new management and Mr. De- 
 venney's able directions, the institution has enjoyed 
 marked prosperity, daily becoming more firmly estab- 
 lished in the confidence of the people, and is now 
 considered the People’s Bank of Morris, Minne- 
 sota. As evidence of its popularity, we name a 
 few of the prominent shareholders in this popular 
 bank, Dr. Charles E. Caine, leading physician ; Hon. 
 George E. Beise, municipal judge; J. W. Wheeler, 
 president of the Capital Trust Company, of St. 
 Paul, Minnesota; John R. Mitchell, president of the 
 Capital National Bank, St. Paul, Minnesota; Paul 
 L. Spooner, a young lawyer of prominence; Dr. 
 George W. Geenty, Frank A. Hancock, Sidney J. 
 Stebbins, Herman Kerl and Manly B. Lord, with 
 J. R. Krueger, its vice president, and F. R. Putnam, 
 cashier, all of whom are leading business men and 
 investors through this popular institution. 
 
 In addition to Mr. Devenney’s other land interests, 
 he is now operating farms of 1,680 acres and is a 
 director in the Delaware Farmers Mutual Fire In- 
 surance Company of Grant, Traverse and Stevens 
 counties ; an enterprise with $6,000,000 of insurance 
 in force, and doing the largest business of its kind 
 in this part of the state, and this company has paid 
 all losses promptly during the thirty years of its exis- 
 tence. He is likewise a stockholder and director 
 in the Alberta State Bank of Alberta, Minnesota, 
 in the Hogan Decorating Company of Morris, Min- 
 nesota, and the Farmers Elevator Company of 
 Alberta, Minnesota. 
 
 Politically a republican, Mr. Devenney served as 
 county commissioner of Stevens County for eight 
 years and for the last six years of that time was 
 chairman of the county board, his office expiring 
 January 1, 1915. He has also served as councilman 
 of the City of Morris and in his official capacities, 
 has displayed marked ability as an executive and his 
 faithfulness to duty as a conscientious public servant, 
 is recognized and referred to in his business admin- 
 istration, marked a new era in road building and in 
 the construction of drainage in the several parts of 
 Stevens County. He is a member of the Roman 
 Catholic Church and his fraternal connections has 
 included membership in the Knights of Columbus at 
 Morris and Lodge No. 108, Knights of Pythias, 
 Morris, Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Devenney was united in marriage with Miss 
 Bridget McCarthy of Hamilton, Minnesota, a daugh- 
 ter of the late John McCarthy, who, for years, was 
 an old settler in Credit River Township, Scott 
 County, Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Devenney has often been the subject of 
 criticism from various sources on account of his 
 activity in what he believes to be for the best in- 
 terests of the community and no one is put to the 
 trouble of guessing where he stands on every public 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1353 
 
 question as his position is well defined and his under- 
 taking for the advancement and betterment of Morris 
 and Stevens County has been ratified and supported 
 by the people. 
 
 W. A. Clement. In sketching the lives of men 
 of strong and vigorous character, who have taken 
 important and prominent parts in the affairs of 
 life, the biographist is not expected to deal alone 
 with martial heroes and great statesmen, for in the 
 world of arts and sciences, in the professions and 
 in politics, in the marts of commerce and manufac- 
 tures of the present day, are found men of action, 
 capable and earnest, whose talents, enterprise and 
 energy command the respect of their fellow men. 
 That the lives of such men should have their public 
 record is peculiarly proper for a knowledge of men 
 whose substantial reputation rests upon their personal 
 attainments, character and success must necessarily 
 exert a wholesome influence, and in this connection 
 it is appropriate to review the incidents which 
 have marked the career and rise of W. A. Clement, 
 proprietor of the Journal-Radical, and one of Wa- 
 seca’s most progressive and energetic citizens. 
 
 Mr. Clement was born in Waseca County, Minne- 
 sota, February 13, 1870, and is a son of H. S. 
 Clement, a native of Cornish, New Hampshire, born 
 March 19, 1835. The father came west to Iowa in 
 1853, and in July, 1856, moved to what is now 
 Meriden, Steele County, Minnesota, where he was 
 the first assessor of his township. Mr. Clement con- 
 tinued to reside on his farm there until 1868, at 
 that time moving to and purchasing another property, 
 at Woodville, Waseca County, on which he carried 
 on successful agricultural operations until his re- 
 moval, in 1883, to Waseca. Here he established 
 himself in business as the proprietor of a farm 
 implement store, and continued successfully in busi- 
 ness until his retirement in 1900. Mr. Clement was 
 married December 22, 1868, to Miss Nellie M. Wil- 
 cox, who was born in the State of New York, in 
 1841, and died June 12, 1883, and they became the 
 parents of four sons and two daughters, as fol- 
 lows: W. A., of. this review; Mary, who is now de- 
 ceased; Arthur R. ; Dr. Lucien O.; Benjamin; and 
 Mrs. Frank Hagerty. 
 
 The early education of W. A. Clement was secured 
 in the graded schools of Waseca, following which 
 he attended the Waseca High School, and at the 
 age of eighteen years laid aside his school books to 
 embark upon his business career. Going to Water- 
 ville, Minnesota, he entered a printing establish- 
 ment, in which he learned the trade, thoroughly 
 applying himself thereto for a period of three years. 
 Succeeding this, Mr. Clement filled various positions 
 at Albert Lea, Austin, and other cities of Minne- 
 sota, and in 1902 came back to Waseca and pur- 
 chased an interest in the Journal-Radical, of which 
 he became sole owner two years later. This news- 
 paper is the lineal descendant of the Home Views, 
 which first made its appearance at Wilton, Minne- 
 sota, as far back as March 13, i860, being then 
 edited by J. W. Crawford. About March 1, 1861, 
 Alex Johnston and S. J. Willis took the paper in 
 hand and called it the Waseca Home Views. The 
 Wilton Weekly News made its first appearance De- 
 cember 8, 1863, and Mr. Child bought the outfit and 
 assumed control of its destinies, March 8, 1866, in 
 the following year removing the plant to Waseca and 
 renaming the paper the Waseca News. On January 
 6, .1875, the name was changed to the Minnesota 
 
 Radical, being edited by Mr. Child until July, 1880, 
 when he sold out to Mr. Ward, and the latter, in 
 1881, transferred it to C. E. Graham, who continued 
 the paper until the last of December, 1901. At that 
 time Dr. F. A. Swartwood, P. C. Bailey, E. B. 
 Collister, L. Bliss, R. P. Ward, C. A. Smith and 
 W. A. Clement bought the paper, at the same time 
 becoming owners of the Waseca Journal, and in 
 1904 the last-named gentleman purchased the in- 
 terests of the other owners, and since that time has 
 conducted the publication under the name of the 
 Journal-Radical. The paper now has an excellent 
 circulation, and exerts a wide influence in molding 
 public opinion here, being a republican organ. Mr. 
 Clement supports republican candidates and policies, 
 He has taken an interest in progress and advance- 
 ment along various lines, particularly in educa- 
 tion, and has served four years as a member of 
 the school board. He belongs to the Congregational 
 Church, of which he is a trustee, and is fraternally 
 connected with Tuscan Lodge No. 77, F. & A. M., 
 being also a member of the Waseca Commercial 
 Club. 
 
 Mr. Clement was married at Waterville, Minne- 
 sota, in 1899, to Miss Helda C. Ranke, daughter of 
 Mr. and Mrs. C. F. Ranke, both now deceased, who 
 were farming people of South Dakota. Three chil- 
 dren have been born to this union : Marvin O. and 
 Esther B., who are attending the Waseca public 
 schools; and Helen May, the baby. Mr. Clement’s 
 offices and plant are situated on Second Street, while 
 his comfortable residence is located at No. 70 7 
 Lake Avenue. 
 
 J. W. Aughenbaugh. It is one of the most en- 
 couraging facts that can anywhere exist that, in this 
 country, a large proportion of those individuals, 
 who by business acquirements and talents have at- 
 tained a greater or less degree of prosperity, have 
 risen by their own unaided exertions. In the lives 
 of such men as J. W. Aughenbaugh, of Waseca, 
 there is always to be found something to encourage 
 the exertions of those youths who, without capital 
 or influential friends, are struggling to overcome 
 obstacles and difficulties in seeking the acquirement 
 of prosperity and position. Mr. Aughenbaugh, who 
 is a member of the firm of Everett, Aughenbaugh & 
 Company, millers, is a thoroughgoing and practical 
 man of business, is shrewd, yet strictly honorable 
 in his methods, and the confidence and esteem with 
 which he is regarded by the many with whom he has 
 had business transactions are sufficient proof of his 
 worth and merit. 
 
 Mr. Aughenbaugh was born in Meigs County, 
 Ohio, December 25, 1847, anti is a son of Andrew 
 and Cynthia (Jackson) Aughenbaugh. The father, 
 a native of Pennsylvania, where he was born in 
 1816, came west to Freeborn County, Minnesota, 
 in 1856, here becoming a pioneer farmer, and con- 
 tinued to be engaged in agricultural pursuits dur- 
 ing the remainder of his life, passing away in 1904, 
 at the advanced age of eighty-eight years. Mr. 
 Aughenbaugh married Cynthia Jackson, who was 
 born in the South, members of her family participat- 
 ing in the Civil war as officers in the Confederate 
 army, and she died in Freeborn County, when but 
 thirty-seven years of age. 
 
 J. W. Aughenbaugh was a lad of but nine years 
 when lie accompanied his parents to Minnesota, and 
 the schools of Freeborn County furnished him with 
 his educational training. He did not receive many 
 
1354 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 advantages in his youth, as he was expected to 
 devote the greater part of his time to the work of 
 the homestead, and was only sixteen years of age 
 when he began his service as a soldier. In later 
 years, however, he has spent much time in reaching 
 and studying, and is a much better educated man 
 than many who had far greater advantages. He 
 enlisted in the United States navy in 1863, and was 
 with his commodore on the Mississippi, and when 
 his service in the navy expired, in 1865, he enlisted 
 in the army. In January, 1865, Mr. Aughenbaugh 
 entered the Minnesota Volunteer Infantry for 
 service during the Civil war, and participated in 
 the engagements at Petersburg, Green Station, Deep 
 Bottom and the surrender at Appomattox Court 
 House, being honorably discharged August 25, 1865. 
 Mr. Aughenbaugh saw much active service, and at 
 one time was slightly wounded in the cheek, but 
 wfis not incapacitated for service. 
 
 On his return from the war the young soldier 
 applied himself to the milling business at the Polar 
 Star Mills, Faribault, Minnesota, and about four 
 years later went to Red Wing Mills, where he con- 
 tinued two years, then returning to Faribault. In 
 1875 he came to Waseca, which has since been his 
 home and the scene of his success, and here he has 
 for a number of years been connected with the 
 flour milling firm of Everett, Aughenbaugh & Com- 
 pany, in which he owns a one-third interest, and 
 in which he is superintending the manufacture of 
 the product. In addition to the mills at Waseca, 
 the company has others at New Richland and Lake- 
 ville. As will be seen, Mr. Aughenbaugh is a 
 typical, self-made man, one who by his own ability, 
 perseverance and acumen has risen from a com- 
 paratively obscure and poor , boyhood to his present 
 high position of independence, being now, apart from 
 his business, the owner of a handsome home at No. 
 915 Lake Avenue. For years he has been looked 
 upon as one of his city’s most reliable men, and 
 enjoys to an enviable degree the respect and esteem 
 of the community. Formerly a republican, since 
 the campaign of 1912 Mr. Aughenbaugh has sup- 
 ported democratic principles and candidates. He is 
 a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, in which he is connected with the official 
 board. His fraternal connections are with Tuscan 
 Lodge No. 77, F. & A. M. ; Waseca Chapter, R. A. 
 M. ; Cyrene Commandery No. 9, K. T., of Owa- 
 tonna; and Zurah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of 
 Minneapolis. He also holds membership in the 
 Commercial Club of Waseca. 
 
 Mr. Aughenbaugh was married in 1867, at Fari- 
 bault. Minnesota, to Miss Carrie Kocher, a native 
 of Pennsylvania, and to this union there have been 
 born three children, as follows: Daisy, who is un- 
 
 married and resides with her parents; Jennie, who is 
 the wife of William Strong, of Waseca, who is 
 superintendent at the mills of the firm of Everett, 
 Aughenbaugh & Company; and Dana W., who is un- 
 married and residing at home, a graduate of the 
 Waseca High School and of Culver Military Acad- 
 emy, and now a student in the University of Colo- 
 rado. 
 
 Both Mr. and Mrs. Aughenbaugh, as well as their 
 children, are widely and favorably known in Waseca, 
 where they have numerous acnuaintances and a 
 wide circle of warm and appreciative friends. 
 
 Hon. Eugene B. Collester. Among the men of 
 Minnesota there is none who furnishes a better ex- 
 
 ample of diversified talents applied capably to the 
 affairs of life than does the Hon. Eugene B. Col- 
 lester. He began at the bottom at Waseca in 1880 
 and has reached the top as one of his community’s 
 most able practitioners and a leading financier, with 
 credit and honor all along the ascent. At various 
 times the incumbent of high office, in his public as 
 in his private life, he has a record free of taint 
 or scandal. In his political career he has secured 
 the esteem and confidence of men of all parties, 
 and is regarded as high minded, public spirited and 
 patriotic, and as never stooping to the tricks of 
 the demagogue. In the business world, varied and 
 important as his interests have been, he has escaped 
 the criticism which has been so freely passed upon 
 other business and professional men. 
 
 Mr. Collester was born at Gardner, Massachu- 
 setts, December 20, 1847, and is a son of Thorley 
 and Abbie M. (Whitney) Collester. The Collester 
 family is of Scotch origin, the name having been 
 formerly spelled McCollester, and probably was 
 originally McAllister. On. his mother’s side Mr. 
 Collester is a great-grandson of a Revolutionary 
 soldier. Thorley Collester was born at Marlboro, 
 New Hampshire, in 1814, and died at Gardner, Mas- 
 sachusetts, in 1864. He was a chair manufacturer 
 in Gardner, became successful in his operations, and 
 eventually entered public life, in which he took a 
 most prominent part, being a member of the Mas- 
 sachusetts Legislature for one term, chairman of 
 the Gardner board of selectmen for a number of 
 years and a leading figure in civic affairs. He mar- 
 ried Abbie M. Whitney, who was born at Gardner, 
 Massachusetts, in January, 1825, of Colonial and 
 Revolutionary descent, and she died at Winchendon, 
 Massachusetts, May 1, 1907. 
 
 Eugene B. Collester was given excellent educa- 
 tional advantages in his youth, first attending the 
 public schools of Gardner, later graduating from 
 YVesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, Massachusetts, class 
 of 1869, and in 1873 receiving the degree of Bach- 
 elor of Arts from Amherst College, which in 1876 
 conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts. 
 While in college he was a prominent fraternity man, 
 belonging to the Psi Upsilon and Phi Beta Kappa 
 fraternities, and was also prominent in athletics, 
 playing on the ’varsity baseball team. 
 
 On leaving Amherst, Mr. Collester adopted the 
 vocation of educator, and for seven years was 
 principal of the Bulkeley School, New London, Con- 
 necticut. While thus engaged, he turned his at- 
 tention to the study of law, which he read under 
 the preceptorship of T. M. Waller, who afterward 
 became governor of the State of Connecticut. Mr. 
 Collester came as an early resident to Waseca in 
 1880, and in October of that year was admitted to 
 practice. He soon attracted to himself a generous 
 business of a general character, and as the years 
 steadily advanced in public favor and professional 
 prominence, receiving the rewards that go with 
 such a position, until today he is accounted one 
 of the leading practitioners of this part of the 
 state. He belongs to the county, state and national 
 organizations of his calling, and is held in the high- 
 est regard by lawyers everywhere, who recognize 
 in him one who has the highest reverence for his 
 calling and who adheres strictly to its unwritten 
 ethics. Mr. Collester maintains offices in the First 
 National Bank Building. A conservative republican 
 in his political views, at various times he has been 
 called upon to serve in offices of public trust, hav- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1355 
 
 ing served as maj^br of Waseca for one term, judge 
 of probate for three terms and state senator from 
 Waseca County two terms (1894-1898 and 1902- 
 1906), and at the present time is the senator from 
 Waseca and Steele counties. In that body he served 
 on the Judiciary Committee during four sessions, 
 the Tax Committee two sessions and other prom- 
 inent committees, on each of which he was able to 
 serve the interests of his constituents and the people 
 at large in a most efficient and conscientious man- 
 ner. Mr. Collester is well known in business circles 
 as an able financier, having been the president of 
 the First National Bank during the past four years. 
 He is also a director of the Waseca Telephone Com- 
 pany and has various other interests. He has always 
 taken a deep interest in the welfare of his com- 
 munity, and particularly in its educational advance- 
 ment, and for several terms has been a member of 
 the board of education. His fraternal connections 
 are with Tuscan Lodge No. 77, A. F. & A. M., and 
 Comee Lodge No. 25, I. O. O. F., both of Waseca. 
 
 In April, 1875, Judge Collester was united in mar- 
 riage with Miss Sarah J. Hollande, of New Lon- 
 don, Connecticut, and to this union there has been 
 born one daughter: Alice M., who became the wife 
 of the late James W. Meacham, formerly a news- 
 paper man of Freeport, Illinois, but who is now 
 deceased Mrs. Meacham now lives at the home of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Collester, located on Lake Avenue, 
 Waseca. 
 
 Hon. Albert David Day. Of the men whose labors 
 and talents have contributed to the growth and de- 
 velopment of various communities in Minnesota and 
 Michigan, both in a business and civic way, few are 
 more widely known than Albert David Day, mayor 
 of Long Prairie and a man whose lumber and kindred 
 interests extend over a wide area of the state. He 
 was born at St. Anthony Falls (now Minneapolis), 
 Minnesota, May 20, 1859, and is a son of David and 
 Emily (Russel) Day. The family originated in Eng- 
 land and came to America during Colonial times, 
 several members of the family fighting in the War 
 of the Revolution, among them being William Day, 
 the grandfather of Albert D., who also participated 
 in the Mexican war, and Ishmael Day, mention of 
 whom occurs on the pages of American history. 
 
 David Day, father of Albert D., was born in 
 Washington County, Maine, in 1795. and came out to 
 the West in 1848, settling on the site of what is now 
 the City of Minneapolis. It was the great lumber 
 industry which later helped to make Minneapolis the 
 metropolis it became, and David Day was one of the 
 city’s pioneer lumbermen. He early became promi- 
 nent in the industry as senior member of the promi- 
 nent firm of Leonard, Day & Co. In 1858 he moved 
 to Royalton, Minnesota, but soon returned to Min- 
 neapolis, where he died December 25, i8(Ji. Both 
 parents passed away in that city. 
 
 Albert David Day attended the public schools of 
 Minneapolis until he was eighteen years of age, at 
 which time he began farming in Hennepin and 
 Dakota counties, continuing until he reached his ma- 
 jority. He then removed to Lac qui Parle County, 
 Minnesota, where he took up land near what is now 
 Bellingham. In those early days that was the Minne- 
 sota frontier and in growing up with the then virgin 
 country, he endured the hardships and privations 
 which first settlers in every community must endure 
 if those who come after are to have and enjoy the 
 comforts and conveniences that follow development. 
 
 For a time Mr. Day’s nearest neighbor was twenty- 
 two miles distant. He was the first settler of the 
 now thickly settled and prosperous Township of Gar- 
 field, assisted in organizing it and became its first 
 justice of the peace. 
 
 In 1880 he moved to Hinckley, Minnesota, where 
 he established himself in the lumber business. He 
 “cruised” over the vast pine areas in Northern Minne- 
 sota, Wisconsin and Michigan and became known as 
 one of the most reliable and skillful timber estimators 
 in the country. About this time the Soo Railroad 
 Company was building its main line through from 
 Minneapolis to the Soo and had contracted with the 
 Coolidge Fuel & Supply Co. to furnish it with all its 
 ties, bridge timber and car material. It was an im- 
 mense contract and a herculean undertaking. The 
 Coolidge Company picked Mr. Day to manage the 
 work. Millions of feet of timber in the upper sec- 
 tions of the three states had to be bought and -sawed 
 and then distributed along the right of way. On 
 Mr. Day’s appraisal and estimates the vast area of 
 required stumpage was selected and bought; mills 
 were built, ties, piling and timber manufactured and 
 the work carried through without a hitch or a delay. 
 He remained in charge of this work for seven years, 
 supplying the entire construction material for the Soo 
 road and in addition fulfilling immense contracts 
 for the same kind of material for the Great Northern 
 and other railroad companies. 
 
 In 1892 he resigned his position with the Coolidge 
 Company in order to go into the lumber business for 
 himself. He had acquired a considerable area of 
 timber lands in Northern Michigan and he began 
 active logging operations for himself immediately 
 upon leaving the Coolidge Company. He built the 
 town of Engadine, Michigan, established a large 
 general store and conducted it in connection with his 
 lumbering operations. As was to be supposed, he 
 took an active part in the upbuilding of Engadine, 
 serving as its first treasurer and was postmaster for 
 four terms, and was supervisor of his township for 
 two years. He was also active in school affairs, 
 serving on the school board and otherwise assisting 
 in their development. In 1903 he transferred his 
 operations to Naubinway, Michigan, where he also 
 conducted a general store in connection with his 
 lumber business. 
 
 In 1905 he sold his store and lumber business in 
 Michigan, retaining only his timber lands, and en- 
 tered the employ of the Deer River Lumber Com- 
 pany at Deer River, Minnesota, as superintendent of 
 logging. For six years Mr. Day was in charge of 
 this important branch of the company’s business, 
 personally making the estimates and appraisals upon 
 which the company made its important investments in 
 standing timber, and he also superintended the work 
 of the company’s logging operations for their big 
 mills at Deer River. 
 
 In 1907 he moved his family to Long Prairie, Min- 
 nesota, and upon resigning from the Deer River 
 Company in 1911, decided to make that village his 
 permanent home. His aggressive influence for good 
 government had already impressed his neighbors in 
 Long Prairie and that spring when he returned from 
 Deer River he was induced to head the “law and 
 order” ticket in a strenuous municipal campaign then 
 in progress. He was elected and has retained the 
 position at succeeding elections, the last of which 
 occurred March 9, 1915. As a result of. his adminis- 
 trative methods and executive ability Long Prairie 
 has prospered in unusual degree and enjoys a repu- 
 
1356 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 tation far and wide as a village where business man- 
 agement is accomplishing wonders and where law 
 enforcement prevails. A life long republican, he at 
 all times has made his influence felt, and has been 
 prominent in the councils of his party. 
 
 Mr. Day is widely known in fraternal circles, be- 
 longing to Long Prairie Lodge No. 159, A. F. & A. 
 
 M. , of which he has been master two terms; Key- 
 stone Chapter No. 20, R. A. M„ Duluth; Duluth 
 Commandery No. 18, K. T. ; Aad Temple, A. A. O. 
 
 N. M. S., and Duluth Consistory No. 3, S. R. M., 
 being a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. 
 He belongs also to Camp No. 632, Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks, of Manistique, Michigan ; 
 Lodge No. 94, Long Prairie, Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows, and Encampment No. 7; and Enga- 
 dine Commandery No. 122, Knights of the Macca- 
 bees, of which he was commander for nine consecu- 
 tive years. He became an Odd Fellow at Hinckley 
 in 1889 and a Mason at Long Prairie in 1907. Mr. 
 Day is also a stockholder and director in the Todd 
 County Agricultural Society, and with his family is 
 a member of the Episcopal Church. 
 
 In 1891 at Durand, Wisconsin, Mr. Day was mar- 
 ried to Miss Minnie Hubbard, daughter of the late 
 H. W. Hubbard, who was a Wisconsin farmer. Six 
 children have been born to this union : Orville Roy, 
 who died in infancy; Margaret Elmira, who died at 
 the age of one year; Albert David, who died when 
 six years old ; Leonard Hubbard, who died at the age 
 of four ; Theodore R., who is a student in the fifth 
 grade of the Long Prairie public schools and Lloyd 
 Raymond, a student in the fourth grade. 
 
 John A. Anderegg. Though he has achieved suc- 
 cess and prestige as one of the able members of the 
 bar of his native state and is now engaged in the 
 practice of his profession at Sauk City, judicial cen- 
 ter of Benton County, Mr. Anderegg has had a 
 career marked by varied and benignant activities, 
 not the least of which were those of his effective 
 identification with the pedagogic profession and his 
 service as a member of the Minnesota Legislature. 
 He has been specially earnest and zealous in the 
 furtherance of the educational interests of the state, 
 is known as a man of broad and well-fortified con- 
 victions and distinctive civic loyalty, and is a scion 
 of one of the honored pioneer families of Minne- 
 sota. 
 
 On the homestead farm of his father, near Man- 
 kato, Blue Earth County, Minnesota, John Albert 
 Anderegg was born on the 9th of July, 1861. He is 
 a son of Andrew and Mary (Born) Anderegg, both 
 of whom were born and reared in Switzerland, as 
 members of sterling old families of that fair little 
 European republic, where their marriage was sol- 
 emnized. In 1856 the parents immigrated to Amer- 
 ica and in the following year they numbered them- 
 selves among the pioneer settlers of Blue Earth 
 County, Minnesota, where the father reclaimed a 
 productive farm from the virgin wilds and where 
 both he and his wife passed the residue of their 
 lives, secure in the high esteem of all who knew 
 them. 
 
 He whose name initiates this article was reared 
 to the sturdy discipline of the farm and after mak- 
 ing good use of the advantages afforded him in the 
 public schools of his native county he there entered 
 the Minnesota State Normal School at Mankato, in 
 which he was graduated as a member of the class 
 of 1883. Thereafter he devoted eight years to suc- 
 cessful service as a teacher in the public schools. 
 
 Within this period he was for one year instructor 
 in English in the high school at New Ulm, and later 
 he served as superintendent of the public schools 
 of Jackson, county seat of the Minnesota county of 
 the same name. While thus finding insistent de- 
 mands upon his time and attention, Mr. Anderegg 
 had the energy and ambition to carry forward also 
 the careful study of law, and he made substantial 
 progress in the absorption and assimilation of the 
 principles of jurisprudence, though circumstances 
 have at times deflected him from the work of the 
 profession for which he carefully prepared himself. 
 From 1890 to 1893 he was engaged in the general 
 merchandise business at Kasota, Lesueur County, 
 and in the meanwhile he continued the study of law, 
 with the result that in 1896 he proved himself eligible 
 for and was admitted to the bar of his native state. 
 Llis professional novitiate was served at St. Peter, 
 Nicollet County, and he finally removed from that 
 place to Lesueur, where he was engaged in active 
 and successful practice for a period of fifteen years 
 and where he served as justice of the Municipal 
 Court. From Lesueur County he was elected a 
 member of the lower house of the State Legis- 
 lature, in which he served during the general as- 
 semblies of 1903 and 1905, and in which he made an 
 admirable record. He was active in the delibera- 
 tions on the floor of the House and in those of the 
 various committees to which he was assigned. 
 Among the important bills introduced by him and 
 ably championed was that presented in the session 
 of 1905, and making provision for the permitting 
 of rural school districts in the state to centralize 
 or consolidate their schools, reducing the number 
 and thereby making possible the raising of the 
 standard of the work. It is under the provisions 
 of this law, in the enactment of which Mr. Anderegg 
 was most influential, that the efficiency of the rural 
 schools in the various sections of the state has been 
 notably advanced and that the. high school in his 
 present home district was established. In the Leg- 
 islature he served as chairman of the Committee on 
 Education and also as a member of other impor- 
 tant committees that profited greatly from his coun- 
 sel and loyal service. 
 
 After his retirement as a member of the Legis- 
 lature Mr. Anderegg held for two years the posi- 
 tion of executive manager of the State Bank of 
 Long Lake, Hennepin County, and in July, 1914, he 
 established his residence at Sauk Rapids, where he 
 has since been engaged in the successful practice 
 of law and where his clientele has become one of 
 important and representative order. Mr. Anderegg 
 is a republican in his political proclivities and alle- 
 giance and has been active in the furtherance of 
 the party cause. In a fraternal way he is affiliated 
 with the Woodmen of the World. 
 
 On the 22d of November, 1892, was solemnized 
 the marriage of Mr. Anderegg to Miss Lillie May 
 Turrittin, of Kasota, this state, and they have six 
 children : Rupert A., a student in the Co-operative 
 University of Cincinnati, Ohio, in the course of 
 civil engineering; Wayne L., clerk in a drug store 
 at Sauk Rapids ; Lillian May and Albert J., students 
 in the high schools of their home city; and the 
 younger children are George F. and Frederick H., 
 the former of whom is a grade student in the pub- 
 lic schools. 
 
 Godfrey G. Goodwin. As a lawyer the work and 
 attainments of Godfrey G. Goodwin have long since 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1357 
 
 given him rank as one of the leaders of the Isanti 
 County bar, with which he has been identified nearly 
 twenty years, and like many successful lawyers his 
 interests have also reached out into business affairs, 
 and he has been and is connected with several im- 
 portant enterprises at Cambridge and has made 
 himself a useful factor in civic matters. 
 
 Godfrey G. Goodwin was born at Scandian Grove, 
 Minnesota, January u, 1873, a son of Gustavus and 
 Cecilia (Carlson) Goodwin. His father was a sub- 
 stantial farmer of Minnesota, and the Goodwins 
 came to this state about i860, direct from Sweden. 
 
 Mr. Goodwin was educated in the public schools, 
 attended a high school at St. Paul, graduated in 
 the regular collegiate course from the University 
 of Minnesota in 1895, and continuing his law studies 
 in the law department was graduated LL. B. in 
 1896. In June of the latter year he located for 
 practice at Cambridge, and has since handled a 
 growing general business as a lawyer. Mr. Goodwin 
 is president of the Cambridge Milling Company and 
 secretary and treasurer of the Gouldberg & Ander- 
 son Company, general merchants. 
 
 As to his relations with community affairs, it 
 should be stated that Mr. Goodwin served one year 
 as president of the city council, and in 1898 was 
 elected county attorney, to which office he gave eight 
 years of consecutive service, and in 1912 was again 
 elected, and by re-election in 1914 still holds that 
 important responsibility. For many years he has 
 also been connected with the local school board, and 
 has been president and secretary of the board. 
 
 Mr. Goodwin is a republican and is affiliated with 
 the Masonic fraternity. He was married at Cam- 
 bridge in June, 1905, to Geneva Gouldberg. Their 
 two children are Alden N. and Margery Ann. 
 
 William Howard Lamson. A lawyer whose 
 maturing ability and experience have brought him a 
 successful and influential position in the Pine County 
 bar is William Howard Lamson, who is a graduate 
 of the University of Minnesota and was in practice 
 for several years at Duluth before locating at Hinck- 
 lev. 
 
 Representing some of the substantial pioneer stock 
 of Minnesota, William Howard Lamson was born 
 in Winona County, June 19, 1878. His parents were 
 Watson I. and Lucy O. (Hammond) Lamson, both 
 of New England descent, and they settled in the 
 pioneer country at Homer, Winona County, Minne- 
 sota, in 1856. His father was a fine type_ of the 
 Minnesota territorial pioneers, and in addition to 
 his regular vocation served as chairman of his 
 town for sixteen years and town treasurer four 
 years. 
 
 William H. Lamson acquired his early education 
 in the public schools of his home village, was grad- 
 uated from the Winona High School in 1898, and 
 his first experience was in the newspaper business, 
 acting as reporter for one year with the Morning 
 Independent at Winona. He then entered the law 
 department of the University of Minnesota, and was 
 graduated LL. B. in 1902. The following six years 
 were spent in practice at Duluth, and in 1908 Mr. 
 Lamson located at Hinckley and has since cared for 
 an increasing general practice. In 1910 the people 
 of Pine County elected him county attorney, and 
 he was chosen as his own successor in 1912. He 
 has also served four years as Ullage attorney, and 
 in 1914 was president of the Hinckley School Board 
 and has been a member of that board four years. 
 
 Mr. Lamson is president of the Pine County 
 Farm Land and Investment Company. His frater- 
 nities are the Masonic order, Ionic Lodge, A. F. & 
 A. M., and the Knights of Pythias. At St. Paul, on 
 April 7, 1909, Mr. Lamson married Charlotte L. 
 Moore. Their two children are named Elizabeth 
 and Harriet Lucy. Mr. Lamson is a trustee of 
 the Presbyterian Church, where his family worship, 
 and he is a republican in politics. 
 
 George William Empey. It is as a factor in 
 banking affairs in several Northern Minnesota coun- 
 ties that George W. Empey has been chiefly known 
 during his active career, and at the present time 
 in addition to the executive connection with the 
 Farmers and Merchants State Bank at Hinckley is 
 also an officer and has financial interests in a num- 
 ber of business concerns in that section of the state. 
 
 A native of Minnesota, George William Empey 
 was born at Hastings, July 30, 1867, a son of Almond 
 and Augusta (Lyon) Empey. His father was a 
 farmer, was a native of Canada and was a pioneer 
 settler in Minnesota, coming about 1862. 
 
 George W. Empey grew up in Hastings, was edu- 
 cated in the public schools there and in 1891 fin- 
 ished a course in the Hamline University at St. Paul. 
 For more than twenty years his time has been 
 chiefly devoted to banking. In 1892 he became 
 assistant cashier in the Bank of Park Rapids, Min- 
 nesota, and when that institution was reorganized 
 as the First National Bank he was made cashier. 
 He also served one year as deputy county auditor 
 in Hubbard County. In 1896 Mr. Empey went to 
 Verndale, Minnesota, as cashier of the Wadena 
 County Bank, and when that was reorganized as 
 the First National Bank he continued as cashier, 
 his total service with the institution aggregating 
 twelve years. 
 
 In 1908 Mr. Empey came to Hinckley and effected 
 on October 1 of that year the organization of the 
 Farmers and Merchants State Bank. It was started 
 with a capital of $10,000 and the first officers were: 
 Isaac Hazlett, president; James C. Hazlett, vice 
 president; George W. Empey, cashier; and J. J. 
 Folsom, assistant cashier. The bank owns a sub- 
 stantial building, constructed of brick and hollow 
 tile, 24x40 feet. In 1915, besides the capital stock 
 of $10,000, the bank was well fortified with sur- 
 plus and undivided profits of $13,000. The de- 
 posits at the present time aggregate about ninety 
 thousand dollars. Mr. Empey has been cashier since 
 the organization of this bank, and is also vice pres- 
 ident and one of the organizers of the Brook Park 
 State Bank. 
 
 He is secretary and treasurer of the Hinckley 
 Lumber Company, and is secretary and treasurer of 
 the Clover Leaf Land and Cattle Company, a close 
 corporation in which he owns half the stock. Mr. 
 Empey is a past master of the Blue Lodge of 
 Masons, also being affiliated with the Royal Arch 
 Chapter, is a member of the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows and is past chancellor of the Knights 
 of Pythias. 
 
 He has had much to do with public affairs and is 
 a former president of the village council at Hinckley 
 and for the past five years has been clerk of the 
 school board. He has been and is now actively 
 identified with the Hinckley Commercial Club, and 
 is at present chairman of its executive committee. 
 He is president of the Pine County Development 
 Association, which is affiliated in its work with the 
 
1358 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Northern Minnesota Development Association. He 
 is a member of the Episcopal Church, is treasurer of 
 the local church and is on the bishop’s committee. 
 On July 19, 1893, Air. Empey married Elizabeth H. 
 Pearce of St. Peter, Minnesota. They have one 
 daughter, Edith. 
 
 Jacob John Folsom. Representing one of the 
 early pioneer families at Taylors Falls, Jacob J. 
 Folsom has a generally acknowledged position of 
 leadership and power in business affairs in Pine 
 County, his home town being Hinckley. In the 
 course of a career of over thirty years Mr. Folsom 
 has been identified at different times with public 
 office, with banking, with the lumber trade, with 
 the newspaper business and has accumulated a num- 
 ber of interests which well justify his position in 
 business and civic affairs at Hinckley. 
 
 Jacob John Folsom was born at Taylors Falls, 
 Minnesota, February 5, i860, a son of Levi Wood- 
 bury and Abbie (Shaw) Folsom. His father was 
 one of the pioneers at Taylors Falls, having located 
 there in 1852. By profession he was an attorney, 
 and continued to reside at Taylors Falls from the 
 time of his settlement until his death, at the age of 
 ninety-two years, in 1911. The family still preserve 
 the old homestead in that town. 
 
 Jacob J. Folsom received an education in the pub- 
 lic schools, and at the age of sixteen was given the 
 practical management of a store in Taylors Falls 
 and conducted it from 1876 until 1888. In 1890 he 
 became a stenographer in a real estate office at Long 
 Prairie, Minnesota, acquiring thereby a valuable ex- 
 perience, and in 1895 located at Hinckley. There he 
 bought the Hinckley Enterprise, and was a news- 
 paper publisher until he sold out in 1903. In the 
 meantime he had organized the Bank of Hinckley, 
 and was its owner until 1903. He was also for 
 three years associated with his brother, Howard 
 Folsom, in the lumber business at Sandstone. In 
 1903 Mr. Folsom bought the Pine Poker at Pine 
 City, Minnesota, but soon removed to the North- 
 west and for two years, together with his brother 
 Floward, was connected with the Farmer Publishing 
 Company at Spokane, Washington. Returning to 
 Hinckley in 1908, Mr. Folsom has since that time 
 vigorously pushed his business affairs. He helped 
 to organize the Farmers and Merchants State Bank, 
 with which he was connected as assistant cashier for 
 three years, and is still a director. He next organ- 
 ized the Folsom Bros. & Fuchs Company, dealers 
 in hardware, and is president of that corporation. 
 
 Mr. Folsom aside from his business interests has 
 had much to do with community affairs. For two 
 years he served as president of the village board 
 of Hinckley, and in November, 1914, was appointed 
 by President Woodrow Wilson as postmaster at 
 Hinckley, an office to which he now devotes much 
 of his time. At several different times he was 
 honored with election as village recorder and clerk 
 of Hinckley. He was for three years secretary of 
 the Hinckley Commercial Club. His first public 
 service may be said to have been that of librarian 
 in the public library at Taylors Falls, to which re- 
 sponsibility he was appointed at the age of twelve 
 years, and performed its duties five years. Mr. 
 Folsom is affiliated with Lodge No. 59 of the Benev- 
 olent and Protective Order of Elks at St. Paul, and 
 is a past noble grand of the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows. 
 
 Joseph Bell Cotton. Born on a farm near Albion, 
 Indiana, January 6, 1865, Mr. Cotton is a son of Dr. 
 John and Elizabeth (Riddle) Cotton, his father pass- 
 ing his entire career as a practicing physician in 
 Indiana. He belongs to the seventh direct genera- 
 tion from Rev. John Cotton, who was born in Derby, 
 England, December 4, 1585, and who upon his arrival 
 in America became "teacher” of the first church of 
 Boston, to which city he gave its name in 1633. 
 
 Joseph Bell Cotton was educated in the Albion, 
 Indiana High School and in the Michigan Agricul- 
 tural College, graduating from the latter in 1886 with 
 the degree of Bachelor of Science. He then studied 
 law and was admitted to the bar in June, 1888, be- 
 ginning his practice in September of that year at 
 Duluth, which city has since been his residence. 
 
 From 1893 to 1909, inclusive, Mr. Cotton was gen- 
 eral solicitor for the Lake Superior Consolidated 
 Iron Mines and the Duluth, Missabe & Northern 
 Railway Company, and for the Duluth & Iron Range 
 Railroad Company, the Oliver Iron Mining Com- 
 pany and the Minnesota Iron Company, subsidiary 
 companies of the United States Steel Corporation, 
 from 1901 to 1909. Since 1909 he has been and is 
 now special counsel for all five and their allied com- 
 panies. 
 
 For more than twenty years, Mr. Cotton has made 
 a specialty of corporation, railroad and mining law, 
 and he also represents professionally a number of 
 important business and corporate interests in various 
 parts of the United States, Mexico and Cuba. He 
 has been retained almost constantly for the period 
 named as special or general counsel of some of the 
 larger corporations and has been connected with nu- 
 merous mining, railroad and other cases of impor- 
 tance throughout the country. Mr. Cotton’s ex- 
 perience, work and abilities undoubtedly place him 
 among the leading corporation lawyers of the North- 
 west. 
 
 His business interests are also important and ex- 
 tensive, he being president of the Glass Block De- 
 partment Store, of Duluth, formerly Panton & White 
 Company ; director and counsel of F. A. Patrick 
 & Co., wholesale dry goods, of Duluth ; president 
 and general counsel of the Sierra Consolidated Mines 
 Company, operating in Mexico; general counsel of 
 the Greene Cananea Copper Company, operating in 
 Mexico; general counsel of the Consolidated Copper- 
 mines Company, operating in Nevada ; vice president 
 and general counsel of the Giroux Consolidated 
 Mines Company, operating in Nevada; vice president 
 and general counsel of the North Butte Mining Com- 
 pany, operating in Montana; and president of the 
 Virginia Mining Company; and secretary and treas- 
 urer of the Buena Vista Iron Company, operating in 
 Cuba. Mr. Cotton is also now engaged in general 
 practice, and is the head of the law firm of Cotton,. 
 Neukom & Colton with offices at No. 1500 Alworth 
 Building. 
 
 Always an active republican, Air. Cotton has been 
 quite prominent in the ranks of his party, serving as 
 a member of the Minnesota House of Representa- 
 tives in 1893, and being a delegate to the republican 
 national conventions of 1904 and 1908. 
 
 Fraternally, he is a thirty-second degree, Scottish 
 Rite Alason ; a member of the Knights Templar; 
 Past Potentate and member of Aad Temple, A. A. O. 
 N.-M. S.; past sovereign and member of the Red 
 Cross of Constantine; past exalted ruler and member 
 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. No. 
 133, of Duluth, and a member of the Phi Delta Theta 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 / 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1359 
 
 fraternity. He is also widely known in club circles, 
 belonging to The Kitchi Gammi, Northland Country, 
 Commercial, Curling, and Duluth Boat clubs of Du- 
 luth; the Washington Club of Isle Royal ; the Minne- 
 sota Club of St. Paul; the Minneapolis Club of Min- 
 neapolis; the Indiana Society and Chicago Athletic 
 Association of Chicago; and the Minnesota Society 
 and Lawyers Club of New York City. 
 
 On January 4, 1900, Mr. Cotton was married to 
 Miss Louise Hubbell, daughter of Albert C. and 
 Mary (Lyon) Hubbell, of Duluth, and three children 
 have been born to this union: Josephine Bell, Mary 
 Louise and John Mather. The family home is 
 located at No. 2309 East First Street, Duluth. 
 
 Solomon Flagg Alderman. Now serving as 
 county attorney of Crow Wing County, Solomon E. 
 Alderman has been a resident of Brainerd more 
 than thirty years, has filled a number of positions 
 of trust and responsibility, is a former state senator, 
 and whether as a lawyer or public official has always 
 justified the trust and confidence of those who have 
 sought his counsel in legal affairs or who have im- 
 posed upon him the duties of public office. 
 
 Solomon Flagg Alderman is a native of Connec- 
 ticut, born at East Granby, July 1, 1861, a son of 
 James FI. and Sarah Jane (Snow) Alderman. His 
 parents were thrifty and substantial New England 
 farmers. His early education was acquired in local 
 schools and the Library Institute at Suffield, where 
 he was graduated in 1881. Mr. Alderman began the 
 study of law in Connecticut, spending one year at 
 Windsor Locks, Connecticut, but in 1883 came out 
 to Minnesota and identified himself with the little 
 City of Brainerd. Here he got into public affairs 
 soon after his arrival, and his active career as a 
 lawyer was deferred for a dozen years. He first 
 served as deputy county treasurer, then a year as 
 deputy county auditor, and also as deputy clerk of 
 the District Court. By election Mr. Alderman was 
 clerk of the District Court of Brainerd from 1885 
 to 1894. In January, 1895, he was admitted to prac- 
 tice law, and so far as official duties have per- 
 mitted has looked after the interests of a large 
 general practice for nearly twenty years. _ For four 
 years he held the office of municipal judge, and 
 was county attorney three years prior to his recent 
 election to that office in 1914. From 1906 to 1910 
 Mr. Alderman represented his district in the State 
 Senate, and has always taken an active part in 
 republican politics and served in 1912 as delegate 
 to the Chicago national convention. He is a mem- 
 ber of the Crow Wing County Bar Association and 
 the State Bar Association, is affiliated with the 
 Masonic order and Mystic Shrine, the Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks, is past chancellor of 
 the Knights of Pythias and a member of the Ancient 
 Order of United Workmen, the Good Samaritans 
 and the Maccabees. He is also identified with the 
 Brainerd Chamber of Commerce. 
 
 September 4, 1884, Mr. Alderman married Mat- 
 tie E. Smith, who was born in Connecticut. Their 
 daughter, Nell Fie, is now the wife of W. F. Wie- 
 land, a Brainerd attorney; while the son, James H., 
 is connected with the hardware firm of D. M. Clark 
 & Co. of Brainerd, Minnesota. 
 
 James Harvey Warner. For a quarter of a cen- 
 tury Judge Warner has been an active member of 
 the bar at Brainerd, and experience of long years 
 in the profession has brought him tjpe recognition 
 
 paid to ability and high professional attainments. 
 Mr. Warner possesses the quality of a fine mind, 
 and his steady and persevering industry have landed 
 him well to the top of his profession. 
 
 His birthplace was a farm in Warren County, 
 Iowa, where he was born February 22, i860. His 
 parents were Valentine and Mary (Robertson) 
 Warner, the father a blacksmith and farmer. Valen- 
 tine Warner was one of the early settlers in the 
 State of Iowa, having left Pennsylvania and floated 
 down the Ohio River, and thence coming up the 
 Mississippi and locating a farm in what was still 
 a wilderness. During the Civil war in September, 
 1862, he enlisted in the Thirty-fourth Regiment of 
 Iowa Infantry, and saw active service in the Union 
 cause until mustered out in 1865, after three years. 
 
 James Harvey Warner acquired his early education 
 in the country schools and worked for his higher 
 training by teaching and in other occupations. In 
 1881 he graduated from the Ackworth Academy. 
 From 1879 to 1887 Mr. Warner was actively em- 
 ployed during the greater part of each year as a 
 teacher in South Dakota, and in the meantime car- 
 ried on his law studies in private offices. He was 
 admitted to practice in South Dakota in 1887, and 
 in 1890 was admitted to the Minnesota bar and at 
 that time located in Brainerd. His practice has been 
 of a general nature, and he has a large and repre- 
 sentative clientage. 
 
 Much of his term since beginning practice at 
 Brainerd in 1890 has been taken up with official 
 duties. For two terms he served as special city 
 judge, and in 1902 was elected municipal judge and 
 filled the office with his characteristic ability until 
 1906. After one term as county attorney, Judge 
 Warner was again chosen judge of the Municipal 
 Court, and his three terms in that office cover a 
 period from 1908 to 1915. He is a member of the 
 Crow Wing County Bar Association, and has mem- 
 bership in the Brotherhood of American Yeomen 
 and with other social organizations. 
 
 In Hutchinson County, South Dakota, October 
 30, 1882, Judge Warner married Elizabeth Baker. 
 They are the parents of four children. Roland B. 
 is an engineer with the Northern Pacific Railway; 
 the second is Fred W. ; Irma S. is the wife of R. W. 
 Crust, deputy state factory inspector with home at 
 Crookston ; and Edith Mae is the youngest of the 
 family. 
 
 Fred Andrew Farrar. A resident of Brainerd 
 since 1879, Mr. Farrar has worked out a career of 
 self-advancement, and his present relations with the 
 community are as a banker, real estate man and 
 actively and officially connected with a number of 
 local concerns and public organizations. 
 
 Fred Andrew Farrar was born in Milwaukee, Wis- 
 consin, April 6, 1861. His parents were Andrew 
 Pierce and Sarah Jane (Titus) Farrar. His father, 
 who died July 4, 1900, was appointed superintendent 
 of machinery and motive power for the Northern 
 Pacific railway shops in 1877. 
 
 The son was educated in the public schools at 
 Michigan City, Indiana, and in a business college at 
 Jackson, Michigan, and his first regular work was 
 clerk in railway shops and clerk and bookkeeper in 
 several mercantile houses. For eight years . he 
 served as city clerk of Brainerd, and subsequently 
 was a member of the city council for a period of 
 six years. In 1900 Mr. Farrar began his active 
 career as a banker in the capacity of teller in the 
 
1360 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 First National Bank, and was promoted to assistant 
 cashier, then cashier and is now vice president of 
 that bank. His financial interests extend to the 
 mining and farm development of Northern Minne- 
 sota, and he is president of the Brainerd-Cuyuna 
 Mining Company, is treasurer of the Minnesota Park 
 Region Land Company, treasurer of the Rabbit Lake 
 Land Company, and treasurer of the Brainerd Im- 
 provement Company. He also holds the office of 
 treasurer in the chamber of commerce, and a similar 
 office with the Evergreen Cemetery Association. He 
 has always shown a readiness to do anything in his 
 power to promote the welfare of his home city. 
 Mr. Farrar is active in Masonic circles, is a member 
 of the lodge, is a past eminent commander of the 
 Knight Templar Commandery, has taken thirty-two 
 degrees in the Scottish Rite and belongs to the 
 Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He is also affiliated 
 with the Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks and 
 the Knights of Pythias. 
 
 At Brainerd on February 20, 1895, Mr. Farrar 
 married Ethel M. Small. He and his wife are mem- 
 bers of the Episcopal Church, in which he is a ves- 
 tryman. 
 
 Asa D. Polk. With the prestige and experience 
 of forty years of practice behind him, Asa D. Polk 
 has spent the greater part of his active career in 
 Minnesota, and for the past fifteen years has had a 
 large practice and a prominent position as a citizen 
 at Brainerd. 
 
 Asa D. Polk was born in Henry County, Indiana, 
 December 17, 1850, the son of a substantial farmer, 
 James W. Polk, and wife, Sarah H. (Davis) Polk. 
 His early life was spent partly in Indiana and partly 
 in Iowa, with an education acquired by attendance 
 at the country schools, and in the Iowa State Col- 
 lege. Mr. Polk studied law in private offices, and 
 was admitted to the Iowa bar in 1875, and at once 
 began practice. His home and professional in- 
 terests were centered at Cedar Falls, Iowa, from 
 1876 to 1881, and in the latter year he removed to 
 Minneapolis, was in practice in that city nearly 
 twenty years, and since 1900 has lived at Brainerd. 
 
 Mr. Polk in addition to a large general practice 
 is now examiner of titles for the State of Minne- 
 sota. Pie served two years as city attorney and as 
 county atttorney for a like period. 
 
 Mr. Polk is a rqember of the Crow Wing, the State 
 Bar and the American Bar associations, and fra- 
 ternally is affiliated with the Masonic order of 
 Brainerd. In 1876 he married Minnie E. Hayes. 
 They have two children, Frank H. and Grace E., 
 both of whom have taken up careers in journalism, 
 and are successful workers in that field. 
 
 Levi M. DePue. A prominent banker and busi- 
 ness man of Brainerd, president of the Brainerd 
 State Bank, L. M. DePue is a native son of Min- 
 nesota, and has had an active business career extend- 
 ing over more than thirty years. In early life he 
 was connected with railway construction and lum- 
 bering, and has possessed in a striking degree the 
 faculty and enterprise of attracting to himself large 
 and important interests in the management of which 
 he has proved himself a past master. 
 
 The Brainerd State Bank, of which he is now the 
 chief executive, was organized in July, 1908, and 
 has always retained its original capital stock of 
 $25,000. A reorganization occurred in November, 
 1909, and some important changes were made in 
 
 the personnel and disposition of capital on Febru- 
 ary 27, 1914. Few Minnesota banks have had a 
 better record of growth than this. In September, 
 1910, the deposits of the bank amounted to about 
 $22,000. In a little more than a year this feature 
 of the bank statement showed December, 1911, an 
 aggregate of about $118,000. With this splendid 
 record at the beginning, the bank has continued to 
 grow, and according to the last available statement 
 issued October 26, 1914, the deposits aggregated ap- 
 proximately $218,000. At that time the total re- 
 sources were $243,012.28. While the law required 
 a reserve of about $18,000, the actual reserve at that 
 statement was more than $40,000. The present 
 officers and directors of the Brainerd State Bank 
 are : L. M. DePue, president ; Carl Zapffe and F. M. 
 Koop, vice presidents; H. E. Kundert, cashier; and 
 O. H. Scott, a director, besides the officials named. 
 
 Levi Melville DePue was born at Shakopee, Min- 
 nesota, June 23, 1863, a son of James M. and Phoebe 
 (St. Clare) DePue. The father was a blacksmith 
 and wagonmaker at Shakopee. The son had only 
 the training given by the public schools of Minne- 
 sota during his boyhood, and in 1881, at the age of 
 eighteen, he began work during the construction of 
 the Northern Pacific Railway. That was his first 
 regular experience in making his own way, and he 
 continued with that company until 1883. From 1884 
 to 1888 Mr. DePue was engaged in logging and 
 lumbering, and after that in the retail lumber busi- 
 ness until 1895. For ten years he was one of the 
 representatives in the Northwest for the Inter- 
 national Harvester Company, but in 1905 left the 
 company to open an agency for the sale of Canadian 
 lands. 
 
 Mr. DePue began his banking career in 1907, when 
 he became cashier of the Citizens State Bank of 
 Brainerd. After three years, in 1910, he assisted in 
 reorganizing the Security State Bank under its 
 present title, the Brainerd State Bank, and was 
 cashier at the time J. P. Ernster was president. 
 From cashier he was promoted to vice president, 
 and in 1914 elected president. The bank conducts 
 a fire insurance department, and Mr. DePue also 
 has extensive real estate interests. 
 
 Fraternally he is a past noble grand of the Inde- 
 pendent Order of Odd Fellows, and is a member 
 of the Brainerd Chamber of Commerce. In 1905 
 Mr. DePue married Delia Foley of Vermont. 
 Politically, while one of the most progressive citizens 
 of Brainerd, he maintains a generally independent 
 attitude. 
 
 Charles A. Smith. The career of Charles A. 
 Smith has been one in which business activity has 
 been blended with unbending honor and unflinching 
 integrity. Success has been his portion not alone 
 because of business talents of a high order, and per- 
 sistent and well-directed industry, but also because 
 of straightforward dealing, while at the same time 
 he has found the time and the inclination to con- 
 tribute to his community’s welfare arid advancement. 
 The recipient of a handsome property from his 
 father’s estate, he has not dissipated his means in 
 foolish investments or speculations, but^ has put 
 them to a use which has not only placed him among 
 the substantial men of Waseca, but has also allowed 
 this city and locality to benefit by their accruements. 
 
 Mr. Smith was born at Wilton, Waseca County, 
 Minnesota, June 12, 1866, and is a son of Warren 
 and Susan E. (Johnson) Smith. His father, a native 
 

 i 
 
 
I 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1361 
 
 of Barnstable County, Massachusetts, was born in 
 1821, and was a man of thirty-four years when he 
 came West, settling at Faribault, Minnesota, where 
 he remained one year. In 1856 he located in Waseca 
 County and there the remainder of his life was 
 passed in various profitable pursuits, his death oc- 
 curring in 1894. Mr. Smith was a pioneer merchant 
 of Waseca and profited largely by the prosperity 
 which came to this rapidly developing county. He 
 was shrewd and cautious in his dealings, yet pos- 
 sessed the courage to grasp such opportunities as 
 came his way, and had the ability to bring them to 
 a successful conclusion. A man of energy, force 
 and will power, he readily took a foremost place 
 among his fellows, and was known as a leader in 
 civic and state affairs, serving in the legislature in 
 1869 and in various other offices. Mr. Smith married 
 Miss Susan E. Johnson, who was born at Province- 
 town, Massachusetts, in 1824, and she died in 1896, 
 at Waseca, having been the mother of four children, 
 as follows : Minnie L., who died at the age of 
 
 twenty-eight years; Mary L., who resides with her 
 brother at Waseca; George W., who died in young 
 manhood; and Charles A., of this review. 
 
 Charles A. Smith was given ordinary, although 
 practical, educational advantages in his youth, first 
 attending the graded schools of Waseca, to which 
 city his parents had removed when he was a lad 
 ^of four years. Subsequently he attended the Waseca 
 *High School, from which he was graduated in 1884, 
 and following this took a commercial course in the 
 Curtis Business College, Minneapolis. Thus pre- 
 pared for a business career, Mr. Smith embarked in 
 the printing business in the office of the Waseca 
 Radical, which at that time was being published by 
 Mr. Graham, and remained with that newspaper for 
 four years. He was then appointed clerk in the 
 county treasurer’s office, where he remained for two 
 and one-half years, when he returned to the printing 
 business in 1891 and continued to be engaged therein 
 during that and the following year. In 1892 Mr. 
 Smith's father’s health failed and the young man was 
 called home to begin to look after the other’s varied 
 interests. He courageously threw himself into the 
 new line of endeavor, with which he became so 
 familiar in the next few years, that when his father 
 died, in 1894/ he was able to gather up the threads 
 where they had been broken by the elder man’s 
 demise, and to carry on transactions without a per- 
 ceptible interruption. He has continued to follow 
 the same line of business to the present time, and 
 to add materially to the large estate which was 
 left to him and his sister. 
 
 Mr. Smith maintains a large office on Second 
 Street, and in addition to the varied interests of 
 the estate carried on a successful real estate business 
 and operates extensively in loans, principally of the 
 farm variety. He has accumulated a number of 
 valuable properties of his own, including two farms 
 in Norman County and one in Becker County, Min- 
 nesota, and all are under a high state of cultivation 
 and give handsome returns under Mr. Smith’s capa- 
 ble and energetic management. He is also secretary 
 of the Waseca Telephone Company, and has other 
 large business and financial interests, and in what- 
 ever field he has entered has thoroughly mastered 
 every detail of the business so that it has returned 
 to him a full measure of success. Among his asso- 
 ciates his judgment is relied upon implicitly, and he 
 is known as a man who is absolutely reliable in his 
 engagements. 
 
 Mr. Smith is a republican in politics, and has 
 always taken a stirring and helpful interest in the 
 affairs of his adopted city, of which he served 
 capably and in a businesslike manner as mayor from 
 1898 to 1904, during which time the city benefited by 
 numerous much-needed improvements. Fraternally, 
 he is connected with Tuscan Lodge No. 77, F. & 
 A. M. ; Waseca Chapter No. 26, R. A. M., and Comee 
 Lodge No. 25, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, 
 in all of which he has numerous friends. Mr. Smith 
 is unmarried and lives with his sister, at their pleas- 
 ant home, No. 901 Lake Avenue, Waseca. 
 
 Henry Paul Dunn. At Brainerd Henry P. Dunn 
 has for a number of years been one of the city’s 
 successful merchants, and his recognized competence 
 in business affairs and thorough integrity were his 
 most substantial recommendations for the various 
 positions of trust and responsibility with which the 
 public has honored him. At the present time Mr. 
 Dunn is serving as postmaster of Brainerd. 
 
 Henry Paul Dunn was born on a farm in Rice 
 County, Minnesota, June 2, 1870, and is a son of 
 Minnesota pioneers, John and Mary (McDonough) 
 Dunn. With an education in the public schools and 
 business college, he started life as an employe of 
 Brobeck & Coy, a drug house at Kenyon, Minne- 
 sota, remained there five years, and with a thorough 
 knowledge of the drug business came to Brainerd 
 in 1894. For two years he was employed by others, 
 and in 1897 organized the H. P. Dunn Drug Com- 
 pany, which has been developed into one of the best 
 establishments of the kind at Brainerd. 
 
 Mr. Dunn has long been affiliated with the demo- 
 cratic party, and on October 1, 1914, received ap- 
 pointment from President Wilson as postmaster at 
 Brainerd. During 1911-13 he served as mayor, and 
 for twelve years was a member of the library board. 
 Mr. Dunn was also a member of the old charter com- 
 mission, is a director of the Park Opera House 
 Association, a member of the chamber of commerce, 
 and fraternally is affiliated with the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks and the Knights of Colum- 
 bus. 
 
 At Brainerd on June 2, 1904, Mr. Dunn married 
 Sadie Reilly. They have one son, Joseph Henry, 
 born March 27, 1905. 
 
 Andrew Jacob Halsted. A former president of 
 the Minnesota State Editorial Association, Andrew J. 
 Halsted has for thirty-one years been editor and 
 proprietor of the Brainerd Tribune, and is one of 
 the best known newspaper publishers in the state. 
 During his residence at Brainerd no citizen has been 
 more active in local affairs, and he has used both 
 his personal influence and the columns of his news- 
 paper to support all movements that would bring 
 substantial benefit to the city and state. 
 
 Andrew Jacob Halsted was born at Bridgeport, 
 across the Ohio River from Wheeling, in the State of 
 Ohio, August 23, 1830. His parents were Uriah 
 Wilson and Mary Jane (Grubb) Halsted. His 
 father was a teacher by profession and at the begin- 
 ing of the Civil war became captain of a company 
 in the Union army, later joined the cavalry, and 
 while serving as sergeant-major of the First West 
 Virginia Cavalry was killed in action September 22, 
 1863. 
 
 Andrew J. Halsted was thirteen years old when 
 his father died, and after a brief education in the 
 public schools of Ohio entered the practical school 
 
1362 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 of learning in a printing office. He learned his trade 
 in Montrose, Pennsylvania, and then became actively 
 identified with the mechanical and news departments 
 of different Wheeling (West Virginia) papers. He 
 was for eleven years city editor with the old Intel- 
 ligencer at Wheeling, a morning paper, and one of 
 the oldest papers in the state. Later he established 
 the Saturday Evening Journal in Wheeling, and fol- 
 lowing that was business manager of the Evening 
 Journal, which he also founded. During his resi- 
 dence in Wheeling Mr. Halsted was twice elected a 
 member of the upper branch of the city council, 
 and resigned that office when he left Wheeling in 
 April, 1884, to come to Brainerd. At Brainerd, Mr. 
 Halsted bought the Tribune and has presided over 
 its destinies as a publication over thirty years. 
 
 Mr. Halsted has always been identified with the 
 republican party, and during his residence in West 
 Virginia was urged to become a candidate for the 
 Legislature. At four different times he has served 
 as mayor of Brainerd, and in 1890 was a candidate 
 for the Legislature and was defeated by thirteen 
 votes. He was chairman of the Crow Wing County 
 Republican Central Committee and a member of the 
 State Central Committee. In 1911 he was elected 
 president of the Brainerd Commercial Club, 
 and in all local matters has been foremost. 
 Pie has served on three charter commissions 
 in Brainerd, and is president of the present 
 commission. For a number of years he was 
 one of the three on examining board for teachers. 
 Fraternally he is affiliated with the Masonic order, 
 has taken nearly all the degrees, and is a member 
 of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is also a 
 member of the Elks, Eagles, Red Men, A. O. U. W., 
 and Maccabees. He was the first exalted ruler of 
 Lodge No. 615, Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks at Brainerd. In the organization of Sons of 
 Veterans he served on the staff of the commanding 
 general of the United States with the rank of colonel. 
 
 In 1875 Mr. Halsted married Annie May Zane, 
 of Wheeling, and a member of the prominent Zane 
 family that figured as pioneers at Wheeling and 
 afterwards founded the City of Zanesville, Ohio. 
 Mrs. Halsted died in May, 1876, leaving one daugh- 
 ter, Flora, now wife of James R. Smith, a prominent 
 real estate man of Brainerd. In 1885 Mr. Halsted 
 married Louise Smith of Martin’s Ferry, Ohio. 
 She died in 1902. Her only son, Leslie Howard, 
 who was born in March, 1892, graduated from the 
 Bliss Electrical School at Washington, D. C., and at 
 the outset of a career a promise died June 3, 1914. 
 
 James Monroe Elder. During a residence at 
 Brainerd covering nearly thirty years, Mr. Elder has 
 had the activities of a real estate man, but in that 
 field he is in a class by himself, and has done a work 
 of bfoad and lasting value in the rural development 
 of Northern Minnesota. While he has sold many 
 thousands of acres, his primary aim and interests 
 have been in the colonization of these lands with 
 substantial and thrifty farming people, and he has 
 himself led the way in farm development with a 
 model estate which is at once one of the attractive 
 features of Brainerd vicinity, and has also served 
 to demonstrate the possibilities of Minnesota in the 
 production of high grade live stock and the food 
 stuffs needed to raise them. In all his varied ac- 
 complishments, if Mr. Elder might be privileged to 
 express a significance for what he has done he would 
 undoubtedly desire that his life work might stand 
 
 for something actually achieved in developing coun- 
 try life in Minnesota to a greater efficiency and 
 prosperity. 
 
 A Kentuckian by birth, James Monroe Elder was 
 born in Daviess County September 25, 1859, and was 
 the son of substantial farming people and his own 
 early training and work was along the usual lines 
 of Kentucky agriculture. Flis parents were John B. 
 and Mary J. (Hutchings) Elder. Mr. Elder had an 
 education in the public schools, and continued as a 
 Kentucky farmer until November, 1884, at which 
 date he located in Brainerd. Since then he has been 
 continuously engaged in the real estate business. 
 For fifteen years he gave all his time and energy 
 to the handling of farm lands, and has never made 
 a particular feature of city property. He organized 
 the Minnesota Park Region Land Company, pur- 
 chased 40,000 acres from the Northern Pacific Rail- 
 way Company, and has been secretary and manager 
 of that corporation from the beginning. Since 1904 
 he lias been interested in the Cuyuna Iron Range, 
 and has been quite active in its development, having 
 sold a large amount of property in that section. He 
 represented the Northern Pacific Railway in the 
 first land sales by that company on the range, and in 
 a short time disposed of 1,200 acres. Altogether his 
 sales on the range aggregate a hundred thousand 
 acres. 
 
 In recent years Mr. Elder has followed out his 
 hobby in attempting to introduce the production of 
 clover, silos and Holstein cattle for the development 
 of Northern Minnesota farms. In that connection 
 he now owns and operates a splendid farm of 700 
 acres adjoining Brainerd, and has it well stocked 
 with thoroughbred Holstein cattle, Shropshire sheep 
 and Duroc Jersey hogs. 
 
 Mr. Elder served as secretary and treasurer of 
 the Crow Wing County Fair Association from 1890 
 to 1902. He is an active democrat, and has been 
 a delegate to all the state conventions in Minnesota 
 for the past twenty-two years. He was one of the 
 organizers of the Brainerd Commercial Club, and 
 still continues with the reorganization under the 
 name Chamber of Commerce. On May 10, 1893, Mr. 
 Elder married Flora V. Merrell of Oneida County, 
 New York. They have a son, Edward Monroe, born 
 March 31, 1894, and now a student at Prairie du 
 Chien, Wisconsin. 
 
 Mr. Elder re-established what was known as the 
 St. Colombo Mission, on Gull Lake. In 1902 he 
 bought 200 acres on Gull Lake, and has reset this 
 land with Northern Minnesota native timber and 
 white pine, and it now constitutes a fine property 
 and goes under the name of St. Colombo. 
 
 Donald M. Cameron. An active lawyer at Little 
 Falls since 1901, Donald M. Cameron has served 
 several terms as county attorney of Morrison 
 County, and stands in the front rank of the local 
 bar. 
 
 Donald M. Cameron was born in Mason City, 
 Iowa, August 6, 1875, a son of Francis B. and Jane 
 Elizabeth (Cameron) Cameron. His parents were 
 Iowa farmers, and subsequently moved to Minnesota, 
 where Donald M. was educated in the country 
 schools and in the high school at Minneapolis. _ He 
 attended the law course in the University of Minne- 
 sota and after his graduation as LL. B. in 1898 took 
 post-graduate studies during 1899. The first two 
 years after leaving university Mr. Cameron spent in 
 the states of North Dakota and Washington, but in 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1363 
 
 1901 took up regular practice as a lawyer at Little 
 Falls, and has since employed his time in looking 
 after a general practice, which is growing in im- 
 portance and volume with each year. In 1906 he 
 was elected to the office of county attorney, and has 
 been three times re-elected to that office, and has 
 made a splendid record of administration. During 
 his first year at Little Falls Mr. Cameron served as 
 justice of the peace, and has also held the office of 
 United States commissioner. At the present time 
 he is city attorney of Little Falls. 
 
 In politics he is active in the democratic ranks, 
 and is a member of the Morrison County Central 
 Committee. He is also a member of the State Bar 
 Association and the American Bar Association. His 
 fraternal associations are with the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of the Mac- 
 cabees, the United Order of Foresters, the Order of 
 Yeomen, the Fraternal Order of Eagles. On Decem- 
 ber 11, 1906, Mr. Cameron married Maude M. 
 Duncan of Little Falls. Their three children are 
 Elizabeth Jane, Frances Allister and Robert Bu- 
 chanan. 
 
 Michael E. Ryan. Now one of the leading law- 
 yers of Brainerd and for a number of years a mem- 
 ber of the Democratic State Central Committee, 
 Michael E. Ryan from an early age had to hew his 
 own destiny. As a means of self support he became 
 a telegraph operator, and while attending to his 
 duties at the key, devoted many hours to the study 
 of law and finally was fully equipped for the pro- 
 fession which had long been his ambition. 
 
 Born in Bloomington, Illinois, May 12, 1873, 
 Michael E. Ryan is a son of John and Mary 
 (Dwyer) Ryan. Both his parents were natives of 
 Ireland, and came to America in 1863, living for a 
 time at Newburgh, New York, and afterwards estab- 
 lishing their home in Bloomington, Illinois. Michael 
 Ryan attended the public schools, but is mainly self- 
 educated. He left school at the age of fourteen,’ 
 learned telegraphy, and at the age of fifteen had the 
 responsibilities of a regular operator and kept 
 steadily at work- along that line until 1903, when 
 he was thirty years of age. In the meantime night 
 study of law had given him the necessary qualifica- 
 tions for admission to the bar, and in September, 
 1903, he located at Brainerd and took up the prac- 
 tice which has been steadily growing in volume and 
 profit to the present time. 
 
 Until his resignation in September, 1913, Mr. 
 Ryan served for several years as city attorney at 
 Brainerd. He is a director of the Citizens State 
 Bank, and for eight years has been a member of 
 the Democratic State Central Committee. 
 
 Several years before beginning practice as a 
 lawyer, on September 1, 1897, Mr. Ryan married and 
 established a home of his own. Mrs. Ryan before 
 her marriage was Helen Martha Chase. They were 
 married at Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. Their five 
 children are as follows : Clement A. and Charlton 
 
 J., both of whom are students in St. John’s Univer- 
 sity; Donald I., Evelyn, and Joseph. 
 
 Fendall G. Winston. For more than forty 
 years Mr. Winston has had his home in Minneapolis, 
 and few citizens have contributed in a generous and 
 practical measure to the civic and material progress 
 and upbuilding of the city. His business interests in 
 the city and state, of scope and importance, makes 
 it proper to refer to him as one of the representative 
 men of Minnesota. His success has been pronounced 
 
 and has been achieved by those policies that beget 
 popular confidence and esteem. Mr. Winston has 
 been an influential figure in connection with the de- 
 velopment of the great railway systems of the North- 
 west, and as a railroad contractor has long held a 
 high position and reputation. He has manifold 
 business interests in Minneapolis. He served as vice 
 president of the Security National Bank, which was 
 one of the greatest and strongest financial institu- 
 tions of the Northwest, before its merger in 1915 
 with the First National Bank. As a public-spirited 
 citizen and a man of affairs he is entitled to specific 
 recognition in this history of Minnesota. 
 
 Fendall G. Winston was born at Courtland, Han- 
 over County, Virginia, on the 1st of May, 1849, and 
 is a son of William O. and Sarah Ann (Gregory) 
 Winston, who were representatives of old and 
 honored families of that historic commonwealth, 
 where the father was a successful planter and in- 
 fluential citizen of Hanover County! Fendall G. 
 Winston was reared on the old home plantation, 
 under the pleasant conditions of the old southern 
 regime, and his early educational advantages were 
 those afforded in the local schools. In February, 
 1872, as a young man of twenty-two years, Mr. 
 Winston came to Minnesota, and soon afterward 
 joined one of the engineering corps engaged in sur- 
 veying and other preliminary work on the construc- 
 tion of the Northern Pacific Railroad. In this con- 
 nection he gained varied and practical experience of 
 valuable order, and a few years later became asso- 
 ciated with his brothers, Philip B. and William O., in 
 railroad contracting in an independent way. The 
 late Hon. Philip B. Winston was one of the dis- 
 tinguished and influential citizens of Minneapolis for 
 many years and served as mayor of the city. To him 
 a memorial tribute is paid on other pages of this 
 work. In that article will be found data concerning 
 the family history and the operations of the firm 
 of Winston Brothers, which within the past thirty- 
 six years has constructed many miles of the existing 
 railroad systems of the Northwest and which has 
 also held extensive contracts for railroad construc- 
 tion in the central states and in Virginia, where all 
 of the brothers were born and reared and to which 
 they have accorded appreciative loyalty. 
 
 Fendall G. Winston has had a career marked by 
 ceaseless activity along normal and important lines 
 of enterprise, and his achievement has marked him 
 as one of the progressive men of affairs in his state. 
 Responsibilities have devolved upon him in connec- 
 tion with railway contracting and large business in- 
 terests, but he has proved equal to the emergency 
 and has pressed steadily forward to a worthy suc- 
 cess. Within later years his business interests have 
 become varied and important. In 1893 he became an 
 interested principal in the old-time wholesale grocery 
 house of Harrison, Farrington & Company of Minne- 
 apolis, and he has been president of this representa- 
 tive concern since its reorganization under the title 
 of the Winston, Harper, Fisher Company. He is a 
 stockholder in a number of the leading financial in- 
 stitutions of Minneapolis. He was president of the 
 Winston Brothers Company until the spring of 1914, 
 when he retired, to be succeeded by his brother Wil- 
 liam O., in order that he himself might devote 
 greater attention to his other business interests. 
 
 Mr. Winston is fully in accord with the alert and 
 progressive spirit that has made Minneapolis what it 
 is today, and none has a greater appreciation of 
 and loyalty to the fair metropolis of Minnesota. He 
 
1364 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 has ever been ready to lend his influence and co- 
 operation in support of measures and enterprises 
 projected for the general good of the city and its 
 people, and his genial and companionable nature 
 finds its best solace through his association with his 
 host of old and tried friends in his home city and 
 its vicinity. 
 
 In politics Mr. Winston has stoutly retained the 
 faith in which he was reared and is known as a stal- 
 wart advocate of the principles of the democratic 
 party. He has shown a lively interest in public 
 affairs but has seldom consented to become a candi- 
 date for official preferment. The most noteworthy 
 exception to this rule was that when, in 1904, he 
 heeded the importunities of his party friends and 
 consented to become the democratic candidate for 
 lieutenant governor of Minnesota. His defeat was 
 a matter of normal political circumstances, as Min- 
 nesota has long been recognized as a republican 
 stronghold. In 1905 Mr. Winston was appointed, 
 by Governor Johnson, to the office of state surveyor 
 general of logs and lumber, a position he held during 
 1905-06. In municipal affairs he maintains an inde- 
 pendent attitude and is not dominated by political 
 partisanship. He has been active in the furtherance 
 of all movements for the betterment of municipal 
 conditions, without regard to party affiliations. In 
 his home city he is a valued and appreciative mem- 
 ber of such representative organizations as the Min- 
 neapolis Civic and Commerce Association, and the 
 Minnikahda, Minneapolis and Lafayette clubs. He 
 is a member of the executive committee of the or- 
 ganization first named in the foregoing list and is 
 a loyal supporter of its high civic ideals. 
 
 In the year 1876 Mr. Winston married Miss Alice 
 L. Olmstead, of Minneapolis. Death parted them 
 in 1881. She is survived by one son and two daugh- 
 ters. In 1884 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. 
 Winston to Miss Lillian Jones, who was born and 
 reared in Richmond, Virginia, and who remained a 
 devoted companion and helpmeet of her husband 
 for nearly twenty years, until her death, in 1903. 
 She likewise is survived by one son and two daugh- 
 ters. 
 
 In addition to general business interests Mr. 
 Winston has made large investments in Minneapolis 
 and Duluth real estate. 
 
 Herman Roe. The Northfield News, of which 
 Herman Roe has been managing editor since 1910, 
 is one of the best known country weeklies of Min- 
 nesota and is referred to as “Minnesota’s Model 
 Weekly.” From the same office is published the 
 Northwest Dairyman. The Northfield News has 
 been in existence nearly forty years. In 1884 the 
 late Lion. Joel P. Heatwole came to Northfield and 
 purchased the Dundas News, which had been estab- 
 lished at Dundas in 1876, and which had been re- 
 moved to Northfield by its proprietor, Henry E. 
 Lawrence, about 1879. The paper was consolidated 
 with the Rice County Journal, which since the death 
 of C. A. Wheaton had been published by C. H. 
 Pierce. The consolidated paper took the title of 
 Northfield News under the ownership of Heatwole 
 and Minder, while C. H. Pierce continued for a time 
 as assistant in the publication, until appointed post- 
 master. In 1888 Mr. Heatwole bought the inter- 
 ests of Mr. Minder, and thus became sole proprietor. 
 The News has been progressively identified with 
 Northfield and vicinity for many years. Mr. Heat- 
 wole died April 8, 1910, and on August 1 of the 
 
 same year the News passed into the hands of an 
 incorporated company, with Herman Roe as man- 
 aging editor. Mr. Roe is also secretary-treasurer 
 and business manager of the Dairyman Publishing 
 Company, which publishes the Northwest Dairyman, 
 a continuation of the Minnesota Dairyman, which 
 had been founded by Joel P. Heatwole in 1906 as 
 Heatwole’s Dairy Paper. It is the official publica- 
 tion of the Minnesota Co-operative Dairies Asso- 
 ciation. The Dairyman is published monthly, with 
 a circulation of 14,000 copies. 
 
 When Herman Roe took the position of managing 
 editor of the Northfield News, in July, 1910, he 
 brought to this position a prior experience as prin- 
 cipal of the high school at Anoka for two years, 
 and also some valuable training in newspaper work 
 while a student at St. Olaf’s College. He was 
 born at Porters Mills, Wisconsin, June 9, 1886, son 
 of L. I. Roe, now a merchant and banker at Stanley, 
 Wisconsin, of which city he has been mayor sev- 
 eral times. L. I. Roe was born in Norway in i860, 
 came to America in 1880, and first located in Eau 
 Claire. He married Ellen Ivragness, also a native 
 of Norway. 
 
 Herman Roe grew up in Stanley, attended the 
 public schools there, subsequently came to North- 
 field and entered St. Olaf’s College, and was grad- 
 uated Bachelor of Science from that institution in 
 1908. During his collegiate career he had won the 
 Henry Nelson Talla scholarship. Mr. Roe is a 
 member of the Lutheran Church. He is a repub- 
 lican in politics. On August 8, 1909, he married 
 Miss Anna Kirkeberg, a graduate of the musical 
 course in St. Olaf’s College. Mr. Roe and wife 
 have two children, Eleanor and Kirk Frederick. 
 
 George Phelps Tawney has been a citizen 
 of Winona for more than twenty-five years and 
 is well known both in public affairs and busi- 
 •ness. He is president of the Hotel Winona Com- 
 pany and manager of the hotel, and also has in- 
 terests in land enterprises. 
 
 George Phelps Tawney was born at Lima, Ohio, 
 October 22, 1868, a son of Daniel A. and Adele 
 (Paige) Tawney. His father was a Presbyterian 
 minister. George P. Tawney during his youth at- 
 tended the public schools at Newcastle, Indiana, and 
 took a course in a commercial college at Indian- 
 apolis. As a boy he had an ambition to make some- 
 thing of himself, and by working during vacations 
 learned a trade before he was seventeen years old. 
 When about twenty years of age he came with his 
 parents to Winona, Minnesota, June 27, 1887, and 
 has resided in that city ever since. 
 
 Until recently he was almost continuously iden- 
 tified with some public office. On July 1, 1887, lie 
 became deputy clerk of Municipal Court and city 
 recorder, and on July 1, 1890, entered the Winona 
 postoffice as assistant postmaster. On May 1, 1907, 
 he was promoted to postmaster, and looked after the 
 management of that office until July 31, 1913. Pres- 
 ident Taft reappointed him postmaster, but this and 
 many other similar appointments failed to. receive 
 confirmation because of democratic opposition in 
 the Senate to republican appointments immediately 
 preceding the advent of the Wilson administration. 
 Mr. Tawney was connected with the postoffice up- 
 wards of a quarter of a century, and in that time 
 had an official part in reorganizing the service at 
 different times to correspond with the increased 
 business of the office and population of the city 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1365 
 
 and the various changes introduced into the postal 
 system. 
 
 Mr. Tawney is active in fraternal affairs. In 
 October, 1912, at Washington, he was made an 
 honorary thirty-third degree Mason. He is active 
 in Scottish Rite bodies, and in the Knights of 
 Pythias served two terms as grand chancellor and 
 two terms as supreme representative. Mr. Tawney 
 has interested himself in the various movements for 
 public improvements, especially better roads and 
 streets, and is a member of several organizations for 
 the promotion of such betterment. In January, 1915, 
 there appeared an article in the magazine, Better 
 Roads and Streets, under the title, “The National 
 Road Issue,” in which Mr. Tawney discussed the 
 application of good roads principles to American 
 conditions. The article as it appeared in the publi- 
 cation mentioned was an address which Mr. Tawney 
 had delivered before the first annual convention 
 of the Minnesota Good Roads Federation in the 
 Minnesota division of the National Highways Asso- 
 ciation in November, 1914. 
 
 Carl E. Nystsom. Prominent among the archi- 
 tects of Duluth is found Carl E. Nystrom, who for 
 twenty-two years, with the exception of a short 
 period spent at Calumet, Michigan, has been known 
 as one of the leaders of his profession in this city. 
 He is a native of Southern Sweden (Sodra Sol- 
 berga, J. K. P. S. Lan), born November 2, 1867, and 
 is a son of N. J. and Hannah Nystrom, the for- 
 mer of whom a blacksmith and carpenter by voca- 
 tion, died in his native land at the age of forty-five 
 years when Carl E. was a lad of fifteen years. 
 
 Carl E. Nystrom secured his education in the 
 public schools of his native land, and through his 
 own efforts learned the building trade and the pro- 
 fession of architect. He was twenty-two years of 
 age at the time he emigrated to the United States, 
 locating first at Ashland, Wisconsin, where he re- 
 mained only a few months, then going to Iron- 
 wood, Michigan, where he resided for three years, 
 and in 1892 coming to Duluth, which city he has 
 since made the field of his activity, with the ex- 
 ception of five years at Calumet, Michigan, during 
 the panic. Since returning from Calumet, Michigan, 
 he has for seven years been a member of the firm 
 of Bray & Nystrom. This concern has to its credit 
 many of the leading public, business and private 
 buildings of Duluth and other towns, including the 
 Holland Hotel, St. Louis County courthouse at Vir- 
 ginia, Minnesota, and many public, grade and high 
 school buildings at Eveleth. Gilbert, Biwabik, Kee- 
 watin. Mount Iron. Spina, Virginia, this state, and 
 in various parts of Minnesota. 
 
 The firm of Bray & Nystrom was dissolved Feb- 
 ruary 1, 1915, when Carl E. Nystrom reopened offices 
 in Palladio Building for the practice of his pro- 
 fession, in which he has gained a most enviable 
 reputation. 
 
 Mr. Nystrom is well known in fraternal circles, 
 being a member of the Knights of Pythias, of Ionic 
 Lodge No. 186, A. F. & A. M. ; Keystone Chapter 
 No. 20, R. A. M.. and Duluth Commandery No. 18, 
 K. T., and a thirty-second degree Mason, and a 
 member of the Elks. In political matters he is in- 
 dependent, seeking to support only those men and 
 measures which he believes will benefit his adopted 
 city and its people in the greatest degree. Mr. 
 Nystrom has a creditable military record of one 
 
 year’s service in the Swedish army prior to com- 
 ing to the United States. 
 
 His religious connection is with the Presbyterian 
 Church. In 1898, in Duluth, Mr. Nystrom was 
 united in marriage with Miss Elna S. Oberg, a native 
 of Southern Sweden, and they are the parents of 
 three children : Paul Edward, Mildred Elenor and 
 
 Emma Elizabeth, all of whom are attending school. 
 The family home is located at No. 202 West Oxford 
 Street. 
 
 Eli L. Griggs. Perhaps no other city of North- 
 ern Minnesota has come forward so rapidly and be- 
 come so well established as an industrial and bus- 
 iness center as Virginia. Two names in particular 
 are to be remembered in the city’s development, 
 those of Griggs and Kinney. They represent the 
 personal factors controlling and directing the town- 
 site, the banking and other large interests from the 
 beginning. 
 
 Eli L. Griggs, who became identified with Vir- 
 ginia in 1893, was born September 7, 1852. His 
 father, Lucius Griggs, who was a farmer and of 
 Puritan New England stock, married Miss Kinney. 
 For many years Eli Griggs was connected in vari- 
 ous capacities with the Erie Railroad in Pennsyl- 
 vania, and among other services, in 1890, began the 
 development of coal mines and the drilling of gas 
 wells for the railroad corporation at Brock, Shaw- 
 mut and Elbon, Pennsylvania. With this broad ex- 
 perience he came to Minnesota and in March, 1893, 
 with his brother-in-law, O. D. Kinney, opened the 
 first bank in Virginia, a private institution. The 
 partners conducted the bank until it was sold in 
 1907 to the institution which is now the First Na- 
 tional of Virginia. Through banking and their ex- 
 tensive relations with mining, they both acquired 
 substantial fortunes. It was due to these financiers 
 that the first bank was opened in Eveleth under the 
 name O. D. Kinney & Co., and later the bank at 
 Ely. They also explored many of the properties 
 which have since been developed as the best known 
 and most profitable in the range country. Virginia 
 is likewise indebted to their enterprise for the 
 construction of both the lighting and water plants. 
 
 Mr. Griggs was married in Pennsylvania in 1881 
 to Anna S. Kinney. They had four children : Orrin 
 Harold; Anna C., now Mrs. P. K. Dayton, of 
 Mount Clair, New Jersey; Richard Leslie, of Vir- 
 ginia ; and Mabel K., now Mrs. Richard D. Clenson 
 of Middletown, New York. 
 
 Orrin Harold Griggs is now the active factor in 
 the management of the extensive interests acquired 
 by his father, and one of Virginia’s most public- 
 spirited business men. The Light and Water Com- 
 pany was sold to the city on October 1, 1913. 
 
 He is a member of the Virginia Club, exalted 
 ruler of the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks, president of the Elks’ Home Club, a member 
 of the Kitchi Gammi Club at Duluth and of the 
 Calumet Club in Chicago, and in Masonry has at- 
 tained the thirty-second degree of Scottish Rite and 
 is a member of the Mj^stic Shrine. Mr. Griggs has 
 always been generous of time and means in public 
 affairs, and in 1914 was unopposed candidate for the 
 State Senate from the Sixty-first District. He has 
 two children : Betsy Hart and Dorothy Kinney. 
 
 Orrin D. Kinney. For nearly two decades asso- 
 ciated with all the substantial progress of the City 
 of Virginia,. Orrin D. Kinney was a man whose 
 
1366 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 work in that locality and worth as a citizen in its 
 broader qualities could not easily be overestimated. 
 
 He was born July 4, 1845, and died at his home in 
 Athens, Pennsylvania, October 12, 1911. He was 
 sixteen years old when the Civil war broke out, and 
 entered the famous organization known as the Penn- 
 sylvania Bucktails, and fought with his regiment in 
 all its battles until the close of hostilities. In Penn- 
 sylvania he took up law and practiced, but in 1880 
 came to Minneapolis and thereafter was primarily 
 interested in real estate. He came to Duluth in 
 1889 and not long afterward became identified with 
 the founding and development of Virginia, being 
 owner of the townsite and personally directing much 
 of its development as a town. His association with 
 Mr. E. L. Griggs in the founding of banks at Vir- 
 ginia, Eveleth and Ely has already been noted. He 
 was elected and served one term in the State Leg- 
 islature. 
 
 Carl Zapffe. A practical scientist, geologist and 
 mining engineer. Few men have gone further in 
 their profession in seven years out of university 
 than Carl Zapffe, whose home, professional and 
 business interests are at Brainerd. Mr. Zapffe has 
 the distinction of having been one of the first 
 technical men to engage in practical operations in 
 the Cuyuna Iron Ore District, and he has performed 
 a large amount of investigation and mining engi- 
 neering for corporations and in connection with the 
 United States Geological Survey. 
 
 Carl Zapffe was born in Milwaukee, April 23, 1880. 
 Plis parents, August and Barbara (Weiss) Zapffe, 
 emigrated from Germany to America in 1872. His 
 father was a master tinsmith employed in Milwaukee 
 for many years. 
 
 Carl Zapffe began life neither in affluence nor in 
 poverty, was not sent to university as the son of a 
 prosperous father, but after leaving public school 
 paid his own way until he graduated as an honor 
 student from the University of Wisconsin. After 
 completing the high school course in languages and 
 sciences at Milwaukee, he spent five years as clerk 
 in a jobbing house, then with his earnings entered 
 the University of Wisconsin*, and in 1907 was grad- 
 uated from an engineering course, having bestowed 
 on him the only honor awarded in the university 
 for excellence in science. He returned to the uni- 
 versity for the following year for post-graduate 
 work and was graduated Master of Science in 1908, 
 having specialized in applied geology. In the uni- 
 versity he had combined hard study with occupations 
 that assisted in paying private expenses, and left 
 the university with the highest admiration of his 
 fellow students. 
 
 For a time Mr. Zapffe was engaged in engineer- 
 ing work for the Milwaukee Light, Heat and Trac- 
 tion Company, and for the Oliver Iron Mining Com- 
 pany at Hibbing, Minnesota. For the past six years 
 Mr. Zapffe has been geologist in charge of the Minne- 
 sota iron ore lands for the Northwestern Improve- 
 ment Company, a subsidiary company of the North- 
 ern Pacific Railway Company, as well as doing sim- 
 ilar work at times for the railway company itself. 
 His field services in his profession have been per- 
 formed in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Montana, 
 Washington, Missouri and Ontario, Canada. Mr. 
 Zapffe came to Brainerd, Minnesota, in February, 
 1906. He was one of the first in the Cuyuna Iron Ore 
 District and did the first comprehensive geological 
 and exploratory work in that district. Since then 
 
 nearly all his time has been devoted to the develop- 
 ment of this important mineral district. He is also 
 active in local business affairs in Brainerd, is vice 
 president of the Brainerd State Bank and vice presi- 
 dent of the Brainerd Model Laundry Company. He 
 was active in the former Brainerd Commercial Club, 
 having been its president for four years, and is now 
 chairman of the public affairs committee and a mem- 
 ber of the advisory board of the subsequently organ- 
 ized chamber of commerce. He is now serving as a 
 member of the Brainerd Charter Commission. 
 
 When Mr. Zapffe graduated from the University 
 of Wisconsin he was awarded the Science Club 
 medal for having prepared the best thesis in science 
 for 1907. His professional connections have since 
 brought him recognition and membership in a num- 
 ber of scientific bodies. Fie is a member of the 
 Alpha Chi Sigma, a fraternity of national scope, em- 
 bracing only advanced students of the chemical 
 science. He is a member of the American Institute 
 of Mining Engineers, the Lake Superior Institute of 
 Mining Engineers, is a fellow in the American Asso- 
 ciation for the Advancement of Science, a member 
 of the National Geographic Society, the University 
 Club at Madison and the Wisconsin University 
 Alumni Association. He has contributed numerous 
 articles descriptive of his investigations in geological 
 fields, and in a recent publication by the LTnited 
 States Geological Survey appeared as joint author 
 on the Geology of the Cuyuna Iron Ore District. 
 
 Mr. Zapffe is affiliated with the Masonic order, 
 including the thirty-second degree of the Scottish 
 Rite and the Mystic Shrine, and with the Knights of 
 Pythias. Politically he is independent. On Decem- 
 ber 1, 1909, Mr. Zapffe married Ethel Clarice Mo- 
 berg of Brainerd. Their son, Carl Andrew, was 
 born July 25, 1912, and their daughter Barbara on 
 March 23, 1915. 
 
 Frank O. Sherwin, M. D. Thirty-three years of 
 continuous professional service in one community 
 is a valuable asset to any locality, and it is a record 
 of which the individual may be properly, proud. 
 Dr. Frank O. Sherwin has practiced medicine at 
 Duluth since 1881 and his high character and gen- 
 eral usefulness are beyond question. He has also 
 frequently held offices which have demanded ability 
 and fidelity. 
 
 Frank O. Sherwin was born at Unionville, White- 
 side County, Illinois, November 25, 18531 a son of 
 E. O. and Mary (Stevens) Sherwin. The Sherwin 
 family originated in England and was planted in 
 America during Colonial times. Its founder on this 
 side of the Atlantic was the doctor’s great-great- 
 grandfather, who arrived possibly in Winthrop’s 
 fleet between the years 1630 and 1635. He had five 
 sons, and among them the great-grandfather of Doc- 
 tor Sherwin, the Rev. Joseph Sherwin, who gradu- 
 ated from Yale College in 1759, became a minister of 
 the Congregational Church and had charges at Ash : 
 burn, Massachusetts; Sunderland, New Hamp- 
 shire, and Bennington, Vermont, at which last-named 
 place his death occurred. E. O. Sherwin, father of 
 Doctor Sherwin, who was born at Bennington, Ver- 
 mont, in 1819, and as a young man moved to Illi- 
 nois, where in the vicinity of Morrison he was for 
 many years engaged as a farmer. He finally retired 
 and moved to Centralia, Illinois, where he died in 
 1904. He was a stalwart republican and took some 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
BTSTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1367 
 
 active part in public affairs. His wife also died in 
 Centralia. 
 
 After leaving the common schools of Morrison, 
 Doctor Sherwin entered the high school at Fulton, 
 Illinois, graduated there, and having made up his 
 mind as to his future career he subsequently entered 
 the Rush Medical College in Chicago, where he 
 was graduated M. D. in 1878. His first practice was 
 at Lawlor, Iowa, where he remained three years. 
 In 1881 he came to Duluth, and has followed his 
 calling in that city ever since. Doctor Sherwin has 
 offices in the New Jersey Building. His is an excel- 
 lent general practice, demanding his time to the ex- 
 clusion of other matters which formerly interested 
 him. He is a former member of the Minnesota 
 State Medical Society and of the St. Louis County 
 Medical Society. He has served capably as health 
 commissioner of Duluth, and for a quarter of a 
 century was assistant marine hospital surgeon, also 
 at one time pension examiner. For some years he 
 was insurance examiner of the Northwest Insurance 
 Company of Milwaukee, of the National Insurance 
 Company of Vermont, and of the Municipal Benefit 
 Insurance Company of New Jersey. In these rela- 
 tions, as in all others, he displayed devotion to duty 
 and a realization of the high responsibilities resting 
 upon him. 
 
 Doctor Sherwin is a republican, and is a member 
 of the Knights of Pythias, the Ancient Order of 
 United Workmen and the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows. At Lawlor, Iowa, in 1880, he married 
 Miss Carrie A. Harvey, daughter of C. W. and Ruby 
 Harvey of Lawlor, where C. W. Harvey was for 
 a number of years in the livery business. The one 
 child born to their union is Maude A., who was 
 educated in private schools and is now a ceramic 
 artist, living at the family home, 2114 Woodland 
 Avenue, Duluth. 
 
 Earl Mathewson Chesebrough. One of the pro- 
 gressive and enterprising newspapers of Western 
 Minnesota is the Grant County Review, which, under 
 the able management of its publisher and editor, 
 Earl Mathewson Chesebrough, of Herman, has 
 steadily developed into an influential independent 
 publication. Mr. Chesebrough came to Herman in 
 the fall of 1911, and since that time has identified 
 himself personally with the varied interests of the 
 town, materially aiding in its advancement by co- 
 operation with other public-spirited men and 
 through the columns of his paper. 
 
 Mr. Chesebrough belongs to a family which orig- 
 inated in England, and the American pioneer of 
 which emigrated during Colonial times and located 
 in Connecticut. Earl M. Chesebrough is a native of 
 that state, born at Plainfield, July 4, 1870, a son of 
 William H. Chesebrough. . His father, born in Con- 
 necticut in 1831, removed his family to Danville, 
 Vermilion County, Illinois, in 1872, and to Minne- 
 apolis, Minnesota, in 1880, and in the latter city 
 continued to make his home during the remainder 
 of his life, his death occurring there in 1913. He 
 was a locomotive engineer all of his life, and served 
 with various companies in the country, his long and 
 honorable record as a railroader being singularly 
 free from accidents. During the Civil war he en- 
 listed in Company F, Twenty-first Regiment, Con- 
 necticut Volunteer Infantry, and remained with that 
 organization for three years and five months, among 
 other battles being those of Antietam, Fredericks- 
 burg. Appomattox and the struggles in the Shen- 
 Yol. HI— 7 
 
 andoah Valley. Mr. Chesebrough married Miss 
 Harriet Farnham, who was born in Putnam, Con- 
 necticut, and who still survives him and resides at 
 Minneapolis. They became the parents of three 
 children, as follows: William T., who is following 
 in the footsteps of his father as a locomotive engi- 
 neer, and resides at Minneapolis ; Earl M. ; and 
 Grace, who is the widow of Rev. A. Lidstone, a min- 
 ister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, now de- 
 ceased, and resides with her mother at Minneapolis. 
 
 Earl Mathew Chesebrough received a public school 
 education, attending the schools of Minneapolis only 
 until he was fourteen years of age. He did not, 
 however, cease his studies at that time, for there- 
 after he attended night classes and did much read- 
 ing, thus securing a good education. He was a 
 lad of only fourteen years when he began his career 
 as a worker, becoming at that time an apprentice 
 in the printing establishment of L. Kimball & Co., 
 of Minneapolis, a house with which he remained six 
 years, thoroughly familiarizing himself with every 
 branch of the business. He next obtained a posi- 
 tion with Walter S. Booth, a printer of law blanks, 
 with whom he remained until 1908, and then began 
 his experience as a newspaper man when he at- 
 tached himself to the Farmington, Dakota County, 
 Tribune, a publication with which he remained until 
 1911. In that fall Mr. Chesebrough came to Her- 
 man, Minnesota, and purchased the Grant County 
 Review, of which he has since been publisher and 
 editor. This he conducts as an independent publica- 
 tion, circulating in Grant, Stevens and Traverse 
 counties, and with a number of subscribers in out- 
 side states. The Review is bright, newsy and re- 
 liable, a well edited and well printed newspaper, 
 whose editor is doing all in his power to further 
 the interests of this locality. In politics Mr. Chese- 
 brough maintains an independent stand. He is a 
 member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in which 
 he is serving as superintendent of the Sunday school. 
 Fraternally he is connected with Lodge No. 230, 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows; Prescott Lodge 
 No. 162, A. F. & A. M., and Lodge No. 3311, Mod- 
 ern Woodmen of America, of which he is venerable 
 consul. He is a director in the Branch .Building 
 and Loan Association of Herman. 
 
 Mr. Chesebrough was married in 1911, at Will- 
 mar, Minnesota, to Miss Birdie Somerville, daugh- 
 ter of William Somerville, who is engaged in a gen- 
 eral merchandise business at Willmar. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Chesebrough have no children. 
 
 I 
 
 George F. Authier. To begin work in a prac- 
 tical sense at the age of ten years is to get an early 
 start in life. Many men who do this necessarily 
 have to neglect education and many of the advan- 
 tages of training which fit them for the larger re- 
 sponsibilities and service. For this reason, because 
 he has supported himself since childhood and has 
 acquired a liberal education and filled a number of 
 difficult and important posts, the career of George 
 F. Authier is one of exceptional achievement. Mr. 
 Authier is thirty-six years of age, and for some time 
 has been well known as a newspaper man and in 
 political affairs in Minnesota. 
 
 Born at Leicester Junction, in Vermont, Novem- 
 ber 4, 1878, he is a son of Edward and Mary 
 Authier, both of French ancestry. The father died 
 at the age of ninety-two years. George F. Authier 
 had some preliminary instruction before reaching 
 the age of ten years, and has since been hard at 
 
1368 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 work earning a living and getting an education at 
 the same time. His higher training was received in 
 Iowa College, at Grinnell, though he did not com- 
 plete the course. For a time he was in the railway 
 mail service as clerk, but most of his career has 
 been taken up with active newspaper experience. 
 In Iowa he was a reporter on the Fort Dodge Mes- 
 senger, the Sioux City Journal and the Des Moines 
 Register and Leader. For a time he was city editor 
 of the Independent at Helena, Montana, and on 
 coming to Minneapolis took the post of city editor 
 for the Tribune, but later was made political editor 
 of the same journal. 
 
 Mr. Authier was selected as personal manager of 
 the campaign of former Governor Eberhart, and 
 during his term of office, 1913-14, served as his pri- 
 vate secretary. He is one of the active republicans 
 and served as a member of the State Efficiency and 
 Economy Commission. Three years ago Mr. Authier 
 was commissioned by the Review of Reviews to visit 
 the Panama Canal, and his articles on that great 
 constructive enterprise published many new and 
 interesting facts. While in Iowa Mr. Authier was 
 a member of the National Guard and has an honor- 
 able discharge from that organization. He is affil- 
 iated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks, the Masons and the Knights of Pythias, and 
 at Minneapolis belongs to the Athletic Club, the 
 Minneapolis University Club and the Minneapolis 
 Elks’ Club. 
 
 At present he is the Washington correspondent of 
 the Minneapolis Tribune. 
 
 Julius Thorson. Cashier of the Security State 
 Bank at Benson, Julius Thorson has spent most of 
 his life in Swift County, and has been well known 
 as a newspaper man, county official, and banker. 
 
 He was born in Rolling Forks Township, Pope 
 County, Minnesota, October 28, 1868, a son of Ole 
 and Mary (Olson) Thorson. His grandfather was 
 Thor Thorson, a native of Norway, and a Norwegian 
 farmer up to 1858, when he came to the United 
 States and located in Wisconsin. He subsequently 
 came with his son to Minnesota, and died in ad- 
 vanced years. Ole Thorson, who was born in Nor- 
 way in 1831, and married there in 1857 Mary Olson, 
 who was born in 1829, set out for the United States 
 the year following his marriage, and located on a 
 farm in the vicinity of La Crosse, Wisconsin. He 
 was a farmer there until 1866, and then took up a 
 homestead in Rolling Forks Township. Pope County, 
 Minnesota, making that his home until his removal 
 to Benson in 1872. He then took a contract to 
 drive a stage and carry mail between Benson and 
 Alexandria, filled that contract five or six years, and 
 several years later resumed it. Ole Thorson is still 
 living and while eighty-four years of age, he still 
 takes an interest in the affairs of Benson, a town 
 he has seen grow from a little hamlet to a city 
 of several thousand people. He is a member of 
 the Norwegian Lutheran Church. His wife died 
 in 1913, the mother of six children: Tory, who 
 
 is in the mercantile business at Wheaton, Minne- 
 sota ; Mary, widow of the late Thomas Knutson, 
 who for a number of years was county treasurer 
 of Swift County; Ole, a farmer at Swift Cur- 
 rent in Western Canada; Tillie, wife of J. B. 
 Bruns of Wheaton, who was formerly a mer- 
 chant but is now register of - deeds of Traverse 
 County; Julius; and Ed, traveling salesman for a 
 large concern, with headquarters in Minneapolis. 
 
 Julius Thorson was educated in the Benson public 
 schools, and finished a business course at Willmar 
 Seminary. His first work was as a cattle herder, 
 which he folllowed several years, and at the age of 
 nineteen, in partnership with another young man, 
 Mr. Matthews, he bought the Swift County Monitor, 
 a paper that had been established since 1881. The 
 partners published this journal and conducted a job 
 printing business, and soon had the enterprise on a 
 paying basis. In the meantime, in 1895, Mr. Thor- 
 son was appointed postmaster at Benson, held that 
 office until 1900, and in 1902 was elected register of 
 deeds of Swift County, and served for four years. 
 
 The Security State Bank had been founded by Mr. 
 Matthews in 1903. At the conclusion of his term as 
 register of deeds Mr. Thorson became identified 
 with the institution, and has been its cashier since 
 the death of Mr. Matthews in 1914. The Security 
 State Bank has a capital of $25,000, a surplus of 
 like amount, and with average deposits of $325,000. 
 Mr. Thorson gives most of his attention to the man- 
 agement of the bank but is also interested in farm- 
 ing and deals in real estate. 
 
 In June, 1907, Mr. Thorson married Miss Jennie 
 Maxwell of Appleton, Minnesota. They have one 
 child, Maxwell, born April 13, 1908. Fraternally his 
 affiliations are with the Masons and the Sons of 
 Norway, and in the Knights of Pythias he has 
 passed the various chairs. Politically a democrat, 
 in 1913 he was elected to represent his district in 
 the State Legislature. For a number of years he 
 has been active in democratic politics, and in 1912 
 was a delegate to the Baltimore convention which 
 nominated Woodrow Wilson for the presidency. 
 
 Hon. Peter H. Holm. The ability which is de- 
 veloped in an active business career has frequently 
 proved in practice as valuable to the incumbent of 
 judicial position as that which comes from the ex- 
 clusive study of law. The accomplished merchant 
 is more likely to take a plain, common-sense view of 
 the cases brought into his court, and to be unem- 
 barrassed by the superfine distinctions and definitions 
 of the law, than the man who has been trained in 
 the school of authorities and precedents. However 
 this rule may apply generally, it is proved individu- 
 ally in the case of Hon. Peter H. Holm, probate 
 judge of Marshall County, Minnesota, since 1896, 
 who, although his previous experience had all been 
 acquired in the field of business, at one time received 
 the endorsement of the attorney-general of Minne- 
 sota as "one of the best probate judges in the 
 state.” 
 
 Judge Holm was born in Jemtland, Sweden, 
 August 27, 1862, and is a son of Hans and Karin 
 (Persdotter) Hanson, natives of that country. 
 Farming people in their native land, in 1883 they 
 emigrated to the United States, and July 21st settled 
 in Marshall County, where their subsequent careers 
 were passed in agricultural pursuits. Peter H. Holm 
 was reared on his father’s farm in Sweden, and 
 after receiving a good education in the public 
 schools, began to learn the watchmaker’s and 
 jeweler’s trade, which he mastered in all its details. 
 He had not quite attained his majority when he ac- 
 companied his parents to this country, and here he 
 soon found employment at his trade at Warren, and 
 continued to be thus engaged for two years. He 
 then established himself in a business of his own 
 at Stephens, Minnesota, and continued to conduct 
 an establishment until 1888, when he was elected 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1369 
 
 county treasurer for a term of four years. At the 
 expiration of his term of office, during which he had 
 served the people most faithfully and efficiently, he 
 in 1893 built a store building and again engaged in 
 the jewelry business. On November 8, 1896, Judge 
 Holm was elected probate judge of Marshall County, 
 and since that date has continued in his seat upon 
 the bench. In his judicial office Judge Holm has 
 been a most conscientious public servant, weighing 
 carefully both sides of the questions placed before 
 him, and forming his decisions through the guidance 
 of high purpose and sincerity. He has the respect 
 and confidence of both the bench and bar, and 
 there is probably no more popular jurist in this 
 part of the state. Judge Holm has been interested 
 m various business ventures during his career and 
 was one of the organizers of the Valley Spring- 
 Water Company, of which he served as president for 
 several years. An active member of the Warren 
 Commercial Club, he has been foremost in promoting 
 and supporting enterprises and movements which 
 have made for better conditions in civic and busi- 
 ness life. 
 
 On December 24, 1888, Judge Holm was married 
 to Miss Maria Ritzen, a native of Junsele, Sweden, 
 who had been a school teacher in her native land 
 prior to coming to the United States. To this union 
 there have been born two sons : Carl H., born Octo- 
 ber 24, 1891, who in October, 1914, married Alice 
 Edmonson, of Montana, and is now assistant cashier 
 of the First National Bank at Rowan, Montana; and 
 Ragner H., born January 10, 1901. 
 
 Hon. Thomas Robert Foley. Many of the most 
 important business activities at Aitkin have been cen- 
 tered in Thomas R. Foley, who has lived in that 
 section of Northern Minnesota for more than thirty 
 years, who has been in various lines of business, has 
 given active service in local affairs and as a member 
 of the Legislature and who has done a great deal to 
 develop and originate the enterprise which has pro- 
 duced the greatest wealth in this section of the 
 state. 
 
 Thomas Robert Foley was born in Winterport, 
 Maine, April 9, 1855, a son of Mathew and Barbara 
 (McDonough) Foley. After an education in the 
 public schools he did work in the granite quarries 
 and in other lines in the East, and in 1878, at the 
 age of twenty-three, arrived in Minneapolis and for 
 a time clerked in a hotel. With considerable expe- 
 rience as a hotel man, Mr. Foley came to Aitkin 
 in 1882 and for the following twelve years was 
 best known as a hotel man. He was also in the 
 lumber business, and finally sold his hotel and en- 
 gaged in general merchandising until 1913. 
 
 Perhaps his most important activities have been 
 in the development of the mineral resources, and 
 he owns a large amount of land and mining inter- 
 ests at the present time. He opened the first town 
 on the Cuyuna Range. The Town of Cuyuna now 
 has a population of 1,500, and another town, Hass- 
 man, owed its origin largely to his enterprise. Mr. 
 Folev has done much improvement at Aitkin, includ- 
 ing Foley's Forest View and other subdivisions 
 about the town. Mr. Foley is president of the T. 
 R. Foley Company, real estate, is president of the 
 Aitkin-Cuyuna Mining Company and a director of 
 the First National Bank. Fraternally he is identified 
 with Brainerd Lodge No. 615 of the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks, and in the early days was 
 one of the organizers of the Independent Order of 
 
 Odd Fellows in Aitkin. When Mr. Foley was elected 
 a member of the Legislature in 1890 he represented 
 six counties, Aitkin, Itasca, Carleton, Hubbard, 
 Wadena and Cass. It was Mr. Foley who took the 
 leading part in the organization of a county gov- 
 ernment in Itasca County. He has served as pres- 
 ident of the village council at Aitkin two terms, and 
 as an active democrat was a delegate to the dem- 
 ocratic national convention in Chicago in 1896, when 
 William J. Bryan was first nominated. 
 
 Mr. Foley married Amanda C. Peterson, of Min- 
 nesota. Their six children are : Barbara, wife of 
 
 B. R. Hassman, cashier of the First National Bank 
 of Aitkin; Thomas R., Jr., engaged in the insurance 
 business and married Mildred Cluff of Aitkin ; Hazel 
 
 C. , wife of R. M. Hughes, a Duluth attorney; Esther, 
 wife of Clarence B. McQuaigh, in the newspaper 
 business' at Aitkin; Ruth, wife of Dr. Walter Court- 
 ney, a dentist and surgeon at East Grand Forks, 
 Minnesota; and Eleanor, living at home. Mr. Foley 
 lost one son, Edward Mathew, at the age of seven- 
 teen. He was attending school at Notre Dame 
 when taken ill and was brought home. He died 
 January 11, 1907. 
 
 Harry Lorenzo Wood. In the capacity of cashier 
 of the First National Bank of Warren, Harry L. 
 Wood occupies an important place in the business 
 life of the community where practically his entire 
 life has been passed. He has acted in his present 
 capacity since 1904, and has also identified himself 
 with various commercial interests, in all of which 
 he has displayed marked ability and business acumen. 
 Also, he is known as an active and energetic citizen, 
 a friend of progress, and an enthusiastic promoter of 
 the welfare of his city. 
 
 Mr. Wood was born at Durand, Pepin County, 
 Wisconsin, January 24, 1868, and is a son of Lorenzo 
 G. and Harriet A. (Taylor) Wood. His father, in 
 early life a farmer and surveyor in Wisconsin, came 
 to Warren, Minnesota, in 1881, and February 24th of 
 that year took charge as manager of a large farm. 
 Subsequently he arose to a high position in Marshall 
 County, representing his district in the Senate of the 
 state for two terms, or four years, at the end of 
 which time he returned to Warren and spent the rest 
 of his life in looking after his large interests. His 
 death occurred at Warren, September 1, 1895. 
 
 Harry L. Wood commenced his education in the 
 public schools of Durand, Wisconsin, and was thir- 
 teen years of age when he came with his parents to 
 Warren, here finishing his primary schooling. He 
 was prepared for a commercial career in a business 
 college at Minneapolis, and in 1890 began his busi- 
 ness life as agent for an elevator company, a position 
 in which he remained two years. In 1892 he became 
 bookkeeper for the firm of W. F. Powell & Com- 
 pany, where his ability, energy and faithfulness 
 earned his promotion to the capacity of salesman, 
 and he continued with that concern for a period of 
 twelve years, or until 1904, in September of which 
 year he became cashier of the First National Bank 
 of Warren. The training he had enjoyed and the 
 ability he possessed enabled him to attend to the 
 duties of the new position with the same marked 
 capacity he had already shown, and he has continued 
 to be connected with this, one of the strongest mone- 
 tary institutions of this part of the state, to the 
 present time. Aside from his duties in the bank, Mr. 
 Wood has large realty interests to look after, is the 
 owner of much farming property, and deals ex- 
 
1370 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 tensively in land. He is widely and favorably known 
 in business circles, and enjoys an excellent reputa- 
 tion for integrity and straightforward, reliable deal- 
 ing- 
 
 The First National Bank of Warren was founded 
 in July, 1901, with a capital of $25,000, and the fol- 
 lowing officers: W. F. Powell, president; C. A. 
 Tullar, vice president, and F. W. Flanders, cashier. 
 In 1915 it was reorganized with a capital of $50,000, 
 a surplus of $10,000* undivided profits of $3,000, and 
 deposits of $330,000, its present officials being W. F. 
 Powell,. president; C. F. Tullar, vice president; and 
 H. L. Wood, cashier. The bank owns its own build- 
 ing, 45 by 55 feet, two stories, of pressed brick, one 
 of the handsome structures of Warren. The men 
 interested in it are citizens of known worth and 
 substantiality, and from the start the institution has 
 enjoyed in a marked degree the confidence and 
 patronage of the people of Marshall County. 
 
 On December 6, 1S90, Mr. Wood was married to 
 Miss Laura Adelia Flanders, of Crookston, Minne- 
 sota, and to this union there has been born one 
 daughter: Miss Mildred Lucy, who is attending the 
 Warren High School. Mr. Wood has taken some 
 active part in civic affairs of Warren, and has served 
 for some time as city treasurer. Fraternally, he is 
 connected with the Masons, belonging to the blue 
 lodge, chapter and commandery, and also holds mem- 
 bership in the local lodge of the Knights of Pythias. 
 Lie and Mrs. Wood are members of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, and for the past twenty years 
 Mr. Wood has served in .the capacities of trustee 
 and treasurer. 
 
 Julius Johann Olson, of Warren, adds another 
 member to the legal profession of Minnesota in 
 which so many of Norwegian birth have attained dis- 
 tinction and fortune. A resident of this city since 
 1900 he has attracted to himself a large and repre- 
 sentative professional business, and at the same time 
 has identified himself with the activities which have 
 marked the growth and development of this flour- 
 ishing community. 
 
 Mr. Olson was born in Norway, February 22, 1875, 
 and is a son of Carl and Marie Olson, natives of 
 that country, who emigrated to the United States 
 in 1883 and located in the vicinity of Lake Park, 
 Becker County, Minnesota, where they settled down 
 to agricultural pursuits. Julius Johann Olson was 
 eight years of age when he accompanied his parents 
 to this country, and here acquired his primary educa- 
 tion in the public schools. While still residing on 
 his father's farm he engaged in teaching school for 
 three years, and then entered the high school at 
 Detroit, Minnesota, from which he was graduated 
 in 1807. Having decided upon a career in the law, 
 he entered the legal department of the University 
 of Minnesota, and was duly graduated therefrom 
 in 1900 with his degree. He began practice at 
 Crookston, Minnesota, in July, 1900, but in Septem- 
 ber of the same year came to Warren, where he has 
 since made his home and followed his profession. 
 He is attorney for the Great Northern and Soo 
 railways, and at the same time represents, in a legal 
 way, many prominent business firms and corpora- 
 tions, and has, in addition, a large and rapidly in- 
 creasing general practice. He has been a close and 
 careful student, and holds membership in the 
 Marshall County Bar Association, the Minnesota 
 State Bar Association and the American Bar Asso- 
 ciation. As a business man he has been interested 
 
 in various projects and enterprises, and at this time 
 is vice president of the Marshall Land Company. 
 His public services include three years of member- 
 ship on the school board of Warren, and he has 
 always been ready to aid other public-spirited citi- 
 zens in . movements which make for better conditions 
 in civic and public affairs. Fraternally, he is con- 
 nected with the local lodges of the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks and the Knights of 
 Pythias. 
 
 On July 15, 1909, Mr. Olson was united in mar- 
 riage with Miss Caroline Louise Sletten, of Audu- 
 bon, Minnesota, • and they are the parents of two 
 sons, Carl Sletten and Julius Johann, Jr., and a 
 daughter, Kathrine Marie. 
 
 George Samuel Wattam, M. D. The medical 
 fraternity of Marshall County contains no more dis- 
 tinguished member than George Samuel Wattam, 
 M. D., whose career of thirty years in maintaining 
 the health of the community of Warren has been 
 drawn within the fold of a large and emphatic need, 
 giving him an increasing outlet for a .wealth of 
 professional and general usefulness. An earnest and 
 painstaking exponent of the best tenets of medical 
 and surgical science, and an indefatigable seeker 
 after those things which produce health, Doctor 
 Wattam has been frequently called upon to accept 
 positions of responsibility in looking after the public 
 welfare, while he has been repeatedly honored by the 
 members of his profession. 
 
 Doctor Wattam was born July 10, 1856, in Prince 
 Edward County, Province of Ontario, Canada, and 
 is a son of William and Mary (Grooms) Wattam. 
 His early education came from the public schools of 
 his native place *and Belleville (Canada) College, 
 following which he entered the famous Toronto 
 Medical College, where he was graduated in May, 
 1884, with his degree. In the succeeding August, 
 Doctor Wattam came to the United States and settled 
 at Warren, Minnesota, where he has since continued 
 in a general practice and built up an extensive and 
 lucrative professional business. He has been de- 
 servedly successful, and has a well equipped office, 
 with appliances for the most delicate and exacting 
 demands of the profession. Personally, he is a man 
 of rare tact, discretion and helpfulness. In 1901 
 he was made secretary of the commission appointed 
 for the location and establishment of the State San- 
 itarium for Consumptives. He is a member and ex- 
 president of the Red River Valley Medical Asso- 
 ciation, a member of the Minnesota State Medical 
 Society, of which he was formerly vice president, 
 and a member of the American Medical Association. 
 Fraternally he is connected with the Masons, and is 
 a charter member of the Crookston lodge of the 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. His pub- 
 lic services to Warren have included membership 
 on the school board, and he is a director in the 
 Minnesota Public Health Association. 
 
 Doctor Wattam was married in December, 1887, 
 to Miss Emma L. White, of Polk County, Minne- 
 sota, who died May 1, 1902, having been the mother 
 of four sons : Charles C., a court reporter of Bis- 
 
 marck, North Dakota; William E., manager of loans 
 and collections for a large concern at Grand Forks,, 
 North Dakota; Harry E., manager of the branch 
 house of a publishing concern at Minneapolis, Min- 
 nesota ; and Kenneth, who is a student in the Warren 
 High School. 
 

 
HISTORY' OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1371 
 
 Charles Wittensten. For fully forty years 
 Charles Wittensten has been a progressive factor in 
 the agricultural development and commercial affairs 
 of Northern Minnesota. His ability as a practical 
 farmer is indicated by his long management of one 
 of the largest single country estates in Northern 
 Minnesota, and during his residence of many years 
 at Warren he has become known as a merchant, 
 banker and effective worker in behalf of local im- 
 provements and the prudent and trustworthy man- 
 agement of public affairs. 
 
 Charles Wittensten is a native of Sweden, in 
 which country he was born March 26, 1858, a son 
 of Carl and Martha (Nelson) Olson, who were 
 thrifty farming people of Sweden. In his native 
 country Charles Wittensten secured his early edu- 
 cation, was taught lessons of industry and honesty, 
 and thus equipped he crossed the ocean and arrived 
 at Red Wing, Minnesota, in 1875. His work for 
 many years was as a farmer, and in 1882 he came 
 to Warren in Marshall County, and for eighteen 
 years was manager of a splendid estate of 4,160 acres 
 in that vicinity. Since 1900 his home has been in 
 the little city of Warren, though for three years he 
 managed another farm, and since 1903 has been in 
 the implement business with August Lundgren, being 
 president of the Lundgren-Wittensten Company, one 
 of the chief concerns of its kind in Marshall County. 
 He is also a director of the People’s Trading Com- 
 pany. His interest as a banker is indicated by his 
 office as president of the Swedish-American Bank 
 at Warren. 
 
 He has always used his influence for good govern- 
 ment in each locality of his residence, and was 
 formerly chairman of the town board of Farley in 
 Polk County. He is a former chairman of the board 
 of county commissioners of Marshall County, an 
 office he held eight years, and in 1913 was elected 
 mayor of Warren. He is a trustee of the Presby- 
 terian Church, is affiliated with the Knights of 
 Pythias, is a past noble grand of the Independent 
 Order of Odd Fellows, and has a large acquaintance 
 whether as a business man or as an individual. 
 
 September 27, 1884, Mr. Wittensten married An- 
 tonetta Mack, who was born in Iowa. They have 
 four sons. Frank C., the oldest, is assistant cashier 
 of the Swedish-American Bank at Warren. Charles 
 is a railroad man in North Dakota. The two 
 younger sons, both at home, are Clinton A. and 
 Arthur R. 
 
 A. A. Johnson. The Swedish-American State 
 Bank of Warren, of which A. A. Johnson is cashier, 
 was organized in June. 1905, with a capital stock 
 of $15,000. Tts first officers were: C. Wittensten, 
 
 president ; E. Dagoberg, vice president, and L. M. 
 Olson, cashier. Some of the items from a most 
 recent statement of this bank show capital stock of 
 $15,000, surplus of $5,000. undivided profits of $3,500, 
 and deposits approximating $225,000 — features which 
 indicate the stability and conservative management 
 of the institution and its well established confidence 
 in the community which it serves-. The officers at 
 the present time are: C. Wittensten, president: John 
 Dagoberg, vice president, and A. A. Johnson, cashier. 
 
 August Albin Johnson has had a rapid rise to 
 an executive position in banking circles in Northern 
 Minnesota and a few more years will doubtless see 
 him one of the leading bankers of that section of 
 the state. He was born in Sweden April 22. 1880, 
 a son of John and Gustava Larson. The family 
 
 came to America in 1892, and located near Warren 
 in Marshall county on a farm. Here the son grew 
 up from the age of twelve, attended local schools 
 at Warren, and high school at Crookston, and his 
 first important business experience was as book- 
 keeper with the People's Trading Company at War- 
 ren for two years. In 1905, with the organization 
 of the Swedish-American State Bank, he became 
 assistant cashier, and in July, 1913, his service 
 prompted the directors to promote him to the posi- 
 tion of cashier. Mr. Johnson has also served as city 
 treasurer of Warren two years, for several years 
 was secretary of the school board, is secretary of 
 the Commercial Club and is trustee and treasurer of 
 the Swedish Lutheran Church. His fraternal affilia- 
 tions are with the Knights of Pythias, the Inde- 
 pendent Order of Odd Fellows, the Order of Yeo- 
 men, and the Modern Brotherhood of America. 
 
 On February 2, 1910, Mr. Johnson married Anna 
 Gustafson of Roseau County, Minnesota. Their 
 one daughter is Lucile Maxine. 
 
 Ben R. Hassman. The First National Bank of 
 Aitkin is the outgrowth of the original Bank of 
 Aitkin, a private institution, which was organized 
 August 3, 1900, and owned by A. R. Davidson and 
 A. D. McRae.' Nearly three years later the bank 
 was reorganized, taking out a national charter, and 
 has since been known as the First National Bank. 
 The reorganization was effected May 29, 1903. Few 
 banking houses in Northern Minnesota show a bet- 
 ter statement of business and strength than this 
 institution. It has a capital stock of $25,000, with 
 surplus of $27,500, and with undivided profits of 
 nearly $3,000. It is the only bank in Aitkin County 
 which has taken membership in Federal Reserve 
 Bank at Minneapolis. Its total resources in Octo- 
 ber, 1914, were $477,424.32. An interesting feature 
 of this statement is that showing deposits of more 
 than $400,000. In 1913 a handsome new building was 
 erected for the bank headquarters, 50x75 feet, with 
 the second floor occupied by offices and lodge rooms. 
 
 On the organization of the First National Bank 
 in 1903 A. R. Davidson was elected president, A. D. 
 McRae vice president, and the first cashier was Ben 
 R. Hassman. The present officers are : William 
 
 Davidson, president; Freeman E. Krech and John 
 A. Healy, vice presidents; Ben R. Hassman, cashier; 
 O. A. Olson, assistant cashier, and besides those 
 named other directors are G. M. Robinson, T. R. 
 Foley, Peter Larson. 
 
 Beniamin Richards Hassman, who has been iden- 
 tified with the First National Bank throughout its 
 present history, was born in McLeod County, Min 
 nesota, September 29, 1878. His parents, Fritz and 
 Caroline (Malchow) Hassman, were early Minne- 
 sota farmers. Mr. Hassman was educated in the 
 public schools and in the University of Minnesota, 
 and in 1900 began his banking career as a clerk 
 in the Bank of Hutchinson. In 1901 he took the 
 position of bookkeeper with the old Bank of Aitkin, 
 was made cashier in 1902, and actively assisted in 
 the organization of the bank under its present char- 
 ter. Mr. Hassman is also a director in the First 
 State Bank of Tamarack. 
 
 His fraternal affiliations are with the Masonic 
 order and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. 
 On September to. 1902, Mr. Hassman married Bar- 
 bara Folev of Aitkin. Their four children are; 
 Charlotte Barbara. Thomas Richard, Caroline Cecilia 
 and Amanda Corrine. 
 
3372 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Carl A. Nelson. One of the prominent younger 
 bankers of Northern Minnesota is Carl A. Nelson, 
 cashier of the State Bank of Warren and officially 
 identified with the management of several other re- 
 lated banks in that vicinity. Since coming to this 
 country twenty-four years ago Mr. Nelson has 
 made the best possible use of his advantages and 
 opportunities, and is now one of the stable factors 
 in business in his adopted state. 
 
 The State Bank of Warren, of which he is cashier, 
 was organized March 16, 1892, with a capital stock 
 of $25,000, and its first president was H. L. Mel- 
 gaard, whose name is so prominent in banking af- 
 fairs in Northwestern Minnesota. The first vice 
 president was K. T. Taralseth and the first cashier 
 John E. Ostrom. With its capital stock remaining 
 as it was, the statement of the bank in 1915 shows 
 a surplus of $15,000, with undivided profits of $6,000 
 and deposits aggregating $400,000. The president is 
 now O. H. Taralseth, the vice president H. L. Mel- 
 gaard and the cashier C. A. Nelson. 
 
 Carl August Nelson was born in Christiania, Nor- 
 way, July 13, 1871, a son of Eric and Marie Nelson. 
 His father was a merchant and shoe manufacturer 
 in the old country. With an education acquired in 
 the old country, and with some practice in mercan- 
 tile affairs and methods, Carl A. Nelson came to 
 America in June, 1891, and spent the following seven 
 years as bookkeeper in a general merchandise store 
 at Hillsboro, North Dakota. In 1897 he came to 
 Warren to accept the position of bookkeeper in the 
 State Bank, and from the duties of that position 
 was advanced to cashier, and at the same time his 
 fidelity and recognized proficiency in business have 
 brought him connections with other institutions. 
 The State Bank of Warren owns the only set of 
 abstract books in Marshall County, and Mr. Nelson 
 is the abstractor. He is director of the State Bank 
 of Viking, of the Farmers State Bank of Alvarado, 
 and of the Citizens State Bank of Oslo, all of these 
 being banks in Marshall County. He has served 
 bis home village of Warren as city treasurer and 
 at the present time is treasurer of the school board 
 and treasurer of the Commercial Club. He is past 
 master of his Masonic lodge, past chancellor of the 
 lodge of Knights of Pythias and banker in the Mod- 
 ern Woodmen of America. 
 
 On August 12, 1909, Mr. Nelson married Harriet 
 A. Lang of South Dakota. Their two children are 
 named Marie Helen and Carl Mayo. 
 
 August Lundgren. When that portion of North- 
 ern Minnesota included in Marshall County was 
 still regarded as the extreme frontier of settlement, 
 only recently opened up by railroad communication, 
 August Lundgren identified himself with the little 
 community of Warren. Everyone who knows any- 
 thing of Warren in subsequent years knows that 
 August Lundgren has been one of the foremost 
 men in its business and civic life. Nearly every im- 
 portant enterprise in the past thirty years has borne 
 the impress of his personality and active efforts, 
 and in no case has the confidence of his fellow 
 citizens in his integrity ever been misplaced. 
 
 August Lundgren was born in Sweden, March 31, 
 1855. His parents were Swante and Christine 
 (Johanson) Johanson. His father was a tailor and 
 farmer. August Lundgren acquired his schooling 
 in his native country, and was well trained for hard 
 work and honest effort when he came to America 
 in March, 1880. After a residence of some months 
 
 in Minneapolis, in September, 1881, he came to the 
 little settlement at Warren as a grain buyer, and 
 was in that business until 1883. At that date he 
 established the first brick yard north of Crooks- 
 ton, known as the Warren Brick Company, a local 
 factory which has been of no small moment in the 
 community, and which is still operated under his 
 ownership. In the meantime his enterprise has ex- 
 tended to many other affairs. He is president of 
 the People’s Trading Company, is president of the 
 Warren Building and Loan Association and has held 
 that office since the organization of the association, 
 is a director in the Swedish-American Bank and 
 is secretary and treasurer of the Lundgren-Witten- 
 sten Company, dealers in hardware and implements 
 at Warren. 
 
 With these evidences of his success as a busi- 
 ness man there may be mentioned some of the 
 honors of public office which at different times have 
 been bestowed upon him. In 1886 he was elected 
 county treasurer of Marshall County and held that 
 position one term. For eighteen years he was a 
 member of the city council, and was for four years 
 mayor of Warren, the office having been given him 
 gladly and without any opposition. He has also 
 been a member of the school board and is pres- 
 ident of the board of trustees of the North Star 
 College and was one of the organizers of that be- 
 neficent institution. He is treasurer of the Red River 
 Valley Conference of the Swedish Lutheran Church 
 and a trustee of the church of that denomination 
 at Warren. 
 
 On April 2, 1888, Mr. Lundgren married Mary 
 Lindquist, who was born in Minnesota. Mrs. Lund- 
 gren presided over their home in Warren twenty 
 years, and in that time endeared herself not only 
 to her immediate family, but to all who knew her. 
 Her death occurred September 4, 1909. She was 
 the mother of nine children, named as follows : 
 Ella Marianna, Edward Augustus, Ebba Katharine, 
 Mabel Cecilia, Robert Soloman, Esther Wilbelmina, 
 Florence Olivia, Clinton Emanuel and Alice 
 Eleanora. 
 
 Charles E. Lundquist. The secretary and treas- 
 urer of the People’s Trading Company at Warren, 
 Charles E, Lundquist, is one of the alert and enter- 
 prising business men who have been most effective 
 in developing the commercial and civic affairs of 
 Northern Minnesota during the last thirty years. He 
 is also a man whose position has been secured as 
 a result of his independent and self-reliant efforts, 
 and for that reason his career has considerable in- 
 spiration and encouragement for young men who 
 start out similarly situated and circumstanced. 
 
 Charles E. Lundquist is a native of Sweden, was 
 born in that country March 11, 1867, a son of John 
 and Anna Sophia (Anderson) Peterson. His par- 
 ents were farming people, and the family came to 
 America in 1881, locating in Joliet, Illinois. Charles 
 E. Lundquist had received some education in the 
 public schools of Sweden and also attended school 
 in Illinois. For four years he was in the employ of 
 a market gardener and worked hard early and late 
 for the meager wages paid his services. His home 
 has been in Argyle, Minnesota, or that vicinity since 
 1866. The first year was spent as clerk in a gen- 
 eral store, and in 1888 he came to Warren and for 
 three years was assistant postmaster of that town. 
 In 1894 Mr. Lundquist engaged in the general mer- 
 chandise business at Hawley, Minnesota, remaining 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1373 
 
 there until 1901, and was then made manager of 
 the People’s Trading Company at Warren, in which 
 capacity he has been related to the business com- 
 munity ever since. 
 
 During his residence at Hawley he was a member 
 of the village council two years, has served four 
 years on the council at Warren, and for five years 
 was a member of the local school board. He is 
 president of the Warren Commercial Club and is 
 also president of the Warren Water and Light Com- 
 mission. His chief fraternal association is with the 
 Modern Woodmen of America. 
 
 On May 6, 1894, Mr. Lundquist married May 
 Estelle Barnhart, a native of Minnesota. Their 
 three children are named E. Lucile, Byron F. and 
 Bertrice I. 
 
 William James Rasmussen. One of the younger 
 members of the Polk County bar, William James 
 Rasmussen has already demonstrated his ability as 
 a lawyer, has a good practice and is giving a capable 
 administration in the office of municipal judge at 
 East Grand Forks, and on the basis of what he has 
 done and in the judgment of his friends and asso- 
 ciates has a career of large usefulness and prom- 
 inence before him. 
 
 William James Rasmussen was born in Duck 
 Creek Township, of Taylor County, Wisconsin, June 
 22, 1885, a son of Jacob and Caroline (Olsen) Ras- 
 mussen. His parents came from Norway in about 
 1875, locating in Wisconsin, where his father was 
 a merchant and farmer. 
 
 The son was educated in the public schools at 
 Phillips, Wisconsin, and with some assistance from 
 home and with such means as his own efforts could 
 secure made his way through a university course, 
 taking collegiate work in the University of Wis- 
 consin, and graduating from the law department 
 of the University of Minnesota in June, 1909. After 
 his admission to the bar he located at East Grand 
 Forks, and has since been busy in building up and 
 looking after a general practice. In November, 1911, 
 he was elected municipal judge, and has held that 
 office to the entire satisfaction of the community 
 ever since. 
 
 Mr. Rasmussen is active in Masonic circles, hav- 
 ing taken the Knight Templar degrees, and also be- 
 longs to the Knights of Pythias. He is a member 
 of the Polk County Bar Association and is a director 
 of the East Grand Forks Commercial Club. 
 
 Donald Robertson. In the various enterprises 
 that have marked the development of Marshall 
 County and the City of Argyle, covering a period 
 of thirty years, there has been no man who has put 
 himself more effectively into cooperation with his 
 fellow citizens and has exerted himself more un- 
 selfishly than Donald Robertson, whose name is as- 
 sociated with practically every local movement of 
 importance in the past quarter of a century, and who 
 is also known over the state at large for his busi- 
 ness and civic relations. 
 
 Donald Robertson was born in Hillsburg, Ontario, 
 Canada, July 3, 1859, a son of Colin and Anna 
 (Young) Robertson. His father was a Canadian 
 merchant, and the family are of Scotch origin. 
 Donald Robertson was educated in Canada, but has 
 lived in Marshall County, Minnesota, since 1883. 
 In early life he worked as a common laborer and 
 has been the architect of his own fortunes. When 
 Marshall County was largely a pioneer country he 
 
 bought a claim right, and in his efforts to gain a 
 foothold taught school for three winters, a four 
 months’ term each winter, near Argyle. In the 
 meantime he bought property in Argyle, and put up 
 a building on the site of his present drug store, 
 which was subsequently replaced by a solid brick 
 block, now one of the distinctive landmarks in the 
 business district. Mr. Robertson has been in the 
 drug business since 1887 at Argyle, and from this 
 interest his efforts have extended out into many 
 other enterprises. 
 
 He was elected and served four years as county 
 superintendent of schools in Marshall County, also 
 served as justice of the peace nine years, was pres- 
 ident of the Argyle School Board six years and its 
 secretary four years. Education has been a matter 
 of great concern to Mr. Robertson, and at one time 
 he was chairman of the State Educational Commit- 
 tee of the House of Representatives. He was a 
 member of the Argyle Board of Health during the 
 epidemic of diphtheria and did some effective work 
 in combating that disease. He has been a member 
 of the Argyle Fire Department since its organ- 
 ization. Another direction of his efforts has been 
 in securing a proper representation of Marshall 
 County products in the various state and county 
 fairs. He is president of the Marshall County 
 Farmers’ Association and is vice president of the 
 Northwestern Minnesota Development Association, 
 whose field of work is particularly in the Red River 
 Valley. He assisted in organizing the first suc- 
 cessful co-operative creamery in this part of the 
 state, and also organized the first independent farm- 
 ers’ elevator in Marshall County. 
 
 In association with his brother, W. S. Robertson, 
 he is the owner of the Argyle Telephone Exchange, 
 a local telephone company which now has 350 phones 
 installed, with 100 miles of wire distributed about 
 the town and county. In establishing this tele- 
 phone company he displayed a progressiveness which 
 has been characteristic in all his public efforts since 
 he was willing to invest his time and means to 
 develop an enterprise which could not possibly show 
 a profit for some years to come, and yet was a con- 
 venience greatly needed by the growing country. 
 Mr. Robertson is third vice president of the Phar- 
 maceutical Association of Minnesota. He is one of 
 the commissioners for his district of the State Tuber- 
 culosis Sanitarium. Mr. Robertson served through 
 three sessions and one extra session of the Legis- 
 lature as a representative from the Sixty-seventh 
 District. He is a former chairman of the Com- 
 merce and Trade Commission. Religiously he has 
 contributed without discrimination to all denomina- 
 tions, and is also known in the two fraternal 
 orders of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows 
 and the Independent Order of Foresters, being a 
 past noble grand in the lodge of the former and 
 a grand warden of the grand lodge of the state, and 
 a past chief ranger in the Order of Foresters. His 
 own church is the Presbyterian. On September 24, 
 1902, Mr. Robertson married Miss Blanche M. Ed- 
 son of Litchfield, Minnesota. They have one daugh- 
 ter, Donalda May. 
 
 Nels Nelson Bergheim. A lawyer of high stand- 
 ing and successful practice at Little Falls, where he 
 has lived since 1901, Nels Nelson Bergheim has 
 combined his ability in the law with the qualifications 
 of the influential man of affairs, has been prom- 
 inent in a number of civic and social organizations 
 
1374 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 at Little Falls and has done much political work 
 in the interests of good government. A special 
 characteristic of Mr. Bergheim has been his stead- 
 fast ambition, which, combined with industry, has 
 carried him from a boyhood of limited advantages 
 and means through the period of preparation for 
 the bar and into a position of leadership in his 
 section of the state. 
 
 Nels Nelson Bergheim was born in Norway, at 
 Nordfjord, Bergenstift, October 15, 1869. At the 
 age of sixteen he came to the United States, lived 
 for several years in South Dakota, and while there 
 attended the State Normal School at Madison for 
 one year. While in that school he engaged a private 
 teacher in shorthand, and learned that art so well 
 that by means of it he worked his way through col- 
 lege. Following his course, in the normal school, 
 Mr. Bergheim spent four years in the University 
 of South Dakota at Vermillion, and in the fall of 
 1895 entered the University of Minnesota and was 
 graduated from the College of Literature and Arts 
 and the normal department in 1897. Then followed a 
 year as a teacher, after which he entered the Col- 
 lege of Law of the University of Minnesota and 
 graduated LL. B. in 1901. 
 
 Admitted to practice in June, 1901, Mr. Bergheim 
 located at Little Falls, and for nearly fourteen 
 years has been in active practice. For twelve years 
 he has been connected with the Little Falls Com- 
 mercial Club, and was its president one year. He 
 is president of the Civic League, and for eight 
 years has been president of the board of public 
 works. Mr. Bergheim organized the Morrison 
 County Co-operative Agricultural Society, of which 
 he has served as secretary and general manager four 
 years, is secretary of the Retail Merchants’ Associa- 
 tion of Little Falls, and is also secretary of the local 
 Chautauqua Society. He has membership in the 
 Morrison County Bar Association, and is a member 
 and treasurer of the Norwegian Lutheran Church. 
 Fraternal matters have always interested him, and 
 for five years he served as clerk of the local camp 
 of the Modern Woodmen of America, for two years 
 was secretary and for eight years has been treas- 
 urer of the local lodge of the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows, and is also affiliated with the Benev- 
 olent and Protective Order of Elks. 
 
 Since 1902 Mr. Bergheim has been an active 
 worker in politics. That year he was a candidate 
 for county attorney for Morrison County, and in 
 1906 was candidate for the Legislature from Mor- 
 rison and Crow Wing districts, and during the 
 same year stumped the northern part of the state 
 for the re-election of Governor Johnson. For eight 
 years he has been a member of the democratic cen- 
 tral committee from Morrison County. In 1914 Mr. 
 Bergheim was democratic candidate for the office of 
 secretary of state. 
 
 In 1901 he married Miss Kathinka Hanson of 
 Adams, Minnesota. They are the parents of one 
 child, Margaret Lucile. 
 
 Herbert Irving Yetter. As a banker in Marshall 
 County Mr. Yetter's career covers more than a 
 quarter of a century, and in that time he has made 
 himself and his bank an institution of helpful serv- 
 ice to the community, and combines those two qual- 
 ities so desirable to any banker, prudence with pro- 
 gressiveness. At Stephen, in 1888, he established a 
 private bank and twenty years later, in February, 
 1908, reorganized it as the First National Bank 
 
 of Stephen, with a capital stock of $25,000 and sur- 
 plus of $5,000. Mr. Yetter has been president since 
 its organization, and the vice president is James J. 
 Sinclair and the cashier R. A. Whitney. A bank 
 statement in 1915 shows capital stock of $25,000, 
 surplus $5,000, undivided profits $2,500 and deposits 
 of about $180,000. The bank owns its own building, 
 a one-story pressed brick structure, eligibly located 
 in the center of the village and occupying ground 
 dimensions of 25 by 40 feet. 
 
 Herbert Irving Yetter was born in Plainview, 
 Minnesota, November 21, 1861, a date which indi- 
 cates the pioneer residence of his family, and his 
 own life lacks only three years of covering the 
 entire period of Minnesota statehood. His parents 
 were John and Abby (Sylvester) Yetter, his father 
 having been a pioneer farmer of this state. Mr. 
 Yetter was educated in the public schools of Roch- 
 ester, Minnesota, and early in life took up banking 
 as his regular vocation. He worked as bookkeeper 
 in different banks until his removal to Stephen in 
 1888 and the establishment of the bank which he 
 has conducted either as a private institution or as 
 a national bank for more than twenty-five years. 
 
 Mr. Yetter for the past fifteen years has been 
 treasurer of the independent school district at Ste- 
 phen. He is also a member of the Commercial 
 Club. On September 5, 1903, occurred his mar- 
 riage with Miss Jane Renny of Stephen. Their 
 three children are Dorothy, John Forrest and Kath- 
 erine Renny. 
 
 John Edward Hunter. One of the independent 
 business men of Stephen, John Edward Hunter was 
 born in the same year that Minnesota became a 
 state, and like the commonwealth of which he is 
 a native son, his career has been one of constant 
 expansion and growth. Early in life he made him- 
 self useful and efficient while in the employ of 
 others, and now for a number of years has been 
 one of the factors in business affairs in Marshall 
 County. 
 
 John Edward Hunter was born in Steele County, 
 Minnesota, May 22, 1858, a son of David and Mary 
 (Naylor) Hunter. His father was a blacksmith 
 and wagon manufacturer, and was one of the pio- 
 neers in Steele County. John E. Hunter grew 
 up on a farm, at the same time gaining an edu- 
 cation in public schools, and early became acquainted 
 with the principles and practice of hard work as 
 a means for his personal advancement. He finally 
 removed to Marshall County and was a farmer 
 near Warren five years. He was then employed as 
 a grain buyer for elevator companies until 1901, and 
 was then made manager of the implement business 
 at Argyle, and continued to be associated with the 
 business there until 1909. In that year he re- 
 moved to Stephen and organized the Stephen Imple- 
 ment Company, of which he was manager until 
 1915. In the year of this writing he organized the 
 J. E. Hunter Company, implements and farm ma- 
 chinery, and now has a flourishing business. 
 
 Mr. J. E. Hunter served as a member of the 
 council and on the school board at both Warren 
 and Argyle during his residence in those villages. 
 He was mayor of Stephen during 1912-13-14, and a 
 member of the school board three years. If there 
 is one principle more than another for which Mr. 
 Hunter has consistently worked and fought it is 
 that of prohibition of the liquor traffic, and he is 
 one of the most ardent anti-saloon men in Northern 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1375 
 
 Minnesota. Since 1883 he has been affiliated with 
 the Masonic fraternity. 
 
 In 1893 Mr. Hunter married Mildred B. Walker 
 of Buffalo, Minnesota. His one son, Henry Ed- 
 ward, born May 12, 1895, has now finished his edu- 
 cation and is associated with his father in the imple- 
 ment business at Stephen. 
 
 Bernard Bullard Brett. A lawyer of more than 
 twenty years active and successful experience in 
 Marshall County, Bernard Bullard Brett’s activities 
 have constituted him one of the forceful leaders in 
 public affairs at the Village of Stephen, where he 
 not only commands a successful practice as a lawyer 
 but is also publisher of the principal newspaper, 
 and has been identified with many movements for 
 local betterment. 
 
 Bernard Bullard Brett was born in Albany, New 
 York, August 29, 1869, a son of Bernard B. and 
 Martha Jane (McClelland) Brett. His father was 
 connected with manufacturing interests in New 
 York State. Mr. Brett received his education in 
 the public schools at Albany, and after leaving 
 high school came to the Northwest and located near 
 Ashby, Minnesota. For two years he was a teacher 
 in that locality, and in the meantime took up the 
 study of law in private offices and also attended the 
 law school of the University of Minnesota. Mr. 
 Brett was admitted to the bar in 1893 and for the 
 following five years did a general practice in the 
 City of Minneapolis. In 1898 he came to Stephen 
 and has since looked after increasing interests as a 
 lawyer and business man. In 1907 Mr. Brett pur- 
 chased the Marshall County Leader, of which he is 
 the owner and editor. This paper, which has a cir- 
 culation list of about one thousand, was established 
 in 1882, and is one of the effective advocates of the 
 republican party and of good government in general 
 in Marshall County. 
 
 For two terms Mr. Brett was president of the 
 village, was president of the school board twelve 
 years, and is a former president of the Commercial 
 Club. He was elected mayor of Stephen in March, 
 1915, and this position he now holds. Outside of the 
 law his interest has been particularly beneficial in 
 connection with educational matters, and he did most 
 of the preliminary work in connection with the estab- 
 lishment of an independent school district at Stephen. 
 
 Fraternally Mr. Brett is identified with the Masonic 
 fraternity, is a past noble grand of the Independent 
 Order of Odd Fellows, past chancellor of the 
 Knights of Pythias and past venerable consul of the 
 Modern Woodmen of America. On September 29, 
 1897, he married Edith Hannah Colvert of Fergus 
 Falls, Minnesota. Their two children are Edith 
 Colvert and Munro Yuill. 
 
 Herbert Langworthy. The distinctive loyalty of 
 Mr. Langworthy to his native state has been signi- 
 fied not only in words but also in deeds, and few men 
 have shown more circumspection and zeal in ex- 
 ploiting the manifold advantages and opulent re- 
 sources of Minnesota than has this representative 
 real estate dealer. In his operations in the handling 
 of real estate in Minnesota Mr. Langworthy has 
 done much to foster the civic and industrial progress 
 and prosperity of the state, especially in the buy- 
 ing and selling cf farm lands, and though his in- 
 vestigations and activities have been carried into 
 other states of the Northwest his accurate and com- 
 prehensive knowledge of the true values have made 
 
 him the insistent exponent of the superior induce- 
 ments offered in Minnesota. He maintained the 
 headquarters of his real estate business at Dodge 
 Center, Dodge County, until 1912, in the spring of 
 which year he established his offices in Minneapolis, 
 where he has since continued his progressive enter- 
 prise in this line and where he has greatly amplified 
 the scope of his operations. Upon his records are 
 represented at all times the most desirable invest- 
 ments and application to his offices, 316 Andrus 
 Building, will bring to the investigator or investor 
 excellent and authentic literature descriptive of Min- 
 nesota and the great inducements here offered, the 
 nature of the sketch here presented being such that 
 there is no demand for specific details concerning 
 the extensive and representative business that has 
 been developed through the ability and effective 
 policies of this representative real estate man of 
 Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Langworthy was born on a farm in Ashland 
 Township, Dodge County, Minnesota, on the 17th 
 of August, 1877, and is a son of Joseph C. and 
 Sarah Jane (Scott) Langworthy, the former of 
 whom was born in Pennsylvania and the latter in 
 the State of New York, their marriage having been 
 solemnized in Rock County, Wisconsin. The parents 
 of Joseph C. Langworthy were numbered among the 
 pioneer settlers of that Wisconsin county and Mrs. 
 Langworthy had accompanied one of her brothers 
 on his removal to that state, having been young at 
 the time when she was doubly orphaned. Joseph C. 
 Langworthy continued his residence in the Badger 
 State until about 1864, when he came to Minnesota 
 and numbered himself as one of the sterling pioneers 
 of Dodge County, where he obtained a homestead 
 of eighty acres and from the same developed one 
 of the valuable farms of that section of the state, 
 besides being an upright and loyal citizen who com- 
 manded the high regard of all who knew him. He 
 remained on his farm until his death, which oc- 
 curred in 1894, and his widow survived him by nearly 
 a decade, she having been summoned to the life 
 eternal in 1903. They became the parents of four 
 son's, all of whom are living: Webster is a pros- 
 
 perous farmer of Dodge County, as is also William 
 C., and in the same old home county resides also the 
 third son, Elmer, Herbert, of this review, being the 
 youngest of the number, and all having been born 
 on the home farm in Dodge County. 
 
 The mature judgment that Herbert Langworthy 
 manifests in regard to land values, soil integrity, and 
 general agricultural activities has its basis in the 
 experience which he early gained in connection with 
 the work of his father’s farm, where he gained also 
 enduring appreciation of the dignity and value of 
 honest toil and endeavor and of the independence of 
 the life of the sturdy husbandman. He profited duly 
 by the advantages afforded in the district schools, 
 and he continued to assist in the work of the home 
 farm or to be empliyed on other farms in his native 
 county until somewhat more than one year after 
 his marriage. In the autumn of 1901 he rented an 
 appreciably large farm in Dodge County, and to 
 the operation of the same he devoted his attention 
 in an independent way for the ensuing two years. 
 He then became the owner of a general merchandise 
 store in a little rural village of his native county, 
 and this hamlet, known as Vlasaty, continued to be 
 his place of residence for a period of three years. 
 He then disposed of his store and business and 
 removed to Dodge Center, where he engaged in the 
 
1376 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 handling of Minnesota farm land and in a modest 
 way gave inception to the now extensive and sub- 
 stantial real estate business now controlled by him. 
 In this field of enterprise he had previously gained 
 valuable experience in selling farms for the Elwood 
 Land Company, while he was still engaged in the 
 mercantile business, and he continued a representa- 
 tive of this company until he established his inde- 
 pendent enterprise at Dodge Center. From the 
 spring of 1908 until the spring of 1912 Mr. Lang- 
 worthy maintained his residence and business head- 
 quarters at Dodge Center, and he then removed to 
 Minneapolis, for the purpose of facilitating and ex- 
 panding his operations. He has since given his at- 
 tention to the Inlying and selling of Minnesota 
 farms, principally in the central and southern coun- 
 ties of the state, and his business is known for its 
 reliability and for the presentation of the absolute 
 facts concerning all investments offered. Mr. 
 Langworthy is the owner of Minneapolis realty, and 
 of valuable farm lands in Minnesota and also in the 
 Canadian Northwest. He has won success through 
 his own ability and well ordered efforts and is one 
 of the progressive and loyal native sons of Minne- 
 sota, with a well established reputation as a reliable 
 and enterprising business man. At Dodge Center he 
 is still affiliated with Leader Lodge, No. 41, Inde- 
 pendent Order of Odd Fellows, and he has identified 
 himself with representative civic organizations in 
 the City of Minneapolis. 
 
 On the 31st of March, 1900, Mr. Langworthy was 
 united in marriage to Miss Martha M. Nass, who 
 was born in Germany and who there received her 
 rudimentary education, which was supplemented by 
 her attending the public schools of Dodge Center 
 after her parents had established their home in Min- 
 nesota, she having been nine years of age when the 
 family became residents of Dodge County, where her 
 parents passed the remainder of their lives. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Langworthy have two daughters — Sadie J., who 
 was born in Dodge County, and Ruth, who was born 
 in Minneapolis. 
 
 J. Monroe Gordon. More than thirty years have 
 passed since J. Monroe Gordon became identified 
 with the business interests of Janesville, Minnesota, 
 and during all that period he has been known as one 
 of the city’s most reliable and enterprising citizens. 
 The passing years have but brightened his reputa- 
 tion in commercial circles and among the representa- 
 tive men of the city have given him a prestige that 
 is enviable. His interest in all matters pertaining to 
 the public welfare has made him a most valuable 
 citizen, and his energy and directing power have 
 done much to advance the material interests of the 
 city and its people. 
 
 T. Monroe Gordon was born in Richland County, 
 Wisconsin, June 6, i860, a son of William and Mel- 
 vina (Francis) Gordon, and is of Scotch-Irish 
 descent on his father’s side. His mother’s family 
 were early settlers in Pennsylvania. His paternal 
 grandfather was Abraham Gordon, a native of Scot- 
 land, who emigrated to the United States and settled 
 at Carleton, Ohio, at an early day, and subsequently 
 moved to Virginia, where he aied. His life in the 
 main was passed in agricultural pursuits. William 
 Gordon was born at Carleton, Ohio, in 1829, and as 
 a young man migrated to Wisconsin, where, in Rich- 
 land County, he was married and for some years 
 engaged in farming. In 1865 he came to Janesville, 
 in the vicinity of which city he became a pioneer 
 
 farmer, and here passed away after a long and useful 
 career, July 10, 1896. Mr. Gordon was married in 
 1857, in Richland County, Wisconsin, to Miss Mel- 
 vina Francis, who was born in Erie County, Penn- 
 sylvania, and there educated, and she still survives 
 her husband and is a resident of Janesville, Minne- 
 sota. The father was a republican in his political 
 views, and a member of the Baptist Church, in which 
 he served for some years as deacon. Nine children 
 were born to Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, namely : N. S., 
 
 who is editor of a newspaper at Barron, Wisconsin; 
 J. Monroe, of this review ; Cynthia A., who is the 
 wife of Arthur Heath, a well-known miller of Has- 
 tings, Minnesota; James M., who resides at Monte- 
 video, Minnesota, and is a miller; Clarence, who 
 died young; Ransom, who is a miller of Janesville: 
 Walton, who is a flour mill salesman and resides in 
 Texas; Nettie, who died at the age of six and one- 
 half years; and Frank, who died when seven months 
 old. 
 
 J. Monroe Gordon was reared on his father’s farm, 
 and attended the public schools until about twenty 
 years of age. On reaching his majority he entered 
 the mill of the Stokes Brothers, a concern with which 
 he has been connected through all these years, 
 although the mills are now known as Jennison Broth- 
 ers & Company. Entering in the capacity of general 
 utility man, through energetic and faithful endeavor, 
 Mr. Gordon won rapid and consecutive promotion, 
 until today he is manager of these large flour mills, 
 which contribute in no small degree to the business 
 importance of Janesville. He is a business man of 
 more than ordinary ability, possessed of executive 
 power, foresight and acumen, and among his asso- 
 ciates his judgment is held in the highest esteem. As 
 a republican he has taken an active interest in polit- 
 ical affairs, and his well-known ability has caused 
 him to be chosen for public office on numerous occa- 
 sions, he having served as mayor of Janesville two 
 terms, as a member of the city council six years 
 and as a member of the school board for twelve 
 years, and his entire public service has been char- 
 acterized by fidelity to duty and a conscientious ap- 
 plication that has at all times marked his efforts in 
 his private interests. Fraternal’y, Mr. Gordon is 
 connected with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- 
 lows, and the Modern Woodmen of America, and he 
 is also an active member of the Commercial Club 
 of Janesville. With his family he belongs to the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, to the movements of 
 which he is a liberal contributor. 
 
 Mr. Gordon was married in October. 1881, at 
 Mankato, Minnesota, to Miss Eudora Clark, a native 
 of Iowa, but at that time a resident of Mankato. 
 Two children have been born to this union: Guy, 
 who died at the age of twenty-seven vears ; and 
 Vern, a graduate of Janesville High School and 
 Carleton College, Northfield, who is in the milling 
 business in a plant at Montevideo, Minnesota. 
 
 Archibald Hf.rrick Vernon. Now in active 
 practice of the law at Little Falls, Archibald H. 
 Vernon has had varied associations with the Min- 
 nesota bar, with politics, public affairs and his record 
 gives evidence of his high standing as a professional 
 man and citizen. 
 
 Archibald Herrick Vernon was born at Middle- 
 ton, Wisconsin, April 8. 1880, a son of George 
 Henry and Clara Isabella (Herrick) Vernon. His 
 father was also an attorney. Mr. Vernon was edu- 
 cated in St. Paul for the most part, having attended 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1377 
 
 the high school there ; for one year was a student 
 in Harvard University. In 1907 he graduated LL. B. 
 from the St. Paul College of Law, and two years 
 later, in 1909, the University of Minnesota conferred 
 upon him the degree master of laws. 
 
 From 1900 to 1907 Mr. Vernon was in active 
 newspaper work, being political and city editor on 
 the Pioneer Press. He practiced law in St. Paul 
 from 1907 to 1909, and since then, for five years, 
 has been identified with the bar of Little Falls and 
 engages in a general practice. In 1907 he filled the 
 position of assistant chief clerk of the House in the 
 Minnesota Legislature, and in 1909 was chief clerk 
 of the House. At the present time he holds the 
 position of city attorney at Little Falls, having- 
 been elected in 1913. His name is familiar to mem- 
 bers of the Minnesota bar, having in 1910 been made 
 a member of the board of governors of the State Bar 
 Association. He is an ex-treasurer of the Ramsey 
 County Bar Association and a member of the Amer- 
 ican Bar Association. He has also served as sec- 
 retary of the Little Falls Commercial Club. In pol- 
 itics a republican, he was secretary of the Ramsey 
 County Republican Committee during his residence 
 in St. Paul, and has also served as chairman of the 
 Morrison County Committee. Fraternally he is- a 
 past exalted ruler of the Benevolent and Protective 
 Order of Elks, and belongs to the Royal Arcanum 
 and the Knights of the Maccabees. On March 29, 
 1900, Mr. Vernon married Clara Simmons of St. 
 Paul. 
 
 David L. Morse. One of the prominent younger 
 attorneys of Faribault County, David L. Morse began 
 practice at Wells in 1909, and since January 1, 1915, 
 has been junior member of the firm of Frundt & 
 Morse at Blue Earth. He has influential connec- 
 tions in the law, has served in several offices which 
 have proved valuable training for his career, and is 
 noted for the able manner in which he handles all 
 cases intrusted to his charge. 
 
 David L. Morse was born at Belmond, Wright 
 County, Iowa, February 26. 1883, a son of W. J. and 
 Ida (Luick), Morse. His father was born in Michi- 
 gan in 1858. and is now living a retired farmer at 
 Belmond. The Morse family has been in America 
 since the seventeenth century, two brothers having 
 emigrated from England and settled in Massachu- 
 setts during colonial times. Mr. Morse has revolu- 
 tionary ancestors. W. J. Morse and wife had the 
 following children : David L. ; Rhoda, who died at 
 
 the age of three years; Albert, who died at the age 
 of twenty-two ; Perry, who died at nineteen ; Amelia, 
 who is a teacher in the public schools and lives with 
 her parents ; Muriel, who died at the age of fifteen ; 
 Susan, who lives with her parents. 
 
 David L. Morse was educated in the public schools 
 at Belmond, graduating from the high school in 
 1900, and for three years was a student in the Cor- 
 nell College at Mount Vernon. Towa. For two years 
 he was deputy clerk in the Wright Countv courts, 
 and in 1906 came to Minnesota and entered the law 
 department of the University of Minneapolis, where 
 he was graduated LL. B. in 1009. In the fall of that 
 year Mr. Morse began practice at Wells, and soon 
 was recognized with a paying practice in both civil 
 and criminal law. In order to avail himself of the 
 larger opportunities opening before him, Mr. Morse 
 removed to the county seat at Blue Earth on Janu- 
 ary 1. 1915. For the past three years he has served 
 as village attorney of Wells. 
 
 Mr. Morse is a director and stockholder of the 
 First National Bank of Wells, and is affiliated with 
 Doric Lodge No. 87, A. F. & A. M., and with Wells 
 Chapter No. 80, R. A. M. On June 26, 1912, at 
 Clarion, Iowa, he married Miss Anna Porter, daugh- 
 ter of F. A. Porter, who was a contractor and 
 builder at Clarion. 
 
 Charles W. Dillman. For the past quarter of a 
 century Mr. Dillman has been owner of one-half 
 interest in the Blue Earth Post, of which he has had 
 editorial charge during this entire period and which 
 he has made one of the model newspapers of its class 
 in the state. He has shown the deepest and most 
 loyal interest in all that has touched the prosperity 
 and progress of Faribault County and its judicial 
 center, the thriving little City of Blue Earth, has 
 made his paper a most effective exponent of local 
 interests and of the cause of the republican party, 
 and further than this he is a representative of one 
 of the sterling pioneer families of Faribault County, 
 though much of his early life was passed in the State 
 of Iowa. 
 
 Within the decade between 1750 and 1760 two 
 brothers named Dillman immigrated to America 
 from the Kingdom of Wurtemburg, Germany, their 
 native place, and established their residence in Penn- 
 sylvania. He whose name initiates this review is a 
 lineal descendant of one of these sterling pioneer 
 settlers of the old Keystone State, whence later gen- 
 erations made their way westward, so that the fam- 
 ily name has become identified with civic and in- 
 dustrial development and progress in divers states 
 of the Union. Charles W. Dillman was born in 
 Bartholomew County, Indiana, on the 12th of Decem- 
 ber, 1858, and is a son of Frank M. and Susan 
 (Miller) Dillman, the former of whom was born in 
 Ohio, in 1838, and the latter of whom was a native 
 of Indiana and a representative of one of the pioneer 
 families of the fine old Hoosier commonwealth. 
 Frank M. Dillman was a carpenter by trade and for 
 a number of years gave his attention to contracting 
 and building, later having been a successful farmer 
 and having also been engaged in the hotel business 
 for several years. In 1868 he numbered himself 
 among the pioneers of Faribault County, Minnesota, 
 where he obtained land and instituted the reclama- 
 tion of a farm, but in 1875 he turned to Indiana, 
 where he passed the residue of his life, his death 
 having occurred at Columbus, Bartholomew County, 
 in 1903. His first wife died in 1862, at Newbern, that 
 county, and of the children of this union three are 
 living, — Matilda is the wife of Andrew R. More, who 
 is now living retired, at Blue Earth, more specific 
 mention of his career being given on other pages, in 
 the sketch dedicated to his son Frank R. ; Charles W. 
 was the next in order of birth ; and Albert Prichard, 
 a painter by vocation, resides in the City of Indian- 
 apolis, Indiana. As his second wife, Frank M. Dill- 
 man wedded Miss Melissa Fortner, who was born 
 and reared in Bartholomew County, indiana, and 
 who still resides at Columbus, that county. The only 
 child of this union was Minnie, who died at the age 
 of twenty-nine years. 
 
 Charles W. Dillman was a lad of seven years at 
 the time of the family removal to Faribault County, 
 Minnesota, and he retains vivid memories of the con- 
 ditions and influences that here existed in the pioneer 
 days, including a more or less fond recollection of 
 the little log schoolhouse in which he gained his 
 rudimentary education, the same having been in 
 
1378 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Pilot Grove Township, within the limits of which 
 was situated his father's farm. Later he attended the 
 public schools at Estherville, Iowa, for three years, 
 and in 1874, when about sixteen years of age, he 
 started to iearn the printing business in an office 
 conducted at Estherville by C. W. Jarois. He there 
 remained until 1879, and in the meanwhile acquired 
 an excellent knowledge of the business, of which he 
 was a representative at Columbus, Indiana, for a 
 period of two years thereafter. In 1881 he returned 
 to Estherville, Iowa, where he was identified with the 
 same line of enterprises until 1888, when he came to 
 Blue Earth, Minnesota, judicial center of the county 
 in which his boyhood days had been passed, and here 
 he purchased one-half interest in the Blue Earth 
 Post, of which he has continued one of the editors 
 and publishers during the long intervening years. 
 This is one of the pioneer newspapers of this section 
 of the state, as it was founded in 1868, by the 
 firm of Williams & Stevens, and it now has a larger 
 circulation than any other paper in Faribault County. 
 In the ownership of the newspaper plant and business 
 Mr. Dillman is now associated with his nephew, 
 Frank R. More, concerning whom specific mention 
 is made on other pages of this history. The offices of 
 the Blue Earth Post are essentially modern in equip- 
 ment and facilities, with a job department that turns 
 out high-grade work, the while the newspaper itself 
 is a model in makeup and letterpress, even as it is 
 in its editorial policies and effective exploiting and 
 conserving of local interests, and in advocating the 
 cause of the republican party. The Post stands at 
 all times for progressiveness, for honest and efficient 
 county administration and for proper handling of 
 municipal affairs. The offices of the paper are in 
 a substantial and attractive building at the corner 
 of Main and Fifth streets. 
 
 In a personal way as well as through the columns 
 of his paper Mr. Dillman has done much to foster 
 the principles and policies of the republican party, 
 and in a fraternal way he is affiliated with Sherburn 
 Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and 
 Mount Zion Chapter, Royal Arch Masons, besides 
 which he was formerly an active member of the 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of 
 Pythias and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. 
 He is still affiliated with the Brotherhood of Ameri- 
 can Yeomen, and he and his wife hold membership 
 in the Christian Church. 
 
 In 1882, at Estherville, Iowa, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Dillman to Miss Lois A. Mattson, 
 daughter of the late Isaac Mattson, who was for- 
 merly a representative farmer and influential citizen 
 of Mattson Prairie, Wisconsin. Mr. and Mrs. Dill- 
 man have three children : Vinnie L. is a successful 
 
 and popular teacher of music in her home city of 
 Blue Earth ; Clera W. is assistant county superin- 
 tendent of schools for Faribault County; and Lois 
 Lucille is a popular teacher in the public schools of 
 the City of Fairmont, Martin County. Mr. Dillman 
 is the owner of his attractive residence property on 
 Eighth Street. 
 
 Frank R. More. Associated with Charles W. 
 Dillman in the ownership of the Blue Earth Post, 
 the leading newspaper published in Faribault County, 
 Mr. More has proved an able and progressive repre- 
 sentative of practical journalism in his native county 
 and state, and his entire experience in this field of 
 enterprise has been in connection with the paper of 
 which he is now one of the editors and publishers, 
 
 a special mention of his partner and uncle, Mr. Dill- 
 man, being made on other pages of this work, with 
 adequate incidental data concerning the genesis and 
 development of the Blue Earth Post. 
 
 Mr. More was born on the family homestead farm 
 in Pilot Grove Township, Faribault County, Minne- 
 sota, on the 27th of July, 1872, and is a son of An- 
 drew R. and Matilda (Dillman) More, the latter 
 being a sister of Charles W. Dillman, who has been 
 identified with the publication of the Blue Earth Post 
 since 1888. Andrew R. More was born in Scotland, 
 in 1846, and is now living retired in the fine little city 
 of Blue Earth. He was about eleven years of age 
 at the time of his parents’ immigration from Scotland 
 to the United States, and his father became one of 
 the pioneer settlers in Pilot Grove Township, Fari- 
 bault County, where he established his residence in 
 the year prior to the admission of Minnesota to state- 
 hood, and where both he and his wife passed the 
 residue of their lives, — sterling citizens who contrib- 
 uted their quota to the social and industrial develop- 
 ment of this now favored and opulent section of the 
 state. Andrew R. More was reared to manhood on 
 the pioneer farm and continued to be actively iden- 
 tified with its work and management until he had 
 attained to his legal majority, after which he was 
 engaged for several years in farming in an inde- 
 pendent way. He then turned his attention to the 
 photographic business, and he was the leading ex- 
 ponent of this line of enterprise at Blue Earth for 
 twenty years, — 1875-1895, — at the expiration of which 
 he retired. He has been one of the loyal and public- 
 spirited citizens of the county that has so long been 
 his home and in which both he and his wife have a 
 circle of friends that is coincident with that of their 
 acquaintances. Both are earnest communicants o.f the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church, and in politics Mr. 
 More is a stalwart republican. Of the three children 
 Frank R., of this review, is the first born; Jessie died 
 at the age of seventeen years; and Susan is the wife 
 of George S. Smith, cashier of the First National 
 Bank of Bricelyn, Faribault County. 
 
 Frank R. More attended the public schools of Blue 
 Earth until he had attained to the age of seventeen 
 years, and prior to the completion of his high-school 
 course he had been gaining practical experience in 
 the office of the Blue Earth Post, his knowledge 
 covering both editorial work and definite familiarity 
 with the manifold intricacies of the “art preservative 
 of all arts.” On the 1st of October, 1906, he pur- 
 chased a half interest in the plant and business of 
 the Post, of which he has since continued one of the 
 editors and publishers, with secure vantage-place as 
 one of the representative business men of the judicial 
 center and metropolis of his native county and with 
 full appreciation of the many advantages and attrac- 
 tions here offered. He accords a staunch support to 
 the republican party and is a communicant of the 
 Catholic Church, besides which he is affiliated with 
 the Catholic Order of Foresters, his wife likewise 
 being a zealous communicant of the Catholic Church 
 in Blue Earth. 
 
 In the year 1896, at Blue Earth, was solemnized 
 the marriage of Mr. More to Miss Mary Sullivan, 
 daughter of the late Cornelius Sullivan, who was a 
 representative farmer of Faribault County. Mr. and 
 Mrs. More have no children. 
 
 It may be stated in conclusion that the name of 
 More has been closely and worthily identified with 
 the history of Faribault County for more than 
 half a century. Andrew R. More, Sr., grandfather 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1379 
 
 of the subject of this review, was born in 1824, and 
 came to America in 1857 and forthwith settled in 
 Faribault County, as previously intimated, and here 
 he died in 1904, at the venerable age of eighty years. 
 
 C. W. Brown. The editor and publisher of the 
 New Richland Star is one of the capable and well 
 known newspaper men of the Southern Minnesota. 
 Mr. Brown began learning the trade of printer and 
 the profession of country journalism when a boy, 
 and his success in conducting a bright, newsy paper, 
 combining a useful service to the community with 
 profitable business to himself, doubtless lies in the 
 fact that he has concentrated his attention along one 
 line for so many years. 
 
 C. W. Brown was a native of Minnesota, born in 
 Kalmer Township of Olmstead County, September 
 28, 1874. He comes of old American stock on his 
 father’s side. His great-grandfather Brown emi- 
 grated from Ireland and settled in New York State, 
 while the grandparents were Alva and Eunice 
 (Eddy), Brown. The former was a farmer and died 
 in Jamestown, New York, while Eunice Eddy was 
 of Scotch-English descent, and three Eddy brothers 
 came over about the time of the Mayflower, and their 
 descendants were among the soldiers of the Revolu- 
 tion. C. H. Brown, father of the New Richland 
 editor, was born in Chautauqua County, New York, 
 in 1839, came west in 1861, and lived in Dodge 
 County, Minnesota, until 1885, and then moved to 
 'Eagle Lake, Minnesota, and lived there a retired 
 farmer. In 1862 he was one of the Minnesota pio- 
 neers who responded to the call for soldiers to sup- 
 press the rebellion, and served for three years 
 and three days in Company B of the Tenth Regiment 
 of Minnesota Infantry. He was in all the engage- 
 ments of the Sixteenth Army Corps, including the 
 great battle of Nashville. C. H. Brown married 
 Mary Hunn, who was born in Wisconsin. 
 
 C. W. Brown acquired his education while living 
 on a farm, attending the district schools and later the 
 town schools at Pine Island, Minnesota. When he 
 left school at the age of about sixteen, he entered the 
 printing office of the Janesville Argus, and was iden- 
 tified with that publication for about nine years, ex- 
 cepting a brief time when he managed the News at 
 Eagle Lake, Minnesota. For y / 2 years of that time 
 he was a partner of J. A. Henry. Mr. Brown has 
 been a resident of New Richland since June 15, 1903, 
 when he bought the New Richland Star from O. H. 
 Bronson. The Star was established in i886 ! by H. G. 
 Gregg, and at that time was called the North Star. 
 The offices and plant are located about four blocks 
 from the railway station in New Richland. The Star, 
 under Mr. Brown’s management, has been steadily 
 progressing both as a journal and as a business prop- 
 osition and now has a large circulation throughout 
 Waseca County, but particularly in the southern half 
 of that county. The paper maintains an independent 
 position in politics, and the editor is an independent 
 republican. 
 
 Mr. Brown has been active in civic affairs of New 
 Richland, served two years in the city council and 
 was recorder two years. Fraternally his affiiliations 
 are with Janesville Lodge No. 124, A. F. & A. M., 
 and with the Modern Woodmen of America. In a 
 business way he is a stockholder in the New Richland 
 Telephone Company and in the New Richland Hotel 
 Company. Mr. Brown was married June 17, 1896, in 
 Mankato, Minnesota, to Miss Gertrude Presnall. Her 
 father is M. C. Presnall of Eagle Lake. Mr. Brown 
 
 and wife have the following children : Donald C., 
 
 who is a student in the Maplewood Academy; Leon- 
 ard F„ who died at the age of seven; Bonnie B. and 
 Gertrude, at home. 
 
 Anton O. Lea is one if the modern business men 
 of New Richland. Mr. Lee is cashier of the First 
 National Bank of that city, and for the past eight 
 years has held the office of postmaster. When Mr. 
 Lea located at New Richland about twenty-five years 
 ago he followed the trade of painter, but has been 
 steadily progressing towards the control of larger 
 interests and to a position of greater usefulness to 
 his community. 
 
 Anton O. Lea was born at Sandsver, near Ivongs- 
 berg, Norway, in December, 1865. His father, Olaus 
 Lea, was born at Sandsver in 1836 and after spend- 
 ing his active life as a farmer died there in 1912. 
 He married Miss Sommersted, who was born in the 
 same locality in 1836 and died in 1880. Anton O. 
 Lea was educated in his native locality, and while 
 living in Norway as a young man learned the trade 
 of painter. With this mechanical skill, but with 
 practically no capital, he emigrated to America in 
 1888 and settled in New Richland in the same year. 
 He was employed as a carpenter and painter there 
 for five years, and then went to Lake Mills in the 
 State of Iowa, and spent five years in a planing mill. 
 Having in the meantime accommodated himself to 
 American methods of business, and with a thorough 
 experience in mechanical lines, Mr. Lea returned to 
 New Richland in 1898. Since then he has been one 
 of the vigorous men of action in the city. He estab- 
 lished a butter tub factory and a planing mill com- 
 bined, and in 1899 gave New Richland its electric 
 light plant. Both these industries were sold by him 
 in 1908, and the freedom from their management 
 enabled him to devote all his time to the office of 
 postmaster, to which he had been appointed in 1907, 
 toward the close of President Roosevelt's adminis- 
 tration. Mr. Lea has since been reappointed and his 
 official term closes on January 1, 1915. For a num- 
 ber of years he has been active in Republican circles 
 in Waseca County. Besides other service he has 
 been president of the town council. Mr. Lea is presi- 
 dent of the New Richland Land & Loan Company, 
 a director in the New Richland Hotel Company, and 
 his chief position in the business community is as 
 cashier of the First National Bank. This bank has 
 just erected a handsome new building, and the 
 growth of its business is such that he now gives the 
 institution most of his time. 
 
 Mr. Lea is a member of the Lutheran Church, and 
 served as trustee of his church while living in Lake 
 Mills, Iowa. He was married in New Richland in 
 1893 to Miss Louise Gunderson, daughter of Gunder 
 Gunderson, of Beloit, Wisconsin, where he is now 
 living as a retired farmer. 
 
 Daniel Estey Whitney. One of the most active 
 young business men of Brainerd is Daniel E. Whit- 
 ney, who has been established in business in that 
 city for the past seven years. Mr. Whitney is well 
 known in Masonic circles and is a native son of 
 Minnesota. 
 
 Daniel Estey Whitney was born on a farm in 
 Stearns County, Minnesota, October 20, 1888, a son 
 of Calvin Benjamin and Mary F. (Heaton) Whit- 
 ney. He was educated in the local public schools 
 and attended the Hamline University at St. Paul. 
 For two years he was employed by a collection 
 
1380 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 agency at St. Cloud, and then took up the study 
 of anatomy and undertaking and finished a thor- 
 ough course in that profession in 1903. In October, 
 1907, Mr. Whitney moved to Brainerd and has since 
 been practicing his profession as an undertaker. 
 
 In Masonry Mr. Whitney’s relations are with 
 Aurora Lodge No. ioo, A. F. & A. M. ; Brainerd 
 Chapter No. 42, R. A. M. ; Zabud Council No. 10, 
 R. & S. M. ; Ascalon Commandery No. 16, K. T. ; 
 and Zurah Temple of the Nobles of the Mystic 
 Shrine. He is an active member of the Brainerd 
 Chamber of Commerce, is a republican in politics, 
 and is deacon and treasurer of the First Congrega- 
 tional Church. He is also a member of Adzuman 
 Club of Brainerd. 
 
 Frank A. Miner. A career which has been char- 
 acterized by well-earned success, accruing from the 
 intelligent following of a given idea, is that of 
 Frank A. Miner, grain buyer for the well-known 
 milling firm of Jennison Brothers & Company, at 
 Janesville. Primarily and essentially a business man, 
 .Mr. Miner has no long record of public service; yet 
 in a practical, substantial and progressive way has 
 contributed to the public welfare through his services 
 as an energetic citizen. 
 
 Mr. Miner is a native son of Janesville, Minnesota, 
 and was born May 29, 1871, his parents being F. FI. 
 and Adelaide (Wookey) Miner. The family is of 
 English origin, the progenitor of the name in Amer- 
 ica emigrating to Canada, where the grandfather of 
 Frank A. Miner was born. Subsequently he removed 
 to St. Lawrence County, New York, later to Ran- 
 dolph, Wisconsin, and finally to Medford, Minnesota, 
 where he was engaged in farming until the time of 
 his death. F. FI. Miner was born in St. Lawrence 
 county, New York, in 1837, and was a lad when his 
 parents moved to Wisconsin. Growing to manhood, 
 he adopted mercantile pursuits as his life field of 
 endeavor, and in 1866 came to Janesville, Minnesota, 
 as a pioneer merchant. Here he continued in busi- 
 ness during a long period of years, and through 
 industry, energy and a progressive spirit was able 
 to accumulate a competency, so that his declining 
 years were passed in comfortable retirement, and he 
 died at his home at Janesville, in good circum- 
 stances, December 13, 1907. He was long a devout 
 member of the Episcopal Church, and for some time, 
 a vestryman therein, while fraternally he was con- 
 nected with Janesville Lodge, No. 124, A. F. & A. M. 
 Mr. Miner married Miss Adelaide Wookey, who was 
 born in England, and was five years of age when 
 she accompanied her parents to the United States, 
 the family settling at Kingston, Wisconsin, where 
 the father was engaged in farming. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Miner became the parents of four children, as fol- 
 lows: Frank A., of this review; Harry I., who 
 
 resides in Minneapolis, and is engaged as a dental 
 practitioner ; A. R., who is also a dentist and is 
 engaged in practice at Rochester; and K. W., the 
 third of the brothers to follow the dental profes- 
 sion, his field of practice being the City of Janes- 
 ville. 
 
 Frank A. Miner was educated in the public schools 
 of Janesville, completing the full high school course 
 in 1890. At that time he became associated with his 
 father in the mercantile business, with which he was 
 connected until 1898. In that year Mr. Miner entered 
 the grain business with Jennison Brothers & Com- 
 pany, in a humble capacity, but fidelity to duty, 
 eager energy and inherent ability won him promo- 
 
 tion from time to time, and he now very acceptably 
 fills the important position of official grain buyer. 
 Fie is known as a business man of no mean caliber, 
 honorable in his dealings, shrewd in his judgment 
 and versatile in his abilities. Politically a republican, 
 his public activities have been limited to a public- 
 spirited participation in progressive movements. He 
 is well known in fraternal circles, belonging to Janes- 
 ville Lodge No. 124, F. & A. M.; Winona Consis- 
 tory No. 4, of the thirty-second degree; Zurah Tem- 
 ple, A. A. O. N. M. S., and the Modern Woodmen 
 of America; and formerly belonged to the Knights 
 of Pythias, at Owatonna; and the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks, at Mankato. 
 
 Mr. Miner was married May 16, 1898, at Janes- 
 ville, Minnesota, to Miss Eva Nelsoiv of this city, 
 and one daughter has been born to this union: 
 Adelaide, who is attending the public schools. The 
 family home is pleasantly located at the corner of 
 Market and Second streets. 
 
 Samuel Hodgkins. Ihe City of Janesville has its 
 share of men who have stepped aside from the path 
 of labor to make way for the younger generation, 
 with its clear-cut hopes and unrealized ambitions, 
 and to whom life is still a vast and unexplored coun- 
 try. Of the men who are now living retired after 
 many years passed in active agricultural pursuits, 
 and whose labors have been crowned with well- 
 deserved success, Samuel Hodgkins is one of the 
 most prominent. A resident of Waseca County since 
 1870, he has contributed materially to the advance- 
 ment of the community, and although more than 
 seventy-five years of age, still takes an active and 
 intelligent interest in its progress and welfare. 
 
 Mr. Hodgkins was born at Oswegatchie, St. Law- 
 rence County, New York, June 15, 1839, and is a 
 son of William and Almyra (Smith) Hodgkins. The 
 family is of Scotch origin, the progenitor coming to 
 the Linked States during colonial days. The great- 
 grandfather of Samuel Hodgkins, Capt. Samuel 
 Hodgkins, was a seafaring man whose home was at 
 Boston, Massachusetts, and who was lost with his 
 vessel in a storm on the Pacific. William Hodgkins, 
 the grandfather of Samuel Hodgkins, was born at 
 Barnstable, Massachusetts, from which state he went 
 to New Hampshire and later to Vermont. A ship 
 carpenter and the owner of a farm, he divided Itis 
 time between the two vocations, and assisted in the 
 building of McDonough’s fleet, following which he 
 served for seven years and eight months during the 
 Revolutionary war, three years in the army and the 
 balance of the time in the navy, a part of this time 
 being under John Paul Jones. After the close of 
 the war he returned to the pursuits of peace and 
 rounded out a useful and well-filled career. 
 
 William Hodgkins, the father of Samuel Hodgkins, 
 was born at Grand Isle, Vermont, in 1800, and was 
 a young man of twenty-four years when he removed 
 from his native state to New York, locating on a 
 farm in the vicinity of Ogdensburg, St. Lawrence 
 County, where he passed the remainder of his life 
 as an agriculturist and died in 1876. He was mar- 
 ried in New York to Almyra Smith, who was born 
 in Washington County, that state, in 1808, and she 
 passed away in 1842, having been the mother one 
 son : Samuel. 
 
 Samuel Hodgkins was educated in the district 
 schools of his native county and town, and was: 
 reared on his father’s farm, on which he worked 
 until, with other patriotic youths of his vicinity, he 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1381 
 
 enlisted, May i, 1861, in Company K, Eighteenth 
 Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry, with which 
 he served faithfully until receiving his honorable 
 discharge at Albany, New York, May 28, 1863. After 
 a visit to his home, Mr. Hodgkins veteranized by 
 enlisting in the Fourteenth New York Heavy-Artil- 
 lery, September 11, 1863, and continued as a member 
 of that organization until securing his honorable 
 discharge September 11, 1865. Mr. Hodgkins par- 
 ticipated in all the battles and movements of the 
 Army of the Potomac from Bull Run to Appomat- 
 tox, with the single exception of the battle of Get- 
 
 tysburg, and at all times was known as a faithful 
 and courageous soldier, respected by his comrades 
 and esteemed by his officers. A republican in poli- 
 tics, as a soldier he cast his first vote for Abraham 
 
 Lincoln and from that time to the present has given 
 his ballot to every presidential candidate of that 
 party. Mr. Hodgkins came to Waseca County in 
 1870 and purchased a farm in the Township of Free- 
 dom, to which he added from time to time until he 
 was the owner of 320 acres of excellent land, all of 
 which he placed under cultivation. He carried on 
 diversified farming and also raised blooded Norman 
 horses and Shorthorn cattle, and in each of his ven- 
 tures met with well-earned success because of his 
 energy, progressive ideas and tireless application. 
 Mr. Hodgkins sold his farms in 1911 and retired to 
 his residence on Allyn Street, Janesville, where for 
 exercise he cultivates an acre of land. Mr. Hodgkins 
 is remarkably well preserved for his years, both in 
 body and mind and is an example of the value of 
 clean living. He is alert and active, has never worn 
 glasses, and can read a newspaper as readily as a 
 person many years his junior. Fraternally Mr. 
 Hodgkins is connected with Janesville Lodge No. 
 124, F. & A. M., and has been a Master Mason for 
 more than fifty years. 
 
 In 1865 Mr. Hodgkins was married to Miss Lu- 
 cretia Ackerman, of Morristown, New York, and to 
 this union there have been born six children, as fol- 
 lows : Smith, who is . a prosperous farmer and re- 
 
 sides in Canada; Charles, who is connected with the 
 Plymouth shoe firm and resides in Minneapolis ; 
 Milo, who is manager of a telephone company and 
 resides at New Richland, Minnesota; Samuel, who is 
 a prosperous farmer and resides at Janesville; David, 
 who resides on the old homestead farm in Freedom 
 Township; and Nellie, who married George Preim, a 
 merchant, and resides at Waldorf, Minnesota. The 
 children were all well educated and trained to take 
 their place in the ranks of the world’s workers, and 
 all have proven a credit to their training and their 
 communities. 
 
 In 1914 Mr. Hodgkins had an old-fashioned flag 
 raising at his home. The flagpole, which was placed 
 on his house, is fifty feet high and the flag is 9x14 
 feet. Governor Eberhart made the speech and there 
 were between five and six hundred people present. 
 This flag will be left to Mr. Hodgkins’ children. 
 
 John W. Jennison. When John W. Jennison 
 started upon his wage-earning career his available 
 assets were not to be figured in money, in educational 
 advantages, nor in the assistance of influential 
 friends. He had, however, many far more dependa- 
 ble resources, and among them were grit and deter- 
 mination, and a capacity for untiring industry. These 
 have elevated him to a place among the men of 
 wealth of Janesville, where he is secretary and treas- 
 urer of the large milling firm of Jennison Brothers 
 
 & Company, and to public-spirited participation in 
 all that tends to the permanent upbuilding of the 
 community. 
 
 Mr. Jennison was born at Kingston, Greenlake 
 County, Wisconsin, February 24, 1865, and is a son 
 of A. W. and Caroline M. (Sutton) Jennison, the 
 former a native of St. Lawrence County, New York, 
 and the latter of the State of Vermont. The father 
 was born in 1839 and was a young man when he 
 removed to Kingston, Wisconsin, in i868 x coming to 
 Waseca County, Minnesota, and two years later to 
 the City of Janesville, where for some years he was 
 successfully engaged in mercantile pursuits. In 1884 
 he became a part owner in the mills of Jennison 
 Brothers & Company, and continued to be identified 
 with this concern until his death in 1889. He is sur- 
 vived by his widow, who makes her home at Janes- 
 ville. 
 
 John W. Jennison was five years of age when 
 brought by his parents to Janesville, and here he 
 attended the public schools, although he is largely 
 self-educated, the greater part of his training having 
 come to him from the schools of hard work and 
 experience. He was sixteen years of age when he 
 laid aside his books and became a clerk in a grocery 
 store, but after six months turned his attention to 
 farming, and also worked in a lumber yard for a 
 time. Realizing the need of further schooling, he 
 took a course in the St. Paul Business College, and 
 after his graduation therefrom secured a position as 
 rdustabout in the mills of Stokes Bros. & Jennison 
 (the latter his uncle), at Watertown, South Da- 
 kota. Shortly thereafter his energy, fidelity and 
 recognized ability won him promotion to the office, 
 in which he worked until 1884, and at that time came 
 back to Janesville and bought an interest in what 
 was known as Stokes’ Banner Mill, which then be- 
 came the Jennison Brothers & Company Mill, owned 
 by A. W. and W. J. Jennison. In increasing this 
 business the brothers absorbed the mills of Tileston 
 & Sutcliffe, and Mr. Jennison rapidly increased his 
 holdings from the one-quarter interest which he 
 owned originally. These mills have grown and de- 
 veloped under able management into one of the 
 important enterprises of this part of the state, their 
 capacity being 800 barrels a day and the product 
 being shipped to all parts of the United States. It 
 is the proud assertion of the proprietors of the mills 
 that they have never been closed down, irrespective 
 of panics or slack business conditions. Not long 
 after coming to Janesville, the company took over 
 the Janesville Bank, which they conducted for a 
 number of years, and he has varied other interests. 
 Mr. Jennison stands high in the public esteem, and 
 belief in his integrity and good judgment has been 
 variously manifested. For four terms he served most 
 capably as mayor of Janesville, and during his ad- 
 ministration the city's interests were most carefully 
 conserved, Mr. Jennison’s business talents being in- 
 strumental in putting the municipality on a strong 
 financial footing. He is a republican in his political 
 views. An active member of the Commercial Club, 
 he is also well and favorably known in Masonry, 
 being a member of Janesville Lodge No. 124, F. & 
 A. M. ; Waseca Chapter No. 26, R. A. M., and Man- 
 kato Commandery, Iv. T. 
 
 Mr. Jennison was married at Janesville, Minnesota, 
 in 1890. to Miss Janette N. Nelson, of this city, and 
 three children have been born to them, namely : 
 Faith C., who for two terms taught a class at Beth- 
 any College, Topeka, Kansas, and is now attending 
 
1382 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Columbia University, New York City; Beth C., who 
 is attending Smith College, Northampton, Massachu- 
 setts; and Janette Hope, who is also a student at 
 that institution. 
 
 John Able Henry. One of the well-known fig- 
 ures in the journalistic field of Southern Minnesota 
 is John Able Henry, who since 1878 has been pro- 
 prietor and publisher of the Argus, and during all 
 this long period has taken an active and helpful par- 
 ticipation in the movements which have made the 
 history of Waseca County. It has been Mr. Henry's 
 privilege to serve in various public offices of trust 
 and responsibility, in each of which he has displayed 
 a commendable eagerness to advance the interests of 
 his home City of Janesville as well as the general 
 welfare of Waseca County. A long and faithful 
 service, such as his has been, is one which entitles 
 him eminently to a place among those who may be 
 called representative Minnesota men. 
 
 Mr. Henry was born in Warren County, Pennsyl- 
 vania, May 25, 1855, near the Town of Bradford, and 
 is a son of John N. and Diana (Merchant) Henry. 
 The family is traced directly back to John Henry, 
 who came to this country from England and in 1690 
 took the freeman's oath at Topsfield, Massachusetts. 
 The great-grandfather of Mr. Henry was Simon 
 Henry, a native of Connecticut, who removed to 
 Massachusetts and thence to the Western Reserve of 
 Ohio, taking a homestead there as a pioneer and 
 continuing to be engaged in agricultural pursuits 
 during the remainder of his life. John Henry was 
 the paternal grandfather, while the grandfather on 
 the maternal side was a Mr. Woodworth, who fought 
 as a soldier during the Revolutionary war. John N. 
 Henry was born in Geauga County, Ohio, in 1822, 
 and as a young man studied medicine, although he 
 never followed the profession as a practitioner, en- 
 tering the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church instead. He was first connected with the 
 Erie (Pennsylvania) Conference, and was then 
 transferred to the Genesee (New York) Confer- 
 ence, being connected therewith at the time of the 
 outbreak of the Civil war. In spite of his calling, 
 Mr. Henry at once volunteered for service, becoming 
 a private of Company I, Forty-ninth Regiment, New 
 York Volunteer Infantry, in 1861, and continuing 
 as a member of that organization throughout the 
 period of the war, taking part in every engagement 
 in which the Sixth Army Corps participated, this 
 service including such sanguine engagements as An- 
 tietam and Petersburg. His entire military career 
 was characterized by the utmost bravery and faith- 
 ful performance of duty, he twice volunteering to 
 handle cannon on the firing line. Later, because of 
 his medical knowledge, he became connected with 
 hospital work, and was honorably discharged at the 
 close of hostilities with the rank of assistant sur- 
 geon. About the year 1870 Reverend Mr. Henry was 
 transferred to the Minnesota Conference, and here 
 continued his ministerial labors until the time of his 
 death, which occurred at Champlin, Minnesota, in 
 1908. Reverend Henry married Diana Merchant, 
 who was born at Napoli, Cattaraugus County, New 
 York, in 1825, and died at Omaha, Nebraska, in 
 T910, while on a trip home from California. They 
 became the parents of the following children : Maria, 
 who became the wife of H. M. Van Dake, deceased, 
 who was a farmer, and resides at Duck Lake, Min- 
 nesota, where she has a handsome property; Harriet 
 A., who became the wife of P. C. Richardson, who 
 
 died very suddenly in 1913, and she now has resi- 
 dences at San Diego, Caliiornia, at Champlin, Min- 
 nesota, at Minneapolis, and has large property inter- 
 ests elsewhere; John A., of this review; Charles A., 
 a mail carrier for the United States Government, 
 residing at Minneapolis; Mary, who married C. M.’ 
 Goss, a traveling salesman of Oakland, California; 
 Jennie M„ who married Ulysses G. Herrick, one of 
 the leading mail carriers of the country, residing at 
 Minneapolis, president of the Mail Carriers’ Asso- 
 ciation and a thirty-third degree Mason; and Edward 
 E., residing at Ashland, Wisconsin, chief engineer of 
 the city waterworks, and also a dealer in automo- 
 biles. 
 
 The boyhood of John A. Henry was passed in the 
 different towns to which his father was called, and 
 his common school education was secured in Chau- 
 tauqua County, New York, and other places. He 
 was seventeen years of age when he came with his 
 parents to Vernon Center, Blue Earth County, Min- 
 nesota, from whence he removed to Mankato, 
 Minnesota, and there for three years attended the 
 Mankato Normal School, earning his own way 
 through this institution by teaching in the country 
 schools. Mr. Henry’s educational career included 
 nine terms of country school in Blue Earth, but in 
 1878 gave up his labors as a teacher and came to 
 Janesville, where he purchased the Argus from Mr. 
 Graham, the former owner, and this he has con- 
 tinued to publish and edit to the present time, the 
 plant being located on Main Street, one block from 
 the depot. In connection therewith he conducts a 
 job printing office, in which first-class work of all 
 kinds is done. Mr. Henry is giving his large audi- 
 ence of readers a clean, thoroughly up-to-date and 
 reliable newspaper, which champions movements 
 making for progress and is fearless in its denuncia- 
 tion of what its editor considers detrimental to the 
 general welfare. It is known also as a good adver- 
 tising medium, reaching, as it does, a very repre- 
 sentative class of people. Mr. Henry’s politics are 
 those of the republican party, and as before stated 
 he has been for a long period in public office, being 
 postmaster of Janesville for thirty-two years, a mem- 
 ber of the school board for sixteen years, justice 
 of the peace for a time, recorder for three years, 
 and the incumbent of various minor offices. His 
 activities in public life have been of a nature calcu- 
 lated to establish him firmly in the esteem of the 
 people of this intelligent and ambitious community. 
 Fraternally Mr. Henry is connected with Janesville 
 Lodge No. 124, F. & A. M., and Janesville Lodge 
 No. 128, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and 
 he was formerly a member of the Royal Arch Ma- 
 sons. He also holds membership in the Janesville 
 Commercial Club, and with his family attends the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 Mr. Henry was married at Janesville, the year of 
 his arrival, to Miss Frances J. Allyn, daughter of 
 the late William G. Allyn, who at the time of his 
 death was a retired farmer of Janesville. The fol- 
 lowing children have been born., to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Henry: John Harrold, who received a high school 
 
 and commercial college education, and is now book- 
 keeper, stenographer and collector for the Case 
 Garage Company ; Ethelyn, who married Dr. A. R. 
 Miner, a practicing dentist of Rochester, Minnesota; 
 and Allyn Harrison, a graduate of Janesville High 
 School, class of 1912, and now a student of Hamline 
 University. The pleasant Henry family home is 
 located on North East Main Street, Janesville. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1383 
 
 Howard M. Berry. The Berry family have had a 
 prominent place in the affairs of Southeastern Min- 
 nesota since pioneer days. Members of two genera- 
 tions have been identified with the bar of Blue Earth 
 County, and Howard M. Berry, though engaged in 
 practice only a few years, has a well-defined position 
 as a successful member of the bar at Mapleton. 
 
 Howard M. Berry was born at Mapleton, Septem- 
 ber 26, 1887. His father, Morgan Berry, who was 
 born in Wisconsin in 1846 and died in 1889, was one 
 of the early members of the bar at Mapleton. In 
 politics he was a democrat. The paternal grand- 
 father, John Berry, came out to Minnesota in the 
 early days, and was one of the men who wrested a 
 farm from the wilderness of Martin County. Mor- 
 gan Berry married Miss Clara Green, whose father, 
 George Green, was also a pioneer settler in Blue 
 Earth County, and in 1877 was elected a member of 
 the State Legislature, serving two terms as a repub- 
 lican. One fact which indicates the prominence of 
 this family in Blue Earth County is that a new drain- 
 age ditch recently completed at a cost of $60,000 is 
 named the H. M. Berry Ditch. 
 
 Howard M. Berry graduated from the Mapleton 
 High School in 1907 and continued his studies in the 
 law department of the University of Minnesota, 
 taking, the degree LL. B. in 1910. Since that time 
 he has been engaged in general practice at Mapleton, 
 and has enjoyed a lberal share of legal business in 
 this part of the state. He is a member of the County 
 and State Bar associations. 
 
 Mr. Berry married Estella McLaughlin, who was 
 born at Harvey, Iowa, July 30, 1887. Her father, 
 Wilson McLaughlin, was for several years a super- 
 intendent on the Northwestern Railroad, and is now 
 a prosperous farmer and banker. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Berry are the parents of three children : Morgan, 
 born in 1911; Virginia, born in 1912; Muriel, born 
 in 1914. Mr. Berry and family are members of the 
 Baptist Church. He is affiliated with Josephus 
 Lodge of Masons, in which he has filled some of the 
 chairs, also with the Independent Order of Odd 
 Fellows and with the Modern Brotherhood of Amer- 
 ica. He is a member of the College Masonic frater- 
 nity, the Acacia Fraternity. 
 
 Hon. Frank G. Kiesler, elected to the municipal 
 bench of Waseca, April 7, 1914, and elected county 
 attorney November 3, 1914, is an able and virile- 
 product of the state which he has honored as law- 
 yer. jurist and progressive citizen. Although still a 
 young man, he has gained a position and reputation 
 which might well be envied by men many years 
 his senior, and this has come to him entirely through 
 his own efforts. Judge Kiesler has trusted naught 
 to chance and owes nothing to adventitious circum- 
 stance, but tireless endeavor and toil, based upon a 
 splendid endowment of mental strength, have 
 brought to him an honorable leadership in the ranks 
 of his calling, upon the bench, and in those move- 
 ments' which are making for civic improvement. 
 
 Judge Kiesler was born at Hutchinson, McLeod 
 County, Minnesota, May n, 1883, and is a son of 
 Frederick and Dorothy (Kammann) Kiesler, natives 
 of Hanover, Germany, and members of old and 
 honored families of that country. Frederick Kiesler 
 was born in 1812, and as a young man emigrated to 
 the United States, settling in Wisconsin, from 
 whence he moved to Hutchinson, Minnesota, in the 
 vicinity of which place he owned a farm. After 
 several years passed in agricultural pursuits, he came 
 Vol. in— 8 
 
 to Hutchinson, and there during the remainder of 
 his life was the proprietor of a hotel, dying in 1896. 
 Mr. Kiesler's second wife was Dorothy Kammann, 
 who survives him and resides with her son, Judge 
 Kiesler, and they became the parents of three chil- 
 dren : George, who resides at Hutchinson, Minne- 
 sota, and is station agent for the Chicago, Milwaukee 
 & St. Paul Railroad ; Catherine, who became the 
 wife of Dr. H. G. Blanchard, a practicing physi- 
 cian and surgeon of Waseca; and Judge Frank G., 
 of this review. 
 
 The public schools of McLeod County furnished 
 Judge Kiesler with his early education, this being 
 supplemented by courses in the Hutchinson High 
 School, from which he was graduated in 1902, and 
 the Minnesota School of Business, at Minneapolis, 
 from which he received his diploma April 3, 1903. 
 He then secured a position as law clerk and stenog- 
 rapher in the office of Sen. John Moonan, where 
 he remained from April, 1903, until October, 1907, 
 at Waseca, and was then stenographer and clerk for 
 James F. Babb, at Lewiston, Idaho, until February, 
 1908. Immediately thereafter Mr. Kiesler became 
 official court stenographer for the Hon. Thomas S. 
 Buckham, of the Fifth Minnesota District, an office 
 which he retained until September, 1910. 
 
 Mr. Kiesler then turned his attention to the study 
 of law, feeling ready to actively enter the profession 
 in which he had determined to make his life suc- 
 cess. Accordingly he entered the law department 
 of the University of Minnesota, wher* he studied 
 during 1911, and then successfully passed the state 
 bar examination at St. Paul, being admitted to prac- 
 tice October 12, 1912. At that time Mr. Kiesler at- 
 tached himself with the Rogers Lumber Company, of 
 Minneapolis, as assistant credit manager, but in May, 
 1913, came to Waseca and embarked upon a general 
 civil and criminal practice, opening offices in the 
 First National Bank Building. The substantial, 
 strong and balanced traits which he exhibited in his 
 practice soon won him the attention of his fellow 
 practitioners, who believed him admirably adapted 
 to assume judicial functions. A vacancy occurring 
 December 25, 1913, he was appointed to the office 
 of municipal judge, to which he was elected April 
 7, 1914, and, as before stated, was elected county 
 attorney on November 3, 1914. He has demon- 
 strated the possession of that self-control so requisite 
 to the judicial temperament of putting aside all 
 personal feelings and prejudices in order that jus- 
 tice may be impartially dispensed. 
 
 Judge Kiesler has taken an active interest in the 
 welfare of his adopted community and has been 
 found at the head of progressive enterprises calcu- 
 lated to promote the general welfare, being secre- 
 tary of the Waseca Commercial Club and the Waseca 
 County Fair. He is fraternally connected with 
 Tuscan Lodge No. 77, F. & A. M., and with the 
 Delta Theta Phi Greek letter law fraternity. His 
 residence is at Waseca. 
 
 Benjamin F. McGregor. Though a lawyer by 
 profession, Benjamin F. McGregor has been best 
 known and most actively identified with banking in 
 Blue Earth County, and is now cashier of the State 
 Bank of Mapleton. He represents a family which 
 was established in Minnesota the year the territory 
 was admitted to the Union, and their associations 
 have always been with useful activities and with in- 
 fluential citizenship. 
 
 Benjamin F. McGregor was born at Mapleton, 
 
1384 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Minnesota, May 9, 1867. His father, Fraser Mc- 
 Gregor, was born in Scotland in June, 1839, and at 
 the age of nineteen left his native land and estab- 
 lished a home in Minnesota in 1858. He took a 
 homestead five miles south of Mapleton in Blue 
 Earth County, and was one of the men who exer- 
 cised their labors in developing the wilderness coun- 
 try. During the Civil war, and after the Indian 
 outbreaks in Minnesota, he joined as a private Com- 
 pany FI in the First Mounted Rangers and partici- 
 pated in the Sibley expedition against the Indians 
 in 1863. He was a republican in politics and was 
 affdiated with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- 
 lows. Mrs. Fraser McGregor, the mother, was born 
 in Canada in 1846, and is now living at Portland, 
 Oregon. There were four children in the family: 
 Benjamin; Archibald, who died at the age of twen- 
 ty-three; Byron, a farmer occupying the old home- 
 stead in Blue Earth County; Bruce E., who is prom- 
 inent as a lawyer and in politics in the State of 
 Washington. 
 
 Benjamin F. McGregor grew up on the old home- 
 stead in Blue Earth County, acquired his early edu- 
 cation in country schools, later attended the Man- 
 kato Normal School, and also the law department 
 of the University of Minnesota. He was admitted 
 to the bar in 1895, but has never engaged in active 
 practice. Early in his career he became identified 
 with banking and for a number of years has been 
 associated with the State Bank of Mapleton as 
 cashier and the principal manager of that solid insti- 
 tution. 
 
 Mr. McGregor was married in 1899 t0 Catherine 
 Brisbane. They are the parents of two children : 
 Fraser, aged fourteen; and Janet, aged eight. Mr. 
 McGregor is affiliated with the Masonic order and 
 with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. 
 
 Herbert C. Hotaling. One of the men who have 
 long been identified with the newspaper business in 
 Southern Minnesota, Herbert C. Hotaling is editor 
 and proprietor of the Mapleton Enterprise and is a 
 former president of the Minnesota State Editorial 
 Association. 
 
 The Hotalings were among the pioneer settlers 
 at Mankato, where Herbert C. was born August 5, 
 1865. His parents were Benjamin F. and Mary 
 (Cleveland) Hotaling. His father was born in Cay- 
 uga County, New York, June 12, 1826. and his mother 
 was born at Hector, Tompkins County, New York, 
 June 22, 1828. His father on coming out to Min- 
 nesota established the first hardware store at Has- 
 tings and also at Mankato, and was a successful 
 business man. During the war and the time of the 
 Indian troubles in Minnesota he served as first lieu- 
 tenant with the Mankato Home Guard, and helped 
 defend that town during the Indian outbreak of 
 1862. His death occurred in 1890. He was a mem- 
 ber of the Methodist Church and was affiliated with 
 Mankato Lodge No. 12, A. F. & A. M., in the early 
 days. There were seven children in the Hotaling 
 family. The living children are: Albert C., Frank 
 
 C., Fred, Herbert and John, while the two deceased 
 are Charles and Emma. 
 
 Herbert C. Hotaling was educated in the public 
 schools and the Mankato Normal School. He 
 learned the printing business by six years in the 
 Review office at Mankato under the veteran editor 
 and publisher, J. C. Wise, and in 1888 came to Ma- 
 pleton and established the Enterprise, the destinies 
 of which he has since controlled. He has built up a 
 
 successful business, and besides his publishing plant 
 is also vice president of the First National Bank of 
 Mapleton and has connected himself in a public 
 spirited manner with all other movements of local 
 importance. Besides serving as president of the 
 State Editorial Association he is also one of the six 
 members on the executive committee of that associa- 
 tion, as well as of the National Editorial Association. 
 
 Mr. Hotaling married Janie Mann, who is a past 
 president of the State Assembly of the Order of 
 Rebekahs. The Hotalings built the second brick 
 house in Mankato, and were among the few who 
 remained in Mankato during the period of Indian 
 hostilities. They opened their home to the many 
 refugees from the country around. Mr. Hotaling is 
 affiliated with Josephus Lodge No. 128, A. F. & A. 
 M., with the Minneapolis Consistory No. 2 of the 
 Scottish Rite, with Zurah Temple of the Mystic- 
 Shrine at Minneapolis, and with Mankato Lodge 
 No. 225, B. P. O. E. He has filled the chairs in the 
 Elks lodge, and is also a member of the Independent 
 Order of Odd Fellows. 
 
 Marius J. Pihl. Now serving as vice president of 
 the First National Bank of Wells, of which he was 
 president for about nineteen years, until January 1, 
 1914, Marius J. Pihl has been identified with this 
 section of Southern Minnesota for the past twenty 
 years, and has many important interests both finan- 
 cial and with the civic and social affairs of the com- 
 munity. Mr. Pihl has had an interesting career of 
 rugged experience, and came to America in young 
 manhood with less than nothing, and all he has 
 acquired is due to the resources of his own character 
 and his steady industry. 
 
 Marius J. Pihl was born at Bornholm, an island 
 possession of the Kingdom of Denmark, in the 
 Baltic Sea, December 8, 1847. His father, Andreas 
 Pihl, was born in the same place in 1814 and died 
 there in 1873, being a saddle maker by trade. His 
 wife, Julia Anna Rohman, was a native of Denmark, 
 and after the death of her husband came to America 
 and died and is buried in Minneapolis. 
 
 Marius J. Pihl was educated in his native locality, 
 and on leaving school went to> sea and became a 
 sailor. In 1866 he left his native land and came to 
 the United States. On account of sickness on board 
 the ship, more than one-tenth of the passengers died 
 of cholera. Mr. Pihl Contracted the disease, which 
 left him so weak that he had to crawl on his hands 
 and knees to get on deck. He finally arrived in 
 Chicago on July 10, 1866, where he found work as a 
 sailor on the Great Lakes, and continued that work 
 until 1868. On arriving at Chicago his financial re- 
 sources were represented by a debt of $50, which 
 was soon paid, and it was by two years of heavy 
 work as a sailor that he got the nucleus of his subse- 
 quent competence. In 1868 Mr. Pihl began learning 
 the stone and marble trade, and he supported himself 
 by that form of mechanical labor until 1876. His 
 ambitions were for larger things, and an education 
 was necessary. In 1876 he entered the Northwestern 
 University and was a student there for two years, 
 until the failure of a bank in which he had his sav- 
 ings obliged him to become a wage earner again. 
 Soon afterward Mr. Pihl became active in the min- 
 istry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but in 1886 
 throat trouble obliged him to give up his profession. 
 During the following year he was engaged in the 
 hardware business, and then for eight years was in 
 the lumber business at Forest City, Iowa. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1385 
 
 Mr. Pihl came to Wells, Minnesota, in 1895, buying 
 an interest in the First National Bank, which was 
 organized in 1887 and acquired a national charter 
 in 1892. He was elected president of this institu- 
 tion, and for nearly twenty years directed its affairs 
 with such success that it is now one of the most 
 stable and popular financial institutions in Faribault 
 County. In January, 1914, in line with his intention 
 to curtail his business activities and gradually retire, 
 Mr. Pihl sold most of his interest in the bank and 
 accepted the position of vice president, while C. H. 
 Draper, former cashier, was elected president. Mr. 
 Pihl is a stockholder and director in the First Na- 
 tional Bank of Wells and in the State Bank of Mata- 
 wan, and is interested in a number of banks, includ- 
 ing the Citizens National Bank of Nampa, Idaho. 
 
 Both in Iowa and in Minnesota Mr. Pihl has been a 
 public spirited and useful citizen. He is a republican 
 in politics. At Forest City, Iowa, he served on the 
 council and is a member of the school board, and has 
 also been a member of the school board at Wells. 
 He is a trustee and steward in the Methodist Episco- 
 pal Church and was a member of the general con- 
 ference of his church in 1896 at Cleveland, Ohio. 
 Since 1870 he has been affiliated with the Masonic 
 fraternity, having joined in Chicago and being now 
 a member of Wells Lodge, A. F. & A. M. In 1871 
 at Chicago he joined the Knights of Pythias, and 
 now belongs to that order in Wells. 
 
 In 1885 at Forest City, Iowa, Mr. Pihl married 
 Miss Patra Joyce of Forest City. They have one 
 child, Alice H., who is a graduate of Oberlin College 
 Conservatory of Music in Ohio, spent one year as 
 teacher of vocal in Yankton, for three years taught 
 both vocal and instrumental in Pillsbury Academy at 
 Owatonna, and now lives at home. 
 
 Leonard N. Olds. The oldest established bank in 
 Faribault County is the Wells National Bank, which 
 began as a private institution in 1873, was incorpo- 
 rated under a state charter in 1896, and has been 
 a national bank since 1903. Its forty years of prac- 
 tically uninterrupted prosperity gives it special dis- 
 tinction among the banks of Southern Minnesota. 
 To a large degree the prosperity and solid position 
 of the bank during the last ten years has been cred- 
 ited to its able cashier, Leonard N. Olds, whose title 
 as cashier does not convey his complete relationship 
 with the institution, since he is practically its execu- 
 tive and manager. It has been during his adminis- 
 tration that the bank has made its greatest progress. 
 
 Leonard N. Olds was born in Washington County, 
 New York, July 25, 1874, and comes of a family 
 that emigrated from England and settled in New 
 York State during the colonial period, one or more 
 members of the family having served in the Revolu- 
 tionary war. His father, L. M. Olds, was born in 
 New York State in 1824 and died in California in 
 1874. He had sold out his business and financial 
 interests in New York State, and moved to Califor- 
 nia to acquire a new home and form new business 
 associations, but died there in the same year that his 
 son Leonard was born. His wife, whose maiden 
 name was Jane Nelson Olds, was born in New York 
 City in 1842, and died at De Smet, South Dakota, in 
 1909. After the death of her first husband she mar- 
 ried D. McQuarie, and they had three children, two 
 living, Raymond and John, both of Elmore, Minne- 
 sota. John is cashier of the First National Bank 
 of Elmore. In 1882 she had moved to Forest City, 
 
 Iowa, where Leonard attended the public schools, 
 and in the fall of 1891 came to Wells, Minnesota. 
 
 At Wells Leonard N. Olds continued in the high 
 school until eighteen years of age, and then began 
 a career of self-support. His first effort was as a 
 school teacher, after which he clerked in a drug 
 store, and then had a drug business of his own until 
 1903. In that year Mr. Olds entered the Wells Na- 
 tional Bank as cashier, and has since assumed the en- 
 tire responsibility of its management. The president 
 of the Wells National Bank is C. L. Olson of Man- 
 kato. The Wells National Bank has a capital stock 
 of $30,000, with surplus of $10,000. When Mr. Olds 
 began his career as cashier of the institution its 
 deposits were a little over $50,000. Its subsequent 
 growth and prosperity are reflected in the fact that 
 the deposits now total more than $473,000. 
 
 Mr. Olds is a republican in politics, and for several 
 years has been treasurer of the Wells School Board. 
 Fraternally his associations are: Doric Lodge No. 
 
 87, A. F. & A. M., of which he is past master by 
 service; Wells Chapter No. 80, R. A. M., of which 
 he is a past high priest; Apollo Commandery No. 14 , 
 K. T., at Albert Lea; Osman Shrine; Wells Lodge 
 No. 211, I. O. O. F. ; and Wells Lodge No. 190, 
 Knights of Pythias ; also Walnut Lake Camp, M. W. 
 A., at Wells. Mr. Olds is senior warden in the 
 Episcopal Church at Wells. In 1900 he was married 
 at Wells to Miss Grace Barnes, daughter of George 
 A. Barnes, now a retired merchant at Wells. 
 
 Charles E. Young. An educator of more than 
 twenty years’ active experience in Minnesota, Charles 
 E. Young as superintendent of the schools at Wells 
 is at the head of one of the most interesting public 
 school centers in the state, and through his work is 
 exercising a larger influence on the life of the com- 
 munity than some men of wider newspaper reputa- 
 tion. Mr. Young is a thoroughly modern educator. 
 Not so many years ago the chief aim of the teacher 
 was to instruct and to maintain discipline, but in this 
 as in many other professions the scope and object 
 have been almost revolutionized. Mr. Young is a 
 man of thorough and liberal education, and his suc- 
 cess has been due to the fact that he has been able to 
 stimulate young men and young women to work for 
 themselves and to train themselves for lives of use- 
 fulness. Mr. Young is a thorough exponent of the 
 principle that education is as much for the mechanic 
 and farmer as for the doctor, and that its essential 
 purpose is not only to make a living but to make life 
 worth living. 
 
 Charles E. Young was born in Chicago January 5, 
 1871. He represents good old American stock, and 
 his original American ancestry was Edward Young, 
 who came from Scotland and settled in Connecticut 
 about 1730. His father, Charles E. Young, Sr., was 
 born in New York State in 1833 and died in Minne- 
 apolis in 1893. He came west and settled in Chicago 
 with his parents in 1846, and in 1871 came out to 
 Minneapolis. He was a oublisher, printer and binder. 
 During the Civil war he enlisted in Company B of 
 the Twelfth Wisconsin Regiment of Volunteer In- 
 fantry, and served nearly two years until discharged 
 on account of disability. His widow, whose maiden 
 name was Harriet Stearns, was born in Rochester, 
 New York, and now lives in Minneapolis. Charles 
 E? Young, Jr., was the older of their two children, 
 and Emily is the widow of E. M. Pillow and lives 
 with her mother. 
 
 Professor Young was educated in the public 
 
1386 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 schools of Minneapolis, was graduated from the 
 Central High School in 1889, and in 1893 finished the 
 classical course in the University of Minnesota. Mr. 
 Young is a Phi Beta Kappa, the scholarship frater- 
 nity, and also belongs to the Psi Upsilon College fra- 
 ternity. Since graduating from the university Mr. 
 Young has taken post-graduate work there, and 
 also spent terms in eastern colleges. 
 
 His first position as a teacher was as principal of 
 the high school at Brainerd for three years, from 
 1893 to 1896. From 1896 to 1901 he was superin- 
 tendent of schools at Henderson in Sibley County, 
 from 1901 to 1905 was superintendent at Luverne 
 in Rock County, and from 1905 to 1909 was super- 
 intendent at Hibbing. Mr. Young has been identi- 
 fied with the public schools of Wells as superintend- 
 ent since 1909. Wells has two large schoolhouses, 
 and the faculty of teachers aggregate twenty-three. 
 The modern high school building, where Superintend- 
 ent Young has his offices, is located on A Street, and 
 can accommodate 700 pupils in the various grades. 
 This building was erected in 1900. 
 
 Perhaps the most interesting and valuable feature 
 of the Wells Public School system is the experi- 
 mental farm, conducted as an adjunct of the high 
 school. The city has invested more than seven thou- 
 sand dollars in this farm, and the scholars cultivate 
 over forty-five acres. This farm not only furnishes 
 means of instruction to the future farmers, stock 
 growers and mechanics of the state, but, surprising 
 though it may seem, is a self-supporting institution. 
 The high school students raise a large variety of 
 staple Minnesota crops, including considerable quan- 
 tities of seed corn, and carry out extensive experi- 
 ments in the testing of the soil. Under the superin- 
 tendent they also have a dairy farm, with blooded 
 cattle and hogs and thoroughbred horses. Eighty- 
 five boys in the high school are registered in the agri- 
 cultural course, and during 1914 the products from 
 the experimental farm represented a value of about 
 fifteen hundred dollars. The Wells experimental 
 farm was the second to be established as a direct ad- 
 junct of the high school course in Minnesota. The 
 high school district comprises a large amount of 
 territory outside the city proper of Wells, taking in 
 much of the eastern portion of the County of Fari- 
 bault. 
 
 Superintendent Young is a member of the Metho- 
 dist Episcopal Church, and is affiliated with Wells 
 Lodge, A. F. & A. M., with Hibbing Consistory, 
 Scottish Rite Masons, and also with the Royal 
 League. In 1897 in Minneapolis he married Miss 
 Caroline Morgan, of Minneapolis. Her father was 
 at one time comptroller of New York State, and his 
 ancestry and that of J. Pierpont Morgan came to- 
 gether back in colonial times. Mrs. Young and her 
 two daughters are members of the Daughters of the 
 American Revolution and the Colonial Dames. These 
 daughters are: Carol, a student in the Wells High 
 
 School, as is also her sister Muriel. 
 
 Hon. Patrick R. Vail. One of the men of 
 prominence in the iron regions of Northern Minne- 
 sota and Michigan was the late Patrick R. Vail, 
 whose active career brought him the substantial 
 proofs of material prosperity and the honors of 
 public life, and whose name deserves the permanent 
 tribute of a memorial record in the history of this 
 state. Mr. Vail was a resident of Minnesota more 
 than a quarter of a century. 
 
 Patrick Roger Vail was born in Shulesberg, La- 
 
 fayette County, Wisconsin, March 20, 1859, and died 
 at his home in Virginia, Minnesota, January 30, 
 1913, in his fifty-fourth year. His life was one of 
 strenuous self-accomplishment and advancement. 
 His parents died when he was six years old and 
 he then went to the home of an uncle at Ontonagon, 
 Michigan. He was started on his career of self- 
 supporting industry after only a common school 
 education. From Ontonagon, when a young man. 
 he went to the Menominee Iron Range, where he 
 engaged for a short time in mining, proved his fit- 
 ness for more important responsibilities, and also 
 at an early age became identified with local politics. 
 
 From the time he located at Ely, Minnesota, in 
 1887, Mr. Vail had a record of continually increasing 
 influence and prosperity. . He acquired extensive 
 business interests in Northern Minnesota, had a 
 genius for making friendships, was well known 
 throughout three states, and possessed a considerable 
 fortune at the time of his death. 
 
 In 1894 Mr. Vail was elected mayor of Ely, and 
 in 1896 was sent to the State Legislature from the 
 Fifty-fourth District. After that for several years 
 he was out of politics, giving all his time to mining 
 operations and other affairs. He erected and organ- 
 ized the business of the Virginia Brewing Company 
 and was president of that business at Virginia at 
 the time of his death. His home was in Virginia for 
 a number of years. In 1906 he reentered politics 
 and was elected to the Senate from the Forty-ninth 
 District, retiring at the end of a four-year term. 
 Senator Vail was a republican and long a familiar 
 figure in party councils. 
 
 On March 21, 1888, at Ironwood, Michigan, Sena- 
 tor Vail married Mary Gleason, of Ironwood. Mrs. 
 Vail and four children, Lenore, Leo, Nicholas and 
 Byron, survive. The late Patrick R. Vail was 
 affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order 
 of Elks, of which he was a life member, the Inde- 
 pendent Order of Odd Fellows, and was a member 
 of the Catholic Church. He is well remembered by 
 all his associates not only for his success in business 
 but also for his philanthropy and charity, though 
 much that he did was done with the quiet lack of 
 ostentation that leaves no record except in the 
 hearts of the recipient. He possessed a thorough 
 knowledge and experience of men, and as he had 
 strength and resources above the average man he 
 always played the game fair, whether in business 
 or in politics. Probably no man in the Iron Range 
 had more stanch friends than the late Patrick R. 
 Vail. In the cemetery at Virginia has been erected 
 one of the finest monuments in the state to his 
 memory, a symbol of what he represented to his 
 devoted family and what he stood for in his indi- 
 vidual life. 
 
 John H. Moore. Manager and treasurer of the 
 Wells Flour Milling Company. John H. Moore is a 
 native son of Minnesota, and for nearly thirty years 
 has been identified with the grain business, with 
 banking and with public affairs, at his native town 
 of Jordan, at Shakopee and in Wells. 
 
 John H. Moore was born at Jordan. Minnesota, 
 May 23. 1867. His father, Henry Moore, was born 
 in Schleswig-Holstein, provinces of Denmark at 
 that time, but which subsequently were wrested away 
 bv Prussia and are now a part of the German Empire. 
 His birth occurred in 183a and he died at Jordan, 
 Minnesota, in 1888. At the age of nineteen, emi- 
 grating from his native land to the United States, he 
 
5 * 
 

 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1387 
 
 located first in Illinois, and later lived in Minnesota, 
 from which state he enlisted almost at the begin- 
 ning of the Civil war in the Fifth Iowa Cavalry. 
 Among other battles he participated in the strug- 
 gle at Shiloh in 1862, where he was severely 
 wounded, and on account of that wound and a wound 
 received in another engagement was mustered out 
 after nine months’ service. Following his army 
 career he became a pioneer in Southern Minnesota, 
 locating at Jordan in 1862. His enterprise there was 
 as a sawmill man, and he continued a lumber manu- 
 facturer and dealer until his death. Henry Moore 
 married Mary Feitler, who was born in 1843 m the 
 Duchv of Luxemburg, came to Minnesota and was 
 married at Jordan, where her death occurred in 1888. 
 The children were: John H. ; Henry, who is a car- 
 
 penter and builder living in California; Joseph F., a 
 cigar manufacturer at North Yakima, Washington, 
 Anna, who lives in Portland, Oregon, and is the wife 
 of Hamilton D. Wagnon, an insurance man. 
 
 John H. Moore grew up in Jordan, attended the 
 public schools there, and also took a business course 
 in a college at St. Paul. When nineteen, the same 
 ao-e at which his father had left Denmark and come 
 to the New World, he embarked in his business 
 career as clerk in a grocery store at St. Paul, re- 
 maining there two years. After that experience Mr. 
 Moore became a shipping clerk and wheat buyer 
 for the Jordan Mills, and ten years there gave him 
 his permanent commercial vocation. His election to 
 the office of county auditor of Scott County turned 
 his attention to' public affairs, and he filled that 
 office and had his home at Shakopee, the county 
 seat, for twelve years. After leaving that office Mr. 
 Moore had charge of the wheat department at the 
 New Prague Mills, 2^ years, and in 1912 came 
 to Wells as manager and treasurer of the Wells 
 Flour Milling Company, which is a branch of the 
 New Prague Mills. The mills at Wells have a 
 capacity of 1,000 barrels a day. 
 
 Mr. Moore is a director in the First National Bank 
 of Shakopee and in the People s State Bank at Jor- 
 dan. Besides his official service as county auditor 
 in Scott County, he served as alderman at Jordan, 
 was a member of the park board at Shakopee, and is 
 a public spirited citizen who has successfully com- 
 bined substantial business achievement and disinter- 
 ested service to the public. Mr. Moore is a member 
 of the Catholic Church and is affiliated with the 
 Knights of Columbus and the Modern Woodmen of 
 America. In 1905 at Shakopee he married Miss 
 Barbara Lies, daughter of Matt Lies, now deceased, 
 who was an early settler of Shakopee. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Moore have one daughter, Evelyn Margaret, a stu- 
 dent in the public schools at Wells. 
 
 Leander R. Johnson. Representing a family that 
 was among the pioneer settlers of Minnesota, Lean- 
 der R. Johnson is himself a native Minnesotan, was 
 successfully identified with educational work in this 
 state for about seven years, and since 1907 has been 
 cashier of the Easton State Bank. Mr. Johnson is 
 one of the keen, resourceful young business men of 
 Faribault County and has a position of distinct 
 leadership in commercial affairs at Easton. 
 
 Leander R. Johnson was born at Havana in Steele 
 County, Minnesota, November 29, 1876. His grand- 
 father, Louis K. Johnson, was a native of Norway, 
 came to the United States after his marriage, located 
 in Madison. Wisconsin, and in 1855 brought his 
 family to Minnesota and located as a pioneer at 
 
 Havana. J. L. Johnson, father of the Easton banker, 
 was born in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1853, lived in 
 Minnesota a number of years, but finally returned to 
 Wisconsin, and died at Amery in that state in 1908. 
 He married Bertha Nelson, who was also a native 
 of Madison, Wisconsin, and now lives at Amery. 
 The children are : Leander R. ; Gertrude, widow of 
 
 L. Q. Olcott, a banker, and her home is now at 
 Amery, Wisconsin ; Theodore, whose home is in 
 Boise City, Idaho; and Maybelle, wife of Dr. H. E. 
 Mooney, a physician at Amery, Wisconsin. 
 
 Leander R. Johnson grew up at Havana in Steele 
 County, but attended the public schools of Owatonna, 
 near his home, graduating from the high school in 
 1896. Mr. Johnson prepared for his career by a 
 liberal education, and in 1899 was graduated from the 
 Mankato Normal School and was a student in the 
 University of Minnesota during 1900. His work as a 
 teacher began at Wabasha as principal of the schools, 
 and he was in active work along that line in Fari- 
 bault County for seven years. 
 
 In 1907 Mr. Johnson accepted the position of 
 cashier of the Easton State Bank, being the manager 
 chiefly responsible to the directors. The Easton 
 State Bank was established in 1903, and has a capi- 
 tal stock of $10,000, while its surplus is approxi- 
 mately the same as its capital. 
 
 Mr. Johnson is a republican in politics, and a 
 member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and 
 collector of funds for his church. His fraternal 
 affiliations are with Doric Lodge No. 87, A. F. & A. 
 
 M. , and with Easton Camp No. 2370 of the Modern 
 Woodmen of America. Besides his relations with 
 Easton as a banker he is also treasurer of the Farm- 
 ers Elevator Company and treasurer of the Barber 
 Creamery Company at that place. 
 
 In July, 1909, at Madison, Wisconsin, Mr. Johnson 
 married Miss Rosa B. Glagow, daughter of Herman 
 Glagow, now deceased, formerly a hardware mer- 
 chant at Marshall, Wisconsin. Mr. and Mrs. John- 
 son have two children : Helen E. and Homer Ulysses. 
 
 Frank L. Durgin, M. D. One of the oldest prac- 
 ticing physicians and surgeons in Faribault County 
 in point of continuous residence is Frank L. Durgin, 
 whose home has been in Winnebago for a quarter 
 of a century. Doctor Durgin graduated in medicine 
 more than thirty years ago, practiced for several 
 years back in Maine, his native state, and since com- 
 ing to Minnesota has enjoyed the relations of the 
 successful practitioner and of a public spirited citi- 
 zen, having served his locality in public office and 
 having a well-secured interest in business. 
 
 Frank L. Durgin was born in Saco, Maine, De- 
 cember 23, 1851, and belongs to families that have 
 been represented in New England since colonial 
 times. His parents were O. I. and Lydia (Gowen) 
 Durgin. The Durgins came from the north of Eng- 
 land and located in the Colonies many years before 
 the Revolution. It is said that the first white child 
 born in the Town of Gorham, Maine, was a direct 
 ancestor of Doctor Durgin. Doctor Durgin through 
 his mother is of Scotch descent and the family be- 
 fore leaving Scotland was known as MacGowen. 
 They also came before the Revolution. O. I. Dur- 
 gin, the doctor’s father, was born in Saco, Maine, 
 in 1822 and died in 1904. He was a man of more 
 than ordinary prominence, served in the LTnited 
 States Secret Service, and was sheriff of his county 
 in Maine for forty years. In republican politics he 
 was prominent and left an honored name in the 
 
1388 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 community. His wife was born in Saco in 1822 and 
 died there in 1891. Doctor Durgin is the first of 
 their three children; James A. is a brick manufac- 
 turer at Saco; and Ida L. is the wife of Lewis Still- 
 man, who is associated with James A. Durgin in the 
 brick business. 
 
 Dr. Frank L. Durgin was graduated from the high 
 school at Saco in 1870, and somewhat later moved to 
 Michigan and attended Hillsdale College until grad- 
 uating A. B. in 1876. His medical studies were pur- 
 sued in the Western Reserve University at Cleve- 
 land, Ohio, which graduated him with the class of 
 1882 and the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Doctor 
 Durgin several years later took post-graduate studies 
 in the New York Polyclinic. From 1882 to 1889 he 
 was engaged in the practice of medicine in his native 
 state, and in the latter year moved west and located 
 in Winnebago, Minnesota. With natural ability, 
 thorough training, and long experience, Doctor Dur- 
 gin is now one of the leading physicians and sur- 
 geons of Faribault County. His offices are in the 
 Sharp Block. Doctor Durgin is a member of the 
 County, State and Southern Minnesota Medical so- 
 cieties, and of the American Medical Association. 
 
 Doctor Durgin served one term as mayor of Win- 
 nebago and for several years was a member of the 
 village council and is now chairman of the health 
 board and also a member of the school board and 
 a trustee of Parker College. Doctor Durgin has 
 banking interests and is a director of the First Na- 
 tional Bank of Winnebago and a director of the Min- 
 nesota State Bank of Amboy. In politics he is a 
 republican and is a member of the Baptist Church, 
 and is past master by service of Blue Earth Valley 
 Lodge No. 27, A. F. & A. M. 
 
 Doctor Durgin was married in Michigan in 1877, 
 the year following his graduation from Hillsdale 
 College, to Miss Lucy M. Phillips, daughter of the 
 Rev. Jeremiah Phillips, now deceased, and at one 
 time a missionary to India. Doctor Durgin had one 
 child, Donald, who died at the age of four years. 
 
 Fred E. PIadley. The publisher of the Winnebago 
 Enterprise has been identified with that journal since 
 boyhood, first as a reporter, and for the past ten 
 years as proprietor and editor. Mr. Hadley has 
 spent most of his life in Winnebago, and has varied 
 relations with the business, civic and social affairs of 
 Faribault County. 
 
 Fred E. Hadley was born in Humboldt County, 
 California, December 22, 1880. The Hadley family 
 came from England and settled in Massachusetts 
 many years before the Revolutionary war. There 
 were five brothers who emigrated from the old coun- 
 try to the new, and their descendants are now scat- 
 tered all over the United States. It was an old 
 and substantial family back in New England, and 
 several of its members served as soldiers on the 
 American side during the Revolution. Mr. Hadley’s 
 father was W. E. Hadley, who was born at Fort 
 Fairfield in Aroostook County, Maine, in 1854, aud 
 died in San Diego, California, in 1909. Prior to his 
 marriage he had moved out to Humboldt County, 
 California, and a little later located in San Diego and 
 for twenty-three years was proprietor of the Horton 
 House. He was an active republican. W. E. Hadley 
 married Emma Williams, a native of Humboldt 
 County, California. Of their two children, the 
 daughter Nellie is the wife of Roy Anthony of San 
 Diego, California, her husband being city salesman 
 for the Hazard Gould Hardware Company. 
 
 Fred E. Hadley began his education in the public 
 schools of San Diego, but when he was fourteen 
 years of age his mother came to Winnebago, Minne- 
 sota, and here his instruction was continued through 
 the high school and also in Parker College of Winne- 
 bago. Leaving school at the age of nineteen, Mr. 
 Hadley entered the office of the Winnebago Enter- 
 prise as a reporter, and in 1903 bought the paper from 
 Blackwell & McColley, and has since been its pub- 
 lisher and proprietor. The Enterprise has long been 
 one of the influential journals of Faribault County, 
 having been established in 1892. It has been con- 
 sistently identified with republican politics, and has 
 a large circulation throughout the county. The plant 
 and offices are located on Main Street. 
 
 Mr. Hadley himself has been interested in politics 
 as a republican, and is a member of the State Cen- 
 tral Committee. Besides his newspaper business he 
 is a stockholder in the First National Bank of Win- 
 nebago and in the National Bank of Commerce at 
 St. Paul. He enjoys relations with various frater- 
 nities and is particularly well known in Masonic 
 circles. Mr. Hadley affiliates with Blue Earth Valley 
 Lodge No. 27, A. F. & A. M. ; with Consistory No. 1 
 of the thirty-second degree Scottish Rite; and with 
 Zuhrah Temple of the Mystic Shrine, of which he 
 has been assistant director. He is also affiliated with 
 the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Winne- 
 bago. 
 
 Mr. Hadley was married in Delavan, Minnesota, 
 in 1905, to Miss Emma Holt. Her father, O. A. 
 Holt, is postmaster at Delavan. 
 
 Andrew Nelson Eckstrom. The profession of 
 law has probably been the main highway over which 
 more men of merit and ability have advanced to 
 prominence in this country than any other road, and 
 it is not, therefore, unusual to find among the lead- 
 ing citizens of a community a member of the bar. 
 Andrew Nelson Eckstrom, one of the leading law- 
 yers of Warren, and since 1910 county attorney of 
 Marshall County, is one who has won success and 
 prominence in his chosen calling through the force 
 of his own ability and effort, for he received no 
 unusual advantages in his youth, of either an edu- 
 cation or financial nature. He is a native of Sweden, 
 and was born August 31, 1878, a son of Nels and 
 Catherine (Pearson) Eckstrom. 
 
 Mr. Eckstrom was seven years of age when 
 brought to the United States by his parents, the 
 family settling at St. Peter, Minnesota. In 
 that city the youth grew up, attending the public 
 schools and eventually entering Gustavus Adolphus 
 College, from which he was graduated in 1899. For 
 the three years that followed he was engaged in 
 teaching school, and during this time began to apply 
 himself to the study of law, in 1902 entering the 
 law department of the University of Minnesota, 
 from which he was duly graduated in 1905 with 
 the degree of bachelor of laws. Having definitely 
 decided upon Warren as his field of practice, he at 
 once came to this city, opened an office, and estab- 
 lished himself in practice, and since that time has 
 been successful in building up a very desirable and 
 representative professional business. His practice 
 is broad and general in its character, Mr. Eckstrom 
 being equally at home in all branches of his profes- 
 sion, and at various times he has been connected 
 with some important cases which have come before 
 the county and state courts. He is a member of the 
 Commercial Law League and the American Law 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1389 
 
 League, and has a high reputation among his fellow 
 practitioners. In 1910 Mr. Eckstrom announced his 
 candidacy for the office of county attorney of Mar- 
 shall County, to which he was elected by a handsome 
 majority. His services in that capacity were of such 
 a capable and satisfactory nature that in 1914 he 
 was elected to succeed himself. Mr. Eckstrom, as 
 a business man, has been identified with several 
 enterprises of a commercial character, and is a 
 director of the First National Bank of Warren. 
 Fraternally he is affiliated with the Masons, the 
 Knights of Pythias, the Benevolent and Protective 
 Order of Elks and the Modern Woodmen of Amer- 
 ica. He also holds membership in the Commercial 
 Club, and his name is always included among those 
 supporting movements for the advancement of the 
 general welfare of Warren and its people. 
 
 On August 20, 1908, Mr. Eckstrom was united in 
 marriage with Miss Bertha Trost, of Moorhead, 
 Minnesota. 
 
 Alexander Ecicel. One of the successful real es- 
 tate men of Faribault County is Alexander Eckel, 
 who has an office in the Sharp Building in the Town 
 of Winnebago, of which he is now the honored 
 mayor. Mr. Eckel left school when fourteen, worked 
 at day and monthly wages for a number of years, 
 finally got a farm of his own in Illinois, and about 
 ten years ago with his accumulated experience as a 
 practical land man and capital engaged in real estate 
 business. Though his residence in Minnesota covers 
 only a few years, he is one of the well known and 
 highly esteemed citizens of Faribault County. 
 
 Alexander Eckel was born in Jennings County, 
 Indiana, February 27, 1872, a son of Joseph and 
 Genevieve (Bechtel) Eckel. Both parents were na- 
 tives of Germany. The father was born in 1839 and 
 died in Jennings County, Indiana, in 1878. When he 
 was ten years of age his family came to America, 
 located in Ripley County, Indiana, and became early 
 settlers there. The grandparents subsequently moved 
 to Jennings County, where grandfather died in the 
 home of his son Joseph. After Joseph Eckel married 
 he located in Jennings County, and spent all his 
 active career as a farmer. The mother died in Cham- 
 paign County, Illinois, in 1910. Their children were : 
 Frank, who is a Champaign County farmer in Illi- 
 nois; Barbara, wife of Winfield Saunders, now post- 
 master at Westport, Indiana; Lena, who is unmar- 
 ried and lives in Canon City, Colorado ; Alexander ; 
 and Mary, who is still single and lives in Champaign 
 County. 
 
 Alexander Eckel spent his boyhood in Jennings 
 County, Indiana, left school at the age of fourteen, 
 and is largely a self-educated and practical man, 
 having learned to do things by doing them rather 
 than from instruction and precept. He worked on 
 the farm with his father for two years, and at six- 
 teen began working out for wages. In 1891 Mr. 
 Eckel moved to Champaign County, Illinois, followed 
 the same course in providing for his livelihood and 
 by 1894 he rented a farm of eighty acres and thus 
 became an independent farmer. He cultivated the 
 land two years and then rented a 200-acre farm for 
 the following seven years. In 1903 Mr. Eckel moved 
 to Decatur, Illinois, and six months later became ac- 
 tively identified with the real estate business. His home 
 was in Illinois at Decatur until the spring of 1911, at 
 which date he moved to Winnebago, Minnesota, and 
 since that time has conducted a real estate business, 
 using partly his own capital, representing some of 
 
 his old friends back in Illinois, and also doing a gen- 
 eral brokerage business. He has a large clientage 
 and handles a great aggregate of farm land in Fari- 
 bault, Martin and Blue Earth counties, and also con- 
 siderable land in the northern part of the state. 
 
 As a democrat Mr. Eckel has been particularly 
 interested in local affairs, has served some time as a 
 member of the council of Winnebago and is now its 
 president, that office being equivalent to mayor of the 
 village. Mr. Eckel is a member of the Catholic 
 Church and affiliates with the Knights of Columbus. 
 Besides his real estate business he is a stockholder 
 and director of the Blue Earth Valley National 
 Bank. 
 
 In February, 1896', in Champaign County, Illinois, 
 Mr. Eckel married Miss Mary E. Kerker, daughter 
 of Henry Kerker, now deceased, and formerly a 
 Champaign County farmer. Mr. and Mrs. Eckel are 
 the parents of four children : Charles L. and Alex- 
 ander F., both students in the Winnebago High 
 School, Genevieve M. and Bernard J., attending the 
 grade school. 
 
 Parker College and John Dale McCormick. A 
 number of successful and influential citizens in Min- 
 nesota and other states give credit for part of their 
 early training and preparation for life to Parker 
 College at Winnebago. Its possibilities for useful 
 service are now greater than ever, and it ranks 
 among the best small colleges in Minnesota. The 
 original Parker College was founded in 1887, and 
 was under the control of the Free Baptist Church 
 until June, 1911. As a result of a donation of prop- 
 erty valued at $40,000 towards the permanent endow- 
 ment in 1891 the title of the college has since honored 
 the name of Mr. L. D. Parker. Under the old regime 
 the college did much valuable work, and has a loyal 
 body of alumni. In October, 1911, the college, with 
 its endowment, was transferred to the control of the 
 Minnesota Annual Conference of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. Since that time the institution 
 has been entirely reorganized, and is now being 
 conducted both as a college and college preparatory 
 school. The college has a beautiful site, with a 
 campus of more than thirty acres, with good build- 
 ings, and the instruction and discipline of the college 
 and the environment of the school are such as to 
 constitute Parker an ideal place for the training of 
 both boys and girls. The faculty for the year 1914- 
 15 comprises the following members: John D. Mc- 
 
 Cormick, B. A., D. D., president; H. B. Randolph, 
 M. A., principal of the school of commerce; Henry 
 J. Ostlund, B. A., history, mathematics and science; 
 Elva Mylenbusch, B. A., Latin and German ; S. R. 
 Cook, manual training, English and history; Isabelle 
 Huggins, B. A., English, Latin and mathematics; 
 Maude Muir, domestic science and music; Raymond 
 H. Officer, director of the school of music; and Mae 
 Howe, vocal. 
 
 John Dale McCormick, now president of Parker 
 College, is a thoroughly educated Minnesota man, 
 has been identified with the Methodist ministry for a 
 number of years, and his broad experience and thor- 
 ough qualifications led to his selection for his present 
 office. 
 
 John Dale McCormick was born at Ellington, 
 Dodge County, Minnesota, July 16, 1877, a .son of 
 A. J. and Alice (Woodard) McCormick. His father 
 was born in Dodge County, Wisconsin, in 1851, has 
 followed farming and also business as a contractor 
 and builder, and is now a resident of Parma, Idaho. 
 
1390 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 He married Miss Woodard in Dodge County, Minne- 
 sota, in 1870, and she died at Watertown, Wisconsin, 
 in 1881. The father then married Julia M. Rock- 
 wood of Garden City, Blue Earth County, Minne- 
 sota. She is a native of Bennington, Vermont, a 
 daughter of Rev. Joseph Rockwood, who came from 
 Vermont and located as a pioneer Baptist minister 
 at Garden City, Minnesota, in 1859. R.ev. Joseph 
 Rockwood was prominent and honored in his pro- 
 fession in Southern Minnesota for half a century, 
 and among other services was member of the com- 
 mittee that decided upon the location of the Pills- 
 bury Academy at Owatonna. By his present wife 
 A. J. McCormick has four children : Robert Rock- 
 
 wood, born February 13, 1891, and now a senior in 
 the College of Idaho at Caldwell, Idaho; Florence 
 Rockwood, born February 25, 1893, also a senior in 
 the College of Idaho; Harold Rockwood, born Janu- 
 ary 31, 1896, and a member of the senior class in the 
 high school at Parma, Idaho ; Louise Rockwood, born 
 January 8, 1899, attending the Parma public schools. 
 
 In 1877 the family moved to Owatonna, and John 
 Dale McCormick acquired his early education in the 
 public schools of that city and was graduated from 
 Pillsbury Academy in 1898. In 1902 he took the 
 degree A. B. from Hamline University of St. Paul, 
 which conferred upon him the degree M. A. in 1909. 
 Mr. McCormick is a graduate of Drew Theological 
 Seminary at Madison, New Jersey, with the class of 
 1907 and the degree Bachelor of Divinity. 
 
 Mr. McCormick was ordained in the fall of 1906 
 at Central Park Methodist Episcopal Church in St. 
 Paul. Prior to his ordination he had preached as 
 pastor in Blooming Prairie, North Mankato, Med- 
 ford, Brownsdale, in Minnesota, and also in the 
 Nepperhan Methodist Episcopal Church at Yonkers, 
 New York, and in the South Market Street Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church at Newark, New Jersey. 
 After being ordained his first pastorate was at what 
 is now the McKinley Methodist Episcopal Church at 
 Winona, then called the Olive Branch Church. He 
 remained there two years, and in the fall of 1908 
 became pastor of the North Mankato Church, which 
 he had previously served, and had organized. Dur- 
 ing his regular pastorate, which continued until the 
 fall of 1910, Mr. McCormick was instrumental in 
 enabling the congregation to erect a new edifice. 
 From the fall of 1910 to the fall of 1913 he was 
 pastor of the Waseca Methodist Episcopal Church 
 and then for one year at the King Street Church in 
 St. Paul. On August 14, 1914, Mr. McCormick was 
 elected president of Parker College at Winnebago, 
 and besides his regular administrative work is in- 
 structor in the Bible and in Christian literature. He 
 is registrar of the Minnesota Conference of the 
 Methodist Church. 
 
 Mr. McCormick was married October 15, 1902, at 
 St. Paul to Miss Ida Pearl Wenger. Her father, 
 C. H. Wenger, was a farmer at Acadia, Wisconsin, 
 and died in 1901. Mrs. McCormick is a graduate of 
 Hamline University with the class of 1898. They 
 have one child: Kenneth Dale, born in New Jersey, 
 February 25, 1906, and now attending the Winne- 
 bago Public Schools. 
 
 Harry Blaine Randolph, who is principal of the 
 school of commerce at Parker College, has unusual 
 equipment and experience for his present office, hav- 
 ing taught in public schools for several years, and 
 also having a practical business experience as a 
 banker and in other lines. 
 
 Harry Blaine Randolph was born at Fergus Falls, 
 
 Minnesota, July 6, 1879. His father, H. H. Ran- 
 dolph, was born in Indiana in 1839, and was a pioneer 
 of Minnesota, locating as a pioneer farmer in Le 
 Sueur in 1855, and subsequently moving to Fergus 
 Falls and thence to North Dakota. His home is 
 now in St. Paul. He was one of Minnesota’s early 
 settlers who responded to the call for military serv- 
 ice at the beginning of the war, and enlisted in 1861 
 in the Fourth Minnesota Infantry, later reenlisted, 
 and was mustered out at the close of the war, having 
 served in such great battles as Antietam, Lookout 
 Mountain, Missionary Ridge and in many other en- 
 gagements with Logan's Corps. His first wife was 
 Narcissa Silver. After her death he married Mary 
 L. Wilkins, who was born in the State of Vermont 
 in 1840 and died at Owatonna, Minnesota, in 1906. 
 Their children were : Harry Blaine and Marion 
 
 Garfield, the latter a bookkeeper for the firm of 
 Ogden, Merrill, Greer Company at St. Paul. The 
 father now lives with his third wife, Clara F. Mills, 
 who came from Stratford, Ontario. 
 
 Harry B. Randolph was graduated from the State 
 Normal School at Valley City, North Dakota, in 
 1899, and has the degree A. B. from Hamline Uni- 
 versity at St. Paul with the class of 1904. In the 
 meantime he had spent his early life on his father’s 
 farm at Valley City, North Dakota, where his father 
 located in 1880. His first experience as a teacher 
 was at Dodge Center for one year, and for three 
 years he was principal of schools at LaMoure, North 
 Dakota. This was followed by three years as cashier 
 of the First State Bank at Jud, North Dakota, and 
 after that he again taught school in Billings, Mon- 
 tana, two years. Mr. Randolph in 1913 came to 
 Winnebago, and is now giving valuable service as 
 principal of the school of commerce in Parker Col- 
 lege. 
 
 In politics he is an independent republican, and is 
 a local preacher in the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 He has fraternal affiliations with the Masonic Lodge 
 at Edgely, North Dakota. On August 1, 1906, at 
 Glencoe, Minnesota, Mr. Randolph married Miss 
 Nellie Davis, daughter of J. S. Davis, ,who is now a 
 fruit grower in Oregon. Mr. and Mrs. Randolph 
 have one daughter, Mary Elizabeth, born October 11, 
 1907, and a student in the public schools. 
 
 George Morton Bleecker was born at Whip- 
 pany, Morris County, New Jersey, November 
 19, 1861. His family descended from Johan 
 
 Jacob von Bleecker, one of the early Dutch 
 settlers of the original New Amsterdam, and the 
 prominence of that family is indicated by the name 
 attaching to one of the important thoroughfares of 
 the City of New York. His grandfather, Judge 
 John Anthony Bleecker, removed from New York 
 City and settled at Whippany, New Jersey, about the 
 year 1825, where, during a long life he was very 
 prominent in all public affairs of Northern New 
 Jersey, and for many years prior to his death repre- 
 sented his county in the State Senate of that state. 
 Mr. Bleecker was educated in the public schools of 
 his native town, and also attended Whippany Acad- 
 emy. In 1883 he came to Minneapolis, and for some 
 time attended the University of Minnesota. In 1885 
 he entered the law department of the University of 
 Michigan, and graduated LL. B. in the class of 1887. 
 Returning to Minneapolis, he was admitted to the 
 bar of Minnesota in December, 1887, and since that 
 date has been continuously engaged in the work of 
 his profession. For three years, 1894-97, he was 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
OTTO C. NEUMAN 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1391 
 
 associated with Edward E. Witchie, but otherwise 
 has practiced individually. He early acquired a good 
 clientage, and with mature experience his services 
 have been retained by a number of large corpora- 
 tions. 
 
 Mr. Bleecker has been a lawyer first and foremost, 
 and with no desire to serve in political office except 
 for a completely disinterested purpose. In 1891-92 
 he was clerk of the Probate Court of Hennepin 
 County, and represented that county in the State 
 Legislature during the session of 1893. He was a 
 democrat in a republican district and normal con- 
 ditions did not favor the candidates of that party. 
 In May, 1913, he was appointed by the mayor of 
 the City of Minneapolis a member of the Civil 
 Service Commission, under and through which all 
 the employes of that city are employed. Mr. 
 Bleecker is a member of the Minneapolis and State 
 Bar associations and the Minneapolis Civic and 
 Commerce Association ; is affiliated with the Masonic 
 fraternity, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, 
 the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is 
 a member of the Minneapolis Athletic Club, the 
 Interlachen Country Club and the Minneapolis Rod 
 and Gun Club. His wife before her marriage was 
 Mary Frances Martin. Both are members of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church. 
 
 Otto C. Neuman. Wheaton is rapidly becoming 
 one of the most thriving centers of commercial and 
 industrial activity in Western Minnesota, and its 
 prestige may be accredited in large part to such men 
 as Otto C. Neuman, whose operations in real estate 
 have benefited the community while contributing to 
 his own advancement. He has been a resident of 
 the city for twenty-seven years, and during nine- 
 teen years of this period has been engaged in his 
 present business, which through his good manage- 
 ment and knowledge of realty values, has enjoyed a 
 steady and consistent increase. 
 
 Mr. Neuman was born in Dakota County, Minne- 
 sota, June 29, 1869, and is a son of Frederick C. 
 Neuman, who was born in Pomerania, Germany, in 
 1824, and died in, Traverse County, Minnesota, in 
 1896. Frederick C. Neuman was forty years of age 
 when he emigrated to the United States, settling first 
 at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the vicinity of which 
 city he owned a small farm for about five years. In 
 the spring of 1869 he removed to Dakota County, 
 Minnesota, there carrying on agricultural pursuits 
 until 1886, when he came to Traverse County. One 
 year later he came to Wheaton, and here established 
 a grain elevator, but this business was sold in 1889, 
 and from that time until his death the father lived 
 in quiet retirement. Mr. Neuman married Miss 
 Johannah Vudtke, also a native of Germany, who 
 was born in 1830 and died in Traverse County, Min- 
 nesota, in 1906. They were the parents of eleven 
 children, as follows: Amelia, who died in Traverse 
 
 County; Henry L., who is a retired farmer and re- 
 sides at Wheaton; F. W., who is engaged in farm- 
 ing and lives on his property in Traverse County; 
 August F., who is now living retired in that county 
 after many years spent in agricultural pursuits ; 
 Albert F., who was a farmer and died at Litchville, 
 Barnes County, Horth Dakota; Herman, who passed 
 his career in mercantile pursuits and died at Glencoe, 
 Minnesota; Louisa, who married Frank Wolk, an 
 agriculturist of Traverse County; Anna, who died 
 unmarried in Dakota County; Otto C., of this re- 
 view ; David J., who is engaged in farming in 
 
 Traverse County; and Sarah, who married Fred H. 
 Lindig, the proprietor of a meat market at Wheaton. 
 
 The public schools of Dakota County furnished 
 Otto C. Neuman with his educational training, and 
 until he was nineteen years of age he remained at 
 home, assisting his father in the work of the farm. 
 In 1888 he became the manager of the elevator busi- 
 ness belonging to his father at Wheaton, but one 
 year later the enterprise was sold and Mr. Neuman 
 established himself in the mercantile business, a ven- 
 ture in which he was engaged with a fair measure of 
 prosperity until 1896. In that year Mr. Neuman 
 entered upon his career in real estate, in which he has 
 attained such success. He handles farm land, prin- 
 cipally in Traverse County, although he also has 
 dealt successfully in city property, and maintains 
 offices in the Barrett Building, on Broadway. Mr. 
 Neuman has responded to his business opportunities, 
 and carries on his operations in a modern, systematic 
 and efficient manner. His business discernment early 
 told him that community success spelled individual 
 success, and from the start he has made the interests 
 of Wheaton and Traverse County his own. In this 
 connection it may be noted that for the past eight 
 years he has been actively and officially identified 
 with the Traverse County Agricultural Fair Asso- 
 ciation, of which he was secretary for two years, 
 and during the past six years has been president, a 
 position which he capably fills at this time. A demo- 
 crat, he was village recorder for a number of years, 
 and has taken an active interest in political matters, 
 and in the fall of 1914 interested himself in behalf 
 of Hammond’s candidacy for governor. That he 
 wields some influence in public affairs is shown by 
 the fact that although Traverse County is normally 
 republican by several hundred majority, Mr. Neu- 
 man succeeded in carrying the county for the can- 
 didate of his party. Fraternally, Mr. Neuman is con- 
 nected with Lodge No, 952, Behevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks, of Willmar ; and the Knights 
 of Pythias Lodge at Wheaton. With his family, he 
 is a member of the Lutheran Church. 
 
 Mr. Neuman was married at Austin, Minnesota, 
 to Miss Mary Thompson, of that city, and she died 
 at Austin in 1900, the mother of one child : Fannie 
 L., who is attending St. Mary’s Hall, Faribault, 
 Minnesota. Mr. Neuman was again married, in 1903, 
 at Minneapolis, when he took as his bride Miss Fan- 
 nie Mapes, of that city, daughter of the founder of 
 Ripon College, Minnesota. They have no children. 
 
 George A. Brackett has been a resident of Min- 
 neapolis for more than fifty-five years, and during 
 that time his life has touched for benefits at many 
 points in the development and upbuilding of the 
 city. George A. Brackett was born at Calais, Wash- 
 ington County, Maine, September 16, 1836. His 
 father, Henry H. Brackett, was a mechanic, and rep- 
 resented the staunch English stock that founded 
 homes in New England before the Revolution. The 
 second in a large family of children. George A. 
 Brackett spent his boyhood under conditions and 
 circumstances that called forth the qualities of self- 
 reliance and industry at an early age. He gained 
 his education in the intervals of hard work, and 
 was well disciplined for independent effort before 
 reaching his majority. At an early age persever- 
 ance, self-reliance, industry, courage and integrity 
 became his dominating characteristics. 
 
 Mr. Brackett came to the Northwest April 30, 
 1857, arriving in Minneapolis about the same time as 
 
1392 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 his boyhood acquaintance, the late William D. Wash- 
 burn, whose name is written large on the industrial 
 and civic history of Minnesota. He soon found 
 work in a meat market, and also helped to build the 
 new dam at St. Anthony Falls. In the following 
 spring he opened a meat market of his own, and 
 several years later secured a profitable contract for 
 supplying meat to the Union troops after the out- 
 break of the Civil war. While the First Minnesota 
 Regiment was being mobilized at Fort Snelling, Mr. 
 Brackett was employed to furnish the beef to the 
 troops which were the first ones to answer Presi- 
 dent Lincoln’s call for volunteers. Fie inaugurated 
 such an economical system of buying and made such 
 a good record with it that later the commissary of 
 the First Regiment, having been promoted to com- 
 missary of General Stone’s division of the Army of 
 the Potomac, sent for Mr. Brackett to go to Wash- 
 ington and install the same system there. Then later 
 General Sibley, at the outbreak of the Indian war 
 in 1862, employed Mr. Brackett in the same capacity 
 for his command. Fie accompanied the expedition 
 of General Sibley during the Indian outbreak of 
 1862, and while in the present State of North Da- 
 kota became separated from the main body of troops, 
 and spent seven days alone on the plains, walking 
 225 miles, in constant danger of his life, before 
 rejoining the army. 
 
 At the close of the war Mr. Brackett turned his 
 attention to the manufacture of flour, an industry 
 which more than any other has given Minneapolis 
 a distinguished place among American cities. For 
 a time he was a partner in the milling firm of East- 
 man & Gibson and later was associated with William 
 S. Judd under the name Judd & Brackett. This 
 firm bought the Cataract Mill and in 1867 leased the 
 new Washburn Mill, at that time the largest in the 
 West. Judd & Brackett conducted operations on an 
 extensive scale, as gauged by the standards of the 
 time, and for several years ranked as the most 
 prominent firm in the flour milling industry of Min- 
 neapolis. 
 
 The Minneapolis Millers Association was organ- 
 ized in 1867 with the following members : Judd & 
 
 Brackett, Eastman & Cahill, Taylor Bros., Frazee 
 & Murphy, Darrow Bros., and Tomlinson, Perkins & 
 Co. Officers: President, George A. Brackett ; vice 
 
 president, W. F. Cahill ; secretary and agent, Dwight 
 Putnam ; purchasing agent, O. Mays. In 1869 this 
 association, to which the present organization owes 
 its existence, was dissolved. In 1875 the association 
 was revived, though again as an experimental insti- 
 tution. The temporary organization took a perma- 
 nent form in 1876 as a corporate body in accordance 
 with the laws of that state. 
 
 The chief exemplification of the genius of Mr. 
 Brackett, however, has been in the broader field of 
 constructive enterprise. In 1869, he welcomed the 
 opportunity of assuming charge of the Northern 
 Pacific Railroad reconnaissance work under the 
 direction of Gov. J. Gregory Smith, president of the 
 company. This expedition was fitted out in Min- 
 neapolis, and traveled over the plains as far west as 
 the Big Bend of the Missouri River. As a result of 
 these explorations, the construction of the line of 
 railroad was determined upon, and Mr. Brackett’s 
 intimate knowledge of the country and his own suc- 
 cessful business experience and influential associa- 
 tions enabled him to secure a contract for the con- 
 struction of the first 240 miles of the road, from 
 Duluth to the Red River. His associates were Wil- 
 
 liam D. Washburn, Col. William S. King, William 
 W. Eastman, Dorilus Morrison, all now deceased. 
 During the next ten years Mr. Brackett gave most 
 of his time to railroad building, and as a contractor 
 built some of the most important lines in the North- 
 west. At the same time he was closely associated 
 with local business interests in Minneapolis, and his 
 name will be found mentioned in connection with the 
 history of the progress and achievement of a num- 
 ber of causes both of business and benevolent char- 
 acter. 
 
 Concerning his services of a public nature and 
 also the crucial point of his business career the fol- 
 lowing account is quoted from another publication: 
 “From the time of welcoming the returning soldiers 
 after the Civil war to the great Harvest Festival of 
 1891, Mr. Brackett was the acknowledged and un- 
 questioned leader of all such festivities. Into such 
 undertakings as official work he threw himself with 
 the utmost enthusiasm and was not satisfied unless 
 everyone else was working at the same high pres- 
 sure as he was. When the Minneapolis Exposition 
 was undertaken in 1885 Hr. Brackett was made a 
 member of its first board of directors, and was par- 
 ticularly active and efficient in the work of construct- 
 ing the immense building, which was completed by 
 three crews in ninety days. In the early ’60s he was 
 called to serve on the village council, and for years 
 thereafter was almost continuously in municipal of- 
 fice — as alderman in the first city council, promoter 
 of the waterworks, sewer system and fire depart- 
 ment, of which last mentioned department he was 
 chief for many years; also as member of the park 
 board. Fie was always in the forefront of what was 
 of the most importance and interest at the moment. 
 To Mr. Brackett Minneapolis owes the organization 
 of its fire department and in great measure its park 
 system. When chosen mayor of Minneapolis in 
 1873, Mr. Brackett made such a vigorous campaign 
 against vice that the city was unable to realize its 
 opportunities thus offered, and at the next election 
 relapsed into a less strenuous policy. Of all his 
 efforts for a park system nothing was more im- 
 portant than his work in raising $100,000 at a critical 
 time in the struggle to acquire Minnehaha Park, se- 
 curing the tract for the city at the moment when it 
 appeared to be lost forever. He served on the park 
 board for six years, from the original formation of 
 the board in 1883. 
 
 “Early in the ’80s Mr. Brackett was largely instru- 
 mental in organizing the Associated Charities of 
 Minneapolis, and served many years as its president, 
 now being honorary president. This was only one 
 direction in which the wise charitableness of the man 
 found practical exemplification. Of the many acts 
 of helpfulness within a long lifetime of generous and 
 noble service there is no record. Mr. Brackett has 
 always forgotten quickly his acts of charity ^and 
 kindness. His particular fitness for such work led 
 Governor Merriam to appoint him a member of the 
 state board of charities and corrections, on which 
 he served for a number of years. 
 
 “After the panic of 1893 Mr. Brackett found his 
 resources crippled and the accumulations of a life 
 of hard work largely dissipated. He went to Alaska, 
 determined to make a new start in the new country. 
 At Skagway he became interested in the project of 
 transportation over the mountains, and was the one 
 who demonstrated, through the construction of a 
 wagon road, the possibility of a railroad. Overcom- 
 ing tremendous engineering difficulties, and in the 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1393 
 
 face of bitter opposition and financial and political 
 trickery, he completed the wagon road and, though 
 losing heavily in the end, had the satisfaction of 
 receiving acknowledgment on the part of the great 
 Canadian and American constructionists, Henry Vil- 
 lard, James J. Hill, Sir William Van Horne and 
 others, that he had accomplished more in building 
 the wagon road than the railroad exploiters did in 
 building a steam road after the wagon road had 
 demonstrated the possibilities. Mr. Brackett also 
 took a prominent part in the Alaskan boundary fight 
 and is credited with having done more for the reten- 
 tion of the contested territory than any other man.” 
 
 After returning to Minneapolis in 1905 Mr. 
 Brackett established himself at his beautiful home 
 Orono on Lake Minnetonka, a property purchased 
 by him many years ago. He spends the summer 
 months there, and makes his winter home in Minne- 
 apolis. Though advanced in years, Mr. Brackett is 
 still active among the world’s workers. He gives his 
 attention to the supervision of his private affairs and 
 to the business of the Lakewood Cemetery Associa- 
 tion, of which he is president and has been trustee 
 from the time of its organization. For many years 
 he has been a member of the Plymouth Congrega- 
 tional Church in Minneapolis. 
 
 In 1858 Mr. Brackett married Miss Anna M. Hoit, 
 who died in 1890. Of their eleven children, five sons 
 and one daughter are living. 
 
 Mr. Brackett is one of the men who has been most 
 closely identified with the development of the North- 
 west. He was a manufacturer when the name Min- 
 neapolis had little significance as a grain and flour 
 center. He helped construct some of the great rail- 
 ways that have developed the Northwest country and 
 have concentrated business at Minneapolis. The 
 following tribute from a former mayor of Minne- 
 apolis to Mr. Brackett is only a conservative state- 
 ment of the general esteem in which he is held: “He 
 is dear to the hearts of the people of Minneapolis, 
 for what he has been and for what he is.” 
 
 Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis. The benedic- 
 tion of lives translated to “that undiscovered country 
 from whose bourne no traveler returns” finds fitting 
 and enduring exemplification in the care and loving 
 tribute shown in preparing for their mortal bodies 
 a consistent resting place, and Minneapolis is fortu- 
 nate in the possession of the beautiful Lakewood 
 Cemetery, a brief history of which may appropri- 
 ately find place in this publication. The data here 
 incorporated are gleaned from an exquisite brochure 
 issued at the time of the dedication of the cemetery 
 chapel, in 1910. Without formal indications of quo- 
 tation are given the following extracts from the 
 dedication address delivered by Rev. Marion D. 
 Shutter, pastor of the Church of the Redeemer, at 
 the time the chapel at Lakewood was dedicated. 
 
 One of the first questions a new community has to 
 ask is, “Where shall we bestow our dead?” Houses 
 must be built for the living; stores, business blocks, 
 mills and factories where they may work; churches 
 where they may worship ; but room must be made 
 somewhere for the “narrow house and the long 
 home.” And so, in July, 1871, a few of the leading 
 citizens of Minneapolis held an informal meeting and 
 decided to act. A committee was appointed to in- 
 vestigate and report upon localities for a new ceme- 
 tery. I shall give the names of those who took the 
 initiative in this movement ; for they are names 
 which Minneapolis ought always to honor. 
 
 The committee was composed of Dr. C. G. Good- 
 rich, of whom one who knew him has written : “For 
 twelve years he was a living benediction in Minne- 
 apolis; modest, truthful, faithful, intelligently charit- 
 able and generous, he was at once a good citizen and 
 model physician, taking hold of public enterprises as 
 of all other duties, a positive and helpful agency in 
 the early evolution of the city.” With him were 
 associated H. G. Harrison, Thomas Lowry, R. B. 
 Langdon, W. D. Washburn, and Dr. Levi Butler. 
 They looked the ground over, and when they were 
 ready to report another meeting of citizens was 
 called, to hear and act upon their recommendation. 
 Fifteen men came together, whose names are all in 
 the record. This is the roster : Dorilus Morrison, 
 Dr. C. G. Goodrich, William S. King, A. B. Barton, 
 Thomas Lowry, George A. Brackett, W. D. Wash- 
 burn, W. P. Westfall, R. B. Langdon, R. S. Menden- 
 hall, H. G. Harrison, Paris Gibson, Dr. Levi Butler, 
 A. Tyler and Samuel C. Gale. These names have 
 become interwoven in the web of our history. Take 
 them away, and what a different pattern would have 
 come forth from the looms of time. * * * That 
 meeting of citizens was called to order by Dorilus 
 Morrison, who was subsequently made permanent 
 chairman, with Thomas Lowry as secretary. Then 
 and there an association was organized, called the 
 Lyndale Cemetery Association, and this name was 
 later changed to Lakewood, the change being ap- 
 proved by act of Legislature, February 26, 1872. The 
 first board of trustees was elected, consisting of Dr. 
 C. G. Goodrich, William S. King, George A. Brackett, 
 W. D. Washburn, R. B. Langdon, Dr. Levi Butler, 
 W. P. Westfall, R. J. Mendenhall and H. G. Har- 
 rison. The organization being completed, the com- 
 mittee on location reported that after careful exam- 
 ination of various tracts of land they had decided 
 upon one, owned by William S. King, lying between 
 lakes Calhoun and Harriet ; and recommended that 
 a tract of 130 acres — which the generosity of Mr. 
 King had made possible — be purchased. This was 
 resolved upon, and stock to cover the expenses was 
 soon subscribed. It ought to be emphasized that the 
 Lakewood Cemetery Association is not a money- 
 making corporation. Every purchaser of a lot is a 
 stockholder and voter ; but no dividends have been 
 declared or ever will be. Those who originally ad- 
 vanced the money to buy the tract received back 
 that which they advanced, but nothing more. The 
 trustees of the association have given their time and 
 their brains and their business ability to the manage- 
 ment of the cemetery’s affairs without one cent of 
 recompense ; and those trustees, from the beginning 
 until now, have been among the able and most suc- 
 cessful business men of the city. The revenues have 
 all gone into the care and beautifying of the grounds 
 and into permanent funds that will provide for 
 needed improvements in the future. These men have 
 put their time and strength under these burdens, and 
 carried them gladly because they loved Minneapolis 
 and were anxious to do something to beautify its sur- 
 roundings and reverently care for its dead. They 
 have earned the gratitude of the present, and coming 
 generations will rise up and call them blessed. 
 
 In the manner described was the most important 
 association organized and officered. Soon after Mr. 
 A. B. Barton was made permanent secretary and 
 superintendent, and under his efficient management 
 and untiring care Lakewood became a thing of 
 beauty. He at first secured the services of W. H. 
 Folsom, the landscape artist who laid out Mount 
 
1394 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Auburn near Boston; but later his plan was ex- 
 changed for what was called the “park plan,’’ in- 
 augurated by Adolph Strauch, at Spring Grove, Cin- 
 cinnati, and this plan prevails today. And no one 
 will ever know but those who have worked with him 
 how many suggestions of Charles M. Loring have, 
 here and there, blossomed into beautiful realities 
 throughout these grounds. 
 
 Lakewood Cemetery was formally dedicated Sep- 
 tember 16, 1872. There is not time to record in 
 detail the subsequent development of Lakewood; 
 how adjoining tracts were purchased, how improve- 
 ments were made, new plans for beautifying adopted, 
 the massive gateway constructed, and everything to 
 date culminating in this marvel wrought by archi- 
 tect and artist, the Lakewood Chapel. There are 
 several points of interest in the cemetery, how- 
 ever, some of which may possibly have been for- 
 gotten, even by those who are most familiar with 
 its history. On a high knoll overlooking Lake Cal- 
 houn stands a prominent tomb, in which rest the 
 bodies of Sir Joseph Francis and his wife. The 
 willow that grows beside it sprang from a shoot 
 brought by Sir Joseph from the willow that stands 
 near the place where Napoleon was buried,^ at St. 
 Helena. Long before the cemetery was laid out, 
 Mrs. Francis, looking from this elevation over the 
 waters of the lake, said that she had never seen 
 so beautiful a spot for a burial place as that upon 
 which she stood, and expressed a wish that it might 
 be her own. When the grounds were finally laid 
 out Sir Joseph secured that portion, and it is set 
 down in the books of the association as lot 1, sec- 
 tion 1. His own epitaph was chiseled, long before 
 his death, upon a granite slab that for many years 
 covered the place where he now lies. That inscrip- 
 tion runs: “Joseph Francis, Father and Founder 
 
 of the United States Life Saving Service. Founder 
 of American Shipwreck Society, 1842. Inventor of 
 Corrugated Metallic Life Car and Life Boat. Re- 
 ceived the thanks of the Forty-ninth Congress, 
 honored by the Fiftieth Congress for his service to 
 humanity. Honored, decorated, rewarded and 
 knighted by the Crowned heads of Europe.” * * * 
 
 There are monuments in Lakewood which are his- 
 toric. There is the Millers’ Monument, whose gran- 
 ite front records the awful explosion which shook 
 the mills of the city from their foundations ; the 
 Masons’ Monument; the Odd Fellows’; the mon- 
 ument to the soldiers of the Civil war; and scores 
 of others that leading citizens have erected, lifting 
 their carven images of Faith or Hope or Charity 
 aloft toward the infinite sky. In one spot the 
 thick-sown graves recall the tragedy on Minne- 
 tonka when one of the noblest families in the city 
 perished in the waves. One of the latest and most 
 beautiful of all these monuments is the Greek 
 Temple, which enshrines the ashes of Thomas 
 Lowry, whose name is attached to the first minutes 
 of this association, whose last vote as a trustee was 
 given for the erection of this chapel. No citizen 
 was ever more beloved than he ; while the name of 
 Minneapolis lives the name of Thomas Lowry will 
 not be forgotten. They are one and inseparable. 
 
 One more spot I want to mention. There is a 
 very humble grave on the lot of George A. Brackett, 
 in which a colored woman, Aunt Millie Bronson, 
 lies. She was a servant of General Beauregard dur- 
 ing the war, was captured by Major Brackett of St. 
 Paul, brought north and turned over to George 
 A. Brackett for protection. She lived in his family, 
 
 took care of the children and was especially de- 
 voted to little Annie. When the child passed away, 
 in June, 1864, the sorrow of Aunt Millie knew no 
 bounds. And when, years after, her own time drew 
 near, at the end of almost a century’s existence, Mr. 
 Brackett asked her if she would like to be laid 
 by little Annie, and her swift and eager answer, 
 "Yes, Massa George, oh yes, if a’ may,” showed the 
 one overmastering desire of her heart. And there, 
 side by side, Aunt Millie and little Annie repose 
 today, in the inexorable democracy of death. 
 
 In his address of dedication of the beautiful chapel 
 of Lakewood the speaker paid the following tribute 
 to Mr. George A. Brackett, who is now, 1915, pres- 
 ident of the cemetery association : “And you, Mr. 
 
 Brackett, have always put the city first and your- 
 self last; your life has been a standing rebuke to 
 the selfish who have taken all the community had 
 to give and have done nothing in return; you have 
 planted unselfishness and helpfulness, and you gather 
 the rich roses of a people’s affection. You have 
 ‘kept your fealty good, to the common brotherhood/ 
 And if, in the vast possibilities of that world be- 
 yond the veil, there are souls in trouble, souls who 
 need strength and love on which to lean, souls who 
 need some friendly spirit to guide them higher, 
 there will you find George Brackett in the midst of 
 them, with this prayer upon his lips : 
 
 ‘If there be some weaker one, 
 
 Give me strength to help him on ; 
 
 If a blinder soul there be, 
 
 Let me guide him nearer Thee.’ ” 
 
 M. Sigbert Awes. It has been to the distinctive 
 credit of Mr. Awes that his progressive and well- 
 directed operations in the handling of real estate, 
 principally farm lands, have contributed much to the 
 march of civic and industrial advancement in the 
 Northwest. An idea of the broad scope of the 
 enterprise which he has represented in this field of 
 endeavor at the early age of 20 to 25 is conveyed 
 by the statement that within the past four years he 
 has been actively concerned and the directing spirit 
 in the sale of more than one million dollars’ worth 
 of land, the greater part of this being in North 
 Dakota. He is now extending his operations into 
 Minnesota merely to be more centrally located, and 
 has established his residence in the City of Minne- 
 apolis, with offices in the First-National-Soo Line 
 Building. Mr. Awes is a young man of vigorous 
 initiative and most progressive business policies, and 
 his interests in the domain of real estate transac- 
 tions are of very extensive and important order. 
 Further interest attached to his successful career 
 by reason of the fact that he is a native son of 
 Minnesota and a scion of a family whose name has 
 been most worthily linked with the history of Min- 
 nesota and North Dakota. 
 
 Mr. Awes was born in Dakota County, Minne- 
 sota, on the 16th day of September, 1889, and is a 
 son of Rev. Elias Aas and Christine (Hegge) Aas, 
 his change of the orthography of the patronymic 
 having been made to insure its correct pronuncia- 
 tion in English. His father is an honored and 
 valued clergyman of the Lutheran Church, is a man 
 of high attainments, and has during the last thirty 
 years held various pastoral charges in Minnesota 
 and North Dakota. He and his wife now reside 
 at Northwood, Grand Forks County, North Dakota, 
 where he is pastor of the Lutheran Church, which 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1395 
 
 has been signally prospered in temporal and spiritual 
 advancement under his earnest guidance. 
 
 He whose name initiates this review was a boy 
 at the time of his parents’ removal from Minnesota 
 to North Dakota, and in the latter state he gained 
 his early educational discipline in the public schools, 
 after which he continued his higher academic studies 
 in Augsburg Seminary, an excellent institution 
 maintained in Minneapolis under the auspices of the 
 Lutheran Church. After leaving this seminary Mr. 
 Awes manifested his independence and ambition by 
 engaging in the real estate business at Northwood, 
 North Dakota, in 1909. His aggressive policies and 
 energetic efforts brought to him definite success, and 
 in 1911 he initiated extensive operations in the han- 
 dling of North Dakota farming land, with an office 
 at Crosby of that state, but with general head- 
 quarters still maintained at Northwood. At this 
 juncture he effected the organization of the North- 
 western Realty Company, and in 1912 he brought 
 about the organization and incorporation of the 
 Scandia-American Land Company, at Fargo, North 
 Dakota. He severed his association with this com- 
 pany in 1913, and in the autumn of the same year 
 organized the Awes-Anderson Realty Company, at 
 Crosby, North Dakota, the same being incorporated 
 under the laws of that state. In connection with 
 these various associations in which he has been the 
 chief executive, Mr. Awes had had the supervision 
 of the sale of lands to the value of fully one mil- 
 lion dollars since initiating operations in 1911, the 
 lands thus sold having been in the northwestern 
 part of North Dakota. 
 
 In the spring of 1914 Mr. Awes established his 
 residence in Minneapolis, where he has given unre- 
 mitting attention to the promotion and organizing 
 of a real estate corporation known as the M. Sig- 
 bert Awes Company, the article of incorporation 
 providing for a capital stock of $500,000, in which 
 he retains the controlling interest. With the big 
 and far-reaching plan of this large corporation 
 directed by such influential business men and 
 pioneers of the Northwest as C. F. Hjermstad of 
 Redwing, Ernest Lundeen of Minneapolis, Hans E. 
 Hagen of Glenwood, and Andrew H. Stavens of 
 Hatton, North Dakota, for forty years one of the 
 most successful farmers in that state and now 
 owner of about ten thousand acres of well-improved 
 North Dakota farms, this Company is destined to 
 wield great influence in the legitimate exploiting 
 and further development -of the resources of both 
 Minnesota and North Dakota. 
 
 In view of the statements already made in this 
 contest, it is unnecessary to say that Mr. Awes is 
 essentially loyal and progressive as a citizen, and 
 although he has had no time for political activities 
 of a practical order, he is deeply concerned and 
 interested in the progressive advancement of the 
 government of this country. He and his wife are 
 communicants of the Lutheran Church, in the faith 
 of which they were reared. 
 
 At the home of the bride’s parents, near Hat- 
 ton. North Dakota, was solemnized, on the 26th of 
 June, 1913, the marriage of Mr. Awes to Miss Kath- 
 eryn Louise Stavens, daughter of Andrew H. 
 Stavens. The wedding tour of Mr. and Mrs. Awes 
 was one of specially interesting order, as they 
 passed three months in Europe, their tour including 
 the visitation of England, France, Switzerland, Italy. 
 Germany, Norway and Sweden. Mrs. Awes was 
 born on the old homestead of her father, near 
 
 Hatton, Steele County, North Dakota, and has re- 
 ceived excellent educational advantages. She is, 
 among other things, a talented elocutionist, having 
 received special honors as a Norwegian dialect 
 reader. 
 
 Berton Daniel Keck. On the basis of work 
 accomplished it may properly be claimed for Ber- 
 ton D. Keck that he represents the best ideals of 
 the architect’s profession, and that Crookston and 
 in the surrounding country has a patronage second 
 to none among the firms of architects in Northern 
 Minnesota. His substantial reputation as an archi- 
 tect has been acquired as a result of talent, dis- 
 tinctive ideas in the creative side of his work, and 
 energy and devotion to the practical business of his 
 calling. 
 
 Berton Daniel Keck was born in Louisa County, 
 Iowa, October 16, 1876, a son of Frederick C. Keck, 
 who was a millwright by trade, and also a manu- 
 facturing chemist. Mr. Keck received his early 
 education in the public schools, had private instruc- 
 tion, and graduated through the grades of practical 
 work in building construction into the profession 
 of architecture, in which chosen field he has a record 
 that can be traced in many of the costliest public and 
 private buildings of Northern Minnesota. 
 
 Since removing to Crookston in 1902 Mr. Keck 
 has given all his time to his professional work. To 
 exemplify his professional achievements, the more 
 notable buildings for which he has served as archi- 
 tect are as follows : The Central High School, the 
 Public Library, the Immaculate Conception Cathe- 
 dral, the Cathedral High School, the Armory of 
 Company I, Third Infantry, Minnesota National 
 Guard, the First Presbyterian Church, the Elks’ 
 Club, the Crookston State Bank, the Morris Block, 
 all in Crookston; the buildings of the General Bro- 
 kerage Company, in Canada and the United States, 
 costing $250,000; at Warren, Minnesota, he built the 
 Opera House and the Tarselet Building; the con- 
 solidated school buildings at Eldred, Gully, Middle 
 River and Trail, and the Carlquist Building at 
 Warroad, Minnesota, and also a large number of 
 banks and the majority of the best class of res- 
 idences in Crookston and vicinity. 
 
 Mr. Keck is a member of the Minnesota State Art 
 Society, president of the Crookston Automobile 
 Club, is identified with the Commercial Club, and 
 is affiliated with the Masonic order, being a past 
 commander of the Knights Templar, a member of 
 the Shrine, and also of the Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks. On December 19, 1901, he 
 married Elsa Marie Hanson of Jamestown, New 
 York. Their two children are: Madeline Hazel 
 
 and Konrad Marshall. Mr. and Mrs. Keck are mem- 
 bers of the Methodist Episcopal Church, in which 
 he is serving as trustee. 
 
 Carleton College. Since its first college class 
 was graduated in 1874, Carleton College has sent 
 forth into the world hundreds of men and women 
 whose career has been characterized by Christian 
 spirit, practical usefulness, and a service of high 
 ideals in every community where they have been 
 placed. As an institution Carleton has had nearly 
 fifty years of history and its possibilities for useful 
 service in the future are now greater than ever. 
 Under the administration of President Cowling 
 during the last six years it has received recogni- 
 tion as one of the schools of foremost rank in the 
 
1396 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 collegiate grade. Carleton also has many traditions 
 and associations that are cherished in the hearts of 
 hundreds of pupils long since engaged in the prac- 
 tical affairs of the world, and all these will appre- 
 ciate a brief sketch of the founding and growth of 
 the school where they received their early training. 
 
 The conception of Carleton College originated 
 with C. M. Goodsell, a former citizen of North- 
 field, who had come to the state with the cherished 
 purpose of founding a Christian college. Others 
 associated with him in the pioneer plans and efforts 
 were Charles Shedd, Edward Brown, David Burk, 
 Richard Hall and Charles Seccombe. In the gen- 
 eral conference of Congregational churches of Min- 
 nesota in October, 1864, a resolution was passed pro- 
 viding for an inquiry as to what could be done to- 
 ward founding a college in the state. Minnesota was 
 then a new state and the Congregational churches 
 numbered only sixty-one with a total membership 
 of less than twenty-one hundred. In the conference 
 of the following year the members of that body 
 committed themselves to the purpose of establish- 
 ing a Christian college, and in 1866 1 the honor of 
 location was awarded to Northfield. The first trus- 
 tees were nominated by the state conference in the 
 same year, and these trustees adopted articles of 
 incorporation and became a self-perpetuating body, 
 entirely free from ecclesiastical control. 
 
 In September, 1867, the preparatory department 
 of the college was opened, and a large building 
 formerly used as a hotel was fitted up for school 
 purposes. This preparatory school was discontinued 
 in 1906. 
 
 In September, 1870, Rev. James W. Strong was 
 elected as the first president of the college, and 
 that year saw the organization of the first class in 
 the collegiate course. Up to that time Northfield 
 College, as it was called, had depended almost en- 
 tirely upon the support of residents of Minnesota, 
 and President Strong had many financial problems 
 to solve in order to assure the future of the insti- 
 tution. In order to provide for the existing and 
 future needs of the college the president undertook 
 to raise a fund of $50,000, and one of the largest 
 contributors was Mr. William Carleton, a wealthy 
 Boston business man. His first contribution was 
 for current expenses, but in a few weeks he made 
 an unconditional gift of $50,000. In recognition of 
 this timely benefaction the trustees unanimously 
 voted to change the name to Carleton College. 
 
 From the foundation thus laid more than forty 
 years ago, Carleton College has had a growth now 
 represented by a splendid material equipment. Its 
 campus comprises twelve city blocks and immedi- 
 ately adjoining the college owns a tract of about two 
 hundred acres, thirteen of which are used as an ath- 
 letic field. The remaining land is operated as a col- 
 lege farm. The first permanent building was Willis 
 Hall, named in honor of Miss Susan Willis, one of 
 the early contributors to Carleton College. It was 
 completed in 1872, was burned in 1879, was rebuilt 
 on an improved plan, and is now the seat of the 
 college chapel and recitation rooms. Williams Hall, 
 a two-story brick building, was erected in 1881 for 
 the department of natural science, but in 1910 the 
 building was remodeled and is now used for class 
 rooms, literary societies and the Y. M. C. A. Grid- 
 ley Hall was built in 1883 for the women students, 
 is a three-story building of white brick, was re- 
 modeled in 1912, and contains the college dining 
 hall. The Goodsell Astronomical Observatory, 
 
 which has equipment and facilities for astronomical 
 work excelled by no other observatory in the 
 Northwest, occupies a building of red brick erected 
 in 1887. The first observatory was built in 1878. 
 An additional dormitory for women is known as 
 Nourse Cottage, which was given by Mr. and Mrs. 
 A. N. Nourse together with twenty acres of land. 
 The Scoville Memorial Library was built in 1896 
 as a memorial to the late James VV. Scoville of 
 Chicago. It is one of the chief architectural fea- 
 tures of the campus. The Laird Science Hall was 
 built in 1905,' and was the gift of the late William 
 H. Laird, president of the board of trustees, who 
 also supplied funds for the Laird Athletic Field. 
 The Science Hall accommodates the departments of 
 chemistry, of biology and physics. The Sayles- 
 Hill Gymnasium, erected in 1910, was the gift of 
 Prof, and Mrs. Fred B. Hill, and is a memorial 
 for Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Clark Sayles, the par- 
 ents of Mrs. Hill, and for Mrs. Grace J. Hill, the 
 mother of Professor Hill. In 1910 was also com- 
 pleted the central heating plant. The most recent 
 addition to the college campus is Music Hall, built 
 in I 9 J 4 at a cost of about $50,000. Two additional 
 buildings are at present under construction : a men’s 
 dormitory which will cost about $120,000, and the 
 Skinner Memorial Chapel which will cost about 
 $100,000. The chapel is the gift of Mrs. Myron W. 
 Skinner of Northfield and is a memorial for her late 
 husband, who was one of the original trustees of 
 the college. 
 
 The above has indicated the principal features of 
 material growth. These buildings and their equip- 
 ment, together with the campus, represent an invest- 
 ment of about $865,000. As to the spirit which has 
 animated Carleton College and gives character to 
 its work, that is best described in a quota- 
 tion from a recent bulletin of the college, 
 which says : “Carleton college is a Christian 
 
 college of the Congregational type. It repre- 
 sents the ideals for which the New England 
 colleges were founded, and is adapted to the needs 
 and spirit of the west. It seeks to emphasize the 
 importance of a liberal education, and offers a 
 course of study designed to develop men and 
 women and put them into possession of all their 
 powers, physical, mental, moral and spiritual, rather 
 than to equip them for technical training for a 
 specific calling. It is primarily interested in those 
 who desire a full four years college course as a 
 foundation for later professional study and their 
 life work. The college is especially concerned with 
 the moral welfare of its students. It strives to 
 preserve a genuine Christian atmosphere and to 
 have all of its influences count for the development 
 of strong and well grounded character. Being in- 
 dependent of all ecclesiastical or state control, it is 
 free to adopt such educational policies as in the 
 judgment of its own officers are best adapted to 
 serve the ends for which this type of college stands.” 
 
 Carleton College has for some years been steadily 
 growing and raising its previous high standards of 
 collegiate work. At the present time the faculty of 
 instruction numbers forty, exclusive of adminis- 
 trative officers and retired instructors. It is doubt- 
 ful whether any institution of distinctly college 
 grade west of the Allegheny Mountains is paving as 
 high a scale of salaries for instruction as Carleton. 
 Carleton has been able to measure up to the high 
 standards now set by various boards as a measure 
 of classification of the colleges and universities of 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1397 
 
 the country. Carleton is now one of the few col- 
 leges west of the Mississippi River recognized by 
 the United States Department of Education as a 
 college of the first rank without any qualification 
 whatever. Under the conditions laid down by the 
 Carnegie Foundation for the advancement of teach- 
 ing, Carleton was admitted to the first list of col- 
 leges accepted by that board, and that admission 
 not only gives the direct benefits of the pension 
 system, but also indicates the high order of work 
 accomplished by the college. 
 
 Carleton is one of the few western colleges that 
 admit no conditional or special students, and it is 
 noteworthy that the graduates have established a 
 high record in the graduate schools where they 
 have continued their studies. Another definite 
 judgment on the scholastic standing of Carleton was 
 expressed in 1913 when the National Council of the 
 United Chapters of the Phi Beta Kappa Society 
 granted a chapter to Carleton. This is the oldest 
 college fraternity in the country, and one whose 
 membership has always represented the highest 
 scholarly attainments. Another honor fraternity 
 with a chapter at Carleton is the Delta Sigma Rho, 
 the national honorary forensic society, which on 
 the record of Carleton students in debate and ora- 
 tory granted a chapter in 1910. 
 
 Carleton is associated with Beloit, Grinnell, Knox 
 and Colorado colleges in the “Harvard Exchange,” 
 — an arrangement providing for annual exchanges 
 of professors between Harvard University and this 
 group of western colleges. Carleton College in 
 1915 has an enrollment of 471 students, representing 
 an increase of about fifty per cent during the past 
 six years. During the same period the college has 
 received gifts amounting to about $850,000, and be- 
 sides the five new buildings added to the campus as 
 already noted, more than $50,000 has been spent on 
 improvements to other buildings. 
 
 Rev. Donald John Cowling, Ph.D.. D. D. It has 
 been under the able administration of Doctor Cow- 
 ling, who has been president since 1909, that Carleton 
 has enjoyed its greatest era of both material and 
 scholastic progress. Though a comparatively young 
 man in the executive field of education, Doctor 
 Cowling is recognized as one of the ablest college 
 administrators in the country. 
 
 Donald John Cowling was born at Travalga, 
 Cornwall, 'England, August 21, 1880. His parents 
 were John P. and Mary K. (Stephens) Cowling, 
 his father a minister of the United Brethren Church. 
 The family came to the United States in 1882, set- 
 tling in Pennsylvania where, together with a resi- 
 dence of three years in Ontario, Canada, tne father 
 was identified with the ministry until his death in 
 1907. The mother is still living. 
 
 Doctor Cowling attended the public schools of 
 Pennsylvania and Ontario, Canada, in 1899 entered 
 Lebanon Valley College, Annville, Pennsvlvania, 
 graduating A. B. in 1902, then spent four years in 
 Yale University until 1906, and during his post- 
 graduate career received from that institution the 
 A. B. dearree, and the degrees Master of Arts, Bache- 
 lor of Divinity and Doctor of Philosophy. During 
 his senior year in the divinity school he was presi- 
 dent of his class. 
 
 His work as an instructor was in Baker Univer- 
 sity at Baldwin, Kansas, where” he occupied the 
 chair of philosophy from 1906 until 1909. In 1909 
 Baker University conferred upon him the degree 
 
 D. D. Since July 1, 1909, Doctor Cowling has been 
 president of Carleton College, and the record of his 
 work has already been indicated in the sketch of 
 that institution. 
 
 Doctor Cowling has. contributed a number of 
 articles to various magazines, and several addresses 
 on educational subjects, as a prominent member 
 of the Congregational Church, he is president of 
 the board of directors of the Congregational Home 
 Mission Society of Minnesota; chairman of Com- 
 mittee on Organization of Congregational National 
 Council’s "Commission on Missions;” trustee of 
 Chicago Theological Seminary ; member of the 
 State Executive Committee of the Y. M. C. A. ; and 
 is a trustee of Carleton College. He has numerous 
 relations with social, fraternal and scientific organ- 
 izations, including: “Book and Bond” Fraternity of 
 Yale; Sigma Xi Fraternity; Phi Beta Kappa; 
 American Sociological Association; Western Phil- 
 osophical Association; National Education Asso- 
 ciation; Religious Education Association ; American 
 Association for the Advancement of Science; Chi- 
 cago University Club; Northfield Commercial Club; 
 is a Lodge and Chapter Mason and also a member 
 of the Modern Woodmen of America. 
 
 On June 27, 1907, Doctor Cowling married Miss 
 Elizabeth L. Stehman, daughter of Jonas G. and 
 Annie (Dohner) Stehman of Mountville, Penn- 
 sylvania. Their family of three daughters are 
 named: Mary Ellen, born July 25, 1908; Elizabeth, 
 born July 7, 1910; and Margaret, born November 
 16, 1911. 
 
 Hon. Charles E. Flandrau. With the death of 
 Hon. Charles E. Flandrau, which occurred at St. 
 Paul, September 9, 1903, there passed away one of 
 the most distinguished characters in Minnesota's 
 history. An eminent jurist, he was one of the first 
 justices of the Supreme Court of the state, and his 
 opinions and interpretations of the constitution and 
 statutes are today permanent forms and precedents 
 in the state jurisprudence. As a soldier he per- 
 formed one of the most brilliant exploits in the 
 military annals of the state. It has been the lot of 
 few men to live a life of such varied and distin- 
 guished service. He was a sailor boy, a cabinet- 
 maker, a lawyer, judge, public official, soldier and 
 eminent citizen, and in all the relations of life he 
 was faithful and true, so that his career remains as 
 one of the most honorable personal records in the 
 history of Minnesota. 
 
 Born in New York City, July 15, 1828, Charles 
 Eugene Flandrau inherited the gifts of good an- 
 cestry, a home of culture and character, and liberal 
 advantages. On the paternal side his Huguenot 
 ancestors, fleeing under persecution from La 
 Rochelle, France, had joined the colony that 
 founded New Rochelle in Westchester County, New 
 York. In this old settlement was born his father, 
 Thomas Hunt Flandrau, who in his time was a 
 fine lawyer and a man of high position. He was a 
 graduate of Hamilton College, studied law with 
 Judge Nathan Williams at Utica, and after his ad- 
 mission to the bar formed a partnership with Aaron 
 Burr, whose erratic and unfortunate career is a 
 familiar page of American history. In this practice 
 they located at New York City. About 1825 
 Thomas H. Flandrau married Miss Elizabeth Ma- 
 comb, a half-sister of Gen. Alexander Macomb, 
 commander-in-chief of the United States army 
 from 1828 to 1841. Several years after their mar- 
 
1398 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 riage Mr. Flandrau removed to Oneida County, 
 New York, where he was engaged in the practice 
 of law up to the time of his death, which occurred 
 January 2, 1855. 
 
 Charles E. Flandrau began his education at 
 Georgetown, D. C., but at the age of thirteen he 
 left school, determined to enter the navy. With 
 influential friends to support him he applied to the 
 secretary of the navy for a warrant as midshipman. 
 He was too young by a year, so when the appoint- 
 ment was refused he shipped before the mast in the 
 revenue cutter Forward. He served one year on 
 that vessel and one year on the cutter Van Buren, 
 and then made several coasting voyages on mer- 
 chantmen. Three years of his youth were spent as 
 a sailor, and he then returned to the land and again 
 entered school at Georgetown. Judge Flandrau 
 through all his life was a man of self-reliant, de- 
 cisive character, and in this light the changes of 
 occupation he made when a boy had none of the 
 haphazardness that is associated with inconstancy 
 and lack of application. 
 
 After a few months in school he again left and 
 went to seek his fortune in the city of his birth. 
 He found employment in the large mahogany mills 
 of Mahlon Bunnell, corner of Pike and Cherry 
 streets, and during the three years he remained 
 there he became proficient in every branch of the 
 business. Cabinet-making was resigned in order to 
 enter his father's office at Whitesboro, where he 
 began the study of law. Two years of close appli- 
 cation brought him to the entrance of his larger 
 career, and- he was admitted to the bar of Oneida 
 County, January 7, 1851. 
 
 After spending two or three years in partnership 
 with his father, in the fall of 1853 he determined to 
 locate on the western frontier in the Territory of 
 Minnesota. He and Horace R. Bigelow arrived in 
 St. Paul together in the latter part of November. 
 After being admitted to the bar they opened an 
 office on Third Street under the firm name of 
 Bigelow & Flandrau. At that period of Minnesota 
 history law business was scarce, and the young at- 
 torneys had many tedious intervals between “cases.” 
 This period of his career is described by Hon. Isaac 
 Atwater, a former partner of Judge Flandrau, and 
 the following paragraph is excerpted from the At- 
 water sketch : 
 
 The practice of law in Minnesota in early days 
 was neither arduous nor specially remunerative. 
 Some business was furnished by the United States 
 land offices, but commerce was in its infancy and 
 the immense and profitable business furnished the 
 profession by the railroads was then wholly un- 
 known. It so happened that during the winter of 
 1853-4 certain capitalists of St. Paul engaged the 
 services of Mr. Flandrau to make explorations in 
 the Minnesota Valley and to negotiate for the 
 purchase of property there, especially the “Cap- 
 tain Dodd claim” at what was then called Rock 
 Bend, now St. Peter. His report was favorable to 
 the purchase, and he was so impressed with the 
 prospective advantages of the country that he de- 
 cided to locate in the valley himself. St. Peter was 
 then unknown. Traverse des Sioux was the only 
 settlement in the vicinity, and consisted of a few 
 Indian traders and their attaches and a number of 
 missionaries. Here he met Stuart B. Garvie, a 
 Scotchman, who had just been appointed clerk of 
 the District Court of Nicollet County, and occupied 
 an office with him. Their law business was very 
 
 limited. The young men were frequently at their 
 wits' end for devices to “keep the wolf from the 
 door.” Indeed they did not wish to keep him from 
 the door in a literal sense. Instead of an enemy 
 the wolf became their friend. They placed the car- 
 cass of a dead pony within easy rifle shot of the 
 back window of their office, and this proved a fatal 
 attraction to the prairie rovers. Every night many 
 of them fell victims to the rifles of the young- 
 lawyers, who skinned the bodies and sold the hides 
 for 75 cents apiece. 
 
 With the opening of the season in 1854 immi- 
 gration began to pour into the Minnesota Valley, 
 and in June of that year the first house was built in 
 St. Peter. Judge Flandrau continued to reside at 
 Traverse des Sioux until 1864, and during this 
 time he had risen to be one of the most eminent 
 men of the territory and state. He became in 1854 
 notary public and deputy clerk and later district 
 attorney for - Nicollet County. He was elected in 
 1856 a member of the territorial council, but re- 
 signed after his first year and in 1857 was elected a 
 member of the constitutional convention, as a demo- 
 crat. In August, 1856, he was appointed by Presi- 
 dent Pierce agent to the Sioux Indians of the Mis- 
 sissippi. Following the Spirit Lake and Springfield 
 massacres, he took an active part in pursuit of the 
 Indians and the subsequent restoration of the two 
 captives, Mrs. Margaret A. Marble and Miss Abbie 
 Gardner. 
 
 In 1857, having resigned as Indian agent, he was 
 appointed on July 17th, by President Buchanan, an 
 associate justice of the Supreme Court of Min- 
 nesota Territory. He occupied the bench as a mem- 
 ber of this court during only one general term, 
 January, 1858, as Minnesota soon afterward became 
 a state. In the democratic convention of the pre- 
 ceding year, for nomination to state offices, Judge 
 Flandrau was nominated for associate justice of 
 the Supreme Court for the term of seven years. 
 The entire democratic ticket was elected, and on 
 the ratification of the constitution by Congress and 
 the admission of the state early in 1858, he qualified 
 and entered on the discharge of his duties. His 
 record as a jurist is permanently written in the 
 first nine volumes of the Minnesota reports. At 
 almost every term he wrote more than his share of 
 the opinions. He was one of the most industrious 
 judges that ever sat on a state bench, and the judg- 
 ment of his associates and of history gives him the 
 honor of being one of the founders of the system 
 of jurisprudence of the state, both through his work 
 in the constitutional convention and on the supreme 
 bench. 
 
 The first Supreme Court of Minnesota had much 
 important work to do. The code had been recently 
 adopted and pleadings and practice were in a 
 transitional condition, and Minnesota had not uni- 
 formly followed the precedents and lines of de- 
 cisions established in any of the older states, in 
 addition to which there was no system in the 
 decisions of the territorial court. The construc- 
 tion of a large number of statutes had also to be 
 determined for the first time. These facts, besides 
 increasing the labors of the court much beyond the 
 comparative length of the calendars, invested these 
 early results of the court’s decisions with an au- 
 thority and importance that through all subsequent 
 years have had their effect. The language of Judge 
 Flandrau’s decisions was always plain, simple and 
 clear, but uniformly terse, vigorous and decided. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1399 
 
 The decisions themselves are models of perspicuity 
 and judicial soundness. As a fact of interest to 
 his biography it should be borne in mind that these 
 decisions were all rendered before he attained the 
 age of thirty-six and many of them before he 
 was thirty. 
 
 On October 25, 1858, Judge Flandrau was ap- 
 pointed by Governor Sibley judge-advocate general 
 of the state, a position he held during that gover- 
 nor’s term. While he was still occupying his office 
 of associate justice, a great series of events oc- 
 curred that drew his services to the field of war and 
 gave his name an imperishable lustre as a military 
 character of the state. 
 
 The rising of the Sioux Indians occurred in Au- 
 gust, 1862, the news reached judge Flandrau at his 
 residence -in Traverse des Sioux early the morning 
 of the 19th, brought by couriers from New Ulm, 
 thirty-two miles away. With his thorough knowl- 
 edge of the Indian character and of these Indians 
 in particular, Judge Flandrau appreciated the situa- 
 tion instantly, and at once sent all his own family 
 to Minneapolis. At St. Peter he assisted in raising 
 and equipping a company of 115 volunteers, who 
 chose him as their captain. By noon he was in the 
 saddle, at the head of the company, and on the 
 way to the rescue of the Town of New Ulm. He 
 arrived just in time. The place was already at- 
 tacked by 200 savages and a considerable portion 
 of the settlement was on fire. Flandrau and his 
 men galloped in, charged and drove off the Indians, 
 extinguished the fires, and calmed the terror- 
 stricken people. Hailed as the savior of the town, 
 Judge Flandrau was unanimously chosen as com- 
 mander of all the forces, and he immediately began 
 to prepare for the attack which he knew would be 
 resumed. The men were put under hasty discipline, 
 and a circular barricade constructed in the center 
 of town for shelter to the women and children. 
 Then on the morning of the 23d, about seven hun- 
 dred Indians, well armed, a majority of whom had 
 been engaged in besieging Fort Ridgely, stormed 
 against the defenders of New Ulm, who were about 
 three hundred strong and most of them armed 
 with hunting rifles and fowling pieces. For two 
 days the fight raged, during which the greater part 
 of the town was burned, ten white men were killed 
 and fifty wounded. The Indians, whose loss was 
 probably much greater, then retired but continued 
 to menace the little garrison. In this situation, 
 with ammunition and provisions nearly exhausted, 
 Judge F'landrau evacuated the town and escorted 
 over a hundred and fifty wagons, containing the 
 helpless and wounded, in the direction of Mankato, 
 which was reached in safety. 
 
 Such is an outline of the defense of New Ulm, 
 which in detail is one of the most thrilling chapters 
 in the annals of the Northwest. As the leader of 
 the rescue party and the commander of the town 
 during the siege, Judge Flandrau gained a fame 
 throughout the nation. As a former biographer 
 has said: “Never before in the history of our 
 country has a judge of a supreme court figured as 
 a dashing military leader, leaving the woolsack for 
 a dragoon’s saddle, exchanging his pens and books 
 for swords and pistols, and riding forth to deliver 
 a beleaguered town with such expedition that only 
 a regular cavalryman, armed, mounted and on the 
 qui vive might equal the time.” 
 
 Throughout the remainder of the hositilities on 
 Ae northwest frontier Judge Flandrau rendered 
 voi. in— 9 
 
 important service. He was authorized by Governor 
 Ramsey to raise troops, appoint officers over them, 
 and generally to perform whatever service he 
 deemed best for the defense of the southwest 
 frontier of the state. Later he was commissioned 
 by the governor a colonel of state militia. He 
 raised and organized several companies of men, and 
 as commander of the southern frontier posted them 
 in picket garrisons from New Ulm to the Iowa line. 
 In October, when the Indians had been driven from 
 the state, and the state and federal forces were in 
 complete control of the situation, he turned over his 
 command at South Bend to Colonel Montgomery 
 of the Twenty-fifth Wisconsin, and then resumed 
 the discharge of his official duties. 
 
 Judge Flandrau resigned his seat on the supreme 
 bench in the spring of 1864, and took up the prac- 
 tice of law with his former associate, Judge At- 
 water, at Carson and Virginia City in the Territory 
 of Nevada. He spent a year there and late in 1865 
 engaged in a partnership practice in the City of St. 
 Louis. In less than a year, however, he had re- 
 turned to Minnesota and in 1867 joined Judge 
 Atwater in practice at Minneapolis. He was elected 
 city attorney and in 1868 was chosen the first 
 president of the board of trade of that city. 
 
 In 1870 Judge Flandrau located in St. Paul, 
 which city remained his residence during the rest 
 of his career. He was associated at different times 
 with various well known lawyers, and his firm was 
 always rated as one of the strongest in the North- 
 west. His name is on the list of former presidents 
 of the Ramsey County Bar Association, and many 
 other honors that cannot be mentioned in this sketch 
 came to him in the course of his long and distim 
 guished career. 
 
 In politics Judge Flandrau was a Jeffersonian 
 democrat of the old type, and was always more of a 
 statesman than a politician. His political convic- 
 tions were seldom influenced by opportunism or 
 party selfishness, and he often opposed the plans 
 of his party, however without impairing his dignity 
 and power as a leader. After the war, when Min- 
 nesota became a stronghold of republicanism, he 
 was the democratic nominee for governor in 1867, 
 and in 1869 for chief justice of the Supreme Court. 
 Neither of these honors was of his own seeking, 
 for he was never a place-hunter. 
 
 Judge Flandrau possessed an interesting per- 
 sonality and had friends and admirers in every 
 portion of the state. Of kindly temper, a gentle- 
 man in all his relations, he was an ornament in all 
 social circles. He possessed fine talents, was a 
 forcible speaker, a good writer, and whether as 
 judge or man of affairs possessed the scholarship 
 and wide information which gave his opinions the 
 character of authority. 
 
 On August 10, 1859, Judge Flandrau was married 
 to Miss Isabella Ramsay Dinsmore, daughter of 
 Col. James Dinsmore, of Boone County, Kentucky. 
 At her death on June 30, 1867, she left two daugh- 
 ters, now Mrs. Tilden R. Selmes and Mrs. Franklin 
 Cutcheon. Judge Flandrau married, February 28, 
 1871, Mrs. Rebecca Blair Riddle, who died on 
 December 5, 1911. Mrs. Flandrau was a daughter 
 of Judge William McClure, of Pittsburg, Pennsyl- 
 vania. Two sons were born of her marriage to 
 Judge Flandrau: Charles Macomb Flandrau and 
 William Blair McClure Flandrau. Few families of 
 St. Paul have more intimate associations with the 
 life and history of the state, and no personality 
 
1400 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 throws a more interesting and honorable distinction 
 on the annals of the city than the late Judge Flan- 
 drau. 
 
 Alexander Ramsey. The primacy of Alexander 
 Ramsey, who was born near Harrisburg, in Dauphin 
 County, Pennsylvania, September 8, 1815, and died 
 in St. Paul, April 22, 1903, in the public life and 
 private citizenship of the community in which most 
 of his fruitful years were spent has been universally 
 recognized. He filled many exalted official posi- 
 tions, in his home and in his adopted states and in 
 the Government of the United States. He was a 
 member of the House of Representatives in Con- 
 gress for two terms while a resident of his native 
 county and state, and before he was thirty years of 
 age. He was governor of the Territory of Minne- 
 sota for the first four years of its existence, and 
 ex-officio superintendent of Indian affairs ; he was 
 mayor of St. Paul from 1855 to 1857; he was gov- 
 ernor of the State of Minnesota from i860 to the 
 time when he was elected to the United States 
 Senate from Minnesota, in which he served two 
 terms of six years each. He was secretary of war 
 under the administration of President Hayes, and 
 once, during that service, also acted as secretary 
 of the navy. He filled several minor offices, such 
 as commissioner to treat with the Indians of both 
 the Sioux and Chippewa tribes, and commissioner 
 to carry into effect the act of Congress for abolish- 
 ing polygamy in the territory and among the peo- 
 ple of Utah. 
 
 On his father’s side he was of Scotch descent. 
 His grandfather, Alexander Ramsey, was born in 
 eastern Pennsylvania, and his father, Thomas Ram- 
 sey, near the Town of York, June 15, 1784. The 
 latter was an officer in the War of 1812, and died 
 when the subject of this sketch was about ten years 
 old. His mother, Elizabeth Kelker, was a descend- 
 ant of some of the early German settlers of Penn- 
 sylvania. It will be thus seen that he descended 
 from two sturdy and energetic races, and in his 
 temperament and habits he combined some of the 
 best characteristics of both. 
 
 Left an orphan by the death of his father, young 
 Ramsey became a protege of a grand-uncle, Fred- 
 erick Kelker, a merchant of high standing in 
 Harrisburg, in whose store he was for a time em- 
 ployed. When still a youth he was employed as a 
 clerk in the office of register of deeds of Dauphin 
 County. Of his own volition he learned the trade 
 of carpenter as a possible resource for emergencies. 
 He was constantly pursuing his studies, however, 
 and at the age of eighteen was enabled to enter 
 Lafayette College, at Easton, Pennsylvania, where 
 he took a partial collegiate course with intervals of 
 teaching. In 1837 he began the study of law with 
 Hon. Hamilton Alricks, of Harrisburg. He com- 
 pleted his legal education at the law school at 
 Carlisle, and was admitted to practice in 1839. He 
 pursued his profession successfully in Harrisburg 
 for several years. He also manifested an active 
 interest in political affairs, as an adherent of the 
 whig party. In the Harrison campaign of 1840 
 he was secretary of the state electoral college and 
 in January, 1841, he was elected chief clerk of the 
 Pennsylvania House of Representatives. 
 
 In 1843 Mr. Ramsey was elected to Congress. 
 In 1844 he was again nominated and elected, and 
 would undoubtedly have received a third term but 
 that he declined a renomination which was tendered 
 him in 1846. 
 
 On September 10, 1845, Mr. Ramsey was united 
 in marriage with Miss Anna Earl Jenks, a daugh- 
 ter of Hon. Michael H. Jenks, a judge for many 
 years of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and a repre- 
 sentative in Congress from 1843 to 1845. From this 
 union were born two sons, both of whom died in 
 infancy, and one daughter, Marion, now Mrs. 
 Charles E. Furness, of St. Paul. The children of 
 Mrs. Furness are: Alex. Ramsey Furness, living in 
 St. Joseph, Missouri ; Anna E. Ramsey Furness, 
 and Laura Furness, of St. Paul. 
 
 In 1848 Mr. Ramsey was chairman of the state 
 committee of the whig party and conducted the 
 successful campaign for Zachary Taylor as Presi- 
 dent. In March, 1849, President Taylor appointed 
 him governor of the newly created Territory of 
 Minnesota. Fie accepted the honor, arriving in 
 St. Paul May 27, 1849, and proceeded to organize 
 the territory, as fully narrated in another volume. 
 
 As the governor of the Territory of Minnesota, 
 which at that time extended from the St. Croix 
 River to the Missouri River, and from the northern 
 boundary of Iowa to the British possessions, he 
 had the most difficult duties to perform. He was. 
 to lay the foundation of the state. He at once 
 recognized that the wonderful natural resources of 
 this new country required but the energy of man to 
 develop a rich and powerful commonwealth, and 
 among his first steps after convening the Legisla- 
 ture were those that led to the abandonment by the 
 Indians of all title to their land lying between the 
 St. Croix River on the east and a line on the west 
 that afterwards proved to be the western boundary 
 of the state, in such a manner as to be satisfactory 
 to the Indians and creditable and honorable to the 
 United States. By this treaty with the Sioux in 
 1851 about forty million acres of fertile land were 
 opened to settlement. In the autumn of the same 
 year he visited the Red River Colony, and made at 
 Pembina a treaty with the northern Chippewas for 
 the cession by them of thirty miles on each side of 
 Red River. This treaty was not ratified by the 
 Senate, but in 1863 Governor Ramsey, then sena- 
 tor, made another treaty, accomplishing the results 
 aimed at in the previous one, and thus threw the 
 great and fertile Red River Valley open to settle- 
 ment. 
 
 In 1857, at the first state election, he was nom- 
 inated by the republican party for governor, but, 
 after a gallant contest the party did not succeed in 
 carrying its ticket for causes which need not now 
 be enumerated. Two years later he was again 
 nominated for the same office, and this time re- 
 ceived a handsome majority. He was inaugurated 
 January 2, i860. At that time the state was in 
 debt, taxes were difficult to collect, and many other 
 troubles were to be contended with, but his admin- 
 istration was a very successful one, and the 
 finances of the state soon showed a great improve- 
 ment. Fie even asked the Legislature to reduce 
 his own salary from $2,500 a year to $1,500 a year, 
 an evidence of public spirit and patriotism which 
 we see rarely displayed in these days. His meas- 
 ures of economy resulted in greatlv reducing public 
 expenditure in relieving the burdens of the tax- 
 payers. 
 
 He must be credited mainly with saving the lib- 
 eral grants of school lands and the funds derived 
 therefrom from the despoilers, and bringing the 
 lands and the funds to a position where they rest 
 securely under the guaranty and protection of the 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1401 
 
 constitution. The grant to the university by the 
 United States was saved by the course- adopted by 
 him as governor of the state during his first term 
 and the great growth and prosperity of that insti- 
 tution is due as much to him, and probably more, 
 than to any other one man. 
 
 The dark clouds of civil war began to gather 
 towards the close of i860, and in April, 1861, the 
 armed struggle commenced by the attack on Fort 
 Sumter. Governor Ramsey was in Washington 
 at this time, and hearing of the fall of that fort 
 at once called on President Lincoln and tendered 
 to him 1,000 men from Minnesota to aid in sup- 
 pressing the insurrection. President Lincoln had 
 not then issued his proclamation calling for troops, 
 and this tender of troops by Governor Ramsey was 
 the first offer of armed support to the Government 
 made during the memorable crisis. The treasury 
 of the state at this time was empty, no appropria- 
 tion had been made for this purpose and the Leg- 
 islature would not convene until the winter fol- 
 lowing, but his standing was such in the business 
 world that he was able to clothe, arm and equip 
 in all respects for active service at least five regi- 
 ments of infantry of 1,000 men each, several bat- 
 teries and some squadrons of cavalry. 
 
 When more than five thousand troops had left 
 the state and were serving in the armies at the 
 South and a call, accompanied with a draft, had 
 been made upon all the states for 300,000 more 
 troops, and the State of Minnesota was well ad- 
 vanced in meeting this call, there occurred one of 
 those Indian uprisings upon our frontier, without 
 any previous warning, that caused all men to 
 tremble and laid many prostrate with fear. Fol- 
 lowing an evening that was peaceful and serene, 
 a morning came filled with destruction and dismay, 
 threatening the desolation of the western frontier 
 of Minnesota for 300 miles. The Sioux nation of 
 Indians had suddenly declared war, and, like all 
 the wars of those savages, it was waged against 
 women and children. None were spared or allowed 
 to escape except the armed soldier, and many of 
 these were shot from ambuscade. This was enough 
 to arouse all the fire of the governor and bring into 
 strongest action those faculties that he had in- 
 herited from Revolutionary sires. He saw the 
 desolation of the frontiers going on, and the pop- 
 ulation fleeing from the state. He immediately 
 summoned all the resources of the state, turned all 
 the able-bodied men back to the frontiers, fought 
 battles, defensive and offensive, without organized 
 troops, using the farmers with their shot-guns and 
 men of every class with their most available 
 weapons, to fight in lines of battle, and judges of 
 the Supreme Court, who had received no military 
 education to command them. 
 
 _ Governor Ramsey called his long-time political 
 rival, Gen. H. H. Sibley, to the chief command, and 
 in a remarkably short campaign the savages were 
 defeated in battle and driven beyond the bounda- 
 ries of the state, all their white prisoners were re- 
 leased and confidence was restored to the people of 
 the frontier, never afterward to be seriously 
 menaced. 
 
 In January, 1863, Governor Ramsey was elected 
 United States senator from Minnesota, and in 
 1869, at the close of his term, was re-elected for six 
 years more. During this period he served as 
 chairman on several important standing committees, 
 among them those on postoffices and postroads, on 
 
 territories, etc. Postal reform occupied much of 
 his attention during this time. He first introduced 
 the bill for the repeal of the franking abuse, and 
 visited France in 1869 to urge cheaper interna- 
 tional postage, which was not long afterwards 
 adopted. The improvement of the Mississippi 
 River and its navigable tributaries ; the aiding of 
 the Northern Pacific Railroad; assisting the terri- 
 tories of Dakota and Montana to obtain necessary 
 legislation ; the encouragement of trade with Mani- 
 toba, and other measures to benefit the Northwest, 
 found in Senator Ramsey an active supporter. No 
 member of Congress during his term worked 
 harder or more successfully for the interests of 
 his constituency, or for the general prosperity of 
 the Union than he. 
 
 Governor Ramsey was appointed secretary of 
 war by President Hayes, and served until the 
 close of that term, in 1881. He administered the 
 department with great wisdom and discretion. 
 During his administration as much preparation was 
 made for the defense of our great cities on the 
 sea coast by procuring the heaviest ordnance and 
 adopting the most skillful methods of operating 
 the same with efficiency as has been made in any 
 like period. He often administered the department 
 of the navy as acting secretary while he was secre- 
 tary of war. 
 
 He served from 1882 to 1886 under an appoint- 
 ment by President Arthur as a member of the 
 Utah Commission, provided for by the “Edmunds 
 Act.” 
 
 Mrs. Anna E. Ramsey departed this life Novem- 
 ber 29, 1884, aged fifty-eight years. No biography 
 of Senator Ramsey would be complete without 
 doing full justice to the memory of this superior 
 woman. From the day of her advent into Minne- 
 sota in 1849 to her death, a period of thirty-five 
 years, Mrs. Ramsey was one of the foremost figures 
 in society, if not the most prominent in social cir- 
 cles of both St. Paul and Washington. Endowed 
 by nature with a striking personal beauty, with a 
 commanding and queenly presence, with amiable 
 and winning manners, Mrs. Ramsey remained un- 
 changingly the center of an admiring circle of 
 friends. During this time she was foremost not 
 only as a generous supporter, but as an active 
 worker in every charitable and benevolent move- 
 ment in St. Paul, and was a sincere member of her 
 church. And while no domestic and maternal 
 duties were omitted, her spacious residence was 
 continually the scene of those charming receptions 
 and entertainments which gave enjoyment to her 
 large circle of friends, and where she dispensed 
 a generous hospitality with a grace and attractive- 
 ness which were one of the noted features in social 
 life here for a generation. 
 
 Governor Ramsey lived to the venerable age of 
 nearly eighty-eight years, blessed with intellectual 
 and physical vigor to the last. After his retirement 
 from public life he enjoyed seventeen years of a 
 serene and beautiful “old age,” ever alert and in- 
 terested in current events; ever solicitous for the 
 welfare of the city, state and nation he had served 
 so faithfully; ever showered with abundant testi- 
 monials of the affectionate esteem of his fellow 
 citizens. 
 
 He was the wise counsellor in many enterprises 
 for the public good. He was the honored guest at 
 innumerable civic and patriotic functions. He 
 served as president of the State Historical Society, 
 
1402 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 of which he was a life-long member, and to which 
 he had been a great benefactor. He was a leading 
 spirit at the reunions of the Old Settlers’ Asso- 
 ciation. He was an honored member of the Loyal 
 Legion and keenly relished its convocations. He 
 was a trustee of the House of Hope Presbyterian 
 Church and a regular attendant at its services. 
 
 In physical appearance, he was a large, well- 
 formed, fine loking gentleman, with a countenance 
 expressive of dignity, force, and, at the same time, 
 of amiability, and always beaming with good 
 humor. As a conversationalist, Governor Ramsey 
 was very entertaining, having seen so much of 
 “men and things” in his long and active life, and 
 having a tenacious memory full of valuable remi- 
 niscences. His venerable and dignified form was 
 well known on our streets and in public places, and 
 he enjoyed meeting with his old associates in a 
 social way. 
 
 He died April 22, 1903, full of years and of hon- 
 ors. Numerous tributes were paid to his memory. 
 The Committee of the Loyal Legion, composed of 
 Gen. John B. Sanborn, Gen. J. W. Bishop, Gen. 
 L. F. Hubbard and Mr. Joseph A. Wheelock, con- 
 cluded its memorial with these significant words : 
 
 “What remains in store for the rising generation 
 it is not for us of the generation now passing away 
 to say, but we know that none of us shall ever see 
 in the high official positions of the state and nation 
 his like again.” 
 
 Horace Austin. Among the governors of Min- 
 nesota who became residents of St. Paul after the 
 expiration of their official term and continued, as 
 citizens, the social relations formed while in execu- 
 tive position, was the subject of this sketch. His 
 son and two of his daughters still abide here, illus- 
 trating in their several spheres of useful activity a 
 recognition of the obligations imposed by their 
 heritage of honor. 
 
 Horace Austin was born October 15, 1831, at Can- 
 terbury, Connecticut. He was the son of a substan- 
 tial farmer, and the family was of good New Eng- 
 land stock. He was reared on the home farm. His 
 education, after the public school, was finished at 
 an academy in Litchfield, Maine. Subsequently he 
 taught in Belgrade Academy, of which institution 
 he was for a short time the principal. From there 
 he went to Augusta, Maine, and studied law in the 
 office of the Hon. Lot Morrill, for many years 
 United States senator. 
 
 Smitten with the western fever, in 1856 he turned 
 his ambitious footsteps to Minnesota in search of 
 home and fortune, and finally located at St. Peter. 
 He was then twenty-five years of age. He at once 
 began the practice of his profession as a lawyer. 
 
 In 1862, on the breaking out of the Indian war, 
 he promptly enlisted as a private in the St. Peter 
 Frontier Guards. He was afterward made first 
 lieutenant of the company. He participated in the 
 second battle of New Ulm. Immediately afterward 
 the First Regiment of Mounted Rangers was or- 
 ganized. For this regiment Horace Austin raised 
 Company B, and was mustered into the United 
 States service as captain, October 29, 1862. He 
 served until the close of hostilities, making an 
 excellent military record. 
 
 His next step was in the judicial line. He was 
 elected judge of the District Court for the Sixth 
 District, embracing his home county of Nicollet 
 with others, in 1864. He soon took high rank as a 
 just, independent and fearless judge. 
 
 In 1869 Judge Austin was nominated by the state 
 convention, on the first ballot, as republican can- 
 didate for governor of Minnesota. He was duly 
 elected and served two terms in the executive chair, 
 declining a third term, which was very generally 
 urged upon him. His administration was signalized 
 by many measures of state-wide importance pressed 
 by him on the Legislature, and enforced by his exec- 
 utive action. One of his administrative acts was 
 the appointment of William Windom as United 
 States senator to fill a vacancy. 
 
 After leaving the governorship, Austin was ap- 
 pointed by President Grant third auditor of the 
 treasury at Washington, a position of great respon- 
 sibility, the duties of which he discharged with 
 credit for four years. 
 
 Returning to Minnesota and resuming the prac- 
 tice of law, Governor Austin was, in 1887, ap- 
 pointed by Gov. A. R. McGill as state railroad com- 
 missioner, which position he occupied four years. 
 McGill had served Austin as his private secretary 
 during all the incumbency by the latter of the exec- 
 utive office. 
 
 The later years of Governor Austin’s life were 
 spent in travel or in tranquil ease at his summer 
 home on the shores of Lake Minnetonka. He vis- 
 ited Alaska, and spent many months in California, 
 indulging to the utmost his love of nature, as well 
 as his taste for research and exploration. 
 
 He died November 7, 1905, as the result of a sur- 
 gical operation, from which he had apparently rallied 
 and from which full recovery was confidently ex- 
 pected. Thus passed from life a man of mark in 
 the history of the commonwealth, leaving behind a 
 legacy of brightness and encouragement to coming 
 generations of Minnesotans. 
 
 Governor Austin was married in March, 1859, to 
 Miss Mary Lena Morrill, of Augusta, Maine, who 
 survived him for five years, and continued to reside 
 in St. Paul. Of this union were born five daughters 
 and one son, as follows: Mrs. Lenora Hamlin, of 
 St. Paul; Alice Austin, an artist of Boston; Ida W. 
 Austin, who died March 22, 1888 ; Herbert W. 
 Austin, of St. Paul ; Mabel married to Dr. Ernest 
 Southard, professor in Plarvard Medical College, 
 Boston; and Helen Horace Austin, teacher in the 
 Central Pligh School, St. Paul. 
 
 Richard Chute. Graven deeply and with clear 
 distinction on the history of the State of Minnesota 
 are the name and works of Richard Chute, who was 
 a pioneer of pioneers and who died in Chicago, 
 August 1, 1893. He stood as an honored member 
 of a striking group of men whose influence in the 
 civic and material development of Minnesota was 
 most potent and benignant. His fair fame rests on 
 the firm basis of work accomplished and honors 
 worthily won, and in studying his clear-cut, sane, 
 distinct character, interpretation follows fact in a 
 straight line of derivation. His character was the 
 positive expression of a strong and loyal nature; 
 and the laurels of large achievement were his, as 
 well as the honors of a worthy ancestry. 
 
 Mr. Chute first came to what is now the State 
 of Minnesota over sixty years ago, several years 
 prior to the organization of the Territory of Min- 
 nesota, and his initial activities in the Northwest 
 were in connection with the fur trade. With the 
 passing years his activities touched virtually all 
 phases of enterprise and industry through which 
 was evolved this, great commonwealth, and Minne- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1403 
 
 sota shall ever owe to him a debt of gratitude for 
 the practical and important work which he accom- 
 plished in its behalf, the while his strong and noble 
 personality should cause his name and memory to be 
 revered in the city and state that represented his 
 home during the greater part of his active^ and 
 useful career. He maintained his home in Minne- 
 apolis from 1854 until his death. 
 
 Richard Chute claimed the old Buckeye state as 
 the place of his nativity, and he was a representative 
 of one of its sterling pioneer families. The gene- 
 alogy in the agnatic line is traced back to Alexander 
 Chute, who was a resident of Taunton, England, 
 in 1268, and who was a scion of one of the fine 
 old families of Norman blood who accompanied 
 William the Conquerer to England. The original 
 representatives of the name in America came to 
 New England long prior to the war of the Revolu- 
 tion. A number of maternal ancestors of Mr. Chute 
 were patriot soldiers of the continental line in that 
 struggle, among the number having been Capt. 
 Roger Clapp, known in history as the commander 
 of the “Castle,” now known as Fort Independence, 
 in Boston Harbor. 
 
 Mr. Chute was born in the City of Cincinnati, 
 Ohio, September 23, 1820, the “Queen City” having 
 been at that time little more than a village. He 
 was a son of Rev. James and Martha (Hewesj 
 Chute, who were folk of superior intellectual attain- 
 ments, and who removed from the East to Cincin- 
 nati, Ohio, in the early pioneer days, the father 
 becoming a teacher in a private school in that city 
 and later a clergyman of the Presbyterian Church, 
 as a pioneer representative of which in Ohio he 
 labored many years with consecrated zeal and de- 
 votion. From Cincinnati he removed with his fam- 
 ily to Columbus, the capital of Ohio, where he re- 
 mained until 1831, when he established his home in 
 Fort Wayne, Indiana. His death occurred there in 
 1835, and his devoted wife passed away two years 
 previously. 
 
 The early education of Mr. Chute was received 
 under the able and effective direction and precep- 
 torship of his parents, and as a lad of twelve years 
 he found employment in the store conducted by 
 S. and H. Hanna & Co. at Fort Wayne. He was 
 but fifteen years old at the time of his father’s death, 
 and as he was the eldest of the children, he as- 
 sumed heavy responsibilities, with unselfish devo- 
 tion caring for the younger children. He was in 
 the employ of various firms in Fort Wayne, and in 
 1841, about the time of attaining his majority, he 
 there accepted a position as clerk for W. G. and G. 
 W. Ewing, who were extensive fur dealers. In 1844 
 this firm decided to establish a trading post af 
 Good Roads Village, eight miles above Fort Snell- 
 ing, Minnesota, and Mr. Chute was sent out to as- 
 sume charge of this preliminary work. Incidentally 
 he visited the Falls of St. Anthony and came to 
 a full appreciation of the splendid advantages which 
 were here offered for the development of a large 
 city of much industrial and commercial importance. 
 He continued to be actively identified with the fur 
 trade for a number of years, having become a part- 
 ner of the Ewings in 1845 and later becoming a 
 member of the firm of P. Choteau, Jr., & Co. In 
 1854 he established his home at St. Anthony, the 
 virtual nucleus of the City of Minneapolis. Here he 
 became largely interested in real estate, and soon 
 acquired part ownership in the land controlling the 
 water power on the east side of the river, a prop- 
 
 erty then owned by Franklin Steele and other rep- 
 resentative pioneers. Two years later the St. An- 
 thony Falls Water Power Company was incorpo- 
 rated, and .Mr. Chute became its agent, a position 
 which he retained until 1868, when he became pres- 
 ident of the company. He continued as executive 
 head of the corporation until its property was sold 
 to James J. Hill, the great railroad builder of the 
 Northwest. This company developed the power at 
 the falls and thus gave impetus to the upbuilding 
 of the great flour-milling industry that has given the 
 Minnesota metropolis world-wide fame. 
 
 In 1865 Mr. Chute established the real estate firm 
 known as Chute Brothers, in which was included his 
 brother Samuel H. Chute. This firm long conducted 
 most extensive operations and was influential in 
 the development and upbuilding of Minneapolis. 
 Richard Chute likewise became actively identified, 
 at various times, with important industrial and com- 
 mercial enterprises that proved specially successful. 
 His public service in the interest of the city and 
 state were extensive and varied. In association with 
 R. P. Upton and Edward Murphy he supervised the 
 expenditure of the public funds raised for the pur- 
 pose of clearing the channel of the Mississippi River 
 between Minneapolis and Fort Snelling and making 
 the stream available for steamboat traffic between 
 these points. In the autumn of the same year he 
 was appointed by Gov. Henry M. Rice, a delegate 
 from Minnesota Territory to aid in securing at the 
 national capital the congressional enactment of the 
 railroad land-grant bill, and with his coadjutor, H. 
 T. Welles, succeeded in bringing about this impor- 
 tant desideratum, the eventual result of which was 
 the construction of 1,400 miles of railroad in Min- 
 nesota. He was made a charter director of several 
 of the railroad companies, and was especially prom- 
 inent and influential in the affairs of the Great 
 Northern Railway Company. He was one of the 
 organizers of the Minneapolis Board of Trade, of 
 which he served as a director for many years and 
 of which he was president two years. 
 
 In 1862 Governor Ramsey appointed Mr. Chute 
 special quartermaster for a detachment of troops at 
 Fort Ripley, and later he was made assistant quar- 
 termaster of the state, with the rank of lieutenant 
 colonel. From 1863 until the close of the Civil war 
 he was United States provost marshal for Hennepin 
 County, Minnesota, and aside from, his local activities 
 he did all in his power to support the Union arms in 
 the great conflict that perpetuated the integrity of 
 the nation. 
 
 Few have exercised greater or more loyal influ- 
 ence than did Richard Chute in connection with 
 the work that has been done to preserve St. An- 
 thony Falls — first through his association with the 
 St. Anthony Falls Water Power Company and later, 
 after three failures to obtain for the purpose the 
 passage of a land-grant bill, he finally succeeded in 
 securing from Congress an appropriation of $30,000 
 for the making of permanent improvements that 
 should conserve the local water power at the falls. 
 This sum. together with subsequent congressional 
 appropriations and municipal subscriptions, made 
 possible the construction of the present concrete 
 dyke and permanent apron. 
 
 While he was identified with the fur-trading 
 business with the Indians Mr. Chute became well 
 acquainted with and won the confidence of various 
 Indian tribes of the Northwest, and thus he was 
 enabled to wield much influence in effecting treaties 
 
1404 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 with the Indians. He was present at the signing of 
 the treaties at Agency City, in 1842, with the Sac 
 and Fox Indians; in 1846 he was in Washington 
 when the Winnebagoes sold the “neutral ground;’’ 
 and he was present at Mendota and Traverse des 
 Sioux when were concluded the Sioux treaties that 
 opened Minnesota to settlement. 
 
 A man of broad intellectual ken, well fortified 
 convictions, mature judgment and impregnable in- 
 tegrity, Mr. Chute gave himself with characteristic 
 vigor and ability to fostering those undertakings that 
 tended to conserve the progress and prosperity of 
 the city and state of his adoption. He served sev- 
 eral years as a member of the board of regents of 
 the University of Minnesota, and he was one of the 
 organizers of the republican party in Minnesota, 
 having had about twenty associates in this work 
 and having ever afterward continued a stalwart 
 advocate of the party’s principles and policies. 
 
 Mr. Chute continued in active business until 1882, 
 when impaired health caused his retirement. There- 
 after he passed much of his time in the southern 
 states until his death, which occurred on the 1st 
 of August, 1893, the mortal remains of this honored 
 pioneer finding a resting place in beautiful Lakewood 
 Cemetery, a history of which is given on other 
 pages of this publication. 
 
 In 1850 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. 
 Chute to Miss Mary Eliza Young, who, at the ven- 
 erable age of eighty-three years, still resides in Min- 
 neapolis, a city that is endeared to her by the 
 gracious memories and associations of many years. 
 She is one of the revered pioneer women of the 
 Minnesota metropolis, and it is pleasing to note 
 that she retains her mental and physical powers to 
 a wonderful degree, and is alert and active for one 
 upon whose head rests the crown of the octogen- 
 arian. Mr. and Mrs. Chute became the parents of 
 five children, of whom three are living: Charles R., 
 engaged in business in New York City; William Y., 
 in the real estate business in Minneapolis ; and 
 Grace F., the widow of Gen. Joshua W. Jacobs, 
 U. S. A., who died in California in 1905. 
 
 Thomas Cochran, whose name was for many 
 years a household word in St. Paul, was born in 
 Brooklyn, New York, on July 31, 1843, one of a 
 family of five children. His father was James B. 
 Cochran, a Scotchman by birth, and his mother 
 was Catherine (Bayliss) Cochran, of Brooklyn. In 
 his home he enjoyed the very best intellectual and 
 moral training. Here and in the church to which 
 his parents were deeply attached was laid the solid 
 foundation of the Christian faith and character 
 which so richly adorned his later life. 
 
 After completing his preparatory education in 
 the Polytechnic School of Brooklyn he entered the 
 University of New York, whence he was graduated 
 in the class of 1863, one of the honor men of his 
 class. Thereafter he went to the Columbia College 
 law school, and upon graduation therefrom he was 
 admitted to the New York bar. It is easv thus 
 to trace the elements that entered into the makeup 
 of Mr. Cochran. Take his generous and noble na- 
 ture; his active and vigorous mind inherited from 
 his parents ; to them add rare home and church 
 influence ; the education and discipline of two of the 
 best institutions in the land ; years of membership 
 in the famous Seventh Regiment of New York City; 
 the culture and atmosphere of the metropolis of 
 America and all its wonderful displays of interest 
 
 in the Civil war, and you have Thomas Cochran, — 
 the Christian gentleman ; the man of culture and of 
 noble mien; of rich and varied information; of 
 scholarly habits ; of brave sympathies ; of ardent 
 public spirit; of burning patriotism; and of deep 
 religious conviction. 
 
 When he was attending the law school in New 
 York he became deeply interested in the work of 
 the Y. M. C. A. of that city. After practicing law 
 for a short time in New York he came to St. Paul, 
 in the fall of 1868, in the interest of his health. 
 In the following spring he returned to New York, 
 but, taking ill again, he once more came to St. Paul, 
 where he resided until his death, — his residence here 
 being in all thirty-seven years. 
 
 In St. Paul he did not at once take up the prac- 
 tice of law, but first joined (in 1869) in the organ- 
 ization of the Minnesota Mutual Life Insurance 
 Company, and later entered the real estate business. 
 With his native gifts, training and culture, Mr. 
 Cochran would have achieved high distinction in 
 public life, but he was a man of very strong home 
 attachments and of public spirit, and he was drawn 
 into the real estate business partly by his great de- 
 sire to see the city grow and develop. He had 
 caught the metropolitan spirit in New York and 
 he conceived of St. Paul as a great city in embryo, 
 — as having a great future which he ardently 
 worked to realize. 
 
 He was at different times the head of several 
 real estate firms, as Cochran & Walsh (James R.), 
 1871-8; Cochran, Rice & Walsh (S. B.) ; and Coch- 
 ran & Walsh. In 1898 the Northwestern Invest- 
 ment Company was organized, with Mr. Cochran 
 as its president. It was when president of this com- 
 pany that he secured the building of the first elec- 
 tric street car line from Victoria Street along Grand 
 to Cretin Avenue, and it was, among other things, 
 the success of this line that led to the rapid change 
 of the cable and horse car lines of both cities into 
 electric lines, giving a service not excelled in the 
 country. 
 
 It would require many pages to recite in detail 
 the services of Thomas Cochran to the city of St. 
 Paul. He was a born leader. He took an active 
 part in the agitation and effort that secured the 
 building of the first iron bridge across the Missis- 
 sippi at Fort Snelling — a splendid service. That 
 Summit Avenue was given a width of 200 feet and 
 made a beautiful drive from Lexington Avenue to 
 the river was due in no small degree to his inde- 
 fatigable labors. When a valuable tract of land 
 near the transfer was offered as a site for Mac- 
 alester College, finding that the location was deemed 
 unsuitable owing to its proximity to so many rail- 
 road tracks and other adjuncts of such a place, he 
 was largely instrumental in making the arrange- 
 ments by which the present splendid site of that 
 great institution was secured. The first printed list 
 of trustees of this college, selected by Rev. E. D. 
 Neil, D. D., includes the name of Thomas Cochran. 
 He served in this capacity with characteristic energy 
 until 1898. 
 
 This is but an instance of the zeal with which 
 Mr. Cochran devoted himself to innumerable proj- 
 ects of the education, moral, religious and material 
 advancement of the city. During a long series of 
 years if at any time it was desired to send a man 
 to the front to hold the firing line in an emergency, 
 the public mind turned instinctively to him. 
 He represented the Chamber of Commerce, the 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1405 
 
 Commercial Club, the Christian Associations, the 
 public charities, the churches, the school interests 
 and the citizens at large on many trying occasions 
 as the organizer, leader and spokesman of strong 
 communities working for uplift and advancement, 
 or resisting some serious menace. 
 
 He had unusual gifts as an orator — a fine voice, 
 excellent diction, dignified and attractive presence, 
 with great skill in marshalling facts and arguments. 
 He was admirable in impromptu and after dinner 
 speeches, and his addresses, prepared with much 
 care, were of a high order. Examples were his 
 address reviewing the work of the House of Hope 
 during the first fifty years of its history, delivered 
 before the men of the church in the Commercial 
 Club rooms; his eloquent denunciation of the pro- 
 posed prize fight in the old City Hall, and his ad- 
 dress on “The City,” given in several of the churches 
 of this city. 
 
 Into his church he carried the same alert and 
 intrepid interest that characterized his other activi- 
 ties. He was for long years an active, efficient 
 elder in the House of Hope Church, and for many 
 years the teacher of a large adult Bible class ; few 
 teachers of adults could question and draw out and 
 interest his members as well as he, 
 
 Mr. Cochran died on Christmas morning of 1906. 
 In announcing the news the Dispatch well said : 
 “A cloud comes over this community today to mar 
 the local festivities when it is announced ' that 
 Thomas Cochran died this morning.” In the city 
 papers, all paid the warmest tributes to his memory. 
 He lived the life of a consistent Christian gentle- 
 man, and it can be said of him, which is the highest 
 praise, that the world is much the better off for his 
 having been permitted to live. He lived for his 
 fellow men more than for himself. The funeral 
 obsequies in the House of Hope Church were at- 
 tended by a large concourse of citizens. 
 
 On the 26th of November. 1867, in New York 
 City, Mr. Cochran married Miss Emilie B. Walsh, 
 daughter of Alexander R. and Emilie M. (Brown) 
 Walsh, of New York City. Six children were born 
 of this union : Alexander R., who died in 1893 ; 
 
 Thomas Cochran, Jr., vice president of the Astor 
 Trust Company of New York; Emily, William, 
 Moncrieff and Louise. 
 
 Cushman Kellogg Davis. No citizen of Minne- 
 sota has conferred greater distinction on the state 
 than her illustrious son, Cushman K. Davis. In 
 the higher walks of jurisprudence, of oratory, of 
 statemanship, and of diplomacy — as advocate, gov- 
 ernor, senator, and wise counsellor in vital emer- 
 gencies, he was the peer of the greatest men in the 
 nation. His fame is a precious heritage of this 
 fortunate commonwealth. 
 
 He was born at Henderson, Jefferson County, 
 New York, June 16, 1838, and died at St. Paul, No- 
 vember 27, 1900. On the maternal side he was a 
 direct descendant of Mary Allerton, the last sur- 
 vivor of the Mayflower passengers, who married 
 the son of Robert Cushman, the pilgrim “Minister 
 of Plymouth.” _ His paternal ancestry was also of 
 substantial Puritan stock. When he was two years 
 old the future senator’s parents moved to the neigh- 
 borhood of Waukesha, Wisconsin, where the father 
 engaged in farming for the next fifteen vears, the 
 son doing his share of the work as his' strength 
 developed. 
 
 He was an intellectual youth, and his vigorous 
 
 mental faculties were trained in the district school, 
 in Carroll College and in Michigan University, 
 whence he graduated in 1857. He then engaged in 
 the study of law, became a member of the Waukesha 
 bar in 1859, and remained in active practice until 
 1862, when he enlisted in the Twenty-eighth Wis- 
 consin Regiment for the Civil war. He served with 
 distinction until 1864, when, on account of poor 
 health, he was compelled to resign. He had at- 
 tained the rank of first lieutenant, and was attached 
 to the staff of General W. A. Gorman. 
 
 In 1865 he moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, took 
 up the practice of the law, and soon became noted 
 as one of the ablest, most prominent and most 
 eloquent members of the bar, with a large and 
 lucrative practice. His successive partners here 
 were W. A. Gorman, C. D. O'Brien, Augustus Wil- 
 son, Frank B. Kellogg and C. A. Severance. He 
 was a member of the Legislature in 186^ ; United 
 States attorney for Minnesota from 1868 until 1873, 
 and governor of the state in 1874 and 1875. He 
 was one of the regents of the State University from 
 1882 till 1898. 'In 1887 he was elected United States 
 senator, and re-elected in 1893 and 1899. He was 
 chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations in 
 the United States Senate from March, 1897, till his 
 death, and was one of the commissioners who nego- 
 tiated the treaty of Paris which terminated the war 
 with Spain. 
 
 This is the mere outer shell of his extensive pub- 
 lic career, and gives but a scant clew to his great- 
 ness and worth. To trace his life, the development 
 of his vigorous mind, and its wonderful resources 
 from youth to manhood is to scan a human epic, 
 inspiring in its progress, grand and enduring in its 
 results and outcome. 
 
 His early years in St. Paul were zealously de- 
 voted to his profession, of which he became the 
 acknowledged leader in the state. But he always 
 kept in touch with public affairs. In 1871 he pre- 
 pared a lecture on “Modern Feudalism,” which 
 voiced the popular grievance against railroad ex- 
 actions, and delivered it in many towns. That ad- 
 dress, and his avowed attitude on the great ques- 
 tions of public concern, led him into the governor’s 
 chair, came near sending him to the United States 
 Senate at that time, and forever endeared him to 
 the people, who never ceased to have confidence in 
 his integrity, his wisdom and his honesty of pur- 
 pose. After one term in the executive chair he 
 declined re-election, and again resumed his calling 
 as a lawyer, with more success and greater vigor 
 than ever before. And in the meanwhile, though 
 not in office, he remained one of the acknowledged 
 leaders of the republican party in the state, and 
 was always ready and active to battle for the cause 
 and for the best interests of the people. 
 
 In 1887, in obedience to a pressing demand, the 
 Legislature elected him to the United States Senate. 
 He went there in the maturity of his great powers, 
 better equipped for the work before him than most 
 men who enter the Senate. He went in middle life, 
 an accomplished lawyer, a profound student and a 
 learned scholar, well versed in public affairs. He 
 at once became one of the leaders of the Senate, 
 but it was not until he became chairman of the 
 Committee on Foreign Relations and the controversy 
 with Spain became acute that his true forum was 
 found. His speeches and his reports on our rela- 
 tions with England, with Spain, on the war with 
 Spain, and on the treaty of Paris were epics of 
 
1406 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 wisdom and eloquence seldom excelled. He ren- 
 dered clear and lucid the most profound and most 
 intricate problems of diplomacy and statecraft. 
 When he had spoken there was little more to be 
 said on the subject. While he seemed listless and 
 indifferent to the mere routine work of the Senate, 
 yet when great questions were at stake and great 
 problems were to be solved he was always on the 
 alert. He studied and passed upon public affairs, 
 both at home and abroad, with the instinct and pur- 
 pose of a statesman, never in the spirit of a mere 
 time-server or politician. He made some great 
 speeches in the Senate, worthy of any period in its 
 history, which will stand for accuracy, wealth of 
 learning, beauty of diction and strength of argu- 
 mentation as models. Some of the best were upon 
 topics involving foreign relations, which though of 
 remarkable beauty of expression, evidencing com- 
 plete mastery of the subject, listened to by a full 
 Senate with rapt attention, are lost to the world 
 because they were spoken in the secrecy of execu- 
 tive session. 
 
 Two novel alternatives were presented to the 
 commissioners in the negotiations at Paris as to 
 Porto Rico and the Philippines alike. They were 
 whether we should annex those islands or whether 
 we should abandon them to Spain. The choice of 
 annexation was inevitable, yet it was a great trial. 
 Spain claimed the Philippines with the anxiety of 
 a lion deprived of its prey, and we resisted that 
 claim with the firmness that had already inscribed 
 on our banners, “Deliverance to the oppressed.” 
 On that commission and afterwards in the Senate 
 Mr. Davis stood by this great purpose, and it be- 
 came the supreme law of the land. The fame that 
 is thus interwoven with these events will grow 
 brighter as time grows longer, and nations grow 
 greater, and truth spreads its dominion over the 
 nations now in darkness. 
 
 He was never extreme and never erratic; he was 
 always courteous and always independent and 
 manly. He had a high and honorable sense of con- 
 viction and of responsibility, with a certain reserve 
 that modestly emphasized rather than diminished 
 the dignity and weight of his opinions. The play 
 of a fine fancy sometimes fringed his serious dis- 
 courses with phosphorescent fire, but never an un- 
 seemly word or misplaced levity marred or belittled 
 his utterances. 
 
 His was a daring mind. He had no time for in- 
 consequential thought. Mentally “he walked the 
 mountain ranges.” No problem in the domain of 
 international law or diplomacy was too complicated 
 or monumental for his mental grasp. There was 
 about him nothing of mental or moral timidity. He 
 shrank from no responsibility; no specter or phan- 
 tom danger had terror for him. Once convinced 
 of the true course, he would guide the craft whose 
 rudder was in his hands through any sea with un- 
 shaken nerves and will as firm as adamant 
 
 A striking illustration of his courage was given 
 in his famous telegram to the Duluth, workingmen 
 in July, 1894. A labor conflict of giant proportions 
 was in progress. A resolution was introduced in 
 the United States Senate, the object of which was 
 to allow strikers to stop all railway traffic, provid- 
 ing they did not interfere with the carriage of the 
 United States mails. A committee, assuming to 
 speak in the name of the workingmen of Duluth, 
 wired Senator Davis requesting him to support the 
 resolution. The message arrived after he had gone 
 
 to bed. Without waiting to dress, he wrote in pen- 
 cil and sent back by the messenger an answer in 
 which he unequivocally refused to support the reso- 
 lution, saying : 
 
 "I have received your telegram. I will not sup- 
 port the resolution. It is against your own real 
 welfare. It is also a blow at the security, peace, 
 and rights of millions of people who never harmed 
 you or your associates. My duty to the Constitu- 
 tion and the laws forbids me to sustain a resolu- 
 tion to legalize lawlessness. The same duty rests 
 upon you and your associates. The power to reg- 
 ulate commerce among the several states is vested 
 by the Constitution in Congress. Your associates 
 have ursurped that power at Hammond and other 
 places, and have destroyed commerce between the 
 states in these particular instances. You are rap- 
 idly approaching the overt act of levying war 
 against the United States, and you will find the 
 definition of that in the Constitution. I trust that 
 wiser thoughts will again control. You might as 
 well ask me to vote to dissolve the Government.” 
 
 This message, instinct with the courage of a pa- 
 triot and the kindness of a father, was published 
 at once in all the newspapers of the country, and 
 was everywhere regarded as “the word fitly 
 spoken.” Dread vanished. All felt safe on learn- 
 ing that so strong, so just, so gentle a soul was in 
 the halls of power. 
 
 Senator Davis was a conspicuous example of the 
 scholar in politics. His reading, both in history 
 and in general literature, was comprehensive and 
 minute ; but in this respect, as in others, he followed 
 the instinct of his own taste and preference rather 
 than any hard and fast programme of study. His 
 library was his most congenial habitat. Thither 
 with unerring certainty he might be traced in the 
 intervals of professional engagements or public 
 business. His books had gathered about him in 
 answer to the call of his mind for companionship 
 and counsel. He was not a writer of many books. 
 A life given to war, to the law, and to politics left 
 him no opportunity to enter upon a field where he 
 might have won a distinction which he would have 
 valued above all others. A lecture upon Hamlet; 
 an address upon Madam Roland ; a little volume 
 upon the Law of Shakespeare, was all that he 
 found time for in this direction. After leaving 
 college he had taught himself French and Italian 
 so that he read both with absolute ease and fluency 
 — no small feat to be performed by a boy who 
 went from the college to the camp and then fought 
 his way up at the bar and in politics amid the 
 sharp competition of a young and growing state. 
 
 One of the favorite subjects of his youthful in- 
 vestigation was destined to afford Mr. Davis his 
 chief avenue of distinction in public life. No con- 
 temporary statesman excelled him in acquaintance 
 with international law. All the elementary works 
 on the subject in English, French and Italian were 
 familiar to him, and he was profoundly versed in 
 diplomatic precedents and history. His conceded 
 pre-eminence as an international lawyer is the 
 strongest certificate to his abilities and attainments. 
 These qualifications were recognized early in his 
 senatorial service, and it is well known that many 
 successive secretaries of state availed themselves 
 of his great store of knowledge, always courteously 
 at their command. If the files of the state depart- 
 ment were available, the special subjects of investi- 
 gation with which he was charged and the labor 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1407 
 
 involved in their investigation would disclose a 
 record of signal public service. They belong to an 
 unwritten history traceable only in the policy of 
 the nation. 
 
 He was ever a strong «and decided republican, 
 and never faltered in his allegiance to the party of 
 his faith. Yet, in his thought and action upon 
 momentous themes of national and . international 
 importance, he endeavored to bear himself as a 
 patriot rather than a partisan; to examine them 
 from the highest plane for the greatest public wel- 
 fare, and to lift their consideration above the depths 
 of petty and passionate discussion into the loftier 
 and serener atmosphere of true statesmanship. 
 
 Senator Davis was an exceptionally methodical 
 man. That was one reason why he accomplished 
 so much and with such apparent ease. It was his 
 practice, for example, to reach his committee room 
 in the Senate every morning promptly at 8:30. 
 There he would meet his stenographer, and read 
 his letters, and indicate the answer to each. He 
 answered every letter that he received. 
 
 As the crystal waters of the state he loved, as 
 its name implies, catch and reflect every hue and 
 tint of the skies above them, so his delicate and 
 refined nature seemed to catch all that was beauti- 
 ful in his wide horizon of history, literature and 
 poetry and reflect it back in the glowing imagery 
 of his language. The exordium of an address de- 
 livered on the battlefield of Gettysburg on July 2, 
 1897, on the occasion of the unveiling of the statue 
 erected by the State of Minnesota to commemorate 
 the never-to-be-forgotten charge made there by the 
 First Regiment, Minnesota Infantry Volunteers, on 
 the 2d day of July, 1863, will serve as an illustra- 
 tion of his style : 
 
 “How lovingly Peace, enrobed in her imperial 
 mantle of golden harvests, reigns over this delicious 
 landscape! The refulgent armor of war now rusts 
 beneath our feet. The cannon that we see here in 
 position among the ranks which sleep in the invin- 
 cible array of death are silent forever. Peace now 
 holds an unbroken sway over our dear land. And 
 yet thirty-four years ago today she fled affrighted 
 from this scene. The fiery chariots of war were 
 reaoing here her fields and were gathering a har- 
 vest of men into that tabernacle of never ending 
 rest, wherein all grains and fruits and flowers and 
 men and all living things must be garnered at last.” 
 
 Senator Davis, who, after a long series of ex- 
 panding successes, became the master mind in 
 American diplomacy, dominating, almost uncon- 
 sciously, it is true, but none the less dominating, the 
 mighty minds that composed! the peace commission 
 and virtually created the treaty of Paris, which in 
 the years that lie before us will come to be regarded 
 as one of the world’s greatest triumphs in diplo- 
 macy, met death with that same calm, indomitable 
 courage with which he had overcome every obstacle 
 that confronted him in life. His robust constitu- 
 tion had been undermined by over-work in the 
 public service. In the midst of a triumphal tour 
 of the country, as an orator in the presidential 
 campaign of 1900, his strength failed and he re- 
 turned to St. Paul, where he died on the 18th of 
 November. He was buried in the national ceme- 
 tery at Arlington. Virginia. 
 
 Frederick Driscoll filled worthily for a long 
 period, crowded with important events, a conspic- 
 uous place in the annals of this city and state, 
 
 besides attaining positions of nation-wide* influence 
 in the realms where his professional activities were 
 exercised. He was. a man of forceful and generous 
 nature, with a fertile mind well stocked with ideas 
 and lavish in their outlay. Warm-hearted, open- 
 handed, large-minded, with a certain profusion in 
 his intellectual expenditures, as if conscious of an 
 overflowing reserve, his powers were wonderfully 
 at his command on those occasions when the exi- 
 gencies of the moment required him in some public 
 assembly to present his views .on an important 
 subject under discussion. 
 
 He was equally at home in a political convention, 
 at the Chamber of Commerce, or at a great meet- 
 ing called to decide on measures to meet an impend- 
 ing crisis. He made no oratorical efforts, but the 
 clearness of statement, the persuasiveness of his 
 manner of reasoning, all combined to win assent 
 and disarm opposition. 
 
 Frederick Driscoll was born at Boston, Massachu- 
 setts, July 31, 1834. His boyhood was spent in that 
 city where he received a liberal school and academic 
 education. He formed plans for a mercantile career 
 and was trained in that direction, with no premoni- 
 tions of the wide divergence therefrom the future 
 years would bring. 
 
 In the summer of 1856 he came west and found 
 employment for a few months at Clinton, Iowa. 
 He arrived in Minnesota in October, 1857, and, after 
 a short stay in St. Paul, located at Belle Plaine in 
 Scott Countv as bookkeeper for the land company 
 which exploited the townsite. This company suf- 
 fered some financial reverses ; Mr. D. W. Ingersoll, 
 of St. Paul, a leading merchant, was made assignee 
 and Mr. Driscoll became his agent. Among the 
 assets of the land company was a weekly newspaper, 
 the Inquirer, which, after many vicissitudes, sus- 
 pended publication in 1861. At the suggestion of 
 Mr. Ingersoll, Mr. Driscoll accepted the newspaper 
 plant in payment of arrearages due for his services 
 He was not a practical printer, but he embarkei 
 on this untried venture, which was to shape and 
 control the work of a lifetime, with a youthful self- 
 reliance fully justified by the result. 
 
 Meantime other important events occurred in Mr. 
 Driscoll’s history. In 1859 he was married at Belle 
 Plaine to Miss Anne Brown, of New York. In No- 
 vember, i860, hq was elected to the State Legisla- 
 ture from Scott County. He served during the ses- 
 sion of 1861 efficiently. In the session of 1862 he 
 was elected secretary of the Senate. In November, 
 1862, he removed his printing office from Le Sueur 
 to St. Paul and established the Daily Union. In 
 February, 1863, he was elected state printer. Soon 
 afterwards the Union was merged into the Press ; 
 J. A. Wheelock was editor and Mr. Frederick Dris- 
 coll. publisher — and thus began the association that 
 was destined to endure so long and so creditably 
 to both. 
 
 There were giants in those days, and Frederick 
 Driscoll was with them and of them. He stood 
 shoulder high with the pioneers like Alexander 
 Ramsey, Henry M. Rice, H. H. Sibley and William 
 R. Marshall. He kept step with the developments 
 worked out by E. F. Drake, W. L. Banning, W. F. 
 Davidson, George L. Becker, Oliver Dalrymple, 
 Thomas Lowry and James J. Hill, the empire- 
 builders — the men who did things. He sat in coun- 
 cil with such financiers as Erastus Edgerton, Horace 
 Thompson and H. P. Upham. He measured up to 
 the intellectual standard of jurists like Gilfillan, 
 
1408 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Cornell, Cole, Flandrau, R. R. Nelson and George 
 B. Young. In politics he was the trusted adviser 
 of Windom, Pillsbury, Dunnell, Washburn, Wilkin- 
 son, John B. Sanborn and Cushman K. Davis ; the 
 dreaded antagonist of Donnelly, Eugene Wilson, 
 Norton and Coggswell. He was the co-worker in 
 business enterprises with John Nicols, C. D. Strong, 
 P. H. Kelley, C. W. Hackett, Channing Seabury and 
 J. C. Burbank. He worked in the ranks of journal- 
 ism for the upbuilding of the state, heart to heart, 
 with J. A. Wheelock, W. S. King, J. A. Leonard 
 and Daniel Sinclair. He walked hand in hand in 
 gracious deeds of philanthropy and benevolence 
 with D. W. Ingersoll, Wilford L. Wilson, D. R. 
 Noyes and Thomas Cochran. With bowed head, * 
 reverently, he marched abreast of churchmen like 
 S. Y. McMasters, D. R. Breed, E. D. Neill, H. B. 
 Whipple and John Ireland, in paths that lead to 
 righteousness through Christian faith and hope. 
 
 It were an honor to any man who sustained him- 
 self for a long series of years on terms of acknowl- 
 edged equality in a companionship like this, emulat- 
 ing the brotherhood at King Arthur’s table round, 
 the goodliest fellowship of famous knights whereof 
 the world holds record. Frederick Driscoll thus 
 sustained himself and more. In numerous vital 
 emergencies he was pushed forward, in one or an- 
 other of these several fields of usefulness and honor, 
 to a position of applauded leadership, and in no 
 such case did he fail to amply vindicate the prefer- 
 ment. 
 
 In May, 1870, Mr. Wheelock was appointed post- 
 master of St. Paul. Mr. Driscoll became assistant 
 postmaster and for five years performed the duties 
 of that position in addition to those of business 
 manager of the Daily Press. 
 
 Shortly after relinquishing this office, the Press 
 was consolidated with the Pioneer under the title 
 Pioneer-Press, which it retains until this day. Later 
 the management acquired the Morning Tribune and 
 Evening Mail, at Minneapolis, suspended their pub- 
 lication, and for a time held a monopoly of the 
 daily newspaper field of the Twin Cities, except for 
 the St. Paul Evening Dispatch. 
 
 Mr. Driscoll was necessarily the prime factor in 
 negotiating and effecting these several fusions or 
 amalgamations, in each case adding to the prestige 
 and profits of his great journal. Whether the ablest 
 survive, or only those ablest to survive, the survivals 
 concededly get the credit and reap the reward. In 
 his admirable history of Minnesota Journalism, Mr. 
 D. S. B. Johnston traces out the pedigree of the 
 Pioneer Press and shows that nineteen daily and 
 weekly newspapers were, first and last, absorbed 
 into its ravenous organism. 
 
 The history of the Press and the Pioneer Press, 
 in its business relations and in many of their polit- 
 ical and journalistic aspects, for thirty-six years was 
 the history of Frederick Driscoll. Nor were his 
 political activities restricted to the newspaper col- 
 umns. In 1867 he was appointed chairman of the 
 republican state central committee, and held the po- 
 sition until 1870, conducting with skill the cam- 
 paigns which resulted in the second election of 
 Governor Marshall and the first election of Gov- 
 ernor Austin. He was during this period and sub- 
 sequently the moving spirit in what we called “the 
 Ramsey dynasty ' — the inner circle of leading repub- 
 licans who had in charge the political fortunes of 
 Senator Ramsey. Governor Marshall, General R. 
 N. McLaren, Mr. Driscoll and Mr. Wheelock com- 
 
 posed this inner circle and so managed affairs as to 
 dictate, with a view tp the senator’s continued tenure, 
 most of the nominations for state officers, congress- 
 men, etc., as well as most of the appointments to 
 federal positions, during at least a full decade of 
 Minnesota history. It was a puissant combination, 
 devoted to what its members then believed and 
 some of their surviving opponents now concede was 
 a laudable purpose. 
 
 After 1875 his personal connection with practical 
 politics measurably ceased, but the paper remained 
 a power in the state. As always, Frederick Driscoll 
 guided its financial destinies. His eye was on every 
 detail of its complicated business and that of the 
 manufacturing and mercantile branches he had built 
 up around it — the printing, binding and lithographic 
 establishments, the wholesale paper and stationery 
 trade, and the ready-print auxiliary, each an indus- 
 try of itself. 
 
 Yet amid all the exacting demands of this, the 
 busiest time of his busy life, he always found leisure 
 for cheerful participations in matters relating to the 
 public welfare. In this capacity he was one of the 
 strongest and most useful men our city and state 
 have ever known. The real value of his unselfish 
 service cannot be overestimated. He was the cul- 
 tured man, the gentleman, in the highest meaning 
 of those expressions. Yet his was a militant soul. 
 He was not merely a good man negatively ; he went 
 out and fought for the faith that was in him. 
 
 His interest in all matters relating to business ex- 
 tensions, municipal policies and official responsibil- 
 ity, made him a leader among the men who were 
 shaping the evolution of our ambitious and strug- 
 gling young city. He was for many years a director 
 of the Chamber of Commerce, and one year its 
 president. Every step in St. Paul’s advance had to 
 be worked and fought for against vigorous rivalry. 
 No more zealous worker or more chivalrous fighter 
 than Frederick Driscoll contributed to the ultimate 
 victory. The chapter on street railways in Volume 
 One of this work gives an example of his forceful 
 and effective leadership. 
 
 On December 1, 1889, the ownership of the Pio- 
 neer Press Company passed into other hands, and 
 Mr. Driscoll resigned the management. At the age 
 of sixty-six, two years beyond the supposed limit of 
 efficiency in officers of the army, he laid down the 
 special burden he had carried for a generation, but 
 he did not retire. On the contrary, he entered on 
 a new career, that led him into even higher, wider 
 ranges of endeavor than those in which he had 
 previously toiled and triumphed. He had already 
 become a national figure in lines connected with 
 practical journalism. He was one of the founders 
 of the Associated Press and long a director. Also 
 a leader in the American Newspaper Publishers’ 
 Association. 
 
 Thus prominently identified with the leading pub- 
 lishing interests by long association, his colleagues 
 at once availed themselves of the ooportunity, when 
 he left the Pioneer Press, to enlist his services in 
 a very important capacity, for which he was be- 
 lieved to possess rare qualifications. A national 
 board of arbitration was created. It was composed 
 of the special standing committee of the American 
 Newspaper Publishers’ Association, and the execu- 
 tive council of the International Typographical 
 Union. Of this national board Frederick Driscoll 
 was early in 1900 made commissioner of arbitration, 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1409 
 
 with wide discretionary authority and a liberal pro- 
 vision as to salary and expenses. 
 
 He was a pioneer in the movement for better 
 relations between employer and employed. He had 
 no precedents to guide him. He was obliged to 
 blaze his way through a forest of tangled prejudices 
 and animosities, arrogant defiance on one side and 
 sullen contumacy on the other. These had brought 
 strikes and lockouts, sometimes riots, always costly 
 to both parties, demoralizing the community and 
 paralyzing its productive industries. 
 
 He gave himself to this fruitful mission with 
 ever increasing capacity for good during the re- 
 mainder of his life. How fully he succeeded in 
 accomplishing the duty assigned him is most con- 
 clusively shown by the voluntary tributes trans- 
 mitted to his family after his decease by the national 
 jurisdictions best qualified to appreciate his work. 
 
 A memorial brochure, beautifully engraved and 
 bound, contains resolutions adopted and signed by 
 the National Board of Arbitration, including James 
 M. Lynch, Hugo Miller and J. W. Bramwood, rep- 
 resenting the International Typographical Union, 
 which pay a high tribute to Mr. Driscoll’s fair- 
 mindedness and his unceasing efforts to promote the 
 mutual interests of employers and employees. An 
 equally sumptuous volume contains a tribute of like 
 tenor from representatives of the publishers, dem- 
 onstrating how successfully he had performed the 
 functions of peacemaker. 
 
 His new work required his removal from St. Paul 
 to Chicago in 1900. It involved much fatiguing 
 travel and severe nervous strain. But he performed 
 it energetically for seven years, and literally “died 
 in the harness,” on March 24, 1907. He was buried 
 in Oakland Cemetery, St. Paul, two days later. 
 
 He rests in peace. He had kept the faith. He 
 had lanced a festering abscess in the body politic 
 and applied healing lotions. He had stretched fresh 
 wires into the domain of industrial economics and 
 electrified them with his soul. 
 
 Mrs. Anne Brown Driscoll died March 31, 1880, 
 leaving three sons! On November 8, 1882, Mr. Dris- 
 coll was married in New York City to Mrs. Lucy 
 Norris Stiles, of St. Paul, who shared his successes 
 and labors for twenty-five years. Mrs. Driscoll now 
 resides in this city. There also survived him his 
 sons, Frederick Driscoll, Jr., Arthur B. Driscoll and 
 Walter J. Driscoll, his daughter, Mrs. Robert H. 
 Kirk, and his stepson, John N. Jackson. 
 
 In his private life Mr. Driscoll was firm and in 
 all relations an exemplar of correct morals and 
 earnest religious convictions. He stood for what is 
 best in framing the elements of our Christian civil- 
 ization, the hope of the country, the light of the 
 world. He was one of the first members of the 
 House of Hope Presbyterian Church of St. Paul 
 and a leader of the choir in its early days. He 
 served for many years on its board of trustees, and 
 was always a generous contributor to its denomina- 
 tional and benevolent agencies. By precept and ex- 
 ample he lent encouragement to every judicious ef- 
 fort for the regeneration of society and the uplift of 
 the race. 
 
 Mr. Driscoll was easily one of the foremost in 
 the front rank of his contemporaries. He left the 
 indelible impress of his exceptional talents, his tire- 
 less industry and his inflexible integrity on many 
 features of the advancement of this city, of this 
 state and of the embryo communities beyond our 
 western border, which for three decades iooked to 
 
 this center as a source of information, of political 
 guidance, of commercial and financial tutelage. 
 
 And perhaps his last days were his best days. 
 Having served faithfully in diverse fields of local 
 effort, with wide radiations of beneficent influence, 
 he was at an age which entitled him to retirement 
 and rest, transferred to spheres of national achieve- 
 ment, yielding distinction it is the privilege of few 
 to win. He did not retire and he did not rest. 
 Well past three score and ten, his untiring energies 
 still consecrated to good works, he fell, at last, a 
 mailed warrior of the Empire of Peace and Civil- 
 ization “rich in honon and glorious with praise." 
 
 Dr. Chester Goss Higbee. In a memoir to the 
 subject of this sketch, issued after his lamented 
 death by Cobb Hospital, of which he was president, 
 an associate presented this merited eulogy : 
 
 "Between August 5, 1835, and April 3, 1908, lived 
 one often called the ‘Good Physician.’ Beyond, 
 ever lives, in hearts made better by his presence, 
 the teacher, soldier, great-hearted philanthropist, 
 whose acted motto was — ‘Where need is, there is 
 my brother.’ To Dr. Higbee medicine was more 
 than a profession — it was a sacred calling. Plis 
 eminence through over forty years in St. Paul, the 
 Northwest and nationally, among his fellow-prac- 
 titioners, was no accident. A great purpose steadily 
 held draws its wealth from many sources. His was 
 such a purpose. 
 
 “It is partly written in the record of his twenty- 
 three battles and how he rose from the private of 
 ’61 to the captain of ’64, bearing a wound from be- 
 fore Atlanta, marched with Sherman to the sea, we 
 may know what kind of a soldier he was. How 
 men trusted and loved him is hinted in the long list 
 of honorable positions which he held : Headship of 
 the Loyal Legion in Minnesota; thirty-second degree 
 Mason, trusted and efficient officer of the United 
 States and Minnesota in connection with old sol- 
 diers; president of the State Association of Homeo- 
 pathic Physicians and Surgeons ; foremost in philan- 
 thropic and charitable work — these are only some 
 of the ways in which his worth is hinted. We knew 
 him for the man who took but simple fare and 
 shelter, so well he loved his fellowmen, so much 
 he cared for his calling. We may not know the 
 mighty good he did in secret; it is written only in 
 the hearts he blessed and in the remembrance of 
 Him who knoweth all. Above the wisdom and the 
 brilliance of his mind and the skill of his hand, we 
 love the loving, gentle man this strong man was.” 
 
 Doctor Higbee was a native of Pike, Wyoming 
 County, New York, but when he was very young 
 his parents removed to the vicinity of Fort Atkin- 
 son, Wisconsin, where his boyhood was spent. The 
 outbreak of the war for the Union found him a 
 resident of Hudson, Wisconsin, where he and his 
 brother enlisted. A condensed epitome of his army 
 experiences is thus set forth in the records : 
 
 “Entered the service as private Company A, 
 Twelfth Wisconsin Infantry, October 30, 1861 ; First 
 Sergeant, December 4, 1861 ; Second Lieutenant, May 
 1, 1862; Captain, November 21, 1864; honorably 
 mustered out, December 20, 1864. Served in Mis- 
 souri and Kansas 1861 and 1862, and in Tennessee 
 and Mississippi campaigns ; siege of Vicksburg and 
 Meridian expedition, and with the Nineteenth Army 
 Corps during Atlanta Campaign, and March to the 
 Sea; wounded at Atlanta, August 20, 1864.” 
 
 This gives but a bald outline of three years’ ardu- 
 
1410 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 ous, dangerous service and sacrifice, in which his 
 valor and his patriotism were demonstrated in one 
 of the mightiest conflicts recorded in the pages of 
 history. In all the great campaigns of the Army 
 of the Tennessee he thus bore a creditable part, 
 winning promotion by bravery and exemplary con- 
 duct, and returning at last, when the war had virtu- 
 ally ended, to the duties and responsibilities of 
 citizenship. 
 
 After a thorough preparation in the best profes- 
 sional schools of medicine and surgery, Doctor Hig- 
 bee began the practice of medicine at Red Wing, 
 Minnesota, but located in St. Paul about 1870, and 
 with the exception of a three years’ sojourn on the 
 Pacific coast, and of some months’ travel in Europe, 
 with professional advancement in view, practiced 
 actively and successfully in this city during the re- 
 mainder of his life. 
 
 Although among his patients were many of wealth 
 and high social position in the community yet there 
 was none so poor, friendless and unfortunate as to 
 appeal to him in vain — ever to the sick, the wounded 
 and sorrowing he enacted the part of the Good 
 Samaritan. To such as these he ministered in num- 
 berless instances with no hope or expectation of 
 pecuniary reward, actuated solely in his large- 
 heartedness by the desire to do good, as he found 
 opportunity, to suffering and afflicted humanity. 
 Such deeds create a memorial more significant, last- 
 ing and worthy than bronze or marble. Doctor Hig- 
 bee’s life had no acme of success, no termination 
 of usefulness on the attainment of sixty years, as 
 maintained by some modern theorists, but rather 
 shows a sure and progressive mental evolution to 
 the final summons of the supreme architect. Though 
 the physical powers waned in later years, thereby 
 lessening the quantity of his labors, yet the high 
 quality remained to the last unimpaired. 
 
 He was long a member of the United States Board 
 of Pension Examiners ; a consulting surgeon of the 
 Minnesota Soldiers’ Home; president of the direc- 
 tors of Cobb Hospital; was vice president of the 
 American Institute of Homeopathy; and was a 
 trusted counsellor in medical affairs for many char- 
 itable associations. 
 
 He was for many years an active member of 
 Acker Post, G. A. R., and its commander. He was 
 a charter member of the Minnesota Commandery, 
 Loyal Legion, organized in 1885, and served as its 
 commander, May 8, 1906, to May 14, 1907. His was 
 a rare personality, uniting in a most felicitous man- 
 ner the skilled physician with the fatherly mien 
 that begets confidence, affection and trust, leading 
 factors in the healing of all diseases, whether of the 
 mind or body. In 1897 the Doctor met with a severe 
 accident, which partially disabled him, but with sub- 
 lime courage he arose superior to physical ills, re- 
 newed his life work and heroically persisted until 
 the end, which came suddenly, as to one who “wraps 
 the drapery of his couch about him and lies down 
 to pleasant dreams.” 
 
 He was survived by a brother, Dr. Albert E. Hig- 
 bee, of Minneapolis, and a sister, Mrs. J. B. John- 
 son, of Milwaukee. 
 
 Doctor Higbee was twice married — the last time 
 in 1876, to Miss Isabel A. Davis, who also survives 
 him and who ! by her energetic, intelligent and abun- 
 dantly fruitful efforts along practical lines of human 
 uplift and advancement splendidly supplements the 
 life-long work of her honored husband. Mrs. Hig- 
 bee is a state leader and a national figure in various 
 
 organizations of women for mental and social im- 
 provement, for effective influence on legislation, 
 administration and all features of good government. 
 
 John Albert Johnson. With the untimely pass- 
 ing of John Albert Johnson on the morning of Sep- 
 tember 21, 1909, Minnesota suffered a loss so acute, 
 so far reaching and so lasting that the great north- 
 western commonwealth will not wholly react from it 
 in many years to come, and his name will go down 
 in modern history as the best loved governor and 
 one of the most truly admirable citizens the state 
 has ever been privileged to know. His death called 
 forth sorrowful expressions on all sides, and was 
 regarded not only as a state, but as a national loss. 
 “The Lincoln of the Northwest” he has been called, 
 and fittingly so. For he possessed many Lincoln- 
 esque qualities of gentleness, simplicity, integrity 
 and tenderness, with the ability to inspire great 
 and unselfish love in the hearts of men. These 
 words of eulogy extracted from one of the leading 
 journals of Minnesota are a frank and simple state- 
 ment of an undeniable truth: “No death in Minne- 
 sota ever was felt so deeply and widely as that of 
 Governor Johnson. We speak advisedly. Greater 
 men have died in the maturity of life and fame, with 
 their work done and their span rounded out. He 
 died in the vigorous prime of life with the best 
 promise of performance before him. What he might 
 have done can never be known. Grief and affection 
 measure it generously. He departs at what might 
 have been the climax of popularity that has had few 
 parallels in the United States. He will remain a 
 romantic legend of political success without com- 
 promise of taste, dignity or honor; of high public 
 purpose fulfilled without loss of personal popularity. 
 That might not have endured. But he loved service 
 above reward; achievement more than applause. To 
 such a man death comes as untimely as to his 
 lovers.” 
 
 Governor Johnson bore the distinction of being 
 the only chief executive of the state who was a 
 native of it, and his election to that high office for 
 three consecutive terms is unanswerable evidence 
 of his sterling worth, and of the secure place he 
 had found in the hearts and homes of the people 
 of his state. Despite the hardships of his early life, 
 he had been able all his days to retain the sweetness 
 of temper and cheery optimism which is the natural 
 right of childhood, and was a man of splendid men- 
 tal balance and unerring wisdom. The unhappy 
 conditions attending his youth he never denied. 
 Neither did he make capital of them, posing as a 
 “self-made man” and flaunting his high attainments 
 in the face of the people ; he rather was con- 
 strained to admit, regretfully enough, the short- 
 comings of his father, and to lay stress upon the 
 noble mother who endowed him with the men- 
 tality and character which made him what he was. 
 The life which was begun with a struggle for 
 existence at an all too early age, was finished in the 
 midst of a similar struggle, although in later years 
 his efforts were not so much for himself as for the 
 benefit of others. 
 
 This Swedish-American man of deeds was born 
 in a cabin near the little village of St. Peter, on the 
 28th of July, 1861, son of Gustave and Caroline 
 (Haden) Johnson. His father was of a worthy 
 Swedish family, and he inherited considerable 
 wealth, but it appears that he squandered his patri- 
 mony in his young manhood, and when he was 
 

 
 
 
 
 
6 ? 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1411 
 
 thirty-three years of age his relatives sent him to 
 the northwest of the United States in the hope that 
 in a new land he would start life anew and make 
 something of his mis-directed life. He settled at 
 St. Peter, became a blacksmith, and after a time 
 married. For a time he continued in the straight 
 path, but his old habits were permitted to master 
 his better instincts, and the growing family was 
 plunged into abject poverty as a result of his indis- 
 cretions. At his death he left three sons and a 
 daughter, the elder sons having helped their mother 
 to support the home for some time before his death. 
 John A. was the second born, and he early felt the 
 neglect and privation which made it necessary for 
 the children of the home to become breadwinners. 
 It is entirely consistent with the character of the 
 late governor that when these painful circumstances 
 of his boyhood were unearthed and brought into his 
 first gubernatorial campaign, he refused to deny the 
 parentage of a drunken father and a mother who 
 “took in washing.” The first he admitted sadly 
 enough and without comment ; the second with a 
 proud lift of the head and the words which brought 
 such ringing applause: “Took in washing? Yes, she 
 did; until I was old enough to go out and earn 
 something. But she never took in any washing 
 after that.” That Governor Johnson was largely in- 
 debted to that mother for the splendid heritage of 
 mental and moral qualities which was his is attested 
 by many of the older inhabitants of St. Peter who 
 knew the family intimately. The worthy attain- 
 ments of her son in later years were ample recom- 
 pense to this brave woman for her sufferings in 
 early life, for she lived until 1906, thus privileged to 
 have a part in the honors heaped upon him by his 
 state. 
 
 John A. Johnson was twelve years of age when 
 the family circumstances, compelled him to become 
 a breadwinner, and his first work was performed 
 in a grocery store in his home town, from which he 
 finally graduated into the village drug store. He 
 passed ten years in that drug store and his work 
 in the capacity o’f clerk enabled him not only to 
 become a thorough pharmacist, but gave him the 
 opportunity to acquire something in the way of an 
 education, which had been denied him in his boy- 
 hood. He was an omnivorous reader and he ex- 
 hausted every library within his reach, both public 
 and private, and proved his knowledge thus gained 
 by his connection with, debating and literary clubs. 
 Mr. Johnson remained in the drug business until he 
 was twenty-five, and his withdrawal from that field 
 of activity was the result of an offer made him by 
 four leading democrats of the place to advance him 
 the purchase price of a partnership in the St. Peter 
 Herald. Mr. Johnson was entirely inexperienced 
 as a journalist or a newspaper man, but his friends 
 recognized in him qualities which they believed 
 could be utilized to advantage in such a venture. 
 Thus in 1886 he became the editorial partner in the 
 Herald, and in a short time was a recognized force 
 in the journalism of the state. In 1891 he was 
 elected secretary of the Minnesota 'Editorial Asso- 
 ciation, and became its president in 1893, when he 
 was thirty-two years old. He entered into politics, 
 and although he was beaten for a seat in the State 
 Legislature in 1888, ten years later he was elected to 
 the State Senate over C. J. Carlson of the.Gustavus 
 Adolphus College. After his four years’ term in the 
 upper house of the Legislature he was re-nominated, 
 
 but beaten by another Swedish-American, C. A. 
 Johnson. 
 
 It was in 1904 that John Albert Johnson was first 
 nominated for governor, his republican opponent 
 being Robert C. Dunn, who had just completed a 
 fine record as state auditor. Mr. Johnson made one 
 of the most sensational runs known in the history 
 of Minnesota, going into office with a majority of 
 7,862 votes, and taking his seat as the third demo- 
 cratic governor in forty years. His first administra- 
 tion was marked by his ever increasing popularity 
 with the people, and he will be remembered as one 
 of the supporters of the two-cent fare bill. His 
 appointments also met with invariable approval, and 
 in 1906 the people acknowledged his own trite ex- 
 pression “one good term deserves another” by com- 
 mencing his second term with a plurality of more 
 than seventy-two thousand votes, said to be the most 
 flattering vote ever accorded to a candidate for 
 governor of Minnesota. This striking success of 
 a plain, unvarnished and practical man soon brought 
 him into national prominence, accompanied by the 
 usual attentions from magazines, lyceum bureaus, 
 etc. The University of Pennsylvania also conferred 
 upon him the degree of LL. D. June 17, 1907. In the 
 fall of the succeeding year he was again elected 
 governor, by a plurality of more than twenty-eight 
 thousand, and he was still deep in his campaign for 
 the initiative and referendum, a license tax on 
 corporations outside the state which did business 
 within, for the increased taxation of home cor- 
 porations and for the proper regulation of all busi- 
 ness and financial organizations which enjoyed the 
 protection of the state laws — in short, he was still 
 laboring valiantly and honestly for what he claimed 
 to be truest democratic doctrine, when he was 
 stricken down by his last illness. 
 
 On June 1, 1894, Mr. Johnson wedded Miss Eli- 
 nore M. Preston, a young woman who had been 
 educated in the Catholic sisters’ school at Rochester, 
 and came to St. Peter as a teacher of music and 
 drawing in the parochial schools of that place. A 
 woman of education and rare refinement, she was a 
 devoted wife to the last. She was a daughter of 
 John and Josephine (Matteson) Preston, and was 
 reared by her grandparents in Wonewoc, Wisconsin. 
 
 The foremost men of the day, of state and na- 
 tional prominence, have made public utterances in- 
 dicative of the great heart and mind of Governor 
 Johnson, and the people of his state need no re- 
 minders of the worth of the man they loved and 
 honored, and whom they still mourn. 
 
 In his private life Governor Johnson was a mem- 
 ber *of various fraternal societies, prominent among 
 them being the Elks, Knights of Pythias, Modern 
 Woodmen and the St. Peter Lodge of the Masonic 
 fraternity. He was a member of the Minnesota, 
 Commercial and Nordin Odin Clubs, and was prom- 
 inent in all. In earlier years he served for seven 
 years in the Minnesota National Guards, retiring 
 from the service with the rank of captain. 
 
 Edwin G. Evensta. The work of a building con- 
 tractor does not require assertion or unsupported 
 statements to give it prestige. The record of con- 
 structive enterprise undertaken and executed stands 
 as the real test of the quality possessed by the in- 
 dividual contractor. Few men in this business in 
 the entire State of Minnesota can exhibit a better 
 record in buildings actually completed and now con- 
 spicuous in various localities than E. G. Evensta, 
 
1412 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 head of the E. G. Evensta Company, general con- 
 tractors and builders, with main offices in the North- 
 western Building at Minneapolis. For a man who 
 came to America something over twenty-five years 
 ago without knowledge of a word of English, Mr. 
 Evensta may be conceded to have made a remark- 
 able progress in successful achievement. 
 
 Edwin G. Evensta was born at Damdalen, Central 
 Norway, February 25, 1862, a son of John E. and 
 Anna (Gndbjornson) Evensta. Both his venerable 
 parents are still living in Norway, and at this writ- 
 ing both in good health and possessed of all their 
 faculties. The father was born in 1835 and the 
 mother in 1833, and their lives have been spent in 
 quiet scenes, but in vigorous activity in the old 
 country. The father has combined the vocation of 
 farmer with blacksmith and carriage maker, and for 
 many years manufactured buggies and wagons by 
 hand. He sold his farm some time ago, and now 
 in the leisure of retirement maintains his shop 
 only that he may have something to employ his time 
 and energy. Though he never went to school, he 
 is a man of education and writes a splendid hand. 
 There were four sons and eight daughters in the 
 family, and two of the sons and six of the daugh- 
 ters are still living. While the parents never came 
 to America, three of the daughters are living in 
 the United States, and a son, C. J. Evensta, conducts 
 the City Hotel at Brainerd, Minnesota. Mrs. Hen- 
 rietta Olson, a widow, resides at Mankato ; Mrs. 
 Simon Carren lives in South Dakota, while Mrs. 
 John Paulson is a resident of Wisconsin. 
 
 Edwin G. Evensta grew up in his native village 
 in Norway, attended the public schools, including 
 high school, took a course in a business college, 
 and as a young man learned the blacksmith’s trade 
 under the supervision of his father. This work 
 proved too strenuous for his strength, and he then 
 took up the trade of carpenter. With this education 
 and with his training in mechanical trades he came 
 to the United States in 1889, landing in New York 
 on the 15th of June and going direct to Chippewa 
 Falls, Wisconsin, where one of his sisters was then 
 living. After two weeks there he came on to 
 Minneapolis, arriving in that city July 5, 1889, and 
 has never quitted the city for any length of time 
 since then, except as his business duties have re- 
 quired his absence. The first necessity which con- 
 fronted him on coming to America was to acquire 
 some facility in the use of the English language. 
 He took perhaps the best method of learning a 
 new language by finding work as clerk in a grocery 
 store at Minneapolis, spending about eight months 
 with the firm of Norbeck & Johnson, and rapidly 
 picking up a practical knowledge of the new tongue. 
 After that he was conductor on a street railway 
 for three months, and at the end of that time had 
 acquired some proficiency in conducting his trans- 
 actions and general social intercourse through the 
 medium of English. 
 
 Mr. Evensta then applied himself to the work 
 of his trade as a carpenter, was employed by local 
 contractors three years, and then spent two seasons 
 working with the Northern Pacific Railway in the 
 Yellowstone Park. In the main he followed his 
 trade as a journeyman until the spring of 1904, 
 in which year he established a business as car- 
 penter and general contractor. The scope of his 
 business and his successful standing may perhaps 
 best be indicated by the fact that he employs between 
 400 and 500 men, and at the outbreak of the Euro- 
 
 pean war had contracts under way to an aggregate 
 value of a million dollars. 
 
 Only the briefest catalog and description of his 
 work as a builder can be attempted. For about ten 
 years prior to setting up his business as a general 
 contractor his services were largely employed in the 
 erection of residences at Minneapolis. He con- 
 structed the Swedish Mission Church, on Twentieth 
 Avenue North and Aldrich; the Zion Church, at 
 Twenty-sixth and Lyndale North; the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, on Columbus and Twenty-sixth; 
 the Slovonian Lutheran Church, on Essex and On- 
 tario streets, and has constructed more than a hun- 
 dred of the better class of private residences in 
 Minneapolis. Mr. Evensta put up all the handsome 
 buildings at the Glacier Park station, including the 
 Glacier Park Hotel. The Great Northern Hotel 
 building at Belton, Montana, and the Great Northern 
 machine shops at Hillyard, Washington, are ex- 
 amples of his business record. His services were 
 employed in the construction of all the buildings on 
 the Great Northern Railway from Fargo to Minot, 
 including the terminal at New Rockford. He is now 
 engaged in the construction of the Great Northern 
 Many Glacier Hotel in the Glacier National Park, 
 which is to be completed by July, 1915. He con- 
 structed the freight and office building for the North- 
 ern Pacific at Mandan, North Dakota, and the 
 flour mill for the Missouri Valley Milling Company 
 at Dickinson, North Dakota. Other structures are: 
 The public school building at Taylor Falls, Minne- 
 sota; the school building at Glencoe, Minnesota; 
 the German school in Minneapolis, at Thirteenth 
 Avenue South and Nineteenth Street; the Kellogg 
 Manufacturing Company’s building at Minneapolis. 
 His company at the present time is engaged in the 
 erection of the engine facilities or terminal at St. 
 Paul. Another building in that city is one for the 
 Pintsch Compressing Company, for the New York 
 concern which manufactures the familiar gas light 
 for railway cars. Mr. Evensta now has in Montana 
 a sawmill and general finishing plant, engaged in 
 working up the logs from the immediate timber and 
 manufacturing all the doors, frames, casings, from 
 the log on the stump to the finished product needed 
 for the buildings of the Glacier Park Hotel Com- 
 pany at Many Glacier, Montana, which is located 
 fifty-four miles from any railway. Over a hundred 
 and fifty men are employed in the various depart- 
 ments of manufacturing and construction in that 
 locality, and the Evensta Company furnishes all the 
 supplies, from shoes and clothing to board and 
 lodging. Mr. Evensta during the last year paid out 
 $35,000 for camp expenses in Montana. 
 
 As one of the leading building contractors of Min- 
 neapolis, it is only natural that Mr. Evensta takes 
 part in the social and civic life of the city through 
 membership in the various representative organiza- 
 tions. He is a member of the Minneapolis Civic and 
 Commerce Association, attends the Swedish Mission 
 Church, and since 1893 has been a member of Pros- 
 pect Camp No. 1035 of the Modern Woodmen of 
 America at Minneapolis. On November 26, 1892, 
 Mr. Evensta married Miss Carrie Anderson of 
 Minneapolis. She was born in Sweden and came 
 to this country when a young woman of twenty- 
 two. Her parents came from Sweden later and 
 both died in Minnesota. Mrs. Evensta was born and 
 educated at Vermland, Sweden. Tn 1901 Mr. Evensta 
 returned to Norway to visit his parents and the 
 scenes of his boyhood, spending three months there, 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1413 
 
 and had planned another visit in 1915, but has de- 
 ferred that pleasure until the European war is 
 ended. 
 
 Freeman P. Lane. In continuous practice the 
 oldest member of the Minneapolis bar is Freeman 
 Parker Lane, whose offices are in the Security Bank 
 Building. Mr. Lane has lived in Minnesota since 
 nine years of age, and by his own ability and am- 
 bition has risen to prominence in his profession. 
 His attainments and success as a lawyer have been 
 in proportion to the many years of his connection 
 with the profession in Minneapolis. 
 
 Of sturdy colonial stock in New England, Mr. 
 Lane was born at Eastport, Washington County, 
 Maine, April 20, 1853. Eastport is a port of entry 
 on Moose Island, in Passamaquoddy Bay, separated 
 from the mainland by a narrow channel. He is a 
 son of Charles W. and Almira B. (Coulter) Lane, 
 both representatives of old families early founded 
 in New England. Charles W. Lane, like many other 
 sons of New England, early entered upon a seafar- 
 ing) life and became first mate on a sailing vessel, 
 an office now known as first officer. This vessel 
 sailed between Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore 
 and the West Indies. The captain of this vessel 
 was Freeman Parker, and in his honor the subject 
 of this review was named. The Lane family early 
 became closely identified with maritime activities on 
 the Atlantic, and for a number of generations nearly 
 all of its male representatives were sailors by voca- 
 tion. 
 
 Charles W. Lane, at nine years of age, left home 
 without his widowed mother’s consent, and became 
 cabin boy on a schooner plying between Eastport, 
 Maine, and the City of Boston. He continued to 
 follow the sea until after the birth of his son Free- 
 man P. Both he and his wife were natives of 
 Maine. The former’s father was born in Scotland 
 and always wrote his name McLane, according to 
 the original spelling in Scotland. . Charles W., how- 
 ever, dropped the prefix of the name when he be- 
 came a sailor, and all of the immediate family have 
 retained the simplified form of Lane. The maternal 
 grandfather of Freeman P. Lane wasi born in the 
 north of Ireland and was a representative of the 
 Scotch Protestant element that became prominent 
 in that part of the Emerald Isle when religious dif- 
 ficulties led to immigration of numerous families 
 from Scotland. 
 
 In the spring of 1862 Charles W. Lane came with 
 his family to Minnesota and numbered himself 
 among the pioneer settlers of Minneapolis, where 
 he found employment in a cooper shop situated at 
 the corner of what are now First Street and Mar- 
 quette Avenue. The family home was in South 
 Minneapolis, in what is now the Eleventh ward of 
 the city. At that time there were but two houses in 
 that section of the city. In 1864 Mr. Lane, leaving 
 the cooperage business, purchased a carriage repair 
 shop at the corner of the present First Street and 
 First Avenue North. He became a comparatively 
 prosperous business man and both he and his wife 
 continued as honored citizens of Minneapolis until 
 their death. 
 
 During the years from 1862 to 1865, inclusive. 
 Freeman P. Lane held, with doubtless the usual 
 amount of independent dignity, the position of news- 
 boy in Minneapolis, where he sold the editions of 
 the Press and the Pioneer, later combined to form 
 the present Pioneer-Press. His subsequent ad- 
 
 vancement is the more interesting for the fact that 
 in those early days he was also a bootblack. In 
 the meanwhile he attended school in the old Lincoln 
 school building, on Washington Avenue, near Sixth 
 Avenue North, but the youth and his teacher ma- 
 tured differences of opinions that resulted in Mr. 
 Lane’s involuntary "graduation” when he had 
 reached the eighth grade. From that time forward 
 he never attended any educational institution except 
 the law school. Fie gained a broad and liberal edu- 
 cation principally through self-discipline and through 
 the lessons acquired under the preceptorship of that 
 wisest of all headmasters, Experience. He contin- 
 ued school until 1867, and then found employment 
 in L. L. Stanchfield's mill, at the mouth of Bas- 
 sett’s Creek. In 1868 he was clerk in his father's 
 grocery store, and in the following year entered the 
 service of the Northwestern Telegraph Company, 
 which was later absorbed by the Western Union. 
 He assisted in the construction of the company’s 
 lines in Minnesota and the Territory of Dakota 
 and continued to be thus engaged until the spring 
 of 1872, when he entered into the joint employ of 
 the United States Government, the Northern Pa- 
 cific Railroad Company and the Northwestern Tele- 
 graph Company and became identified with the con- 
 struction of a telegraph line from Fort Cross (now 
 Jamestown) to Lincoln, in Dakota Territory, this 
 line having been completed before the grading of 
 the railroad had been started. In the meanwhile 
 his ambition caused him to formulate plans for a 
 broader and more effective field of endeavor, and 
 within ten days after his return to Minneapolis, in 
 November, 1872, he entered the office of Albee 
 Smith and began the study of law under this able 
 and kindly preceptor. In the following year he was 
 matriculated in the Albany Law School, in the cap- 
 ital City of New York, where he further fortified 
 himself for his chosen profession and where he was 
 admitted to practice law on the 6th of May, 1874, 
 by the Supreme Court of the Empire State. 
 
 Mr. Lane returned immediately to Minneapolis 
 and was duly admitted to the Minnesota bar. Dur- 
 ing the long intervening period of forty years he 
 has been engaged in the general practice of his 
 profession in Minneapolis, and in the matter of 
 continuous practice he now has the distinction of 
 being the oldest lawyer in the city, though there are 
 numerous members of the local bar who are older 
 in years. Mr. Lane has long controlled a large and 
 representative law business, has been identified with 
 much important litigation in the various courts, and 
 has become recognized as a skillful trial lawyer and 
 counselor. His character and achievement have re- 
 flected dignity and distinction on the profession of 
 his choice. 
 
 Mr. Lane has long taken an active interest in 
 political and general civic affairs, and was formerly 
 an influential figure in the republican party in Hen- 
 nepin County, where for a number of years he 
 served as a member of the Republican County Com- 
 mittee as well as of its City Committee in Minne- 
 apolis, and was chairman of each of these commit- 
 tees. In 1889 he represented his district in the State 
 Legislature, in which he made an admirable record. 
 In 1893 Mr. Lane left the republican party, because 
 of the attitude of its leaders toward the tariff, the 
 trusts and financial matters, and he then became 
 known as a radical populist. He presided at many 
 populist conventions and assisted in the formulating 
 of platforms that were afterward borrowed in part 
 
1414 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 by William Jennings Bryan and to a greater extent 
 bv Col. Theodore Roosevelt, both of whom became 
 more strenuous in the advocacy of reforms than 
 were the most ardent populists. Mr. Lane now 
 designates himself as a progressive democrat. He 
 has never lacked the courage for his political con- 
 victions, and has never sacrificed principles for per- 
 sonal expediency. In religious matters he has a 
 deep reverence for spiritual verities, but is tolerant 
 and liberal, holds to no special creed and believes 
 that a man's religious faith should be a matter to be 
 regulated by himself and in accord with, his con- 
 victions as to his personal responsibility to himself 
 and to his Maker. For nearly forty years Mr. Lane 
 has been actively identified with the Masonic fra- 
 ternity and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. 
 He is at the present time affiliated with Hennepin 
 Lodge No. 4, A. F. & A. M. ; St. John’s Chapter, 
 R. A. M. ; and Zion Commandery, Knights Templar. 
 
 On the 6th of July, 1875, Mr. Lane married Miss 
 Mollie Lauderdale, daughter of the late William H. 
 Lauderdale, a well known citizen of Minneapolis. 
 Of this union were born four children — Bessie, 
 Ina, Mabel and Stuart. Bessie became, in 1894, the 
 wife of Thomas F. Maguire, and she died in 1898, 
 when her only child, Inalane, was three years of 
 age. Inalane was reared to the age of eighteen in 
 the home of her maternal grandparents, and she is 
 now with her father in Minneapolis. Ina Lane, the 
 second of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Lane, is the 
 wife of John 'E. Christian, proprietor of the Edge- 
 wood Hotel, on Lake Minnetonka, and they have 
 three children, Ruth, Helen and Margaret. Mabel 
 Lane became the wife of Dr. Hugh C. Arey, who is 
 engaged in the practice of his profession at Ex- 
 celsior, Hennepin County, and their three children 
 are Stuart Lane, Jane and James Blanding. Stuart 
 Lane, the only son, remains at the parental home 
 and is in the employ of the Heywood Manufacturing 
 Company, manufacturers of envelopes. 
 
 Hon. Andrew Ryan McGill. For more than 
 forty years Andrew Ryan McGill had been a strong 
 and positive force in the life of the State of Minne- 
 sota, and his career throughout was marked by hon- 
 orable, useful and distinguished service, both to 
 the state and to the communities wherein he resided, 
 and in his death at St. Paul, on the 31st of October, 
 1905, this city and state lost one of its most eminent 
 citizens and public men. 
 
 Fifty years ago Mr. McGill was a school teacher 
 at St. Peter, a town that has the notoriety of fur- 
 nishing many eminent men to Minnesota. Soon 
 afterward he was a volunteer soldier in the Civil 
 war. Ambitious and perserving in his aspirations, 
 he was successively ' county superintendent of 
 schools, publisher of a paper in St. Peter, insurance 
 commissioner of the state for thirteen years, was 
 elected tenth governor of Minnesota, and at the 
 time of his death was serving as state senator from 
 the Thirty-seventh District, and also was postmaster 
 of St. Paul. 
 
 Andrew Ryan McGill was born in Saegerstown, 
 Crawford County, Pennsylvania, February 19, 1840. 
 Of Irish ancestry, his paternal grandfather, Patrick 
 McGill, came from Belfast to America in 1770, at 
 the age of seventeen years. He and an older brother 
 served in the War of the Revolution, and after the 
 war settled in Northumberland County, Pennsyl- 
 vania. A few years later the family joined the 
 western movement of thousands of Scotch-Irish set- 
 
 tlers to the western border of Pennsylvania, and 
 Patrick McGill secured a large tract of land in what 
 is now Crawford County in 1792, and on the “Old 
 Homestead” founded by him his children and grand- 
 children were born. His youngest son was Charles 
 Dillon McGill, father of Andrew. Charles Dillon 
 married Angeline Martin, a woman of strong char- 
 acter, whose influence had a great deal to do with 
 the success of her son Andrew. Her grandfather, 
 Charles Martin, was of English birth, but fought 
 with the colonies during the Revolution, and was 
 afterward appointed by President Washington as 
 a lieutenant in the Second U. S. Infantry. This 
 position he resigned and was then appointed a 
 major general of the Pennsylvania state troops and 
 stationed as commandant at Fort Le Boeuf in 
 northwestern Pennsylvania. In time of peace, the 
 office having lost its importance, he resigned and 
 became a citizen of Waterford (a town that had 
 grown up around Fort Le Boeuf) and was ap- 
 pointed its first postmaster, which office he was 
 filling at the time of his death in 1820. His son, 
 Armand Martin, the father of Angeline Martin 
 McGill, was a soldier in the War of 1812, and also 
 resided in Waterford. 
 
 Governor McGill was reared in the beautiful 
 region of the Venango Valley of Pennsylvania. 
 As a boy in the schools of his native town he 
 made an exceptional record of scholarship. When 
 he assumed control of his own course in life at 
 the age of nineteen, he resisted the inducements 
 of his father to remain on the farm, and began 
 teaching at Rimersberg, about fifty miles from his 
 home. From Pennsylvania he followed the Ohio 
 Valley to Kentucky, where he continued as a 
 teacher at Newport until all social and civic ac- 
 tivities were disturbed by the Civil war and his 
 own position, on account of his views touching 
 slavery, became unpleasant. By the direction of an 
 old friend he came to Minnesota and located in St. 
 Peter, June 10, 1861. He arrived here with scant 
 means, but with characteristic energy in less than 
 a month had organized and opened a select high 
 school. As an educator he was one of the best of 
 that time in the state, and many citizens came 
 under the influence of his instruction and were 
 the better and stronger for it. 
 
 Mr. McGill had already determined upon a 
 career of large usefulness, and the first step in his 
 advance was through the study of law. This course 
 was interrupted by the outbreak of the war. On 
 the 19th of August, 1862, he became a private in 
 Company D of the Ninth Minnesota, and was later 
 elected first sergeant. His service was on the 
 frontier during the Sioux outbreak. He served 
 with fidelity for one year and was discharged for 
 serious disability August 18, 1863. He was re- 
 stored to comparative health and strength after 
 months of careful nursing, but he was not consid- 
 ered fit for re-enlistment. He was one of the 
 eleven Minnesota governors who saw service dur- 
 ing the Civil war or during the Sioux war of 
 that period. 
 
 After his military service he returned to St. 
 Peter and was elected and served two terms as 
 superintendent of schools of Nicollet County. In 
 1864 he purchased the St. Peter Tribune and be- 
 came its editor. Later he was elected clerk of the 
 District Court, and the duties of this office per- 
 mitted him to resume the study of law in the office 
 of Charles S. Bryant. On May 8, 1869, he was 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1415 
 
 admitted to the bar by Judge Horace Austin, and 
 when, a year later, Judge Austin became governor, 
 young McGill was appointed his private secretary. 
 
 In December, 1873, Mr. McGill was appointed by 
 Governor Austin to the office of insurance commis- 
 sioner, a post which he filled for thirteen years by 
 appointment of the successive governors, Davis, 
 Pillsbury and Hubbard. His work in this office was 
 valuable to the state, and through his wide informa- 
 tion he became a recognized authority on all in- 
 surance matters. As a public man he now possessed 
 an extensive acquaintance throughout the state, and 
 his services and his personal character had won for 
 him a large and intelligent following. In 1886 his 
 friends announced him as a candidate for the re- 
 publican nomination for governor, and against three 
 well known citizens as his competitors he was 
 chosen in the convention on the fifth ballot. 
 
 As Governor McGill's biographer, Gen. James H. 
 Baker in his "Lives of the Governors of Minnesota" 
 states, the following campaign was made on the 
 issue of high license, then practically a new ques- 
 tion in this state, and indeed in many other parts of 
 the country. The organized liquor interests had been 
 able to defeat a high license bill passed by the 
 previous Legislature, so that the question was still a 
 live one. The republican convention at which Mr. 
 McGill was nominated took a stand for high license 
 and local option, thus concentrating all the opposi- 
 tion in support of the democratic candidate. The 
 prohibtion party, refusing to "compromise with evil,” 
 in effect gave its support to the democrats. It was 
 an intense campaign, and when the ballots were 
 counted McGill had a plurality of 2,600 over the 
 democratic nominee. He was inaugurated governor 
 on January 3, 1887, and at once gave his unflinching 
 support to the carrying out of the work planned 
 in the previous campaign. It was his steady and un- 
 faltering resolution, combined with strenuous per- 
 sonal work, that held his party to its campaign 
 pledges, and by which he was able to sign the high 
 license bill in February, 1887. This law subsequently 
 became a model - for other states, and still remains 
 on the statute books of Minnesota. Its operation 
 was such, and the general point of vitw changed 
 so much in the course of a few years, that the for- 
 mer enemies of the law became thoroughly recon- 
 ciled to and even advocated its provisions. 
 
 Governor McGill during his term of office gave his 
 attention to many other problems. He urged the 
 simplification of the tax laws, the abolishment of 
 contract prison labor, and the establishment of the 
 Soldiers’ Home. He also advocated the greater 
 supervision of railroad rates, and was the first gov- 
 ernor to recommend the abolition of free passes. 
 He was an industrious, conscientious worker, and 
 the amount of positive beneficial legislation accom- 
 plished by him gives his two-year term a distinction 
 such as few similar periods possess in the history 
 of the state. 
 
 Because of his valuable services and by the cus- 
 tom of politics, Governor McGill deserved a re- 
 nomination. General Baker says : “The convention 
 (of September, 1888) having thus cordially in- 
 dorsed Governor McGill, proceeded to stultify itself 
 by rejecting his unqualified right, under all" party 
 usages, to a renomination. It is not too much to 
 characterize the action of the convention as the 
 most flagrant piece of wrong ever perpetrated by a 
 political party in the state of Minnesota. It was 
 simplv a transcendant injustice.” In 1007, at the 
 Vol. hi— 10 
 
 memorial service held in the state Senate, one of 
 the senators spoke as follows : "Parties, like men, 
 have their sins of omission and commission to ac- 
 count for, and one of the dark spots on the Repub- 
 lican party in this state was the treatment’ of 
 Governor McGill. * * * Although for the time 
 
 being, apparently discredited by his party, he became 
 more popular and has ever since been held in 
 higher esteem than ever before.” 
 
 On retiring from the office of governor he was 
 for a short time engaged in the banking and trust 
 business at Minneapolis, retaining, however, his 
 residence in St. Paul. In 1898 and again in 1902 
 he was elected to the state Senate from the Thirty- 
 seventh District, and was a member of this body 
 at the time of his death. His work as a legislator 
 was as business-like and public spirited as his career 
 in the governor’s office. He was the pronounced 
 enemy of vicious legislation and applied himself 
 zealously to the promotion of needful reforms. 
 Largely through his influence a monument was 
 erected to the Minnesota soldiers who fell at Vicks- 
 burg. He was one of the organizers of Acker 
 Post, No. 21, G. A. R. In 1900, by suspension of 
 the presidential rule, he was appointed postmaster 
 of St. Paul, thus holding a state and federal office 
 at the same time. Among other public affairs to 
 which he gave the support of his personal service 
 were the public schools, and he was at one time 
 president of the St. Paul board of education. 
 
 Governor McGill was twice married. His first 
 wife tvas Miss Eliza Evelyn Bryant, daughter of 
 Charles S. Bryant, the well known lawyer and au- 
 thor, under whom Mr. McGill studied law. Her 
 death occurred in 1877, and she was survived by 
 two sons and one daughter : Charles H., born in 
 1866; Robert C., in 1869, and Lida B., in 1874. In 
 1879 he married Miss Mary E. Wilson, an accom- 
 plished and highly educated woman, who was a 
 daughter of Dr. J. C. Wilson, a physician of Edin- 
 borough, Pennsylvania. Two sons were born of 
 this union : Wilson, born in 1884, and Thomas, in 
 1889. The four sons of Governor McGill are now 
 prosperous business men in the "Twin City.” Mrs. 
 McGill still resides in the old homestead at 2203 
 Scudder Avenue, and through her own personality 
 and the influence of this home maintains many of 
 the old associations and quiet benevolences which 
 were so highly appreciated during her husband’s 
 life. 
 
 In closing this memorial sketch we heartily en- 
 dorse the tribute of General Baker as follows : 
 “Governor McGill was justly esteemed as a citizen 
 and a man. His affections bound him to his coun- 
 try and to his friends and family. Always kind 
 and considerate of friend and foe, with a personal 
 deportment beyond the reach of criticism, his con- 
 stant civilities won upon all. Anger and resent- 
 ment were unknown to him in his conduct of life. 
 He was always and at all times, and above all, a 
 gentleman. He was truly the gentleman in politics. 
 Modest by nature, he was indifferent to publicity 
 and notoriety. Above all, he possessed a spotless 
 character ; and character, like gold, passes current 
 among all men and in all countries. His private 
 life was pure and sweet and his friendship a 
 benediction.” 
 
 William Rainey Marshall, a pioneer of Min- 
 nesota, surveyor, merchant, banker, editor, soldier, 
 governor, railroad commissioner — always an enter- 
 
1416 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 prising citizen and a man of unblemished integrity, 
 was for nearly fifty years a conspicuous figure in 
 the annals of St. Paul and the state. 
 
 He was born near Columbia, Missouri, October 
 17, 1825. In 1830 his parents removed to Quincy, 
 Illinois, where his father died in the cholera epi- 
 demic that prevailed a year or two later. William 
 grew up in Quincy and established a reputation as 
 a studious, industrious, reliable youth which pre- 
 pared his associates there to understand the distinc- 
 tion that came to him in later years. That good 
 old town has always cherished him with pride 
 among the numerous illustrious sons she has sent 
 forth to achieve honor in many western common- 
 wealths. 
 
 In 1841, with his brother Joseph, he went to the 
 lead mines of Galena, where he worked several 
 years. During this period he learned practical 
 surveying, which he afterward engaged in at inter- 
 vals. In 1847 he came to Minnesota and, after 
 alternating for two years in residence between St. 
 Anthony and St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, and in 
 occupations between merchandising, lumber, sur- 
 veying and land-office clerkships, he settled at St. 
 Anthony in 1849. He perfected a claim to land at 
 the falls ; engaged in the hardware trade with his 
 brother Joseph, and was elected to the first ter- 
 ritorial Legislature. 
 
 In 1851 he removed to St. Paul and established 
 the business in heavy hardware, iron and steel 
 which was the foundation of the present great 
 jobbing house of Nicols, Dean and Gregg. In 
 1855 he engaged in banking, but succumbed to the 
 disastrous panic of 1857. After a season of dairy 
 farming and stock raising, he engaged, in 1861, 
 in journalism, merging three daily papers of St. 
 Paul into the Press, as related in a chapter of this 
 work devoted to newspaper history. 
 
 In August 1862 Marshall responded to President 
 Lincoln’s second call for soldiers to suppress the 
 Rebellion, and was commissioned lieutenant colonel 
 of the Seventh Minnesota Infantry Regiment. His 
 first service was in connection with the Indian out- 
 break. At the battle of Wood Lake he displayed 
 exceptional gallantry, and in the Sibley expedition 
 across Dakota in 1863 he added to his reputation 
 for military efficiency and bravery in action. 
 
 On October 7, 1863, his regiment was ordered 
 South, with Lieutenant Colonel Marshall in com- 
 mand. On November 6, 1863, he was made colonel 
 of the regiment. Thenceforward until its .muster- 
 out the regiment, under Marshall’s command, saw 
 very active and creditable service at different 
 points. In the sixteenth army corps, under Gen. 
 A. J. Smith, it was engaged in the battle of Tu- 
 pelo; the Oxford raid; the pursuit of Price in 
 Missouri ; the battle of Nashville and the siege of 
 Spanish Fort at Mobile. On March 13, 1865, Col- 
 onel Marshall was commissioned as brevet brigadier 
 general, for gallant and meritorious services during 
 the war. On August 16, 1865, the regiment was 
 mustered out at Fort Snelling, and Marshall’s war 
 experience was ended. 
 
 General Marshall’s military career had been so 
 praiseworthy that he was soon clothed with civil 
 honor and authority. On September 6, 1865, he 
 was nominated by the state convention as republi- 
 can candidate for governor of Minnesota. He 
 was elected in November, and served two full 
 terms, or until January 7, 1870, when he was suc- 
 
 ceeded by Horace Austin. Two leading events of 
 Governor Marshall’s administration were the 
 adoption of a constitutional amendment conferring 
 negro suffrage, warmly advocated by him, and his 
 veto of a legislative enactment removing the state 
 capital to Kandiyohi County. 
 
 After his retirement from office Governor Mar- 
 shall became vice president of the Marine National 
 Bank and president of the Minnesota Savings Bank, 
 both located in St. Paul. Fie was also successfully 
 engaged in large real estate transactions. In 1874 
 he was appointed railroad commissioner by Gov. 
 C. K. Davis, and held the office by successive elec- 
 tions until 1882. 
 
 In 1880, associated with Gen. C. C. Andrews, he 
 purchased the St. Paul Dispatch from Capt. Henry 
 A. Castle, and in September, 1881, sold it back 
 to him. Governor Marshall promoted the con- 
 struction of railroads and engaged in other business 
 enterprises. He built several fine residences in the 
 city, making and losing three or four fortunes in 
 real estate fluctuations. 
 
 Governor Marshall’s health declined in his later 
 years and he finally sought relief in the climate 
 of Southern California. He died at Pasadena, Jan- 
 uary 8, 1896. His remains were brought to St. 
 Paul and buried at Oakland Cemetery. He was 
 a member of Acker Post, G. A. R. ; past com- 
 mander of the Minnesota Loyal Legion, and a 
 member of the Sons of the American Revolution— 
 his grandfathers, Lieut. David Marshall and Pri- 
 vate Daniel Shaw, having been soldiers of the 
 Pennsylvania line in the war for independence. 
 
 Governor Marshall was imbued with devout re- 
 ligious feelings and was a life-long communicant 
 of the Swedenborgian Church. His pastor for 
 twenty-three years, Rev. Edward C. Mitchell, in a 
 memorial address, paid him this tribute :. 
 
 ‘T can testify to his loving faith in the Word of 
 God; his steadfast trust in Divine Providence; the 
 purity and beauty of his social life; his unswerving 
 loyalty to every good cause; his tender sympathy 
 with all who suffered ; his uncompromising opposi- 
 tion to all forms of meanness; his chivalrous cham- 
 pioning of all who were oppressed ; his dominant 
 cheerfulness ; his freedom from vindictiveness ; his 
 generous confidence in the good intentions of 
 others ; his patient bearing under severe trials and 
 sufferings. He lacked the cautious calculation, the 
 habitual attention to petty details, and the cool fore- 
 sight which always allows for unforeseen contin- 
 gencies. Commercially speaking, he left behind him 
 little of this world’s goods; but, speaking from a 
 spiritual standpoint, there are few men who carry 
 more with them to the world beyond.” 
 
 Public Library, Thief River Falls. The original 
 Public Library Association of Thief River Falls was 
 organized in 1900 by a number of energetic and public 
 spirited women of the city. Except for the sum of 
 $500, which was raised by public subscription for 
 the first purchase of books, the library was supported 
 entirely by the efforts of the ladies until in May, 
 1906, when it was taken over by the city government. 
 
 Its first home was in a small building near the 
 present location of the postoffice. In 1902 the city 
 council built a small addition to the city hall at 
 a cost of $200, which was used by the library until 
 1909 when a place was provided in the basement of 
 the new Auditorium. The library remained here 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1417 
 
 until May 12, 1915, when the new Carnegie Library 
 was opened to the public. 
 
 This building was erected at a total cost of about 
 $18, coo, including the site, $12,500 of which was 
 donated by Andrew Carnegie. 
 
 It is built of brown tapestry brick, with Bedford 
 stone trimmings and is finished inside in dark oak 
 with golden brown walls, and presents a very at- 
 tractive appearance. The book capacity is about 
 ten thousand, but provision has been made for one- 
 third as many more when needed. 
 
 A large auditorium in the basement provides a 
 meeting place for the Women’s Civic Club and other 
 public organizations, and a smaller room is used as 
 a men’s reading room. 
 
 Edmund Eichhorn. For more than forty years 
 the late Edmund Eichhorn was an honored and in- 
 fluential citizen of Minneapolis, and here 1 his death 
 occurred on the 14th of May, 1907, at the home of 
 his daughter, Mrs. Arthur Stremel. He was a man 
 of distinct individuality and noble character, — a 
 splendid type of that fine German element of citi- 
 zenship that became prominently identified with the 
 history of the northwestern states of the Union in 
 the late ’40s, when many representatives left Ger- 
 many, after the overthrow of the revolutionary 
 movement in which they had taken part, moved by 
 lofty patriotism, and sought homes in America, 
 where they were assured of independence in thought 
 and action and of better opportunities than were of- 
 fered under conditions then existing in their Father- 
 land. Mr. Eichhorn was thus a contemporary of 
 those distinguished German- Americans, Carl Schurz 
 and Franz Sigel, in immigrating to the United 
 States, and though he did not with them attain to 
 distinction in national affairs he was animated by 
 the same noble spirit that made his two country- 
 men worthy of lasting honor in the land of their 
 adoption. The subject of this memoir was true and 
 loyal in every relation of life, a man of action and 
 achievement, a sterling citizen, and one whose name 
 and deeds merit special recognition in this history 
 of the state that long represented his home. 
 
 Edmund Eichhorn was born at Boehlen, in the 
 Principality of Rudolstadt, of the famed Thur- 
 ingerwald, or Thuringian Forest district of the 
 Saxon grand duchies of Germany, and the date of 
 his nativity was August 15, 1825, so that he was 
 nearly eighty-two years of age at the time of his 
 death. He became a resident of Minneapolis in 
 1873 and was here long and prominently identified 
 with the real estate and fire insurance business, the 
 while he contributed all in his power to the further- 
 ance of the civic and material progress and pros- 
 perity of the Minnesota metropolis. The genealogy 
 of the Eichhorn family is traced back to patrician 
 origin in Austria, where its representatives ranked 
 with the landed and governing class. F. F. Eich- 
 horn, father of him to whom this review is dedi- 
 cated, was a scion of the branch of the family that 
 removed from Austria to the Saxon duchies of 
 Germany, and he himself settled in the Thuringian 
 Forest, where he engaged in agricultural pursuits 
 and for some time conducted a successful manu- 
 facturing business, besides which he became a prom- 
 inent and influential factor in public affairs of a 
 local order. 
 
 Edmund Eichhorn passed the days of his boyhood 
 and youth in the vicinity of the place of his birth, 
 and he attended the local schools until he had at- 
 
 tained to the age of eleven years, when he went to 
 the City of Arnstadt, where he continued his 
 studies in a commercial college and prepared him- 
 self for the practical activities of business. In 1838 
 he left school and entered upon a four years' ap- 
 prenticeship in a wholesale and retail drug and 
 grocery establishment in the City of Arnstadt. 
 Later he was employed as a volunteer in the count- 
 ing rooms of various commission houses in the 
 cities of Hamburg and Magdeburg, and thus he 
 acquired valuable experience in connection with busi- 
 ness affairs of magnitude. Finally he was tendered 
 and accepted a position with the extensive jobbing 
 house of Boeheve & Company, in Leipsic, and for 
 four years he represented the tobacco department of 
 this firm, in the capacity of traveling salesman. 
 
 At the time of the revolutionary troubles and 
 political unrest that swept over Germany in the 
 late ’40s Mr. Eichhorn was one of the patriotic 
 young men who was in deep sympathy* with the 
 spirit that prompted these protests against existing 
 governmental policies, and he finally found it ex- 
 pedient to sever the ties that bound him to home 
 and native land and to seek the freedom of the 
 United States, — a freedom which his compatriots, 
 Carl Schurz and Franz Sigel, as well as many 
 others, had vainly sought in their Fatherland. Mr. 
 Eichhorn landed in America in the month of Sep- 
 tember, 1848, and he soon found opportunity to 
 make practical application of his powers and excel- 
 lent) business experience. Like many others of the 
 sturdy young German immigrants of that period, he 
 made Wisconsin his destination, and there he es- 
 tablished his home at Mayville, Dodge County, 
 where'he opened a general country store and became 
 a pioneer merchant of the village. He engaged also 
 in the manufacturing of potash, an industry that 
 was for a number of years one of much importance 
 in that section of the Badger State. He continued 
 his business operations with varying success until 
 1857, when he came to Minnesota and numbered 
 himself among the pioneer settlers at Hastings, Da- 
 kota County. There he was engaged in the retail 
 grocery trade for the long period of sixteen years, 
 and he was one of the leading citizens of the county 
 and village, to the development and upbuilding of 
 which he contributed in generous measure, as a 
 substantial citizen who commanded the unqualified 
 confidence of all who knew him. In 1873, at the 
 expiration of the period above noted, Mr. Eichhorn 
 disposed of his property and business at Hastings 
 and removed to Minneapolis, where he continued 
 to reside until the close of his long and useful life. 
 Here he became a representative and influential 
 figure in the real estate, loan, and fire insurance 
 business, and the business of which he was the 
 founder is still continued, as one of the leading en- 
 terprises of its kind in the Minnesota metropolis. 
 It must be a matter of gratification to state that 
 the name of the founder is perpetuated in this enter- 
 prise, which is still conducted under the title of E. 
 Eichhorn & Sons, the offices of the firm being at 
 125 Temple Court. Mr. Eichhorn continued to be 
 actively identified with this business until advanced 
 age led to his retirement from the various business 
 and civic associations that had long engrossed his 
 time and attention. His influence and tangible co- 
 operation transcended the limitations of his private 
 business affairs, as is evident when it is stated that 
 he was influential in the promotion and founding of 
 the German-American Bank of Minneapolis, which 
 
1418 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 was organized and incorporated in August, 1886. 
 He was president of the bank for three years and 
 his retirement from this office was the result of im- 
 paired health, though he continued as a valued mem- 
 ber of the directorate of the institution for a num- 
 ber of years thereafter. Mr. Eichhorn retired from 
 active association with the substantial real estate 
 and insurance business about ten years prior to his 
 death, and thereafter he passed much of his time 
 in California and in travel, having made several 
 visits to his native land, where he found pleasure 
 in renewing the memories and associations of his 
 youth. In 1868, 1887 and 1889 he made extensive 
 tours of Europe, and his fine perceptive and descrip- 
 tive powers made his reminiscences of these jour- 
 neys most graphic and interesting. 
 
 That a man of such marked ability and such 
 inviolable integrity of purpose should be called to 
 public offices in his home community was but a 
 natural result, and while a resident of Hastings, 
 Minnesota, Mr. Eichhorn served as register of deeds 
 of Dakota County, besides having been a member 
 of the board of aldermen and also serving as school 
 inspector. From 1882 to 1887 he represented the 
 Third Ward of Minneapolis as a member of the 
 board of aldermen, and in the last named year he 
 retired by voluntary resignation. Mr. Eichhorn was 
 a man of genial and generous disposition, kindly 
 and optimistic, and he enjoyed greatly the gracious 
 social relations which were his. He was an ap- 
 preciative and popular member of a number of 
 social and musical organizations and was specially 
 fond of athletic sports in his earlier days. In 
 Minneapolis he was affiliated with Khurum Lodge, 
 No. 1 12, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons. His 
 political allegiance was given to the democratic 
 party and his religious faith was that of the 
 Lutheran Church. 
 
 At Watertown, Jefferson County, Wisconsin, on 
 the 15th of August, 1852, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Eichhorn to Miss Veronica 
 Goeldner, whose parents came to America from 
 Breslau, Silesia. Mrs. Eichhorn was summoned to 
 the life eternal in October, 1877, about four years 
 after the family removal to Minneapolis, and con- 
 cerning the four children of this union the follow- 
 ing brief data are given: Alvin A., who was a 
 member of the firm of E. Eichhorn & Sons, died 
 July 4, 1910, and to him a brief memoir is dedi- 
 cated on other pages of this work; Arthur E., who 
 is now the executive head of the real estate, loan 
 and insurance business founded by his honored 
 father, is individually mentioned elsewhere in this 
 publication; Ottelie, who died in June, 1905, was 
 the wife of J. William Dreger, who formerly served 
 as sheriff of Hennepin County and who is now con- 
 nected with the firm of E. Eichhorn & Sons ; and 
 Helma is the wife of Arthur Stremel, vice presi- 
 dent of the Stremel Brothers Roofing & Cornice 
 Company, of Minneapolis. 
 
 The second wife of Mr. Eichhorn bore the 
 maiden name of Matilda Miethe, and she survives 
 him, her home being at Coronado Beach, Califor- 
 nia, in which state her husband had resided the 
 greater part of the time during the last decade of 
 his life, owing to his impaired health. Mr. Eich- 
 horn had come from his California home to pass 
 the summer with his children in Minneapolis, and 
 his death occurred about two weeks after his ar- 
 rival in this city, in the spring of 1907. His fun- 
 eral services were held at the home of his only 
 
 surviving daughter, Mrs. Stremel, and were 'given 
 in the German language, the officiating clergyman 
 having been Rev. William C. Hartig, pastor of St. 
 Peter's Lutheran Church. 
 
 Mr. Eichhorn was one of the first native ' Ger- 
 man citizens of Hennepin County, Minnesota, and 
 here his name is held in lasting honor. In his will 
 he provided for three legacies in his native land. 
 He devised the sum of $500 to the invalid daughter 
 of his stepbrother, Constant Soehle, her home hav- 
 ing been at Flirshberg, Germany, and Mr. Eich- 
 horn having always taken deep interest in her wel- 
 fare ; to each the church and school of his native 
 town of Roehlen, where he received his early 
 religious and educational training, Mr. Eichhorn 
 made a bequest of 500 German marks. 
 
 Alvin A. Eichhorn. The elder of the two sons 
 of the late Edmund Eichhorn, to whom a specific 
 memoir is dedicated in this history of Minnesota, 
 Alvin A. Eichhorn was prominently and worthily 
 identified with the upbuilding of the substantial 
 and representative real estate and insurance busi- 
 ness founded in Minneapolis by his father more 
 than forty years ago, and at the time of his death 
 he was still actively concerned with the business, 
 as senior member of the firm of E. Eichhorn & 
 Sons. As a sterling citizen and prominent business 
 man of Minneapolis Mr. Eichhorn made his life 
 count for good in all its relations, and it is but a 
 matter of consistency that he be accorded in this 
 publication a definite memorial tribute. 
 
 Alvin A. Eichhorn was born at Mayville, Dodge 
 County, Wisconsin, on the 17th of February, 1855, 
 and thus was about four years of age at the time 
 of his parents’ removal from the Badger State 
 to Hastings, Dakota County, Minnesota, where his 
 father became a pioneer merchant and a citizen of 
 distinctive prominence and influence. At Hastings 
 Alvin A. Eichhorn was afforded the advantages 
 of the public schools and also of German schools, 
 and at the age of fourteen years he entered upon 
 an apprenticeship in a local printing office. He 
 familiarized himself with the intricacies of the 
 business and proved through his several years of 
 service the truth of the statement that the disci- 
 pline of a country newspaper office is equivalent 
 to a liberal education. Mr. Eichhorn was a vigor- 
 ous and aspiring youth of eighteen years at the 
 time of the family removal to Minneapolis, in 
 1873, and here he became an employe in the office 
 of the Minneapolis Daily Tribune, with which he 
 continued to be associated until 1884, when both he 
 and his younger brother, Arthur E., were admitted 
 to partnership in the thriving real estate and insur- 
 ance business which had been founded by their 
 father soon after his settlement in Minneapolis. 
 With the adjustment made at this time the present 
 title of E. Eichhorn & Sons was adopted and after 
 the death of the honored father Alvin A. Eichhorn 
 continued as the senior member of the firm until 
 his death, the while he had gained impregnable 
 vantage-place as one of the substantial and progres- 
 sive business men of the city that long represented 
 his home and in which his interests were centered 
 from his youth until the close of his life. 
 
 In 1909 the health of Mr. Eichhorn became so 
 seriously impaired that he went to California, in 
 the hope of recuperating his energies, and at his 
 home in Ocean Park, that state, his death occurred 
 on the 4th of July, 1910, after a lingering illness 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1419 
 
 which he had borne with characteristic fortitude 
 and patience. While actively engaged in business 
 he was most vigorous and energetic, and he merited 
 fully the high esteem in which he was" held by all 
 who knew him, his many friends manifesting a 
 deep sense of bereavement when he was summoned 
 to the life eternal, at the comparatively early age 
 of fifty-five years. Since his death his only brother 
 has been at the head of the business that was 
 founded by their father so many years ago. 
 
 Arthur E. Eichhorn. The only surviving son 
 of the late Edmund Eichhorn, to whom a memorial 
 tribute is paid on other pages of this publication, 
 Arthur E. Eichhorn is well upholding the prestige 
 of the honored name which he bears and is at the 
 head of the firm of E. Eichhorn & Sons, engaged 
 in the real estate, loan and fire insurance business 
 in the City of Minneapolis, the enterprise having 
 been founded by his father in 1873 and its consecu- 
 tive history being greater than that of any other 
 similar business in the fair metropolis of Minne- 
 sota. In the conducting of the substantial business 
 the subject of this review is associated with his 
 brother-in-law, J. William Dreger, and the elder 
 brother, the late Alvin A. Eichhorn, was the senior 
 member of the firm until his death, he likewise 
 being specifically mentioned elsewhere in this his- 
 tory. 
 
 Arthur E. Eichhorn was born at Hastings, Da- 
 kota County, Minnesota, on the 27th of August, 
 1856, and his father was one of the pioneer settlers 
 of that now thriving city, where he was an honored 
 and influential citizen until his removal to Min- 
 neapolis, in 1873, as designated in the sketch of his 
 life on other pages of this volume. Arthur E. 
 Eichhorn is indebted to the public schools of his 
 native town for his early educational discipline, 
 which was supplemented by a course in the Curtiss 
 Business College, in Minneapolis, an institution in 
 which he was a student for one year. He was about 
 seventeen years of age at the time of the family 
 removal to Minneapolis and after leaving the com- 
 mercial college he here became associated with his 
 father’s real estate and insurance business. He 
 gained thorough knowledge of all details of this 
 line of enterprise, with which he has been con- 
 tinuously identified to the present time, and finally 
 both he and his elder brother, Alvin A., were ad- 
 mitted to partnership, under the firm name of E. 
 Eichhorn & Sons, which is still retained, as a mark 
 of filial appreciation and honor. Of the original 
 firm Mr. Eichhorn is now the only surviving repre- 
 sentative, and he has gained and retained high 
 reputation in his chosen field of endeavor, being 
 known as one of the progressive business men and 
 loyal and progressive citizens of Minneapolis. The 
 firm of E. Eichhorn & Sons represents the fol- 
 lowing named fire insurance companies : Connecticut 
 Fire Insurance Company, of Hartford ; Germania 
 Fire Insurance Company, of New York; Ham- 
 burg-Bremen Fire Insurance Company, of Ham- 
 burg, Germany ; Milwaukee Mechanics’ Insurance 
 Company, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin ; Rochester 
 German Insurance Company, Fire Association, of 
 Pennsylvania; and the German Underwriters De- 
 partment. A general real estate, loan and collection 
 business also is conducted by the firm, and it has 
 the local agency for the North German Lloyd, the 
 Hamburg-American, the Holland-American and the 
 Red Star Line Steamship companies. 
 
 Mr. Eichhorn is one of the original stockholders 
 of the German-American Bank of Minneapolis, his 
 father having been one of the founders and the first 
 president of this substantial institution, of which 
 he himself is a director. Mr. Eichhorn is an active 
 member of the Minneapolis Civic & Commerce As- 
 sociation, the Minneapolis Real Estate Board, and 
 the North Side Commercial Club. In a fraternal 
 way he is affiliated with Minneapolis Lodge, No. 
 44, Benevolent & Protective Order of Elks, and he 
 is identified also with the Interlachen Club and the 
 Teutonia Kegel Club, representative social organi- 
 zations of his home city. 
 
 On the 15th of' September, 1886, was solemnized 
 the marriage of Mr. Eichhorn to Miss Susie Rauen, 
 who was born and reared in Minneapolis, where 
 her father, Peter Rauen, settled in the pioneer days. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Eichhorn have two children, — Edmund 
 P. and Myrtle H. The son was graduated in the 
 North Side High School and also in the law de- 
 partment of the University of Minnesota. He now 
 has supervision of the legal affairs connected with 
 the business of which his father is the executive 
 head and is otherwise actively associated with the 
 substantial enterprise that was founded by his 
 grandfather more than forty years ago. Myrtle H. 
 likewise was graduated in the high .school and 
 the University of Minnesota, and both she and her 
 brother are now married and live in Minneapolis. 
 
 Albee Smith. Well entitled to distinctive con- 
 sideration as one of the pioneer members of the 
 bar of Minneapolis, Mr. Smith has here been en- 
 gaged in the practice of his profession during the 
 major part of the long period between the present 
 day and the year 1867, when he came here as a 
 young lawyer and began his professional novitiate. 
 His life has been one of close application to the 
 vocation of his choice and his success has been 
 worthily won. He recently attempted once more to 
 maintain his home in the City of Chicago, but the 
 manifold attractions of Minneapolis, where he had 
 long lived and labored and where his circle of 
 friends is coincident with that of his acquaintances, 
 soon called him back to the Minnesota metropolis, 
 which is endeared to him by the gracious associa- 
 tions of the past and in which he hopes to round 
 out his life without again seeking other fields of 
 endeavor and involving separation from friends who 
 are tried and true. 
 
 Mr. Smith is a native of the old Bay state and is 
 a scion of families that were there founded in the 
 Colonial era of our national history, as is evidenced 
 by the fact that his paternal and maternal great- 
 grandfathers, Abner Smith and Asa Albee, were 
 the first to sign their names to the list of volunteers 
 from Orange, Massachusetts, for service in the war 
 of the revolution. Mr. Smith was afforded the ad- 
 vantages of the graded schools at Cambridge, Massa- 
 chusetts and in 1863 he came to the West and 
 entered the old Chicago University. The next year, 
 however, he returned to New England, where he 
 became a student in Middlebury College, at Middle- 
 bury, Vermont. There he pursued his studies for 
 two years and then returned to his home in Chicago, 
 where he entered a law school, besides which he car- 
 ried forward his professional study under the pre- 
 ceptorship of Sanford B. Perry, and the firm of 
 Walker, Dexter & Smith. He remained in Chicago 
 from 1865 until 1867, when he was admitted to the 
 bar and removed forthwith to Minneapolis, Minne- 
 
1420 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 sota, where he formed a partnership with an old 
 college friend, M. D. L. Collester, and engaged in 
 the practice of his profession. This effective alliance 
 continued two years and thereafter Mr. Smith con- 
 ducted an individual practice until 1872, when he 
 formed a partnership with C. J. Bartleson, the firm 
 of Smith & Bartleson existing, however, for only one 
 year. Thereafter Mr. Smith again controlled a sub- 
 stantial independent law business until 1888, when he 
 became associated with C. E. Leslie, under the firm 
 name of Smith & Leslie, an alliance that obtained 
 about one year. In 1871 Mr. Smith returned to 
 Chicago, but he remained there only eight months, 
 his office and its appurtenances having been destroyed 
 in the historic fire that swept that city in the year 
 mentioned. After his return to Minneapolis Mr. 
 Smith here continued in the successful practice of 
 his profession until 1900, and in the meanwhile he 
 gave special attention to real-estate law. In the year 
 noted he again went to Chicago, where he established 
 an office at 128 North La Salle Street, opposite the 
 city hall. The great western metropolis could not, 
 however, long retain his allegiance, and in January, 
 1912, he resumed his residence in Minneapolis, where 
 he has since continued his professional labors, with 
 offices in the Security Bank Building. His practice 
 is of general order and he is specially valued as a 
 counselor, owing to his long and varied experience 
 and thorough knowledge of the science of jurispru- 
 dence. Mr. Smith has witnessed the development of 
 Minneapolis from the status of a virtual village to 
 that of a fair and opulent metropolitan center, and 
 at the present time he wonders that his loyalty should 
 have faltered even for the brief period that he re- 
 mained in Chicago. Here his affections and interests 
 are centered, and he is gratified to know that he may 
 again refer to the Minnesota metropolis as his per- 
 manent home. He is interested not only in the his- 
 tory of this state but also in that of his nativity, and 
 he is at the present time collecting data for a history 
 of Orange, Massachusetts, the place of his birth, with 
 the intention of publishing the work after he shall 
 have properly compiled the material available. 
 
 In the City of Chicago, on the 25th of November, 
 1870, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Smith to 
 Miss Mollie McClelland, and of their six children 
 three are living. The elder son, Robert, who was 
 born in Chicago, died in Minneapolis, in 1873, when 
 about two years of age. The eldest of the daughters 
 was Orrill E., who died in Chicago in 1903, her re- 
 mains being conveyed to the old home in Minneapolis 
 for interment. Sophronia H. W. died at Minneapolis, 
 November 5, 1914. Of the three surviving children 
 Albee, Jr., is a resident of Evanston, Illinois, and 
 Olive A. and Gertrude A. remain at the parental 
 home. All of the children were born in Minneapolis 
 with the exception of Robert. 
 
 Mr. Smith has never been a seeker of public office, 
 preferring to give his undivided attention to the 
 work of his profession, but he has been unswerving 
 in his allegiance to the republican party and in for- 
 mer years he was an active worker in behalf of its 
 cause. He is affiliated with the Chi Psi college fra- 
 ternity and was one of the founders of its chapter 
 at the University of Minnesota. Both he and his 
 wife were charter members of the Parish of St. 
 Mark’s Church, Protestant Episcopal, in Minneapolis, 
 which was organized in 1868, and they are now zeal- 
 ous communicants of this parish. Mr. Smith was 
 likewise one of the organizers of the Minnesota 
 Children’s Aid Society, and was a member of its 
 
 board of directors until his removal to Chicago in 
 1900. He was also a member of the board of mana- 
 gers of the Minnesota organization of the Society of 
 the Sons of the American Revolution, with which he 
 is still actively identified. Generous and tolerant, 
 considerate and conscientious in all of the relations 
 of life, Mr. Smith has exemplified most effectively 
 the precept expressed in the Golden Rule, and has 
 aimed to “comfort and relieve all those who are in 
 any ways afflicted, or distressed, in mind, body or 
 estate.” He has been engaged in the active practice 
 of his profession for nearly half a century, and has 
 dignified it by his character and services, even as he 
 has merited and retained the unqualified confidence 
 and esteem of his fellow men. 
 
 Henry Hastings Sibley. Few indeed are the 
 names that appear more frequently and there are 
 none that appear more honorably in the early history 
 of Minnesota, than that of H. H. Sibley, as the pages 
 of the first volume of this work abundantly testify. 
 His fame is a part of that of the commonwealth 
 and his name is a household word throughout the 
 state. 
 
 General Sibley was born at Detroit, Michigan, 
 February 20, 1811. His father, Hon. Solomon Sibley, 
 was a prominent pioneer of the Northwest and he 
 was by profession a lawyer. In 1799 he was elected 
 to the first Territorial Legislature of the North- 
 west Territory, which assembled at Cincinnati. He 
 was elected a delegate to Congress from Michigan 
 in 1820. He was also for some years United States 
 district attorney for Michigan. The mother of Gen- 
 eral Sibley was Sarah W. Sproat, a daughter of Col. 
 Ebenezer Sproat, an officer in the Continental army 
 during the War of the Revolution. 
 
 General Sibley received an academical education 
 and was subsequently given two years private tuition 
 in the classics by the Rev. Mr. Cadle, a gentleman of 
 superior scholastic attainments. His father designed 
 him for the law, and at the age of sixteen he began 
 the study of that profession in Judge Sibley’s office. 
 A year’s experience convinced him, however, that the 
 pursuit in life selected for him was against his nat- 
 ural tastes and inclinations. A frontier boy he 
 wished to become a frontiersman. His father wisely 
 acquiesced in his decision and in 1828, before he had 
 reached the age of eighteen, he went to Sault Ste. 
 Marie and engaged in a mercantile house for about 
 a year. In 1829 he went to Mackinac and entered 
 the service of the American Fur Company as a clerk. 
 He remained at Mackinac for about five years. 
 
 In 1834 he formed, with H. L. Dousman and 
 Joseph Rolette, Sr., a copartnership with the Amer- 
 ican Fur Company, of New York, which passed in 
 that year under the direction of Ramsey Crooks 
 as president. By the terms of the agreement, 
 Messrs. Dousman and Rolette were to continue in 
 charge of the station of the company at Prairie du 
 Chien, while Sibley was placed in control of the 
 country above Lake Pepin, to the headwaters of 
 the streams emptying into the Missouri and north 
 to the British line, with his headquarters at St. 
 Peter, now the town of Mendota. He arrived at 
 the mouth of the Minnesota River November 7, 1834. 
 The trip from Prairie du Chien was performed on 
 horseback. General Sibley resided at Mendota from 
 1834 to 1862, a period of twenty-eight years, and 
 owing to territorial changes was successively a citi- 
 zen of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Iowa territories, 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1421 
 
 and of the Territory and State of Minnesota, without 
 changing the location of his residence. 
 
 For many years his only companions and associates 
 were the military officers at Fort Snelling, with their 
 families, the clerks of the Fur Company and the 
 Indians. With the latter he became intimately ac- 
 quainted. He frequently exchanged visits with them 
 for months at a time. He was given a name by 
 them — Wah-ze-o-man-nee (“Walker in the Pines”). 
 
 General Sibley’s public services may be only sum- 
 marized. He was the first justice of the peace, being 
 appointed by Governor Chambers of Iowa Terri- 
 tory, in 1838, his jurisdiction extending over what 
 now forms all of Minnesota west of the river, a 
 portion of Iowa, and a large part of North and 
 South Dakota. In 1848 he was elected by the peo- 
 ple as their delegate to Congress and after some 
 trouble was admitted to a seat. During that ses- 
 sion he secured the passage of the act organizing 
 the Territory of Minnesota, which became a law 
 March 3, 1849. In the fall of that year he was again 
 elected to represent the territory, and 1831 was 
 re-elected. In 1853 he declined re-election. 
 
 In 1857 he was president of the “democratic 
 branch” of the constitutional convention, which by 
 compromise and in conjunction with the “republican 
 branch” adopted the first constitution of Minnesota. 
 Soon after he was elected governor, but owing to 
 the delay in the admission of the state he was not 
 inauguarated until May 24, 1858. As the first gov- 
 ernor of the state he is entitled to eminent distinc- 
 tion. His recommendations were sound, and states- 
 manlike. Had his counsel been heeded the reckless 
 railroad legislation of that period would never have 
 appeared. In 1871 General Sibley served one term 
 in the lower house of the Legislature. He was ap- 
 pointed one of the original regents of the University 
 of Minnesota, and was elected president of the 
 board. He was also president of the State Normal 
 School Board which office he filled for nearly two 
 years. 
 
 Of General Sibley’s military services much may 
 be written, and their value to the people of Minne- 
 sota can hardly be overestimated. The Sioux out- 
 break occurred August 18, 1862, and the following 
 day he was appointed by Governor Ramsey to the 
 command of the military expedition sent against 
 them with the nominal rank of colonel commanding 
 in the field, but really with the powers and duties 
 of a general. 
 
 The history of General Sibley’s successful cam- 
 paign against the Indians appears in Volume I. He 
 planned it in one evening, that of his appointment, 
 and conducted it to the close without deviating 
 from the original plan. The expedition required for 
 its successful issue cool courage, rare ability, con- 
 ■summate address, and finesse. General Sibley rose 
 superior to every occasion and met every require- 
 ment. It was incumbent upon him to not only pun- 
 ish but to preserve. The lightnings of vengeance 
 were to be loosened upon the savages, but the lives 
 of the 250 women and children in their hands were 
 to be saved. 
 
 After his victory at Wood Lake, with 2,000 
 Indians in his hands, on whom he might have 
 wreaked a summary and terrible vengeance which 
 the public would have applauded, and which pos- 
 terity would have justified, General Sibley consti- 
 tuted a military commission for the trial of the 
 principal offenders. He, might have constituted a 
 drum-head courtmartial for this work, whose con- 
 
 clusions would not have been the subject of review, 
 and from whose judgment there would have been 
 no appeal. But he preferred to complete his work 
 as he had begun it and as he had carried it on in 
 order and regularity. About four hundred Indian 
 warriors were put on trial before a commission 
 and 303 of them were convicted of murder and 
 outrage and condemned to death, while others were 
 sentenced to various terms of imprisonment for 
 robbery and pillage. But President Lincoln was in- 
 duced to save from the gallows all but thirty-eight 
 of the bloody-handed villains. The remainder had 
 their sentences commuted to brief terms of impris- 
 onment. This act of clemency was characteristic 
 of the tender-hearted martyr President, but was 
 deplored by all lovers of justice. 
 
 September 29, 1862, President Lincoln commis- 
 sioned the then Colonel Sibley a brigadier-general 
 of volunteers, “for gallant and meritorious services 
 in the field.” General Pope, the commander of the 
 department, had given the military affairs of this 
 district into his hands, confident of his ability to 
 direct them successfully. The winter of 1862-63 
 was spent in forming a cordon of military post and 
 garrison, with a line of scouts and patrols, across 
 the western frontier. The people returned to their 
 homes and farms, and the country was in a measure 
 tranquillized. 
 
 In May, 1863, General Sibley concentrated 4,000 
 troops at “Camp Pope” on the Upper Minnesota 
 River, for an expedition against the Indians who 
 were then in Dakota. The expedition was to be 
 assisted by another commanded by General Alfred 
 Sully, which was to move up the Missouri River 
 and prevent the Indians from retreating to the west- 
 ward, while General Sibley should come upon them 
 from the east and include them between two fires. 
 General Sibley carried out his part of the program 
 completely. He moved on the 6th of June and 
 after a long and difficult march reached the couteau 
 of the Missouri, July 24. On that day he engaged 
 the savages, killed twenty-one of them, losing but 
 two of his own men. July 25, at Dead Buffalo 
 Lake and July 28 at Stoney Lake he again fought 
 them, and on both occasions drove them from the 
 field. He then pursued the Indians to the Missouri, 
 across which they escaped, owing to the inability 
 of General Sully to fulfill his part of the campaign, 
 his march being retarded by the extreme heat of 
 the summer and the want of forage for his horses. 
 He afterwards came up and engaged the Indians, 
 punishing them severely. General Sibley returned 
 to the state about the first of September, having 
 freed the Minnesota frontier from all apprehension 
 of Indian raids and given security to hundreds of 
 settlers elsewhere. 
 
 During the year 1864-5 General Sibley was chiefly 
 employed in conducting and inaugurating! measures 
 for the defense of the frontier. These measures 
 gave in the end entire safety to the western coun- 
 ties by depriving the savages of an opportunity to 
 molest them, and that oart of the state began to be 
 occupied not only by the former settlers but by hun- 
 dreds of newcomers. November 29, 1865, he was 
 promoted to brevet major-general, “for efficient and 
 meritorious services.” He was relieved from the 
 command of the District of Minnesota in August, 
 1865, by order of President Johnson, and detailed 
 with General Curtis and others as a member of a 
 mixed civil and military commission to negotiate 
 treaties with the hostile Sioux and other disaffected 
 
1422 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 bands on the Upper Missouri. The treaties with 
 the Sioux were made at Fort Sully and were sub- 
 sequently ratified by the Senate. General Sibley 
 was honorably mustered out of the military service 
 with many other general officers in April, 1866, and 
 returned to his home in St. Paul. 
 
 In 1871 General Sibley was appointed on the Na- 
 tional Board of Indian Commissioners, but was 
 compelled by the press of his private business inter- 
 ests to resign after a year’s service. His connec- 
 tion with the business interests of St. Paul was 
 very intimate and conspicuous. He was president 
 of the Chamber of Commerce, director of the First 
 National Bank, director of the St. Paul and Sioux 
 City Railroad, and for several years president of 
 the St. Paul Gas Company, president of the State 
 Historical Society and president of the Oakland 
 Cemetery Association. 
 
 May 2, 1843, General Sibley was married to Mrs. 
 Sarah J. S. Steele, a sister of Hon. Franklin Steele, 
 and a lady of superior accomplishment and worth. 
 She died in May, 1869. leaving four children, viz: 
 Augusta, now Mrs. Augusta A. Pope ; Sarah, now 
 the wife of E. A. Young, Esq., of St. Paul; Charles 
 Frederick, and Alfred B. General Sibley removed 
 from Mendota to St. Paul in 1862 and thenceforth 
 lived on Woodward Avenue. 
 
 Though reared on the frontier, far away from 
 the polished circles and refinements of fashionable 
 society, General Sibley was always noted for his 
 accomplishments and attainments. A true born 
 gentleman always asserts himself. General Sibley 
 in his bearing and conduct was courtly and hospi- 
 table and was never charged with an unchivalrous 
 or an ignoble action. This old Indian fighter was 
 likewise a scholar, a thinker, and a writer of su- 
 perior abilities. Sixty years ago his contributions 
 to certain periodicals under the nom_ de plume of 
 “Hal. A. Dakota,’’ and over his own signature made 
 him justly celebrated. He made some most in- 
 valuable contributions to the publications of the 
 historical society. As a writer he was very clear, 
 finished and interesting. As a controversialist he 
 was quite able to hold his own with the ablest. 
 As long ago as in 1850, when he was a delegate to 
 Congress, his letter to United States Senator Foote 
 of Mississippi gave to the outside world the first 
 definite information concerning the Territory of 
 Minnesota and made for the writer a national rep- 
 utation. The pioneers of Minnesoia were justly 
 proud of the manly bearing, mental qualities and 
 exemplary character of their delegate, who, back- 
 woodsman though he was, did not suffer by com- 
 parison with any of the members of the dignified 
 body of which he was so long a member. 
 
 The County of Sibley, and the City of Hastings 
 are named for General Sibley, but historians will 
 record and preserve the history of his services and 
 the people of Minnesota will ever hold them in 
 grateful remembrance. In June, 1888, General Sib- 
 ley was elected an honorary member of the Ancient 
 Cliosophic Society of Princeton College, N. J., and 
 on the 23d of the same month received from that 
 renowned college the degree of LL. D 1 . At the an- 
 nual meeting of the Minnesota Commandery of the 
 Loyal Legion, held in St. Paul, June 6, 1888, he 
 was unanimously elected the commander of that 
 organization for the ensuing year. He was for 
 many years a vestryman of St. Paul’s Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
 General Sibley died in St. Paul, February 18, 
 
 1891, lacking only two days of being eighty years 
 old. Full of years and honors, he passed to the 
 reward due to the hero, the patriot and the Chris- 
 tian. 
 
 Joseph Albert Wheelock was born in Bridge- 
 town, Nova Scotia, February 8, 1831, and died in 
 St. Paul, Minnesota, May 9, 1906. 
 
 At the age of nineteen he came to Minnesota in 
 quest of health and settled in St. Paul. Minnesota 
 was then a sparsely settled territory and St. Paul 
 a straggling frontier village. In all the subsequent 
 development of both he bore a conspicuous part. 
 
 About 1855 he embarked in journalism, achieving 
 marked success from the beginning. On January 
 1, 1861, he established the St. Paul Press, which 
 became some years later the Pioneer Press, and 
 he remained its editor-in-chief to the end of his 
 life. 
 
 On May 2, 1888, Mr. Wheelock was unanimously 
 elected by the Loyal Legion a companion of the 
 third class, in recognition of his valuable service 
 to the Union cause during the war for the sup- 
 pression of the rebellion. 
 
 Mr. Wheelock was for nearly fifty years con- 
 tinuously at the head of the editorial profession in 
 Minnesota, winning a national reputation for ability 
 and independence in the higher walks of journal- 
 ism. He was one of the clearest thinkers and most 
 forcible writers this county has produced, capable 
 of sustained efforts of uniform excellence, with an 
 occasional flight into the realms of genius. 
 
 His scholarship was both profound and practical. 
 He walked the higher ranges' in his thought ; he 
 wrote with a fullness of information and a rich- 
 ness of diction that commanded applause while it 
 persuaded and convinced: he mingled on terms of 
 intimate equality with the highest in the land, states- 
 men, diplomats and presidents, to whom his coun- 
 sels were welcome and valuable. 
 
 His literary taste was exquisite, but he could hurl 
 the thunderbolts of denunciation when, in his opin- 
 ion, the case required it. He loved the learning 
 that exercises beneficent influence on the lives of 
 men and the policies of the nation ; he cherished 
 lofty political ideals. Not infallible in judgment, 
 or exempt from the infirmities of temper and tem- 
 perament which at times cloud the intellectual vision, 
 lie was through decades of stormy political conflict 
 always credited with purity of motive and manli- 
 ness of action. He was postmaster of St. Paul 
 from 1870 to 1875. He was state commissioner of 
 statistics in i860, and president of the St. Paul park 
 board from 1893 until his death. 
 
 Mr. Wheelock wrought a tremendous influence 
 on the political destiny of many individuals. He 
 incurred the enmity of some good men and of 
 many bad men, through his hostility to their aspira- 
 tions; he earned the gratitude of many successful 
 men in public life, but did not always receive it, 
 through his lack of the ingratiating arts which en- 
 able smaller natures to reap where they have, and 
 often where they have not, sown. 
 
 He contributed his full share to the material de- 
 velopment of the State of Minnesota; to the ad- 
 vancement of her 1 educational interests; to the up- 
 building of all the elements which constitute a. 
 prosperous commonwealth. He was to St. Paul 
 always a loyal and public-spirited citizen, and de- 
 voted many years of zealous, intelligent, unrequited 
 effort to the establishment of her splendid system 
 of boulevards and parks. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1423 
 
 In his family and social relations Mr. Wheelock 
 was a model of considerate kindness and devoted 
 affection. His circle of intimacies was not exten- 
 sive, but he was, to those he trusted, a wise coun- 
 sellor and faithful friend. 
 
 As a loyal editor during the terrible years of the 
 conflict for national life, Mr. Wheelock eminently 
 deserved the high compliments paid him. by the 
 Loyal Legion in selecting him as one of its com- 
 panions from civil life, distinguished for patriotic 
 services at that period. His pen was always vigor- 
 ous and versatile in sustaining the administration, 
 encouraging the people and stimulating a spirit of 
 patriotism in the darkest days, when many yielded 
 to disappointment and despair. That he fully ap- 
 preciated the great honor conferred upon him by 
 that selection was attested in many ways. He 
 worthily stood with Ramsey, Rice, Pillsbury and 
 Tiffany, recipients of this tribute of regard; he was 
 the last survivor of that illustrious roll, and since 
 elections to this class of membership have been 
 discontinued throughout the order there can be no 
 more names upon it. 
 
 Mr. Wheelock was married to Miss Kate French, 
 of St. Paul, who, with their son, Webster Wheelock, 
 survived him. 
 
 O. M. Hall. On November 26, 1914, death re- 
 moved one of the prominent and useful citizens of 
 Minnesota in the person of Osee Mattson Hall, of 
 Red Wing. 
 
 Mr. Hall was born at Conneaut, Ohio, in 1848, 
 came of one of the substantial old families of the 
 Western Reserve in Ohio, and was a man of 
 sturdy ancestry and of liberal education. He com- 
 pleted his early training in Hiram College, the in- 
 stitution of which James A. Garfield was at one time 
 president, and also at Williams College. In 1868 
 he came to Minnesota as a pioneer, and from that 
 time until his death his citizenship was prominently 
 associated with the City of Red Wing. He was a 
 lawyer by profession, but was especially distin- 
 guished for his political service. In 1885 he was 
 elected to the State Senate for one term. In 1890 
 he was elected as a democrat to Congress, and re- 
 elected in 1892. His political honors came from 
 localities and districts which were nominally repub- 
 lican. When the Minnesota Tax Commission was 
 authorized by the Legislature in 1907 Governor 
 Johnson named Mr. Hall as one of the three com- 
 missioners, and he served on that important body 
 until his death in St. Paui. He declined an appoint- 
 ment to the district bench in 1909, preferring to 
 remain on the tax commission. His first term was 
 for six years and in that time he established a 
 reputation as an authority oni taxation and on the 
 basis of his service was reappointed for another 
 six years by Governor Eberhart. 
 
 Mr. Hall was survived by his wife and two sons, 
 Charles P. and Edward S. Hall, both residents of 
 Red Wing. 
 
 Louis Nash. One of the most important munici- 
 pal offices is that of commissioner of parks, play- 
 grounds and public buildings, the incumbent of 
 which in St. Paul is Louis Nash, a man who> has 
 had a large experience in business and public af- 
 fairs and who is using his official prerogative in 
 many ways to improve local conditions, give the 
 city better parks and playgrounds and extend their 
 use to the people. 
 
 Louis Nash was born in England May 26, 1867, 
 a son of Absolom and Hannah Emma (Broughton) 
 Nash. He attended the National schools, finished a 
 course in the Tuxford, Notts, Grammar School and 
 graduated from the University of Minnesota with 
 the night law class of 1902 with the degrees of 
 LL. B and LL. M. 
 
 Arriving in St. Paul in 1887 he took a position 
 with the Boston Clothing Company, leaving there 
 to go with the firm of Browning King and Co., 
 when it opened in St. Paul that fall. He imme- 
 diately fathered a movement for the closing of the 
 retail stores at 6 o’clock, and to his efforts, more 
 than those of any other man are the retail clerks 
 indebted for the short hours they now enjoy 
 throughout the United States. He was the founder 
 of the Retail Clerks National Advocate and the 
 St. Paul Trades and Labor Bulletin, and the first 
 editor of each of those publications. In 1890 he 
 organized the clerks from Denver to San Francisco 
 as a labor of love, and thus started the early clos- 
 ing movement in the far West. In 1897 he as- 
 sumed the management for Nicoll the Tailor, which 
 position he has held ever since. 
 
 His introduction to the public life of St. Paul 
 came with his election in 1906 as county commis- 
 sioner, to which office he was successively elected 
 four times and was still serving when in February, 
 1915, he was unanimously elected to fill out the 
 unexpired term of John J. O’Leary (deceased) as 
 city councilman. It was mainly through his efforts 
 that the Boys’ Detention Farm of sixty-eight acres 
 and the Girls’ Detention Home were acquired by 
 the County of Ramsey. In politics Mr. Nash is a 
 fundamental democrat. 
 
 He married Miss Lottie J. Weller of Boston, 
 Massachusetts, in 1890 and has two children, Norma 
 Marie and Louis, Jr. He is a Past Exalted Ruler 
 of the Elks, Past Worthy President of the Eagles 
 and Past Consul of the Modern Woodmen of 
 America, Minnehaha Camp. A member of the Com- 
 mercial Club, Automobile, Town Criers and Current 
 Topics clubs, and Association of Commerce. A 
 thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and a 
 member of the Mystic Shrine. 
 
 His summer home on the north shore of White 
 Bear Lake is a rendezvous for his many friends 
 during the heated months, where everyone is warmly 
 welcomed. 
 
 James Carlson. Now manager of the Lampert 
 Lumber Company at New Richland, where he has 
 supervision of large and important interests, James 
 Carlson came to Minnesota from Sweden about 
 twenty-seven years ago, and has been identified with 
 the lumber business under some form or other ever 
 since, his long connection and experience having 
 brought him his present substantial position and 
 regard as a successful man. 
 
 James Carlson was born in the Province of Shone, 
 Sweden, October 24, 1868. His parents were James 
 and Hannah Carlson. James Carlson was born in 
 the Province of Skone in 1831, was a mason by 
 trade, gave the regular term of service to the na- 
 tional army of Sweden, and died at his home lo- 
 cality in 1879. His wife was born, reared and spent 
 her life in the same vicinity. 
 
 James Carlson was reared in Sweden, was edu- 
 cated in the common schools, and served an appren- 
 ticeship which qualified him for the trade of dairy- 
 man, in the thorough fashion in which such things 
 
1424 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 are done in Sweden. Making his voyage across the 
 Atlantic to the new world in 1887, when nineteen 
 years of age, Mr. Carlson located in Worthington, 
 Minnesota, and there his attention was directed to 
 an entirely different line of work. He found em- 
 ployment in a lumber business, and worked through 
 all the grades of service, until in 1903 he came to 
 New Richland and has since been manager of the 
 Lampert Lumber Company’s large interests in that 
 town. 
 
 Mr. Carlson is a republican in politics. In 1889 at 
 Worthington, Minnesota, he married Miss Ingrid 
 Mortinsan who was from Worthington. Her father, 
 a native of Sweden, was an engineer at Sweden, but 
 is now deceased. Mr. Carlson and wife’s children 
 are : Harry M., who is manager of a lumber yard 
 at Waubay, North Dakota; George W., who is a 
 manual training teacher at New Richland, Minne- 
 sota, and Ellen Josephine is engaged in teaching 
 school near Janesville, Minnesota. 
 
 John D. Ekstrum. A business in Minneapolis that 
 has shown remarkable power of development, with 
 its success to a great degree exemplifying and illus- 
 trating the progressive career of its president, is the 
 Flour City Fuel & Transfer Company, of which 
 John D. Ekstrum is president. A little more than 
 fifteen years ago Mr. Ekstrum made his advent into 
 Minneapolis business circles with a capital of $100, 
 as a fuel merchant. The business over which he now 
 exercises _ executive control has a capitalization of 
 $150,000, is engaged in the wholesale and retail coal, 
 coke and wood trade, general transfer, handling of 
 baggage, freight, machinery and merchandise, oper- 
 ates a wagon factory, a large warehouse for the 
 packing and storage of goods, and has an equipment 
 representing many thousands of dollars in buildings, 
 horses, and other facilities, among which is a wagon 
 factory where the wagons in use by the company 
 are built, and they also sell wagons to their cus- 
 tomers. The main office of the company is at 40 
 West Lake Street, and there are nine business offices 
 and eight distributing yards. 
 
 John D. Ekstrum was born in Sweden in 1873. A 
 few years after his birth the father, Solomon 
 Ekstrum, came to Minneapolis, and after getting 
 started in his trade as a mason he sent for his wife 
 and family, who came on to Minneapolis in 1882. He 
 was for many years a mason contractor. 
 
 John D. Ekstrum had received some advantages in 
 the way of schools in the old country, and after- 
 wards attended the Minneapolis public schools. Out- 
 side of school his time was taken up with some use- 
 ful occupation or other, and among other things he 
 did considerable teaming for his father. For sev- 
 eral years Mr. Ekstrum was connected with the 
 Minneapolis police force and rose to the rank of 
 sergeant in the Fifth Precinct. After three years, 
 in 1899, he retired from the force to give his entire 
 attention to the fuel business, in which he was en- 
 gaged while still a policeman and which was started 
 with the modest capital of $100. He soon afterwards 
 took into partnership N.’ L. Johnson, and in a few 
 years they had laid the foundation for the present 
 handsome business. After four years John Olson 
 joined his capital and energy to the partnership. The 
 present company was incorporated in 1911 with a 
 capital stock of $100,000, and with Mr. Ekstrum as 
 president, N. L. Johnson secretary and treasurer, and 
 John Olson vice president. In its present propor- 
 tions, as above described, the business employs about 
 ninety men. 
 
 In the meantime Mr. Ekstrum has acquired other 
 business relations which place him among the lead- 
 ing and aggressive business factors in his home city. 
 Fie is manager and partner in the Interstate Fuel & 
 Transfer Company, a business that operates three 
 fuel yards. He is a director of the Minneapolis State 
 Bank and director of the Bankers Security Company. 
 He was one of the organizers of the West Side Com- 
 mercial Club in 1908, and has served as director, and 
 in 1913 and 1914 was president of the club. He has 
 also served as president of the Swedish- American 
 Club of Minneapolis, a most important organization 
 among the Swedish- Americans of the Northwest. He 
 is a member of the Odin Club and the Zion Lutheran 
 Church, and in politics is a republican. Mr. Ekstrum 
 was married in Minneapolis in 1901 to Miss Ida K. 
 Nelson. To this union have been born four children: 
 John D., Jr., Martha, Robert and Bertill. 
 
 Tobias Hogenson. The efficient and popular 
 cashier of the First National Bank of Stewartville, 
 Olmsted County, is a representative of one of the 
 honored pioneer families of this county, which has 
 been his home from the time of his birth, and is a 
 scion of that fine Scandinavian element of citizen- 
 ship that has played a most worthy and important 
 part in the civic and industrial development and 
 advancement of Minnesota. 
 
 Tobias Hogenson, now prominent and influential 
 in connection with financial affairs in his native 
 county, was born in Rock Dell Township, Olmsted 
 County, on the 4th of May, 1869, and is a son of 
 Peter and Sonova (Bryneldson) Hogenson, both 
 natives of the Hardanger-fjord District of Norway, 
 where the former was born in 1834 and the latter 
 in 1830, the death of the father occurring in 1904 
 and that of the mother in May, 1914. The parents 
 were reared and educated in their native land, 
 where their marriage was solemnized, and in 1854 
 they came to the United States and became pioneer 
 settlers in Wisconsin, which state continued to be 
 their place of residence until 1862, when they came 
 to Minnesota and established their home in Olmsted 
 County. Here Peter Hogenson bought land, in 
 Rock Township, and instituted the reclamation of a 
 farm. He eventually became one of the substan- 
 tial agriculturists of the county and continued to 
 follow farming during his entire active career in 
 the United States, the while he stood exponent of 
 the most loyal and upright citizenship and com- 
 manded the high regard of all who knew him. He 
 was a republican in politics, was zealous in the sup- 
 port of measures and enterprises contributing to 
 the general good of the community, served twenty- 
 four years as assessor for Rock Dell Township, and 
 both he and his wife continued to reside on their 
 old homestead farm until their death, both having 
 been devout communicants of the Norwegian Luth- 
 eran Church. Of their twelve children Tobias, of 
 this sketch, was the eleventh in order of birth, and 
 the four others now living are : Christopher, who is 
 a successful farmer of Olmsted County; Hogan M., 
 who resides at Fertile, Polk County, and is a carrier 
 on a rural mail route ; Maria Hogenson residing at 
 Fertile, Polk County, Minnesota; and. Mrs. Sophia 
 Mohn, who remains on the old home farm of her 
 parents. 
 
 Reared under the invigorating influences of the 
 home farm. Tobias Hogenson acquired his pre- 
 liminary education in the district schools of his 
 native township and thereafter completed a thor- 
 ough course in Darling’s Business College, at Ro- 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . ; 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1425 
 
 Chester, in which institution he was graduated in 
 1888. That he had made good use of the ad- 
 vantages afforded him. is evidenced by the fact that 
 he became a successful and popular teacher in the 
 district schools, devoting seven years to the peda- 
 gogic profession and simultaneously giving his at- 
 tention to farming. 
 
 In 1900 Mr. Hogenson became prominently iden- 
 tified with the organization of the First National 
 Bank of Stewartville, of which he has been cashier 
 from the time of its incorporation and in the 
 building up of the substantial business of which he 
 has been a potent force. The bank bases its opera- 
 tions on a capital stock of $250,000; its surplus and 
 undivided profits amount to $8,000; and its average 
 deposits are in excess of $385,000. This is one of 
 the staunch and ably managed banking institutions 
 of Olmsted County and has marked influence in 
 fostering the general prosperity of the community 
 which it effectively serves. 
 
 Mr. Hogenson has the unqualified esteem of the 
 people of his native county, and this is distinctively 
 shown by the fact that in 1912 he was elected to 
 represent the county in the State Legislature, in 
 which he made an admirable record, so that he was 
 renominated in 1914 and at the election in the 
 autumn of that year was re-elected by a gratifying 
 majority. His present term will expire in Decem- 
 ber, 1916. He has been a zealous supporter of the 
 cause of the republican party and both he and his 
 wife are communicants of the Norwegian Lutheran 
 Church. In the time-honored Masonic fraternity 
 Mr. Hogenson has received the thirty-second degree 
 of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, and in the 
 York Rite he is past master of his lodge of Ancient 
 Free and Accepted Masons, besides which he is af- 
 filiated with Rochester Lodge, No. 1091, Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks. 
 
 In the year 1890 was solemnized the marriage 
 of Mr. Hogenson to Miss Thora Tandberg, daugh- 
 ter of Torger Taitdberg, of Spring Grove, Houston 
 County, her father having been a successful school 
 teacher, having followed the trade of stone-mason. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hogenson have five children: Selma 
 is a student in St. Olaf’s College, at Northfield; 
 Alma was graduated in the Stewartville High School 
 as a member of the class of 1914; and Tobias Pal- 
 mer, and Helen are attending the public schools, 
 the youngest of the children being Esther, who is 
 five years of age. 
 
 Winfield W. Bardwell. Judge Bardwell is one 
 of the able and honored members of the bench and 
 bar of the City of Minneapolis, where he is presid- 
 ing on the bench of the municipal court, and for 
 a score of years he was actively engaged in the 
 practice of his profession as one of the representa- 
 tive members of the bar of the Minnesota metrop- 
 olis, his retirement from active practice having 
 come only when he was elected to his present judicial 
 office. He has a host of friends in Minnesota and 
 further interest attaches to a consideration of his 
 career by reason of his being, a native of this state 
 and a scion of one of its sterling pioneer families. 
 
 Judge Bardwell was born at Excelsior, Hennepin 
 Countv, Minnesota, on the 18th of July, 1867, and is 
 a son of William E. and Araminta (Hamblet) Bard- 
 well, who were early and honored settlers in the 
 county in which is situated the fine metropolis of 
 Minnesota. They represented the best element of 
 the pioneer type, at a time when social relations 
 
 in this section of the LTnion were far less complex 
 than at the present time, and they gained and re- 
 tained the confidence and high regard of all with 
 whom they came in contact during the formative 
 period of Minnesota history. William E. Bardwell 
 was a stationary engineer by vocation and was a 
 man of strong character as well as of vigorous 
 mentality. He came to Minnesota with his parents 
 in 1855 and the family home was established at 
 Excelsior, Hennepin County, where the parents 
 passed the residue of their lives. William E. con- 
 tinued his residence in Hennepin County until the 
 close of his life, and his widow still resides at 
 Excelsior, her parents having been early settlers at 
 Eden Prairie, Hennepin County, where they took 
 up their abode in 1853. 
 
 To the public schools of his native village Judge 
 Bardwell is indebted for his preliminary educational 
 discipline, which was supplemented by a course in 
 an academy that for a few y?ars held high rank 
 among the educational institutions of the North- 
 west. His tastes and ambition led him to prepare 
 himself for the legal profession, and in pursuance 
 of this ambition he followed the plan more cus- 
 tomary at that time, as he initiated his technical 
 studies under private preceptorship. He entered 
 the office of Harlan P. Roberts, of Minneapolis, in 
 whose law office he assumed the dual position of 
 stenographer and clerk, and in the meanwhile he 
 gave assiduous attention to the study of law under 
 the effective direction of Mr. Roberts, concerning 
 whom individual mention is made on other pages 
 of this work. Judge Bardwell finally entered the 
 law department of the University of Minnesota and 
 after being graduated with the degree of Bachelor 
 of Laws he completed a post-graduate course and 
 received from his alma mater the further degree of 
 Master of Laws, — a fact indicating that he consid- 
 ered as adequate none but the most thorough prepa- 
 ration possible to be made for the work of his 
 exacting profession. 
 
 In 1891 Judge Bardwell engaged in the practice 
 of law in Minneapolis, where he was first associated 
 in partnership alliance with James M. Burlingame 
 and later with C. Louis Weeks. He soon gained 
 prestige that placed him among the representative 
 members. of the bar of Hennepin County, and his 
 practice involved his appearance in connection with 
 much important litigation. He achieved special 
 precedence as a criminal lawyer, and in this domain 
 he was retained as counsel in several of the most 
 celebrated cases ever tried in the local courts. For 
 five years prior to assuming his present judicial post 
 he was associated in practice with Samuel Levy, 
 under the firm name of Bardwell & Levy and with 
 offices in the Loan & Trust Building. 
 
 It is a recognized fact that members of the legal 
 profession in America have normally been those 
 best qualified for domination and leadership in the 
 political arena, for their very training has matured 
 their judgment and made them specially well forti- 
 fied for the formulating and directing of govern- 
 mental policies, both state and national. Thus 
 Judge Bardwell was consistently drawn into the field 
 of political activity, and he has been one of the 
 valued and influential figures in the councils and 
 work of the republican party in Minnesota. In 1902 
 he was elected a member of the lower house of the 
 State Legislature, and he proved one of the strong 
 and resourceful workers in the legislative session 
 of 1903. The estimate placed upon his services was 
 
1426 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 best shown in the fact that he was re-elected for 
 the sessions of 1905-07. In the session of 1905 he 
 was chairman of the Hennepin County delegation 
 and was assigned to membership on a number of 
 the most important committees of the House of 
 Representatives, including the committee on in- 
 surance, of which he was chairman. Judge Bardwell 
 refused to become a candidate for a third term in 
 the Legislature, as he felt it incumbent upon him to 
 subordinate all other interests to the demands of his 
 profession, which placed exigent claims upon his 
 time and attention, as his practice had become one 
 of important and representative character. In the 
 national campaign of 1912, however, he was a zeal- 
 ous worker in behalf of the cause of his party, as 
 one of the leaders of the republican forces in 
 Minnesota. He had, however, come to look more 
 closely to the legal rather than to the administrative 
 and legislative phases of government, and he has 
 consistently maintained the highest of civic ideals 
 without reference to mere partisanship in political 
 affairs. His strong stand in this respect may be said 
 to have led to his being called to the important judi- 
 cial office in which he is now giving admirable serv- 
 ice. In 1913 he was appointed, by Governor Eber- 
 hart, one of the three judges of the Municipal Court, 
 this appointment having been made to fill a vacancy 
 caused by the elevation of the regular incumbent 
 to the district bench. 
 
 The admirable professional ability and marked 
 civic loyalty of Judge Bardwell have likewise given 
 him special prominence and influence in various fra- 
 ternal, business and social organizations with which 
 lie is identified. He has held membership on im- 
 portant committees of the Minneapolis Civic & Com- 
 merce Association ; he served as secretary and mem- 
 ber of the executive committee of the Hennepin 
 County Bar Association; on the 1st of April, 1914, 
 he retired from the office of exalted ruler of Min- 
 neapolis Lodge, No. 44, Benevolent and Protective 
 Order of Elks ; and prominent among other organi- 
 zations with which he is identified may be men- 
 tioned the American Bar Association, the Minne- 
 sota State Bar Association-, the Masonic fraternity, 
 the Royal Arcanum, the Minneapolis Athletic Club, 
 the Minneapolis Automobile Club and the University 
 Club. He and his wife hold membership in the 
 Congregational Church, and Mrs. Bardwell is a 
 prominent and popular figure in the social life of 
 her home city, where she was elected president of 
 the Elks Women’s Bowling Club in March, 1914, a 
 preferment that indicates her prowess in the line of 
 sport designated, as well as her personal popularity. 
 
 On the 24th of February, 1892, was solemnized 
 the marriage of Judge Bardwell to Miss Edith May 
 Champlin, who was born and reared in Minneapolis 
 and who is a daughter of Charles N. and Marian 
 (Sherman) Champlin, her father being now de- 
 ceased and her mother being a resident of the State 
 of Massachusetts. Judge and Mrs. Bardwell have 
 three children, all of whom remain at the parental 
 home, — Mildred I., Charles Champlin, and Marian 
 A. The elder daughter was graduated in the West 
 High School of Minneapolis as a member of the 
 class of 1912 and the two younger children are still 
 attending the public schools. 
 
 Chelsea J. Rockwood. As a representative mem- 
 ber of the Minneapolis bar and as a citizen of high 
 civic ideals and utmost loyalty Mr. Rockwood is 
 consistently accorded recognition in this history. He 
 
 has been a resident of Minnesota since boyhood 
 and is a member of a family whose name has been 
 one of no little prominence in the annals of this 
 commonwealth, besides which’ he is a scion, in both 
 the paternal and maternal lines, of staunch New 
 England stock, the respective families having been 
 founded in America in the colonial era of our na- 
 tional history. Mr. Rockwood controls a substantial 
 and representative law business in the Minnesota 
 metropolis, where he has served for many years as 
 attorney for the Minneapolis Board of Park Com- 
 missioners. 
 
 Chelsea Joseph Rockwood was born on a farm 
 near Bennington, Vermont, on the 13th of Septem- 
 ber, 1855, and the ancestral homestead which was 
 the place of his nativity became the property and 
 home of his maternal great-grandfather, Moses 
 Hurd, in the year 1769. Mr. Rockwood is a son of 
 Rev. Joseph R. and Rhoda (Hurd) Rockwood, both 
 of whom were born and reared in the old Green 
 Mountain State, where their marriage was solem- 
 nized and where in his earlier years of independ- 
 ent activity the father was a farmer by vocation. 
 He was a man of strong individuality and fine at- 
 tainments, and finally became a member of the clergy 
 of the Baptist Church, of which denomination he 
 became an early and honored representative in Min- 
 nesota. In 1869 he came with his family to this 
 state and established his home at Garden City, Blue 
 Earth County, where he held a pastoral incum- 
 bency, as did he later also at Norwood, Le Sueur and 
 other villages, his consecrated zeal and devotion 
 being on a parity yvith his recognized ability and 
 nobility of character. He labored in his high calling 
 for many years and was a resident of Garden City 
 at the time of his death, which occurred in March, 
 1904. His widow continued to maintain her home 
 in that place until she too was summoned to the life 
 eternal, in June, 1911, her memory being revered by 
 all who came within the sphere of her gentle and 
 gracious influence. Of the children five attained 
 to years of maturity and are now living, and of the 
 number Chelsea J., of this review, was the second in 
 order of birth. 
 
 Chelsea J. Rockwood acquired his rudimentary 
 education in the schools of his native state and was 
 a lad of fourteen, years at the time of the family 
 removal to Minnesota. Here he continued his studies 
 in the public schools of Garden City and in the pre- 
 paratory department of Carlton College, at North- 
 field, besides which he had the beneficent influences 
 of a home of distinctive culture and refinement. 
 After the completion of his collegiate preparatory 
 course Mr. Rockwood was matriculated in the aca- 
 demic or literary department of the University of 
 Minnesota, in which he completed the prescribed 
 four years’ course and was graduated as a member 
 of the class of 1879, with the degree of Bachelor of 
 Arts. Like many other students in the university 
 Mr. Rockwood depended largely upon his own re- 
 sources in defraying his incidental expenses. His 
 cash capital was but $50 at the time when he entered 
 the university, and he carried newspapers and did 
 other work that gave him sufficient emolument to 
 enable him to complete his course, such discipline 
 proving of value and begetting the greater apprecia- 
 tion of the value of the education which he received. 
 He has retained a deep affection for his alma mater, 
 and this was significantly shown in the year 1905, 
 when he initiated the movement which has resulted 
 in the procuring of the larger and present fine 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1427 
 
 campus of the university. Under his leadership the 
 alumni of the institution attempted to have the board 
 of regents put themselves on record as requesting 
 from the State Legislature an appropriation for 
 the purchase of more land for the campus. This 
 effort failed, but it directed attention to a much 
 needed improvement and the matter was not per- 
 mitted to be dropped until the desired end was at- 
 tained and an appropriation made. When it became 
 necessary to select an attorney to represent the at- 
 torney general of the state in the incidental legal 
 proceedings Mr. Rockwood was enlisted for the 
 work, as the unanimous choice of the board of 
 regents of the university, and with all of zeal he 
 applied himself to the formulating and carrying for- 
 ward of the plans that have resulted in giving to 
 the university a campus in consonance with the dig- 
 nity and requirements ofi the institution, this work 
 having received his attention during the course of 
 several years, his service as attorney for the board 
 of regents having continued from 1907 until 1910. 
 
 After his graduation in the University of Minne- 
 sota Mr. Rockwood held for two years the position 
 of principal of the public schools of LeSueuer, but 
 he utilized the pedagogic profession only as a 
 means to an end, as he had determined to prepare 
 himself for the legal profession. He read law under 
 the effective preceptorship of the firm of Shaw, 
 Levi & Cray, of Minneapolis, and continued his tech- 
 nical studies thereafter in the office of Judge P. M. 
 Babcock, another of the representative members of 
 the Minneapolis bar. In November, 1882, upon ex- 
 amination before the District Court of Hennepin 
 County, Mr. Rockwood was admitted to the bar, 
 and he has since been engaged in the active and suc- 
 cessful practice of his profession in the City of 
 Minneapolis, where in later years he has given 
 special attention to corporation law. For more than 
 thirty years he had thus applied himself assiduously 
 and effectively to the work of his chosen profession, 
 in which he has achieved marked prestige and suc- 
 cess, with recognized resourcefulness as a trial 
 lawyer and marked versatility as a counselor. From 
 1889 t° 18 92 he held the post of attorney for the 
 Minneapolis Board of Park Commissioners and 
 after an interim of about two years, in 1895, he was 
 again appointed to this office, of which he has con- 
 tinued the incumbent to the present time and in 
 which he has done much to facilitate and further 
 the progressive policies of the board that has ef- 
 fectively maintained and extended the fine park 
 system of the Minnesota metropolis. His inter- 
 regnum as attorney for the commissioners was 
 caused by the fact that from 1893 to 1895 he him- 
 self was a member of the board. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to state that as a citizen 
 Mr. Rockwood has been animated by distinctive 
 loyalty and public spirit, and while he has subordi- 
 nated all other interests to the demands of his pro- 
 fession and has manifested no desire for political 
 preferment, he is known as a stalwart and effective 
 advocate of the principles and policies of the re- 
 publican party. He is a member of the American 
 Bar Association, the Minnesota State Bar Associa- 
 tion and the Minneapolis Bar Association. He is 
 an appreciative and valued member of the Minne- 
 apolis Civic & Commerce Association, of which he 
 is serving as attorney in 1914, and he holds mem- 
 bership in the Minneapolis Club and University 
 Club in his home city, both he and his family being 
 
 zealous members of Trinity Baptist Church. He 
 maintains his law offices in the Andrus Building. 
 
 On the 30th of October, 1883, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Rockwood to Miss Carrie D. 
 Fletcher, of Mankato, this state, she likewise having 
 been graduated in the University of Minnesota as a 
 member of the class of 1882. She died February 7, 
 1915. Concerning the children of this union brief 
 record is given in conclusion of this sketch : Paul 
 died in 1890, at the age of sixteen years; Ethel was 
 graduated in the North High School and then en- 
 tered the University of Minnesota, in which she 
 was graduated as a member of the class of 1907, and 
 is now a teacher in the Duluth High School ; Edith 
 likewise completed the curriculum of the North 
 High School and in 1909 was graduated in the Uni- 
 versity of Minnesota, after which she completed a 
 post-graduate course in Columbia University, in New 
 York City, from which historic institution she re- 
 ceived in 1913 the degree of Master of Arts ; 
 Fletcher was graduated in the North High School 
 and was graduated in the engineering department of 
 the University of Minnesota as a member of the 
 class of 1914. 
 
 The following extracts from an article that ap- 
 peared in the Minneapolis Journal of February 11, 
 19x4, are worthy of preservation in this connection: 
 “Edith Rockwood, daughter of C. J. Rockwood, 
 attorney for the Minneapolis park board, after tak- 
 ing a master’s degree in sociology at Columbia Uni- 
 versity, being employed by the New York bureau 
 of municipal research, and more recently engaged in 
 school survey work in Ohio, to-day became identi- 
 fied with the municipal research bureau of the Min- 
 neapolis Civic & Commerce Association. Miss Rock- 
 wood was a student at North High School, and she 
 studied economics, history and sociology at the Uni- 
 versity of Minnesota, from which she was graduated 
 in 1909. The first work that Miss Rockwood ex- 
 pects to do in Minneapolis will be in the nature of 
 a survey of the health department. ‘I expect to 
 utilize in the Minneapolis work the experience I 
 have gained elsewhere and to be of general service 
 to the municipal research bureau,’ said Miss Rock- 
 wood.” 
 
 Michael W. Nash. On February 26, 1915, death 
 removed Michael W. Nash, said to be the second 
 oldest resident of Minneapolis. His home has been 
 in that city for more than sixty years, a period of 
 time measured by accomplishments and influence 
 far beyond those of the average citizen. The late 
 Mr. Nash was identified with banking and real estate 
 affairs in Minneapolis, was at one time prominent 
 in politics, and was one of the leading men in Cath- 
 olic Church circles. 
 
 Michael Walter Nash was born in County Tipper- 
 ary, Ireland, September 24, 1843. He was seven 
 years old when his parents came to America, and in 
 1851 the family settled in St. Paul. From that 
 city they removed to Minneapolis in 1854 and Mrs. 
 Nash opened a boarding house near the site of the 
 Great Northern Station. Michael W. Nash received 
 most of his early training in the schools of the 
 Twin Cities, and at an early age began working for 
 himself. He was in the flour business, and his fore- 
 sight and judgment prompted him to invest all his 
 surplus capital in local real estate. His investments 
 were centered in the downtown district near the old 
 Union Station. At one time he owned the site of 
 the station, and at the time of his death owned 
 
1428 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 property in that locality. He contributed materially 
 to the growth and development of the city, especially 
 in promoting and assisting in the construction of 
 the Minneapolis Exposition Building. That old 
 Minneapolis landmark is now owned and occupied 
 by M. W. Savage, the stock food merchant. Mr. 
 Nash was also instrumental in the erection of the 
 Labor Temple. 
 
 Throughout his residence in Minneapolis he took 
 an active part in civic affairs. He served twelve 
 years as a county commissioner, first from 1888 to 
 1896 and again from 1900 to 1904. He was a char- 
 ter* member of the old Commercial Club. He was 
 always liberal in using his means for the public bene- 
 fit, and particularly in assisting the various institu- 
 tions of the Catholic Church. He was one of the 
 builders of the Catholic Orphanage, and as a mem- 
 ber of the board arranged for the purchase of land 
 so the property cost the board nothing. At the time 
 of his death he was an officer in the Minnesota Ter- 
 ritorial Pioneers Association. While a member of 
 the board of county commissions he helped to plan 
 and build the city and county building in Min- 
 neapolis. 
 
 For a quarter of century the late Mr. Nash lived 
 at his home at 513 Sixth Street, South, and later 
 removed to the residence in which he died at 2018 
 Hennepin Avenue. 
 
 In 1876 Michael W. Nash married Mary Brennen 
 who survives him. There were four children in 
 the family : Anna M., who is engaged in teaching 
 in the Harrison School; Julia A., who teaches a 
 class in the Emerson School ; Edward M., and Mar- 
 garet A., at home. All the children were born in 
 Minneapolis and are graduates of the high school, 
 while Anna and Julia graduated from the Univer- 
 sity of Minnesota. 
 
 Edward M. Nash. One of the most forceful of 
 the younger citizens of Minneapolis, Edward M. 
 Nash has always utilized his excellent legal talents 
 in the furtherance of what he has conceived to be 
 for the best interests of the community, merging 
 the two characters of lawyer and citizen into a 
 high individual combination which has been gen- 
 erally recognized as an example well worthy of 
 emulation. In the prolific field of personal injury 
 and damage law he has attained a deservedly high 
 place, and his position at the bar is that of a 
 thorough and learned practitioner. 
 
 Edward M. Nash is a native son of Minneapolis 
 born February 13, 1881, a son of the late Michael 
 W. Nash mentioned above. He was graduated in 
 the class of 1899 from the old Central High School, 
 which his sisters also attended, following which 
 he took an academic course of two years at the 
 University of Minnesota. He then became deputy 
 clerk of the District Court, and while discharging 
 the duties of that office began attending the night 
 classes in law at the University of Minnesota. In 
 1906 he was admitted to practice, his university giv- 
 ing him his degree. After serving about four years 
 as deputy under Clerk C. N. Dickey, Mr. Nash 
 began the active practice of his chosen calling, in 
 which he has met with splendid success, particularly 
 in his special field of damages and personal injury 
 law, his connection with which has made him a 
 more or less familiar figure in the courts. For a 
 time Mr. Nash was connected with the Canadian 
 Land Company, for which he served as attorney, 
 and also made considerable investments in its behalf. 
 
 Mr. Nash belongs to the Modern Woodmen of 
 America, the Royal Arcanum and the Knights of 
 Columbus, in the last named of which he has at- 
 tained to the fourth, or highest, degree. He belongs 
 also to the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Asso- 
 ciation, and the Minneapolis Automobile Club, is a 
 charter member of the Native Sons of Minnesota 
 and until recently held membership in the University 
 Club. He is popular with his associates both in 
 and outside of his profession. Mr. Nash’s offices 
 are maintained at No. 1203 Plymouth Building. 
 
 William Spencer Kingsley. Having left school 
 at the age of fifteen to learn the carpenter’s trade, 
 William S. Kingsley has for thirty years been stead- 
 ily progressing towards independence, and in the 
 meantime has controlled a large business as a general 
 contractor, has worked all over the Northwest, and 
 his activities in their results can be pointed out in a 
 score of places not only in Faribault but elsewhere. 
 
 William Spencer Kingsley was born in St. Paul, 
 Minnesota, January 25, 1869. His grandfather was a 
 native of Scotland, and came from the vicinity of 
 Edinburgh to America, locating in New York State. 
 S. J. Kingsley, father of the Faribault contractor, 
 was born at Utica, New York, in 1836 and died in 
 Faribault in 1895. He followed the great exodus of 
 people to California during the gold excitement of 
 1849, and during his residence on the Pacific coast 
 enlisted with a California regiment and for more 
 than three years served as a soldier in the American 
 Civil war. On returning East he located at Fort 
 Atkinson, Wisconsin, finally moved to St. Paul, Min- 
 nesota, and in 1870 to Faribault. During the greater 
 part of his active career he was a general contractor. 
 S. J. Kingsley married Mary Greenville, a native of 
 New York State, who now lives in Faribault. 
 
 William Spencer Kingsley was brought to Fari- 
 bault in infancy, was educated in the public schools, 
 and having gone so far as was deemed necessary in 
 book learning left to prepare Himself for the prac- 
 tical vocation of carpenter at the age of fifteen, and 
 by the time he was eighteen was employed in railroad 
 work at Devils Lake in North Dakota. The follow- 
 ing year he returned to Faribault, but a year later 
 went out to Great Falls, Montana, on railway con- 
 struction work for a year, and for the following 
 three years was with the Boston-Montana Smelting 
 Company. Again returning to Faribault in 1892, Mr. 
 Kingsley was in business as a contractor until 1905, 
 and then did railway construction contracting in 
 Montana until 1908. In the latter year began his 
 partnership relations with Albert G. Payant at Fari- 
 bault. which continued until 1915, and since that time 
 he has been alone in business. His operations have 
 been rapidly growing and have given him a hand in 
 much of the building construction and general con- 
 tracting in this state. His offices are maintained at 
 5H Central Avenue, North. The field of activities 
 covers Minnesota and Wisconsin. He was identified 
 at Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, with the building of 
 the Anna M. Rutlege Memorial Home. Other 
 structures erected were the Faribault High School, a 
 number of buildings for the Institute for the Feeble 
 Minded at Faribault, the Institute for the Deaf and 
 Dumb, and the Institute for the Blind in that city, 
 besides a large number of residences and private 
 business houses. 
 
 Mr. Kingsley is now serving on the local board for 
 the Deaf and Dumb and for the Blind. Institute at 
 Faribault. He is a republican in politics. Frater- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1429 
 
 nally his affiliations are with Faribault Lodge No. 9, 
 A. F. & A. M„ Faribault Chapter, R. A. M. ; Fari- 
 bault Commandery No. 8, K. T. ; and Zurah Temple 
 of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. Mr. Kingsley 
 is treasurer of the Faribault Agricultural and Fair 
 Association. 
 
 On June 5, 1896, at Wells, Minnesota, Mr. Kings- 
 ley married Miss Julia Kenney, daughter of John D. 
 Kenney, now deceased, formerly a farmer at Rich- 
 land, Minnesota. Mr. Kingsley and wife have two 
 children: Raymond W. and Mary E., both pupils 
 
 in the Faribault High School. The family home is at 
 719 West Division Street. 
 
 Clive T. Jaffray. The financiers who have left 
 the impress of their abilities on the banking history 
 of the Northwest have been, almost without excep- 
 tion, men of affairs, with little instruction in science. 
 Stepping from the counter or office to the counting- 
 room, they have demonstrated their fitness to be 
 leaders by soundness of judgment and skill in man- 
 agement, force in organization and general ability 
 in handling the moneys of corporation or individual. 
 It was with such training and qualifications that 
 Clive T. Jaffray, now vice president of the First 
 National Bank of Minneapolis, has for more than 
 a quarter of a century been identified with the bank- 
 ing interests of that city. He is also an influential 
 and public-spirited citizen, and one well known in 
 club and social circles of Minneapolis. 
 
 Mr. Jaffray was born in Canada, a son of W. 
 Jaffray, a resident of Berlin, Ontario, and for a 
 number of years postmaster at that place. After an 
 education in the public schools of Berlin, Mr. Jaffray 
 at once began training for a business career. His 
 first banking experience was in the Merchants Bank 
 of Canada. Entering the service of that institution 
 in 1882, he continued to be associated with it for 
 five years. A Canadian bank is an unexcelled school 
 of training in the details and routine of commercial 
 banking, and with- this valuable experience, in 1887 
 he resigned his position and came to Minneapolis. 
 Shortly after his arrival, he became a clerk with the 
 Northwestern National Bank, was made bookkeeper 
 in 1889, and two years later was appointed to the 
 post of assistant cashier, an office which he retained 
 until 1895. In that year he was offered and accepted 
 the position of cashier of the First National Bank 
 of Minneapolis, which was then, as now, one of the 
 leading financial institutions of the state. After 
 nine years in the cashiership, in 1965 Mr. Jaffray 
 became the vice president of the institution, and 
 has continued to act in that capacity to the present 
 time. 
 
 Mr. Jaffray is well known in local club and social 
 life, and is a member of the more prominent or- 
 ganizations, including the Minneapolis Club, the 
 Minikahda Club, the Minneapolis Athletic Club and 
 the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Association. 
 Taking an active interest in athletic sports, he is a 
 member of the Minneapolis and 1 Long Meadow Gun 
 clubs and an enthusiastic golfer. Mr. Jaffray is 
 married and has a beautiful home on Mount Curne 
 Avenue. 
 
 John Cochrane Sweet. During the twenty years 
 since his admission to the Minnesota bar, John 
 Cochrane Sweet has enjoyed not only the success 
 and distinctions of the able lawyer, but has also 
 proved the value of his service in various field out- 
 side of his immediate profession. 
 
 Born April 24, 1870, at Fort Wayne, Indiana, 
 John Cochrane Sweet is descended from ancestors 
 who came from England and settled in Rhode Is- 
 land in 1630. His parents were Kay Chittenden and 
 Elizabeth (Cochranej Sweet. His father was for 
 many years a locomotive engineer, but later became 
 a merchant in North Dakota. 
 
 In Fort Wayne, where his boyhood was spent, 
 Mr. Sweet attended the public schools, moved to 
 Waseca, Minnesota, in 1882, continuing his public 
 school education there, and in 1890 went to Mankato 
 and the following year came to Minneapolis to 
 enter the university. His university career was one 
 of unusual accomplishment. At the college Field 
 Day in 1892 he won a gold medal for first place 
 in the 220-yard dash, and in 1893 was awarded the 
 Paige prize for the best graduation thesis. His 
 studies were then continued in the law department 
 of the university, and in 1893 he was awarded the 
 LL. B. degree and in 1896 the university made him 
 LL. M. 
 
 When the Spanish- American war broke out Mr. 
 Sweet entered the United States service as second 
 lieutenant in Company A of the Fifteenth Minne- 
 sota Volunteer Infantry. His legislative record 
 comprised his membership in the lower house during 
 the sessions of 1901 and 1902, representing the 
 Thirty-ninth District. From 1896 to 1908 he was 
 lecturer on the law of mortgages in the law de- 
 partment of the State University. Since 1902 his 
 office has been with Sen. W. S. Dwinnell. In 1908 
 Mr. Sweet was assistant United States attorney, and 
 since July, 1909, has given his attention chiefly to 
 the practice of law. 
 
 The social and civic bodies of which he is a 
 member include the Minneapolis Civic and Com- 
 merce Association ; the Minneapolis Club ; the 
 Minikahda Country Club ; the Minneapolis Auto- 
 mobile Club; Cataract Lodge, No. 2, A. F. & A. M. ; 
 Psi Upsilon Association of Minnesota ; the Phi Delta 
 Phi Fraternity; and he takes much interest in ath- 
 letics and automobiling. His church home is the 
 First Congregational Church of Minneapolis. 
 
 On May 19, 1897, Mr. Sweet married Miss Mary 
 Lougee, daughter of the Minnesota pioneer, Charles 
 D. Lougee, whose interesting career is sketched else- 
 where in this work. Mrs. Sweet is also a graduate 
 of the University of Minnesota. Their three daugh- 
 ters are: Catherine Elizabeth, born 1901; Margaret 
 Cochrane, born 1903 ;■ and Mary Lougee, born 1909. 
 
 Charles D. Lougee. Very few of the real pio- 
 neers, the men who met and conquered the condi- 
 tions of the decade before the Civil war in Minne- 
 sota, are still surviving into these years of the twen- 
 tieth century, and for that reason the more interest 
 attaches to such a character and figure as Charles 
 D. Lougee, now living retired at Minneapolis. Mr. 
 Lougee in his day of active work was an associate 
 with the Pillsburys and other leaders in industry 
 and commerce and in public affairs in Minnesota. 
 He has won his wealth and position by clean and 
 legitimate business dealings and by participation in 
 several departments of activity, including lumbering, 
 land and real estate, farming and live stock, and 
 although practically retired from business, his name 
 is still an influence in the financial district of 
 Minneapolis. 
 
 Of New England birth and lineage, Charles D. 
 Lougee was born at Barnstead, New Hampshire. 
 His parents were Samuel and Betsy (Nutter) 
 
1430 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Lougee, both of English stock. The father, a 
 farmer, moved west to Minnesota in 1857, settling 
 in Rice County, where he bought land from a man 
 who had entered it direct from the Government, 
 and eventually came to own two large farms. 
 
 Mr. Lougee was already grown to manhood when 
 the family came West to Minnesota Territory and 
 established a home in Rice County. While living 
 on a farm in New England his advantages for at- 
 tending school were necessarily limited, but during 
 a residence of a year or so at Manchester, New 
 Hampshire, he managed to secure a fair academic 
 preparation, and possessing shrewd native ability, 
 and the typical New England industry, was able to 
 embrace his opportunities when they came. His 
 business career has been one of unusual success and 
 accomplishment. About i860 Mr. Lougee drove six- 
 teen hundred sheep from Ypsilanti, Michigan, around 
 by way of Chicago to Rice County, Minnesota. For 
 more than half a century he has kept land and en- 
 gaged in farming operations on an extensive scale. 
 
 One of his early purchases in Minnesota was the 
 buying of 1,000 acres of land for which he paid 
 $3,000. That same land is today worth approximately 
 $70 an acre. For many years he numbered among 
 his possessions a prize farm of 640 acres in Kan- 
 diyohi County, all of it under cultivation, and he 
 has sold as high as 150 head of cattle at a time. 
 
 When Mr. Lougee removed from Rice County to 
 Minneapolis in 1867, he engaged in the milling busi- 
 ness, and in partnership with Thomas Croswell 
 owned and operated a mill on the east side under 
 the firm name of Croswell & Lougee. At the end 
 of six years Mr. Lougee sold out his interest and 
 next engaged in lumbering, investing heavily in the 
 pine land of Minnesota in association with the late 
 Governor Pillsbury and under the firm name of 
 Pillsbury & Lougee Lumber Company. Mr. Lougee 
 was in active practice in Minnesota lumber circles 
 for about twelve years. His operations were en- 
 tirely confined to the wholesale department of the 
 business. The logs were brought in to the mill 
 here, and after being worked up into lumber, the 
 product was sold to the wholesale trade in yard 
 lots, usually running from five to six million feet 
 or whatever happened to be in the yard after the 
 consignment of logs had been worked up. 
 
 For the past twenty years Mr. Lougee has lived 
 practically retired and makes no pretensions as an 
 active business man. He was one of the charter 
 members of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, 
 but gave up his seat some years ago. 
 
 It would be difficult to enumerate and describe 
 the breadth and accomplishment of such a career 
 as Mr. Lougee's. When he was a young man in 
 Rice County he lived in the midst of Indians, but 
 all of them were of a peaceful nature and he never 
 experienced any trouble directly from them. Soon 
 after the beginning of the war and the uprising of 
 the Sioux tribes in Minnesota, Mr. Lougee enlisted 
 in a cavalry company organized in Rice County on 
 August 20, 1862, this company comprising about one 
 hundred men who enlisted at Faribault under Capt. 
 David D. Lloyd, and was known as the Capt. David 
 D. Lloyd Company in Colonel Sibley’s expedition. 
 Mr. Lougee served as a private and was with the 
 company when it reached Fort Ridgley, Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Lougee has relations with many banks as a 
 stockholder, including the First National Bank, the 
 Northwestern National Bank, the Commercial Na- 
 tional Bank, and also the First National Bank of 
 
 Great Falls, Montana. At different times executive 
 offices have been urged upon him, but he always 
 declined any greater responsibility than that of di- 
 rector. Though not a member of any church, Mr. 
 Lougee supports and attends the First Congregational 
 Church of Minneapolis. 
 
 On November 28, 1872, Mr. Lougee married Miss 
 Cathrine Sperry of Waterbury, Connecticut. She 
 was. a sister of Admiral Sperry, who commanded the 
 great fleet which left Hampton Roads and cruised 
 around the world. Another brother was Mark L. 
 Sperry of Waterbury, Connecticut. Mrs. Lougee’s 
 death occurred at Minneapolis, October 27, 1889. 
 To their marriage were born four daughters and two 
 sons, three of whom are now living as follows : 
 Mrs. John C. Sweet, whose husband is one of the 
 leading lawyers of Minneapolis ; Mrs. Arthur A. 
 Law, wife of a prominent Minneapolis surgeon; and 
 Clara Louise, an artist by profession and a graduate 
 of the Chicago Art Institute. The daughters are all 
 graduates of the East Side High School and of the 
 University of Minnesota. On July 12, 1894, in Min- 
 neapolis, Mr. Lougee married Miss Harriet Brown, 
 daughter of Judge Fred Brown. Her father was a 
 veteran of the Civil war, having served with an 
 Illinois company, and for many years held the office 
 of postmaster at Aurora, Illinois, where he died in 
 1912. Mrs. Lougee was born and reared in Aurora, 
 Illinois. In 1909 Mr. Lougee, his wife and daughter, 
 Clara Louise, went abroad for an extended tour of 
 Asia and the Holy Land. The family home is one 
 of social culture and refinement, and is located at 
 No. 1103 Southeast Fifth Street, Minneapolis, 
 Minnesota. 
 
 William Hood Dunwoody. Estimated in terms of 
 good citizenship, wisely and generously directed to 
 the use and benefit of the citizens of Minneapolis, 
 it can be claimed that the late William FI. Dun- 
 woody has done more for his home city and state 
 than any other individual. William H. Dunwoody 
 was a resident of Minneapolis from 1869 until his 
 death on February 8, 1914. It was as a miller, an 
 expert in both the technical and commercial phases 
 of the industry, that he laid the foundation for his 
 great wealth. As a matter of course his activities 
 had a wide scope, and while the chief interests and 
 work of his life were in the milling industry, he 
 was also a banker, a liberal patron of art, and an 
 influential factor in all the broader phases of civic 
 life. 
 
 William Hood Dunwoody was born March 14, 
 1841, on a farm at Newtown Center, Pennsylvania, 
 eleven miles from Philadelphia. His father, grand- 
 father and great-grandfather had been farmers in 
 Chester County, and the Dunwoodys have been 
 Scotch Presbyterians through many generations, both 
 in this country and in the old. James Dunwoody, 
 the father, was a man of high standing in his com- 
 munity in Chester County. The mother, whose 
 maiden name was Hannah Hood, was the daughter 
 of William Hood of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, 
 and a descendant from John Hood who came to 
 Pennsylvania with other followers of William Penn 
 from Leicestershire, England, in 1684. The Hood 
 family were Quakers, and from his mother the late 
 Mr. Dunwoody probably acquired the qualities of 
 quiet demeanor, reserve of manner, gentle courtesy 
 and slow, deliberate speech, which his associates 
 recall as among his best known characteristics. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1431 
 
 William H. Dunwoody spent his boyhood on his 
 father’s farm, and when about fourteen years of age 
 began attending school in Philadelphia. His practical 
 career began at eighteen, when, instead of returning 
 to his father’s farm, he entered the office of an 
 uncle engaged in the grain and flour trade in Phila- 
 delphia. That gave the permanent direction to his 
 career. At the age of twenty-three, so rapid had 
 been his advance, he was senior member of the firm 
 of Dunwoody & Robertson, flour merchants at 
 Philadelphia. 
 
 Mr. Dunwoody arrived in Minneapolis in Septem- 
 ber, 1869, being then twenty-eight years of age. 
 He was led to make his home in the Northwest 
 through a desire to center his activities in what he 
 realized was the largest field of production and 
 what ultimately would become the chief milling 
 center of America. In 1871 he was member of 
 the firm of Tiffany, Dunwoody & Company, operating 
 the old Arctic Mill. He was also manager of the 
 firm of H. Darrow & Company, operating the Union 
 Mill. At a time when the Millers’ Association was 
 performing its service in behalf of centralized mar- 
 keting and cooperation in buying and selling, Mr. 
 Dunwoody was manager and general agent of the 
 association, which later was succeeded by the Min- 
 neapolis Chamber of Commerce. 
 
 While his work was so important in perfecting the 
 methods of buying and in opening up new fields for 
 distribution, Mr. Dunwoody was first and last a 
 technical miller, and is said to have been one of the 
 men largely responsible for the introduction of the 
 roller process of flour milling, which did more than 
 any other one thing to revolutionize flour manu- 
 facture. He was also identified with several of the 
 large companies that established elevators and branch 
 houses throughout the Northwest, thus concentrat- 
 ing the grain trade at Minneapolis. Mr. Dunwoody 
 was selected by the late C. C. Washburn to go to 
 Europe and undertake to break down the barriers 
 which up to that time had prevented Minneapolis 
 from its proper recognition as the market and manu- 
 facturing source of the American cereal industry. 
 Up to that time Minneapolis manufacturers had 
 been compelled to confine their dealings largely 
 with eastern grain and flour commission dealers, and 
 had no direct connection with the great markets and 
 consumption centers abroad. Mr. Dunwoody is 
 credited with an important share in the work which 
 brought Minneapolis into direct connection with 
 England and the continental markets of Europe. 
 
 From the reorganization of the Minneapolis milling 
 interests in 1878, making the firm of Washburn, 
 Crosby & Company, Mr. Dunwoody was intimately 
 identified with this world’s greatest flour business 
 almost to the end of his life. He was likewise an 
 influential factor in the Northwestern National Bank 
 and the Minnesota Loan & Trust Company, and 
 had other business connections too numerous to 
 mention. 
 
 A short time before leaving Pennsylvania Mr. 
 Dunwoody married Kate L. Patten, whose father, 
 John W. Patten, was a prominent leather merchant 
 in Philadelphia. Mrs. Dunwoody survives her hus- 
 band. There were no children of their own, but 
 Mr. Dunwoody took much interest in his three 
 nieces, the daughters of his deceased brother, John 
 Dunwoody, of Minneapolis. 
 
 What the late Mr. Dunwoody stood for during 
 his life in Minneapolis is best told in the words of 
 an article in a Minneapolis journal at the time of 
 voi. m— 11 
 
 his death : “William H. Dunwoody was a man of 
 
 such wide and diversified interests in Minneapolis 
 that his influence touched nearjy every department of 
 activity from finance and industry in which he was 
 a leader to civic betterment and the promotion of 
 art, the endowment of hospitals and extension con- 
 nection with charitable work. He was financier, 
 philanthropist and art patron, and an intensely loyal 
 Minneapolitan, interested in everything that would 
 make the city a better place to live. His benefactions 
 were so quietly administered and he was personally 
 so averse to talking of them, that it will be im- 
 possible, his intimate friends say, ever to measure 
 in full the work he did for the general good. 
 
 “No man in Minneapolis had wider interests. He 
 was chairman of the board of directors of the 
 Northwestern National Bank, of which formerly he 
 was president, a director of the Minnesota Loan & 
 Trust Company, president of the St. Anthony & 
 Dakota and St. Anthony Elevator companies, and 
 of the Barnum Grain Company,, vice president of 
 the Washburn-Crosby Company, and a director of 
 the Great Northern Railway Company. For more 
 than twenty-five years he was a member of the 
 Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce. His promi- 
 nence in the financial life of Minneapolis began 
 January 11, 1876, when he was elected a director 
 of the Northwestern National Bank to succeed 
 William Windom, who became secretary of the 
 treasury. 
 
 “Mr. Dunwoody was also president of the Min- 
 neapolis Society of Fine Arts and of the Civic Com- 
 mission. As head of the first organization he was 
 actively identified from its inception with the plan 
 for the great Minneapolis Art Museum now under 
 construction. As head of the Civic Commission, 
 which planned the greater Minneapolis of the future, 
 with its radiating streets and plazas, he gave much 
 time to the study of that problem. He donated to 
 Minneapolis the tract of land where Hopewell Hos- 
 pital stands, and was the patron of and builder of 
 the Abbott Hospital. He was a trustee of West- 
 minster Church, member of the Minneapolis, Mini- 
 kahda and Lafayette clubs, the Minnesota Club of 
 St. Paul, and the Metropolitan Club of New York. 
 
 “He was distinctively identified with the' North- 
 west and its growth and the growth of Minneapolis 
 for the reason that he was the first to find a direct 
 market for Minneapolis flour in Europe. In the 
 late ’90s, in a period when the formation of trusts 
 and consolidations of great corporations was rapidly 
 changing the economic conditions in the industrial 
 United States, Mr. Dunwoody, taking action which 
 meant defeat for the plan, put himself actively in 
 opposition to a scheme that originated in the East 
 for the organization of a flour trust, that was to 
 include the Minneapolis mills. This plan he fought 
 to its death. In a life of activity so diversified that 
 his identification with any one of several great moves 
 made his name widely known, his stand in opposi- 
 tion to the move for the combining of the Min- 
 neapolis mills probably gave him greater prominence 
 in the world of great corporations than anything 
 else he did.” 
 
 Of the many tributes that were paid to Mr. Dun- 
 woody at the time of his death, it will be sufficient 
 to quote two to indicate what were probably his 
 dominant characteristics of personality and busi- 
 ness integrity. Said T. B. Janney: “My acquaint- 
 
 ance with Mr. Dunwoody began forty years ago and 
 our friendship began at the same time and has been 
 
1432 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 continuous. He was the type of man whom it was 
 an honor to claim as friend. He was modest and 
 unassuming, but a man of great force of character, 
 quiet and sincere, loyal to friends and associates, 
 and intensely loyal to Minneapolis. He believed 
 in Minneapolis and in its future, not only in a 
 materialistic way, but also he believed in the eventual 
 development here of great movements for beautifi- 
 cation and good, clean citizenship, and everything 
 that should make it a great and a good city.” The 
 respect and esteem paid him by all his associates, 
 and by younger men in particular are illustrated in 
 the words of Louis W. Hill, who said : “He was 
 
 the kind of mature man that a younger man looks 
 up to and whose friendship he values. I had the 
 greatest admiration for that characteristic quiet and 
 unassuming manner that had back of it the firmest 
 resolution. To meet Mr. Dunwoody only casually 
 was not to know him at all. He was so courteous, 
 so mild, so gentle, that he gave no indication of 
 the immensity of the will and determination that 
 was in him. His philosophy of life was admirable. 
 Few knew that he did much to help people, and he 
 is one of the kind that never will get full credit for 
 all the good he did. But I do not think he cared 
 anything about that. He was satisfied if he could 
 do some good in the world, and after that he did 
 not want to talk about it.” 
 
 While Mr. Dunwoody left probably the largest 
 individual estate ever probated in Minneapolis, the 
 greater part of it, by the terms of the will, have 
 gone to benefactions and institutions which already 
 mean much and in the future will mean more to 
 his home city and state. The provisions of his 
 will directed that more than three million dollars 
 should be distributed as benefactions for Minneapolis, 
 over a million dollars for his native State of Penn- 
 sylvania, about three hundred thousand dollars to 
 Presbyterian boards, with approximately two million 
 dollars to family, friends and associates. Among the 
 chief bequests were the following: Dunwoody In- 
 
 dustrial Institution at Minneapolis, approximately 
 three millions; Minneapolis Society of Fine. Arts, 
 one million; Dunwoody Home for Convalescents on 
 the Newtown Farm in Pennsylvania, about one mil- 
 lion ; to the Westminster Presbyterian Church, 
 one hundred seventy-five thousand, and to three 
 different Presbyterian boards one hundred thousand 
 each. 
 
 For several years before his death Mr. Dun- 
 woody had been deeply interested in the Minneapolis 
 Society of Fine Arts, in which his wife was an 
 effective worker, and had announced a gift of one 
 hundred thousand dollars as a part of the fund nec- 
 essary to give permanence to the society at its begin- 
 ning. The bequest made in his will is to be expended 
 for the purchase of pictures and works of art, in 
 such a way that the society will have a fund within 
 fifty thousand and one hundred thousand dollars for 
 expenditures each year over a period of thirty 
 years. The purpose of Mr. Dunwoody in sup- 
 plying a liberal fund for technical educa- 
 tion is stated in three sentences from the 
 will : “In the multiplied facilities for obtaining 
 
 liberal education by the youth of this state, enough 
 attention has not been given to instruction in the 
 industrial and mechanical arts. My purpose and 
 aim being to provide a place where the youth of 
 the city may learn the different handicrafts and 
 useful arts and thereby fit themselves for the better 
 performance of life’s duties.” While Mr. Dunwoody 
 
 primarily considered in this bequest the need of 
 thoroughly trained technical men in the milling 
 industry, the objects of the institute are not limited 
 to this one department of industry, and it will afford 
 means of technical training in practically all of the 
 industrial arts. The significance of this bequest is 
 best stated in the words of an editorial from a 
 Minneapolis paper: “It is not invidious to say 
 
 that, of the rich men who have made Minneapolis 
 and whom Minneapolis has made, Mr. Dunwoody 
 has shown the liveliest and most grateful appre- 
 ciation. That appreciation has taken the form of 
 a great educational institution which will discharge 
 an invaluable function in this community and in 
 the state. It will bridge a gap in our school system 
 whose existence has long been recognized, but means 
 for whose bridging the authorities have been at a 
 loss to find. For Minneapolis is a great industrial 
 city, and yet has been able to offer its youth almost 
 no opportunities for a proper start in industrial 
 vocations. It is this gap which the Dunwoody In- 
 stitute is to bridge, and the provision that has been 
 made lays the foundation broad and deep. Genera- 
 tions yet unborn will have reason to honor the name 
 of Dunwoody. The Minneapolis that is to be will 
 owe much of its industrial supremacy to what that 
 name represents.” 
 
 John Crosby. The development of American 
 business and industry during the last century pro- 
 duced a number of institutions and names that have 
 the familiar association of household words in the 
 minds of millions of- people. One of the most con- 
 spicuous is the Washburn-Crosby Company of flour 
 manufacturers at Minneapolis. It was the distinction 
 of the late John Crosby to be identified with the 
 business during its most important period of develop- 
 ment, while the mills were being revolutionized by 
 new processes and the industry outgrowing local 
 limitations and becoming a factor in world trade. 
 When he died over twenty-five years ago, the 
 foundations were firmly established. The spirit of 
 his enterprise is a part of the great company as it 
 exists today— the largest flour mills in the world, 
 with a daily capacity of 40,000 barrels, and with 
 mechanical and business organization that are the 
 last word in a perfect industrial system. 
 
 John Crosby was born at Hampden, Penobscot 
 County, Maine, November 1, 1829, and died at Min- 
 neapolis, December 29, 1887. The name John has 
 long been persistent in the family, having belonged 
 to his father and grandfather, both of whom resided 
 at Hampden, while his son, John, is now a director 
 and treasurer of the Washburn-Crosby Company, 
 and he in turn has a son of the same name. Mr. 
 Crosby’s grandfather, who moved from the New 
 Hampshire coast to Maine, represented a family of 
 Scotch origin that had been identified with New 
 England from the early Colonial times. The late 
 John Crosby’s father was a manufacturer, inter- 
 ested in paper mills. 
 
 John Crosby was the second in a family of ten 
 children. After obtaining an academic education in 
 his native town, he abandoned his plan of a college 
 training to go into business. His first experience 
 was in the management of the paper mills in which 
 his father was interested, and subsequently he be- 
 came identified with an iron foundry and machine 
 shop at Bangor, to which city he removed, making 
 Hampden and Bangor places of alternate residence 
 for a number of years. At Bangor occurred his 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1433 
 
 marriage to Miss Olive Muzzy, daughter of Hon. 
 Franklin Muzzy, a prominent manufacturer of the 
 city. Of this marriage there are three children : 
 John, whose relations with the Washburn-Crosby 
 Company have been mentioned ; Caroline M., of Min- 
 neapolis ; and Franklin M., a director in the Wash- 
 burn-Crosby Company, and in 19*4 president of the 
 Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce. Mrs. Crosby 
 died in Maine, and in 1879 Mr. Crosby married Miss 
 Emma Gilson, of Minneapolis, daughter of the late 
 F. A. Gilson. 
 
 After more than thirty years as a manufacturer 
 in New England, John Crosby brought his ripe 
 experience and capital to Minneapolis in 1877. Here 
 he bought an interest in the business of the Wash- 
 burn “B” flouring mill and assumed its manage- 
 ment. Later he took an active part in the operation 
 of all the mills built by Governor Washburn, under 
 the firm name of Washburn, Crosby & Company. 
 The business was subsequently incorporated as the 
 Washburn-Crosby Milling Company. 
 
 Mr. Crosby until his death was the chief director 
 of the business. That was a time when the im- 
 provements which have revolutionized the process 
 of flour milling were evolved, and it was due to 
 Mr. Crosby’s foresight and keen judgment that so 
 many of these were adopted in the Minneapolis mills. 
 Under his energetic, but prudent management, the 
 business prospered. 
 
 Though possessed of sterling qualities which 
 would have made him useful in public life, Mr. 
 Crosby preferred to serve the public best by con- 
 fining his attention to his business, and never sought 
 political honors. On public questions he had a 
 breadth and thoroughness of understanding beyond 
 most men, and was always positive in his opinions. 
 In his personal relations he had the true courtesy 
 of the heart, and was one of the kindly and genial 
 men of the older Minneapolis. 
 
 John Crosby, Jr. A son of the late John Crosby, 
 former president of the Washburn-Crosby Company, 
 John Crosby, Jr., is a lawyer by profession, has been 
 identified with the Minneapolis bar for twenty years 
 and made a successful record in his profession, but 
 for several years past his practice has been confined 
 to his duties as general counsel for the Washburn- 
 Crosby Company. Mr. Crosby was elected secretary 
 and treasurer of this great milling corporation on 
 the death of C. J. Martin, who had formerly been 
 secretary and treasurer. 
 
 John Crosby was born at Hampden, Maine, August 
 23, 1867, and was brought to Minneapolis by his 
 parents in 1876. After graduating from the Minne- 
 apolis High School in the class of 1884, he passed 
 two years in Phillips Academy at Andover, Massa- 
 chusetts, and in 1886 entered Yale University, where 
 he was graduated with the class of 1890. Among 
 the Yale men of his class he was a popular compan- 
 ion, stood high socially, and was recognized as pos- 
 sessing one of the most evenly balanced minds among 
 his college associates. He was awarded a number of 
 prizes in the general fields of scholarship. From 
 Yale Mr. Crosby entered the Harvard Law School, 
 and took the degree A. M. in 1893. 
 
 Mr. Crosby began practice at Minneapolis in the 
 fall of 1893, in the office of Judge Koon of Minne- 
 apolis, and subsequently was a partner with Messrs. 
 Kingman & Wallace, being associated with them 
 until 1910. While in the active work of his profes- 
 
 sion he also served in the city council four years, 
 and in that time was president of the council. 
 
 Mr. Crosby is a trustee of the Farmers & Me- 
 chanics Savings Bank, and director of the North- 
 western National Bank and Minneapolis Trust Com- 
 pany. In the will of the late William H. Dunwoody, 
 a sketch of whom is found on other pages of this 
 work, Mr. Crosby was selected as one of the execu- 
 tors of the estate and has had an important part in 
 exercising supervision over the varied bequests for 
 public and private uses designated in Mr. Dun- 
 woody’s instructions. 
 
 George W. Armstrong. During an active career 
 of fifteen years at Minneapolis, Mr. Armstrong has 
 enjoyed the relations and distinctions of the suc- 
 cessful lawyer, has been honored with election to 
 the State Legislature, and was one of the Minnesota 
 soldiers who saw actual service during the war in 
 the Philippines. He has been a resident of Min- 
 neapolis since boyhood, and his family has been 
 worthily identified with Minnesota history for more 
 than two score years. Mr. Armstrong, prior to 
 January 1, 1915, was senior member of the law firm 
 of Armstrong & Nash, with offices in the New York 
 Life Building. 
 
 George W. Armstrong was born in the village of 
 Wasioja, Dodge County, Minnesota, August 9, 1873. 
 His parents were Frederick N. and Lucy M. (Mills) 
 Armstrong, the former of whom died at Minneapolis 
 July 14, 1904, at the age of fifty-three, and the latter 
 still a resident of that city. Frederick N. Armstrong, 
 a native of St. Lawrence County, New York, was 
 about twelve years old when his family came west 
 and settled in Minnesota as pioneers, and the rest 
 of his youth was spent in this state, with an educa- 
 tion acquired in the early public schools. A resident 
 of Minnesota for forty-one years, he was for thirty 
 years a citizen of Minneapolis, and during twenty 
 years of this time held the position of superintendent 
 of the Diamond saw mills, one of the large industrial 
 enterprises of the state, and ill health finally com- 
 pelled him to resign his post about one year before 
 his death. In this long service he had displayed 
 ability, integrity and the best qualifications of the 
 industrial leader, while as a citizen he enjoyed a 
 position of influence and esteem in his home city. 
 He was prominent in the Masonic fraternity, and 
 had received the thirty-second degree of the Scottish 
 Rite. His funeral services were held according to 
 the impressive Masonic ritual. He was survived by 
 four sons, all of Minneapolis : George W., Charles 
 
 P., Leslie, and Arthur G. 
 
 During his lifetime of about forty years George 
 W. Armstrong has acquired many familiar asso- 
 ciations with the City of Minneapolis. It was there 
 that he was educated in the public schools, and was 
 graduated from the North Side High School with 
 the class of 1893. Continuing his studies in the 
 University of Minnesota, he graduated Bachelor of 
 Arts in 1898, and in the meantime had carried on 
 his studies in the law department, so that he received 
 the degree in law at the same time he was graduated 
 from the literary department. In 1901 the university 
 conferred upon him the degree Master of Laws. At 
 the close of his university career, Mr. Armstrong 
 enlisted for service in the Spanish-American war, 
 and after his return to the city was admitted to the 
 bar in October, 1899. He at once took up the practice 
 of his profession in his home city, and for the first 
 three years maintained an office in Temple Court 
 
1434 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 as an individual practitioner. For about one year 
 he was a member of the firm of Bond & Armstrong, 
 and was again alone until the fall of 1909. At that 
 date Mr. Armstrong became an assistant in the office 
 of the county attorney of Hennepin County, and on 
 the death of the county attorney, the late A 1 J. Smith, 
 was made first assistant county attorney during the 
 administration of John M. Rees. In January, 1911, 
 Mr. Armstrong formed a partnership with John P. 
 Nash, and the firm of Armstrong & Nash now has a 
 large and important share of general practice in 
 the Minneapolis courts. In January, 1915, Mr. Arm- 
 strong’s services were again enlisted in connection 
 with the office of county attorney, the newly elected 
 head of that office, John M. Rees, having appointed 
 him first special assistant, and in that capacity it is 
 expected he will conduct most of the criminal trials. 
 Mr. Armstrong’s principal forte as a lawyer has 
 been in the trial of cases, and he has appeared as 
 advocate in many of the important causes litigated, 
 both in the state and federal courts at Minneapolis. 
 
 On May 2, 1898, a few days after the United 
 States had declared war on Spain, and a few weeks 
 before his class graduated from the university, Mr. 
 Armstrong enlisted in Company A of the Thirteenth 
 Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. The command was 
 ordered west and sent to the Philippines, and was 
 kept in service in those islands for about a year. 
 The regiment returned to San Francisco and was 
 mustered out there October 12, 1899. Mr. Arm- 
 strong served as a private. All who were residents 
 of Minneapolis at the time will recall the unusual 
 honors paid to the returning volunteers, when 
 President McKinley was a central figure in the rous- 
 ing reception and ovation paid to the regiment. The 
 citizens had raised a fund by means of which Com- 
 pany A was returned to its home city. Mr. Arm- 
 strong keeps up the associations and memories of 
 his military service by his affiliations with the Span- 
 ish-American War Veterans’ Association. 
 
 Elected on the republican ticket, Mr. Armstrong 
 served as a representative of the Minneapolis dis- 
 trict in the State Legislature during the regular 
 sessions of 1901, 1903, and 1905, and in the special 
 session of 1902. In 1903 a pleasing honor was given 
 him in his election as speaker pro tern, during the 
 illness of the regular speaker. He did some influ- 
 ential and valuable work in committees and on the 
 floor of the house, particularly during the session 
 of 1903. Fraternally Mr. Armstrong is affiliated with 
 Plymouth Lodge, No. 160, A. F. & A. M., is a past 
 master, has taken the chivalric degrees in the Min- 
 neapolis Mounted Commandery of Knights Templar, 
 and also belongs to Zuhrah Temple of the Mystic 
 Shrine. He is also a member of Minneapolis Lodge, 
 No. 44, of the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks. Mr. Armstrong is a member of the Min- 
 neapolis Bar Association. 
 
 His attractive residence, recently completed, is at 
 Clear Spring, a Minneapolis suburb connected with 
 the city by the interurban electric line from Min- 
 neapolis to Lake Minnetonka. On March 10, 1913, 
 Mr. Armstrong married Helen Teel Clement. She 
 was born in one of the attractive New Jersey suburbs 
 of New York City, a daughter of Andrew P. Teel. 
 Mr. Teel until his death was for many years a promi 
 nent business man and citizen of Minneapolis, and 
 was connected with the state grain department. His 
 widow still lives in this city, where Mrs. Armstrong 
 was reared and educated. 
 
 Charles J. Tryon. In nearly thirty years of mem- 
 bership with the Minneapolis bar Mr. Tryon has 
 been both a successful and distinguished lawyer; 
 one whose talents and hard working ability have 
 enabled him to serve the interests of many and im- 
 portant clients, and who both as a citizen and busi- 
 ness man has become well known in his home 
 community. He is regarded as perhaps the most 
 expert authority in real estate and general commer- 
 cial law in Minneapolis, and through his practice has 
 become familiar with the legal and technical phases 
 of a greater part of Minneapolis realty. 
 
 Charles J. Tryon was born in Batavia, New York, 
 September 8, 1859. His parents were Anderson D. 
 and Amanda Hatch (Shepard) Tryon. His father, 
 who for many years was a druggist and bookseller in 
 Batavia, also served as county treasurer of Genesee 
 County, and was born in the Town of Florida, Herk- 
 imer County, New York, and died in Poughkeepsie, 
 New York, in 1906. His wife who was born in the 
 Town of Alabama, Genesee County, also died at 
 Poughkeepsie, at the home of her daughter in 1910. 
 They were the parents of five daughters and two 
 sons, and all are still living except one daughter. 
 This daughter, Josephine Phelps Tryon, followed her 
 brother to Minneapolis in 1894, graduated in 1898 
 from the University of Minnesota, subsequently 
 taught school in South Dakota and at Winona, Min- 
 nesota, received an appointment in the West Side 
 High School at the time of its organization, and was 
 the senior Latin teacher in that school. Her death 
 occurred in Minneapolis May 30, 1911, and she is 
 buried in Lakewood Cemetery. 
 
 Charles J. Tryon was educated in the Batavia 
 schools, graduating in 1874, and at the age of eight- 
 een he left home and soon afterwards found employ- 
 ment in the treasury department at Washington, and 
 while working there to earn his living also attended 
 the law school of Columbian University, now 
 known as the George Washington University, until 
 graduating in the class of 1882. During his early 
 youth he had had experience m his father’s store at 
 Batavia for four years, and alter being admitted to 
 the bar at Washington in 1882 remained in that city 
 in the employ of the treasury department for several 
 years. 
 
 Coming to Minneapolis in 1886, Mr. Tryon soon 
 gained the confidence of all clients who entrusted 
 their business to his charge, and for many years has 
 had all the business that his time and energies can 
 perform. For about ten years he was a member of 
 the law firm of Tryon & Booth. While his experi- 
 ence has led him into practically all the courts, his 
 chief work, on which his reputation is based, is his 
 success as a real estate lawyer. 
 
 Mr. Tryon has membership in the Minneapolis, the 
 Hennepin County, the State and the American Bar 
 associations. Also the Minneapolis Civic and Com- 
 merce Association, the Minneapolis Club, and his 
 church is the Plymouth Congregational. Fraternally 
 his affiliations are with Khurum Lodge No. 112, 
 A. F. & A. M., with the thirty-second degree of 
 Scottish Rite, and with Zurah Temple of the Mystic 
 Shrine. 
 
 Mr. Tryon married Miss Isabel Gale, daughter of 
 the late Harlow A. Gale and Elizabeth (Griggs) 
 Gale, who now lives with her daughter, Mrs. Tryon. 
 Mrs. Tryon was born in Minneapolis, was educated 
 in the Washington School and the Central High 
 School, and was a special student in the University 
 of Minnesota. To their marriage have been born 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1435 
 
 seven children, all of them natives of Minneapolis, 
 namely : Fred G., Elizabeth G., Philip D., Richard 
 M., Katherine P., Isabel S. and Margaret S. The 
 three oldest are now students in the University of 
 Minnesota, Richard is in the West Side High School, 
 and the others are attending the Douglas Grammar 
 School. Mr. Tryon has a beautiful home at 2115 
 Girard Avenue, South, and he and his family enjoy 
 fine social standing. Although always interested in 
 politics, Mr. Tryon has never entered actively into 
 campaigns. 
 
 Harlow A. Gale. A noble mind and gentle soul 
 had indwelling in the personality of the late Harlow 
 A. Gale, who was a sterling pioneer citizen and active 
 business man of Minneapolis and whose influence 
 was ever potent and benignant in the furtherance of 
 high civic ideals, the while his consideration, kindli- 
 ness and tolerance of judgment, his ready sympathy 
 and optimistic temperament, gained and retained to 
 him a remarkably wide circle of loyal and apprecia- 
 tive friends in the community that represented his 
 home for nearly half a century and in which he 
 established his residence before the admission of 
 Minnesota as one of the sovereign states of the 
 Union. The popular appreciation of the man is indi- 
 cated by a statement that was made by one who 
 knew him well and who himself is now deceased, 
 this assertion having been to the effect that Mr. Gale 
 was the only man the speaker had ever known with 
 whom it was worth while to cross the street to shake 
 hands. Mr. Gale was a prominent insurance man of 
 Minneapolis for many years and was concerned with 
 other business enterprises, the while he stood expon- 
 ent at all times of the most loyal and public-spirited 
 citizenship. His life was one of signal usefulness 
 and honor and with all of consistency there is en- 
 tered in this history of Minnesota a brief tribute to 
 his memory. 
 
 A scion of one of the sterling colonial families of 
 New England, Mr. Gale was born at Royalston, 
 Worcester County, Massachusetts, on the 29th of 
 July, 1832, and thus he was sixty-nine years of age 
 at the time of his death, which occurred in Minne- 
 apolis, at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Charles J. 
 Tryon, on the 15th of December, 1901. One in a 
 large family of children, Mr. Gale passed his child- 
 hood and youth on the homestead farm of his father, 
 and in the meanwhile he availed himself of the ad- 
 vantages afforded in the common schools of the 
 locality and period. After the death of his father 
 he went to Vermont, where he was reared to matur- 
 ity in the home of a clergyman who was an uncle. 
 His financial resources were very limited but his 
 ambition and self-reliance were not to be held in 
 narrow confines on this account. He determined to 
 obtain a college education, and to accomplish this 
 laudable purpose he depended almost entirely upon 
 his own exertions in defraying the expenses of his 
 college course. Unflagging application to study and 
 incidental work that gave him needed financial re- 
 sources finally enabled him to complete a course in 
 Union College, in which he was graduated. 
 
 In 1856, as a young man of twenty-four years, Mr. 
 Gale anticipated the advice of Horace Greeley and 
 decided to “go west and grow up with the country,” 
 this action having been prompted by his appreciation 
 of the fact that in the new and progressive North- 
 west could be found better opportunities for the 
 achieving of success and independence through per- 
 sonal endeavor. In the year mentioned, he settled 
 in Minneapolis, where he became one of the pioneer 
 
 insurance men of the Territory of Minnesota. For 
 many years he controlled a large and prosperous gen- 
 eral insurance business, which was conducted under 
 the title of Gale & Company. He likewise became 
 identified with some of the most important business 
 ventures of the thriving young city and was long 
 numbered among the representative figures in local 
 business circles. Early in his career in Minneapolis 
 he showed marked discrimination and judgment in 
 his real-estate operations, and in 1876 he established 
 the first meat market on Bridge Square, and finally 
 he withdrew from the insurance business to give his 
 entire attention to his large and flourishing market. 
 Within about two years after Mr. Gale had estab- 
 lished his home in Minneapolis he was joined by two 
 of his brothers,- — Samuel C. Gale, to whom a memoir 
 is dedicated on other pages of this work, and Rev. 
 Amory Gale, who was for many years a prominent 
 Baptist clergyman and missionary in Minnesota and 
 who died while making a tour of the Holy Land, in 
 1875. 
 
 In 1892 Mr. Gale became associated with Thomas 
 B. Walker in the construction of the present city 
 market, and the two continued their business rela- 
 tions until impaired health compelled Mr. Gale to 
 retire from active business. In the early period of 
 his residence in Minnesota Mr. Gale filed a pre- 
 emption claim to an island in Lake Minnetonka, op- 
 posite Excelsior, and this property, which he obtained 
 from the Government, was by him developed into 
 one of the idyllic summer homes on that beautiful 
 lake, the island having been his place of resort dur- 
 ing the summer months for many years, and is now 
 occupied by his daughter, Mrs. Charles J. Tryon. 
 
 In the early ’60s Mr. Gale served as county auditor 
 of Hennepin County, but aside from this position he 
 never consented to become the incumbent of any 
 public office of importance. Mr. Gale married Miss 
 Elizabeth Griggs, who survives him, as do also two 
 sons and one daughter, Mrs. Gale still maintaining 
 her home in Minneapolis, a city that is endeared to 
 her by the hallowed memories and associations of the 
 past. The elder son, Harlow S. Gale, is in the office 
 of the city engineer; Robert G. is a well known 
 musician of Minneapolis ; and Isabel is the wife of 
 Charles J. Tryon, of whom individual mention is 
 made elsewhere in this publication. Another son, 
 William G., was a resident of Colorado at the time 
 of his death. 
 
 Charles C. Webber. One of the largest industries 
 of America is a business that was started at Moline, 
 Illinois, nearly seventy years ago by John Deere, 
 who came to that city as a mechanic and plowmaker. 
 For nearly three generations the plows and other 
 agricultural implements bearing the stamp of Deere 
 as maker has had a use over an ever-increasing ter- 
 ritory. and the sale and distribution of these imple- 
 ments are now a part of the world’s commerce. 
 More than thirty years ago a branch of the great 
 John Deere industry was established in the North- 
 west, and its subsequent development has made this 
 affiliated concern a business of large and notable pro- 
 portions and ranking with the leading business 
 houses of Minneapolis. From the time the first 
 branch house was opened in Minneapolis to the pres- 
 ent time Charles C. Webber has been in charge, and 
 for over twenty years the concern has had a sepa- 
 rate incorporation, under the name Deere & Webber 
 Company. Through his mother Mr. Webber is a 
 
1436 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 grandson of John Deere, the pioneer plowmaker of 
 Rock Island. 
 
 Charles C. Webber was born in Rock Island, Illi- 
 nois, January 25, 1859, a son of Christopher C. and 
 Ellen S. (Deere) Webber. The Webbers were an 
 old New Hampshire family, while the Deeres were 
 originally from Vermont. Christopher C. Webber 
 was a merchant and manufacturer at Rock Island, 
 successful as a business man and stood high in his 
 community. There were five children in the family : 
 Charles C. ; Mrs. W. G. Mixter, of New Haven, 
 Connecticut; Mrs. Ben C. Klator, of Moline, Illinois; 
 Miss Alice F. Webber and Mrs. T. A. Murphy, of 
 Rock Island. 
 
 Charles C. Webber obtained his early education in 
 the Rock Island public schools, and in 1877 gradu- 
 ated from the Lake Forest Academy near Chicago. 
 Through the prominence of his father as a local 
 business man and his relations with the Deere fam- 
 ily, a promising field of business effort was ready 
 open to him when he began his practical career. He 
 spent three years with Deere & Company, as an office 
 clerk, on the road as a salesman, and learned the 
 business in all its practical details. In January, 1881, 
 he was chosen to take charge of the business at Min- 
 neapolis. For twelve years this house was operated 
 as a branch of the Illinois establishment, but in 1893 
 was incorporated under the name Deere & Webber 
 Company. Mr. Webber is also one of the vice presi- 
 dents of the central firm of Deere & Company at 
 Moline. With a residence and active business career 
 of more than thirty years at Minneapolis, Mr. Web- 
 ber has as a matter of course become closely identi- 
 fied with other affairs than his immediate house. He 
 is a director of the Security National Bank and the 
 Minnesota Loan and Trust Company, and a trustee 
 of the Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank. 
 
 His name has been little identified with polities, 
 though he has in many ways used his position as a 
 business man and his influence as a citizen in behalf 
 of various public movements. Mr. Webber is an 
 independent democrat, is a Presbyterian, and in club 
 and social circles is particularly well known in the 
 Minneapolis Club and the Commercial Club. Mr. 
 Webber was married at Rochester, New York, to 
 Miss Mary M. Harris, of that city. 
 
 / 
 
 Richard Tattersfield. From the earliest years 
 Minneapolis, like every other city, has had its poor 
 and helpless. In the modern city a haphazard phil- 
 anthropy of individuals would prove most inadequate 
 as a means of appropriate relief, and hence for 
 twenty years or more a separate department of the 
 city government has developed a large and extensive 
 organization to look after the interests and welfare 
 of the poor and unfortunate. This is the Department 
 of Charities and Corrections, a practical agency that 
 has been highly developed and systematized for the 
 care of the needy. Its aid is given directly and 
 immediately where it is required, and while it pro- 
 vides for the physical wants of its beneficiaries it 
 also opens a way to betterments of a more enduring 
 kind to many of them, rekindling hope in despondent 
 hearts and revivifying failing spirits with renewed 
 energy and courage for the great battle of life. 
 
 A large part of the credit for the vast amount of 
 good the department has done during the last eight 
 years is due to Richard Tattersfield, who has been 
 secretary and active manager of the Board of Chari- 
 ties and Corrections, and the personal dispenser of 
 its bounty. By virtue of his office he is also superin- 
 
 tendent of the poor and director of the department’s 
 system of providing lodging for the homeless. The 
 department's board of commissioners is composed 
 of five members, with the mayor of the city among 
 their number and president ex-officio. The executive 
 work of the board devolves almost wholly on Mr. 
 Tattersfield and his two assistants in the office, 
 through their two hundred and fifty or more em- 
 ployes. This department has been in existence as a 
 city institution for twenty-three years. It controls 
 the branch of city work that has to do with the poor, 
 the city workhouse and poor farm and all the city 
 hospitals. Its disbursements aggregate about half 
 a million dollars a year, on an average, furnishing 
 assistance to four hundred to six hundred families, 
 relieving the wants of two thousand to three thou- 
 sand persons regularly, and providing lodging for 
 some thirty thousand shelterless wanderers from 
 year to year. The office of superintendent of the 
 board is one of the most difficult positions in the 
 municipal service. It demands not only executive 
 ability of a high order, but also an experience and 
 sympathy with human nature, and a discriminating 
 judgment which enables such an official not only to 
 give aid where it is needed, but also to restrain the 
 importunities of hundreds who would defraud the 
 city if they could on the plea of charity. 
 
 Richard Tattersfield came into the office of super- 
 intendent of the board after a successful experience 
 as a lawyer. He was born in the City of Philadel- 
 phia September 9, 1868, a son of Aked and Catherine 
 (Tattersfield) Tattersfield. His parents were natives 
 of Yorkshire, England, but of Scotch extraction. 
 Aked Tattersfield was associated with his father in 
 the manufacture of blankets in Bradford in York- 
 shire, and soon after the beginning of the American 
 Civil war came to the United States to sell the 
 product of his mills to the Government for use in 
 the army. It is said that 80 per cent of the blankets 
 used by the Union soldiers were furnished by this 
 firm. 
 
 When Richard Tattersfield was two years of age 
 he was taken back to England and lived with his 
 grandparents in Yorkshire, where he was educated in 
 the common schools and also attended a military 
 college, Askern College, near Doncaster. There he 
 finished four standards and would have become an 
 army officer had he not returned to America. About 
 1879 he returned to this country with his parents, the 
 family locating on a ranch of considerable size in 
 Moody County, South Dakota, where his father died 
 in 1909. The mother still has her home in that 
 locality. On this ranch Mr. Tattersfield spent five 
 or six years, and then entered the academic depart- 
 ment of the University of Minnesota, where he 
 graduated in 1892. He then completed the law 
 course in the university, and was granted his degree 
 LL. B. in 1894. For fourteen years Mr. Tattersfield 
 practiced law in Minneapolis, which city has been his 
 home since 1891. While a law student he was en- 
 gaged in the office of Charles G. Laybourn, one of 
 the leading attorneys of the city, as stenographer, 
 and after graduation remained with Mr. Laybourn 
 several years. On January 1, 1907, he became secre- 
 tary to Colonel Corriston, superintendent of police, 
 an office he held until July, 1907, when he was ap- 
 pointed to the position he now fills with such ability 
 and general approval from all classes of people. 
 
 Mr. Tattersfield began taking an active part in 
 local politics soon after his arrival in Minneapolis. 
 He is a democrat in party faith and was secretary 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1437 
 
 of the Hennepin County Campaign Committee for 
 twelve years. He is a member of the thirty-second 
 degree Scottish Rite, and also a York Rite Mason, 
 including the Knight Templar Commandery and a 
 member of Zurah Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He 
 has passed all the chairs of the Modern Woodmen 
 of America, and belongs to several other frater- 
 nities. All athletic pursuits enlist his interest and 
 give him pleasure. He was an ardent bicyclist when 
 that sport was at the front, and now finds great 
 pleasure in the automobile. 
 
 In November, 1890, Mr. Tattersfield married Miss 
 Adda C. De Leeuw, who was born at Amsterdam, 
 Holland, but at the time of her marriage was living 
 at Glencoe, Minnesota. They became the parents 
 of six children : Gertrude E., Charles R., Hen- 
 
 rietta, Ernest, William and George, but the last 
 named is deceased. 
 
 Elmer E. Atkinson. Head of one of the largest 
 retail mercantile enterprises of the Twin Cities, 
 Elmer E. Atkinson has been identified with Minne- 
 apolis for the past eighteen years, and has made a 
 truly creditable ascent in the business career he 
 chose for himself, and has long occupied a place of 
 no little prominence in the city’s affairs. He began 
 his career many years ago as a clerk and by close 
 attention to work and with exceptional ability in the 
 handling of the complications of business has pro- 
 moted himself to a place of leadership among the 
 merchants of the Northwest. 
 
 Elmer E. Atkinson was born at Waterloo, Iowa, 
 March 28, 1867, a son of Dr. Thomas and Anna M. 
 (Holloway) Atkinson. His parents were both born 
 in Belmont County, Ohio. The maternal grand- 
 father, Isaac Holloway, was an extensive land- 
 holder and influential citizen of Belmont County and 
 represented his district in the Ohio Legislature in 
 the early days. Thomas Atkinson was a physician 
 of high standing and successful practice in the same 
 locality, but later moved to DeWitt, Iowa. Of their 
 children, two sons and two daughters are still living. 
 
 Elmer E. Atkinson had his first schooling in 
 DeWitt in Clinton County, Iowa. While still a 
 schoolboy he found employment in local stores, 
 which gave him a start toward a mercantile career. 
 For several years he had a valuable metropolitan 
 experience in different department .stores in Chicago, 
 and with that training went out to Anthony in Har- 
 per County, Kansas, in 1887, and though only twenty 
 years of age proved his ability and enterprise by 
 conducting a successful retail dry goods business. 
 He built up a prosperous trade, but at the end of 
 two years sold out and assumed the management of 
 the woman’s apparel department of one of the 
 largest mercantile houses in Cleveland, Ohio. This 
 was a further training and a means of preparation 
 for his independent and successful work as a mer- 
 chant in the Northwest. Mr. Atkinson came to Min- 
 neapolis in 1897, subsequently leaving this city for 
 San Francisco, California, but was quickly per- 
 suaded that Minneapolis offered him the greatest 
 advantages both present and future. In the retail 
 dry goods trade he has for a number of years stood 
 as one of the leading merchants of the city. He has 
 a large store, splendidly stocked with smart up-to- 
 date merchandise, in a modern building at the cor- 
 ner of Seventh Street and Nicollet Avenue. A year 
 or so ago he effected a 99-year lease on adjoining 
 property on Nicollet Avenue, and built thereon an 
 annex building which provides additional space for 
 
 his growing mercantile operations. The store now 
 uses 90,000 square feet of floor space. In September, 
 1909, he opened a branch house or rather an inde- 
 pendent store under his management in the City of 
 St. Paul at the corner of Sixth and Cedar Streets, 
 known to the shopping public as the Sixth Street 
 Store. Mr. Atkinson now has two valuable assistants 
 in the management of his business affairs in his sons, 
 Harold E. and Alfred M. 
 
 The E. E. Atkinson & Company stores represent 
 something more to the public than a place for reli- 
 able merchandise and convenience oi shopping. They 
 also stand for the welfare of the several hundred 
 employes who expend their best energies in serving 
 the interests of the company and the public. Mr. 
 Atkinson and his co-workers in the' management of 
 this business believe that a successful business should 
 show not only satisfying returns on the credit side 
 of the account but also an increasing interest and 
 sense of personal well being in the minds of their 
 employes. This principle had a notable application 
 in December, 1914, when the company inaugurated 
 a new plan among Minneapolis stores in taking out a 
 general or group insurance policy, with the Equitable 
 Life Assurance Society, covering each individual 
 employe to the amount of a year’s salary. The 
 Atkinson Company pays the premium as long as the 
 employe remains in their service. 
 
 As a merchant Mr. Atkinson has never followed 
 an exclusive policy with respect to his associates, 
 but is an open-handed and liberal worker for any- 
 thing that would benefit the Twin Cities as a whole. 
 On identifying himself with Minneapolis he became 
 an active member of the Commercial Club and later 
 of the Civic and Commerce Association, which ab- 
 sorbed the original commercial club, and which has 
 done much to further the civic and material advance- 
 ment of Minneapolis. Mr. Atkinson was the last to 
 hold the office of chairman of the Public Affairs 
 Committee of the old Commercial Club. He is now 
 president of the Minneapolis Retailers’ Association. 
 With the success of his, business and the release of 
 some surplus capital he has invested judiciously in 
 Minneapolis real estate. In 1914 he erected a hand- 
 some modern residence at the corner of Lincoln and 
 Logan avenues, regarded by competent critics as one 
 of the best examples of residential architecture con- 
 tributed to the ctiy in recent years. Its site com- 
 mands a fine view of Lake of the Isles. This is 
 now the home of the Atkinson family, which is one 
 of social distinction in Minneapolis. September 26, 
 1888. Mr. Atkinson married Miss Minnie F. Morey 
 of Clinton, Iowa. They are the parents of four 
 children : Harold E., associated with his father in 
 
 business, married Miss Margaret Moyer, daughter 
 of David E. Moyer, formerly a resident of Monte- 
 video, Chippewa County, but now of Minneapolis ; 
 by this union a son was born January 6, 1914, named 
 Harold M. Alfred M., the second son, is also asso- 
 ciated with his father. Anita, who completed her 
 junior year at Stanley Hall in Minneapolis, is now a 
 member of the class of 1915 in the Elizabeth Somers 
 Finishing School for Young Women at Washing- 
 ton, D. C. Donald, the youngest child, now twelve 
 years of age, is attending the Blake School for Boys 
 at Minneapolis. 
 
 While not a politician in any sense, Mr. Atkinson 
 takes much interest in local affairs, and is usually 
 found a regular voter in the ranks of the republican 
 party. He is colonel on the governor’s staff, a 
 thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, and a 
 
1438 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 member of the Mystic Shrine. His chief sport is 
 golfing, and he is a member of the Minikahda Club, 
 the Minneapolis Club, the Lafayette Club, the Inter- 
 lachen Country Club and the Minneapolis Auto- 
 mobile Club. He belongs to the Sixth Church of 
 Christ Scientist. 
 
 Foreman V. Inskeep. True success in the exact- 
 ing profession of law is gained only through sta- 
 bility of character, broad and exact technical knowl- 
 edge and untiring application. These requirements 
 have been well met in the successful career of Fore- 
 man Vause Inskeep, one of the best known mem- 
 bers of the Minneapolis bar. 
 
 Mr. Inskeep was born in Champaign County, Illi- 
 nois, September io, 1868, a son of David S. and 
 Charity Virginia (Trotter) Inskeep, both natives of 
 Virginia and representatives of old families of that 
 historic commonwealth. The first of the Inskeep 
 family in America came from England in 1648 and 
 established a home in Virginia, and two of the pa- 
 ternal uncles of the father of David S. Inskeep were 
 valiant soldiers of the Continental forces in the War 
 of the Revolution. The family has been patriotic in 
 public relations as well as successful in private af- 
 fairs. The paternal grandfather of Mrs. Charity 
 (Trotter) Inskeep likewise came from England and 
 settled in the Old Dominion State. David S. Inskeep 
 was a farmer or planter and a resident of West 
 Virginia at the outbreak of the Civil war, his father’s 
 homestead being about fifty miles south of the City 
 of Wheeling. He later, soon after the war in 1865, 
 removed to Illinois, and in Champaign County met 
 and married Miss Trotter. The family removed 
 from Illinois to Iowa, in 1871, and Mr. Inskeep be- 
 came one of the substantial agriculturists and in- 
 fluential citizens of Wayne County, that state, where 
 he continued to reside until his death, his widow 
 being now a resident of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. David 
 Inskeep contributed his quota to the social and 
 industrial development and upbuilding of Iowa, of 
 which he was an honored citizen. Of the five chil- 
 dren one son and one daughter died in infancy, and 
 of the three surviving the eldest is Foreman V.; 
 Lena J. is a popular teacher in the public schools of 
 Cedar Rapids, Iowa ; and George W. is a prosperous 
 farmer of that state. 
 
 Foreman V. Inskeep was about three years of age 
 when the family removed to Iowa, where he was 
 reared to adult age on the homestead farm. He was 
 educated in the district schools, later for two terms 
 in the high school at Seymour, that state, and for 
 two years in the normal school at Shenandoah, and 
 continued along higher academic lines in the High- 
 land Park Normal School, at Des Moines. Practical 
 test and use of this, training were made during six 
 years as a teacher at different places in Iowa. In 
 that state he was in the newspaper business for two 
 years, as editor and general manager of the Dan- 
 bury Review, a weekly paper published at Danbury, 
 Woodbury County. In the meantime he was bending 
 his energies to prepare himself for the legal profes- 
 sion, in the domain of which it has since been given 
 him to gain marked success. Besides running a 
 newspaper he began reading law in the office and 
 under the preceptorship of the firm of Jepson & Jep- 
 son, of Sioux City, Iowa, and he has recalled to the 
 writer that one of his preceptors is now presiding 
 on the bench in Sioux City and the other is prose- 
 cuting attorney of Woodbury County. In January, 
 1897, Mr. Inskeep successfully passed the required 
 
 examination and was admitted to the bar of Iowa. 
 Beginning practice at Danbury, his proved ability 
 and personal popularity soon enabled him to build 
 up an excellent law business. After continuing in 
 practice at Danbury for a period of six years, Mr. 
 Inskeep came to Minnesota and established his resi- 
 dence at Cloquet, Carlton County, and continued in 
 successful practice from September, 1903, until Feb- 
 ruary, 1910. In the meanwhile he had become an 
 influential factor in the political activities of Carlton 
 County, and candidate on the democratic ticket for 
 the office of county attorney, his defeat being due 
 to the great strength of the dominant party in that 
 county. In 1908 he was an alternate delegate to the 
 Democratic National Convention, held i.n the City 
 of Denver, and actively supported the candidacy of 
 the late Governor Johnson of Minnesota for the 
 presidency. 
 
 In the spring of 1910, fortified by well earned 
 success and desirous of a broader field of profes- 
 sional endeavor, Mr. Inskeep removed to the City 
 of Minneapolis, and here the demands of his pro- 
 fession have permitted neither time nor inclination 
 for activity in practical politics, though still loyal to 
 the cause of the democratic party. 
 
 Mr. Inskeep is affiliated with Minnesota Lodge 
 No. 224, A. F. & A. M., and with the Royal League, 
 and is a member of the Minneapolis Civic and Com- 
 merce Association, and in all respects progressive 
 as a citizen. Both he and his wife are communicants 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church and are active 
 members of the Parish of Christ Church. 
 
 In the professional career of Mr. Inskeep have 
 been shown many of the distinctive qualities that go 
 to make the successful lawyer. He has in a high 
 degree the ability to say the right thing in the right 
 place, and in a convincing way. He has a mind that 
 is logical, analytical and inductive. With a thorough 
 and comprehensive knowledge of the law, he com- 
 bines a familiarity with statutory law and a maturity 
 of judgment which makes him a formidable adver- 
 sary before court or jury, as well as a safe and 
 conservative counselor. His high ethical standards 
 have given him secure place in the confidence and 
 esteem of his associates at the bar. 
 
 On the 12th of August, 1896, at Danbury, Iowa, 
 Mr. Inskeep married Miss Nettie L. Thompson, who 
 was born in Wisconsin but reared in Iowa, where 
 she was graduated in the Danbury High School. 
 Her parents, John and Elizabeth (Rhodes) Thomp- 
 son, both natives of England, are now residents of 
 Merrill, Plymouth County, Iowa. Her father was 
 for many years an active and prosperous farmer and 
 still owns a valuable landed estate. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Inskeep have three children, all of whom were born 
 at Danbury, Iowa, — Harry V., Lena Dorothy and 
 Carl T. 
 
 Guy A. Thomas. Now one of the directors and 
 sales manager of the Washburn-Crosby Company, 
 Guy A. Thomas began his business career in Min- 
 neapolis more than a quarter of a century ago as 
 a newsboy. Few who started out with bim have 
 done better in utilizing opportunity and making their 
 abilities useful in the world's work. 
 
 Guy A. Thomas was born at Keeseville, Essex 
 County, New York, October 28, 1874. a son of G. T. 
 and Frances (Nimocks) Thomas. His father was 
 born in New York and his mother in Michigan, and 
 for a number of years his father was engaged in 
 the flour commission business in New Orleans. 
 
^ 77^0 /3i^y^y ? 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1439 
 
 Guy A. Thomas received most of his early training 
 in the public schools at Fargo, North Dakota, and 
 came to Minneapolis in 1887, when a boy of thir- 
 teen. After selling newspapers for some time, he 
 found a place of employment with the Washburn- 
 Crosby Company, and has been continuously iden- 
 tified with that, the largest flour milling corporation 
 in the world, and from one grade of service has 
 been promoted on merit and efficiency to another 
 until his experience covers many of the departments, 
 and he is now one of the executive factors in that 
 great concern. Mr. Thomas made a special record 
 as a salesman, and it was through the commercial 
 rather than the technical manufacturing departments 
 of the business that he advanced to his present place 
 as a director and manager. Mr. Thomas has an 
 interest in all the subsidiary companies of the Wash- 
 burn-Crosby Company and is a director in its larg- 
 est elevator company — The St. Anthony and Dakota 
 Company. He recently organized a bank, known 
 as the Millers and Traders State Bank, of which 
 he is the president. 
 
 His activity as a business man has extended to 
 his relations with the community. During 1914 he 
 was one of the directors of the Minneapolis Civic 
 and Commerce Association, and is a member of 
 practically all the representative clubs in the city. 
 He is^ the owner of much Minneapolis real estate, 
 including his own residence at 1600 Mount Curve 
 Avenue. A democrat, Mr. Thomas has long been a 
 member of the State Central Committee and has 
 served as president of the Hennepin County Demo- 
 cratic Committee. In 1901 Mr. Thomas married 
 Miss Lulu Frisk of St. Paul. They have one son, 
 Guy Thomas, Jr., who was born in 1909. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Thomas unite their interests in promoting 
 philanthropic agencies and have done a great deal 
 of practical charity in their home city. 
 
 Oliver P. BowEi Forty years have fallen into the 
 abyss of time since Mr. Bowe was admitted to the 
 bar, and he is now one of the most venerable and 
 honored members of his profession in the City of 
 Minneapolis, and is the oldest member of the Henne- 
 pin County Bar Association, his mental and physical 
 vigor being such as to belie the many years that have 
 passed and to give a general impression that he is 
 a much younger man. The average lawyer retires 
 from practice long before attaining to the status of 
 an octogenarian, but Mr. Bowe is still active in the 
 work of his profession, vigorous, vital and indus- 
 trious, and fully in touch with modern thought and 
 progress. He has been engaged in practice in Min- 
 neapolis for more than thirty years and here holds 
 high vantage place as a representative lawyer and 
 loyal and public-spirited citizen. He is a veteran of 
 the Civil war and in the “piping times of peace” has 
 continued to manifest the same lofty patriotism that 
 thus prompted him to tender his aid in defense of 
 the Union. 
 
 Oliver P. Bowe was born near Watertown, the 
 judicial center of Jefferson County, New York, on 
 the 17th of April, 1834, and is a son of Dr. Prosper 
 Bowe and Lois (Batchelor) Bowe, the former of 
 whom was born in Connecticut and the latter in 
 Vermont and both having been representatives of 
 staunch colonial stock in New England, that cradle 
 of much of our national history. The father was an 
 able physician and surgeon of his day and after his 
 marriage, which was solemnized in the State of New 
 York, he resided on his well improved farm, near 
 
 Watertown, until his removal to Wisconsin, where 
 he became one of the pioneer citizens and influential 
 men of Sheboygan County, the death of his wife 
 having there occurred in 1859. In the early '80s he 
 came to Minneapolis, where he passed the residue of 
 his long and useful life in the home of his son 
 Oliver P., of this review. The doctor attained to 
 patriarchal age, as he was nearly ninety-eight years 
 old at the time of his death, in 1891. He became the 
 father of eight children, all of whom attained to 
 maturity and four of whom are now living, — Mrs. 
 Frances E. Frye, who is a widow and resides at 
 Oshkosh, Wisconsin; Mrs. Lois Fox, who likewise is 
 a widow and who maintains her home in the State of 
 New York; Oliver P., whose name introduces this 
 article ; and William H., who is engaged in the mer- 
 cantile business in the City of Cleveland, Ohio. 
 
 Oliver P. Bowe acquired his early education in the 
 common schools of his native state and in the Union 
 Academy at Belleville, Jefferson County, New York. 
 In the ’50s he began the study of law under effective 
 private preceptorship, and in 1855 he was admitted 
 to the New York bar, upon examination before a 
 judge and a committee of lawyers. In the same year 
 he came to the West and established his residence at 
 Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, which was then a small 
 village. He did not engage in the practice of his 
 profession until after the close of the Civil war, up 
 to the inception of which he followed various occupa- 
 tions at Fond du Lac. In 1863 he tendered his aid in 
 defense of the Union, by enlisting in Company E, 
 Thirty-sixth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, with 
 which gallant command he participated in numerous 
 engagements and continued to serve until the close 
 of the war, when he received his honorable dis- 
 charge. At the battle of Cold Harbor he was 
 wounded, and among other important engagements in 
 which he took part were the battle of the Wilderness 
 and those of Spottsylvania and White House Land- 
 ing. He was with the command of Gen. Winfield S. 
 Hancock, of the Second Army Corps, during the 
 latter part of his military career and was thus as- 
 signed with his regiment at the time of the battle of 
 Cold Harbor, where he was wounded and tempo- 
 rarily incapacitated. He has retained a deep interest 
 in his old comrades and signifies the same by his 
 active affiliation with G. N. Morgan Post, Grand 
 Army of the Republic, in his home city. 
 
 After his removal to the West Mr. Bowe took a 
 special course in the law department of the Univer- 
 sity of Wisconsin, and after the close of the war he 
 continued to be engaged in the practice of his pro- 
 fession in that state until 1883, when he removed 
 with his family to Minneapolis, where he has con- 
 tinued in active and successful practice during the 
 long intervening period of more than thirty years 
 and where he has long retained a representative 
 clientage. He has appeared in connection with much 
 important litigation in the various courts and his long 
 years of devotion to study and practical work in his 
 profession have made him a specially well fortified 
 counselor. He is now serving as attorney for the 
 W. R. Fowler Investment Company, one of the sub- 
 stantial and influential corporations of its kind in the 
 Minnesota metropolis. In the activities of his pro- 
 fession Mr. Bowe has never formed a partnership 
 alliance, and at the present time he maintains his well 
 appointed offices at 817 Palace Building. Though he 
 has considered his profession worthy of his undi- 
 vided time and attention and has thus had no ambi- 
 tion for public office, Mr. Bowe is a staunch repub- 
 
1440 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 lican in politics and has well taken convictions 
 concerning matters of economic and governmental 
 policy. He is a member of the Lyndale Congrega- 
 tional Church, of which his wife likewise was a 
 devoted and loved adherent, and their children all 
 hold membership in the same denomination. 
 
 On the 15th of March, i860, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Bowe to Miss Frances A. Chase, 
 who was at the time residing at the parental home, 
 near Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. This noble and 
 gracious woman, whose memory is revered by all 
 who came within the compass of her gentle and 
 kindly influence, was a devoted wife and mother and 
 the supreme loss and bereavement in the life of Mr. 
 Bowe came when the silver cord of companionship 
 was severed by her death, on the 8th of April, 1914, 
 an ideal home life that had continued for more than 
 half a century having been disrupted when she was 
 thus summoned to eternal rest. Mrs. Bowe was 
 active in church, charitable and benevolent work, as 
 well as in literary and social circles, and her friends 
 were in number as her acquaintances. She was born 
 in Racine County, Wisconsin, a daughter of George 
 and Sarah (Calkins) Chase, sterling pioneers of that 
 state. At the time of her death the Entre Nous 
 Study Club passed resolutions of regret and sym- 
 pathy, and the same are worthy of reproduction in 
 this connection : 
 
 Whereas, the All Powerful Ruler of the Universe 
 has in his great and unfathomable wisdom deemed it 
 proper to take from our midst and unto himself our 
 beloved friend and guide, the late Mrs. O. P. Bowe, 
 the founder and late president emeritus of the Entre 
 Nous Study Club ; and 
 
 Whereas, the Entre Nous Study Club and each of 
 its members deeply grieves at the irreparable loss pf 
 so kind, conscientious, faithful, valuable and admir- 
 able a friend as was the late Mrs. O. P. Bowe, and 
 sincerely mourns and sympathizes with the Hon. 
 O. P. Bowe, her husband, and the other surviving 
 members of her family ; now, therefore, be it 
 
 Resolved, by the Entre Nous Study Club as a 
 whole, and each of its members individually, does 
 hereby extend to the Hon. O. P. Bowe and his fam- 
 ily our deep feelings of warm appreciation of the 
 earnest and incalculable service of the late Mrs. O. P. 
 Bowe to our club and each of ourselves, and the club 
 and each of its members hereby convey to them our 
 heartfelt sympathy and genuine grief for the loss of 
 so true, honorable and gentle a wife and mother. 
 
 Mrs. Bowe was possessed of much literary talent, 
 both appreciative and creative, and on the occasion 
 of the third anniversary celebration of the Entre 
 Nous Club she presented before the same the follow- 
 ing original verses : 
 
 ’Tis a secret you must keep, 
 
 My good wishes, true and deep ; 
 
 For they have cost me loss of sleep, 
 
 Entre Nous. 
 
 It is very wise in you 
 That whate’er you say or do 
 Should be Entre Nous. 
 
 Should there be mistake or blunder, 
 
 ’Tis not told in voice of thunder, 
 
 Good or bad, ’tis all kept under, 
 
 Entre Nous. 
 
 We have met for these three years, 
 
 Shared each other’s joys and tears, 
 
 Entre Nous. 
 
 What we gained cannot be bought, 
 
 It is only had when sought, 
 
 Entre Nous. 
 
 As we scatter here tonight, 
 
 May we all be gay and bright, 
 
 Entre Nous. 
 
 Let these tintinnabulations never cease 
 Till we reach the shores of peace, 
 
 Entre Nous. 
 
 When the pearly gates swing open, 
 
 As a club to meet unbroken, 
 
 Entre Nous. 
 
 And may the joys be mine 
 In that better land to meet 
 All the Entre Nous to greet, 
 
 In companionship most sweet, 
 
 Entre Nous. 
 
 Mrs. Bowe is survived by four children : Mabel 
 
 S., who is the wife of John R. Harper, remains with 
 her husband at the paternal home, of which she has 
 the supervision and as chatelaine of which she is well 
 upholding the gracious ideals of her loved mother; 
 Willis G. resides at Marshalltown, Iowa, where he 
 is manager and a director of the Marshalltown Tele- 
 phone Company ; Arthur C. resides at Merriam Park, 
 a suburb of Minneapolis ; and Ernest C., who re- 
 mains at the paternal home, 3215 Colfax Avenue 
 South, is state agent for Minnesota of the Spring- 
 field Fire & Marine Insurance Company, his office 
 being at 201 New York Life Building. 
 
 Torger L. Melgaard. The large and influential 
 relations of T. L. Melgaard with the community 
 of Thief River Falls is measured by the fact that 
 he is one of the leading bankers of that city, has 
 banking interests in several other towns, and was 
 one of the joint builders of the largest and most 
 conspicuous bank building in that section of the 
 state. These concrete results indicate somewhat the 
 accomplishments of a man who twenty-five years 
 ago came direct from Norway, a poor and almost 
 friendless boy, and began to carve his fortune in the 
 new country of the Northwest. 
 
 Torger L. Melgaard was born in Norway Sep- 
 tember 23, 1873, a son of Lars and Anne Melgaard. 
 His father was a farmer. It was in 1890 that T. L. 
 Melgaard came to this country, locating for one 
 year at Argyle, Minnesota, and in 1891 going out 
 to Grand Forks, North Dakota. There his first 
 experience was as clerk in a real estate office one 
 year. In 1892 he became bookkeeper for the Grand 
 Forks National Bank, and that introduced him to 
 the work which has been his most successful field. 
 He was bookkeeper at Grand Forks until 1897, and 
 then two years was assistant to the national bank 
 examiner at Fargo, North Dakota. After that ex- 
 perience, which brought him a broad knowledge of 
 banking conditions and an extended acquaintance 
 among banking men, he became bookkeeper in the 
 First National Bank of Fargo, North Dakota, and 
 remained there until 1902, after which he was in 
 the real estate business at Larimore in the same 
 state and also dealt in farm loans. In 1903 Mr. 
 Melgaard came to Thief River Falls, and organ- 
 ized the Citizens State Bank. He was made cashier 
 of the institution, and has held that position and 
 has in fact been the chief responsible head of the 
 bank down to the present time. 
 
 Mr. Melgaard is also a director of the Holt 
 State Bank at Holt, Minnesota, a director of the 
 Farmers State Bank at Newfolden, and has varied 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1441 
 
 other interests. In 1915 he and Mr. Olaf Ramstad, 
 president of the Citizens State Bank, erected the 
 handsome building which provides quarters for the 
 bank. It is a two-story modern concrete structure, 
 on a foundation 75x116 feet, the second floor being- 
 used for offices and auditorium. The bank quar- 
 ters are 34x75 feet, fitted up in the most expensive 
 and ornate style, with marble and mahogany freely 
 used in the interior finish. 
 
 Mr. Melgaard is a lodge and chapter Mason, be- 
 ing treasurer of the local lodge, and is also affil- 
 iated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, 
 the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, is 
 one of the charter members of the Antlers Club 
 and works enthusiastically with the Commercial 
 Club. He is also a member of the Sons of Nor- 
 way and the Modern Woodmen of America. 
 
 On June, 26, 1901, Mr. Melgaard married Rena 
 Eckern of Black River Falls, Wisconsin. Their 
 three children are named John L., Margaret and 
 Thomas Lee. 
 
 John Morgan. The present postmaster of Thief 
 River Falls, John Morgan has been identified with 
 Northern Minnesota for forty years and is one of 
 the veterans of the lumber industry, and has. long 
 been regarded as an authority on subjects con- 
 nected with forestry and practical lumbering. Mr. 
 Morgan’s home has been in Thief River Falls for 
 more than twenty years, and he is one of the older 
 settlers of that community. 
 
 John Morgan was born in London, Ontario, Can- 
 ada, November 5, 1854, a son of David and Ann 
 Morgan. His father was a contractor and builder. 
 Mr. Morgan acquired his early education in the 
 public schools, and first came to Minnesota in Sep- 
 tember, 1875. He was a timber cruiser for a num- 
 ber of years, having been familiar with the forest 
 and its industry from early youth. He was con- 
 nected with lumbering and with saw mills in dif- 
 ferent parts of Minnesota, and in 1833 located at 
 Aitkin, where he continued his work as a lumber- 
 man.. In 1893 he was appointed timber inspector 
 by the United States Government and spent four 
 years performing the duties of that position on 
 Government land. His home has been in Thief 
 River Falls since 1893, and while his various busi- 
 ness interests have been growing he has also been 
 active in public affairs in different ways. 
 
 In 1891 Mr. Morgan was assistant sergeant at 
 arms in the Minnesota House of Representatives. 
 He is one of the democrats of his section of the 
 state, and on November 1, 1914, President Wilson 
 appointed him postmaster of Thief River Falls. 
 During 1914 he was president of the Pennington 
 County Agricultural Society. At three different 
 times Mr. Morgan was elected to attend the na- 
 tional conventions of the democratic party as an 
 alternate delegate. His fraternal associations are 
 with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and 
 the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and 
 is also a member of the Commercial Club. 
 
 On January 20, 1905, at Thief River Falls he 
 married Helena Johnson. They are the parents of 
 three children : Harriet, David Hughes and J. 
 Pierpont. 
 
 Christian L. Hansen. One of the ablest bankers 
 in Northern Minnesota, Christian L. Hansen came 
 from Denmark to Minnesota about twenty years ago. 
 He was a young man, with an education in his na- 
 
 tive tongue, quite unacquainted with American life 
 and customs, and with only his industry and ambition 
 to commend himself to the strange world in which 
 he found himself. He began his career in this state 
 as a farm hand at wages of $5 a month. While not 
 one of the wealthiest men of the state, he has since 
 acquired position and influence, and through his 
 ability as a banker is one of the leading men of Thief 
 River Falls. 
 
 Christian L. Hansen was born in Denmark May 
 23, 1877, a son of Lars and Pauline Hansen. He 
 was educated in the public schools of Denmark, and 
 at the age of eighteen, in 1895, came to this country, 
 and found employment on a Minnesota farm. Later 
 he was for five years a traveling salesman, then be- 
 came bookkeeper in the City National Bank at Fer- 
 tile, Minnesota, and for one year was assistant 
 cashier in the First State Bank at Red Lake Falls. 
 In 1906 Mr. Hansen bought the two banks at St. 
 Hilaire, Minnesota, of which he has since been presi- 
 dent. In 1907 he consolidated his banking interests 
 at St. Hilaire under the name Merchants State Bank 
 of St. Hilaire, of which he is now president and 
 owner. 
 
 In 1909- Mr. Hansen purchased a controlling inter- 
 est in the First National Bank of Thief River Falls. 
 This institution was organized in 1901 with a capital 
 stock of $25,000. It occupies a conspicuous site in 
 the business district, the banking house being on the 
 first floor of a large two-story brick building, cover- 
 ing- a foundation 50x80 feet, and with offices on the 
 second floor. At the present time the captial stock 
 is $50,000, with surplus and undivided profits of 
 $25,000, and the average deposits reach the imposing 
 sum of $450,000. The officers of the First National 
 in 1915 are: C. L. Hansen, president; Dr. F. H. 
 
 Gambell, vice president; Rasmus Oen, vice presi- 
 dent; W. W. Prichard, Jr., cashier; W. H. Akre and 
 H. L. Anderson, assistant cashiers. 
 
 Mr. Hansen is also treasurer of the Thief River 
 Falls Co-operative Building Company. He is active 
 in various fraternal orders, being affiliated with 
 York Rite Masonry and also with the thirty-second 
 degree of Scottish Rite, is treasurer of the Royal 
 Arch Chapter, a member of the Mystic Shrine, of 
 the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, is 
 treasurer of the Thief River Falls Lodge No. 1891 
 of the Order of Owls, is treasurer of the Independ- 
 ent Order of Odd Fellows, and is also a trustee of 
 the local lodge of Masons. Mr. Hansen is a trustee 
 in the Methodist Episcopal Church at Thief River 
 Falls. 
 
 Francis Harvey Gambell, M. D. Probably no one 
 citizen of Thief River Falls has had a wider and 
 more useful experience in affairs than Dr. Francis 
 H. Gambell. As a physicain and surgeon he has been 
 doing effectual work in that community for the past 
 thirteen years, and has also exercised his business 
 judgment in local enterprises. Doctor Gambell be- 
 fore taking up active practice of medicine was a 
 prominent educator and did important service for 
 the Government in Alaska. Since locating, at Thief 
 River Falls he has continued his interest in educa- 
 tional affairs and has served on the local school 
 board. 
 
 Francis Harvey Gambell was born at Winfield, 
 Iowa, April 3, 1870, a son of John C. and Margaret 
 Jane (Fulton) Gambell. His father was a substan- 
 tial Iowa farmer. Doctor Gambell completed his 
 
1442 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 literary education in Parsons College at Winfield, 
 and after that was for four years engaged in school 
 work in Minnesota. He spent one year abroad in 
 Europe in study, and then entered the Keokuk, 
 Iowa, Medical College, where he graduated M. D. 
 in 1898. Instead of taking up active practice of 
 medicine at that time he accepted an appointment 
 from the United States Government in the bureau 
 of education in the interior department as superin- 
 tendent of government reindeer stations. He had 
 active supervision of the work undertaken by the 
 Government for the establishment of reindeer sta- 
 tions in Alaska from Point Barrow to the Aleutian 
 Islands. He spent three years in Alaska at that 
 time, and nearly all these reindeer stations were 
 established under his direction, and he developed 
 their usefulness. When Doctor Gambell went to 
 Alaska there were about a thousand reindeer, while 
 there are now 50,000 collected at the various stations 
 under government supervision and trained for effect- 
 iveness in the work of transportation. Some years 
 later, in 1908, Doctor Gambell was again sent by the 
 Government to Alaska to investigate certain condi- 
 tions in that territory. 
 
 After the conclusion of his regular service in 
 Alaska he resumed the study of medicine at the 
 University of Illinois, and took his M. D. from the 
 medical department in Chicago in 1904. He then 
 located at Thief River Falls and took up a general 
 practice which he has since prosecuted with growing 
 success. He is a member of the Red River Valley 
 and the Minnesota State Medical societies, and the 
 American Medical Association. 
 
 Doctor Gambell is a former member of the Thief 
 River Falls School Board and is a trustee and elder 
 in the Presbyterian Church. He is vice president of 
 the First National Bank of Thief River Falls and a 
 director in the Thief River Falls Cooperative Build- 
 ing Company. 
 
 At Lone Tree, Minnesota, October 15, 1902, he 
 married Helen Mabelle Fernstrom. Their five chil- 
 dren are Francis Charles, John Cooper, George 
 Fernstrom, William Bryant and Robert Fulton. 
 Doctor Gambell, among other interests, owns several 
 farms in Minnesota. 
 
 Rasmus Oen. When Rasmus Oen came to 
 America from Norway thirty-five years ago, a boy 
 of about fifteen, he possessed none of those super- 
 ficial accessories of appearance, equipment, money or 
 influential friends which would have justified a pre- 
 diction that he would reach a position of business 
 and civic leadership in one of the flourishing towns 
 of the Northwest. Rasmus Oen is now head of the 
 largest mercantile enterprise in Thief River Falls, is 
 president of the chief bank and has a position in the 
 community which has been acquired by merit, indus- 
 try and thorough ability. 
 
 Rasmus Oen was born in Norway August 6, 1864, 
 a son of Hans and Bertha Oen. His people were 
 farmers in Norway for many generations back. In 
 1879, after his school days had been passed in Nor- 
 way, he came to America, and for one year worked 
 on farms in Freeborn County in Southern Minne- 
 sota. With his hard earned savings he bought a 
 small place, and continued farming independently 
 three years. After that he learned the tinner’s trade 
 and worked as a journeyman two years. Mr. Oen 
 was one of the early settlers of Thief River Falls, 
 having located there in the fall of 1889, and opening 
 a tinshop and hardware stock. He embarked his 
 
 modest capital in this enterprise, and began building 
 up a business on the basis of fair treatment and reli- 
 able service. He has now been one of the merchants 
 of the town for a quarter of a century, and his 
 business is now a department store, known as the 
 Oen Mercantile Company, which was organized in 
 1908 and of which he is president. His store occu- 
 pies an entire building, 75x140 feet, and two stories. 
 What is known as the Oen Building, one of the most 
 conspicuous in the business district, was erected by 
 Mr. Oen. He is president of the First National 
 Bank of Thief River Falls, and a director of the 
 Citizens State Bank. He is also a director of the 
 Goodrich Mercantile Company at Goodrich, Minne- 
 sota, and has a number of other local interests. 
 
 Fraternally he is affiliated with the Sons of Nor- 
 way and is a trustee of the Lutheran Synod Church. 
 In local affairs he interests himself particularly in 
 school matters and is a member of the school board. 
 
 In September, 1893, Mr. Oen married Evelyn Julia 
 Anderson, who was born in Minnesota. Their five 
 children are: Henry, a student; Edwin, a farmer; 
 
 Clara, Myrtle, both in school, and Roy. 
 
 Ludwig O. Solem. An appreciable percentage of 
 the representative members of the Minnesota bar, 
 especially those of the younger generation, can claim 
 the distinction of being native sons of this fine com- 
 monwealth, and this is true of Mr. Solem, who is 
 junior member of the law firm of Solem & Solem, 
 of Minneapolis, with offices in the Plymouth Build- 
 ing. His professional coadjutor is his elder brother, 
 Louis, and they have so well utilized their technical 
 ability and so directed their energies as to have built 
 up a substantial and representative practice, the while 
 they have not been denied a full measure of generic 
 popularity in the state of their nativity and the city 
 in which they have won definite success in their 
 exacting vocation. 
 
 Mr. Solem was born in the City of Faribault, judi- 
 cial center of Rice County, Minnesota, on the 1st of 
 February, 1881, and is a son of Lars L. and Anna P. 
 (Rothi) Solem, both of whom were born in Norway, 
 where they were reared and educated and where 
 their marriage was solemnized. In 1876 they severed 
 the ties that bound them to their native land and set 
 forth for America, where they were assured of better 
 opportunities for the winning of independence and 
 definite prosperity. The young couple, sustained by 
 mutual devotion and by worthy ambition, embarked 
 on a sailing vessel, and more than three months 
 elapsed before the voyage to the new world was 
 completed. They disembarked in the City of Quebec, 
 Canada, and thence came direct to Minnesota. At 
 Faribault they joined kinsfolk who had preceded 
 them to America and became numbered among the 
 sturdy and valued Scandinavian pioneers of Minne- 
 sota. For a time Lars L. Solem devoted his attention 
 to farming, but in his native land he had learned the 
 painter’s trade and had become a specially skillful 
 workman, particularly in the line of inside finishing, 
 and he soon found requisition for his services at his 
 trade. In 1883 he removed with his family to Minne- 
 apolis, where he and his devoted wife have since 
 maintained their home and where he still follows his 
 trade, as one of its most expert representatives in the 
 city. He has been indefatigable in his labors and 
 through his industry and good management has 
 achieved a worthy success, the while his sterling 
 character has gained to him the high regard of all 
 who know him. He has given unqualified support to 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1443 
 
 the cause of the republican party from the time of 
 becoming a naturalized citizen, and though he takes a 
 loyal interest in all that touches the welfare of the 
 community he has had no desire for the honors or 
 emoluments of public office. Of the children four 
 sons attained to years of maturity : Louis is senior 
 
 member of the firm of Solem & Solem, as noted in 
 the opening paragraph of this review, and he was 
 graduated in the law department of the University 
 of Minnesota as a member of the class of 1902; 
 Ludwig O., of this review, was the next in order of 
 birth ; Dr. Paul O. completed the prescribed course 
 in the department of dentistry of the University of 
 Minnesota, and is now engaged in the successful 
 practice of his profession in Minneapolis ; and Oscar 
 M. is a member of the class of 1915 in the law de- 
 partment of the same university. All of the sons 
 were graduated in the South Side High School of 
 Minneapolis and the foregoing statements indicate 
 that each has been animated by definite ambition and 
 has availed himself fully of higher educational op- 
 portunities. 
 
 Ludwig O. Solem was about two years of age at 
 the time of the family removal from Faribault to 
 Minneapolis, and he was reared to maturity in the 
 latter city, where he continued his studies in the 
 public schools until he had completed the curriculum 
 of the South Side High School, in which he was 
 graduated in 1900. In preparation for his chosen 
 profession he followed the example of his older 
 brother and present associate, by matriculating in the 
 law department of the University of Minnesota, in 
 which he was graduated as a member of the class 
 of 1904, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He 
 was forthwith admitted to the bar of his native state 
 and though his brother Louis had been admitted to 
 the bar two years previously, Ludwig was the first 
 to engage in active practice, his brother having been 
 an employe in the office of the city engineer of Min- 
 neapolis during the, intervening two years, and having 
 later, in 1909-10, served as assistant city attorney. 
 The firm of Solem & Solem control a general prac- 
 tice and its members are numbered among the earn- 
 est, ambitious and representative younger members 
 of the Minneapolis bar. Their success has been of 
 unequivocal order, as they have applied themselves 
 with all their circumspection and diligence and have 
 shown in a practical way their excellent professional 
 ability, with the result that their law business is con- 
 stantly expanding in scope and importance. Ludwig 
 O. Solem early learned personal responsibility and it 
 is in large measure due to his own efforts that he 
 has made advancement in his present well estab- 
 lished position. For thirteen years he was a news- 
 paper carrier in Minneapolis, and his earnings from 
 this source were carefully conserved as a means of 
 aiding him in obtaining his higher education. 
 
 Mr. Solem is aligned as a loyal and uncompromis- 
 ing supporter of the principles of the republican 
 party, and he is affiliated with the Modern Woodmen 
 of America, the Royal Arcanum and the Thurlanian 
 Club of the University of Minnesota. His brother 
 Louis is a member of the Odin Club, the Sons of 
 Norway, and the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce 
 Association. 
 
 On the 16th of January, 1907, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Solem to Miss Frances Margaret 
 Edwards, who was born at Portsmouth, Ohio, but 
 educated in Minneapolis, where she was graduated 
 in the South Side High School. She is a daughter 
 of Martin J. Edwards, now a farmer at Sedan, Ohio. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Solem have two children, — Margaret 
 Lucile and Charles Ludwig. 
 
 Louis Solem, law partner of Ludwig O., married 
 Miss Caroline Lois Ballentine, of Alexandria, Doug- 
 las County, Minnesota, on the 25th of May, 1905, and 
 they have one child, Annabell Lois. 
 
 H. O. Kjomme. One of the rising young attorneys 
 of Thief River Falls is H. O. Kjomme, who in four 
 years since taking his degree in law from the Uni- 
 versity of Minnesota has acquired a valuable prac- 
 tice, and the confidence of the people in his ability is 
 well illustrated by the fact that he was recently 
 elected and is now serving in the office of county 
 attorney. 
 
 H. O. Kjomme was born at Decorah, Iowa, Feb- 
 ruary 21, 1886, a son of Nels N. and Anne Kjomme, 
 both of whom were natives of Norway. His father 
 was a veterinary surgeon and farmer. Mr. Kjomme 
 grew up on a farm, received a public school educa- 
 tion, and in 1906 graduated from Luther College at 
 Decorah. He later entered the law department of 
 the University of Minnesota, pursued his studies 
 with regularity and fidelity and received the degree 
 LL. B. in 1910. In April, 1911, he located in Thief 
 River Falls and his personality and recognized tal- 
 ents soon made a favorable impression on the com- 
 mity. Mr. Kjomme was elected county attorney in 
 1914, taking office at the beginning of 1915. 
 
 Outside of the law he is director and attorney for 
 the Red Lake Building Association. His fraternal 
 affiliations are with the Benevolent and Protective 
 Order of Elks, the Sons of Norway, the I. O. O. M., 
 and with the Antlers Club. 
 
 August 12, 1913, he married Florence Winifred 
 Campbell of Fargo, North Dakota. They have one 
 son, John Campbell, born September 5, 1914. 
 
 George G. Johnson. The first banking institution 
 organized in Minnesota north of Crookston was the 
 Polk County Bank at Thief River Falls. It was 
 established in 1892 under that name and afterwards 
 took out a charter from the state and adopted its 
 present title as the First State Bank of Thief River 
 Falls. This bank has for more than twenty years 
 made a record of substantial service to the com- 
 munity, has maintained its resources and credit un- 
 impaired, and is today one of the most flourishing 
 institutions in proportion to its capital in Minnesota. 
 The capital stock is $10,000, while the surplus and 
 undivided profits in 1915 amount to $32,000, while 
 the deposits, the best index to a bank’s popularity, 
 aggregate a quarter of a million. The president is 
 J. P. Foote, the vice president William J. Brown, 
 while the cashier and the real executive manager is 
 George G. Johnson, who more than any other one 
 man deserves the credit for the successful growth 
 of the bank. 
 
 George Garrard Johnson was born in Frontenac, 
 Minnesota, July 1, 1876, a son of Hans and Gurina 
 Johnson. His father was a farmer, and the son 
 grew up on a farm, was educated both in the public 
 and private schools, and took a business course in a 
 commercial college at Red Wing. His first active 
 experience in business affairs was as deputy county 
 auditor of Marshall County, Minnesota, which posi- 
 tion he held for three years. He then went into the 
 First National Bank at Warren, in the capacity of 
 bookkeeper, and from that time he has kept close to 
 the banking business. He remained at Warren eight 
 
1444 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 years, in the banking business, being promoted to 
 assistant cashier, and then served as assistant cashier 
 of the First National Bank at Thief River Falls. 
 He and other associates bought the First State Bank 
 of Thief River Falls, December 18, 1912, and he has 
 since been its cashier and practical manager. 
 
 Mr. Johnson is also treasurer of the Thief River 
 Falls Iron Works and is secretary of the Thief River 
 Valley Land Company. He is president of the local 
 Commercial Club and affiliates with the Masonic 
 fraternity, the Knights of Pythias and the Benevo- 
 lent and Protective Order of Elks, being exalted 
 ruler of Lodge 1038, B. P. O. E. 
 
 At Warren, Minnesota, January 24, 1906, Mr. 
 Johnson married Lucile Shaw. Their two children 
 are Maxine Elizabeth and George Wayne. Mr. 
 Johnson from youth up has taken much interest in 
 music, is a musician himself, and in earlier years 
 was a leader in various bands and traveled exten- 
 sively with musical organizations. 
 
 Edwin M. Stanton. One of the ablest and best 
 known lawyers of Thief River Falls is Edwin M. 
 Stanton, who has been in the active practice of his 
 profession in this state nearly twenty-five years. As 
 a lawyer he has shown resourcefulness and ability in 
 the everyday work of his profession, and out of the 
 richness of his experience and his thorough knowl- 
 edge has become one of the successful men of the 
 state. 
 
 Edwin M. Stanton was born at Omro, Wisconsin, 
 March 10, 1863. His parents were Hiram E. and 
 Clara ( Pettingill ) Stanton. His father was a farmer 
 in Winnebago County, Wisconsin, where the son 
 grew up and received his early training in the local 
 schools. After graduating from the high school he 
 entered Lawrence University at Appleton, and first 
 came to Minnesota in 1889, spending some time in 
 Minneapolis. He took his law course in the Val- 
 paraiso University of Indiana, graduating there and 
 was admitted to the bar of Minnesota in 1891. His 
 first five years as a practicing lawyer were spent in 
 Crookston, and later he was at Argyle. He served 
 as county attorney of Marshall County, was a mem- 
 ber of the school board at Argyle, and enjoyed dis- 
 tinctive prestige as a lawyer and citizen in that lo- 
 cality. Since 1903 he has been building up a large 
 general practice as a lawyer at Thief River Falls. 
 Mr. Stanton was appointed the first county attorney 
 at the organization of Pennington County, and 
 served in that office two terms, organizing the office 
 and setting a high standard of official performance 
 for his successors. 
 
 Mr. Stanton is affiliated' with the Masonic frater- 
 nity and with the Knights of Pythias and is an active 
 member of the Thief River Falls Commercial Club. 
 His wife was Hattie Davis, who died leaving four 
 sons, Edwin M., Jr., Hal, Duncan and Leon. 
 
 Herbert Cornelius Rowberg. A firm of lawyers 
 that stands high in legal circles and command a large 
 and profitable patronage at Thief River Falls is that 
 of Stanton & Rowberg, which was organized in May, 
 1911, and of which Herbert C. Rowberg is junior 
 member. Mr. Rowberg is a graduate from the law 
 department of the University of Minnesota, and was 
 admitted to the bar and began practice in 1911. His 
 work has commended him to his associates in the 
 bar, and he is one of the rising young attorneys of 
 Northern Minnesota. 
 
 Herbert Cornelius Rowberg was born at Hanley 
 Falls in Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota, April 
 28, 1885, a son of Lief K. and Caroline (Akre) 
 Rowberg. His father was a Minnesota farmer and 
 one of the early settlers in Yellow Medicine County. 
 Mr. Rowberg finished his literary education at the 
 Minnesota University in 1908, and then attended the 
 law department of the University of Minnesota. Ad- 
 mitted to the bar in 1911, he located at Thief River 
 Falls in May of the same year, and has since en- 
 joyed a good general practice. He has served as city 
 attorney since 1914, and is also secretary of the 
 library board. Fraternally he is affiliated with the 
 Masonic Order and with the Sons of Norway and 
 in politics is a republican. 
 
 Oscar Albert Naplin. A successful lawyer at 
 Thief River Falls, O. A. Naplin has spent nearly all 
 his life of less than forty years in Minnesota, re- 
 ceived his education in the public schools and a col- 
 lege in St. Peter, and was a successful educator for 
 several years before taking up the law. 
 
 Oscar Albert Naplin was born in Sweden May 2, 
 1876, a son of Swan Naplin. His father was a 
 farmer, and brought the family to America in 1880, 
 locating first in Dudley, Iowa, and from there mov- 
 ing to Crookston, Minnesota. O. A. Naplin received 
 his education in the public schools, and in 1905 
 finished a course in Gustavus Adolphus College at 
 St. Peter. Mr. Naplin was principal of the public 
 schools of Harris, Minnesota, for one year was an 
 instructor in the Lutheran Ladies’ Seminary at Red 
 Wing, and was principal at Scanlon one year. It 
 was by teaching that he largely paid his way through 
 university and prepared for the law. In 1910 Mr. 
 Naplin graduated from the law department of the 
 University of North Dakota, and in July of that 
 year located and opened his office for practice at 
 Thief River Falls. He has enjoyed a growing gen- 
 eral practice, served as city attorney two years, and 
 is one of the popular younger citizens of this section 
 of the state. He is affiliated with the Woodmen of 
 the World, is a member of the Antlers Club, and in 
 politics is a socialist. 
 
 C. M. Tapager. Few men of the City of Albert 
 Lea have contributed in greater measure to the mak- 
 ing of their surroundings than has C. M. Tapager. 
 On every side large buildings and small, modest resi- 
 dences and beautiful homes, churches and schools, 
 industrial concerns and banking edifices testify to his 
 activities in the line of contracting and building and 
 give him a justly high place among the men who have 
 developed the city’s growth. Mr. Tapager was born 
 at Jytland, Denmark, February 15, 1870, and is a son 
 of M. K. and Marien (Dalgeaard) Tapager, natives 
 of Denmark, who came to the United States in 1888 
 and settled at Albert Lea, Minnesota, where for 
 many years the father has been engaged in farming. 
 
 C. M. Tapager received a public school education 
 in his native land, and there thoroughly learned the 
 trade of builder. He was eighteen years of age when 
 he accompanied his parents to the United States, and 
 entered upon his career at Albert Lea as a builder. 
 Here he subsequently formed a partnership with 
 John F. Hansen, which continued successfully until 
 1913, during which time the partners built among 
 other structures the Science Hall building, at the 
 Presbyterian College ; the dormitory at the Lutheran 
 Academy; the American Gas Machine Company’s 
 building; the Catholic Parochial School; the Skin- 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1445 
 
 ner-Chamberlain Building, and the palatial residence 
 of Henry Soth, known as the finest in the city. The 
 partnership was mutually dissolved in 1913, and since 
 that time Mr. Tapager has engaged in some large 
 building operations, among the monuments to his 
 skill and good workmanship being the bank at Ellen- 
 dale, Minnesota; the Masonic Hall at Pemberton, 
 Minnesota, and others. At the present time he is 
 engaged in the construction of the Freeborn County 
 Poor House, the Albert Lea Bottling Works and a 
 modern dairy farmhouse and barn for the Albert 
 Lea Milk Company. A man of progressive spirit 
 and modern ideas, the value of his contributions to 
 the city’s development can hardly be measured, and 
 in all things that have made for civic growth and 
 betterment he has taken a leading part. 
 
 Mr. Tapager is a republican in politics, but has 
 found but little time to engage in public affairs as an 
 official, his only public service being in the capacity 
 of town treasurer of Albert Lea Township, Freeborn 
 County, a position in which he served for two years. 
 Mr. Tapager is a member of the Danish Lutheran 
 Church, and belongs to the Danish Brotherhood, the 
 Modern Woodmen of America, the Independent Or- 
 der of Odd Fellows and Lodge No. 813, Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks, of Albert Lea. He is 
 a broad-minded and well-informed man, has a wide 
 acquaintance and through his likable personality has 
 drawn about him a circle of sincere friends. 
 
 Mr. Tapager was married at Albert Lea in 1893 to 
 Miss Annie K. Mortenson, of Geneva, Minnesota, 
 and three children have been born to them : Ella, 
 
 who received a high school education, is a graduate 
 of Albert Lea Business College and a young woman 
 of exceptional business ability, and is engaged in 
 assisting her father; Eleanor, who is a student of the 
 Lutheran Academy ; and Martha, who attends the 
 public schools. Mr. and Mrs. Tapager and their 
 children reside at their comfortable home, No. 401 
 East Clark Street, and Mr. Tapager maintains an 
 office at No. 206 West Clark Street. 
 
 ( 
 
 Charles Alfred Pitkin. An active member of 
 the Minnesota bar, Charles A. Pitkin has turned 
 his professional talents to good results and is one 
 of the leading factors in local affairs at Thief River 
 Falls. 
 
 Charles Alfred Pitkin was born in Sabula, Iowa, 
 June 27, 1878, a son of Alfred Hudson and Jemima 
 Catherine (McCreary) Pitkin. His father has for 
 a number of years been a general merchant at St. 
 Hilaire, Minnesota. Mr. C. A. Pitkin was educated 
 in the public high schools and finished his law course 
 in the University of Minnesota in the year 1903. He 
 practiced his profession in Bemidji and St. Paul, 
 Minnesota, and since April, 1912, has been identified 
 with Thief River Falls and that growing and thriving 
 community, and enjoys a good practice as a lawyer. 
 
 He has been an influence in local affairs in differ- 
 ent ways. He served as secretary of the Commercial 
 Club during 1914, and is a director of the Red River 
 Valley Development Association. Fraternally he is 
 identified with the Masonic Order and the Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks, is a member of the 
 Antlers Club, and belongs to the Minnesota State 
 and the American Bar Association and the National 
 Geographic Society. On August 1, 1907, Mr. Pitkin 
 married Ethel Corbitt of Spring Valley, Minnesota. 
 
 Robert McGinn. Among the citizens who have 
 been identified with the development of Thief River 
 
 Falls throughout the past twenty years one of those 
 most deserving of particular mention is Robert 
 McGinn, who has for several years been the leading 
 factor in the manufacturing and industrial interests 
 of that city. Mr. McGinn is a successful man, but 
 has won his success through hard work and a varied 
 experience, including work as a logger and riverman 
 during the years when the lumber industry was at its 
 height in Wisconsin. 
 
 Robert McGinn was born at Oconto, Wisconsin, 
 March 22, 1862, a son of Robert and Anna (Brown) 
 McGinn. His father was a farmer. Growing up 
 on a farm, he had only a common schooling, and his 
 vigorous physique and' love of hard work early took 
 him into the lumber woods, where he worked at 
 various occupations and became an expert river 
 driver. After this varied experience Mr. McGinn 
 came to Thief River Falls in 1894. For about four- 
 teen years he was engaged in the hardware business, 
 and out of that has developed his present interests 
 in manufacturing lines. Mr. McGinn is now presi- 
 dent of the Thief River Falls Iron Works, is vice 
 president of the P. W. Sharp Printing and Manufac- 
 turing Company, and a director of the Thief River 
 Falls Manufacturing Company. He is also secretary 
 and treasurer of the Thief River Valley Land Com- 
 pany. 
 
 In public affairs he manifests a commendable inter- 
 est and at the present time is serving as a member 
 of the city council. He is chief ranger in the Cath- 
 olic Order of Foresters, and also affiliates with the 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. On Janu- 
 ary 17, 1900, Mr. McGinn married Mary Conley, 
 daughter of Dennis Conley, who was one of the 
 pioneers along Thief River, having located there in 
 1879. To this union have been born four children: 
 Dennis M., Sybil Anna, Robert C. and Macella. 
 
 Leonard Peterson. The active carer of Leonard 
 Peterson has been spent largely at Crookston and at 
 Thief River Falls, in both of which cities he was 
 identified with the management of one of the chief 
 public utilities, and since coming to Thief River 
 Falls as a citizen has constructed and has been 
 superintendent of the waterworks and power plant 
 and is one of the men of that community who per- 
 form a large and valuable service and interest them- 
 selves in all local enterprises. 
 
 Leonard Peterson was born in Sweden September 
 11, 1866, a son of Peter and Anna Peterson. The 
 family came to America when Leonard was a boy 
 and his father took up and developed a homestead 
 near Thief River Falls. They were among the pio- 
 neers in that section of Minnesota. Leonard Peter- 
 son acquired his education by attending local schools 
 and afterwards was a student in a business college. 
 With this preparation and with the experience gained 
 on a farm, where he spent the first twenty-two years 
 of his life, he was well equipped for the productive 
 years of his career. For a number of years Mr. 
 Peterson was connected with the Waterworks, 
 Power and Light Company at Crookston, serving the 
 company as engineer and in other departments and 
 was office manager for six years. In 1900 he came 
 to Thief River Falls and supervised construction of 
 the water and light plant owned by the city, and 
 since its completion has been superintendent of the 
 plant. 
 
 Mr. Peterson is an active member of the local 
 Commercial Club, and is vice president of the Thief 
 
1446 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 River Automobile Club. He is an ardent sportsman, 
 delights to take vacations for fishing and hunting 
 trips, and is one of the most expert drivers of an 
 automobile in the city. He is affiliated with the 
 Modern Woodmen of America, and is trustee of the 
 Swedish Lutheran Church. 
 
 •Mr. Peterson was married in March, 1896, at War- 
 ren, Minnesota, to Nancy Olson, who was born in 
 Sweden. Their two children are Alice Maria and 
 Lloyd Leonard. 
 
 Frank L. Morrison. One of the Minneapolis 
 lawyers with greatest achievement to his credit is 
 Frank L. Morrison, who was admitted to the bar in 
 his native State of Wisconsin more than twenty-five 
 years ago, and has been identified with Minnesota 
 for the greater part of his professional career. He 
 controls a substantial and successful law business, 
 with offices in the Northwestern Building, and is a 
 well known member of the Hennepin County and the 
 Minnesota State Bar associations. As a result of 
 successful experience a special reputation has come 
 to him as a criminal lawyer, though he does not 
 confine himself to that department of practice. In 
 Wisconsin he was a political leader and a friend of 
 many men high in national political life, and his 
 political enthusiasm in behalf of the republican party 
 has not been diminished since coming to Minneapolis. 
 
 Frank L. Morrison was born at Columbus, Colum- 
 bia County, Wisconsin, January 20, 1865, a son of 
 Rev. Peter B. and Mary Lardner (Breck) Mor- 
 rison. His father gained distinction as a clergyman 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church and as an early 
 missionary in Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Da- 
 kotas. He was born in Philadelphia, of Scotch-Irish 
 parentage, and labored long and faithfully in his 
 chosen calling. There is an excellent record of the 
 Morrison family in its various branches in a book 
 of genealogy published by Hon. William Morrison 
 of Illinois. Mrs. Mary L. (Breck) Morrison was a 
 daughter of Samuel Breck, and a niece of Adjt. 
 Gen. Samuel Breck of the United States Army and 
 of Rev. James Lloyd Breck, an Episcopal clergy- 
 man who became known in the Northwest as the 
 “Apostle of the Wilderness.” There has been pub- 
 lished an interesting history of the life of James 
 Lloyd Breck, while Gen. Samuel Breck compiled and 
 published “Genealogy of the Breck Family.” 
 
 While Frank L. Morrison attended the public 
 schools as a boy, he has frequently given credit for 
 his broader training to the wisest of all head-masters, 
 Experience, and still claims to be an active student 
 under the same great instructor. His first experi- 
 ence after leaving school was in a printing office, 
 where he gained considerable practical knowledge of 
 printing. Subsequently he was a clerk in a grocery 
 store. His first visit to a law office attracted him 
 to the field in which he has made his most important 
 record. The determination to become a lawyer was 
 converted into a lasting and steadfast purpose after 
 he had listened to important trials in which the lead- 
 ing counsel were such eminent Wisconsin lawyers as 
 Hon. L. M. Vilas, William Vilas, a former post- 
 master-general of the United States, the late General 
 Bragg, Judge Quarles and Hon. H. H. Hayden. 
 With such influences he took up the study of law 
 and mastered its fundamental principles and was 
 admitted to the Wisconsin bar December 27, 1887. 
 
 After several years of practice at Eau Claire, he 
 abandoned his law office and spent some time in 
 travel, visiting practically all the western states. He 
 
 resumed practice at St. Paul, and remained in the 
 capital city until about 1905. For the past ten years 
 he has had his offices in the City of Minneapolis. Mr. 
 Morrison has participated in many of the notable 
 criminal trials in Minnesota and other states, and 
 easily stands in the front rank of criminal lawyers. 
 
 It was during the early ’80s that Air. Morrison 
 first became identified with politics in his native 
 state. He embraced the cause of the republican 
 party with characteristic ardor and was long and 
 prominently identified with the party in that state. 
 During that time he became the political and per- 
 sonal friend of some of the leading men, including 
 Hon. John C. Spooner, former United States sena- 
 tor ; Hon. Henry C. Payne ; and Hon. Robert La- 
 Follette, present United States senator from Wis- 
 consin. He also came to know both in a political 
 and personal way the late Hon. Thomas B. Reed, 
 who as speaker of the national House of Representa- 
 tives was, for many years probably the most influ- 
 ential republican in the country. Mr. Morrison has 
 participated in many campaigns, and such are his 
 convictions as to the soundness and beneficence of 
 the fundamental principles of the republican party 
 and the wisdom of its partisans that he is com- 
 mitted to the principle that he “would rather be a 
 republican than be right,” if “the right” is the ex- 
 pression of opinion from others than republicans. 
 For some time Mr. Morrison was secretary of the 
 Young Men’s Republican League of Wisconsin, and 
 in all his career there has never been any doubt that 
 he has been and is a “simon-pure” republican. 
 
 During his residence at Eau Claire he became a 
 charter member of Company E of the Wisconsin 
 National Guard. With that command he attended 
 the inauguration of Governor Hoard, and was on 
 active duty with his regiment at the scene of the 
 labor troubles at West Superior in 1889. In Min- 
 neapolis he is affiliated with Unity Lodge No. 4, 
 Knights of Pythias, and with its adjunct organiza- 
 tion, Mah-Bah Temple No. 77, Knights of Khoras- 
 san, Oasis of Minneapolis. 
 
 Mr. Morrison was married at Eau Claire May 15, 
 1889, to Miss Emma Mae Mosher. She died leaving 
 one_ child, Helen M., who is now married and liv- 
 ing at Columbus, Ohio. June 21, 1905, Air. Mor- 
 rison married Miss Carrie B. Simms. 
 
 From one who knows Mr. Alorrison well has 
 come the following interesting pen portrait : “Posi- 
 tive in manner and speech, considered a ‘good 
 mixer’ with men in general, Mr. Morrison makes 
 fast and loyal friends and bitter enemies. He is 
 ever willing to forgive and forget, but he has a 
 good memory with all that this implies. Hunting 
 and fishing afford him his principal recreation. He 
 is a great lover of dogs and horses, and many times 
 in his youth he came to the relief of suffering, in- 
 jured or neglected animals. He never whips a dog 
 or horse, but when he directs upon them the full 
 power of his vocabulary they seem to appreciate 
 the fact that his statements are not lacking in ob- 
 jective significance. He is essentially sympathetic 
 and generous, buoyant and optimistic, and will stick 
 to his friends at any cost, and many times to his 
 disadvantage from the standpoint of mere expedi- 
 ency. His is the simple and kindly nature that 
 gives voucher for strength and integrity of purpose, 
 and he is one who loves to ‘hold communion with 
 nature in her visible forms,’ this being evidenced by 
 the fact that he is seldom if ever seen without a 
 flower on the lapel of his coat.” 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1447 
 
 John K. West. The City of Detroit, Minnesota, 
 has profited by the stable citizenship and excellent 
 business abilities of John K. West since the year 
 1881, during which time he has been interested in 
 real estate and particularly in the handling of farm- 
 ing properties in Becker, Ottertail and Hubbard 
 counties. He was born January 27, 1847, at Pitts- 
 field, Massachusetts, a son of John C. and Maria L. 
 (Goodrich) West, and both sides of the family is 
 descended from ancestors who came to this coun- 
 try at an early day. 
 
 The founder of the West family in America was 
 Thomas West, who came to New England in 1633 
 in the ship Mary and John and is said to have set- 
 tled in Duxbury, near Plymouth. William Good- 
 rich, the founder of the Goodrich family, was ad- 
 mitted as a freedman in Connecticut, May 15, 1656, 
 served on the grand jury at Hartford, Connecticut, 
 in 1662, was in the General Assembly at Hartford, 
 May 11, 1663, was called Ensign William Goodrich 
 in 1676 just after the close of King Philip’s war, 
 and died at Westerfield, Connecticut, in 1676. John 
 C. West, the father of John K., was born at Pitts- 
 field, Massachusetts, in 1811, and throughout his 
 life was engaged in mercantile pursuits, dying in No- 
 vember, 1893. He was for a time a member of the 
 Massachusetts State Militia, and was also prominent 
 in public affairs, serving for twenty-three consec- 
 utive years as chairman of the board of selectmen 
 of Pittsfield. He was independent in his political 
 views. Mrs. West, who was born at Pittsfield in 
 1815, passed her entire life there and died in 1895. 
 They were the parents of four children : Charles E., 
 who is retired and lives at Pittsfield; John K. ; 
 Frank E., a graduate of Williams College, Wil- 
 liamstown, Massachusetts, and now a successful 
 practicing physician of Brooklyn, New York'; and 
 Frederick T., who is engaged in the insurance busi- 
 ness at Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 John K. West attended the public schools of Pitts- 
 field and was prepared for college at Williston 
 Seminary. In 1868 he was graduated from Williams 
 College with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Mr. 
 West came to Detroit, Minnesota, in 1881, and here 
 he has since been engaged in the handling of real 
 estate, loans, etc., having interests in city properties 
 as well as in farm lands in Becker, Ottertail and 
 Hubbard counties. He has been connected with 
 various enterprises tending to promote the interests 
 of this locality. His offices are located at No. 903 
 Washington Avenue. Mr. West bears an excellent 
 reputation in business circles, gained through a 
 long and honorable career. He maintains inde- 
 pendent views as to political questions. 
 
 On October 20, 1875, at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 
 Mr. West was united in marriage with Miss Jessie 
 Campbell, who died without issue January 25, 1903. 
 Mr. West was again married, February 2, 1905, at 
 Detroit, Minnesota, when he was united with Miss 
 Agnes Brownjohn, daughter of the late Rev. George 
 W. Brownjohn, who was an Episcopal clergyman 
 of Detroit, where he died. Mr. and Mrs. West have 
 no children. 
 
 Hon. Henry A. Morgan. One of the best known 
 and most successful lawyers in Southern Minnesota 
 is Henry A. Morgan of Albert Lea. His career has 
 exemplified all the success and also the generous 
 public service of a most representative lawyer. Mr. 
 Morgan has been honored on a great number of oc- 
 casions with positions of responsibility and trust, and 
 Vol. Ill— 12 
 
 as state senator won a reputation for fidelity to ideals 
 and leadership which well deserved another term, 
 and only the pressure of private practice caused him 
 to decline further honors in the state. Mr. Morgan 
 began life without special advantages, and rose from 
 a place as a poor boy to the front rank in a learned 
 profession, and as an influential factor in both city 
 and state. 
 
 Henry A. Morgan, who is descended from a fam- 
 ily of Scotch and Welsh people, that was brought to 
 America and settled in Vermont several generations 
 ago, was born at Clarinda, Iowa, March 14, 1863. 
 During his infancy his parents moved to Hesper, 
 Iowa, and it was in that village that he grew up and 
 received his early education. His father, Harley 
 Morgan, born in the State of Vermont, 1817, was an 
 early settler in Iowa, followed the contracting busi- 
 ness there, and in 1888 moved to the State of Wash- 
 ington, where he died in 1910. Harley Morgan mar- 
 ried Ruth Durray, also a native of Vermont, who 
 now lives at Ferndale, Washington. 
 
 When Henry A. Morgan was seventeen years of 
 age in 1880 he came to Albert Lea, where his brother 
 was engaged in practice as a lawyer, and when the 
 town contained a population of about fifteen hundred 
 and was just beginning its development into one of 
 the important cities of Minnesota. For five years he 
 worked and studied in the law office of John A. 
 Lovely and D. F. Morgan, and for the first two years 
 was a student in the high school, until graduating in 
 1882. His law studies continued with his brother and 
 Mr. Lovely and in 1885 came to his admission to the 
 bar. A reorganization of the firm title was effected, 
 making it Lovely, Morgan & Morgan. In the early 
 part of 1888 D. F. Morgan moved to Mankato, Min- 
 nesota, and in the latter part of the same year Mr. 
 Lovely removed to St. Paul. Mr. Morgan then prac- 
 ticed alone for a few months, until joining Walter J. 
 Trask, but at the end of six months Mr. Trask went 
 west to California. In 1901, after a number of years 
 of independent practice, Mr. Morgan became a part- 
 ner of John F. D. Meighen, a young lawyer of a 
 prominent old family in Southeastern Minnesota. 
 Their partnership continued until September, 1913, 
 and since then Mr. Morgan has looked after his own 
 practice. As a lawyer he has found his time entirely 
 occupied by a general civil and criminal practice, and 
 has never resorted to side lines in order to supple- 
 ment his strictly professional business. 
 
 Public duties have formed an important part of his 
 career for twenty-five years. He is a republican in 
 politics, and first came into public life as city attor- 
 ney of Albert Lea during 1888-89. In that time he 
 drew up the amended charter of the city. Mr. Mor- 
 gan was for eight years county attorney, from 1891 
 to 1899, inclusive. His name also appears on the 
 official annals of his home city as mayor during 
 1902-1903. His public service culminated with his 
 election to the State Senate, in which he served dur- 
 ing 1903-05, and was a member of the Judiciary Com- 
 mittee, Committee on Municipal Corporations, and 
 on the Game and Fish Committee, besides other 
 minor committees. It was Senator Morgan who pre- 
 pared and had passed the remodeled game law, which 
 is conceded to be one of the best of its kind in any 
 state. He was identified with all the work of the 
 Legislature during his term. His reelection would 
 have been a foregone conclusion, had not his law 
 practice demanded his attention. 
 
 Fraternally his affiliations are with Western Star 
 Lodge No. 26, A. F. & A. M. ; Apollo Commandery 
 
1448 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 No. 12, K. T. ; Zurah Temple of the Mystic Shrine; 
 Knights of Pythias at Albert Lea; and the Royal 
 Arcanum. Mr. Morgan has been a stockholder and 
 director in the Albert Lea State Bank since its or- 
 ganization. 
 
 On September i, 1886', at Albert Lea, Mr. Morgan 
 married Miss Helen A. Hall, daughter of Albert and 
 Anna P. Hall. Her parents, who came from the 
 State of Maine, were among the pioneer settlers of 
 Albert Lea. Mr. Morgan’s son Philip died in child- 
 hood, and the only living child is Barbara J., a gradu- 
 ate of Albert Lea College and Rockford College in 
 Illinois. The family home is at 405 Vine Street. 
 
 William Morris Carson. One of. St. Paul’s 
 prominent lawyers was the late William Morris 
 Carson, who for nearly thirty years was active as 
 a lawyeT and citizen. His death on October 15, 
 1914. removed a most estimable citizen and a man 
 of wide acquaintance and with hosts of friends in 
 St. Paul and the Northwest. 
 
 William Morris Carson was born in Baltimore, 
 Maryland, September 2, 1851. and was about sixty- 
 three years of age at the time of his death. His 
 parents were Washington King and Mary (Clark) 
 Carson. His father was a wholesale grocer in 
 Baltimore. William M. Carson was educated in the 
 Baltimore private schools, and afterwards entered 
 Princeton College, where he was graduated in the 
 law. He practiced as a lawyer in his native city 
 of Baltimore until about 1885, in which year he 
 came to St. Paul and was thenceforward connected 
 with the bar and also for many years was general 
 agent for the Germania Life Insurance Company. 
 At one time he was secretary to Mayor Robert A. 
 Smith. Mr. Carson was a strong political advocate 
 of the principles of the democratic party, was a 
 member of the Ramsey County Bar Association, 
 and his ability commanded the thorough respect 
 and admiration of his colleagues in the St. Paul 
 bar. A Presbyterian, he usually regulated his 
 church attendance by his liking for the individual 
 minister. 
 
 Mr. Carson was married at Baltimore, Maryland, 
 in 1881 to Louise Perry McCay, a daughter of Rob- 
 ert and Louise (Wiley) McCay, the former a native 
 of Alabama and the latter of Georgia. Her father 
 was a Southern planter. Mr. and Mrs. Carson were 
 the parents of three children. The daughter Helen 
 Dering, unmarried, lives in Chicago and is an in- 
 structor in the Art Institute. Ruth Erskine is the 
 wife of George Kelsey William Watson, and has 
 one daughter, Ruth McCay Watson, now two years 
 of age. Thornton McCay Carson, the oldest child, 
 is a successful architect in St. Paul. George Wat- 
 son is a Scotch Canadian, and prior to the outbreak 
 of the present war was made captain of the Ninetieth 
 Winnipeg Rifles, which office he still holds. Both 
 he and his brother-in-law, Thornton McCay Car- 
 son, enlisted for army service on August 12, 19T4, 
 and are now with the English army along the 
 Meuse River in Belgium and Northern France 
 Mrs. Watson lives with her mother in St. Paul at 
 482 Holly Avenue. 
 
 Walter J. Westfall. Probably no real estate 
 man in Minnesota has a better practical eauipment 
 for his business than W. J. Westfall, head of the 
 W. J. Westfall Land Company of Minneapolis. Mr. 
 Westfall has lived close to the land all his life, grew 
 up on a farm in Ohio, knew the practical details of 
 
 soil cultivation when a boy, and has been handling 
 real estate every year since reaching his majority. 
 He had a thorough training in the business in New 
 York City, has had offices in several of the larger 
 American cities, and has handled lands and general 
 real estate in almost every state of the Union and 
 also in Canada. His company at Minneapolis, with 
 offices in the Palace Building, now gives special at- 
 tention to the handling of Minnesota and Wisconsin 
 farm and timber lands, and also city property, loans 
 and rentals. The company own and control about a 
 hundred thousand acres of cut-over land in the old 
 lumber district of Minnesota, some forty thousand 
 acres of hardwood timber lands in Wisconsin, and 
 hundreds of improved and unimproved farm tracts 
 throughout the state, but particularly in the Red 
 River Valley and in Southern Minnesota. The com- 
 pany also handles small acreage tracts in the vicinity 
 of Minnetonka Lake. 
 
 Walter J. Westfall was born at Mulheiser, near 
 Cincinnati, Ohio, in Hamilton County, January 15, 
 1874. His parents were Allen and Cynthia (North- 
 cutt) Westfall. Llis father was born at Troy in 
 Miami County, Ohio, and his mother at Muncie, 
 Indiana. Allen Westfall was a man of considerable 
 wealth at the time of the Civil war and hired a sub- 
 stitute at Cincinnati to take his place in the ranks. 
 In addition he also showed his kindness and liber- 
 ality during the war by hauling wood and distribut- 
 ing it among the widows and wives of soldiers. For 
 a number of years after the war he was a small fruit 
 grower and market gardener near Cincinnati, but 
 finally returned to the old homestead where he was 
 born, and died there November 22, 1910. There were 
 six children in the family, three sons and three 
 daughters, all of whom are living: Julia, wife of 
 
 A. J. Renpfer of Spencerville, Ohio; Charles E., a 
 market gardener living on the old homestead near 
 Troy; Clara and Lydia, who married brothers, the 
 former being Mrs. George Weikert of Ludlow Falls, 
 Ohio, and the latter being Mrs. Charles Weikert of 
 Covington, Ohio; Walter J. and his brother William 
 H., now a market gardener at Piqua, Ohio, were 
 both born near Cincinnati, while the other four chil- 
 dren were born at the old homestead near Troy. 
 
 Walter J. Westfall was educated in the public 
 schools at Cincinnati, and in the Munson Business 
 College, which subsequently became the Cincinnati 
 School of the Masse Business College, which oper- 
 ates schools all over the country. With a substan- 
 tial education Mr. Westfall spent about three and a 
 half years as a farmer, and then went to New York 
 City and acquired a systematic training in the real 
 estate business in the handling of city property for 
 two years. In 1898 he located at Jacksonville, 
 Florida, handled Florida lands for two years, spent 
 about two years in Memphis, Tennessee, in the 
 handling of city property and in the spring of 1903 
 came to Minneapolis and opened offices in the Kasota 
 Building. During the next five years Mr. Westfall 
 did a good business in the handling of city property 
 and in Canadian lands, but then left Minneapolis and 
 located at Nashville, Tennessee, and for several years 
 dealt in city property and farm lands in and around 
 that city. 
 
 On April 14, 1913, Mr. Westfall returned to Min- 
 neapolis and opened his first offices in the Palace 
 Building, as the W. J. Westfall Land Company. Be- 
 tween the years 1903 and 1906, while in business at 
 Minneapolis, Mr. Westfall located about twelve hun- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1449 
 
 dred people on farms in the Province of Alberta, 
 Canada, over lands between Lloydminster west and 
 southwest to the Battle River. In his operations as 
 a real estate man Mr. Westfall has sold property in 
 thirty-eight states of the Union, and has traveled 
 over every state and also from Halifax, Nova 
 Scotia, to British Columbia, and has also made one 
 trip to Cuba. He has recently opened branch offices 
 at 301 West Forsyth Street, Jacksonville, Florida, 
 and in suite 402 Commercial Bank Building, Mason 
 City, Iowa. His company is a member of the Minne- 
 sota Farm Lands Association. While a successful 
 business man, and with a more than ordinary faculty 
 for successfully mingling with men, it should be 
 stated as a fact tending to disprove some contrary 
 theories, that in all his relations Mr. Westfall has 
 never taken a glass of liquor nor used tobacco in 
 any form, and is a business man of exemplary habits. 
 Fraternally he is associated with the Modern Wood- 
 men of America. 
 
 On October 2, 1895, at Dayton, Ohio, Mr. Westfall 
 married Miss Emma E. Miller. Mrs. Westfall died 
 at Memphis, Tennessee, February 7, 1903, leaving 
 one daughter, Consuela Eva, who was born in Day- 
 ton and is now attending public school at Monticello, 
 Minnesota. Mr. Westfall is a member of the Presby- 
 terian Church, and his recreations aside from an 
 energetic and almost incessant attention to business, 
 are found in an occasional fishing and hunting excur- 
 sion. 
 
 Frank E. Bentley. Now serving as judge of 
 probate, Frank E. Bentley has some interesting asso- 
 ciations with Chippewa County. Many years ago 
 when a young man, in 1878, he broke up the first half 
 section of land placed in cultivation in that county. 
 He has been active as a farmer and man of affairs 
 at Montevideo for a number of years, and in his 
 present position his service has been so acceptable 
 as to bring him re-election so that he has held the 
 office continuously for about six years. 
 
 Frank E. Bentley was born in Columbia County, 
 Wisconsin, in 1858, but was brought when a child to 
 Olmsted County, Minnesota, in i860. His father, An- 
 drew Bentley, was born in 1831, in the State of New 
 York, and died in 1884. He went as a child to Wis- 
 consin in 1838, while Wisconsin was still a territory, 
 and in i860 brought his family out to Olmsted 
 County, where he was one of the pioneers and lived 
 there during the Civil war and the Indian troubles. 
 He acquired a farm of 400 acres in that county and 
 was one of the county’s successful and influential 
 men. He belonged to the Masonic order, was a re- 
 publican in politics and a member of the Baptist 
 Church. His wife, whose maiden name was Wiltse, 
 was born in New York State in 1835, and they were 
 married in 1851. To their union were born fourteen 
 children, of whom six are living, as follows: Judge 
 Bentley: Mary Mansfield, now living in New Hamp- 
 shire ; Mrs. Rose Rollins, of Minneapolis ; W. L. 
 Bentley of Woodburn, Oregon ; Mrs. Susie Roat of 
 St. Paul, and L. H. Bentley of Minneapolis. 
 
 Judge Bentley received his early education in the 
 common schools of Olmsted County, and attended 
 the schools in Rochester and the high school at 
 Plainview. Farming has been his regular business 
 for over thirty-five years, and during practically all 
 of this time he has been identified with Chippewa 
 County, having witnessed its development from a 
 raw prairie. In 1899 he was appointed to the office 
 of postmaster of Montevideo, holding that office six 
 
 years. Governor Eberhart appointed him judge of 
 probate for Chippewa County in 1910, and since then 
 he has been twice elected to the office. Judge Bentley 
 is a director of the First National Bank of Monte- 
 video. He is active in fraternal affairs, has passed 
 all the chairs in the lodge of Odd Fellows and is a 
 member of the Masonic fraternity and the Knights 
 of Pythias. 
 
 Judge Bentley was married at Plattsburg, New 
 York, in 1884, to Ressa M. Smith, who was born in 
 Franklin County, New York, in 1865. They are the 
 parents of three children: Lena, the wife of John 
 
 W. Peterson; Mildred, and Wilma. The two oldest 
 daughters are high school graduates, while Mildred 
 is a graduate of the Valparaiso University of In- 
 diana. 
 
 Jens Ohnstad. A physician and surgeon whose 
 capabilities are beyond question, and whose ex- 
 perience has* brought him a fine private practice is 
 Dr. Jens Ohnstad of McIntosh, where he has been 
 identified with the medical fraternity for a number 
 of years and is proprietor and founder of the Ohn- 
 stad Hospital. 
 
 Jens Ohnstad was born in Dane County, Wiscon- 
 sin, June 20, 1868, a son of Rognald and Carrie 
 (Jerdee) Ohnstad. His parents were Norwegian 
 people, and substantial farmers of Wisconsin and 
 later of Iowa. Dr. Ohnstad grew up in Dane 
 County, Wisconsin, and attended a private school at 
 St. Ansgar, Iowa. During his early career he spent 
 two years as a teacher, and through his own earn- 
 ings and without any assistance paid his way through 
 medical school. He entered the Minneapolis Col- 
 lege of Physicians and Surgeons, the medical de- 
 partment of Hamline University, and was gradu- 
 ated M. D. C. D. in 1903. He soon afterward es- 
 tablished his office at McIntosh, and has enjoyed a 
 successful private practice. In 1910 he established 
 the Ohnstad Hospital, a well equipped institution 
 with accommodations for eight beds, and which fur- 
 nishes a much desired service in that section of 
 Polk County. Dr. Ohnstad is a member of the Red 
 River Valley and the Minnesota State Medical so- 
 cieties and the American Medical Association, and 
 by study and fraternal relations with other physi- 
 cians and surgeons keeps himself constantly abreast 
 of the modern improvements in the science of medi- 
 cine and surgery. 
 
 Dr. Ohnstad is a member of the Indeoendent 
 Scandinavian Workingmen's Association, and of the 
 Royal Neighbors. For five years he served as 
 health officer at McIntosh. On October 20, 1908, 
 Dr. Ohnstad married Mabel Hooverson of Red 
 Wing, Minnesota. Their two sons are Peter Rolf 
 and Carsten Jerdee. 
 
 Charles L. Conger. The progress of the Village 
 of McIntosh in Polk County during the past twen- 
 ty-four years has been aggressively forwarded in 
 many ways by Charles L. Conger, who is one of 
 the leading bankers in Northern Minnesota, and 
 whose ability as an organizer has. been called into 
 play in connection with many important movements 
 and with the public affairs of his community. 
 
 The Citizens State Bank of McIntosh, of which 
 Mr. Conger is cashier, and with which he has been 
 identified for a number of years, was organized as 
 a private institution August 17, 1891, being known 
 at that time as the Citizens Bank. J. P. Foot was 
 the first president; A. A. Miller, vice president; and 
 
1450 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 C. F. Page, cashier. The capital stock was then 
 $10,000. On January 6, 1908, there came a reorgani- 
 zation under a charter from the state as the Citi- 
 zens State Bank of McIntosh. The capital is now 
 $10,000, with surplus of $5,000, undivided profits, 
 $3,000, while the item of deposits approximates 
 $125,000. The bank owns a substantial two-story 
 brick block, 50x25 feet, eligibly located in the center 
 of the town. The present officers are : J. P. Foot, 
 
 president; A. A. Miller, vice president; Charles L. 
 Conger, cashier. 
 
 Charles Leslie Conger was born in Eau Claire, 
 Wisconsin, January 17, 1869, a son of William and 
 Susan (Wright) Conger. His father was a con- 
 tractor and builder and removed from Wisconsin to 
 Iowa, where Charles L. Conger received his early 
 education in the public schools. Mr. Conger has 
 been a resident of Minnesota since September, 1891. 
 He was in a law office at Crookston for one year, 
 and in the fall of 1892 removed to McIntosh and 
 became identified with the Citizens Bank as as- 
 sistant cashier, and in December, 1898, became cash- 
 ier, holding the same office when the reorganization 
 was effected under a state charter. 
 
 The official records of the Village of McIntosh 
 indicate that Mr. Conger has enjoyed probably the 
 lion’s share of public honor. For seven terms he 
 was mayor, and for fourteen years was treasurer of 
 the village. In banking affairs he is quite well 
 known over the state, being a member of the execu- 
 tive council of the Minnesota Bankers Association. 
 On the score of ancestry he is a member of the 
 Sons of the American Revolution, and one of the 
 board of managers of the Minnesota Chapter. In 
 the Northern Minnesota Development Association 
 he has held positions on the executive board, as a 
 director and also as vice president. He is also a 
 former president of the McIntosh School Board, 
 and has served as president of the Commercial Club. 
 
 In the Knights of Pythias order he is a past 
 chancellor and is also affiliated with the Benevo- 
 lent and Protective Order of Elks and the Masonic 
 order, and is banker of the local camp of the Mod- 
 ern Woodmen of America. 
 
 On June 28, 1897, Mr. Conger married Leona 
 Halverson of Litchfield, Minnesota. The one son 
 of that union is William L. Mrs. Conger died Sep- 
 tember 14, 1902, and on December 8, 1903, he was 
 married at Albert Lea, Minnesota, to Miss Louise 
 A. Heiser. 
 
 Hon. H. H. Dunn. While his rank as a success- 
 ful and able lawyer was established many years ago, 
 Mr. Dunn has more recently come into state-wide 
 prominence through his particularly efficient and 
 progressive service as a legislative leader. Without 
 doubt he is today one of the strongest and most po- 
 tential figures in Minnesota public affairs. 
 
 H. H. Dunn was born in Jackson County, Minne- 
 sota, October 28, 1867, a son of James W. Dunn, 
 who was born in Eastport, Maine, in 1828, and died 
 in Jackson County, Minnesota, in 1889. Grandfather, 
 James J. Dunn, came from the north of Ireland and 
 during his residence at Eastport, Maine, was con- 
 nected with the fishing industry. James W. Dunn 
 was one of the pioneers in Minnesota, followed the 
 vocations of school teacher and farmer, and carried 
 to his grave a bullet that struck him in the thigh 
 during the battle of Iuka in the Civil war. He had 
 served for two years as sergeant in Company B of 
 the Fourth Regiment of Minnesota Infantry, and was 
 
 given an honorable discharge as a result of his 
 wounds. James W. Dunn married Elizabeth M. 
 Seely, who died in Jackson County, Minnesota, at the 
 age of fifty-nine. She was of a prominent colonial 
 family that was identified with the old State of 
 Virginia. 
 
 H. H. Dunn grew up in Jackson County, was edu- 
 cated in the public schools, and when seventeen years 
 of age entered the office of a lawyer at Jackson, and 
 continued his studies until admitted to the bar in 
 1890. Since then his career has been one of steady 
 climbing in his profession, and equally effective and 
 useful service to the public, often in the thankless 
 duties which a democratic community requires of its 
 citizens. Mr. Dunn practiced at Fairmont, Minne- 
 sota, from 1892 until January 1, 1899, and his home 
 has since been in Albert Lea. He has a large practice 
 and has reached that point in his profession where 
 he is able to pick and choose his business. His offices 
 are in the First National Bank Building, and he is a 
 director in the Freeborn County State Bank and in 
 the Motor Inn Company. 
 
 Since reaching his majority Mr. Dunn has voted 
 and worked with the republican party, but always as 
 one of its progressive members. Four years of serv- 
 ice as city attorney at Fairmont introduced him to 
 practical politics, and from 1897 to 1899 he repre- 
 sented the Martin-Watonwan District in the State 
 Senate. During that time Senator Dunn was a mem- 
 ber of the Judiciary and the Printing committees, 
 and chairman of a special committee to investigate 
 the labor bureau of Minnesota, besides membership 
 on minor committees. After his first term as sena- 
 tor he was elected in 1900 mayor of Albert Lea and 
 devoted much of the time during his two terms in 
 that office to the improvement and the economical 
 administration of his home city. In the fall of 1910 
 came his election to the House of Representatives 
 from Freeborn County, and during the 1911 session 
 lie was honored with the office of speaker of the 
 House. In 1912 he was reelected and served through 
 the session of 1913. He was speaker of the House 
 during the extra session of 1912. Many of the most 
 important legislative measures originated and passed 
 during the last three or four years have been either 
 directly or indirectly the work of Senator Dunn. Im- 
 portant legislation with which his name should be 
 associated was the passage in 1911-12 of the state- 
 wide primary law; the bill increasing the gross earn- 
 ings tax on railroads, adding approximately two mil- 
 lion dollars a year to the state revenues; the cor- 
 rupt practice act ; the ratification of the income tax 
 and the United States senators amendments ; one of 
 the best child labor laws in the country; and during 
 the 1913 session Mr. Dunn was chairman of the Com- 
 mittee on Dairy Products and Live Stock, a member 
 of the Judiciary, the Reapportionment, the Roads 
 and Bridges, the Railroads and the Corporations 
 committees. Mr. Dunn was' author of the House 
 Distance Tariff Law, known as the Cashman Bill in 
 the Senate, and had charge of that measure during 
 its consideration by the House. The passage of the 
 state Oleomargarine Law, of the Butter Brand Law, 
 of the Hog Cholera Serum Law and other important 
 legislation affecting farming and live stock interests 
 were brought about through his efficient leadership. 
 Mr. Dunn was author of the bill reserving all min- 
 eral rights in lands deeded to railroads, with an 
 approximate saving to the state of three million 
 dollars. He supported the initiative, referendum 
 
'tAyi 
 

 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1451 
 
 and recall and other progressive legislation during 
 that session. 
 
 Senator Dunn is affiliated with Western Star Lodge 
 No. 26, A. F. & A. M. ; Albert Lea Chapter No. 30, 
 R. A. M. ; Apollo Commandery No. 12, K. T. ; Osman 
 Temple of the Mystic Shrine at St. Paul; with the 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Albert Lea; 
 is exalted ruler of Albert Lea Lodge No. 813, B. P. 
 O. E. Mr. Dunn has been a member of the Business 
 Men’s League since its organization, and belongs to 
 the American Bar Association. 
 
 His residence is at 204 Fountain Street in Albert 
 Lea. On October 4, 1894, in Fairmont, Minnesota, 
 Mr. Dunn married Miss Eva Nicholas, daughter of 
 H. B. and Isabella Nicholas, of Emmetsburg, Iowa. 
 Both her parents are now deceased, and her father 
 was engaged in railway construction work. Mr. 
 Dunn and wife have two children : Isobel, who is a 
 
 student in the Albert Lea College for Women, and 
 Virginia in the Albert Lea High School. 
 
 Carl M. Berg. President of the First National 
 Bank of McIntosh, C. M. Berg is one of the group 
 of business men who are chiefly responsible for the 
 direction and control of the larger commercial and 
 financial interests of Polk County. His success 
 and position have been honorably won, and his 
 career has been a rise from a humble clerkship to a 
 bank presidency. Mr. Berg is the example of a man 
 who without means and without influential friends 
 in boyhood, has steadily climbed upward to the posi- 
 tion which his ambition coveted. 
 
 The First National Bank of McIntosh is the out- 
 growth of a private bank, known as the Bank of 
 McIntosh in 1889, and it later became the State Bank 
 of McIntosh owned by James and Sol H. Drew, who 
 were controlling factors in the institution until about 
 1901. On January 1, 1903, the State Bank was con- 
 verted into the First National Bank. In 1915 some 
 of the items taken from the bank statement indicate 
 a capital stock 'of $25,000, surplus of $5,000, un- 
 divided profits of $6,000, with deposits of approxi- 
 mately $190,000. The bank owns and occupies a sub- 
 stantial pressed brick, two-story block, 23x52 feet, 
 and well furnished for banking purposes, the second 
 story being used for offices. All the present officers 
 have been identified with the institution for ten years 
 or more. The president is Mr. Berg and the vice 
 president K. K. Hoffard and the cashier George A. 
 Beito. 
 
 Carl M. Berg was born in Grue Prestegjeld. Solor, 
 Norway, April 10, 1873, spent his early youth in that 
 country, attended the Norwegian schools, and in 
 1888, at the age of fifteen, came to America with 
 his parents. The family established their home on 
 a farm in King township of Polk County. Several 
 years later, having continued to attend school and 
 securing a practical knowledge as a farmer, Mr. 
 C. M. Berg began his career in 1892 as clerk in a 
 store at McIntosh, and continued in that line of 
 business until 1899. For two seasons he sold agri- 
 cultural implements on the road, and in 1901 took 
 the position of bookkeeper in the State Bank of 
 McIntosh. He was later promoted to assistant 
 cashier, and continued to hold that position after 
 the organization of the First National Bank. In 
 1905 he was promoted to cashier, and held that of- 
 fice until January 10, 1911, when elected president. 
 
 Mr. Berg was married November 18, 1896, to Miss 
 Bertha Bjorgo, who came to Polk County with her 
 parents during the early settlement of what is known 
 
 as the thirteen towns. While giving the best ener- 
 gies of his nature to his work as a banker, Mr. Berg 
 has also concerned himself beneficially with public 
 affairs. He has served in the office of mayor, was 
 for eight years a member of the school board, hold- 
 ing the office of treasurer, and in 1914 becoming 
 president of the board. He is treasurer of the 
 North Star Creamery Association and treasurer of 
 the Scandinavian Workingmen’s Association. For 
 the past twenty-three years he has held the office of 
 treasurer of St. John's Norwegian Lutheran Church. 
 He is also a former president of the McIntosh Com- 
 mercial Club. 
 
 0L 
 
 James Lewis Humphrey. The Farmers State 
 Bank of Fosston, which furnishes a financial service 
 to a large and prosperous district in Polk County, is 
 an institution with a successful history of seven 
 years. It was organized October 8, 1908, with a 
 capital stock of $10,000. The first officers were J. A. 
 Northrop, president; John Mittum, vice president; 
 M. A. Hendrickson, cashier. The bank has its quar- 
 ters in its own building, a structure 25x75 feet, with 
 the second floor occupied for offices. A statement 
 of the bank’s condition in 1915, shows capital stock 
 of $10,000, surplus of $1,500, undivided profits of 
 $700, with deposits of $125,000. Mr. Northrop is 
 still president, while the two vice presidents are 
 John Mittum and H. K. Lee, and the cashier is J. L. 
 Humphrey. 
 
 James Lewis Humphrey, now cashier of the 
 Farmers State Bank of Fosston, has made banking 
 his business and profession from early manhood, 
 and though still a young man, has reached an envi- 
 able position in his home community, and is also well 
 known among Minnesota bankers, having in 1914 
 served as president of the Ninth District of the Min- 
 nesota Bankers Association. He was born in Lyon 
 County, Minnesota, May 26, 1881, a son of Marcus 
 C. and Frances (Lewis) Humphrey. His father was 
 a merchant. The son received his education in pub- 
 lic schools and also attended a business college. His 
 first important experience was one year spent in the 
 farm loan business. In 1906 he went to Crookston 
 as assistant cashier of the Crookston State Bank, 
 and in 1910 became identified with the Farmers State 
 Bank of Fosston, and since that year has been 
 cashier of the institution. Mr. Humphrey is a for- 
 mer president of the Fosston Commercial Club and 
 is a member of the local board of health. In Mas- 
 onry he belongs to both the lodge and Royal Arch 
 Chapter, and is also affiliated with the Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks and the Modern 
 Woodmen of America, and the United Commercial 
 Travelers. On November 7, 1908, he married Miss 
 Elva Murray of Minneapolis. 
 
 S. S. Stadsvold. Probably more of the substantial 
 business enterprise of Fosston revolves about the 
 name of S. S. Stadsvold than any other citizen. Mr. 
 Stadsvold was one of the founders and is now 
 president of the Fosston Elevator and Flouring 
 Mills, one of the leading institutions of its kind in 
 Northern Minnesota, is officially identified with half 
 a dozen banks or other local concerns, and has been 
 one of the most effective workers in behalf of com- 
 munity upbuilding and civic progress at Fosston since 
 the early days. 
 
 The Fosston Elevator and Flouring Mills were 
 founded as an institution, though not under that 
 
1452 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 name, in 1888, when Mr. Stadsvold and associates 
 built a flour mill with a daily capacity of sixty 
 barrels. This mill was burnt, and in 1897 was re- 
 built, with a daily capacity of 125 barrels. The ele- 
 vator has a capacity of 33,000 bushels. This is now 
 a large and imposing plant, the mill proper being a 
 building 48x60 feet, while the elevator is 34x36 feet 
 on foundations, and rising to a height of sixty 
 feet, and a warehouse completes the group on a 
 foundation 24 by 94 feet. The old mill employed 
 five men, while at the present time the number of 
 employes is twelve. The mills deal in wheat, oats, 
 barley, corn and flax, and manufacture two or more 
 staple brands of Minnesota flour from No. 1 hard 
 spring wheat. 
 
 Sever S. Stadsvold was born in Waukon, Iowa, 
 September 30, 1861, a son of Seron and Gurie Stads- 
 vold. His father was an Iowa farmer. Mr. Stads- 
 vold spent his youth in the country districts of Iowa, 
 was initiated into the mysteries of hard work when 
 a boy, and secured his education from district schools 
 and high school. He was still a young man when 
 in 1884 he established a general merchandise store 
 at Lake Park, Minnesota. Two and a half years 
 later, on November 6, 1886, he' arrived in the then 
 small Village of Fosston, and started as a general 
 merchant. From that start he has developed interests 
 which have made him the leading factor in this 
 locality. In 1887 he built saw mills, and for the fol- 
 lowing seven years cut from five to six million feet 
 of lumber at Fosston each year. In the fall of 1888, 
 as a member of the firm of Larson Bros. & Stads- 
 vold, he built the flour mill already mentioned. In 
 1893 the partnership was dissolved, and Mr. Stads- 
 vold took the flour milling part of the business. 
 
 His services as a business man and his ability 
 to control capital have naturally brought him into 
 banking affairs. Mr. Stadsvold is now vice president 
 of the First National Bank of Fosston, and was 
 one of the organizers of that institution under the 
 name Bank of Fosston. Fie is vice president of the 
 First National Bank of Bagley, a director of the 
 First State Bank of Shevlin, is president of the 
 First State Bank of Clearbrook. 
 
 His record of ..public service is hardly less note- 
 worthy than his business achievements. For five 
 terms he was honored with the office of mayor of 
 Fosston. For twenty-one years he has been a mem- 
 ber of the school board, and for nineteen years of 
 that time was its president, and in that capacity 
 assisted in the building of all the local schoolhouses. 
 For four years he was a member of the State Board 
 of Equalization, and has long been a leading figure 
 in Polk County in republican politics. He has served 
 as chairman of the Polk County Central Committee 
 and also on the State Central Committee, and though 
 a vigorous advocate of republican doctrines in his 
 interest in the upbuilding of city, county and state, 
 has never allowed his partisanship to interfere with 
 good service. Mr. Stadsvold is a member of the 
 Commercial Club, of the Masonic fraternity and the 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and the 
 Knights of Pythias. 
 
 On June 26, 1888, Mr. Stadsvold married Miss 
 Minnie Anderson, who was born in Sweden. They 
 have reason to be proud of their family of four 
 children. Millie Geneva, the oldest, is the wife of 
 Wallace E. Pearson, formerly of Ada, Minnesota, 
 and now claim agent for the Northern Pacific Rail- 
 way at Livingston, Montana. Sidney C. J. is a 
 graduate of the University of Minnesota. Francis 
 
 H. E. is a student of law in the University of Min- 
 nesota. Stella Madeline is a student at the Univer- 
 sity of Minnesota and in the Northwestern Con- 
 servatory of Music, and is a young woman who has 
 distinguished herself in athletics, as has also her 
 two brothers, and has set many of the records in 
 woman’s events in various athletic contests at the 
 State University. 
 
 Lewis Lohn. The career of Lewis Lohn and that 
 of the thriving Village of Fosston have developed 
 side by side, and there has been little in the business, 
 financial and civic progress of the city with which 
 Mr. Lohn has not identified himself in some effective 
 and public-spirited manner. Primarily he has been a 
 banker, but has also held some public positions since 
 the incorporation of the village. 
 
 The First National Bank of Fosston, of which 
 Mr. Lohn is cashier, is the outgrowth of the Bank 
 of Fosston, which was established in 1889, and 
 with which Mr. Lohn was even at that time identified. 
 The reorganization under a national charter occurred 
 in 1903. This bank has a capital stock of $30,000, 
 surplus of $6,000, undivided profits of $6,000, and 
 in matter of deposits, which aggregate $425,000, this 
 bank shows exceptional popularity and power. The 
 bank owns a two-story pressed brick building, 32 by 
 40 feet, with offices above the banking room. The 
 officers are: A. D. Stephens, president; S. S. Stads- 
 vold, vice president; and Lewis Lohn, cashier. 
 
 Lewis Lohn was born September 25, 1857, in Boone 
 County, Illinois, a son of Knute and Syneva Lohn. 
 His father was a farmer, and the son grew up on 
 a farm and was educated in the district schools 
 and Cedar Valley Seminary at Osage, Iowa. At the 
 age of twenty-one he went to the Northwest and 
 took up a claim in Dakota Territory and lived in 
 Traill County for a number of years. He served 
 as deputy register of deeds in that county for two 
 years, and in 1882 was regularly elected to that 
 office, and held the position creditably for four years. 
 Mr. Lohn removed to Fosston, Minnesota, in 1887, 
 and for five years was a local merchant. He then 
 became actively identified with the private banking 
 business, held the post of cashier and continued in 
 the same office upon the organization of the First 
 National Bank. 
 
 When Fosston was incorporated Mr. Lohn was 
 the man honored with the first office of mayor, 
 serving one term. He has been treasurer of the local 
 school board since its organization, and was one of 
 the organizers and is still an influential member of 
 the Commercial Club. His fraternal affiliations are 
 with the Masonic Order and the Independent Order 
 of Odd Fellows. 
 
 Mr. Lohn married Fannie Houghton, and the 
 five sons of that union are : Lewis Kent, in the 
 
 banking business at Grand Forks, North Dakota; 
 Francis H., connected with the First National Bank 
 of Fosston; Dwight, a merchant in Froid, Montana; 
 Leon, in the insurance business at Duluth ; and 
 Victor H., a student in the Agricultural College at 
 Fargo, North Dakota. Mr. Lohn married for his 
 present wife Gertrude Houghtaling of Fosston. 
 
 Hon. Henry F. Maurin. One of the progressive, 
 energetic and thoroughly capable business men of 
 Elizabeth, Minnesota, Henry F. Maurin is also serv- 
 ing in the capacity of mayor of this thriving little 
 community, and is taking an active and helpful part 
 in the interests which are promoting its growth and 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1453 
 
 welfare. He was born at Parkdale, Ottertail County, 
 Minnesota, July 9, 1882, at the time of a visit of his 
 parents, Peter and Anna (Kaus) Maurin, who were 
 residents of Elizabeth. 
 
 Peter Maurin, during the more than forty-three 
 years of his residence at Elizabeth, was one of 
 Ottertail County’s most prominent and highly 
 esteemed citizens. He was born in 1839, at Unter- 
 Wald, Unter-Krain, Austria, and was eighteen years 
 of age when he emigrated to the United States, 
 first locating at Chicago, Illinois, where he found 
 a number of his countrymen. Two years were spent 
 in the Illinois metropolis, and in 1859 he moved to 
 St. Paul, in which city he resided for three years, 
 then going to Cold Springs, Minnesota, where he 
 was associated in business with his brother, Marcus, 
 for nine years. In the winter of 1870-71 Mr. 
 Maurin came to Elizabeth as a pioneer. He had 
 been a merchant all of his life, and on locating 
 at Elizabeth purchased a small, store from Jacob 
 Movrin, this forming the nucleus for the present 
 large establishment of the Peter Maurin Company. 
 At the start Mr. Maurin’s operations were carried 
 on in a modest manner, but as the years passed 
 and he attracted trade to his store, he increased 
 his stock and his building, branched out into new 
 territory and made his business at Elizabeth one 
 of the most important of the town, it now being 
 valued in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand 
 dollars. He was president of the Merchants State 
 Bank of Elizabeth, and a director in the First State 
 Bank of Fergus Falls, and at the latter place was 
 the builder of the Maurin Block, a handsome and 
 substantial structure. He was also largely interested 
 in farms, being the owner of six properties aggre- 
 gating over one thousand acres in Ottertail County, 
 as well as a farm at Little Falls. He was a faithful 
 member of the Catholic Church, and throughout his 
 life strictly adhered to high principles of business 
 integrity, gaining and retaining the respect and con- 
 fidence of all with whom he came into contact. A 
 democrat in his political views, he served for some 
 years as postmaster of Elizabeth, and for many years 
 acted in the capacity of mayor, the town developing 
 considerably under his able administration. He died 
 at Elizabeth, in August, 1914. 
 
 Peter Maurin married Miss Anna Kaus, who was 
 born at Faribault, Minnesota, and is now a resident 
 of Elizabeth, and they became the parents of seven 
 children, as follows : Amelia, who married Charles 
 
 Nangle, a general merchant of Bemidji, Minnesota; 
 Martha, who married George Schroeder, and resides 
 on a farm in Ottertail County; Matilda, who died 
 unmarried in February, 1913; Marcus, educated in 
 the Elizabeth public schools and St. John’s Uni- 
 versity, secretary and treasurer of the Peter Maurin 
 Company, at Elizabeth, married Irene Barron, who 
 died in 1913, leaving one child, Marcus P., born 
 February 12, 1913; Frank, an attorney, married 
 Frances Sharp of St. Paul, Minnesota, and died in 
 1905, at the age of twenty-six years; Antoinette, who 
 married Ole Sletvold, in the machinery and imple- 
 ment business at Elizabeth ; and Henry F. 
 
 Henry F. Maurin attended the public schools of 
 Elizabeth, after leaving which he attended St. John’s 
 University for six years and was graduated there- 
 from in 1902. At that time he entered upon his 
 career in his father’s business, and has continued to 
 be connected therewith to the present time. The 
 establishment of the Peter Maurin Company is 
 located on Broadway, and the officers of the con- 
 
 cern are : Mrs. Peter Maurin, president ; Henry F. 
 
 Maurin, vice president; Marcus Maurin, secretary 
 and treasurer. Mr. Maurin has numerous other 
 business interests, and is known as one of the force- 
 ful and enterprising business men of his part of the 
 county. In politics a democrat, in 1911 he was 
 elected mayor of Elizabeth, a position which he 
 now holds. He was reared in the faith of the Roman 
 Catholic Church, and is still a member thereof. 
 Fraternally Mr. Maurin is connected with the Mod- 
 ern Woodmen of America, Camp No. 2302, and 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Lodge 
 No. 1093, of Fergus Falls. 
 
 In 1911, at Chicago, Illinois, Mr. Maurin was 
 married to Miss Laura J. Rush, whose father, James 
 Rush, is a retired railroad superintendent of Mil- 
 waukee, Wisconsin. To this union there has been 
 born one daughter, Dorothy J. 
 
 I 
 
 Hon. Ernest Lundeen. In bold and clear char- 
 acters Hon. Ernest Lundeen has inscribed his name 
 upon the history of Minneapolis, both in the domain 
 of the law and as a representative of his fellow- 
 citizens in offices of public trust and importance, 
 where he has been able to prepare and secure the 
 passage of much beneficial legislation. As one of 
 his city’s most helpful men, his record has always 
 been characterized by fidelity to duty. 
 
 Mr. Lundeen was born near Beresford, South 
 Dakota, on the homestead of his father, August 4, 
 1878, and is a son of the Rev. Charles Henry and 
 Christine C. (Peterson) Lundeen. His early edu- 
 cation was secured in the common school of the 
 Brooklyn district, near Beresford, and at Harcourt, 
 Iowa, and in 1895 he was graduated from the Day- 
 ton (Iowa) High School. Following this, he en- 
 tered Carleton College, where he graduated in 1901, 
 securing the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and his 
 entire college career was one crowded with accom- 
 plishments of a high order. As a student of Carle- 
 ton College, in 1900, he won the state championship 
 in oratory, and represented Minnesota in the inter- 
 state oratorical contest during the same year. While 
 at Carleton he was prominent in athletics, playing 
 on three state champion football teams and being 
 captain of the track team, and also served in the 
 capacity of editor of the college paper. He has 
 stood valiantly for Minnesota in a large number of 
 struggles for supremacy in debate, oratory, rifle and 
 general athletic contests. In 1903 he was one of 
 the representatives of the University of Minnesota 
 in debate against Northwestern University, Chicago, 
 and more than fifty gold, silver and bronze medals, 
 won in contests, testify to his prowess as a partici- 
 pant in many hard-fought meets. Mr. Lundeen took 
 up the study of his chosen vocation of the law at 
 the University of Minnesota, and after his gradua- 
 tion from that institution, was admitted to the bar 
 May 21, 1906. He was a member of the National 
 Champion Rifle team in 1909, and has long been 
 recognized as one of the country’s most skilled and 
 versatile athletes. 
 
 The foregoing things have been indicated to dem- 
 onstrate what nature and training have done in the 
 way of physical and mental endowment and devel- 
 opment for Mr. Lundeen, but it is rather his career 
 as a lawyer and legislator which is our chief con- 
 cern. He was elected by large majorities from the 
 Forty-second District to the House of Representa- 
 tives in 1910 and again in 1912, and has always been 
 found on the side of the people and in accord with 
 
1454 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 progressive theories of political thought. He is a 
 republican and has shown great loyalty to the peo- 
 ple regardless of political considerations. 
 
 Mr. Lundeen is the author of the law which in 
 the session of 1911 increased the value of human 
 life, when lost in the industries, from $5,000 to 
 $7,500, of the legislation which provided a purchas- 
 ing department for the City of Minneapolis, and of 
 the admirable law which gave permission for a 
 municipally owned electric light plant. In the ses- 
 sion of 19x2, Mr. Lundeen made a strong fight for 
 two amendments to the United States Constitution, 
 the national income tax and the direct election 
 of senators by the people. Both of these bills were 
 passed. In the same session he was the author of 
 a recall bill which passed the House of Representa- 
 tives by a vote of 93 to 3, and this bill failed in 
 the Senate by only six votes. During the session 
 of 1913, among much other important work done, 
 Mr. Lundeen was the framer of the law calling for 
 state insurance at cost on public buildings, which 
 saved at once to the state the sum of a third of a 
 million dollars, although he was compelled to labor 
 assiduously to overcome the bitter opposition which 
 at first met it. After three hard-fought defeats, he 
 finally secured the passage, in 1913, without a single 
 dissenting vote, of the presidential primary law, 
 Minnesota being one of the first states in the Union 
 to take such a stand as to the choice of president, 
 thereby eliminating boss rule in national party con- 
 ventions. Mr. Lundeen was also charman of the 
 Soldiers’ Home Committee during this session. His 
 efforts also amended the workmen's compensation 
 act, securing for injured employes $200, available 
 during the first ninety days, for medical and sur- 
 gical attendance, hospital charges, medicines, nurses, 
 crutches and artificial limbs. For these and other 
 important services he received endorsement and ap- 
 proval from the State Progressive League and the 
 Minnesota State Federation of Labor. Mr. Lun- 
 deen is in close touch with his party as far as it is 
 in line with progressive ideas, and was elected with- 
 out opposition alternate delegate from Hennepin 
 County to the national republican convention held 
 at Chicago in 1912. In April, 1914, Mr. Lundeen 
 announced his candidacy for the republican nom- 
 ination to Congress as representative of the new 
 Fifth Congressional District, comprising all the City 
 of Minneapolis except the third, fourth and tenth 
 wards. His platform was his record as a progress- 
 ive legislator in the state and a promise to carry 
 into the National Legislature his persistent efforts 
 for economical expenditures and the enactment of 
 laws which would improve social conditions and a 
 sturdy adherence to the welfare of the country 
 rather than to the sectional interests or to party 
 advancement. Mr. Lundeen made an excellent cam- 
 paign and was strongly supported, carrying five 
 wards out of the ten comprising the district, but 
 was defeated in the primaries in June, 1914, by the 
 present congressman, George Smith. 
 
 In addition to his extensive law practice, Mr. 
 Lundeen is prosperously interested in the real estate 
 and investment business and maintains well-ap- 
 pointed offices at No. 406 Northwestern Bank Build- 
 ing, at the corner of First Avenue, south, and 
 Fourth Street. He still maintains his connection 
 with university and college associations as a mem- 
 ber of the Athenian, Shakopean and Delta Sigma 
 Rho fraternities. His military record includes sev- 
 eral years spent as a member of the Minnesota 
 
 National Guard, in which he acted as lieutenant of 
 Company F, as well as service as a volunteer during 
 the late war between the United States and Spain. 
 Fraternally, he belongs to the Knights of Khoras- 
 san, the Masons, the Independent Order of Odd 
 Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and the Spanish- 
 American War Veterans. He is a genuinely pro- 
 gressive, upright and far-seeing citizen and has con- 
 sistently supported progressive and labor legislation. 
 Mr. Lundeen is also widely known in social and 
 club circles of the city, and belongs to the Min- 
 neapolis Athletic Club, the Minneapolis Civic and 
 Commerce Association, and various other organ- 
 izations. 
 
 Ernest H. Reff. Among the men who have sup- 
 plied hope and enthusiasm, as well as hard work 
 and business enterprise to the development of North- 
 ern Minnesota, Ernest H. Reff deserves particular 
 mention in this work for his part in the history of 
 Bagley and Clearwater County. Mr. Reff went to 
 that locality as a homesteader before the organiza- 
 tion of Clearwater County, and there have been few 
 movements of any importance since with which his 
 name has not been influentially associated. 
 
 Ernest H. Reff was born in Jefferson County, New 
 York, January 27, 1876, a son of Christopher and 
 Mary (Backus) Reff. His father was a farmer, and 
 about five years after the birth of his son, in June, 
 1881, arrived in Minnesota and located in Ottertail 
 County. Mr. Reff was educated in Minnesota, and 
 for about eight years was connected with school 
 work as a teacher. In 1897 he took up a homestead 
 in what is now Clearwater County, and remained 
 on it in the work of proving up and developing the 
 land until 1902. When Clearwater County was 
 organized Mr. Reff was appointed the first clerk of 
 court, held that for two years under appointment 
 and then was elected for two successive terms, so 
 that his service continued for ten years. Mr. Reff’s 
 chief business is an abstracter, having purchased 
 the Clearwater County abstract books several years 
 ago and being now owner of the Clearwater Abstract 
 Company. He helped organize the Bagley Build- 
 ing & Loan Association, of which he has been 
 secretary, and also organized and is president of 
 the Clearwater County Agricultural Society. He 
 was former president and one of the organizers 
 of the Co-operative Creamery Association of Bag- 
 ley. He has done a great deal to stimulate enter- 
 prise in an agricultural way, and is credited with 
 having brought into Clearwater County the first 
 thoroughbred cattle, hogs and poultry. For six 
 years he was the manager for the Clearwater County 
 Agricultural Exhibits at the State Fair, and in every 
 possible way lias helped to forward movements for 
 the upbuilding of his home town and county. For 
 a number of years he served as township clerk. 
 Before the organization of Clearwater County he 
 served as deputy superintendent of schools, and 
 held all the examinations for local teachers. He is 
 a member of the school board at Bagley and was 
 on that board when the new schoolhouse was con- 
 structed. 
 
 Fraternally Mr. Reff is a past noble grand of the 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is affiliated 
 with the Modern Woodmen of America and the 
 Royal League. On August 17, 1901, he married 
 Sophia Pattison of Cormorant, Minnesota. Their 
 three children are named Alan Randolph, Mildred 
 Mary and Robert Ernest. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1455 
 
 Mankato Public Library is one of the best of 
 Mankato’s public buildings and is centrally located 
 on South Broad Street. The present building was 
 erected in 1902 at a cost of $40,000, a gift of Mr. 
 Andrew Carnegie. It is one story, of pressed brick 
 with Mankato stone trimmings, the grounds about 
 the building being attractive and well kept. It is 
 practically fireproof with its concrete floors, steel 
 stacks and other furnishings. The ground floor 
 has large separate reading rooms for adults and 
 children, loan desk, stack room, trustees’ and 
 librarian's offices. In the basement floor is a lecture 
 room and living rooms for the janitor. Throughout 
 the building is well planned, lighted and equipped. 
 At the end of 1914 the library contained 18,062 
 volumes, having added 1,151 volumes during the 
 year, spending $1,091.59 for books and $265.20 for 
 periodicals. It is the fifth library in size in the 
 state and is a well selected and good working 
 library. In 1906 and 1907 it was thoroughly re- 
 organized. The annual income from taxation is 
 about $5,000. At present this library has a staff of 
 three and a board of trustees consisting of nine 
 members, who are appointed by the mayor. 
 
 Albert Kaiser. Few namfes occur more, persist- 
 ently in official relation with the business affairs of 
 Northern Minnesota than that of Albert Kaiser, 
 whose home is at Bagley, where he is the active 
 cashier of the First National Bank, but whose in- 
 terests extend in a wide radius around that town, 
 including official associations with a number of 
 banks and with many private and public organiza- 
 tions of a business, or civic character. Mr. Kaiser 
 is a printer by trade, was one of the pioneer news- 
 paper men in the northern counties of the state and 
 is still president of the principal newspaper and 
 printing plant at Bemidji. Mr. Kaiser possesses 
 the faculty of a business builder and the power of 
 attracting to himself those elements which consti- 
 tute success. 
 
 The First National Bank of Bagley, in which he 
 is now cashier, was organized in 1903 with a capital 
 stock of $25,000 and the first officers were : A. D. 
 
 Stephens, president; Albert Kaiser, vice president; 
 and F. M. Olson, cashier. At the present time while 
 Mr. Stephens still remains president, the vice presi- 
 dent is S. S. Stadsvold of Fosston, while Mr. 
 Kaiser assumes the principal executive responsibili- 
 ties in the post of cashier. The bank still retains 
 its capital stock of $25,000, with surplus of $5,000, 
 and undivided profits of $700. The bank owns a 
 two-story building, 25 by 60 feet, with crushed 
 brick front and stone trimmings, the upper floor 
 ’ being used for offices. One interesting feature of 
 this bank is the free reading room conducted as a 
 part; of the establishment, and also an information 
 bureau for the benefit of customers. 
 
 Albert Kaiser was born in Winona, Minnesota, 
 January 17, 1864, a son of William and Amelia 
 (Kaiser) Kaiser, who were pioneer settlers of Min- 
 nesota. His father was a contractor and builder. 
 Albert Kaiser acquired his early education in the 
 public schools, and at an early age began an ap- 
 prenticeship at the printing trade. When twenty 
 years of age, in 1884, Mr. Kaiser established at 
 Fosston a publication known as the Thirteen Towns, 
 which was the principal news and advertising me- 
 dium for a large group of little communities in 
 Polk and adjoining counties. He continued this 
 newspaper for ten years. In 1892 Mr. Kaiser was 
 
 associated with others in establishing the Bank of 
 Fosston, and was vice president. For five years 
 he held the office of state surveyor of logs and 
 lumber. He was also a member of the Fosston 
 school board two years. Mr. Kaiser has been iden- 
 tified with Bagley since January, 1904, by residence, 
 at that date assuming his present duties as cashier. 
 
 Mr. Kaiser is also president of the First State 
 Bank of Shevlin, director of the First State Bank 
 of Clearbrook, director of the First National Bank 
 of Fosston, a director of the Clearbrook Lumber 
 Company, president of the Bemidji Daily Pioneer 
 Publishing Company, and president of the Bagley 
 Water and Light Commission. He has served as 
 president of the Bagley Commercial Club, is now 
 treasurer of the local school board, and is always 
 ready to lend his influence and energy for the pro- 
 motion of any movement which promises benefit to 
 his locality. His interests are not altogether con- 
 fined to the town, since he has a farm of 320 acres 
 two and a half miles from Bagley, and in estab- 
 lishing and improving this attractive place set an 
 example 'which has been of great benefit to the 
 agricultural district. His farm is the home of thor- 
 oughbred cattle and swine. Mr. Kaiser is a mem- 
 bet of the Minnesota State Historical Society, and 
 is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, the Knights 
 of Pythias and the Benevolent and Protective Order 
 of Elks. 
 
 On July 24, 1893, he married Miss Hilda Fred- 
 erika Mark of Minneapolis. Their three children 
 are : Roscoe M., a student in the Carleton College 
 
 at Northfield; William H., also a student; and 
 Albert F., still in school. 
 
 The Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank of 
 Minneapolis. This bank has for forty years been 
 one of the distinctive institutions in the financial 
 district of Minneapolis. It is exclusively a savings 
 bank, organized on the mutual plan, with neither 
 stock nor stockholders. All property and profits 
 are held solely for the benefit of its depositors. It 
 does no collection or commercial business and takes 
 no commercial risks of any kind. The funds of the 
 bank, aside from an amount necessary to meet the 
 ordinary demands of the depositors, are invested in 
 securities approved for savings banks by the laws 
 of Minnesota. From the profits a surplus is accu- 
 mulated and maintained sufficient to protect the 
 depositors against possible contingency. The re- 
 mainder of the profits is distributed to the deposit- 
 ors in the form of dividends or interest. 
 
 By 1915 the total amount of dividends paid to 
 depositors during the bank’s existence amounted to 
 more than nine millions of dollars. On April 1, 
 1915, its total resources were $19,544,899.15, and the 
 surplus amounted to over a million dollars. The 
 total deposits at that date amounted to $18,373,- 
 626.84, and an interesting feature of this statement 
 is that there were upwards of twenty-eight thou- 
 sand school children accounts, aggregating over 
 forty-eight thousand dollars, in addition to over 
 seventy thousand regular interest accounts. 
 
 The bank was incorporated September 9, 1874, as 
 a mutual savings bank, without capital stock, under 
 the General Laws of 1867 of the State of Minnesota. 
 The original incorporators and first board of trus- 
 tees were H. T. Welles, Clinton Morrison, William 
 Chandler, Charles McC. Reeve, E. H. Moulton, 
 Paris Gibson, W. P. Westfall, Thomas Lowry and 
 A. D. Mulford. 
 
1456 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 The first board met and organized for business 
 on the ioth of October, 1874, at the office of Mr. 
 Thomas Lowry. Shortly after, in the year 1874, 
 the bank commenced receiving deposits. It first 
 occupied a small room on Washington Avenue un- 
 der the Nicollet House. By January 1, 1875, the 
 deposits amounted to $17,540.55. 
 
 The deposits of the bank in 18 86 had increased to 
 over two million dollars and on account of the 
 growth of its business the bank was compelled to 
 go into larger quarters. It moved its banking house 
 to Temple Court at the corner of Washington and 
 Hennepin avenues. 
 
 In this latter location the prosperity of the bank 
 was still more marked and by 1891 the deposits had 
 grown to over $4,500,000. The volume of business 
 had become so great that the trustees decided to 
 erect a building for the sole use of the bank. Such 
 building was completed in 1893 and was the first to 
 be erected and used exclusively for banking purposes 
 in the City of Minneapolis. 
 
 In the year 1908, the growth of the bank having 
 continued until the deposits were about twelve 
 million dollars, the trustees decided to enlarge the 
 banking offices. The business of the bank was tem- 
 porarily transferred to the building formerly occu- 
 pied by the Bank of Commerce, and the banking 
 house at 1 15 South Fourth Street was remodeled 
 and enlarged to its present size. The present build- 
 ing is of Italian Renaissance style, two stories in 
 front and covering a plat of land fronting seventy- 
 five feet on Fourth Street by one hundred and fifty- 
 five feet in depth. 
 
 The growth of the deposits of the bank is shown 
 concisely by the following figures: 1875, January 
 
 1, $17,540; 1880, January 1, $178,178; 1890, January 
 1, $3,444,238; 1900, January 1, $7,870,279; 1910, Jan- 
 uary 1, $12,494,006; 1914, January 1, $17,296,349.59; 
 1915, April 1, $18,373,626.84. 
 
 The present trustees are : Messrs. Eugene J. 
 
 Carpenter, John Crosby, Karl DeLaittre, N. F. Haw- 
 ley, T. B. Janney, Cavour S. Langdon, Wm. G. 
 Northup, Alfred F. Pillsbury, John Washburn, 
 Charles C. Webber and O. C. Wyman. Most of 
 these names are at once identified as those of execu- 
 tives in leading commercial and industrial concerns 
 of Minneapolis. The officers are: Mr. T. B. Jan- 
 
 ney, president; Mr. O. C. Wyman, vice president; 
 Mr. Wm. G. Northup, second vice president; Mr. 
 N. F. Hawley, secretary and treasurer; Mr. John 
 Crosby, assistant treasurer. 
 
 Newton F. Hawley. A prominent figure in finan- 
 cial and general business circles of Minneapolis, 
 Mr. Hawley is the secretary, treasurer and general 
 manager of the Farmers and Mechanics Savings 
 Bank of Minneapolis, an institution that was founded 
 forty years ago and that now has deposits to the 
 amount of over eighteen million dollars, with re- 
 sources as indicated by the quarterly statement made 
 April 1, 1914, of $19,544,899.15. These figures stand 
 in emphatic evidence of the great business controlled 
 by this old and stable institution, which is one of 
 the strongest of its kind in the Northwest. Its func- 
 tions are those of a mutual savings bank. It has 
 nd stock or stockholders. All property and profits 
 are held solely for the benefit of its depositors. It 
 does no collection or commercial business and takes 
 no commercial risks of any kind. It has within the 
 period of its existence paid out in dividends to de- 
 positors more than nine million dollars ; its opera- 
 
 tions are based on the staunchest of foundations, 
 and its management is vested in citizens of the 
 highest standing in the community. The trustees of 
 the bank at the time of this writing, in the autumn 
 of 1915, are here designated, together with their 
 other important business connections : E. J. Car- 
 
 penter, of Carpenter-Lamb Lumber Company; John 
 Crosby, treasurer Washburn-Crosby Company; Karl 
 DeLaittre, president Green & DeLaittre Company ; 
 Newton F. Hawley treasurer of the bank; T. B. 
 Janney, president of the bank and of Janney, Sem- 
 ple, Hill & Company; Cavour S. Langdon, of Linton 
 & Company, railroad contractors ; William G. 
 Northup, president North Star Woolen Mill Com- 
 pany and vice president Minneapolis Trust Com- 
 pany ; Alfred F. Pillsbury, president St. Anthony 
 Falls Water Power Company and vice president 
 Pillsbury Flour Mills Company; John Washburn, 
 vice president Washburn-Crosby Company; Charles 
 C. Webber, president Deere & Webber Company; 
 and O. C. Wyman, president Wyman, Partridge & 
 Company. The full executive corps of the institu- 
 tion is as here noted: T. B. Janney, president; O. 
 
 C. Wyman, vice president; William G. Northup, 
 second vice president; Newton F. Hawley, secre- 
 tary, treasurer and general manager ; F. P. Garcken, 
 assistant secretary ; H. E. Cobb, second assistant 
 secretary; John Crosby, assistant treasurer; F. P. 
 Leonard, second assistant treasurer ; E. V. Cotton, 
 third assistant treasurer; and C. B. Leonard, coun- 
 sel. 
 
 Newton F. Hawley was born at Springdale, 
 Woodbury County, Iowa, on the 28th of November, 
 1859, and is a son of Newton J. and Delia (Can- 
 field) Hawley. He was afforded the advantages of 
 the public schools of his native state, including 
 those of the high school at Tipton, Cedar County, 
 and in 1879 was graduated from Iowa College at 
 Grinnell, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In 
 1882 he received from his alma mater the degree 
 of Master of Arts, after a post-graduate course. 
 Mr. Hawley, coming to Minneapolis in 1880, gave 
 careful attention to preparing himself for the legal 
 profession, and in 1884, at Minneapolis, was ad- 
 mitted to the Minnesota bar. In this city he forth- 
 with engaged in the active practice -of law, in which 
 he continued, and with distinctive success, until 
 January 1, 1906, when he was elected secretary, 
 treasurer and trustee of the Farmers and Mechanics 
 Savings Bank, his office of treasurer making him 
 the managing executive of this great institution, the 
 affairs of which now engross his time and attention. 
 Within the period of his active professional work 
 Mr. Hawley was successively a member of the law 
 firms of Hahn & Hawley; Hahn, Belden & Hawley; 
 and Belden, Hawley & Jamison, and he held posi- 
 tion as one of the representative members of the 
 Minnesota bar. 
 
 For many years since his graduation in that insti- 
 tution Mr. Hawley has served as trustee of Iowa 
 College, and in Minneapolis he has shown specially 
 vital and loyal interest in municipal affairs, with 
 strong influence in the furtherance of civic and 
 material progress and the bettering of municipal 
 government. He was a member of the city charter 
 commission of 1898 and also of that of 1906, was a 
 member of the board of education from 1899 to 
 1905, and is a member of the educational advisory 
 commission. In local affairs Mr. Hawley is not 
 constrained by strict partisan lines, but where state 
 and national issues are involved he has been found 
 

 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1457 
 
 a stalwart supporter of the cause of the republican 
 party. He is a member of the American Academy 
 of Political and Social Science, the National Muni- 
 cipal League, and other organizations devoted to 
 the consideration of governmental, economic, socio- 
 logical and municipal matters and to the general 
 furtherance of high civic ideals and politics. Mr. 
 Hawley is vice president and head of the civic 
 division of the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce 
 Association, the Minneapolis Club, the Minnikahdah 
 Club and the Six O’clock Club, and is identified 
 with the Pillsbury Settlement House. Both he and 
 his wife hold membership in Plymouth Congrega- 
 tional Church. 
 
 In Minneapolis, September 6, 1884, Mr. Hawley 
 married Miss Ellen M. Field. She was born and 
 educated in New York State. Their two children 
 are : Robert and Douglas. 
 
 Francis Joseph McPartlin. International Falls 
 has been the stage of Mr. McPartlin’s career as a 
 lawyer and business man and citizen for the past 
 thirteen years. He is a native of Minnesota, and 
 may be said to have graduated into the law from a 
 printer's case. He is a man of most creditable at- 
 tainments, and enjoys not only a good practice but 
 substantial influence in his home community. 
 
 Francis Joseph McPartlin was born in Sibley 
 County, Minnesota, December 27, 1875, a son of 
 Frank and Catherine (Kelley) McPartlin. His 
 father was a native of Ireland, and his mother, of 
 Irish parentage, was born in Maine, and they lo- 
 cated on a homestead in the pioneer State of Min- 
 nesota in 1866. Mr. McPartlin grew up on a farm, 
 attended public schools, and early in life entered a 
 printing office to learn the trade. That was his 
 means of support for several years, and it was while 
 setting type that he determined upon the profession 
 of law. During the period of hostilities between 
 the United States and Spain he enlisted in April, 
 1898, in Company H of the Fourteenth Minnesota 
 Regiment, and remained in the service until No- 
 vember, 1898, when mustered out as a corporal. He 
 soon afterwards became a student in the law de- 
 partment of the University of Minnesota, where he 
 was graduated LL. B. in 1902. 
 
 After his admission to the bar he established a 
 newspaper at Barrett, Minnesota, but sold out in 
 1902, and removed to International Falls, where he 
 has had his office and has been caring for a grow- 
 ing general practice. With success as a lawyer he 
 has enjoyed some official distinction. For five years 
 he was United States commissioner, for two years 
 county attorney, and is now serving his third term 
 as city attorney. On April 13, 1915, he was ad- 
 mitted to practice in the United States Supreme 
 Court. Mr. McPartlin is president of the Ray Iron 
 Mining Company. 
 
 Fraternally he is affiliated with the Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks, the Maccabees, the 
 Modern Woodmen of America and is state advocate 
 for the Knights of Columbus. He also belongs to 
 the Minnesota State Bar Association. On July 17, 
 1906, he married Miss Alice M. Green of Wadena. 
 Their . three children are Catherine, George and 
 Francis. 
 
 Raymond Bridgman has gained a secure place as 
 one of the resourceful and honored members of the 
 Minneapolis bar. He has been engaged in practice 
 since 1904, and has acquired a substantial reputation 
 both as a lawyer and as a business man. 
 
 A native of Wisconsin he was born at Warrens, 
 Monroe County, of a pioneer, family of that state. 
 His parents, Brainerd Lewis and Mary J. (Stone) 
 Bridgman, were also natives of Wisconsin. In 
 earlier generations the family represented the old 
 puritan stock of New England. 
 
 Raymond Bridgman has his own efforts to thank 
 largely for his liberal education. As a boy he at- 
 tended public schools, and later entered Yankton 
 College at Yankton, South Dakota, where he was 
 graduated A. B. in 1901. With this literary prepara- 
 tion, he entered the law department of the Univer- 
 sity of Minnesota, and was graduated with the class 
 of 1904 and the degree LL. B. His ambition and 
 determined purpose were well illustrated while gain- 
 ing an education, since he depended entirely upon 
 his own resources for expenses both at Yankton 
 College and the University of Minnesota. His early 
 life was spent on a farm, and both body and mind 
 were well disciplined by its activities. When he 
 entered the University of Minnesota he had a cash 
 capital of $10. He did not consider it beneath his 
 dignity to accept any honorable occupation that 
 would enable him to meet his expenses. 
 
 In addition to his private practice as a lawyer 
 Mr. Bridgman, since 1907 has been associated with 
 John F. Ryan in an extensive contracting and build- 
 ing business. The firm of Bridgman & Ryan has 
 erected in Minneapolis more than four hundred 
 houses, which have been sold largely to working 
 people on the monthly-payment plan. Thus many 
 ambitious citizens have been able to gain homes of 
 their own. Not unacquainted with hardships and 
 poverty himself, Mr. Bridgman combined motives 
 of altruism with this business, and has found it a 
 matter of satisfaction to aid others who are striving 
 earnestly for independence. 
 
 As to politics he has always stood staunchly with 
 the republican party, and as exponent of clean pol- 
 itics. While a resident of South Dakota he was a 
 delegate to the republican state convention from 
 which United States Senator Pettigrew and his 
 followers withdrew in anger at the proceedings, 
 which merely represented an attempt on the part of 
 the liberal and progressive members, among whom 
 Mr. Bridgman was prominent in effecting an honest 
 organization of . the state, party. Mr. Bridgman is 
 unmarried, and is well known in social, professional 
 and business, circles. He is a member of the Min- 
 neapolis Civic and Commerce Association, the Min- 
 neapolis Athletic Club, the Interlachen Club, the 
 General Alumni Association, the Minneapolis Auto- 
 mobile Club, and Minneapolis Lodge No. 44 of the 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. His law 
 offices are in the Security Bank Building. 
 
 William C. Frank. Since the outset of his inde- 
 pendent career identified with banking and now the 
 accommodating cashier of the State Bank of Wood 
 Lake, William C. Frank is a Minnesota citizen whose 
 career has been passed here from birth and has 
 always been honorably and influentially identified 
 with the welfare of Yellow Medicine County. He 
 has applied his efforts to one line and as a result 
 of that concentration has already before thirty years 
 of age become one of the leading young business 
 men of Wood Lake. 
 
 William C. Frank was born in Posen Township, 
 Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota, November 11, 
 1886. His family for generations back were resi- 
 dents of Eastern Germany and his father, Randolph 
 
1458 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Frank, was born in the Province of Posen in 1847. 
 Pie came to America in 1856, when a very young 
 man, located in Wisconsin, but in 1870 became one 
 of the pioneer homesteaders of Yellow Medicine 
 County, Minnesota. After an industrious career 
 in the farming districts for many years he retired 
 in 1905 to Cottonwood, where he still resides, 
 Randolph Frank married Augusta Steabner, also a 
 native of Germany. Erqma, the oldest of their 
 children, married W. C. Hagemeister, and they re- 
 side on a farm at Barron, Wisconsin; Anna, the 
 second daughter, died March 24, 1878, at the age of 
 four years ; Reuben died September 3, 1903, at the 
 age of twenty-seven; Emelie is a trained nurse in 
 Minneapolis ; Herman occupies the old homestead 
 farm in Yellow Medicine County; William C. is the 
 youngest of the children. 
 
 Idis boyhood was spent on the farm with an edu- 
 cation in the common schools, and at the «age of 
 seventeen he entered the Mankato Commercial Col- 
 lege and was given a thorough training there for 
 two years. In 1905, at the age of nineteen, Mr. 
 Frank was taken into the First National Bank of 
 Cottonwood as bookkeeper, and remained with that 
 institution until 1912, having in the meantime been 
 advanced to the position of assistant cashier after 
 only six months of experience. When Mr. Frank 
 came to Wood Lake on August 15, 1912, it was to 
 take the place of assistant cashier in the State Bank 
 of Wood Lake, and on January 6, 1915, he was 
 advanced to his present office as cashier, and, is also 
 a stockholder and director. The State Bank of 
 Wood Lake was established under a state charter 
 in April, 1902, and in the same year was erected 
 a modern bank building, though a second story was 
 added in 1905. The bank is located at the corner 
 of Second Avenue and Third Street. The present 
 officers of the bank are : J. H. Catlin, of Cotton- 
 
 wood, president; Julius Alke, of Wood Lake, vice 
 president; William C. Frank, cashier; and P. J. 
 Koehler and Silas S. Orr, assistant cashiers. The 
 State Bank of Wood Lake has a capital of $15,000, 
 well fortified by a surplus of $10,000. 
 
 Politically Mr. Frank is a progressive. He is 
 now serving as clerk of the school board of District 
 No. 7, and for the past two years has filled the 
 office of village treasurer. He attends the German 
 Lutheran Church. In October, 19x3, at Janesville, 
 Minnesota, Mr. Frank married Miss Edith Fratzke, 
 a daughter of Gustav Fratzke, who is a retired 
 farmer at Janesville. 
 
 William Steeling Ervin. One of the young at- 
 torneys, now well established in practice, and serving 
 as county attorney of Pine County, William Sterling 
 Ervin is an alumnus of the University of Minnesota 
 and his early accomplishments give promise of a 
 broad and successful career in his chosen profession. 
 
 William Sterling Ervin was born in Birmingham,' 
 Iowa, September 4, 1886, a son of Robert M. and 
 Malzena (Cole) Ervin. His father was a stone- 
 cutter by trade. William S. Ervin as a boy at- 
 tended the public schools and finished his education 
 in the collegiate department of the University of 
 Minnesota and was graduated LL. B. in 1910 from 
 the law department of the same institution. He 
 had a year of practical experience in the law in 
 Minneapolis, and in June, 1911, located for practice 
 at Sandstone in Pine County. Here he has succeeded 
 in building up a good business in the general lines 
 of practice. For one year he served as village 
 
 attorney of Sandstone ■ and in November, 1914, was 
 elected county attorney of Pine County. 
 
 Mr. Ervin is a member of the Nineteenth Judicial 
 District Bar Association. He is affiliated with the 
 Masonic order and in politics is a republican. On 
 June 24, 1914, he married Elsie L. Orth of North 
 St. Paul. 
 
 Edward E. Smith. A veteran of the Minneapolis 
 bar, Edward E. Smith has practiced law in Min- 
 nesota more than thirty years. He has a large 
 general practice, and his offices are in the New 
 York Life Building. In the field of politics he 
 is as well if not better known to the people of 
 Minnesota. He has served in both branches of 
 the State Legislature, and in many ways has im- 
 pressed his ability and influence on the life of the 
 state during the past three decades. 
 
 Mr. Smith is a native Minnesotan and of a 
 pioneer family. He was born at Spring Valley, 
 Fillmore County, May 5, 1861, a son of Dryden ana 
 Elizabeth Ann (Hines) Smith, the former a native 
 of Illinois and the latter of Ohio. Dryden Smith 
 was also a lawyer by profession, and one of the 
 early men to practice in Minnesota. In i860, about 
 two years after the admission of Minnesota to the 
 Union, he established his home at Spring Valley, 
 and for many years was both honored and useful 
 in that section of the state. He had sound knowl- 
 edge and ability as a lawyer, was a figure in political 
 affairs and as a leader of public opinion, and his 
 name has a merited place in the list of pioneers. 
 Both he and his wife spent the closing years of 
 their lives in Spring Vailey. 
 
 Reared in his native town, Edward E. Smith 
 attended the public' schools, but acquired most of 
 his training for law at Charles City, Iowa, where 
 he read under the direction of capable lawyers and 
 was admitted to the bar in 1883. He soon after- 
 wards returned to Minnesota and Minneapolis has 
 been the stage of his professional activities for 
 more than thirty years. Mr. Smith is a resourceful 
 trial lawyer, has handled many important cases in 
 the various courts, and almost from the beginning 
 of his practice has had a profitable clientage. He 
 has found individual practice most suitable to his 
 inclination, and has had no important affiliation 
 with other lawyers. 
 
 For many years Mr. Smith has been one of the 
 dominating figures in the republican party of Min- 
 nesota. He has served on various party committees, 
 has been a delegate to many conventions, and is 
 now a member of the Republican State Central 
 Committee. Under the title “Prominent Figures in 
 the Political Arena,” one of the daily papers of 
 Minneapolis has recently published a series of 
 articles, in one of which special attention was paid 
 to the career of Mr. Smith. From this article the 
 following estimate of his political career is taken 
 in substance: “Edward E. Smith, lawyer, is prob- 
 
 ably known to every voter in Minneapolis. For the 
 last seventeen years he has taken an active part 
 in politics of Minnesota and the nation. He has 
 built up a large legal practice and is well and 
 favorably known. It was not long after his admis- 
 sion to the bar that his natural bent for political 
 affairs asserted itself, even when a very young man. 
 He was active in politics and soon became a leading 
 figure in the state. His first successful adventure 
 in the political arena was in 1894, when, at the age 
 of thirty-three, he was elected to a seat in the 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1459 
 
 Minnesota State Legislature as a representative of 
 the Minneapolis district. He distinguished himself 
 as a capable lawmaker. He made a brilliant record 
 in 1895 and was re-elected for the session of 1897. 
 He was then promoted to a higher field in the 
 State Senate. It was here that the brilliant per- 
 formance of his early work in the Legislature found 
 its fruition. Mr. Smith served in the Senate during 
 the sessions of 1899, 1901, 1903, 1905, 1907 and 1909. 
 He became the leader of the republican members on 
 the floor of the Senate, and was elected president 
 pro tempore of that body. His work made him a 
 marked man and he was a power as no one else 
 was in those twelve years of service in the Senate. 
 
 ‘‘The death of Gov. John A. Johnson in September, 
 1909, resulted in the raising of Adolph O. Eberhart, 
 at that time lieutenant governor, to the post of 
 chief executive of the state. The office of lieutenant 
 governor left vacant by Governor Eberhart was filled 
 between September 23, 1909, and January 3, 1911, by 
 Edward E. Smith of Minneapolis. Mr. Smith’s 
 record in the State Legislature was remarkable for 
 its constructive legislation. During nearly the entire 
 time of his service in both branches he was chair- 
 man of the Committee on Taxation, which is re- 
 garded as perhaps the most important committee 
 in the Legislature. It was due largely to the efforts 
 of Mr. Smith that Minnesota’s well known taxation 
 system was established. He has attained more than 
 state-wide reputation as an expert in municipal and 
 state taxation. He has been for some time and is 
 now chairman of the Republican State Central Com- 
 mittee. All his life he has been a republican, and 
 known in national republican circles as one of the 
 most influential leaders in the state. He has a large 
 general practice in Minneapolis, and has made a 
 striking success in the legal profession as he has 
 in the Legislature. Being an expert on the subject 
 of law, it is natural that he should make for himself 
 a reputation as a tnaker of laws.” 
 
 Mr. Smith is a member of the Minneapolis Bar 
 Association and the Minnesota State Bar Associa- 
 tion, and is actively identified with the Minneapolis 
 Civic and Commerce Association, the Minneapolis 
 Club, the Minneapolis Athletic Club, the Lafayette 
 Club, the Interlachen Country Club and the Uni- 
 versity Club of Minneapolis. He takes a prominent 
 interest in Masonic work in his home city, and has 
 attained the thirty-second degree in the Scottish 
 Rite. 
 
 At Charles City, Iowa, August 13, 1884, Mr. Smith 
 married Miss Esther E. Leonard, who was born 
 and reared at that place. Their two children are 
 Harriet L. and Rollin L. Harriet was graduated from 
 the University of Minnesota in 1908, and in 1911 
 became the wife of Murray R. Waters, Jr., a mem- 
 ber of the firm of M. R. Waters & Sons, prominent 
 in the farm mortgage business at Minneapolis. 
 Rollin L. Smith was graduated Bachelor of Letters 
 from Princeton University in 1911, and in June, 
 1914, took the law degree from the University of 
 Minnesota. 
 
 Arthur Guiteau Wedge. The First National 
 Bank of Bemidji, of which Mr. Arthur Guiteau 
 Wedge is the vice president, is the largest banking 
 house of Beltrami County, and is the outgrowth of 
 the first financial institution established in that 
 county. As a private bank under the name of Bank 
 of Bemidji it began business in 1897, and one of the 
 men chiefly interested in it from the beginning 
 
 was Mr. F. P. Sheldon. From a recent statement 
 of the First National Bank its capital stock appears 
 as $50,000, surplus $12,000, and with a splendid array 
 of deposits, aggregating about $600,000. The presi- 
 dent is F. P. Sheldon, the vice president A. G. 
 Wedge, Jr., and the cashier R. H. Schumaker, with 
 G. H. Strickland, assistant cashier. The bank has 
 handsome quarters, a two-story block, 25 by 90 feet, 
 is on the second floor, and the bank in 1914 spent 
 about $20,000 in remodeling the building. 
 
 Arthur Guiteau Wedge was born at Albert Lea, 
 Minnesota, December 9, 1871, a son of Asahel G. 
 and Mary J. (Trigg) Wedge. His father was a 
 lawyer by profession and one of the early settlers 
 of Minnesota. The son received his education in 
 the public schools of Albert Lea and in St. Paul, and 
 also had the benefit of a commercial course. When 
 still a boy he was given a place as messenger in 
 one of the St. Paul banks, and in 1890 became 
 assistant teller in the Germania Bank of St. Paul, 
 and was subsequently promoted to paying teller. 
 In 1898 Mr. Wedge became cashier of the First 
 State Bank of Detroit, Minnesota, and when the 
 Merchants National Bank of that village was organ- 
 ized he became its president and held that post 
 until 1908. In that year he came to Bemidji as vice 
 president of the First National Bank. 
 
 Mr. Wedge’s banking interests are indicated by 
 the following list of institutions with which he is 
 officially identified: Vice president of the First 
 
 National Bank of Grand Rapids, the First National 
 of Deer River, the First National of International 
 Falls, the First State Bank of Little Fork, the First 
 State Bank of Big Falls, the First State Bank of 
 Kelliher, the Cohasset State Bank ; and director in 
 the People's State Bank of Thief River Falls. He 
 is also president of the Bemidji Investment Company 
 and is president of the Beltrami Creamery Asso- 
 ciation. While primarily a banker, he has made the 
 welfare of every locality with which he is identified 
 a matter of active concern, and has been one of 
 the real upbuilders of Northern Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Wedge is treasurer of the Minnesota State 
 Agricultural Association, and was formerly a mem- 
 ber of the Forestry Commission of the state. Fra- 
 ternally he is a Knight Templar Mason. On June 
 17, 1901, Mr. Wedge married Margaret Ford, of 
 Crookston, Minnesota, and formerly a teacher in 
 the Detroit High School. Their three children are : 
 Margaret, Miriam and Katherine. 
 
 Franz Jevne. For seven years Franz Jevne has 
 been a hard-working young lawyer in Northern 
 Minnesota, and already has a position such as many 
 older members of this profession might well envy. 
 Since 1912 he has succeeded in establishing himself 
 as a successful attorney at International Falls. 
 
 Franz Jevne was born in Meridian, Wisconsin, 
 March 4. 1884, a son of Peter and Kari Jevne. His 
 father came to the United States in 1845, and fol- 
 lowed a career as a farmer. The son grew up on 
 a farm, attended public school, and was also given 
 the advantages of Luther College at Decorah. Iowa. 
 He left college in 1904, and while earning his own 
 living steadily pursued his studies in the law until 
 admitted to the bar in 1908. Mr. Jevne began prac- 
 tice at Big Falls, Minnesota, and remained there 
 until 1912. During that time he served as city at- 
 torney, and on coming to International Falls brought 
 with him a valuable experience and excellent rec- 
 ommendations as a lawyer. His practice is of a 
 
1460 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 general nature and he is now giving much of his 
 attention to the duties of county attorney, to which 
 he was first elected in 1912 and re-elected in 1914. 
 Mr. Jevne is president of the Koochiching & On- 
 tario Land Company. 
 
 He is well known in social circles in many parts 
 of the state. He has taken thirty-two degrees in 
 Scottish Rite Masonry, is a member of the Mystic 
 Shrine, and has affiliations with the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks, and the Independent Or- 
 der of Odd Fellows. He belongs to the Odin Club 
 at Minneapolis, and also the University Club and 
 the Athletic Club of that city. In the line of his 
 profession he is a member of the American Bar 
 Association, and in politics a republican. 
 
 At Minneapolis, Minnesota, January 18, 1908, Mr. 
 Jevne married Miss Beatrice Perkins. Their two 
 children are Beatrice and Franz, Jr. 
 
 George Earl Carson. Some of the first important 
 enterprises marking the advance of civilization into 
 what is now Beltrami had their authorship in mem- 
 bers of the Carson family. George E. Carson who 
 established the first trading post in that locality also 
 had the first regular merchandise store at Bemidji. 
 His name is associated with various other business 
 and public affairs of that section, and the history 
 of the village could be told in his biography with- 
 out many omissions. 
 
 George Earl Carson was born in Iowa at Fort 
 Atkinson June 13, 1866, a son of George M. and 
 Susanna (Huntzinger) Carson. His father was an 
 Iowa farmer but in 1892 located in the pioneer vil- 
 lage of Bemidji, Minnesota, and established and 
 managed the first hotel there. He afterwards served 
 as judge of probate and as justice of the peace. 
 He was proprietor of the hotel until 1898, and died 
 September 4, 1900. 
 
 George E. Carson had a public school education 
 back in Iowa, but at the age of thirteen began his 
 practical business experience as clerk in a general 
 store. At the age of eighteen he was conducting a 
 hotel at what is now the village of Staples, Min- 
 nesota, and in 1887 began cattle ranching in this 
 state. 
 
 In 1889 with his brother he came into the wilder- 
 ness of what is now Beltrami County, and estab- 
 lished the first trading post in the district, cutting 
 a road through the forests for the passage of their 
 wagons. It was known under the title of Carson 
 Brothers Trading Post. In 1895 they moved the 
 business to the corner of Beltrami Avenue and Third 
 Street, and that can be properly called the first store 
 in the village. Mr. Carson was engaged in this 
 business until 1898. 
 
 On the organization of Beltrami County Mr. Car- 
 son was appointed the first county treasurer, and 
 held that office two years. He has also served as 
 a member of the village council and for four years 
 was postmaster. In 1909 he acquired an interest in 
 the Bemidji Pioneer Publishing Company, of which 
 he is now vice president and treasurer. The presi- 
 dent is A. Kaiser, and the secretary and manager 
 is E. H. Denu. The Bemidji Weekly Pioneer was 
 established in 1894 by Mr. Kaiser, and has always 
 been conducted as a republican paper. The Daily 
 Pioneer had its first issue in 1903. The circulation 
 of these two papers covers not only Beltrami County 
 but many counties adjacent, and there are between 
 thirteen and fifteen hundred subscribers to each 
 paper. The Pioneer Publishing Company has one 
 
 of the best equipped printing plants in Northern 
 Minnesota, and besides the issue of the Daily and 
 Weekly Pioneer, also has facilities for linotype com- 
 position, job printing, and deals both wholesale and 
 retail in stationery and office supplies. About seven- 
 teen people find employment in the newspaper and 
 printing offices. 
 
 Mr. Carson during his residence in Beltrami 
 County has acquired some valuable holdings in real 
 estate, and is vice president of the Bemidji Build- 
 ing and Loan Association. He is a member and 
 former director of the Commercial Club and in 
 the Masonic Order has taken thirty-two degrees in 
 the Scottish Rite and is a member of the Mystic 
 Shrine. On May 18, 1897, he married Miss Cora 
 Omich of Bemidji. Their three 1 children are Dor- 
 othy, Margaret and Donovan. 
 
 Montreville J. Brown. A lawyer with growing 
 practice and influence at Bemidji, Montreville J. 
 Brown is a son of Chief Justice Calvin L. Brown 
 of the Minnesota Supreme Court, and has already 
 shown much of the ability which has distinguished 
 that eminent Minnesota jurist. 
 
 Montreville J. Brown was born at Morris, Min- 
 nesota, June 13, 1884, a son of Calvin L. and An- 
 nette Brown. His father was born at Goshen, New 
 Hampshire, April 26, 1854, a son of John H. Brown. 
 Judge Brown was engaged in the active practice of 
 law at Morris, Minnesota, until 1887, when he went 
 upon the district bench, serving there until 1899, 
 and since November 29th of that year has been a 
 justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota, being 
 now chief justice. He was married September x, 
 1879, t° Annette Marlow of Willmar, Minnesota. 
 
 Montreville J. Brown received his early education 
 at Morris, and is a graduate of the, Universitv of 
 Minnesota, both in the academic and law depart- 
 ments. He finished his course in the former in 1907 
 and was graduated LL. B. in 1909. Since then he 
 has been located in the general practice of his pro- 
 fession at Bemidji. 
 
 Mr. Brown has served three years as member of 
 the local school board and is a director of the Com- 
 mercial Club. He is a member of the Minnesota 
 Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution. 
 He belongs to the Alphi Delta Phi and the Phi 
 Delta Phi college fraternities, and is also affiliated 
 with the Masonic order and the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks. On November 19, 1910, 
 Mr. Brown married Miss Minnie S. Stinchfield of 
 Rochester, Minnesota. They are the parents of 
 two children : Alice Katherine and Louise Stinch- 
 
 field. 
 
 Arthur P. White. A prominent banker, lumber- 
 man and business man of Bemidji is Arthur P. 
 White, president of the Northern National Bank of 
 that city. This is one of the prosperous institutions 
 of Northern Minnesota, and was first conducted as 
 a private institution, beginning in 1901 with a cap- 
 ital of $10,000. In 1906 its organization was effected 
 under a national charter with a capital of $25,000. 
 A statement of the bank’s condition in 1915 shows 
 capital stock of $50,000, surplus of $10,000, undi- 
 vided profits of $2,500, with an approximate aggre- 
 gate of deposits at $400,000. The officers besides 
 Mr. White as president are : A. D. Stephens, vice 
 
 president; Walter L. Brooks, cashier; and George 
 W. Rhea, assistant cashier. 
 
 Arthur Parker White comes from the State of 
 
I 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1461 
 
 Maine and in Northern Minnesota has found a 
 country not dissimilar to that in which he was born 
 and reared. His birth occurred in the City of Bath 
 May 26, 1868, and his parents were Benjamin L. 
 and Mary (Blinn) White, his father a shipbuilder. 
 After attending the public schools be completed his 
 education in Wilbraham Academy in Massachusetts, 
 and then had four years of preparatory business 
 experience in a wholesale clothing house at Boston. 
 On coming West he first located at Grand Rapids, 
 Minnesota, conducted a general store there, and in 
 1892 engaged in the banking business as cashier of 
 the First State Bank of Grand Rapids. In 1898 he 
 removed from Grand Rapids to Bemidji, and was 
 cashier of the Bank of Bemidji and continued with 
 that institution after it became the First National 
 Bank until 1904. On the organization of the North- 
 ern National Bank he accepted the place of presi- 
 dent, which he has since held. Mr. White is also 
 secretary and treasurer of the Welsh Timber Com- 
 pany, which has holdings amounting to 5, 000 acres 
 in the timber districts of Northern Minnesota. He 
 is president of the Bacon-White Company. Mr. 
 White has served as president of the Bemidji Com- 
 mercial Club, is a Mason of high standing, having 
 taken thirty-two degrees in the Scottish Rite and 
 being affiliated with the Mystic Shrine, and is also 
 a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order 
 of Elks. In April, 1915, he was appointed by Gov- 
 ernor Hammond director of the State Normal 
 School Board for a term of four years. 
 
 On October 10, 1894, Mr. White married Helen 
 Polley of St. Cloud, Minnesota. They are the par- 
 ents of two children : Marian Frances, a student 
 
 in the University of Minnesota, and Harold Loring, 
 also a student. 
 
 Frank Sumner Lycan. With more than thirty 
 years of practical business experience in the North- 
 west, Frank S. Lycan is proprietor of the leading 
 hotel of Bemidji, and for a number of years has 
 been actively identified with republican politics and 
 with civic affairs both in his home community and 
 in the state at large. 
 
 Frank Sumner Lycan was born in Elmira, New 
 York, November 6. 1859, a son of John M. and 
 Donna M. (Terry) Lycan. His father was a whole- 
 sale merchant and the son grew up in the State of 
 Ohio, where his father was in business, attended 
 the public schools, and had six years of training in 
 a general merchandise house. In 1882 at the age 
 of twenty-two he came to St. Paul, and for ten 
 A^ears was a traveling salesman out of that citv. He 
 finally organized a wholesale grocery house known 
 as the Grand Forks Mercantile Company 1 in Grand 
 Forks. North Dakota, and remained as its secretary 
 and general manager for seven years. Finally he 
 turned to the hotel business, and was associated 
 with his brother W. S. Lycan at Crookston for 
 several years, and on September 15, 1907, came to 
 Bemidji and bought the Hotel Markham, one of 
 the best equipped and most popular hostelries in 
 Northern Minnesota. 
 
 _ Mr. Lycan is a member of the Merchants Asso- 
 ciation and is a former president of the Commercial 
 Club. In 1915 he was elected alderman at large of 
 the city. _ He is a member of the State Economy 
 and Efficiency Commission, was appointed by Gov- 
 ernor Eberhardt to revise the svstem of state gov- 
 ernment, and for many vears has been interested 
 in the republican party. In 1912 he was a delegate 
 
 to the republican national convention at Chicago. 
 Fraternally he is affiliated with the Masonic order 
 and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. 
 Mr. Lycan is an ardent sportsman and is fond of 
 hunting. 
 
 On June 26; 1886, he married Jessie H. Monaghan 
 of Grand Forks, North Dakota. Their three chil- 
 dren are: Donna M.; Ralph B., associated with 
 
 his father in the hotel business; and Wilbur S., a 
 student in the University of Minnesota. 
 
 John Harrison Brown. As a lawyer Mr. Brown 
 practiced for about ten years in Southwestern Min- 
 nesota, and is now enjoying a substantial practice 
 and a solid position in the community of Interna- 
 tional Falls. He is a native of Minnesota and an 
 alumnus of the State University. 
 
 John Harrison Brown was born in Benson, Swift 
 County, Minnesota, November 3, 1881, a son of 
 Frank K. and Virginia (Thornton) Brown. His 
 father was a railroad engineer. The Browns have 
 been identified with the United States since colonial 
 days and Mr. Brown enjoys the honor of member- 
 ship in the Sons of the American Revolution. 
 
 His early education came from the public schools, 
 and later he entered the University of Minnesota 
 and remained a student until graduating from the 
 law department. He was admitted to the bar in 
 1902 but did not immediately take up active prac- 
 tice. In 1904 he opened his office in Tyler, Lincoln 
 County, and remained there until March, 1914. At 
 that date he removed to International Falls and has 
 already established a promising practice. During 
 his residence at Tyler he was for seven years village 
 attorney and also secretary of the republican county 
 committee. He has served as secretary of the Fed- 
 eration of County Fairs in Minnesota since its or- 
 ganization in 1909. Fraternally he is affiliated with 
 the Masonic order, and belongs to the Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
 On October 31, 1908, Mr. Brown married Miss 
 Laura Clopp of Estherville, Iowa. 
 
 Clyde C. Dragoo. In connection with the quarry- 
 ing and manufacturing of granite in Benton County 
 Mr. Dragoo has gained a position of special promi- 
 nence, and in this field of industrial enterprise he 
 now has distinct prestige as one of the representative 
 business men of Sauk Rapids, the judicial center of 
 the county. 
 
 Clyde Carroll Dragoo was born at Morris, Stevens 
 County, Minnesota, on the 8th of May, 1880. and is 
 a son of E. William and Sarah (Garver) Dragoo. 
 The father, who is now deceased, was a hardware 
 merchant at Royalton, Minnesota. After profiting 
 duly by the advantages afforded in the public schools 
 Clyde C. Dragoo entered Highland Park College, in 
 the City of Des Moines, Iowa, and in this institution 
 he gave special attention to the study of pharmacy. 
 In April, 1899, Mr. Dragoo assumed the position of 
 bookkeeper for a granite company at St. Cloud. Min- 
 nesota, and later he became secretary of the Western 
 Granite Company, at Sauk Rapids. On the 10th of 
 April, 1911, he organized in this city the Sauk Rapids 
 Granite Company, which was incorporated with a 
 capital stock of $18,000 and of which he served as 
 secretary until April, 1914, when, to meet the de- 
 mands placed upon the company by its rapidly 
 expanding business, its capital was increased to $300,- 
 oqo and he assumed his present executive office, that 
 of vice president. George W. Bestor of Minneapolis, 
 
1462 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Minnesota, is president of the company and Emil R. 
 Kelm of Sauk Rapids is secretary. The company’s 
 business now extends far outside the limits of Min- 
 nesota and its products are shipped into ten or more 
 different states. Employment is given to a force of 
 200 men and the business is an important adjunct to 
 the industrial and commercial prestige of Sauk 
 Rapids. The company deals in four brands : Sauk 
 
 Rapids Peerless Pink, Sauk Rapids Peerless Red, 
 Sauk Rapids Peerless Light Gray, Sauk Rapids Peer- 
 less Dark Gray. They handle monumental granite, 
 building granite, paving granite and crushed granite, 
 both finished and in the rough. 
 
 Mr. Dragoo is affiliated with the Masonic frater- 
 nity and the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks, and is a trustee of Unity Church at St. Cloud 
 and president of the Unity Men’s Club. 
 
 On the 21st of June, 1905, Mr. Dragoo wedded 
 Miss Myra Ella Eldred, of St. Cloud, and their two 
 children are Florence Eldred and Parker Earle. Mr. 
 Dragoo’s home is in St. Cloud, Minnesota. 
 
 George Niram Millard is one of the prominent 
 young bankers of Northern Minnesota, and 
 has been identified with that business ever 
 since leaving college. He has been continuously in 
 the service of the Sheldon line of banks in the 
 Northern part of the state, and is now cashier of 
 the First National Bank of International Falls. The 
 First National Bank was organized in 1904 with a 
 capital stock of $25,000. In 1902 there had been 
 organized the First State Bank, with a capital of 
 $10,000. The two institutions were consolidated in 
 1908 under the name First National Bank, with cap- 
 ital stock of $25,000 and surplus of $5,000. This 
 is a solid institution, and while the capital is still 
 $25,000, a recent statement in 1915 shows surplus 
 and undivided profits of $20,000, while the deposits 
 aggregate about $320,000. The bank owns its own 
 home, a substantial brick block, 25 by 100 feet, with 
 offices above the banking rooms. The present officers 
 are F. P. Sheldon, president; A. G. Wedge, Jr., vice 
 president; G. N. Millard, cashier; and J. G. Peter- 
 son, assistant cashier. 
 
 Mr. Millard is a native of Minnesota, born at 
 Marshall on January 6, 1881, a son of James M. 
 and Elizabeth (Mallory) Millard. His father was 
 a farmer and early settler in the vicinity of Mar- 
 shall. After spending his younger years on a farm, 
 getting his education in the public schools, Mr. Mil- 
 lard entered the Pillsbury Academy, from which he 
 was graduated in 1901. He at once found oppor- 
 tunity awaiting him in the Sheldon line of banks, 
 and was soon made assistant cashier, at first in the 
 bank at Grand Rapids and later at Bemidji. His 
 next promotion was as cashier of the First State 
 Bank at Big Falls, and in 1907 he entered upon his 
 duties as cashier of the First National Bank at In- 
 ternational Falls. 
 
 Mr. Millard is a member of the Masonic frater- 
 nity and in politics is a republican. On September 
 28, 1910, he married Miss Blanche Marie Kinney of 
 International Falls. They have two children: Mar- 
 jorie Elaine and George Kinney. 
 
 Sumner C. Bagley. The name of this veteran 
 lumberman, pioneer railroad contractor, and Min- 
 nesota citizen is now bestowed on one of the thriv- 
 ing little cities of Clearwater County, for Bagley 
 was named in his honor, and it is an appropriate 
 commemoration of his varied and influential ac- 
 
 tivities during the period of the development of 
 Northern Minnesota. 
 
 Sumner C. Bagley, like many other Minnesota 
 lumbermen, was a native of Maine, born at Argyle 
 June 1, 1837. As part of his early experience he 
 lived for several years in the mining districts of 
 California following the discovery of gold in that 
 state. Coming to Minnesota in 1865, he became one 
 of the early workers in the great lumber woods, 
 and subsequently took up log contracting on the 
 Mississippi River. About thirty-five years ago he 
 located at Fosston and engaged in farming and log- 
 ging along the Clearwater River, and he was one 
 of the early settlers of what was known as the 
 Thirteen Towns. He also was in business as a 
 railway contractor, and constructed ten miles of 
 the Great Northern Railway from Bemidji west. 
 He was one of the first men to engage in cruising 
 and in prospecting for railway routes in Northern 
 Minnesota. The death of this honored pioneer oc- 
 curred July 26, 1914, while his wife, Mrs. Liddie 
 Bagley, died in May, 1874. 
 
 Alfred M. Bagley, a son of the late Sumner C. 
 Bagley, is the worthy successor of his father in 
 business enterprise, and is now at the head of one 
 of the most important manufacturing establishments 
 of Northern Minnesota. He was born April 28, 
 1874, and grew up in the State of Maine, being edu- 
 cated in the public schools and coming out to Min- 
 nesota in 1891. He became associated with his 
 father in logging at Fosston and after his marriage 
 became engaged in the livery business at Solway, 
 Minnesota. In May, 1901, Mr. Bagley came to 
 Bemidji, was engaged in the livery business until 
 1905. and in that year organized the Bemidji Handle 
 Company, of which he was president and general 
 manager. Subsequently the scope of this concern 
 was expanded and the business organized as the 
 Bemidji Manufacturing Company of which Mr. 
 Bagley is president and manager. About twenty- 
 five men are employed and the annual output con- 
 sists of about seventy-five carloads of shims, sixty 
 carloads of lath, and about fifteen million tie plugs. 
 The mills and warehouses and yards cover about 
 three acres. 
 
 Mr. Bagley is affiliated with the Masonic order 
 and the United Commercial Travelers and the Be- 
 midji Commercial Club. On July 7, 1896, he mar- 
 ried Miss Flora E. Vinal of Orono, Maine. Their 
 two daughters are Florence E. and Catherine K. 
 
 Judge Andrew Grindeland. By his public services 
 Andrew Grindeland of Warren has for many years 
 been one of the most useful citizens of Northern 
 Minnesota. A lawyer by profession, he first became 
 known to a few people in Minnesota as a school 
 teacher, an occupation he followed while struggling 
 to get an education in the Iowa State University. 
 After his graduation in law and his admission to 
 the bar he practiced continuously at Warren up to 
 March, 1903, when he was appointed district judge 
 by Governor Van Sant. Judge Grindeland has served 
 in many important offices, both town and county, 
 as state senator left his name attached to some 
 important legislation, and is now giving an impartial 
 and high-minded administration as judge of the 
 Fourteenth District Court. 
 
 Andrew Grindeland was born in Winneshiek 
 County, Iowa, November 20, 1856, a son of Ingebrigt 
 and Lucy (Hatlestad) Grindeland. His father was 
 a farmer, a native of Norway, born in 1831, came 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1463 
 
 to America in 1850, and after living on a farm near 
 Rock Prairie, Wisconsin, moved to Iowa, where 
 for many years he was one of the progressive 
 farmer citizens, and died in 1889. The mother was 
 born in 1819 and died in 1883. 
 
 Judge Grindeland had his early training on a farm, 
 as a boy came to know the ways and customs of a 
 rural district, and from the local schools in Septem- 
 ber, 1874, matriculated as a student in the Decorah 
 Institute at Decorah, Iowa. His means were in- 
 sufficient to allow a consecutive attendance at this 
 school to the point he desired, and in 1877 he was 
 in Dodge County, Minnesota, teaching school ; also 
 taught a term in Winneshiek County, Iowa. In 
 January, 1878, he was enrolled as a student in the 
 University of Iowa, and with some interruptions 
 continued his study there until graduating from the 
 law department in 1882. In July of the same year 
 he located at Warren, and though without friends 
 -or with any special recommendation to local favor 
 at the beginning, he was soon counted among the 
 most promising young members of the Marshall 
 County bar. 
 
 After continuing in general practice for several 
 years he was elected judge of probate in 1888. For 
 a time he served as a court commissioner and as 
 -city recorder at Warren. From 1899 to 1903 Mr. 
 Grindeland represented the Sixty-third Senatorial 
 District in the State Senate. His legislative record 
 deserves some particular mention. His name is 
 associated with the authorship of the "Grindeland 
 Commission Law,” which was passed in 1899 for 
 the regulation and bonding of commission firms 
 handling the products of farmers. The Supreme 
 Court subsequently affirmed the constitutionality of 
 this law, and in handing down the decision one of 
 the justices commented as follows : “It was publicly 
 believed that the business of selling agricultural 
 products and farm produce on commission had be- 
 come saturated with false and fraudulent methods 
 to the great injury of a large class of our citizens, 
 who were compelled to deal with commission men, 
 and who were powerless to detect or prevent the 
 wrong, and that the business had become sufficiently 
 affected with public interest as to be the proper 
 subject of police regulation. . . . This enactment 
 
 was designed to prevent the false and fraudulent 
 practices of the character complained of, to correct 
 the evils generally believed to prevail and to compel 
 the merchant to whom property was consigned for 
 sale on commission to deal honestly and to be faith- 
 ful to his trust.” While in the senate Judge Grinde- 
 land also used his influence effectively in behalf of 
 drainage in the Red River Valley and in addition to 
 securing an appropriation of $50,000 in 1901 for 
 drainage purposes, he also introduced and secured 
 the passage of the Judicial Drainage Law, as a 
 result of which the resources of the state were co- 
 ordinated with locally organized districts for the 
 construction of drainage ditches, and under that 
 legislation hundreds of miles of ditching has been 
 completed in the Red River Valley and elsewhere, 
 bringing untold benefits to the agricultural pro- 
 ductiveness of the state. These are only two of the 
 more important measures which secured the favor 
 and hearty advocacy of Mr. Grindeland while in 
 the Senate. He also voted and worked for temper- 
 ance legislation. Both in the capacity of senator 
 and subsequently he has worked with eminent dis- 
 interestedness in behalf of education, public health, 
 agricultural development, and every movement sanc- 
 voi. m— 13 
 
 tioned by common sense and high ideals as to the 
 public welfare. 
 
 Judge Grindeland was first appointed to the office 
 of district judge in the Fourteenth District, and 
 has since been twice elected to that office, and his 
 record places him among the strong and fearless 
 jurists of the state. Prior to his service in the 
 Senate he was a member of the board of the State 
 Normal School and gave particular attention to the 
 strengthening of the school at Moorhead. He was 
 later again made a member of the Normal School 
 Board. After his service in the Senate he was a 
 republican candidate for Congress from the Ninth 
 Congressional District. For fifteen years he served 
 as a member of the school board at Warren and 
 in that time did much for the building up of the 
 State Fligh School, and for several years last past 
 he has delivered lectures to the young people’s 
 societies of the Lutheran Church. He is a member 
 of the Minnesota Society for the Friendless, and 
 to that cause has unselfishly devoted both time and 
 money. He is a member of the board of directors 
 of Luther College at Decorah, Iowa, having been 
 chosen by the church to this position in 1914. He 
 is president of the Synod Lutheran Church Con- 
 gregation. Outside of his profession Judge Grinde- 
 land’s principal business interest is as director of 
 the State Bank of Warren. 
 
 On October 5, 1882, about the time he began his 
 career as a lawyer, Judge Grindeland married Ingeri 
 Forde, who was born in Norway and came to 
 America at the age of eight months, her family 
 settling in Iowa. To this union have been born 
 seven children : Louise Therese, now the wife of 
 
 Dr. O. F. Mellby of Thief River Falls, is a graduate 
 from the Lutheran Ladies’ Seminary of Red Wing; 
 Synneva, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, 
 is now principal of the public schools of Thief River 
 Falls ; Clarice Cecilia, also a graduate of the Uni- 
 versity of Minnesota, became principal of the high 
 school at Litchfield, and was elected professor of 
 English at Park Region Luther College, Fergus 
 Falls ; Ingolf Arne graduated from the law depart- 
 ment of the LTniversity of Minnesota in 1915 ; Evelyn 
 Amanda graduated from the Lutheran Seminary at 
 Red Wing in 1912, and is now teacher of music 
 in the high school in Thief River Falls ; Estella 
 Eleanor is a graduate of the Lutheran Ladies’ Semi- 
 nary at Red Wing; Gladys Maurine is still in the 
 public schools at Warren. 
 
 James Compton. The limitations of the province 
 of this publication are such that in any specific case 
 there must be abridgment in the offering of a 
 review of the career of anjr person properly worthy 
 of representation in the history. When cognizance 
 is taken of the character and services of so honored 
 a citizen as the late Capt. James Compton this 
 necessity for curtailment of data seems the more 
 deplorable, and in entering a tribute to his memory 
 it has been deemed expedient to reproduce, with 
 certain paraphrase and additions, the memoir offered 
 at the time of his death by the Minnesota Com- 
 mandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion 
 of the United States, of which he was an appre- 
 ciative and valued member. This memoir covers 
 the more salient points in the history of his life 
 and is well worthy of perpetuation in this publica- 
 tion. Owing to the fact that more or less change 
 is made in the reproduction it is not thought neces- 
 sary to utilize formal indices of quotation. 
 
1464 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Captain James Compton was born at Meadville, 
 the judicial center of Crawford County, Pennsyl- 
 vania, on the 14th of January, 1840, and his death 
 occurred January 15, 1908, at the Minnesota Soldiers’ 
 Home, Minnehaha, of which institution he had been 
 the commandant for several years and up to the 
 time when he was summoned from the stage of his 
 mortal endeavors. The Loyal Legion memorial pays 
 its tribute substantially as given in the following 
 paragraphs : 
 
 When President Lincoln made his first call for 
 troops to maintain the Union Companion Compton 
 was among the first to respond, and enlisted April 
 22, 1861, in what afterward became Company F, 
 Ninth Pennsylvania Reserve Volunteer Corps. 
 Later, with a companion, he went west to join 
 Fremont’s Body Guard, but before arriving at St. 
 Louis the guard had practically been abolished, and 
 he enlisted for the second time November 2, 1861, 
 in Company C, Fifty-second Illinois Volunteer In- 
 fantry. He was appointed sergeant February 17, 
 1862 ; commissioned first lieutenant March 3, 1862 ; 
 and, for gallant and meritorious conduct at the 
 battle of Shiloh, was promoted to be captain April 
 7, 1862. He was appointed inspector general on 
 the staff of Gen. Robert N. Adams, August 1, 1864. 
 He participated in the battles of Shiloh, Corinth, 
 Iuka, Dalton, Resaca, Dallas, Big Shanty, Kenesaw 
 Mountain and Atlanta, and marched to the sea with 
 Sherman. He was discharged from service Decem- 
 ber 31, 1864. 
 
 Captain Compton came to Minnesota in 1872 and 
 settled at Fergus Falls, Ottertail County. There he 
 was for many years interested in the banking busi- 
 ness ; he served as county auditor of Ottertail 
 County from 1873 to 1877 : and he was a member 
 of the State Senate from 1882 to 1890. In 1891 he 
 was appointed, by President Harrison, to the office 
 of surveyor general of public lands in Minnesota, 
 and he retained this position four years. In 189s 
 he became deputy state bank examiner, under the 
 administration of Governor Lind, and in 1900 there 
 came to him a most consistent preferment, in that 
 the trustees of the Minnesota Soldiers’ Home elected 
 him commandant of that institution, an office to 
 which he was thereafter annually re-elected, holding 
 that position at the time of his death. 
 
 In 1890 Captain Compton was elected commander 
 of the Department of Minnesota, Grand Army of 
 the Republic, and in 1899 he was elected senior vice 
 commander of the Minnesota Commandery. Military 
 Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. 
 
 Thus briefly has been sketched the career of Cao- 
 tain Compton as a soldier and citizen. Love for 
 his country was with him an inherited passion. His 
 great-grandfather was in the Revolutionary war, his 
 father and grandfather in the War of 1812, and his 
 brother in the Mexican war — all soldiers under that 
 flag he loved and followed and fought for so long 
 and well. There was no uncertainty in his mind as 
 to the issues joined in the Civil war. He firmly 
 believed that one side was “everlastingly right” and 
 the other “everlastingly wrong,” and that he was 
 on the right side. He lived to do what he thought 
 and believed to be right, nor was there any uncer- 
 tainty in his mind on these things. He was born 
 into a Christian family, reared in the Christian faith 
 and practice, and never departed from it. The du- 
 ties of commandant of the Soldiers’ Home call for 
 the exercise of the Christian virtues in the largest 
 sense, and never did he retire for the night without 
 
 getting on his knees and in prayer asking for pa- 
 tience and wisdom to perform the duties devolving 
 upon him. His was an impulsive nature and quick 
 of temper, hence he felt his need of the infinite 
 fountain of patience. 
 
 Captain Compton was a true Christian gentleman 
 — a Christian and a gentleman in the highest and 
 best sense. As a Christian his religion was of the 
 old-time sort, the religion taught him at his mother’s 
 knee, the religion he carried down deep in his pa- 
 triotic heart when he put on the uniform of blue 
 and went forth to fight for his country. He was 
 always careful of the rights of others, tender and 
 true, with no disposition to infringe upon the privi- 
 leges of his neighbor, but in an easy manner guarded 
 his own. Possessed of the characteristics enumer- 
 ated, it Is no wonder that he brought to business 
 and official life a high sense of duty and responsi- 
 bility, and in every engagement, private or public, 
 won the confidence, esteem and love of those with 
 whom he came in contact. He was a man of integ- 
 rity, thoroughly honest — honest not only in his rela- 
 tions with others but also with himself — honest in 
 his heart and purpose as well as in his actions. 
 There was nothing of the double-minded man about 
 him. He was always straightforward, frank, out- 
 spoken and willing to state his position on any sub- 
 ject and give his reasons therefor; and they were 
 generally so well founded that it was not easy to 
 change them. He excelled as a friend. He not 
 only appreciated his friends but was also devoted to 
 them and always stood ready to defend them. Truly, 
 he was a strong, gentle, brave, tender, upright and 
 sincere man, one whom it was an honor to know 
 and whose friendship it was a privilege to share. 
 
 Captain Compton’s virtues shone forth at their 
 brightest and best in his family. Here the circle of 
 love was complete. Those who were privileged to 
 be admitted to that inner circle realize how closely 
 the tender ties of the family were interwoven in 
 his heart. Soon after his discharge from the army 
 Captain Compton was united in marriage to Miss 
 Louise Gould, who was born and reared at West 
 Springfield, Pennsylvania, and the lifelong com- 
 panionship and comradeship of his wife constituted 
 his dearest possession, the relations of the home 
 having always been of ideal character. Mrs. Comp- 
 ton still survives her honored husband and resides 
 in Minneapolis, with her being her only son, William 
 G., of whom specific mention is made on other pages 
 of this work. Of the three children the eldest is 
 Mrs. Frank J. 'Evans, of Fergus Falls, this state; 
 another daughter is the wife of Adolph O. Eliason, 
 of St. Paul; and William G. is assistant city attor- 
 ney of Minneapolis. The eldest of the children was 
 born at Lanark, Illinois, and the other two at Fergus 
 Falls, Minnesota. 
 
 Captain Compton was inflexible in his allegiance 
 to the republican party. He honored and was hon- 
 ored by the State of Minnesota, and within the 
 gracious borders of this favored commonwealth 
 there are indeed many who shall long revere his 
 memory and cherish the thought of their associa- 
 tion with him in varied relations of life. His char- 
 acter and achievement admirably illustrated the con- 
 sistency of the statement that “the bravest are the 
 tenderest ; the loving are the daring.” 
 
 William G. Compton. A representative member 
 of the bar of the Minnesota metropolis, Mr. Comp- 
 ton is now serving as assistant city attorney of Min- 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1465 
 
 neapolis, and he is a worthy scion of a family whose 
 name has been most worthily linked with Minnesota 
 history for more than two score years. His father, 
 the late Captain James Compton, was a distinguished 
 and highly honored citizen, served in various offices 
 of high public trust, and at the time of his death 
 was. commandant of the Minnesota Soldiers’ Home. 
 To him a memorial tribute is paid on other pages 
 of this publication, so that further review of the 
 family history is not demanded in the present con- 
 nection. 
 
 William Gould Compton was born at Fergus Falls, 
 Ottertail County, Minnesota, on the 7th of August, 
 1877, and is the only son of Captain James and 
 Louise (Gould) Compton, the former of whom died 
 January 15, 1908, and the latter resides with her 
 son in Minneapolis. The public schools of his 
 native state afforded to William G. Compton his 
 early educational advantages, and he was graduated 
 in the Central High School in the City of St. Paul 
 as a member of the class of 189b. Soon afterward 
 he entered the law department of the University of 
 Minnesota, in which he was graduated in 1902 and 
 from which he receive his degree of Bachelor of 
 Laws. Prior to his graduation Mr. Compton passed 
 about one year at Montevido, Chippewa County, 
 where he served his professional novitiate in asso- 
 ciation with the present attorney general of Minne- 
 sota, Hon. Lyndon A. Smith. After his graduation 
 in the law school he was engaged in the work of 
 his profession at Indianapolis, Indiana, for one 
 year, and for five years thereafter he was numbered 
 among the representative members of the bar of 
 the State of Idaho, having been engaged in practice 
 at Caldwell, Canyon County, and at Moscow, judicial 
 center of Latah County and seat of the University 
 of Idaho. From the Gem State Mr. Compton finally 
 removed to the City of Spokane, Washington, where 
 he was engaged in practice until 1910, when he re- 
 turned to his native state and entered the office of 
 the city attorney of Minneapolis. He has since con- 
 tinued to give efficient service as assistant city at- 
 torney, and he has been resourceful and influential 
 in the directing and handling of the legal depart- 
 ment of the municipal government of the metropolis 
 of his native state, the while he has gained and re- 
 tained a wide circle of friends, in professional, 
 business and social circles. 
 
 At the inception of the Spanish-American war 
 Mr. Compton was a student in the law department 
 of the Llniversity of Minnesota, but he forthwith 
 subordinated his personal interests to respond to 
 the call of patriotism and to do his part in uphold- 
 ing the military prestige of the family name, his 
 father having been a valiant soldier of the Union 
 in the Civil war, an uncle in the agnatic line having 
 served in the Mexican war. his paternal grandfather 
 having been a soldier in the War of 1812, and the 
 latter's father having been a patriot soldier of the 
 Continental line in the War of the Revolution. 
 Mr. Compton enlisted in the Thirteenth Minnesota 
 Volunteer Infantry, and with this command he was 
 in active service in the Philippine Islands until 
 October, 1899, when he was mustered out, duly re- 
 ceiving his honorable discharge as a private and 
 returning with his regiment to Minneapolis. He is 
 identified not only with the Spanish-American War 
 Veterans’ Association and the Sons of Veterans, 
 but he has also the distinction of maintaining active 
 affiliation with the Minnesota Commandery of the 
 Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United 
 
 States, of which noble patriotic body his honored 
 father had served as senior vice commander. 
 
 In politics Mr. Compton is aligned as a stanch 
 supporter of the cause of the republican party, but 
 he has not entered vigorously into political activities, 
 his present official preferment being retained under 
 the civil service regulations rather than through po- 
 litical influence. He is affiliated with the Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks, the Order of Camels 
 of the World, and the Psi Upsilon and Phi Delta 
 Phi fraternities of the University of Minnesota. 
 He is a member of the Bethlehem Presbyterian 
 Church, and, as a bachelor, he resides with his 
 widowed mother at 19 West Twenty-fifth Street. 
 That Mr. Compton is possessed of literary talent as 
 well as deep interest in and love for children is indi- 
 cated by the following quotations taken from the 
 “Children’s Newspaper,” a department of the Min- 
 neapolis Daily News, of April 25, 1914: 
 
 “William G. Compton, assistant city attorney, can 
 write some of the dandiest stories for children 
 you’ve ever read, and he is going to write some for 
 the boys and girls who are readers of the Saturday 
 Children’s Newspaper. You’d be surprised to learn 
 how Mr. Compton started writing these stories. He 
 has a niece, Louise Eliason, eight years old, who 
 lives at 688 Fairmount Avenue, St. Paul. She was 
 sick with scarlet fever a few weeks ago, and no 
 one in the family could amuse her. She thought 
 of her big uncle. It was by her request that ‘Uncle 
 William’ wrote the ‘Scarlet Fever Fish,’ a real nov- 
 elty story for children which will be started on 
 this page next Saturday. Mr. Compton wrote the 
 story in the form of a series of letters to his little 
 niece — one every week. Maybe you think she wasn’t 
 just ‘tickled to death’ every Thursday when she 
 would find a nice letter from uncle, waiting to be 
 read.” 
 
 Byron Harvey Timberlake. A resident of Min- 
 nesota for more than thirty years, and now general 
 representative for Minnesota and Iowa of the 
 Provident Life and Trust Company of Philadelphia, 
 Byron H. Timberlake has spent his active life in 
 work of increasing responsibility and service. For 
 two terms he was a member of the State Legisla- 
 ture, but for twenty-three years has been identified 
 with life insurance, and is now one of the oldest 
 men, in point of service, in that field in the state. 
 His fidelity and skill have given him a high place 
 in one of the most substantial and best managed 
 life insurance companies in America. 
 
 Byron Harvey Timberlake was born near Salem, 
 Washington County, Indiana, August 17, 1861, a 
 son of Aquilla and" Jane (Thompson) Timberlake, 
 both now deceased. His great-grandfather, John 
 Timberlake, was a Virginia farmer of English an- 
 cestry, but early in the nineteenth century brought 
 his family and slaves to Ohio. Fie manumitted his 
 slaves in that state, giving the required bond. Many 
 of the Virginia Timberlakes fought with the Con- 
 federate army during the war. 
 
 Mr. Timberlake was reared on his father’s farm, 
 and spent his boyhood and early youth in Indiana, 
 Illinois and in Kansas. At the age of twenty-one 
 he came to Minnesota, in 1883, and employed sev- 
 eral of the following years in gaining a liberal edu- 
 cation. He attended the Minneapolis Academy and 
 then the University of Minnesota, in which he took 
 honors in oratory and as manager of athletics, and 
 was graduated in 1891. In the meantime he had 
 
1466 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 supported himself by employment with the Min- 
 neapolis Harvester Company in South Minneapolis, 
 and was sent South by that company as a field ex- 
 pert all over the wheat belt. He also took a course 
 in a business college. With this thorough education 
 and well tested business experience, Mr. Timber- 
 lake after finishing his university career engaged in 
 the life insurance business. For two years, 1897-99, 
 he was deputy insurance commissioner of Minne- 
 sota with offices in the Capitol Building at St. Paul. 
 For several years he was manager in Minnesota for 
 the Prudential Insurance Company of America, and 
 now has the post of general representative in the 
 states of Minnesota and Iowa for the Provident 
 Life and Trust Company of Philadelphia. 
 
 Mr. Timberlake has taken much interest in re- 
 publican politics. His first election to the lower 
 house of the Legislature came in 1904. In . 1906 he 
 was again elected to represent the Thirty-ninth Dis- 
 trict in the thirty-fifth session, and proved a valu- 
 able adviser and worker in both sessions. Though 
 a new member in the thirty-fourth session, he did 
 some especially effective work for the university, 
 being representative of what is known as the Uni- 
 versity District of Minneapolis. He was a member 
 of several important committees, and was chairman 
 of the committee that framed and helped to pass 
 the bill reorganizing the insurance department of 
 the state, which, among other beneficial changes, 
 required that all fees should be paid into the state 
 treasury. He was chairman of the Insurance Com- 
 mittee at the 1907 session which put through so 
 many reform bills affecting the business of life 
 insurance. All friends of the university were 
 grateful to him for his work in securing some 
 needed appropriations and other favorable legisla- 
 tion in behalf of this institution. 
 
 Fraternally Mr. Timberlake is affiliated with Cat- 
 aract Lodge No. 2, A. F. & A. M.; also with the 
 chapter, council and commandery on the East Side, 
 and is a past presiding officer in all the bodies of 
 the York Rite, and a member of Zurah Temple of 
 the Mystic Shrine. No doubt the greatest body of 
 Knights Templar ever assembled in Minnesota met 
 at Minneapolis in May, 1915, in celebration of the 
 fiftieth anniversary of the Grand Commandery of 
 Minnesota. Mr. Timberlake was chairman of the 
 committee on program. He was a member and 
 director of the old Commercial Club of Minneapolis, 
 which subsequently became merged with the Min- 
 neapolis Athletic Club,, in which he is also a mem- 
 ber. Mr. Timberlake is a member and a vestryman 
 in Holy Trinity parish of the Episcopal Church. 
 During his university career he belonged to the 
 Minnesota Beta Chapter of the Phi Kappa Psi fra- 
 ternity, and an interesting fact in this relation is 
 that his son is a member of the same chapter of 
 this fraternity, and that is the first case in the an- 
 nals of the local chapter in which father and son 
 have had membership. 
 
 Mr. Timberlake was married in 1891 to Miss 
 Emma Kemp, who died March ix, 1899. She left 
 three children. Mr. and Mrs. Timberlake were 
 graduated from the university together, and were 
 married soon after graduation. Lucile, the oldest 
 of their children, is a graduate of the East High 
 School, received her certificate for the two years’ 
 course in home economics from the State Univer- 
 sity in 1912. She taught domestic science and art 
 in the high school at Elbow Lake, Minnesota, for 
 two years, and is now in charge of the work in 
 
 those branches at the Shakopee High School. Har- 
 old C. is a graduate of Pillsbury Academy and is 
 now in the division of horticulture, College of 
 Agriculture, in the University of Minnesota, being- 
 interested in athletics and all forms of outdoor 
 sports. The daughter Emma is now in East High. 
 All the children were born in Minneapolis. In 
 1901 Mr. Timberlake married Miss Lilian Chatter- 
 don. Her father, the late Judge Chadderdon, of 
 Redwood Falls, Minnesota, spelled his name differ- 
 ently from the present generation. Judge Chadder- 
 don was a prominent pioneer in Minnesota, and rep- 
 resented the Twenty-first District in the Legisla- 
 tures of 1872-73. His widow and four children are 
 still living, Mrs. Timberlake being one of the daugh- 
 ters. Mr. Timberlake’ s summer home is on Shady 
 Island in Lake Minnetonka, and the family resort 
 to that beautiful place for considerable portions of 
 the winter season. 
 
 Walter L. Badger. In Minneapolis real estate 
 circles there is no firm with a better reputation for 
 conservative and safe handling of the interests en- 
 trusted to its care, and for judicious promotion of 
 building and development in the downtown district, 
 than the Walter L. Badger Company, whose offices 
 are in the Oneida Building. The business of the 
 company comprises real estate, loans, insurance, 
 management of estates, and renting and supervision 
 of property, especially in the central district of the 
 Minnesota metropolis. The company handles a 
 great amount of property for non-resident owners 
 and for estates of the more important order. The 
 principals in this company have made a specialty of 
 the handling and development of real estate along 
 Seventh Street and Hennepin Avenue, and Mr. 
 Badger has, with no little consistency, been termed 
 the “father” of modern Seventh Street, in the devel- 
 opment of which to its present high standard his 
 has been the dominating influence. When he ini- 
 tiated his ambitious and well defined activities in 
 bringing this thoroughfare up to metropolitan 
 standards its physical condition was represented 
 principally by more or less inferior buildings, util- 
 ized principally as boarding houses. He had the 
 prescience and discrimination to realize the possi- 
 bilities in improving the street, and his convictions 
 have ever been attended by the courage of definite 
 action. When he set to himself the work of vir- 
 tually redeeming Seventh Street from obscurity, 
 lots thereon were valued at about $235 a front foot, 
 and the results of his well ordered enterprise are 
 best shown in the enhanced values of the property 
 at the present time, the average frontage now being 
 appraised at fully $3,500 a foot. While others have 
 in a measure contributed to this wonderful develop- 
 ment Mr. Badger is the one man to whom the max- 
 imum of credit is due, and he merits great praise 
 for the progressive ideas and splendid business acu- 
 men which enabled him to achieve such admirable 
 results and add much to the material and civic pros- 
 perity of the city. Mr. Badger erected the Badger 
 Building, at 37-39 South Seventh Street, the struc- 
 ture being of the best modern type and five stories 
 in height. The building adjoins the Hotel Radisson 
 and its upper floors are now utilized as an annex 
 to that popular hostelry. Within recent years many 
 of the largest transactions in the handling of prop- 
 erty in the commercial district of Minneapolis have 
 been effected through the medium of the Walter L. 
 Badger Company. The firm has a large eastern 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1467 
 
 clientage, and in investment and banking circles the 
 judgment of this company has come to be regarded 
 as the ultirhate authority in designating safe and 
 conservative investments in real estate. 
 
 About thirty years ago Walter L. Badger, who is 
 president of the company that bears his name, was 
 an office boy for a Minneapolis real estate firm. He 
 has been identified with the one line of business 
 ever since and is now at the head of a specially 
 large and prosperous business, his associates being 
 Frederick T. Krafft, treasurer, and Edson J. Kel- 
 logg, secretary. 
 
 Walter Louis Badger was born at Fond du Lac, 
 Wisconsin, on the 27th of May, 1868, and soon after 
 his birth his parents removed to Oshkosh, that state, 
 from which city, in 1878, they came to Minneapolis. 
 Mr. Badger is a son of George A. and Harriet E. 
 (Hastings) Badger, both natives of Massachusetts 
 and representatives from old and honored New 
 England stock. George A. Badger devoted his en- 
 tire active career to mercantile pursuits and for 
 nearly a decade he was one of the leading merchants 
 of Oshkosh, Wisconsin. After coming to Minneap- 
 olis he engaged in the furniture business, with which 
 he here continued to be actively identified until his 
 retirement, about ten years prior to his death. Both 
 he and his wife died in Minneapolis in the year 1904. 
 Of their three sons the eldest is Charles H., of 
 Indianapolis, Indiana; Walter L., of this review, 
 was the next in order of birth; and William A., 
 who was successfully engaged in the insurance busi- 
 ness in Minneapolis, died in the year 1909. 
 
 Walter L. Badger is indebted to the public schools 
 of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for his preliminary educa- 
 tional discipline, and he was about ten years of age 
 at the time of the family removal to Minneapolis, 
 where he continued his studies in the public schools. 
 He acquired his initial experience in the real estate 
 and insurance business by holding the dignified 
 preferment of office boy for John Goldbury, and he 
 had the mental alertness and good judgment to 
 profit greatly from the experience gained with the 
 passing years. In 1888 Mr. Badger engaged in the 
 real estate and insurance business in an independ- 
 ent way, and the energy and circumspection which 
 he brdught to bear resulted in the steady and sub- 
 stantial expansion of his private enterprise, with 
 the final result of bringing about the organization 
 and incorporation of the present Walter L. Badger 
 Company. 
 
 The political allegiance of Mr. Badger is given 
 to the republican party, and though he shows a 
 loyal interest in public affairs and gives his influ- 
 ence in the support of good government he has 
 never sought or desired public office. He is specially 
 well known for his zealous advocacy of those meas- 
 ures which conserve municipal reforms and im- 
 provements. His varied business, civic and social 
 relations include his identification with the Min- 
 neapolis Club, the Minikahda Club, the Minneapolis 
 Athletic Club, the Minneapolis Real Estate Board, 
 the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Association, 
 the Minneapolis Automobile Club, and the Inter- 
 lachen Country Club. He is affiliated with Min- 
 neapolis Lodge No. 19, Ancient Free and Accepted 
 Masons, and both he and his wife are active mem- 
 bers of Plymouth Congregational Church. 
 
 On the 30th of October, 1890, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Badger to Miss Anna Dawson, of 
 Keokuk, Iowa. Of the three children only one is 
 living, Lester R., who was born in Minneapolis and 
 
 who acquired his early education in the public 
 schools, after which he pursued higher studies in 
 Williams College, at Williamsburg, New York. He 
 is now associated with his father in business. The 
 two deceased children were Norman D. and Mar- 
 garette. 
 
 Thomas Reardon. The foremost business man 
 and citizen of Beardsley in Bigstone County is 
 Thomas Reardon, who' represents a family that has 
 been identified since pioneer times with the agri- 
 cultural and life stock interests of this section, who 
 is himself one of the leading stock buyers in West- 
 ern Minnesota, and at Beardsley has been in active 
 business for more than ten years and is now mayor 
 of that little city. 
 
 Thomas Reardon was born in Lewis County, New 
 York, October 17, 1873, and comes of a fine old 
 family of Catholic Irish ancestry. His grandfather, 
 James Reardon, was a native of County Cork, Ire- 
 land, and brought his family to this country from 
 Ireland in 1875, locating in Lewis County, New 
 York, where he spent the rest of his life as a farmer. 
 William Reardon, the father of Thomas, was born 
 in County Cork, Ireland, in 1831, was about four 
 years old when the family came to America, and in 
 Lewis County, New York, where he grew up, be- 
 came the owner of a dairy farm. On March 26, 
 1880, he brought his family from New York to St. 
 Paul, Minnesota, and soon afterward settled as a 
 pioneer homesteader in Bigstone County. For the 
 past thirty-five years he has been identified with the 
 development of the country and with diversified 
 farming and stock raising in that county. He and 
 his wife are still living, and his wife’s maiden name 
 was Catherine Mahon, also a native of Ireland. 
 They are honored as the parents of a fine family of 
 children, as follows: Mary, who is the wife of James 
 McCrea, cashier of the First National Bank of 
 Graceville and a large business man there ; James, a 
 farmer four miles east of Beardslev- William Jr., 
 who is a merchant and stock dealer at Mandam, 
 North Dakota ; Nancy, who lives at home with her 
 parents ; Catherine, who lives with her sister Mary 
 in Graceville ; Winifred, a teacher in the schools at 
 Brainerd, Minnesota; Timothy Joseph, who died at 
 the age of two and a half years ; and Helen, a 
 teacher in Beardsley. 
 
 Thomas Reardon came to Minnesota at the age 
 of seven years, secured his education in the common 
 schools of Bigstone County, and with a finishing 
 course at Willmar 'Seminary. His early life until 
 the age of twenty-four was spent on his father’s 
 farm, and he is a farmer both by training and in- 
 clination. At the age of twenty-four he bought some 
 land of his own, but still continued to be associated 
 with his father and brother in the management of 
 extensive farming and live stock interests until the 
 spring of 1903. In that year Mr. Reardon came into 
 Beardsley and opened a retail meat market and also 
 engaged in the shipping of live stock under the firm 
 name of Reardon Brothers. Those lines he still con- 
 tinues. enjoys an extensive acquaintance all over 
 Western Minnesota, and has made a name for fair 
 and square dealing. 
 
 Mr. Reardon was honored with the office of mayor 
 of Beardsley in the spring of 1914, and for six years 
 previously had served on the village council. Polit- 
 ically he maintains an independent attitude, is a 
 member of the Catholic Church, and is affiliated with 
 
1468 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Gracevilie Council No. 1391 of the Knights of Co- 
 lumbus. Mr. Reardon is unmarried. 
 
 Clint L. Luce. For more than thirty years Mr. 
 Luce has been closely identified with those activities 
 which constitute the business and civic life of a com- 
 munity, and which in the aggregate have made Albert 
 Lea one of the most progressive cities in Minnesota. 
 Mr. Luce has had a long and varied experience as 
 a newspaper man, and while never active in practical 
 politics has worked through various organizations 
 for the promotion of institutions which mean much 
 to the community, and is one of the leading business 
 men. 
 
 Clint L. Luce was born in Lanroile, Vermont, Sep- 
 tember 28, 1854. The Luce family came originally 
 from Wales, landing at Martha’s Vineyard during 
 the Colonial times, and lived in New England for 
 generations. His grandfather was Jonathan Luce, 
 who lived and died as a Vermont farmer. Mr. 
 Luce’s father was Harvey Luce, who was born in 
 Vermont in 1820 and died in Allamakee County, 
 Iowa, in 1887. He likewise spent his career as a 
 farmer. He was married to Ann Stone, a native of 
 Vermont, who died in 1872 in Allamakee County. 
 They came West and settled in the latter county in 
 
 1855- 
 
 Clint L. Luce had an ordinary education in North- 
 ern Iowa, came to Freeborn County, Minnesota, in 
 1873, and in the same winter continued his studies 
 in school at Albert Lea, and after finishing his edu- 
 cation taught school for several terms. In 1878 Mr. 
 Luce entered a newspaper office in Albert Lea, 
 learned the business in all its technical and commer- 
 cial phases, and eventually became editor and half 
 owner of the Albert Lea Enterprise, conducted that 
 well known local journal until 1898, a period of 
 fourteen years. From 1901 until 1910 Mr. Luce was 
 editor of the Daily Tribune at Albert Lea. His busi- 
 ness relations since then have extended over a 
 broader field, and he is now secretary of the Luce 
 Corset Company, of the Skinner, Chamberlain Com- 
 pany, a director in the Citizens National Bank, and 
 owns half of the Luce-Reynolds Building, a business 
 block situated on College Street. 
 
 Mr. Luce is a progressive republican, and in 1912 
 was chairman of the republican county committee. 
 He has served on both county and state committees, 
 but has never sought office, and his service has been 
 in those honorary and unremunerative positions 
 which do more to advance the public welfare than 
 the paid political offices. Mr. Luce helped establish 
 a library at Albert Lea, and was chairman of the 
 board that constructed the $20,000 library. He was 
 among the organizers of the Hospital Association, 
 and that movement brought the $50,000 hospital to 
 Albert Lea. For the past six years Mr. Luce has 
 served as secretary of the Business Men’s League, 
 and for the same length of time has been president 
 of the Freeborn Agricultural Society, and for many 
 years active in that organization. He is secretary 
 of the Country Club, affiliates with Western Star 
 Lodge No. 26, A. F. & A. M., was formerly a mem- 
 ber of the Albert Lea Chapter of the Royal Arch, 
 and belongs to the Knights of Pythias. Mr. Luce, 
 who is unmarried, resides in the Luce-Reynolds 
 Building. 
 
 Charles Schunemann. A solid business enter- 
 prise at St. Paul is the Schunemann & Evans depart- 
 ment store, which has a history of its own illus- 
 
 trating both the progress of the town and the career 
 of one of its foremost citizens. The business was 
 started at St. Paul in 1888, at which time Charles 
 Schunemann and his partner Mr. Evans, both prac- 
 tical merchants with broad and varied experience, 
 came from St. Louis, and in the new situation began 
 laying the foundation for a business which has been 
 one of progressive growth down to the present time. 
 In 1912 Mr. Evans retired from the firm, and the 
 business was then incorporated with a capital stock 
 of $700,000.00. Mr. Charles Schunemann was 
 elected president, Mr. A. Schunemann vice president, 
 and Walter L. Mayo secretary, with Carl Schune- 
 mann treasurer. 
 
 The store, one of the conspicuous features of the 
 retail shopping district of St. Paul, is a five-story 
 brick, 200 by 120 feet foundation, and all the floors 
 and the basement are devoted to the immense stock 
 carried in the different departments. The total floor 
 space aggregates about 144,000 feet, and about 500 
 people are employed as clerks, salesmen, office work- 
 ers and in the other departments of a large mer- 
 cantile service, with which every resident of St. 
 Paul is familiar. 
 
 The building up of an enterprise of this character, 
 even in twenty-five years, requires more than ordi- 
 nary commercial acumen, experience and ability. It 
 is the result of careful planning, attention to details, 
 an executive ability in the organization and mar- 
 shalling of a competent staff of employes, accurate 
 estimates of trade possibilities, the maintenance of 
 credit connections, and progressive merchandising in 
 every line. The success of the business is the best 
 monument to the work of Charles Schunemann and 
 his standing in the business and civic community of 
 St. Paul. 
 
 Recently when the business celebrated its twenty- 
 sixth birthday as the oldest department store in St. 
 Paul, some of the details of the house’s growth were 
 told in the St. Paul papers, from which a brief quo- 
 tation will be appropriate : “It was in 1888 that 
 Schunemann & Evans’ first store began to do busi- 
 ness. That was in the old days of St. Paul’s retail 
 business when the shopping district was on Third 
 street. The Schuneman & Evans store was a two- 
 story building at 57-59 Third street. The firm moved 
 to its six-story building at Sixth and Wabasha 
 streets in 1891. Another step was taken in 1900 when 
 a fifty-foot addition to the north side of the building 
 was made. The firm also has a large warehouse on 
 Tenth street near Robert street. When the store 
 was opened it occupied 12,000 feet of floor space and 
 less than forty persons were employed. Now its 
 floor space is 181,000 feet and the average pay 
 roll contains 500 names.” 
 
 Mr. Charles Schunemann resides in a fine home 
 at 275 Summit Avenue. His wife, whom he married 
 in 1887, was formerly Miss Alice Mayo, who was 
 born in Illinois. 
 
 Fred Burnett Hill was born at Redwing, Good- 
 hue County, Minnesota, on the 15th of May, 1876. 
 He is the son of Edwin Frederick Hill and Grace 
 Jeannette (Squire) Hill. There were two other 
 sons : Charles Melvin, the oldest, is in the real es- 
 tate business at Boise, Idaho, and Wilbur Squire, 
 the youngest, is editor and publisher of the Twin 
 Falls Times, Twin Falls, Idaho. Edwin F. Hill now 
 resides in Los Angeles, California. Mrs. Edwin F. 
 Hill died on June 18, 1903. She was the daughter 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1469 
 
 of Nathan Squire who was a pioneer settler of Good- 
 hue County. 
 
 Edwin F. Hill was born at Hudson, New Hamp- 
 shire, on May 19, 1846, the son of Reuben and 
 Mary (Chase) Hill. In 1856 Reuben Hill settled 
 with his family at Redwing, Minnesota. He and his 
 wife were members of the Presbyterian Church. 
 Both died in 1885 at Redwing. The original repre- 
 sentatives of the Hill family in America were three 
 brothers who emigrated from England in 1646. The 
 one who settled at Hudson, New Hampshire, was 
 the ancestor of Reuben Hill. One of the other 
 brothers settled in Connecticut and the third in 
 Eastern New York. Edwin Hill was educated in the 
 public schools of Redwing and in Hamline College, 
 then just beginning its work in Redwing. He was 
 a contractor by trade, having learned the business 
 from his father. He retired. from active business in 
 1907. He is a member of the Congregational Church 
 and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is 
 a member of the progressive party. He was mar- 
 ried to Miss Grace Jeannette Squire on July 9, 1873. 
 
 In the fall of 1895 Fred B. Hill entered Carleton 
 College and was graduated in 1900 with the degree 
 of Bachelor of Literature. In 1903 he was graduated 
 from Hartford Theological Seminary with the de- 
 gree of Bachelor of Divinity. He was ordained to 
 the Congregational ministry in 1903 at Providence, 
 Rhode Island, where he was assistant minister of 
 the Central Congregational Church. In 1905-06 fol- 
 lowing his marriage to Miss Deborah Wilcox Sayles 
 he made a tour of the world. In 1906-7 he studied 
 again at Hartford Theological Seminary and in the 
 fall of 1907 entered upon the work of instructor in 
 biblical literature in Carleton College. In 1909 he 
 was made full professor in that department. The 
 year 1914-15 was spent in graduate study at Yale 
 School of Religion. 
 
 Professor Hill is chairman of the Social Service 
 Commission of the National Council of Congrega- 
 tional Churches ; is a corporate member of the Amer- 
 ican Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions ; 
 is also a member of various educational and philan- 
 thropic organizations. He is president of the North- 
 field Hospital Association and a member of the 
 board of education. He is a member of the Min- 
 neapolis Club, the University Club of Minneapolis, 
 the Graduates Club of New Haven, Connecticut, 
 and the honorary society of Phi Beta Kappa. He is 
 a member of Social Lodge, No. 48, A. F. & A. M., 
 and Corinthian Chapter, No. 33, R. A. M., and of 
 Faribault Commandery, No. 8, Knights Templar. 
 
 On June 14th, 1905, occurred the marriage of Mr. 
 Hill to Deborah Wilcox Sayles, daughter of Frederic 
 C. and Deborah Wilcox Sayles of Pawtucket, Rhode 
 Island. They have five children: Mary Sayles, Fred 
 Burnett, Jr., Robert Clark, Edward Sanderson and 
 Deborah Jeannette. 
 
 Lars Backe. One of the pioneers of Thief River 
 Falls is Lars Backe, who put up one of the first 
 residences in that town more than a quarter of a 
 century ago, _ and has since been actively identified 
 with its business and civic affairs. Mr. Backe is 
 one of the pioneers of Northern Minnesota, was a 
 homesteader, and got his start in the strenuous 
 work of country development. 
 
 Lars Backe was born in Norway August 29, 1856, 
 a son of Bartel and Eline Backe. His parents were 
 farmers of the old country. Lars Backe received 
 his education and his early training in his native 
 
 land, and in 1880 crossed the ocean and became one 
 of the pioneers in Minnesota, locating a homestead 
 and also supporting himself by employment in offi- 
 ces and stores for several years. In 1888 he bought 
 lots and built one of the first residences of the 
 town of Thief River Falls, and has since been iden- 
 tified with that community in business affairs, in 
 real estate and insurance, and other lines. In 1893 
 he was elected village recorder and held that office 
 until November, 1896, when the town was incor- 
 porated. He then held the office of clerk of Thief 
 River Falls for sixteen years. In 1911 he was 
 elected mayor, taking office January 1, 1912, and 
 two years later was again elected to the same honor, 
 and since January 1, 1915, has been on his second 
 term of two years. He has been a member of the 
 board of education since its organization, and has 
 done much to promote good schools and the up- 
 building of the local library. Mr. Backe is presi- 
 dent of the Farmers State Bank of Holt, and does 
 a large business in real estate and fire insurance, 
 and is also a contractor and builder for cement 
 construction. 
 
 Mr. Backe is affiliated with the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks, with the Sons of Norway, 
 and has been secretary of the Norwegian Lutheran 
 Church and was one of its organizers at Thief 
 River Falls. In Ottertail County, Minnesota, in 
 July, 1884, Mr. Backe married Kerstie Loken. Mrs. 
 Backe died in December, 1889, leaving three chil- 
 dren : Emma L., who is librarian of the public 
 
 library at Thief River Falls; Bartel L., cashier of 
 the Farmers State Bank at Holt; and Clara L., a 
 teacher in the public schools. 
 
 Capt. Mathias Baldwin is one of the able and 
 popular members of the Minneapolis bar, has served 
 as first assistant county attorney of Hennepin Coun- 
 ty, has been a prominent figure in the Minnesota 
 National Guard, in which he gained his pres- 
 ent military title after having served with his 
 regiment with marked efficiency, and further inter- 
 est attaches to his career by reason of his being a 
 native son of Minnesota and a scion of one of the 
 sterling pioneer families of this state. 
 
 Captain Baldwin was born on a farm in High For- 
 est Township, Olmsted County, Minnesota, on the 
 26th of August, 1875, and is a son of Cornelius and 
 Julia (Monette) Baldwin, the former of whom was 
 born in Dunkirk, County Cork, Ireland, and the 
 latter in Quebec, Canada, of French lineage. Cor- 
 nelius Baldwin was reared and educated in his native 
 land and immigrated to the United States about the 
 year 1854, his marriage to Miss Julia Monette hav- 
 ing been solemnized at the home of the bride’s par- 
 ents, twelve miles south of Rochester, Olmsted 
 County, Minnesota, the parents of Mrs. Baldwin hav- 
 ing been pioneer settlers in that county. Cornelius 
 Baldwin became one of the progressive pioneer farm- 
 ers of Olmsted County, and he was the owner of a 
 valuable farm in Rock County, this state, at the time 
 of his death, in 1895, his widow being now a resident 
 of Pipestone, the judicial center of Pipestone 
 County, and being a devout communicant of the 
 Catholic Church, as was also her husband. They 
 became the parents of six sons and four daughters, 
 all of whom are living. The eldest of the number 
 is Cornelius H., who is engaged in the plumbing 
 business in Minneapolis ; two of the sisters married 
 farmers ; one sister is a successful teacher in the 
 public schools and another is a nun of a Catholic 
 
1470 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 sisterhood, identified with a convent in South Da- 
 kota ; and all of the other brothers are farmers 
 except Captain Baldwin of this review and Edmund, 
 who, as a member of the United Stated Marine 
 Corps, is attached to the United States legation at 
 Pekin, China. 
 
 Captain Baldwin acquired his early education in 
 the public schools of Olmsted and Rock counties, 
 in which latter he was graduated in the high school 
 at Luverne as a member of the class of 1898. In 
 preparation for the work of his chosen profession 
 Captain Baldwin entered the law department of the 
 University of Minnesota, in which he was graduated 
 in 1903 and from which he received at that time the 
 degree of Bachelor of Laws. Not satisfied with 
 other than the best possible fortification for the 
 vocation which he had selected, the captain com- 
 pleted in the law department of the university an 
 effective post-graduate course, resultant upon which 
 was his reception, in 1904, of the supplemental de- 
 gree of Master of Laws. 
 
 In the year of his graduation Captain Baldwin 
 formed a partnership alliance with Frank D. Larra- 
 bee and engaged in the practice of law in Minne- 
 apolis, under the firm name of Larrabee & Baldwin, 
 and with offices in the Metropolitan Life Building. 
 The partnership was dissolved at the expiration of 
 two years and thereafter Captain Baldwin conducted 
 a substantial individual practice for four years. Ir 
 1909 he entered into partnership with Joseph L. 
 Murphy, under the firm name of Baldwin & Murphy, 
 and this alliance continued one year, at the expira- 
 tion of which there came distinctive recognition of 
 the legal ability and resourcefulness of Mr. Baldwin, 
 in his appointment as first assistant prosecuting at- 
 torney of Hennepin County, the appointment hav- 
 ing been made by James Robertson, the present 
 county attorney. His official duties continued to de- 
 mand the services of Captain Baldwin until he went 
 out of office January 1, 1915, and he made an ad- 
 mirable record as a public prosecutor. He is now 
 associated with the Baldwin-Murphy Company with 
 offices at 1050-52 Security Bank Building. 
 
 It was given to Captain Baldwin to tender his 
 services to the nation in the Spanish-American war, 
 his eligibility for which had been reinforced through 
 his prior identification with Company IT, Second 
 Regiment, Minnesota National Guards, at Luverne, 
 in 1896-7. On the 16th of July, 1898. with the other 
 members of his company, "Captain Baldwin enlisted 
 in the United States service, as a member of Com- 
 pany G, Fifteenth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. 
 He was made sergeant of his company and the regi- 
 ment proceeded to a reserve camp in the South, 
 demand not having been made for its service in 
 Cuba or on another stage of warfare. The captain 
 and his comrades were mustered out, at Augusta, 
 Georgia, on the 27th of March. 1899, after having 
 shown the finest military spirit and discipline, 
 though denied participation in active polemic con- 
 flict. In Minneapolis, after the close of the Spanish 
 war, Captain Baldwin identified himself with Com- 
 pany F of the First Regiment of the Minnesota Na- 
 tional Guards, in which he passed through the vari- 
 ous grades of promotion to the office of captain, a 
 position of which he continued the efficient and pop- 
 ular incumbent from February 8, 1908, to June 20, 
 1914, when he was retired. He was senior caotain 
 of the regiment at the time when he requested re- 
 tirement and was thus in line for promotion to the 
 rank of major. Within his six years’ service as 
 
 captain of his company he won the regimental 
 championship for marksmanship for each year save 
 the first, besides which he won the state champion- 
 ship in each of four years of this period. Further 
 distinction was his in 1909, when he captured the 
 national championship, in a contest at Camp Perry, 
 Ohio. In 1912 he was coach of the Minnesota Rifle 
 Team and in the following year he was an active 
 member of this organization. He has been known 
 since 1909 as an expert shot with both rifle and 
 pistol, and in 1913 won the medal at the contest held 
 by the National Rifle Association. 
 
 Captain Baldwin is a stalwart in the camp of the 
 republican party, is a member of the Minneapolis 
 Bar Association, and is affiliated with the Knights of 
 Columbus, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the 
 Modern Woodmen of America, and the Camels of 
 the World. In the Knights of Columbus he served 
 two years as district deputy. As a communicant of 
 the Catholic Church the captain is an active member 
 of the Church of the Ascension, as is also his wife, 
 their home being at 1329 Seventeenth Avenue. 
 
 On the 28th of June, 1911, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Captain Baldwin to Miss Anna L. Ken- 
 nedy, daughter of John and Margaret (Duggan) 
 Kennedy, of Minneapolis. Mrs. Baldwin was born 
 and reared in this city, where her parents still re- 
 side, and is a graduate of Holy Angels Academy. 
 Captain and Mrs. Baldwin have two children, — Mar- 
 garet Julia and John Kennedy. 
 
 John Alexander Thompson. A Minneapolis pio- 
 neer of honored memory was the late John Alexan- 
 der Thompson, who was identified with St. Anthony 
 Village through its various development into a city 
 from 1855 until his death on June 11, 1891, at the 
 age of fifty-nine years. 
 
 John Alexander Thompson was born at St. Davids 
 in New Brunswick May 26, 1832, a son of Hiram 
 and Belinda (Woodstock) Thompson. He was 
 reared to a life of activity and as a boy had experi- 
 ence in the lumber woods of Eastern Canada. Fol- 
 lowing the discovery of gold in California in 1848 
 he went out to the Pacific coast by the Isthmus route 
 and spent three years there, from 1849 to 1852. 
 After his return to New Brunswick he remained only 
 a few years, and in 1855 located in Minneapolis. 
 For many years he was engaged in the lumber busi- 
 ness with Leonard Day & Son. 
 
 The late Mr. Thompson was a democrat in na- 
 tional politics, and was a member of Hennepin 
 Lodge, No. 4. A.. F. & A. M. He was a member of 
 Gethsemane Church at Minneapolis, and a beauti- 
 ful memorial window has been placed in the edifice 
 by his children. He and his wife had the distinction 
 of being the first couple to be married in the old 
 Gethsemane Church. The maiden name of his wife 
 was Victoria A. Moore. At his death Mr. Thompson 
 left seven grown children, named as follows : Etta 
 Thompson Gould, the widow of the late Judge Ozro 
 B. Gould, whose life is given appropriate attention 
 on other pages; Josephus Moore Thompson, who 
 died in California January 15, 1912, and was brought 
 back to Minneapolis for burial ; Albert Delano 
 Thompson, who is president and treasurer of the 
 A. D. Thompson Drug Company and is mentioned 
 in succeeding paragraphs ; Alice Thompson Doll, 
 wife of Charles E. Doll, of Evanston, Illinois; Fred 
 H. Thompson, a druggist at the corner of Tenth 
 Street and Marquette Avenue; Clifford W. Thomp- 
 son, a resident of Monroe, Washington; and Charles 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1471 
 
 W. Thompson, vice president of the A. D. Thomp- 
 son Drug Company of Minneapolis. 
 
 Albert Delano Thompson. One of the solid busi- 
 ness men of Minneapolis, where he has been con- 
 tinuously identified with the drug trade for the past 
 thirty-seven years, A. D. Thompson has achieved 
 more than the ordinary prominence of the success- 
 ful merchant and is a leader in the various associa- 
 tions of druggists in his home state and in the United 
 States. 
 
 The A. D. Thompson Drug Company, of which he 
 is president and treasurer, was incorporated in 1899 
 with a capital stock of $20,000 which in 1910 was in- 
 creased to $100,000. The other officers of this com- 
 pany are: Charles W. Thompson, vice president; 
 and George H. Kulp, secretary. This business is the 
 logical development and outgrowth of the career 
 of Mr. A. D. Thompson, who became identified with 
 the retail trade in Minneapolis in 1878, his first store 
 being at First Avenue South and Washington, sub- 
 sequently removing to First Avenue South and Third 
 Street, and still later opening a store at Fourth 
 Street and Nicollet, which is now one of the two 
 stores of the company, the other being at Third 
 Street and First Avenue South. The buildings in 
 which these stores are located were purchased in 
 October, 1910, by the Albert D. Thompson Company, 
 which has the same officers and directors as the 
 A. D. Thompson Drug Company. 
 
 Albert Delano Thompson, a son of the late John 
 A. and Victoria A. Thompson, reference to. whom is 
 made in preceding paragraphs, was born September 
 24, 1861, at St. Stephens, New Brunswick. Fie ac- 
 quired his education in the Minneapolis public 
 schools and in the State University, and has been 
 continuously in the drug trade since 1878. 
 
 Mr. Thompson was president in 1908-09 of the 
 Minneapolis Retail Druggists Association; was pres- 
 ident in 1910 of the Minnesota State Pharmaceutical 
 Association; was president of the Northwestern 
 Branch of the American Pharmaceutical Association 
 in 1914 and re-elected to the same office in 1915; and 
 in 1910 was a delegate to the American Pharmaceuti- 
 cal Association at Richmond, Virginia. By appoint- 
 ment from Governor Johnson Mr. Thompson was 
 the Minnesota delegate to the Lincoln celebration 
 at Flodgensville, Kentucky, on February 12, 1909, 
 the hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Great 
 Emancipator. He attended the laying of the corner 
 stone of the memorial building at the Lincoln farm. 
 Mr. Thompson is a democrat in national politics, 
 and is affiliated with Kuhrum Lodge No. 119, A. F. 
 & A. M.. and his church home is St. Mark's Epis- 
 copal at Minneapolis. 
 
 Ozro Barnes Gould was born in Brantford, On- 
 tario, Aoril 17, 1840. He was a son of Ozro A. and 
 Mary (Barnes) Gould. His father died when he 
 was five years old and his mother returned to the 
 United States. The common schools of Ohio af- 
 forded Judge Gould his early education and later he 
 attended the academy at Republic in the same state. 
 Attaining his majority at the beginning of the Civil 
 war, he promptly subordinated all personal interests 
 to tender his aid in defense of the Union. He en- 
 listed as a member of the Fi^-fifth Ohio Volunteer 
 Infantry, and through successive promotions was 
 advanced to the rank of captain of Company G of 
 this resriment. receiving his honorable discharge in 
 July, 1865. He first served in the Army of the Po- 
 
 tomac and later under the command of General Sher- 
 man. In the battle of Chancellorsville, on the 2d of 
 May, 1863, Judge Gould was severely wounded and 
 was captured by the enemy. His exchange was ef- 
 fected and at the earliest possible date he rejoined 
 his regiment. In later years he continued to mani- 
 fest a deep interest in his old comrades in arms and 
 was affiliated with the Grand Army of the Republic. 
 
 Judge Gould began the study of law in the offices 
 of Lee and Brewer of Tiffin, Ohio, and later entered 
 the law department of the University of Michigan, 
 from which he was graduated as a member of the 
 class of 1867. In the same year the ambitious young 
 lawyer came to Minnesota and became one of the 
 pioneer members of the bar of Winona County. He 
 was recognized as one of the prominent and influ- 
 ential members of the Minnesota bar, serving as 
 judge of the Third Judicial District from 1895-97. 
 
 Judge Gould was an influential figure in the public 
 affairs of the State of Minnesota and gave himself 
 with characteristic vigor to the furtherance of enter- 
 prises and measures projected for the good of the 
 commonwealth. He represented Winona County in 
 the State Legislature 1881-82, having previously 
 given efficient service, 1871-78, as a member of the 
 board of trustees of the Minnesota Orphans Home. 
 Judge Gould gave the, last six years of his life to 
 the newly instituted board of control of state insti- 
 tutions to which he was appointed by Gov. S. R. Van 
 Sant and was chairman of the board at the time of 
 his death which occurred at the Northwestern Hos- 
 pital on the 16th of January, 1907. The funeral serv- 
 ices were held from St. Paul’s Church in Winona. 
 His death was held as a personal loss and bereave- 
 ment by the people of that city where he had long 
 maintained his home. 
 
 Judge Gould married in 1885, Miss Mary E. Couse, 
 who died in 1892. In 1899 Judge Gould married Miss 
 Etta Thompson of Minneapolis who with two sons 
 and a daughter survive him. Mrs. Gould maintains 
 her home in Minneapolis at 2000 Penn Avenue, 
 South. With her are her daughter, Mary and son, 
 Ralph F. Ozro C. Gould, the eldest son is now in 
 the consular service in Newfoundland. 
 
 Judge Gould was a strong and well balanced men- 
 tality and a character that was the virtual expression 
 of high ideals and intrinsic nobility, so that he ever 
 commanded the unqualified confidence and good will 
 of those with whom he came in contact in the various 
 relations of a long, worthy and useful life. 
 
 George T. Simpson. A fine sense of proportion 
 has been exemplified in the career of this representa- 
 tive member of the Minneapolis bar, an honored citi- 
 zen and prominent lawyer who served with distinction 
 as attorney general of Minnesota and who is now 
 engaged in the general practice of his profession. 
 
 Mr. Simp-son is a native of Minnesota, and further 
 mention of the honored and influential pioneer fam- 
 ily from whence he comes is found on other pages 
 in a review of the life record of his father, the late 
 Thomas Simpson. In his profession he has shown 
 both solid and brilliant qualities, especially during 
 his incumbency as attorney general, and the State 
 of Minnesota will continue to honor Mr. Simpson 
 for the work he accomplished in that office, from 
 which he retired voluntarily on the 1st day of Jan- 
 uary, 1912. In the entire history of Minnesota he 
 figures as the only executive state officer who vol- 
 untarily resigned to enter private life. 
 
 George T. Simpson was born at Winona, Minne- 
 
1472 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 sota, in the county of the same name, on the 25th of 
 September, 1867. He acquired his preliminary edu- 
 cation in the schools of his native city and gradu- 
 ated from the Minnesota State Normal School as a 
 member of the class of 1885. He matriculated in the 
 University of Wisconsin, at Madison, and was there 
 graduated in 1890, with the degree Bachelor' of 
 Letters. In preparation for his chosen profession 
 he entered the law department of the same univer- 
 sity, was admitted to the Wisconsin bar in 1894, and 
 in the following year was admitted to the bar of his 
 native state. He began practice in his home city, 
 where his close application, excellent technical knowl- 
 edge and personal popularity soon enabled him to 
 build up a satisfactory law business. He served as 
 city attorney from 1897 to 1899, inclusive, and for 
 four years, 1900-1904, held the office of county attor- 
 ney of Winona County, a position in which his ef- 
 fective work tended greatly to enhance his personal 
 prestige. In 1905 there came distinctive recognition 
 of his ability, in his appointment as assistant attor- 
 ney general of the state, under Edward T. Young, 
 then attorney general. In this capacity he showed 
 marked discrimination and resourcefulness in the 
 handling of important matters consigned to him, and 
 thus higher preferment came as a normal result. 
 
 In 1908, after a unanimous nomination at the hands 
 of the state convention of the republican party, he 
 was elected attorney general, leading the state ticket. 
 Again, in 1910, he was unanimously nominated by the 
 state convention of the same party, and in the 
 election which followed he again received over 
 eighty thousand majority. In this high office Mr. 
 Simpson made a record that stands to his enduring 
 credit and one that contributed much to the well 
 being of the state. 
 
 The public press at the time of his retirement 
 from office, in mentioning the more important mat- 
 ters with which he had been connected during his 
 term of office, commented upon the fact that during 
 his term the Supreme Court of the United States 
 had determined that the State of Minnesota had a 
 right to raise or lower, at will but within reasonable 
 limits, the percentage of gross earnings which shall 
 be paid by a railway company as taxes to the state, 
 and that, as a result thereof, there had been col- 
 lected as back taxes from the railway companies of 
 the state the sum of $806,392.54; that the same court 
 had also forever -settled the question as to the right 
 of the State of Minnesota to protect the pine timber 
 of the state and that as a result of the latter, by 
 way of trespass suits and settlements, there had been 
 paid into the coffers of the state $109,890.84; that in 
 settlement of the Western Union tax cases a further 
 sum of $103,407.33 had been collected by way of 
 back taxes ; that as a result of the opinion of the 
 attorney general in the matter of the estate of John 
 S. Kennedy, a non-resident of the state, who died 
 owning large amounts of stock of the Great North- 
 ern Railway Company, there had been collected and 
 paid into the state treasury, in one sum, $345,325.25, 
 and that as a general result of this opinion there had 
 been, and would be thereafter, covered into the state 
 treasury from such source alone, each year, more 
 than sufficient to pay the ordinary running expenses 
 of the attorney general’s office, including salaries ; 
 that, together with the state auditor, S. G. Iverson, 
 he had been largely instrumental in the settlement 
 of the long pending controversy between the Indians 
 and the State of Minnesota affecting the swamp- 
 land grants, and that in consequence thereof the 
 
 state had already received, and would continue to 
 receive, the title to large bodies of swamp land in 
 the northern part of the state; that he had com- 
 menced the action (lately before the Supreme Court 
 of the state) involving the ownership of ore under- 
 neath the waters of meander lakes; and that he had 
 first instituted the rule now in force in the attorney 
 general’s office that all of the work of the depart- 
 ment should be done by the men employed therein, 
 except where the Legislature directed otherwise. 
 In a report to the governor, under date of Decem- 
 ber 31, 19x1, summing up his work, Mr. Simpson 
 points out that the past three years “have seen the 
 tax and timber laws of the state sustained in the 
 Supreme Court of the United States: an enforcement 
 of its anti-trust laws; an upholding of its statutes 
 against crime; and a successful assertion of its rights 
 as against those financially indebted to it. In addi- 
 tion thereto the most important rate litigation (Min- 
 nesota rate cases) in the history of the United States 
 has been tried and submitted to the courts, and the 
 first thorough investigation of express rates initi- 
 ated.” Mr. Simpson closed his report with the fol- 
 lowing statement : “In thus closing my administra- 
 tion of the office, I am leaving public life, probably 
 never again to re-enter the same. I desire to ex- 
 press to you, and through you to the people of the 
 state, my keen appreciation of the many courtesies 
 and favors shown me by them during the years gone 
 by.” Thus there retired from public office a man 
 who could have remained had he so willed — a unique 
 situation. 
 
 It is said that during the three years Mr. Simpson 
 held the office of attorney general there were paid 
 into the state treasury practically three millions of 
 dollars, the result of the successful termination of 
 actions instituted in part by his predecessor and in 
 part by himself, and all finished by him within his 
 term of office. 
 
 Honesty, frankness, efficiency and a high sense of 
 civic loyalty characterized the administration of Mr. 
 Simpson in the office of attorney general, and though 
 he signalized at the time of his resignation his in- 
 tention to withhold himself thereafter from public 
 office, he has not been entirely the arbiter of his own 
 destiny, at least to the extent of regulating the de- 
 sires of his party friends and admirers. One hears 
 his name repeatedly suggested in connection with the 
 republican nomination for the office of governor of 
 the state, and again as United States senator. He 
 has a wide acquaintanceship throughout his native 
 state, and his circle of friends is co-extensive with 
 that of his acquaintances. He has been an influential 
 figure in the councils and campaign activities of the 
 republican party in Minnesota, and has never wavered 
 in his allegiance to the cause 
 
 Mr. Simpson is identified with the American Bar 
 Association and the Minnesota Bar Association. He 
 is affiliated with the Phi Delta Theta college frater- 
 nity, and in the time-honored Masonic fraternity 
 has received the thirty-second degree of the Ancient 
 and Accepted Scottish Rite, besides holding member- 
 ship in Osman Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order 
 of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, in the Citv of 
 St. Paul. He is a member of the Minneapolis Club. 
 
 In his native city of Winona, on the 26th of De- 
 cember, 1899. was solemnized the marriage of Mr. 
 Simpson to Miss Elizabeth Ludwig, daughter of the 
 late Gen. John Ludwig, who was long one of the 
 honored and influential citizens of Minnesota and 
 prominent in the affairs of the democratic party. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1473 
 
 Concerning General Ludwig a memoir appears on 
 other pages of this work. Mr. and Mrs. Simpson 
 have one daughter, Margaret. 
 
 This article may conclude with a few words from 
 Henry A. Castle, editor-in-chief of this History of 
 Minnesota : “Minnesota has been honored with the 
 distinguished services, in the office of attorney gen- 
 eral, of a long line of men eminent in their pro- 
 fession and remarkably successful in protecting the 
 interests of the commonwealth. But probably to 
 none have been given greater opportunities for valu- 
 able achievements, in establishing solid principles of 
 jurisprudence that will, for generations to come, 
 inure to the substantial benefit of all the people, than 
 to the subject of this sketch. His achievements in 
 public life are his enduring monument.” 
 
 John Ludwig. Inffhe primary sense the biography 
 of any man may be tersely epitomized in the state- 
 ment that he was born, he lived and he died. But 
 how little this expresses the influence of a strong 
 and noble character with the span of a normal life- 
 time. He whose name introduces this review was 
 one of the sterling sons of the Duchy of Luxembourg 
 who came to the United States in the ’50s and es- 
 tablished homes in Wisconsin, as pioneers of that 
 commonwealth. Imbued, as a youth, with the utmost 
 loyalty to the land of his adoption, he responded, 
 within five years after his arrival in the United 
 States, to the call for volunteers to aid in maintain- 
 ing the integrity of the Union, and it was given him 
 to render most gallant and meritorious service in the 
 Civil war, in which he rose to the rank of second 
 lieutenant. In the later years of his life he was 
 familiarly known by the title of general, this having 
 been in recognition of his service as commissary 
 general of the Minnesota National Guard. 
 
 Of all that makes for worthy and useful man- 
 hood General Ludwig acquitted himself well in 
 thought and achievement. His heart was attuned 
 to sympathy, and this sympathy found exemplifica- 
 tion in kindliness, tolerance and practical helpful- 
 ness. For many years prior to his death he was one 
 of the most honored and influential citizens of 
 Winona, the fine Minnesota city that is the judicial 
 center of the county of the same name, and he had 
 much to do with its development and upbuilding 
 along both civic and material lines. He was one of 
 the leaders in the Minnesota councils and activities 
 of the democratic party, and was its candidate for 
 offices of high public trust. He made his life count 
 for good in its every relation and his name and 
 memory are revered and honored in the state that 
 long represented his home, his death having oc- 
 curred at Winona, on the 21st of September, 1906, 
 only a few months prior to his sixty-seventh birth- 
 day anniversary. 
 
 At Canach, in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, 
 John Ludwig was born on the 26th of December, 
 1839, and in his native land he received excellent 
 educational advantages in his youth, thus initiating 
 the accumulation of that broad fund of knowledge 
 that later was to mark him as a man of fine in- 
 tellectual ken and mature judgment. In 1836, as a 
 youth of about seventeen years, General Ludwig 
 yielded to the urge of ambitions and determined 
 purpose, as shown in his immigration to America, 
 his being the strength of integrity and industry and 
 his the confidence that makes for productive achieve- 
 ment along normal lines of endeavor. Soon after 
 his arrival in the United States he was found ac- 
 
 tively identified with mercantile business at Fond du 
 Lac, Wisconsin, where he continued in this line of 
 enterprise until the inception of the Civil war, when 
 he laid aside all personal considerations to tender 
 his services in defense of the Union. On the 30th 
 of October, 1861, he enlisted as a private in Com- 
 pany C, Ninth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and 
 later he was transferred to Company A of the same 
 regiment, the valiant history of which virtually con- 
 stitutes the record of his faithful and efficient mili- 
 tary career, as he continued in active service for 
 several months after the final surrender, his honor- 
 able discharge having been accorded him, at Little 
 Rock, Arkansas, on the 30th of January, 1866, and 
 his commission as second lieutenant having been 
 received May 30th of the preceding year. His serv- 
 ice was principally with the western forces and he 
 took part in numerous spirited engagements, in- 
 cluding those at Newtonia, Missouri, and Spoon- 
 ville and Jenkins’ Ferry, Arkansas. It was his 
 privilege and distinctive pleasure in later years to 
 vitalize his more gracious memories and associations 
 of the Civil war through affiliation with the Grand 
 Army of the Republic and with Minnesota Com- 
 mandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion 
 of the United States, in each of which he was spe- 
 cially influential and popular. 
 
 After the close of his service as a soldier of the 
 Union young Lieutenant Ludwig returned to the 
 North and established his residence in the City of 
 Chicago, where he was engaged in the hotel busi- 
 ness for a time. In 1867 he came to Minnesota and 
 opened 1 a hotel at Winona, where he met with ex- 
 cellent success, the' result being that a few years 
 later he erected the substantial block that is still 
 known as the Ludwig Building and in which he con- 
 ducted for many years a hotel of high standard 
 and great popularity. In 1892, in harmony with other 
 progressive measures fostered by him, General Lud- 
 wig effected the organization of the German-Ameri- 
 can Bank of Winona, of which he was the first 
 president. In 1893-94 he had the distinction of serv- 
 ing as president of the Luxemburg Association of 
 America, in the affairs of which he ever manifested 
 the deepest interest. 
 
 General Ludwig at all times stood as an exponent 
 of the most insistent civic loyalty and progressive- 
 ness, was liberal in support of measures projected 
 for the general good of the community and the state 
 in which he lived, and was 'unabating in his zeal 
 as an advocate of the principles of the democratic 
 party. He served one term as a member of the city 
 council of Winona, three terms as city treasurer, and 
 four terms as mayor. In 1886 he was the demo- 
 cratic nominee for state treasurer, but was unable 
 to surmount the obstacle of party minority, a con- 
 dition that also prevailed and compassed his defeat 
 when he ran for lieutenant governor of Minnesota, 
 in 1894. He was a delegate to the National Demo- 
 cratic Convention of 1888, at St. Louis, and was a 
 member of the committee chosen to formally notify 
 President Cleveland of his nomination. He” served 
 as commissary general of the state under the admin- 
 istration of Governor Lind, and was appointed by 
 the late Governor Johnson a member of the State 
 Capitol Commission, a position of which he was the 
 incumbent at the time of his death. He was one of 
 the prominent representatives of Minnesota at the 
 Louisiana Purchase Exposition, in St. Louis, and 
 there served as judge in one of the departments. 
 Concerning his work in these various positions, 
 
1474 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 many of which required vigilance, business capacity 
 and a high order of executive ability, it has con- 
 sistently been said that no duty was neglected by 
 him and that “public affairs and official work re- 
 ceived prompt attention even when this involved the 
 sacrifice of personal interests.’’ The religious faith 
 of General Ludwig guided and governed his entire 
 life. His funeral services, on the 23d of September, 
 1906, were held at the pro-cathedral in Winona, and 
 were conducted by Rt. Rev. J. B. Cotter, bishop of 
 the diocese, the entire community manifesting a 
 sense of personal loss and bereavement. The sur- 
 viving former mayors of Winona acted as honorary 
 pallbearers at the funeral and the remains of the 
 loved and gallant citizen and friend were laid to 
 rest in beautiful St. Mary’s Cemetery, Winona. 
 
 In the City of Chicago, in 1865, was solemnized the 
 marriage of General Ludwig to Miss Anna Siegfried, 
 who died in 1909. Six children survive, — Mrs. 
 George T. Simpson, concerning whose husband, for- 
 mer attorney general of Minnesota, individual rec- 
 ord is given elsewhere in this publication ; Charles 
 M., who was a soldier in the Spanish-American war, 
 in which he served both in Cuba and the Philippine 
 Islands, and who is now a resident of Chicago; 
 Marie E. and Mrs. Joseph Shackell reside in Winona; 
 Emma A. at Idaho Falls, Idaho; and Otto P. at 
 Frazee, Minnesota. Another daughter, Eda M., wife 
 of Thomas B. Hill, died October 13, 1905. 
 
 Svan Johan Turnblad. Through his individual 
 and public services in connection with good govern- 
 ment, temperance and morality, as well as through 
 the columns of his paper, the Posten, Mr. Turnblad 
 probably exerts a more powerful influence on public 
 opinion throughout Minnesota and the Northwest 
 than any other foreign-born citizen. His paper is 
 the recognized mouthpiece of Swedish-American 
 thought, and being published in the Swedish lan- 
 guage covers a large and important field in North- 
 western journalism. 
 
 Svan Johan Turnblad was born on October 7, 
 i860, in Tubbamala, Vislanda, Sweden. His par- 
 ents were Olof M. and Ingegerd (Mansson) Turn- 
 blad. When he was eight years old he came with 
 his parents to America, coming directly to Vasa, 
 Goodhue County, Minnesota. Here Swan J., as he 
 is usually called, grew up on his father’s farm 
 Zoar, and attended the lower and high schools of 
 Vasa. While still in school he was the victim of 
 a craving not uncommon among boys to practice 
 the arts and mystery of the printer’s craft, though 
 in his case this early enthusiasm was hardened into 
 a steadfast ambition and proved the core of his 
 life work. At the age of seventeen he set and 
 printed an arithmetic of which his school principal, 
 Prof. P. T. Lindholm, was the author. 
 
 For a short time he taught in the Vasa High 
 School and then, looking for a wider field of activ- 
 ity, he came to the Twin Cities and began his news- 
 paper career on the staff of the Minnesota State- 
 Tidning. In 1887 he was asked to undertake the 
 management of the Svenska-Amerikanska Posten in 
 Minneapolis, and since that time his whole thought 
 and endeavor has been to make this the best among 
 Swedish-American newspapers. In 1897 he became 
 the sole owner of the Posten, and during the sum- 
 mer of 1915 erected the Posten Building on the 
 corner of Seventh Street and Fifth Avenue, south, 
 for the exclusive use of that paper. 
 
 This is a weekly newspaper published in the 
 
 Swedish language and established for the primary 
 purpose of exercising an influence in the spread of 
 temperance pnd prohibition propaganda throughout 
 the Northwest. Under Mr. turnblad its scope was 
 broadened without any sacrifice of its basic prin- 
 ciples, so as to become such a paper as is needed 
 in every household. Its pages are filled with gen- 
 eral domestic news and also with dispatches and 
 correspondence on world news, especially those 
 topics of direct interest to the Scandinavian popula- 
 tion. With the high moral purpose which has been 
 maintained as its essence from the beginning, clean 
 and wholesome in every department, the Posten has 
 for years been a factor and influence in promoting 
 progress and elevating the general level of com- 
 munity and civic life among its ever increasing circle 
 of readers. It has always maintained a strictly in- 
 dependent position in politics, and with absolute 
 loyalty to American institutions, it has been a power 
 for good in the development of citizenship of high 
 ideals. In 1897 Mr. Turnblad bought and brought 
 over from Sweden a loan library of six thousand 
 volumes for the use of his subscribers. In 1902 
 because of a complete crop failure in Northern 
 Sweden there was much suffering there and about 
 twenty thousand dollars was raised through the 
 columns of Posten for the relief of the sufferers. 
 
 His influential position in the newspaper world 
 has necessarily brought Mr. Turnblad into the 
 larger public life of Minnesota. In 1899 Governor 
 Lind named him a member of the State Reform- 
 atory Board, where he took the lead in reforming 
 certain abuses which had crept into the manage- 
 ment and helped to introduce a new spirit of con- 
 servation and reformation into the conduct of that 
 institution. In appreciation of his services on that 
 board Governor Johnson placed him on the State 
 Board of Visitors to all the state institutions, on 
 which board he has remained through succeeding 
 administrations. Although he has served on these 
 boards with the greatest interest and enthusiasm, 
 as he believes every citizen should do his share in 
 serving his country and community, he has never 
 accepted an appointment with remuneration and is 
 in no sense of the word a politician. In 1905 he 
 was appointed colonel on the staff of Governor 
 Johnson, an appointment which was also continued 
 by his successor. He is a high degree Mason, 
 thirty-second Scottish Rite, Knights Templar and 
 Noble of the Mystic Shrine, a B. P. O. E., and is 
 a member of the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce 
 Association, the Athletic Club and the Automobile 
 Club. While he is first and foremost a loyal Amer- 
 ican citizen, he takes a deep interest in the welfare 
 and all that pertains to the land of his forefathers 
 and owns one of the best private libraries of 
 Swedish literature and reference books in this coun- 
 try. His recreations are traveling and motoring. 
 He is a member of Westminster Presbyterian 
 Church. In 1883 he married Christina Nilsson of 
 Worthington, Minnesota, and they have one daugh- 
 ter. 
 
 P. B. Getchell. The Getchell-Tanton Company, 
 of which Mr. Getchell is vice president, is one of 
 the best known in the grain commission trade in the 
 City of Minneapolis. Its home offices are in the 
 Chamber of Commerce, and branch office.s are main- 
 tained at Duluth and Milwaukee. Mr. Getchell repre- 
 sents an old family of the Northwest, and his own 
 
' 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1475 
 
 career has been a steady progress and rise from hum- 
 ble to great responsibilities. 
 
 P. B. Getchell was born in- Minneapolis February 
 14, 1871, a son of Daniel W. and Mary (Lavery) 
 Getchell. His father was born at Machias, Maine. 
 His mother was six months of age when her parents 
 left their old home in Southern Ireland and emi- 
 grated to the United States. She was reared and 
 educated in the State of New York and was a young 
 woman when, in 1853, her parents became pioneer 
 settlers at old St. Anthony, which was then a small 
 frontier ’town with only slight promise of becoming 
 a great metropolis. Mr. Getchell’s paternal grand- 
 father, Joseph Getchell, was likewise one of the terri- 
 torial pioneers of Minnesota, establishing his home 
 in the Northwest in 1854. After coming here he in- 
 vested his entire fortune in timber land. A few 
 months after his arrival in the territory he con- 
 tracted a severe cold and was taken away by death 
 at the age of forty-eight years. He was a thorough 
 and far-sighted business man, and made investments_ 
 in Minnesota which, had his life been spared, would 
 undoubtedly in time have brought a large fortune. 
 After his death unfair advantage was taken of the 
 business inexperience of his widow and children,- 
 with the result that nearly all the property he had 
 purchased was lost to the family. His widow, Mary, 
 lived to the venerable age of eighty-four years. 
 
 Daniel W. Getchell was still young when he came 
 to Minneapolis, and had the somewhat meager ad- 
 vantages of the pioneer schools. At the age of six- 
 teen he left home and school to enroll himself among 
 the young soldiers of the Union in the Civil war. 
 He enlisted as a private in a famous command, the 
 First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, with which he 
 served three years, and made a record as a faithful 
 and valiant soldier in many engagements and cam- 
 paigns. During the Indian outbreak in Minnesota 
 lie served about a year as a member of Hatch’s Bat- 
 talion. After the war he was employed as a sta- 
 tionary engineer for some time, and from 1880 until 
 1914 was a janitor of the Minneapolis Public Schools, 
 having been for many years connected in that ca- 
 pacity with the Webster School. He finally resigned 
 and is now living retired, both he and his wife being 
 among the honored pioneer citizens of Minneapolis. 
 They were the parents of five sons and seven daugh- 
 ters, of whom two sons and five daughters are living : 
 Mrs. William Crocker, of Seattle, Washington; John 
 E., a salesman with the Minneapolis Chamber of 
 Commerce; P. B. ; Mrs. Thomas Todd, of San Fran- 
 cisco, California; Mrs. Louis Hildebrand, Mrs. Frank 
 J. Wells, and Mrs. Alfred A. Brault, all of Minne- 
 apolis, in which city the children were born and 
 reared. 
 
 P. B. Getchell acquired his early education in the 
 public schools of Minneapolis. After two years in 
 high school he was taken into the grain commission 
 firm of G. W. Van Dusen & Company as office boy. 
 Alert of mind and ambitious, he quickly gained 
 knowledge by observation and practice, and was pro- 
 moted to bookkeeper, and also became inspector in 
 the service of this well known firm, with which he 
 was connected for thirteen years. Following that 
 he was for three years a salesman for the Spencer 
 Grain Company and then for a similar time was 
 manager of the cash grain department of the firm of 
 Woodward & Company. 
 
 With this broad and' varied experience, Mr. Getch- 
 ell embarked in the commission business independ- 
 ently. He formed a partnership with A. G. Tanton 
 
 and F. C. Lydiard, under the name Getchell-Tanton 
 Company. - This firm has built up a substantial and 
 prosperous commission business, and fair and hon- 
 orable methods and progressive policies have given 
 the company a high reputation all over the North- 
 west. Mr. Tanton is president, Mr. Getchell vice 
 president and Mr. Lydiard secretary and treasurer. 
 
 Mr. Getchell’s business interests and civic and so- 
 cial relations have a broad range. He is vice presi- 
 dent of the Hoppenrath Cigar Company, engaged 
 in the wholesale and retail cigar business in Minne- 
 apolis. He is a member of the Minneapolis Chamber 
 of Commerce, the Duluth Chamber of Commerce, 
 and the Milwaukee Chamber of Commerce, and as 
 a company the Getchell-Tanton concern is identified 
 with the Minneapolis Civic & Commerce Association. 
 In politics he is an uncompromising advocate of the 
 principles and policies of the republican party, and 
 for a long term of years was active in politics both 
 in Minneapolis and in the state. In November, 1910, 
 he was elected alderman from the Tenth Ward, and 
 his efficient and constructive work in the municipal 
 government was given popular approval by his re- 
 election in 1914. He has a wide circle of friends in 
 business and social circles and is identified with the 
 following organizations : Royal Arcanum, the Mod- 
 ern Woodmen of America, Minneapolis Athletic 
 Club, North Side Commercial Club, Tenth Ward 
 Commercial Club, Camden Commercial Club, Camden 
 Athletic Club and the Penn Commercial Club. He 
 and his wife are members of the Catholic Church 
 of the Ascension. 
 
 September 26, 1894, Mr. Getchell married Miss 
 Ida Wolsfield of Minneapolis. Mrs. Getchell was 
 born at River Falls, Pierce County, Wisconsin, at- 
 tended the State Normal School there and later was 
 a student in the German Catholic School o'f Minne- 
 apolis. Mr. and Mrs. Getchell have three children : 
 Grace Catharine, Verna Agnes and Francis Benjamin. 
 
 George C. Paulson. The honor paid George C. 
 Paulson by the citizens of Chippewa County in 1914 
 in his election ta the office of county treasurer was 
 one well bestowed in recognition of his standing as 
 a man of the community and one who has for up- 
 wards of twenty years been known to the county as 
 an energetic farmer and business man. 
 
 George C. Paulson was born in Rock County, Wis- 
 consin, in 1874, and has lived in the State of Minne- 
 sota since 1896. His parents were Colburn and 
 Christina Paulson. His father was a native of Nor- 
 way and came to Wisconsin in 1850 and died in 1876. 
 He was one of the early homesteaders in Wiscon- 
 sin, and quite a successful man. Politically he was 
 identified with the republican party and his church 
 was the Lutheran. His wife had come to Wisconsin 
 in 1852 and she died in that state in 1893. To their 
 marriage were born ten children, eight of whom are 
 living: Holgrim, Belle, Paul, Amos, Ole, Emma, 
 Nellie and George C. The daughters married suc- 
 cessful farmers. 
 
 George C. Paulson received his early training in 
 the common schools of Wisconsin, and when still a 
 youth took up farming, and after coming to Minne- 
 sota was also employed in the Government service 
 and in all his ventures, whether as a farmer, mer- 
 chant, or public official, has been exceptionally able 
 and trustworthy. Politically he is a progressive re- 
 publican and is a member of the Lutheran Church. 
 
 Mr. Paulson was married in 1897 to Berthena 
 Pederson. Mrs. Paulson belongs to a prominent fam- 
 
1476 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 ily of farmers living about Montevideo. To this 
 union were born seven children : Clark, aged sixteen, 
 and now in high school ; Oscar, aged fourteen ; 
 Mabel, aged twelve; Melvin, aged nine; Floyd, aged 
 seven; Earl, aged four, and Verdi. 
 
 Emil Slawik. Until his death on November 9, 
 1914, Emil Slawik was president of the Slawik Fur 
 Company, one of the leading concerns of the kind in 
 St. Paul and the Northwest. His own ability and 
 forceful enterprise had brought about his rise from 
 humble circumstances to a conspicuous position and 
 influential, prominence in business affairs. He came 
 to America with training and skill in the trade of 
 furrier, and by years of faithful industry and sound 
 business judgment had reached an independent posi- 
 tion in St. Paul business affairs a number of years 
 before his death. 
 
 Emil Slawik was born in Oberschlesien, Germany, 
 April 6, 1857, a son of Jacob and Mary (Lamia) 
 Slawik, who spent all their lives in Germany. He 
 grew up on his father’s farm and in addition to ac- 
 quiring substantial education was apprenticed to and 
 learned the trade of furrier. In 1880 Emil Slawik 
 came to America, was located for a time in the City 
 of Chicago, later at Reading, Michigan, where, he 
 worked at his trade three years, and from that time 
 until his death was continuously identified by business 
 and residence with St. Paul. For nineteen years he 
 was foreman of the fur manufacturing department 
 for the Lanpher-Skinner Company, and in that em- 
 ployment laid the basis of his own independent busi- 
 ness career. In 1900 he engaged independently in 
 business, and from a small but substantial part de- 
 veloped the Slawik Fur Company with a trade 
 extending over several states, and everywhere recog- 
 nized as a high grade, reliable concern. He was the 
 founder and continued as president of the company 
 until his death. 
 
 January 9, 1886, Mr. Slawik married Miss Anna R. 
 Bodley. She was born in England, a daughter of 
 George and Susanna Bodley, who in the early ’80s 
 settled at Farmington, Minnesota, and the other chil- 
 dren in that family were: Adelaid, deceased; Julia, 
 deceased; Albert; Caleb; and Arthur G. Mr. Bodley 
 was a farmer in England and continued the same 
 occupation in Minnesota until he retired to live with 
 his son Albert in St. Paul, where he died February 
 22, 1915. Mrs. Bodley died in Minnesota March 16, 
 1892. Mr. and Mrs. Slawik became the parents of 
 three children : Victoria F., Albert and Harold. 
 
 The late Mr. Slawik was a member of the St. Paul 
 Commercial Club and the Kriegenbund Association, 
 and politically was a republican. His home was a 
 handsome residence at 1730 Marshall Avenue. His 
 genial and democratic manner won him many friends 
 among his business associates, and during thirty years 
 of residence in St. Paul he won honorable prosperity 
 and was always a public spirited citizen. He had 
 both the ability and energy which enabled him to 
 carry out extensive plans, and he was the type of 
 citizen whose name deserves to be well remembered 
 in St. Paul. 
 
 t 
 
 Frank H. Peavey. It is not the exaggeration of 
 rhetoric but the serious judgment of men competent 
 to measure such achievements, that no one man de- 
 veloped and controlled greater interests and a more 
 extensive organization in the western grain trade 
 than the late Frank H. Peavey of Minneapolis. 
 Though his life was not long, and death called him 
 
 at the age of fifty-one, when his enormous business 
 interests seemed at their climax, his career was 
 crowded with achievements, and may well prove a 
 source of inspiration to every Minnesota boy. 
 Energy, enterprise, pluck and persistence crowned 
 with success, long before its autumn, a life that 
 began almost in penury. A more brilliant example 
 of what can be accomplished through native ability 
 and boundless industry is hardly to be found in the 
 state. 
 
 Frank H. Peavey was born at Eastport, Maine, 
 January 20, 1850, and his death occurred in Chicago 
 December 30, 1901. He was a son of Albert D. and 
 Mary (Drew) Peavey, also natives of New Eng- 
 land. The father was a lumber and shipping, mer- 
 chant of fine business capacity and great force of 
 character. The son was reared in his native town 
 to the age of fifteen. Then his father died and he 
 became almost the sole dependence of the mother. 
 
 The youth, though but an immature boy, at once 
 entered upon the high and holy duty before him 
 with ardor, and from then to the end of his life he 
 was never idle. He was constantly on the lookout 
 for opportunities for advancement, and as he grew 
 older they came to him in satisfactory numbers and 
 value. The great Northwest attracted him. He 
 located first in Chicago, where he became a book- 
 keeper in the Northwestern Bank. Two years later, 
 in 1867, he moved to Sioux City, Iowa, and entered 
 the employ of H. D. Booge & Company. By this 
 change of location Mr. Peavey found an open way 
 to success. He made friends on every hand, and 
 steady progress in advancement. Half his earnings 
 were sent back regularly to his mother, to whom 
 his first duty was always paid. In a short time he 
 became a partner in an agricultural implement busi- 
 ness, and in 1871 brought his mother and the other 
 members of the family to Sioux City and set up a 
 home. Twice his business property was destroyed 
 by fire, but he continued his work with intensified 
 energy and determination. 
 
 In time, Mr. Peavey became interested in the grain 
 trade, then in its infancy, in the Northwest, both 
 in volume and method. But this far-seeing man 
 divined its possibilities and confidently embarked in 
 it with all his resources. At the age of 23 or in 
 1873, he was the owner and manager of an old-style 
 “blind horse” elevator, with a capacity of 6,000 
 bushels, in Sioux City. The next year he secured 
 control of four small elevators on the old Dakota 
 & Southern Railroad, and began to buy grain for 
 the first elevator built in Duluth, which had just 
 been completed. A little later he brought into his 
 business and under his management the elevators on 
 what was then known as the Sioux City & St. Paul 
 Railroad (now the “Omaha”), and his operations 
 in grain grew rapidly. 
 
 At this point in his history the Minneapolis flour 
 mills were also extending their business rapidly, 
 and in 1875 he began business in the Flour City, 
 becoming connected with the Minneapolis Millers' 
 Association, for which he bought grain as long as 
 it continued to operate. By 1878 he had control of 
 elevators at all points on the Chicago, St. Paul, 
 Minneapolis & Omaha Railroad in South Dakota, 
 and four years later his operations took in the whole 
 “Omaha” road southwest of Minneapolis. The same 
 year, the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce hav- 
 ing been organized and the grain business here 
 placed on a firm financial basis, he opened his first 
 offices in this city. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1477 
 
 Mr. Peavey, however, continued to maintain his 
 mother’s home in Sioux City, and to the end of his 
 life he considered it very much his own home, al- 
 though in 1884 he established one for himself and 
 family in Minneapolis. From that time on he took 
 a very prominent part in building up the grain 
 market of this city. In 1884 he extended his opera- 
 tions to all points on the Minneapolis & St. Louis 
 Railroad, and thus became one of the leading oper- 
 ators in the most rapidly expanding grain trade in 
 the world. In fact, at the time of his death, through 
 his large system of elevators, he owned and operated 
 the most extensive grain business known in human 
 history. 
 
 In 1889, the arms of this great business genius, 
 like those of fabled Briareus, were reaching out far 
 and wide. He built a great elevator at Portland, 
 Oregon, and added to it some thirty subsidiary 
 houses in the rural districts along the lines of the 
 Oregon Railway & Navigation Company in Oregon 
 and Washington. This was the first large terminal 
 elevator on the Pacific Coast. During the next 
 year he built the Union' Pacific elevator in Kansas 
 City, extended his operations to the lines of the 
 Union Pacific and leased a terminal elevator at 
 Omaha. In 1893 he took in points on the Northern 
 Pacific. The next year he built the Republic at 
 Minneapolis, and in 1897 acquired the Belt Line 
 elevator at West Superior, Wisconsin. In 1898 the 
 Peavey elevators at South Chicago were built, and 
 in 1899 the Peavey Terminal house at Duluth and 
 the big elevator at Council Bluffs were erected. 
 Within the same year Mr. Peavey’s operations were 
 extended to a part of the Great Northern Railway 
 System. 
 
 Mr. Peavey was a very careful and exhaustive 
 student of his work and omitted no effort necessary 
 on his part to guard his interests. When he con- 
 templated erecting. the Duluth Terminal elevator he 
 sent a special representative to Europe to investi- 
 gate the concrete storage system in vogue on that 
 continent, and as a result determined to adapt the 
 system to the needs of grain handling in this coun- 
 try. An experimental concrete bin was built at one 
 of the elevators in Minneapolis, and after being 
 tested several months, was found to be entirely satis- 
 factory. The concrete system was then adopted in 
 the construction of the Duluth Terminal, and it be- 
 came the first great concrete grain elevator built in 
 this country. 
 
 In 1900 the Peavey Steamship Company was or- 
 ganized and four large grain carriers were built to 
 operate on the Great Lakes. This was Mr. Peavey’s 
 last new enterprise. 
 
 He died suddenly December 30, 1901. He had 
 been in the Northwest thirty-six years, but in that 
 period he built up the enormous grain trade herein 
 briefly detailed, established the highest credit for 
 himself and his enterprises, and acquired a large 
 fortune. His operations entered at Minneapolis, 
 touched the Great Lakes at Chicago and Duluth, 
 extended far into the Southwest beyond Kansas 
 City and Omaha, and reached to the Pacific North- 
 west. 
 
 After Mr. Peavey’s death the business built up 
 by him was continued under the management of 
 his son, George W. Peavey (now deceased) and his 
 sons-in-law, Frank T. Heffelfinger and Frederick 
 B. Wells, who were associated with him before his 
 death. 
 
 Although engrossed with his personal affairs Mr. 
 
 Peavey never neglected the interests of his com- 
 munity. He was interested in the cause of public 
 education and served on the city school board in 
 1895, but never held any other public office. In his 
 political relations he was cordially attached to the 
 republican party ; but he was always independent in 
 political thought and action, and was liberal in his 
 views in all things. In religious belief he was a 
 Universalist and he made his faith practical in good 
 work for his own and all other denominations. In 
 the language of the old Latin poet, Terence, ‘‘He 
 was a man and nothing that was human was for- 
 eign to him.” By his radiant example and through 
 the expression of his real feelings he taught men 
 everywhere that fellowship and confidence was a 
 heritage for all alike, and that by working together 
 good would come to all. 
 
 September 19, 1872, Mr. Peavey was married to 
 Miss Mary Dibble Wright. His substance had been 
 wasted by fire the year before and his business was 
 at a standstill, but this discouraging circumstance 
 did not delay the marriage, nor cause either the 
 husband or wife to doubt the future. To their union, 
 which was always congenial and felicitous, were 
 born three children, their daughters, Mrs. Frank T. 
 Heffelfinger and Mrs. Frederick B. Wells, and their 
 son, George W. Peavey. 
 
 Samuel C. Pattridge. During a career of nearly 
 twenty years of practice in Minnesota, Samuel C. 
 Pattridge has gained the distinctions of a repre- 
 sentative lawyer and on a number of occasions has 
 been honored with positions of responsibility and 
 trust. Most of his education and all his profes- 
 sional advancement have been won as a result of 
 individual efforts, and he now has a front rank in 
 a learned profession and is serving with honor and 
 usefulness m the othce of county attorney of Fill- 
 more County. 
 
 Samuel C. Pattridge was born in Olmsted County, 
 Minnesota, April 12, 1872, a son of Curtis A. and 
 Delilah (Carr) Pattridge. His father was born in 
 Vermont in 1833 a son of Abel Pattridge, who was 
 a native of the same state and by trade a shingle- 
 maker. After the grandfather's death his family all 
 came out to Minnesota. Curtis A. Pattridge who 
 died October 31, 1892, came out to Minnesota in 
 1855, was a pioneer and pre-empted a 160 acres 
 from the Government. That land is still owned by 
 his descendants. Although he came to this state 
 with nothing, he died a successful man. In the days 
 of the California gold excitement he went West 
 and remained there several years, returning to Min- 
 nesota by way of the Isthmus of Panama. Curtis 
 A. Pattridge was affiliated with the Masonic order 
 for many years, and in politics was independent. 
 His wife, who was born in Vermont in 1833, is still 
 living. They were married in their native state in 
 1866. Mrs. Pattridge was a daughter of Samuel 
 Carr of Vermont. There were four children, and 
 three are now living: George, now deceased, was 
 
 a farmer ; Vira, unmarried, is head bookkeeper with 
 the house of Hackett-Gates Hardware Company at 
 St. Paul; Samuel C. and May, wife of Clarence 
 Denny, a farmer at Pleasant Grove, Minnesota. 
 
 Samuel C. Pattridge was educated in the graded 
 schools of Pleasant Grove, and for two years in 
 early life taught school. In 1893 he entered the 
 LTniversity of Minnesota, pursued the course of law 
 and was graduated in 1895. His first location was 
 at Graceville, where he remained one year, was for 
 
1478 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 about the same time located at Stewartville, and in 
 the fall of 1897 came to Spring Valley, where he 
 has gained his best success as a lawyer. At Grace- 
 ville and Stewartville he was associated in practice 
 with A. M. Brand, and at Spring Valley was for 
 eight years a partner of C. D. Allen. He is now 
 alone, and has a large and profitable clientage. 
 
 On September 23, 1902, at Spring Valley Mr. 
 Pattridge married Myrtle Henderson. She is a 
 member of the Congregational Church. Fraternally 
 he is identified with the Masonic order, having served 
 as secretary of his lodge for eight years, and with 
 the Knights of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen 
 of America. He has long been one of the leaders 
 in the republican party in Fillmore County, served 
 as city attorney of Spring Valley eight years, for 
 six years was municipal judge and in 1912 was 
 elected to his present office as county attorney. In 
 1914 Mr. Pattridge was unopposed for the nomina- 
 tion. Through his profession he has acquired some 
 extensive interests, particularly a fine farm of 325 
 acres located at Spring Valley. He takes much 
 pride in equipping and keeping this place up to 
 model standards, and raises high grade hogs and 
 cattle. 
 
 Capt. Joseph Sellwood. By common consent 
 throughout the mining districts of northern Mich- 
 igan, Wisconsin and Minnesota the late Capt. Jo- 
 seph Sellwood was regarded as pre-eminent in his 
 ability as a mine operator, and in power of intellect 
 and will and force of character was one of the 
 strongest men of his time. He was a leader of men 
 and an executive in large industrial affairs, and his 
 own fortune and the success of the enterprises with 
 which he was connected were built up on this qual- 
 ity of leadership and personal efficiency. The City 
 of Duluth in particular, which had been his home 
 for over a quarter of a century, lost much in the 
 death of Captain Sellwood, who was known there 
 not only as a mine operator and banker, but as a 
 philanthropist, public-spirited citizen, loyal friend 
 and courteous gentleman. In order to appreciate 
 and measure the scope of his later accomplishments, 
 it should not be forgotten that at the age of thir- 
 teen he was laboring far underground in a Cornish 
 copper mine, and was the son of a Cornish miner. 
 Little opportunity for schooling was afforded when 
 upon his boyhood shoulders fell the responsibility 
 of caring for the family, but experience is a thor- 
 ough, if hard teacher, and Joseph Sellwood was an 
 apt pupil. In later years when, through his own 
 unaided efforts, he had changed the whole scheme 
 of his life and found every path of opportunity and 
 culture open to him, he recalled that laborious, dis- 
 couraging period as one of discipline, believing that 
 therefrom came the physical endurance, the mental 
 fortitude and the steadying control which afterward 
 brought him to fortune and prominence. 
 
 Joseph Sellwood was born at Cornwall, England, 
 December 5, 1846, a son of Richard and Elizabeth 
 (Carter) Sellwood. Educated in a public school at 
 Cornwall, at the age of thirteen years he took his 
 place among the miners, digging copper ore and tin, 
 and was a mine worker until his emigration to 
 America at the age of nineteen years. After less 
 than three months employment in the Mount Hope 
 iron mine, in New Jersey, in August, 1863, he came 
 to Michigan and entered the old Ogemaw mine, 
 now a part of the Maas mine in Ontonagon County. 
 Until August 1, 1870, his home was in the copper 
 
 country, most of the last year at Calumet. Then 
 came a transfer of his sphere of action from the 
 copper mines to the iron range, a step that entirely 
 altered his whole future career. In 1870 Mr. Sell- 
 wood was employed by the old New York Mining 
 Company, operating at Ishpeming, on the Marquette 
 Range, and labored for a time as an ordinary miner, 
 but soon began to assume small contracts for taking 
 out ore. His first ventures were on a modest scale, 
 but within a few years he was handling contracts 
 for the entire output of mines, beginning with a 
 part of the old New York mine and continuing 
 until his contracts embraced most of the mining of 
 the New York and Cleveland mines, these proper- 
 ties being controlled by Samuel J. Tilden and the 
 Cleveland Iron Company, the Cleveland mine now 
 being operated by the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Com- 
 pany. 
 
 In 1884 the firm of Mather, Morse & Company, 
 in which the chief interests were those of Samuel 
 Mather, J. C. Morse and James Pickands, sent Mr. 
 Sellwood to open the Colby mine, the first on the 
 new range, located on the present site of the Town 
 of Bessemer. Mr. Sellwood had a fourth interest 
 in the property which at that time included the 
 present Colby mine operated by Corrigan, McKin- 
 ney & Company, and a part of the Tilden, now con- 
 trolled by the United States Steel Corporation. In 
 the same year that brought him to the Gogebic 
 Range, Mr. Sellwood opened the Brotherton Mining 
 Company, becoming president and securing a one- 
 fourth interest therein, and this ownership contin- 
 ued until the sale of the property to the Lacka- 
 wanna Steel Company, which also bought the Sun- 
 day Lake mine adjoining. The latter had been 
 abandoned as an unprofitable venture, but Mr. Sell- 
 wood obtained a lease of the property, brought it 
 under the same control as the Brotherton, and the 
 property is still being operated. 
 
 Captain Sellwood came to Duluth in 1888 and 
 opened the Chandler mines at Ely on the Ver- 
 milion Range, and four years later took charge of 
 an undertaking to explore properties for the Min- 
 nesota Iron Company, of which he was made vice 
 president, gathering all properties under one con- 
 trol. In addition to this he was closely identified 
 with the development of the Menominee, Gogebic, 
 Mesaba and the Baraboo iron district. Captain 
 Sellwood was in charge of all mines of the Amer- 
 ican Steel and Wire Company in the Lake Superior 
 district from 1898 to 1902, but when the American 
 Steel Corporation was formed left the former con- 
 cern to pick up properties on the Mesaba range for 
 himself and the independent interests with which 
 he was associated. Besides a number of forties 
 obtained for himself and independent companies, 
 he acquired control of the Longyear, Leetonia, 
 Croxton, La Rue, Cyprus, Adriatic, Pearce, Morrow 
 and Cass mines. Of these the Longyear and Lee- 
 tonia were taken over by the Interstate Iron Com- 
 pany, the mining organization of the Jones & 
 Laughlin Steel Company, the Croxton and La Rue 
 went to the Cherry Valley Iron Company, and later 
 to the Pittsburgh Iron Ore Company, and the Pearce 
 was obtained by the Meridian Iron Company, of 
 which O. B. Warren was the mining manager. 
 Equal interests were held by Pickands, Mather & 
 Company and Captain Sellwood in the Cyprus and 
 Adriatic. Captain Sellwood also was prevailed upon 
 to take charge of the mines of the International 
 Harvester Company, the Hawkins and Agnew, on 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1479 
 
 the Mesaba Range, and the Illinois in Wisconsin. 
 He reserved, however, the right to look after his 
 own interests, to whatever extent they might re- 
 quire, and something of the character of the man 
 is shown in this frank understanding regarding the 
 division of his interests. For years he visited these 
 properties regularly, going about the range in all 
 conditions of weather. Captain Sellwood made a 
 life study of mining; it was his means of liveli- 
 hood when in want, it was that upon which he 
 founded and amassed his fortune, and it remained 
 his hobby until the last. 
 
 A mining expert in speaking of Captain Sell- 
 wood's qualifications as a miner said : “He was by 
 
 far the most able mining man in the Lake Superior 
 district, if not in the United States. Even the few 
 who considered themselves superior in mining abil- 
 ity will miss his good, conservative advice. It is 
 a well known fact among mining men that had the 
 Minnesota Mining Company followed Mr. Sell- 
 wood’s advice, it would have owned the greater 
 part of the Mesaba Range at pine-land prices.” 
 
 At one time and another Captain Sellwood was 
 interested in twelve mines and one steamship com- 
 pany. He was president of the City National Bank 
 of Duluth, the Bank of Ely, the Bank of Two Har- 
 bors, the Cass Mining Company and of the Brad- 
 ford Mining Company. He was vice president of 
 the Cyprus Mining Company and of the Adriatic 
 Mining Company, head of the firm of Joseph Sell- 
 wood & Company, Ishpeming, Michigan ; president 
 and director of the Leithhead (now Northern) 
 Drug Company, and vice president of the Duluth 
 and Iron Range Railway Company until 1898. 
 Practically all of his mining interests were relin- 
 quished about the time he organized the City Na- 
 tional Bank, of which he became president two 
 years later, and was head of that institution up to 
 his death. From the outset of his career in bank- 
 ing he gave the greater part of his time and atten- 
 tion to it. His business interests, aside from min- 
 ing, became a large part of his daily responsibilities. 
 A few years prior to his death he erected the 
 stately Sellwood Building on the corner of Superior 
 Street and Second Avenue, west, was a heavy in- 
 vestor in the ore-carrying lake trade, built the 
 steamer Joe S. Morrow, naming it after his young 
 grandson, and in his own honor, the Joseph Sell- 
 wood of the fleet of Mitchell & Comoany, was 
 named. 
 
 Politically, Captain Sellwood was a stanch repub- 
 lican. Although adhering to a wholesome general 
 mode of living, his most intimate acquaintances 
 declare that he indulged a craving for hard work to 
 such an extent that it probably deprived him of a 
 longer life. He is said to have frequently put in 
 eighteen-hour days, in the “early days,” and his 
 application to the work in hand in later years was 
 hardly less assiduous. Captain Sellwood was 
 abundantly endowed with admirable personal at- 
 tributes, and numbered among his wide circle of 
 friends were many who were attached to him not 
 merely because they appreciated his personality and 
 his many aggressive achievements, but also because 
 they owed him much. Throwing intimate light on 
 many traits of general munificence that endeared 
 him to hundreds, a close personal friend said at the 
 time of his death : “I believe any mention at this 
 time of Captain Sellwood should include reference 
 to his qualities of charity and generosity. He gave 
 much to the poor; yet he never regarded himself 
 
 Vol. Ill— 14 
 
 as a philanthropist. He permitted many debtors, 
 less successful than himself, to go their ways, un- 
 molested ; but this was not generally known. The 
 Captain gave large sums to the church of which he 
 was a member, as well as to other organizations, in 
 the same unostentatious manner that he would 
 make the rounds of many homes of the city’s needy 
 on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Days, 
 leaving in his wake dinners for 'scores who might 
 otherwise want for food. And because these ac- 
 tions were not paraded — because they were not 
 accompanied by the strident strains of blaring band 
 they were known only to a few. That was as Cap- 
 tain Sellwood would have had it. He was possessed 
 of no false sense of modesty, but he performed acts 
 of charity in a quiet, matter-of-fact manner, and 
 wished little attention called to them.” 
 
 A member of the First Methodist Episcopal 
 Chur:h, Captain Sellwood' contributed much to its 
 needs and was active in furthering its undertak- 
 ings. He died, firm in the faith, February 25, 1914, 
 and was laid to rest in Forest Hill Cemetery. His 
 children living are : Richard M., Mrs. L. W. Leith- 
 head and Mrs. C. E. Mershon. 
 
 It may not be inappropriate to close this all too 
 brief review of the life of one of Duluth’s most 
 prominent and helpful citizens with an editorial 
 taken from the Duluth News-Tribune, of the date 
 February 25, 1914, which said : “A man must be 
 judged by the public by his works, his accomplish- 
 ments, what he has done. His intimates have other 
 measures, for all men are two men, but to the mass 
 of his fellow-beings the only side seen is that which 
 shows itself in works. Joseph Sellwood had no rea- 
 son to shun either judgment. The man who at nine 
 years was holding the drill for a miner in the Cor- 
 nish mines and at sixty-seven was himself the 
 owner of mines and banks, of great buildings and 
 varied business interests, commands at least respect 
 by force of his accomplishments. From this begin- 
 ning, with no help at any stage of his life but what 
 he compelled by merit ; with no favor that he did 
 not earn in advance, Mr. Sellwood made himself 
 one of the wealthiest, most prominent and influ- 
 ential men of the Michigan-Minnesota mining 
 region. A big man physically, with a will of iron, 
 never admitting fatigue, he drove himself relent- 
 lessly. He always delivered all that was expected 
 of him and more. He never failed to do what he 
 undertook. He never disappointed those who de- 
 pended upon his efforts. Fie came up through all 
 the ^stages of mining by successive conquests. This 
 is the man the public knows. The man who suc- 
 ceeded by sheer force of muscle, will, and inborn 
 intelligence. The rough miner who became the 
 gentlemanly banker and capitalist, but without pre- 
 tense, without gloss, without softness, always simple 
 and genuine. He simply wore off the roughness 
 that hid the diamond. His intimates, his close 
 friends and business associates, knew the other 
 Joseph Sellwood, of whom the public only guessed, 
 the man whose loyalty never swerved, who was 
 never scared, and whose friendship, like his father- 
 hood, had a vast wealth of tenderness, of sym- 
 pathy and kindliness. 
 
 “As a citizen, Duluth has known him to respect 
 and admire him. His name was a synonym for all 
 that was substantial and dependable. His loss to 
 Duluth is great, and his loss to his friends will 
 leave an unfillable gap. To his associates he was 
 
 bulwark of defense that never failed and in ag- 
 
1480 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 gressive action he had few equals. He was in fact 
 a remarkable man ; one of the best examples of 
 what America’s opportunities give to this world in 
 the development of native ability. It did not seem 
 that that massive frame could ever yield to disease, 
 as it had never yielded to any physical task. But 
 he has gone, and who shall doubt that such a life 
 was but a preparation for a greater, or believe that 
 it has indeed ended here?” 
 
 Such a career recalls the words of a philosopher, 
 with suggestive application to the life of Captain 
 Sellwood : “Do not believe that all greatness and 
 heroism are in the past. Learn to discover princes, 
 prophets, heroes and saints among the people about 
 you. Be assured they are there.” 
 
 Forrest Edward Langworthy. Prominent in the 
 journalistic field of Southeastern Minnesota is found 
 Forrest Edward Langworthy, whose entire life has 
 been devoted to newspaper work, and who for many 
 years has been editor and publisher of the Mercury- 
 Vidette, at Spring Valley. A man of excellent abili- 
 ties, both as a writer and in a business way, he has 
 made a success of his activities and achieved a sub- 
 stantial reputation among the members of the craft. 
 
 Mr. Langworthy was born at Grand Meadow, 
 Minnesota, February 17, 1861, and is a son of Ben- 
 jamin F. and Sarah M. (Clemens) Langworthy. 
 The father was born in Ohio, January 22, 1822, and 
 lived in his native state until he was twelve years 
 of age, at which time he was taken by his parents 
 to Illinois, the family settling on a farm. When 
 he attained manhood, in 1846, he removed to Osh- 
 kosh, Wisconsin, and established himself in business 
 as the proprietor of a store, thus continuing until 
 1856, which year saw his arrival in Fillmore County. 
 At that time he located at Chatfield, where he was 
 connected with the banking firm of Langworthy, 
 O’Farrell & Company for two years. In 1858 he 
 moved to Mower County, and at once became ac- 
 tively identified with political affairs, so that in the 
 fall of 1859 he was sent as representative to the 
 State Legislature from that county. He was later 
 appointed route agent for the railway mail service 
 and moved to LaCrosse, Wisconsin, for four years, 
 and in 1880 he and his son established the Mercury 
 at Grand Meadow, Minnesota. This newspaper was 
 subsequently moved to Austin, Minnesota, and then 
 to Spring Valley, where Mr. Langworthy continued 
 to be connected with its operation until his death, 
 January 21, 1907. Mrs. Langworthy survived him 
 several years, passing away in 1910. They were 
 married in 1849, and she was born in Vermont, be- 
 longing to the same family which gave to the world 
 the famous American humorist, Mark Twain. Two 
 children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Langworthy : 
 Emma C., who became the wife of D. L. Tanner, 
 of Mower County, and Forrest Edward, of this re- 
 view. 
 
 The public schools and the LaCrosse High School 
 furnished Forrest Edward Langworthy with his 
 educational training, and at the time of his gradua- 
 tion from the latter school he became associated 
 with his father in the printing business, in connec- 
 tion with, the establishment of the Mercury. He 
 accompanied this paper to Austin, and later to 
 Spring Valley, and during the entire time of its 
 existence has been steadily working for its success. 
 In 1903 Mr. Langworthy . purchased "the Vidette, with 
 which it has been combined, and the paper is now 
 known as the Mercury-Vidette. Mr, Langworthy 
 
 is a republican, but through the columns of his 
 newspaper has attempted to present all matters in 
 a fair and impartial way. The support of both 
 subscribers and advertisers is being given him, and 
 at the present time his weekly has a circulation of 
 1,600 and is considered by merchants an excellent 
 advertising medium. In connection with his print- 
 ing plant, Mr. Langworthy has a job office, where 
 he does the finest class of work. He is well known 
 in this part of the state, and has many friends both 
 in and out of the ranks of journalism. He has not 
 sought public office for himself, but has at all times 
 been an earnest and conscientious citizen, using the 
 columns of his paper frequently in supporting move- 
 ments which have made for betterment and prog- 
 ress. With his family he attends the Congregational 
 Church. 
 
 Mr. Langworthy was married December 21, 1885, 
 to Miss Blanche E. Beers, and to this union there 
 have been born three children : Rev. Earl Ray, 
 born in 1886, a minister of the Free Methodist 
 Church ; Elmer DeLoss, born in 1888, a lieutenant 
 in the United States Navy, having finished his course 
 in the United States Naval Academy, at Annapolis, 
 in 1910; and Glenn Franklin, born in 1895, who is 
 in the office with his father. 
 
 Herman R. Russell, M. D. With residence and 
 professional headauarters at Stewartville, Doctor 
 Russell is one of the honored physicians and sur- 
 geons who are upholding the prestige and best 
 ethics of the profession in his native county of Olm- 
 sted, and he is a scion of an honored pioneer family 
 of Minnesota. His devotion to his chosen calling 
 is such that he subordinates all other interests to 
 its demands and he controls a large and representa- 
 tive practice, the exigencies of which leave him but 
 little leisure. 
 
 Doctor Russell was born in the village of Pleasant 
 Grove, Olmsted County, Minnesota, on the 10th of 
 June, 1871, and is a son of Charles W. and Martha 
 L. (Lovelace) Russell, who now reside in Stewart- 
 ville, both being natives of the State of Pennsyl- 
 vania. Charles' W. Russell is a son of Richard S. 
 Russell, who was born in London, England, and 
 who came to the United States as a lad of. sixteen 
 years. He became a resident of Pennsylvania, 
 where his marriage was solemnized and where he 
 continued to follow agricultural pursuits until 1859, 
 when he came with his family to Minnesota, which 
 had been admitted to statehood in the preceding 
 year. He settled in Olmsted county and the closing 
 years of his life were nassed in the village of 
 Pleasant Grove, after his retirement from active 
 farming operations. Mrs. Martha L. (Lovelace) 
 Russell is a daughter of Harmon A. Lovelace, who 
 was born in Pennsylvania and who finally immi- 
 grated from the old Keystone State to Minnesota. 
 He took up government land in Lyon County, where 
 he instituted the development of a farm, and he 
 continued to reside on his old homestead until his 
 death, having been one of the honored pioneers of 
 the county , mentioned. 
 
 Charles W. Russell, father of the doctor, who is 
 the only child, was about sixteen years of age at 
 the time of his parents’ removal from Pennsylvania 
 to Minnesota, and at the age of eighteen years he 
 tendered his aid in defense of the Union, the integ- 
 rity of which was menaced by armed rebellion on 
 the part of the southern states. He enlisted in Com- 
 pany H, Sixth Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, and 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1481 
 
 he served during the entire course of the Civil war, 
 as well as for some time after its close, his military 
 career having covered a period of nearly five years 
 Shortly after his enlistment he was appointed as- 
 sistant paymaster, under Paymaster General Brown, 
 at St. Louis, Missouri, and service on such detail 
 work compassed much of his long period of loyal 
 activity in connection with the war. He participated 
 in a number of minor engagements, principally in 
 Plorida, about the time of the close of the war, 
 and he perpetuates the more gracious memories of 
 his army life through his active affiliation with the 
 Grand Army of the Republic. 
 
 After the termination of his long and earnest 
 service in behalf of the Union Mr. Russell returned 
 to his home, and finally he opened a modest gen- 
 eral merchandise store at Pleasant Grove, Olmsted 
 County, where also he held the position of post- 
 master for a number of years. He then removed 
 to Stewartville, where he was engaged in the grain 
 business for five years, since which time he has 
 been a valued an honored attache of the First State 
 Bank of Stewartville. He is well known in the 
 county that has long represented his home and his 
 sterling character has given him secure place in 
 popular confidence and esteem. In a basic way he 
 gives his support to the democratic party, but in 
 local affairs he maintains an independent attitude 
 and is not constrained by strict partisan lines. He 
 is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and is past 
 master of the lodge at Pleasant Grove, besides hav- 
 ing served as its treasurer. 
 
 Doctor Russell depended upon his own resources 
 in acquiring his higher academic training and pro- 
 fessional education. His earlier discipline was that 
 afforded in the public schools of Olmsted County, 
 and later he attended for four months the high 
 school at Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. He finally began 
 the study of medicine under effective private pre- 
 ceptorship, and he first entered medical college in 
 September, 1895, having devoted some time to prac- 
 tice before his formal graduation. In the Chicago 
 College of Physicians and Surgeons, the medical 
 department of the University of Illinois, he was 
 graduated as 'a member of the class of 1899, and 
 with the well earned degree of doctor of medicine. 
 After his graduation the doctor established himself 
 in active general practice at Stewartville, and within 
 the past few years, it is but consistent to say, prob- 
 ably no physician in similar practice in the county 
 has controlled a larger or more important profes- 
 sional business, the demands upon Doctor Russell’s 
 time and attention being really greater than he can 
 meet. He continues a close and appreciative student 
 and avails _ himself of the best of standard and 
 periodical literature pertaining to medical and sur- 
 gical science, besides which he profits duly from 
 his active membership in the Olmsted Countv Med- 
 ical Society, the Minnesota State Medical Society, 
 and the American Medical Association. 
 
 Doctor Russell has had no ambition to enter the 
 turbulent stream of so-called practical politics but 
 gives his allegiance to the democratic party. He is 
 affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, including the 
 consistory of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite in 
 the City of Chicago and the Osman Temple of the 
 Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine 
 in the City of St. Paul. 
 
 On the 10th of June, 1900, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Doctor Russell to Miss Hanna L. Ma- 
 nion, of Eyota, Olmsted County, and they have two 
 
 children, Patrice and Charles Owen, both of whom 
 are attending the public schools of Stewartville. 
 
 James Iverson. The late James Iverson, who 
 died February 6, 1913, was a resident of Minneap- 
 olis more than forty years. He deserves to be re- 
 membered as a quiet, unassuming, hardworking man, 
 who prospered in his business and strove with all 
 his energy to effect proper position for his family. 
 His home, where his widow and some of the chil- 
 dren now reside, was at 3309 Aldrich Avenue, South. 
 
 James Iverson was born in Denmark March 29, 
 1833, and was nearly eighty years of age when 
 death called him. He had only a meager education 
 in the schools of his native country and came to 
 America at about the age of twenty-one. For a 
 number of years he followed his trade as black- 
 smith in the southern part of Wisconsin, in Racine 
 County, and in 1871 moved to Minneapolis, and 
 established a carriage shop on First Street and 
 Second Avenue, North. That was his place of 
 business for more than thirty years, and he finally 
 retired from active affairs about 1905. 
 
 Mr. Iverson was a member of the Masonic order 
 and attended the Free Methodist Church. He was 
 married in Racine County, Wisconsin, May 4, 1858, 
 to Hannah Schnitzmeyer, who is still living. The 
 one son is Fred Iverson, teller in the First and 
 Security National Bank of Minneapolis, and the 
 father of two children, Grace and Wilbur. The 
 oldest daughter is Mrs. Emma M. McKean, a widow, 
 whose husband was in the insurance business, and 
 she has two children, Leslie and Genevieve. Mrs. 
 A. Bannister, the third daughter, whose husband is 
 employed with the Soo Railway, has three children, 
 Russell, Louise and James. 
 
 Otto S. Langum. During more than a quarter of 
 a century of public service in Minneapolis Mr. 
 Langum has entrenched himself firmly in popular 
 confidence and esteem, and this was shown in an 
 emphatic way in November, 1914, when he was re- 
 elected sheriff of Hennepin County by a large and 
 significant majority. His advancement in life has 
 been the result of his own integrity and worthy 
 efforts, and he is one of the efficient and honored 
 executive officers of the county which has repre- 
 sented his home from his youth and in which he is 
 now entering upon his fourth consecutive term in 
 the office of sheriff. Shortly before his last elec- 
 tion the following pertinent statements appeared in 
 one of the leading Minneapolis daily papers : 
 
 “Mr. Langum was elected sheriff as an honest and 
 efficient man. The first quality he owes to his an- 
 cestry and early training, and the second to his 
 intelligent experience in the office of sheriff and to 
 his continuous service and close application to the 
 duties of his position. He has deservedly won the 
 office he holds, by working his way through all the 
 subordinate positions in that office, and the position 
 of chief of his department is only the just reward 
 of his faithful and continuous service. In a large 
 metropolitan county like Hennepin, the office of 
 sheriff is of paramount importance in insuring the 
 smooth and effective operation of the business of 
 the county and the courts. So far as the sheriff’s 
 office under Mr. Langum has been responsible for 
 the public business and the performance of these 
 duties directly delegated to his department, it has 
 been administered in a fashion which causes him 
 every possible assurance of continuing in the office 
 he has held so successfully.” 
 
1482 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Mr. Langum was born in Norway, on the ioth 
 of May, i860, and has been a resident of Minneap- 
 olis from early youth. His parents were in modest 
 circumstances and he early assumed personal re- 
 sponsibility as one of the world’s workers. He 
 was compelled to leave school after being graduated 
 in the eighth grade and obtained a position as janitor 
 in the old courthouse of Minneapolis a few weeks 
 later. Mr. Langum was but seventeen years of age 
 when assigned to the charge of the building. Con- 
 cerning his career from this juncture forward the 
 following statements have been written: “In those 
 
 days the building was heated by wood stoves. 
 Langum supplied the wood and later the coal. His 
 regular rising hour was 4 o’clock in the morning. 
 He had to build a score of fires, besides individually 
 sweeping and scrubbing the whole building. After 
 a few years of this work Langum was made a 
 deputy sheriff, and for years he was the youngest 
 deputy on the force, even as he became one of the 
 most trusted. During his service he handled many 
 of the most celebrated of Minneapolis’ criminals. 
 Langum was first elected sheriff in 1908, and he 
 now has one of the most experienced and efficient 
 force in the country. Many of the old guard of 
 deputies still remain in the office. Others, who have 
 been appointed since, have learned to respect and 
 admire the sheriff and are authority for the state- 
 ment that he never sends them where he wouldn’t 
 go himself. Single-handed, Langum captured two 
 armed bandits who had robbed the Wayzata, State 
 Bank. He bade his deputies stay in the road out- 
 side while he went into the woods after the mal- 
 factors, whom he captured. During his administra- 
 tion gambling houses, blind pigs and other nefari- 
 ous resorts at Lake Minnetonka have been dimin- 
 ished, and now only a few illegal liquor sellers pre- 
 serve a stealthy existence.” 
 
 Quotations from another newspaper article are 
 likewise worthy of perpetuation, with but slight 
 paraphrase, in this connection : 
 
 “In 1886 Mr. Langum was made a deputy sheriff 
 of Hennepin County and was successful in running 
 down many of the famous fugitives of that day. 
 For ten years he served with increasing success in 
 the office of the sheriff, and his continuous service 
 and conscientious record for hard work gained to 
 him appointment to the office of deputy county 
 auditor. This position he filled successfully for the 
 next four years, with the exception of the years 
 1898-9, when he was a member of the Thirteenth 
 Minnesota Volunteer Infantry and served in the 
 Spanish-American war, his command hems' assigned 
 to duty in the Philippine Islands. He was a mem- 
 ber of the Minnesota National Guard for ten years 
 of the time he was serving as deputy sheriff. On 
 his return from the Spanish-American war Mr. 
 Langum resumed his duties as chief deputy county 
 auditor, and he completed his fourth year in that 
 position. His record while in the office of the 
 county auditor was above reproach and his success 
 in that capacity was the result of continuous hard 
 work and close application to his duties. His next 
 position in tffe service of his county was that of 
 deputy county treasurer, which incumbency he re- 
 tained two years, 1901 and 1902. He here distin- 
 guished himself by his natural executive ability and 
 by careful attention to the details of his work. At 
 the expiration of his term in this office Mr. Langum 
 was again enlisted in the service of the office of 
 
 deputy sheriff, a position which he retained for six 
 years. 
 
 "In 1908 the people of Hennepin County decided 
 that this man, who had been sheriff in deed if not 
 in name for more than eighteen years and in the 
 public service for twenty-four years, should be given 
 a chief instead of a subordinate position, and he 
 was consequently elected sheriff of the county. The 
 citizens have since contrived to keep him in this 
 office, in which his administration has been most 
 careful and effective and with the duties of which 
 he has been associated during the major part of 
 his adult life.” 
 
 Of Sheriff Langum’s assistants in the office of 
 sheriff it may be noted that Joseph Schutta is as- 
 signed to criminal matters, John P. Wall is chief 
 deputy, Nels Clausen is jailer, and Benjamin A. Ege 
 is bookkeeper. 
 
 In the year 1888, in Minneapolis, was solemnized 
 the marriage of Mr. Langum to Miss Henrietta 
 Lyford Trott. 
 
 Henry W. Buscho. At Wells in Faribault 
 County one of the solid business enterprises is the 
 large general store, conducted by Henry W. Buscho 
 and S. A. Anderson. This is an enterprise which 
 reflects the experience and thorough ability of the 
 partners, and through this medium Henry W. 
 Buscho in a little more than twenty years has ad- 
 vanced from the position of clerk to that of one of 
 the most substantial merchants, bankers and citizens 
 of the community. 
 
 Henry W. Buscho was born in Brush Creek Town- 
 ship,- Faribault County, July 28, 1869. His family 
 was one of the pioneers to locate in Faribault 
 County. His father, G. J. Buscho, was born in 
 Prussia, Germany, in 1844, came to America when a 
 boy in 1862, landing in New York City, and from 
 there coming out to Wisconsin. He spent several 
 years in the arduous labor of the pine woods, and in 
 1862 arrived in Minnesota, and was one of the first 
 men to clear up and improve land in Brush Creek 
 Township of Faribault County. Many years were 
 spent as a farmer, and he is now living retired at 
 Wells, enjoying the fruits of well-earned prosperity. 
 G. J. Buscho married Miss Louisa Webber, a native 
 of Indiana. Their children are: Henry W. ; Tina, 
 
 wife of William Bartell, a farmer in Waseca County; 
 Edward, who lives on the homestead farm ; Bertha, 
 the wife of Rev. Fred Werner, a minister of the 
 German Evangelical Association, and now living at 
 Marshall, Minnesota ; Sarah, deceased, whose hus- 
 band is Ed Oehler, a farmer at Buffalo Lake, Min- 
 nesota; Ella, the deceased wife of Ed Werner, and 
 she died in Dakota, where her husband is still a 
 farmer ; George, a clerk in his brother Henry’s 
 store; Fred, a truck gardener at Portland, Oregon; 
 and Perry, who lives on the old homestead in Brush 
 Creek Township. 
 
 Henry W. Buscho grew up as a farm boy in 
 Brush Creek Township, attended the district schools 
 there, later the Mankato Normal School, and in 1893 
 was prepared for his business career by a course 
 in the Mankato Business College. In that year he 
 became identified with merchandising in Wells as 
 clerk for S. A. Anderson. In 1894 he bought a half 
 interest in the store, and now for twenty years they 
 have conducted a constantly growing business, and 
 have the largest general store in Wells and sur- 
 rounding country. Their business is situated on C 
 Street, where they have a two-story building, 90x50 
 

 
 i 
 
 
 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1483 
 
 feet, stocked with a complete line of general goods. 
 Their trade comes from all the eastern section of 
 Faribault County. 
 
 Besides his position as a merchant Mr. Buscho is 
 also vice president of the Wells National Bank. He 
 is active in both civic and social affairs, is a repub- 
 lican, served three years as city recorder and for the 
 past twelve years has been a member of the school 
 board, and one of the men responsible for the excep- 
 tional position occupied by W ells as an educational 
 center. Mr. Buscho is affiliated with Wells Lodge, 
 A. F. & A. M. ; with Wells Chapter, R. A. M. ; with 
 Albert Lea Commandery, K. T. ; and with the Inde- 
 pendent Order of Odd Fellows, the Modern Wood- 
 men of America, and the Ancient Order of L T nited 
 Workmen. In 1896 at Wells he married Miss Mary 
 Korman. 
 
 Loren Fletcher. In a history of the great State 
 of Minnesota it may well be said that not too often 
 can recognition be taken of the character and serv- 
 ices of such sterling pioneers and distinguished citi- 
 zens as Hon. Loren Fletcher, who came to this 
 commonwealth nearly sixty years ago, as a young 
 man of energy and ambition, fully appreciative of 
 the duties and responsibilities involved in every pro- 
 ductive life. While through his own well directed 
 endeavors along normal lines of enterprise he ac- 
 quired a substantial fortune, his energies and influ- 
 ence were also in connection with the civic and in- 
 dustrial development and progress of Minnesota, 
 which was not admitted to the Union until about 
 two years after his arrival within its borders. With 
 the passing years there came to Mr. Fletcher mani- 
 fold and important business interests, but he proved 
 equal to all emergencies, developed a splendid mas- 
 tery of expedients and gained precedence as one of 
 the representative men of affairs in the Minnesota 
 metropolis. A man' of integrity and honor, well 
 disciplined in mind and judicial in his natural at- 
 titude to men and affairs, simple and unostentatious 
 in his self-respecting and tolerant individuality, 
 Mr. Fletcher could not fail to measure up most 
 fully to the best standards of manhood. His eligi- 
 bility for offices of public trust soon became recog- 
 nized, as shown by his long and distinguished serv- 
 ice as a member of the Minnesota Legislature and 
 as representative of the state in the United States 
 Congress. His was an important influence in civic 
 and business affairs during the formative period 
 of Minnesota history. No man ever received more 
 tokens of her honor ; no man was ever more faith- 
 ful to his trusts. Now, venerable in years, he is 
 held in unequivocal esteem in the great state which 
 has long represented his home and in which he still 
 passes the summer seasons, the winters customarily 
 finding him pleasantly established in the national 
 capital. Thus every publication that has to do with 
 Minnesota, and especially with the City of Min- 
 neapolis, must, as a matter of consistency, give con- 
 sideration to this gallant and venerable citizen. 
 
 Of a long line of sturdy New England ancestry, 
 the lineage of Mr. Fletcher is more remotely traced 
 back to English origin, and he himself is a native 
 of the old Pine Tree State. He was born in Mount 
 Vernon, Kennebec County, Maine, on the 10th of 
 April, 1831, and strong constitution, right living and 
 right thinking have been the forces that have given 
 to him, at the venerable age of eighty-four years, 
 the wonderful mental and physical vigor that deny 
 the number of decades that have marked his path- 
 
 way of life. Capt. Levi Fletcher, his father, was a 
 prosperous farmer and honored citizen of Kenne- 
 bec County, Maine, and his endeavors enabled him 
 to achieve independence and prosperity, so that his 
 four sons and two daughters were not denied ex- 
 cellent educational advantages, as gauged by the 
 standards of the locality and period. He acquired 
 his title of captain through his service in the State 
 Militia of Maine. 
 
 Loren Fletcher, the youngest of the four sons, 
 early gained fellowship with the sturdy activities of 
 the home farm in New England, and availed him- 
 self of the advantages of the common schools of 
 the village of Mount Vernon, after which came two 
 years at Kent’s Hill Seminary, an excellent institu- 
 tion in his home county. Thus was laid substantial 
 foundation for the liberal education which he later 
 acquired through self-discipline and through active 
 association with men and affairs. Mr. Fletcher 
 had in his youth a desire to learn a trade, but after 
 a short experience of apprenticeship at the trade of 
 stone-cutter, when he was about seventeen years oi 
 age, he found the edge of his desire along this line 
 was appreciably dulled and became convinced that 
 his tastes and inclinations lay more in the direc- 
 tion of merchandising. Accordingly he went to the 
 City of Bangor, Maine, and was clerk in a boot 
 and shoe store three years. Although his wages 
 were scarcely more than nominal he gained valuable 
 experience, and, being dominated by the character- 
 istic New England spirit of thrift and economy, he 
 carefully saved his earnings and finally determined 
 to identify himself with the rapidly developing 
 West, where was assurance of better opportunities 
 for achieving success through individual effort. 
 Going to Dubuque, Iowa, the prospects did not 
 prove sufficiently inviting to cause him to tarry 
 long, and he soon joined the tide of immigration 
 that was moving into the Territory of Minnesota. 
 The summer of 1856 found him in the Village of St. 
 Anthony, the nucleus of the present metropolis of 
 Minneapolis. Mr. Fletcher was at the time a young 
 man of twenty-three years, and in his immigration 
 to the West was accompanied by his bride, whom 
 he had married shortly before departing from 
 Maine. At St. Anthony Mr. Fletcher found tem- 
 porary employment as a clerk in a pioneer mer- 
 cantile establishment, and in the following year 
 entered the employ of the late Dorilius Morrison, 
 who was then carrying on an extensive lumber 
 business. This association brought to Mr. Fletcher 
 varied experiences, as at times he was in charge 
 of lumber yards at Hastings and St. Peter and at 
 other periods had supervision of the winter's cut 
 of logs in the heavily timbered districts of the 
 northern sections of the state, as well as of the 
 driving of the logs down the river and the sub- 
 sequent manufacturing of the same into lumber in 
 the sawmills at St. Anthony’s Falls. He continued 
 to be thus engaged about three years, and in i860 
 he purchased an interest in the modest dry goods 
 store of Edward L. Allen, at St. Anthony. In the 
 following year, however, this alliance was termi- 
 nated and he associated himself with Charles M. 
 Loring in the mercantile business and other lines 
 of enterprise, Mr. Loring being today one of the 
 best known and most highly esteemed pioneer citi- 
 zens of Minneapolis. The new firm established a 
 general store on the site of the old city hall, which 
 is still standing, and in the early stages of their 
 enterprise they gave attention chiefly to dealing in 
 
1484 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 lumbermen’s supplies, the business being continued, 
 with ever increasing success, at the original loca- 
 tion for more than fifteen years. The energy and 
 progressive ideas of the two interested principals 
 led them into other fields of enterprise and their 
 operations eventually had much bearing upon the 
 development and upbuilding of Minneapolis and 
 the state. They became dealers in pine lands, in- 
 terested in lumbering operations, in the develop- 
 ment and handling of agricultural lands, in con- 
 tracting along varied lines, in the furnishing of 
 Indian supplies, in the buying and selling of town 
 and city lots, and finally in the manufacturing of 
 flour, in the milling business the firm was for many 
 years one of special prominence and influence. In 
 this important field of enterprise, which has given 
 to Minneapolis world-wide reputation, they were 
 at first associated with the late William F. Cahill, 
 and later they became the proprietors of the Galaxy 
 mill and the Minnetonka mills. Messrs. Loring and 
 Fletcher manifested great initiative and constructive 
 ability in their various lines and became numbered 
 among the most prominent factors in industrial 
 and commercial activities in the Minnesota metro- 
 polis where each received well merited reward for 
 years of earnest and honorable endeavor, for each 
 became a man of substantial wealth. The partner- 
 ship continued for more than forty years, with 
 mutual profit and complete cordiality and unanim- 
 ity, and it is a matter of gratification to both that 
 they were thus associated while winning their way 
 to large and worthy success, their intimate friend- 
 ship remaining inviolable to the present day. 
 
 In the character and career of Mr. Fletcher com- 
 promise with principle for the sake of self-advance- 
 ment has never been exhibited. Popular apprecia- 
 tion of his ability and loyalty has been pronounced 
 and has enabled him to be of valuable assistance in 
 directing the governmental policies of the state in 
 which his interests have long been centered. The 
 decade between 1873 and 1883 found him enrolled 
 as a valued member of the lower house of the 
 Minnesota Legislature, and served as speaker for 
 three successive sessions — 1881-83. His third elec- 
 tion to this position was by unanimous vote. Mere 
 partisanship was thus subordinated by the evident 
 desire to honor a sterling and influential citizen 
 who had been unswerving in his devotion to the 
 interests of the state and its people and had been 
 potent in the furtherance of wise legislation. Con- 
 cerning Mr. Fletcher’s service as a member of the 
 Legislature it is not necessary to enter into details, 
 for all this is a matter of record, redounds to his 
 lasting credit, and guaranteed his subsequent 
 promotion. 
 
 Through all his years as a private citizen and in 
 official affairs Mr. Fletcher has been uncompromis- 
 ing in his allegiance to the cause of the republican 
 party, with a clear estimate as to policies in gov- 
 ernmental and economic affairs. 
 
 After an interim of several years of comparative 
 inactivity in the domain of politics, the crowning 
 honor of Mr. Fletcher’s career in the service of his 
 state came in his election to the United States 
 Congress. He was chosen the first representative 
 of the newly organized congressional district com- 
 prising Hennepin County and including the City of 
 Minneapolis. He was first elected in 1892; in 1894 
 he was reelected by a largely increased majority, 
 and by successive reelections continued his effective 
 service in the National Legislature for five suc- 
 
 cessive terms, during which he proved himself alto- 
 gether worthy of the high preferment given him 
 by the voters of his state. Mr. Fletcher was active 
 and faithful in the deliberations on the floor of the 
 House of Representatives and in those of the 
 various committees to which he was assigned. 
 Sincere and direct in this as in all other relations 
 of life, he gained the confidence and esteem of his 
 colleagues, and while he made no claims to ora- 
 torical ability and no attempt to exploit his in- 
 dividuality on the floor of the House of Representa- 
 tives, his mature judgment, his long legislative 
 experience, and his broad grasp of the issues and 
 problems considered in Congress, made him dis- 
 tinctly influential in general legislation. He was, 
 moreover, universally recognized in Minnesota and 
 in Washington as a most effective representative 
 of his constituency, being tireless in working for 
 all that benefited them, individually or collectively. 
 He was also one whose loyalty and patriotism were 
 not to be deflected by means of sophistry or com- 
 promise. Mr. Fletcher stood sponsor for the best 
 ideals of American democracy, and his name will 
 stand high on the roll of those who have best 
 represented Minnesota in the Congress of the 
 United States. 
 
 The year prior to his immigration to the West 
 Mr. Fletcher wedded Miss Amerette J. Thomas. 
 She likewise was born and reared in Maine, a 
 daughter of the late Capt. John Thomas, a sea- 
 faring man of Bar Harbor, that state. The only 
 child of this union was a daughter who died in 
 girlhood, and the supreme loss and bereavement in 
 the life of Mr. Fletcher was that which came when 
 death took away his loved and devoted wife, who 
 was summoned to eternal rest in 1892. By her 
 gentle and gracious personality she had gained the 
 affectionate regard of all who came within the 
 sphere of her influence. Since the death of his 
 wife Mr. Fletcher has maintained his winter resi- 
 dence in the City of Washington, the friend and 
 confidant of many of the nation’s representative 
 men. But his abiding love for Minneapolis is 
 shown in his passing the summer months there 
 with residence in the Plaza Hotel. Here he de- 
 lights to perpetuate the gracious memories and asso- 
 ciations of past years and to recall the conditions 
 and incidents of the pioneer days. 
 
 James S. Bell. Minneapolis has been called upon 
 to mourn the loss of several of its most notable 
 men in recent years, and probablv none was closer 
 to the heart of Minneapolis industry and exercised 
 a greater controlling influence in purely business 
 affairs than James S. Bell. Fortunately the record 
 of his career from the standpoint of the milling 
 industry has been carefully estimated and appreci- 
 ated by one who knew both his business and per- 
 sonal activities in an article in “The Northwestern 
 Miller,” and that article is both the basis and sub- 
 stance of the following sketch for this history of 
 Minnesota. 
 
 Probably in the entire history of the American 
 milling industry, according to the judgment of this 
 writer, no man ever made as great an impression 
 upon the trade in such a comparatively short time 
 as James S. Bell. He came to Minneapolis from 
 Philadelphia about twenty-seven years before his 
 death, and while his previous business experience 
 had been with the handling of the product of the 
 mill, his knowledge of milling itself was so limited 
 
HISTORY OF .MINNESOTA 
 
 1485 
 
 as to be almost negligible. In this brief period he 
 became not only the active, directing head of a large 
 establishment, but so great was his knowledge and 
 so sound his judgment that he was able to advance 
 the business scope of the company of which he was 
 president beyond any bounds that even the imagina- 
 tion of his predecessors among the leaders of the 
 industry could have conceived possible. 
 
 There have been great millers, but Mr. Bell was 
 pre-eminently the great merchant miller. His pred- 
 ecessors and business associates, each one of them 
 masters in their particular fields, and who, like the 
 makers of the coral islands, built themselves into 
 the structure which outlasts them, have all passed 
 away. The last of the group of notable Minneap- 
 olis millers to be claimed by death was James S. 
 Bell, thereby leaving vacant a leadership rare in 
 its magnificient grasp of business and so beautiful 
 in its relationship to his fellow workers that its 
 record is unrivaled. 
 
 Mr. Bell’s business genius developed and ex- 
 panded with maturity. Transplanted from the con- 
 servative atmosphere of Philadelphia to the more 
 exhilarating and less conventional business life of 
 Minneapolis, when over forty years old, he seemed 
 instantly to strike new roots into' his adopted soil. 
 He utilized his inheritance of past experience, not 
 as a final conviction, as seeking to make his new 
 surroundings conform to it, but wisely, as a guide 
 to his further growth in mind as well as in material 
 respects. Although in fundamental principles he 
 remained unchanged, yet every year added to his 
 life found him a greater and broader man, with a 
 wiser comprehension of his relation to the world. 
 His business grew enormously but never grew faster 
 or more strongly than he did. Always he was ahead 
 of it. 
 
 James Stroud Bell was born in Philadelphia June 
 30, 1847, and died at his home in Minneapolis April 
 5, 1915, in his sixty-eighth year. His parents were 
 Samuel and Elizabeth (Faust) Bell. Samuel Bell 
 was a Philadelphia miller and in 1827 established 
 in that city a flour commission house which for 
 many years stood as one of the leading concerns 
 of its kind on the Atlantic seaboard. Including 
 James S. Bell, there have been five generations of 
 the Bell family in America, and they came to this 
 country from Scotland, and in later generations 
 there was an important Quaker admixture. 
 
 James S. Bell’s education so far as it depended 
 on mere books, was obtained in the grammar schools 
 of Philadelphia and its Central High School. In 
 1863, at the age of sixteen, he became a clerk in 
 the establishment of W. & S. Bell, flour dealers, 
 remaining for five years in this capacity. In 1868 
 he was made a partner in the firm of Samuel Bell 
 & Sons, one of the oldest, largest and most highly 
 respected flour houses in the eastern states. It was 
 the agent at Philadelphia and New York for the 
 Washburn-Crosby flour and thus Mr. Bell became 
 thoroughly familiar with the brands of the concern 
 and methods of selling its flour for twenty years 
 before he removed to Minneapolis. 
 
 In 1888 the situation in regard to the great Wash- 
 burn plant in Minneapolis was unusual in the open- 
 ing it afforded for just the right kind of man. The 
 mills were owned by the C. C. Washburn Flouring 
 Mills Company, consisting of the heirs of Governor 
 Washburn. Tbeir daily capacity was 8,000 barrels, 
 and for a number of years they had been leased to 
 Washburn, Crosby & Company. John Crosby of 
 
 this firm had died the year before and Mr. Dun- 
 woody was in ill health and desired to withdraw 
 temporarily from the cares of business. It became 
 necessary, therefore, to dissolve and a new firm 
 was contemplated to take over the operation of the 
 plant. Mr. Bell through his close connection with 
 Washburn, Crosby & Company as a member of the 
 firm which represented it in Philadelphia and New 
 York, became interested with others in the plan and 
 in the late summer of 1888 the firm of Washburn, 
 Martin & Company was formed. This continued 
 for a year, when, on September 1, 1889, it was suc- 
 ceeded by the Washburn-Crosby Company. Mr. 
 Bell became president. 
 
 Mr. Bell soon discovered that he had entered the 
 milling business at a very critical and anxious time. 
 Speculators had pushed the price of wheat far above 
 an export basis and the export of flour had become 
 a very important element in the operation of the 
 Minneapolis mills. The year before Mr. Bell ceased 
 to be a flour merchant and became a merchant 
 miller, over forty per cent of the output of the 
 Minneapolis mills had been shipped abroad, and 
 indeed the flour export for that year reached high- 
 water mark in relation to the out-turn. 
 
 It is a singular fact that Mr. Bell’s advent in 
 the milling business should have been coincident 
 with the relative decline in the export flour trade, 
 and the consequent compulsory intensive develop- 
 ment of the domestic market, or, if we are to be- 
 lieve that the time and the man are providentially 
 brought together, then his arrival on the scene of 
 action at this critical period in the milling history 
 of Minneapolis was more than a coincident, it was 
 fore-ordained. For Mr. Bell’s previous experience 
 had given him a complete understanding of the 
 merchandising side of milling in relation to the 
 domestic markets rather than the foreign trade. He 
 was not a practical miller in the operative sense, 
 nor was he particularly and especially qualified to 
 develop an export trade, but he was pre-eminently 
 a master and a leader in the new line of effort 
 which the mills of Minneapolis were destined to 
 enter upon, the systematic cultivation and expansion 
 of the home markets. 
 
 With the export flour trade soon to become less 
 of a factor in the operation of the Minneapolis 
 mills, and the necessity of securing a stronger hold 
 upon domestic consumption confronting or about to 
 confront the industry, only a miller with a real 
 genius for marketing flour could have won success. 
 In 1888 the situation became so serious with millers 
 throughout the country on account of the high price 
 at which wheat was held by the speculators, the 
 consequent impossibility of selling flour abroad and 
 the congestion of the domestic flour market, that 
 on December 21 a meeting was held at Milwaukee 
 to consider the state of the industry. An attempt 
 grew out of this to regulate and reduce the output 
 of the mills, which was temporarily successful to 
 a degree. Nevertheless, the milling year which 
 closed in August, 1889, was disastrous to many and 
 unsatisfactory to all. It was at the conclusion of 
 this term, as already stated, that the firm of Wash- 
 burn, Martin & Company was dissolved and the 
 Washburn-Crosby Company formed with Mr. Bell 
 as its president. 
 
 During his initial year in the milling business 
 Mr. Bell learned much of its pitfalls and discour- 
 agements, its anxieties and hazards, and no doubt 
 there were moments when he would gladly have ex- 
 
I486 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 changed his new position for the old one in Philadel- 
 phia; but once having crossed the Rubicon, Mr. Bell 
 was incapable of retreat. However, since the plants 
 operated by his company were leased and not owned 
 by it, there was always the possibility of change 
 at the expiration of the time agreed upon, and con- 
 sequently for nine years following the organization 
 ot the Washburn-Crosbv Company there was un- 
 avoidably a suggestion of tentativeness in his con- 
 nection with the property itself, although small 
 doubt that, whatever became of the mills, Mr. Bell 
 would remain a miller, either in Minneapolis or 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Meanwhile the new company which took the orig- 
 inal name of Washburn, Crosby & Company, merely 
 changing it to corporate style, throve mightily. Its 
 export trade became of comparatively less import- 
 ance and its domestic field was cultivated to an 
 extent and in a manner which showed the firm, 
 consistent, indomitable policy which was back of it 
 and based upon the character of its officers. Or- 
 ganization, splendid system, a fine spirit of co-opera- 
 tion, magnificent efficiency, indomitable enterprise, 
 loyalty and the highest possible standard of business 
 honor, firm rooted in principle ; these and other at- 
 tributes were manifested in its development. In- 
 heriting worthy traditions, it perpetuated and built 
 upon strong and firm foundations a structure of 
 industrial activity that was notable and enduring. 
 
 So the busy and useful years passed by, and Mr. 
 Bell grew with them to the stature of the greatest 
 merchant miller of his time, but it was not until 
 1899 that the Washburn-Crosby Company began its 
 more recent development, which has given it the 
 largest milling capacity in the world, not leased but 
 owned. In 1898 an attempt was made to form a 
 flour trust, and one of the principal groups desired 
 to be incorporated in the chain of mills was the 
 Washburn Flouring Mills Company’s plant, then 
 leased by the Washburn-Crosby Company. This 
 plan so far as the great mills at Minneapolis were 
 concerned was frustrated when Mr. Dunwoody, in 
 March, 1899, quietly purchased the Washburn mills 
 and transferred them to the Washburn-Crosby Com- 
 pany. That was a critical time, and the future in- 
 volved responsibilities as weighty as the achieve- 
 ments of the past had laid upon Mr. Bell and his 
 associates. Both Mr. Dunwoody and Mr. Bell, had 
 they yielded to their personal inclinations, might 
 have withdrawn from active control of the business 
 at that time, but their courage was equal to the 
 demand upon it, and putting aside all considerations 
 of personal ease, they embarked upon the greater 
 development of their enterprise which the purchase 
 of the plant involved, and in behalf of others, 
 rather than themselves, they resolutely went for- 
 ward. 
 
 Since that time until now Mr. Bell’s place has 
 been that of a leader. His grasp and comprehen- 
 sion of the difficult problems daily thrust upon him 
 have been amazing. Present or absent, his hand 
 has been upon the throttle, his finger upon the es- 
 sential, vitalizing, inspiring spot whence came the 
 impetus of an enormous and constantly growing in- 
 dustry. In no respect did he show greater genius 
 than in his ability to create, build up and perfect 
 a vital, effective and highly intelligent organization. 
 He drew to his support lieutenants in every depart- 
 ment who were notably able and competent, and he 
 rewarded them with characteristic generosity, not 
 only materially but with fine and discriminative ap- 
 
 preciation of their work. In return he received their 
 best service, their loyalty and a personal devotion 
 and affection which was both sincere and profound. 
 
 When Mr. Bell came to Minneapolis in 1888 the 
 daily capacity of the Washburn mills was 8,000 bar- 
 rels. The present daily capacity of the mills owned 
 by the Washburn-Crosby Company in Minneapolis 
 is over twenty-seven thousand barrels, and the plant 
 owned by the company in Buffalo, Louisville and 
 in Great Falls and Kalispell, Montana, have a total 
 capacity of 45,000 barrels daily, making it the great- 
 est milling concern in the world. 
 
 More important than even this great material ex- 
 pression of his energy, was the influence upon his 
 fellow man exerted by the character, the life and the 
 example of James S. Bell. The organization he 
 created and perfected is competent to carry on to 
 even greater achievement the gigantic undertaking 
 which these mills represent. It cannot fail to per- 
 petuate the policy of its great leader, for it has the 
 capacity, the spirit and the resources to do so; but 
 while his example will have a continuous influence 
 and his memory will be cherished and honored and 
 be an inspiration to all who serve the great com- 
 pany, the loss of his personality, the bodily absence 
 of the splendid captain to whom they went for 
 counsel and incentive, will be beyond all possibility 
 of repair. 
 
 Besides the presidency of the Washburn-Crosby 
 Company Mr. Bell had many other affiliations with 
 milling and financial affairs, including a place as 
 vice president of the Minneapolis Trust Company 
 and as a director in the Northwestern National 
 Bank. He was a member of the Westminster Pres- 
 byterian Church, of the Union League Club of 
 Philadelphia, the Chicago Club of Chicago and of 
 the Minneapolis -Club, the Lafayette Club and the 
 Minikahda Country Club. One of the palatial homes 
 at Lake Minnetonka, known as Belford, located at 
 Ferndale, was the residence of the family for the 
 summer months. James S. Bell was married Jan- 
 uary 8, 1873, to Miss Sallie Montgomery Ford of 
 Philadelphia, a daughter of Edwin Ford, a manu- 
 facturer. Mrs. Bell died June 19, 1905. On Sep- 
 tember 25, 1912, Mr. Bell was married in Boston, 
 Massachusetts, to Mrs. Mabel Sargent, who sur- 
 vives him. Mr. Bell is also survived by his only 
 son, the child of his first wife, James Ford Bell, 
 who is vice president and a director in the Wash- 
 burn-Crosby Company, vice president of the Wash- 
 burn-Crosby Milling Company, and secretary of the 
 Louisville Milling Company. He was married at 
 Minneapolis December 10, 1902, to Miss Heffel- 
 finger, daughter of Maj. C. B. Heffelfinger and 
 Mary Ellen (Totten) Heffelfinger, a pioneer family 
 of Minneapolis. To their marriage have been born 
 four children: James Ford, Jr., Charles H., Samuel 
 H. and SalE Louise. 
 
 The late Mr. Bell was more than a merchant 
 miller ; he was a great executive, a leader among 
 men, and had that rare power of compelling and 
 directing not only the forces of his own mind and 
 character but of those of thousands of men who 
 eagerly followed and did the things he pointed out 
 to do. He possessed the valuable faculty of being 
 able to inspire with enthusiasm the men under him. 
 Another trait was brotherly kindness and sympathy, 
 and it is known that Mr. Bell helped many strug- 
 gling younger men to successful and influential po- 
 sitions in life. 
 
 The value of his rare personality, his clear per- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1487 
 
 ception and his unerring judgment was not confined 
 to the limits of his own business, broad as these 
 limits were. Everything he touched responded 
 quickly to his understanding capability. Those who 
 came incidentally in contact with him immediately 
 recognized his incisive effectiveness and his quick 
 comprehension. It was a delight to do business 
 with him and a pleasure to serve on boards or com- 
 mittees of which he was a member. While others 
 hesitated and haggled over inconsequent trifles, he 
 instinctively went direct to the essential issue and 
 in a few words clarified it. He had little time to 
 waste on past mistakes; wisely he preferred to look 
 forward and provide against possible repetition of 
 errors. 
 
 Socially, Mr. Bell was of a genial and hospitable 
 nature. Exceedingly courteous and exceptionally 
 punctilious in manner, he was a charming and agree- 
 able companion, kindly and generous, with a great 
 charity for the weaknesses of others, his friends 
 were many and he was loyal to them. His stand- 
 ards of life were high and honorable, and although 
 tolerant in his judgments of his fellow-men he 
 never compromised his principles in order to gain 
 an advantage. In all matters, the word of James 
 S. Bell was amply sufficient. 
 
 It was not easy to gain his support for any meas- 
 ure; he was slow' to make promises, but when his 
 approval was given and his word passed, one did 
 not hesitate to depend absolutely and implicitly upon 
 his position ; it was certain and' assured. 
 
 The fine qualities of mind and heart which were 
 his notable characteristics, combined with his won- 
 derful business ability and marvelous comprehen- 
 sion of essentials, made him the ideal leader of a 
 large undertaking. He was the one man of his 
 period in the milling industry who might have 
 welded the dominant forces of the trade into a 
 great trust, had he been so disposed. Fortunately 
 Mr. Bell’s ambition did not run in this direction, 
 and he was also wise enough to understand that by 
 the time the industry had reached a point in its 
 ruthless competition where a trust might have been 
 possible, this form of corporate control was already 
 nearing the period of governmental interference. 
 He therefore contented himself with the develop- 
 ment of his own business, without attempting to 
 absorb that of others, and his remarkable success 
 attests the sagacity of his judgment. 
 
 It is not derogatory to the repute of others to 
 say that Mr. Bell was the greatest merchant miller 
 in the world. Such is but a fair summary of his 
 business record, and no one conversant with the 
 facts will deny this distinction to him, for he cer- 
 tainly earned it. Not alone will his loss be felt in 
 the industry wherein he achieved such an eminent 
 position, but it will be even more keenly felt by 
 those who enjoyed the privilege of his personal 
 friendship and who came within the inspiring, up- 
 lifting and vivifying influence of his daily life. 
 
 North Star College, Warren, Minnesota, is one 
 of the educational institutions for higher learning 
 that is making rapid strides forward. The school, 
 although non-sectarian, was organized in 1908 by 
 the Swedish Lutheran people of the Red River Val- 
 ley; and Warren was chosen as the location for the 
 school, because of the very large Scandinavian pop- 
 ulation in all of the surrounding territory. 
 
 The names and places of residence of the persons 
 
 forming the North Star College corporation are as 
 follows : 
 
 Rev. E. O. Chelgren, Warren, Minnesota. 
 
 John P. Mattson, Warren, Minnesota. 
 
 John Lindberg, Warren, Minnesota. 
 
 Aug. Lundgren, Warren, Minnesota. 
 
 P. B. Malberg, Warren, Minnesota. 
 
 Aaron Johnson, Warrenton, Minnesota. 
 
 Nels Johnson, Warren, Minnesota. 
 
 L. M. Olson, Warren, Minnesota. 
 
 Nels E. Bystrom, Warren, Minnesota. 
 
 C. H. Lindberg, Warren, Minnesota. 
 
 John Westman, Warren, Minnesota. 
 
 John W. Johnson, Warren, Minnesota. 
 
 Alfred Johnson, Warrenton, Minnesota. 
 
 Kateket Peter Dalquist, Warrenton, Minnesota. 
 
 Evart Dagoberg, Warren, Minnesota. 
 
 John L. Dalquist, Warrenton, Minnesota. 
 
 E. Olson, Foldahl, Minnesota. 
 
 The college is controlled by a board of directors, 
 seven in number, chosen from among members of 
 the North Star College Corporation. The officers 
 of the original board were Rev. E. O. Chelgren, 
 president; August Lundgren, vice president; John 
 P. Mattson, secretary; and L. M. Olson, treasurer. 
 
 During the summer of 1908, three teachers were 
 called to organize and take charge of the work pro- 
 posed. O. E. Abrahamson, A. M., was called as 
 president of the school. C. E. Sjostrand, B. Com., 
 was called as principal of the commercial depart- 
 ment, and Miss Olga Hermanson was called to take 
 charge of the music department. 
 
 During the summer of 1908 preparations were 
 made for the opening of the school, which took 
 place October 1 of the same year. On the upper 
 floor of the Washington public school building the 
 academic department and the commercial depart- 
 ment carried on their work for two years. The 
 music work was taken up in the basement of the 
 Swedish Lutheran Church. During the first two 
 years the school work was carried on in these quar- 
 ters. The third year the public school had grown 
 so that a part of the college work was crowded out 
 of the Washington building. The academic, do- 
 mestic science and musical work was carried on at 
 College Hall, which had become the property of 
 President O. E. Abrahamson. 
 
 During the first four years the attendance had 
 grown so that new quarters had to be secured, 
 especially since the public schools required all of 
 the rooms in the Washington building. The officers 
 of the college therefore bought the old Warren 
 Opera House, and transformed that into a school 
 building where all of the college work was carried 
 on for a year and a half. During this time, how- 
 ever, North Star made preparations for erecting a 
 building of its own. 
 
 At the time that the college was organized, the 
 City of Warren donated a tract of land, twenty 
 acres in extent, on the south edge of the city. On 
 this land the new college building was to be erected. 
 In order to assist in the work of soliciting funds 
 for the new building, Rev. G. Wahlund was called 
 as solicitor and manager. The early construction 
 of the building and its present large size and 
 splendid appearance are very largely due to his 
 heroic efforts. 
 
 In the summer of 1910. excavations for the college 
 building was begun. Work progressed and the 
 foundation was built in the summer and fall and 
 
1488 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 completed November 23 of the same year. During 
 the next summer, work on the new building was 
 continued so that on the 15th of October the cor- 
 nerstone for the new building was laid. The walls 
 of the building were then completed up to the sec- 
 ond story, when work had to be discontinued on 
 account of the cold weather. 
 
 During the summer of 1912 work on the new 
 building was continued, so that after having car- 
 ried on the school work in the old opera house for 
 a year and a half, we were able to move into the 
 new college on the 3d of December. This was a 
 happy day for both students and teachers, who all 
 helped to do the moving of all school property to 
 the new college building, so that not a single day 
 of school work was lost. 
 
 On the 6th of December a large gathering was 
 held at the college building at which Mr. James J. 
 Hill was one of the prominent speakers. This oc- 
 casion was the formal opening of the new building. 
 
 The new North Star building is one of the finest 
 and most up-to-date in this part of the state. It 
 is complete and modern in all respects. The ma- 
 
 terial used in the structure is concrete, brick and 
 stone with the very best hardwood finish on the 
 inside. The building is four stories high and has 
 a large attractive cupola. There are three entrances ; 
 the main one faces directly the street that leads to 
 the center of the city. The plans and specifications 
 for the building were prepared by F. E. Haldin of 
 Minneapolis, Minnesota. The total cost of the 
 building is approximately $75,000. 
 
 North Star College has a number of departments 
 with very complete courses in each : the academic 
 in which are offered the high school subjects; the 
 preparatory with the common school subjects; 
 music, commercial, shorthand, typewriting, with all 
 business subjects; cooking, sewing, art, and some 
 work in home correspondence. 
 
 The college has a splendid zoological collection 
 which is one of the best individual collections in 
 the state. It includes most of the mammals and birds 
 of Minnesota, collections of reptiles, fishes, minerals, 
 curios, etc. 
 
 During the past four years the North Star Signal 
 has been issued under the college direction. It is 
 published monthly in the interests of North Star 
 College and the entire Red River Valley. The pa- 
 per has met with a great deal of encouragement, 
 and has already a wide circulation. It contains also 
 church news from the Red River Valley. 
 
 The attendance at North Star has been very satis- 
 factory. The enrollment the first year was fifty- 
 six, the following year the enrollment was consid- 
 erably over one hundred and since that time it has 
 varied between one hundred and fifty and two 
 hundred. Students come from all parts of the Red 
 
 River 
 
 lege. 
 
 Valley. Splendid 
 The graduates by 
 
 work is done at the 
 years are as follows : 
 
 col- 
 
 1909 
 
 2 
 
 1912 
 
 . .19 
 
 1910 
 
 13 
 
 1913 
 
 . .18 
 
 I9II 
 
 16 
 
 1914 
 
 ••35 
 
 1915 28 
 
 The present board of directors (1915) are as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 Mr. August Lundgren, president. 
 
 Mr. John P. Mattson, secretary. 
 
 Mr. Nels Johnson, treasurer. 
 
 Mr. Nels E. Bystrom. 
 
 Rev. L. P. Lundgren. 
 
 Rev. Kr. Rosenthal. 
 
 Rev. F. N. Anderson. 
 
 The faculty at North Star during the school year 
 1914-1915 is as follows : O. E. Abrahamson, presi- 
 
 dent ; C. E. Sjostrand, principal of the commercial 
 department ; Miss Florence Abrahamson, domestic 
 science; Harry B. Johnson, A. B., teacher in aca- 
 demic department; Miss Agda Wennerberg, prin- 
 cipal of the music department ; Miss Lillie E. Gib- 
 son, teacher in music department; Mrs. J. Nevin 
 Johnson, art department; Harry C. Anderson, as- 
 sistant in academic department; Orville A. Schenck, 
 assistant in stenographic department. 
 
 Extensive and important changes in the courses 
 to be offered at North Star for the coming year are 
 contemplated. Since the school is located entirely 
 in an agricultural region, plans are being worked 
 out, with the advice of the national educational de- 
 partment, with the intention of offering such work 
 or courses as will interest the young men and the 
 progressive farmers of the neighboring territory. 
 In this matter North Star will take the lead, and 
 we look forward to important results. 
 
 Oscar Eugene Abrahamson. President of the 
 North Star College, at Warren, Oscar Eugene 
 Abrahamson is a native of Minnesota, and for a 
 number of years has been one of the leaders in 
 educational affairs and in the denomination activi- 
 ties of the Swedish Lutheran Church. 
 
 He was born at New Sweden, Nicollet County, 
 Minnesota, May 1, 1879, a son of Charles and Mary 
 (Gunberg) Abrahamson. His father was born in 
 Sweden, came to America in 1866, and after about 
 a year on a farm near Paxton, Illinois, removed to 
 Minnesota in 1867, where he continued farming in 
 one of the pioneer districts. 
 
 Oscar E. Abrahamson grew up on a farm, and 
 from 1890 attended school at St. Peter. He is a 
 graduate of the Gustavus Adolphus* College of St. 
 Peter, where he took his Bachelor’s degree in 1905, 
 and in 1907 was awarded the degree Master of Arts. 
 For one year he was principal of graded school at 
 Lindstrom, following which he was for two years 
 an instructor in the Lutheran Ladies Seminary at 
 Red Wing. He took an active part in the organiza- 
 tion of the North Star College, as told on preced- 
 ing pages, and as president has directed that insti- 
 tution in its successful career. 
 
 Mr. Abrahamson is also a licensed minister of 
 the Swedish Lutheran Church and a member of the 
 Warren Ministerial Association, of which he is sec- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1489 
 
 retary. He belongs to the Marshall County Teach- 
 ers’ Association and takes an active interest in edu- 
 cational matters affecting the state at large. He is 
 essentially a student, and his intimate acquaintance 
 with books did not cease with the close of his col- 
 lege career. He is also a capable executive and a 
 leader and a worker among men. Mr. Abrahamson 
 has had much experience in musical affairs, is a 
 singer and has been a member of quartettes and 
 mixed quartettes, and has done much to encourage 
 musical activity in the North Star College. He is 
 also editor of the North Star Signal. He is presi- 
 dent of the Warren Civic League, and a member 
 of the Warren Commercial Club. 
 
 On June 24, 1911, he married Hulda Sophia Mag- 
 nusson of Harris, Minnesota, and a native of this 
 state, her parents, Sven and Marie Magnusson, hav- 
 ing come here from Sweden. Mr. and Mrs. Abra- 
 hamson have two daughters, Linnea Marie and Aina 
 Magnalpha. 
 
 Edmund Joseph Phelps. Among Minneapolis 
 citizens who have been not only successful in busi- 
 ness but have done much to enrich the community 
 in those elements which make for civic wholesome- 
 ness and material prosperity, few have impressed 
 themselves at more points and have devoted them- 
 selves more unselfishly to the service and profit of 
 this city than Edmund J. Phelps. 
 
 Mr. Phelps comes of a family whose first an- 
 cestor in this country, William Phelps, settled at 
 Dorchester, Massachusetts, as early as 1630. He 
 came from Tewksbury, 'England, and about 1633 re- 
 moved to Windsor, Connecticut. Edmund J. Phelps 
 was born January 17, 1845, in Brecksville near 
 Cleveland, Ohio, a son of Joseph Edmund and Ur- 
 sula (Wright) Phelps. Ursula Wright was like- 
 wise of an old American family. After their mar- 
 riage in 1826 the parents removed to Batavia, New 
 York, and in 1844 established a home on a farm at 
 Brecksville, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. 
 
 Mr. Phelps grew up on a farm, on which he de- 
 veloped a constitution which has been one of the 
 best assets in his business career. His intense prac- 
 ticality has always been accompanied by high 
 ideals, and some of his business associates have 
 referred to him as a “practical idealist.” His edu- 
 cation, begun in the public schools of Brecksville, 
 was continued in the preparatory department of 
 Baldwin University at Berea, Ohio. He was also a 
 student in the preparatory department of Oberlin 
 College, and finished with a commercial college 
 course. His first important experience was as a 
 teacher in the Northwestern Business College at 
 Aurora, Illinois, in 1866. He lived at Aurora until 
 1878, and there laid the foundation for his business 
 career. His first experience as a banker was with 
 the firm of Volintine & Williams at Aurora, but his 
 first independent venture was in the furniture busi- 
 ness. Leaving the bank, he organized the firm of 
 E. J. Phelps & Company in 1870, and during the 
 following eight years built up a flourishing business 
 at Aurora. 
 
 While at Aurora on September 16, 1874, Mr. 
 Phelps married Miss Louisa A. Richardson. Her 
 parents were Charles R. and Ruth (Shepard) Rich- 
 ardson, who came from historic old Salem, Massa- 
 chusetts, and belonged to families represented in 
 colonial settlement and in the Revolutionary war. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Phelps have one daughter, Ruth, and 
 
 two sons, Richardson and Edmund J., Jr. Two of 
 their children died in infancy. 
 
 In 1878, having disposed of his business interests 
 at Aurora, Mr. Phelps moved to Minneapolis, where 
 he bought the furniture business of J. B. Hanson, 
 and soon formed a partnership with J. S. Bradstreet 
 under the firm name of Phelps & Bradstreet. This 
 firm not only supplied a large trade territory, but 
 also did much to stimulate a taste in artistic furni- 
 ture and house furnishings. Having withdrawn 
 from the firm in 1883, in company with E. A. Mer- 
 rill he organized the Minnesota Loan & Trust Com- 
 pany, which has since developed into one of the 
 greatest financial institutions of the Northwest. 
 For a number of years he was its secretary and 
 treasurer. This company was the first to erect a 
 fine fireproof office building in the Northwest, 
 equipped with safety deposit vaults. The building, 
 long a landmark in the central business district of 
 Minneapolis, stands on Nicollet Avenue. It was the 
 pioneer organization of its kind in Minnesota, and 
 has been the model on which many similar institu- 
 tions have, been founded. 
 
 After nearly a decade as one of the active direc- 
 tors of the Minnesota Loan & Trust Company, Mr. 
 Phelps withdrew, and his varied activities in the 
 commercial field since that time would be difficult 
 to follow and describe. For several years his pri- 
 mary interests centered in the grain and elevator 
 business, being associated with the Peavey interests 
 and was president of the Belt Line Elevator Com- 
 pany. While his relations with the grain and ele- 
 vator trade still continue, he now has various other 
 associations with business affairs, and particularly 
 with those movements which have represented the 
 united resources of Minneapolis business men in 
 the creation of a larger industrial and civic center. 
 
 Mr. Phelps was one of the prime movers in the 
 establishment of the Minneapolis business union, and 
 was its president in 1892. This organization did 
 much to induce manufacturers and jobbers to make 
 Minneapolis their headquarters. It was at the sug- 
 gestion of Mr. Phelps that a great harvest festival 
 was held in Minneapolis as an expression of grati- 
 tude and joy at the abundant harvest over the state 
 in 1891, and his leadership in that movement made 
 the festival an occasion long to be remembered. 
 His active cooperation and financial support have 
 also been given to many of the business enterprises 
 of the city. While nothing so far has led him to 
 take an active part in practical politics, he has been 
 none the less sincerely public spirited, and through 
 his interests in large business affairs and quasi- 
 public organizations has accomplished probably much 
 more than could have been achieved through any 
 political office. When in 1890 the fairness of the 
 census was challenged by the citizens of St. Paul 
 and re-enumeration was ordered, Mr. Phelps gave 
 weeks of laborious work to the complex details re- 
 quired for a recount of the city’s population. He 
 was one of the Minneapolis men who did much 
 towards securing- the National Republican Conven- 
 tion in 1892, and was treasurer of the organization. 
 
 There are few Minneapolis citizens who do not 
 recognize the value of his services in the improve- 
 ment and extension of the Minneapolis park system. 
 He was elected a member of the Park Board in 
 1905, and is now in his second term, which will ex- 
 pire in 1917. For two years he was president of the 
 board. Only recently it was announced through the 
 public press that Mr. Phelps was the donor of what 
 
1490 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 is known as “The Gateway Fountain" to become the 
 chief adornment at the entrance of the public park. 
 This fountain, which has been designed and is now 
 being modeled; is to illustrate by means of relief 
 work upon the drum or shaft the four phases of 
 development in Minneapolis, The Aboriginal, The 
 Pioneer, The Industrial and The Aesthetic. He 
 was one of the organizers of The Minneapolis Or- 
 chestral Association in 1903, and has been its vice 
 president since that time. In November, 1914, Mayor 
 Nye appointed Mr. Phelps a member of the Minne- 
 apolis Art Commission to fill the vacancy caused by 
 the death of John S. Bradstreet. 
 
 Personally Mr. Phelps is one of the most genial 
 and democratic citizens of Minneapolis. He is a 
 member of the Minneapolis Club, the Minikahda 
 Club, the Lafayette Club, the Automobile Club and 
 Society of Colonial Wars. Pie was actively identi- 
 fied with the old Commercial Club and was its 
 president in 1898 at the time of its consolidation 
 with the board of trade, of which body he was presi- 
 dent in 1884 and 1885, and was most influential in 
 bringing about that consolidation. He was formerly 
 an active member of the Minnetonka Yacht Club 
 and its commodore. 
 
 The Phelps city home is on Park Avenue and 
 Twenty-fourth Street. It is one of the older of the 
 handsome residences in Minneapolis, having been 
 built in 1884, and is one of the best examples of the 
 type of architecture then prevailing in Minneapolis. 
 Mr. Phelps also has an attractive summer home at 
 Ferndale, Lake Minnetonka, situated on ample 
 grounds with a setting improved by the best art 
 of the landscape gardener. In his prosperity Mr. 
 Phelps has never forgotten his obligations to the 
 community in which he lives. His associates assert 
 that the best ideals of service have always been 
 guiding motives with him, and his example as a citi- 
 zen has been an inspiration to younger men and one 
 of the best individual contributions to the city which 
 has been the center of his activities for nearly forty 
 years. 
 
 Otis A. Hallett. A man of high academic and 
 professional attainments, Mr. Hallett is numbered 
 among the representative younger members of the 
 bar of the Minnesota metropolis, where he main- 
 tains his office at 801 New York Life Building, and 
 his residence at 5142 Forty-second Avenue, South. 
 On a farm near Stratford, in Brown County, South 
 Dakota, Otis A. Hallett was born on the 7th of 
 September, 1884, a son of George W. and Mary 
 (Nichols) Hallett, who now maintain their home at 
 Ware, Montana, in which state the father is a suc- 
 cessful ranch owner and the operator of a threshing 
 and steam plow outfit. George W. Hallett was the 
 inventor of the first automatic feeder for threshing 
 machines utilized in the threshing of bundled grain 
 and flax, the device making it possible to handle 
 bundled grain or flax without clogging the machine 
 and the invention being patented under the title of 
 the G. W. Hallett Self-Feeder. This valuable im- 
 provement is now in use on nearly all self-feeding 
 threshing machines in the field. Like the average 
 inventor Mr. Hallett has never realized the fortune 
 that should have been his from the placing of this 
 invention on the market, his experience having been 
 that of many another man of inventive talent, in 
 that he found it necessary to enlist capitalistic sup- 
 port to place his device into practical use and was 
 eventually denied the rewards of his talent, in that 
 
 the capitalists took advantage of him, gained con- 
 trol of his invention and left him with slight returns 
 from the same. He is known to all manufacturers 
 of threshing machines in the Union and is conceded 
 to be a man of splendid mechanical and inventive 
 ability. He has handled machinery since 1879. 
 George W. Hallett is a scion of a sterling pioneer 
 family of Minnesota and was one of the first white 
 children born in Winona County, his birth having oc- 
 curred in 1855. His wife was born at Strawberry 
 Point, Clayton County, Iowa. The parents of 
 George W. Hallett were numbered among the first 
 settlers at Winona, Minnesota. 
 
 Otis A. Plallett, the eldest in a family of three 
 sons and three daughters, all of whom are living, 
 acquired his early education in the public schools 
 of Minneapolis, and Dodge Center, Minnesota, Aber- 
 deen, South Dakota, and Graceville, Minnesota, in 
 which last named place he was graduated in the high 
 school as a member of the class of 1906, his am- 
 bition and earnest application having been shown in 
 his, completion of the four years’ course in three 
 years and his having had the distinction of being 
 valedictorian of his class. After his graduation Mr. 
 Hallett went to North Dakota, where for one year 
 he gave his attention principally to the operation of 
 a steam land-breaker. He finally purchased a res- 
 taurant in that state and after, placing the same on 
 a profitable basis he rented the establishment. From 
 the returns he received in rent he was enabled to 
 return to Minneapolis and enter the University of 
 Minnesota, and while he was a student in this insti- 
 tution his restaurant was destroyed by fire, entail- 
 ing a loss to him of more than four thousand dol- 
 lars, besides depriving him of the rental revenue 
 upon which he had depended to aid in defraying his 
 university and living expenses. By his mastery of 
 expedients, however, he contrived to continue his 
 studies in the university for a total of two years, 
 though circumstances did not permit him to make 
 his attendance consecutive. Within this period he 
 also pursued a course in the Ford Office Commercial 
 College, in Minneapolis, of which he was one of the 
 first graduated, and later he served as manager of 
 the institution, from December, 1912, to July, 1913. 
 He resigned his position to take up the law, and 
 the statements already entered in this article show 
 that nothing could daunt his courage and ambition 
 and that he held as insuperable no obstacle placed in 
 his path. In the university he had attended the law 
 department one year prior to the burning of his 
 restaurant in 1908, and one year after he encoun- 
 tered this loss. He was admitted to the bar in 
 November, 1912, and since July of 1913 he has been 
 associated in practice with Daniel F. Carmichael, 
 concerning whom individual mention is made on 
 other pages of this work. No partnership alliance 
 of formal order has been consummated, however, 
 and each of the two conducts his law business under 
 his own name instead of a partnership title. 
 
 When Mr. Hallett was thirteen years of age he 
 left Minneapolis, where he had been attending the 
 public schools, and returned to the old homestead 
 in Brown County, South Dakota, and thereafter he 
 continued to be associated with his father, at irreg- 
 ular intervals in the operation of the ranch and 
 threshing machines and in other mechanical work, 
 so that he gained a thorough knowledge of machin- 
 ery and incidentally to place true valuations upon 
 honest toil and endeavor. In 1900 the family re- 
 moved to Grant County, Minnesota, where the sub- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1491 
 
 ject of this sketch was associated with his father 
 m the farming of an entire section of land, much 
 of the incidental responsibility devolving upon him. 
 This enterprise was continued until 1902 and early 
 in the following year the family home was estab- 
 lished on a farm near Graceville, Bigstone County, 
 this state, where one year was given to the cultiva- 
 tion of a half-section of land, the parents then re- 
 moving to the Town of Graceville, where Otis A. 
 attended and was graduated in the high school, as 
 previously noted in this context. In 1910 Mr. Hallett 
 was employed as a clerk in a store on the East Side 
 of Minneapolis for seven months, and later he 
 served as fireman and assistant engineer for the 
 Wabash Screen Door Company for seven months. 
 
 Mr. Hallett was, with his associate Mr. Car- 
 michael, a member of the party that made an auto- 
 mobile trip from Minneapolis to Spokane, Washing- 
 ton, details of this pleasing outing beinp- given in 
 the sketch of the career of Mr. Carmichael. Mr. 
 Hallett did not return with the other members of the 
 party, but made a most interesting hunting trip of 
 more than six weeks in Oregon and Idaho, during 
 which he journeyed down the entire course of the 
 Little Salmon River, in the wildest and most pic- 
 turesque of mountain country. 
 
 In politics Mr. Hallett is a stalwart supporter 
 of the cause of the republican party and he has 
 been an active worker in its local ranks. He gave 
 effective service in the campaign for the securing 
 of new charter for Minneapolis, in 1913, and in the 
 municipal campaign of 1914 he was chairman of 
 the Twelfth Ward Committee that worked earnestly 
 in support of the republican candidate for governor. 
 Mr. Hallett is a man of fine literary tastes and de- 
 votes much time to reading and study, with special 
 predilection for psychological and philosophical sub- 
 jects and natural science. - 
 
 In the City of Calgary, Province of Alberta, Can- 
 ada, on the 12th of July, 1910, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Hallett to Miss Catheryn W. 
 Ruff, who was born and reared in Wright County, 
 Minnesota, her parents having been pioneer set- 
 tlers of that county, where her widowed mother still 
 resides on the old homestead farm, which is on 
 the shores of Pulaski Lake. The father, Jacob 
 Ruff, an influential farmer and stock buyer of that 
 county, died in 1913, Mr. and Mrs. Hallett have 
 two children, Richard A. and Paul G., both of whom 
 were born in Minneapolis. 
 
 Benjamin Belcher Sheffield. The close con- 
 nection of Benjamin B. Sheffield with the larger 
 business interests and public institutions in Minne- 
 sota is indicated by his official relations with the 
 following organizations : President of the Sheffield 
 Elevator Company; vice president of the Com- 
 mander Mill Company, the Big 1 Diamond Mills 
 Company and the Commander Elevator Company. 
 He is president of the board of directors of the 
 Minnesota School for the Deaf and Dumb and the 
 State School for the Blind at Faribault, is a mem- 
 ber of the board of trustees for Shattuck School 
 and a member of the board of the Seabury Divin- 
 ity School at Faribault. It has been well said that 
 there is. scarcely a public interest which does not 
 enlist his attention and secure his aid, and there 
 is none to which he gives attention that is not the 
 better for it. 
 
 Benjamin Belcher Sheffield was born at Ayles- 
 ford, Nova Scotia, Canada, in i860. His parents 
 
 were Milledge B. and Rachel (Tupper) Sheffield, 
 his father a native of Aylesford and his mother of 
 Burwick. In 1864 the family came to Faribault, 
 Minnesota, where his father in 1880 became en- 
 gaged in flour milling. The son graduated from 
 the Shattuck School in 1880, and for thirty-five 
 years has been identified with the milling industry, 
 and soon became manager of an extensive business 
 already established. When the Sheffield mill was 
 destroyed by fire in 1896, it was replaced by a mill 
 of 2,500 barrels capacity, and this was operated by 
 Mr. Sheffield until 1905, when he sold. In the mean- 
 time his interests had extended to general grain and 
 milling business. He was a factor in the Sheffield 
 Elevator Company at the Minneapolis Terminal 
 from its beginning, and since about 1899 his busi- 
 ness headquarters have been in Minneapolis. He 
 was associated in 1909 with W. D. Gregory and 
 W. D. Gooding in the organization of the Big 
 Diamond Milling Company, the Commander Milling 
 Company and the Commander Elevator Company. 
 Besides the Sheffield Elevator Company, of which 
 he is president, Mr. Sheffield operates a number of 
 grain elevators in Southern Minnesota along the 
 Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, the Chicago Great 
 Western and the Minneapolis & St. Louis railroads. 
 In Minneapolis he is an active member of the 
 Chamber of Commerce, and is a former president 
 of the Security National Banks at Faribault and 
 Owatonna. He was mayor of Faribault for two 
 terms and on the occasion of the second election 
 his name appeared on both tickets without 
 opposition. 
 
 Mr. Sheffield has had membership for a number 
 of years on the board of directors which controlled 
 the two separate institutions at Faribault, the 
 School for the Deaf and Dumb and the School for 
 the Blind, and for the past seven years has been 
 president. These are institutions in which he has 
 been particulary interested, and has given much of 
 his time and energy to the welfare of those under 
 the care of the state at these schools. He has been 
 a life member of the board of trustees of the 
 Bishop Seabury Divinity School since 1897, and 
 has also for a number of years been one of the 
 trustees of the Shattuck School from which he him- 
 self is a graduate. In Masonry Mr. Sheffield has 
 taken the thirty-second degree of Scottish Rite, and 
 is also affiliated with Zurah Temple of the Mystic 
 Shrine at Minneapolis. Politically he is now iden- 
 tified with the republican partv and in 1908 was the 
 presidential elector on the Minnesota ticket. 
 
 Mr. Sheffield’s first wife was Miss Carrie A 
 Crossett of Faribault. Of their three children one 
 is now deceased, and the daughter Blanche was 
 graduated from Smith College with the class of 
 1913, and the daughter Amy is being educated at 
 Stanley Hall. Mr. Sheffield’s present wife was 
 Miss Flora M. Matteson of Minneapolis. 
 
 Edward F. Waite. One of the most notable fig- 
 ures in municipal affairs in Minneapolis during the 
 last thirty years has been Judge Edward F. Waite. 
 A lawyer by profession, much of his time of resi- 
 dence has been taken up with important administra- 
 tive duties. He deserves to be especially well 
 remembered for his services as superintendent of 
 the police department at the reorganization of the 
 municipal government and the inauguration of the 
 reform era following the notorious Ames regime. 
 For the past ten yeaFS he has served on the munici- 
 
1492 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 pal and district benches in the City of Minneapolis. 
 Judge Waite is a man of action as well as ideals, is 
 vigorous but kindly, and through all his career there 
 has been no question of his earnest and disinterested 
 purpose to give a genuine service in every relation 
 of life. 
 
 Edward Foote Waite was born at Norwich, Che- 
 nango County, New York, January 15, i860, a son of 
 John and Betsey M. (Foote) Waite. The family 
 on both sides was founded in New England during 
 the early colonial days. John Waite was an able 
 member of the bar in Central New York, and both 
 he and his wife lived in that state all their lives. 
 
 Judge Waite came to his majority in his native 
 county, and in the meantime had gained his educa- 
 tion in the public schools and in 1880 was gradu- 
 ated A. B. from Colgate University at Hamilton, 
 New York. In preparation for the profession in 
 which his father had achieved no little distinction, 
 he entered the law department of Columbian (now 
 George Washington) University at Washington, 
 D. C. While in college he showed the energy and 
 diligence at his studies which has been a marked 
 characteristic of his later career, and was graduated 
 LL. B. in 1883, and in the following year received 
 from the same institution the degree Master of Laws. 
 While in law school Judge Waite paid his expenses 
 by working as a clerk in the United States Pension 
 Bureau. After completing his law course he con- 
 tinued with the same department as special examiner, 
 and was assigned to duty at various points. In 
 this capacity he came to Minneapolis in 1888, and 
 represented the pension bureau in that city until 
 1897. In 1892-95 he had charge of the important 
 “Van Lenven investigation” in Northern Iowa and 
 Southern Minnesota. 
 
 Nearly fifteen years after graduating from law 
 school, Judge Waite took up the active work of his 
 profession in Minneapolis in 1897, having resigned 
 his work with the Federal Government. For a time 
 he was associated with the late Judge Albert H. 
 Young, who was for many years distinguished by 
 his service on the district bench of Hennepin County. 
 In 1901 Judge Waite was appointed assistant city at- 
 torney, and in August of the following year subor- 
 dinated his ambition for professional work and his 
 personal inclinations in order to accept a line of duty 
 where he had everything to lose and little to gain. It 
 was a position which in the critical times of the mu- 
 nicipal government demanded judgment, loyalty and 
 courage, and was a position in which no man, how- 
 ever high minded, faithful and diligent, could expect 
 to please all classes. At the earnest solicitation of 
 Mayor David P. Jones, who had been elected head 
 of the municipal ticket as the successor of Mayor 
 A. A. Ames, Judge Waite became superintendent of 
 the police department. The police department was 
 the chief instrument upon which the new mayor had 
 to depend in effecting a complete reorganization 
 and reform of municipal affairs. A great deal has 
 been written concerning this particular period of 
 Minneapolis local history, and it is unnecessary to 
 review the conditions which had previously existed 
 and as a result of which Minneapolis had an unen- 
 viable notoriety among American municipalities. 
 Judge Waite set about with the utmost vigor and 
 earnestness to reorganize the department and per- 
 formed his duties without fear or favor. He re- 
 leased the incompetent, the insubordinate and the 
 grafters, and made the department responsible to 
 the city at large rather than to the special and 
 
 individual interests under whose control it had for- 
 merly been. He accomplished his work with great 
 thoroughness and efficiency and finally resigned 
 the office January 1, 1903. 
 
 Judge Waite resumed private practice, but only 
 for a brief interval. In December, 1904, Governor 
 Van Sant appointed him senior judge of the Munici- 
 pal Court in Minneapolis, and after serving the un- 
 expired term he was regularly elected in November, 
 1906, for six years. In 1911 Judge Waite was ap- 
 pointed by Governor Eberhart to a newly created 
 district judgeship, and the following year he was 
 elected to the same office. For more than ten years 
 he has made his judicial administration an effective 
 force for justice and law and order in the com- 
 munity. One of the distinctions associated with his 
 work in the Municipal Court was the institution of 
 a system of probation for those under sentence for 
 minor offenses, and the effect of this dispensation 
 has been justified in many ways, and many per- 
 manent reformations of character have been brought 
 about by the humane treatment of offenders against 
 the laws. Under assignment of his colleagues of 
 the District Court he has had continuous charge of 
 the Juvenile Court branch, and to the important 
 duties of that court he has given half his time and 
 special study. 
 
 In national politics Judge Waite is a republican, 
 but has never been a strong party man and in local 
 affairs particularly has cast his influence on the 
 side of competence and honest government, without 
 respect to party interests. Judge Waite was mar- 
 ried May 5, 1892, to Miss Alice M. Eaton of Brook- 
 lyn, New York. Both have long been actively in- 
 terested in various forms of social work, especially 
 in behalf of children. Perhaps this has been due 
 in part to the fact that neither of their two sons 
 survived early infancy. They are members of 
 Plymouth Congregational Church. 
 
 John A. Larimore, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, 
 is a lawyer of twenty-five years’ - practice, interested 
 in his profession as such, an active member of the 
 local, state and American bar associations. He 
 was born in Bryan, Williams County, Ohio, Janu- 
 ary 27, 1869; has lived in Minneapolis for thirty 
 years and is married and has three sons. The 
 Larimores were among the original Scotcb-Irish 
 immigrants into the southern states in the seven- 
 teenth century. Mr. Larimore, however, is an 
 American and can trace his descent from many 
 countries. 
 
 Mr. Larimore has always been interested in pub- 
 lic affairs and has given much time thereto, but 
 always in support of principles and the causes of 
 other men, and never himself held or sought pub- 
 lic office until the present year (1915) when he was 
 a member of the House of Representatives of the 
 Minnesota Legislature and was chairman of the 
 judiciary committee of that body. 
 
 Mr. Larimore is a member of many clubs and 
 civic associations of Minneapolis and a loyal citizen 
 of his city. 
 
 Hon. Adrian Wilson Annes. The name of 
 Adrian Wilson Annes, judge of nrobate of Windom, 
 is a familiar one in legal circles and public life in 
 Cottonwood County, for here he has passed many 
 years in positions of responsibility and has attained 
 distinction both as jurist and attorney. Judge 
 Annes was born at Amadore, Sanilac County, Mich- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1493 
 
 igan, August 8, 1854, and is a son of George N. and 
 Melissa (Willets) Annes. 
 
 The Annes family originated in the North of 
 Ireland, and during Colonial days moved from Eng- 
 land to Massachusetts. On the Willets side, Judge 
 Annes is descended from Henry Champion, a sol- 
 dier of the Revolution, who was with Washington 
 at Valley Forge and participated in the campaign 
 against Burgoyne. George N. Annes was born in 
 County Ontario, Canada, and as a youth left his 
 home at Oshawa with his parents and came to the 
 United States, the family locating at Port Huron, 
 Michigan. In 1875 Mr. Annes moved to Waseca, 
 Minnesota, where he was minister of the Baptist 
 Church, having previously to this and afterwards 
 had many charges at different places in Michigan 
 and Minnesota. Mrs. Annes is now residing with 
 her son, Judge Annes, while Reverend Annes is a 
 resident of Tacoma, Washington. 
 
 Judge Annes attended the public schools of St. 
 Clair County, Michigan, until reaching the age of 
 ten years, when the family moved to Montcalm 
 County, in the same state, and there his studies 
 were prosecuted for three years. He next went to 
 school at Middleville, Barry County, to which place 
 his father had been transferred. In 1877 he was 
 graduated from Kalamazoo College, with the degree 
 of Bachelor of Philosophy, and in the same year 
 came to Morristown, Minnesota, and during the 
 term of 1877-78 taught school. From 1878 to 1880 
 he was principal of public schools at Madelia, 
 Minnesota, and from 1880 until 1883 he acted in a 
 like capacity at Windom, in the meantime assidu- 
 ously prosecuting his legal studies, having decided 
 upon a career in the law. In 1883 he entered the 
 University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, being gradu- 
 ated from the law department of that institution in 
 1885, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and was 
 admitted to the bar the same year. He did not 
 begin practice, however, until he had spent another 
 year as principal of the Windom schools, but since 
 1886 has been steadily engaged in a general civil 
 and criminal _ practice at Windom, his professional 
 business having assumed large proportions. Mr. 
 Annes has been almost constantly the incumbent of 
 important positions. From 1894 until 1900 he was 
 county attorney for Cottonwood County, served as 
 village attorney for _ a long period, was president 
 of the village council of Windom for two years; 
 and September 1, 1911, was elected judge of pro- 
 bate, receiving the re-election to that office No- 
 vember 3, 1914. Politically he is a republican. He 
 served as a member of the board of education for 
 two years, and has also acted as a member of the 
 teachers examining board. For some years Judge 
 Annes was identified with the Thirteenth Judicial 
 Bar Association, now defunct. His religious con- 
 nection is with the Baptist Church. Tudge Annes is 
 past master of Prudence No. 97, A. F. & A. M., has 
 served as principal sojourner of Windom Chanter 
 No. 48, R. A. M., belongs to Lodge No. 108, Win- 
 dom, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which 
 he is past noble grand and past grand master of the 
 state, is a member of the Modern Woodmen of 
 America, and is an ex-member of the Ancient Or- 
 der of United Workmen. 
 
 Judge Annes was married in February. 1888. at 
 Galesburg, Michigan, to Miss Ella F. Chadwick, 
 daughter of the late Edward Chadwick, who was 
 a farmer of Galesburg, and she died in March, 1889 
 having been the mother of one child : Earl C who 
 
 attends Alberta University, at Strathcona, Canada. 
 Mr. Annes was again married in 1893, at Amadore, 
 Michigan, to Miss Nina Hinkson, daughter of the 
 late Charles Hinkson, who was for some years 
 engaged in farming in the vicinity of Amadore. 
 Two children have been born to Judge and Mrs. 
 Annes : Lynn H., who is attending the high school 
 at Windom ; and George Everett, who is a pupil 
 in the public schools. 
 
 Axel Hjalmar Nilsson. For many years Axel 
 Hjalmar Nilsson has been well known in Minne- 
 apolis and the Northwest as an editor and news- 
 paper man, through his activities in musical circles 
 and as an all around popular citizen and man of 
 versatile talents. 
 
 Axel Hjalmar Nilsson was born at Norg, Sweden, 
 September 24, i860. He was educated in a col- 
 legiate institute in his native city and later in a 
 technical school at Orebro, graduating after a three 
 years’ course in 1878. On leaving college he worked 
 as a mechanical draftsman in Stockholm, and in 
 1881 came to America. Here for several years he 
 was employed in eastern cities as a mechanical 
 draftsman and also as a coppersmith, a trade he 
 had learned in the old country. From that business 
 he gradually drifted into newspaper work, and has 
 been connected with a number of Swedish publica- 
 tions in the East and West as editor and advertis- 
 ing manager. He lived at Worcester, Massachu- 
 setts, several years, and has been identified with 
 Minneapolis since about 1902. Of his standing as a 
 citizen and his varied talents an article published 
 several years ago said : “In the Swedish-American 
 singing world Mr. Nilsson has won an enviable 
 reputation as a singer, but still more as a leader. 
 He is the possessor of a fine voice and has spent 
 both time and effort in promoting Swedish song in 
 America. He has been honored by the Swedish 
 Singers Union with many prominent positions, and 
 his large experience and power of organization have 
 been of great value to Swedish song in America. 
 He was president of the American Union of Swed- 
 ish Singers, 1910-14, and director-in-chief of that 
 union at the Grand Swedish Singing Festival held 
 in Minneapolis June 8-1 1, 1914. He also possesses 
 dramatic talent, is of a happy and sunny disposition, 
 and makes hosts of friends. He is a good after- 
 dinner speaker and no mean poet.” 
 
 A daughter of Mr. Nilsson, who has been known 
 as a fine pianist, is the wife of Carl R. Chindblom, 
 a former county commissioner of Chicago. His son, 
 Verner, is a dentist in Minneapolis. Mr. Nilsson 
 has always been identified with the democratic party, 
 and in February, 1909, the late Governor Johnson 
 honored him with appointment as deputy oil in- 
 spector for Hennepin County. After the death 
 of Governor Tohnson he was retained in office by 
 Governor Eberhart and was re-appointed by Gov. 
 W. S. Hammond in April, 1915. 
 
 ^Arthur B. Borlaug. The Farmers State Bank of 
 Kenyon is one of the representative financial insti- 
 tutions in Southeastern Minnesota. Every bank 
 during its earlier years acquires estimation and in- 
 fluence in the community largely through the char- 
 acter and reputation of men whose names are most 
 intimately associated with the undertaking. With 
 any banking house or similar concern, whose pros- 
 perity rests upon commercial credit, the personal 
 factor is always the indispensable quality. The 
 
1494 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 success and prosperity of the Farmers State Bank 
 of Kenyon has been to a large degree a reflection 
 of the personal integrity and high business standing 
 of its principal owner and president, Botolf J. Bor- 
 laug, whose son Arthur B. Borlaug has for seven- 
 teen years been actively identified with the official 
 management of the bank and is its cashier. The 
 senior Borlaug has been identified with Goodhue 
 County more than forty-five years, came to Amer- 
 ica when a youth, worked as a farm laborer, also as 
 clerk, and has gained a fortune through hard labor, 
 exceptional business capacity, and an integrity 
 which has always been unimpeachable. 
 
 Botolf J. Borlaug was born in Norway, July 18, 
 1842, came to America a boy of twelve years in 
 1854, an d while working on a Wisconsin farm for 
 six years also attended a commercial college in 
 Madison. In 1863 he came to Red Wing, Minnesota, 
 spent two years as clerk in the store of W. Eisen- 
 brandt, and after another short stay in Wisconsin 
 became clerk for Olsen & Bush of Red Wing, and 
 remained two years with that firm. In 1867 Mr. 
 Borlaug bought the store of Robert White at Nor- 
 way, and in 1870 put up a small building for his 
 store, and in 1873 extended the building and hence- 
 forth was one of the leading merchants in the 
 county. In 1891, moving to Kenyon, he established 
 a private bank known as the Bank of Kenyon. In 
 1905 this was reorganized as the Farmers State 
 Bank, and Botolf J. Borlaug has since been its 
 president. The bank has a capital of $25,000, with 
 surplus and undivided profits of $18,000, and as the 
 best index of its growth and standing, its deposits 
 now amount to over $400,000. Mr. Borlaug is also 
 vice president of the Farmers and Merchants State 
 .Bank of Driscoll, North Dakota; a director of the 
 Farmers Security Company of Minneapolis; and 
 since 1897 has served as treasurer of Kenyon, having- 
 shown his willingness on every occasion to serve 
 his community. A republican, his name has not been 
 conspicuous in politics, and is best known as a 
 banker and business man. Since 1897 he has been 
 a member of the board of trustees of the United 
 Lutheran Church. On March 6, 1868, Bortolf J. 
 Borlaug married Sonave Lowe, who was also a 
 native of Norway. Their five children are: Joseph 
 E. ; Carl H. ; Randi M. ; Julius; and Arthur B. 
 
 Arthur B. Borlaug was born in Goodhue County, 
 March 1, 1878, was liberally educated in preparation 
 for a business career, attending Stoughton Academy 
 in Wisconsin, and St. Olaf College at Northfield, 
 Minnesota. Since the conclusion of his college days 
 he has been actively identified with the affairs of 
 his father’s bank, and was assistant cashier of the 
 private bank from 1897 to 1905, and then became 
 cashier. While business takes up his time, Mr. 
 Borlaug believes in the benefits of fraternal organi- 
 zations, and has affiliations with the Independent 
 Order of Odd Fellows, in which he has served as 
 past grand, with the Modern Woodmen of America, 
 and with Faribault Lodge No. 1166 B. P. O. E. 
 Mr, Borlaug was married in 1900 to Olena Wrol- 
 stad, daughter of Ennert Wrolstad of Goodhue 
 County. They are the parents of three children : 
 Cecilia, in school; Ennert, also a schoolboy; and 
 Ardelle, now five years of age. The family are 
 members of the Lutheran Church. 
 
 Judge L. W.. Collins. From 1854 until his death 
 at his home in Minneapolis September 27, 1912, 
 Loren W. Collins was a resident of Minnesota. In 
 
 the course of a career of half a century he had 
 attained many of the finest distinctions which a 
 state can bestow. Lie was a gallant soldier in the 
 Minnesota Indian wars and in the struggles in the 
 South against the Southern Confederacy, began 
 practicing law at St. Cloud soon after the war, 
 held many offices, including those of mayor, county 
 attorney and representative, sat as judge in the 
 District Court, and for seventeen years his learning 
 and broad experience were impressed on the de- 
 cisions of the Minnesota Supreme Court. His was 
 a long life of seventy-four years, remarkable for its 
 varied activities and services, and particularly rich 
 in those fruits which emanate from a steadfast and 
 high-minded character. 
 
 Loren Warren Collins was of old New England 
 stock, and his membership in Colonial and Revo- 
 lutionary societies proved the early establishment 
 of the family line in America and its patriotic 
 devotion to the country. He was born at Lowell, 
 Massachusetts, August 7, 1838. He was descended 
 from Benjamin Collins, who settled at Salisbury, 
 Massachusetts, in 1665. Judge Collins’ mother, 
 Abigail C. Libby, a native of New Hampshire, was 
 descended from John Libby, who settled near Bos- 
 ton about 1638. The father, Charles P. Collins, 
 who was a native of Vermont, was for many years 
 an overseer in cotton factories in Lowell and 
 Chicopee, Massachusetts. He moved from Lowell 
 to Chicopee in 1840, and eleven years later trans- 
 ferred his residence to Palmer, Massachusetts, which 
 was the family home for two years, while Judge 
 Collins was a boy. Then in 1854 Charles P. Collins 
 brought his family out to the extreme northwestern 
 frontier and located on unsurveyed government 
 land at Eden Prairie in Hennepin County in Min- 
 nesota Territory. There the father became one of 
 the pioneer tillers of the soil. 
 
 Judge Collins received his education in the com- 
 mon schools at Chicopee and Palmer, Massachu- 
 setts, and as he was only sixteen when the family- 
 moved to Minnesota, where colleges of higher edu- 
 cation did not then exist, and as he could not com- 
 mand the resources needed for higher training in 
 other states, Judge Collins did not receive a college 
 education. That circumstance, however, did not 
 prevent his becoming a scholarly lawyer, and either 
 in intellect or broad knowledge of the law he had 
 few peers among his associates. While in school 
 he had directed his efforts toward the end of qual- 
 ifying himself for teaching, and the first money- 
 earned was as teacher in a country school near 
 Cannon Falls during the winter of 1859-60. For 
 four months of teaching he was paid $60. In 1859 
 he had begun the study of law at Hastings with 
 the firm of Smith, Smith & Crosby, and kept up 
 his law studies and teaching until the outbreak of 
 the war. 
 
 Judge Collins’ military service began with his 
 enlistment in 1862 as a private in Company F of 
 the Seventh Minnesota Volunteers. During 1862- 
 63 the Indians of the Northwest were in a state of 
 rebellion, and it required all the resources of men 
 of Minnesota and of other states to quell the up- 
 rising. Shortly before the first Sibley expedition 
 started against the Sioux in 1862, young Collins 
 was elected second lieutenant of his company. He 
 accompanied the Seventh Regiment through the 
 Indian campaign which terminated with the Battle 
 of Wood Lake, where the Indians were routed. 
 As a result of the battle, troops recovered some five 
 

 
 
 V 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1495 
 
 hundred white women and children prisoners and 
 captured several hundred Indians. Tnirty-eight In- 
 dians who had been engaged in massacre were 
 hanged at Mankato after military trials, and Judge 
 Collins’ company was one of those on duty at tne 
 execution, borne years later, by act of the Legis- 
 lature of April 1 6, 1889, a board of commissioners 
 were appointed to supervise the preparation and 
 publication of the narrative of Minnesota in the 
 Civil and Indian wars. Judge Collins, who had 
 been lieutenant of Company F of the Seventh 
 Minnesota, contributed a chapter sketching the ac- 
 tivities of the Seventh Regiment, collaborating in 
 that work with Sergt. James T. Ramer of Winona 
 and others. As part of the experiences of his own 
 career it will be appropriate to quote the following 
 sentences from Judge Collins’ chapter: “The com- 
 pany was enlisted at Hastings by John Kennedy, 
 T. R. Huddleston and myself assisting. Kennedy 
 had a commission to recruit for the Sixth Regi- 
 ment, but on reaching Fort Snelling with his men 
 was crowded out of that organization and on the 
 22d of August very fortunately, I think, the com- 
 pany was assigned to the Seventh. Our men were 
 nearly all from Dakota county, a few from across 
 the river in Washington. Captain Kennedy spent 
 about, five hundred dollars in raising the company 
 and getting it to Fort Snelling. He never asked or 
 received pay for this, always refusing to make any 
 claim for it, although often urged to do so.” Judge 
 Collins also wrote and published a history of the 
 Sibley campaigns. 
 
 In the fall of 1863, after the Indian campaign was 
 ended, the Seventh having participated in the second 
 Sibley campaign to North Dakota, the Seventh Reg- 
 iment was ordered South. At St. Louis Judge Col- 
 lins was detached from his regiment and detailed to 
 the Provost Guard, and for three months had charge 
 of the military police during a strenuous period when 
 St. Louis was under military law. After this he 
 joined his regiment in the South, and took part in 
 a number of campaigns and battles in the Lower 
 Mississippi Valley, including Tupelo, Spanish Fort 
 and Nashville. He was on the staff of Col. S. G. 
 Hill, while commanding the Third Brigade, First 
 Division, Sixteenth Army Corps, and was present 
 with Colonel Hill when the latter was killed at the 
 Battle of Nashville. On recommendation by Col. 
 W. R. Marshall of the Seventh Minnesota, Lieuten- 
 ant Collins was recommended for promotion for 
 gallantry and efficiency and was mustered out with 
 the brevet rank of captain. 
 
 After a service of six months as a treasury de- 
 partment agent in Alabama, Judge Collins returned 
 North at the close of the war and was admitted 
 to the bar and began practice at St. Cloud in May, 
 1866. Two years later a partnership was formed 
 with Charles D. Kerr, an association that continued 
 until Colonel Kerr moved to St. Paul in 1872. In 
 1879 and until 1881 Theodore Bruener was his law 
 partner. 
 
 His record as a soldier, his ability as a lawyer, 
 and his resolute and forceful qualities of character 
 made him naturally a leader in civic affairs. From 
 the close of the war almost until the close of his 
 life he was again and again honored with the re- 
 sponsibilities of office and other positions of trust. 
 For eight years he was county attorney for Stearns 
 County, and the distinctive feature of this service 
 was that he was the only republican ever elected 
 to a county office in that county. In the municipal 
 Vol. in — 15 
 
 affairs of St. Cloud he was honored with the office 
 of mayor for four years, from 1876 to 1880, and 
 was a member of the State Legislature from 1881 
 to 1883. While in the Legislature he was chairman 
 in 1881 of the Normal School Committee and a 
 member of the Judiciary Committee. At the extra 
 session of 1881 he was one of the board of man- 
 agers on the part of the House in the impeachment 
 of Judge E. St. Julius Cox. In 1883 he was chair- 
 man ot the Legislative Finance Committee, chair- 
 man of the Committee on Temperance Legislation 
 and a member of the Judiciary Committee. 
 
 His services in the Legislature were terminated 
 in April, 1883, when Gov. Lucius .tiubbard ap- 
 pointed him judge of the Seventh District to suc- 
 ceed Judge James McKelvey. Before this term 
 expired, in November, 1884, he was regularly elected 
 to the district bench, and continued his judicial 
 office until appointed by Gov. A. R. McGill as asso- 
 ciate justice of the Supreme Court to succeed Jus- 
 tice John M. Berry. This appointment was dated 
 November 16, 1887. Again, as in the case of the 
 District Court, he was elected for the regular term 
 as a justice of the supreme bench in 1888, and 
 was twice reelected, and his service continued until 
 April 1, 1904, when he resigned. His resignation 
 was due to his active candidacy for the nomination 
 for governor on the republican ticket. At the re- 
 publican convention in 1904 Judge Collins and R. C. 
 Dunn were rivals for the gubernatorial nomination. 
 It was one of the most spirited contests in the 
 republican ranks in recent years, and as the follow- 
 ing of both candidates was unyielding, the result 
 of the battle was a temporary split in the republican 
 organization of the state, and the beneficiary of that 
 rupture was John A. Johnson, the democratic can- 
 didate who was elected governor. In the convention 
 Mr. Dunn was nominated, and Judge Collins then 
 retired to professional life in Minneapolis. When 
 Judge Collins was first elected associate justice of 
 the Supreme Court in 1888, his democratic oppo- 
 nent was George W. Batchelder, over whom his 
 majority was 46,432, the largest majority ever given 
 a state candidate up to that time. However, in 
 1894, Judge Collins surpassed his previous record, 
 when his majority over John W. Willis, who was 
 the nominee of both the populists and democrats, 
 was 49,684. During his career as justice of the 
 Supreme Court Judge Collins wrote more than fif- 
 teen hundred of the opinions now found in the 
 Supreme Court reports, and his work is a permanent 
 contribution to the jurisprudence of the state. 
 
 On the reorganization of the Northwestern 
 National Life Insurance Company in 1905, Judge 
 Collins was elected its president, but resigned one 
 year later. During his practice at Minneapolis 
 from the close of his judicial career until his death 
 he was alone the greater part of the time, but in 
 1910 became associated with L. xC Eaton, and that 
 relationship was only dissolved by the death of the 
 senior member. 
 
 While Judge Collins was always affiliated with the 
 republican party, his long judicial record placed him 
 on a plane above ordinary partisanship and he en- 
 joyed the appreciation and esteem of all classes. 
 An interesting illustration of this was when he was 
 offered by the democratic governor. John Lind, 
 the office of United States senator on December 28, 
 1900, after the death of Sen. C. K. Davis. Both for 
 personal and political reasons Judge Collins felt 
 obliged to decline this honor. 
 
1496 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Outside of his profession and service on the 
 bench, Judge Collins long maintained active rela- 
 tions with various organizations, and was par- 
 ticularly interested in charitable work, and at one 
 time served as president of the Minnesota branch of 
 the International Sunshine Society. He was also 
 a former president of the State Historical Society. 
 But more than to any other organization Judge 
 Collins was devoted to the welfare of his old com- 
 rades in arms, and to the work of the Grand Army 
 of the Republic both in his own state and in the 
 nation. He served as state commander for the 
 military order of the Loyal Legion and from June, 
 1908, to June, 1909, commander of the state de- 
 partment, G. A. R. But it was especially in the 
 national Grand Armv organization that his serv- 
 ices were almost constantly sought, and for many 
 years he was one of the outstanding figures among 
 the old soldiers of the Union. When not in one 
 position, he was appointed to another, served as 
 judge advocate general of the national organization 
 in 1907-08, under Commander-in-Chief C. G. Bur- 
 ton and for many years was on the Executive 
 Committee of the National Council of Administra- 
 tion. Among the many tributes that were paid to 
 him at the time of his death, of especial interest 
 were those coming from Corp. James Tanner of 
 New York, who had been commander-in-chief of 
 the Grand Army of the Republic in 1905-06, and 
 former United States commissioner of pensions. 
 Mr. Tanner happened to be in Minneapolis when 
 Judge Collins died. Not only in his home city and 
 state, but from men of distinctive position all over 
 the country there came numerous messages of ap- 
 preciation and esteem for this venerable judge and 
 lawyer. Judge Collins held membership in the 
 Society of the Colonial Wars and the Sons of the 
 American Revolution, was affiliated with the Ma- 
 sonic and Elks fraternities, and belonged to the 
 Minneapolis Commercial Club, and the Lafayette 
 Country Club. He was a Unitarian. 
 
 On September 4, 1878, Judge Collins was mar- 
 ried at Berlin, Wisconsin, to Ella M. Stewart, who 
 died May 31, 1894. Three sons survive, as fol- 
 lows : Stewart G., who is now in the real estate 
 and building business at Duluth ; Louis L., city 
 editor of the Minneapolis Journal ; and Loren F., a 
 Minneapolis architect. 
 
 Pembroke W. Mook. A capacity for painstaking 
 and- energetic industry has transformed Pembroke 
 W. Mook, of Zumbrota, from an impecunious home- 
 steader of raw property into the owner of a pros- 
 perous real estate business, and since his arrival in 
 this city, in 1901, he has done much to foster and 
 encourage its growth and development. A repre- 
 sentative of that sturdy element which has drawn 
 its material and intellectual substance from the 
 fertile prairies, and with them has attained matur- 
 ity through splendid co-operation of awakening 
 forces, his operations in the line of realty have been 
 such as to attract new settlers to the locality of his 
 adoption, but he has not confined his efforts to the 
 immediate section of Goodhue County but conducts 
 large enterprises in various states of the West hnd 
 Southwest. 
 
 Mr. Mook was born in New York state, February 
 13. 1857, and is a son of Sampson and Margaret 
 M. (Martin) Mook, natives of the Empire state. 
 His paternal grandfather, Jacob Mook, was born 
 in Germany, from whence he came to the United 
 
 States as a young man and settled in Western Penn- 
 sylvania, later removing to New York, where he 
 died. ITe was the father of twenty-three children, 
 all by one wife. The maternal grandfather of Mr. 
 Mook was Samuel Martin, who was born in Madi- 
 son County, New York, of Irish parentage. Samp- 
 son was born July 21, 1833, and grew up amid agri- 
 cultural surroundings, so that it was but natural 
 that he adopt the pursuits of the soil as his life 
 work. At the age of eighteen years, without one 
 cent of capital, he went into debt for a tract of land 
 in New York, and there he so well directed his 
 labors, that in 1903 he sold his large property at 
 $135 an acre. He died at the home of his daughter, 
 Mary, on December 29, 1914. Mr. Mook was a 
 republican in politics and a member of the German 
 Lutheran Church. He was married at East Pem- 
 broke, New York, in 1851, to Miss Margaret M. 
 Martin, who was born in 1831, and died in 1901 
 in the faith of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of 
 which she had been a lifelong member. They be- 
 came the parents of three children : Mary, who 
 became the wife of Anthony Gray, a prosperous 
 farmer of New York state; Pembroke W., of this 
 review; and Abraham, who died June 10, 1912. 
 
 Educated in the district schools of his native 
 locality, Pembroke W. Mook worked on his father’s 
 farm until 1881, when, with the little capital he had 
 been able to secure from his earnings, he decided 
 to try his fortunes in the West, and accordingly 
 made his way to Dakota, where he secured a home- 
 stead. His sturdy and earnest efforts soon brought 
 results, so that he was enabled to purchase some 
 property, and from that time to the present his 
 success has been assured. Mr. Mook came to Zum- 
 brota in 1901, and at that time engaged in the real 
 estate business, which, under his able management, 
 has grown and developed into one of the leading 
 industries of its kind in this section of the state. 
 A large part of his property Mr. Mook buys out- 
 right, and he is now the representative of important 
 interests in Mexico, Texas, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, 
 Montana, Wyoming and other states, with proper- 
 ties in every part of Minnesota. His confidence in 
 the future of Zumbrota has been shown in numerous 
 ways, particularly in his investments in realty, and 
 his home here is probably the finest in the city. 
 He served as justice of the peace for four years 
 and discharged his duty in an impartial manner. 
 And also did able work for his adopted community 
 as a member of the city council. In political mat- 
 ters, Mr. Mook maintains an independent stand, 
 refusing to be bound down by party lines. 
 
 In 1885 Mr. Mook was married to Miss Sylvia M. 
 Hark, of New York state, daughter of Frederick 
 A. Hark, a shoemaker and farmer, of German 
 descent. Mr. and Mrs. Mook are members of the 
 Congregational Church. He has taken a keen inter- 
 est in fraternal matters and is widely known therein, 
 being a member of Herman Lodge, No. 41. A. F. 
 & A. M., of which he is past master, of the Chapter 
 and Commandery at Red Wing and the Consistory 
 and Shrine at St. Paul. He is also a member of 
 the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks ; and 
 the Knights of Pythias, in which he is past chan- 
 cellor and at present deputy grand chancellor. 
 
 H. Edward Weiss. Of the younger generation of 
 business men of the flourishing City of Zumbrota, 
 prominence is deservedly accorded to H. E. Weiss, 
 the greater part of whose active career has been 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1497 
 
 devoted to operations in the field of finance, and 
 who is now cashier of the Security State Bank, one 
 of the thriving institutions of Goodhue County. A 
 man of enterprise and progressive ideas, he has 
 brought himself to the forefront by his own efforts, 
 and while achieving his personal success has also 
 been instrumental in securing prosperity for his 
 city. 
 
 Mr. Weiss is a native son of Zumbrota, Goodhue 
 County, Minnesota, where he was born November 
 19, 1878, his parents being Henry and Mary (Starz,) 
 Weiss. His father, a native of Germany, came to 
 the United States in 1864 as a, youth of sixteen 
 years, and at once took up his residence in Good- 
 hue County, where he has ever since been identified 
 with farming operations. Mr. Weiss is a worthy 
 representative of his race, and possesses its traits 
 of industry, thrift and integrity, through which 
 characteristics he has made a success of his business 
 affairs. He is independent in his political views, 
 and at various times has served in offices within the 
 gift of his fellow-townsmen in Zumbrota Township, 
 and at one time was a member of the board of 
 county commissioners. He is a member of the 
 German Lutheran Church. Mr. Weiss was married 
 in Mineoia Township, Goodhue County, to Miss 
 Mary Starz, who was born in March, 1851, in Wis- 
 consin, a daughter of Jacob and Rosine Starz, na- 
 tives of Germany, both of whom are now living 
 retired at Zumbrota after many years passed in the 
 pursuits of the soil, the grandfather having reached 
 the age of eighty-four years and the grandmother 
 being eighty years of age. Five children were born 
 to Henry and Mary Weiss, of whom three are liv- 
 ing: Anna Grover, of Zumbrota; H. Edward, of 
 this review; and Edith, who married Mr. Johnson, 
 of this city. 
 
 H. E. Weiss received his early education in the 
 district schools in the vicinity of his father’s farm, 
 and this was subsequently supplemented by a busi- 
 ness course in a college at Red Wing, Minnesota. 
 He was reared to agricultural pursuits, but was 
 ambitious for a business career and in 1897 secured 
 the position of bookkeeper with the Security State 
 Bank of Zumbrota, a capacity in which he continued 
 to serve until 1902, when he was elected cashier, his 
 present office. This is known as one of Goodhue 
 County’s substantial banking institutions, well man- 
 aged by capable financiers, and has a capital of 
 $30,000, surplus and undivided profits of $20,000, 
 and average deposits of between $450,000 and 
 $500,000. Mr. Weiss possesses the traits of courtesy, 
 consideration and integrity, and maintains, in his 
 many-sided intercourse with the public, the highest 
 tenets of business life. 
 
 In 1902 Mr. Weiss was married to Miss Winifred 
 Tucker, daughter of Richmond Tucker, who for 
 many years was engaged in farming on a farm 
 near Kasson, Dodge County, Minnesota. One child 
 has been born to this union : Marion, who is attend- 
 ing school. Mr. and Mrs. Weiss are members of 
 the English Lutheran Church. He is well known in 
 Masonic circles, having passed through all' the chairs 
 and being a member of the Blue Lodge and Chap- 
 ter; and is also affiliated with the Knights of 
 Pythias and Lodge No. 845, Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks. 
 
 John S. Pillsbury. Two public events ever make 
 the name of John Sargent Pillsbury especially 
 prominent in the history of Minnesota, a state that 
 
 must, along manifold directions, ever pay to his 
 memory a tribute of highest honor and appreciation. 
 Although he achieved eminence as a man of affairs 
 and one of rare business and executive ability, yet 
 to posterity his name will be held in the highest 
 honor on account of his labors in behalf of the 
 University of Minnesota, which was primarily 
 through his efforts and benefactions saved from 
 practical extinction and placed among the foremost 
 educational institutions of the country ; and, second, 
 to the splendid influence exerted by him in bringing 
 about the payment of the repudiated state bonds. 
 
 John Sargent Pillsbury was born at Sutton, Mer- 
 rimac County, New Hampshire, July 29, 1828, and 
 his death occurred in the City of Minneapolis, Min- 
 nesota, on the 18th of October, 1901. His ancestry 
 is traced to Joshua Pillsbury, who came from Eng- 
 land in 1640 and settled in Newburyport, Massa- 
 chusetts, and who received from the English crown 
 a grant of land, portions of which remain in the 
 possession of the Pillsbury family to the present 
 day. Micajah Pillsbury, great-grandfather of the 
 future governor of Minnesota, settled in Sutton, 
 New Hamoshire, in 1790. He to whom this memoir 
 is dedicated was a son of John and Susan (Wad- 
 leigh) Pillsbury, and his father was a manufacturer 
 and influential citizen of New Hampshire, where 
 he died in the year 1857. 
 
 The early educational advantages of John S. Pills- 
 bury were limited to the common schools in his 
 native town, but through constant reading and 
 thought in later years he became educated as few 
 college graduates are. His range of reading ran 
 through all departments of literature, and he be- 
 came a specially close student of economy, history, 
 politics and other sociological subjects. He left 
 school at an early age and began to learn the paint- 
 er’s trade, and when about sixteen years of age 
 began clerking in the general store conducted at 
 Warner, New Hampshire, by his elder brother, 
 George A. Pillsbury. Upon attaining to his ma- 
 jority he became associated in business with Walter 
 Harriman, who later became governor of New 
 Hampshire, and this alliance continued two years, 
 the following two years having been passed at Con- 
 cord, the judicial center of his native county, where 
 he conducted a merchant tailoring establishment 
 and dealt in cloth. Mr. Pillsbury finally became 
 assured that superior opportunities were to be found 
 in the great West, and in 1853 he made an extended 
 tour throughout the western and northwestern 
 states. In June, 1855, he visited Minnesota and de- 
 termined to make permanent settlement at St. 
 Anthony. Here he forthwith engaged in the hard- 
 ware business, in association with George F. Cross 
 and Woodbury Fisk. The firm successfully weath- 
 ered the financial panic of 1857 until there came by 
 fire a loss of about $38,000. Mr. Pillsbury was left 
 practically without financial resources, but he paid 
 every indebtedness and within five years was again 
 a prosperous merchant. He continued in the hard- 
 ware business until 1875, when he sold out, for the 
 purpose of engaging more largely in the milling 
 business, as he had established a few years pre- 
 viously, in association with his nephew, Charles A. 
 Pillsbury, the milling firm of C. A. Pillsbury & 
 Company. In 1858 he was elected a member of the 
 city council of Minneapolis, and this position he 
 retained six years. At the inception of the Civil 
 war he assisted in the organization of the first three 
 Minnesota regiments of volunteers, and in 1862 he 
 
1498 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 gave substantial aid in recruiting and equipping a 
 mounted company that went to the frontier to fight 
 the Indians. 
 
 In 1851 Congress granted 46,000 acres of land in 
 the Territory of Minnesota for the establishing of 
 a university. In 1856 this land was mortgaged in 
 the sum of $40,000 and bonds were issued for the 
 erection of the university buildings. The financial 
 affairs of the new institution became greatly in- 
 volved and the general view of the situation was 
 that the institution would have to go down and 
 the creditors permitted to take whatever assets 
 there were. All this time, while actively engrossed 
 in business, Mr. Pillsbury had watched the affairs 
 of the university with great solicitude, and he ar- 
 rived at the determination that it should not fail 
 until he had made every possible effort to save it. 
 He determined to do his utmost to afford the youth 
 of Minnesota a university of which they might be 
 proud. He became one of the regents of the uni- 
 versity in 1863, and in this office he brought to bear 
 his splendid constructive and executive powers. 
 In the same year he was elected a member of the 
 State Senate, and in this body he urged the action 
 which resulted in placing of the university affairs 
 in the hands of a new board of regents. Mr. Pills- 
 bury naturally was retained as a member of the 
 new board, and finally, after indefatigable effort, 
 he succeeded in fully discharging all outstanding 
 bonds, and other claims, without asking or desiring 
 personal compensation. Through his labors and 
 unselfish devotion there were saved to the university 
 more than thirty thousand acres of the land granted 
 by Congress, and also the present site of the uni- 
 versity, the grounds and buildings of which are to- 
 day valued at fully three-quarters of a million dol- 
 lars. Thus was the university freed from the bur- 
 dens that threatened to destroy it, and from that 
 time success was assured. For virtually an entire 
 decade Mr. Pillsbury continued a member of the 
 State Senate, and during all this time he made the 
 affairs of the university a matter of personal care 
 and study, to him being due credit for the generous 
 appropriations which he insistently urged upon the 
 Legislature. 
 
 Mr. Pillsbury never wavered in his allegiance to 
 the republican party, and few men have had broader 
 and more positive views concerning matters of eco- 
 nomic and governmental polity. In 187S1 without 
 effort on his part, he was nominated and elected 
 governor of Minnesota. His administration, ad- 
 mirable in every respect, has become an integral 
 part of the history of the state, and an article of 
 the circumscribed province of the one here pre- 
 sented, can not enter into details concerning his 
 labors as chief executive. However, it is but con- 
 sistent that there be given an idea of conditions 
 that prevailed when he was chosen to this office. 
 Uniting breadth of view with great business sagac- 
 ity, he was peculiarly fitted for the guidance of a 
 young commonwealth struggling with unwonted 
 difficulties. Following the financial panic of 1873 
 the people had emerged from an experience of 
 feverish inflation to find themselves harassed with 
 local debt and confronted with reduced values. To 
 this was added the grasshopper scourge, which in 
 many localities inflicted poverty of extreme order, 
 while all vocations suffered a depression wholly 
 without precedent. In this condition of affairs the 
 inauguration of Governor Pillsbury was looked for- 
 ward to with unusual interest. His reputation for 
 
 liberality, his high integrity, and his useful career, 
 as a state senator, in the promotion of educational, 
 charitable and other enlightened legislation, justi- 
 fied popular expectation and inspired new hope for 
 the future. In his inaugural address’ he urged the 
 necessity of both rigid economy and liberal ex- 
 penditures, and made a most earnest plea for the 
 honor of the state, in urging the just and speedy 
 liquidation of its long repudiated railroad bonds. 
 Grave responsibilities faced Governor Pillsbury dur- 
 ing his entire period of service, but he bravely 
 and loyally faced every emergency and brought 
 about in his first term such admirable results that 
 in 1877 he was re-elected, by an increased majority. 
 He showed the deepest humanitarian spirit and also 
 that great circumspection and judgment that make 
 the ideal executive. After the expiration of his sec- 
 ond term he was solicited by the friends of good 
 government to accept nomination for a third term, 
 and though he expressed an earnest wish to retire, 
 the nomination was virtually forced upon him, and 
 he was re-elected by a large majority, this being 
 the first and only instance in the history of Minne- 
 sota in which a governor has been given three con- 
 secutive terms of office ; but the people had such 
 confidence in Governor Pillsbury that they cared 
 nothing for political precedent. 
 
 The one great achievement of Governor Pillsbury 
 in his third term as governor was in bringing about 
 the payment of the principal and interest on the long 
 repudiated bonds of the state. He worked against 
 great odds in urging the justice and imperative 
 consistency of this action, and as leader in the win- 
 ning of a noble triumph it must have been to the 
 governor a proud and grateful reflection that, ex- 
 cepting a few unpresented bonds in unknown hands, 
 not an unredeemed obligation remained to dishonor 
 the state. 
 
 It is seldom, indeed, that the highest officer of an 
 American commonwealth is charged with so many 
 and important duties as those which crowded the 
 six years’ administration of Governor Pillsbury. 
 What with the labor of repelling the grasshopper 
 invasion, the efforts to rescue the settlers from the 
 ravages of these insects, the duty of adjusting the 
 claims of numerous' settlers upon railroad lands, 
 the appointment of many new judicial and other 
 officers, the trials following the destruction of the 
 state capital by fire, the providing for the inmates 
 of the burned insane asylum, and the various labors 
 and responsibilities in adjusting a long-standing 
 indebtedness, which saved the credit of the state and 
 subserved public justice, — there was a ceaseless de- 
 mand upon the governor’s attention. 
 
 In 1872 Governor Pillsbury engaged in the man- 
 ufacturing of flour in Minneapolis, and no Amer- 
 ican needs ask how all-pervading as been the influ- 
 ence of the Pillsbury name in connection with this 
 important line of industry, which has done more 
 than all else to make Minneapolis famous. In the 
 earlier stages of his activities in this field of enter- 
 prise the governor was associated with his nephew, 
 Hon. Charles A. Pillsbury, and his brother, Hon. 
 George A. Pillsbury, under the firm name of C. A. 
 Pillsbury & Company, and the great industry, one of 
 the most stupendous of its kind in the world, is now 
 conducted under the title of the Pillsbury Flour 
 Mill Company, more detailed reference to the gi- 
 gantic concern being given on other pages of this 
 review, in the memoir dedicated to the late Charles 
 A. Pillsbury. The business activities of Governor 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1499 
 
 Pillsbury penetrated every part of Minnesota and 
 extended far out into other states of the Union, and 
 at his death his fortune was approximately esti- 
 mated at two million dollars. He had large lumber 
 and real estate interests through the Northwest, 
 was identified with railroad construction, for many 
 years was a director in several of the leading bank- 
 ing institutions of Minneapolis, and all of his mani- 
 fold capitalistic investments were not only made 
 with characteristic wisdom but they tended also to 
 foster the general progress and welfare of the state 
 which he honored and which greatly honored him. 
 
 The benefactions of Governor Pillsbury were 
 many and important, and all of his offerings were 
 made without ostentation and with a deep sense of 
 personal responsibility imposed by success and 
 wealth. In 1889 he erected and gave to the Uni- 
 versity of Minnesota its magnificent science build- 
 ing, known as Pillsbury Hall, this representing an 
 expenditure of $150,000. Ever apprecitative of his 
 native town, endeared to him by hallowed memories 
 and associations, he there erected the Pillsbury 
 Memorial Hall, a town building that he designed as 
 an enduring monument to the memory of his par- 
 ents. At Sutton, New Hampshire, this beautiful 
 building was dedicated on the 13th of July, 1892. 
 In 1898, in conjunction with his devoted wife, he 
 established at Sutton an endowment fund of $100,- 
 000 for the erection and maintenance of a home for 
 children and aged women. In 1900, the year prior 
 to his death, the governor and his wife erected in 
 Minneapolis a home for working girls, this noble 
 institution representing an investment of $25,000, 
 and being named in honor of Mrs. Pillsbury. In 
 1901, only a short time prior to the close of his 
 long and useful life, Governor Pillsbury donated 
 $75,000 for the erection of the fine Pillsbury Li- 
 brary, on the East Side of Minneapolis. In Sep- 
 tember, 1900, at the University of Minnesota was 
 unveiled a fine statue of Governor Pillsbury, the 
 same having been erected by the appreciative alumni 
 of that institution. 
 
 All of the deeds of the exceptionally active and 
 prolific life of Governor Pillsbury might be classed 
 as labors for humanity. He lived a “godly, right- 
 eous and sober life,’’ — was pure-hearted, clean- 
 handed, broad-minded and sympathetic, and he re- 
 joiced to designate himself as a plain man of the 
 people. Ever ready to listen to the story of the 
 unfortunate, his generosity was unbounded, and in 
 his personality was a veritable incarnation of the 
 Beatitudes. Of no man could it be said more con- 
 sistently that he did not let his left hand know what 
 his right hand was doing in the way of charities 
 and benevolences. Often his own family did not 
 know, unless the knowledge came to them from out- 
 side sources, of his acts of charity and other forms 
 of practical helpfulness, and in many other gracious 
 acts of this nature the members of his family were 
 equally earnest in co-operation. He accumulated 
 wealth not by impinging upon the rights of others, 
 but he was ever ready to lend a helping hand to 
 others, even his business competitors. Of him it 
 has been consistently said that “with all his getting 
 he did not forget that there is a better owning than 
 to own, that the giver, to the getter, is the true 
 owner.” Democratic to the last degree, he hated all 
 display. Of a sympathetic nature, he was yet cap- 
 able of a “god-like anger,” and he hated all mean- 
 ness as only a noble nature is capable of hating. 
 Rich and poor alike sought his counsel and assist- 
 
 ance, and all who came within the sphere of his 
 influence thought of him as a friend. With deep 
 reverence for the spiritual verities, Governor Pills- 
 bury was possessed of the faith that makes faithful, 
 and while he was not formally a member of any re- 
 ligious organization he was a regular attendant and 
 officer of the First Congregational Church of Min- 
 neapolis, and contributed generously to the various 
 departments of its work. 
 
 At Warner, New Hampshire, on the 3d of No- 
 vember, 1856, was solemnized the marriage of Gov- 
 ernor Pillsbury to Miss Mahala Fisk, a daughter 
 of Capt. John Fisk, who was a descendant of Rev. 
 John Fisk, the latter having immigrated from Suf- 
 folk, England, to America in 1637, settling at Win- 
 dom, Massachusetts. Mrs. Pillsbury died June 23, 
 1910, and in the gracious evening of her life she 
 was sustained and comforted by the memories of 
 their long and devoted companionship. Of the four 
 children, Addie, who became the wife of Charles 
 M. Webster, and Susan M., who became the wife 
 of Fred B. Snyder, died several years prior to the 
 time when their father passed to the life eternal; 
 Sarah Belle is the wife of Edward C. Gale, of 
 Minneapolis ; and Alfred Fisk has succeeded to 
 many of the interests and responsibilities of his 
 father, being now vice president of the Pillsbury 
 Flour Mills Company. 
 
 t 
 
 George A. Pillsbury. On other pares of this 
 work, in the memoir dedicated to the late Gov. John 
 S. Pillsbury is given an epitome of the family his- 
 tory, and equally potent was the influence exerted by 
 his elder brother, whose name introduces this arti- 
 cle and to whom must needs be given, as a matter 
 of historical consistency and merited tribute, specific 
 recognition in this history of the state for which he 
 did so much and which so highly honored him. 
 
 Hon. John S. Pillsbury. second son of John and 
 Susan (Wadleigh) Pillsbury, was born at Sutton, 
 Merrimac County, New Hampshire, on the 29th of 
 August, 1816, and his death occurred in Minneapolis, 
 on the 15th of July, 1898. After receiving a thor- 
 ough common school education in his native town 
 he began business life at the age of eighteen years, 
 as a clerk in a grocery and fruit store at the old 
 Boylston Market, in the City of Boston, Massa- 
 chusetts. At the end of one year he returned to 
 Sutton, where he forthwith engaged in the manu- 
 facturing of stoves and sheet-iron ware, in company 
 with his cousin, John C. Pillsbury. In 1840 he re- 
 moved to the Town of Warner, in his native county, 
 and there he was actively engaged in the mer- 
 cantile business until the spring of 1848, when he 
 went to Boston and accepted a position in a whole- 
 sale dry-goods house. In the following year, how- 
 ever, he returned to Warner, where he engaged 
 in business and where he remained until 1851. In 
 1844 he had served as postmaster at Warner; in 
 1847 he served as selectman of the town ; in 1849 he 
 was both selectman and town treasurer ; and in 
 1850-51 he was representative to the general court 
 of the county, as well as one of the commissioners 
 in charge of erecting the Merrimac county jail, at 
 Concord. 
 
 In November, 1851, Mr. Pillsbury was appointed 
 purchasing agent for the Concord Railroad Com- 
 pany, and in the following month he removed to 
 Concord, the county seat. He retained this office 
 until July, 1875, and during his able administration 
 his purchases amounted to more than three million 
 
1500 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 dollars, besides which he settled more cases for 
 claims against the road for personal injury than did 
 all other officers combined. During a residence of 
 more than a quarter of a century in Concord Mr. 
 Pillsbury was called upon to fill many positions of 
 honor and trust, and he did much to further the civic 
 and physical development and progress of the little 
 New England city. He was one of the organizers 
 of the First National Bank of Concord, in 1864, 
 and was its president from 1866 until he came to 
 Minneapolis, in 1878, under his regime the bank 
 becoming, in proportion to its capital, the strongest 
 in the State of New Hampshire. In 1867 he was 
 one of the organizers and incorporators of the Na- 
 tional Savings Bank of Concord, and he served as 
 its president from the time of incorporation until 
 1874, when he resigned. He was for many years 
 a member of the city council of Concord, served two 
 years as its mayor, and in 1871-72 he was a repre- 
 sentative in the New Hampshire Legislature. 
 
 In the spring of 1878 Mr. Pillsbury came to Min- 
 nesota and established his home in Minneapolis, 
 where he became associated with his two sons and 
 his brother in the extensive manufacturing of flour. 
 Due record concerning the gigantic enterprise built 
 up in this industrial line is given in the sketch of 
 the career of his son, Charles A., now deceased, on 
 other pages of this publication. In Minneapolis Mr. 
 Pillsbury won the respect and esteem of all classes 
 of citizens and endeared himself to all who came 
 within the compass of his more intimate personal 
 influence. Soon after his arrival he was elected a 
 member of the board of education and of the city 
 council, of which latter body he was made presi- 
 dent. In 1884, after a spirited campaign and with 
 a formidable opponent, he was elected mayor of the 
 city, and his victory was most decisive, as he was 
 elected by about eight thousand votes, — a change 
 of more than six thousand votes from the last pre- 
 ceding city election. His administration was char- 
 acterized by devotion to detail, economy in expendi- 
 ture, and rigid control of the unruly elements. As 
 a loyal, liberal and public-spirited citizen he took the 
 deepest interest in community affairs, and among the 
 civic positions which he held may be mentioned the 
 following: President of the Minneapolis Board of 
 Trade, the Homoeopathic Hospital, the Free Dis- 
 pensary, the Chamber of Commerce, the Pillsbury 
 & Hurlbut Elevator Company; vice president of 
 the Minnesota Loan & Trust Company, and director 
 and president of the Northwestern National Bank 
 and of the Minneapolis Elevator Company. He was 
 also a trustee of the University of Chicago. In 
 1885 Mr. Pillsbury was chairman of the building 
 committee of the Minneapolis Chamber of Com- 
 merce, and in the following year he became chair- 
 man of the committee assigned to the erection of 
 the First Baptist Chuch of Minneapolis, at that time 
 the largest and most costly ecclesiastical edifice west 
 of Chicago. To this church Mr. Pillsbury and his 
 family gave a beautiful organ, which they installed 
 at a cost of $8,500 and which is still one of the 
 largest and best in the city. 
 
 Mr. Pillsbury has always been a loyal supporter 
 of the cause of education. He was a member of 
 the board of education at Concord, New Hampshire, 
 and contributed liberally toward the endowment of 
 Colby Academy, at New London, that state. He 
 was also greatly interested in an academy at 
 Owatonna, Minnesota, and gave to the institution 
 a princely donation, by the erection of a ladies’ 
 
 boarding hall, at a cost of $30,000. In 1888, by act 
 of the Legislature, the name of this academy was 
 changed from Minnesota Academy to Pillsbury 
 Academy, and the institution thus stands as a monu- 
 ment to his memory. In 1889 he expended 840,000 
 for the erection of a new building for the academy, 
 the same containing recitation rooms, offices, a chem- 
 ical laboratory, a gymnasium and baths, a chapel, 
 and a spacious auditorium. Other benefactions 
 made by Mr. Pillsbury to this academy reached an 
 aggregate of about $150,000. At the annual meeting 
 of the American Baptist Missionary Union, held in 
 Minneapolis, in 1888, Mr. Pillsbury was elected its 
 president. This organization has its headquarters 
 in Boston and has charge of all the foreign mis- 
 sionary work of the Baptist churches in all of the 
 northern and some of the southern states. 
 
 Mr. Pillsbury did not permit time or distance to 
 lessen his affection for his native state, and in 1890 
 he donated to the City of Concord, New Hampshire, 
 at a cost of $75,000, a free hospital, named in honor 
 of his wife and known as the Margaret Pillsbury 
 Hospital; to Warner, in the same county, he gave 
 a free public library, which is known as the Pills- 
 bury Free Library, and this represented an expendi- 
 ture of $20,000; to Sutton, his native town, he gave 
 an imposing soldiers’ monument. 
 
 On the 9th of May, 1841, was solemnized the mar- 
 riage of Mr. Pillsbury to Miss Margaret S. Carle- 
 ton, daughter of Henry and Polly (Greeley) Carle- 
 ton. Of the three children of this union the only 
 daughter died in infancy, and the younger son, Fred 
 C., died in 1891. The elder son, Charles A., was 
 summoned to the life eternal in 1899, and to him 
 a memoir is dedicated on other pages of this work. 
 
 A fitting paragraph with which to close this tribute 
 is that gained by extracts taken from the Concord, 
 New Hampshire, Evening Monitor of July 25, 1890, 
 when Mr. and Mrs. Pillsbury were in their old home 
 city preparing for the erection of the Margaret Pills- 
 bury Hospital, mentioned above : 
 
 “Mr. Pillsbury, with comparative ease, might have 
 written his personal check and turned it over to a 
 citizens’ committee, to found and endow a capacious 
 hospital ; but this modest man, with a great warm 
 heart, and his lovely Christian wife left their sump- 
 tuous home in Minneapolis that they might come 
 among their old friends and neighbors in this state 
 and have the pleasure of doing, as it were with their 
 own hands, the great public work they are accom- 
 plishing. Office and fame have no allurements for 
 him. He is one of the few capitalists who are per- 
 fectly satisfied with their wealth. He enjoyed its 
 honorable accumulation ; he will now take equal 
 pleasure in its generous and discriminate expendi- 
 ture. He and his wife are now here with no possible 
 object except to do good and to renew old friend- 
 ships and associations, and to pay respects to the 
 people who delight to respect and honor them. We 
 seldom have such visitors. Think of it! A hand- 
 some and happy married couple, so advanced in 
 years and yet so remarkably well preserved ; so 
 wealthy and so unostentatious ; so distinguished and 
 yet so humbly affable and generous ; so blest with 
 this world’s favors yet possessed of such excellent 
 native sense ; so public-spirited and beneficent, so 
 charitable, kind and tolerant toward all, — they pre- 
 sent, indeed, a rare and touching sight, one to be 
 cherished in our recollections, beloved and welcome 
 sojourners in our peaceful and beautiful city. An 
 institution is defined to be as the lengthened shadow 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1501 
 
 of a man. George Alfred Pillsbury will have many 
 worthy shadows; and long after he and his gracious 
 wife have gone from us, perhaps forever, fevered 
 lips of invalid sufferers will whisper prayers of 
 thankfulness that will be encomiums on this good 
 man and woman, more eloquent and touching than 
 any we could pronounce.” 
 
 Charles A. Pillsbury. So long as enduring time 
 shall echo back to time that was, so long shall the 
 State of Minnesota and the City of Minneapolis owe 
 tribute and honor to the name of Pillsbury, for none 
 other has been more closely, worthily or influen- 
 tially identified with the development and upbuild- 
 ing of both city and state; none has figured more 
 potently in carrying the fame of the Minnesota 
 metropolis throughout the length and breadth of 
 the United States and also into “far countries.” 
 One of the sterling and honored representatives of 
 this distinguished family in Minnesota and one who 
 marked the passing years with large and honorable 
 achievement was the late Charles Alfred Pillsbury, 
 and historical consistency as well as just merit ren- 
 ders imperative the specific consideration here ac- 
 corded to him. He was a son of the late George 
 A. Pillsbury, to whom a memoir is dedicated on 
 other pages of this work, as is also given brief 
 record of the career of his uncle, the late Governor 
 John S. Pillsbury, so that in the present connection 
 it is unnecessary to give further data concerning 
 the family history. 
 
 Charles Alfred Pillsbury was foremost in giving 
 fame to the family name in connection with the 
 flour-milling industry and in making the name of 
 Minneapolis equally noted as a center of this in- 
 dustry. He was for many years recognized as the 
 leading miller of the world, and his character was 
 the positive of a noble and loyal nature, strong yet 
 gentle, true to every duty and responsibility. Mr. 
 Pillsbury was born at Warner, Merrimac County, 
 New Hampshire, on the 3d of October, 1842, and 
 at his home in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he was sum- 
 moned to the life eternal on the 17th of September, 
 1899. He acquired his early education in the com- 
 mon schools of his native town and thereafter en- 
 tered Dartmouth College, in which he was grad- 
 uated at the age of twenty-one years. During his 
 college life he taught school at intervals and by 
 this means contributed materially to defraying the 
 expenses of his higher education. After his grad- 
 uation Mr. Pillsbury went to the City of Montreal, 
 Canada, where he remained six years and was vari- 
 ously employed. In 1869 he came to Minnesota and 
 established his residence in Minneapolis, where he 
 purchased an interest in a small flour mill. There 
 were at that time perhaps six or more mills operat- 
 ing at the Falls of St. Anthony, and all of them 
 utilized the old-time buhr mill-stones, with other 
 equipments of equally primitive order. Mr. Pills- 
 bury arrived just in time to become a prominent 
 figure in the development and application of a new 
 and wonderful invention and to participate in the 
 enormous growth of the milling industry after the 
 opening of the spring-wheat district of Minnesota 
 and the Dakotas. At the time of his arrival in the 
 future metropolis of Minnesota the railroads ex- 
 tended only a few miles north and west from this 
 section of the state, but within a few years the lines 
 were extended and opened up large areas of fine 
 prairie land, making this unrivaled wheat-growing 
 region tributary to the flour manufactories at Min- 
 
 neapolis. About the same time the invention of the 
 self-binding reaper reduced the cost of wheat pro- 
 duction, and in the mills themselves many radical 
 innovations were introduced in the line of mechan- 
 ical equipment and incidental accessories. One of 
 the most important of these inventions was the 
 middlings purifier, which was originated in Min- 
 neapolis and which Mr. Pillsbury at once adopted, 
 with great profit. In nearly a simultaneous way 
 was introduced from abroad the steel-roller process 
 of manufacturing flour, and with the aid of these 
 two great inventions came a veritable revolution in 
 the manufacture of flour, both in points of quality 
 and cost of production. With characteristic energy, 
 resourcefulness and progressiveness Mr. Pillsbury 
 kept pace with advances, and his rise to prominence 
 and influence was rapid and substantial, his advance 
 during the ’70s having been especially marked and 
 assured. In 1872 he effected the organization of 
 the firm of C. A. Pillsbury & Company, in which 
 his associates were his uncle, the late Governor 
 John S. Pillsbury, and his father, the late George 
 A. Pillsbury. Somewhat later his younger brother, 
 Fred C., was admitted to the firm, and for several 
 years a group of six mills was operated by C. A. 
 Pillsbury & Company, but the business expanded so 
 rapidly that it became imperative to procure facili- 
 ties insuring much larger output capacity. This end 
 was effected by the erection of the famous Pills- 
 bury A mill, which when completed had a capacity 
 of 7,000 barrels a day. This mill was at that time 
 the largest in the world, but through later improve- 
 ments in machinery its capacity has been more than 
 doubled, as it is equipped for the turning out of 
 15,600 barrels a day. 
 
 During the period of active and wonderful devel- 
 opment in the milling industry, Mr. Pillsbury was 
 ever at the forefront, and his initiative and execu- 
 tive powers came into most effective play. He re- 
 peatedly visited Europe, where he became widely 
 known, and where he gained recognition, as did he 
 also throughout America, as being the head of the 
 largest flour-producting concern in the entire world. 
 Besides making a practical and detailed study of 
 every phase of the production of wheat, its trans- 
 portation, and the making and marketing of flour 
 and its by-products, he also found time to take a 
 large interest in many other important commercial 
 enterprises, as well as to participate in public affairs 
 in his home city and state, his civic loyalty having 
 ever been of the most insistent and broad-minded 
 order. Mr. Pillsbury was frequently tendered po- 
 litical honors, but the only office which he consented 
 to hold during the entire period of his residence in 
 Minneapolis was that of state senator, a position to 
 which he was elected for the legislative term be- 
 ginning in 1877. By successive elections he con- 
 tinued the valued and zealous incumbent of this 
 office for ten consecutive years, and he labored 
 earnestly in the Senate to promote and protect the 
 best interests of the state and its people. 
 
 In 1890 the firm of C. A. Pillsbury & Company 
 was merged into the Pillsbury-Washburn Flour 
 Mills Company, and a large part of the stock in 
 the new corporation was purchased by an English 
 syndicate. The new company secured a controlling 
 interest in the entire water power at St. Anthony 
 Falls. Mr. Pillsbury remained as executive head 
 of the business, at a very large salary, and retained 
 a large holding of the stock. During the succeed- 
 ing years the business showed remarkable develop- 
 
1502 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 ment and the corporation maintained the Pillsbury 
 prestige in being the leading flour-producing com- 
 pany of the whole world. After a few years, upon 
 the recommendation of Charles A. Pillsbury, the 
 enterprising and far-sighted head of the business, 
 the company instituted the further improvement of 
 its magnificent water power, by the construction of 
 an auxiliary dam a short distance below the falls. 
 By means of this dam 10,000 additional horse-power 
 was developed, and this was the last great construc- 
 tion work completed under the direction of the 
 honored subject of this memoir. 
 
 During the thirty years of his active business life 
 in Minneapolis Mr. Pillsbury was probably the most 
 popular business man of the city, and this was the 
 result alike of his large contribution to the civic 
 and material development and general prosperity of 
 the city and to his sterling personal characteristics. 
 He was always in good health and spirits, buoyant 
 and optimistic, tolerant and kindly in his judgment, 
 easily accessible and generous to a fault. He placed 
 true estimates upon men and things, and in his 
 manifold philanthropies and benevolences he rigor- 
 ously avoided publicity and display — one who would 
 “do good by stealth and blush to find it fame.’’ 
 He identified himself with all logical movements 
 and enterprises advanced for the general good of 
 the community and was connected with many local 
 organizations of social and fraternal order, as well 
 as those of business order. He was one of the 
 most influential members of the Minneapolis Cham- 
 ber of Commerce and served as president of the 
 same from 1882 to 1894, his political allegiance 
 being given to the republican party. 
 
 On the 12th of September, 1866, Mr. Pillsbury 
 wed Miss Mary A. Stinson, of Dunbarton, New 
 Hampshire, and she was summoned to eternal rest 
 September 26, 1902, so that in death they were not 
 long divided. Two sons, Charles S. and John S., 
 have to a large extent assumed, and worthily con- 
 trolled, the business interests so long maintained by 
 their honored father, since whose death a readjust- 
 ment of the affairs of the milling company has been 
 made, the gigantic enterprise being now conducted 
 under the title of the Pillsbury Flour Mills Com- 
 pany. Of the corporation the official corps is as 
 here noted: Albert C. Loring, president; Charles 
 
 S. Pillsbury, and John S. Pillsbury (II), vice presi- 
 dents; and Alfred F. Pillsbury (II), son of Gov. 
 John S, Pillsbury, is secretary and treasurer. 
 
 The family of Charles A. Pillsbury has long been 
 actively identified with Plymouth Congregational 
 Church in Minneapolis, and as a memorial to their 
 parents the sons have built and presented to this 
 church the institution known as Pillsbury House, 
 in South Minneapolis, this being the center of the 
 settlement work of Plymouth Church. All of the 
 younger generation of the Pillsbury family are well 
 upholding the prestige of a name that has been 
 long and prominently concerned with the history of 
 Minneapolis. 
 
 Arthur M. Higgins. As an active and successful 
 attorney of Minneapolis for the past twenty years, 
 Arthur M. Higgins has had a varied and broad 
 experience in his profession, and has been promi- 
 nent both in his regular calling and in his relations 
 with the community socially and in civic affairs. 
 He is a graduate of the University of Minnesota 
 Law School, and has offices in the New York Life 
 Building. 
 
 Arthur M. Higgins was born in Ellsworth, Maine, 
 June 18, 1867, and that was also the birthplace of 
 his parents, Charles H. and Sarah J. (Young) Hig- 
 gins. For generations seafaring has been almost 
 the natural vocation of a large portion of Maine 
 residents, and Charles H. Higgins followed the 
 sea from the time he was eighteen and became 
 master of a brigantine before he left. With the 
 breaking out of the Civil war he enlisted with the 
 Eleventh Regiment of Maine Infantry as a cor- 
 poral, and went through the entire war, one of the 
 gallant defenders of the Union. With the close of 
 the war his home was established at Flushing on 
 Long Island, where he formed business relations 
 with the noted Parsons Nurseries of Long Island, 
 and represented that business until coming West 
 in 1884 to Minneapolis. In Minnesota he became 
 treasurer of the Congregational Society, held that 
 office a number of years, but finally returned to his 
 old home in Maine and spent the rest of his days. 
 His death occurred in 1904. His widow is now a 
 resident of Minnesota. There were six children 
 in the family, the first three being sons and Arthur 
 M. was the youngest of the boys. 
 
 Arthur M. Higgins acquired his early education 
 in the public schools at Flushing, Long Island, and 
 reached the senior year in the high school class and 
 was awarded a scholarship in Cornell University. 
 Ill health compelled him to leave high school and 
 abandon his purpose to continue his education at 
 Cornell, and for the benefit of his health he came 
 out to Minneapolis. In 1889 Mr. Higgins became 
 a student in the law department of the University 
 of Minnesota, that being the second year of the 
 department’s existence. He interrupted his studies 
 and spent a year in California, and then returned 
 to Minneapolis and was graduated in law with the 
 class of 1893. Mr. Higgins at once took up the 
 practice of law at Minneapolis as a member of the 
 firm of Bartlett, Robinson & Higgins. A year later 
 Mr. Higgins engaged in independent practice, and 
 has since had no partnership relations. For eight- 
 een years his offices have been in the New York 
 Life Building, and he controls a profitable and ex- 
 tensive general practice in all the courts. 
 
 Mr. Higgins is. affiliated with Lodge No. 44 of 
 the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the 
 Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Association, the 
 Minneapolis Athletic Club, the Minneapolis Bar 
 Association, and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. 
 Mrs. Higgins was formerly Miss Virginia Brad- 
 ford, daughter of the late Adolphus Bradford. Her 
 father was the organizer of the Bradford Rainwater 
 Hat Company of St. Louis, Missouri, which is today 
 one of the flourishing institutions of that city. 
 Adolphus Bradford, who died at Minnetonka June 
 22, 1898, at the age of eighty-two years, was one of 
 the recognized pioneers and most influential citi- 
 zens of Minneapolis, having located in that city in 
 1862 and continued his residence there nearly forty 
 years. He came to Minneapolis from St. Louis, 
 Missouri, and was for a long time prominent in the 
 real estate business. Mr. Bradford and the late 
 Isaac Atwater, the latter of whom was editor in 
 chief of the Atwater History of Minneapolis in 
 1893, are distinguished as having built the first 
 two large and imposing residences in Minneapolis. 
 Mrs. Bradford died in 1902. 
 
 Mrs. Higgins, who was married May 16, 1893, 
 was born in Minneapolis and educated at the Miss 
 Burnham’s School at Northampton, Massachusetts. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1503 
 
 Mr. Higgins and wife have two daughters, Virginia 
 and Josephine, both born in Minneapolis. For 
 eighteen years Mr. Higgins lived both winter and 
 summer at Lake Minnetonka, where he owned a 
 fine summer home with grounds of twenty-five 
 acres. This property was recently sold to A. B. 
 Jackson, and the Higgins family now reside at 2410 
 Pillsbury Avenue, though the summer season is 
 spent at another location on Lake Minnetonka. Mr. 
 Higgins outside of his profession finds much recrea- 
 tion in following the great national pastime of 
 baseball, and is one of the most regular attendants 
 at the games of the association held in Minneapolis. 
 
 Hugh Howard Lankester. The name Lankester 
 is associated with two distinct lines of public serv- 
 ice in St. Paul. Hugh Howard Lankester is general 
 agent of the passenger department of the Chicago, 
 St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railroad, and 
 though beginning as a minor clerk has put himself 
 at the age of thirty among the leading railway men 
 of Minnesota. His father, Dr. Howard L. Lan- 
 kester, has long held a distinguished place in St. 
 Paul as a physician and surgeon, but particularly 
 through his unceasing war on germs and contam- 
 ination, has he made a splendid record as health 
 commissioner. 
 
 Dr. Howard L. Lankester was born at Southamp- 
 ton, England, February 23, 1846, a son of Robert 
 and Elizabeth A. Lankester. Educated in private 
 schools and graduated from Crawford College, 
 Doctor Lankester was a student in King's College 
 at London and for a time was a member of the 
 Third Royal Middlesex Artillery. Coming to 
 America in the early ’70s, in 1878, he located 
 at Grand Forks, North Dakota, and there began 
 practice as a physician. In 1882 he moved to Fisher, 
 Minnesota, and his home has been in St. Paul since 
 1896. His abilities required a large field, and in St. 
 Paul he has been more than a private and success- 
 ful practitioner, rather a leader in the larger things 
 of the profession, and also in public affairs. 
 
 In 1911 Doctor Lankester was appointed health 
 commissioner at St. Paul. What he has done 
 through this office is interestingly told in the fol- 
 lowing quotations : 
 
 “Some men seem to be born for specific duties 
 and when the hour is ripe are selected to perform 
 them. Dr. Howard Lankester has gone at his work 
 as health commissioner of St. Paul as if he had 
 been specially designed for it and is achieving re- 
 sults entirely in keeping with the vigor and deter- 
 mination of his spirit and his administration of the 
 office. 
 
 “When he accepted this office early in the current 
 year he made a studious examination of its require- 
 ments and the legal provisions which governed it. 
 He soon discovered that there were many outworn 
 limitations in the city ordinances which seriously 
 hampered an efficient administration of the office, 
 and he went to work to have these removed. He 
 has succeeded to a considerable extent in securing 
 more authority for the health office and more 
 specific enactments for its government and he has 
 been tireless and unyielding in his efforts to im- 
 prove conditions. 
 
 “He has forced the elimination of the public 
 drinking cup, which was considered a menace to 
 the general health of the community and a fruit- 
 ful source of contagion; secured the protection of 
 fresh fruits and vegetables exposed for sale from 
 
 contact with flies and insects; brought about strict 
 regulations for barber shops and put in force more 
 uniform and efficient methods of collecting garbage. 
 So far his work has been excellent in character and 
 very beneficial in results, and the people rejoice in 
 the fact that what he has done for the good of 
 the city is but a sign of what they may expect from 
 the continuance of his vigor and enterprise in the 
 performance of his official duties.’’ 
 
 Doctor Lankester is credited with being one of 
 the pioneers in the elimination of the public drink- 
 ing cup, and what has been accomplished in St. Paul 
 is now firmly intrenched in the social customs of 
 many other states and communities. He took es- 
 pecially advanced ground in what was known as the 
 fruit ordinance, for the protection of fruit stands 
 from dust and flies, and had a vigorous fight before 
 he could secure the enactment of this measure. 
 Doctor Lankester is affiliated with the Masonic 
 order, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and 
 belongs to the Ramsey County and the State Med- 
 ical societies. To his marriage with Elizabeth Anne 
 Polkinghorne were born eight children, five of 
 whom died in infancy. Tessie Berry is the wife of 
 Harry B. Smith of Milwaukee, Wisconsin ; Sidney 
 Owen lives in St. Paul. 
 
 Hugh Howard Lankester, second of the surviving 
 children of Doctor Lankester, was born at Fisher’s 
 Landing, Minnesota, February 24, 1884. His early 
 education came from the public schools, and he 
 graduated from the Central High School of St. 
 Paul in 1903. His first position was as stenographer 
 with the Griffin Wheel Company of St. Paul. Just 
 ten years ago he began his career as a railroad man. 
 The first year was spent as stenographer in the 
 transportation department of the Northern Pacific 
 Railroad. He was then made assistant ticket clerk 
 and stenographer, and a year later secured a posi- 
 tion in the president’s office of the Northern Pacific 
 as stenographer. After a year in the president’s 
 office, Mr. Lankester transferred his services to the 
 Chicago, Minneapolis & Omaha Railway as stenog- 
 rapher and ticket clerk, at the end of two years 
 was advanced to chief clerk, held that place one 
 year, then became traveling passenger agent over 
 the states of Minnesota and North Dakota, and at 
 the end of three years, in April, 1911, was promoted 
 to his present office as general agent of the pas- 
 senger department. Mr. Lankester’s efficiency needs 
 no comment further than this record of promotion, 
 and it should also be mentioned that he is one of 
 the popular men in railway service in the North- 
 west, and has shown a readiness at all times to put 
 his office at the benefit of the traveling public. Mr. 
 Lankester is a Knight Templar and Shriner Mason, 
 belongs to the Royal Arcanum and also the Twin 
 City Society of Magicians. His recreation in its 
 most favorite form is deer hunting, and he pos- 
 sesses several deer heads as trophies of his skill. 
 He is also a member of the St. Paul Rod and Gun 
 Club and of the Commercial Club, and was reared 
 in the Eniscopal Church. Mr. Lankester was mar- 
 ried June 25, 1912, at Louisville, Kentucky, to Miss 
 Elsa M. Stoll, daughter of Edward Stoll, a whole- 
 sale fruit produce merchant of Louisville. 
 
 Hon. Edmund Schofield Durment has been for 
 many years one of the leaders of the St. Paul 
 bar, at which he is now practicing as senior member 
 of the well-known firm of Durment, Moore & 
 Oppenheimer. He has been a member of the St. 
 Paul bar for nearly thirty years, and almost from 
 
1501 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 the time when he first entered practice here has 
 occupied a leading and commanding position in his 
 profession. At an early period in his professional 
 career he was fortunate in securing the confidence 
 and esteem of those engaged in large affairs, and 
 this he has always retained. Not alone in his own 
 profession, but in other fields, Mr. Durment has 
 lived an active, busy and useful life, intimately con- 
 cerned with the growth and development of his city 
 during its emergence from a small community into 
 the condition of a mighty metropolis. 
 
 Edmund Schofield Durment was born in Brown 
 County, Indiana, March 19, i860, and is a son of 
 Rev. George W. and Henrietta (Hoggett) Durment, 
 natives of Indiana who are both now deceased. 
 His father attended old Miami University, Cincin- 
 nati, Ohio, medical department, was a physician by 
 profession, but devoted the greater part of his life 
 to preaching as a Methodist Episcopal minister, 
 while his last active ten years were spent in Mis- 
 souri. During two years of this time he also prac- 
 ticed medicine, and then went to Warrensburg, Mis- 
 souri, where he was pastor for two years, subse- 
 quently going to Sedalia, where he was made pastor 
 of the Methodist Episcopal Church. As presiding 
 elder he resided three years at Rolla, Missouri, and 
 three years at Springfield, that state, but his health 
 finally failing him, he was compelled to give up work. 
 He died at Paoli, Indiana, in 1878, when aged only 
 forty-two years. He was married at Paoli, the 
 birthplace of Mrs. Durment, and she survived him 
 only until 1880, dying at Paoli, where both parents 
 are interred, side by side, in the city cemetery. 
 There were three children in the family, namely: 
 Sereptha L., who is the widow of Charles Leazer 
 and resides at Colorado Springs, Colorado ; Frank 
 R., who is a resident of New Mexico, and Edmund 
 Schofield. 
 
 Edmund S. Durment, after attending the public 
 schools, went two years to the Missouri School of 
 Mines at Rolla, two years to Drury College, Spring- 
 field, Missouri, and then to Columbian (now George 
 Washington) University, Washington, D. C., where 
 he was graduated in law with the class of 1884. 
 During the next year he was a special examiner in 
 Kentucky for the United States Pension Office, and 
 in the summer of 1885 came to St. Paul, where for 
 his first year he was employed in the office of Hon. 
 C. D. O’Brien, his next associate being Daniel W. 
 Lawler, with whom he remained eight years, the 
 firm being known as Lawler & Durment. Both of 
 these gentlemen are mentioned in sketches of their 
 own elsewhere in this work. During one or two 
 years of the life of this firm Horace E. Bigelow 
 was connected therewith as junior member, but re- 
 signed from the association. Mr. Lawler eventu- 
 ally became counsel for one of the large railroads, 
 but Mr. Durment continued to carry on the business 
 of the firm, which was known as one of the strong- 
 est combinations in the city. Later the association 
 was dissolved, and Mr. Durment continued the prac- 
 tice alone for several years and then formed a 
 partnership with Albert R. Moore, and William H. 
 Oppenheimer has since been admitted to partner- 
 ship. While Mr. Durment’s practice has been of a 
 broad, general character, his talents are of such a 
 nature that he has been particularly successful in 
 handling certain kinds of legal business, and has 
 the names of some of the large corporations of the 
 state on his books. He serves as local counsel for 
 the Pennsylvania Railroad and a number of western 
 
 roads, represents the American National Bank in 
 its legal business, and is also counsel for several 
 large insurance companies. Mr. Durment is known 
 throughout the legal profession as an able and 
 thorough lawyer, and the high esteem in which he 
 is held is shown by his election to the presidency 
 of the Minnesota State Bar Association, of which 
 he was one of the organizers. He also belongs to 
 the Ramsey County Bar Association, and has been 
 its president. While he is apt to lean toward re- 
 publicanism, Mr. Durment prefers to choose his 
 own candidates, irrespective of party lines. He has 
 been interested in politics to some extent, and for 
 four years served as a member of the State Senate 
 from the Thirty-sixth Senatorial District, in which 
 office he never missed a session, and at all times 
 took an active and leading part in the activities of 
 that body, of which he was known as a working 
 member. He was a member of the old state board 
 of correction and charities, serving out an unex- 
 pired term. Mr. Durment is a life member of 
 Summit Lodge of Masons, the Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks and the Independent Order 
 of Odd Fellows, and holds membership in the Min- 
 nesota and University Clubs. For twenty-five years 
 he was a member of the St. Paul Commercial Club, 
 but is not a member at this time. He is a member 
 and trustee of the People’s Church. 
 
 On September 22, 1887, Mr. Durment was mar- 
 ried, at St. Paul, to Miss Rose Smith, a native of 
 West Union, Iowa, and a daughter of William and 
 Harriet (Chamberlain) Smith, of English origin, 
 and the only descendant born in the United States. 
 To this union there have been born three children, 
 as follows : Farrell Smith, a graduate of the Cen- 
 
 tral High School of St. Paul and of the Girls' Col- 
 lege at Lowell, Massachusetts, is now the wife of 
 Ralph R. McCartney, and resides at Cloquet, Min- 
 nesota ; Edmund Smith, educated in the public 
 schools of St. Paul, St. John’s Military Academy 
 (three years), St. Paul's Academy (one year), and 
 Macalester College, St. Paul ; and Theodore Smith, 
 who is still attending school. Mrs. Durment is a 
 most accomplished woman of extensive attainments 
 and wide culture, is active in religious and charita- 
 ble work, and the beautiful home over which she 
 presides has always been recognized as one of the 
 attractive centers of social activity and higher cul- 
 ture in the community. 
 
 Mr. Durment maintains offices in the Germania 
 Building. Among his associates he is not only 
 known as an able, thorough and energetic lawyer, 
 but as a high type of all those qualities which have 
 contributed to the traditional greatness of a learned 
 and honored profession. 
 
 Albin E. Bjorklund. In November, 1914, the 
 Thirty-seventh Legislative District elected Albin E. 
 Bjorklund to the lower house of the Legislature, 
 and he began his duties as a Minnesota lawmaker 
 on January 4, 1915. Mr. Bjorklund is a young but 
 successful St. Paul attorney, was admitted to the 
 bar about eight years ago and along with the work of 
 building up a practice has been interested in local 
 affairs and politics and is well known both among 
 the younger and older circles of republicans. 
 
 He was born at St. Paul December 16, 1886, the 
 third son of Andrew and Emma (Romvall) Bjork- 
 lund. His father, who died in October, 1913, was 
 an early settler in St. Paul and for many years- 
 identified with business affairs there. The mother 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1505 
 
 is still living and makes her home in the capital 
 city. 
 
 He acquired his education in the public schools 
 of St. Paul, and after graduating from the Cleve- 
 land High School entered the St. Paul College of 
 Law, pursued his studies there regularly and in 
 1907 was graduated LL. B. and admitted to the 
 Ramsey County bar the same year. Mr. Bjorklund 
 practiced the first half year in Aurora, Minnesota, 
 then returned to St. Paul, was associated a time 
 with Mr. A. J. Newgren, and in 1911 Mr. O. H. 
 O’Neill, city attorney, appointed him assistant city 
 attorney. He made an excellent record in that office 
 during the two and a half years he held it, and after 
 retiring from the city hall took up active private 
 practice in association with O’Brien, Young & Stone. 
 
 Mr. Bjorklund has always affiliated with the re- 
 publican party and has served as a member of the 
 republican county central committee. In 1914 he 
 was nominated and elected a member of the lower 
 house to represent the northerly part of the thirty- 
 seventh district. Fraternally he is affiliated with 
 Montgomery Lodge No. 258, A. F. & A. M. Mr. 
 Bjorklund has his offices in the Germania Life 
 Building. In November, 1914, he married Miss 
 Mabel C. Wahlberg of St. Paul. Her father is an 
 old resident of that city. 
 
 Hon. J. A. A. Burnquist. As present lieutenant 
 governor of Minnesota, Mr. Burnquist has made a 
 name that will always be securely established in the 
 political annals of his state. Mr. Burnquist is thirty- 
 five years of age, and while neither history nor 
 biography can be justified in making predictions as 
 to the future, it is reasonable to assume that the 
 achievements of his brilliant career have hardly 
 more than begun. 
 
 After serving two terms as a member of the 
 Legislature, Mr. Burnquist was nominated on the 
 republican ticket in 1912 for the office of lieutenant 
 governor, and in the nominating campaign defeated 
 D. M. Neil of Red Wing at the primaries. In June, 
 1914, Mr. Burnquist was nominated as running mate 
 to William E. Lee of Long Prairie for governor. 
 In the primaries Mr. Burnquist was opposed to 
 Elias Steenerson. 
 
 Governor Burnquist’s public career has been again 
 and again subjected to critical analysis, and for the 
 purposes of this sketch it will be necessary only to 
 briefly' review the findings of his critics. He was 
 elected in 1908 to the Legislature, and during the 
 following session identified himself with the passage 
 of several bills, but at that time was more con- 
 spicuous because of his opposition to legislation 
 which he believed and which the judgment of the 
 people believed was inimical to the best welfare. 
 In 1910, after his efficient record of the first ses- 
 sion, Mr. Burnquist had no opposition at the pri- 
 maries or in the general election. After his election 
 he was one of the prominent candidates for speaker 
 of the house, but his refusal to make any pledge as 
 to appointments or in any way modify his inde- 
 pendence, prevented his election. During the session 
 of 1911 Mr. Burnquist was chairman of the Normal 
 School Committee. His name during this session 
 was identified with a number of important measures, 
 several of which were of particular benefit' to the 
 City of St. Paul. Of his record the most impartial 
 critics gave the following estimate : “Strong insur- 
 gent leader; was a progressive candidate for speaker; 
 was an uncompromising progressive and never failed 
 
 to give larger political opportunities to the people; 
 took a prominent part in every fundamental fight for 
 reform ; Mr. Burnquist displayed unusual ability and 
 courage in his legislative work and made some of 
 the best speeches of the session.” At the special 
 session of the Legislature Mr. Burnquist was on the 
 committee for the drafting of a state-wide primary 
 law and was also active in the support of the meas- 
 ures which would provide for the non-partisan se- 
 lection of judges, and other important reforms. 
 
 It was on his record as a strong and independent 
 champion of reform measures in state politics that 
 Mr. Burnquist was elected and entered upon his 
 duties as lieutenant governor. As lieutenant gover- 
 nor he was presiding officer of the Senate, and had 
 an important authority owing to his power in the 
 appointment of committees. A review of his work 
 as lieutenant governor shows that Mr. Burnquist 
 exercised remarkable judgment, sagacity, independ- 
 ence and absolute fairness in the performance of his 
 official duties. In order that the business of the 
 Senate might be expedited, he secured a reduction in 
 the number of committees and the membership 
 thereof and employed a rare judgment in his ap- 
 pointments, as a result of which the business of the 
 Senate proceeded with unusual smoothness and re- 
 sulted in a larger and better product of legislation 
 than has followed for a number of sessions. His 
 fair mindedness and desire to promote the essential 
 business of the Senate enabled him in his appoint- 
 ments to committees to select the men best fitted for 
 the special departments of senatorial work, without 
 regard to partisan or personal reasons. In the 
 selection of members to committees entrusted with 
 legislation of vital and controversial moment in the 
 state, Mr. Burnquist showed unusual diolomacy arid 
 tact, and by securing a proper balance of men whose 
 views were pronounced in opposition to as well as 
 in favor of the proposed legislation, he gave each 
 side its proper proportion, and as a result the work 
 on the bills in committees showed the results of 
 thorough discussion, and put them in a shape to be 
 intelligently considered by the Senate as a whole. 
 
 Without entering into details that would make 
 this sketch too long, a fair estimate of Mr. Burn- 
 quist’s influence as president of the Senate is found 
 in the following sentences : “That so much was done 
 in the senate was due in large measure to its or- 
 ganization. Mr. Burnquist secured a great reduction 
 in the number of committees and appointed chair- 
 men who reported out the bills, and who did not 
 permit them to die in committees as has often been 
 the case. The work, therefore, at the end of the 
 session was not congested. Usually several hun- 
 dred bills die on general orders and on the calendar, 
 but at the end of each session all important bills 
 were disposed of and practically all of the business 
 was cleaned up when the senate adjourned on the 
 last night of the session.” 
 
 Joseph A. A. Burnquist, whose public career has 
 thus been briefly reviewed, was born at Dayton, 
 Webster County, Iowa, July 21, 1879. His parents 
 were John A. and A. Louise Burnquist, the former 
 a pioneer of Webster County. After an education 
 in the Dayton public schools, Mr. Burnquist con- 
 tinued his studies in Carleton Academy and College 
 at Northfield, Minnesota, graduating in 1902 with 
 degree of A. B. He continued his literary educa- 
 tion and also his studies of law in the Columbia 
 University of New York, where he graduated in 
 1904 as Master of Arts. It might be noted that dur- 
 
1506 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 ing his career at Columbia Mr. Burnquist was mem- 
 ber of the debating team which won a decision in a 
 contest with representatives of Cornell University 
 in the discussion of the subject of direct election 
 by the people of the United States Senate. Mr. 
 Burnquist studied law in the University of Minne- 
 sota, graduating LL. B. in 1905, and in the fall of 
 the same year began active practice at St. Paul. 
 He quickly gained the initial honors of the profes- 
 sion, and was soon established with a profitable 
 practice as a lawyer. 
 
 January 1, 1906, Mr. Burnquist married Miss Mary 
 Louise Cross, daughter of Rev. Rowland S. Cross. 
 Mrs. Burnquist was born at Anoka, Minnesota, and 
 graduated from Carleton College in 1903. Her 
 father was for over thirty years an active minister 
 of the Congregational Church in Minnesota. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Burnquist have the following children : 
 John McLean, Mary Louise and Ruth Mabel. Mr. 
 Burnquist and wife are members of the Congrega- 
 tional Church, and he has many fraternal affiliations. 
 
 Albert M. Lawton has been an active business 
 man of St. Paul for more than thirty years. His 
 chief consecutive enterprise has been in the real 
 estate, loan and insurance business, but he has also 
 served as a banker and has had extensive connections 
 with other lines of business. His offices are at 
 134 East Fourth Street. 
 
 Albert M. Lawton was born on a farm near Still- 
 water, Minnesota, December 3, 1857, a son of Jona- 
 than and Elizabeth (Brayton) Lawton. The parents 
 were both born in Massachusetts and came to Min- 
 nesota as pioneers in 1855, locating on a farm near 
 Stillwater, where Jonathan Lawton lived for many 
 years, and conducted for a number of years a gen- 
 eral store in St. Paul. The mother is still living 
 on the old homestead, 348 East Winifred Street, St. 
 Paul, and at this writing in her eighty-fifth year. 
 
 Albert M. Lawton grew up in pioneer times and 
 pioneer conditions, attending country schools, and 
 also had advantage of instruction in the W. A. 
 Faddis Business College. On leaving school he 
 spent several years on a farm and with this prepara- 
 tion came to St. Paul. In 1883 he engaged in the 
 real estate business, and as a result of long years 
 of residence is widely known not only in the capital 
 city but over the state, and has the complete con- 
 fidence of his patrons and has a large and pros- 
 perous business. In 1886 Mr. Lawton organized the 
 West Side Bank of St. Paul, and for six years held 
 the office of vice president. He now confines his 
 attention to real estate and insurance, handling city 
 property and farm lands, loaning money on both city 
 and country real estate. 
 
 Mr. Lawton was married in 1888 to Miss Angelica 
 Covell of Stillwater, a daughter of John and Abigail 
 Coveil. They have one son, Evan E. Lawton. Be- 
 sides the city residence the family have a summer 
 home at White Bear Lake. Mr. Lawton is promi- 
 nent in Masonry, having affiliation with Shekinah 
 Lodge No. 17, A. F. & A. M., and is also a member 
 of the Independent Order of Foresters. 
 
 Daniel Harvey Evans. The field of insurance 
 has attracted many of the ablest personalities in 
 American commerce, and the occupancy of the 
 larger positions in the business is almost without 
 exception a proof of extraordinary capacity, energy, 
 fidelity and integrity. Daniel H. Evans is a Min- 
 neapolis insurance man with a record, and is 
 
 northwestern manager of the Continental Casualty 
 Company. For eighteen years he has managed the 
 business of the company which now has the dis- 
 tinction of having the largest personal health and 
 accident business in the Northwest. There is no 
 need of explanation to state the relations of cause 
 and effect between Mr. Evans’ position and this 
 business achievement. Mr. Evans is a Minnesota 
 man by birth, came from a pioneer family of Le 
 Sueur and Blue Earth counties, is a lawyer by pro- 
 fession, was admitted to the bar and became an 
 active figure in South Dakota politics, but his chief 
 business record for thirty years has been either in 
 the real estate field or in insurance. 
 
 Daniel Harvey Evans was born January 30, 1862, 
 at Cleveland, LeSueur County, Minnesota, a son 
 of David and Mary Evans. His father was one of 
 the pioneer farmers of LeSueur County and in that 
 locality Daniel H. spent his early days, working on 
 the home farm to develop his muscles and attending 
 public schools at Cambria and also at Mankato. 
 His literary education was completed in the Man- 
 kato Normal School, and he afterwards studied 
 law in South Dakota. His knowledge of the law 
 has proved of great value, although it is not known 
 that he ever took a single fee for the handling of 
 cases in court. In 1882 he became identified with 
 the loan and real estate business at Ipswich, South 
 Dakota, remained there eight years, and after dis- 
 posing of his interests came to Minneapolis in 1890, 
 where for several years he continued in the loan 
 and real estate business. 
 
 In 1897 Mr. Evans accepted the position of north- 
 western manager of the Continental Casualty Com- 
 pany of Chicago. Flis territory comprises the State 
 of Minnesota, Northern Wisconsin, and North and 
 South Dakota, and his headquarters as manager 
 and general agent are in the Andrus Building at 
 Minneapolis. The Continental Casualty Company 
 issues policies covering the general lines of accident 
 and health, liability, workmen’s compensation and 
 automobile insurance. There has recently been or- 
 ganized the Continental Assurance Company for the 
 writing of life insurance, of which Mr. Evans is also 
 the general agent. His splendid success in the insur- 
 ance field is illustrated not only by the standing of 
 his company in having the largest personal health and 
 accident business in the Northwest, but is noted in 
 a recent issue of the Continental Agents’ Record in 
 which he was mentioned as one of the four prize 
 winners who qualified for the trip to the Panama- 
 Pacific Exposition. Th following sentences have 
 reference to these prizes winners and Mr. Evans in 
 particular : “Special praise is due each of these 
 prize winners for having accomplished what they 
 did in a year that was far from ideal from a busi- 
 ness standpoint. Mr. Evans, one of the company’s 
 largest general agents, succeeded in making the 
 increase required on top of an already extremely 
 large volume of business.” 
 
 Mr. Evans is a republican in politics and while 
 living in South Dakota took much part in state af- 
 fairs, though not active politically since removing 
 to Minneapolis. He is affiliated with Anchor Lodge 
 No. 88, I. O. O. F. at Minneapolis, with Minne- 
 haha Lodge No. 165, A. F. & A. M., is a member of 
 the Minneapolis Athletic Club, the Automobile Club 
 of Minneapolis, and for the past ten years has been 
 a trustee, and was chairman of the Building Com- 
 mittee, of the Fifth Avenue Congregational 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1507 
 
 Church. . On September u, 1889, he married Miss 
 Margaret M. Owens. Their three children are : 
 Ethel and Kenneth, twins, and Dorothy, all born in 
 Minneapolis. 
 
 Ladislav Joseph Pavliceic. With the continued 
 increase of good taste and the desire for attractive 
 surroundings and environments in all places where 
 people live and pursue their ordinary activities, the 
 profession of decorator is reaching corresponding- 
 prestige and importance. One of the best known 
 men in this field in St. Paul is L. J. Pavlicek who 
 has been identified with the city for the past fifteen 
 years, and whose work is now found in many of the 
 finest homes of the city. 
 
 Mr. Pavlicek is a native Bohemian, born in 
 Prague, November 19, 1867. His parents were 
 Vaclav and Anna (Kvapil) Pavlicek, both natives of 
 Bohemia, where the father followed the trade of 
 decorator all the active years of his life, and where 
 he died. 
 
 L. J. Pavlicek had a common school education and 
 from the common schools entered a school of 
 mechanics and arts and was thoroughly trained for 
 his future vocation, spending four years there. At 
 Vienna he worked some time as a decorator, and 
 in 1895 emigrated to the United States, going direct 
 from New York City to Chicago. During his five 
 years in Chicago Mr. Pavlicek was employed with 
 several contractors, and finally was connected with 
 the staff of decorators maintained by the great mer- 
 chandise house of Marshall Field. 
 
 On removing to St. Paul in 1899 he continued 
 work at his trade as an, individual until 1905, and 
 then started a business of his own, opening a large 
 stock of wall paper and similar supplies and fur- 
 nishing a complete and expert service in decora- 
 tive work for domestic purposes. His business had 
 a rapid growth from the start, and his _ patronage 
 was rapidly extended among the best families of the 
 city, and his service is exemplified in the decoration 
 of many of the finest homes in St. Paul and neigh- 
 boring towns. His store and office is at 178 West 
 Street, St. Paul. 
 
 In 1907 Mr. Pavlicek married Miss Julia Tomasek, 
 who was born in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, a daughter 
 of Charles and Agnes Tomasek. Most of her youth 
 was spent in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where she was 
 educated. Mr. and Mrs. Pavlicek have an attractive 
 home at 567 Lincoln Avenue, and it is of the latest 
 design in point of architecture and with surround- 
 ings that well illustrate Mr. Pavlicek’s thorough 
 taste and long experience. In the fall of 1914 Mr. 
 Pavlicek returned from an extended trip to Europe, 
 where he visited his old home and many other places 
 of interest, and at the beginning of the European 
 war quietly made his way back to America. He is 
 recognized as a thorough business man, and a good 
 reliable citizen of St. Paul, and he and his wife are 
 acceptable members of St. Stanislaus Catholic 
 Church. 
 
 Frederick Walcott Northrop. For more than 
 forty years the late Frederick Walcott Northrop was 
 a resident of St. Paul. While his name never fig- 
 ured in politics nor in connection with any public 
 office, and his retiring nature kept him out of social 
 organizations, he was none the less a man of quiet 
 but effective citizenship, performed his work with 
 singular fidelity, had the close friendship and af- 
 fection of those who knew him intimately, and left 
 
 an honored name to his descendants. His widow 
 and several of his children now reside at 358 Baker 
 Street in St. Paul. 
 
 Frederick Walcott Northrop was born at Brook- 
 field, Connecticut, November 13, 1847, a son of For- 
 est and Eliza (Gregory) Northrop. His father for 
 many years kept a book and stationery store in 
 Brookfield. Frederick W. Northrop attended the 
 public schools of his native town and also was in 
 school at New Haven. His first employment was in 
 a grocery store, but when still a very young boy 
 he enlisted for service in a Connecticut regiment of 
 the Union army. He was with the infantry one 
 year, and though not present at any important en- 
 gagements he was taken prisoner and was on parole 
 when the war closed. He then returned home, lived 
 at New Haven a time, and from there came to St. 
 Paul. For twenty-eight years he was in the service 
 of D. D. Merrill in the book and stationery business, 
 as bookkeeper and later as cashier. When this firm 
 failed he remained out of business for a year and a 
 half, and then entered the employ of Smith & Far- 
 well for three years, until the partnership was dis- 
 solved. About a year later he became connected 
 with the Smith & Borg Furniture House, and con- 
 tinued with that firm four years until failing health 
 compelled him to give up his duties. 
 
 Mr. Northrop died September 21, 1912, at the age 
 of seventy-six. He was a member of no secret fra- 
 ternity, and did not even affiliate with the Grand 
 Army. Outside of home and business his chief as- 
 sociation was with the First Baptist Church of St. 
 Paul, in which he was an active member for more 
 than forty years. A characteristic was his fondness 
 for flowers, and while never interested in athletic 
 sports he found recreation and pleasure in long 
 walks through the country. 
 
 At St. Clair, Michigan, August 9, 1869, Mr. North- 
 rop married Emily Oakes, who was born in St. Clair, 
 a daughter of John Meade and Minerva (Kenyon) 
 Oakes. Her father was a farmer in Eastern Michi- 
 gan. To this marriage were born six children, one 
 of whom died at the age of nine years. Charles 
 David, the oldest, is married and engaged in the 
 insurance business at Los Angeles, California. Sarah 
 Eliza is the wife of George Exley. Alice Emily is 
 unmarried and living at home with her mother. 
 Frederick Horace is married and is night superin- 
 tendent for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Rail- 
 way at St. Paul. Mary Kate is a trained nurse and 
 lives at home. 
 
 Henry J. Hadlich. A citizen who has long been 
 connected with the official life of St. Paul is Henry 
 J. Hadlich, who between the years 1887 and 1912 
 held various positions in the St. Paul postoffice and 
 at all times displayed a high order of ability and 
 fidelity to duty. Mr. Hadlich was born at Leipzic, 
 Germany, July 10, 1871, the oldest son of Christian 
 M. and Nannie (Lerchner) Hadlich. The parents 
 emigrated from their native land to the United 
 States in 1882 and took up their residence in St. 
 Paul, and here the father passed away in 1893, while 
 the mother still survives and makes her home in 
 this city. 
 
 The early education of Henry J. Hadlich was 
 secured in the public schools of Germany, as he was 
 eleven years of age when he accompanied his par- 
 ents on the long journey to the home across the 
 waters. When he had completed his training in the 
 St. Paul High School, he secured a minor position 
 
1508 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 in the St. Paul postoffice, and rapidly won promo- 
 tion because of his energy, capacity and faithfulness, 
 and for ten years was clerk under Capt. Henry A. 
 Castle, for whom he has always held the warmest 
 regard. When he left the employ of the Govern- 
 ment, with an excellent record, he became identified 
 with the Theo. Hamm Brewing Company of this 
 city, with which he has since been connected. 
 
 Mr. Hadlich was married in 1902 to Miss Minnie 
 Trost of San Francisco, California, and three chil- 
 dren have been born to this union: Walter H., 
 Doris C. and Carl T. Mr. Hadlich is a Master 
 Mason, belonging to Shekinah Lodge, No. 171, F. 
 & A. M., and also belongs to Lodge No. 3, Inde- 
 pendent Order of Odd Fellows. During his long 
 residence in St. Paul he has formed an extensive 
 acquaintance, and in this numbers many warm 
 friends. 
 
 Robert Jordan. One of St. Paul's popular busi- 
 ness men was the late Robert Jordan, who died Jan- 
 uary 27, 1915, at the age of fifty years. He had been 
 a resident of this city more than thirty years, and is 
 survived by Mrs. Jordan and their four children, 
 who reside at 89 West Winifred Street. 
 
 Robert Jordan was born at Berlin, Germany, Au- 
 gust 28, 1864. He was given the thorough advantages 
 of the German public schools during his early life, 
 and at the age of seventeen, having failed to secure 
 his acceptance for service in the German navy, he 
 left the fatherland and came to America. In Mil- 
 waukee he found work in the St. Charles Hotel as 
 elevator boy, and later left Milwaukee and went 
 out to California. In 1882 he first visited the City 
 of St. Paul, was employed for a time by the Amont 
 Brothers, then returned to Milwaukee, but toward 
 the close of 1882 located permanently in St. Paul. 
 About 1901 he engaged in business for himself as 
 the proprietor of a popular cafe at 20 East Seventh 
 Street, and continued to do business at that location 
 for about ten years, until the expiration of his lease 
 caused his removal to 413 Cedar Street. He was 
 proprietor of that place until his death, and the 
 business is now carried on by his oldest son. 
 
 The late Mr. Jordan was a member at one time of 
 the Order of Druids. While a democrat, he was 
 Very independent and cast his vote for the best man 
 regardless of party. He attended the German Luth- 
 eran Church. Outside of business he had his chief 
 interests in his home. He was fond of horses and 
 flowers, and was devoted to his wife and children. 
 On June 24, 1890, at St. Paul he married Louise 
 Mohr, a daughter of Carl and Louise Mohr. Mrs. 
 Jordan was born in Germany and her father was a 
 cooper by trade. Her father came to America in 
 1882. and in 1885 Mrs. Jordan and her mother lo- 
 cated in St. Paul. To this union were born four 
 children : Charles August, now twenty-four years of 
 age, and managing his father’s business ; Minnie 
 Louise, aged nineteen; Louisa Alice, aged fifteen; 
 and Gertrude Martha, aged eight. 
 
 Peter Schliemann. For more than forty years 
 Peter Schliemann was one of the sterling business 
 men of St. Paul. He came to that city when it was 
 still young, and by close attention to business and 
 the exercise of unusual judgment in placing his 
 investments acquired a competence before his death. 
 
 Peter Schliemann was born in Holstein, Ger- 
 many, December 28, 1845, and' died at his home 
 in St. Paul March 1, 1912. His father, Luetje 
 
 Schliemann, was a German farmer. The son at- 
 tended the public schools in Germany, and also spent 
 one year in the regular army. While in the old 
 country he learned the cabinet maker’s trade, and 
 after his marriage in 1869 took passage on a vessel 
 which brought him from his native land to America, 
 and he' soon afterwards reached St. Paul. In that 
 city he spent several years working at his trade, and 
 then with a better knowledge of American people 
 and business methods engaged in merchandising on 
 his own account, operating a grocery and liquor 
 house at 649 Canada Street up to 1890. In the mean- 
 time he had placed his surplus capital in real estate, 
 and from 1890 until his death spent most of his time 
 in looking after his own property and the manage- 
 ment of his real estate interests. 
 
 He was a member of the St. Paul’s Church, was 
 a republican in politics, and belonged to the German 
 Veteran Society. Fie was an honorary member of 
 the Concordia Singing Society, and was a man of 
 genial and popular character, with a host of friends 
 in the city. 
 
 Before he left Germany in 1869 he married Annie 
 Yunge. Of the six children born to that marriage 
 the two now living are Annie and Clara, the former 
 the wife of J. J. Thomssen, a St. Paul grocer, and 
 the latter the wife of P. Henninger, who is a pro- 
 fessional musician at St. Paul and a member of the 
 Minnesota State Band. After the death of his first 
 wife in 1885 Mr. Schliemann was married Novem- 
 ber 3, 1886, to Miss Emma Schaumann who was also 
 born in Holstein, Germany, and came to America at 
 the age of twenty-six. She was reared and edu- 
 cated near Hamburg, where her parents, Henry and 
 Margaret Schaumann, lived, her father having been 
 a watchmaker. Mrs. Schliemann now occupies the 
 comfortable residence which Mr. Schliemann ac- 
 quired a number of years ago at 261 Thirteenth 
 Street. 
 
 Charles Rollin Fowler. A leading member of 
 the Minnesota legal fraternity, who has attained a 
 position of eminence through the force of his own 
 ability and talents, Charles Rollin Fowler has also 
 displayed a high order of citizenship, and as a 
 member of the State Legislature has won the con- 
 fidence and admiration of the people because of the 
 stand he has taken upon questions of civic and state 
 importance. He is a native of Minnesota, having 
 been born at the town of Jordan, September 17, 
 1869, a son of Rollin D. and Jane (Varner) Fowler. 
 His parents were among the most prominent people 
 of the locality during the early days, when Minne- 
 sota was still a territory, and his father took a lead- 
 ing part in those events which shaped the common- 
 wealth’s early growth and development. The Var- 
 ner family came from an old Quaker organization 
 of Warren County, Ohio, which migrated from that 
 state to Minnesota as early as 1853. 
 
 Mr. Fowler passed his boyhood at Jordan, in the 
 family of Henry Varner, Esq., his guardian, but in 
 October, 1886, came to Minneapolis, where he at- 
 tended the public schools. In 1889 and 1890 he lived 
 at Glencoe, Minnesota, but in the latter year re- 
 turned to Minneapolis, and this city has since been 
 his home with the exception of two years, 1892 and 
 1893, when he located at Fargo, North Dakota. His 
 legal education was secured in the law department 
 of the University of Minnesota, from which insti- 
 tution he was graduated with the class of June, 
 1892, and since that time he has been engaged in 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1509 
 
 the general practice of law. For a time Mr. Fowler 
 was associated with Judges Fred V. Brown and 
 W. A. Kerr, but since 1905 has been in partnership 
 with Judge Kerr, under the firm style of Kerr & 
 Fowler, with offices in the New York Life Building. 
 Mr. Fowler is a member of the American and Min- 
 nesota State Bar associations, and is as highly re- 
 garded among his fellow-practitioners as he is 
 among the people of his adopted city. For a num- 
 ber of years he has been resident vice president of 
 the American Surety Company, of New York. 
 From 1886 until 1891 Mr. Fowler was a member 
 of Company B, First Regiment, Minnesota Na- 
 tional Guard, in which he took an active part and 
 had much valuable experience. Mr, Fowler believes 
 that every young man should serve in the National 
 Guard. He holds membership in the Masonic fra- 
 ternity, the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, the 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Lodge 
 No. 44, the Minneapolis Club, is vice president of 
 the Minikahda Club, and vice president of the 
 Minneapolis Athletic Club ; he is also a member of 
 the Minneapolis Automobile Club, the Minneapolis 
 Civic and Commerce Association and the Delta Chi 
 fraternity. He was president of the Alumni Law 
 Association in 1897 and is still a member of that 
 organization. 
 
 An active republican, Mr. Fowler has attended 
 numerous state, county and city conventions, and in 
 1 91 1 was elected a member of the State Legislature, 
 being at this time the representative of the Fortieth 
 District. As a legislator he has been an active, 
 working member of the distinguished body to which 
 he belongs and has been steadfast in his champion- 
 ship of the rights and privileges of his constituents. 
 As chairman of the subcommittee on elections in 
 the house, Mr. Fowler took an active part in the 
 revision of the election laws containing the second 
 choice -and non-partisan features. He worked inde- 
 fatigably to place the judiciary and administrative 
 offices beyond the influence of party organizations, 
 a service of incalculable value to his state. One of 
 the most notable events in Mr. Fowler’s life, and an 
 occurrence almost without parallel in the history of 
 state legislative bodies, was the two-day contest, in 
 1911, between Speaker Dunn and Representatives 
 Stone and Klemmer, during which Mr. Fowler pre- 
 sided over the house. A man of firm convictions 
 and settled purpose, practical in his aims, whether 
 as attorney, legislator or man, Mr. Fowler has ad- 
 vanced steadily to a high professional position, and 
 has been effective also in the realization of those 
 projects which are advanced by good citizens of 
 modern progressive tendencies. 
 
 On November 5, 1895, Mr. Fowler was married 
 at Tiffin, Ohio, to Miss Carrie Blair Jones, who was 
 born at Tiffin and educated there. She is a daughter 
 of Edward and Caroline (Blair) Jones, the former 
 of whom, now deceased, belonged to a well-known 
 family of Northern Ohio, as did the latter, who still 
 survives and makes her home with Mr. and Mrs. 
 Fowler. William Blair, the grandfather of Mrs. 
 Fowler, was a member of the well-known Blair fam- 
 ily of New York and New Jersey, and from the 
 latter state migrated to Ohio at an early day, bring- 
 ing his family with him and settling in the vicinity 
 of Tiffin, where he purchased 160 acres of land for 
 each of his children. James A. Blair, of New 
 York, and the late John I. Blair were uncles of 
 Mrs. Fowler. 
 
 Frederick W hite is senior member of the White 
 & Odell Agency of the Northwestern Life Insurance 
 Company of Minneapolis. This agency is one of 
 the strongest and most successful in the Northwest 
 and in July, 1914, at the conclusion of about six 
 years of activity in this state, its aggregate of writ- 
 ten insurance amounted to over fifteen millions of 
 dollars. As a celebration of the passing of this 
 mark, the officers and directors of the Northwestern 
 National entertained the White & Odell Agency 
 members and workers with a complimentary dinner 
 The members of the White & Odell Agency are 
 hrederick White and Clinton M. Odell, and they 
 have nearly five_ hundred agents under their jur- 
 isdiction, most of whom are bank cashiers. 
 
 Frederick White was born in New York City 
 November 14, 1869. He comes of an old family of 
 Holland Dutch and English ancestry, and one of the 
 most _ conspicuous of his ancestors was Stephen 
 Hopkins, a signer of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence. Mr. White had a common school education, 
 and early in life entered the Young Men's Christian 
 Association work, and for sixteen years was con- 
 nected with that great organization, either as asso- 
 ciate state secretary or general secretary. The past 
 twelve years have been devoted to life insurance, 
 and for six and a half years he has been state 
 agent for the Northwestern National Life Insur- 
 ance Company at Minneapolis. 
 
 Mr. White is a republican in his usual political 
 actions, is a trustee of the Judson Memorial Bap- 
 tist Church at Minneapolis, and a director in the 
 Minneapolis Y. M. C. A. He is also a member of 
 the Minneapolis Club, the Minneapolis Athletic Club, 
 the Interlachen, the Minneapolis Civic and Com- 
 merce Association, the Minneapolis Society of Fine 
 Arts, and the Rotary Club. June 15, 1896, he mar- 
 ried Caroline Lung. Their three children are 
 Schuyler, Julia and Catharine. 
 
 Clinton M. Odell. A member of the firm of 
 White & Odell, state agents for the Northwestern 
 National Life Insurance Company in Minneapolis, 
 Clinton M. Odell is a graduate lawyer, but has 
 found his principal field of achievement in insurance, 
 and his work in that field has brought him a large 
 reputation throughout the Northwest. He is also 
 prominent as a citizen, and is president of the Min- 
 nesota Game and Fish Protective League. 
 
 He was born at Sodus, New York, March 24, 
 1878, and came to Minneapolis with his parents. 
 He graduated from the Central High School in 
 1897, then took up the study of law, entered the 
 University of Minnesota, and in 1901 graduated 
 LL. B. While in university he became interested 
 in the college fraternity Zeta Psi, and in 1904 was 
 made president of the Western Association of Zeta 
 Psi, which during his administration purchased a 
 club house at the university. 
 
 In January, 1913, Mr. Odell was elected president 
 of the Minnesota Game and Fish Protective League, 
 an association which has done much to protect the 
 feathered and finny denizens of the state. It has 
 a membership of more than four hundred sportsmen 
 in the City of Minneapolis alone and many others 
 all over Minnesota. During 1913 he served on the 
 highway committee of the Minneapolis Civic and 
 Commerce Association, as chairman of a special 
 committee for the classification and improvement of 
 the highways of Hennepin County. The plan of 
 the committee was adopted by the association and 
 
1510 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 subsequently by the county commissioners of Hen- 
 nepin County and put into effect. Mr. Odell is a 
 member of the General Alumni Association of 
 Mninesota, the Minneapolis, Rotary. University and 
 Automobile clubs, and Ark Lodge, No. 176, A. F. & 
 
 A. M., at Minneapolis. 
 
 Soon after leaving university Mr. Odell became 
 interested in life insurance, and has for several 
 years been a member of the firm of White & Odell, 
 which now has one of the largest insurance agencies 
 west of Chicago, with 450 local, general and district 
 managers, and an annual production of about four 
 million dollars of life insurance. The Northwest- 
 ern National Life Insurance Company of Minne- 
 apolis was organized in 1885, and is a mutual old 
 line company, conducted solely in the interests of 
 its policy holders and without stockholders. The 
 directors are among the leading business men and 
 financiers of the Northwest, namely: E. W. Decker, 
 president of the Northwestern National Bank; F. A. 
 Chamberlain, president of the Security National 
 Bank; T. B. Janney, president of the Farmers & 
 Mechanics Savings Bank; C. T. Jaffray, vice presi- 
 dent of the First National Bank; A. A. Crane, vice 
 president of the First National Bank; J. A. Latta, 
 vice president of the Northwestern National Bank; 
 
 B. F. Nelson, president of the Hennepin Paper 
 Company ; E. L. Carpenter of the Shevlin-Carpenter 
 Clarke Company; and John T. Baxter, president of 
 the Northwestern National Life Insurance Company. 
 At the beginning of 1914 the company had nearly 
 thirty million dollars of insurance in force, and 
 total assets of more than three million six hundred 
 thousand dollars. 
 
 Mr. Odell was married October 23, 1901, in Min- 
 neapolis to Miss Amy Hamley, who was -born in 
 New Zealand and educated in Minneapolis, having 
 graduated from the Central High School in the 
 same year that Mr. Odell graduated from univer- 
 sity, in 1901. Their three children were all born 
 in Minneapolis : Allan Gilbert, Leonard Clinton and 
 Moana. Mr. Odell owns a farm of 105 acres, 10 x / 2 
 miles from Minneapolis on the Minnesota River, 
 where the family reside during the summer months. 
 The city residence is at 1912 Fremont Avenue, South. 
 
 FIon. Anton J. Rocicne. A lawyer of twenty 
 years’ experience, a newspaper publisher, and a 
 prominent member of the State Legislature, Anton 
 J. Rockne is one of the best known figures in pro- 
 fessional and political affairs at Zumbrota. His 
 forceful leadership, his skill as a lawyer, and his 
 thorough integrity have brought him a deserved 
 prominence in Minnesota life. 
 
 Anton J. Rockne was born in Fillmore County, 
 Minnesota, December 19, 1870. His parents, 
 
 Michael and Anna (Amundson) Rockne were both 
 natives of Norway. The paternal grandfather was 
 Lars Rockne, who came to America and died in 
 Illinois during a cholera epidemic. The maternal 
 grandfather was Amond Amundson, who for many 
 years was a sailor on the high seas, but finally 
 brought his family to America and settled in Iowa 
 in 1846, about the time that territory was admitted 
 to the Union. He followed farming in Iowa and 
 died there. Michael Rockne was born in 1823 and 
 died January 6, 1914. His wife, who is still living, 
 was born in 1839, and they were married in 1865 
 in Winneshiek County, Iowa. Michael Rockne emi- 
 grated to America in 1841, settled in Illinois, moved 
 to Iowa, and for seven or eight years was a farmer 
 
 near Yankton, South Dakota, and in 1866 bought 
 a farm in Filmore County, Minnesota, and con- 
 tinued as a successful agriculturist until his death. 
 He was a republican in politics, and he and his fam- 
 ily were Lutherans. Of their nine children six are 
 living. 
 
 Anton J. Rockne was second in the family, began 
 as an ordinary farm boy, trained in the country 
 schools, and got his opening into a larger sphere 
 of action through higher training in the Decorah 
 Institute, after which he taught school for one 
 year. Mr. Rockne graduated from the University 
 of Minnesota in the law department in 1894, and 
 in October of the same year opened an office for 
 practice at Zumbrota. His practice, of a general 
 nature, has taken him into all the courts, and in the 
 past twenty years he has represented some of the 
 most important legal business in his section of the 
 state. 
 
 After getting successfully established in law, he 
 allowed his interests to be attracted into politics. 
 For a number of years the republican party in his 
 section has looked upon him as a leader, and his 
 service as a legislator has made his name well known 
 throughout the state. Mr. Rockne served in the 
 Legislature as representative in the sessions of 
 1903, 1905, 1907 and 1909, and was then elected to 
 the State Senate and has served in the sessions of 
 1911 and 1913. In 1909 he was speaker of the 
 House. Mr. Rockne is now a candidate for re- 
 election to the Senate. 
 
 In 1899 Mr. Rockne married Susie Albertson. 
 Her father, Elling Albertson, was an early settler 
 and farmer in Goodhue County, Minnesota, and 
 went out as a soldier in the Union army, with four 
 years of experience, without wounds or capture, 
 though a participant in many engagements. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Rockne have three children : Melroy, born 
 in September, 1900; Eleanor, born in February, 1902; 
 and Ariel, born in 1004. Mr. Rockne is a member 
 of the English Lutheran Church, and affiliates with 
 Lodge No. 845, B. P. O. E. at Red Wing. While 
 nearly all his time is taken up with his law practice 
 and his office as Senator, he is also the owner of the 
 Zumbrota News. 
 
 Trafford N. Jayne. The personnel of the bar of 
 the Minnesota metropolis is of the highest type 
 in a generic sense and among those who are here 
 contributing to the dignity and prestige of the legal 
 profession a place of not slight prominence must 
 be accorded to Mr. Jayne, who controls a substantial 
 and representative practice, with office headquarters 
 at 703 Hennepin Avenue. Further interest attaches 
 to his precedence by reason of the fact that he is a 
 native son of Minnesota and a member of one of 
 the honored pioneer families of this great com- 
 monwealth. 
 
 Trafford Newton Jayne was born near Lewiston, 
 Winona County, Minnesota, on the 3d of November, 
 1868, and is a son of Havens, Brewster Jayne and 
 Nellie Victoria fPike) Jayne, the former a native 
 of Long Island and the latter of Maine. The latter 
 family was founded in New England in the colonial 
 days and the lineage of each traces back to staunch 
 English origin, though, more remotely the Jayne fam- 
 ily is of Norman French stock, the name having 
 originally been dejayne and the line of descent be- 
 ing traced back to an officer of the name who held 
 high rank in the forces of the great Norman, Wil- 
 liam the Conqueror. During the reign of Cromwell 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1511 
 
 in England representatives of the family were found 
 arrayed as his supporters, and after the accession of 
 Charles II to the English throne, in order to dis- 
 guise measurably their identity, the members of the 
 family obliterated the prefix “de” from their cog- 
 nomen. From that time on the name has been used 
 in its present abridged form, Jayne. William Jayne, 
 the progenitor of the American line, came from Eng- 
 land to the New World in 1676, and he made settle- 
 ment on Long Island. The old family home in 
 England was maintained for generations at Bristol, 
 a city that to-day constitutes a county in itself. In 
 the agnatic line Trafford N. Jayne is a descendant 
 also from one of the old and influential families of 
 Smithton, Long Island. Elder William Brewster, 
 the originator of this branch, was born in Scrooby, 
 England, in 1560, and came to New England on the 
 historic “Mayflower,” his death having occurred 
 in 1644. Jonathan Brewster, eldest son of William, 
 was born in Scrooby, England, and came to Amer- 
 ica on the “Fortune,” in 1621 ; somewhat later he 
 was a resident of Duxbury, Massachusetts, and 
 finally he established his residence at New London, 
 Connecticut. Nathaniel Brewster, grandson of 
 Elder William Brewster and supposed to have been 
 a son of Jonathan, just mentioned, died in 1690. 
 The next in direct line of descent to the subject of 
 this sketch was one of the sons of Nathaniel, the 
 names of these three sons having been Timothy, 
 John and Daniel. Of the fifth generation was Joseph 
 Brewster, whose son Joseph had a daughter named 
 Ruth, this Ruth Brewster becoming, in 1804, the 
 wife of 'Ebenezer Jayne; they established their home 
 at Smithton, Long Island, and their son Joseph 
 Breswter Jayne, grandfather of him whose name 
 initiates this article, was the founder of the Min- 
 nesota branch of the family, his settlement here 
 having been made at Lewiston, Winona County. 
 
 Altogether worthy of reproduction in this con- 
 nection are the following extracts from a work en- 
 titled “In Old New York,” the same having been 
 prepared and published by Charles Bunn Todd; 
 “On a gentle elevation that slopes down to Se- 
 tauket Harbor on the east, its steeple facing the west, 
 stands the Presbyterian Church of Setauket,— a 
 church that has as much history connected with 
 it, and of as interesting character, as any of the 
 famous churches of New England. Its early rec- 
 ords have been lost, but we know that it was 
 founded in t66o, five years after the Independents 
 of Connecticut had come over and settled at Setau- 
 ket. What is of more general interest is the fact 
 that its first pastor, Rev. Nathaniel Brewster, a 
 grandson of the famous Elder Brewster of the 
 ‘Mayflower,’ was the first native graduate of Har- 
 vard College. Mr. Brewster died during his pas- 
 torate here and was buried, according to the present 
 pastor, William Littell, near a corner of the church, 
 though nothing to-day marks the spot. This Na- 
 thaniel Brewster was the father or grandfather of 
 Joseph Brewster. The British, during the Revo- 
 lution, destroyed the church and records and tore 
 up the gravestones, which they used in making 
 ovens. Nathaniel Brewster married Sarah, _ daugh- 
 ter of Roger Ludlow. Roger Ludlow was’ deputy 
 governor of Massachusetts and Connecticut and in- 
 fluential in the settlement of the colonies. Timothy 
 Brewster married Anna Jayne. Joseph Brewster 
 married Ruth Buswe. Joseph Brewster, Jr., mar- 
 ried Rebecca Mills. Joseph Brewster Jayne married 
 Sally Miranda Smith. Joseph Brewster, Tr., loaned 
 
 Vol. Ill— 16 
 
 money to the government during the Revolution, 
 according to ‘New York in the Revolution.’” 
 
 It will thus be seen that the ancestral history of 
 Trafford N. Jayne is one of which he may well be 
 proud, for the record in all. lines stands indicative 
 of lofty patriotism and large and worthy achieve- 
 ment. 
 
 Havens Brewster Jayne came with his parents to 
 Minnesota about the year 1857, and they became 
 pioneer settlers near the present City of St. Charles, 
 Winona County. The parents of his wife settled 
 near Lewiston, that county, about 1858, and both 
 families were prominent and influential in the civic 
 and industrial development and upbuilding of Win- 
 ona County. Havens B. Jayne, who died when his 
 son Trafford N. was four years of age, was one 
 of the substantial farmers of Winona County and 
 was a mani whose character and achievement gave 
 him inviolable place in the confidence and esteem of 
 all who knew him. He died in January, 1873, and 
 of the two children the younger is he to whom this 
 sketch is dedicated; the elder of the two is Violet 
 D., who is the wife of Prof. Edward C. Schmidt, 
 holding the chair of Railway Engineering in the 
 University of Illinois, where Mrs. Schmidt was 
 dean of women from 1897 to 1904, in June of which 
 latter year their marriage was solemnized; they re- 
 side at Urbana, Illinois, a city that vies with Cham- 
 paign in claiming the university of that state. Mrs. 
 Nellie Victoria (Pike) Jayne survived her honored 
 husband. 
 
 Trafford Newton Jayne is indebted to the district 
 schools for his early educational training and lived 
 on the old homestead farm near St. Charles, 
 Winona County, until he was three years of age, 
 when he accompanied his parents on their removal to 
 Mankato, Blue Earth County. In his fifth year he 
 was again taken back to St. Charles, and two years 
 later his widowed mother established her home in 
 Winona, where he attended the graded schools for 
 three years. The following two years were passed 
 on the old home farm, and then young Jayne re- 
 entered the Winona schools, in which he completed 
 the freshman course in the high school when but 
 thirteen years of age. At this point in his career 
 he left school and began an apprenticeship at 
 telegraphy and general railroad-office work, at 
 Lewiston. In a little less than five months he was 
 given a position as telegraph operator and after 
 working about eight months in this capacity he was 
 appointed cashier in the Winona offices of the Chi- 
 cago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. Though he 
 was but fourteen years of age at the time he was 
 given a salary of sixty-five dollars a month. He 
 retained this position only a short time, as he was 
 offered more remunerative employment as telegraph 
 operator and, ticket clerk in the same office of the 
 company. This incumbency he retained ten months, 
 and he was then appointed assistant city ticket agent 
 at Winona for the Chicago & Northwestern Rail- 
 road. About eight months later he was advanced to 
 the position of cashier in the Mankato office of the 
 same company. His ability and fidelity were shown 
 by the responsibilities thus placed upon him while 
 he was still a mere boy, but his practical experi- 
 ence but tended to foster his ambition for the ob- 
 taining of a better education. This ambition was 
 one of definite action, as is indicated by the fact 
 that in 1886 he entered the literary department of 
 the great University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, 
 where he completed a four years’ course in three 
 
1512 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 years. He was a member of the class of 1890. Mr. 
 Jayne, though so thorough and appreciative a student, 
 had none of the elements of the “mollycoddle,” and 
 he took a specially active part in college athletics. 
 In 1889 he won the university championship at lawn 
 tennis, and shortly afterward defeated in this line 
 the champion of Ohio, in a match game. He was 
 also a member of the baseball team of the University 
 of Michigan, secretary and treasurer of tennis as- 
 sociation and vice president of the Bicycle Club of 
 the university. He was also secretary and treasurer 
 of the Dramatic Club, and editor-in-chief of the 
 Commencement Annual, — all these preferments in- 
 dicating his marked popularity as a member of the 
 student body of his alma mater. 
 
 After leaving the university Mr. Jayne returned 
 to Minnesota and accepted a position as chief clerk 
 in the law office of Williams & Goodenow, of St. 
 Paul. In the meanwhile, and with characteristic 
 energy and determination, he carried forward his 
 study of law, and in January, 1890, he was admitted 
 to the bar of his native state. He forthwith began 
 his active professional novitiate in Minnesota’s cap- 
 ital city, and in the autumn of the same year he 
 there entered into a professional partnership with 
 Cornelius B. Palmer, under the firm name of Palmer 
 & Jayne. This alliance continued until January x, 
 1892, and shortly afterward Mr. Jayne formed a 
 partnership, in Minneapolis, with Robert G. Mor- 
 rison, under the title of Jayne & Morrison. This 
 association continued until 1897 when Mr. Jayne 
 became senior member of the law firm of Jayne & 
 Helliwell, his coadjutor being Arthur L. Helliwell. 
 The partnership was dissolved two years later and 
 thereafter Mr. Jayne was associated for less than 
 one year with George E. Dickson, under the title 
 of Jayne & Dickson. Since that time he has con- 
 ducted an individual law business of general order, 
 and his practice is essentially of representative or- 
 der, special attention being given to insurance law, 
 in which connection he is attorney for two promi- 
 nent casualty companies. He has served as court 
 commissioner of Hennepin County, and he holds 
 membership in the American Bar Association, the 
 Minnesota State Bar Association and the Henne- 
 pin County Bar Association. His political alle- 
 giance is given to the republican party and as a citi- 
 zen he is emphatically broad-minded and progressive, 
 with clear apprehension of and interest in all that 
 touches the welfare of his home city. He is an 
 active member of the Minneapolis Civic & Com- 
 merce Association ; he takes a lively interest in relig- 
 ious thought and activities, and from 1892 to 1893, as 
 well as from 1907 to 1910, he had the distinction of 
 being president of the Minnesota Christian Endeavor 
 Union, the state organization of the various Chris- 
 tian Endeavor societies. Both he and his wife are 
 adherents of the Congregational Church, their mem- 
 bership being in the Forest Heights Congregational 
 Church. In a fraternal way Mr. Jayne is identified 
 with Minnesota Lodge, No. 224, Ancient Free and 
 Accepted Masons, as well as with local organiza- 
 tions of the Knights of Pythias, the Royal Arcanum 
 and the Knights of Malta. He is affiliated also with 
 the Beta Theta Pi and Delta Chi college fraternities. 
 He is a member of the Minnesota Male Quartet, of 
 Minneapolis, and is secretary and chorusmaster 
 of the Philharmonic Club, his musical talent being 
 of' high order. Mr. Jayne has never abated his 
 interest in athletics, and through the medium of 
 the same he has found both satisfaction and health- 
 
 giving recreation. He still holds the hand-ball cham- 
 pionship of Minneapolis, as does he also the Min- 
 nesota tennis championship, the Red River Valley, 
 and that of the City of Minneapolis. He is an ex- 
 pert swimmer, sprinter and baseball man, an en- 
 thusiast in all of these virile sports, and a ten-mile 
 jaunt for simple exercise is looked upon by him as 
 an “easy stunt.” 
 
 On the 12th of June, 1913, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Jayne to Miss Inez A. Downing, 
 daughter of Dr. William L. and Martha (Coons) 
 Downing, of Moulton, Iowa, where her father is a 
 representative physician and surgeon. Mrs. Jayne 
 was born at Unionville, Missouri, and was afforded 
 the advantages of Drake University, at Des Moines, 
 Iowa, in which institution she was graduated. 
 Thereafter she took post-graduate work in the Uni- 
 versity of Illinois, and she is a woman of dis- 
 tinctive culture as well as gracious social attributes. 
 She is affiliated with the Beta Xi Upsilon and the 
 Alpha Omicron Pi and Beta Chi Upsilon fraternities. 
 
 Maj. Christopher B. Heffelfinger. In the year 
 preceding that in which Minnesota was admitted 
 as one of the sovereign states of the Union, Major 
 Heffelfinger arrived in the future metropolis of 
 the Northwest. He has since been an influential 
 force in the civic and material development and up- 
 building of Minneapolis, was long and prominently 
 identified with important business interests, and has 
 also specially honored the state through his dis- 
 tinguished services as a soldier and officer in the 
 Civil war. Now eighty years of age, in 1914, he 
 is living retired in the city so long his home, in 
 which he is known and honored for his sterling 
 character, for his civic ideals and unequivocal 
 loyalty, and for the gallant military career that 
 gave him enduring prestige as one of the most gal- 
 lant soldiers sent forth by Minnesota to aid in the 
 preservation of the nation’s integrity. 
 
 His grandfather, Philip Heffelfinger, a Pennsyl- 
 vanian by birth, had been a loyal soldier of the 
 Continental line in the War of the Revolution. 
 Major Heffelfinger was born in Newburg, Cum- 
 berland County, Pennsylvania, January 13, 1834, a 
 son of William and Margaret (Bistle) Heffelfinger, 
 who spent their entire lives in the old Keystone State. 
 William Heffelfinger was a citizen of high standing, 
 set in his political views, belonged to the old 
 whig party, and was a great admirer- of Henry Clay. 
 
 At the age of six years Major Heffelfinger was 
 placed . in a private school, and from the age of 
 eight to fourteen attended public schools, and in 
 1852, at the age of eighteen, severed his association 
 with the work of the home farm and began an ap- 
 prenticeship in the tanning business. After the ex- 
 piration of his apprenticeship in the spring of 1855, 
 he was admitted to partnership in the business, and 
 in 1857 disposed of his interests for the purpose of 
 coming to the West and assuming the labors and 
 responsibilities of a pioneer in a new but progressive 
 community. He left his old home at Shippensburg, 
 Pennsylvania, April 14, 1857, made his way via Chi- 
 cago to the Mississippi, embarking at Dunleith, and 
 landed. ’on the 21st of the same month, at St. Paul; 
 thence by stage he went to St. Anthony, and one 
 week later crossed the river to Minneapolis, which 
 has ever since been his home. He soon found ample 
 scope for productive energy in the new home, and 
 continued to be identified with business interests in 
 Minnesota until 1861. On January 2, 1861, he left 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1513 
 
 for the East, and went as far as LaCrosse, Wis- 
 consin, in a stage equipped with runners or bobs. 
 While in the East he visited the national capital, 
 and is one of the few men still living who stood and 
 listened to the great inaugural address delivered 
 by President Lincoln on the 4th of March, 1861. 
 After visiting his old home he returned to Minne- 
 sota, reaching Minneapolis April 10th, and on Presi- 
 dent Lincoln's first call for volunteers, for a term 
 of three months, Major Heffelfinger promptly sub- 
 ordinated all other considerations to the spirit and 
 practice of patriotism and loyalty. He enrolled his 
 name on the list of the first volunteers from Minne- 
 sota on the 16th of April, 1861, and on the 29th of 
 the same month marched with his company from 
 Minneapolis to Fort Snelling, where he was mus- 
 tered into the United States service as a member of 
 Company D, First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. 
 The company was organized before leaving Minne- 
 apolis, but not mustered into service until they ar- 
 rived at the fort. The company was organized and 
 chose its officers by election, which was generally 
 the rule at that time. The officers elected were : 
 Captain, H. R. Putnam ; first lieutenant, George H. 
 Woods; second lieutenant, DeWitt C. Smith. After 
 they had been mustered in the captain appointed the 
 non-commissioned officers, consisting of five ser- 
 geants and eight corporals, and C. B. Heffelfinger 
 was made second sergeant in his company. On the 
 4th of May, under the call for 250,000 volunteers 
 for a period of three years, “or during the war,” 
 Mr. Fleffelfinger with the regiment was remustered 
 for the extended term, dating from April 29th of 
 the original muster of the regiment, making the 
 First Minnesota Infantry the oldest three-year vol- 
 unteer regiment in the service. On the 20th of June 
 the regiment was ordered to Washington, and on 
 reaching that city went into camp on the capitol 
 grounds, but soon afterwards was sent to Alexan- 
 dria, Virginia, where they remained until about the 
 16th. On July 21st, just thirty-one days from the 
 time the regiment left Fort Snelling, it was engaged 
 in the Battle of Bull Run, and in this engagement 
 Sergeant Heffelfinger carried a musket and admir- 
 ably acquitted himself. On the 26th of November, 
 1861, he received his commission as second lieuten- 
 ant, and a few days later was left in command of 
 his company, during the winter and spring of 1862 
 participating in the battles of Berryville and Win- 
 chester and in the siege of Yorktown, in April, 1862. 
 Early in the following month it participated in the 
 battle of Williamsburg, which was followed by ac- 
 tive service in the engagement at West Point, Vir- 
 ginia, on the 7th of May. At this point Captain 
 Smith joined the regiment and took command of the 
 company. Lieutenant Heffelfinger was a member 
 of the detail that constructed what was known as the 
 “Grapevine Bridge” over the Chickahominy River, 
 and over this structure the Second Division of the 
 Second Army Corps crossed to the support of Couch 
 and Casey in the Battle of Fair Oaks, May 51st and 
 June 1st. In this battle Lieutenant Heffelfinger took 
 active part, as also in all of the seven days battles 
 of the peninsula of 1862, Peach Orchard, Savage 
 Station, where the regiment suffered severe losses, 
 Glendale, and White Oak Swamp, Malvern Hill on 
 the 1st of July and the second battle of Malvern 
 Hill on the 5th of August. On the night of June 
 30th, when the Army of the Potomac retreated 
 from its position in front of Richmond, Lieutenant 
 Heffelfinger, in command of a detail of his company 
 
 on the advance picket line in front of that city, 
 held this position until sunrise next morning, when 
 the picket line was attacked in force by the enemy 
 and obliged to retire to Peach Orchard, where the 
 lieutenant and his company joined their regiment 
 and took part in the battle. The regiment took 
 part in the battles at Vienna, Virginia, September 
 2d South Mountain, Maryland, September 15th; 
 Antietam, Maryland, September 17th. In this bat- 
 tle Captain Smith was wounded and Lieutenant 
 Heffelfinger again assumed command. Tt was also in 
 the engagement at Charlestown, Virginia, on the 
 16th of October, and in that at Fredericksburg, 
 December 13 and 14, 1862. It was engaged in the 
 battle at Fredericksburg on the 6th of May, 1863; 
 that at Haymarket, Virginia, June 25th ; and the 
 historic battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 
 2 and 3, 1863, at which time he was in command 
 of the company. He was wounded in the charge 
 made by the First Regiment on the 2d, but not dis- 
 abled. The latter engagements in which Major Hef- 
 felfinger was present with his regiment in Virginia, 
 were those of Bristow Station, October 14, 1863, 
 and Mine Run, the following month. Captain 
 Smith, of Company D, First Minnesota Infantry, 
 was wounded at the battle of Antietam and Major 
 Heffelfinger thereafter had the command of the 
 company until the expiration of his term of enlist- 
 ment and his mustering out of the service on the 
 4th of May, 1864, at Fort Snelling, Minnesota. On 
 the 17th of September, 1862, he was promoted first 
 lieutenant and he became captain of his company on 
 the 3d of July, 1863. He had taken part in the 
 Chancellorsville campaign in the spring of 1863, 
 and in all of his service had acquitted himself as a 
 valiant soldier and effective officer. 
 
 The major received two slight wounds in the 
 battle of Fredericksburg and was painfully wounded 
 in the battle of Gettysburg, but not disabled. On the 
 3d of July, 1863, he was in command of his com- 
 pany on the field at a point known as the “high- 
 water mark of the Rebellion” in repulse of the fa- 
 mous charge of the Confederate forces in command 
 of General Pickett. In this engagement the two 
 remaining captains of the First Minnesota — Cap- 
 tain Messick and Captain Farrell — were killed, and 
 at the close of the battle the regiment was left in 
 command of First Lieutenant Heffelfinger, who con- 
 tinued as ranking officer of the command until late 
 in the evening, when Captain Coates who was ab- 
 sent from the regiment on the 3d, joined the regi- 
 ment. Late in July, 1863, after the battle of Gettys- 
 burg the First Minnesota was ordered to New York, 
 at the time of the drafting, and it was assigned to 
 Fort Green, Brooklyn. Two companies from the 
 regiment were detailed to guard the Brooklyn City 
 Hall while the drafting was in progress, and Cap- 
 tain Heffelfinger commanded this detail. After the 
 completion of the draft the regiment was relieved 
 and rejoined the Army of the Potomac in Virginia 
 with which it took part in the battles of Bristow 
 Station and Mine Run, as previously noted. 
 
 In February, 1864, the First Minnesota Infantry 
 was ordered home for the purpose of veteranizing. 
 Of this period in his military career Major Heffel- 
 finger has written as follows : “I was on recruiting 
 service at Minneapolis, but the record of the First 
 Regiment and the Army of the Potomac rather dis- 
 couraged recruits from enlisting in the regiment. 
 They preferred to go into the Minnesota regiments 
 that were in the Western Army. I was on recruit- 
 
1514 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 ing service from the 15th of March to the 20th of 
 April and secured fifteen recruits, who were prin- 
 cipally from families directly interested in the First 
 Regiment. Other officers on recruiting service did 
 not meet with any better success. Recruits who 
 were held over and had time to serve were organ- 
 ized into battalions and filled up two companies. 
 After I was mustered out I proceeded to Washing- 
 ton and received a commission in the United States 
 Sanitary Commission, as a representative of which 
 I was with the army in front of Petersburg during 
 the months of July and August, 1864. I was present 
 at the headquarters of the Fifth Corps on the night 
 of the explosion of the Burnside mine.” 
 
 In March, 1865, Major Heffelfinger received from 
 Governor Miller of Minnesota commission as major 
 of' the First Minnesota Heavy Artillery, which was 
 stationed at Chattanooga, Tennessee, and during the 
 greater part of the time he was in command of the 
 regiment. In September he returned with this com- 
 mand to Minnesota and on the 10th of the following 
 month was mustered out with the regiment at Fort 
 Snelling. 
 
 After the close of his long and distinguished mili- 
 tary service Major Heffelfinger returned to Pennsyl- 
 vania, where he passed the winter. In the spring of 
 1866 he returned to Minneapolis and engaged in 
 the shoe business, in which he became associated 
 with John S. Walker, under the firm of Walker & 
 Heffelfinger. In February, 1870, the partnership 
 was dissolved and the major assumed full control 
 of the business. In 1873 he was one of the prin- 
 cipals in the organization of the North Star Boot 
 & Shoe Company, of which he became superintend- 
 ent, H. G. Harrison having been president and A. M. 
 Reed secretary and treasurer of the company. This 
 was the pioneer boot and shoe wholesale house of 
 Minnesota, west of St, Paul, and in 1875 Major 
 Heffelfinger was elected president of the company. 
 In 1888 A. M. Reed and his son sold their interest to 
 W. S. King and his son Preston. In November, 
 1891, the establishment of the company was de- 
 stroyed by fire and a large financial loss was en- 
 tailed, though the concern quickly recuperated and 
 resumed business. In April, 1892, a few months 
 after this fire, Major Heffelfinger purchased the in- 
 terest of Mr. King, and in the following year the 
 title of the company was changed to the North Star 
 Shoe Company. It maintained a branch establish- 
 ment at Davenport, Iowa, and in addition to its 
 factory at Anoka, Minnesota, it operated also a 
 factory at Faribault, this state, under the title of 
 the Shaft-Pierce Shoe Company. The corporation 
 encountered heavy losses during the financial panic 
 of 1907, and in 1910 Major Heffelfinger permanently 
 retired from active business, after a career marked 
 by distinctive energy, progressiveness and con- 
 structive ability. 
 
 In 1896 the major erected a seven-story building 
 at the '-orner of First Avenue. North, and Fifth 
 Street, for the use of the North Star Shoe Company. 
 In 1892 he had erected a building of six stories on 
 the opposite corner, for the firm of McDonald 
 Brothers. In 1904 was built an addition to the 
 building of the North Star Shoe Company, making 
 the structure a solid block, 140x162 feet in dimen- 
 sions and seven stories in height. In 1904 he erected 
 also, for the firm of Robitshek, Frank & Heller, a 
 substantial five-story building on Fourth Street, 
 and another excellent business building on the op- 
 posite side of the street. In 1908-9 he built an addi- 
 
 tion to the McDonald Building, making the build- 
 ing 140x150 feet and eight stories high. 
 
 During the long years of his active business career 
 in Minneapolis Major Heffelfinger was known as 
 one of the city's most loyal, liberal and progressive 
 citizens. Prior to the consolidation of Minneapolis 
 and St. Anthony he served as a member of the city 
 council, 1867-70, and during the last year of this 
 period he was vice president of the council. He has 
 had, however, no desire for public office or for the 
 turbulence of so-called practical politics, though he 
 is a stalwart supporter of the cause of the repub- 
 lican party. 
 
 Major Heffelfinger has retained the deepest inter- 
 est in his old comrades in arms and signified this by 
 his active and influential affiliation with Rawlins 
 Post, Grand Army of the Republic, and Minnesota 
 Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal 
 Legion of the United States. In 1884 Major Hef- 
 felfinger was one of the commissioners appointed by 
 Governor Hubbard to visit the battlefield of Gettys- 
 burg for the purpose of locating the position of the 
 First Minnesota Regiment on the field. His asso- 
 ciates were Judge William Lochren and Major Ma- 
 ginnis. The three commissioners visited the field 
 and located the regimental position in June, 1884, 
 but it was not until 1890 that the Minnesota Legis- 
 lature made an appropriation ($20,000) to erect 
 monuments. Judge Lochren, Matthew Marvin and 
 Major Heffelfinger were the commissioners ap- 
 pointed to take charge of this fund, with which they 
 succeeded in placing two appropriate monuments 
 on the battlefield. The principal one marked the 
 position where the regiment made its charge on 
 July 2d. This one is regarded the finest regimental 
 monument on the field among the many erected by 
 various states. The other marks the spot where 
 the regiment was engaged on July 3d. In 1897 the 
 Legislature made an additional approbation of 
 $5,000 for the purpose of dedicating these monu- 
 ments and covering the incidental expenses entailed 
 by the attendance of the survivors of thS First Min- 
 nesota Regiment who had taken part in the Gettys- 
 burg battle. Major Heffelfinger was chairman of 
 the commission, and it has always been a matter of 
 satisfaction that he was able to assist in establishing 
 the permanent memorials. He was chairman also 
 of the Colville Monumental Commission, appointed 
 by Governor Johnson to supervise the expenditure 
 of an appropriation of $10,000 for the erection of 
 two monuments or statues in memory of Colonel 
 Colville, whose name merits highest honor in the 
 history of Minnesota. One of these memorials was 
 placed in the state capitol and the other in the ceme- 
 tery where the colonel’s remains rest, at Cannon 
 Falls, Dakota County. Major Heffelfinger likewise 
 was one of the seven commissioners appointed by the 
 state to assume charge of the $25,000 appropriated 
 by the Legislature of 1913 to cover the expense of 
 transporting all Gettysburg veterans resident of the 
 state to the field of Gettysburg on the occasion of 
 the fiftieth anniversary of that battle. Of this ap- 
 propriation, it was found necessary to spend less 
 than $20,000, and the balance was returned to the 
 state treasury. He was appointed a member of the 
 commission by Governor Johnson which had in 
 charge the appropriation of $4,000 with which to 
 place a painting in the state house representing the 
 charge of the First Regiment at Gettysburg July 2, 
 1863. Judge Lochren was the associate on this com- 
 

 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1515 
 
 mission. Major Heffelfinger is also a member of 
 the Territorial Old Settlers Association. 
 
 On the 20th of December, 1913, was solemnized 
 the fiftieth marriage anniversary of Major Hef- 
 felfinger to Miss Mary Ellen Totton, daughter of 
 John Totton, of Dillsburgh, Pennsylvania. Mrs. 
 Heffelfinger was born at Dillsburgh in New York 
 County, Pennsylvania, and has remained the loved 
 and devoted companion of her husband during the 
 long intervening period of more than half a cen- 
 tury. They became the parents of eight children, of 
 whom seven attained years of maturity, as follows : 
 Alfred S., of Minneapolis; W. Walter, of the Hel- 
 felfinger Agency, real estate, lands and insurance, 
 with offices in the McKnight Building at Minne- 
 apolis; Frank T., president of the F. H. Peavey 
 Company, grain brokers in the Chamber of Com- 
 merce; Mary Ellen, at home; Fanny, the wife of 
 Mr. Harry Selden, of Minneapolis; Charles E., 
 connected with the Pleffelfinger Agency; and Anna 
 Louise, wife of James Ford Bell, a director and 
 vice president of the Washburn-Crosby Company. 
 Besides these children there are eighteen grand- 
 children of Major Heffelfinger. 
 
 Daniel Ferguson Carmichiel. A very able and 
 successful Minneapolis lawyer, Daniel F. Carmichiel 
 has been a resident of Minnesota since 1885 except 
 a little less than two years spent in Texas, and has 
 stood in varied relations that have made him well 
 known to the community. He is a man of self- 
 accomplishment, fearless and of versatile gifts. He 
 has won his own way to success. He entered the 
 practice of law after a long apprenticeship in the 
 railway service and other lines of business. In 
 athletic sports in the '90s he fully demonstrated his 
 determination and stamina and was very well known 
 throughout this state and the Northwest generally, 
 he having held championship titles and established 
 records which remain unbroken. 
 
 Daniel Ferguson Carmichiel was born at Moravia, 
 New York, April 26, 1875, a son of John A. and 
 Isabella (McCredie) Carmichiel. He is in the sixth 
 generation from the Carmichiel family which lived 
 in, France and emigrated from that country to 
 Scotland. The McCredie family is of old Scotch 
 ancestry. John A. Carmichiel was born at Pem- 
 broke in the Province of Ontario, Canada, and his 
 wife was born in the Province, of Quebec. The Car- 
 michiels were pioneer lumbermen in Canada, and 
 the grandparents on both sides emigrated to that 
 country from Scotland. Andrew McCredie, the 
 maternal grandfather, was a tailor in Scotland, and 
 after moving to Canada engaged in farming, and 
 lived to the remarkable age of one hundred and 
 two years. His wife was also long lived, and was 
 ninety-eight when she died. Duncan Carmichiel, the 
 paternal grandfather, was a lumberman and con- 
 tractor in Pembroke, Canada, and he and his wife 
 died when past sixty years of age. John A. Car- 
 michiel and wife are still living, their home being 
 in Cleburne, Texas. About 1874 they left Canada, 
 lived in New Jersey for a short time as farmers, 
 then moved to Moravia, New York, where Daniel 
 was born, as one of a family of seven children, all 
 of whom are living. 
 
 Daniel F. Carmichiel obtained most of his educa- 
 tion by study while riding on street cars and trains 
 and by night study at home. The needs of a large 
 family required him to leave school permanently 
 when he was thirteen years of age, and it was at 
 
 this early date that he first expressed a desire to 
 become a lawyer and attempted to secure employ- 
 ment about a law office, but fate had decreed other- 
 wise. His first regular employment was as mes- 
 senger boy and later as clerk and timekeeper in and 
 about the shops of the Taylor-Craig Corporation, 
 which operated a wood working factory and con- 
 tracting and building business at St. Paul. Later 
 he was grain clerk and bookkeeper for the St. 
 Paul Warehouse and Elevator Company, at Ele- 
 vator “A” in St. Paul, which elevator has since been 
 destroyed by fire. On May 15, 1893, he became yard 
 clerk with the Northern Pacific Railway at St. 
 Paul, and was subsequently promoted to different 
 positions, as shop timekeeper, car interchange bill 
 clerk, material pricing and ledger clerk, and chief 
 clerk in the accounting and supplies department, 
 and, having developed unusual executive ability, he 
 was finally appointed chief clerk to the auditor of 
 motor power accounts and supply department for 
 the Minnesota and Lake Superior Division at Brain- 
 erd. It was while at Brainerd that Mr. Carmichiel 
 took up the systematic study of law, and in order 
 to have better opportunities for advancement in that 
 profession made effort to secure his transfer to the 
 legal department of the Northern Pacific Railway. 
 His immediate superiors, however, were so well 
 satisfied with his services in the position he then 
 held that they refused to permit the transfer which 
 he desired. Subsequently he resigned to accept a 
 position September 15, 1902, as general claim agent 
 with the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Com- 
 pany at Minneapolis, and he continued in that ca- 
 pacity until November 15, 1905. In the meantime 
 his health broke down because of a serious spinal 
 injury sustained in his athletic work; and the nerv- 
 ous strain caused thereby and incident to continuous 
 study and hard work in that injured condition finally 
 caused a complete nervous collapse, and while 
 recuperating he secured a position as chief clerk for 
 the mechanical superintendent of the Santa Fe Rail- 
 way in Texas, and remained there until May 1, 1907. 
 
 He then resigned, returned to Minneapolis, and 
 having been admitted to the bar by state examina- 
 tion on February 8, 1909, took up the general prac- 
 tice of law with the late Albert E. Clarke, under the 
 firm name of Clarke & Carmichiel, with offices in 
 the Loan & Trust Building at Minneapolis. That 
 partnership was continued with mutual profit and 
 satisfaction until the death of Mr. Clarke on Octo- 
 ber 9, 1910. Since then Mr. Carmichiel has prac- 
 ticed law alone, and has his present office at suite 
 801 of the New York Life Building at Minneapolis. 
 He has conducted to a successful conclusion many 
 very important law suits involving large estates and 
 large sums of money and several of which have at- 
 tracted considerable public attention because of the 
 character of the litigation and the parties involved. 
 He recently secured a decision of the State Su- 
 preme Court clearing up obscure points of law and 
 clearly establishing the rights of riparian owner 
 farmers whose land has been damaged by obstruc- 
 tion of a natural water course, and this decision is 
 of almost incalculable value to the farmers of this 
 state. His practice takes him into various courts 
 throughout the state, and he is generally known as 
 a fair, fearless and able attorney. He has made a 
 careful and special study of real estate law, and 
 the problems involved in long-time leases and trust 
 estates, and has negotiated many important deals 
 to a successful conclusion. 
 
1516 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 For several years Mr. Carmichiel has been quite 
 active in Minneapolis politics, not in his own in- 
 terests, but always for the public welfare. He is a 
 member and a stockholder and member of the execu- 
 tive committee of the Minneapolis Bar Library As- 
 sociation, and also a member of the State and 
 American Bar associations. Fie has been very ac- 
 tive in bar association matters, serving on many 
 important committees and doing much to elevate the 
 Standard of his profession and to simplify court 
 procedure and practice. His fearless and frank 
 expression as a public speaker has been a strong 
 factor on many occasions in forming public opinion 
 on important public questions. 
 
 He has always been a deep student of philo- 
 sophical and scientific subjects and social and civic 
 problems. Mr. Carmichiel is affiliated with Min- 
 neapolis Lodge No. 19, A. F. & A. M., and is a 
 thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. He is 
 a member of the Church of the Redeemer of the 
 Universalist denomination at Minneapolis. 
 
 In his earlier days while a resident of St. Paul 
 Mr. Carmichiel was an expert bicycle rider and ice 
 skater. This led him to competition on track and 
 road race courses. He established records on the 
 Minnetonka Century course and the Northfield Cen- 
 tury course before cycle paths were built, which 
 records are still unbroken. These records were es- 
 tablished under the auspices of the Century Road 
 Club of America. On Decoration Day of May, 
 1907, he established a new record over the New 
 London Road race course at Duluth. His best per- 
 formance on a bicycle was made November 7, 1897, 
 over the Northfield Century course, when after six 
 unsuccessful attempts, he finally broke the one hun- 
 dred mile road record of 7 hours 3 minutes which 
 had stood for five years. His time for the one 
 hundred miles was 6 hours and 10 minutes, and the 
 last twenty-five miles were ridden in the mud in a 
 driving rain. During 1895, 1896, 1897 he figured 
 prominently in all the important bicycle and skating 
 events of the Twin Cities and at many other places. 
 During the year 1912 he drove an automobile from 
 Minneapolis to the Pacific Coast. 
 
 One of the contributing causes of the complete 
 recovery of health by Mr. Carmichiel was a forty- 
 four day fast during which he did not partake of 
 any nourishment whatsoever, and he attributes his 
 present unusual recuperative powers and endurance 
 to this fast and to the fact that he limits him- 
 self to two meals or less per day, is temperate in 
 his habits and does not use any tobacco or any 
 stimulants or drugs. He favors prohibition of the 
 manufacture and sale of all intoxicating liquors. 
 
 On January 20, 1904, Mr. Carmichiel was married 
 at Minneapolis to Miss Ada H. Clarke, daughter of 
 the late Albert E. and Hattie C. (Noyes) Clarke of 
 Minneapolis. Mrs. Carmichiel was born at Fort 
 Dodge, Iowa, and' obtained her education in a 
 private school at St. Paul. She is also a member 
 of the Church of the Redeemer. Mr. and Mrs. Car- 
 michiel have four children : Donald C., Stanley M., 
 Albert E. and Evylynn R., all of whom were born 
 at Minneapolis with the exception of Donald, who 
 was born at Cleburne, Texas. Mr. Carmichiel now 
 finds his chief recreation in his home life and in 
 swimming, garden work, rowing, canoeing, walking, 
 skating and other outdoor activities, and at the age 
 of forty he has vigorous health. 
 
 Elias Rachie. Success in the exacting profession 
 of law carries with it testimony of an assured tech- 
 nical ability, power of practical application and the 
 personal characteristics that beget confidence and 
 respect. Among the many strong lawyers of Min- 
 nesota who claim the state as their place of birth 
 is Elias Rachie, established in the successful prac- 
 tice of his profession at Minneapolis with offices at 
 729 Plymouth Building. He is a member of one of 
 those sterling pioneer families of Scandinavian 
 lineage that have played a most important part in the 
 development of the great natural resources of Min- 
 nesota, and through his own character and achieve- 
 ments has honored the name which he bears. He 
 is known a ; a man of intellectual and professional 
 attainments, and aside from his profession has been 
 influential in public affairs, having served with no 
 little distinction in the Legislature. 
 
 Elias Rachie was born on the old homestead farm 
 seven miles west of Granite Falls in Stony Run, 
 Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota, November 4, 
 1875. He is a son of Lasse C. and Dorothy (Mon- 
 son) Rachie, both of whom were born and reared in 
 Norway, where they were married and whence they 
 emigrated to America in 1871. They landed in the 
 City of Quebec, Canada, having made the voyage on 
 a sailing vessel and taking seven weeks to cross the 
 Atlantic. From Quebec they came to Wells, Minne- 
 sota, on the 4th of July, and here they joined one of 
 Mrs. Rachie’s brothers, who had established his 
 home in Faribault County. Mr. Rachie entered a 
 pre-emption claim in Stony Run Township, Yellow 
 Medicine County, taking up his home there in the 
 snring of 1872, and as, one of the first settlers of 
 the township did his full share of the work which 
 has gradually transformed that locality in the past 
 forty years. He obtained a half section of land and 
 developed it into a fine farm, a credit to the agri- 
 cultural standards of the western nart of the state. 
 He was forty-five years of age and his wife thirty- 
 eight at the time they came to America, and they 
 continued on the old farm until the father passed 
 away in 1897, known and admired as a man of ster- 
 ling character, indefatigable industry and good busi- 
 ness judgment. His widow survived him about five 
 years and passed away in 1902. Both were sincere 
 members of the Lutheran Church. Of the three 
 children who attained to years of maturity the 
 youngest is Elias. Within a single month three of 
 the children died on the old homestead, victims of a 
 local epidemic of diphtheria, and at ages of two, 
 six and ten years. The eldest of the three surviv- 
 ing children is Rev. Christian Rachie, pastor of the 
 United Norwegian Lutheran Church at Naples, 
 Clark County, South Dakota. Mons J. Rachie lives 
 on the old family homestead in Yellow Medicine 
 County, a representative farmer in the county to the 
 progress and upbuilding of which his father con- 
 tributed in substantial measure. These two elder 
 sons were both born before the family came from 
 Norway. 
 
 The conditions of the pioneer farm furnished the 
 environment for the childhood and youth of Elias 
 Rachie. His preliminary education came from the 
 district schools of his native county, after which he 
 continued a student in the Red Wing Seminary at 
 Red Wing in Goodhue County. His record of 
 scholastic attainments is unusual, since he has re- 
 ceived from the University of Minnesota four de- 
 grees, and few other students have been similarly 
 honored by that institution. In 1896 he was, grad- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1517 
 
 uated Bachelor of Literature and after another year 
 of post-graduate work gained the Master of Arts 
 degree, in 1901 his alma mater conferred upon him 
 the degree Doctor of Philosophy, and in 1902 he 
 was graduated in the law department with the de- 
 gree Bachelor of Laws. 
 
 Before taking up the vocation which now en- 
 grosses his attention Mr. Rachie gained no little dis- 
 tinction as a teacher. He served two years as super- 
 intendent of the public schools of tne Village of 
 Sacred Heart, Renville County, before entering the 
 law department of the University. After being ad- 
 mitted to the bar Mr. Rachie taught one year in the 
 Lutheran Normal School at Madison, county seat 
 of Lac qui Parle County, and in the following sum- 
 mer, that of 1903, entered upon the practice of law 
 at Madison. Only a brief novitiate was required, 
 since his demonstrated ability soon brought him a 
 satisfactory clientage. In the fall of 1904 he was 
 elected representative from Lac qui Parle County 
 in the State Legislature, and was shown repeated 
 honors by re-election in 1906, so that his service was 
 for two consecutive terms. He brought to the Leg- 
 islature a high degree of civic loyalty, excellent 
 judgment and a broad conception of the needs of 
 the state. He performed his work on the floor of 
 the House with energy and spirit, and was equally 
 esteemed in the various committees to vjfich he was 
 assigned. 
 
 In 1907 Mr. Rachie established his residence in 
 the City of Minneapolis, but six months later re- 
 moved to Willmar, county seat of Kandiyohi County, 
 and enjoyed a substantial law practice there four 
 years. In October, 1912, he returned to Minneapolis, 
 and in this broader field has fully maintained his 
 high standard of professional service and success. 
 He looks after a general practice and the interests of 
 a large clientele are -entrusted to his efforts. Mr. 
 Rachie has a broad and accurate knowledge of the 
 law, is a well fortified counselor, and has shown 
 his powers as an advocate by the winning of many 
 important victories in cases which he has tried be- 
 fore courts and juries. In politics Mr. Rachie gives 
 his allegiance to the republican party, and has been 
 an effective worker for its principles and policies. 
 He is a member of the Hennepin County Bar Asso- 
 ciation, and with his wife is a member of the Bethle- 
 hem Lutheran Church, of which he is a trustee, and is 
 president of its Men’s Club. 
 
 On April 24, 1907, Mr. Rachie married Miss 
 Amanda Lien, who was born at Red Wing, Good- 
 hue County, a daughter of Carl N. and Maritn Lien. 
 Mrs. Lien still resides in that city, Mr. Lien having 
 passed away in January, 1915. Mr. Lien was a 
 prominent and influential citizen, having served as 
 county auditor of Goodhue County for eighteen 
 years. Mrs. Rachie was afforded the advantages 
 not only of the public schools but also of the ex- 
 cellent ladies’ seminary at Red Wing. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Rachie are the parents of three children : 
 Cyrus Lien and Dorothy May, who were born at 
 Willmar, Minnesota ; and Carl William, who was 
 born in Minneapolis. 
 
 Col. Chauncey Wright Griggs. Among St. 
 Paul’s pioneers and business builders no man had 
 more prominent associations than the late Col. 
 Chauncey W. Griggs, who came to Minnesota in 
 1856, made a brilliant record in the Civil war, in 
 which he rose from captain of a company to colonel 
 of a regiment, and afterwards became associated 
 
 with such conspicuous leaders as James J. Hill and 
 others in the development of Northwestern indus- 
 trial transportation and general commercial inter- 
 ests. Colonel Griggs founded the great wholesale 
 grocery house of Griggs, Cooper & Company of 
 St. Paul, a business that still engages the activities 
 of several of his sons. After 1887 Colonel Griggs 
 was chiefly a factor in the development of the great 
 lumber and transportation interests of the North- 
 west, particularly at Tacoma, Washington. It was 
 at his home in Tacoma that Colonel Griggs passed 
 away October 29, 1910. 
 
 Chauncey Wright Griggs was of an old New 
 England family, and was born at Tolland, Connec- 
 ticut, December 31, 1832. His family was of Scotch- 
 English blood, and several of the name came to the 
 Colonies, the direct ancestor of Colonel Griggs lo- 
 cating in Connecticut. His grandfather, Stephen 
 Griggs, was a Connecticut farmer and prominent 
 in the Congregational Church, a denomination in 
 which many of the family were active. Chauncey 
 Griggs, father of the Colonel, was long active in 
 public affairs, a large land owner in Connecticut 
 and connected with financial affairs. He was at one 
 time a member of the Connecticut Legislature, a 
 judge of the Probate Court, and a captain of cav- 
 alry during the Dod war. Chauncey Griggs mar- 
 ried Miss Heartie Dimock, whose ancestors were 
 early settlers in the Colonies, some of whom were 
 officers in the American Revolution, and the Dimock 
 family in England was prominent from the time of 
 King Henry I. 
 
 The late Colonel Griggs was educated in the com- 
 mon schools of Connecticut, began his business 
 career at the age of seventeen as clerk in an Ohio 
 store, then returned to the East and took a course 
 in the Monson Academy of Massachusetts, became 
 a teacher, and in 1851, after an unsuccessful experi- 
 ence in merchandising in Connecticut, he located at 
 Detroit and found employment as a bookkeeper 
 with a banking house. For a year or two after 
 1833 he was ' n the livery business and operated a 
 general store in Ohio, after which he sold out and 
 started with two teams and a load of goods across 
 the countrv to Montezuma, Iowa. Somewhat later 
 he was again in Detroit, and associated with his 
 brother T. W. Griggs in the wholesale furniture 
 business. 
 
 Colonel Griggs located at St. Paul in 1856, and 
 for several years was engaged in contracting, mer- 
 chandising and real estate and in the Northwest he 
 found the field best suited to his commercial talent. 
 
 At the beginning of the Civil war in 1861 Colonel 
 Griges associated with other influential men of his 
 community undertook the recruiting of a regiment, 
 which became the Third Minnesota Infantry with 
 H. C. Lester as colonel. Mr. Griggs was mustered 
 in as captain of Company B. The first dutv of the 
 command was in guarding and pushing forward 
 supplies through the states of Kentucky and Ten- 
 nessee, which lasted three months, and in the mean- 
 time Mr. Griggs had been promoted for gallan- 
 try in the field to major and later to lieutenant 
 colonel. His first great battle was that of Mur- 
 freesboro in July. 1862. The Confederates under 
 General Forrest made such a sudden and vigorous 
 attack that they surrounded and captured an entire 
 Michigan regiment and other troops, and the first 
 effective check was given by the Third Minnesota. 
 Three times the charge of the enemy was repulsed 
 by the Minnesota troops, and when the command- 
 
1518 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 ing officer of the regiment decided to surrender, 
 that act was taken in face of a determined protest 
 from Colonel Griggs and others. In an official re- 
 port of' the surrender Major General Andrews said: 
 “But it is well known, that Lieut. Col. C. W. Griggs 
 and two company commanders in that ballot voted 
 as they had strongly counseled throughout to fight.” 
 As a result of the surrender the enlisted men were 
 paroled and the officers spent three months in the 
 rebel prison at Madisonville, Georgia, before being 
 exchanged. The regimental officers who had voted 
 to surrender were afterwards dismissed and Mr. 
 Griggs was made colonel of the regiment. He re- 
 organized with many of the former members of the 
 regiment, and in 1863 went to the front at Colum- 
 bus, Kentucky, where he was placed in command 
 of a brigade, consisting of his own and three other 
 regiments and a battery. He was sent on an expe- 
 dition to Forts Henry and Hindman, and succeeded 
 in capturing a force of about a thousand Confed- 
 erates and several million dollars worth of cotton 
 and salt. After that Colonel Griggs was placed in 
 command of a military district consisting of five 
 counties, and remained there three or four months, 
 until at his urgent request he went to the front at 
 Vicksburg. There he led his command in the cam- 
 paign which terminated with the fall of Vicksburg 
 on July 4, 1863. The Vicksburg campaign had 
 proved a heavy drain upon his physical resources, 
 and in the belief that with the victory at Gettys- 
 burg and the fall of Vicksburg the war was prac- 
 tically over, he finally acted upon his surgeon's ad- 
 vice and resigned. 
 
 Colonel Griggs returned to Minnesota to find his 
 business interests seriously scattered, and locating 
 at Chaska, thirty miles west of St. Paul, he en- 
 gaged in brickmaking, dealing in wood, contracting 
 Government supplies, railroad building and other 
 affairs, and also represented his county in the State 
 Legislature. On returning to St. Paul in 1869 Colo- 
 nel Griggs became identified with the firm of Hill, 
 Griggs & Company, the senior member of which 
 was James J. Hill, who was then just beginning his 
 phenomenal career as an empire builder in the 
 Northwest. The business of Hill, Griggs & Com- 
 pany may be described in general as fuel and trans- 
 portation. They owned a line of steamers on the 
 Red River of the North and brought the first coal 
 to the City of St. Paul. In the meantime Mr. Hill 
 had concentrated his efforts on the extension of 
 railway lines through the Northwest, while Colonel 
 Griggs fixed his interests mainly in the coal and 
 iron trade. In 1875 he formed a partnership with 
 R. W. Johnson and later with, Addison G. Foster, 
 and founded the largest company up to that time 
 engaged in the transportation and fuel business in 
 the Northwest. Later Colonel Griggs organized 
 and operated the Lehigh Coal and Iron Company, 
 whose ore lands at the head of the Great Lakes 
 were for years one of the main sources of supply 
 of those commodities. 
 
 Colonel Griggs had organized in 1882 the busi- 
 ness which is now known as Griggs, Cooper & 
 Company, a St. Paul wholesale grocery house in 
 which his sons are now officials. Colonel Griggs 
 was also a director in both the First National and 
 Second National Banks of St. Paul. In 1887 he 
 closed out his St. Paul coal and iron business and 
 from that time until a few years before his death 
 was one of the chief factors in the gigantic lumber 
 operations about Tacoma, Washington. He organ- 
 
 ized and founded the St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber 
 Company, which began operations on about a hun- 
 dred thousand acres of timber land in Pierce 
 County, Washington. This was a pioneer large or- 
 ganization in the lumbering of the splendid timber 
 resources about Puget Sound, and Colonel Griggs 
 and his associates were primary factors in intro- 
 ducing fir as merchantable lumber. Of Colonel 
 Griggs’ business activities during his later years a 
 sketch published in a Tacoma paper about a year 
 before his death gave the following summary : “He 
 
 was president of the St. Paul & Tacoma Lumber 
 Company from the time of its founding until a 
 year ago, when he retired in favor of his son, Maj. 
 Everett G. Griggs, and he still holds his quarter 
 interest in the great plant; is chairman of its board 
 of directors, and is in close touch with all the com- 
 pany’s more important interests. It is not too much 
 to say that the present high standing of the com- 
 pany in the business and civic life and of its grades 
 of lumber in the lumber markets of the world is 
 very largely tribute to and direct result of the per- 
 sonality of Colonel Griggs and his insistence upon 
 the strictest integrity and honesty on the part of 
 all officers and employes in all their business deal- 
 ings. . In addition to the lumber business the St. 
 Paul & Tacoma Lumber Company does a large coal 
 and coke mining business under the name of the 
 Wilkeson Coal & Coke Company. The Chehalis & 
 Pacific Land Company is another of Colonel Griggs’ 
 organizations. He is also the principal owner of 
 the Beaver Dam Lumber Company of Cumberland, 
 Wisconsin ; a former director in the First and Sec- 
 ond National Banks of St. Paul; and during his 
 active business career was president of the Fidelity 
 Trust Company of Tacoma; president of the Set- 
 tlement Company, an organization perfected to han- 
 dle the affairs of defunct banks; president of the 
 Dry Dock & Foundry Company of Tacoma, and 
 president of the Pacific Meat Company of Tacoma. 
 Colonel Griggs has large real estate holdings in the 
 Twin Cities and was at one time an extensive in- 
 vestor in Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin farms.” 
 
 In April, 1859, Colonel Griggs married Miss Mar- 
 tha Ann Gallup, who was born in Connecticut, of 
 an old New England family, with ancestors who 
 were soldiers in the Revolution. To their marriage 
 were born six children, four sons and two 1 daugh- 
 ters : Chauncey Milton, the oldest, whose career is 
 
 sketched on other pages, is one of the prominent 
 factors in the Griggs, Cooper & Company whole- 
 sale grocery house at St. Paul ; Theodore W., the 
 fourth son, is vice president of the Griggs, Cooper 
 & Company ; Herbert Stanton Griggs, the second son, 
 is a prominent lawyer at Tacoma, and general coun- 
 sel for the Griggs interests ; and Everett Gallup 
 Griggs, the third son, is president of the St. Paul & 
 Tacoma Lumber Company. All the sons are gradu- 
 ates of Yale University. The two daughters are: 
 Heartie Dimock, wife of Dr. George C. Wagner of 
 Tacoma; and Anna Billings, wife of Dr. B. T. Tilton 
 of New York City. 
 
 While most of his life was given to the extensive 
 business and industrial interests heretofore outlined, 
 Colonel Griggs was also a man who would natu- 
 rally enjoy the honors and distinctions of public life. 
 He was a democrat in politics, though in 1896 he 
 supported William McKinley for President. Dur- 
 ing his residence in Minnesota he was twice a mem- 
 ber of the lower house of the Legislature and three 
 times a member of the State Senate. Seven differ- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1519 
 
 ent times he was elected a member of the St. Paul 
 city council, and in Washington he was democratic 
 candidate for the United States Senate, in 1889 and 
 again in 1893. He was one of the liberal supporters 
 of his church, the Congregational, contributed lib- 
 erally to the erection of the First Congregational 
 Church in Tacoma, and he and a business associate 
 each gave $10,000 toward the erection of the Y. M. 
 C. A. Building at Tacoma. 
 
 (COPY) 
 
 Tacoma, Washington, April 16, 1913. 
 My Dear Everett and Ben : 
 
 Your grandmother, Martha Ann Gallup Griggs, 
 died yesterday here in your Uncle Everett’s house, 
 the house which two years ago was turned over to 
 her and four nurses for her last days. We knew 
 five years ago that the end was coming fast, as the 
 machinery of her physical being had started to fail. 
 
 Decay, or rather paralysis, had commenced its 
 work on her. We first saw symptoms of it ten 
 years or more ago, when she was sixty-eight years 
 old. Her wonderful memory and mind began to 
 play her false. She would think she was in one 
 place she knew years before, when she was really 
 somewhere else, e. g., when she was with us at 
 White Bear about 1900, she thought Wildwood was 
 Excelsior all the time, because when I was your 
 age, we used to live at Lake Minnetonka. And so 
 it Went on until she had to be taken care of like 
 a child the last few years. That is nature. 
 
 Some go one way and some another. "Their 
 days are three score and ten.” When you get to 
 be seventy, you are very lucky to be able to live 
 at all — the average life has been attained, and more. 
 
 Life is very short. Think of your parents. We 
 feel that we have hardly started in life, and here 
 we are at the threshold of the end, of life. Only 
 fifteen more years and I will be where my father 
 and mother both were when they had to give up 
 work for good and all, and it was not so very long 
 after that — ten years — and both were dead and gone. 
 
 I want you boys to know what this woman ac- 
 complished in her active life of seventy-eight years. 
 
 She was born in Connecticut, on Gallup Farm, 
 one of the best managed farms of that rocky coun- 
 try, at Ledyard, just north of Mystic and Ston- 
 ington, from Puritan ancestors, the hardy pioneers 
 who had settled New England in the 200 years be- 
 fore her life began. 
 
 Her parents were robust, healthy, industrious, am- 
 bitious people. She inherited the best virtues and 
 qualities of that race. 
 
 When she was twenty-three she visited a cousin 
 of her family’s, Guerdon Williams, at Detroit, 
 Michigan. He had married into the Griggs family. 
 Aunt Frank, my father’s sister, was his wife. On 
 that visit your grandfather, afterwards Colonel 
 Griggs, met her, and before she left to go back 
 home to Connecticut, she was engaged to be mar- 
 ried to him, and was going to Minnesota to grow 
 up with him in a new state just opened up; and 
 well and wisely did he choose his wife. In fact, 
 he was very lucky, you might say. 
 
 In 1859, when she was twenty-five and he was 
 twenty-seven, they were married in old Ledyard, 
 and went to St. Paul to live. They had not over 
 $5,000 capital — just enough to make a fair start 
 on in those days, provided they managed with 
 economy and industrv. Early in ’60 I was born, 
 and a year later, in ’61, Bert was born. 
 
 Father was popular and his friends wanted him 
 to raise a company of soldiers to ~o to the war. 
 But how could he go? A young wife and two 
 babies dependent upon him. He couldn’t think of 
 it. But he had to go to the war, and go at once, 
 because his wife, this wonderful Martha Ann, in- 
 sisted on his going. She could and would get along 
 somehow. There was the independence and the 
 ability of a score of New England ancestors behind 
 her, and her own training and environment on that 
 old Gallup farm, and she knew she could get along- 
 — she could take care of two babies easily. 
 
 So he went off to the war the summer of ’61, 
 and she took the babies and started East. She 
 staged it, she laid up to wash baby clothes, she 
 took the steamboat a ways, the stage another piece, 
 finally the railway from some place in Wisconsin 
 to Milwaukee; then the boat across the lake to 
 Grand Rapids, Michigan, then rail to Detroit, Mich- 
 igan, where she was among the Griggs, who kept 
 her there a month, resting up, before she went on 
 East by train back to old Connecticut, to the old 
 Gallup farm. 
 
 Meantime your grandfather, down South, became 
 major of the Third Minnesota in December, 1861, 
 being promoted from lieutenant. Then in May, 
 1862, was promoted to lieutenant colonel. In July, 
 1862, at the first battle of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, 
 the Third Minnesota was captured by the Confed- 
 erates under Forre'st, Colonel Lester of the Third 
 makine a cowardly surrender. This was against 
 the bitter protest of your grandfather and other 
 officers. But they were in the minority and power- 
 less. After going to prison at Madison, Georgia, 
 for three months and then exchanged, your grand- 
 father came North, got a leave of absence for a 
 month and spent it at Gallup farm, recuperating. 
 Then he went back to his regiment as the colonel 
 (Lester having been dismissed in disgrace). He 
 served in 1863 under Grant and was at Vicksburg 
 when that city was taken. He was very sick then 
 from malarial fever, resigned and went home. The 
 picture you have seen of him in uniform was taken 
 then, the one in which he is so thin and in which he 
 looks so much like Ben does now. His hair was 
 black. 
 
 Well, although the war lasted for nearly two 
 years, Vicksburg and Gettysburg in July of 1863 
 virtually settled it, and father never went back to 
 the war. He got his family and returned to Min- 
 nesota to work. And for twenty-five years more 
 they lived in or near St. Paul and raised there six 
 children and made and saved their fortune. He 
 was a shrewd business man, and an industrious one, 
 and she was able to take care of her family in all 
 its little details without asking him to spend much 
 time in family details. 
 
 He had a home, but he was free to work, work 
 whenever and wherever he wished. She would fol- 
 low and not only took care of us but of him also 
 in all the ways which go to make a home for him. 
 He provided the funds and told her what he could 
 afford, and he had some pinching hard times. She 
 could do what is so difficult, cut her cloth to order. 
 She could cut expenses when she was asked to. 
 
 At the end of thirty years life in Minnesota they 
 had saved a fortune of one million dollars and raised 
 six children. Her ability had made this possible, just 
 as much as his. And through it all we lived well. 
 
1520 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 We did not worry because we did not “have it all.” 
 
 This grand woman was the pillar of the Plymouth 
 Congregational Church, the president of the Protes- 
 tant Orphan Asylum, kept up her oil painting, did 
 some in her music, studied German, ran the house, 
 drove the horses, and if necessary, would fill the fur- 
 nace, if the men didn’t get around on time to suit 
 her; planned for her children’s going to school, in- 
 sisted on their going to college, taking music les- 
 sons, language lessons, and had much more enthusi- 
 asm than any of her children for study and research. 
 
 I remember well when she brought me a micro- 
 scope and how I preferred to play baseball to 
 using it. 
 
 Took the four youngest of her children to Europe 
 and lived in Germany so as to get for them and 
 herself a better knowledge of language, of art and 
 of music. And she lived within her income, within 
 the amount stipulated by her husband as what he was 
 able to spend on such an undertaking. 
 
 And after all this, and getting into a new and 
 beautiful home on Summit Avenue, the one which 
 the Upham’s had afterwards, right opposite the 
 Herseys’, we find her pulling up stakes at the age 
 of fifty-four and going again with her husband, 
 pioneering in a sense,, way out here to the Pacific 
 coast and rounding out her career here. 
 
 Did she rebel? No, she recognized that it might 
 be for the very best for her children and for her 
 family and for herself. 
 
 She has finished her life here in the land of the 
 big trees and the flowers, near to the things she 
 loved, near to a great wonderful mountain, and she 
 took hold and for fifteen years here before her 
 mind deserted her, she was the same great power 
 for good in the community that she was back in 
 Minnesota. 
 
 My dear boys, it’s doing good, it’s doing best in 
 one’s every day life that counts. It counts more to 
 pay one’s bills and save one’s capital first. That is 
 the foundation for every bit of strength one has— to 
 live within one’s means, one’s income, to live with- 
 out jealousy, to be reasonably independent, to be 
 fair and charitable and industrious. 
 
 That’s the kind of life that is inspiring in the 
 end. The socialists and the spendthrifts and some 
 of the muckrakers and fakirs are trying to dis- 
 countenance and belittle that kind of life and make 
 the people think and believe that prudence and 
 foresight and thriftiness are synonymous with greed 
 and snobbery and trickery 
 
 What a mass of rot and wicked doctrine has 
 been let loose on the public of late years ! It’s 
 health and industry and acquisition of capital (not 
 destruction of capital) which has made all progress 
 in this world, spiritual as well as material. 
 
 Here was a woman who did her share, not only 
 in the acquisition of her family’s capital, but in 
 helping others to help themselves. She had no time 
 or sympathy for one who wouldn’t work. 
 
 You boys have a grand inheritance from your 
 immediate grandparents on both sides. They were 
 producers, they were workers, and after all it’s the 
 only kind of fife that brings satisfaction. 
 
 I remember hearing the finest hunting dog breeder 
 in this country, Old Watson, saying to a party who 
 was telling him of all the good points of a certain 
 young dog, how he’d point and pack, what style he 
 had, how beautiful he was, etc., etc. “Will he run, 
 Bobbie? Will he run?” It’s just so with man. 
 
 No matter so much what his graces, his accom- 
 plishments, his style, or even his talents and abili- 
 ties, it’s after all — 
 
 “Will he work, Bobbie? Will he work?” 
 
 Much love to you both. 
 
 FATHER. 
 
 Chauncey Milton Griggs. A business house of 
 distinctive prestige and long standing in St. Paul 
 with trade relations all over the Northwest is the 
 wholesale grocery firm of Griggs, Cooper & Com- 
 pany, of which Chauncey Milton Griggs is now 
 president, and at present also president of the Sani- 
 tary Food Manufacturing Company. The name 
 Griggs has been identified with the higher order of 
 mercantile affairs in St. Paul for more than thirty 
 years, and members of three successive generations 
 have given their time and services to the development 
 of this business. 
 
 Chauncey Milton Griggs was born at St. Paul 
 February 19, i860, a son of Col. Chauncey W. 
 Griggs, one of St. Paul’s oldest and best known 
 pioneers and merchants. The wife of Colonel 
 Griggs was Martha A. (Gallup) Griggs. Chauncey 
 M. Griggs was educated in the grammar and high 
 schools of St. Paul and was graduated Bachelor of 
 Arts from Yale College in 1883. Immediately on 
 leaving college he returned to St. Paul and found 
 a place in the firm of Yanz, Griggs & Howes, 
 wholesale and manufacturing grocers. In 1884 the 
 title of this firm was changed to Griggs & Howes, 
 and in 1889 to the style of Griggs, Cooper & Com- 
 pany. The business was incorporated in 1900, and 
 at that time Chauncey M. Griggs became first vice 
 president of the company, and has since taken active 
 executive direction of the company in the office of 
 president. 
 
 Mr. Griggs is a member of the Congregational 
 Church, of the State Agricultural Society, and be- 
 longs to the Minnesota, the White Bear Yacht, 
 Town and Country clubs, and his recreations are 
 the outdoor sports. Mr. Griggs was married at 
 Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, in October, 1885,, to Mary 
 Chaffee Wells. Their St. Paul home is at 365 Sum- 
 mit Avenue, and they also have a summer residence 
 at Manitou Island in the White Bear Lake. To this 
 union were born five sons and two daughters : C. 
 Wells, Milton W., Everett G., Benjamin G., Chaun- 
 cey W., Mary W. and Elizabeth T. 
 
 Theodore Wright Griggs was born September 3, 
 1872, at St. Paul. He attended the public schools in 
 St. Paul, finishing the grade school the summer of 
 1887 and attended Carleton College (preparatory de- 
 partment), at Northfield, Minnesota, for one year, 
 1887-88. He was graduated from Washington Col- 
 lege, Tacoma, Washington, class of 1890. For one 
 year he worked as timekeeper, street grading and 
 railroad construction and office clerk for the St. Paul 
 & Tacoma Lumber Company, Tacoma, Washington. 
 He then attended Dwight School, New York City, for 
 one year and entered Sheffield Scientific School, Yale 
 University, in the fall of 1892, taking a three years’ 
 course — class ’95 S. 
 
 He entered the employ of Griggs, Cooper & Com- 
 pany, manufacturing wholesale grocers, St. Paul, in 
 July, 1895. He served eleven months in the Spanish- 
 American war as first lieutenant Company L, Fif- 
 teenth Minnesota Volunteers, acting brigade and di- 
 vision quartermaster, ordnance officer, from two to 
 

 
 
 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1521 
 
 six months; aid-de-camp, Third Brigade, First Di- 
 vision, Second Army Corps, about seven months. 
 Shortly after the war he returned to the service of 
 Griggs, Cooper & Company, where he was employed 
 as traveling salesman for about one year, after which 
 he was made a department buyer. He was elected 
 secretary of Griggs, Cooper & Company (which was 
 established in 1882) at the time of incorporation, Oc- 
 tober 25, 1900, and elected vice president January 5, 
 1913, and elected vice president and treasurer of the 
 Sanitary Food Manufacturing Company, St. Paul, at 
 its incorporation, June, 1913, of which concern he is 
 at present also general manager. He has also held 
 different offices in a few minor business corporations 
 from time to time. 
 
 Mr. Griggs was a member of the Executive Board 
 of the National Conservation Congress held in St. 
 Paul the summer of 1912. He has served as director 
 of the St. Paul Business League and St. Paul Asso- 
 ciation of Commerce. He is a member of the St. 
 Paul Commercial- Club, the Midway Commercial 
 Club, the National Chamber of Commerce, member 
 and director of the Town & Country Club, was vice 
 president of the University Club of St. Paul for one 
 year, is a member of the Minnesota Club of St. Paul, 
 Minnesota Boat Club, St. Paul, the Minnesota State 
 Tennis Association, the St. Paul Automobile Club 
 (of which he was at one time secretary and director), 
 St. Paul Athletic Club, the Roadside Golf Club, the 
 Junior Pioneers, Society of Colonial Wars, Spanish 
 War Veterans, the American Legion, White Bear 
 Yacht Club of White Bear, the Minneapolis Club, 
 the Lafayette Club of Lake Minnetonka, and a few 
 other business, social and athletic organizations, 
 serving on various committees from time to time in 
 the above clubs. He is a member of the Congrega- 
 tional Church. 
 
 Milton W. Griggs. Representing the third gen- 
 eration of the Griggs family in the management of 
 the well known St. Paul wholesale grocery firm of 
 Griggs, Cooper & Company, Milton W. Griggs is 
 one of the city’s youngest business men, and is now 
 secretary of this company. 
 
 Milton W. Griggs was born in St. Paul Novem- 
 ber 15, 1888, being the second son of C. Milton and 
 Mary C. (Wells) Griggs. A sketch of his father 
 is found on other pages of this work. Milton W. 
 Griggs as a boy attended the public schools in St. 
 Paul, leaving at the age of fourteen to enter St. 
 Paul Academy, and after two years there went 
 East and for one year was a student in the exclusive 
 preparatory school of Phillips Academy at Andover, 
 Massachusetts. Mr. Griggs in 1906 entered Yale 
 University and was graduated in 1910. His father 
 had left the same university twenty-seven years be- 
 fore to enter the grocery business at St. Paul, and 
 the son likewise on completing his college course 
 became identified with Griggs, Cooper & Com- 
 pany, and soon afterwards was made secretary, his 
 present office. 
 
 Mr. Griggs was married October 1, 1910, to Miss 
 Arline Bayliss, daughter of Charles E. Bayliss, a 
 prominent business man of New York City. They 
 are the parents of three children : Arline Bayliss, 
 
 C. Milton Griggs and Theodore B, Griggs. Mr. 
 Griggs is a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon 
 college fraternity, and of the University Club and 
 the White Bear Yacht Club. His home is at 301 
 Laurel Avenue. 
 
 James C. Fifield. A progressive citizen and 
 representative member of the bar of the fair me- 
 tropolis of Minnesota is James C. Fifield, and the 
 versatility he has shown has brought him into prom- 
 inence not only in his profession but also in the pro- 
 motion of various material enterprises of broad 
 scope and importance. , He was associated with his 
 brother, the late Walter V. Fifield, in the organiza- 
 tion and incorporation of The Attorneys’ National 
 Clearing House, the headquarters of which are 
 maintained in Minneapolis, under his personal super- 
 vision. This organization has gained international 
 prestige through its publishing of The Clearing- 
 House Quarterly, which was established in 1895 and 
 which has a wide circulation throughout the United 
 States and Canada, as well as in many foreign coun- 
 tries. To this publication more specific reference 
 will be made in later paragraphs of this review. 
 Mr. Fifield has also promoted large business and in- 
 dustrial enterprises in Mexico and Texas, and in 
 the midst of his exacting labors has continued to 
 devote attention to and maintain high prestige in 
 his chosen profession. 
 
 James C. Fifield was born at Cedar Falls, Black- 
 hawk County, Iowa, on the 3d of February, 1862, 
 and is a son of Rev. Lebbeus B. and Emily (Wal- 
 worth) Fifield. His father was a distinguished 
 clergyman of the Congregational Church and one of 
 its pioneer representatives in both Iowa and Ne- 
 braska. Rev. Lebbeus B. Fifield held pastoral 
 charges in turn at Cedar Falls, Iowa, and Lincoln, 
 Nebraska, in which latter state he served for a 
 number of years as a member of the board of 
 regents of the University of Nebraska. Later he 
 was librarian of the historical library of Johns 
 Hopkins University, in the City of Baltimore, Mary- 
 land, and in this institution his . son James C., of 
 this review, was a student from 1883 to 1887. In 
 the pioneer days in Iowa Rev. Lebbeus B. Fifield 
 was editor of the Dubuque Times, and later he was 
 editor and publisher of a newspaper in Nebraska, 
 after his retirement from active service in the min- 
 istry. In 1887 he came with his family to Min- 
 neapolis, Minnesota, where he became an honored 
 and well known citizen and where he died on the 
 7th of September, 1906 — his eightieth birthday an- 
 niversary. He was born at Eastport, Maine, on 
 the 7th of September, 1826, and was a member of a 
 fine old family that was founded in New England 
 in the colonial era of our national history. He was 
 educated at Amherst College, which institution he 
 was compelled to leave prior to his graduation, 
 owing to impaired health. His physical condition 
 led him to remove to the West in the year 1851, 
 when he was about twenty-four years of age, and 
 he settled at Dubuque, Iowa, where he engaged in 
 editing an educational paper. He was later ordained 
 to the ministry of the Congregational Church and 
 finally his alma mater, Amherst College, conferred 
 upon him the degree of Master of Arts, in recog- 
 nition of his high intellectual attainments and 
 splendid achievement. 
 
 Mrs. Emily (Walworth) Fifield survived her hon- 
 ored husband and died at Minneapolis, on the 8th 
 day of May, 1914, about two weeks after her ninety- 
 fourth birthday anniversary. This noble and ven- 
 erable woman held the reverent affection of all who 
 knew her, and her reminiscences in regard to the 
 
1522 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 days long past were graphic and of absorbing in- 
 terest, as she was a woman of fine intellectuality and 
 broad experience. She was born at Canaan, New 
 Hampshire, and her parents were among the first 
 New England immigrants to drive through from 
 that section of the Union with horses and carriage 
 to Illinois. Her father built a carriage especially 
 for this long and venturesome overland journey, and 
 he drove the entire distance from Canaan, New 
 Hampshire, to his destination in Southern Illinois, 
 where he settled in the early pioneer days and where 
 he did well his part in the formative period of 
 development and progress. A short time later the 
 family settled in Iowa, near the Town of Anamosa. 
 The Indians were much in evidence at the time, 
 and were more or less of a menace, the Blackhawk 
 Indian war having occurred about the time of 
 the settlement of the Walworth family in Iowa, and 
 in her venerable years Mrs. Fifield was wont to re- 
 late many interesting tales concerning conditions 
 and incidents of the pioneer days in that state, she 
 having been a young woman at the time of the 
 family removal to the West, and her marriage to 
 Rev. Lebbeus B. Fifield having been solemnized at 
 Auburndale, Massachusetts. Her grandfather, Capt. 
 Charles Walworth, was a patriot soldier in the 
 War of the Revolution, and the family was long 
 one of prominence and influence in New Eng- 
 land. James J. and Clark C. Walworth, brothers 
 of Mrs. Fifield, were the first persons m the 
 United States to engage in the manufacturing of 
 steam-heating apparatus. Fully sixty years ago they 
 founded this business in the City of Boston, and 
 there the enterprise is still continued under the 
 original title of the Walworth Manufacturing Com- 
 pany, though the founders of the company long 
 since passed away. 
 
 Rev. Lebbeus B. and Emily (Walworth) Fifield 
 became the parents of four sons and one daughter, 
 one of the sons dying in infancy and the other 
 children attaining to years of maturity. Two of the 
 sons and the daughter are now living, and James C., 
 of this review, is the youngest of the number. 
 George W. is a lawyer by profession and is now 
 living retired in the State of California; the only 
 daughter, Dr. Emily W. Fifield, is a physician and 
 surgeon of distinctive ability and is engaged in the 
 successful practice of her profession in Minneapolis. 
 Walter V. Fifield, who was closely associated with 
 . his brother James C. in the practice of law and in 
 other activities, died in Minneapolis on the 25th 
 of July, 1911, and to him a memoir is dedicated 
 elsewhere in this work. 
 
 James C. Fifield was graduated in historic old 
 Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, as a 
 member of the class of 1883, and he thereafter 
 completed a full collegiate course in Johns Hop- 
 kins University, from which he was graduated in 
 1887, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He 
 simultaneously gave attention to the reading of law 
 and attended lectures in the law school of the Uni- 
 versity of Maryland. After the completion of his 
 university course, he came with his parents to Min- 
 neapolis, where he continued his law studies under 
 the able preceptorship of the well known firm of 
 Shaw & Cray, the senior member of the firm hav- 
 ing been the late Judge John M. Shaw, and the 
 junior member having been Judge Willard R. Cray, 
 who is still engaged in the practice of law in Min- 
 neapolis. Mr. Fifield remained in the office of this 
 firm about three years, and was here admitted to 
 
 the bar in February, 1891. He forthwith engaged in 
 the active practice of his profession, in association 
 with his elder brother — the late Walter V. Fifield — 
 and they soon built up a substantial and profitable 
 law business. In 1895 the two brothers established 
 the Attorneys’ National Clearing House and began 
 the publication of the Clearing House Quarterly, 
 which circulates throughout the United States and 
 the Canadian provinces, and in a number of foreign 
 countries. The Quarterly gives a directory of reli- 
 able lawyers and bankers throughout its assigned 
 territory of operations, and great care is taken in 
 preparing the selected list of representative attor- 
 neys. The business has expanded to large scope and 
 importance. The home office is maintained in Min- 
 neapolis, and the New York office at 320 Broadway. 
 It has representatives in all the principal cities and 
 towns of the Union, as well as in Canada. This 
 publication is issued every three months as the title 
 indicates. Its functions and statements are held at 
 all times to be authoritative, and it constitutes a 
 veritable clearing house of information in its as- 
 signed field. 
 
 When the Fifield brothers formed their original 
 professional alliance they gave the firm the desig- 
 nation of Fifield & Fifield, and later when Henry 
 J. Fletcher came into the firm the title was changed 
 to Fifield, Fletcher & Fifield. Since the death of 
 Walter V., James C. Fifield has been associated in 
 practice with Albert C. Finney, under the title of 
 Fifield & Finney. Mr. Fletcher, former partner in 
 the firm of Fifield, Fletcher & Fifield, is now a 
 member of the faculty of the law department of 
 the University of Minnesota. Mr. Fifield is a mem- 
 ber of the Minnesota State Bar Association, and 
 the Hennepin County Bar Association, and he has 
 the high esteem of his professional confreres in 
 Minnesota, as well as nearly every other state in the 
 Union — his acquaintanceship having become un- 
 usually wide through the medium of the publica- 
 tion issued under his direction, as previously noted 
 in this context. He is popular in business and social 
 circles in his home city, where he is actively iden- 
 tified with the Minneapolis Civic and Comiyierce 
 Association, the Minneapolis Athletic Club, and the 
 Minneapolis Tennis Club. The only complaint his 
 friends make of him is that he is not seen at these 
 clubs often enough. He is a great home lover, and 
 rather too retiring by nature to be a good mixer, 
 so that it requires persuasion to get him away from 
 home when business hours are over ; but he has a 
 high sense of the duties of citizenship, and to con- 
 vince him that duty demands his presence is all that 
 is necessary to make sure of it. 
 
 Mr. Fifield promoted and effected the organization 
 of the Tabasco Plantation Company, the general of- 
 fice of which is maintained in Minneapolis. In 
 1905-07 this corporation built, in Vera Cruz, Mexico, 
 the largest sugar manufactury in that republic, and 
 Mr. Fifield was secretary and general manager of 
 the company during the time when the enterprise 
 was being financed and the plant erected and 
 equipped. 
 
 Mr. Fifield was associated with his brother Walter 
 and other business men in the promotion of an 
 important irrigation project in Texas, and the com- 
 pany organized by them obtained a tract of 10,000 
 acres of land near Brownsville. Provisions were 
 made for the pumping of water from the Rio 
 Grande, and many miles of canals and irrigation 
 ditches were constructed. The promoting company 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1523 
 
 finally sold the greater part of the land to another 
 corporation, and it was placed on sale for farming 
 purposes. The venture was most successful, and 
 had much to do with the furtherance of social and 
 industrial development in that section of the Lone 
 Star State. 
 
 While Mr. Fifield may be counted among the suc- 
 cessful business men of Minnesota, he has never 
 allowed the mere making of money to crowd from 
 his life things better worth having. He takes time 
 to read, study, play, travel, and enjoy life as he 
 lives it. He is fond of music and pictures and the 
 beauties of nature. He is a natural student, and 
 seldom allows a year to pass during which he has 
 not added to his stock of knowledge along some 
 line not directly bearing upon his business or pro- 
 fession. He i^ interested in all the progressive 
 movements of the day, and in the welfare of his 
 fellow man. He is a man of varied interests, not 
 only by preference, but from a deep-seated convic- 
 tion that a diversity of interests adds to one’s 
 breadth of view, and deepens to the value of life, 
 thus leading to better citizenship. 
 
 One of Mr. Fifield’s most pronounced character- 
 istics is his thoroughness. He gives himself abso- 
 lutely to the task in hand, seeking information from 
 every source at his command, and always ready to 
 discard old methods for something better. As an 
 illustration, his work in the sugar business may be 
 cited. Although he began it with little knowledge 
 or experience, his work soon received high com- 
 mendation from some of the best informed sugar 
 men of this country and Hawaii. It is this ability 
 to get into the heart of what he is doing, added 
 to the application of efficiency methods, that en- 
 ables him to find time for a greater diversity of 
 pursuits than most business men dare undertake. 
 
 In the City of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, on 
 the 30th of October, 1906, was solemnized the mar- 
 riage of Mr. Fifield to Effie W. Merriman, who 
 was born on a farm in Minnesota, near Lake City. 
 
 Mrs. Fifield is a woman of distinctive social 
 charm, and marked literary ability. For fifteen 
 years before her marriage to Mr. Fifield she edited 
 The Housekeeper, a prominent domestic magazine 
 published in Minneapolis, and later removed to New 
 York. This enterprise was initiated on a modest 
 scale, and was designed to appeal especially to the 
 sturdy folk of the so-called middle class, and under 
 Mrs. Fifield’s effective regime its circulation grew 
 to more than 300,000 copies. She is also a success- 
 ful writer of stories for children, and is the author 
 of a number of books — her most popular book, 
 “Pards,” being about two newsboys of Minneapolis, 
 who watched the progress of her story with great 
 interest. Most of her books for children were pub- 
 lished by the well-known house of Lee and Shepard, 
 Boston. Mrs. Fifield is a born hostess, and is noted 
 for the originality of her entertainments. Some 
 years ago, she was so helpful in her suggestions to 
 social organizations wishing to raise money that 
 her ideas were eventually gathered into book form 
 under the titles “Socials” and “Modern Enter- 
 tainments” — both of which had a wide sale. She 
 has shown her ability as a leader not only in her 
 success in planning entertainments and carrying 
 them out, but also along more serious lines. While 
 editor of The Housekeeper she organized a club for 
 women known as “The Progressive Women of 
 America” that enjoyed great popularity as long as 
 she directed its work. This club had “circles” in 
 
 every state in the Union, and was one of the most 
 altruistic movements ever organized. She also or- 
 ganized a club for young people called “The Work 
 and Play Club” over which she presided for many 
 years. This club had members all over the United 
 States, and was most helpful to ambitious young 
 people whose onoortunities were limited. These 
 two clubs brought Mrs. Fifield into close personal 
 touch- with hundreds of women and young people, 
 and called for an immense amount of correspond- 
 ence for which she did not ask or receive remu- 
 neration. She says it has a place in her memory 
 as the most satisfactory work of her busy life. 
 
 Walter V. Fifield. The late Walter V. Fifield 
 was closely associated with his younger brother, 
 James C., in the establishing and developing of the 
 extensive and unique enterprise of The Attorneys’ 
 National Clearing House and the incidental pub- 
 lishing of The Clearing House Quarterly. The 
 brothers were allied also in other lines of normal 
 business enterprise, as were they also in a profes- 
 sional way, and he whose name initiates this review 
 was one of the honored members of the legal fra- 
 ternity as well as a representative man of affairs in 
 the Minnesota metropolis at the time of his death, 
 which occurred on the 2cth of July, 1911. Concern- 
 ing the family history and the general details of 
 the business career of Walter V. Fifield adequate 
 data are given on other cages of this publication, 
 in the brief review of the life record of his brother, 
 James C. Fifield. 
 
 Walter V. Fifield was born at Dubuque, Iowa, on 
 the 25th of February, 1856, and was a son of Rev. 
 Lebbeus B. and Emily (Walworth) Fifield, his 
 father having been a representative and pioneer 
 clergyman of the Congregational Church in Iowa 
 and Nebraska and both he and his wife having been 
 residents of Minneapolis at the time of their death, 
 adequate record concerning them being given on 
 other pages in the sketch of the career of their 
 youngest son, James C. He whose name introduces 
 this brief memoir was afforded excellent educa- 
 tional advantages in his youth and prepared him- 
 self most carefully for the profession of law, of 
 which he became an able and honored exponent. 
 He became one of the leading members of the bar 
 of Fillmore County, Nebraska, and was engaged in 
 practice at Geneva, the judicial center of that county, 
 until 1890, when he came to Minneapolis, Minne- 
 sota, where his parents and other members of the 
 family had established their home several years 
 previously. Here he became associated with his 
 youngest brother as senior member of the law firm 
 of Fifield & Fifield, and concerning subsequent 
 changes in the personnel of the firm due mention 
 is made in the review dedicated to his brother 
 James C. The two brothers became the organizers 
 and founders of The Attorneys’ National Clearing 
 House, an admirable institution concerning which 
 ample details are given in the sketch of James C. 
 Fifield. After coming to Minneapolis Mr. Fifield 
 virtually retired from the practice of law, in so far 
 as appearance in court litigations was concerned, as 
 he found ample demands upon his time and atten- 
 tion in the handling of the executive affairs of the 
 various business enterprises with which he was con- 
 nected and in which he and his brother were earnest 
 and mutually valued coadjutors. Mr. Fifield was 
 essentially liberal and public-spirited as a citizen, 
 and he erected in Minneapolis the fine Lowry Hill 
 
1524 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 apartment building, which stands as an effective 
 monument to his enterprise. He was a republican 
 in his political proclivities and was an active mem- 
 ber of the old Minneapolis Commercial Club, which 
 later was reorganized as the Minneapolis Athletic 
 Club. 
 
 As a young man Mr. Fifield wedded Miss Anna 
 M. Richardson, of Chicago, who died in Minneap- 
 olis, on the 23d of September, 1908. Of the three 
 children of this union the eldest is Gertrude, who 
 is now the wife of Byon A. Fulmer, of Minneap- 
 olis; Albert W. is secretary and a director of The 
 Attorneys’ National Clearing House; and Walter 
 W. is attending high school at the time of this 
 writing, in 1915. The two elder children were born 
 at Geneva, Nebraska, and Walter W. after the fam- 
 ily removed to Minneapolis. The only daughter was 
 graduated in the high school and thereafter at- 
 tended the University of Minnesota for three years. 
 In the autumn of 1910 Mr. Fifield contracted a sec- 
 ond marriage, being then joined in wedlock with 
 Elizabeth Wainman, who survives him and still re- 
 sides in Minneapolis. 
 
 Elmer A. Orth. One of the federal appointments 
 which have given much favor in Minnesota was the 
 selection of Elmer A. Orth, for many years one of 
 the staff of employes in the St. Paul Postoffice, to 
 the postmastership of North St. Paul. He took up 
 his duties in that office in 1914, and is now giving 
 close attention to the work and has brought about a 
 noticeable improvement in the service and efficiency 
 of the office. 
 
 Elmer A. Orth was born at Grand Meadow, Min- 
 nesota, November 14, 1884, a son of Helwig and 
 Caroline (Schroeder) Orth. His father was born 
 in Germany and his mother in Wisconsin. The 
 former left Germany for the United States in the 
 year 1869, landed in New York City, went west to 
 Lansing, Iowa, lived there for ten years and was 
 engaged in the carpenter and cabinet making trades. 
 From Iowa he came to Minnesota and was married 
 to Miss Schroeder after having purchased a furni- 
 ture business which he conducted twenty years at 
 Grand Meadow. Helwig Orth was a cabinet maker 
 by trade, but his most substantial occupation for 
 many years was as a furniture dealer. He is now 
 living in the City of North St. Paul. 
 
 Elmer A. Orth acquired his education in the public 
 schools of Grand Meadow, completing the two-year 
 course of the high school, and for two years was a 
 student in the Central High School at St. Paul. 
 After leaving school he became an apprentice at the 
 printing trade, and for several years was active as a 
 printer and newspaper man. He managed the St. 
 Paul Sentinel at North St. Paul in 1905-6, and proved 
 successful in editing this paper and extending its 
 circulation and influence. Returning to St. Paul he 
 entered the local postoffice under Postmaster Flower, 
 and was in that office from 1906 to 1914, when 
 appointed to his present duties. 
 
 Mr. Orth married Miss Rose Rufenacht, a daughter 
 of John Rufenacht. They reside in North St. Paul. 
 Mr. Orth is affiliated with Fellowship Lodge No. 257, 
 A. F. & A. M., and also with the Modern Woodmen 
 of America, having been honored with the highest 
 chair in the local Masonic order. 
 
 Charles Philip Nienhauser. During his active 
 career in St. Paul the late Charles Philip Nienhauser 
 
 acquired an enviable position in business affairs. He 
 had the capacity for faithful and efficient service, and 
 after his period of apprenticeship and training in 
 merchandising was accorded various promotions 
 until for several years before his death he had held 
 the place of department manager and buyer with 
 the great wholesale house of Lindeke, Warner & 
 Sons, wholesale dry goods. 
 
 Charles Philip Nienhauser was born in St. Paul, 
 October 17, 1862, and died when in the prime of his 
 life, August 13, 1913. His father was Charles Nien- 
 hauser, a native of Germany, and for a number of 
 years engaged in business at St. Paul as an under- 
 taker and embalmer. The mother’s maiden name 
 was Rachel Funk, who was born in St. Louis, Mis- 
 souri, daughter of Rev. Philip Funk, a pioneer 
 German missionary who was in the service of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church in Minnesota in the 
 early days. Mr. Nienhauser’s father died October 
 5, 1868, and in August of the succeeding year death 
 also claimed the mother. The family were four 
 sons and one daughter. The daughter is Caroline, 
 wife of J. H. Woltersdorff, a St. Paul manufacturer 
 and a man of prominence in civic affairs. The two 
 living brothers are F. A. Nienhauser and Julius E. 
 Nienhauser, both of whom have for many years 
 been connected with St. Paul banking institutions 
 in clerical and official capacities. 
 
 Charles Philip Nienhauser, who was the second 
 son, after the death of his parents was carefully 
 reared in the homes of relatives, and was educated 
 in the public schools of St. Paul. At the age of 
 seventeen he started out to make his own way, 
 entering the employ of Lindeke, Warner & Schur- 
 meir, which, by subsequent changes, is now the 
 great dry goods house of Lindeke, Warner & Sons. 
 He entered the house with no special recommenda- 
 tion and without influential backing, worked along- 
 side many other minor employes, and his advance- 
 ment was only a reward for his steadfast fidelity to 
 the interests of the firm and a growing efficiency 
 and capacity for responsibility. Thus he finally rose 
 to the position of department manager and buyer, 
 and his death was greatly deplored' by all his busi- 
 ness associates and subordinates and was felt as a 
 distinct loss to the house which he had served 
 practically from the beginning of his career. 
 
 Mr. Nienhauser was married, October 20, 1886, 
 to Miss Lillie P. Bailey. There is one son, Roy 
 Bailey Nienhauser, now twenty-seven years of age, 
 who was educated in the St. Paul public schools 
 and the University of Minnesota, graduated from 
 the St. Paul College of Law in 1911 with admission 
 to the bar in June of that year, and is now an 
 officer of the St. Paul Insurance Agency. 
 
 The late Mr. Nienhauser was an independent re- 
 publican, and never aspired for any political office. 
 He was devoted to his home, and several years 
 before his death erected a beautiful residence at 
 951 Lincoln Avenue in St. Paul, where Mrs. Nien- 
 hauser now lives. Though a member of the Royal 
 Arcanum, he was not a special believer in lodges 
 and clubs, and his usefulness in business and to 
 society could not be measured by his relations with 
 public and social affairs. At the time of his death 
 he was a member of the First Presbyterian Church 
 of St. Paul, although he was reared as a Methodist. 
 
 John Rogers. In the year that marked the crea- 
 tion and formal organization of the Territory of 
 Minnesota the late John Rogers established his 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1525 
 
 residence in St. Paul, which had been designated 
 as the capital of the new territory and which was 
 at that time a village of about 200 inhabitants. Of 
 alert mentality, buoyant and optimistic temperament 
 and most genial personality, the young Irishman, 
 who was destined to pioneer honors and whose 
 character and ability made him a resourceful figure 
 in the early development and upbuilding of the 
 capital city, entered fully into the civic and business 
 activities of the little village and became one of the 
 popular and influential citizens of the community in 
 which his memory is revered by all who came within 
 the circle of his benignant and kindly influence, his 
 death having occurred here in 1902, at which time 
 he was nearly seventy-six years of age. A man 
 of much intellectual strength, of well fortified views 
 and of impregnable integrity, he marked the passing 
 years with large and worthy achievement, and it is 
 but in justice due that in this history of Minnesota 
 be incorporated a tribute to his memory and to his 
 admirable influence as one of the honored pioneers 
 of the state. 
 
 Mr. Rogers was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, 
 on the 10th of March, 1827, and he was a scion of 
 the finest of Irish ancestry long identified with that 
 section of the fair Emerald Isle. He was a son of 
 Owen and Ellen (Grimes) Rogers, who passed 
 their entire lives in their native land, the father 
 having been a prosperous merchant and cattle buyer 
 and the mother the daughter of a representative 
 farmer of County Tyrone. John Rogers was en- 
 dowed with the mental caliber that enabled him to 
 profit fully from the advantages he received in the 
 national schools of Ireland, and, in the later years, 
 through self-discipline and varied experience, he 
 amplified this preliminary training into a liberal 
 education. As a youth he became associated with 
 his father’s business enterprises" and eventually he 
 engaged in the same line of business in an inde- 
 pendent way. Inspired by reports received concern- 
 ing opportunities offered in the United States, in 
 1845, as a youth of eighteen years, Mr. Rogers 
 severed the gracious ties that bound him to home 
 and native land and set forth, with all of ambition 
 and self-reliance, to seek his fortunes in America. 
 He made the voyage on a sailing vessel of the type 
 common to that period, and disembarked in the 
 City of New Orleans, whence, a short time later, he 
 proceeded by packet boat up the Mississippi River 
 to St. Louis. From that city he went to Galena, 
 Illinois, where he obtained employment as assistant 
 steward in a hotel and where he remained about 
 four years, within which period he gained compre- 
 hensive knowledge of the hotel business as exempli- 
 fied in those early days, when the titles of tavern 
 and inn were more frequently applied than that of 
 hotel. In the spring of 1849 Mr- Rogers came to 
 St. Paul, the Territory of Minnesota having been 
 organized under an act of Congress approved on the 
 3d of March of that year. In the embryonic capital 
 city Mr. Rogers put his previous experience to prac- 
 tical use by engaging in the hotel business, and for 
 many years conducted one of the leading hostelries 
 of St. Paul, where he built and conducted the first 
 brick hotel in the city. He became mot only the 
 host, but also the confidential friend of many of 
 the leading public men of the territory, and after 
 the admission of Minnesota to statehood his acquaint- 
 ance continued to be equally notable, so that when 
 he was finally summoned from the stage of life’s 
 mortal endeavors there were not a few of his 
 
 pioneer contemporaries who viewed his passing with 
 a deep sense of personal loss and bereavement. 
 
 Mr. Rogers entered heartily and with character- 
 istic circumspection into the progressive spirit that 
 was in evidence in the new territory and its aspiring 
 capital and became an influential factor in public 
 affairs of a local order, as shown by the fact that 
 he served as a member of the first village council 
 and also as a member of the school board. From 
 an article that appeared in the St. Paul Pioneer 
 Press in the spring of 1895, incidental to an interview 
 with Mr. Rogers, it is possible to make certain 
 quotations that well merit perpetuation in more 
 accessible form than musty newspaper files. Im- 
 portuned by the reporter to offer some information 
 concerning the “city council” of 1850, Mr. Rogers 
 spoke as follows: "Well, it was not so much of 
 
 an honor to be a city father in those days. In fact, 
 we were not city fathers at all ; we were village 
 fathers. It was not until some years later that St. 
 Paul was granted a charter. Although forty-five 
 years have played havoc with my memory, I recol- 
 lect that we were lord high everything — board of 
 health and education, police and fire departments, 
 all rolled into one. I think the village election came 
 in April. I was down the river at the time, 
 and when I returned was duly installed as council- 
 man from the First Ward. There were only two 
 wards then. My colleague from the First was Lot 
 Moffet, a long, lank Missourian, who was also a 
 tavern keeper. He had his place in a small frame 
 building at the corner of Fourth and Jackson, 
 where the First National Bank now is. Moffet was 
 a peculiar fellow, a Mormon in belief. He had only 
 one wife while here, but probably no one would have 
 objected if he had had a dozen. The members from 
 the Second Ward were Charlie Bazille, and a Ger- 
 man harnessmaker whose name has long since es- 
 caped me. Bazille was a carpenter by trade and at 
 one time owned a great deal of property here. He 
 gave the land for the state capitol, with the express 
 condition, I believe, that if the capital was ever 
 moved the property was to revert to* his heirs. The 
 president of the council was a man by the name of 
 Bushlot. He was a very bright fellow and did well 
 for a number of years. Our first meeting was held 
 in May, a month after our election. It was in a 
 law office down on Third street. The room 
 was poorly furnished. Don’t imagine for a moment 
 that there were Brussels carpet, cushioned chairs 
 and gilded chandeliers. We sat in a circle, with 
 our feet on the stove and cob pipes between our 
 teeth. Yet, St. Paul was well governed then. If 
 there had been any serious trouble that year I 
 certainly would remember it. Of course, we did not 
 have gas franchises and paving ordinances to puzzle 
 our heads over. The worst thing of our entire term 
 of office was the care of smallpox patients. We had 
 a pesthouse somewhere and patrolled the city almost 
 daily on the lookout for new cases. One of us was 
 sure to be down at the docks whenever a boat ar- 
 rived, to see that passengers suffering from the dis- 
 ease were cared for. We never quarantined a boat, 
 and possibly that is the reason the plague was so 
 pertinacious. 
 
 “The council was a very harmonious body. We 
 were all democrats and were never known to dis- 
 agree. A deadlock over a measure, or the president’s 
 veto were things unknown to us. As a matter of 
 fact, there was absolutely nothing to quarrel about. 
 We received no pay, and boodle was a word not 
 
1526 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 to be found in our vocabulary. Oh, those were 
 halcyon days! Yes, we had seven or eight saloons. 
 Their license was only $25, so you see the income 
 was not so large that we had to lie awake nights 
 thinking how it might be spent. Taxes were small, 
 too. All the money that came in that year was laid 
 out on the levee. Docks were built and some dredg- 
 ing done. I remember that the fare by boat to 
 Galena was only fifty cents, so close was the com- 
 petition. 
 
 “The Indians gave us little trouble, although we 
 had 1,000 of them. Once in a while a member of 
 the tribe would get drunk and put the whole com- 
 munity in a furor. Then it was that the council 
 merged itself into the police department and sallied 
 forth to meet the bibulous redskin. President 
 Bushlot usually stood by and cheered us on, in case 
 the Indian made any show of resistance. You see, 
 we didn’t even have a village marshal. There was 
 i)o Indian commissioner, either, until afterward. 
 There were several trading posts. I remember Min- 
 nedota, now called Mendota, had one, and there was 
 another here in town. Each had its interpreter. 
 
 “Our personal business interests were more onerous 
 than that of the village. I had a fairly prosperous 
 career in the hotel, and afterwards added a meat 
 market. I was the first man in the state to start 
 a market wagon. . . . The postoffice was kept 
 by a man named Bass, in a little log house at the 
 corner of Third and Jackson streets. The only 
 church was a Catholic mission, down near the river. 
 The priest was a Frenchman. The first sewer was 
 put in along Robert street, from Sixth street to the 
 river. Before that there was a small swamp, several 
 acres in extent, between Fifth and Seventh streets. 
 During the fall months we paddled out to this mini- 
 ature lake and shot ducks. Where the Endicott 
 Arcade now stands there was a deep ravine. It 
 extended across Jackson street and down to the 
 flats. In the spring of the year enough water flowed 
 between its fifty-foot banks to turn a millwheel. 
 But all that has changed.” 
 
 Fortunate, indeed, for the purposes of this pub- 
 lication, as a vehicle for the preserving of historical 
 data, is it that there is possibility of incorporating 
 such interesting reminiscences as those given in the 
 preceding paragraphs, for the value of the state- 
 ments will be cumulative in all the years to come. 
 
 In connection with the same interview the Pioneer 
 Press offered the following direct or reportorial 
 statements: “Mr. Rogers’ life during the infancy 
 of the city was interesting. He came here from 
 Illinois in 1849 and built a modest frame house on 
 Robert street, between Fourth and Fifth streets. 
 After much deliberation he bought a lot next to the 
 present site of the German-American Bank building. 
 The consideration was $250, a munificent price, see- 
 ing that the property was so far removed from Third 
 street, which was, of course, the principal business 
 street of the town. It was Mr. Rogers’ intention to 
 convert the lot into a truck garden. At that time 
 there were but few farms in the vicinity of the city, 
 and almost all of the food products were brought 
 up the river by boat. The owner of the lot changed 
 his mind, and in 1852 put up the three-story brick 
 building, which still occupies the site. It was the 
 second brick building erected in St. Paul. The first 
 was built on Hill street, by the late H. M. Rice, 
 and is no longer standing. Mr. Rogers opened a 
 hotel and for a number of years did a thriving 
 business.” 
 
 In politics, as already intimated, Mr. Rogers was 
 a stanch supporter of the democratic party, and his 
 religious faith was that of the Catholic Church, of 
 which he was a zealous communicant, as were also 
 his first and second wives. At Galena, Illinois, Mr. 
 Rogers wedded Miss Ann Hartnett, who died within 
 a few years thereafter. For his second wife he 
 married Miss Adelia Carney, of St. Paul, and she 
 was summoned to the life eternal in April, 1899. Of 
 the children of Mr. Rogers, six sons and two 
 daughters survived him, as follows, all except the 
 first named being born to the second union : Mary, 
 who is the wife of Peter A. Whaley, of St. Paul; 
 John, Jr., who is engaged in the insurance business 
 in this city; Joseph A., who died in 1912, in St. 
 Paul; Lillian, who is the wife of Daniel E. Foley, 
 of this city; and Logan A., Frank C., George Carney 
 and Harry P., all of whom remain residents of their 
 native city. 
 
 George Carney Rogers, to whom the publishers are 
 indebted for the interesting data incorporated in 
 this memoir, was born in St. Paul, on the 24th of 
 June, 1877, and is now one of the representative 
 members of the bar of his native city. He was 
 graduated in both the academic and law departments 
 of the University of Minnesota, having received his 
 degree of bachelor of laws in 1900. During his six 
 years in the university he was a most active and 
 popular factor in its athletic affairs. He still retains 
 a vital interest in athletic sports, in which he is 
 considered a local authority. 
 
 Mr. Rogers was associated with John D. O'Brien 
 during the first eight years of his professional prac- 
 tice, and since that time has conducted an individual 
 law business, with a well earned reputation as a 
 versatile and effective trial lawyer and a counselor 
 well informed in the science of jurisprudence. He 
 is a member of the Ramsey County Bar Association, 
 is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus, the 
 Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks, is independent in 
 politics of local order but a democrat in national 
 affairs, and both he and his wife are communicants 
 of the Catholic Church. 
 
 In the City of Chicago, in 1907, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Rogers to Miss Martha L. Guye, 
 who was born in the State of Louisiana, and who 
 was a daughter of John and Emma (Stockfleth) 
 Guye, of Shreveport, Louisiana. 
 
 Andrew A. D. Rahn. Although a native of 
 Indiana, Andrew A. D. Rahn is by training a Min- 
 nesotan, having been brought to this state when a 
 small child. Flis career for the greater part has 
 been identified with the lumber industry, and his 
 opinion upon matters connected with the business 
 is influential with his associates, who have regarded 
 him as thoroughly informed and have confidence 
 in the soundness of his judgment. He is well known 
 in club and fraternal life at Minneapolis, and in 
 various ways has put himself in the forward move- 
 ment for the benefit of that city. 
 
 He was born at Valparaiso, Indiana, October 8, 
 1877, a son of Carl and Elizabeth (Snelling) Rahn. 
 His father was one of the early settlers at Val- 
 paraiso, and had his home there for a number of 
 years, though his cabinet shop and furniture factory 
 was situated at Chicago, and he traveled back and 
 forth between his place of business and home. He 
 was an excellent mechanic, having learned the trades 
 of carpenter and cabinet maker in his youth. In 
 


HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1527 
 
 1880 he came to Minneapolis and engaged in the 
 contracting and building business, which was con- 
 tinued until his death on February xi, 1899, at the 
 age of seventy-six. His widow survived him until 
 May 3, 1912. All their seven sons and three 
 daughters are still living. 
 
 Andrew A. D. Rahn received his education in 
 Minneapolis, attending the Garfield and Adams grade 
 schools and the South High School. At the con- 
 clusion of his school days he became an employe 
 of the Hardwood Manufacturing Company of Min- 
 neapolis, a concern with which he was continuously 
 identified for ten years, and while there familiarized 
 himself with every detail of the business. He then 
 opened an establishment of his own at Princeton, 
 Minnesota, conducted that one year, and then entered 
 the larger realms of the lumber industry as manager 
 of the Shoshone Lumber Company, a subsidiary of 
 the Shevlin-Carpenter Company, engaged in dealing 
 in timber on a large scale in Northern Idaho. Mr. 
 Rahn still retains an interest in the Shoshone Lum- 
 ber Company, and is vice president of the Rainy 
 River Timber Company, Lake of the Woods Cedar 
 and Tie Company, and of The Lakes Company, Ltd., 
 of Fort Francis, Ontario. The greater part of his 
 attention, however, is devoted to the business of the 
 Shevlin interests. His offices are in the First 
 National-Soo Building at Minneapolis. 
 
 Primarily a manufacturer, Mr. Rahn has developed 
 such aptness for affairs that he has become a recog- 
 nized force in civic, political and fraternal life in 
 the City of Minneapolis. In 1905 he was chosen 
 by state officials to superintend the taking of the 
 census that year, and, funds failing, the Minneapolis 
 Commercial Club, through its committee on public 
 affairs, raised the necessary amount and a thorough 
 census was thus obtained. Mr. Rahn is a repub- 
 lican, and in 1903-04 was secretary of the Hennepin 
 County Central Committee, in which position his 
 energy and capacity as an organizer won high praise 
 from the party leaders. He is a member of the 
 Minneapolis Athletic Club, of the Minneapolis and 
 the Spokane Club of Spokane, Washington. In 
 Masonry he has taken the Scottish and York rites 
 and is a member of Zuhrah Temple of the Mystic 
 Shrine at Minneapolis. Other affiliations are with the 
 Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen of Amer- 
 ica, the Ancient Order of United Workmen, in 
 which he served as a member of the finance com- 
 mittee in 1905-06, the Benevolent and Protective 
 Order of Elks, No. 44, and the D. O. K. K. 
 
 Mr. Rahn was married, October 27, 1897, to Miss 
 Anna Sophia Anderson of Minneapolis. Their three 
 children are Carl Anderson, Robert Loren and 
 Andrew A. D., Jr. The family home is on Lake 
 Minnetonka. 
 
 Luke B. Castle. One of the pioneer settlers of 
 Stillwater is Luke B. Castle, who has been a resident 
 in that portion of Minnesota nearly half a century, 
 and a greater part of the time engaged in the real 
 estate business. Mr. Castle was a soldier of the 
 Union during the last year of the Civil war, is 
 well known in Grand Army circles, and at various 
 times has taken an active part in local affairs at 
 Stillwater. 
 
 Luke Bradley Castle was born January 10. 1844, 
 in Shefford County, Province of Quebec, Canada. 
 His parents, Nathan Olmsted and Rosetta (Savage) 
 Castle, were farming people in the Province of Que- 
 bec, and Luke B. Castle grew up on a farm, receiving 
 
 roi. ni— 17 
 
 his education from the district schools. In early 
 life he learned the cooper trade in a woodenware 
 factory at Quebec, and worked in that line for three 
 years in Canada, Massachusetts and Michigan. In 
 1863 he went to Massachusetts, and in 1864 came 
 west and located at Grand Rapids, Michigan. There, 
 in February, 1864, he enlisted in Company B of the 
 Sixteenth Michigan Infantry, and saw active service 
 with the Fifth Army Corps in Virginia from the 
 Battle of the Wilderness to Appomattox. He was 
 honorably discharged at Grand Rapids on May 4, 
 1865. After the war Mr. Castle returned to Quebec’ 
 but in 1867 came out to Minnesota and located at 
 Stillwater. There he became identified with lumber- 
 ing and logging, and was in that business for himself 
 about three years, from 1871 to 1874. From 1874 
 to 1884 he was in the sash, door and blind business, 
 but then sold out and engaged in the real estate 
 and insurance business, which has been his principal 
 line of activity for the past thirty years. He is one 
 of the prominent men in his line and has acquired 
 an excellent reputation and has handled many of the 
 important real estate transactions in this part of the 
 state. Besides real estate and loans, he has an 
 extensive insurance business, representing many of 
 the most reliable companies. His offices are at 351 
 Myrtle Street in Stillwater. Among other interests 
 he is a director of the Washington County Building 
 & Loan Association. 
 
 Mr. Castle served as city assessor of Stillwater 
 from 1894 to 1898, and was elected county commis- 
 sioner in 1906, his term expiring in 1911. He is a 
 republican, and in Mueller Post No. 1, G. A. R., 
 has served as commander, adjutant and quarter- 
 master. He has been chancellor commander and 
 prelate in the Knights of Pythias for ten years, and 
 was clerk of the camp of the Modern Woodmen of 
 America for twenty years. While a member of no 
 particular church, he has been liberal in his con- 
 tributions to all denominations. 
 
 On May 21, 1872, at Stillwater, Mr. Castle married 
 Nannie Gatchell, daughter of Robert and Charlotte 
 Gatchell. Robert Gatchell served for three years 
 in the Union army, and for nine months was a 
 prisoner in the notorious Andersonville stockade. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Castle have become the parents of 
 five children, two of whom died in infancy. Fayette 
 B. Castle is now associated in business with his 
 father. Shirley is the wife of Willis G. Brown, 
 now a resident of Duluth, and of their two children 
 Nancy was born in Minneapolis and Barbara in 
 Duluth. The son, Earl Castle, died in 1907 at the 
 age of twenty-three years. 
 
 H. M. Burchard. For more than thirty years 
 one of the leading men of affairs at Winona and 
 throughout Southwestern Minnesota was the late 
 H. M. Burchard, who was a lawyer by profession, 
 but during his life in Minnesota was chiefly dis- 
 tinguished for his leadership in developing the ma- 
 terial resources of his section of the state. 
 
 H. M. Burchard, who located in Winona County 
 immediately after the war, having arrived in 1866, 
 was born in Oneida County, New York, November 
 18, 1825. He was of a distinguished New England 
 family and ancestry. His father, Ely Burchard, 
 was a graduate of Yale College and prominent as 
 a Presbyterian minister. The founders of the 
 Burchard family in America arrived during the 
 earliest colonial period, and were settlers in Massa- 
 chusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. Three of 
 
1528 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Mr. Burchard’s ancestors served in the Revolution- 
 ary war. His grandfather, a major-general, was 
 in charge of the New York militia and commander- 
 in-chief of the force during several of the Indian 
 wars. As Indian commissioner for the State of 
 New York he negotiated a number of Indian 
 treaties. He also was a member of the New York 
 State Senate several terms. 
 
 H. M. Burchard after graduating from the Ham- 
 ilton College at Clinton, New York, spent three 
 years in the Harvard Law School, and was admitted 
 to the New York state bar in 1850. For a number 
 of years he was engaged in practice at Clinton and 
 Utica. While there he was for eight years judge 
 of the Surrogate Court of Oneida County at Utica, 
 and was also owner and manager of a private bank 
 at Clinton. He was a factor in state politics, and 
 was closely associated with all the state leaders in 
 the party at that time. When the Civil war came 
 on he was aide-de-camp on the staff of Governor 
 Morgan with the rank of colonel. The descendant 
 of a long line of patriotic ancestors who served 
 their country' during the Revolutionary and the 
 Indian wars, he was proud to be commissioned by 
 his governor to raise a regiment for the Northern 
 army, and was one of the first to receive the com- 
 mission of colonel from the State of New York. 
 His ambition to serve in the war was frustrated by 
 failing health, and for a long time it was thought 
 he could never renew his former vigor. His health 
 made it necessary for him to resign his commission 
 in the army, and he also had to retire from the 
 practice of law and other active business. His 
 health not improving and his wife’s health being in 
 a precarious condition, he came west to recuperate 
 and located in Winona, where his brother-in-law, 
 Judge Waterman, had already established himself. 
 
 In the stimulating climate of the Northwest Judge 
 Burchard found renewed strength, and soon became 
 a factor in political affairs in Winona County. In 
 1870 the county sent him ten the State Legislature. 
 At the time of the Greeley campaign he severed 
 his connections with the republican party and was 
 elected chairman of the democratic state conven- 
 tion, and in the same year was elected to the 
 house from Winona County and was democratic can- 
 didate for speaker. Soon after his location at 
 Winona he became associated with the Chicago and 
 Northwestern Railway Company, and in 1875 was 
 appointed general land agent of the Winona & St. 
 Peter Railroad land department. He had charge of 
 all the land grants and town sites between Sleepy 
 Eye and Fort Pierre on the Dakota Central, and 
 Tracy and Redfield on the Northwestern system. 
 His home was at Winona until 1885, when the head- 
 quarters of the railroad land department were at 
 his request removed from ■'Winona to Marshall. 
 Marshall was then the largest town on the railroad 
 grant, and therefore nearer the scene of operations. 
 Mr. Burchard lived in Marshall until his death on 
 July 18, 1898. He was buried in the family burial 
 ground at Clinton, Oneida County, New York. 
 
 Besides his service in the Minnesota State Legis- 
 lature he was an active factor in democratic pol- 
 itics until his death, and for years campaigned in 
 the interests of party success and candidates. Prob- 
 ably his best service was in behalf of the agricul- 
 tural development of Minnesota, a subject to which 
 his interest was given from the beginning of his 
 connection with the Northwestern road. He was 
 president of the Northwestern Dairyman's Asso- 
 
 ciation and other farmers’ organizations, and spent 
 considerable time delivering lectures throughout the 
 Northwest on the advantage of stock raising and 
 dairying in connection with the ordinary farming 
 pursuits. Much credit must be given him personally 
 for the settlement and development of Southwest- 
 ern Minnesota and Eastern South Dakota. Under 
 his supervision Scandinavian, Holland, Belgian, 
 Polish, German and Irish colonies were estab- 
 lished, which are now among the most prosperous 
 in the state. He was especially identified with the 
 establishment of schools and churches, and preached 
 the gospel of scientific farming and stock raising 
 throughout this part of the two states. 
 
 Mr. Burchard was a member of the Sons of the 
 American Revolution and took an active part in 
 that organization. On November 18, 1850, he mar- 
 ried Miss Eliza H. Clark. The three children of 
 this union still living are : James C. Burchard of 
 Marshall, who succeeded his father as general land 
 agent of the Winona & St. Peter Railroad; Mrs. 
 Elizabeth B. Woodbury, now living in Chicago; 
 and John 'E. Burchard, of St. Paul. 
 
 John Ely Burchard. A son of the late H. M. 
 Burchard of Winona and Marshall, John Ely 
 Burchard has lived in Minnesota nearly all his life, 
 having been an infant when his parents located at 
 Winona in 18 66. For many years Mr. Burchard 
 has been a resident of St. Paul, and prominent in 
 real estate affairs and in democratic politics. 
 
 John Ely Burchard was born at Clinton, Oneida 
 County, New York, January 31, 1864. His early 
 life was spent in Winona, where he graduated from 
 high school with the class of 1881. The next three 
 years were spent in the University of Michigan at 
 Ann Arbor, where he gave most of his attention to 
 the course in political economy. On leaving col- 
 lege he returned to Minnesota and at Marshall was 
 admitted to the bar and continued in that city for 
 two years. He then bought an interest in the Sault 
 Ste. Marie Democrat in Michigan, and edited and 
 conducted that journal two years. He returned to 
 Winona to become one of the editors of the Winona 
 Daily Herald, but after a year, through the failure 
 of the purchasers to continue their payments on 
 the Democrat he returned to Sault Ste. Marie and 
 resumed the management of the Democrat and 
 edited it for a period of four years. While there 
 he was chairman of the democratic city and county 
 committee, the congressional committee, and also a 
 member of the Michigan state central committee. 
 He was appointed collector of customs by Governor 
 Cleveland and acted in that capacity until 1894, 
 when he resigned and returned to Marshall on ac- 
 count of his father’s health. He at once resumed 
 the practice of law and became a partner of Senator 
 Seward and for five years was a member of the 
 firm Seward & Burchard. In the meantime he 
 served three years as city attorney, was acting 
 county attorney, and for three years was mayor of 
 the City of Marshall. Besides his law practice Mr. 
 Burchard became interested in various land projects 
 and banks, and on account of the growth of the 
 business withdrew from the practice of law in 1901 
 and removed to St. Paul, where he became the 
 president and attorney for a number of land com- 
 panies. 
 
 At the present time Mr. Burchard’s extensive 
 business relations are indicated as follows : He is 
 
 president of the John E. Burchard Company, the 
 

 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1529 
 
 Burchard-Hulburt Investment Company, the South- 
 west Land & Orchard Company, the Elk Valley 
 Land & Colonization Company, and the Southern 
 Land Company, and is a director and stockholder 
 in various other organizations. He is a director 
 in the Minnesota Life Insurance Company, and in 
 the St. Paul Institute of Art and other civic organ- 
 izations. For eight years he has been a member 
 of the democratic state central committee, and was 
 on the executive committee during the campaigns 
 of Governor Johnson. Governor Johnson appointed 
 him aide-de-camp with the rank of colonel on his 
 staff, and he served until the death of the governor, 
 when he resigned. At the same time he had served 
 as chairman of the St. Paul and Ramsey County 
 democratic committee. 
 
 Mr. Burchard married September 6, 1888, Miss 
 Mary C. Hitt of Urbana, Ohio. They have two 
 children : Mrs. L. J. Shields of St. Paul, and 
 
 Henry McNeil Burchard, a pupil at the St. Paul 
 Academy. 
 
 Hon. Boleslaw G. Novak. A successful mer- 
 chant of St. Paul, Mr. Novak has for a number of 
 years been interested in politics, is a man of high 
 standing as a citizen, and his influence and popu- 
 larity led to his election in 1914 as a member of the 
 lower house of the Legislature. He represents the 
 thirty-eighth district, and took his seat in the house 
 January 5, 1915. 
 
 Boleslaw G. Novak was born in St. Paul, Minne- 
 sota, June 9, 1877, the oldest son of Anthony and 
 Eunice Eva (von Lenety-Kaszynski) Novak. Both 
 parents were born in Germany, came to the United 
 States when quite young and after their marriage 
 settled in St. Paul. Anthony Novak is a carpenter 
 and builder by trade, and has been identified with 
 St. Paul for nearly forty years. Both he and his 
 wife are still living. 
 
 B. G. Novak acquired his early education in St. 
 Adelbert School, and St. Paul public schools, and his 
 first occupation after leaving school was in the 
 employ of the C. Gotzian Shoe Co., with whom he 
 remained six years. After leaving the employ of 
 the Gotzian Shoe Co. he worked for a time as 
 carpenter and builder, but in 1906 formed a partner- 
 ship with his father under the name A. Novak & 
 Son at 741 Van Buren Street, where they established 
 a retail grocery house. That partnership was con- 
 tinued until 1913, at which time the son bought his 
 father’s interest and has since continued alone at 
 the same location. His store is somewhat centrally 
 located, and he has built up a paying business. 
 
 February 16, 1914, Mr. Novak married Miss Bar- 
 bara Schillo of St. Paul, daughter of M. and Martha 
 Schillo. Mr. Novak resides at 741 Van Buren 
 Street. He is a member of the St. Paul Commercial 
 Club, the North Central Commercial Qub and of the 
 Kosciuscko Club. 
 
 Hon. Peter Van Hoven. Forty years a resident 
 of Minnesota, Senator Van Hoven has, during the 
 greater part of this time, been identified with busi- 
 ness and public affairs in St. Paul, in political mat- 
 ters has acted on the democratic side, and is present 
 representative of the forty-first senatorial district 
 in the State Senate. 
 
 Peter Van Hoven is a native of Holland, born in 
 the City of Ost Eysden, in the Province of Limburg, 
 March 7, 1855. He completed his education in the 
 College of Hassel. Belgium, and in 1874 came to 
 
 America. For a number of years he was in the 
 live stock and packing business in Minnesota and 
 still has important interests in a business way. For 
 four years he was a member of the St. Paul City 
 Council, and in 1902 was appointed to the board of 
 public works of the city, was a member of that body 
 for nine years, and during the last two years, be- 
 ginning in 1909, was its president. In 1910 Mr. Van 
 Hoven was elected on the democratic ticket as state 
 senator from what was then the thirty-fifth senatorial 
 district, and in November, 1914, was re-elected sen- 
 ator, the district boundaries having been changed in 
 the meantime so that he is now from the thirty-ninth 
 district. He has served on the following committees 
 as a senator : Agriculture, dairy products and live 
 stock, cities of the first class, insurance, railroads, 
 grain and warehouses and temperance. His home 
 has been in the same section of St. Paul for the 
 past thirty-five years. 
 
 Senator Van Hoven is affiliated with the Knights 
 of Pythias, the Royal Arcanum, the Knights of 
 Columbus, the Loyal" Order of Moose, the Knights 
 and Ladies of Security, the Concordia Society, the 
 West End Commercial Club and the West Side Com- 
 mercial Club. Mrs. Van Hoven, before her mar- 
 riage, was Miss Augusta Zeigler, a native of Minne- 
 sota. They are the parents of two sons and two 
 daughters : Paul C., an expert accountant employed 
 by the D. M. & N. Railroad at Duluth; Henry H., a 
 graduate of the public schools of St. Paul; Helen, 
 wife of Joseph Jeutten of St. Paul, and Miss Alma, 
 still at home. 
 
 Hon. Winslow W. Dunn. One of the members 
 of the Ramsey County bar, Winslow W. Dunn is 
 especially well known in- the city and over the state 
 for his legislative record, having been a member of 
 the lower house or the Senate almost continuously 
 for the past eighteen years. He now represents the 
 forty-first district in the State Senate. 
 
 Winslow W. Dunn is a native of Minnesota, born 
 near St. Paul, August 7, 1862. He is the second 
 son of Lucius C. Dunn, who was born in Maine 
 and came out to the Northwest in the extremely 
 early year 1849. He was one of the pioneers of 
 Minnesota and had an active career as a merchant 
 and in public affairs. For a time he was employed 
 in the store of A. L. Larpenteur, and afterwards 
 engaged in business on his own account at White 
 Bear Lake, where he died in 1877. He married 
 Arabella W. Dean, a native of Massachusetts, and 
 daughter of Ebenezer Dean, who was of the same 
 state. 
 
 Senator Dunn acquired his early education in 
 country schools in this state, at a time when public 
 school facilities were extremely limited. He took up 
 teaching, and for five terms taught a country school. 
 He then came to St. Paul and began the study of 
 law in the office of the prominent Minnesota attor- 
 neys, John B. and W. H. Sanborn, and was subse- 
 quently admitted to the bar after examination before 
 the Supreme Court. An active republican, he was 
 elected, in 1896, a member of the lower house of the 
 Legislature, serving through three sessions, and in 
 1902 was elected to the State Senate from the 
 thirty-third district, and by re-election has sat in 
 the upper house to the present time, having been re- 
 elected in 1914. He has held a place on the most 
 important committees in the Legislature, and for a 
 time was chairman of the judiciary committee. 
 
 Mr. Dunn is affiliated with the Masonic Order 
 
1530 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 and with the Order of the Junior Pioneers. In 
 1886 he married Miss Mary C. McCoy, of Mankato, 
 Minnesota. Their four children are Herbert L., 
 Winslow W., Jr., Dorothy J. and Mary A. W. 
 Dunn. 
 
 Henry S. Olson. One of St. Paul’s important 
 industries is the Olson-Boettger Electric Manu- 
 facturing Company, of which Henry S. Olson is 
 president and treasurer. This business was started 
 December, 1906, by H. C. Boettger and was con- 
 tinued under his name until July 1, 1907, when the 
 reorganization occurred under the present name, and 
 the business is now incorporated with a capital stock 
 of $25,000. The company manufactures a variety 
 of electrical machinery, and also does a large busi- 
 ness as electrical contractors and in general motor 
 and electrical repair work. The office and factory 
 are situated at 200-202 West Third Street in St. 
 Paul. 
 
 Henry S. Olson is a native of Minnesota, and was 
 born in St. Paul, March, 1886. He is a young man 
 who has largely made his own way in the world,, 
 and had an established business position when still 
 in his twenties. His education came from the 
 public schools of St. Paul, including a high school 
 course, and on leaving school his first employment 
 was with the Osgood-Blodgett Box Factory, and for 
 several years he was connected with large contracting 
 and machinery concerns. Then in 1907 he became 
 identified with the present business, and became 
 president and treasurer of the Olson-Boettger Elec- 
 tric Manufacturing Company, with Herbert Hansch 
 as vice president. 
 
 In less than ten years the firm has established the 
 business on a secure basis and has formed business 
 connections not only throughout the twin cities, but 
 all over the state and through adjoining states. 
 
 Some of the electrical installations made by the 
 company are as follows : Five buildings at Hast- 
 
 ings State Asylum ; boys' dormitory, State Agricul- 
 tural College, Crookston, Minnesota; State Normal 
 School buildings, Minot, North Dakota ; Mechanics’ 
 Art and Shop buildings ; Home Economics Building 
 and Cold Storage buildings, State Agricultural Col- 
 lege, St. Anthony Park, Minnesota ; two buildings 
 Home School for Girls, Sauk Centre, Minnesota; 
 Glen Lake Sanatorium buildings, Hennepin County, 
 Glen Lake, Minnesota ; High School Building at 
 Montevideo, Minnesota; High School Building at 
 Spencer and Boone, Iowa ; Chemistry Building, State 
 of South Dakota, Vermillion, South Dakota; Sacred 
 Heart Hospital, Yankton, South Dakota, and many 
 other installations too numerous to mention. 
 
 Mr. Olson is an active young business man and 
 liberal and public spirit&d in his relations to the 
 community. He married Miss Clara Olsen, whose 
 parents were old residents of Geneva, Illinois. 
 
 Mr. Olson is affiliated with Shekinah Lodge No. 
 171, A. F. & A. M., the Modern Woodmen of Amer- 
 ica, the Royal Arcanum and the Jovian Order. 
 
 His home is at 454 Roy Street. 
 
 Herbert Hansch. Another illustration of the re- 
 wards to be attained through perseverance, industry 
 and energetic application of one’s abilities along a 
 chosen and well-directed line is found in the career 
 of Herbert Hansch, vice president of the Olson- 
 Boettger Electric Manufacturing Company of St. 
 Paul. When Mr. Hansch entered upon his career 
 he was possessed of only a limited education and no 
 
 extraordinary abilities, but set himself a high goal, 
 and through earnest effort has worked himself to , a 
 position where he has already realized many of his 
 worthy ambitions. 
 
 Herbert Hansch was born on his father’s farm in 
 Ramsey County, Minnesota, November 24, 1888, and 
 is a son of Frederick and Emily (Gehart) Hansch, 
 natives of Germany and pioneer farming people of 
 Ramsey County. They located in this then un- 
 developed section of Ramsey County, and with ster- 
 ling German determination hewed a farm from the 
 wilderness and reared their nine children to lives 
 of sobriety, industry and usefulness. They are now 
 living in quiet retirement, in the enjoyment of the 
 comforts that their years of honest toil brought to 
 them. Mr. and Mrs. Hansch are faithful members 
 of the German Lutheran Church, and the father is a 
 stanch republican in his political views. Of the nine 
 sons in the family, Ernest, the eldest, died in the 
 prime of life in February, 1907. Those who survive 
 are as follows : Charles, who is at present in Cali- 
 
 fornia ; Edward, who is employed at his trade of iron 
 moulding; Max and Leo, who are operating the old 
 homestead farm at Gladstone Postoffice, in Ramsey 
 County ; Henry, sergeant in the United States navy 
 in which lie enlisted in 1902 j George, who is success- 
 Lilly engaged in the barber business at Carpenter, 
 South Dakota; Herbert, of this review; and Albert’ 
 who is connected with the Olson-Boettger Electric 
 Manufacturing Company. 
 
 Herbert Hansch attended the district schools of 
 Ramsey County until he was sixteen years of age, 
 at which time he began to earn his own living. His 
 career was commenced as a railroad fireman, but 
 after six months’ experience he came to the conclu- 
 sion that there was no future for him in railroading, 
 and aacordingly he sought an opening with a business 
 concern. He soon found employment with the Olson- 
 Boettger Electric Manufacturing Company, at that 
 time a small local concern, employing four men, 
 but found that further education was needed, and 
 in order to gain a thorough theoretical knowledge of 
 electrical and practical engineering he entered a night 
 school, and after a long day spent in hard and 
 persistent toil, would apply himself diligently at 
 night to his studies. His superior knowledge, thus 
 gained, made him of much value to his employers, 
 and this, combined with his natural aptitude and 
 conscientious discharge of his duties, soon earned 
 him promotion until finally he was placed in the 
 position of superintendent of construction. Owing 
 to the great increase of the company’s business, it 
 was incorporated in 1907, and September 30, 1909, 
 Mr. Hansch was advanced to the position of vice 
 president, which he still retains. The wonderful 
 growth of this concern has necessitated the employ- 
 ment of twenty-four men, and the business, from be- 
 ing a purely local concern, has branched out until 
 its work is done all over Minnesota, Iowa, North 
 and South Dakota and Montana. The Olson-Boettger 
 Electric Manufacturing Company handles electric 
 apparatus and goods, wiring, fixtures, motors and 
 repairs, and does work not alone for individuals and 
 corporations, but for the City of St. Paul, the State 
 of Minnesota and the United States Government. 
 Only the best of materials is used and special work- 
 men are employed for each contract, no piece of work 
 being too small or too large for the company to 
 handle. The plant is situated at Nos. 200-202 West 
 Third Street. 
 
 Mr. Hansch is eminently worthy of the title “self- 
 
\r: 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
,<A// 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1531 
 
 made man,” for every dollar which he possesses has 
 been fairly and honestly earned through hard, per- 
 sistent labor. He is a member of Braden Lodge 
 No. 168 of the Masonic fraternity and is also con- 
 nected with the Association of Commerce. He is 
 independent in his political views, and has found but 
 little time to devote to public affairs. His religious 
 connection is with the Lutheran Church, in which 
 he was reared. Like all stirring, virile men he is 
 fond of out-door sports, and is an enthusiast in 
 regard to the “National Game.” 
 
 LeRoy Brown, M. D. Among the physicians 
 and surgeons of St. Paul whose ability ranks them 
 among the best representatives of the profession of 
 the state is Dr. LeRoy Brown, who began his prac- 
 tice in Minnesota nearly thirty years ago, and who 
 for a number of years has been a specialist in dis- 
 eases of the eye, ear, nose and throat. His career 
 since locating at St. Paul has been' marked by ex- 
 pert qualifications and successful work, and he has 
 also identified himself with public affairs, though 
 not in an official position. 
 
 LeRoy Brown was born February 24, 1855, at 
 Nankin, in Wayne County, Michigan, and repre- 
 sents an old family in that 5 state, and one of colonial 
 antecedents in America. His father, Reuben J. 
 Brown, was a native of New York, and his grand- 
 father was Joel Brown, who fought as a soldier of 
 the Revolution. By virtue of his grandfather’s 
 participation in that war Dr. Brown has member- 
 ship in the Sons of the American Revolution. Dr. 
 Brown’s mother was Betsey Ann Kingsley, a native 
 of Vermont, and a lineal descendant from John 
 Kingsley who emigrated from England to Boston 
 in 1630. It is the same family which in its English 
 connections include Charles Kingsley, noted, author 
 and poet. Betsey Ann Kingsley came to Michigan 
 with her parents in 1825, and at the time of her 
 death in 1911 had the distinction of being the oldest 
 settler in the state. Reuben Brown, father of the 
 doctor, after locating in Michigan, served as justice 
 of the peace in Washtenaw Countv. 
 
 Dr. Brown grew up in his native town, attended 
 the common schools there, and later the high school 
 at Northville. In 1878 he was graduated from the 
 Michigan State Normal at Ypsilanti, and subse- 
 quently entered the medical department of the Uni- 
 versity of Michigan, which graduated him M. D. 
 in 1885. After a year spent in California, Dr. 
 Brown located at Heron Lake in Minnesota in 1886. 
 For a number of years he was in active practice 
 there, and in the meantime had begun to specialize 
 in his studies and to some degree in his practice 
 on diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat. While 
 at Heron Lake he also served as health officer. 
 Since coming to St. Paul Dr. Brown has confined 
 his practice almost exclusively to his specialties. 
 
 While never an office seeker, Dr. Brown has 
 taken a keen interest in politics and has served as 
 chairman of the republican county committee. He 
 is a member of the Ramsey County Medical Society, 
 of the State Medical Society, and for fifteen years 
 has been on the staff of the Free Dispensary in St. 
 Paul. He is active in Masonic circles, has served 
 three times as master of Columbian Lodge No. 
 210, A. F. & A. M., at Heron Lake, and is a thirty- 
 second degree Mason. He has passed all the chairs 
 in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is 
 likewise affiliated with the Brotherhood of Amer- 
 ican Yeomen, being presiding officer of the local 
 
 Homestead, and with the Modern Brotherhood of 
 America. 
 
 On June 25, 1887, Mr. Brown married Miss Mina 
 Allen. They were married at Ann Arbor and Mrs. 
 Brown was a native of Hamburg, Ontario. Through 
 her father, John Allen, she was descended from 
 the noted Ethan Allen, the leader of the Green 
 Mountain boys in the Revolution. Dr. Brown and 
 wife became the parents of three children : Lucia, 
 
 born February 28, 1894; Maria, born June 1, 1897; 
 and Marguerite, born May 25, 1903. Mrs. Brown 
 died at their home in St. Paul May 7, 1909. Be- 
 sides the place she so worthily and nobly filled in 
 her home circle, she was a past noble grand of the 
 Rebekahs, a past matron of St. Leger Chapter of 
 'the Order of the Eastern Star, and belonged to the 
 Royal Neighbors and the Modern Brotherhood of 
 America. 
 
 , Charles Bradford Jack. Forty years a resident 
 of Stillwater, and during the greater part of that 
 time devoted to his profession as a lawyer, Judge 
 Jack is one of the ablest members of the bar in 
 Washington County, and has also given important 
 service to the public as a judicial officer. An ex- 
 cellent lawyer, possessed of high personal character, 
 a kind heart and strong sense of duty, he is one 
 of the valuable citizens of the state. 
 
 Charles Bradford Jack was born in Litchfield, 
 Maine, March 18, 1843, a son of Alden B. and Eliza 
 (Williams) Jack, also natives of Maine and of 
 Scotch and English descent. The great-grandfather 
 Jack came to America and settled in one of the 
 New England colonies prior to the Revolutionary 
 war. Alden B. Jack was a merchant throughout 
 his active career, served with the Maine militia, was 
 active in democratic politics, and in religion a Cal- 
 vinist Baptist. His death occurred at the age of 
 eighty years in Litchfield, Maine. The mother was 
 a devoted Christian woman, of the Free Will Baptist 
 faith, and died when seventy years old at Litchfield. 
 There were two children. Franklin K. Jack, who now 
 lives at Bowdoinham, Maine, has for many years 
 been employed in the Internal Revenue Department 
 of the Federal Government. 
 
 Judge Jack has had a career in which his own 
 ambition and energies have been chiefly responsible 
 for his success. After attending the public schools 
 of Litchfield he prepared himself for the higher 
 object of his ambition, and for several years sup- 
 ported himself by mercantile pursuits at Lewiston, 
 Maine. After selling out his interests in Maine he 
 came west and located in Stillwater as one of the 
 early settlers in 1873. Two years later, in 1875, 
 Judge Jack took up the study of law in the offices 
 of Castle & Marsh, and was admitted to practice 
 by the District Court in 1879. For thirty-five years 
 he has devoted himself conscientiously and closely 
 to his work as a lawyer. Judge Jack has served 
 as judge of the Municipal Court at Stillwater for 
 several terms, and for the past ten years has been 
 special judge. Both his associates in the law and 
 the general public have come to entertain a thorough 
 respect for his ability and impartial conduct in the 
 judicial office, and in the course of many years 
 he has performed important service that is not to 
 be measured by the ordinary material standards. 
 For the first three years after his admission to the 
 bar Judge Jack practiced as a partner of F. H. 
 Ervin, now a well known lawyer of St. Paul. 
 
 Judge Jack in earlier life was a democrat, but is 
 
1532 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 now a progressive. He is a member of the Wash- 
 ington County Bar Association, is a Royal Arch 
 Mason, and he and his wife are members of the 
 Eastern Star. Judge Jack was married at Stillwater, 
 March 20, 1878, to Frances Getchell, who was born 
 in Maine, a daughter of Robert and Charlotte Getch- 
 ell. They have two children, both born in Stillwater. 
 Hazel Jack is now successfully practicing osteopathy 
 in St. Paul. Charlotte is the wife of Harold Thomp- 
 son of Stillwater. 
 
 Hon. James H. Hynes. One of the prominent 
 undertakers of St. Paul, and now serving in the 
 State Legislature, James H. Hynes, represents' a 
 family of early settlers in Minnesota and is himself 
 a native of St. Paul. 
 
 James H. Hynes was born in St. Paul, September 
 23, 1888, the oldest son of Henry H. and Mary 
 (O’Donnell) Hynes. His father was born in Min- 
 nesota fifty-five years ago, and his mother is also 
 a native of Sibley County of this state. Both the 
 Hynes and O’Donnell families were among the early 
 settlers. Henry H. Hynes is a farmer by occupa- 
 tion, and has devoted the best years of his life to 
 that calling. 
 
 James H. Hynes acquired his early education in 
 the common schools of St. Paul and subsequently 
 attended the Cretin High School. After leaving 
 school he was for five years in the employ of the 
 Waukegan & Great Northern Railroad, then was 
 with Joseph J. Hurley for eighteen months, and 
 since 1911 has been engaged in the undertaking 
 business. 
 
 Mr. Hynes has for several years taken an active 
 part on the democratic side in state politics, and 
 in 1914 was nominated and elected member of the 
 Legislature to represent the thirty-sixth legislative 
 district. As a member of the session of 1915 he has 
 a place on several important house committees. Mr. 
 Hynes is affiliated with the Ancient Order of Hiber- 
 nians, with the Sons of the Oriental Knight, with 
 the Loyal Order of Moose No. 40, with the Ancient 
 Order of United Workmen, and belongs to the St. 
 Paul Commercial Club. On November 29, 1913. he 
 married Miss Eunice Edwards of St. Paul, daughter 
 of Charles Edwards, a well known old resident of 
 St. Paul. 
 
 Thomas McDermott. Among the members of the 
 St. Paul legal fraternity, one who has lent dignity 
 and distinction to the profession is Thomas Mc- 
 Dermott, of the firm of Denegre & McDermott, one 
 of the strong combinations in the practice of general 
 and corporation law. His entire professional career 
 has been passed in this city, and although still a 
 young man has gained a reputation that marks him 
 as one of the most capable of the community’s 
 legists. Mr. McDermott was born at Stillwater, 
 Minnesota. March 4. 1876, and is a son of Philip and 
 Elizabeth (McGrath) McDermott. 
 
 Philip McDermott, the pioneer Minnesota lumber- 
 man, was a native of New Brunswick, and his wife 
 was born at Bangor, Maine, of Scotch descent, and 
 died at Stillwater, in 1891. The father came to that 
 citv as one of its earliest residents, and through 
 a long and useful life was a contributor to its ad- 
 vancement and development in many ways. Coming 
 to this state at a time when its lumber had hardly 
 been touched, he began to grow with the growth of 
 that industry, prospered with its prosperity and 
 became one of the best known men in it in his time, 
 
 being largely connected with the logging end of the 
 business. He retired from active pursuits in 1906, 
 and since that time has resided quietly in his com- 
 fortable home at the scene of his labors and of his 
 successes. Mr. McDermott is a member of the 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and in 
 his religious views is connected with the Roman 
 Catholic Church. He and his wife were the parents 
 of five children, as follows : John A., who is man- 
 
 ager of the United States Brewing Association, 
 and a resident of the City of New York; James E., 
 who has been a resident of Nome, Alaska, since 
 1895, and is a very successful mine owner there; 
 Lillian R., who is the wife of Alexander Mackey, 
 of Stillwater; Thomas, of this review; and Jeanne, 
 who is the wife of James B. Kennedy, a resident 
 of Phoenix, Arizona. 
 
 The early education of Thomas McDermott was 
 secured in the graded schools of Stillwater, follow- 
 ing which he attended the high school of his native 
 place. He next took up the study of law, and after 
 some preparation entered the University of Min- 
 nesota, where he was given the degree of bachelor of 
 sciences in 1896. During 1897 Mr. McDermott was 
 engaged in mercantile pursuits at Terre Haute, 
 Indiana, but after one year so engaged decided 
 that he preferred the law to the marts of commerce, 
 and accordingly again took up the study of the 
 profession, in the offices of How & Butler, at St. 
 Paul. In order to prepare himself for his calling, 
 he entered the state university and took night 
 courses, and graduated from the law department with 
 the class of 1900, being admitted to the bar that 
 same year. In 1901 Mr. McDermott was appointed 
 clerk in the city attorney’s office, and in 1902 was 
 promoted to assistant city attorney, under James E. 
 Markham. He entered private practice in 1903, 
 and during the next nine years built up an excellent 
 business, attracted to him by his marked ability, 
 his fine attainments and his comprehensive knowl- 
 edge in several branches of his calling. In 1912 
 Mr. McDermott formed a partnership with Senator 
 J. D. Denegre, under the firm style of Denegre & 
 McDermott. 
 
 Among the large firms whose names are on the 
 books of this prominent general and corporation 
 law firm may be mentioned the Consumers Power 
 Company, the Patterson Street Lighting Company, 
 the Pullman Company, the O’Donnell Shoe Com- 
 pany, the East St. Paul and Commercial State Banks 
 and numerous other large corporations. Mr. Mc- 
 Dermott is a director of the Commercial State Bank 
 and secretary and director of several other indus- 
 trial enterprises, in which offices he has displayed 
 the possession of business abilities in proportion 
 with his legal talents. He is a valued member of 
 the Ramsey County Bar Association, the Minnesota 
 State Bar Association and the American Bar Asso- 
 ciation, and belongs to the Benevolent and Protective 
 Order of Elks and the Knights of Columbus. He is 
 well known in club circles of St. Paul, and belongs 
 to the various prominent social organizations, includ- 
 ing the Minnesota Club, the Town and Country 
 Club, the University Club and the White Bear Yacht 
 Club. Mr. McDermott finds but little time for vaca- 
 tions or recreation, but when he can lay aside for a 
 time the arduous duties of his constantly growing 
 practice, he delights in a game of curling, at which 
 he has gained considerable international reputation. 
 His profession, however, is his chief interest arid 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1533 
 
 pleasure, and his devotion to it has placed him in 
 an enviable position among Minnesota attorneys. 
 
 Rev. Thomas J. Gibbons. As pastor of St. Luke's 
 Catholic Church of St. Paul, Father Gibbons is at 
 the head of one of the largest parishes in the state, 
 and has been identified with the work of the church, 
 either in schools or in the ministry for thirty years. 
 
 Thomas J. Gibbons is a native of Pennsylvania, 
 born at Mount Carmel, September 4, 1861, a son of 
 Thomas and Anne (Reynolds) Gibbons. Father 
 Gibbons acquired his primary education in Mount 
 Carmel, and in 1879 completed his literary course 
 at St. Vincent’s College in Westmoreland County, 
 Pennsylvania. In 1880 he entered the Grand Sem- 
 inary, Montreal, Canada, where he finished his 
 ecclesiastical training. Fie was called home for the 
 opening of St. Thomas College, Merriam Park, and 
 after three weeks was ordained to the priesthood 
 on November 5, 1885, being the first priest ordained 
 in St. Thomas College. For 3F2 years he was 
 assistant pastor of the cathedral and then became 
 pastor of St. Patrick’s Church of St. Paul. At the 
 end of five years Father Gibbons was appointed to 
 St. Mary’s parish, and held that office from 1903 
 to 1910. That year was the beginning of his duties 
 as pastor of St. Luke’s Church, Victoria Street. 
 The church was organized in 1888. and has a mem- 
 bership of about 6,000. Father Gibbons is pastor and 
 is assisted by Rev. John P. Cleary and Rev. William 
 J. Flarrington. 
 
 Albert Fred Woods. The dean of the Minnesota 
 State Agricultural College and director of the Ex- 
 periment Station is not only a capable educational 
 executive and administrator, as demonstrated by his 
 work in supervising and strengthening the vital 
 relations of the Agricultural College with its stu- 
 dents and with the agricultural interests of the 
 state at large, but is also a scientist whose name is 
 well known in the world of scholarship, particularly 
 as a plant physiologist and pathologist. 
 
 Albert Fred Woods was born at Belvidere, Illinois. 
 December 25, 1866, a son of Fred Moffet and Eliza 
 Olivia (Eddy) Woods. The family removed from 
 Illinois to Nebraska, where Mr. Woods was gradu- 
 ated B. Sc. from the University of Nebraska in 
 1890, and received his master’s degree at the same 
 institution in 1892, and the honorary degree, D. Agr., 
 in 1913. In the University of Nebraska he was 
 retained as assistant botanist from 1890 to 1893, and 
 assistant chief and first assistant pathologist, division 
 of vegetable physiology and pathology, from 1893 
 to 1900. From igoo to 1910 Mr. Woods was patholo- 
 gist and physiologist and assistant chief of the bureau 
 of plant industry, United States Department of 
 Agriculture. On February 1, 1910, he began his 
 services as dean of the Minnesota State Agricultural 
 College and director of the Experiment Station, and 
 in that capacity has not only come into personal 
 relations with the many citizens who have passed 
 through the halls of the college in the past five 
 years and with thousands of the practical agricul- 
 turists of the state, but has exerted his influence and 
 employed his experience in many other ways that 
 directly and indirectly benefit the state. 
 
 In the meantime Mr. Woods has come into a large 
 share of the honors paid to scientific accomplishment. 
 He was United States delegate to the International 
 Institute of Agriculture of Rome in 1905, and in the 
 same year was delegate to the International Botani- 
 
 cal Congress at Vienna. He is a fellow of the 
 American Association for the Advancement of 
 Science, of the Botanical Society of America, of the 
 Botanical Society of Germany, the Society of 
 Morphology and Physiology, the Botanical Society 
 of Washington, and the Washington Academy of 
 Sciences. He is a member of the Cosmos Club of 
 Washington. Among his contributions as an author 
 may be mentioned reports on Flora of Nebraska, 
 1894; numerous reports and articles in publications 
 of the Department of Agriculture and scientific jour- 
 nals. Mr. Woods resides at St. Anthony Park. On 
 June 1, 1898, he married Bertha Gerneaux Davis. 
 Mrs. Woods, who was born at Penn Yan, New York, 
 April 18, 1873, a daughter of Charles W. and Harriet 
 (Winton) Davis, is well known as a magazine writer, 
 a contributor of poems and short stories to various 
 Sunday school and religious publications and also to 
 Scribners’ and Cosmopolitan magazines, and is 
 author of a book of verse published in 1903. 
 
 Carl C. Van Dyke, M. C. Member of the Sixty- 
 fourth Congress from the Fourth Minnesota Dis- 
 trict, Carl C. Van Dyke is a native of Minnesota, 
 and prior to his election to Congress had become 
 well known in the legal profession and also in 
 Government service. Mr. Van Dyke resides at St. 
 Paul, and has his law offices in the Germania Life 
 Building. 
 
 Carl C. Van Dyke was born at Alexandria, Min- 
 nesota, February 18, 1881, a son of Chester B. and 
 Christine (Solum) Van Dyke, the father born in 
 Bradford County, New York, and the mother in 
 Norway. They came as early settlers to Minnesota, 
 locating at Alexandria, where his father for many 
 years was engaged in merchandising and continued 
 in active business up to within a short time of his 
 death. 
 
 Congressman Van Dyke had his primary educa- 
 tion in the common schools at Alexandria, finishing 
 at the high school, and then teaching for several 
 terms. During the Spanish-American war he en- 
 listed in a St. Paul Company, and following his 
 discharge he was in the employ of the government, 
 and was in the railway mail service up to 1911. 
 While in that work he read law, and for three 
 years beginning with 1911 represented the Govern- 
 ment employees at Washington. 
 
 Mr. Van Dyke first entered the political field as 
 a candidate for the nomination to Congress in 1912 
 on the democratic ticket. He was defeated, but in 
 1914 was nominated and was elected by a hand- 
 some majority to represent the Fourth Congres- 
 sional District. His opponent at the election was 
 Frederick C. Stevens. 
 
 Mr. Van Dyke was married in 1900 to Miss 
 Myrtle Lampman of Alexandria. They are the 
 parents of two children : M. Aleye and Mildred A. 
 His home is at 617 South Smith Avenue, St. Paul. 
 
 Rev. Frederick Augustus Schmidt, D. D. After 
 long and distinguished service as a scholar, educator 
 and churchman, Doctor Schmidt is now living quietly 
 retired in St. Paul, where he enjoys the comforts of 
 an attractive home at 2095 Scudder Avenue and that 
 otium cum dignitate which has always been one 
 of the coveted rewards of a well spent existence. 
 Doctor Schmidt is professor emeritus of the Sem- 
 inary of the LTnited Norwegian Lutheran Church 
 at St. Anthony Park. Ramsey County, with which 
 he was long identified as an active professor. 
 
1534 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Frederick Augustus Schmidt was born in Leuten- 
 berg, Germany, January 3, 1837. a son of Martin and 
 Helena (Wirth) Schmidt. Four years later the 
 family came to America and located m St. Louis, 
 where Doctor Schmidt received his early education 
 in select schools, and was graduated from Concordia 
 College of St. Louis in 1854, and from Concordia 
 Seminary in 1857. His degree doctor of divinity 
 came from ihe Capital University of Columbus, 
 Ohio, in 1883. For a time Doctor Schmidt had 
 charge of the church at Eden, in Erie County, New 
 York, and from 1857 to 1859 was pastor of the 
 German congregation in that place. He was then 
 called to Baltimore, Maryland, to become pastor 
 of St. Peter’s English Lutheran Church, and fulfilled 
 the office of pastor there until 1861, at the beginning 
 of the war. He then came north, and from 1861 to 
 1871 was professor in Luther College at Decorah, 
 Iowa. Doctor Schmidt held the chair of professor 
 of theology in the Concordia Seminary at St. Louis 
 from 1872 to 1876, in a seminary at Madison, Wis- 
 consin, from 1876 to 1886, and during the following 
 four years was instructor of theology in the Lutheran 
 Seminary at Northfield, Minnesota. In 1890 he was 
 assigned to the theological department of the United 
 Norwegian Lutheran Seminary, now of St. Anthony 
 Park, and continued to be actively associated with 
 that institution until his retirement as professor 
 emeritus. 
 
 Doctor Schmidt was married, December 8, 1858 
 to Caroline Sophia Allwardt. of Cattaraugus County, 
 New York. Doctor Schmidt’s own honored life has 
 been further honored by his sons and daughters. 
 His son, Paul Gerhard, who was born in St. Louis 
 in 1876, is a graduate of the University of Minnesota, 
 and since 1907 has been identified with St. Olaf 
 College at Northfield as secretary and treasurer and 
 for a time as acting president. Another son, August 
 M., is now located at Fort Wayne, Indiana, while 
 Herman is a resident of Detroit, Michigan. Edward 
 W. is president of Hauge Seminary, Red Wing, 
 Minnesota. Otto is pastor of a church at Decorah, 
 Iowa, and Carl H. of Minneapolis is a physician and 
 surgeon. The other children are Bertha M., of 
 Northfield, who married Prof. O. Lee, and Clara, 
 at home, who married A. Johnson. 
 
 Doctor Schmidt has traveled extensively and for 
 many years was a popular speaker and lecturer, and 
 has command over both the spoken and written 
 languages of German, English and Norwegian. He 
 has written many articles and pamphlets on religious 
 subjects, and during 1865-66 was editor of the 
 Lutheran Watchman, was editor of Altes Und Neues 
 from 1880 to 1885, and from 1882 to 1888 was editor 
 of the Lutherske Vidnesbyrd. 
 
 Nelson Peter Falic. The heavy mortality that is 
 now rapidly thinning the ranks of those veterans who 
 served in the Civil war recently took away one of 
 St. Paul's sterling business men and citizens in the 
 person of Nelson Peter Falk, who died February 
 
 27. 1915- He was a Minnesota pioneer, and was one 
 of the early settlers and homesteaders while Min- 
 nesota was still a territory. 
 
 Nelson Peter Falk was born in Sweden, February 
 
 28, 1836, and his death occurred the day preceding 
 his seventy-ninth birthday. His mother died at his 
 birth, and during the seventeen years spent in the 
 old country he lived on a farm and received an 
 education in the public schools. After coming to 
 America he attended English schools for a short 
 
 time, and on reaching Minnesota located a homestead 
 at Carver, about forty miles from St. Paul. He was 
 living in that locality when the war broke out. He 
 enlisted at Fort Snelling in Company H of the 
 Fourth Minnesota Infantry, under the command of 
 Captain Patch and Colonel Sanborn. He participated 
 in one of the great campaigns down the Mississippi 
 Valley during the first year of the war, and at the 
 Battle of Shiloh was wounded, and soon afterwards 
 discharged because of a permanent injury which kept 
 him lame the rest of his life. After the war he 
 located in St. Paul, and for about forty years, until 
 his retirement, was connected with the wholesale 
 clothing manufacturing business. That was his life 
 work, and he finally gave up business in 1907. Dur- 
 ing the last twenty-five years he had been one of 
 the trusted men of the Guitterman Bros. Company 
 and had the supervision of the establishment of 
 factories for the manufacture of clothing, miners’ 
 outfits, overalls, sheep-lined coats and other wearing 
 apparel. 
 
 The late Mr. Falk was a member of Garfield Post 
 of the Grand Army of the Republic. His only other 
 fraternal association was with the. Ancient Order 
 of United Workmen. He worshiped in the First 
 Lutheran Church, of which he was one of the 
 founders, and in politics was a very strong repub- 
 lican and always interested in politics, though never 
 an aspirant for office. He was attentive to business, 
 performed well whatever he undertook, but other- 
 wise was a man of unassuming and rather quiet 
 disposition. He was very fond of good books and 
 reading, and when not at business could usually be 
 found in the pleasure of his home circle. Failing 
 eyesight had caused him to give up business about 
 seven years before his death. He was laid to rest 
 in Oakland Cemetery. 
 
 Immediately after the war Mr. Falk married Mary 
 Anderson. She was born in Sweden, where her 
 parents died, and she came as a young girl to Minne- 
 sota and lived with an aunt named Anderson at 
 Carver until her marriage. Of the four children of 
 their union one is now deceased, and those living 
 are : Anna, unmarried, St. Paul ; Charles, who is 
 employed by the Guitterman Bros., and is married 
 and has three sons, Charles Henry, aged seventeen; 
 Richard, aged fourteen, and Willard, aged eleven ; 
 and Catherine, the wife of Benjamin Gorham, resid- 
 ing at 809 Goodrich Avenue ir St. Paul. Mr. 
 Gorham is connected with the Northwestern Fuel 
 Company and well known in business and social 
 circles, being a member of the Masonic Order and 
 the Mystic Shrine, the Commercial Club and the 
 Minnesota Club. Mrs. Gorham has one daughter, 
 Catherine Jennette, born September 21, 1914. 
 
 James Phillip Murnane. Among those who 
 help perform the work of any community with a 
 quiet efficiency which is as valuable as it is incon- 
 spicuous, special credit must be given to the late 
 James Phillip Murnane, who had grown up in St. 
 Paul when it was a pioneer city, and who died 
 there December 31, 1913, at the age of fifty-six. 
 
 James Phillip Murnane was born in Willimantic, 
 Connecticut, March 18, 1857, a son of Timothy 
 Murnane. His father was a farmer at Wave.rly, 
 Minnesota, locating in this state soon after the birth 
 of his son James P. At the time of the Indian out- 
 break during the Civil war he removed to Minne- 
 apolis, subsequently enlisted for service in a Minne- 
 sota regiment, and was killed while a Union soldier. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1535 
 
 James P. Murnane grew lip in Minneapolis, was 
 educated in the public schools, attended a business 
 college in St. Paul, and at the age of seventeen 
 entered the employ of Foley Bros. & Kelly. He 
 showed industry and willingness to serve, and was 
 given increasing responsibilities with that house 
 until 1885, when he was made manager of the city 
 department. That position he held consecutively 
 nearly thirty years, and practically died at his post. 
 He was a hard worker, was intent upon his business, 
 and it was this devotion to duty which undoubtedly 
 took him away while still in the prime of years. 
 
 Mr. Murnane was a member of the Union Pio- 
 neers’ Association, and of St. John’s Catholic Church, 
 and of the Catholic Order of Foresters. His first 
 wife was Mary Ryan, and she became the mother 
 of six children, five sons and one daughter. The 
 daughter is Mrs. W. E. Ball, Mr. Ball being air 
 brake inspector for the Soo Railway at St. Paul. 
 John J., the oldest son, now twenty-five years of 
 age, succeeded his father in the position of the 
 city department of Foley Bros. & Kelly. John is 
 married and has one child, John, Jr., now two 
 years of age. The second son is Raymond J., aged 
 twenty-four. Stephen is yard clerk for the Soo 
 Railway. Phillip is a clerk in the house of Foley 
 Bros. & Kelly. Stanley, aged sixteen, has just com- 
 pleted a business course and has taken up employ- 
 ment with the Great Northern Railway. On August 
 31, 1909, the late Mr. Murnane married Mary Jane 
 Wallace, who was born in London, England, and 
 came to Minnesota at the age of fifteen. Her par- 
 ents were William and Mary Wallace, her father 
 having followed farming in Wisconsin and Minne- 
 sota. Mrs. Murnane since the death of her hus- 
 band has lived at 228 Maria Avenue in St. Paul. 
 
 William J. Regan. One of the older bankers of 
 St. Paul, William J. Regan’s appointment in 1911 
 to the position of state bank examiner brought to 
 that department of state service one of the most 
 capable men who could be secured. He has spent 
 twenty years in banking in Minnesota, and through- 
 out this time his interests have been identified 
 with the banking and financial interests of the 
 state. His long experience in banking and his ex- 
 tensive acquaintance enable him to conduct the busi- 
 ness of examiner in an efficient manner and with 
 satisfaction to himself and the people. Mr. Regan 
 has his headquarters in the state capitol. He is 
 still vice president of the Commercial State Bank 
 of St. Paul. 
 
 William J. Regan was born in 1872, a son of 
 William and Mary (Flanagan) Regan, both of whom 
 are now deceased. His early education was acquired 
 in Montreal, Canada, and afterwards in the high 
 school at St. Paul. Soon after leaving school he 
 found employment in the Merchants National Bank 
 of St. Paul, and from a minor position his inter- 
 ests have been growing and his influence increas- 
 ing, and besides the work and offices mentioned 
 above he is a director in the Forest Lake State 
 Bank, the First State Bank of Champlin, and 
 director and vice president of the First State Bank 
 of Dayton, in Hennepin County, Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Regan was married in 1897 to Miss Helen 
 Duffy of St. Paul, a daughter of James Duffy, a 
 well-known old resident of the capital city and for 
 many years identified with its business affairs. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Regan have three children : William, 
 
 Loretta and George. The family reside in a com- 
 
 fortable residence on Fairmount Avenue, St. Paul. 
 Mr. Regan is affiliated with the Knights of Colum- 
 bus and the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks, and in politics as a republican takes a lively 
 part in public affairs. 
 
 Myron D. Taylor. Now holding the office of 
 Supreme Court Commissioner, with offices in the 
 capitol building at St. Paul, Myron Taylor has for 
 many years been prominent as a Minnesota lawyer, 
 and was elevated from the district bench to his pres- 
 ent position. Judge Taylor is a native of Maine, 
 and was brought to Minnesota by his parents in 
 September, 1858. He was a pioneer, and his own 
 career has reflected honor on that sterling class of 
 first settlers. 
 
 Judge Myron Taylor was born in Byron, Maine, 
 December 30, 1855, the oldest son of M. A. and 
 Sarah J. (Barnard) Taylor. His father, who was 
 born April 13, 1830, spent his boyhood in Maine, 
 and acquired most of his education at Roxbury, in 
 that state. He came out to Minnesota as a pioneer 
 in 1857, and lived in the state about thirty years. 
 In addition to his pursuits as a farmer and stock 
 raiser, he was for many years engaged in the sur- 
 vey of Government land. In 1859 he located in 
 Albion, Wright County, and about 2j4 years later 
 moved to the Town of Melrose, in Stearns County, 
 where he resided until 1878. He served in 1895 in 
 the Minnesota Legislature, having been elected on 
 the republican ticket, and did some important work 
 on several committees. He is still living at his child- 
 hood home, in his native State of Maine. His wife 
 died while visiting at Minneapolis in 1892. 
 
 Myron Taylor grew up on a frontier farm, and 
 the environment of those early days had much in- 
 fluence on his character and undoubtedly gave him 
 much strength and virility for his professional 
 career. As a boy he attended country schools. 
 From the farm he finally entered the State Uni- 
 versity, and was graduated in the class of 1878. 
 Next came two years of school teaching at Hen- 
 derson, where he devoted all his leisure time to 
 the study of law. He then entered the law office 
 of S. & O. Kipp of Henderson, and was admitted 
 to the bar in March, 1881. 
 
 Judge Taylor has had an active career during 
 nearly thirty-five years of membership in the Min- 
 nesota bar, and has handled a large volume of pri- 
 vate litigation in addition to his official responsibil- 
 ities. He began practice at St. Cloud, which is still 
 his home, and held the office of city attorney for 
 twelve years. President McKinley appointed him 
 register of the United States Land Office at St. 
 Cloud, and he was in that position eight years. In 
 1906 came his elevation to the bench when elected 
 judge of the Seventh Judicial District. At the end 
 of six years he was re-elected in 1912, but soon 
 after assuming office for his second term he was 
 appointed in 1913 Supreme Court commissioner for 
 the term of six years. This office requires him to 
 be in St. Paul, where he and his family are residing 
 temporarily. 
 
 Judge Taylor has long been regarded as a leader 
 in the republican party of Minnesota. He fre- 
 quently attends conventions, both state and national, 
 and was an alternate delegate to the national con- 
 vention in 1888 that nominated Benjamin Harrison. 
 He has also served as a member of the republican 
 state central committee. Fraternally much of his 
 interest has been taken up with Masonic work, and 
 
1536 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 lie is affiliated with North Star Lodge No. 23, A. F. 
 & A. M. ; St. Cloud Chapter No. 46, R. A. M. ; 
 Nazarene Commandery No. 24, K. T. ; and Osman 
 Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He belongs to the 
 lodges of the Knights of Pythias and the Benev- 
 olent and Protective Order of Elks at St. Cloud. 
 
 In 1883 Judge Taylor married Miss Anna Frank 
 of Henderson, Minnesota, daughter of Benedict 
 Frank, an old resident and respected citizen of that 
 place. They have two daughters, Zama M. and 
 Louisa F., and lost one son, Ralph, in infancy. 
 
 Joseph Malcome Hackney. Whether considered 
 as a progressive business man, a faithful and con- 
 scientious public servant or a stirring and helpful 
 citizen, Joseph Malcome Hackney must be accounted 
 one of the leading and forceful men of St.. Paul, 
 whose well-directed energies have resulted in the 
 building up of a vigorous commercial enterprise, 
 the passage of much useful state legislation and 
 the securing of municipal and civic reforms which 
 have contributed materially to the public weal. Still 
 a young man, he has accomplished achievements 
 which many men would deem satisfactory if gained 
 after a lifetime of effort, and if the past may be 
 taken as a criterion of the future greater and higher 
 honor's await him. 
 
 Mr. Hackney is one of Minnesota's native sons, 
 having been born near the Village of Antrim, in 
 Watonwan County, July 8, 1874, a son of William 
 and Catherine (Bradley) Hackney. His father was 
 born in Dundee, Scotland, and as a young man left 
 his native land and emigrated to the United States, 
 arriving in 1855 and locating at Antrim, Minnesota. 
 He has been a farmer by vocation and is living in 
 the peaceful pursuits of the soil, in which he has 
 won prosperity through the exercise of native thrift 
 and industry, while at the same time he has gained 
 the esteem and regard of his fellow-men through 
 his Christian, life and character. He has been con- 
 tent to devote himself to his rural labors and has 
 never sought public office, although he has exercised 
 a strong influence among his neighbors. Both he 
 and his devoted wife are consistent members of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church, in the movements of 
 which they take an active and helpful part. Mrs. 
 Hackney bore the maiden name of Catherine Brad- 
 ley, and was born in Canada, her father being Irish 
 and her mother a native of Germany. 
 
 The boyhood and youth of Joseph Malcome 
 Hackney were passed on the old homestead place 
 in Watonwan County, where he was reared to 
 habits of industry and honesty and carefully trained 
 in the various departments of agricultural work. 
 He secured his primary educational training in the 
 district schools, but it was not his intention to de- 
 vote his energies to agricultural work, and with a 
 view to securing a good education matriculated at 
 the Hamline University and subsequently in the 
 law department of the State University of Minne- 
 sota. Not long after completing his studies, he 
 located in St. Paul, where he gained recognition of 
 his abilities and soon became widely and favorably 
 known, and in 1900 identified himself with the 
 Hackney Land Credit Company, this being one of 
 the most substantial real estate concerns in the city, 
 engaged in the buying and selling of farm lands, 
 mortgage loans and manufacturing enterprises. His 
 reputation in business circles is of the highest char- 
 acter, but it is probably as a politician and legis- 
 lator that he has been most prominently before the 
 
 public. His first public office was as member of 
 the St. Paul City Council from the Tenth Ward, an 
 office in which his activities commended him to the 
 people, and in 1907 he was elected to the State 
 Senate, this being followed by re-elections in 1909 
 and 1911, the last-named being entirely without op- 
 position. As a legislator he was courageous in his 
 support of his constituents’ rights and interests, 
 and through his energy and ability was able to se- 
 cure the passage of some much-needed legislation. 
 His political record has been free from the faintest 
 stain or blemish. 
 
 Mr. Hackney has been stirringly identified with 
 the St. Paul Business Men’s League and the Com- 
 mercial Club, organizations which have for their 
 object the betterment and progress of civic and 
 business conditions. He has retained his interest 
 in the affairs of his alma mater, and is one of the 
 trustees of Hamline University. Fraternally he is 
 connected with the Ancient Order of United Work- 
 men and the Masons, in the latter of which he has 
 attained to the thirty-second degree. With Mrs. 
 Hackney, he attends the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
 On June 18, 1902, Mr. Hackney was united in 
 marriage, at St. Paul, with Miss Jennie Evelyn 
 Hill, daughter of L. J. and Rosetta (Schultes) Hill, 
 and a close connection of the late David B. Hill, 
 of New York. L. J. Hill is a veteran of the Civil 
 war, having served in that struggle under 1 Gen. U. 
 S. Grant. Mrs. Hackney is a lady of culture and 
 refinement, and a graduate of the Hancock public 
 school of St. Paul, the Central High School and 
 Hamline University. Two children have come to 
 Mr. and Mrs. Hackney, namely : Marion M., born 
 
 August 28, 1906; and Joseph M., Jr., born May 7, 
 1908. 
 
 Gen. Fred B. Wood. For the past ten years adju- 
 tant general of the Minnesota National Guard, Fred 
 B. Wood has been actively identified with that 
 organization more than thirty years, and is an old 
 resident of Minnesota, to which state he came when 
 a boy. Mr. Wood is widely known both in military 
 and social circles, and one of the most popular men 
 at the capital. 
 
 Fred B. Wood was born June 14, 1866, at Ames, 
 Montgomery County, New York, and when eleven 
 years of age was brought to Minnesota by his par- 
 ents in 1877. The family located in Austin, in 
 Mower County, where General Wood was graduated 
 from the high school in 1886. For many years he 
 was successfully identified with the real estate and 
 insurance business, and for ten years of that time 
 was deputy register of deeds of Mower County. 
 
 His active interest in militia matters began when 
 he was still under age. On May 8, 1884, he became 
 a private in Company G of the Second Infantry, 
 Minnesota National Guard, was promoted corporal 
 in 1885 ; sergeant in 1886 ; right general guide, Sec- 
 ond Infantry, 1887; transferred back to Company G 
 February 14, 1888, and appointed first sergeant; be- 
 came regimental sergeant major, Second Infantry, 
 April 19, 1890; was commissioned first lieutenant 
 Company G, Second Infantry, January 26, 1891; be- 
 came captain June 7, 1893, and served as captain of 
 Company G of the Twelfth Minnesota Infantry, 
 volunteers, during the Spanish-American war, from 
 April 29, i8cj8, to November 5, 1898. After the war 
 he was commissioned major of Second Infantry Jn 
 May, 1899, and on January 28, 1905, was promoted 
 

 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1537 
 
 to adjutant general, Minnesota National Guard, with 
 the rank of brigadier general. General Wood is a 
 democrat and is married and resides in St. Paul. 
 
 I 
 
 Charles W. Odell, cashier of the First National 
 Bank of Willmar, has had a number of years of 
 experience with the uncompromising and accuracy- 
 compelling methods of monetary science as revealed 
 behind the counters of Minnesota institutions. As 
 are all successful and reliable financiers, he is 
 methodical in his habits and practical in his ambi- 
 tions. In his early life he was taught the value of 
 industry and economy, traits which have served 
 to make him a conservative and practical banker. 
 His success lias been purely the outcome of his 
 individual efforts, for his career was started with- 
 out the assistance of any aiding influences, and 
 the position which he has gained should prove of 
 encouragement to youths placed in similar circum- 
 stances. 
 
 Charles W. Odell was born in Sweden, January 9, 
 1862, and his parents passed their entire lives in 
 their native land. They were the parents of four 
 children, of whom a daughter still resides in 
 Sweden ; Peter is an agriculturist in that country ; 
 and August lives in Stearns County, Minnesota, and 
 carries on farming. Charles W. Odell was given 
 only ordinary educational advantages in the schools 
 of his native land, and when still a mere lad was 
 taught to be self-reliant and self-supporting. Seek- 
 ing the broader opportunities offered by America to 
 the poor youths of other lands, when but seventeen 
 years of age, in 1879, he emigrated to the United 
 States, where he first took up his residence in Kan- 
 diyohi County, Minnesota. Strong, willing and 
 ambitious, he secured employment as a farm hand, 
 and continued for a number of years to be engaged 
 in this kind of work. Following this he came to 
 Willmar, where he became chief of police of the 
 city, and succeeded so well as an officer that he 
 was elected sheriff of Kandiyohi County. In the 
 twelve years that he served in that capacity he made 
 a record for faithful performance of duty and re- 
 straint of lawlessness that has not been surpassed. 
 While serving in that capacity, in 1902, Mr. Odell 
 became the organizer of the First National Bank 
 of Willmar, which he entered as its first cashier, 
 a position which he has continued to hold to the 
 present time. He is a heavy stockholder in the 
 bank, and his wide acquaintance with the farmers 
 and business men of the county makes him a val- 
 uable adjunct to its success. He was made super- 
 visor of census in 1910 for Congressional District 
 No. 7. He is a promoter of conservative and stable 
 interests, and as a citizen and banker maintains 
 standards in keeping with the best welfare of the 
 community. His personal success, from a material 
 standpoint, has been very satisfactory, for he has 
 large holdings in city property and country farms. 
 A sturdy and active republican, he served as a 
 member of the State Senate from 1911 to 1913, but 
 would not allow his name to be used for a renom- 
 ination. Fraternally he is connected with the Blue 
 Lodge and Chapter of the Masonic Order, and 
 with the Ancient Order of United Workmen. With 
 his family he is identified with the Christian Science 
 Church. 
 
 In 1886 Mr. Odell married Martha Fladebo, and 
 they have four children : Etta, Ella, Albert and 
 George. 
 
 Harrison L. Schmitt. In the field of general 
 law one of the most eminent figures of the South- 
 ern Minnesota bar is Harrison L. Schmitt, who, 
 during twenty-two years of practice at Mankato has 
 been a faithful conserver of all the interests con- 
 fided to his care and fine judgment, and whose 
 career is worthy of a lasting place in the history 
 of the bar. He has attracted such attention by his 
 abilities that he has obtained an assured position 
 among the best of his fellow practitioners, a posi- 
 tion which is evidenced by his incumbency of the 
 office of president of both the Blue Earth County 
 Bar Association and the Minnesota State Bar As- 
 sociation. 
 
 Mr. Schmitt was born at Waverly, Iowa, October 
 15, 1866, and is a son of John and Maria C. (Lipp) 
 Schmitt, and a grandson of Christian Schmitt, of 
 Alsace-Lorraine, who came to the United States dur- 
 ing the ’50s and located near Kasson, Dodge County, 
 Minnesota, where he died. John Schmitt, the father 
 of Harrison L. Schmitt, was born in Pennsylvania, 
 in 1831, and there resided until 1864, when he re- 
 moved to Iowa. Because of his vocation he did not 
 serve in the Civil war, but one of his brothers, 
 George, donned the blue uniform of the Union and 
 met a soldier’s death on the battlefield. John 
 Schmitt received a good education in his youth 
 and early adopted the faith of the German Evangel- 
 ical Church, eventually entering its ministry, in 
 which he continued to labor throughout his life. 
 He was a devout and zealous man, held some of 
 the best churches in Minnesota, to which state he 
 came in 1877 or 1878, and eventually died in harness 
 at Waseca, in 1889. He was a republican in politics. 
 John Schmitt was married near New Ulm, Minne- 
 sota, to Maria C. Lipp, who was born at Hohen- 
 staufen, Germany, in 1843, daughter of Ulrich Lipp, 
 who was a shepherd in Germany, but on coming to 
 the United States became a farmer, first in Wiscon- 
 sin, and later at New Ulm, Minnesota, whence he 
 removed by ox team, and where he died. Mrs. 
 Schmitt, who still survives her husband, has been 
 the mother of seven children, as follows : George 
 
 W., the owner of a farm at Stanley, Wisconsin, 
 who has the chair of German and French at Lake 
 Forest LIniversity, Illinois ; Harrison L., of this re- 
 view; Mary, who married Mr. Kienholtz and resides 
 on a farm at Stanley, Wisconsin; Dr. Aaron F., a 
 practicing physician and surgeon of Mankato ; Dr. 
 Samuel C., a medical practitioner of Minneapolis ; 
 John W., in partnership with his brother, Harrison 
 L., in the practice of law, and at this time county 
 attorney of Blue Earth County; and Lillian, who is 
 the wife of Mr. Bailey, assistant superintendent of 
 schools of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 
 
 After graduating from the Mankato High School, 
 in 1888, Harrison L. Schmitt, in order to secure 
 the means to further prosecute his studies, adopted 
 the vocation of schoolteacher, and for four years 
 had various charges in the country. He was grad- 
 uated from the Northwestern University Law 
 School, Chicago, in 1893, and being admitted to the 
 bar commenced practice at Mankato in July of the 
 same year. For a number of years he continued 
 alone, then admitting to partnership S. B. Wilson, 
 with whom he continued for two years. In 1898 this 
 association was dissolved, and Mr. Schmitt entered 
 into partnership with his brother, John W., the firm 
 now being known as H. L. and J. W. Schmitt and 
 occupying offices in the I. O. O. F. Building. Mr. 
 Schmitt carries on a general practice in all the 
 
1538 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 courts, lias probably the largest practice in Man- 
 kato, and has been identified with the leading cases 
 that have been tried before the courts here. On 
 April i, 1915, Mr. Schmitt associated himself in 
 the general practice of the law with the firm of 
 Kerr, Fowler & Furber of Minneapolis, Minnesota, 
 under the firm name of Kerr, Fowler, Schmitt & 
 Furber. As before stated, Mr. Schmitt is president 
 of the county and state bar associations, and also 
 holds membership in the American Bar Association, 
 standing high both personally and professionally 
 among his fellow attorneys. Fie is a republican, but 
 not a politician, although he gives his support will- 
 ingly to good and beneficial movements. Fraternallj' 
 he belongs to Lodge No. 225, Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks. With his family Mr. Schmitt 
 attends the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 Mr. Schmitt was married August 13, 1895, to Miss 
 Esther M. Grannis, daughter of Samuel H. Grannis, 
 of Mankato, Minnesota, a prosperous grain dealer. 
 
 ( 
 
 Andrew Bjorsell. An example of success gained 
 with honor, of perseverance and courage in the face 
 of discouragements, and of stable, sterling citizen- 
 ship under all conditions, is found in the career of 
 Andrew Bjorsell, proprietor of the Willmar Sash 
 and Door Factory and secretary and treasurer of the 
 Willmar Tractor and Manufacturing Company. 
 Having come to this country when a lad of eighteen 
 years, he worked his way alone to a position of 
 prosperity, only to see his fortunes swept away, 
 but instead of allowing this to discourage him, he 
 went to work again with added vigor and energy and 
 has succeeded in the attainment of a prosperous 
 and important business. 
 
 Andrew Bjorsell was born in Biterna Parish, 
 Skarabergs Lan, Sweden, March 24, 1861, and is a 
 son of Johanes Svenson and Johanna Johnson, 
 natives of Sweden, where the family has resided for 
 many generations. Johanes Svenson was born in 
 1818, and his entire career was passed in agricul- 
 tural pursuits in his native land, where he died in 
 1876. An active member of the Lutheran Church, 
 he held several offices therein at various times, and 
 was known as one of the substantial men of his 
 community, his fellow citizens electing him to sev- 
 eral public positions. As a business man he made 
 the most of his opportunities, and was successful 
 in raising his family in comfort. Mrs. Svenson, 
 who was born in 1820, died in her native land in 
 1897. Of their seven children, five grew to maturity : 
 Swan Fleckten, who is now deceased; G. J. Bjone- 
 berg, who is a retired farmer of Willmar; Carl, 
 who is a resident of Anoka, Minnesota ; Andrew, of 
 this notice; and Clara, who is the wife of August 
 Anderson, a farmer of Sweden. 
 
 The public schools of his native land furnished 
 Andrew Bjorsell with his educational training, and 
 there also he learned the trade of carpenter. On 
 coming to the United States, in 1879, he secured 
 employment on a farm in the vicinity of Willmar, 
 but after two years went to Dakota, where he took 
 up a pre-emption and subsequently engaged in mer- 
 cantile lines. The latter, however, he soon gave up 
 and again took up farming, but this was an unfor- 
 tunate move, for conditions were far from right, 
 and Mr. Bjorsell lost all that his years of labor had 
 won for him. Desiring to try his fortune in a new 
 field, he went to the State of Washington, where he 
 secured employment at his trade of carpenter, and 
 after four years of hard work managed to gather 
 
 together some small capital, with which he returned 
 to Willmar in 1904. Here he engaged in contracting, 
 and continued successfully therein until 1914, when 
 he retired from that business, his interests in the 
 sash and door business, in which he had engaged 
 in the meantime, having grown to such propor- 
 tions as to demand his almost exclusive attention. 
 This business is now known as the Willmar Sash 
 and Door Factory, and is enjoying a large and con- 
 stantly-growing patronage under Mr. Bjorsell’s able 
 management. In addition he is interested in the 
 Willmar Tractor and Manufacturing Company, of 
 which he is secretary and treasurer, "and which also 
 does a large business, its machinery, and particularly 
 its tractors, being shipped all over the West, where 
 there is a steady demand. In all his business oper- 
 ations Mr. Bjorsell has been directed by a high 
 sense of honor, and for this reason his reputation 
 among those with whom he has had dealings is 
 high. _ He is a member of the Modern Woodmen of 
 America. In politics he is inclined to be independ- 
 ent, but political matters have found but little place 
 in a life that has been so steadily and sturdily 
 devoted to business affairs. He is, however, a 
 good citizen, and one who may be relied upon to 
 serve the best interests of his community. 
 
 Mr. Bjorsell was married to Miss Selma M. John- 
 son, of Sweden, and to this union there has been 
 born one daughter : Miss Blanche Viola, a grad- 
 uate of the Willmar High School, the St. Paul 
 Business College, and the Nichols Expert College, 
 and a young lady of much business ability, whose 
 services in the office of her father’s company have 
 done much to promote its growth and development. 
 
 Hon. Einar C. Wellin. The career of Hon. 
 Einar C. Wellin has been one remarkable in a num- 
 ber of ways. He was a lad of sixteen years when 
 he came to the United States, and was without finan- 
 cial resources or influential friends, but he pos- 
 sessed the push, ability and ambition necessary to 
 start him on his way to fortune, and has since ad- 
 vanced steadily, being one of the most successful 
 merchants at Willmar. That he has established 
 himself in the confidence of his fellow citizens is 
 shown by the fact that he is serving in his fourth 
 term as mayor, a capacity in which he has made 
 a name as a man who accomplishes things. 
 
 Einar C. Wellin was born in Norway, March 27. 
 1870. and is a son of Christopher and Margaret 
 (Plalberg) Wellin, both natives of that country, 
 where they still reside, the father being seventy- 
 eight years of age and the mother sixty-eight. The 
 father, who during his active years was engaged in 
 mercantile pursuits, won through his industry and 
 close application a satisfying competence, and is 
 now living a retired life. He has taken some active 
 interest in civic affairs in his native land, serving 
 in various local offices, including that which cor- 
 responds with what would be county commissioner 
 in this country. Both he and his wife are faithful 
 members of the Lutheran Church. Of the ten chil- 
 dren born to Christopher and Margaret Wellin, 
 eight are still living, and all are making their home 
 in Norway with the exception of Einar C. 
 
 Einar C. Wellin received his education in the 
 public schools of Norway, and there grew to young 
 manhood, receiving the best of home training. Be- 
 lieving that opportunities for advancement and the 
 acquirement of fortune were better in the United 
 States, in 1886, when but sixteen years of age. he 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1539 
 
 left the parental roof and emigrated to this country, 
 coming at once to Willmar, Minnesota, where he 
 soon obtained a position as clerk in a general store. 
 He continued to be thus employed for eleven years, 
 in the meantime carefully saving his earnings, and 
 in 1897 embarked in business on his own account, 
 when, in partnership with Peter C. Peterson, he en- 
 gaged in the general store business in a modest way. 
 Customers were soon attracted to this enterprise 
 by reason of the courtesy and obliging nature of its 
 proprietors and the absolute reliability of the goods 
 offered, and thus was started what has since de- 
 veloped into the leading department store of Will- 
 mar. Mr. Wellin has labored industriously and 
 well, and it has been for this reason that he has 
 won business success, and not because of any for- 
 tuitous circumstance or happy chance. In business 
 circles he bears a high reputation, as is evidenced 
 by his nine years in the capacity of president of the 
 Commercial Club. All public-spirited enterprises 
 have the benefit of his hearty support and co- 
 operation, and Willmar has no more enthusiastic 
 “booster.” 
 
 A democrat in his political views, Mr. Wellin 
 was elected mayor of Willmar in 1911, and is now 
 serving in his fourth term in that capacity, having 
 given the city an administration which has been 
 characterized by the promotion and carrying through 
 of various movements for the public and business 
 welfare. Fraternally Mayor Wellin is affiliated with 
 the Blue Lodge and Chapter of the Masonic frater- 
 nity, of which he is past master, and belongs also 
 to Lodge No. 952, of the Benevolent and Protective 
 Order of Elks. He is unmarried. 
 
 Walter J. Smith. Treasurer of the State of 
 Minnesota, Walter J. Smith has behind his record 
 as a state official a long and successful experience 
 as a banker and business man, and while his name 
 is now pretty well known in every section of Min- 
 nesota, in the great mining district of the North it 
 has been one of particular prominence both in bank- 
 ing and public affairs. 
 
 Walter J. Smith was born at Eureka, Greenwood 
 County, Kansas, October 5, 1870, a son of E. How- 
 ard and Louise M. (Wood) Smith. In 1871 the 
 family moved to Bellevue, Ohio, where Walter J. 
 Smith grew up and attended the public schools. A 
 course in a business college at Cleveland supple- 
 mented his early training, and for about twenty 
 years he has been rising in prominence as a banker. 
 He held a minor position with the First National 
 Bank of Bellevue, and in 1893 came to Minnesota 
 and took the place of assistant cashier in the First 
 National Bank of Tower. That community also 
 honored him with the office of city treasurer in 
 1896. After a year spent in Texas, Mr. Smith was 
 deputy collector of customs at Harding for two 
 years, and in 1900 became cashier of the First Na- 
 tional Bank of Eveleth in Northern Minnesota. 
 Since then his financial position and connections 
 have expanded until he is now president of the 
 Miners National Bank of Eveleth, a director in the 
 First National Bank of Gilbert and in the State 
 Bank of Aurora. His progressive business record 
 requires no further comment, and it should be noted 
 that his public spirit has been equally manifest in 
 both his home community and in state affairs. 
 
 Mr. Smith on reaching majority allied himself 
 with the republican party, and has exercised an in- 
 fluential leadership in every community that has 
 
 been his home. Besides the offices already men- 
 tioned, he served as mayor of Eveleth in 1908, 1909 
 and 1910, and was a member of the school board 
 from 1903 to 1910. While to a certain degree his 
 name represented the northern section of the state 
 on the republican state ticket in 1910, he drew 
 support from all parts of the state, and since taking 
 up his official duties as state treasurer at St. Paul 
 has employed his experience and skill as a banker 
 in instituting many changes for the better in the 
 handling of the state finances. 
 
 Mr. Smith was married July 15, 1895, to Miss 
 Lillian M. Maclnnis, daughter of Neil Maclnnis 
 of Tower. Her father was at one time a member 
 of the State Legislature and also chairman of the 
 board of county commissioners of St. Louis County. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Smith have one daughter, Marcella 
 L. Mr. Smith is a member of the Episcopal 
 Church and has fraternal relations with the Benevo- 
 lent and Protective Order of Elks, the Knights of 
 Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows 
 and the Masons. 
 
 In 1914 he was re-elected state treasurer, receiving 
 173,198 votes. 
 
 Sigurdt B. Qvale. When he arrived in this coun- 
 try at the age of fourteen years, in 1878, Sigurdt 
 B. Qvale was a poor Norwegian emigrant boy, 
 without friends or means, his only assets being an 
 earnest ambition, a sterling integrity, and a willing- 
 ness to perform any task set before him. During 
 the early years of his life in Wisconsin and Minne- 
 sota, he had innumerable difficulties to overcome, 
 but he kept sturdily at it, accepting such honorable 
 employment as came his way, and finally, when he 
 secured a foothold, began to rise in fortune and 
 continued to prosper until today he is one of the 
 leading business men of Kandiyohi County and a 
 man of influence and importance throughout the 
 surrounding country adjacent to Willmar, which 
 city he makes his headquarters. His career should 
 prove encouraging to the youth of any land who 
 enters life supposedly handicapped by the lack of 
 influence or finances. 
 
 Sigurdt B. Qvale was born in Norway, December 
 18, 1868, and is a son of O. G. and Gurine (Tenne- 
 son) Qvale, natives of Haugesund, Norway. His 
 grandfather, Gauth Qvale, passed his entire life in 
 Norway, where he was the owner of the Custom 
 House at Haugesund, was a well-to-do shipowner, 
 and was also engaged extensively in farming. O. G. 
 Qvale, on arriving at man’s estate, followed in the 
 footsteps of his father, and as an agriculturist and 
 owner of vessels acquired a comfortable income. 
 He died at sea in the wreck of one of his ships, in 
 May, 1875. Mr. Qvale was a member of the Luth- 
 eran Church and was a prominent man of his com- 
 munity, being a member of the board of concilia- 
 tion and of the board of equalization, and also serv- 
 ing in the capacity of overseer of the poor. He 
 was married in 1857 to Gurine Tenneson, who was 
 born February 17, 1832, and they became the par- 
 ents of eight children, of whom four are living: 
 Judge G. E., judge of the District Court for the 
 counties of Meeker, Kandiyohi, Swift, Renville, Yel- 
 low Medicine, Chippewa and Lac qui Parle ; Alex- 
 ander, who is residing on a farm near Willmar ; 
 Sigurdt B., of this notice; and Bertha K„ who owns 
 one of the finest farms in Kandiyohi County, and is 
 the wife of Mr. Olson, who is "the proprietor of a 
 confectionery store at Bird Island, Minnesota. In 
 
1540 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 October, 1878, the mother of these children came 
 with her family to the United States, and first set- 
 tled at Hudson, Wisconsin, but later moved to Min- 
 nesota, and in her declining years made her home 
 with her son, Judge Qvale, at Willmar, where she 
 passed away February 6, 1913. 
 
 Sigurdt B. Qvale was fourteen years of age when 
 he came to America, and prior to this time had 
 received educational training in the public schools 
 of his native land, this later being supplemented 
 by attendance at the Washington School, Minne- 
 apolis, which was located on the present site of the 
 courthouse. For one year he was employed as a 
 hand on a farm near Fludson, Wisconsin, and he 
 then secured a position as clerk in a grocery at Hud- 
 son, remaining 1 J / 2 years in that capacity. Mr. 
 Qvale next went to Minneapolis, where he worked 
 at odd jobs offered him until becoming office boy 
 for the law firm of Ueland, Shores & Holt. After 
 a period thus spent he first came to Willmar and for 
 1 y 2 years worked in a law office here, following 
 which he went to Benson, and was employed in the 
 collection office of M. L. Sherwood. Mr. Qvale then 
 returned to Willmar and became employed with a 
 general merchandise concern, thus continuing until 
 he felt himself ready to enter business on his own 
 account, when he bought an interest in the firm, 
 which became Dale, Royse & Qvale. His next ven- 
 ture was in the same business at Madison, Minne- 
 sota, under the firm style of Qvale & Swams, but 
 after three or four years he again returned to Will- 
 mar and entered upon a career which brought him 
 to a foremost place among Minnesota business men. 
 In partnership with a Mr. Tallman he entered the 
 lumber business, and this industry grew and de- 
 veloped phenomenally, having lumber yards at vari- 
 ous places in Minnesota and North Dakota. Mr. 
 Qvale became vice president and secretary of the 
 Farmers Lumber Company, the Tallman Investment 
 Company and the Dakota Development Company, 
 and in all these ventures attained great success. 
 From the year 1905 until 1912 the Tallman Com- 
 pany organized forty-two banks throughout the Da- 
 kotas and Montana, and Mr. Qvale acted in the 
 capacity of vice president and secretary of each of 
 these institutions, organizing them personally. He 
 retired from the greater number of these in 1912, 
 selling his interests and settling at Willmar, where 
 he is acting as vice president of the Bank of Will- 
 mar in addition to looking after his extensive finan- 
 cial interests, and is also interested in the lumber 
 business at Willmar with Mr. H. S. Peterson. 
 Throughout his career, Mr. Qvale’s affairs having 
 been handled with such integrity and so high an 
 order of business fidelity that he has earned an 
 enviable reputation in business circles throughout 
 this and other states. 
 
 Mr. Qvale was married October 18, 1899, to Miss 
 Mayme Nockels, daughter of Jacob Nockels, of 
 Iowa, who later settled at St. Paul, Minnesota, and 
 was there engaged for some years in a general mer- 
 chandise business. To this union there has come 
 one son: Richard, born December 8, 1910. Mrs. 
 
 Qvale is a member of the Catholic Church and 
 has taken an interest in religious work at Willmar, 
 where she also has numerous friends in social 
 circles. 
 
 Fraternally Mr. Qvale is affiliated with the Blue 
 Lodge, Royal Arch Chapter and Knights Templar 
 of Masonry, in which he has served as junior war- 
 den, and with Lodge No. 952, of the Benevolent and 
 
 Protective Order of Elks. He has for a number of 
 years been one of the influential members of the 
 republican party at Willmar, having served two years 
 as a member of the republican county committee, of 
 which he was chairman in 1914, and two years’ as 
 a member of the congressional committee. In the 
 spring of 1902 he was elected alderman from his 
 ward, but in 1903 resigned that office to take up the 
 reins of office in the mayoralty chair, to which he 
 had been sent by a large majority. He continued 
 to act in the capacity of chief executive for four 
 successive terms, giving Willmar a clean, efficient 
 and business-like administration, in which were in- 
 stituted numerous needed reforms. At the time of 
 his retirement the citizens of Willmar, as a mark 
 of appreciation of his services, presented him with a 
 handsome gold-headed cane. Mr. Qvale today is 
 one of his community’s representative business cit- 
 izens, and is appreciated by his fellowmen for his 
 many stable and reliable traits of character, for his 
 unceasing devotion to the best interests of his com- 
 munity, and for the example which he offers of 
 ability, perseverance and ultimate success. 
 
 David N. Tallman. In business and financial 
 circles throughout Kandiyohi and the surrounding 
 counties there is probably no name better known 
 than that of David N. Tallman, of Willmar. 
 Although he cannot be said to have been a pioneer 
 banker of Minnesota, few men have been more 
 closely or extensively connected with banking af- 
 fairs. Amply fitted by nature and training for the 
 manipulation of large interests, his success is in no 
 small degree due to the fact that he does not de- 
 spise small things. His investments in land and 
 other large enterprises are made with the same judi- 
 cious care, and are equally successful with his other 
 undertakings. Some idea of the extent of his con- 
 nections may be gained from the fact that he is at 
 the head of the Tallman Investment Company, a 
 $250,000 concern, and of the Northern Town and 
 Land Company, with capital and surplus of $200,000, 
 while as a banker he is president of fourteen mone- 
 tary institutions, a director in many large corpo- 
 rations, and a man whose advice is frequently sought 
 in the conduct of important enterprises. 
 
 Mr. Tallman was born at Millbrook, New York, 
 January 22, 1872, and is a son of David S. and 
 Angeline (Hall) Tallman. The family, originally 
 from England, has been well and favorably known 
 in New York for a number of generations, and the 
 old homestead is located at Millbrook, where Akin 
 Tallman, the grandfather of David N„ was born. 
 There also, in 1830, was born David S. Tallman, who 
 in spite of his eighty-five years is still hale and 
 hearty. During his active career, and up to his re- 
 tirement some twenty years ago, Mr. Tallman was 
 engaged in extensive and successful agricultural 
 operations, and also owned a large string of trot- 
 ting horses, at one time having as many as seventy 
 in his stable. Among these was the famous “Man- 
 hattan,” which died on Mr. Tallman’s farm. Mr. 
 Tallman is one of the oldest Masons in the United 
 States, having joined that fraternal body when 
 twenty-one years of age. A republican in his polit- 
 ical views, he has taken an active and prominent part 
 in the government of his community, serving as 
 superintendent of his township for a long period and 
 as superintendent of the poor farm for six years. 
 Mr. Tallman married Angeline Hall, who was born 
 in 1831, at Millbrook, daughter of William Hall, 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1541 
 
 also a native of that place, who was for years en- 
 gaged in farming. Like her husband, Mrs. Tail- 
 man still survives, in hale and hearty old age. They 
 have been the parents of five children, of whom 
 four are living: Akin S., private secretary to Con- 
 gressman Platt of New York, at Washington, D. C. ; 
 Isaac, who is the foreman of his father’s large 
 homestead at Millbrook, New York; Elizabeth, who 
 is single and resides at home with her parents; 
 and David N. 
 
 David N. Tallman received excellent educational 
 advantages in his youth, first attending the pub- 
 lic schools of his native locality, subsequently tak- 
 ing a course at Seymour Smith Academy, Pine 
 Plains, New York, and completing his training in 
 Union University, Schenectady, New York, from 
 which he was graduated in 1893, with the degree of 
 civil engineer. At that time Mr. Tallman came to 
 the West as a civil engineer and for a time worked 
 in that capacity for the Great Northern Railroad, 
 becoming chief clerk in the office of the superin- 
 tendent at West Superior, Wisconsin. Coming to 
 Willmar in 1894, he began work in the Kandiyohi 
 County Bank, but after a short experience there 
 turned his attention and abilities to the building 
 up of the local telephone company, a venture in 
 which he was most successful, extending the toll 
 lines 1,500 miles and establishing twenty-six ex- 
 changes. At the time of his completion of this 
 work Mr. Tallman began dealing in Canadian and 
 other lands, and entered upon a campaign of town 
 building in which he founded over 100 towns in 
 various parts of North Dakota on land which he 
 purchased. In the larger of these communities he 
 placed banks, of which he made himself the active 
 directing head, and at one time acted in this capacity 
 in forty-one flourishing monetary concerns. He is 
 still president of fourteen banks in North Dakota, 
 and a director of three large financial institutions 
 in Minnesota. Mr. Tallman was also the founder 
 of the Tallman Investment Company and the North- 
 ern Town and Land Company, before mentioned, 
 and in the shaping of their policies has shown 
 himself a wonderfully capable man of affairs. No 
 man of his locality has more thoroughly appre- 
 ciated the responsibilities which great wealth im- 
 poses upon the citizen. In all of the large enter- 
 prises which have interested the people of Willmar 
 and Kandiyohi County and have tended toward the 
 locality’s advantage, Mr. Tallman has taken a deep 
 interest, and at the same time has been a liberal 
 contributor toward such projects. In the matter of 
 his religious and political creeds, Mr. Tallman has 
 followed the footsteps of his father, being a devout 
 member of the Dutch Reformed Church and an 
 ardent republican. He was a delegate to the con- 
 vention that nominated William McKinley for the 
 presidency, and at various times has rendered val- 
 uable service to his party. Notwithstanding his 
 extensive business interests, he finds leisure to de- 
 vote to the obligations of social life, where his 
 affability and courtesy render him a general favorite. 
 His fraternal connections include membership in the 
 Beta Theta Pi fraternity, and Lodge No. 952, Benev- 
 olent and Protective Order of Elks. 
 
 Mr. Tallman was married in 1894 to Miss Clara 
 Larson, daughter of Andrew Larson, who came to 
 Willmar in 1869 and established himself in the gen- 
 eral merchandise business. Subsequently he turned 
 his attention to banking, and at the present time is 
 president of the Kandiyohi County Bank, of Will- 
 
 mar. To Mr. and Mrs. Tallman there have been 
 born five daughters : Helen, who is preparing for 
 Vassar College, at the Baldwin School, Pennsyl- 
 vania; Esther Jane, a graduate of the Willmar High 
 School, class of 1915; Gertrude Mae, who is attend- 
 ing the graded schools; and Margaret A. and Mar- 
 gie M., twins, who are also graded school pupils. 
 Mrs. Tallman and her daughters are members of 
 the Episcopal Church. Mrs. Tallman is possessed 
 of superior intellectual powers and a warm and 
 kindly heart, and no philanthropic or public work 
 in which women have been prominent has failed to 
 attract her interest and support. 
 
 Russell P. Spicer. Among the citizens of Kan- 
 diyohi County who are known throughout this part 
 of Minnesota by reason of their success and prom- 
 inence in business and financial circles, one who is 
 worthy of mention is Russell P. Spicer, president 
 of the First National Bank of Willmar and secre- 
 tary of the Spicer Land Company. ' 
 
 Mr. Spicer was born at Willmar, Kandiyohi 
 County, Minnesota, February 26, 1876, and is a son 
 of John M. and Eliza Frances (Demming) Spicer. 
 His paternal grandfather, John Spicer, was born in 
 Switzerland, and was brought to the United States 
 when but two months old, the family locating first 
 in Maryland and then moving to Southern Penn- 
 sylvania. In later years the grandfather went to 
 Illinois, where he passed his last years in agricul- 
 tural pursuits, and there passed away. The mater- 
 nal grandfather of Russell P. Spicer was George L. 
 Demming, who was born in Canada, removed from 
 that country to Vermont, and then came to Minne- 
 sota, being engaged in a general merchandise busi- 
 ness at Belle Plaine for many years. Still later he 
 moved to Atwater, Minnesota, and there his death 
 occurred. 
 
 John M. Spicer was born at Chambersburg, Penn- 
 sylvania, December 9, 1841, and in 1868 came to 
 Minnesota, settling at Belle Plaine, where he was 
 engaged in a general merchandise business for sev- 
 eral years. While there he was married to Miss 
 Eliza Frances Demming, who was born in Middle- 
 boro, Vermont, in 1851, and in the fall of 1870 they 
 came to Willmar. In the following summer Mr. 
 Spicer engaged in mercantile lines here in partner- 
 ship with Mr. Andrew Larson, an association which 
 continued until 1883, when Mr. Spicer disposed of 
 his interests to enter the banking and real estate 
 business at Willmar. He became the organizer of 
 the Central Land Company, which continued in 
 business here for a number of years, this being a 
 large and important firm and handling extensive 
 tracts of land all over the state. Mr. Spicer, a man 
 of fine business attainments, has been successful in 
 each of his several ventures, and at this time is 
 living in comfortable retirement at Willmar. Mr. 
 Spicer is a member of the Episcopal Church, and 
 his fraternal connections are with the Masons and 
 the Odd Fellows, in both of which orders he has 
 numerous friends. Politically a democrat, he has 
 been chiefly active in politics in assisting his friends, 
 although he has also served as a delegate to national 
 conventions of his party and as national committee- 
 man. He is highly esteemed for what he has accom- 
 plished during a long and active career and for 
 the honorable and straightforward manner in which 
 his dealings have been prosecuted. Mrs. Spicer died 
 in 1909, at the age of fifty-eight years, having been 
 the mother of eight children: Mrs. John Greulich, 
 
1542 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 the wife of a retired broker of Ossining, New York; 
 Mrs. Carl L. Wallace, the wife of a well-known 
 attorney of Minneapolis, and state senator; Mason 
 W., who is engaged in the real estate business at 
 Minneapolis; Russell P., of this review; Jessie I., 
 who is single and resides with her father ; Mrs. M. 
 P. Kelsey, whose husband is connected with the 
 Public Ledger of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Ray- 
 mond D., vice president of the firm of Stephens & 
 Co., investments, of San Diego, California; and 
 Eunice M., who is attending the Baldwin School, 
 at Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. 
 
 After attending the public schools of Willmar, 
 Russell P. Spicer became a student in the Shat- 
 tuck School, at Faribault, Minnesota, from which 
 he was graduated in 1893, then entering the Uni- 
 versity of Minnesota, where he received the degree 
 of Bachelor of Science in 1897. He at once re- 
 turned to Willmar and entered upon his business 
 career as the proprietor of a retail implement estab- 
 lishment, but after two years entered the Spicer 
 Land Company, which was organized in 1899, with a 
 capital of $300,000, and which holds and deals in local 
 land acquired by John M. Spicer during early days. 
 In 1902 Mr. Spicer became the organizer of the First 
 National Bank, which has a capital of $50,000, sur- 
 plus and undivided profits of $35,000, and aver- 
 age deposits of $450,000, and of which he has con- 
 tinued as president to the present time. From 
 the time he left college halls Mr. Spicer has been a 
 hard and energetic worker, and it has been through 
 his energy and enterprise that he has won so high 
 a place in financial and realty circles. He is a man 
 of excellent business ability, holding the confidence 
 of his associates, and is known also as a pro- 
 gressive and public-spirited citizen who lends an 
 active support and co-operation to every movement 
 for the general good. 
 
 Mr. Spicer was married in 1903 to Miss Margaret 
 M. Moore, daughter of G. A. Moore, who was en- 
 gaged in the real estate business in Minneapolis, 
 and to this union there have come three children : 
 Mary Margaret, born in 1904 ; Elizabeth, born in 
 1908; and John Mason, born in 1912. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Spicer are consistent members of the Episcopal 
 Church. He is well known in Masonry, having 
 passed through the chairs of the Blue Lodge and 
 Royal Arch Chapter, and being a member of the 
 Consistory and Zurah Temple of the Mystic Shrine. 
 He is also connected with Lodge No. 952 of the 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Politically 
 Mr. Spicer is a democrat, but his close devotion to 
 his business interests has left him little time to take 
 more than a good citizen's activity in political affairs. 
 
 Andrew A. Anderson. Starting upon his inde- 
 pendent career when still a youth, and with few 
 advantages save a public school education, Andrew 
 A. Anderson has worked his way to a position of 
 prominence and substantiality among the business 
 men of Willmar, and as president and general man- 
 ager of the Anderson Land Company enjoys an 
 excellent reputation in commercial and realty circles 
 of the city. He was born in Faribault County, 
 Minnesota, November 25, 1877, and is a son of 
 Amund and Carrie (Dale) Anderson, natives of 
 Norway. 
 
 Amund Anderson was reared and educated in the 
 land of his birth, where he resided until he had 
 accumulated enough to get married and emigrate to 
 the United States. In the spring of 1877 he located 
 
 on a farm in Faribault County, Minnesota, which 
 he rented, and there he resided for about five years, 
 continuing to be engaged in agricultural pursuits. 
 He next moved to a property in Watonwan County, 
 Minnesota, on which he has made his home for 
 thirty-three years. When he located on this land 
 it was as Nature had left it, and the first few years 
 of his residence here were hard ones, crowded 
 with the most difficult labor and discouraging cir- 
 cumstances. His sturdy effort and indomitable per- 
 severance soon gained him a foothold, however, 
 and as the years passed he was successful in the 
 developing of his land and the making of modern 
 improvements. He now has 160 acres of finely cul- 
 tivated property, for which he refused $150 an acre 
 in 1914. Here he has a good set of buildings and 
 machinery and appliances of the most modern kind, 
 and is looked upon as one of the substantial men 
 of his community. He is a republican in his polit- 
 ical views, but not a politician, and his religious 
 belief is that of the Lutheran Church, to which 
 also belong his wife and his mother, the latter of 
 whom lives with them and is past ninety years of 
 age. Of the seven children born to Amund and 
 Carrie Anderson, six survive : Andrew A., of this 
 review; Henry, who resides on his father’s farm; 
 Robert, who holds a position in the business of his 
 brother, Andrew A.; Dena C., who is a clerk in a 
 mercantile establishment at Willmar; Albert S., who 
 is employed in the First National Bank, Willmar; 
 and Julius P., who resides at home and is engaged 
 in assisting his father in farming. 
 
 Andrew A, Anderson was a babe when taken to 
 Watonwan County, and there secured his education 
 in the graded schools, which he attended until 
 reaching the eighth grade. Leaving school at that 
 time, he entered upon his own career as a salesman 
 of nursery stock on the road, and continued to be 
 thus engaged for four years. In 1902 Mr. Ander- 
 son came to Willmar and took a position with the 
 Southern Minnesota Valley Land Company, for 
 which concern he worked two years. At the end 
 of that time he decided to go into business on 
 his own account, and accordingly organized what 
 became known as the Anderson Land Company by 
 buying out an old-established concern called the 
 Southern Minnesota Valley Land Company, and 
 buying out their interests at Willmar, Minnesota. 
 The stock of the present company, which deals in 
 large landed interests, principally in the vicinity of 
 Willmar, is $25,000, and the business is conducted 
 under the direct and capable supervision of Mr. 
 Anderson, in the capacities of general manager and 
 president. 
 
 Mr. Anderson was married September 2, 1903, to 
 Miss Pactra Pederson, who was born in Norway, 
 in 1877, and to this union there has come one son : 
 Kern Arthur Perry, born July 6, 1907. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Anderson are members of the Synod Church, 
 Willmar. In politics a republican, he has taken a 
 keen interest in the affairs of Willmar, and has as- 
 sisted in its civic growth and development and 
 served as alderman for four years. His career has 
 been an eminently successful and satisfying one. 
 and has at all times been characterized by a devo- 
 tion to high business ideals and fidelity to engage- 
 ments. 
 
 Gaylord F. Westcott. A native of Minnesota 
 and a scion of the third generation of the West- 
 cott family in this state, with whose history the 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1543 
 
 name became identified in the pioneer days, Gaylord 
 F. Westcott has achieved a position of prominence 
 in connection with the business and civic affairs of 
 his native county, where he holds the position of 
 cashier of the Farmers State Bank at Hayfield. 
 It is mainly due to his effective policies and per- 
 sonal popularity that the business of this Dodge 
 County institution has been developed to most sub- 
 stantial conditions and he is known as one of the 
 influential business men and loyal citizens of the 
 county in which his grandparents established their 
 residence more than half a century ago. 
 
 Mr. Westcott was born in the Village of Dodge 
 Center, Dodge County, Minnesota, on the 30th of 
 September, 1875, and is a son of Chester R. and 
 Rosalia E. (Felt) Westcott, the former of whom 
 was born in Otsego County, New York, in 1842, 
 and the latter of whom was born in the City of 
 Jackson, Michigan, in 1844, their marriage having 
 been solemnized at Lake City, Wabash County, Min- 
 nesota, in 1866. Chester R. Westcott was about 
 fourteen years of age at the time of the family 
 removal from the old Empire State to the Terri- 
 tory of Minnesota, in 1856, about two years before 
 the admission of the state to the LTnion. He is 
 a son of Rev. Erastus and Mary Ann (Rockwell) 
 Westcott, who came to the West from Otsego 
 County, New York, where the family were neigh- 
 bors of the distinguished author, James Fenitnore 
 Cooper. Rev. Erastus Westcott was one of the 
 pioneer clergymen of the Baptist Church in Minne- 
 sota, and was pastor of the first church of this de- 
 nomination organized at Rochester, Olmsted County. 
 He was a man of fine intellectual gifts and utmost 
 consecration of his calling, his angle of influence 
 having been wide in the early days of Minnesota 
 history. In the Baptist Church at Rochester is a 
 fine memorial window dedicated to him, and a 
 memorial tablet is also found at Pillsbury Acad- 
 emy, in Owatonna, an institution in the founding and 
 development of which he was influential. Both 
 he and his wife continued their residence in Min- 
 nesota until their death, and their names merit high 
 place on the roll of the noble pioneer citizens of 
 this favored commonwealth. 
 
 Chester R. Westcott was reared to manhood under 
 the conditions and influences of the pioneer epoch 
 in the history of Minnesota, and he was seven- 
 teen years of age at the time of establishing his 
 residence in Dodge County. He became one of 
 the successful farmers and prominent citizens of 
 Concord Township, where he continued his labors 
 until he answered the call of patriotism and ten- 
 dered his services in defense of the LTnion. In 
 1863 he enlisted as a private in Company H, Second 
 Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, and with this gal- 
 lant command he continued in active service until 
 the close of the war, participating in many en- 
 gagements, including the battle of Chickamauga, 
 and having been with General Sherman on the ever- 
 memorable march from Atlanta to the sea. He 
 has never abated his interest in his old comrades 
 of the Civil war and signifies the same through 
 his affiliation with the Grand Army of the Re- 
 public. After the war Mr. Westcott continued to 
 give his supervision to his farm until 1873. when 
 he established his residence in the Village of Dodge 
 Center, where he was engaged in the mercantile 
 business for the ensuing four years. He then be- 
 came one of the pioneer settlers of South Dakota, 
 where he developed a large landed estate and con- 
 
 Vol. Ill— 1 8 
 
 tinued to be actively identified with agricultural pur- 
 suits for a quarter of a century. He is now living 
 retired, having won a substantial competency dur- 
 ing his many years of earnest and well-directed 
 endeavor, and he and his wife reside in an attractive 
 home at Long Beach, California. Mr. Westcott be- 
 came one of the influential citizens of South Da- 
 kota at the time when it was still a part of Dakota 
 Territory, and he was a delegate to its state con- 
 stitutional convention of 1889, besides having rep- 
 resented his district as senator in the first State 
 Legislature. He has given unswerving allegiance 
 to the republican party, and both he and his wife 
 are members of the Baptist Church, in which he 
 held the office of deacon for a number of years. 
 Aaron B. Felt, father of Mrs. Westcott, was born 
 in the State of New York, and as a young man re- 
 moved to Jackson, Michigan, where he married and 
 where he followed the work of his trade, that of 
 iron founder. He came to Minnesota in an early 
 day, and here he and his wife passed the residue 
 of their lives. Gaylord F. Westcott was the third 
 in order of birth of the family of five children; 
 Nellie is the wife of John D. McKee, a prosperous 
 farmer near Warren, Columbia County, Oregon; 
 Miss Minnie remains at the parental home; George 
 R. is a civil engineer by profession and is now 
 a resident of St. Louis, in the employ of the Mis- 
 souri Pacific Railroad Company ; and Ruth is the 
 wife of Dr. Aaron G. Johnson, a member of the 
 faculty of the medical department of the University 
 of Minnesota. 
 
 Gaylord F. Westcott was about four years old 
 at the time of his parents’ removal to South Da- 
 kota, where he was reared to adult age in Deuel 
 County. He there attended the public schools until 
 he had attained to the age of sixteen years, where 
 he put his scholastic acquirements to practical test 
 by becoming a youthful representative of the ped- 
 agogic profession. He was a successful teacher 
 in the schools of South Dakota for a period of 
 five years, and the discipline enabled him to broaden 
 and solidify his own education. He next turned 
 his attention to the retail lumber business, at Good- 
 win and Brookings, that state, and he was suc- 
 cessful in this field of enterprise. In 1902 he re- 
 turned to his native state and county, and at Dodge 
 Center assumed charge of the lumber yards of 
 Laird Norton, a position which he retained three 
 years. He then, in 1906, formed a partnership with 
 Frank J. Carpenter and engaged in the lumber busi- 
 ness at Hayfield, where he has since maintained his 
 residence. In 1908 he sold his interest in the lumber 
 business to accept the office of cashier of the Farmers 
 State Bank, to the affairs of which he has since 
 given close and effective attention, with the result 
 that the growth of the institution has been of most 
 substantial and gratifying order, and it has proved a 
 valuable adjunct to the business activities of iDodge 
 County. The bank bases its operations on a capital 
 stock of $13,000, maintains a surplus fund of $3,000, 
 with undivided profits of equal amount, and its 
 deposits aggregate fully $240,000. 
 
 Mr. Westcott is a renublican. Though he has had 
 no desire for public office, he Jaas served as a mem- 
 ber of the village board of Hayfield. Both he and 
 his wife are members of the Hayfield Presbyterian 
 Church, in which he is an elder and also superin- 
 tendent of the Sunday School. He is affiliated with 
 the local lodge of the Ancient Free and Accepted 
 Masons, in which he has held various official posi- 
 
1544 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 tions, and he holds membership also in the Knights 
 of Pythias and the Modern Woodmen of America, 
 in which latter he has held the office of clerk of 
 the local camp since 1909. 
 
 In 1903 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. West- 
 cott to Miss Jessie M. Leonard, daughter of Bart- 
 ley and Carrie (Sterling) Leonard, who removed to 
 South Dakota from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, in which 
 latter state Mr. Leonard had been actively iden- 
 tified with lumbering operations. He became a suc- 
 cessful farmer in South Dakota, where he died 
 when comparatively a young man, his widow still 
 maintaining her home in that state. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Westcott have three children, Leonard R., Berdene 
 R. and Douglas G. 
 
 Michael Klein. Men pursue and meet success 
 in many lines of business, some largely through 
 chance and others through natural adaptability, but 
 in every line the greatest factor is personal energy. 
 Experience must be gained in order to secure a wide 
 enough outlook, and it is that quality which makes 
 potent educational acquirements and gives force also 
 when they are lacking. Minnesota and the great 
 Northwest have had many virile men of energy, 
 otherwise its wonderful development would not have 
 taken place, and many of this class now are residents 
 of St. Paul, where their activities add to the general 
 upbuilding of local commerce and at the same time 
 are so important that they reach over a far wider 
 territory. Such a man and citizen of St. Paul is 
 Michael Klein, who is president of the Michigan 
 Farm, Land and Investment Company, a concern 
 doing business over Michigan, Minnesota and 
 Dakota. 
 
 Michael Klein was born at Rochester, Minnesota, 
 October 23, 1868, one of three sons born to his 
 parents, who were John and Lavina (Schmidt) 
 Klein. John Klein came to Minnesota in its early 
 days and proved a man of considerable business 
 initiative. He engaged in farming and also followed 
 his trade of wagonmaking, manufacturing both the 
 heavy wagons necessary for transportation in that 
 section at the time, as well as the lighter vehicles 
 which were largely used before the advent of the 
 automobile. Later in life he embarked in a mercan- 
 tile business in which he continued until the time of 
 his death. 
 
 Michael Klein, with his brothers, attended the 
 public schools, but later he had additional advantages 
 in a private school and prepared for the profession 
 of teaching. One year in that confining occupation 
 sufficed and he then went into his father’s shop and 
 learned the trade of wagonmaker and followed the 
 same at St. Paul until, in 1900, when he entered the 
 employ of the Union Pacific Land Company, and in 
 this capacity remained several years, with his head- 
 quarters in Northern Dakota. In the meantime he 
 was also connected for three years with the Wayne 
 Land Company of St. Paul. Several business oppor- 
 tunities opened up and for five years he had charge 
 of the wagon shops of the Peoples Ice Company. 
 His successful dealings in land under the ownership 
 of the corporations above referred to had given Mr. 
 Klein justifiable confidence in his own judgment and 
 after a sufficient period of investigation and con- 
 servation of personal resources, in 1911 he organized 
 the Michigan Farm, Land and Investment Company, 
 under which name it was incorporated in 1912, with 
 a capitalization of $100,000. Since organization Mr. 
 Klein has been at the head of the company as its 
 
 president, the other officers being: Anton E. Kraker, 
 of Montrose, Minnesota, vice president, and Harry 
 Kelley, of Gloster, Minnesota, secretary and treas- 
 urer. The company maintains its office at No. 342 
 Endicott Building, St. Paul. Its business is the 
 handling of Michigan farm lands and Minnesota 
 and Dakota improved and unimproved lands. In 
 this, more than in many business enterprises, the 
 personal factor is paramount, Mr. Klein’s many 
 years of experience in the business making his 
 judgment almost infallible as to the future of the 
 properties in which the company is interested. He 
 is a man of genial presence, and among his very 
 wide acquaintance is able to reckon the majority 
 as friends. 
 
 Mr. Klein was married in 1895 to Miss Mary 
 Pfaefer, of St. Paul, Minnesota, and they have two 
 children: Julius and Michael. The family residence 
 is located at No. 281 La Fayette Street, St. Paul. 
 In all the busy life of this city, business, political 
 and social, Mr. Klein is interested as his inclinations 
 lead, and he belongs to three of the well known 
 fraternal organizations of the country, the Woodmen 
 of the World, the Sons of Hermann and the Mac- 
 cabees. 
 
 Hon. G. E. Qvale, district judge of the Twelfth 
 Judicial District, composed of the counties of 
 Meeker, Kandiyohi, Swift, Renville, Yellow Med- 
 icine, Chippewa and Lac qui Parle, since 1897, was 
 born at Haugesund, Norway, September 24, i860, 
 and is a son of O. G. and Gurine (Tenneson) Qvale, 
 natives of Norway. He came to the United States 
 in October, 1878, and has resided at Willmar since 
 July, 1880. In September, 1899, Judge Qvale was 
 married to Miss Jennie Jerguson, who was born 
 under the English flag, on the Atlantic Ocean. Two 
 children have come to Judge and Mrs. Qvale : 
 Arthur Maurice, born May 7, 1901 ; and Florence, 
 born May 23, 1905. 
 
 R os coe Percy Ward. No name is more prom- 
 inently and honorably associated with the history of 
 the development and progress of Waseca County, 
 Minnesota, during the past two decades, than that 
 of Roscoe Percy Ward, who has borne a conspicuous 
 part in the substantial advancement of the com- 
 munity through his connection with its large and 
 varied industrial and financial interests. In past 
 ages the history of this country was the record 
 of wars and conquests ; today it is the record of 
 activity and achievements in the fields of com- 
 merce and trade, industry and banking, and those 
 whose names are foremost in its annals are those 
 who are the leaders in business and financial life. 
 Roscoe Percy Ward is one of the strong and in- 
 fluential men whose force of character has made 
 him a leader among his fellows. Keen perception, 
 great foresight, tireless industry, genius for organ- 
 ization, executive power and an unwavering integ- 
 rity — these have been his chief characteristics, and 
 while advancing individual success he has also 
 largely promoted the material welfare of the com- 
 munity in which he has spent his entire life. 
 
 Mr. Ward is a native son of the City of Waseca, 
 and was born January 5, 1872, a son of the Hon. 
 William Grosvenor and Ella C. (Trowbridge) 
 Ward. The father was born at Booneville, New 
 York, December 26, 1827, and there received his 
 early education in the graded and high schools, 
 and at an early age was graduated from Boone- 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1545 
 
 ville Academy, where he earned his tuition by assist- 
 ing the younger pupils with their studies. He was 
 but seventeen years when he embarked upon his 
 career as an engineer, his first position being that 
 of assistant in the Black River Canal project, and 
 from that time forward his promotion was rapid, 
 and he rose to chief engineer and subsequently to 
 roadmaster of the Long Island Railroad. 
 
 In 1857 Mr. Ward turned his attention to the 
 study of law, at Madison, Wisconsin, with the firm 
 of Wood & Blake. He was soon admitted to the 
 bar, but practiced only long enough to try one case, 
 when the Civil war broke out and he received an 
 appointment as quartermaster in the Thirty-fourth 
 Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, with 
 which he went to the front. Following his military 
 experience, for three years he held the office of 
 postmaster at Madison, and in 1865 became chief 
 engineer in the construction of the Winona & St. 
 Peter Railroad, which was completed in 1868. While 
 his private business and financial interests were 
 large and their handling onerous, Mr. Ward was 
 no less active in public affairs and was constantly 
 the recipient of some office in which his fellow 
 citizens had reason to trust his fidelity and ability. 
 He was thrice elected to the State Legislature, as 
 state senator, and in 1880 was the candidate of 
 the republican party for Congress, but, because of 
 political conditions at the time, met with defeat. 
 Prominent in business, politics and civic affairs, he 
 was also well known socially, and when he died, 
 September 21, 1892, was mourned by a wide circle 
 of warm and appreciative friends. Mr. Ward was 
 married in 1852 to Miss- Martha E. Dodge, who 
 died at Jefferson, in 1865, leaving two children: 
 Clarence T. and Annie S. Mr. Ward’s second union 
 occurred in 1867, when he was united with Miss 
 Ella C. Trowbridge, youngest daughter of the 
 founder of Waseca. They became the parents of 
 four children, namely : Martha F., Roscoe Percy, 
 
 Florence Trowbridge and Earl W. 
 
 Roscoe Percy Ward attended the public schools 
 of Waseca and was graduated from the high school 
 in 1889, at which time he entered the academic 
 department of the University of Minnesota. At the 
 time of the death of his father, however, in 1892, 
 he was obliged to leave his university studies un- 
 completed in order to return to his home and look 
 after the elder man’s large business interests. In 
 connection with the handling of the estate he came 
 in contact with the leading business men of Waseca, 
 and in July, 1897, became cashier of the Peoples 
 State Bank, now the Farmers National Bank, of 
 which he was made president in 1906,, a position 
 which he still retains. The homestead farm, which 
 came to him as a part of his share of the estate, 
 was originally an entire section of land, located just 
 west of Waseca, but Mr. Ward has sold 240 acres 
 of this property to the state for agricultural experi- 
 ment purposes. In 1905 Mr. Ward became asso- 
 ciated with E. A. Konantz, of St. Paul, in a lum- 
 ber business, and at this time is extensively inter- 
 ested in the lumber industry, being vice president 
 of the North American Lumber Company, with 
 head offices at Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada ; vice 
 president of the Citizens Lumber Company, with 
 headquarters at Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, and 
 treasurer of the Prince Rupert Lumber Company, 
 with headquarters at Winnipeg. He is also vice 
 president of the National Bank of Palvuse, Wash- 
 ington, and has various other interests, financial 
 and business, through the Northwest and into Can- 
 
 ada. For a number of years Mr. Ward has served 
 as alderman for his ward, and has also been pres- 
 ident of the Waseca City Council for several terms. 
 His interest in the advance of education has been 
 shown by his membership on the state school board 
 at Owatonna. Fraternally Mr. Ward belongs to the 
 Sigma Chi college fraternity, and socially he is 
 connected with the Interlachen Country Club, 
 Minneapolis, also holding membership in the Com- 
 mercial Club, of Waseca. 
 
 Mr. Ward was married August 10, 1893, to Miss 
 Daisy M. Cole, daughter of Emerson Cole, of Min- 
 neapolis, deceased, who was for many years a well- 
 known lumber dealer of that city. One child has 
 been born to this union : Emerson, a graduate of 
 
 Shattuck College, Faribault, Minnesota, who is now 
 attending Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hamp- 
 shire. 
 
 Jacob A. Heymann. Cashier of the Caledonia 
 State Bank, Jacob A. Heymann is the son of an 
 early settler in Houston County, and has had an 
 active and progressive career in business affairs, 
 first in merchandising and later in banking, and 
 has also identified himself in a public-spirited man- 
 ner with local affairs. 
 
 Jacob A. Heymann was born in Houston County, 
 on a farm, May 8, 1871, a son of John and Cath- 
 erine (Mathusa) Heymann. The paternal grand- 
 father was Peter Heymann and the maternal grand- 
 father John Mathusa, both of whom spent their lives 
 in Germany. His parents were born in Luxem- 
 bourg. The father was born March 17, 1832, and 
 died November 18, 1913, and the mother was born 
 in 1840 and died in May, 1901. They were mar- 
 ried in Chicago, having come to the United States 
 prior to the Civil war, and spent most of the years 
 during the war in Chicago. John Heymann was a 
 truck gardener, a vocation he had learned in the 
 old country, and in 1864 moved out to Minnesota 
 and settled in Houston County. Though with noth- 
 ing to start on, in time he was a fairly prosperous 
 man, and kept a home and provided well for his 
 children until they were grown. For some years 
 he rented land in Houston County, and _ finally 
 bought a place in Sheldon Township, but in 1903 
 sold this farm and thereafter lived retired with his 
 son in Caledonia. There were seven children, and 
 the five now living are: John, who is a stone- 
 
 mason and plasterer in Remsen, Iowa; Dominick, 
 a rural mail carrier at Caledonia; Matt, who lives 
 in Oyens, Iowa; Jacob A.; and Mrs. Charles Kuster 
 of Oyens, Iowa. The parents were members of the 
 Catholic Church, and the father was a democrat 
 and at one time clerk of the school board. 
 
 Jacob A. Heymann acquired his education by 
 attending the rural schools of Houston County, and 
 in 1891 finished a business course in the normal 
 school at Lemars, Iowa. His first twenty-one years 
 were spent on a farm, after which he took a posi- 
 tion as clerk in the Sprague Bros.’ general store in 
 Caledonia, and was employed by that well-known 
 firm for seven years. This was the apprentice- 
 ship which started him on a career of independ- 
 ence, and for the following fourteen years he was 
 a leading merchant under the firm name of Bouquet 
 & Heymann. With the organization of the Cale- 
 donia State Bank on January 6, 1913, Mr. Heymann 
 accepted the post of cashier, and has since been 
 actively identified with the executive management 
 of that substantial institution. The bank has a cap- 
 ital of $25,000, surplus of $5,000, and its deposits 
 
1546 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 aggregate about $130,000. Among other interests 
 Mr. Heymann is also owner of a farm of 120 acres, 
 but devotes practically all his business attention to 
 the bank. 
 
 In 1900 Mr. Heymann married Mary C. Bouquet, a 
 daughter of Joseph Bouquet, who was one of the 
 early settlers and for many years a general mer- 
 chant in Houston County. Two children have been 
 born to Mr. and Mrs. Heymann, and one is still 
 living, Bernedette Heymann, aged thirteen. The 
 family are members of the Catholic Church, and 
 Mr. Heymann served as the first grand knight in 
 the local order of Knights of Columbus, and is also 
 affiliated with the order of Foresters and with 
 St. Peter’s German Aid Society. Politically he is a 
 republican, served for a number of years on the 
 Caledonia City Council, and has also been a mem- 
 ber and is still clerk of the board of education. 
 
 Elling K. Roverud. For a quarter of a century 
 editor and proprietor of the Caledonia Journal, 
 Elling K. Roverud is a well-known newspaper man 
 who has also taken a prominent part in politics in 
 Minnesota, served for a number of years in the 
 State Senate, and is an example of a poor boy who 
 has won his way to a leading position in affairs. 
 
 Elling K. Roverud was born in Norway, Novem- 
 ber 2, 1852, a son of Knute H. and Guri (Stromsod) 
 Roverud. His father was born in 1821 and died 
 in 1892, and his mother was born in 1818 and died 
 in 1885. They were married in Norway, came to 
 Minnesota in 1867, locating on a farm, and the 
 father bought a homestead in 1868 and lived there 
 until his death. His prominent characteristic was 
 his great energy, and that enabled him to gain a 
 substantial degree of prosperity and to provide well 
 for his family. Though his was a quiet disposi- 
 tion, he asserted an effective influence in local af- 
 fairs, and was well known in the republican party 
 of his home county. He was an active member of 
 the Lutheran Church. There were ten children in 
 the family, and the five now living are : Martha 
 
 Kinstad of La Crosse, Wisconsin; Elling K. ; Marie 
 Sandager; John K., and Oline Ramberg, all of Cal- 
 mar, Iowa. 
 
 Elling K. Roverud after attending the common 
 schools had to acquire education largely through 
 means supplied by his own efforts. In 1876 he grad- 
 uated from the Winona Normal School, and after 
 that taught for several terms. In 1878 he finished 
 the normal course in the Lutheran College at De- 
 corah, Iowa, and when his diploma was given him 
 he was entirely without money and had hardly 
 enough clothes to keep up a respectable appearance. 
 He then taught school for about a year, and in 
 1880 was elected to his first important public office, 
 as county auditor. After four years in this office 
 came his appointment as clerk of courts, in which 
 he served over a year, and then for two years was 
 again county auditor. From 1883 to 1890 Mr. Rove- 
 rud was in the hardware business at Caledonia. In 
 1890 he bought the Caledonia Journal, and has been 
 its editor and proprietor ever since. It is one of 
 the flourishing newspapers of Houston County, and 
 has a large circulation throughout that section of 
 the state. The plant is well equipped, and besides 
 the publication of the Caledonia Journal does a 
 large amount of job printing. 
 
 In 1894 Mr. Roverud was elected a member of the 
 State Senate, and gave eight years of active service 
 as one of the law makers at St. Paul. Mr. Roverud 
 
 has taken an active part in two national conventions 
 of the republican party, having been elected by 
 the republicans of the First Congressional District 
 as a delegate to the national convention in 1900 at 
 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and by the republicans 
 of the State of Minnesota as a delegate at large to 
 the national convention in Chicago in 1912. 
 
 On November 12, 1879, Mr. Roverud married 
 Martha K. Blexrud, a daughter of Knute Blexrud, 
 who was one of the earliest settlers and farmers in 
 Houston County. To their marriage have been born 
 seven children : Gena C., who for the past six or 
 
 eight years has been a teacher in the Stillwater public 
 schools; Hannah, who lives at home; Ella N., who 
 has for several years been a teacher in the St. Paul 
 schools ; Mrs. C. E. Daniels, a graduate of the 
 University of Minnesota and now living at Lehigh, 
 Iowa; Katherine, a graduate of Stout Institute at 
 Menominee, Wisconsin; Adelia, who is a stenog- 
 rapher for the firm of Duxbury & Duxbury at 
 Caledonia; and Elmore K., a boy fourteen years of 
 age and now attending high school. The family 
 are members of the Lutheran Church, and Mr. 
 Roverud has been secretary of the Norwegian Evan- 
 gelical Lutheran Church for over twenty years. 
 
 Tip A. Beddow. Throughout his residence at 
 Caledonia, since 1899, Mr. Beddow has been known 
 as a banker, having served as cashier of the First 
 National Bank, one of the solid and well managed 
 financial institutions of Houston County. This bank 
 originated as the Houston County State Bank, but 
 since 1894 has been operating under a national char- 
 ter. With a capital of $25,000, it has a surplus of 
 $15,000, and its average deposits run about the 
 figure $300,000. 
 
 Tip A. Beddow was born at Elkport, Clayton 
 County, Iowa, October 8, 1858, a son of Jacob R. 
 and Mary E. (Danner) Beddow. Both his parents 
 were born in Bellefontaine, Ohio, in the same year, 
 1834. His mother died in 1884 and his father in 
 1894, and they were married in Elkport, Iowa. 
 The paternal grandfather was Fielding Beddow, a 
 native of Ohio, who was one of the early settlers 
 in Iowa, and died soon after his removal to that 
 state. The Beddow family is of English descent. The 
 maternal grandfather, William Danner, was a native 
 of Ohio. Jacob R. Beddow was an infant when 
 his parents moved out to Iowa. One of his brothers, 
 Michael T., was a soldier in the Civil war. Jacob 
 R. Beddow began his career without any capital 
 whatever, and had only his character and his recog- 
 nized energy to start him in the world. He and two 
 associates borrowed $3,000 to buy a mill at Elkport, 
 and the mill was burned at the end of one month, 
 after which he borrowed more money, and in time 
 became one of the very prosperous citizens. For 
 many years he was known in that community as a 
 miller and merchant. He was also active in repub- 
 lican politics, having served as county chairman, 
 and was one of the local leaders in the Adventist 
 Church, holding several offices. Fraternally he was 
 affiliated with the Ancient Order of Workmen. He 
 and his wife were the parents of two children, and 
 the son, Will E., who was a banker at Waukon, 
 Iowa, died in 1910. 
 
 Mr. T. A. Beddow was educated in the common 
 schools of his native town, and also attended the 
 Epworth Seminary at Epworth, Iowa. His first 
 business experience was in his father’s mill, and he 
 soon bought the interests of his uncle, and for a 
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1547 
 
 number of years conducted a mill, and in that time 
 acquired varied financial interests. Mr. Beddow 
 moved to Caledonia in 1899, and has since been 
 cashier of the First National Bank. 
 
 In 1888 he married Monta Bolsinger, who was 
 born at Colesburg, Iowa. They have two children : 
 Lisle J„ now assistant cashier of the First National 
 Bank of Caledonia,; and Dale A., attending school. 
 Mr. Beddow is a member of the Adventist Church, 
 and in .Masonry has taken the Royal Arch chapter 
 degrees and is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite 
 Mason. Politically he is a republican and has been 
 honored witih the office of mayor of Caledonia. 
 
 William A. Deters. Now serving as county at- 
 torney of Houston County, William A. Deters has 
 been known to the people of this county in two 
 professional relations, having been a successful physi- 
 cian for ten years, after which he turned his attention 
 to a more congenial profession, the law, and is 
 regarded as one of the able and influential members 
 of the bar at Caledonia. 
 
 William A. Deters was born in Allamakee County, 
 Iowa, May 27, 1874, a son of J. H. and Frederica 
 ( Wiemerslage) Deters. Both parents were natives 
 of Westphalia, Germany, the paternal grandfather 
 having been H. J. Deters and the maternal grand- 
 father George Wiemerslage. The father was born 
 in 1837 and is still living, while the mother, who 
 was born in 1834, died November 26, 1910. J. H. 
 Deters came to the United States in i860, and in the 
 following year was married at Eitzen, Minnesota. 
 His first settlement in this country was in DuPage 
 County, Illinois, but in 1865 he established a home 
 on a farm in Iowa, and still lives there. He is a 
 member of the German Evangelical Church, a demo- 
 crat in politics, and has served his community as 
 town assessor and town clerk. There were six 
 children in the family: Mrs. Mary Miners, wife of 
 a farmer at Eitzen, Minnesota; Mrs. Anna Myer, 
 a widow living at Red Wing, Minnesota ; B. H. 
 Deters, who is superintendent in Minnesota for the 
 Equitable Life Insurance Company, with headquarters 
 at St. Paul; William A.; Mrs. Augusta Myer, wife 
 of a farmer at Union City, Iowa; and Mrs. Razenna 
 Bisping, of Union City, Iowa. 
 
 William A. Deters acquired his early education 
 in the Decorah Institute at Decorah, Iowa, but left 
 shortly before completing his course. In 1900 he was 
 graduated in medicine from the State University of 
 Iowa and was in active practice for ten years, two 
 years at Pipestone, Minnesota, three years at Ma- 
 zeppa, and five years at Eitzen, all in this state. 
 In the meantime Doctor Deters had taken up the 
 study of law, and was admitted to the bar in 1911, 
 and has since been in practice at Caledonia. In 
 1912 he was elected to the office of county attorney, 
 and* has since divided his time between his office 
 and his growing practice as a lawyer. 
 
 Mr. Deters was married, in 1910, to Miss Emma 
 Degener of Goodhue County, Minnesota. Their 
 three children are Ernestina, Ulysses D., and Wil- 
 liam Arvid, the oldest being three and a half years 
 and the youngest five months. Mrs. Deters is a 
 member of the German Lutheran Church. Mr. 
 Deters fraternal associations are with the Masonic 
 Order, in which he has taken the Royal Arch chapter 
 degrees, and the Woodmen of the World. Politically 
 he is a republican. 
 
 Jacob F. Tourtellotte, M. D. A large and dis- 
 tinctive service was that contributed by the late 
 Doctor Tourtellotte to the State of Minnesota. He 
 came to the Northwest a few years after the Civil 
 war, m which he had served with the rank of naval 
 surgeon, and for forty years his character and 
 achie\ ements fully earned the high honors which 
 were paid to him as a man and citizen. Ill health 
 compelled him to abandon a profession in which 
 he had shown conspicuous ability, and he was after- 
 wards known as a man of affairs, was for many 
 years a banker at Winona, and for twenty years 
 was a resident of Minneapolis, where he died at his 
 beautiful home September n, 1912, in the fullness 
 of years and well earned honors. 
 
 Jacob Francis Tourtellotte was born at Thompson, 
 M indham, Connecticut, December 26, 1835. His 
 family, of French origin, was founded in America 
 m colonial times. He was one of four brothers, all 
 of whom reached distinction. One of them, Gen. 
 John E. Tourtellotte, was brevetted brigadier general 
 at the close of the Civil war, and at his death gave 
 half of his fortune to Dr. Jacob. The other brothers 
 were Dr. Augustus, who gave one-third of his for- 
 tune to Dr. Jacob F., and Monroe L., who married 
 and had children. Of the four brothers two were 
 married and two remained bachelors. All four were 
 capitalists and made a success in life. 
 
 The late Doctor Tourtellotte was reared in a home 
 of culture and high ideals, and in early life mani- 
 fested those tendencies which were translated into 
 practical action during his maturity. He was edu- 
 cated in the common schools and in the Normal 
 School at Bridgewater, Massachusetts, and his first 
 important service was as a teacher. He was prin- 
 cipal of public schools at Dudley and Oxford, 
 Massachusetts, and for one year was in public 
 school work in the State of Ohio. In the meantime 
 his ambition was directed to the medical profession, 
 and he finally entered the College of Physicians and 
 Surgeons of New York, now the medical depart- 
 ment of Columbia University, where he was gradu- 
 ated M. D. in 1861. His readiness for the duties of 
 his profession corresponded with the beginning of 
 the Civil war, and immediately after graduation he 
 volunteered his service to the Union army. He was 
 assigned to duty as a naval surgeon and exemplified 
 a conspicuous devotion to duty and a thorough skill' 
 in a work which was not less important than that 
 of the man of arms. He was assigned to duty on 
 three different vessels, and was in service throughout 
 practically all the war. He continued with the navy- 
 after the war as surgeon on the Nyack, and for 
 three years was with that vessel at Valparaiso, Chili. 
 His continued usefulness and his life itself were 
 threatened by organic heart trouble, emphasized by r 
 his increase in weight. Under these conditions he 
 resigned from the naval service, and as soon as 
 possible rejoined his wife, who had remained in the 
 City of New York and in Thompson, Connecticut, 
 on account of the illness of her mother. 
 
 Doctor Tourtellotte was married, June 26, 1865. 
 to Miss Harriet Arnold, who was born at Thomp- 
 son, Connecticut, also the place of his birth, a 
 daughter of William S. Arnold, a wealthy cotton 
 manufacturer and honored citizen of Connecticut. 
 Mr. Arnold, before the war, was one of the leading 
 abolitionists and a liberal contributor to the anti- 
 slavery propaganda. He led the movement for the 
 erection of a statue to William Loyd Garrison on 
 
1548 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. His name should 
 also be mentioned on account of his important 
 connection with the development and progress of 
 Minnesota, where he was associated with his friend, 
 later Sir William Van Horn, in the building of the 
 Southern Minnesota Railroad. When Mrs. Tour- 
 tellotte was fifteen years of age she entered a co- 
 educational boarding school at Dudley, Massachu- 
 setts, and while there became acquainted with Doctor 
 Tourtellotte. They were married soon after the 
 close of the war, and one of the most conspicuous 
 facts that deserve mention in this article was the 
 abiding love which glorified and idealized their 
 companionship through a period of nearly half a 
 century. To their union were born two children: 
 Harriet Lucina Mary, who died in 1870 at the age 
 of one year, and Frances Harriet, who was born in 
 1874 and died in 1884. 
 
 After Doctor Tourtellotte’s return to New York 
 his medical advisers assured him that his condition 
 was such that he could hope to live but a short 
 time if he remained in the climate of the eastern 
 states. All the physicians whom he consulted spoke 
 of Minnesota, but if the altitude was not high enough 
 he must go on where it was higher; so he decided 
 on Winona, Minnesota, as he had a brother living 
 near LaCrosse, Wisconsin. Accordingly, in the 
 spring of 1870, Doctor and Mrs. Tourtellotte re- 
 moved to Minnesota and located at Winona. Doctor 
 Tourtellotte brought to the state considerable means 
 of his own and also the sum of $20,000 given to Mrs. 
 Tourtellotte at her marriage. With these resources 
 he established a private bank at Winona, and was 
 successfully identified with banking there for twenty 
 years. He was a man of excellent judgment in 
 financial matters, and his fortune was greatly in- 
 creased by his judicious investments in Minnesota 
 real estate. His banking career was one of real 
 service. It is said that he never lost a dollar 
 through his loans and investments, and his friends 
 and patrons profited as much as he did himself 
 through his keen judgment and careful handling of 
 financial matters. He never dispossessed a man 
 of his home, and throughout his life his ideal seemed 
 to be to give every assistance possible to others 
 consistent with sound business policy. He was 
 known and honored as one of the leading business 
 men and influential citizens of Winona, and con- 
 tributed generously to the development and upbuild- 
 ing of that city. 
 
 During the years of his early residence in Winona 
 his investigations of real estate kept him much in 
 the open air, and his health was greatly improved. 
 However, throughout the rest of his life he found 
 it necessary to observe the most careful and 
 punctilious habits, with a rigid diet and constant 
 self-denial. He thus prolonged his life and service 
 to a ripe old age, and refuted the predictions of 
 the best medical authorities. While his health did 
 not allow him to follow his chosen profession, he 
 found many other avenues of usefulness, and was 
 not only one of Minnesota’s productive workers, but 
 throughout his career enjoyed the good will and 
 sympathy of his fellowmen. 
 
 Doctor and Mrs. Tourtellotte remained in Winona 
 until 1892. After the death of her father Mrs. 
 Tourtellotte desired a home in a larger city, with 
 broader social advantages. No residence property 
 meeting their tastes could be found in St. Paul, and 
 they consequently came to Minneapolis, where they 
 
 were fortunate in securing the beautiful residence 
 still occupied by Mrs. Tourtellotte, on West Fif- 
 teenth Street, facing Loring Park. Fortunate as he 
 was in his business career and in the work which 
 he was able to do as a man of affars, Doctor Tour- 
 tellotte was even more fortunate in the marriage 
 companionship which began in his youth and endured 
 until the twilight of age. For many years his 
 strength would not permit him to enjoy the attract- 
 ive society of friends and the general mingling with 
 business associates and other companions, and his 
 dependence upon his thoughtful and loving wife was 
 repaid with a care and ministration and sympathy 
 that can find no proper expression in conventional 
 language. After removing to Minneapolis Doctor 
 Tourtellotte made a number of judicious invest- 
 ments in local real estate, and these properties have 
 since become valuable, were improved by the building 
 of stores and offices and other buildings, and still 
 furnish a large income to Mrs. Tourtellotte. 
 
 For a number of years Doctor and Mrs. Tour- 
 tellotte cherished a desire to use a portion of their 
 fortune for the benefit of their little home city of 
 Thompson, Connecticut. Their plans finally took 
 shape in a decision to erect a high school building. 
 Owing to the feeble condition of her husband, Mrs. 
 Tourtellotte made the journey back to Connecticut 
 and selected the site and made other arrangements 
 by herself. The Tourtellotte Memorial High School 
 was completed at Thompson in 1909, and stands on 
 a commanding elevation which affords a fine view 
 over the attractive valley and also the mills erected 
 and long operated by Mrs. Tourtellotte’s father. 
 The building is a model in architecture and has 
 many notable provisions for effective use as an in- 
 stitution of popular education. The children of the 
 mill operatives are given admirable opportunity to 
 fit themselves for the duties and responsibilities of 
 life, and provision has also been made to afford those 
 advantages which represent the higher ideals of 
 human existence. The chief feature of the building 
 is the memorial room, which is open to the public 
 on the first Sunday of each month and has proved 
 a valuable educational and entertaining influence. 
 This memorial room has been made into an art 
 gallery, and also includes many family heirlooms 
 from both the Tourtellotte and Arnold families. 
 The little village thus possesses many of the ad- 
 vantages found in the larger art and educational 
 centers of New England. The Village of Thomp- 
 son is the place of summer homes for many promi- 
 nent and influential Boston and New York families, 
 and one of the most picturesque and beautiful towns 
 in all New England. The late Doctor Tourtellotte 
 was a man of notable character and versatile attain- 
 ments of mind and heart. By nature he was modest 
 and retiring, was broad minded and absolutely free 
 from intolerance, and his entire career was one of 
 the loftiest integrity and honor. Out of his .own 
 affliction he knew how to succor others in distress,, 
 and his countless benevolences can never be told. 
 A single instance that reflects his general attitude 
 of philanthropy was in bestowing what amounted to 
 a virtual pension upon an old lady who had been a 
 friend of his mother, and this pension has been 
 continued by Mrs. Tourtellotte after the death of 
 her husband. Politically Doctor Tourtellotte was 
 a republican, and was a man of deep religious con- 
 victions and active as a member of the old Baptist 
 Church in Thompson, Connecticut, the church of his 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 parents, and which he remembered from year to 
 year as long as he lived. He was laid to rest in 
 the beautiful Sylvan Cemetery at Winona, beside 
 his two children. He was the last of his immediate 
 family, and his own character and services height- 
 ened the appreciation in which the name has been 
 held for several generations. Mrs. Tourtellotte, since 
 the death of her husband, has planned a worthy 
 memorial to his life, which is to be a home for the 
 deaconess nurses of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 The building will cover half a block of land, and 
 will be a model institution of its kind. Mrs. Tour- 
 tellotte worked hand in hand with her husband 
 throughout the years of his life, and the value of 
 what he did was vastly increased by her own share 
 in their mutual activities. She is a woman of great 
 culture, has always been a social leader, and has 
 radiated from her home and from herself those 
 influences and practical actions which furnish the 
 best values of human life. 
 
 Charles L. Metcalf. By the election of Novem- 
 ber, 1914, the people of Houston County set the 
 seal of their approval upon the administration of 
 Charles L. Metcalf as clerk of the District Court 
 by reelecting him to that office, in which he has 
 served since 1910. Mr. Metcalf is a printer and 
 newspaper man, and has spent most of his active 
 career either in that profession or in public affairs. 
 He represents families that were among the first 
 to locate in the pioneer district of Houston County 
 more than sixty years ago. 
 
 Charles L. Metcalf was born on a farm in Houston 
 County, one mile south of Caledonia, August 5, 
 1872, a son of Charles W. and Sarah (Stewart) 
 Metcalf. Both parents were born in Connecticut, 
 the father in 1829 and the mother in 1840. The 
 father died December 1, 1908, and the mother on 
 July 20, 1881. The maternal grandfather, Edwin 
 Stewart, came out to Houston County, Minnesota, 
 in 1853, and was one of the very first to locate in 
 this then unsettled region. Charles W. Metcalf 
 moved out to Minnesota in the spring of 1854, 
 joining the small advance guard of pioneers, and 
 located on a farm, where he reared his family. In 
 1883 he moved into Caledonia, and lived there the 
 rest of his life. Charles W. Metcalf had the dis- 
 tinction of owning and operating the first steam 
 threshing outfit in Houston County. He was a 
 republican in politics, and his wife attended the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church. There were four 
 children. Lewis B. died August 3, 1914, aged fifty- 
 seven years. The daughter, Fannie, is now Mrs. 
 Chattelle, and lives at Caledonia, where her husband 
 is an electrician. The other living daughter is Mrs. 
 Flora Andrews, also of Caledonia, and Mr. Andrews 
 is a mail carrier. 
 
 Charles L. Metcalf received his education at Cale- 
 donia in the public schools, but got a more practical 
 training as an apprentice in a printing office. For 
 several years he was with P. J. Smalley, editor of 
 the Caledonia Argus, and worked at different places 
 in his trade as a printer. In September, 1907, he 
 moved to Spring Grove, and for three years and two 
 months and ten days was manager of the Spring 
 Grove Herald. In 1910 Mr. Metcalf was elected to 
 the office of clerk of the District Court, and in 1914 
 received a re-election with no opposition. Politically 
 he is a republican, and has also served as village 
 clerk, and has been more or less actively identified 
 with public affairs since reaching his majority. He 
 
 1549 
 
 now gives all his time to his duties as clerk of the 
 District Court. 
 
 On December 21, 1898, Mr. Metcalf married Hattie 
 Belle Vance, a daughter of W. A. Vance, who was a 
 native of Vermont. Mr. and Mrs. Metcalf have one 
 son, Charles Vance Metcalf, born December 1, 1900. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Metcalf attend the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. Fraternally he is identified with the Masonic 
 fraternity, having passed through the chairs of the 
 Blue Lodge, and is a member of the Royal Arch 
 Chapter; also with the Woodmen of America, the 
 Order of Yeomen and the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows. 
 
 Olaus K. Dahle. Probably no man in Houston 
 County is better known than Olaus K. Dahle, lawyer, 
 author, and for many years a county official. He has 
 spent nearly all his life in this county, and his father 
 was one of its first pioneers. 
 
 Olaus K. Dahle was born in Wilmington Town- 
 • ship, Houston County, Minnesota, January 9, 1865, a 
 son of Knud A. and Margit (Roble) Dahle. Both 
 parents were natives of Norway, the father born in 
 1829 and died in August, 1900, and the mother born 
 in 1826 and died in 1897. They were married in 
 Detroit, Michigan, in 1852. Knud A. Dahle was the 
 son of a Norwegian who served for seven years in 
 the national army, and through most of this time 
 was in active warfare. He died a few years after 
 coming home from the war, having lost his health 
 by the severe service. His widow was left with a 
 family of eight children, and with no means of 
 support. She did a noble part by them and reared 
 them to self-supporting age by her own efforts. 
 At the age of seventeen Knud A. Dahle walked all 
 the way to Christiania, and spent five years of ap- 
 prenticeship at the carpenter trade without pay. He 
 borrowed the money needed to cross the Atlantic to 
 the Lffiited States, and his wife also worked as a 
 domestic in order to get money to come to the New 
 World. Knud A. Dahle arrived in the United States 
 in 1851, and, being a carpenter by trade, spent a 
 year in employment at Detroit and worked for some 
 time in Chicago. He came to Houston County, 
 Minnesota, in 1854, homesteaded a claim, and was 
 one of the first men to occupy land in Wilmington 
 Township. The summer of 1854 was spent in work 
 as a carpenter at the Village of St. Anthony, before 
 Minneapolis was founded, after which he returned 
 to his farm and set himself to the heavy task of 
 the pioneer. He was a man of remarkable industry 
 and in time had accumulated nine forties of land. 
 Every dollar he made represented his individual 
 efforts and management. His home was on the old 
 farm until the last six years of his life, when he 
 sold out and lived retired in Spring Grove. He 
 and his family were members of the Lutheran 
 Church, and in politics he was a republican. He 
 was a man of fine habits and highly esteemed for 
 his character and honesty. In spite of obvious dis- 
 advantages during his youth, he was well read and 
 always kept in touch with the affairs of the world. 
 
 Olaus K. Dahle grew up in Houston County, was 
 educated in the Caledonia public schools, subse- 
 quently took a course in the Winona Normal School, 
 and in 1894 graduated in law from the state univer- 
 sity. Soon after reaching his majority he began 
 an active part in local affairs, and in 1888 was elected 
 register of deeds of Houston County, and the four 
 years of service in that office gave him the means 
 needed to put him through law school. In 1895 Mr. 
 
1550 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Dahle began active practice at Caledonia, and has 
 since been admitted to practice in all the courts 
 of the state and has enjoyed a large general practice 
 in addition to the other duties which have made 
 demands on his time. His first year was spent as 
 partner of the late Judge James O’Brien at Cale- 
 donia. For five years he held the chair of editor of 
 the Spring Grove Herald. In 1900 Mr. Dahle was 
 elected county attorney, at which time he returned 
 to Caledonia, and for twelve years held that office 
 consecutively. After two years of intermission he 
 was again elected county attorney in November, 
 1914, for the regular four year term. When this term 
 is completed Mr. Dahle will have served twenty 
 years as a public official. In 1897 he was assistant 
 clerk in the House of Representatives, and in the 
 session of 1899 was first assistant clerk. He was 
 president of the Caledonia Commercial Club for 
 several years. 
 
 On October 5, 1887, Mr. Dahle married Julia 
 Dorothea Qualy of Houston County, who died June 
 11, 1888. On June 2, 1896, he married Oline N. 
 Onsgard of Spring Grove. To their union have 
 been born six sons and one daughter, namely : Ken- 
 neth, Norris and Mervin, all attending high school; 
 Obert and Oscar, in the grade schools ; and Margit 
 and Norman, young children. The family are all 
 members of the Lutheran Church. Mr. Dahle was 
 master of Caledonia Lodge of the Masons in 1905, 
 and also is a member of the Scottish Rite. Politically 
 he is a republican. Mr. Dahle has considerable ability 
 as a writer and linguist, being a fluent speaker of the 
 Norwegian, German and English languages. Among 
 other writings he has contributed a history of Nor- 
 wegian pioneer settlers to a periodical published at 
 Minneapolis. Mr. Dahle is at present the president 
 and a director of the Onsgard State Bank of Spring 
 Grove. 
 
 Robert S. Davis. One, of Minnesota’s oldest 
 bankers is Robert S. Davis of Stillwater, now 
 president of the First National Bank of that city, 
 and for nearly forty years identified in one capacity 
 or another with financial affairs. His has been a 
 clean record, made without ostentation. The influ- 
 ence which in the course of all these years he has 
 exerted in business affairs in his section of Minne- 
 sota cannot be measured by the ordinary standards 
 of achievement. 
 
 Robert S. Davis was born at Augusta, Maine, May 
 19, 1855, a son of James S. and Emily (Sawtelle) 
 Davis. His father, a native of Barnstable. Massa- 
 chusetts, while the mother was a native of England, 
 was a shipbuilder by trade, and in the early part of 
 his career had to do with the building of a number 
 of ships engaged in the coastwise trade along the 
 Atlantic coast. Soon after the discovery of gold 
 on the Pacific coast he made a trip to California, 
 going across the plains, and spent several years in 
 the West, after which he returned to Maine and 
 continued to follow his vocation as a shipwright for 
 several years. When his son, Robert S., was a 
 child he brought the family to Minnesota Territory, 
 locating as one of the early settlers in Stillwater, 
 and became identified with the lumbering industry 
 and worked as a millwright and in various other 
 lines. He was a stanch democrat in politics, and 
 held the office of justice of the peace and county 
 assessor in Stillwater, while in Maine he had held 
 the rank of colonel in a militia regiment. His death 
 occurred at the age of sixty-six years. His wife 
 
 died at Stillwater one year later, also aged sixty- 
 six. There were seven children, and Robert S. is 
 one of the three still living. His sister, Mary E., 
 is the widow of Francis E. Joy of Stillwater, while 
 Horace W. Davis lives in Wycliff, British Columbia. 
 
 Robert S. Davis grew up in Stillwater, had some 
 education in the grade and high schools of that city, 
 and in 1873, at the age of eighteen, found employment 
 as an assistant to the bookkeeper in the firm of 
 Staples, Doe & Hersey. He served three years, from 
 bookkeeper to cashier, and in 1876, at the age of 
 twenty-one, became identified with banking, which 
 has been his permanent profession ever since. Enter- 
 ing the service of the Lumberman’s National Bank, 
 he continued to be associated with that institution 
 twenty-one years. When he first became connected 
 with the Lumberman's Bank its cashier was Henry 
 W. Cannon, who subsequently made a name in 
 financial affairs as United States comptroller of 
 currency under President Arthur. On the resigna- 
 tion of Mr. Cannon from his position as cashier, in 
 1884, Mr. Davis succeeded to that office and con- 
 tinued his work in that capacity until 1896. Soon 
 afterwards he was elected cashier of the First 
 National Bank of Stillwater, and for seventeen years 
 has been actively identified with the affairs of this, 
 the oldest and strongest bank of Stillwater. In 
 1912 he was elected vice president, and in June, 
 1913, was elected president. 
 
 Outside of his career as a banker Mr. Davis has 
 been much identified with public affairs in various 
 lines. He was a member of the First Regiment of 
 Minnesota National Guards and served as lieutenant 
 from 1883 until 1890, when he resigned. He has 
 served as president of the water board in Stillwater, 
 as a member of the school board, and was secretary 
 of the Stillwater Light and Gas Company. Inde- 
 pendent in politics, he has never sought any office 
 depending upon the vote of the people. Fraternally 
 his relations are with Knights Templar Masonry, 
 the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and 
 the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and his 
 church is the First Presbyterian. 
 
 On October 19, 1878, Mr. Davis married Miss Mira 
 E. Brown, daughter of Edward S. and Hannah E. 
 (Colburn) Brown. Her father was a pioneer saw- 
 mill operator and lumberman in the Northwest, and 
 built the first sawmill built on the Puget Sound. 
 Mrs. Davis was born in Minneapolis. They have 
 two children, both natives of Stillwater : Emily B. 
 is the wife of Guy Arthur Perry of Stillwater, and 
 Jed H. Davis is bookkeeper for the Consolidated 
 Lumber Company of Stillwater. 
 
 Oscar H. Schroeder. Now president of the Chase 
 State Bank of Faribault, Oscar H. Schroeder, twenty 
 years ago, was a teacher in public schools and is 
 one of Minnesota’s native sons who have made 
 rapid progress, and from small beginnings have 
 reached influential and independent positions in the 
 state. 
 
 Oscar H. Schroeder was born in Blue Earth 
 County, Minnesota, May 3. 1872, a son of Martin 
 Schroeder, who was born in 1835 in Germany and 
 died at Windom, Cottonwood County, Minnesota, 
 in 1880. At the age of sixteen, coming to America, 
 he settled near Winona, Minnesota, removed to 
 Blue Earth County, and as a pioneer assisted in 
 tlie organization of Lyra Township in that county. 
 He became prominent in local civic affairs, and held 
 most of the town offices. He was a substantial 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Warn 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1551 
 
 farmer, and later in life moved to Cottonwood 
 County. Martin Schroeder married Henrietta Mei- 
 lecke, a native of Germany, her parents having 
 emigrated to America and settled near Winona as 
 pioneer farmers. The children of Martin and 
 Henrietta Schroeder were : William M., who died 
 in Mankato, Minnesota, in 1898, having been a 
 traveling salesman; August M., who is clerk of 
 the court at Jackson, Minnesota; Carl G., a travel- 
 ing salesman with residence in St. Paul ; Louis E., 
 of Windom ; Oscar H. ; Ottilia, who lives with her 
 mother at Windom; Clara, also at home in Windom; 
 Bertha, wife of Robert Zuel of Windom, a traveling 
 salesman and farm owner; and Ida, who lives at 
 Windom with her mother. 
 
 Oscar H. Schroeder was reared on a farm in 
 Blue Earth County, attended the public schools, 
 graduated from the high school in 1892, and for 
 two years was employed as a teacher in Blue Earth 
 and Cottonwood counties. His preliminary experi- 
 ence as a banker was at Minnesota Lake in Faribault 
 County, where he was employed for fourteen years 
 as cashier of the bank, until 1910. Going to St. 
 Paul, Mr. Schroeder handled farm mortgages for 
 three years, and in 1913 bought the Chase State 
 Bank at Faribault, of which he has since been 
 president. This bank was established in 1905, with 
 a capitalization of $25,000, which Mr. Schroeder in- 
 creased to $50,000. The surplus at the present time 
 is $10,000, and it is one of the stable financial insti- 
 tutions of Rice County. The bank is situated at 
 the corner of Third Street and First Avenue. 
 
 Mr. Schroeder is a member of the Congregational 
 Church and is affiliated with Faribault Lodge No. 9, 
 
 A. F. & A. M. ; Tyrian Chapter, R. A. M. ; Faribault 
 Commandery, K. T. ; Zurah Temple of the Nobles 
 of the Mystic Shrine, and Faribault Lodge No. 1166, 
 
 B. P. O. E. Throughout his residence at Minnesota 
 Lake Mr. Schroeder was honored with the respon- 
 sibility of village treasurer, and under Governor 
 Johnson’s administration served as a member of the 
 state board of equalization. 
 
 Mr. Schroeder has recently completed a modern 
 home at Highland Park in Faribault, at 808 Fourth 
 Avenue. At Edgerton, Minnesota, he married Miss 
 Amy Woodworth, and their children are: Glen M.. 
 in the Faribault High School ; Ruth, also in the 
 high school ; Leslie and Oscar, both attending the 
 grade schools, and Carl and Robert. 
 
 Morgan R. Hussey. As a building contractor 
 Morgan R. Hussey has a record of practical achieve- 
 ments hardly second to any in Northern Minnesota. 
 He learned his business as a practical workman, and 
 even today, if need be, can take his place alongside 
 his employes and has the ability to do as well as to 
 direct. 
 
 Morgan R. Hussey was born in Detroit, Minnesota, 
 February 22, 1878, and the same year his parents, 
 Richard E. and Elizabeth (Middleton) Hussey, re- 
 moved to Crookston, where he grew up and received 
 his early training. After an education in the public 
 schools, he served an apprenticeship in the brick- 
 layer’s trade and also as a cement worker, and has 
 an expert knowledge of both lines of constructive 
 industry. After a varied employment as journeyman 
 for others he began independent contracting in 1907. 
 
 Mr. Hussey constructed the Hussey Building at 
 Crookston, the First Presbyterian Church, installed 
 the heating plant at the State Agricultural Farm and 
 also the sewer system on the Agricultural Farm at 
 
 Crookston, put up the Clysdall Building, and has 
 laid and constructed many miles of sidewalks, 
 sewers and other public improvements. In 1913 he 
 completed as contractor the Armory Building for 
 Company I of the Third Regiment of Minnesota 
 National Guards, a building which will long be a 
 memorial to his own work as well as that of the 
 architect, Mr. Keck. The building cost $34,000, 
 and is constructed of brick with pressed brick 
 front. 
 
 As a public spirited citizen Mr. Hussey served as 
 alderman of Crookston beginning with 1900, and 
 in 1914 received another election to the office for four 
 years more. He is a member of the Commercial 
 Club and can usually be found where the citizens 
 of Crookston are associated for mutual benefit and 
 improvement. 
 
 In 1905 Mr. Hussey married Mary Wetter of 
 Grafton, Minnesota. Mrs. Hussey died May 5, 1914, 
 leaving one son, Everett M. 
 
 Nathan John Nelson. The First State Bank of 
 East Grand Forks, of which Nathan J. Nelson was 
 the organizer and has since been the active cashier, 
 was established in 1906, with a capital stock of $25,- 
 000, at which figure the capital has been retained. 
 The bank occupies perhaps the most conspicuous 
 building in East Grand Forks, a two-story brick 
 building, with the bank on the main floor, offices in 
 the second story, and the local newspaper in the base- 
 ment. For a country bank the growth of this insti- 
 tution has been one that has been usually gratifying 
 through the promoters and officers. Besides the capi- 
 tal stock of $25,000 the bank, at the close of business 
 in 1914, had a surplus of $7,000, undivided profits of 
 over $7,000, and its stability and responsibility are 
 indicated by the fact that while the law requires 
 about $22,000 in reserve, an amount exceeding that 
 sum by more than $10,000 dollars is held by the bank. 
 The chief item indicating the growth of the bank 
 and the confidence reposed in its officers is deposits, 
 which amount to upwards of $350,000. Few banks 
 in Minnesota in towns of this size can show a larger 
 volume of resources than the First State Bank of 
 East Grand Forks. Besides a general banking busi- 
 ness there are also departments for the handling of 
 real estate and insurance. 
 
 Nathan John Nelson, the cashier, is one of the 
 well known bankers, both of Minnesota and of North 
 Dakota. The president of the First State Bank is 
 
 C. J. Lofgren; Frank J. Zejdlik and H. A. Bronson 
 are vice presidents. Nathan J. Nelson was born in 
 Goodhue County, Minnesota. March 15, 1867, a son 
 of Peter M. and Nellie (Swenson) Nelson. His 
 father came to America from Sweden in 1863, and 
 was a farmer and also a building contractor. 
 
 Mr. Nelson was educated in the public schools of 
 Red Wing, Minnesota, and has to his credit one year 
 of teaching. Like many successful men he began at 
 the bottom, and with increasing experience found 
 himself entrusted with large responsibilities.. For a 
 time he was clerk in a general store, and then was 
 a traveling salesman with the McCormick Harvesting 
 Machine Company from 1891 to 1902. After that he 
 was a representative of the Moline Plow Company 
 until 1906, and in that year organized the First State 
 Bank of East Grand Forks. His interests as a banker 
 are well known and important in other localities. 
 He is vice president of the First State Bank of 
 Humboldt, Minnesota, and is president of the First 
 
1552 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 State Banks at Bowesmont, Backoo and Manvel, 
 North Dakota. 
 
 Mr. Nelson has always shown a disposition to 
 exert himself wherever possible or wherever needed 
 in behalf of home enterprise. For a number of years 
 he has served as a member of the East Grand Forks 
 School Board and for six years as alderman. 
 
 On March 15, 1894, he married Bertha L. Langford, 
 of Dodge County, Minnesota. They have two chil- 
 dren: Winifred and Walter Langford. 
 
 William Owen McNelly. Since his graduation 
 from the University of Minnesota, and beginning 
 practice in McLeod County eight years ago, William 
 O. McNelly has given an excellent account of himself, 
 both in his profession and as an enterprising citizen. 
 He is now serving as county attorney, and has a 
 large and profitable private practice, with home and 
 offices at Hutchinson. 
 
 He represents some of the early names among the 
 pioneer settlers of Minnesota. He was born on 
 Portland Prairie, in Houston County, Minnesota, 
 June 4, 1881, a son of William E. and Nannie 
 (Wright) McNelly. His father, who was born at 
 Portland Prairie, in Houston County, in 1858, was 
 the son of John McNelly, an immigrant from Ire- 
 land who located in that section of Minnesota in 
 1856, took up a homestead and was one of the very 
 few pioneers who blazed the way for civilization. 
 He became a prominent man, served three terms in 
 the lower house of the State Legislature and two 
 terms as senator, and was at one time a member of 
 the state board of equalization. He was active in 
 the republican interests. William McNelly has for 
 many years been prominent in the citizenship of 
 Houston County, owns a splendid farm of 150 acres 
 in Houston County, besides 520 acres of land in 
 other sections of the state, is a director in the First 
 National Bank of Caledonia, Minnesota, and was 
 formerly president of the Farmers’ Creamery Com- 
 pany at Wilmington. He is likewise a republican, 
 has held several township offices and is now asses- 
 sor. Nannie (Wright) McNelly was born in Ver- 
 mont in 1857, and was brought to Portland Prairie 
 in i860. Her father was Charles Wright, who 
 married Samantha Metcalf. Charles Wright died 
 in 1898. The first Wright ancestor came to America 
 as one of the passengers in the historic Mayflower. 
 William E. McNelly and wife had four children: 
 William O. ; Chester L., now thirty-one years of 
 age, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, a 
 resident of McIntosh, and by his marriage to Flor- 
 ence Hibbert has one child; Mary, aged twenty-nine, 
 is the wife of George Briggs of St. Paul, and has 
 two children ; Charles, the youngest, now twenty- 
 seven years of age, is a successful farmer at Buehl, 
 Idaho. Nannie Wright McNelly died in 1890. In 
 1892 William E. McNelly married Jessie Radcliffe 
 of Mount Hope, Iowa, and of this marriage two 
 children were bom, Frank R. and Irving B., both 
 residing at Caledonia, Minnesota. 
 
 William O. McNelly spent his early life on the 
 old homestead farm, attended the County Normal 
 School at Waukon, Iowa, and his first occupation 
 was as a teacher, being in charge of his first 
 school at the age of nineteen. He then entered the 
 University of Minnesota, completed his law course, 
 and was admitted to the bar in 1906. He began 
 practice in 1907 and has been a resident of Hutchin- 
 son since 1909. He served three years as city 
 attorney, and in 1912 was elected to his present 
 
 office as county attorney. Mr. McNelly is a repub- 
 lican, and is one of the five members of the Legisla- 
 tive Committee of the State Association of County 
 Attorneys. He has filled all the chairs in the Odd 
 Fellows Lodge, and, like the other members of his 
 family, is a member of the Methodist Church. 
 
 Mr. McNelly married Mary Arneson of Hutch- 
 inson, whose father, John Arneson, belonged to a 
 family that were among the early settlers of Ren- 
 ville County. Mr. McNelly 's maternal grandmother 
 Shumway was descended from one of the earliest 
 families in North Carolina. Mr. and Mrs. McNelly 
 have two children: Evelyn, aged four, and Marian, 
 one year old. 
 
 Karenius Movold. One of the large firms dealing 
 in sureties representing the real estate and agricul- 
 tural resources of the Northwest is the Northwestern 
 Mortgage Security Company of Fargo, North Da- 
 kota, which has a branch office managed by Mr. K. 
 Movold at Fosston, Minnesota. Mr. Movold is a 
 Minnesota farmer of many years’ practical experience 
 and that experience, united with a sound business 
 judgment, has well qualified him for the responsi- 
 bilities of handling real estate and farm loans for 
 the large company which he represents in Fosston 
 and vicinity. 
 
 Karenius Movold is a native of Norway, in which 
 country he was born August 29, 1863, a son of 
 Tobias and Marit Movold. In 1868 the family 
 emigrated to America, and located on a farm in 
 Ottertail County, Minnesota, from which part of the 
 state they removed to Polk County in 1883. Kare- 
 nius was five years of age when he came to this 
 country and all his education came from the district 
 schools and from the opportunities which he made 
 for himself in the way of study in the intervals 
 of regular work on a farm. Trained as a farmer, 
 he has for a number of years been actively identified 
 with that business in Polk County, and now has an 
 excellent place of 160 acres near Fosston. He is a 
 resident of Fosston, and gives most of his time and 
 attention to managing the local interests of the 
 Northwestern Mortgage Security Company. 
 
 Mr. Movold is a valuable citizen as well as business 
 man, and has served three terms as mayor of Foss- 
 ton, having been last elected in 1915. For a number 
 of years he also held the position of justice of the 
 peace. On December 25, 1887, he married Edith 
 Hilligoss of Fosston. Their six children are: Wil- 
 liam T., a farmer in Canada; Elmer, who is a 
 Canadian merchant; Clifford C., engaged in farming 
 in Montana ; Ralph, a student in the Minnesota Agri- 
 cultural College ; Leo and Milton C., both of whom 
 are still carrying on their studies. 
 
 Pro-Cathedral of St. Mary. One of the most 
 notable recent events in the progress of the Catholic 
 Church in the Northwest was the completion of the 
 magnificent Pro-Cathedral of St. Mary in Minne- 
 apolis, May 31, 1914. It was the culminating advance 
 in the long history of the Immaculate Conception 
 parish, and a brief history of that parish may 
 properly find record in these pages. 
 
 Prior to about 1868 the Catholic population on 
 the west side of the river, in that district which had 
 as early as 1852 received the name Minneapolis, 
 while the central part of the city east of the river 
 was called St. Anthony until about 1872, had at- 
 tended worship in the Church of St. Anthony of 
 Padua, Eighth Avenue and Main Street Northeast. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1553 
 
 This was the first parish in what is now Minne- 
 apolis, and was founded in 1849. The distance from 
 the west side settlement to the Church of St. Anthony 
 was considerable, and with a view to establishing a 
 new parish on the west side, Rev. J. McDermott, 
 pastor of the Church of St. Anthony, had bought, 
 on December 28, 1866, two lots at the corner of 
 Third Street and Third Avenue North. On one 
 of these lots a small frame structure had been built 
 by Father Tissot, who succeeded Father McDermott. 
 This was used as a school and was placed in charge 
 of the Sisters of St. Joseph from St. Anthony 
 parish. 
 
 Such was the condition up to the arrival of Rev. 
 James McGolrick, who had been ordained in Dublin, 
 Ireland, June 11, 1867, and was to be the first resident 
 pastor of the new parish. Immediately after his 
 ordination he came to St. Paul, and was soon 
 assigned to Minneapolis to minister to the needs 
 of the Catholic population on the west side of the 
 river. To provide a place of worship, he built an 
 addition to the rear of the little school, a rough 
 frame structure, fitted out with an altar, rude 
 benches and furnishings of the simplest kind. This 
 was the first church of the Immaculate Conception. 
 
 With the development of the water power, the 
 establishment of the lumber and milling industries, 
 settlers flocked to find homes west of the river, 
 and among them were many Catholics. Father Mc- 
 Golrick soon found himself confronted with the 
 problem of making room for the added worshipers. 
 In the summer of 1871 the corner stone of the 
 structure which stands at Third Street and Third 
 Avenue North was laid. Mass was celebrated Decem- 
 ber 8, 1872, and the church was dedicated January 
 1, 1873. The Rev. John Ireland, now archbishop 
 of St. Paul, blessed the church and preached the 
 sermon. The new church was an edifice of which 
 the Catholics of that day had reason to be proud. 
 It was an imposing structure, considering the size 
 of Minneapolis. The fact that it served until the 
 present time shows how spacious it must have seemed 
 to the Minneapolis of more than forty years ago. 
 
 During the pastorate of Father McGolrick there 
 were many changes and improvements. In 1878 the 
 Catholic Benevolent Society and the St. Vincent de 
 Paul Society were organized. In 1882 there arose a 
 new educational institution in the parish, Floly 
 Angels Academy, which also served as a residence 
 for the sisters teaching in the parish school. In 
 1885 was begun the building of an orphan asylum 
 for orphan boys of the diocese, costing $30,000. 
 After twenty-two years of devoted service to the 
 parish of Immaculate Conception, Father McGol- 
 rick was called to preside over the newly established 
 diocese of Duluth, being consecrated bishop on 
 December 27, 1889. 
 
 With the departure of Father McGolrick there 
 closed the first epoch in the history of the Church 
 of the Immaculate Conception. Much credit should 
 be given to the pioneer Catholics who had founded 
 and supported that great church, the second estab- 
 lished by the Catholic people in Minneapolis. There 
 are names closely associated with the early history 
 of the Immaculate Conception parish that cannot 
 be overlooked in any history of Minneapolis. 
 Anthony Kelly, Angus McDougall, Thomas Gaffney, 
 Daniel Sullivan, P. N. Tobin, Terence Connolly, 
 Thomas Gavin, M. W. Nash, Thomas Quinn, Henry 
 Prendergast, Timothy Corbett, Roger Vail and many 
 
 others were a credit to the community in the de- 
 velopment of which they played an important part. 
 
 Rev. James C. Byrne succeeded Bishop McGolrick 
 as the second resident pastor. He had received his 
 early education in the parish school, had served as 
 altar boy for the priest whom he succeeded, after- 
 wards went to Rome and was ordained in the 
 eternal city on February 18, 1883. His pastorate in 
 the Immaculate Conception parish continued only 
 two years, when he was transferred to the presidency 
 of the College of St. Thomas. He was succeeded 
 by Rev. James J. Keane, now archbishop of Dubuque. 
 Father Keane was a native of Illinois, completed 
 his education in the Grand Seminary at Montreal, 
 and was ordained priest in December, 1882. He 
 became president of the College of St. Thomas in 
 1888, and in 1892 entered upon his duties as pastor 
 of Immaculate Conception parish, where he remained 
 for ten years, until his consecration as third bishop 
 of the diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming. It was dur- 
 ing the pastorate of Father Keane that the idea 
 of a new and larger church on a different site had 
 its beginning, and before he left the parish he 
 selected and purchased a site for the proposed 
 church. This site was subsequently deemed un- 
 suitable and was sold. 
 
 Rev. Thomas E. Cullen succeeded Bishop Keane 
 in the pastorate of the Immaculate Conception 
 Church. Father Cullen was born in Charlottetown, 
 Prince Edward Island, September 20, 1874. He 
 completed his ecclesiastical studies at St. Paul 
 Seminary and was ordained by Archbishop Ireland 
 November 8, 1901. About a year later he took up 
 the pastorate of Immaculate Conception Church. 
 Soon afterwards the Immaculate Conception Church 
 was declared a pro-cathedral, with Father Cullen 
 as rector. Under Father Cullen the project for a 
 new church proceeded to develop rapidly. On 
 Christmas Day, 1903, Archbishop Ireland announced 
 the plan for a new edifice. It was a large under- 
 taking, requiring great expenditure of money, but 
 these requirements were pressing, since thousands 
 worshiped in the church, and the building was 
 entirely inadequate. In 1903, on Christmas Day, 
 L. S. Donaldson, a member of the congregation, 
 presented the parish with the site on which the 
 pro-cathedral now stands. This land was valued 
 at $45,000. Soon afterwards it was announced that 
 the Catholics in Hennepin County would not be 
 called upon to contribute to the building of the new 
 cathedral of St. Paul, but would instead be asked 
 to contribute for the building of the pro-cathedral. 
 
 On August 7, 1907. ground was broken for the 
 foundation by Archbishop Ireland and members of 
 the building committee, and on May 31, 1908, oc- 
 curred the impressive ceremony of the corner stone 
 laying. Dignity was given to this occasion by the 
 presence of the apostolic delegate, Most Rev. 
 Diomede Falconio, three archbishops, several bishops 
 and hundreds of clergy. 
 
 Thus, ten years from the purchase of the site, 
 and six years after the laying of the corner stone, 
 the informal opening of the Pro-Cathedral of St. 
 Mary, at Hennepin Avenue and Sixteenth Street, 
 was celebrated by solemn high mass on Sunday 
 morning. May 31. 1914. This was the sixth anni- 
 versary of the corner stone laying, and the splendid 
 edifice represented a cost of $800,000. Father Cullen, 
 rector of the pro-cathedral, was the celebrant, and 
 the sermon was preached by Archbishop John Ire- 
 land. In general dimensions the length of the 
 
1554 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 pro-cathedral is 274 feet, with a width of 145 feet. 
 It is said that none of the Old World cathedrals 
 equals in magnificent expanse the wide nave of the 
 pro-cathedral, which is eighty-two feet, exceeding 
 the nave of St. Peter’s by two feet. Five doors give 
 access to a vestibule 100 feet in width, over which 
 is the spacious choir loft. The auditorium accom- 
 modates 2,500 persons. At the rear is the large 
 chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on each side of 
 which are the chapels of St. Joseph and the 
 Founders Chapel. The front towers rise to a 
 height of 1 17 feet and the dome is surmounted by a 
 large bronze cross, the top of which is 200 feet 
 above the main floor. The chief building material 
 is the same type of granite found in the new post- 
 office at Washington, District of Columbia, and the 
 Wisconsin State Capitol, with reenforcement of 
 heavy steel frame. 
 
 George Dion. As compared with many of the 
 biographies in this work of men who have, in the 
 business world, attained to great eminence and 
 secured for themselves high reputations, as well 
 as material wealth, George Dion is practically a 
 beginner in the field. Yet of none of the men of 
 his generation can it be said that the foundation 
 for what of success, of popularity and of reputation 
 the future has in store, has been more firmly, per- 
 severingly and with greater wisdom laid than in 
 his case. 
 
 George Dion, the president of the Puritan Laun- 
 dry Company of Duluth, Minnesota, was born at 
 Ashland, Wisconsin, December 14, 1873, and is a 
 son of Theophile and Mary (Blanchet) Dion. The 
 family is of French extraction, and was founded 
 in America by Joseph Dion, who emigrated from his 
 native land to Canada and settled in the vicinity of 
 Quebec, where he passed the remaining years of his 
 career in agricultural pursuits. Theophile Dion was 
 born in 1838, near Quebec, grew up on his father’s 
 farm, and for a number of years was engaged in 
 general work. Fie came to Duluth as a pioneer 
 business man, and still resides in this city, being 
 now retired from active pursuits. Mrs. Dion, who 
 also survives, was born not far from her husband. 
 
 George Dion was educated in the public schools 
 of Duluth, whence he was brought as a lad, and 
 showed himself of an industrious and ambitious 
 nature, when, at the age of twelve years, he spent 
 his vacation in working in a cigar factory, while 
 other youths of his age were passing their time in 
 play. Fie then returned to school, and in the vaca- 
 tion of the following year worked in the old St. 
 Louis Flotel, and when he completed his schooling, 
 at the age of fourteen years, began sailing on the 
 Great Lakes under Capt. W. S. Inman, a vocation 
 which he followed off and on for some time there- 
 after. Following this he was employed in the old 
 Lyceum Theater for two years, and was then en- 
 gaged by the Peerless Laundry for six years, this 
 being followed by a like period with the Troy 
 Laundry. His next venture was with the large 
 retail furniture establishment of French & Bassett, 
 of this city, with which he remained three years, and 
 he was then employed for a short period by the 
 Develda Drug Company. Mr. Dion was then put 
 in charge of the warehouse of the A. Booth Packing 
 Company, and after one year took charge of the 
 freezing plant of the same concern, this being fol- 
 lowed by three years on the road for the same 
 concern. In 1909 he was employed as traveling 
 
 salesman by the Duluth-Superior Milling Company, 
 a position which he held for four years, Covering- 
 Northern Minnesota. On January 1, 1913, having 
 decided to become the master of his own business, 
 Mr. Dion founded the Puritan Laundry, at Nos. 
 22-24 Lake Avenue North, and from that time to 
 the present has been the directing head of this 
 concern, which is now enjoying a large and con- 
 stantly growing business. In the management of 
 his business affairs Mr. Dion has shown himself 
 a man of excellent judgment and executive ability, 
 and his broad experience in various lines of 
 endeavor has been of much value to him. 
 
 Mr. Dion was married December 12, 1900, to 
 Miss Martha G. Irvine, daughter of John and Susan 
 B. Irvine, of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Mr. Irvine, 
 in his younger years, followed the vocation of sailor, 
 but during the last eighteen years of his life was a 
 lighthouse keeper. Mrs. Irvine still survives her 
 husband and resides at Duluth. Five children have 
 been born to Mr. and Mrs. Dion : J. Irvine and 
 May Margaret, who are attending school ; and 
 Thomas Gore, George Robert and Martha Jane, all 
 living at home, at the Dion residence, No. 1428 
 East Third Street. Mr. and Mrs. Dion are con- 
 sistent members of the Episcopal Church. He is 
 an independent democrat in his political views, and 
 fraternally is connected with the Independent Order 
 of Foresters and the Improved Order of Red Men, 
 both of Duluth, and Lodge No. 381, Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks, of Hancock, Michigan. 
 
 George H. Slocum. There are many points that 
 make specially interesting a consideration of the 
 personal career and family history of Mr. Slocum, 
 who has passed the major part of his life in Dodge 
 County, Minnesota, who is a scion of a well known 
 pioneer family of this state, who is secretary and 
 historian of the Old Settlers’ Association of Dodge 
 County, and who has a broad and intimate knowledge 
 of the history of this section of Minnesota. He is a 
 man of marked literary discrimination and as a 
 writer has not only been identified with newspaper 
 work, but has also written a valuable history of 
 Dodge County, besides being assistant in the prepa- 
 ration of another history of the same county. He 
 is one of the honored and influential citizens of 
 Mantorville, where he has long controlled a sub- 
 stantial business as a contractor for painting and 
 decorating, the while he has shown unfaltering 
 interest in all that concerns the welfare and ad- 
 vancement of the state that has been his home for 
 more than half a century. 
 
 Mr. Slocum was born in Crawford County, Penn- 
 sylvania, on the 26th of June, 1851, and is a son of 
 Henry Gardner Slocum and Ruby (Tabor) Slocum. 
 His father was born in Madison County, Vermont, 
 in 1812, and his mother was born in Crawford 
 County, Pennsylvania, in 1817, her death having 
 occurred in 1863 and her husband having survived 
 her by nearly twenty years, as he was summoned to 
 eternal rest in 1881. Samuel Slocum, grandfather 
 of him whose name initiates this article, was born 
 in Rhode Island, whence he removed to Vermont, 
 the Slocum family, of English lineage, having been 
 founded in America in the early colonial epoch of 
 our national history. Samuel Slocum was a first 
 cousin of Commodore Perry, the hero of the great 
 battle on Lake Erie in the War of 1812, and Mr. 
 Slocum served under the commodore in this second 
 conflict with England. Samuel Slocum married 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1555 
 
 Mary Sherman, who was a cousin of Gen. William 
 T. Sherman and of Hon. John Sherman, distin- 
 guished as a member of the United States Senate. 
 Daniel and Elizabeth Tabor, maternal grandparents 
 of George H. Slocum, were natives of Manchester, 
 England, whence they immigrated to the United 
 States about the opening of the nineteenth century, 
 settling in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, where 
 they passed the residue of their lives. 
 
 Henry Gardner Slocum was reared and educated 
 in the old Green Mountain State, and in 1832, 
 shortly before attaining to his legal majority, he 
 removed to Crawford County, Pennsylvania, where 
 his marriage was solemnized in 1846. He gave his 
 attention principally to the raising and selling of 
 horses during the period of his independent career 
 in the East, and finally he set forth with his family 
 for the West. They proceeded to Cleveland, Ohio, 
 and thence by boat to Detroit, Michigan, from which 
 city they continued their journey, with team and 
 wagon, to Chicago. On the 4th of August, 1864, 
 they arrived at Mantorville, the present judicial 
 center of Dodge County, Minnesota, in which state 
 Mr. Slocum passed the remainder of his life. His 
 wife died in 1863. They are survived by three 
 children, Gertrude, Effie and George H., and the 
 deceased children were Eugene, Fritz Edward, Sher- 
 man and Clarence Manley. Henry G. Slocum was 
 a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
 and his wife was a birthright and lifelong member 
 of the Society of Friends, commonly designated as 
 Quakers. Mr. Slocum was a stalwart supporter 
 of the cause of the republican party from the time 
 of its organization until his death, was an earnest 
 abolitionist during the climacteric period leading 
 up to the Civil war, and was affiliated with the 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows. 
 
 Henry G. Slocum was one of the pioneer operators 
 of stage lines in Minnesota and he gained a wide 
 circle of acquaintances, a veritable host of friends, 
 during the early years of his residence in this state. 
 For eight years he ran a stage line between Mantor- 
 ville and Red Wing, for four years operated between 
 Red Wing and Oronoco, and for eleven years he 
 ran a daily stage between Mendota and Red Wing. 
 He was one of the best known citizens of Southern 
 Minnesota, and when, at a venerable age, he passed 
 away, his death was deeply mourned, as he had 
 ever been known for his kindliness and generosity 
 and for his impregnable integrity in all of the 
 relations of life. 
 
 George H. Slocum was a lad of thirteen years at 
 the time of establishing the family home at Mantor- 
 ville, Dodge County, where he was reared to maturity 
 and duly availed himself of the advantages of the 
 village schools. As a youth he went to the City 
 of Minneapolis, where he served an apprenticeship 
 to the printer’s trade, though he did not long con- 
 tinue his allegiance in a practical way to the “art 
 preservative of all arts.” On the contrary he learned 
 the trade of painter and decorator, and with this 
 line of enterprise he has been long and successfully 
 identified, being a leading contractor for such work 
 in Mantorville and its surrounding territory. For 
 twenty-one years he has been an editorial writer 
 for the Dodge County Republican, and he has also 
 done most excellent work along historical lines, as 
 previously noted in this context. He takes, and 
 with all of consistency, a very lively interest in the 
 affairs of the Old Settlers’ Association of Dodge 
 County, of which he is secretary and historian, and 
 
 he has spared no pains or time in collecting and 
 placing in proper form data concerning the pioneer 
 days and later history of his home county and other 
 sections of Southern Minnesota. 
 
 The principles and policies of the republican party 
 have found an uncompromising advocate in Mr. 
 Slocum, whose editorial utterances and personal in- 
 fluence have done much to further its cause in a 
 local way. He is now serving as county coroner, 
 but has never been imbued with ambition for public 
 office. Mr. Slocum is an appreciative and honored 
 member of Mantorville Lodge No. 11, Ancient, Free 
 and Accepted Masons, of which he is secretary, and 
 he is a communicant of the Protestant Episcopal 
 Church. His unqualified popularity has not proved 
 adequate to deflect him from the ranks of eligible 
 bachelors up to the present time. 
 
 Oliver C. Wyman. Among those who have stood 
 as successful types of the world’s productive workers 
 is Oliver Cromwell Wyman, who has been actively 
 identified with business activities in the City of 
 Minneapolis for the past forty years and who 
 has made a deep and benignant impress upon the 
 civic and industrial history of the Minnesota 
 metropolis. He has proved thoroughly appreciative 
 of all that represents the higher values of human 
 existence, has been a positive and influential figure 
 in the commercial world, has realized the responsi- 
 bilities which success imposes, and has ordered his 
 course on a lofty plane of integrity and honor. 
 Progressive and broad-minded in both private and 
 public affairs, he has proved a most valuable citizen 
 and is fully entitled to the unqualified confidence 
 and esteem in which he is uniformly held. He has 
 been one of the builders of the greater Minneapolis, 
 stands at the head of the extensive wholesale dry 
 goods house of Wyman, Partridge & Company, rep- 
 resenting one of the foremost commercial enter- 
 prises of the Northwest, and its trade territory ex- 
 tends from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Coast, 
 giving the house rank with the foremost wholesale 
 dry goods establishments of the LTnited States. And 
 he has other important capitalistic interests, not the 
 least of which are involved through his association 
 with the Northwestern National Bank, of which he 
 has been a director for more than a score of years 
 and of whose directorate he is now chairman. Mr. 
 Wyman has won success of large and worthy order 
 and has been in a significant sense the artificer of 
 his own fortunes. He is today one of the pioneer 
 business men and influential citizens of the North- 
 west, and there is all of consistency in according 
 him specific recognition in this history of Minnesota. 
 
 Frank H. Clay, M. D. A representative physi- 
 cian and surgeon of the younger generation in his 
 native state, Doctor Clay is engaged in successful 
 practice in the attractive little city of St. Charles, 
 Winona County, where he is serving also as health 
 officer. 
 
 Dr. Frank Homer Clay was born in the City of 
 Minneapolis, on the 15th of June. 1884. and is a son 
 of Homer and Rebecca (Ray) Clay, both likewise 
 natives of Minnesota, where the former was born 
 in 1850 and the latter in 1851 — dates that indicate 
 that the respective families were founded in this 
 state 'while it was still under territorial government. 
 The parents now reside in Minneapolis, where the 
 father is connected with the Washburn Flour Mill 
 
1556 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Company, in a semi-executive capacity. Homer Clay 
 is a son of Francis A. Clay, who was born in the 
 State of Maine, and who became one of the early 
 settlers of Winona County, Minnesota. He later 
 removed to Parker’s Lake, Hennepin County, where 
 he entered claim to government land and eventually 
 developed a fine farm, he and his wife having been 
 numbered among the first settlers of the Lake 
 Minnetonka District. Francis A. Clay was a vener- 
 able pioneer citizen of Plennepin County at the time 
 of his death, in the winter of 1913, at which time 
 he was eighty-six years of age. Moses Ray, maternal 
 grandfather of Doctor Clay, was born in Ireland 
 and was a boy at the time of the family immigration 
 to the United States, settlement being made first 
 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Moses Ray likewise 
 became one of the sterling pioneers of Minnesota, 
 where he obtained government land and developed a 
 valuable farm, his death having occurred in Minne- 
 apolis, in 1913, and his old homestead farm being 
 now owned by his son-in-law, Homer Clay. The 
 father of Doctor Clay was reared and educated in 
 Hennepin County and was long identified with the 
 agricultural industry, though he has acquired a sub- 
 stantial fortune largely through his real estate hold- 
 ings. He is a democrat in politics, is affiliated with 
 the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and both 
 he and his wife hold membership in the Presbyterian 
 Church. Of the four children the doctor is the eldest 
 of the three now living : Bert is on a ranch in the 
 State of Montana, and Lyman is a member of the 
 class of 1915 in the department of dentistry of the 
 University of Minnesota. 
 
 Doctor Clay attended the public schools of 
 Minneapolis until his graduation in the South High 
 School, in 1903, and in 1907 he was graduated in the 
 University of Minnesota, with the degree of bachelor 
 of arts. In the medical department of the university 
 he completed the prescribed curriculum and was 
 graduated in 1910, with the degree of doctor of 
 medicine. During his senior year he served as night 
 surgeon in connection with the police department 
 of the Minnesota metropolis, and after his gradua- 
 tion he served one year as an interne, where he 
 gained valuable clinical and laboratory experience. 
 
 In 1911 Doctor Clay established his residence at 
 Winona, where he engaged in practice in partnership 
 with Dr. Edward S. Muer, this alliance continuing 
 two years. In 1913 he removed to St. Charles, 
 where he has since been associated in practice with 
 Doctor Bear, under the firm name of Doctors Bear 
 and Clay, and he has so thoroughly proved his 
 technical ability and gained such distinctive personal 
 popularity that he controls an excellent general 
 practice and has proved a valued accession to the 
 ranks of his profession in Winona County. The 
 doctor holds membership in the Winona County 
 Medical Society and the Minnesota State Medical 
 Society, is now serving as health officer of St. 
 Charles, and he is affiliated with both the York and 
 Scottish Rite bodies of the Masonic fraternity, both 
 he and his wife holding membership in the Con- 
 gregational Church. 
 
 The year 1910 recorded the marriage of Doctor 
 Clay to Miss Alice B. Leland, of Minneapolis, and 
 they have twin sons, Leland and Lyman. 
 
 Robert D. Sprague. Since pioneer times, for a 
 period of sixty years, probably no family has been 
 more conspicuous in the business life of Houston 
 County than the Spragues. A son of the pioneer 
 
 merchant and well known banker of Caledonia, 
 Robert D. Sprague, is now serving as cashier of the 
 Sprague State Bank, an institution in which his 
 father was prominent in founding, and has many 
 financial interests in this section of the state. 
 
 Robert D. Sprague was born in Caledonia, April 
 29, 1872. His father, the late Ara D. Sprague, was 
 born at Richfield Springs, New York, in 1824, and 
 died January u, 1909. The grandfather was Asa 
 W. Sprague, who spent his life in New York State. 
 The late Ara D. Sprague came to Minnesota in 
 1854, and arrived in this state with nothing except 
 character and industry as collateral. He was even 
 in debt to some extent, but became one of the 
 wealthiest and most influential citizens and showed 
 remarkable ability in business affairs. At Caledonia, 
 where he located, he opened the first stock of mer- 
 chandise, and was a merchant there for a number 
 of years. In 1875 he became associated with Mr. 
 Easton in the banking business, and was best known 
 as a banker from that time until his death, forty-five 
 years later. He had large landed interests in the 
 state, and along with his wealth left the heritage of 
 an honored name. He was affiliated with the 
 Masonic Order, was a republican in politics, and 
 with his wife worshiped in the Methodist Episcopal 
 faith. Ara D. Sprague was married at Caledonia, 
 Minnesota, to Elmira Williams. She was born in 
 Illinois in 1838 and is still living. Her father, Robert 
 S. Williams, spent a number of years in Pittsburg, 
 Pennsylvania. He studied and practiced medicine 
 for some time, was also a minister of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, and later in life followed farming. 
 There were four children in the family, including 
 Robert D. The others are : Mrs. Charles Latham, 
 
 who lives in Caledonia and whose husband is a 
 traveling salesman ; Arthur D. is a resident at Devils 
 Lake, North Dakota, and is now vice president 
 of the Sprague State Bank; E. A. Sprague is presi- 
 dent of the Sprague State Bank at Caledonia. 
 
 Robert D. Sprague grew up in Caledonia, attended 
 the local schools, and later was a student in Carleton 
 College at Northfield. He left college and returned 
 to Caledonia to take up active work as a banker, 
 beginning as bookkeeper, and since 1897 has held 
 the post of cashier. The Sprague State Bank is 
 one of the soundest institutions in Southern Minne- 
 sota. It has a capital of $25,000, surplus of $5,000, 
 and divided profits of $5,000, while its deposits 
 aggregate $600,000. 
 
 Mr. Sprague was married, in 1898, to Grace Far- 
 rington, a daughter of E. V. Farrington of Preston. 
 Minnesota. They are the parents of two children, 
 Robert Eugene being in school, while Alice Janet 
 Grace is still in infancy. Mr. Sprague and family 
 attend the Methodist Episcopal Church. Politically 
 a republican, he has served on the city council and 
 as mayor of Caledonia, and while essentially a busi- 
 ness man, has always shown marked public spirit 
 in his relations with the community. 
 
 Charles Johnson. The present county attorney 
 of Kandiyohi County, Charles Johnson, has been a 
 member of the Minnesota bar since 1898, and during 
 this time has advanced to a recognized position 
 among the strong and forceful lawyers of the state. 
 He has resided all his life in Kandiyohi County, 
 and that his standing is high among his fellow 
 citizens is evidenced by the fact that he has never 
 been defeated for an office for which he has desired 
 to be a candidate. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1557 
 
 Mr. Johnson was born on his father’s homestead 
 place in Kandiyohi County, January io, 1869, and 
 is a son of O. L. and Anna (Nelson) Johnson, 
 natives of Sweden, where they were married. The 
 father, born in 1827, was married in 1859, the 
 mother having been born in 1836, and in 1865 they 
 emigrated to the United States, settling first in 
 Goodhue County, Minnesota, but two years later 
 coming to Kandiyohi County, where they passed the 
 remaining years of their lives. Mr. and Mrs. John- 
 son were the parents of six children, namely: N. 
 
 O., who carries on agricultural pursuits in Kandi- 
 yohi County; Oscar, who lives on the old homestead 
 place ; Charles, of this notice ; Mrs. P. M. Lindkren, 
 the wife of an agriculturist of Kandiyohi County; 
 Annette, who is single and resides with her brother 
 on the old homestead ; and Mrs. Arthur Monson, 
 of Minneapolis, the wife of a stationary engineer. 
 
 After completing his primary studies in the coun- 
 try schools of Kandiyohi County, Charles Johnson 
 enrolled as a student at Willmar Seminary and was 
 graduated therefrom in 1889. Later he entered 
 Gustavus Adolphus College, where he completed a 
 full course of study in 1895, and then entered the 
 law department of the University of Minnesota, 
 being graduated from that institution in 1898 with 
 his degree. In that same year he was admitted to 
 the bar and began practice, being for five years in 
 partnership with Samuel Olson, but since that time 
 has continued alone, and now maintains offices in 
 the Willmar Block. Mr. Johnson’s practice is broad 
 and general in its character, and has steadily grown 
 to large proportions, one of the large concerns on 
 his books being the Bank of Willmar, of which he 
 is attorney. He is admitted to practice in all the 
 courts, and is a member of the leading organizations 
 of his profession, in which he is recognized generally 
 as a thorough, learned and painstaking lawyer. 
 
 Politically a republican, Mr. Johnson has long 
 taken an active interest in public affairs. He began 
 his career as a public servant in the capacity of 
 justice of the peace, and in 1900 became the candi- 
 date of his party for the office of county attorney 
 of Kandiyohi County. He was duly elected, and 
 received the reelection in 1902, when he retired from 
 office and did not again become a candidate until 
 1914, when he was again elected to the same posi- 
 tion, in which he is making an enviable record. 
 Mr. Johnson is a member of the city library board, 
 and in various ways has labored for the civic 
 welfare. Fraternally he is connected with the 
 Knights of Pythias, of which he is past chancellor 
 commander. He was reared in the faith of the 
 Lutheran Church, and has continued to be one of its 
 consistent members. 
 
 Alton Crosby. Prominent among the enterpris- 
 ing and progressive men who have aided in the 
 development and growth of Willmar during the 
 past forty years is found Alton Crosby, who served 
 in the capacity of postmaster of this thriving Min- 
 nesota city from January 15, 1907, to May 20, 1915, 
 and who for thirty-seven years has been identified 
 with the Willmar Republican Gazette. Mr. Crosby’s 
 rise in the world from the time when he came as 
 an untried youth, grateful for any honorable em- 
 ployment, to the present, when he is rated among 
 the city’s most substantial men. has been brought 
 about through his own merit and ability to grasp 
 opportunities. He was fortunate in coming to Will- 
 mar at a time when it was entering upon an era of 
 
 growth and progress. His record, both in public 
 and private life, has been an honorable one, and he 
 is justly entitled to the title of representative self- 
 made man. 
 
 Mr. Crosby was born in the State of Massachusetts. 
 .October 26, 1858, and is a son of Lewis and Olive 
 (Hinckley) Crosby and a member of a family 
 prominent in the old Bay State for a number of 
 generations. The name was brought to the Ameri- 
 can continent by Simon Crosby, who came here from 
 England as early as 1632, settled in the Massachu- 
 setts Bay Colony, and, being well educated and a 
 member of a prominent old English family, became 
 one of the leading citizens of the little settlement. 
 He was one of the founders of Harvard College. 
 His son was Thomas Crosby, a noted minister, 
 and the latter was the father of Jesse Crosby, who 
 was born at Brewster, Massachusetts, and spent his 
 life there following the sea. Lewis Crosby, the son 
 of Jesse Crosby, and grandfather of Alton Crosby, 
 was born at Centerville, Massachusetts, and passed 
 his life there. 
 
 Lewis Crosby, father of Alton, was born in 1817 
 in Massachusetts, and early became a sailor on the 
 Atlantic and continued to spend his entire life as a 
 sea captain, dying in his native state in 1873. During 
 the Civil war he rendered the Federal Government 
 valuable service in the capacity of commander of a 
 government transport. Mr. Crosby was a republi- 
 can in politics, a Congregationalist in religious belief 
 and active in his church, and a charter member of 
 Hyannis Lodge, A. F. & A. M., of Hyannis, Massa- 
 chusetts. He was married in his native state to 
 Olive Hinckley, daughter of Abraham Hinckley. 
 The maternal grandfather was born at Barnstable, 
 Barnstable County, Massachusetts, served as a 
 soldier during the Revolutionary war, owned and 
 operated the old salt works, and died at Barnstable 
 at the advanced age of ninety-seven years. Six 
 children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Crosby, of 
 whom three are still living: Louisa, who is still 
 single and makes her residence at the old family 
 home in Massachusetts; Herbert M., who is en- 
 gaged in the general merchandise business and is a 
 well known citizen of Los Angeles, California ; 
 and Alton, of this notice. 
 
 The common schools of his native state furnished 
 Alton Crosby with his educational training, and 
 when he was eighteen years of age, in 1876, he came 
 to the West in search of his fortune. Arriving at 
 Willmar, Minnesota, in that year, he first secured 
 a position as clerk in a store, but later was forced 
 to seek other employment, and gladly accepted what- 
 ever work of an honorable character was entrusted 
 to him. In 1878 he began to learn the trade of 
 printer in the office of the Republican Gazette, a 
 publication which had been established in 1871, and 
 hy 1880 had saved enough from his earnings to 
 purchase a one-half interest in this newspaper. In 
 1888 he bought out his partner’s interest, and since 
 that year has been the sole owner, editor and 
 publisher. Mr. Crosby is producing a weekly pub- 
 lication, the policy of which makes it a republican 
 organ, and which now has a circulation of 2,300. He 
 is giving his subscribers excellent value for their 
 money, endeavoring in every way to secure reliable, 
 interesting and authentic news and to place it before 
 them in an attractive manner. That the Republican 
 Gazette js considered a good advertising medium is 
 demonstrated by the manner in which the merchants 
 of Willmar are supporting it. Mr. Crosby is pos- 
 
1558 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 sessed of a trenchant pen, and at all times it has 
 been at the command of those men and movements 
 which have assisted Willmar to better things. In 
 connection with his newspaper establishment, he 
 conducts a modern job printing business, where he 
 is at all times ready to turn out work of the highest 
 character. Mr. Crosby’s contributions toi the up- 
 building of Willmar include a large opera house, 
 recently erected, which would be a credit to any 
 community, and where high class attractions are 
 to be offered to the amusement-loving people of the 
 city. 
 
 In 1884 Mr. Crosby was united in marriage with 
 Miss Gertrude Baldwin, daughter of William Bald- 
 win, a native of New York who settled in Scott 
 County, Minnesota, in 1857. For many years he was 
 engaged in the milling business, and for a long time 
 conducted an enterprise at Belle Plaine, where Mrs. 
 Crosby was born in December, 1864. To Mr. and 
 Mrs. Crosby there have been born two children : 
 Walter, a graduate of the University of Minnesota, 
 and a member of the Delta Upsilon, who is asso- 
 ciated with his father in the publication of the 
 Republican Gazette, and Olive, a graduate of the 
 Willmar High School. Mrs. Crosby and the two 
 children are members of the Episcopal Church, and, 
 while he is not a member thereof, Mr. Crosby serves 
 as vestryman. He is somewhat interested in fra- 
 ternal matters, belonging to the local lodges of the 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the 
 Ancient Order of United Workmen and the Wood- 
 men of the World, and in each has numerous friends. 
 A stalwart republican in his political views, he has 
 been interested in politics more as a good citizen 
 than as a seeker for political preferment, his only 
 office of consequence being that of postmaster, to 
 which he was appointed January 15, 1907, and in 
 which he has since made an enviable record for 
 conscientious service and achievements accomplished. 
 
 Hon. Trygve O. Gilbert. The career of Hon. 
 Trygve O. Gilbert, judge of the Probate Court, is 
 strongly entrenched in the history of the jurispru- 
 dence of Kandiyohi County. The City of Willmar, 
 which witnessed the beginning of his professional 
 career in 1904, offered a promising field for the 
 young man of twenty-six years, and the citizens 
 who have watched his advancement have never had 
 cause to regret the faith they placed in his energy, 
 enthusiasm and ability. He has grown into its 
 opportunities, has fashioned his resources to its 
 needs, and has reflected sincerity, genuine worth 
 and dignity upon a profession for which he is singu- 
 larly and eminently equipped. 
 
 Trygve O. Gilbert was born on his father’s home- 
 stead farm, not far from Christiania, the capital 
 city of Norway, August 17, 1878, and is a son of 
 Ole and Martha (Klinkenberg) Gilbertson. His 
 paternal grandfather was Gilbert Ligeren, who 
 passed his entire life in Norway as a farmer, while 
 his maternal grandfather was Tobias Klinkenberg, 
 who also engaged in agricultural pursuits and never 
 left his native land. Ole Gilbertson was born in 
 Norway in 1843, and was there married in 1866 to 
 Martha Klinkenberg, who was born in the same year 
 as her husband. Coming to the United States in 
 1884, the family settled on a farm in Nobles County, 
 but in 1896 the father purchased a farm in the 
 vicinity of Willmar, in Kandiyohi County, a,nd there 
 continued . successful operations until he sold his 
 property, in 1907, and retired. Plis death occurred 
 
 at Tacoma, Washington, in 1914, while Mrs. Gil- 
 bertson still survives. Mr. Gilbertson was a con- 
 sistent member of the Lutheran Church throughout 
 his life and took an active and helpful part in its 
 work. In early life in America he was a supporter 
 of the republican party, but in later years became 
 a stanch adherent of prohibition principles and cast 
 his vote for that party’s candidates. There were 
 eight children in the family, as follows : Mrs. Ed- 
 
 ward Riley, of Ellsworth. Minnesota, the wife of a 
 railroad man; Mrs. William McGarry, of St. Paul, 
 whose husband is also a railroad man ; Mrs. C. A. 
 Grimlund, the wife of a railroad man of Willmar ; 
 Mrs. J. E. Fitzgerald, the wife of a Watertown, 
 South Dakota, railroader ; Mrs. Christian Svenson, 
 wife of a carpenter of Minneapolis; G. O., who is 
 engaged in farming at Roy, Washington; Judge 
 Trygve O., of this review, and Prof. A. N., who 
 is instructor in anthropology at the University of 
 Minnesota. 
 
 Trygve O. Gilbert was six years of age when the 
 family emigrated to the LTnited States, and his early 
 educational training was secured in the public schools 
 of Nobles County. Later he enjoyed the privileges 
 of attendance at Augsburg (Minnesota) Seminary, 
 where he was graduated in the fall of 1898, receiving 
 the degree of bachelor of arts, and having earned 
 the honor of being valedictorian of his class. In 
 the fall of 1901 he began his legal studies in the 
 law department of the University of Minnesota, and 
 was graduated therefrom with his degree of bachelor 
 of laws, in June, 1904, shortly after which he took 
 up the practice of his profession at Willmar. Un- 
 usual ability, great natural resource and firm belief 
 in the best tenets of his profession soon made him a 
 factor to be reckoned with, and in the course of his 
 professional life many of the most important cases 
 in this part of the state have received his support. 
 Mr. Gilbert became esteemed for his many excellent 
 qualities, for the thorough knowledge which he 
 possessed of the theory and practice of law, and for 
 a public-spiritedness which ever prompted , a sane 
 and practical interest in those measures which tend 
 for stability and good government, and in 1910, 
 when a vacancy occurred upon the bench, he was 
 appointed by Governor Eberhart as judge of the 
 Probate Court, taking his position on April 2d. The 
 excellent manner in which he discharged the duties 
 of his dignified office recommend him to the people 
 as an able and impartial jurist, and he has since 
 been reelected to the probate bench on three suc- 
 cessive occasions. In politics Judge Gilbert has al- 
 ways been a stalwart republican,, and has been 
 prominent in the ranks of his party, having, served 
 as chairman of the republican county committee of 
 Kandiyohi County for six years. He is well and 
 favorably known” not only in his profession, but 
 among business men generally, and is making one 
 of the most energetic and progressive presidents the 
 Willmar Commercial Club has known. Aside from 
 the organizations of his profession, of which he is a 
 valued member, Judge Gilbert belongs to the Ancient 
 Order of United Workmen and Lodge No. 952, 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He has 
 a wide circle of acquaintances, in .which he numbers 
 many warm and appreciative friends, attracted to 
 him by his genial and courteous personality. 
 
 On January 22, 1900, . Judge Gilbert was united in 
 marriage, at Willmar, with Miss Clara Emelia John- 
 son, an attractive and popular young woman oLthis 
 city, and to this union there have been born two 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1559 
 
 children : Harold Eugene, who was born August 
 17, 1901, and Floyd Oliver, who was born September 
 22, 1904. Judge and Mrs. Gilbert are consistent 
 members of the Lutheran Church, and both have 
 taken an active interest in its work. 
 
 James D. Shearer. The legal profession in the 
 Minnesota metropolis has a representative member 
 in the person of Mr. Shearer who has been engaged 
 in practice in Minneapolis for the past thirty years 
 and whose labors have identified him with many im- 
 portant litigations in the various courts and given 
 him definite prestige as an effective advocate, besides 
 which he has represented Hennepin County as a 
 member of the State Legislature. 
 
 Of patrician Scottish lineage, James Duncan 
 Shearer was born in the City of Janesville, judicial 
 center of Rock County, Wisconsin, and the date of 
 his nativity was March 25, 1862. He is a son of 
 Robert Bruce Shearer and Eliza Campbell (Mc- 
 Dougall) Shearer, both representatives of distin- 
 guished old Scottish families, the genealogy on the 
 paternal side being traced in direct line to the great 
 patriot of Scotland, Robert Bruce, and the mother 
 of the subject of this review having been a second 
 cousin of the last Duke of Argyle and a grand- 
 daughter of Dr. John Lawson, who was a dis- 
 tinguished physician of the City of Edinburgh and 
 who numbered among his clients Sir Walter Scott, 
 in whose home he was retained as family physician. 
 The father of Mr. Shearer is now (1915) ninety-two 
 years of age, while the mother is deceased. 
 
 When James D. Shearer was three years of age 
 his parents removed from Wisconsin to the State 
 of Iowa, where the father became a prosperous 
 farmer and a citizen influential in his community. 
 James D., the youngest of the six children, found 
 his childhood and youth compassed by the invigorat- 
 ing influences of the home farm, and his early 
 educational advantages were those afforded in the 
 district schools. After due preliminary discipline 
 he entered the Iowa State Agricultural College, at 
 Ames, wherf he continued his studies for five years 
 and was graduated as a member of the class of 
 1879. Up to that time he was the youngest student 
 that had been graduated in this institution, as he 
 was but seventeen years of age when he received 
 therefrom his degree of bachelor of science. After 
 leaving college Mr. Shearer turned his attention to 
 the pedagogic profession, of which he became a 
 successful and popular representative, as a teacher 
 in the public schools of Iowa during a period of 
 several years. The work of a teacher did not offer 
 attractions or inducements sufficient to satisfy his 
 ambition, however, and in 1883 he resigned his posi- 
 tion in a school in his home state and came to Min- 
 nesota, having been twenty-one years of age at 
 the time. He established .his residence in Minne- 
 apolis and soon afterward began the study of law 
 in the office and under the able preceptorship of 
 Judge Bagg. On the 17th of October, 1884, Mr. 
 Shearer was admitted to the Minnesota bar by the 
 Supreme Court of the state. During the long inter- 
 vening years he has applied himself with all of 
 diligence and marked ability to the practice ofjhis 
 profession, and Minneapolis has been his residence 
 and the stage of his activities from the initiation 
 of his practice to the present time. He has not found 
 it expedient to specialize in any one department of 
 law, but has pursued a general practice, which has 
 
 Vol. Ill— 19 
 
 involved his appearance in many important litiga- 
 tions and as counsel for representative clientage. 
 For several years Air. Shearer was a member of the 
 law firm of Belden, Jamison & Shearer, but has 
 recently associated with him Air. Lee B. Byard, 
 sharing with Judges Brooks and Jamison a well 
 appointed suite of offices in the Minnesota Loan & 
 Trust Building. 
 
 On the 26th of March, 1907, Air. Shearer was 
 appointed receiver of the Alinnesota Title Insurance 
 & Trust Company, and the incidental duties of set- 
 tling up the affairs of this corporation demanded 
 much of his time and attention for a number of 
 years. 
 
 In politics Mr. Shearer has ever accorded un- 
 faltering allegiance to the republican party and he 
 has been and continues an effective advocate of its 
 basic principles and policies, his well fortified con- 
 victions preventing any heretical political deflections 
 on his part. In 1903 he was elected a representative 
 of Hennepin County in the lower house of the State 
 Legislature, and he served one term with character- 
 istic ability and civic loyalty. He has had no definite 
 ambition for public office, however, as he holds that 
 his profession is worthy of his undivided allegiance. 
 Air. Shearer is a member of the Alinneapolis Bar 
 Association, and is also identified with the following 
 named and representative civic organizations in his 
 home . city : The Alinneapolis Club, Minneapolis 
 Athletic _ Club, the Alinneapolis Civic & Commerce 
 Association and the Six O'Clock Club. 
 
 On the 18th of September, 1888, was solemnized 
 the marriage of Mr. Shearer to Aliss Emma Evans, 
 of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and they have three sons 
 and one daughter, as follows : Hermione, David, 
 Jonathan and Alan. 
 
 Charles F. Spencer. The energetic and progres- 
 sive owner and editor of the Willmar Weekly 
 Journal, at Willmar, Alinnesota, Charles F. Spencer, 
 has been connected in one or another capacity with 
 the printing and newspaper business since his thir- 
 teenth year. During this time he has worked his 
 way steadily upward from a humble capacity to the 
 ownership of a prosperous newspaper and to the 
 proprietorship of a job printing business which 
 attracts its customers from not only the immediate 
 locality of its situation, but from distant states. 
 His success has been self attained, for he started 
 upon his career with no other advantages than a 
 worthy ambition and commendable determination. 
 These formed the medium through which his abili- 
 ties were allowed to be brought into play. 
 
 Air. Spencer was born in Scott County, Alinnesota, 
 December 20, 1862, and is a son of Richard M. and 
 Alary (Smith) Spencer. His father, born in 1817, 
 in Kentucky, was married there and in 1847 came 
 to St. Paul, Minnesota. For a number of years he 
 was a' steamboat captain and also dealt in invest- 
 ments. thus accumulating a vast property, but the 
 greater part of this was swept away in the great 
 financial panic of 1853. Among his properties was 
 an entire city block in St. Paul, which was appro- 
 priated by the city, but a number of years later his 
 heirs sued and recovered a part in damages. Mr. 
 Spencer was also engaged in the wholesale grocery 
 business, but it is probable that his financial mis- 
 fortunes hastened his demise, for he passed away in 
 1866, when but forty-nine years of age. He was a 
 member of the Alethodist Episcopal Church, a re- 
 
1560 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 publican in his political views, and a member of the 
 Masons and the Odd Fellows. Mrs. Spencer, who 
 was born in 1828, died in 1890, having been the 
 mother of nine children, of whom seven are living, 
 Charles F. having been the eighth in order of birth. 
 
 Charles F. Spencer was but four years of age at 
 the time of his father’s death, and the mother, being 
 unable to keep her children all with her, he was 
 placed in the home of a family at Montevideo, 
 Minnesota. At that place he received a public school 
 education, and when thirteen years of age began 
 work in a printing office there. That the youth was 
 of stable character is shown by the fact that he 
 remained with his first employer for ten years. 
 Mr. Spencer’s first newspaper venture was as the 
 proprietor of the Montevideo Commercial, which he 
 conducted until 1891, and |ollowing this had various 
 experiences in newspaper work and job printing 
 until coming to Willmar in 1900. Here he estab- 
 lished himself in business as the proprietor of a 
 printing establishment, and in July, 1904, founded 
 the Willmar Weekly Journal, which he has since 
 conducted with much success. He has built up a 
 circulation of 1,000 subscribers, and his readers are 
 receiving full value for their money in a clean, inter- 
 esting and reliable newspaper, the editor of which 
 endeavors to give them all the news, presented in 
 an attractive form. Mr. Spencer is possessed of no 
 mean literary ability and his editorials are terse, 
 cogent and to the point. As an advertising medium, 
 the Journal is considered an excellent means of 
 bringing reliable merchants in touch with the best 
 and most representative patronage. Through the 
 columns of his paper Mr. Spencer has exerted a 
 force for progress and advancement in the com- 
 munity, and at no time has he spared himself when 
 civic or business betterment has been the reason for 
 a movement. The high class of his job_ work has 
 attracted to him customers from outside states, 
 particularly in the line of printing for manufacturers 
 and bankers. 
 
 Mr. Spencer was married February 4, 1889, to 
 Miss Lida M. Timmons, who was born at Centralia, 
 Illinois, August 21, 1865, and is a daughter of I. W. 
 Timmons, of Winona, Minnesota, for forty years 
 a leading medical practitioner of that place, where 
 he died in 1914, at the age of eighty years. Two 
 sons have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Spencer : 
 Horace Franklin, twenty-one years of age, assisting 
 his father in the publishing of the Journal, and 
 Dana Timmons, born March 14, 1902. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Spencer and their sons are members of the Presby- 
 terian Church. Mr. Spencer has passed through the 
 chairs in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, 
 is a member of the Degree of Honor and the Modern 
 Woodmen of America, and for the past ten years 
 has been recorder of the local lodge of the Ancient 
 Order of United Workmen. In his political views 
 he is an independent republican. 
 
 Henry J. Ramsett. One of the best known and 
 most efficient of Kandiyohi County’s officials is 
 Henry J. Ramsett, who for more than a quarter 
 of a century has been clerk of the District Court. 
 First elected to this office in 1889, he has steadily 
 retained his position through his courteous, prompt 
 and methodical dispatch of the business which has 
 come before him. 
 
 Mr. Ramsett was born at Bad Axe, Wisconsin, 
 May 16, 1859, and is a son of Sever K. and Bertha 
 (Johnson) Ramsett. Sever K. Ramsett was born 
 
 in Norway, of well-to-do parents, and as a young 
 man, in 1847, came to the United States and settled 
 at Black Earth, Wisconsin, where he became the 
 proprietor of a wagon factory. In 1856 he removed 
 to Bad Axe, Wisconsin. Bertha Johnson had come 
 to that state several years previously, and there 
 they spent the remaining years of their lives. He 
 was a man of industry, ability and perseverence, 
 and through years of faithful effort was successful 
 in the accumulation of a comfortable competence. 
 Both he and Mrs. Ramsett died at Bad Axe. They 
 were members of the Norwegian Synod, of the 
 Lutheran Church, and Mr. Ramsett was particularly 
 active in religious work and was trustee of the 
 church for a long period of years. There were 
 eight children in the family, of whom six are still 
 living, and Henry J. was the' fifth in order of birth. 
 
 Henry J. Ramsett enjoyed ordinary advantages 
 in the educational way in his youth, attending the 
 graded schools of Viroqua, Wisconsin, and grad- 
 uating from the high school at that place. He se- 
 cured some business experience in his father’s es- 
 tablishment, but when he entered upon his own 
 career did so as an educator, teaching for a time in 
 the schools of Kandiyohi County, Minnesota. Reali- 
 zing the need of further training, Mr. Ramsett then 
 entered a commercial school at St. Paul, from which 
 he was duly graduated and then secured a position 
 with the St. P., M. & M. Railway at St. Paul. He 
 also was employed for a time by the firm of P. H. 
 Kelley & Company, and when he resigned that 
 position returned to Kandiyohi County, where he 
 became a bookkeeper, having some experience in 
 the same line at Atwater and New London, Minne- 
 sota. Mr. Ramsett was one of the first editors of 
 the New London Review. He at once displayed a 
 marked aptitude for public service, and his first 
 term was so satisfactory that he was chosen to suc- 
 ceed himself in this important office and has con- 
 tinued to' do so to the present. His record is that 
 of a conscientious court officer with a high apprecia-, 
 tion of the responsibilities and importance of the 
 duties with which he has been entrusted. Always a 
 stalwart republican, he has displayed fealty to party, 
 faithful adherence to and energetic promotion of 
 republicanism, loyalty to political friends, untiring 
 personal effort, straightforward fidelity to the ful- 
 fillment of every trust and engagement, capable and 
 well-directed administration of all the affairs of 
 his office and devotion of all his abilities in the 
 service of the people. While he is best known and 
 will probably be best remembered for his service 
 in the office of district clerk, he has also shown his 
 marked ability in other offices, having served as 
 assistant under five postmasters of Willmar, as vil- 
 lage recorder for years, as alderman for two years, 
 as city treasurer for one term and as deputy county 
 auditor of Kandiyohi County. He also was for some 
 years a justice of the peace. For six years, Mr. Ram- 
 sett was secretary of the Clerks Association of 
 Minnesota, at the end of which time he was hon- 
 ored by his fellow-members by election to the presi- 
 dency of this organization, and continues to act in 
 that capacity. Mr. Ramsett is well known in frater- 
 nal circles, and is a Mason of high degree, belong- 
 ing, to the blue lodge, Royal Arch chapter, Knights 
 Templar and Osman Temple of the Nobles of the 
 Mystic Shrine. Mr. Ramsett and his family are 
 members of the Episcopal Church. He has made his 
 own success mean success for his friends, for the 
 struggles they have shared with him he has re- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1561 
 
 warded by making them participants in his own 
 prosperity. 
 
 Mr. Ramsett was married at New London, to 
 Miss Ella Wright, who was born December 14, 1865, 
 in Dodge County, Minnesota, daughter of Eber and 
 Barbara (Shank) Wright. To this union there have 
 been born three children, as follows : Grace Alma, 
 who is the wife of Harold B. Lidstone, a traveling 
 salesman of Willmar; Miss Bertha Elizabeth, who 
 resides at home and is a teacher in the graded 
 schools of Willmar; and Harold Earl, who is a 
 stenographer. 
 
 Joseph F. Mushel. In the thriving Village of 
 Foley, Mr. Mushel, senior member of the firm of 
 J. F. & B. H. Mushel, in which he is associated with 
 his brother in the conducting of an important enter- 
 prise, under the title of the Benton County Abstract 
 Company. This concern has authoritative abstracts 
 of titles to real estate throughout Benton County 
 and affords facilities of such order that the busi- 
 ness is one of substantial and profitable order, be- 
 sides which its operations conserve and safeguard 
 the best interests of investors and of the people of 
 the county in general. This firm has perfected the 
 only set of abstract books and records in the county 
 and the two brothers are known as progressive and 
 reliable young business men of Benton County, 
 their present enterprise having been established in 
 1905. 
 
 Joseph Francis Mushel was born in Alberta Town- 
 ship, Benton County, Minnesota, on the 13th of 
 August, 1886, and is a son of Stanley and Johanna 
 Mushel, who came from Germany to the United 
 States in 1868, and who established their home in 
 Benton County, Minnesota, in 1878. The father 
 here became a substantial and prosperous farmer 
 and he and his wife now reside in the village of 
 Foley, where he is living retired, after many years 
 of earnest and worthy endeavor. Stanley Mushel 
 is a staunch democrat in politics and while residing 
 on his farm he served as a member of the board of 
 trustees of Alberta Township. Both he and his wife 
 are zealous communicants of the Catholic Church. 
 
 Joseph F. Mushel acquired his early education in 
 the public schools of his native county and his first 
 practical experience was gained in connection with 
 the work of the home farm. After leaving school 
 he became bookkeeper in a general store and later 
 was appointed assistant cashier of the First National 
 Bank of Foley. From this post he was called to that 
 of assistant cashier of the Foreston State Bank, at 
 Foreston, Millelacs County, and thereafter he served 
 one year as deputy county auditor of Benton County. 
 In 1911 he became associated with his brother, Ben- 
 jamin H., in the purchase of the business of the 
 Benton County Abstract Company, and to the same 
 he has since given close attention, though he has 
 had the distinction of serving as register of deeds 
 of his native county, a position to which he was 
 first elected in 1912, and to which he was re-elected 
 in 1914, for a second term of two years. In this im- 
 portant office he is giving a most effective and care- 
 ful administration, and his incidental experience 
 specially fortifies him for the handling of his private 
 business as one of the two principles in the Benton 
 County Abstract Company. Further evidence of the 
 personal popularity of Mr. Mushel is that afforded 
 by his having been called upon to serve two years 
 as clerk of the Village of Foley. He is an active 
 worker in behalf of the cause of the democratic 
 
 party and is one of its influential representatives in 
 Benton County. He and other members of the fam- 
 ily are communicants of St. John's Catholic church 
 at Foley, and he is affiliated with the Knights of 
 Columbus and the Benevolent and Protective Order 
 of Elks. Both he and his brother, Benjamin H., are 
 numbered among the eligible young bachelors of 
 their native county. 
 
 Benjamin Henry Mushel, the able coadjutor of 
 his brother in the abstract business, was born on the 
 home farm on the 23d of March, 1889, and his edu- 
 cational advantages were those of the public schools 
 and a commercial college. After serving three years 
 as clerk in a general store he became assistant 
 cashier of the First National Bank of Foley, and of 
 this position he continued the incumbent until he 
 became associated with his brother in the purchase 
 of the abstract business, to which he now gives the 
 major part of his time and attention. He is a staunch 
 democrat, is a communicant of St. John’s Church at 
 Foley, and is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus 
 and the Modern Woodmen of America. 
 
 Olaus E. Burtness. Houston County has had 
 the services of Olaus E. Burtness in the office of 
 county treasurer for eighteen years. That is an 
 exceptional record both as to the length of service 
 and the efficiency of his administration. Continued 
 proof of his popularity and a testimonial to his work 
 was given at the last election, when the citizens 
 returned him to office by a large majority. Thorough 
 honesty and competent management and a genial 
 treatment of all citizens have been characteristic of 
 the treasurer’s office since Mr. Burtness first took 
 charge. 
 
 Olaus E. Burtness was born on a farm in Houston 
 County, Minnesota, April 28, 1872, and through his 
 family he is identified with the pioneer history of 
 this state. His parents were Elling H. and Christ 
 (Myhre) Burtness, both of whom were natives of 
 Norway. His maternal grandfather, Ole Myhre, 
 came to the United States about 1849, and was one 
 of the earliest of the pioneers to settle in Houston 
 County, where he followed farming the rest of his 
 life. Mr. Burtness’ mother was born in 1845 and 
 died in August, 1913. She was married in Houston 
 County. Elling H. Burtness, a son of Helge, who 
 emigrated to Wisconsin in 1865, was born in Norway 
 in 1837 and died at the old homestead in Wilmington, 
 Minnesota, in February, 1913. He came to the United 
 States in 1861. and in 1863 settled on a farm in 
 Houston County, Minnesota, and was a farmer 
 throughout his career. He was a man of quiet 
 unassuming manner, and devoted himself to the 
 interests of farm and home. Politically he was a 
 republican and a member of the Lutheran Church. 
 There were fourteen children in the family, and ten 
 are still living. 
 
 Olaus E. Burtness, the fifth among the children, 
 was educated in the country schools, and spent two 
 years in the Brackenridge School at Decorah, Iowa. 
 All his early experiences were with farming, but in 
 1895 he engaged in the operation of a country store, 
 and continued along that line for five years, until 
 elected county treasurer for the first time in 1900. 
 He is a man whose prosperity and success have been 
 won through his individual efforts. For four years 
 he was president of the First National Bank at 
 Caledonia and is a director and stockholder in that 
 institution. 
 
1562 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Mr. Burtness since casting his first vote has been 
 active in republican politics. He and his family 
 are members of the Lutheran Church. On October 
 26, 1899, Mr. Burtness married Clara Kinstad of 
 La Crosse, Wisconsin. It was while she was teaching 
 school in Houston County that she met her husband. 
 They are the parents of two children, Charlotte 
 being eleven years of age and Martha six. 
 
 William N. M. Crawford. The practice of Mr. 
 Crawford In the Minneapolis bar, of which he has 
 been a member since 1903, has to a large degree been 
 specialized along insurance and real estate law, 
 though in the past ten years his services have been 
 retained in a large amount of general litigation. His 
 standing as a successful lawyer is too well known 
 in Hennepin” County to require further comment. 
 Mr. Crawford represents one of the pioneer families 
 of Minnesota, and its earlier members did their full 
 share in developing and establishing civilized condi- 
 tions on the northwestern border. 
 
 William Noble Miles Crawford was born April 
 20, 1872, at Becker, in Sherburne County, which 
 was the home and original point of settlement for 
 his grandparents when they pioneered to Minnesota 
 Territory. Mr. Crawford’s parents were Joseph M. 
 and Mary J. (McAllister) Crawford. His father 
 was born in New York City and his mother in 
 Whiting, Addison County, Vermont, but were mar- 
 ried in Sherburne County, Minnesota. The mother 
 came to this state when about twenty years of age, 
 some sisters having preceded her to Sherburne 
 County in 1854. Joseph M. Crawford came here 
 with his parents, Noble R. and Lucinda (Smith) 
 Crawford, both of whom were natives of Monmouth, 
 New Jersey- They settled at Becker in 1856, and 
 took up a quarter section of Government land. 
 They were attracted to that section of Minnesota 
 owing to the fertile meadows bordering the Elk 
 River. The grandmother Crawford is credited with 
 the distinction of having named the locality in which 
 they settled, and which at that time had only a few 
 other families, with the title Pleasant Valley, but 
 a number of years ago the village was named Becker 
 in honor of the Hon. George L. Becker, who had 
 surveyed the railroad through that community. The 
 grandparents Crawford spent the rest of their lives 
 at old Pleasant Valley, the grandfather passing 
 away in 1888 and the grandmother in 1892, and the 
 old farm was their burial place. Joseph M. Crawford 
 was engaged in farming until 1897 at Big Lake, in 
 Sherburne County, a locality about eight miles distant 
 from the old homestead. In the. year mentioned 
 occurred his removal to Minneapolis, where he now 
 resides, and for a number of years has followed 
 the business of stationary engineer. There were 
 three children in the family, two boys and a girl, 
 of whom Verona died in infancy, while J. Frank, 
 who was a boy of splendid physical proportions and 
 with the promise of a useful career, was drowned 
 in 1898 at the age of fifteen while swimming with 
 other boys near the Stone Arch Bridge near Min- 
 neapolis. 
 
 William N. M. Crawford was educated in the 
 public schools of Monticello, in Wright County, 
 graduating from the high school in 1894, and in the 
 following fall entering the academic department of 
 the University of Minnesota. Mr. Crawford was 
 graduated in law at the university with the degree 
 LL. B. in 1900, and was admitted to the bar June 7, 
 
 i9or. Between that time and 1903 he was employed 
 in the life insurance business by the Metropolitan 
 Life Insurance Company of Minneapolis. Since 1903 
 he has engaged in practice and has practiced alone 
 practically all the time. Mr. Crawford represents 
 the Minnesota Farmers Mutual Insurance Company 
 in looking after their assessments and law business, 
 and at the present writing has a number of cases in 
 court for this corporation client. He is the owner 
 of some city property, does some business in real 
 estate as a buyer and seller, but his operations in this 
 field are not so extensive now as formerly. 
 
 Mr. Crawford is a member of the Minneapolis 
 Athletic Club, of the Calhoun Commercial Club, the 
 Knights of Pythias, the Minnesota State Bar Asso- 
 ciation, and as one of the active republicans of his 
 part of the state was in 1910 an unsuccessful candi- 
 date for the office of county attorney of Hennepin 
 County. 
 
 On September 25, 1901, Mr. Crawford married 
 Miss Jennie G. Gronnerud of Chicago, but she was 
 born in Fredrikshald, Norway, and came to Amer- 
 ica with her parents at the age of three years. Her 
 parents, both deceased, were Soren and Marie Gron- 
 nerud. Mrs. Crawford was educated at Marshall, 
 Wisconsin. 
 
 John E. Kasner. Succeeding his honored father 
 in the office of county auditor of Benton County, 
 Mr. Kasner is giving a most effective administration 
 and is now serving his second term in this important 
 position, the while his circle of friends in his native 
 county is limited only by that of his acquaintances, 
 as he is a young man of sterling character and has 
 accounted well for himself in connection with the 
 practical responsibilities of life. 
 
 John Edward Kasner was born on his father's 
 homestead farm in Alberta Township, Benton 
 County, Minnesota, and the date of his nativity was 
 January 17, 1890. He is a son of Anthony E. and 
 Mary (Schloss) Kasner, both of whom were born in 
 West Prussia, in one of the provinces formerly a 
 part of Poland. Anthony Kasner came to America 
 in 1870 and as a man of excellent intellectual at- 
 tainments he was for some time a successful teacher 
 in the public schools of Minnesota, besides which 
 he served six years as county superintendent of the 
 schools of Benton County. Here he gained invio- 
 lable place in the confidence and esteem of the peo- 
 ple of the county and he became prominent and 
 influential in civic affairs in this county, where, as a 
 staunch supporter of the cause of the democratic 
 party, he was elected county auditor, of which office 
 he continued the incumbent fourteen years, his death 
 having occurred on the 12th of July, 1910, and his 
 widow being still a resident of Foley, both having 
 been reared in the faith of the Catholic Church, of 
 which they early became zealous communicants. 
 
 John E. Kasner is indebted to the public schools 
 of Sauk Rapids and Foley for his early educational 
 discipline and when a lad of but fourteen years he 
 began to give to his father clerical assistance in the 
 office of county auditor. After having served most 
 effectively as deputy county auditor he was naturally 
 looked upon as an eligible candidate for the office 
 which had been long and efficiently held by his 
 father, and in 1912 he was elected county auditor by 
 a gratifying majority, the best voucher for the ex- 
 cellence of his administration having been that af- 
 forded in his re-election in 1914. Mr. Kasner has 
 from the time of attaining to his legal majority been 
 

 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1563 
 
 arrayed in the ranks of the democratic party, and he 
 is a stalwart advocate of its principles and policies. 
 In their home village of Foley both he and his wife 
 are communicants of St. John's Church, and he is 
 affiliated with the Knights of Columbus, the Catholic 
 Order of Foresters and the Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks of St. Cloud, Minnesota. 
 
 On the 24th of June, 1912, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Kasner to Miss Estelle Willing, of 
 Foley, and they have one daughter, Lucille Mary. 
 
 Charles A. Dorival. For the past five years, the 
 probate interests of Houston County have been 
 under the capable administration and care of Charles 
 A. Dorival, who is one of the most popular officials 
 at the county seat. Judge Dorival has brought to 
 his present duties the experience of a well trained 
 lawyer, and also a broad sympathy and understand- 
 ing and an extreme carefulness in handling the im- 
 portant interests intrusted to his charge. 
 
 Charles A. Dorival was born in Houston County 
 at Caledonia, February 18, 1880. He is a son of N. 
 E. and Ellen (Eaton) Dorival. His grandfather, 
 John Dorival, was born on the Island of San Domin- 
 go, was brought to the United States when an infant, 
 and lived in New York State until his death. The 
 maternal grandfather, Eber Eaton, was born in New 
 York State and was a pioneer settler in Houston 
 County, Minnesota, in 1854. He followed farming, 
 and died in Houston County. In the early days he 
 had gone out to California as a gold seeker. The 
 Eaton family has been in America for many gen- 
 erations, having come originally from England, and 
 some of its members participated as soldiers on the 
 American side in the Revolutionary war. N. E. 
 Dorival, who was born in New York State in 1835 
 and died in 1900, came to Houston County in i860, 
 locating on a farm, and had a long and active career 
 in public affairs. The first winter he spent in Minne- 
 sota he served as an assistant clerk in the house of 
 representatives. In 1866 he was elected county audi- 
 tor, serving two terms, after that was register of 
 deeds, and for a number of years was a justice of 
 the peace. During the latter years of his life he was 
 engaged in the machinery and insurance business. 
 He and his wife were members of the Episcopal 
 Church. He was affiliated with the lodge and chap- 
 ter of Masonry, serving as secretary of his lodge for 
 a number of years, while in politics he was one of 
 the best known democrats in Houston County, and 
 was held in high esteem by all classes of citizens. 
 Judge Dorival's mother was born in New York 
 State in 1846, and is still living. She was married 
 in Houston County, and became the mother of six 
 children : Mrs. Mary Belding, whose husband is a 
 Caledonia merchant; Edward, who is a station 
 agent at Prosper, Minnesota; John, who lives in 
 Caledonia ; Gurth, proprietor of the Gem Theater 
 at Caledonia; Judge Dorival; and Grace, who lives 
 at home. 
 
 Judge Dorival grew up in Caledonia, was grad- 
 uated in 1898 from the high school, and took up the 
 study of law under Capt. W. H. Harries, and was 
 admitted to the bar in 1903. He was in the active 
 practice of his profession until taking up his duties 
 as probate judge. In 1909 Governor Johnson ap- 
 pointed him to the office of probate judge, and 
 since then he has been three times elected. A special 
 evidence of his high standing in local citizenship 
 is afforded by the fact that he was elected as a demo- 
 crat in a strongly republican county and by a gen- 
 
 erous majority. He gives practically all his time to 
 his office. Judge Dorival is unmarried. He is a 
 Mason and has affiliations with the lodge at Cale- 
 donia, of which he is master and with the Royal 
 Arch Chapter of Masonry. 
 
 George N. Blexrud. In November, 1914, the peo- 
 ple of Houston County returned to the office of 
 sheriff a citizen whose fitness for such responsibility 
 and honor is unquestioned, and exceptional. Sheriff 
 Blexrud has been a resident of Houston County 
 all his life, has been a practical and successful 
 farmer, and has always been noted for his honesty 
 and efficiency in every undertaking with which his 
 name has been connected. He has served in the 
 office of sheriff for a number of years, and the gen- 
 eral opinion is that no other man is better qualified 
 for his responsibilities and that no other citizen 
 could beat him when he was a candidate for the 
 place. 
 
 The Blexrud family have been identified with 
 Houston County since the earliest years of white 
 settlement in this section of Minnesota. George N. 
 Blexrud was born at Spring Grove in Houston 
 County, October 20, 1857. His father, Nels O. 
 Blexrud, was born in Norway in 1826, a son of 
 Ole Blexrud, brought his family to the United 
 States in 1850, and spent the rest of his life in 
 Houston County. Nels O. Blexrud lived in Wis- 
 consin from 1850 until his removal to Minnesota in 
 1853, and acquired a homestead in this country and 
 remained a farmer the rest of his life. He was 
 an active member of the Lutheran Church, serving 
 as an officer for a number of years, and in politics 
 was a republican. Nels O. Blexrud was married in 
 Rock County, Wisconsin, to Anna Olson, who was 
 born in Norway in 1824, and both of whose parents 
 died while crossing the ocean and were buried at 
 sea. She died in 1898. There were eight children 
 in the family, and six are still living. They are 
 mentioned briefly as follows: Mrs. O. B. Nelson, 
 whose husband is in the hardware business at 
 Spring Grove; John, a farmer in Wilmington Town- 
 ship of Houston County ; George N. ; Mrs. Crogen, 
 deceased ; Mrs. J. C. Hallum, deceased ; Mrs. Henry 
 Theis, the wife of a butter manufacturer at Easton, 
 Minnesota ; Andrew, engaged in farming in Bur- 
 leigh County, North Dakota; C. M., who occupies 
 the old homestead at Spring Grove. 
 
 George N. Blexrud grew up in the vicinity of 
 Spring Grove and was educated in that town. His 
 business career has been that of a farmer, and he 
 still owns a fine estate in the county and has been 
 unusually successful in managing the resources of 
 the soil. He has always been popular with his fel- 
 low citizens, and at the age of thirty-four began 
 directing considerable attention to public affairs. In 
 1893 he was elected to the office of sheriff, and 
 served by re-election until 1901. After that he re- 
 turned to the farm and continued its management 
 for twelve years. In 1912 came another election to 
 the office in which his competency has been so well 
 demonstrated, and in 1914 he was elected for the 
 term in which he is still engaged. 
 
 Mr. Blexrud is a member of the Lutheran Church, 
 belones to the Sons of Norway, and in politics is a 
 republican. His last election to office was by a very 
 handsome majority. In 1881 he married Lizzie 
 Johnson, who was born and reared in Houston 
 County. Their five children are: Nelson A., who 
 was born May 15. 1882, was educated in the Cale- 
 
1564 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 donia High School, was a farmer with his father 
 and later in the creamery business, and also clerk 
 in a store, and is now his father’s deputy in the 
 sheriff’s office; T. M. Blexrud is a salesman for a 
 Minneapolis house; Mrs. Walter Smith is the wife 
 of a hardware merchant at Dysart, Iowa ; Ove lives 
 on the farm ; and Odin is in the mercantile business 
 at Caledonia. 
 
 William H. Lord. Benton County has among its 
 substantial and ably managed financial institutions 
 the First National Bank of Foley, and the efficient 
 and popular cashier is he whose name introduces 
 this paragraph. 
 
 The First National Bank of Foley was organized 
 in August, 1905, and was incorporated with a capital 
 stock of $25,000. Its original executive corps was 
 as here noted: John Foley, president; Charles 
 
 Keith, vice president; and John F. Hall, cashier. The 
 bank owns and occupies its own building, which is 
 essentially modern in architecture and appointments. 
 It is a two-story brick structure, and the second 
 floor is fitted for office purposes. The bank utilized 
 the ground floor and basement, in the latter of which 
 are located the well equipped storage vaults, boxes 
 in which are rented, thus affording to the com- 
 munity exceptional facilities that are usually to be 
 found only in cities of very appreciable population. 
 The bank still bases its operations on a capital 
 stock of $25,000 and its surplus and undivided 
 profits now aggregate $17,000. Its total assets are 
 nearly $350,000; its time deposits aggregate $166,000, 
 and its individual deposits $103,000, as shown in the 
 last report rendered prior to the compilation of this 
 article. The bank building is valued at $9,300 and is 
 one of the most attractive and substantial of its 
 kind in Benton County. The present official corps 
 of this excellent institution are here designated : 
 John F. Hall, president; John E. Doheny, vice presi- 
 dent ; and William H. Lord, cashier. 
 
 William H. Lord takes due pride and satisfaction 
 in reverting to the Badger State as the place of his 
 nativity, and his loyalty to this favored common- 
 wealth has ever been unflagging, though not ex- 
 celled by his interest in the State of Minnesota, 
 which has represented his home for nearly a score 
 of years. Mr. Lord was born on a farm near Rich- 
 land Center, Richmond County, Wisconsin, on the 
 14th of November, 1871, and is a son of Edward and 
 Anna (Killoy) Lord, the father having been one of 
 the industrious and substantial farmers of that 
 county. Mr. Lord attended the public schools until 
 he had virtually completed the curriculum of the 
 high school, and thereafter he learned the art of 
 telegraphy, to which he devoted his attention for 
 ten years, having been an operator for different 
 railroads and at different places in Wisconsin and 
 Minnesota. For a time thereafter he was book- 
 keeper in a general store, and in 1898 he came to 
 Benton County and established his home at Foley, 
 where he has been cashier of the First National 
 Bank since 1907. He served four years as village 
 recorder, is a democrat in politics and is one of the 
 progressive and public-spirited citizens of the vigor- 
 ous and thriving little city in which he maintains his 
 home. He is affiliated with the Knights of Colum- 
 bus and the Catholic Order of Foresters and the 
 Modern Woodmen of America, both he and his wife 
 being communicants of the Catholic Church and 
 zealous members of the parish of St. John’s Church 
 at Foley, of which he is a trustee. 
 
 In 1901 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Lord 
 to Miss Mary Hall, daughter of William Hall, a 
 native of Almonte, Ontario, Canada, and the three 
 children of this union are Loyala, Ellen and John 
 Foley. 
 
 Hon. Francis A. Duxbury. In the scope and 
 volume of professional activities the actual and 
 acknowledged leadership in the Houston County bar 
 is held by Francis A. Duxbury, who has been in ac- 
 tive practice for the past twenty years, and is now 
 serving his second term as a member of the Minne- 
 sota State Senate. Senator Duxbury's family were 
 pioneers in Minnesota, his early life was spent on 
 a farm, and for a number of years while looking for- 
 ward to and preparing for the legal profession he 
 paid his way by successful work as a school teacher. 
 
 Francis A. Duxbury was born in Fillmore County, 
 Minnesota, April 11, 1862, a son of Richard and Mi- 
 randa M. (Barnes) Duxbury. The father was born 
 in England November 14, 1833, and died November 
 20, 1907, while the mother was born in Wisconsin 
 March 19, 1841, and died in May, 1896. The pa- 
 ternal grandfather, William Duxbury, brought his 
 family from England to the United States in 1848, 
 lived for a time in Massachusetts, and thence moved 
 to Wisconsin, where he was a farmer, and where 
 he spent his last days. The maternal grandfather, 
 Moses Barnes, was a native of Massachusetts and 
 moved out to Fillmore County, Minnesota, in 1853. 
 and was one of the very earliest to locate in that 
 vicinity, and served as the first postmaster at Big 
 Spring, and late in life moved to Marshall, where he 
 died. Richard Duxbury and wife were married at 
 Harmony, Minnesota, in 1859. From 1848 to 1857 
 he had lived at Salem, Massachusetts, and in the 
 State of Wisconsin, and on coming to Minnesota in 
 the latter year settled on a farm and was active in 
 agricultural pursuits until he retired. He was one 
 of the Minnesota volunteers during the Civil war, 
 serving in the Second Minnesota Light Artillery 
 under Major Hotchkiss for one year. Fie was a re- 
 publican, held several township offices, and was a 
 man of marked intelligence and especially well 
 versed in English history. His church connection 
 was with the Episcopal denomination, while his wife 
 was reared a Baptist. They were the parents of ten 
 children, among whom Senator Duxbury was second, 
 and the six others still living are : Mrs. A. H. Dan- 
 iels, wife of a farmer at Pine City, Minnesota; L. 
 N. Duxbury, a farmer in Fillmore County; W. R. 
 Duxbury, a St. Paul attorney ; Mrs. F. M. McGowen, 
 whose husband is a real estate man in California ; 
 F. R. Duxbury, engaged in the real estate business 
 at Pine City; and Leslie, who lives in Duluth. 
 
 Senator Duxbury completed his early education in 
 the Preston High School, and while teaching for ten 
 years kept up his study of law and was admitted to 
 the bar in 1895. In the same year he began his prac- 
 tice at Caledonia, and for ten years was associated 
 with his brother, W. R. Duxbury. For several 
 years Senator Duxbury has enjoyed the largest prac- 
 tice of any member of the Houston County bar. 
 
 For a number of years he has been active in re- 
 publican politics, and in 1910 was elected to his first 
 term in the state senate, and was returned by a sub- 
 stantial majority in 1914. Senator Duxbury is presi- 
 dent of the Caledonia State Bank, and has large land 
 interests in this state. He has done much useful 
 civic work, and among other local positions has been 
 a member of the school board. Senator Duxbury is 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1565 
 
 a past master of the Masonic lodge and past high 
 priest of the Royal Arch chapter, and is also affi- 
 liated with the Scottish Rite and the Mystic Shrine. 
 Other fraternities are the Ancient Order of United 
 Workmen, in which he has served as a member of 
 the law committee, and the Modern Woodmen of 
 America. 
 
 On October 18, 1884, Senator Duxbury married 
 Susan A. Addison, daughter of John Addison. John 
 Addison settled in Fillmore County, Minnesota, in 
 1855, and was one of the early farmers of that sec- 
 tion. Mr. and Mrs. Duxbury are the parents of two 
 sons. Lloyd L., who was born April 19, 1886, is a 
 graduate of the University of Minnesota and the 
 Harvard Law School, and is now in active practice 
 with his father. The son, Leland S., born Novem- 
 ber 14, 1888, is also a graduate of the University of 
 Minnesota and the Harvard Law School, and is now 
 practicing law at Duluth, Minnesota. 
 
 Nehemiah P. Clarke. The death of N. P. Clarke 
 at his home in St. Cloud, June 29, 1912, removed from 
 active life in Minnesota one of her distinguished 
 and useful citizens, a man of forceful character, 
 untiring industry and great success. This success 
 involved tremendous outlays of bodily as well as 
 mental energy. In practically every phase the story 
 of his career reads like a romance. 
 
 Born in Hubbardston, Massachusetts, April 8, 
 1836, Nehemiah Parker Clarke was a son of Dr. 
 Shepherd and Mary Ann (Dickinson) Clarke, of 
 Petersham, Massachusetts. His parents were mar- 
 ried in January, 1825, at. Petersham. Both died in 
 Hubbardston, the father on September 24, 1852, and 
 the mother in April, 1876. Nehemiah P. Clarke, 
 after his father’s death, went to Kentucky, where 
 he sold books for a New York firm. He returned 
 to Massachusetts in 1854, called home by the death 
 of his only brother, John F. Clarke, and shortly 
 afterwards, at the age of eighteen, turned his face 
 to the far off West. His first stopping place was 
 Detroit, Michigan, where he stayed one year in a 
 large wholesale grocery store. Next, at Fond du 
 Lac, Wisconsin, he spent one year in a hardware 
 concern, thus getting in touch with western business 
 methods. 
 
 When twenty years of age, or in 1856, Mr. Clarke 
 set out for St. Cloud, where he established first a 
 hardware store, then a general store and later built 
 up a general business, that at one time included the 
 largest lumbering interests in Minnesota — -govern- 
 ment contracts, banking and milling, real estate hold- 
 ings and many lesser enterprises. 
 
 Notwithstanding his wonderful faculty for select- 
 ing lieutenants of push similar to his own, Mr. 
 Clarke, in his earlier days, was possessed with the 
 idea that if he was not personally on the ground 
 some one would make a blunder. The result was 
 that he was continually on the go and a busier man 
 certainly rarely could be found. He was one of 
 the first to employ ox teams and wagons in the 
 transportation business from St. Cloud. Likewise 
 he was the first contractor who ever drove beef 
 on the hoof from the southwestern country to the 
 Government posts of the Northwest. On one occa- 
 sion he and his party left with eighty yoke of oxen 
 and went from St. Cloud to Fort Lincoln and later 
 to Bismarck and to the Black Hills. It was in 
 such strenuous pioneer lines of effort that he use- 
 fully and profitably expended his wonderful energies. 
 
 During all this time Mr. Clarke was accumulating 
 parcels of land adjacent to St. Cloud. No matter 
 how busy he was with other things he always found 
 time to promote the agricultural interests of Min- 
 nesota. He was long identified prominently with the 
 State Agricultural Society and was its president in 
 1885. It will be seen by the table in Chapter 19 of 
 this history that during the year of his presidency 
 the receipts of the state fair exceeded the aggregate 
 of those for the four years preceding. He was 
 mainly responsible for the presentation of the present 
 state fair grounds by Ramsey County to the com- 
 monwealth. He then went before the Legislature 
 and succeeded in getting an appropriation of $150,- 
 000 to equip the grounds. When the buildings were 
 finished it was discovered that there was a shortage 
 of something like $110,000. Mr. Clarke drew his 
 personal check for the difference and carried the 
 indebtedness until the Legislature reimbursed him. 
 
 Mr. Clarke was always interested and active in 
 politics on behalf of the republican party, whose 
 principles he earnestly supported. He was never an 
 office seeker nor an office holder, but always found 
 time amid his multifarious employments to espouse 
 the cause of men he thought worthiest to be nom- 
 inated and elected to important positions. He thus 
 wielded an important influence in shaping the policies 
 and destinies of the party in the state for more than 
 forty years. He was helpful and wise in all matters 
 of local enterprise — a sagacious counsellor and liberal 
 contributor. 
 
 With him the introduction of choice live stock 
 was a passion. Fie was willing to spend any sum 
 within his command to further the cause of educa- 
 tion and he figured the State Fair and production 
 of improved live stock as among the very first 
 essentials in educating the farmer. Though he loved 
 the din of strife for the sake of winning, there is no 
 doubt that he began the importation of Clydesdale 
 horses with a view of furnishing pure bred horses, 
 of the most valuable varieties, for actual service in 
 farming and transportation, then much needed here. 
 His greatest triumph with the Clydesdales was 
 achieved at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, 
 1893, and Minnesota profited by his success there. 
 His choice of all cattle was the Shorthorn, and his 
 success as a breeder of the “red, white and roan" 
 can only be properly gauged by a study of the 
 premium herds which have contained one, two or 
 more animals bred at Meadow Lawn. Late in his 
 more active career Mr. Clarke thought that the 
 shaggy-coated Galloway would be a valuable improv- 
 ing agent in Minnesota and immediately he set about 
 importing the best that Scotland would sell him. 
 Mr. Clarke closed out all his horses and cattle a 
 few years ago, when he found that ill health was 
 steadily wearing him down. The stories of these 
 transfers, as well as the names of the winners which 
 made the Meadow Lawn Clydesdales, Shorthorns and 
 Galloways famous, are familiar to all who keep 
 advised of such affairs. 
 
 Mr. Clarke was a member of the Minnesota Ter- 
 ritorial Pioneers’ Association and of the Old Set- 
 tlers’ Association of Stearns County. In religion 
 he was a Unitarian and the son of New England 
 exponents of that faith. Mr. Clarke was one of the 
 founders of Unity Church at St. Cloud, and actively 
 connected with its work and support. Though a 
 man of great business activity, he was devoted to 
 his home and family. He was married at Roxbury, 
 
1566 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Massachusetts, September 12, i860, to Caroline E. 
 Field. There are three children : Charlotte E., Mary 
 Ann and Ellen C. Ellen married C. F. de Golyer, 
 who died in Florida, December 6, 1895. Mrs. de 
 Golyer now resides at Evanston, Illinois. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Clarke had more than a half century of married 
 companionship, and she is still living at the home 
 in St. Cloud. 
 
 The late Mr. Clarke was active in many spheres. 
 He had strong friends throughout Minnesota in all 
 the higher business, professional, political and 
 philanthropic circles. His never-failing efforts in 
 behalf of education and the agricultural prosperity 
 of Minnesota must stand as an enduring monument 
 to him. When the great panic of 1893 struck the 
 commerce of the country like a cyclone, Mr. Clarke’s 
 payroll in the lumber mills exceeded half a million 
 dollars a month. Money could not be had, lumber 
 could not be sold, and he was shorn of substan- 
 tially everything in the lumber line that would bring 
 a dollar. Later he re-established himself, to a great 
 extent, through his agricultural and live stock inter- 
 ests. He was benevolent at wholesale. A thousand 
 acts of gentle kindness, such as the casual observer 
 would not suspect, must be credited to him, but the 
 world will never know of them in detail. He was 
 a public benefactor in his state and a staunch friend 
 in need. 
 
 Peter A. Hoffman. In the election of November, 
 1914, Mr. Hoffman was chosen as the incumbent for 
 the fourth consecutive term of the important office 
 of county auditor of Dakota County, and the special 
 excellence of his administration is the more gratify- 
 ing to note by reason of the fact that his father had 
 previously served six consecutive years in the same 
 official position and made in the same a record that 
 challenged the best efforts of the son. 
 
 At Hastings, judicial center of Dakota County, 
 Peter Albert Hoffman was born on the 30th of June, 
 1879, and he is a son of Michael and Susan (Kohler) 
 Hoffman, both natives of Germany. Michael Hoff- 
 man was born in the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, 
 where he was reared and educated, and he was a 
 youth at the time of his immigration to the United 
 States. He became one of the early settlers of Da- 
 kota County, Minnesota, and after devoting many 
 years to agricultural pursuits he established his resi- 
 dence in Hastings, the county seat, where he still 
 maintains his home. He has been prominently 
 identified with the civic and material development 
 and upbuilding of this fine little city, to which he re- 
 moved from his farm upon being elected county 
 auditor in 1895. He retained this office until 1901, 
 and his administration has passed on to record as 
 one of the best given to this department of the 
 county government in the history of Dakota County. 
 Mr. Hoffman is a stalwart in the camp of the re- 
 publican party, has long been a zealous worker in 
 behalf of its cause and political disaffection shown 
 within recent years has not caused him to lose faith 
 in the basic principles of the party. Since his re- 
 tirement from office he has been representative at 
 Hastings for the Gund Brewing Company, of La 
 Crosse, Wisconsin. His wife died in 1900 and of 
 the children, two of whom are deceased, the 
 subject of this sketch is the eldest of those now liv- 
 ing; Katherine remains with her father in the 
 pleasant family home in Hastings; Jacob is a resi- 
 dent of Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Louise is the 
 wife of Patrick F. Wajsh, of Burnsville, Dakota 
 
 County, Minnesota; Edward is a resident of Minne- 
 apolis; and Charles, Madeline, Benjamin and Marie 
 remain at the paternal home. 
 
 After duly availing himself of the advantages of 
 the public schools of Hastings Peter A. Hoffman 
 became clerk in the office of the county auditor, 
 under the administration of his father, and finally, 
 upon the resignation of James A. Jelley, on the 23d 
 of February, 1903, he was appointed to fill out the 
 latter’s unexpired term as auditor. At the ensuing 
 regular election, in 1904, his special eligibility was 
 recognized and he was elected to the office of 
 auditor, as candidate on the republican ticket. By 
 successive reelections, which have emphatically 
 testified to the efficiency and acceptability of his 
 administration, he has since continued the valued 
 incumbent of this responsible county office, his fourth 
 term having been initiated after his election in the 
 autumn of 1914. It is needless to say that he warmly 
 supports the cause of the republican party, though 
 as a public official he is signally free from partisan 
 bias, and in a fraternal way he is affiliated with the 
 Knights of Columbus, the Catholic Order of For- 
 esters, the Woodmen of the World, and the Ancient 
 Order of United Workmen. He is a communicant 
 of the Catholic Church. 
 
 In the year 1900 was solemnized the marriage of 
 Mr. Hoffman to Miss Maude Barnum, who was 
 born and reared at Hastings and whose parents, 
 Charles L. and Emily (Behrman) Barnum, both now 
 deceased, were honored residents of Dakota County 
 for many years. Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman have two 
 children — Harold Jacob, born in August, 1901, and 
 Peter, born in August, 1903. 
 
 John D. MacPhee. One of the men who have 
 been most prominent in the past thirty-six years in 
 the agricultural development and enterprise of the 
 Red River Valley of the North is John D. MacPhee 
 of Crookston. Mr. MacPhee has developed the 
 agricultural resources of many thousands of acres 
 in this section of Minnesota, and still has large 
 interests and is also a prominent figure in the civic 
 affairs of Polk County. 
 
 J. D. MacPhee was born May 14, 1855, on a farm 
 near Paisley, Bruce County, Ontario, Canada. His 
 parents were John and Hester (Galbraith) Mac- 
 Phee, who emigrated from the highlands of Scot- 
 land about the year 1848. After growing up on an 
 Ontario timber farm Mr. MacPhee came to the 
 Minnesota Red River Valley in the spring of 1879, 
 and has resided in the valley since that time, most 
 of the time being connected with the Keystone 
 Farm Company and the Lockhart Farm Company as 
 foreman and manager. In 1902, when these large 
 farms were sold and divided into smaller farms, 
 Mr. MacPhee became a resident of the City of 
 Crookston, where he has served as mayor two terms, 
 and was the first mayor under the new home rule 
 charter. In 1912 he was elected for a term of four 
 years as a county commissioner of Polk County. 
 He is known in fraternal orders, being a member 
 of the Masonic Lodge, the Modern Woodmen of 
 America and the Benevolent and Protective Order 
 of Elks, Lodge No. 342, of Crookston, which he 
 served as exalted ruler for two terms, and was 
 district deputy G. E. R. for Minnesota North under 
 J. U. Sammis, grand exalted ruler. 
 
 In 1888 Mr. MacPhee was married to Susan 
 Cheney, of Euclid, Minnesota, but a native of Belle- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1567 
 
 vue, Iowa. They have an adopted daughter. Lucy 
 C. MacPhee. 
 
 Lewellington D. Peck, M. D. The position of 
 Doctor Peck in Hastings is that of the successful 
 physician and surgeon, a man of broad interests and 
 views and high standing in his profession, and 
 already possessed of an individual success which 
 enabled him to serve increasingly the interests and 
 welfare of the community. 
 
 Lewellington D. Peck was born at Rochester, 
 Minnesota, August 22, 1877, son of Benjamin and 
 Emma (Rose) Peck. His father was a native of 
 Wisconsin, and his mother of Rochester, Minne- 
 sota. The father was one of the most suc- 
 cessful farmers in the vicinity of Rochester, and 
 four years before his death retired and spent 
 his last days in Rochester. He left one of the 
 finest farms in that vicinity, and also owned residence 
 property in Rochester. He was a man of thorough 
 integrity and long occupied a position of influence 
 in that vicinity. The mother is still living and has 
 her home with her daughter, Hazel, in Herbert, 
 Saskatchewan, Canada. There are five children : 
 Percy, who died in the winter of 1913 at the age 
 of twenty-five; Dr. L. D.; Ralph, who is a merchant 
 at Bainville, Montana; Hazel, wife of John Chris- 
 tianson of Herbert, Saskatchewan ; and Anna, a 
 student in the University of Minnesota. 
 
 Doctor Peck was educated in the public schools 
 of Rochester, and after leaving high school became 
 a student in the literary department of the Univer- 
 sity of Minnesota and in, 1898 entered the College 
 of Physicians and Surgeons at Minneapolis, where 
 he was graduated in medicine and surgery with the 
 class of 1902. His practice began in the fall of the 
 same year at Hastings, and in twelve years he has 
 risen to a point where he is regarded by the com- 
 munity and his associates as one of the ablest and 
 most popular members of the medical fraternity. 
 Doctor Peck is a member of the Ramsey County 
 Medical Society and the American Medical Associa- 
 tion, served for twelve years as county physician of 
 Dakota County, and is local surgeon for the Mil- 
 waukee & St. Paul Railroad. He is a charter mem- 
 ber of the Commercial Club at Hastings, belongs to 
 the Knights of Columbus, and he and his wife are 
 members of the' Catholic Church. Politically he is 
 a republican, but practically all his time is given 
 to his professional interests, and he has never 
 served in any formal political office. 
 
 Doctor 'Peck was married in 1904, at Hastings, to 
 Miss Catherine M. Fasbender. She was born in 
 Hastings, a daughter of Peter and Catherine (Frei- 
 muth) Fasbender. They were pioneer residents of 
 Dakota County, and Mrs. Peck for several years 
 before her marriage was a popular teacher in the 
 public schools of Hastings. They are the parents 
 of two children : Llewellyn Peck, born May 18, 1895, 
 and Catherine Bernice, born July 12, 1907. Mrs. 
 Peck is an active member of the Community and 
 Women’s clubs. 
 
 Melvin G. Peters. The thriving little city of 
 Mantorville, judicial center of Dodge County, claims 
 its full quota of energetic, reliable and progressive 
 business men, and among the number is found Mr. 
 Peters, who has the distinction of being one of the 
 most venerable of those still engaged in active 
 business in this place and who is entitled to be 
 designated as one of the sterling pioneer citizens 
 
 of Dodge County, where he has maintained his home 
 for half a century and where his circle of friends 
 is coincident with that of his acquaintances. 
 
 Mr. Peters claims the fine old Buckeye State as 
 the place of his nativity. He was born in Lorain 
 County, Ohio, on the 1st of July, 1838, and is a son 
 of William and Eliza (Terrill) Peters, who passed 
 the closing years of their lives in the State of 
 Wisconsin. In his native county Mr. Peters was 
 reared to the age of eight years and the family then 
 removed to the State of New York, where he was 
 afforded the advantages of the common schools 
 during the ensuing eight years. In 1854 his parents 
 removed to Green Lake County, Wisconsin, and he 
 was a lad of sixteen years at this time, so that he 
 did not deny himself further privileges for education, 
 as he continued his studies in the pioneer schools 
 of the Badger State, where he continued to be 
 identified with agricultural pursuits until 1864. In 
 the year last mentioned Mr. Peters came to Dodge 
 County, Minnesota, and established his residence in 
 Concord Township, where he developed a fine farm 
 and aided materially in the industrial and civic 
 progress and upbuilding of the county. He still 
 owns a valuable landed estate of 2,225 acres and is 
 one of the substantial capitalists of the county that 
 has long represented his home. His life has been 
 guided and guarded by the highest principles of 
 integrity and honor and his success has been won 
 by earnest and honest industry and good manage- 
 ment. 
 
 Mr. Peters continued to reside on his homestead 
 farm until 1880, when he was elected register of 
 deeds, a preferment which necessitated his removal 
 to Mantorville, the county seat, where he has since 
 resided. At the expiration of his term of office Mr. 
 Peters purchased the hardware business of Charles 
 Wells, and he has since given his personal super- 
 vision to this enterprise, which has become one of 
 substantial scope and representative order under his 
 effective management. His establishment is well 
 equipped in all departments and fair and honorable 
 dealings have conserved the success of his business, 
 no citizen having in more unqualified degree the 
 confidence and esteem of the local public. Besides 
 his business building Mr. Peters owns the attractive 
 and thoroughly modern residence which was erected 
 by him at Mantorville in the year 1904 and the home 
 is known for its gracious hospitality. 
 
 In politics Mr. Peters is a stalwart and well forti- 
 fied advocate of the cause of the republican party, 
 to which he has given allegiance from the time of 
 casting his first presidential vote. He is a member 
 of the Congregational Church, with a faith that is 
 shown in good works and kindly deeds and he is 
 affiliated with the Masonic fraternity. He has served, 
 and with characteristic loyalty, as a member of the 
 city council of Mantorville, and in a recent election 
 he exerted much influence in bringing about the 
 abolishment of all saloons in this attractive little 
 city. 
 
 In i860 Mr. Peters wedded Eliza A. Ells, and she 
 passed the closing years of her life in Dodge County, 
 having come to Minnesota with her husband within 
 a few years after their marriage. She was survived 
 by two children, Inez, who is the wife of John F. 
 Morris, postmaster of Mantorville, and Cyril, who 
 died in his twenty-first year. In 1880 was solemnized 
 the marriage of Mr. Peters to Elizabeth M. Moore 
 of Concord, Dodge County, and she was summoned 
 to the life eternal in June, 1910, leaving no children. 
 
1568 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Since her death the family home has had as its 
 chatelaine Mr. Peters’ only daughter, Mrs. Morris, 
 and she and her husband are prominent and popular 
 factors in the social activities of their home city. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus College. In the year 1862 
 there was originated a movement, growing out of 
 the desire on the part of the Swedish people of 
 Minnesota and adjoining states to provide a higher 
 and Christian education for their young people, to 
 found an institution which should include in its 
 curriculum a thorough, liberal education, based 
 upon and permeated by the principles of Christianity 
 as confessed by the Lutheran Church. It was little 
 thought, when the temporary elementary school was 
 first organized at Red Wing, Minnesota, by Rev. 
 E. Norelius, D. D., that this was to grow into one 
 of the leading institutions of the Northwest, not 
 alone a college of learning which was to send forth 
 its graduates to the highest positions in the various 
 walks of life, but a powerful moral force which 
 would exert a wonderful influence in the advance- 
 ment of religion and morality, as well as in the 
 fostering of good citizenship. 
 
 Gustavus Adolphus College was incorporated in 
 1875 and located at St. Peter, but prior to that, in 
 1863, the Minnesota Conference had established an 
 academy with a corps of teachers and moved the 
 school to East Union Congregation, Carver, Min- 
 nesota. Before 1890 the students were sent to 
 Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois, to finish 
 their courses and graduate with the degree of 
 bachelor of arts, but since that year the college 
 has finished courses and graduated annually. The 
 college is supported by the Minnesota Conference 
 of the Augustana Synod of North America, and the 
 general movement is vested in a board of directors 
 elected by the said conference. The aim of the 
 institution is to provide a college of liberal arts, a 
 preparatory department, a school of commerce, and 
 a school of music, all courses to be open to both 
 sexes. The immediate government of the college 
 is vested in the faculty, the permanently elected 
 teachers of the college constituting its voting mem- 
 bers. The faculty lays down such rules as are 
 deemed necessary for the inner government of the 
 institution, draws up the courses of study in all 
 classes and departments, and presents them to the 
 board of directors for ratification. 
 
 The college is charmingly located in the City of 
 St. Peter, on the Chicago & Northwestern and the 
 Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha railways, 
 seventy-five miles southwest from the twin cities, 
 St. Paul and Minneapolis. The city is pleasantly 
 located in the broad valley of the Minnesota River, 
 has a population of about 4,000, is exceptionally salu- 
 brious and is supplied with an excellent system of 
 waterworks, electric lights, a modern telephone ex- 
 change. and other up-to-date improvements, thus 
 combining the advantages of some of the larger 
 cities with the good order, freedom and sociability 
 of the smaller communities. 
 
 Rev. Oscar J. Johnson, president of Luther College, 
 Wahoo, Nebraska, was elected president of Gustavus 
 Adolphus College in February, 1913, and entered 
 upon his new duties on July 13th of the same year. 
 The other administrative officers are : J. A. Edquist, 
 registrar; Conrad Peterson, secretary of faculty; 
 Edith Knock, librarian, and Ernest Hallander, jani- 
 tor. The board of directors of the college are as 
 follows: Rev. C. E. Benson, Stillwater; Rev. A. T. 
 
 Lundholm, St. James; O. N. Johnson, Gibbon; Prof. 
 A. A. Stomberg, University of Minnesota, president 
 of the board, Minneapolis; Rev. C. Swenson, New 
 London ; Rev. O. A. Elmquist, Minneapolis ; Hon. 
 C. J. Swendsen, Minneapolis ; Prof. P. M. Mag- 
 nusson, Ph. D., State Normal School, St. Cloud; 
 Rev. C. E. Cesander, Sioux Falls, South Dakota; 
 Rev. C. Solomonson, Minneapolis; Victor E. Law- 
 son, Willmar; Senator H. N. Benson, St. Peter. 
 
 From the college quarterly, the Gustavus Adol- 
 phus College Bulletin, of November, 1912, we are 
 allowed to copy the following: “Since celebrating 
 
 our semi-centennial Jubilee Festival last May, Mr. 
 James J. Hill has come forth with the proposition 
 that he will donate to Gustavus Adolphus College 
 $50,000 for a permanent endowment of $250,000 to 
 be raised bv May, 1914. Before this promise was 
 given uy Mr. Hill, Col. C. A. Smith had offered 
 $50,000 towards a similar endowment of $250,000 to 
 be raised by New Year, 1914. Colonel Smith has 
 again started the ball rolling for dear Gustavus 
 Adolphus. It is indeed ' not the first time he has 
 befriended the college. $100,000 is not all that we 
 have towards this $250,000 endowment fund. We 
 have already received through various channels some 
 $30,000 in cash money, which is invested in first 
 mortgages on farm lands bringing in revenues. Thus 
 we have over one-half of the total amount demanded 
 by the above-named donators. Hitherto the college has 
 depended for financial support mainly on the yearly 
 benefactions that have come from the Swedish 
 Lutheran Churches of Minnesota and surrounding 
 states. But the college is growing in importance 
 and the demands made upon her require a larger 
 and a more permanent income, so that the staff 
 of teachers can be strengthened and more perma- 
 nently retained and the laboratories and library 
 enlarged. 
 
 “Gustavus Adolphus College has proven a great 
 factor to build up church and state in the Northwest 
 and especially so. among the Swedish people, and 
 has made a splendid history; but her function for 
 the future is still greater. The present generation 
 and the coming generations will use and need the 
 denominational college more than ever before. The 
 state universities and higher state schools are flooded 
 with students, and besides cannot equal smaller 
 colleges in personal attention and development of 
 character, which ought to be a primary object of 
 education.” 
 
 Later, the students’ paper, College Breezes, re- 
 marked as follows: “Mayor Dick of St. Peter 
 vouched for the deep interest of St. Peter in its 
 college and lauded the work of the G. A. alumni. 
 He congratulated the leaders in the endowment work, 
 upon the splendid results of their great campaign.” 
 It is perhaps unnecessary to add that the fund was 
 easily collected, and that the $250,000 necessary was 
 far exceeded. In this connection the following 
 interesting letter was received : “State of Minne- 
 
 sota, Executive Department, St. Paul. May 9, 1914. 
 Adolph O. Eberhart, Governor. Editor-in-Chief, 
 College Breezes, Gustavus Adolphus College, St. 
 Peter, Minnesota. My dear Friend : Just a word 
 of greeting to the friends and members of the 
 Alumni Association throughout the state. This has 
 been a memorable year in the history of our college. 
 The establishment of an endowment fund will not 
 only permanently secure the college from a financial 
 standpoint, but will add hosts of friends and sup- 
 porters to our college everywhere. While I have 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1569 
 
 assisted in securing the larger contributions, I expect 
 to do a great deal more hereafter. Had I exhausted 
 my efforts earlier we would not have been able to 
 secure the generous response from smaller con- 
 tributors throughout the state. The committee in 
 charge of these subscriptions is entitled to most 
 hearty congratulations for its efficient work. I have 
 already made plans for securing additional sums 
 in larger amounts and feel sure that I shall be 
 successful. I hope the members of the Alumni 
 Association will assist in every way possible, because 
 the greatest strength of any educational association 
 is the loyal and active support of its Alumni Asso- 
 ciation. Very Sincerely Yours, A. O. Eberhart. 
 Governor.” 
 
 Rev. Jacob Uhler, A. M., Ph. D., vice president 
 of Gustavus Adolphus College, was born at Stocker- 
 town, Northampton County, Pennsylvania. At the 
 age of fifteen years he entered the normal school at 
 Kutztown, Pennsylvania, where he prepared for col- 
 lege, and when eighteen years old taught his first 
 term of school at Martin’s Creek, Pennsylvania. The 
 following year he entered Lafayette College, from 
 which institution he was graduated in 1877. During 
 his senior year at college and the year following 
 his graduation, he taught classics and mathematics 
 at the college preparatory school of Easton, Penn- 
 sylvania, and in 1878 entered the Lutheran Theo- 
 logical Seminary at Philadelphia, where he pursued 
 a course of three years in theology, and during that 
 time received two calls to professorship, one from 
 Gustavus Adolphus College and the other from the 
 Keystone State Normal School, the latter being 
 accepted. There he filled the chair of higher 
 mathematics and preached to 500 students every 
 Sunday. After a year the call to Gustavus Adolphus 
 College was repeated, and this time with success, 
 for Doctor Uhler accepted and has been active in 
 the discharge of his duties here ever since. A man 
 of deep and comprehensive learning, he possesses 
 peculiar attributes which fit him eminently for the 
 work of an educator. 
 
 Rev. Oscar J. Johnson, B. D., was born at Cle- 
 burne, Kansas, October 8, 1870. He attended 
 Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas, and took his 
 college and seminary course at Augustana College, 
 Rock Island, Illinois, where he was graduated from 
 the seminary in 1899. His first charge was McKees- 
 port, Pennsylvania, where he stayed three years. 
 He left this charge to take up work as an educator. 
 In 1901 he accepted the position of president of 
 Luther College, Wahoo, Nebraska. He had charge 
 of this college for twelve years, during which time 
 the attendance was more than doubled at the college, 
 and funds for buildings amounting to over $40,000 
 ■were raised by him. During his stay at Wahoo he 
 also had charge of the local church. 
 
 In 1913 he was tendered a call by the Minnesota 
 Conference to the presidency of Gustavus Adolphus 
 College and accepted same, assuming his duties in 
 July, 1913. He at once enlisted in the endowment 
 fund campaign and in May, 1914, the goal was 
 reached when an endowment of $265,000 was on 
 hand. During his administration some important 
 changes have been made. A number of new teachers 
 have been secured and further additions are con- 
 templated. 
 
 The college has many prominent alumni, among 
 which should be mentioned Ex-Gov. Adolph Eber- 
 hart, who has been governor of Minnesota two 
 terms; Hon. Thomas H. Johnson, minister of public 
 
 . works, Winnipeg, Canada ; Dr. P. A. Mattson, presi- 
 dent Minnesota Conference, and others. A great 
 number have gone into the ministry and are today 
 numbered among the pioneers in the Lutheran mis- 
 sionary work of the Northwest. 
 
 The college has a bright future before it and its 
 mission in the future will be greater than it has 
 been in the past. No institution has been estab- 
 lished which will quite take the place of the 
 denominational college. We need this type of col- 
 lege for the sake of efficient leadership in the church, 
 for the sake of the home and social life of our 
 people and for the sake of the great cause of educa- 
 tion in America. 
 
 Maj. Silas Howell Towler. As generation suc- 
 ceeds generation in American history there will be 
 an ever increasing interest in and respect paid to 
 those men and boys who in the flush of youth gave 
 their services to the cause of a united nation. Now, 
 after a lapse of half a century, the survivors of that 
 impressive conflict are more than ever objects of 
 patriotic regard and affection. 
 
 For many years S. H. Towler of Minneapolis has 
 been a prominent figure in the various patriotic 
 organizations of the state, while in civil life his 
 relations with business in his home city have brought 
 him substantial success. His career is one of more 
 than casual interest. 
 
 An Ohio man by birth, and in 1901 honored with 
 the office of president of the Ohio Association of 
 Minneapolis, Mr. Towler was born, January 3, 
 1846, at Xenia, a town with which his family was 
 identified as pioneers. His is old and substantial 
 American stock, Christopher Towler having come to 
 America about 1700 and became a planter and slave- 
 holder in the Colony of Virginia, James Towler, the 
 grandfather, having been convinced of the iniquity 
 of human slavery and understanding its blighting 
 influence on industry, sold his Virginia plantation, 
 freed his slaves, and in 1804 moved to Ohio, only 
 three years after it became a state and when its 
 population was still concentrated in the counties 
 bordering the Ohio River. He built the first hewed 
 log house in the Town of Xenia, and was a man of 
 unusual influence and activities in that community. 
 He was a lay preacher in the Protestant Methodist 
 Church and the first postmaster of Xenia. 
 
 Even more noteworthy as. a man of character and 
 usefulness was Mr. Towler’s ■ father. Dr. Thomas 
 Sturrock Towler, who was five years old when the 
 family left Petersburg, Virginia, and came to the 
 Ohio frontier. At the age of thirteen he acted as 
 a guide to soldiers in the War of 1812. His early 
 studies were pursued under James P. Espy, widely 
 known in his time as “the Storm King,” and later 
 studied medicine under Dr. Daniel Drake and began 
 practice at Cincinnati. The chief interest in his 
 career centers in his intense anti-slavery activities. 
 He used his influence and voice so earnestly that on 
 one occasion a party of Kentuckians threatened to 
 tar and feather him, though without effect on his 
 subsequent course. In Green County, Ohio, he 
 organized the free soil party and led it to victory 
 at the polls. The organization of the republican 
 party found him allied with its cause, and he re- 
 mained true to its principles until his death in 
 1874 at a good old age. During the war he was com- 
 missioned surgeon of dragoons in the state troops. 
 His service as an educator and scholar was also 
 
1570 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 remarkable, considering his activities in other direc- 
 tions. He established at Xenia a school for the 
 advanced education of youth and later a ladies’ 
 seminary. Among his students he was affection- 
 ately known as “Old Moral Basis.” His report on 
 his explorations of the geological formations in 
 Green County was incorporated in the state geolo- 
 gist’s reports. He was one of the pioneers in the 
 temperance movements, and was instrumental in 
 securing the passage of a law in the Legislature 
 granting local option to the Town of Fulton, later 
 merged in the larger city of Cincinnati. This was 
 probably the first local option act in America, and 
 its successful working led the way in such legisla- 
 tion. Doctor Towler married Jane White Howell, 
 who was connected with some of the wealthiest and 
 most prominent Ohio families of the time. She was 
 a woman of noble character and a devout Christian. 
 Jane White Howell, according to recent genealogi- 
 cal researches, is found to have been a descendant of 
 Edward Howell, the first of the Howell family in 
 America. Edward Howell was made a freeman of 
 Boston, March 14, 1639, and had a grant of 500 acres 
 at Lynn. Later he removed to Long Island and was 
 magistrate, and a member of the Colonial Legislature. 
 His coat of arms was carved in the capital at Albany, 
 commemorating the fact that he was the first Eng- 
 lish settler in the now State of New York. Her 
 mother’s father, Maj. Jacob Arnold, of Morristown, 
 New Jersey, was the owner of General Washington’s 
 headquarters while at Morristown, and was major 
 in the light cavalry attached to Washington’s 
 headquarters. 
 
 With such antecedents it was only natural that 
 the early life of Silas H. Towler was encompassed 
 with the best of influences. In part he is a product 
 of an old-time log schoolhouse, which he attended 
 up to his eleventh year, but most of his education 
 was acquired at home, where he was instructed by 
 his parents and came into contact with many promi- 
 nent men of the time and locality. Afterward he 
 attended graded schools and high school one year. 
 
 In the spring of 1862, at the age of sixteen, and 
 with the consent of his father, he enlisted in Com- 
 pany H of the Eighty-fifth Ohio Volunteer Infantry 
 for three months. Volunteers were called to resist 
 the invasion by General Morgan, and his company 
 responded and went to Frankfort, Kentucky. While 
 there Mr. Towler was stricken with typhoid fever, 
 but in less than four weeks had recovered and 
 rejoined his regiment and went with it to Covington 
 to repel Kirby Smith’s threatened attack on Cincin- 
 nati. After his discharge and two months spent at 
 home he was the first recruit enlisted for the Twenty- 
 second Battery of the Ohio Volunteer Light Artil- 
 lery. This time his father was opposed to his enlist- 
 ment, and it was by a subterfuge that he secured his 
 father’s signature to blank forms of consent. He 
 was placed in charge of the first squad of recruits, 
 and was able to hold them together during the 
 winter with only two desertions. In the spring, 
 enough recruits having been obtained to man four 
 guns, the battery was ordered to West Virginia. 
 Their services not being required, they returned to 
 Camp Chase, but were soon ordered to Parkersburg, 
 West Virginia, and being joined by other troops, 
 proceeded to the Potomac to assist in harassing Lee 
 on his retreat from Gettysburg. But they arrived 
 only in time to see the rear guard of the enemy 
 crossing the river. Mr. Towler was then ordered 
 
 to take one gun on board the steamer Emma Graham 
 and proceed to a fording place on the Ohio at the 
 mouth of the Little Hocking River. Arriving there- 
 he was put in command of a large number of 
 farmers congregated to repel Morgan. As the in- 
 vader did not come that way, Mr. Towler, with two 
 guns, and supported by a company of the Eighty- 
 eighth Ohio, patroled the Ohio until news came of 
 the Confederate leader’s capture. On his return to 
 Camp Thomas, near Columbus, the battery, which 
 up to that time had not been officially organized, was 
 formally mustered into the United States service. 
 Mr. Towler was only a private soldier, but from the 
 fact that he had command of two guns was called 
 sergeant. After the muster in the battery was 
 ordered to Camp Nelson, near Nicholsville, Ken- 
 tucky, and attached to a brigade under the command 
 of John De Courcey, colonel of the Sixteenth Ohio 
 Infantry. The battery assisted in the capture of 
 Cumberland Gap, and was then stationed at the Gap 
 as part of the garrison. In January, 1864, Mr. 
 Towler was ordered to accompany the captain of 
 the battery, Henry M. Neil, to Ohio on recruiting 
 duty. During their absence Captain Neil resigned, 
 and Mr. Towler was commissioned second lieutenant 
 and later to first lieutenant of the battery. After 
 rejoining the battery he was detailed as adjutant of 
 the artillery battalion formed from the independent 
 batteries manning the forts. Later, being placed in 
 command of his old battery, he was ordered to take 
 it to Knoxville, Tennessee. Not long after reaching 
 that post, as a result of scanty rations and improper 
 diet, he suffered from acute dysentery, and only his 
 strong constitution pulled him through, since the 
 surgeon had pronounced his case hopeless. While 
 with the garrison at Knoxville, Lieutenant Towler 
 was detailed on boards of survey to inspect and pass 
 upon the serviceablenesg of ordnance, quartermaster 
 and commissary stores, and to sit as a member of 
 the general court martial of the district of East 
 Tennessee. He remained on the latter detail until 
 July, 1865, when the battery was ordered to Camp 
 Chase, Ohio, for muster out. 
 
 His return home found him still a young man 
 under age, and his first move was to take a course 
 of instruction in a business college. His active 
 career began in the grocery trade, and strict atten- 
 tion to duty and thorough honesty won him the 
 confidence of his employers and eventually brought 
 him success. The grocery business was his regular 
 line until 1889, both in wholesale and retail, for a 
 time being a member of the firm of E. E. Shedd & 
 Company of Columbus. 
 
 In 1884 Mr. Towler came to Minneapolis, being 
 under contract with Murray, Warner & Company, 
 wholesale grocery. Since 1889 Mr. Towler has been 
 engaged in the laundry business. He acquired the 
 Minneapolis Steam Laundry, which was the first 
 laundry of the kind established in this city. After 
 a fire which destroyed the plant on June 24, 1912, 
 Mr. Towler bought out the Art Laundry and con- 
 solidated the two establishments under the name 
 Minneapolis Art Laundries. 
 
 For many years Mr. Towler has devoted himself 
 unselfishly to the interests and welfare of the old 
 soldiers, and there is no one more entitled to their 
 respect and esteem. His standing is shown by 
 numerous honors paid him by his old comrades. 
 For twelve years, from 1897 to 1909, he was on ffhe 
 board of trustees of the Minnesota Soldiers’ Home, 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1571 
 
 and was president of the board from 1899 to 1909. 
 A companion of the Military Order of the Loyal 
 Legion, he has served as junior and senior vice 
 commander of the Minnesota Commandery and as 
 commander in 1913, being the only member ever 
 promoted directly from senior vice to commander. 
 Mr. Towler was adjutant general of the Grand 
 Army of the Republic in 1901-02, was junior vice 
 commander in chief in 1905-06, and chief of staff in 
 1909-10. He is a member of John A. Rawlins Post 
 No. 126. His military service was in three different 
 armies, Army of West Virginia, Army of the Ohio 
 and Army of the Cumberland, and he is therefore 
 entitled to wear the badges and colors of all of 
 them. 
 
 Mr. Towler is a member of the National . Geo- 
 graphic Society; was one of the committee for the 
 celebration of one hundred years’ peace between 
 LTnited States and Great Britain; one of the founders 
 of the Gettysburg Peace Monument Association ; 
 and a charter member of the Appomattox Memorial 
 Association. He is also one of the board of direc- 
 tors of the Children’s Home Society of Minnesota. 
 
 He is one of Minnesota’s prominent Masons. 
 He is a life member of Magnolia Lodge No. 20, 
 A. F. & A. M., at Columbus, Ohio, being worshipful 
 master in 1874; is a member of Ark Chapter, R. A. 
 M. ; has been commander of Minneapolis Mounted 
 Commandery, K. T., and is now grand junior warden 
 of the Grand Commandery of Minnesota Knights 
 Templar; and affiliated with Zuhrah Temple of the 
 Nobles of the Mystic Shrine at Minneapolis. He 
 is an active member of Park Avenue Congregational 
 Church, being a member of its board of trustees 
 and formerly its chairman. For a number of years 
 Mr. Towler has been president of the Portland 
 Avenue Improvement Association, which was in- 
 corporated in May, 1884, and is the oldest in the 
 City of Minneapolis organized for local improve- 
 ments. 
 
 November 21, 1871, Mr. Towler married Miss 
 Mary J. Lonnis. Eight of their nine children are 
 living: Dora A. died in 1909; Mertie L. is the wife 
 of Rev. John G. Briggs, of Owatonna, Minnesota; 
 Mary Belle, a graduate of the University of Minne- 
 sota and of Columbia University in the class of 1912, 
 is now teacher of household art in the Central High 
 School in Minneapolis ; Lucy is the wife of S. H. 
 Plummer, assistant cashier of the Northwestern 
 National Bank of Minneapolis; Edna E. is a teacher 
 in the city public schools ; Robert S., connected with 
 the Commercial National Bank of Minneapolis; 
 David K. is a civil engineer ; George H. and Henry 
 L. are both associated with their father in the 
 laundry business. 
 
 Olaf Ramstad. The Citizens Bank of Thief 
 River Falls, which was organized in October, 1903, 
 by Olaf Ramstad, has been a growing institution for 
 twelve years, has been a useful factor in the business 
 relations of this section of Minnesota, and through 
 its substantial character and the personnel of its 
 chief officers and directors has merited the thorough 
 confidence which it enjoys. When organized the 
 capital stock of the bank was $20,000. At the present 
 time it has a capital stock of $50,000, with surplus 
 of $2,500, but the chief index of its growth and 
 standing in the community is the item representing 
 deposits, which aggregate $400,000. This bank pays 
 4 per cent on savings deposits, and 5 per cent on 
 
 time certificates of deposit. Mr. Olaf Ramstad is 
 president, with T. L. Melgaard as cashier, with 
 Louis Hanson as vice president, and Charles W. 
 Vorechek as assistant cashier. This bank has re- 
 cently added to Thief River Falls its most conspicu- 
 ous and handsome business structure, a new concrete 
 block, 1 15 by 75 feet, two stories, furnishing banking 
 quarters 34 by 75 feet, and also space for store rooms 
 and with offices and auditorium on the second floor. 
 *^ r ; R arns tad and Mr. Melgaard put up this notable 
 building, and it is furnished in all the most modern 
 equipment. The bank offices are especially modern, 
 with marble and mahogany trimmings, and one of 
 the modern features of the bank is its safety 
 deposit vaults with individual boxes for the cus- 
 tomers. 
 
 Olaf Ramstad, whose success as a business man 
 and banker is well understood from the fact that 
 he is president of this institution, is an example 
 of a Norwegian boy who came to this country with- 
 out friends and without resources and has steadily 
 worked his way to influence and position. He was 
 born in Norway, August 11, 1862, a sc*i of Sylvester 
 and Marit Ramstad. His father was a farmer. 
 
 The son received some education in the public schools 
 of Norway, and at the age of nineteen started out 
 alone to seek his fortune in the New World. He 
 arrived in the Red River Valley of Minnesota with 
 only enough money to supply his immediate neces- 
 sities, and in the vicinity of Ada spent two years 
 on a farm. Two seasons he spent in buying grain, 
 and then for twelve years was engaged in general 
 merchandising. Mr. Ramstad came to Thief River 
 Falls in 1902, and for a short time bought and 
 shipped horses. He took the lead in organizing the 
 Citizens State Bank in 1903, and served as one of its 
 board of directors until elected president in January, 
 1905- He is also president of the Citizens Security 
 Company, and does considerable business in real 
 estate, live stock and other dealings. 
 
 Mr. Ramstad was honored with a place on the 
 city council in 1908-09 and is president of the Ceme- 
 tery Commission. He is a member of the Commer- 
 cial Club, is treasurer of the United Lutheran 
 Church and takes an earnest and effective part in all 
 local affairs. 
 
 In April, 1897, at Ada, Minnesota, Mr. Ramstad 
 married Emily Larson. They are the parents of 
 two daughters. Ila is the wife of W. A. Reynolds 
 of Eugene, Oregon. Charlotte is the wife of Oscar 
 Sponhim, who is cashier of the Peoples Bank at 
 Thief River Falls. 
 
 Thomas P. Moran. For a quarter of a century 
 the representative citizen of Hastings whose name 
 introduces this review has held the office of judge 
 of probate of Dakota County, and further than this 
 statement there is needed no testimonial to the un- 
 qualified confidence and esteem in which he is held 
 in this favored Minnesota County. His administra- 
 tion of the affairs of the Probate Court has been 
 marked by scrupulous and characteristic care and 
 discrimination, and the records of the office have 
 become of model order under his regime. Further 
 interest attaches to his career by reason of the fact 
 that he is a native of Dakota County and a scion 
 of a sterling pioneer family that settled' in Minnesota 
 in the pioneer days. 
 
 Judge Thomas Paul Moran was born in Rose- 
 mount Township, Dakota County, Minnesota, on the 
 31st of July. 1856, about two years prior to the 
 
1572 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 admission of the state to the Union. He is a son 
 of Patrick and Katherine (Sheridan) Moran, both 
 natives of fine old County Mayo, Ireland. Patrick 
 Moran immigrated to the United States and settled 
 in New York City in the early ’50s, and shortly 
 afterward was solemnized his marriage to Miss 
 Katherine Sheridan. About one year later the young 
 couple came to the West, and after residing two 
 years in Peoria, Illinois, they came to Minnesota, 
 in the autumn of 1854. Patrick Moran entered 
 claim to a tract of Government land in Rosemount 
 Township, Dakota County, where he set to himself 
 the herculean task of reclaiming a farm from the 
 wilderness. He and his wife lived up to the full 
 tension of pioneer hardships and toil, and with the 
 passing years definite prosperity attended their ef- 
 forts. Their old homestead was developed into a 
 productive farm and there they continued to reside 
 until 1873, when they sold the property and pur- 
 chased a large farm in Empire Township, about 
 midway between the villages of Farmington arid 
 Rosemount. There Patrick Moran continued his 
 operations as »one of the extensive and representa- 
 tive farmers of this section of the state until his 
 death, in 1904, at the venerable age of eighty-four 
 years. He was a man of unassuming worth of 
 character, generous and kindly in all of the relations 
 of life, and both he and his wife held the affectionate 
 regard of all who came within the sphere of their 
 gracious influence, both having been devout com- 
 municants of the Catholic Church, and Mr. Moran 
 having been a stanch democrat in his political pro- 
 clivities. The names of both merit enduring place 
 on the roster of the honored pioneers who did 
 their part in furthering the civic and industrial 
 development and upbuilding of Dakota County. Mrs. 
 Moran was summoned to the life eternal in 1902, 
 at the age of sixty-nine years. This worthy couple 
 became the parents of twelve children, all of whom 
 attained to years of maturity before the death of 
 the devoted parents : Austin met his death in 1900 
 
 in a railroad wreck in the State of Montana; Eliza- 
 beth, who likewise died in the year 1900, was the 
 wife of John J. Sweeney, of St. Paul; Michael is 
 a resident of St. Paul ; Thomas P., of this review, 
 was the next in order of birth; Mary is the wife of 
 Patrick PI. McCarthy, of Hancock County, Minne- 
 sota; John J. is a prosperous farmer of Lakeville 
 Township, Dakota County; Katherine is the wife 
 of William J. Gibbons, of Farmington, this county; 
 Agnes is the wife of Michael Corcoran, of Rose- 
 mount Township ; Nellie is the wife of William 
 Kelly, of Lebanon Township; Matilda is the wife 
 of Charles Burns, of Mendota Township ; Henry 
 P. is a resident of the City of St. Paul; Emma is 
 the wife of John Farrell, of that city. All of the 
 children are earnest communicants of the Catholic 
 Church and all have honored through their char- 
 acter and services the family name. 
 
 Judge Moran found the days of his boyhood and 
 youth compassed by the invigorating influences of 
 the pioneer farm, and his early educational advan- 
 tages were those afforded in the district schools of 
 his native county. Finally he engaged in farming 
 in an independent way, and „he continued to be 
 numbered among the substantial and successful agri- 
 culturists and* stock growers of Dakota County until 
 1882 and then moved to Rosemount, in the same 
 county, where he was in the mercantile business for 
 eight years. In 1890 he was elected judge of the 
 Probate Court, an office of which, by successive re- 
 
 elections, he has continued the efficient and valued 
 incumbent during the intervening period of nearly 
 twenty-five years. No citizen of Dakota County has 
 more secure place in popular esteem, and in his 
 official position he is invariably earnest and zealous 
 in his efforts to bring about adjustment of all estates 
 without recourse to litigation. Many persons have 
 entered his offices filled with resentment toward 
 other claimants, often kinsfolk of immediate order, 
 and through the kindly counsel and effective efforts 
 of Judge Moran the estates in question have been 
 amicably and equitably settled and good will restored 
 among the contesting persons. The judge is known 
 for his tolerance and consideration in all of the 
 relations of life and his sincerity and his integrity 
 of purpose gain and retain to him the implicit 
 confidence of all with whom he comes in contact, 
 so that he is specially well qualified for the im- 
 portant and exacting office of which he has been 
 long in tenure. 
 
 Judge Moran is unswerving in his allegiance to 
 the democratic party, and both he and his wife are 
 most zealous communicants of the Catholic Church. 
 Mrs. Moran having in former years been a member 
 of the church choir and being still active in church 
 work. The judge is affiliated with the Knights of 
 Columbus, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the 
 Catholic Order of Foresters, the Modern Woodmen 
 of America, the Independent Order of Foresters, 
 and the Ancient Order of United Workmen, in which 
 last mentioned he has been a trustee of his lodge 
 for the past fifteen years. 
 
 At Hastings, on the 5th of June, 1900, was 
 solemnized the marriage of Judge Moran to Miss 
 Gertrude Fahy, who was born and reared in this 
 city and who is a daughter of James and Mary 
 (King) Fahy, honored pioneers of Dakota County. 
 Mr. Fahy is deceased and his widow now resides in 
 the home of one of her daughters, in the City of 
 Minneapolis. Judge and Mrs. Moran have four 
 children, whose names and respective dates of birth 
 are here noted : Katherine Sheridan, September 12, 
 
 1901; Mary Lucille, September 17, 1902; Grace Mil- 
 dred, March 18, 1907 ; and Paul, January 8, 1912. 
 
 William Henry Gemmell, the general manager 
 of the Minnesota & International Railway Company, 
 a subsidiary line of the Northern Pacific System, 
 was born at Ottawa, Canada, November 25, 1866, 
 a son of John James and Harriet Amelia (Garvey) 
 Gemmell. His father was a member of the legal 
 profession and a barrister. Mr. Gemmell acquired 
 his early education in the public schools and Col- 
 legiate Institute of Ottawa, and some time after 
 coming to Minnesota was graduated from the law 
 department of the University — in 1895. 
 
 His first employment was with the Canadian Gov- 
 ernment in the postoffice department. He began 
 railroading at Montreal on the Canadian Pacific in 
 1887, and in 1889 came to St. Paul and was con- 
 nected with the passenger and freight departments 
 of the St. P., M. & M. Railway (now Great 
 Northern) until the spring of 1890. After that he 
 was with the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and 
 Omaha Railway Company in the legal and general 
 manager’s departments, until August, 1896. Since 
 then his work has been with the Northern Pacific, 
 first as secretary to the president, Edwin W. Winter. 
 In 1897 he was made assistant secretary of the 
 Northern Pacific System, and on February 1, 1900, 
 when the Northern Pacific acquired by purchase 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1573 
 
 the Brainerd and Northern Railway, now the Min- 
 nesota & International Railway, he was made general 
 manager of that line, with headquarters at Brainerd. 
 
 Mr. Gemmell is a member of the University Club 
 of St. Paul and has a wide acquaintance over the 
 state, and with railway men all over the Northwest. 
 Fraternally he is affiliated with the thirty-second 
 degree of Scottish Rite Masonry, with the Red 
 Cross of Constantine at Duluth, and with the Temple 
 of the Mystic Shrine. He is a member of the 
 Brainerd Chamber of Commerce, in politics is a 
 republican, and a member and vestryman of the 
 Episcopal Church at Brainerd. 
 
 At St. Paul, on May io, 1898, Mr. Gemmell married 
 Lavinia Austin Lamb. They are the parents of 
 three children — Kathleen Beatrice, John Henry and 
 Robert Wadsworth. 
 
 Jacob Hiniker. The Hastings Malting Company, 
 of which Jacob Hiniker is president and principal 
 owner, is a business not only of substantial present 
 proportions,' but one which has a splendid business 
 record of nearly thirty years behind it, and repre- 
 sents the sterling integrity and commercial energies 
 of several prominent men past and present in Hast- 
 ings. The company was organized in 1885 by Louis 
 Niedere, the father-in-law of the now president. 
 The company is engaged in the manufacture of malt, 
 which is sold to brewers all over the United States. 
 They have an elevator with a capacity of 150,000 
 bushels, and aside from the manufacture of barley 
 malt this is the largest wholesale and retail concern 
 dealing in grain, coal, feed and flour in Hastings. 
 The company is incorporated for $50,000, and all the 
 stock is owned among local people. From fifteen to 
 twenty men are given steady employment, and thus 
 the industry is one of large benefit to the community. 
 It is one of the leading grain and elevator concerns 
 in Dakota County, and the only establishment for 
 the manufacture of barley malt. 
 
 Jacob Hiniker, the president, was born in Wash- 
 ington County, Minnesota, September 2, 1863, a son 
 of Peter and Theresa (Brockman) Hiniker. The 
 parents were natives of Germany, and the father 
 has a particular place in Minnesota history as one 
 of the pioneers in Washington County, where he 
 located during the early ’50s, a number of years 
 before Minnesota became a state. He underwent all 
 the trials and vicissitudes of existence on the North- 
 western frontier, was a man of courage, steadfast 
 industry, and eventually brought under cultivation 
 400 acres of some of the best soil and farming land 
 of Washington County. He retired from active life 
 in 1887, and lived quietly at Hastings until his death 
 in 1907, when eighty-six years of age. His individual 
 achievements and relations with the community were 
 such as to entitle him to the high respect paid his 
 memory. He and his family were stanch members 
 of the Catholic Church. The mother died in 1902 
 at the age of sixty-eight. She was a woman of the 
 true pioneer type, and while helping to establish a 
 home in the early days, also proved a devoted 
 mother to her family, and her children revere her 
 memory. On the ten children five died in early 
 life, and those surviving are: Elizabeth, wife of 
 John Conzenius, a prominent farmer of Dakota 
 County; Jacob; Mary, wife of Nicholas Conzenius, 
 a brother of John above mentioned, and residents 
 of Hastings; Joseph, a leading farmer at Marshon 
 in Dakota County; and Peter, a Hastings merchant. 
 
 Jacob Hiniker has been a hard worker all his 
 
 life, and with a thorough business ability gained a 
 position as one of the foremost men in Dakota 
 County. He received his education while living on 
 the old homestead in the district schools of Wash- 
 ington County, and was graduated at the Minne- 
 apolis Business College. At the age of twenty-five 
 he bought an elevator at Etter in Dakota County, 
 and during the next three years laid the foundation 
 tor his thorough knowledge and experience in the 
 grain business. 
 
 On October 17, 1893, at Hastings, Mr. Hiniker 
 married Miss Catherine Niedere, daughter of Louis 
 and Mary (Schaefer) Niedere. Mr. Niedere was 
 one of the early settlers in Dakota County, founded 
 a home and gained a competence as a farmer, and in 
 1884 moved to Hastings and in the following year 
 organized the Hastings Malting Company, which 
 under his own management and that of his son-in- 
 law has become one of the leading business insti- 
 tutions in the county. After his marriage Jacob 
 Hiniker became a stockholder and took the position 
 of general manager of the malting company, and 
 eventually succeeded to the presidency on the death 
 of Mr. Niedere. For thirty years or more he has 
 had close relations with the grain raising and 
 business interests of Dakota County, and his success 
 is the result of long experience and a thorough 
 integrity. 
 
 Mr. Hiniker is a democrat, but exercises inde- 
 pendence in his support of the best man for office. 
 He and his family are members of the Catholic 
 Church, and his wife is active in the Women’s Club. 
 They are the parents of four children, all of whom 
 were born at Hastings: Marie, born July 9, 1900; 
 
 Cecilia, born June 10, 1903; James, who was the 
 family’s best Christmas gift, born December 25, 
 1910; and Mildred, born June 20, 1913. 
 
 Oric O. Whited. The unintelligibility of the 
 scheme of human existence is emphasized when 
 there comes through pitiable accident the death of 
 so strong, worthy and useful a citizen as was the 
 late Oric O. Whited, who died in Minneapolis on the 
 6th of August, 1912, as the result of hydrophobia, 
 caused from a bite on the face by a pet coach dog, 
 the injury having been received on the 7th of the 
 preceding month. 
 
 A Minneapolis newspaper on the day of Mr. 
 Whited’s death said: “After a courageous fight for 
 life lasting forty-eight hours, Oric O. Whited, fifty- 
 eight years old, twenty-two years resident of Minne- 
 apolis, died of hydrophobia at 1 :4s A. M. today, at 
 his home, 1206 Fifth street Southeast. Four physi- 
 cians pitted the skill of medical science in vain 
 against the advance of the disease. Death ensued, 
 notwithstanding Mr. Whited had just finished the 
 intensive Pasteur treatment for hydrophobia, at the 
 University of Minnesota. Cause of death was given 
 as exhaustion resulting from the continuous 
 paroxysms of the throat and respiratory muscles. 
 Mr. Whited was bitten by a pet coach dog. July 
 7th, while in the boathouse at his new summer home. 
 Eagle Island, Lake Minnetonka. The dog inflicted 
 slight wounds in the nose and face and a short time 
 afterward the animal was pronounced mad. It died 
 a few days later of a well developed case of rabies. 
 Mr. Whited began treatment at the Pasteur insti- 
 tute and took the short course of three weeks. He 
 took the last injection about a week before his death. 
 Mr. Whited drove in from the lake Friday and the 
 next day feared he had taken cold. He found he 
 
1574 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 could not swallow food next day and could not 
 eat or drink Sunday. Dr. S. Marx White was called, 
 and Dr. J. W. Bell, Dr. F. H. Poppe and Dr. Mc- 
 Daniel were brought into consultation. As the 
 patient grew worse every known means of con- 
 trolling the paroxysms of the throat by sedatives 
 was brought into play. The convulsions began Sun- 
 day noon and by five P. M. they had become almost 
 continuous. Delirium and semi-conscious condition 
 followed through Sunday. At eleven A. M. Monday 
 the patient’s condition improved and the physicians 
 hoped they had won their fight. At eleven P. M. 
 Mr. Whited seemed to feel that the fight was over, 
 and he said to his sons, 'In my father’s house — * — ’ 
 and was not able to finish the quotation.” 
 
 The changes and chances of this mortal life thus 
 brought death to one who had played a man’s part 
 and who had been true and loyal in all of the 
 relations of life. Rather should he be remembered 
 for the man he was and for what he wrought than 
 for the untoward fate that cut him down in the 
 very flower of his strong and earnest manhood. 
 Mr. Whited was born at Fitchville, Huron County, 
 Ohio, on the 20th of January, 1854, and was a son 
 of John and Clarissa (Crane) Whited, the former 
 of whom was born in the State of New York and 
 the latter in Connecticut, both families having been 
 founded in America in the colonial era of our 
 national history. Mr. Whited acquired his early 
 education in the public schools of the old Buckeye 
 State and when ten years old accompanied his 
 parents on their immigration to Minnesota, in 1864. 
 The family made the entire trip from Fitchville, 
 Ohio, to Southeastern Minnesota with a team and 
 an old-time “prairie schooner” or covered wagon. 
 Settlement was made on a tract of Government land 
 to which the father entered claim, and this embryonic 
 farm, now a valuable property, is situated about ten 
 miles distant from Rochester, county seat of Olmsted 
 County. There the parents passed the remainder of 
 their lives and their names merit place on the roster 
 of the sterling pioneers of Minnesota. 
 
 In Minnesota Oric Whited found or made for 
 himself the opportunities which he converted into a 
 liberal education. It is said that he learned the 
 German language while working in the fields behind 
 a yoke of oxen. After reaching manhood he put 
 himself through the Spencerian Business College at 
 Milwaukee, and in 1872 was graduated from the 
 Minnesota State Normal School at Winona. As a 
 teacher he did some successful work in Olmsted 
 County and was finally chosen county superintendent 
 of schools in that county. His early business career 
 was chiefly in banking, and for some years he con- 
 ducted a bank at Cando in North Dakota, where 
 he lived until 1890 and then sold out and came to 
 Minneapolis. In the meantime he had taken up 
 the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 
 1884, though he made no effort to practice except 
 in cases that were of particular interest to him. 
 For six years his services were employed as con- 
 fidential secretary and traveling attorney by the late 
 Frank H. Peavey, one of the substantial capitalists 
 of Minneapolis. After locating in Minneapolis in 
 1890 Mr. Whited was chiefly engaged in the real 
 estate business, and became extensively concerned 
 with the buying and selling of lands in Minnesota 
 and Wisconsin. It was his steady ambition all his 
 life to make himself in the highest degree useful and 
 efficient, and in line with these desires he went to 
 Chicago in 1898 and was graduated from the Kent 
 
 College of Law and followed that with a course 
 in the University of Chicago, graduating bachelor 
 of philosophy. However, the practice of law was 
 always secondary to his general business affairs, 
 and for a number of years preceding his death he 
 was one of the strong men in Minneapolis in the 
 real estate field. He possessed superior judgment 
 and marked business ability, achieved large and 
 worthy success, and with his business character 
 combined a genial personality and an inflexible 
 integrity of character that gave him inviolable place 
 in the confidence and high regard of all with whom 
 he came in contact. A short time before his death 
 Mr. Whited purchased Eagle Island in Lake Minne- 
 tonka-, and was giving much time and finding much 
 interest in developing this property into a fine sum- 
 mer home. 
 
 The late Mr. Whited was a republican in politics 
 and thoroughly progressive and public spirited as a 
 citizen. He was prominently associated with the 
 Masonic fraternity and had the distinction of re- 
 ceiving, in October, 1905, the thirty-third'and highest 
 degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite. This 
 degree is given only to a designated number in 
 each consistory, a vacancy being caused only by 
 a death in the ranks of those who have received 
 the degree. The funeral of Mr. Whited was con- 
 ducted under Masonic auspices. Assisting in the 
 ceremony was the Rev. Frank Doran of Winona, 
 who had befriended Mr. and Mrs. Whited through- 
 out their married life, and had also conducted the 
 funeral of the latter, who died in June, 1904. Mr. 
 Whited was married, September 4, 1875, to Miss 
 Clara A. Stevens, a native of Ohio. Three sons 
 were born to their marriage : Bernard B., the oldest, 
 died at the age of fourteen; Oric O., Jr., who was 
 born in Polk County, Minnesota, in 1884, is now 
 carrying on the business his father started. The 
 youngest son, Ciro N., aged twenty-one, is a student 
 in the City of Boston and preparing for a course 
 in the law department of Harvard University. This 
 son was born at Hamline, in Ramsey County. 
 
 In conclusion it will be appropriate to quote what 
 has been said in appreciation and estimate of Mr. 
 Whited in another publication. “Teacher, lawyer, 
 banker and land dealer, and in all respects a most 
 estimable citizen, he was a resident of Minneapolis 
 for twenty-two years, and they were the last and 
 most useful years of his life. He tried his hand in 
 several different lines of business in turn, and won 
 a gratifying success in each. But he was neither 
 unsteady nor an experimenter. He was a man of 
 quick and keen vision and prompt to act when an 
 opportunity presented itself. He also had the 
 ability to make the most of each chance as.it came 
 and use it as a stepping stone to something better. 
 His life was productive for himself and at the same 
 time very useful to the community, and the tragical 
 nature of his death, at the early age of fifty-eight, 
 gave the people of the whole city a great shock and 
 was universally lamented.” 
 
 He was a real man, the best of husbands, a 
 better father could not be found ; and his ambition 
 was to so live and act that his sons would have a 
 bright and shining example for them to follow. 
 To the limited judgment of mortals, death came to 
 him too soon, and yet many would be satisfied with 
 an abbreviation of their years could they leave behind 
 them a record of so much that was worthy and 
 honorable as did Oric O. Whited. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1575 
 
 William J. Lau. Prominent among those men 
 whose dynamic energy and initiative and construc- 
 tive ability have given them marked influence and 
 priority in connection with the lumber industry in 
 the Northwest stands William John Lau, of Minne- 
 apolis, who is president of the Rainy River Tirhber 
 Company and general auditor for each of the fol- 
 lowing named and important corporations, as well 
 as for their associated retail companies : Shevlin- 
 Carpenter Company, Crookston Lumber Company, 
 Niehols-Chisolm Lumber Company, Shevlin-Mathieu 
 Lumber Company, J. Neils Lumber Company, 
 Namakan Lumber Company, International Boom 
 Company, Rainy River Lumber Company, Limited, 
 Shevlin-Clarke Company, Limited, and the Libby 
 Lumber Company of Libby, Montana. In the Min- 
 nesota metropolis Mr. Lau maintains his office 
 headquarters at 909-11 First National-Soo Building. 
 
 William John Lau was born at Thiensville, Ozau- 
 kee County, Wisconsin, on the 23d of May, 1866, and 
 is a son of Charles F. and Elizabeth (Jochem) Lau, 
 the former of whom was born in Germany and the 
 latter of whom was born on shipboard at the time 
 when her parents were en route across the Atlantic 
 from Germany to America, so that the subject of 
 this review is of staunch German lineage on both 
 the paternal and maternal sides. Charles F. Lau 
 was reared to adult age in his native land, where he 
 acquired his early education, and he was eighteen 
 years old when he accompanied his parents on their 
 immigration to the United States. The family home 
 was established in Wisconsin and there Charles F. 
 proved the effectiveness of the excellent educational 
 advantages he had received in his fatherland, for he 
 became a successful and popular teacher in the 
 public schools of the Badger State. Fie attained no 
 little prominence as a representative of the pedagogic 
 profession, having served in later years as principal 
 of the public schools of Thiensville and as principal 
 of the high school at Cedarburg, likewise in Ozaukee 
 County. The old homestead at Cedarburg is still 
 owned by the family and is now occupied by the son, 
 Otto. As a young man Charles F. Lau assisted his 
 father in the reclamation and development of the old 
 home farm on Cedar Lake, and there his parents 
 passed the closing years of their lives, as did also 
 he himself, his death having occurred in August, 
 1909, at which time he was seventy-two years of age, 
 his loved wife, who had been a true companion and 
 helpmeet, having been summoned to the life eternal 
 in 1902 and both having been honored representatives 
 of the sturdy German pioneer element in Wisconsin. 
 Of the children two died in infancy, and of the six 
 surviving the eldest is William J., whose name intro- 
 duces this review, he having been the second in order 
 of birth; Charles A. resides at Tacoma, Washington, 
 and is actively identified with lumbering operations 
 in that state; Mrs. Thomas A. Boerner is a resident 
 of Port Washington, Wisconsin, and with her sister, 
 Miss Mariej maintains her home; Otto resides on the 
 old homestead farm, as previously noted ; and Arnold 
 is principal of the public schools of Wichita, Kansas. 
 All of the children were born and reared in Wiscon- 
 sin and Arnold is a graduate of the University of 
 Wisconsin. The father was a republican in politics 
 and both he and his wife were zealous communicants 
 of the Lutheran Church. 
 
 William J. Lau attended the public schools of 
 Cedarburg, Wisconsin, until he had attained to the 
 age of fifteen years, when he severed the home ties 
 Vol. in— 20 
 
 and set forth to investigate his chances for making 
 his way in the world. A timber cruiser and mil- 
 lionaire pine-timber owner, Charles F. Ruggles, of 
 Manistee, Michigan, visited Cedarburg, Wisconsin, 
 and signified his desire to enlist the services of an 
 ambitious young man of fair education. Fie asked a 
 few questions of young Lau and put to the latter a 
 few problems for solution, with the result that he 
 prevailed upon the lad’s father to permit William J. 
 to accompany him on his tour of timber investigation 
 in Minnesota. Thus Mr. Lau gained wide and varied 
 experience in determining values and timber re- 
 sources in Minnesota and other sections of the 
 Northwest while he was still a youth, and he re- 
 mained in the employ of Mr. Ruggles and his 
 associates for a number of years, with headquarters 
 at Manistee, Michigan, the original members of the 
 firm having been Mr. Ruggles and Edward Buckley, 
 but the business having eventually expanded greatly 
 and come into the control of the corporations known 
 as the Buckley & Douglas Lumber Company and the 
 Manistee & Northeastern Railroad Company. Mr. 
 Lau became secretary and treasurer of this railroad 
 company and also secretary of the Buckley & Douglas 
 Lumber Company, manufacturers of sawmills 
 and salt blocks. Mr. Lau continued to be thus 
 prominently associated with the important interests 
 noted for a period of nearly fifteen years and his 
 retirement came as the result of certain incidental 
 dissensions among the interested principals. Fie has 
 since expressed regret that he had ignored these 
 minor difficulties, which eventually were adjusted, 
 as he found his association most agreeable and profit- 
 able during the long years of his service as an 
 executive and valued employe. 
 
 Mr. Lau severed his connection with the Michigan 
 companies in 1896 and thereafter passed several 
 months in investigating conditions in the South and 
 other sections of the Union. In 1897 he came to 
 Minneapolis, where he associated himself with the 
 Shevlin and Carpenter lumber interests. In 1902 
 he passed nearly the entire year on the Pacific Coast, 
 with headquarters in the City of Seattle, Washing- 
 ton. There he was associated with John F. Ran- 
 ning in establishing a retail lumber yard and busi- 
 ness, under the title of the Ranning Lumber 
 Company, of which he is president, and which is 
 still conducting a prosperous business. In 1903 
 Mr. Lau returned to Minneapolis, and in the early 
 part of the following year he became a stockholder 
 of the Electric Machinery Company, manufacturers 
 of dynamos and other electric machinery. He later 
 sold his interest in this company, of which he was 
 secretary and treasurer, and again identified himself 
 with the extensive Shevlin lumbering interests, to 
 which he has since given much of his time and at- 
 tention, as auditor of the various companies noted 
 in the opening paragraph of the article. 
 
 Mr. Lau has varied capitalistic interests of im- 
 portant order. He is president of the Rainy River 
 Timber Company and the Lake of the Woods Cedar 
 and Tie Company, at Baudette, Beltrami County, 
 Minnesota, near the Canadian border, is president 
 also of the Security State Bank of Baudette and the 
 Lakes Timber Company, Limited, of Port Frances, 
 Province of Ontario, and is president of the Bau- 
 dette Provision Company, Baudette, Minnesota. His 
 banking interests are further represented in his 
 presidencv of the First State Bank of Williams, is 
 vice president of the First State Bank of Champlin, 
 
1576 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Minnesota, also a director in the First State Bank 
 of Dayton, Minnesota, and the First State Bank of 
 Libby, Montana. 
 
 At Manistee, Michigan, Mr. Lau became affiliated 
 with the lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, from 
 which he received a dimit upon his removal from 
 that city, but he has not become actively affiliated 
 with any other lodge. At Manistee he held mem- 
 bership also in the lodges of the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks and Knights_ of Pythias. 
 In Minneapolis he holds membership in the Min- 
 neapolis Athletic and Automobile clubs ; the Minne- 
 apolis Civic and Commerce Association and the 
 Minneapolis Art Society. He finds his chief rec- 
 reation in the use of the automobile, and in 1913 
 he made a motor tour from Minneapolis to the State 
 of Massachusetts. His residence is at 1917 James 
 Avenue South and is known for its unostentatious 
 hospitality, with Mrs. Lau as a gracious and pop- 
 ular chatelaine. 
 
 On the 21 st of October, 1897. at Manistee, Mich- 
 igan, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Lau to 
 Miss Julia Baur, who was born and reared in that 
 city, where her parents were honored pioneers and 
 where they continued to reside until their death, 
 her father, Joseph Baur, having there been en- 
 gaged in the mercantile and real estate business 
 for many years. Mr. and Mrs. Lau have two sons, 
 both natives of Minneapolis. Joseph Frederick was 
 born in 1904 and William Joseph in 1908. 
 
 Clyde M. Cooper. Though he is a native of the 
 Wolverine State Mr. Cooper has resided in Dodge 
 County, Minnesota, from the time of his infancy, his 
 father having here established a home prior to the 
 birth of Clyde M., who is the only child, and having 
 been one of the influential and honored pioneer citi- 
 zens of the county at the time of his death. He 
 whose name initiates this paragraph is one of the 
 representative business men of Dodge Center, _ where 
 he is cashier of the First National Bank, an institu- 
 tion that was organized mainly through the efforts 
 of his father. He has at all times held secure 
 place in the confidence and esteem of the county 
 in which he was reared and with whose civic, and 
 business interests he is closely and loyally identified. 
 
 Mr. Cooper was born in the Village of School- 
 craft, Kalamazoo County, Michigan, on the 18th 
 of July, 1874, and is a scion of honored pioneer 
 families of that state, where both his paternal and 
 maternal grandparents settled in an early day, upon 
 their removal from the State of New York. Mr. 
 Cooper is the only child of Jesse W. and Jennie A. 
 (Griffith) Cooper, both natives of the old Empire 
 State and both children at the time of the removal 
 of the respective families to Michigan, where they 
 were reared and educated and where their marriage 
 was solemnized. The parents of both continued to 
 reside in Michigan until their death, and it may 
 consistently be recorded in this connection that Jesse 
 Cooper's father was Justin A. Cooper and that the 
 father of his wife was Thor A. Griffith. Jesse W. 
 Copper was born in the year 1850 and was a resident 
 of Dodge Center, Minnesota, at the time of his 
 death, in 1912, his widow still maintaining her 
 home in this village, and her birth having occurred 
 in the year 1852. 
 
 Jesse Cooper came to Dodge County, Minnesota, 
 in the year 1873, and here he purchased a tract of 
 land near West Concord, where he developed one 
 
 of the fine farms of the county and where he con- 
 tinued to be actively engaged in agricultural pursuits 
 for the long period of twenty-five years, at the 
 expiration of which he removed to the Village of 
 West Concord, where he engaged in the real estate 
 business and also in the buying and shipping of 
 grain. He was a business man of marked ability 
 and his indefatigable industry and enterprising poli- 
 cies brought to him a generous measure of success. 
 He served three terms as register of deeds of 
 Dodge County, and during this period, as a matter 
 of course, he maintained his residence at Mantor- 
 ville, the judicial center of the county. Upon his 
 retirement from office he removed to Dodge Center, 
 where he effected the organization of the First 
 National Bank, of which he was president from the 
 time of its incorporation until his death. He aided 
 definitely and worthily in the social and material 
 development and progress of Dodge County and 
 his character and services gave to him inviolable 
 vantage-place in the confidence and regard of all 
 who knew him. He was a stalwart republican and 
 was a leader in political activities in Dodge County. 
 He was affiliated with the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows, in which he passed the various official 
 chairs, and he attended and gave liberal support to 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which his widow 
 has long been a devoted member. 
 
 Clyde M. Cooper was born while his mother was 
 at the home of her parents, in Schoolcraft, Michi- 
 gan, and has been a resident of Dodge County from 
 the time he was an infant of a few weeks. He 
 passed the days of his childhood and early youth 
 on the old homestead farm, near West Concord, 
 and early began to lend his aid in its work, the 
 while he duly availed himself of the advantages 
 of the district school near his home. At the age 
 of sixteen years he learned the art of telegraphy, 
 and for seven years he was employed as a telegraph 
 operator, principally in the service of the Chicago 
 Great Western Railroad. He resigned his position in 
 this line of work to become assistant to his father 
 in the office of register of deeds of Dodge County, 
 and after his father’s retirement from the office 
 of register Mr. Cooper served one term as clerk 
 of the District Court at Mantorville. 
 
 In 1903 he was made cashier of the First National 
 Bank of Dodge Center, and of this office he has since 
 been the efficient and popular incumbent, the while 
 he has followed closely in an administrative way 
 the conservative policies instituted by his father, who 
 was president of the bank from its organization until 
 his death, as previously stated in this context. The 
 institution bases its operations on a capital stock of 
 $25,000, maintains a surplus fund of $2,500, and its 
 average deposits are about $180,000, figures that 
 indicate fully its popularity and the efficiency of its 
 executive control. Mr. Cooper is unfaltering in his 
 allegiance to the republican party, is liberal and 
 enterprising as a citizen, and in a fraternal way is 
 affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, in which he 
 is past chancellor of the lodge at Dodge Center, 
 and also a member of the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows of Dodge Center. 
 
 In the year 1902 was solemnized the marriage of 
 Mr. Cooper to Miss Alice Sebring, of Mantorville, 
 and they have two children, Jesse M. and Rebecca 
 B. Mrs. Cooper is a popular figure in the social 
 activities of her home village and is a zealous 
 member of the Congregational Church. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1577 
 
 John C. Brainerd. The thriving and attractive 
 Village of Blooming Prairie, Steele County, claims 
 as one of its most honored and influential citizens the 
 sterling pioneer whose name initiates this paragraph 
 and who was here engaged in the banking business 
 for nearly forty years. He was president of the 
 First National Bank of this place until January i, 
 1915, was for twenty years station agent at Blooming 
 Prairie for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 
 Railroad, was here engaged in the lumber business 
 for twenty-eight years, and his high standing in 
 popular confidence and approbation is shown by the 
 fact that he has served as a representative of Steele 
 County in the State Legislature. 
 
 Mr. Brainerd was born at Sodus Bay, Lake On- 
 tario, Wayne County, New York, October 2, 1844, 
 a son of John C. and Mary (Pease) Brainerd, 
 both natives of Connecticut, where the former was 
 born in 1810, and the latter, at Haddam, Middlesex 
 County, in 1811, the American progenitors of the 
 Brainerd family having settled at Haddam upon 
 their immigration from England in colonial days. 
 The parents of Mr. Brainerd removed to the State 
 of New York in an early day and settled in the 
 vicinity of Rochester, in Monroe County. They were 
 married January 18, 1832. In 1854 John C. Brainerd 
 came with his family to the West and numbered 
 himself among the pioneer settlers of Dodge County, 
 Wisconsin, where he reclaimed a productive farm. 
 He continued his residence in Wisconsin for a long 
 period of years, as a citizen of industry and sterling 
 character, and finally he came to Minnesota, both he 
 and his wife passing the closing years of their life 
 at Redwood Falls, Redwood County, this state, 
 where Mrs. Brainerd died in 1901 and her husband 
 in the following year, so that in death their long 
 and devoted companionship was not long severed. 
 
 John C. Brainerd was a lad of ten years at the 
 time of the family removal to Wisconsin, and he was 
 reared to adult age on the pioneer farm in Dodge 
 County, in the meanwhile duly availing himself 
 of the advantages of the common schools of the 
 locality and period, and supplementing this discipline 
 by a course of study in the Genesee Wesleyan 
 Seminary at Lima, New York. He continued his 
 studies until he was about twenty years of age, and 
 upon attaining his legal majority put his scholastic 
 attainments to practical use by entering the pedagogic 
 profession, as a representative of which he was 
 engaged in teaching in the public schools of Genesee 
 Cornty, New York, for a period of two years and 
 in Wisconsin for three years. In 1869 he entered 
 the service of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul 
 Railroad Company, and was assigned to the position 
 of station agent at Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, on 
 the 1st of April, 1871. He held this preferment 
 for a score of years, as previously noted, and within 
 this period of earnest co-operation in supporting 
 the measures and enterprises which effected the 
 development and upbuilding of a prosperous village. 
 From 1872 until 1900 he was also engaged here in 
 the retail lumber business, and in 1878 he identified 
 himself with practical financial operations by the 
 purchase of the private bank that had here been 
 established in 1876 by the firm of Whitten & Haley. 
 Under his able and conservative management the 
 business expanded in scope and importance, and in 
 May. 1003, it was found expedient to reorganize the 
 institution as the First National Bank of Blooming 
 Prairie, under which title it was incorporated with 
 a capital stock of $25,000 and with Mr. Brainerd as 
 
 president. He served continuously in that office in 
 the private bank, and thus was at the head of the 
 strong and popular institution for nearly forty 
 years, with a record that inures to his lasting credit 
 and honor and that incidentally has borne potent 
 influence in the furtherance of the general prosperity 
 of the community. 
 
 Broad-minded, loyal and liberal as a citizen Mr. 
 Brainerd has been called upon to serve as a member 
 of the village council and the school board, and in 
 1894-95 he was given further opportunity for ef- 
 fective work in behalf of the public as representative 
 of Steele County in the lower house of the State 
 Legislature. He has not wavered in his allegiance to 
 the republican party, and is a firm and uncom- 
 promising advocate of the basic principles for which 
 it has ever stood sponsor. He is affiliated with 
 Prairie Lodge, No. 123, A. F. & A. M., and he and 
 his family have a wide circle of friends in the 
 county which has been his home for many years. 
 
 On the 28th of October, 1870, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Brainerd and Miss Melissa Burn- 
 ham, who was born and reared in Dodge County, 
 Wisconsin, where her father, the late Miles Burn- 
 ham, was a pioneer settler and representative farmer. 
 In conclusion is entered brief record concerning the 
 children of Mr. and Mrs. Brainerd : George S., a 
 
 leading merchant of Blooming Prairie ; Laura M., 
 the wife of Henry W. Hurlburt, of Austin, Mower 
 County, where her husband was until recently en- 
 gaged in the banking business, his interest in which 
 he sold in the spring of 1914; Ben A., one of the 
 progressive merchants of Blooming Prairie; Rena 
 C., who remains at the parental home ; and Mark 
 C., who is engaged in business at Blooming Prairie 
 as a buyer and shipper of live stock. 
 
 Hovey C. Clarke. The lumber industry of the 
 Northwest has been the principal field for the enter- 
 prise of Hovey C. Clarke, for nearly thirty years 
 now a resident of Minneapolis. Mr. Clarke comes 
 of a fine old family of Michigan, where his father 
 was a prominent engineer and railroad man, and 
 the son served his apprenticeship in business affairs 
 in railroading. Since coming to Minnesota he has 
 been connected with a number of the largest cor- 
 porations in the handling of timber lands and lumber 
 production. 
 
 Hovey Charles Clarke was born at Flint, Genesee 
 County, Michigan, May 7, 1859. a son of George 
 Thomas and Mary Elizabeth (Ducbury) Clarke. His 
 father was a civil engineer and in his day a 
 prominent railroad builder. He was chief engineer 
 at one time of the Baltimore & Ohio Railway sys- 
 tem, and after that of the Flint & Pere Marquette 
 and the Toledo & Ann Arbor railroads. During the 
 Civil war he served in the Union army. 
 
 Hovev C. Clarke was educated at Flint and in 
 the high school at Ann Arbor, and entered the 
 University of Michigan, but soon left to enter into 
 practical competition with business life. In April, 
 1876. a short time before his seventeenth birthday, he 
 entered the employ of the Chicago & West Michi- 
 gan Railroad Company, now part of the Pere Mar- 
 quette Svstem. He was with that company until 
 1886, and then became identified with lumbering. 
 
 On coming to Minneapolis in 1886 Mr. Clarke 
 became one of the incorporators and stockholders of 
 the Hall & Ducev Lumber Company, which was suc- 
 ceeded by the Shevlin-Carpenter Company. _ The 
 latter is now one of the big lumber companies of 
 
1578 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 the Northwest, with general offices at Minneapolis. 
 Mr. Clarke is treasurer of the company, and is also 
 secretary and treasurer of the Crookston Lumber 
 Company and the St. Hilaire Lumber Company ; is 
 vice president of the J. Neils Lumber Company and 
 of the Shevlin-Clarke Co., Ltd. He is also one 
 of the business factors in the Nichols-Chisolm Lum- 
 ber Company, the Shevlin-Clarke, Ltd., and other 
 lumber and timber corporations. Mention of these 
 connections is sufficient to indicate his prominence 
 as one of the leading factors in the lumber industry 
 of Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Clarke is chairman of the executive committee 
 of the First National Bank of Minneapolis and of 
 the Minneapolis Trust Company. He is a trustee 
 of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company 
 of Milwaukee ; is chairman of the advisory commit- 
 tee of the Underwriters at Lloyds of Minneapolis, 
 and is a director of the Chamber of Commerce of 
 the United States of America. In business affairs 
 his name and associations are American rather than 
 local in the extent of his activities. He is likewise 
 well known in club and social life, is a member of 
 the Minneapolis Club, Minikahda Club, Lafayette 
 Club, and an honorary member of John Rawlins 
 Post, G. A. R. He has been president of the 
 Lafayette Club since 1894 and is a director of the 
 Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra Association. He 
 is president of the Heron Lake Lodge, an organiza- 
 tion of sportsmen, and also belongs to the Chicago 
 Club at Chicago, the Spokane Club at Spokane, and 
 belongs to various clubs and social bodies in other 
 cities. In politics he is a republican, but not a 
 politician. He takes much interest in public affairs 
 and the business prosperity of Minneapolis. He and 
 his wife are members of St. Mark’s Protestant 
 Episcopal Church in Minneapolis. On June 9, 1886, 
 Mr. Clarke married Miss Margaret L. Rice of De- 
 troit, Michigan. 
 
 Jacob Leuthold, Jr. A scion of Swiss ancestry, 
 Mr. Leuthold is a representative of a family whose 
 name has been identified with the history of Minne- 
 sota for nearly sixty years, and he is one of the influ- 
 ential business men and progressive citizens of Dodge 
 County. His father was influential in the early 
 activities in the development and upbuilding of this 
 section of the state, where he established his resi- 
 dence about two years prior to the admission of 
 Minnesota Territory to the Union, and where he 
 still maintains his home, at the venerable age of 
 eighty-four years, this anniversary of his birth 
 having occurred in October, 1914. He whose name 
 initiates this review is one of the substantial business 
 men of his native state and his executive ability is 
 shown by the fact that he is at the head of a chain 
 of fifteen mercantile establishments, in this and 
 adjoining states, besides having other large and 
 important interests. He resides in the attractive 
 Village of Kasson, Dodge County, and here his home 
 stands as one of the finest residence properties in 
 the entire county, the house having been erected by 
 him in 1906 and being essentially modern in archi- 
 tectural design and general facilities and appoint- 
 ments. 
 
 Jacob Leuthold, Jr., was born in Mower County. 
 Minnesota, on the gth of May, 1858, and is a son of 
 Jacob and Elizabeth (Schultz) Leuthold, both natives 
 of Switzerland, where the former was born on the 
 t st of October, 1830, and the latter on the 10th 
 of August, 1837, her death having occurred on the 
 
 1 2th of April, 1910. The marriage of the parents 
 was solemnized in Mower County, where Jacob 
 Leuthold, Sr., established his residence in 1856. 
 He took up a tract of Government land and instituted 
 the reclamation of a farm, but he soon found it 
 expedient to withdraw from his farm and turn his 
 attention to mercantile pursuits. He was first en- 
 gaged in the retail grocery business but finally 
 developed his enterprise into a general merchandise 
 business, his store at Kasson having been established 
 in 1865. He won distinctive success in this field of 
 enterprise, as his effective supplying of the demands 
 of his customers and his inviolable integrity and 
 honor gained and retained to him the implicit confi- 
 dence and esteem of all with whom he came in con- 
 tact. Now venerable in years, he can look back with 
 satisfaction on a career of signal usefulness and 
 can remember that he has done his share in further- 
 ing the march of development and progress in the 
 state of which he is a sterling pioneer. He is 
 independent in politics, is affiliated with the Kasson 
 Lodge of Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons, and 
 is a member of the Lutheran Church, as was also 
 his wife, whose death entailed the supreme loss and 
 bereavement that he has been called upon to bear 
 in connection with the “changes and chances of this 
 mortal life.” Mrs. Leuthold was a datighter of 
 Samuel Schultz, who immigrated from Switzerland 
 with his family and likewise became one of the 
 pioneer settlers of Mower County, Minnesota, where 
 he developed a farm from the wilds, the closing 
 period of his life having been passed in the Village 
 of Kasson. Jacob and Elizabeth (Schultz) Leuthold 
 became the parents of seven children : Mrs. Carolina 
 Huelster resides in California; Jacob, Jr., of this 
 review, was the next in order of birth; John is 
 engaged in the real estate business in the City 
 of St. Paul ; Henry is associated with his brothers 
 in the control of the several mercantile establish- 
 ments, as are also Charles and Rudolph ; Mrs. Anna 
 Heintz is a resident of California. 
 
 Jacob Leuthold. Jr., the immediate subject of this 
 review, was afforded the advantages of the public 
 schools of Kasson, and in 1876, when about eighteen 
 years of age, he became actively associated with 
 his father’s mercantile business. His career since 
 that time has been one marked by consecutive 
 progress and increasing success, the extensive busi- 
 ness of the chain of fifteen mercantile establishments, 
 in Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Iowa and 
 Wisconsin, being effectively controlled by the firm 
 of Leuthold Brothers, of which he is the executive 
 head, even as he has been the moving spirit in the 
 development of the splendid enterprise. His inde- 
 pendent operations as a merchant at Kasson were 
 instituted on the 15th of August, 1879, and he has 
 since continued to hold precedence as one of the 
 leading merchants of this place, the thriving little 
 city being his place of residence and the one in 
 which his loyal interests and progressive public spirit 
 have been most effectively exemplified. All of his 
 brothers are interested with him in the conducting of 
 the various mercantile establishments, and in the 
 development of the same he has shown great initia- 
 tive and constructive ability, the while his fair and 
 honorab'e policies have never been permitted to 
 waver for the sake of seeming expediency or any 
 other cause. 
 
 Mr. Leuthold has not been hedged in by the de- 
 mands of his personal business affairs, but has shown 
 himself distinctively liberal in the supporting of 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1579 
 
 enterprises and measures that have tended to further 
 the social and material welfare of the community, 
 the while increasing temporal success has enabled 
 him to lend his support to other lines of normal 
 and benignant business enterprise. He is president 
 of the National Bank of Dodge County at Kasson ; 
 the Farmers State Bank of Hayfield and the First 
 State Bank of Mantorville, all in Dodge County; 
 and is likewise chief executive of the First Inter- 
 national Bank of Noonan, North Dakota, and the 
 Elwood Lumber & Timber Co., Seattle, Washing- 
 ton. In politics Mr. Leuthold accords a stanch 
 allegiance to the republican party, and he has given 
 many years of effective service as a member of the 
 village’ council of Kasson, besides which he held 
 for a number of terms the office of mayor of the 
 town. He clings to the religious faith in which he 
 was reared and is a member of the Lutheran Church, 
 as was also his wife, who was summoned to the life 
 eternal in March, 1908. He is affiliated with the lo- 
 cal organization of the Ancient, bree and Accepted 
 Masons and the Ancient Order of United Work- 
 men. 
 
 On the 29th of June, 1880, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Leuthold to Miss Martha Nelson, 
 who was born in the State of Wisconsin. Two 
 children were born to his marriage, namely: Ralph 
 N., who is a partner in his father’s store at Kasson, 
 and' Carlos, who is a student in the Kasson High 
 School. 
 
 Such an energetic and productive career as that 
 of Mr. Leuthold offers both lesson and incentive, 
 and his character and worthy success have naturally 
 given him place as one of the honored and influ- 
 ential citizens of the county that has long been his 
 home and in which his circle of friends is limited 
 only by that of his acquaintances. 
 
 Oscar B. Strand. A young attorney who has 
 successfully combined the practice of law with activi- 
 ties in the commercial field, Mr. Strand has estab- 
 lished himself securely in the community of Kenyon 
 in Goodhue County, where his influence counts as 
 that of a progressive leader. Mr. Strand possesses 
 youth, ambition and energy, together with a broad 
 sense of responsibility of the individual to the 
 community, and has a large career of usefulness 
 before him. 
 
 Oscar B. Strand was born in Goodhue County, 
 Minnesota, December 30, 1887. His parents were 
 Ole A. and Bertha (Lysne) Strand, both natives 
 of Norway, the father born in 1845 and the mother 
 in 1848. The father died September 20, 1905, and 
 the mother is still living. They were married in 
 Goodhue County in 1868. Ole A. Strand came to 
 America with his parents at the age of eight years, 
 and the family were pioneers in Goodhue county, 
 and farmers who helped to develop the country from 
 the wilderness. The late Ole A. Strand was a 
 member of the Lutheran Church and a republican 
 in politics, and as a young man saw service in the 
 Civil war from 1862 until the close of the conflict. 
 He was a member of Company G in the Seventh 
 Minnesota Infantry. Although his career began m 
 very modest circumstances, his work, both in busi- 
 ness and as a citizen has constituted him one of 
 the substantial men of his community. He took 
 considerable part in local politics and was regarded 
 as one of the leading men in his township. There 
 were in the family eleven children, of whom Oscar 
 was the ninth, and the six now living are mentioned 
 
 briefly as follows : Matilda, unmarried ; Alfred, who 
 
 lives on the home farm; Anna, wife of P. A. Hen- 
 ning, Jr., of Zumbrota; Selma, wife of Dr. L. M. 
 Woodbury of Zumbrota; and Karl, a Minneapolis 
 dentist. 
 
 Oscar B. Strand grew up in Mineola Township of 
 Goodhue County, attended the common school there, 
 the high school at Zumbrota, and in 1909 graduated 
 in the law department of the University of Minne- 
 sota. His first year was spent in practical experience 
 at Minneapolis, with an office in the Temple Court, 
 and since September. 1910, his home and center of 
 business has been at Kenyon. Mr. Strand has 
 acquired a good practice as a lawyer, and also 
 handles considerable real estate, chiefly local im- 
 proved farm lands. Mr. Strand is unmarried, has 
 affiliations with the Masonic Lodge, the Independent 
 Order of Odd Fellows, the Woodmen of the World 
 and Faribault Lodge No. 1166, B. P. O. E. His 
 politics is republican. 
 
 George E. Brett. The oldest active merchant in 
 Mankato is George E. Brett, head of George E. 
 Brett, Incorporated, operating a large and distinctive 
 dry goods store which is the most popular estab- 
 lishment in the retail shopping district, and also 
 prominent as a banker and man of enterprise in 
 all local affairs. Mr. Brett has been in business at 
 Mankato upwards of fifty years. His first store 
 was a small frame two-story building, now at the 
 foot of Jackson Street, and the three-story solid 
 brick structure, 66 by 157 feet, which has furnished 
 space for his business during the past twenty years, 
 the company recently purchased. At the present 
 time only two floors and the basement of this build- 
 ing are devoted to the Brett mercantile establish- 
 ment, but the growing demands of the business are 
 such that eventually the entire building will be in 
 use. The store has a patronage not only through- 
 out the City of Mankato, but has customers in 
 almost every town in Southern Minnesota. 
 
 George E. Brett was born at Strong, Franklin 
 County, Maine, November 23, 1845, a son of Cyrus 
 H. and Mary (Hunter) Brett. He was educated 
 in the public schools of his native village, and com- 
 ing west to Winona, Minnesota, at the age of seven- 
 teen, found a place as clerk in a dry goods store. 
 He spent two years there, and then for 2H years 
 managed a branch store at Faribault, and following 
 that for two years had charge of a branch store at 
 Mankato. This brought him to the city of his present 
 residence more than forty years ago, and he eventual- 
 ly purchased a business of his own and put in a stock 
 costing about $3,000. The firm was Brett & Soule, 
 afterwards Brett, Walker & Soule. After Mr. 
 Walker retired Mr. Brett bought the interests of 
 Mr. Soule and continued the business under his 
 individual ownership until 1895, when it was incor- 
 porated as George E. Brett (Incorporated), with 
 capital stock of $30,000. At that time Mr. Brett 
 occupied space in the large three-story brick build- 
 ing recently erected by John IT. Ray, a Mankato 
 banker, but now a resident of Minneapolis. This 
 building is located at the northeast corner of Front 
 and Jackson streets. 
 
 In 1873 Mr. Brett married Lizzie E. Maxfield, of 
 St. Paul, a daughter of James T. Maxfield, who for 
 some years was mayor of that city. Mrs. Brett was 
 born in Goshen, Indiana, in 1853, and her father 
 was in business in that town until removing to 
 Cleveland, Ohio, and from there to St. Paul. Of 
 
1580 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 the three children born to Mr. and Mrs. Brett the 
 two now living are: James Edwin, who for the 
 
 past twenty years has been actively associated with 
 his father in managing the store; and Mary Brett, 
 wife of Wilbur M. Taylor, who is also associated 
 with Mr. Brett. These two young men are both 
 aggressive merchants and have much to do with 
 the latter-day success and progress of George E. 
 Brett, Incorporated. 
 
 Mr. Brett is a member of the Presbyterian Church, 
 affiliates with Lodge No. 12, A. F. & A. M., the 
 Royal Arch Chapter No. 8, Knights Templar Com- 
 mandery No. 4, the Osman Temple of the Mystic 
 Shrine at St. Paul, and also with Mankato Elks 
 Lodge No. 225 and the Knights of Pythias of the 
 same place. In politics he is republican and has 
 served as an alderman and president of the Com- 
 mercial Club. He is one of the leaders in all organ- 
 ized movements among local citizens and business 
 men, and there is no man in Mankato who responds 
 more readily to the demands upon an individual 
 for time and energy in helping the city as a whole. 
 Mr. Brett is president of the Mankato Savings 
 Bank, is a director in the First National Bank, 
 and has various other interests in his home city. 
 His chief interest, however, is with the store which 
 he has made the largest business of its kind in 
 Mankato, and one of the largest in Southern Minne- 
 sota. Mr. Brett’s second son was Frank Everett 
 Brett, who was born in Mankato, was educated in 
 the city high schools, went to Arizona to en- 
 gage in real estate business, though failing health 
 would not permit that, and he died in Yuma, Ari- 
 zona, in 1909. Outside of Minnesota, Mr. Brett is 
 owner of considerable land in Texas and Arizona. 
 
 Jesse L. Herring. The present efficient and popu- 
 lar auditor of Faribault County is a representative of 
 a family whose name has been identified with the 
 history of this county for more than half a century, 
 and the patronymic has stood exponent of the ut- 
 most civic loyalty and progressiveness, its representa- 
 tives having done well their part in connection with 
 the development and upbuilding of this favored sec- 
 tion of the Gopher State. There is ample reason to 
 believe that the FI erring family was founded in 
 America prior to the War of the Revolution, the 
 original progenitors having immigrated from Hol- 
 land and having established their residence in 
 Pennsylvania. As a soldier from that historic old 
 commonwealth the paternal grandfather of Mr. 
 Herring took part in infantry engagements in the 
 War of 1812, incidental to the maneuvers of the 
 naval forces of Commodore Perry on Lake Erie. 
 The history of the Keystone State, denotes that rep- 
 resentatives of the Herring family in various genera- 
 tions have there been prominent in civic and indus- 
 trial affairs and the family escutcheon is without, stain 
 or blot, a fact that may well be viewed with satisfac- 
 tion by its contemporary scions. 
 
 Jesse Lincoln Herring, county auditor of Faribault 
 County, was born in Houston County, Minnesota, on 
 the 14th of October, i860, and is a son of William A. 
 and Rebecca Elizabeth (Bailey) Herring, the former 
 of whom was born in Clarion County, Pennsylvania, 
 February 18, 1837, and the latter of whom was. born 
 in the State of Ohio, February 20, 1836. William 
 A. Herring and Miss Rebecca Elizabeth Bailey, 
 daughter of Jesse and Margaret ( Pennebecker) 
 Bailey, were united in matrimony on March 11, 1858, 
 at Caledonia, Houston County, Minnesota, and they 
 
 were residents of Houston County at the inception 
 of the Civil war. In 1863 Mr. Herring entered claim 
 to a Government homestead in Lura Township, Fari- 
 bault County, but in the same year he subordinated 
 his personal ambitions to the call of patriotism and 
 enlisted in Company K, Eleventh Minnesota Volun- 
 teer Infantry, with which he served until the close 
 of the war as a loyal and valiant soldier of the 
 Union. 
 
 After being mustered out William A. Herring 
 returned to Minnesota and established his home on 
 his farm in Lura Township, Faribault County, 
 and he had developed the same in excellent order 
 before he was summoned from the stage of life’s 
 mortal endeavors, his death having occurred on the 
 old homestead in the year 1879. His wife survived 
 him by more than thirty years and passed the closing- 
 period of her life at North Yakima, Washington, 
 where she died in 1910, at a venerable age. 
 
 Reared to adult age on the old homestead farm, 
 Jesse L. Herring was eighteen years of age at the 
 time of his father’s death, and his experience had 
 been such that he was well qualified for assuming 
 the management of the farm, to the work and affairs 
 of which he continued to devote his attention until 
 he had attained to the age of thirty years. In the 
 meanwhile he had made good use of the advantages 
 afforded in the public schools of his home county, 
 and at the age noted he engaged in the drug business 
 in the Village of Easton, Faribault County, where 
 he continued in this line of business until 1903, 
 in the meanwhile having taken a course in the 
 Minneapolis School of Pharmacy. He also learned 
 the jeweler’s trade, and after retiring from the drug 
 business he conducted a jewelry store at Easton for 
 three years — until the time of his election to the 
 office of county auditor, in 1906. In connection with 
 the development of the optical department of this 
 business he completed a course in the Illinois School 
 of Optics, in Chicago, and received therefrom the 
 degree of Doctor of Optics. 
 
 Incidental to his assumption of the office of county 
 auditor Mr. Herring removed to Blue Earth, the 
 county seat, where he has since continued in tenure 
 of this responsible position the efficiency of his 
 administration and the popular estimate placed upon 
 the same having been shown in his re-election in the 
 autumn of 1914, for a fourth term of four years. 
 He was first elected on the republican ticket, but in 
 the last election his name appeared on the non- 
 partisan ticket. This is not his only experience in 
 public office, for he was elected pathmaster of Lura 
 Township, this county, when but twenty-one years 
 of age, and one year later was elected a member 
 of the township board, besides which he later served 
 as a member of the village council of Easton, where 
 also he served as a member of the board of educa- 
 tion. Mr. Herring- is a member of the board of 
 trustees of Parker College, at Winnebago, and both 
 he and his wife are zealous members of the Meth- 
 odist Church, he being at the present time a trustee 
 of the church at Blue Earth. 
 
 In the Masonic fraternity Mr. Herring is affiliated 
 with Blue Earth City Lodge, No. 57, Ancient Free 
 and Accepted Masons, and Zion Chapter, No. 68, 
 Royal Arch Masons. He is past grand of Win- 
 nebago Lodge, No. 30, Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows, and is representative of the same 
 of Rebekah. He holds membership also in the 
 in the grand lodge of the state, besides being affi- 
 liated with the adjunct organization, the Daughters 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1581 
 
 Modern Woodmen of America, the Knights of Py- 
 thias, the Mystic Workers, and the Brotherhood of 
 American Yeomen, and is an active and valued 
 member of the Blue Earth Commercial Club. 
 
 At Easton, in the year 1886, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Herring to Miss Mary A. Rath, 
 daughter of the late Carl and Sophia Rath, who 
 was a prominent farmer of this county. In con- 
 clusion is entered brief record concerning the chil- 
 dren of Mr. and Mrs. Herring: William E., who 
 was graduated in the department of mining-en- 
 gineering in the University of Minnesota, is now 
 engaged in the drug business at Blue Earth ; Elvira 
 E. is the wife of Walter W. Hulce, cashier of the 
 State Bank of Eagle Lake of Eagle Lake, Blue 
 Earth County; Clara died in infancy; Marion at 
 the age of eighteen months, and Grace at the age of 
 sixteen years ; T. Esther is a member of the class of 
 1915 in the Blue Earth High School; and Earl Rath 
 is attending the public schools. 
 
 Philip B. Winston. A noble and valiant soul 
 was that which had indwelling in the person of the 
 late Philip Bickerton Winston, who for a full quarter 
 of a century was numbered among the substantial 
 business men and representative citizens of Minne- 
 apolis, and who marked the vanishing years with 
 large and worthy accomplishment. Of patrician 
 birth and training, he was a scion of fine old colonial 
 ancestry in Virginia, that cradle of much of our 
 national history, and he had the courtly bearing, the 
 gentleness and the consideration that mark the true 
 type of the southern gentleman of the old regime. 
 He was a gallant soldier of the Confederacy in the 
 Civil war, and in the “piping times” of peace he 
 ever manifested the same loyalty to principle and 
 conviction that prompted him to go forth in defense 
 of the cause and institutions in which he believed. 
 Through his well ordered endeavors he became one 
 of the substantial business men of the Minnesota 
 metropolis, and as a citizen none could be more 
 liberal and public-spirited. He served with marked 
 distinction as mayor of Minneapolis and was for a 
 long period one of the leaders in the Minnesota 
 ranks of the democratic party. In all his life he 
 fully exemplified the truth of the statement that 
 “The bravest are the tenderest; the loving are the 
 daring.” He loved his fellow men, was ever kindly 
 and tolerant in his judgment, and in the midst of 
 the cares and exactions of a significantly active and 
 successful business career, he “remembered those 
 who were forgotten” and strove always to succor 
 an d relieve all who were in affliction or distress or 
 in need of friendly counsel. Such men are not soon 
 forgotten, and Mr. Winston’s memory shall long be 
 cherished in the city and state of his adoption. 
 
 Philip Bickerton Winston was born at Hanover 
 Court House, now known simply as Hanover, the 
 judicial center of Hanover County, Virginia, and 
 the date of his nativity was August 12, 1845. 
 was a son of William Overton Winston and Sarah 
 Anne (Gregory) Winston, both likewise natives ot 
 the historic Old Dominion, where the respective fam- 
 ilies, of English lineage, were founded in the col- 
 onial era. The parents of Mr. Winston were folk ot 
 distinctive culture and he was afforded the advan- 
 tages of a home whose every influence was benig- 
 nant, the while his early education was acquired in 
 public schools. 
 
 When the Civil war was precipitated upon a 
 divided nation Mr. Winston was naturally loyal to 
 
 the institutions and customs under the influence of 
 which he had been reared, and, like other young 
 Virginians, he ardently espoused the cause of the 
 Confederacy. In 1862, when but seventeen years of 
 age he enlisted in a Virginia regiment, and not- 
 withstanding his youth he soon won promotion to a 
 place on the staff of Gen. Thomas L. Rosser, 
 after the battle of Appomattox. He continued in 
 service until the close of the war and made a splen- 
 did record as a gallant young soldier of the Con- 
 federacy. After the war he devoted his attention 
 to agricultural pursuits until 1872, when he came to 
 Minneapolis, Minnesota, in which state his first serv- 
 ice was in connection with a government survey. 
 In 1875, in company with his brother, Fendall G., 
 he organized the firm of Winston Brothers, and they 
 engaged in general railroad contracting. The firm 
 soon gained recognition and for the quarter of a 
 century of its existence its reputation remained in- 
 violable. Winston Brothers constructed thousands 
 of miles of railroad in the Northwest and every 
 contract was fulfilled with scrupulous care and 
 marked ability, the while the brothers found satis- 
 faction also in that they were incidentally furthering 
 the development and progress of this part of our 
 great national domain. 
 
 Philip B. Winston ever kept pace with the march 
 of progress and stood at all times exponent of the 
 most enlightened public spirit. As success attended 
 his efforts as a business man he found his opportu- 
 nities broadened and began to give more attention to 
 public affairs, especially in his zealous advocacy of 
 the cause of the democratic party. In the arena of 
 constructive and progressive political action he mani- 
 fested the same characteristics that had conserved 
 his success as a man of business. For many years 
 he was a most influential figure in Minnesota pol- 
 itics, as a leader in the councils and general activi- 
 ties of the democratic party. Many offices of public 
 order were tendered him and after according most 
 effective service as a member of the legislature, he 
 was, in 1890, elected mayor of Minneapolis. He gave 
 a most circumspect and progressive administration 
 of municipal affairs, and his regime as mayor inured 
 greatly to the benefit of the city and its people. It 
 is known that on at least two occasions after his 
 retirement from the mayoralty he was deemed by 
 his party associates so strong a candidate for popu- 
 lar support that he was urged to accept nomination 
 for representative in Congress. The keen percep- 
 tion of the true business man led him to refuse these 
 overtures, his judgment being that the prosperous 
 conditions of the period rendered it inexpedient for 
 him to accept any tender of political preferment. 
 He preferred rather to devote himself fully and un- 
 selfishly to the duty which he ever considered that 
 he owed to his family, in giving strict attention to 
 his interests and theirs. So unwavering was his 
 fealty to his political belief that all factions recog- 
 nized its merit and had he lived he would undoubt- 
 edly have been selected by the party managers as 
 the democratic candidate for governor of Minne- 
 sota. 
 
 The death of Mr. Winston occurred in Augustana 
 Hospital in the City of Chicago, on the 1st of 
 July, 1901. He and his brother, Fendall G., had 
 gone to the Western metropolis on a business trip 
 and while on the train he was overcome by the heat, 
 which superinduced irregularity of heart action, and 
 he lived only a short time after his arrival in Chi- 
 cago, where he had been promptly taken to the hos- 
 
1582 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 pital mentioned. A Minneapolis paper spoke as fol- 
 lows concerning the death of this noble and 
 honored citizen : “When the information concerning 
 his death reached Minneapolis it was received with 
 uniform regret. The people of the city, irrespective 
 of class, condition, creed or political belief, gave 
 vent to expressions of sincere sorrow. Possessed of 
 a personality that endeared him to all with whom 
 he came in contact, kindly disposed to those not so 
 fortunate as himself in a financial sense; gifted 
 with an inclination to aid’in a material manner those 
 who strove to gain advancement for themselves, 
 Philip B. Winston by his acts and words and public 
 life attained to a high place in the hearts of the 
 residents of Minneapolis. This was exemplified 
 when information came concerning his death. Ten- 
 der words were spoken and tears shed by those who, 
 on their own statements, were comparative strangers 
 to Mr. Winston but who remembered the man and 
 recalled that he had in times previous to his death 
 aided them in the hour of need. Mayor Ames 
 took official recognition of the death of Mr. Winston 
 and ordered the flag on the city hall to be displayed 
 at half-mast, to mark the passing away of a former 
 chief executive of the city. As youth and man, the 
 life of Philip B. Winston was marked with effort. 
 During his career he was a farmer, a soldier, a busi- 
 ness man and a politician. He achieved success in 
 whatever he undertook.” In the foregoing quota- 
 tion slight paraphrase is indulged, to make the state- 
 ments consonant with the general tone and spirit of 
 this brief memoir. 
 
 On. the 20th of March, 1876, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Winston to Miss Katherine D. 
 Stevens, daughter of the late Col. John H. 
 Stevens, one of the first and most influential of the 
 pioneer settlers of Minneapolis. Mrs. Winston died 
 July 2, 1911. Their two children are Philip B., Jr., 
 who is a representative citizen of Minneapolis ; and 
 Nellie, who is the wife of Charles S. Pillsbury, vice 
 president of the great Pillsbury Flour Milling Com- 
 pany of Minneapolis. 
 
 Charles A. Houston, M. D. The medical pro- 
 fession of Hubbard County includes among its able 
 members, and particularly in the field of surgery, 
 Charles A. Houston, M. D„ who since 1905 has been 
 engaged in practice at Park Rapids. A native son 
 of Minnesota, his entire life has been passed within 
 the borders of the state, and in the several communi- 
 ties in which he has made his home he has estab- 
 lished an excellent reputation as a reliable and de- 
 pendable citizen and a useful member of society. 
 
 Doctor Houston was born in Dodge County, Min- 
 nesota, August 13, 1876, and is a son of Daniel Mc- 
 Clure and Amanda (Maxon) Houston. He is a 
 member of a family which came to America from 
 Scotland prior to the Revolutionary war, settling in 
 Vermont, and from which ancestors Gen. Sam 
 Houston, the hero of Texas, also descended. Daniel 
 McClure Houston was born February 9, 1847, in 
 the State of Vermont, and came to the West as a 
 young man, settling first in Wisconsin and moving 
 later to Southern Minnesota. At the time of the 
 Indian outbreak he was forced to move from the 
 southern part of the state, and accordingly located 
 in Dodge County, where he became a pioneer home- 
 steader and for many years was engaged in extensive 
 agricultural operations. He is now retired from ac- 
 tive life, his home being at Kasson, in Dodge County. 
 Mr. Houston married Amanda Maxon, a native of 
 
 Wisconsin, and they became the parents of four 
 children, namely: Harry W., who resides at Kas- 
 son and is engaged in operating the old homestead ; 
 Dr. Charles A., of this notice; Laura, who is the 
 wife of F. J. Hallin, who is engaged in the drug 
 business at Cambridge, Minnesota; and John D., of 
 Brewer, Wisconsin, engaged in farming. 
 
 The early education of Charles A. Houston was 
 obtained in the public schools of Kasson, where he 
 was graduated from the high school in 1897. Fie had 
 been reared amid agricultural surroundings and to 
 farming pursuits, but had early decided upon a pro- 
 fessional career, and after leaving high school en- 
 tered the medical department of the University of 
 Minnesota, from which he was graduated in 1901, 
 with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. He did 
 not, however, give up his books at that time, for he 
 has continued to be a zealous and assiduous stu- 
 dent, and in addition to attending lectures and sub- 
 scribing for the leading journals of his profession, 
 has done post-graduate work, attending a summer 
 course in New York in 1914 for this purpose. Doc- 
 tor Plouston spent the year from 1901 until 1902 as 
 interne in the Asbury Hospital at Minneapolis, and 
 then entered upon the practice of his profession at 
 Grand Marais, in the northeastern part of Minne- 
 sota, on Lake Superior, remaining there three years, 
 and during a part of that time served as coroner of 
 Cook County. In 1905 he came to Park Rapids and 
 established himself in practice, and here he has built 
 up an excellent business, particularly in the line of 
 surgery, in which he has gained a wide reputation. 
 His offices are maintained in the First National 
 Bank Building, where he has a large and valuable 
 medical library. Doctor Houston is a member of 
 the Upper Mississippi Medical Society and the 
 American Medical Association, and since coming to 
 Park Rapids has served several years in the capac- 
 ity of health officer. An enthusiastic member of 
 the Commercial Club, he was a member of the board 
 of directors of that organization in 1914, and has 
 done everything in his power to advance the in- 
 terests of his adopted community. Fraternally, he 
 is affiliated with Shell Lodge No. 184, A. F. & A. M., 
 the Ancient Order of United Workmen and the 
 Brotherhood of American Yeomen. He is a re- 
 publican, but has not been a seeker for political 
 preferment. 
 
 In 1903, while a resident of Kasson, Doctor 
 Houston was married to. Miss Josephine I. Fair- 
 child, daughter of E. E. Fairchild, cashier of the 
 First National Bank, now deceased. Three chil- 
 dren have been born to this union, namely: David 
 Fairchild, born October 30, 1905 ; Donald McClure, 
 born May 7, 1908; and Charles Edward, born June 
 28, 1912. 
 
 Benjamin Drake, Sr. One of the pioneers of 
 Hennepin County was the late Benjamin Drake, Sr., 
 who arrived at the Town of St. Anthony in 1856, and 
 employed his skill as a printer in assisting to get 
 out the first edition of the Minneapolis Tribune. 
 Later he became a homesteader on land near Holly- 
 wood, and still later located at Maple Plains, was 
 long prominent in the affairs of that community/and 
 died at the old home June 9, 1906, when sixty-nine 
 years of age. 
 
 Benjamin Drake, Sr., was born near Muncy, 
 Pennsylvania, December 17, 1836. His father, Rev. 
 George C. Drake, was an Episcopal minister at 
 Muncy. The local schools of Muncy supplied him 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1583 
 
 with a limited amount of book learning, but his 
 equipment as an intelligent and broadly informed 
 man for which he was given recognition during his 
 life in Minnesota was due to that splendid school 
 of instruction, a printing office. His apprenticeship 
 was passed in the office of the Muncy Luminary, 
 and he was already an expert compositor and 
 printer when he arrived at St. Anthony at the age 
 of twenty years. Mr. Drake was one of the last 
 three surviving charter members of the State Typo- 
 graphical Union. When about twenty-two years of 
 age he took up government land in Cochrane Town- 
 ship, Hennepin County, and after 1872 engaged in 
 the general merchandise business, giving up his work 
 as a printer. His commercial experience began at 
 Long Lake with D. A. Lydiard, under the firm name 
 of Lydiard & Drake. After about eight years the 
 firm was dissolved. The late D. A. Lydiard was one 
 of the prominent men in Hennepin County. About 
 1880 Mr. Drake moved about five miles west to 
 Maple Plain, and there continued general mer- 
 chandising on his own account until 1886, when he 
 sold out and resumed farming, a vocation continued 
 by him until 1896. After that his life was led along 
 the quiet lines of a retired farmer. His locality 
 honored him with several offices, and for a number 
 of years he was a justice of the peace. 
 
 Benjamin Drake, Sr., was married at Long Lake, 
 April 28, 1876, to Miss Emma C. Brown, daughter 
 of Andrew and Eliza Jane (Lydiard) Brown, both 
 of whom came from Meaghers Grant in Nova Scotia. 
 Andrew Brown and wife were pioneers of Minne- 
 sota, and Mrs. Brown died at Long Lake, while 
 Mr. Brown died at Maple Plain in 1896. He was a 
 farmer who was numbered among the pioneers, and 
 took up one hundred and twenty acres of Govern- 
 ment land at Long Lake, cleared it and placed it in 
 cultivation and was one of the substantial men of 
 that community. Mrs. Drake was born in Nova 
 Scotia, came with her parents to Long Lake at the 
 age of eleven years, and grew up in that community 
 which is fifteen miles west of Minneapolis. Ben- 
 iamin Drake, Sr., and wife had three children: Shir- 
 ley H., who was born at Long Lake March 21, 1877, 
 and is now engaged in the land and general invest- 
 ment business at Minneapolis, being president of the 
 Hennepin County Abstract Company; Benjamin 
 Drake, Jr., a Minneapolis lawyer, whose sketch is 
 found in the following paragraphs ; and Judson V., 
 who was born March ix, 1888, at Maple Plain and 
 died there February 14, 1902. Mrs. Benjamin Drake, 
 Sr., now lives in Minneapolis. 
 
 The late Mr. Drake as a pioneer was familiar with 
 and a student of early Minneapolis history. He has 
 apparently well substantiated his claim that his 
 cousin, George D. Bowman, gave the name to the 
 City of Minneapolis, and about six years before his 
 death, under date of January 21, 1900, and writing 
 from Maple Plain, Mr. Drake prepared a brief 
 article on this subject, which is herewith reproduced. 
 
 Naming Minneapolis. “What’s in a name?” 
 Whether much or little depends, according to Dis- 
 raeli the elder, on the felicity of its application or 
 the expressiveness of its coinage. Evidently he him- 
 self felt no slight degree of elation as he records 
 the fact that he was the happy instrument of trans- 
 ferring from the German to the English language 
 that “patriotic neologism — The Father-land.” What 
 wonder then that there should be rival claimants to 
 the honor of naming Minneapolis. And that it is 
 
 easy for credit of this kind to alight on undeserving 
 heads is admirably illustrated in the old history of 
 Hennepin County issued in 1881 on page 374, where 
 speaking of Charles Hoag, it is stated that “to him 
 is due the name' Minneapolis, which has been in- 
 correctly ascribed to Mr. George D. Bowman, editor 
 ot the St. Anthony Express, in consequence of the 
 prominent position he took with his paper among its 
 advocates.” That the name, whether good or bad, 
 was coined by Bowman, I have not a particle of 
 doubt. More than forty years ago he told me the 
 story, and it ran about thus: Many names had been 
 
 suggested for the embryo city, but none seemed to 
 meet popular approval. Bowman was distantly re- 
 lated to the wife of Orange Walker, the pioneer 
 lumberman of the St. Croix, who lived at Marine 
 Mills. After becoming identified with the St. An- 
 thony Express, he concluded to make the Walker 
 family a visit and he made the journey to Marine on 
 horseback. In order to while away the tediousness 
 of the trip he went through the mental process of 
 conjuring up a name for the coming city. Of course 
 many suggested themselves that were unsatisfactory, 
 but at length, in making combinations with the Greek 
 word “polis” he happened to think of joining it with 
 the Indian name of the Falls, which he said was 
 “Minneha" signifying “tumbling water.” Here was 
 Minnehapolis’ — appropriate and expressive enough, 
 but lacking-^ euphony. This could be remedied by 
 a silent h but the meeting to which it was sub- 
 mitted by Mr. Hoag at Bowman’s request wisely 
 gave the “h” an orthographical kick, and adopted 
 the name as we have it today. The combination oc- 
 curred to him near the Halfway House on the old 
 stage route between St. Paul and Stillwater, which 
 many old settlers will still remember. On his return 
 from Marine he, being an East sider, gave it to Mr. 
 Hoag, who submitted to the meeting, while Bowman 
 by arrangement, advocated its adoption in the 
 Express. 
 
 Along the '70s my friend A. J. Underwood was 
 riding on the cars with Mr. Hoag, when the latter 
 claimed the honor of naming the city. Mr. Lender- 
 wood told him he had always understood that Bow- 
 man had named it. Mr. Hoag’s reply was that 
 “George Bowman didn’t even understand the ety- 
 mology of the word.” In this he was mistaken, for 
 Bowman in that line was better authority than Mr. 
 Hoag himself. In early days Colonel Stevens in his 
 public addresses gave Bowman credit for the coin- 
 age, and he doubtless knew all about its inside 
 history. Mr. Hoag was selected to present it to 
 the meeting for two reasons : First, Bowman thought 
 that it was more likely to be adopted if presented by 
 a citizen of the town to be named. Secondly, it gave 
 him an opportunity, with better grace, to speak ap- 
 provingly of it in the paper which he was then 
 editing. Benjamin Drake. 
 
 Maple Plain, January 21, 1900. 
 
 Shirley H. Drake. In the real estate circles of 
 Minneapolis Mr. Drake is well and prominently 
 known, although he confines his attention solely to 
 the handling of properties owned and controlled by 
 himself. He has a valuable landed estate in his na- 
 tive commonwealth, and since establishing his home 
 in Minneapolis has built up a prosperous business 
 in the placing of his various properties on the mar- 
 ket and in the making of judicious realty invest- 
 ments, both city and country. 
 
 Mr. Drake was born at Long Lake, Hennepin 
 
1584 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 County, Minnesota, on the 21st of March, 1876, and 
 his early educational discipline was received in the 
 public schools of the Village of Maple Plain, this 
 county. He remained with his parents on the fine 
 old homestead farm in Independence Township, 
 Hennepin County, until he had attained his legal ma- 
 jority, and for seven years thereafter was engaged 
 in a general mercantile business at Long Lake. His 
 store was destroyed by fire in 1904, and he then re- 
 turned to the parental home, where he considered 
 ways and means and formed plans for further pro- 
 ductive enterprise. Llis father was the owner of a 
 large landed estate, and at his advice the son pur- 
 chased of him a tract of 360 acres, his intention 
 being to give personal supervision to the manage- 
 ment of this farm. But after two years of success- 
 ful farming, the death of his father occurring in 
 the meantime, he removed to Minneapolis, this being 
 . in 1907, although he still retains in his possession 
 the greater part of the land he had purchased from 
 his father, besides having a large amount of other 
 valuable realty in his native county. He was the 
 first president of the Hennepin County Abstract 
 Company, an office which he held in 1911-12, and he 
 is still an interested principal in this corporation. In 
 politics he accords allegiance to the republican party. 
 He has offices in the Lumber Exchange Building, 
 Minneapolis, and his home is at 2912 Third Avenue, 
 South. 
 
 On the 12th of November, 1907, Mr. Drake was 
 married to Miss Edna Ashley, of Maple Plain, 
 Hennepin County. She was born in Kent County, 
 Michigan, and her educational training was acquired 
 in the schools of South Dakota and Minnesota. Mrs. 
 Drake is a daughter of Charles and Minerva 
 (Knapp) Ashley, who now reside in Minneapolis, 
 where they celebrated their golden wedding anni- 
 versary on the 28th of October, 1908, their marriage 
 having been solemnized on the day prior to the 
 birth of Theodore Roosevelt. Both were born in 
 the state of New York, and their marriage took 
 place in Kent County, Michigan. Mr. Ashley, who 
 is now living retired, devoted the major part of his 
 active life to agricultural pursuits. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Drake have two children, Judson Ashley and Shir- 
 ley Jane. 
 
 Benjamin Drake, Jr. A son of one of the noted 
 pioneers of Hennepin County, Benjamin Drake, Jr., 
 is now practicing law with success in Minneapolis, 
 and for several years has been one of the most in- 
 fluential leaders in the progressive-republican party 
 of the state. 
 
 Born at the old homestead at Maple Plain, Henne- 
 pin County, Minnesota, twenty-one miles west of 
 Minneapolis, May 5, 1880, Benjamin Drake, Jr., was 
 educated in the district schools of his native locality, 
 graduated with the class of 1898 at the East Side 
 High School of Minneapolis, and about that time 
 enlisted as a private in the Fifteenth Minnesota 
 Volunteer Infantry for service in the Spanish- 
 American war. His company got no further south 
 than Augusta, Georgia, and his return to Minneapolis 
 was followed by his entrance into the University of 
 Minnesota, where he graduated Bachelor of Arts in 
 1903, and in 1905 took the degree LL. B. from the 
 law department of the university. Since the latter 
 year Mr. Drake has been engaged in practice with 
 offices in the Lumber Exchange, and he and Sampson 
 R. Child share offices, though they are not partners. 
 Mr. Drake is a member of the Minneapolis Bar As- 
 
 sociation and the Minnesota State Bar Association, 
 and has excellent connections both in the law and in 
 public affairs. 
 
 Mr. Drake became well known over the state at 
 large as manager in Minnesota for Mr. LaFollette 
 during Ins campaign for the presidential nomination 
 in 1912. Mr. Drake is a member of the executive 
 committee of the Minnesota Progressive Republi- 
 can League, and has held that office for several 
 years. Not an office seeker himself, it has been his 
 efforts to promote progressive qualities and the wel- 
 fare of his party without selfish consideration. Mr. 
 Drake is attorney for the Equity Co-Operative Ex- 
 change of St. Paul. He is a member of the First 
 Unitarian Church of Minneapolis. 
 
 On December 28, 1910, Mr. Drake married Miss 
 Martha B. Cross of Minneapolis, which is her na- 
 tive city. She graduated from the North Side High 
 School and finished her education in the St. Cloud 
 Normal. Two children have been born to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Drake, Benjamin Drake, Jr., born at Minne- 
 apolis September 22, 1912; and Elizabeth, born No- 
 vember. 19, 1914. Mr. Drake and family reside at 
 4001 Colfax Avenue, South. 
 
 Jacob Bredwad Nelsen. Than the lives of those 
 who have risen from the ranks and by continuous 
 hard work and unswerving integrity have overcome 
 obstacles and reached positions of independence, 
 there is nothing more interesting, more elevating 
 or more encouraging. The sternest opposition, bit- 
 ter trials, difficulties apparently insurmountable, sink 
 into mere shadows before energy, self-reliance and 
 earnest perseverance ; success may long elude, but 
 it is bound to come in time to those who per- 
 sistently and perseveringly strive. These facts will 
 be proven in the career of Jacob Bredwad Nelsen, 
 owner and manager of the J. B. Nelsen Construction 
 Company, of North Mankato, Minnesota, who ar- 
 rived in this country some thirty years ago with $8 
 as his sole monetary capital, who today is one of 
 the substantial business men in his line of his part 
 of the state. 
 
 Mr. Nelsen was born near the City of Copen- 
 hagen, Denmark, April 14, 1863, and was given 
 ordinary advantages in the public schools. In his 
 native land he could see naught ahead of him save 
 many years of hard labor, with but little success 
 to be achieved, and so he turned his face toward 
 America, the opportunities of which country he 
 had heard so much. He was but twenty-one years 
 of age when he landed at New York, and part of 
 his small capital was spent in making his way to 
 Mankato, Minnesota, where he had been informed 
 he would find a number of his countrymen. Strong 
 and capable, and willing to put his hand to any kind 
 of honorable work, he soon found employment as 
 a hod-carrier, and thus entered upon a career in 
 which he was to make rapid headway. As his ability 
 and intelligence made themselves felt by his em- 
 ployer, he was advanced from position to position, 
 he in this way learning every detail of the work 
 in which he was to engage, and finally, in 1894, he 
 branched out into business on his own account, 
 when he founded the J. B. Nelsen Construction 
 Company. This company now does all kinds of 
 building construction work, remodels store fronts 
 and repairs all kinds of buildings, employing a 
 force of from 150 to 250 men and thus affording 
 lucrative employment to the bread-winners of many 
 families. Distance does not matter to this com- 
 

 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1585 
 
 pany, which will accept contracts anywhere, and 
 many public and private buildings have been erected 
 in North and South Dakota and Iowa, as well as 
 all over the State of Minnesota. Nearly all of the 
 most prominent buildings in Mankato have been 
 constructed by this company, the operations of which 
 during its twenty years of business aggregate well 
 over $3,000,000. Mr. Nelsen owns his own stone 
 quarry, where he has every modern appliance and 
 equipment for the work, and no building is too large 
 for him to accept as a contract. Among his impor- 
 tant structures may be mentioned the Carnegie 
 Library, First National Bank, Mother House, Luth- 
 eran Seminary, high school, Grand Theater, Ger- 
 man Lutheran Church, Model Normal School, _ Im- 
 manuel Hospital, Richards Block (rebuilt), National 
 Citizens Bank, Methodist Episcopal Church and In- 
 dependent Order of Odd Fellows Building, all at 
 Mankato; courthouse at Brookings, South Dakota; 
 courthouse at Windom, Minnesota; courthouse at 
 Fairmount, Minnesota; Carpenter Hotel, Sioux 
 Falls, South Dakota; six-story Trust and Savings 
 Bank, Aberdeen, South Dakota; Iron Exchange 
 Building, Brainerd, Minnesota; Agricultural College, 
 Brookings, South Dakota; wholesale grocery build- 
 ing, Bismarck, North Dakota, and several of the 
 state buildings at St. Peter and Rochester asylums. 
 
 Mr. Nelsen’s absolute integrity has made his name 
 an honored one in business circles all over this 
 and other states. The poor emigrant youth with 
 little but ambition to aid him, and no friends to 
 help him over the rough places, has developed into 
 a man of influence and power, yet he labors as 
 sturdily and faithfully, and puts the same quality 
 into his work as he did during the days when his 
 daily wage meant his daily living. His commodious 
 offices are located at the corner of Belgrade Avenue 
 and Center Street, where he has a well-stocked 
 yard of building materials and cement, for which 
 he has an extensive trade, and also operates a 
 modern planing mill. A large office is also kept on 
 this corner, where a corps of assistants handle the 
 routine matter of the concern. As is natural, Mr. 
 Nelsen is widely known to the trade, and is a_ mem- 
 ber of the Builders’ Exchange of Minneapolis and 
 the Minnesota State Builders’ Association, of which 
 he is one of the vice presidents. He has various 
 business connections, being a director of the Bank 
 of Commerce of Mankato, the Shakon Fish and 
 Canning Company, of Shakon, Alaska, and others, 
 and vice president of the Bankers and Merchants 
 Insurance Company of Minneapolis. 
 
 Politically a republican, Mr. Nelsen has taken 
 some active part in civic affairs in Mankato. He 
 served seven years as mayor M the city, and is 
 now in his fourth term as president of the council, 
 and for eleven years was a member of the school 
 board, being president thereof for two terms. His 
 official services have been characterized by the same 
 fidelity to duty and conscientious devotion to detail 
 that have marked his business life, and in every way 
 he has given of his best in advancing Mankato’s 
 interests. Fraternally he is a prominent Odd Fel- 
 low and a thirty-second degree Mason, belonging to 
 the lodge, chapter, commandery, council and 
 Mystic Shrine, and in each of these orders has hosts 
 of warm and appreciative friends. He resides in 
 one of the most beautiful residences in the city, 
 situated in North Mankato and built after his own 
 design. 
 
 On December 26, 1889, Mr. Nelsen was married 
 
 at Mankato to Miss Anna M. Nelsen, daughter of 
 Hans Nelsen, a native of Denmark, and five chil- 
 dren have been born to this , union : Lucile, who 
 married Henry Robel, who is Mr. Nelsen’s assistant 
 and figures all his contracts ; Engrel, who will grad- 
 uate from the Mankato High School this spring; 
 Lillian, who is attending the Art Institute, St. Paul ; 
 Edwald, who resides with his parents and is seven- 
 teen years of age; and Jennes, who is still attend- 
 ing the Mankato public schools. The family is affil- 
 iated with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
 its members have been active in religious and char- 
 itable work. 
 
 John P. Nash, Sr. The history of the late John 
 P. Nash, Sr., belongs to the past of Minneapolis, 
 rather than the present, for thirty years have passed 
 since his death. He was cut off in the bloom of 
 young manhood, before he had been able to develop 
 into his full power and usefulness, yet he left behind 
 descendants who have won substantial places in the 
 city’s busy life and who have exemplified in their 
 characters the sterling traits which this early citizen 
 possessed. Mr. Nash was born at Lawrenceville, 
 Pennsylvania, July x, 1855, and was a son of those 
 sturdy Minnesota pioneers, John and Ann (Casey) 
 Nash, who came to Minnesota during the ’fifties and 
 settled at Minneapolis, only to be driven out, with 
 others, by the Indians. Subsequently they walked to 
 Litchfield, Minnesota, where they took up 160 acres 
 of land from the Government, but after the Indian 
 disturbance abated they returned to Minneapolis 
 and established a boarding house on the present site 
 of the Union Depot. When the village began to 
 take on a citified appearance they disposed of their 
 property to the Manitoba Railroad, in 1881, although 
 the father had died the year previously. The mother 
 survived until 1889. 
 
 John P. Nash, Sr., was still a young lad when the 
 family came to Minneapolis, and here he attended 
 the primitive pioneer schools. His education was 
 slight, but he had as schoolmates some men who have 
 since risen to high positions in the world. He was a 
 member of the Immaculate Conception parish, and 
 early joined the band which bore that name, the first 
 musical organization in the city. An early democrat 
 in politics, he at one time was a candidate for 
 the office of county commissioner, but met with de- 
 feat. Mr. Nash had charge of the registry department 
 at the postoffice at the time of his death, December 
 13, 1883, when aged but twenty-eight years, five 
 months and twelve days. Mr. Nash married Miss 
 Annie E. Jones, who died March 7, 1912, aged fifty- 
 three years. She was one of the original members of 
 St. Charles parish, and a pioneer in the charitable and 
 church work of the Catholic Church in Minneapolis. 
 The daughter of John Jones, she was born in 1859, 
 at Brooklyn, New York,' and as a child moved with 
 her parents to Cooperstown, New York. In 1875 
 she came to Minneapolis to visit her uncle, the late 
 Michael Hoy, a Minneapolis pioneer and former 
 chief of police here, and soon after her arrival was 
 married to John P. Nash. In 1884 the family moved 
 to No. 828 Seventh Street, South, where Mrs. Nash 
 continued to reside for twenty-eight years, becoming 
 widely known and greatly beloved because of her 
 church and charitable work, with which she became 
 connected when she came to Minneapolis and con- 
 tinued to be engaged in up to the time of her death. 
 Mrs. Nash is survived by two sons: John P., and 
 William M., each of whom has separate mention in 
 
I 586 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 this work ; and two sisters and two brothers : Mrs. 
 Eugenia A. Shelley, of Minneapolis ; Miss Katherine 
 E. Jones, of Cooperstown, New York; and John and 
 Christopher Jones of that place. 
 
 John P. Nash, Jr., has been a member of the 
 Minneapolis bar for a period of eleven years, and 
 at present is connected with the strong iegal com- 
 bination of John P. Nash and William M. Nash. 
 As a member of the Minnesota State Legislature 
 Mr. Nash became well and favorably known to the 
 people as the author of much important and helpful 
 legislation, particularly the State Weights and Meas- 
 ures Bill, which became a law in 1911. 
 
 Mr. Nash was born in the City of Minneapolis, 
 April 15, 1881, and is a son of the late John P. and 
 Annie E. (Jones) Nash, pioneers of this city, 
 extended mention of whom appears on another page 
 of this work. The father died December 13, 1883, 
 while the mother died March 7, 1912, and they were 
 the parents of four children, two daughters who 
 died in infancy, John P., and William M., whose 
 life record is given elsewhere in this volume. After 
 completing the curriculum of the old Washington 
 School, which stood on the present site of the court- 
 house, Mr. Nash became a student in Central High 
 School, from which he was graduated. Later he 
 graduated from the Minneapolis Academy, and then 
 for four years studied under the able preceptorship 
 of Judge John H. Steele, now one of the district 
 judges here, in the meantime attending night law 
 classes at the University of Minnesota. After suc- 
 cessfully passing the state bar examination, he was 
 admitted to practice November 10, 1903, and im- 
 mediately opened an office at Minneapolis, where 
 he was for some time associated with his brother, 
 under the firm style of J. P. & W. M. Nash. 
 In 1908 William M. Nash became assistant county 
 attorney under the late J. J. Smith and sub- 
 sequently served in the same capacity under James 
 Robertson, the present county attorney, until 1912. 
 In the meantime, in January, 1910, John P. Nash 
 formed a partnership with George W. Armstrong, 
 under the firm style of Armstrong & Nash, and 
 this combination maintained offices in the New York 
 Life Building until January 1, 1915, when the part- 
 nership was dissolved, Mr. Armstrong becoming 
 county prosecutor in the office of the county attor- 
 ney of Hennepin County. 
 
 As a member of the Hennepin County Republican 
 Campaign Committee Mr. Nash managed a number 
 of political campaigns. He was but twenty-nine 
 years of age when he was elected to the House of 
 Representatives from the Forty-first District of Min- 
 nesota, comprising the Fifth and Sixth wards of 
 Minneapolis, and attended the regular sessions of 
 1911 and the special session of 1912. In all Mr. Nash 
 introduced twenty-eight bills of his own authorship, 
 all tending to remedy some faults in legislation or 
 to introduce reforms, but the achievement of which 
 he is most justly proud was the authorship of the 
 State Weights and Measures Bill of Minnesota, 
 which was signed by Governor Eberhart, April 15, 
 iqit, and came as a thirtieth birthday present to Mr. 
 Nash. He is also interested in various other enter- 
 prises outside of his profession, and is a working 
 member of the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce As- 
 sociation. Fraternally he belongs to the Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks, being a life member 
 of Minneapolis Lodge No. 44 and chairman of its 
 house committee, also to Hennepin Council, Knights 
 
 of Columbus. His religious connection is with St. 
 Charles Catholic Church. 
 
 Mr. Nash was married November 22, 1904, to Miss 
 Margie M. Dougherty, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. 
 James E. Dougherty, pioneers of Minneapolis. Mrs. 
 Nash was born and educated in this city and is a 
 graduate of the South Side High School. 
 
 William M. Nash. Like many members of the 
 bar of Minnesota, William M. Nash is a native of 
 Minneapolis. In this city his entire career has been 
 spent. 
 
 Mr. Nash was born September 4, 1883, and is a 
 son of the late John P. and Annie 'E. (Jones) Nash, 
 pioneers of Minneapolis, a sketch of whose career 
 will be found elsewhere in this work. The father 
 died December 13, 1883, when William M. was but 
 three months old, but the mother survived until 
 March 7, 1912. Two daughters died in infancy, while 
 Mr. Nash's brother, John P. Nash, is a practicing 
 attorney of Minneapolis and has his life record on 
 another page of this volume. The primary education 
 of William M. Nash was secured in the public 
 schools of Minneapolis, following which he entered 
 the Central High School, being graduated therefrom 
 in 1900. He began the study of law in the office of 
 Judge John H. Steele, now judge of the District 
 Court, and after some preparation entered the law 
 department of the University of Minnesota, and was 
 admitted to the bar February 10, 1904. At that 
 time he began practice with his former preceptor, 
 with whom he continued until Judge Steele ascended 
 the bench of the District Court, and Mr. Nash then 
 formed a partnership with his brother, under the 
 firm style of J. P. & W. M. Nash. This combination 
 continued until August 1, 1908, when the partner- 
 ship was dissolved, William M. Nash becoming 
 assistant county attorney under the late A 1 J. Smith, 
 with whom he continued until Mr. Smith’s death, 
 November 3, 1910. He then served under Mr. 
 Smith’s successor, John M. Rees, who was appointed 
 by the court to serve the three months of unex- 
 pired term, and later acted in the same capacity 
 under the county attorney, James Robertson, until 
 September 1, 1912, his complete services in that 
 office covering a period of four years and one month. 
 Since his retirement, Mr. Nash has been engaged in 
 general practice, with offices in the New York Life 
 Building. Upon the dissolution of the partnership 
 existing between his brother, John P. Nash, and 
 George W. Armstrong, on January 1, 1915, he again 
 became associated with his brother under the firm 
 name of John P. Nash and William M. Nash. He 
 belongs to the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce 
 Association, is a life member of the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks, Minneapolis Lodge No. 44, 
 and also holds membership in Hennepin Council, 
 Knights of Columbus. Politically a republican, he 
 has taken an active interest in his party, and for 
 years has been a member of the republican cam- 
 paign committee. 
 
 Mr. Nash is unmarried and resides at No. 828 
 Seventh Street South. He is a member of St. 
 Charles congregation of the Catholic Church. 
 
 » 
 
 John C. Wise, Sr. The name of Wise has been 
 identified with Minnesota journalism fifty-five years. 
 One of the oldest papers in the state is the Mankato 
 Review, which has been continuously under the man- 
 agement and ownership of members of this family 
 since it was established in 1869. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1587 
 
 The late John C. Wise, Sr., who had several 
 interesting associations with pioneer newspaper his- 
 tory in the Northwest, was born in Maryland, Sep- 
 tember 4, 1834, and died November 17, 1900. He 
 was married in his native state September 9, 1857, 
 to Amanda Flory, who was born in 1836 and died 
 January ir, 1885. John C. Wise was a son of Rich- 
 ard Wise, a contractor, who died at Hagerstown, 
 Maryland, at the age of ninety-one. His son learned 
 the printing trade in the office of the Congressional 
 Record at Washington, and a printing office was his 
 university, and he was in the business from the age 
 of thirteen until his death. He had the distinction 
 of establishing the first paper printed at the head 
 of Lake Superior, setting up a small plant at Supe- 
 rior, Wisconsin, in 1855. Selling out in 1858, he 
 went east, but in 1859 came to Mankato, in Minne- 
 sota Territory, and started the Mankato Record. 
 He sold that paper in 1868, but on May 25, 1869, 
 brought out the first issue of the Weekly Review, 
 beginning a business with which he was identified 
 until his death and which is now continued by his 
 sons. Mr. Wise, Sr., was active in city affairs, a 
 democrat in politics, and for five years held the 
 office of postmaster, during the two terms of Pres- 
 ident Cleveland. He was a charter member of 
 Mankato Lodge of Masons, held the Knight Tem- 
 plar degrees, and his wife belonged to the Episcopal 
 Church. Of their seven children, five are living: 
 Charles E., Mrs. Katherine Weaver, John C., Jr., 
 Miss Helen E. and Miss Flory, all of Mankato. 
 
 Charles E. Wise was born in Mankato, Minnesota, 
 October 23, i860, and while attending the local pub- 
 lic schools began carrying papers for his father. 
 That was his introduction to the business with which 
 he has been identified almost ever since. After his 
 graduation from the high school in 1877 he remained 
 in the printing office several months, then found 
 work as clerk in the county auditor's office under 
 J. J. Thompson, and in 1881 had a different kind of 
 experience with W. T. Mills, a wholesale produce 
 merchant. August 15, 1881, he went to El Paso, 
 Texas, and spent about two years in the customs 
 service under Col. Abner Tibbits, collector of that 
 port. Resigning in July, 1883, he became an active 
 partner with his father in the publication of the 
 Mankato Review. Since the death of the elder 
 Wise he and his brother John have continued to 
 publish the daily and weekly Review under the firm 
 name, J. C. Wise & Sons, and also maintain a job 
 printing and book binding department. 
 
 Mr. Charles Wise is a democrat and, while never 
 holding an elective position, has been appointed to 
 several places. He was assistant postmaster under 
 his father in 188^-86. under P. IT. Carney in 1888-90, 
 under W. W. P. McConnell in 1890-91, and again 
 under his father, 1894 to 1898. He is a director of the 
 National Citizens Bank and the Savings and Build- 
 ing Association. Fie has been a member of the 
 library board a number of years, having held the 
 offices of secretary, vice president and president, and 
 was a member of the charter commission which 
 brought about the commission form of government 
 for Mankato. In 1908 he was president of the 
 North Star Daily Press Association. Fraternally he 
 is past exalted ruler in Mankato Lodge No. 225, 
 B. P. O. E., and is a member of Blue Earth Lodge 
 No. 30, A. O. U. W., and Council No. 1520, Royal 
 Arcanum, and Mankato Lodge No. 12, A. F. & 
 A. M. At one time he was president and sec- 
 retary of the Mankato Gun Club, but an accident 
 
 in 1904, when a target thrown from a trap put out 
 an eye, caused him to give up his active part in 
 the sport. He attends the Episcopal Church, in 
 which his wife and children are members. On 
 September 26, 1893, he married Miss Minnie Lee, 
 daughter of Nathan P. Lee, formerly of Sparta, 
 Wisconsin, and later of Mankato. Mrs. Wise has 
 served as president of the Ladies’ Aid Society and 
 is one of the charter members of the Clio Club. 
 The children are: Charles E., Jr., born July 18, 
 1894; Katherine, born March 21, 1896; Elizabeth, 
 born May 30, 1900, died July 2, 1901 ; and Mar- 
 garet, born January 30, 1903. 
 
 John C. Wise, Jr., who like his brother has been 
 identified with the printing and newspaper business 
 practically ever since boyhood, was born at Man- 
 kato, April 14, 1866. From the grammar and high 
 schools he entered the Mankato Normal, and since 
 then has given his time and energy almost unremit- 
 tingly to the publishing business. The Review now 
 has a large circulation, and while its influence has 
 long been recognized, it is also the central feature of 
 a very substantial business in a commercial sense. 
 
 John C. Wise, Jr., is unmarried, is affiliated with 
 the lodge, chapter and commandery of Masonry and 
 with Zurah Temple of the Mystic Shrine, is past 
 exalted ruler of the Benevolent and Protective Order 
 of Elks, a past chancellor of the Knights of Pythias, 
 and a member of the Royal Arcanum, Eagles 
 Lodge, and the Improved Order of Red Men. He is 
 a democrat and a member of the Episcopal Church. 
 Mr. Wise is serving as resident director of the Man- 
 kato Normal, being a member of the State Normal 
 School Board for the past twelve years. 
 
 Nicholas Meyer. In point of continuous service 
 one of the oldest if not the oldest probate judge in 
 Minnesota is Nicholas Meyer of Scott County. His 
 first election to that office came in the fall of 1879, 
 more than thirty-five years ago, and at every re- 
 curring election the people have shown their ap- 
 proval of his capable and painstaking administra- 
 tion by keeping him in the office. For the benefit of 
 the people of Scott County his experience has again 
 and again been capitalized in abler and more efficient 
 service, and his popularity has grown with the 
 course of years. 
 
 Nicholas Meyer is a native of Germany, born 
 November 4. 1847. His parents were Mathias and 
 Catherine (Fries) Meyer, both natives of Germany. 
 His father was born in 1797 and died in 1866, and 
 the mother also died in Germany. The father com- 
 bined farming with brick manufacturing. The 
 family were Catholics, and there were ten children 
 in all. 
 
 Judge Meyer was liberally educated in his native 
 land, attended some of the higher schools at Treves. 
 At the age of nineteen, and in the same year that 
 his father died, in 1866, he left Germany and came 
 to America. For about two years he lived_ in New 
 York Citv and supported himself by clerking in a 
 store. Then with exceedingly modest capital he 
 came out to Minnesota in 1867 and spent the fol- 
 lowing winter in Stearns County, and in 1868 arrived 
 in Shakopee, which city has been his home for up- 
 wards of half a century. For a number of years 
 he was a popular and successful teacher in Stearns 
 and Scott counties. He also possesses the char- 
 acteristic talent for music, and for many years has 
 been one of the leading amateur and professional 
 musicians at Shakopee. 
 
1588 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 In 1869 Mr. Meyer married Julia Klinkhammer of 
 Scott County. At her death in 1879 she left four 
 children, Mrs. Margaret Ross of St. Paul; Mrs. 
 Catherine Pink of Shakopee; Mrs. Anna Buergens, 
 living on a farm near Shakopee; Mrs. Mary 
 Schwartz, of St. Paul. In 1881 Judge Meyer mar- 
 ried Katie Theis of Scott County. To this union 
 have been born ten children, as follows: Nicholas 
 M., employed in a printing office in St. Paul ; Mrs. 
 Chaon of Gerry, South Dakota ; Gertrude, at home ; 
 Tillie C., a stenographer in Minneapolis ; Clara, a 
 milliner in South Dakota ; Mathias, a printer at St. 
 Paul ; Anton C., is in the service of the railway 
 company with headquarters at St. Paul ; Barbara, 
 Sadie and Isabelle, all living at home in Shakopee. 
 The family are members of the Catholic Church and 
 Judge Meyer has long been active in church affairs, 
 has served as secretary of the local parish for thirty- 
 five years, and was church organist for forty-five 
 years. Politically he is identified with the democratic 
 party and for a number of years held the office of 
 justice of the peace and city clerk. 
 
 Charles Henry Norred, M. D. Known and 
 honored as a man of fine professional attainments 
 and achievements, and one whose influence has been 
 potent in the conservation of general health and in 
 the advancement of sanitary and other agencies 
 tending to maintain the physical well being of the 
 community, Dr. Norred has long been one of the 
 prominent physicians and surgeons of the State of 
 Minnesota. Special distinction is also due him for 
 his effective and loyal service, principally along the 
 line of his profession, as a soldier and surgeon in the 
 Civil war. His life has been one of signal devotion 
 to his exacting profession, and his character is the 
 positive expression of a strong and noble nature, so 
 that he has held unqualified popular esteem both as 
 a physician and as a citizen. He is still engaged in 
 the practice of his profession, with offices at 804 
 Andrus Building, Minneapolis, and with residence 
 in the Rogers Hotel. 
 
 Dr. Charles Henry Norred claims the historic Old 
 Dominion Commonwealth as his birthplace, and his 
 ancestors, of English lineage, were among the 
 colonial settlers in that state. He was born in 
 Loudoun County, Virginia, January 19, 1842, the 
 son of William and Elizabeth (Dowdell) Norred, 
 the former born at Hagerstown, Maryland, and 
 the latter in Loudoun County, Virginia. The latter 
 years of their lives were spent in the State of 
 Illinois. When Doctor Norred was a child his 
 parents moved from Virginia to Sangamon County, 
 Illinois, and there near Springfield, capital of the 
 state, William Norred made himself no unimportant 
 factor as a farmer, lumberman and miller. While 
 he inherited no landed estate, by his hard-working 
 industry he accomplished much that was worthy 
 and distinctive as a business man. 
 
 As a boy Dr. Norred, while receiving his educa- 
 tion in the common schools of the locality and 
 period, early became associated with his father’s 
 varied activities. He not infrequently took one end 
 of the cross-cut saw, with his father at the other 
 end, which from early morning till late afternoon 
 they manipulated back and forth across the logs in 
 the timber. As a result of this experience he ac- 
 quired a practical knowledge of farming, stock rais- 
 ing. lumbering, engineering and milling. 
 
 While he was a boy growing up in Sangamon 
 County the greatest character of American history 
 
 was practicing law in the City of Springfield. Prob- 
 ably the most powerful and abiding influence in the 
 development of Dr. Norred's character came from 
 that rugged and simple lawyer. His father had oc- 
 casion to consult on legal matters Abraham Lincoln, 
 and Dr. Norred recalls a number of incidents con- 
 cerning that great statesman, who at that time was 
 almost unknown outside the State of Illinois, but 
 whose noble character and deep human sympathy 
 were already well understood by his widening circle 
 of friends and followers. When Dr. Norred was a 
 boy Lincoln took him upon his knee and gave him 
 kindly counsel and advice as to his future life. Lin- 
 coln's integrity, ability and marvelous simplicity of 
 character made a lasting impression on the lad, and 
 influenced and moulded to a great extent his political 
 views. In the campaign of i860, when Lincoln first 
 appeared as the republican candidate for the presi- 
 dency, young Norred, who cast his first nresidential 
 vote in that year, was an enthusiastic member of the 
 "Wide-Awakes,” an organization in which he ardent- 
 ly aided in supporting the cause of Lincoln, the man 
 and friend whose memory he has ever revered. 
 
 On leaving the common schools Dr. Norred en- 
 tered the Illinois State University, then at Spring- 
 field, and in preparation for his chosen profession 
 his studies were during i860 carried on under the 
 preceptorship of Dr. Robert S. Lord, of Springfield. 
 Later he continued in Pope’s Medical College, in St. 
 Louis, Missouri, and is one of the body of alumni 
 of that school. However, he soon subordinated all 
 other interests to the dictates of patriotism when the 
 Civil war broke out. Records in the adjutant gen- 
 eral's office of Illinois shows that on July 25, 1862, 
 at Dawson, Sangamon County, Dr. Norred enlisted 
 for a term of three years and was mustered into the 
 United States service as a private in Company I, 
 One Hundred and Fourteenth Illinois Infantry. The 
 One Hundred and Fourteenth Illinois Infantry was 
 mustered in in 1862 at Camp Butler, and under the 
 direction of the post surgeon, Doctor Norred, estab- 
 lished a temporary hospital, in which he cared for 
 the sick recruits of his regiment. On the formal 
 mustering of the regiment, though he had been re- 
 peatedly tendered a line office, the doctor was re- 
 tained with the medical department, his technical 
 knowledge making him specially valuable in this 
 service. On November 8, 1862, the regiment was 
 ordered from Camp Butler to Alton, Illinois, and 
 thence to Memphis, Tennessee, at which point it 
 arrived November 20th, being assigned to the First 
 Brigade, First Division of the Fifteenth Army Corps, 
 commanded by Gen. William T. Sherman. With this 
 corps the regiment took part in the Dresden expedi- 
 tion, and the command then returned to Memphis, 
 about the middle of December. Shortly afterwards 
 the regiment was ordered to College Hill. Mississippi, 
 to assist General Grant in his first overland expedi- 
 tion against Vicksburg. 
 
 Some years ago Doctor Norred recalled some of 
 his individual experiences as a soldier, and the fol- 
 lowing condensation of that article will afford an 
 appropriate record concerning this epoch of his 
 career : “While we were at College Hill, Holly 
 Springs was captured by the Confederates. Our 
 regiment was accordingly ordered to Holly Springs, 
 later to LaGrange, Tennessee, and finally to Jackson 
 that State, General R. P. Buckland commanding our 
 brigade, and General John E. Smith commanding our 
 division. The regiment remained at Jackson until 
 the latter part of February, 1863, and was then 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1589 
 
 ordered to Memphis and was assigned outpost duty. 
 Here I was transferred from the medical depart- 
 ment to that of the army and was ordered to report 
 to the surgeon in charge of the ‘Floating Hospital 
 Nashville’ for duty in his department. I proceeded 
 to this hospital, then at Memphis, and thence, as a 
 part of the hospital corps, to Vicksburg. When I 
 arrived at that hospital I was asked by the surgeon 
 in charge, ‘What can you do?’ I answered, ‘I will 
 obey orders and try to do anything.’ The first thing 
 handed me was a slop bucket and a scrub brush. I 
 think I did satisfactory work, and the next thing 
 was to act in the capacity of nurse ; the next was 
 ward master, and nursing twenty men at night. They 
 finally found out that I was an undergraduate medi- 
 cal student and I was then assigned to duty in the 
 surgery. The floating hospital Nashville was of the 
 capacity of 700 beds, and was kept as near Vicksburg 
 as was consistent with safety being maintained as a 
 receiving boat for the sick and wounded. Our labors 
 at that time were certainly very strenuous. In 1863 
 I was attacked with congestive fever, malignant 
 malarial fever, was very ill and was finally sent north 
 to the United States general hospital at Jefferson 
 Barracks, Missouri, where I made a very slow re- 
 covery. As soon as I had sufficiently recovered to 
 go on duty I was retained in the medical department 
 and placed in charge of a dispensary, in the mean- 
 time assisting in all kinds of surgery and everything 
 else that was to be done. While in this capacity I 
 infected my right hand with gangrene, while remov- 
 ing the poison from the side of a soldier, and from 
 the effects of this I have never recovered. I was 
 very ill for a long time and as a result of the gan- 
 grene I had general lymphangitis. 
 
 “On March 11, 1865, while at Jefferson Barracks, 
 I was transferred to the Veteran Reserve Corps, 
 from which I was discharged by reason of disability. 
 Going before the Illinois State Examining Board at 
 Springfield, I passed a successful examination for 
 an assistant surgeon. I was made senior assistant 
 surgeon with rank of captain of cavalry, taking rank 
 from April 3, 1865, and was immediately sent to 
 Eastport, Mississippi, where I was mustered into and 
 placed in charge of the medical department of the 
 Seventh Illinois Cavalry, which was with the Second 
 Brigade, Fifth Division Cavalry Corps, Military 
 Division of Mississippi. In 1863, September, I think, 
 I had a very severe relapse of malarial fever, and 
 while unconscious, near Decatur, Alabama, was sent 
 to the Cumberland Hospital, Nashville, Tennessee, 
 where I was still confined at the time when my 
 regiment was mustered out of service. On the 18th 
 of December of the same year I was mustered out 
 of service at Springfield, Illinois. One of the most 
 remarkable things within my knowledge was that 
 of a private doing for nearly three years the work 
 of an assistant surgeon, with the pay of thirteen 
 dollars a month. I was thus constantly kindling my 
 fires on the edge of the battle field, and in the most 
 dangerous branch of the service, but I felt I was 
 endowed by nature with special talents in my profes- 
 sion. I was certainly consecrated to the profession 
 of my choice ; was honest, sincere, observing, and 
 a very hard worker — making the best of every 
 opportunity given. Today I feel I am indebted to the 
 above named conditions and circumstances for the 
 remarkable success that has so uniformly blessed 
 m Y professional life for the past fifty years, since 
 which time I have been a benediction to thousands 
 of hearts and homes.” 
 
 The concluding sentences of the above quotation 
 indicate with significance the high ideals and deep 
 human sympathy that have animated Doctor Norred 
 during the long years of earnest and self-abnegating 
 labor in his chosen profession, which he has dignified 
 and honored by his character and services. 
 
 To supplement the experience and training of his 
 service as an army surgeon, Doctor Norred com- 
 pleted a course of study in the Pennsylvania School 
 of Anatomy and Surgery, where he was graduated, 
 and in 1886 was given the degree doctor of medicine 
 by the historic old Jefferson Medical College in 
 Philadelphia. After the war Doctor Norred engaged 
 in the practice of his profession at Dawson, Sanga- 
 mon County, Illinois, and for a time was a practi- 
 tioner at Middletown, that state, going later to Lin- 
 coln, Illinois, which continued to be the state of 
 his professional activities until 1882. In the latter 
 year he came to Minnesota and in 1885 established 
 himself in general practice in the City of Minne- 
 apolis. Here as elsewhere the doctor has controlled 
 a large and representative practice and has gained 
 the affectionate regard and implicit confidence of 
 the many families which he has ministered with all 
 his ability and zeal. 
 
 His has been a life of kindly, capable service to 
 the community and to hundreds of individuals. How- 
 ever, most of the best work of the physician does 
 not flaunt itself before the public gaze, but is 
 wrought in the hearts of his fellow man. Beyond 
 this conscientious and careful work which Doctor 
 Norred has rendered, and of which there can be no 
 adequate record, he has also been conspicuous as a 
 leader in the public health movement, and nowhere 
 was this leadership better illustrated than during 
 1900, when Minneapolis was swept with an epidemic 
 of smallpox, beginning in the spring of that year. 
 The health department seemed unable to handle the 
 situation. At the instance of many leading physicians 
 and other citizens of the city and at the unanimous 
 request of the board of health, Doctor Norred was 
 asked to take the position of special quarantine 
 officer. The responsibilities of this post were such 
 that for about six months he was almost an absolute 
 dictator in the city. The state board of health was 
 threatening to quarantine the entire; city, and all 
 local officials, including the mayor and the health 
 board, were exerting constant pressure upon the 
 special quarantine officer for the efficient handling 
 of the dangerous situation. During that six months 
 heTiad the mayor and the entire police force under 
 his control, as well as the chief of the fire depart- 
 ment, and with power to burn or to buy any prop- 
 erty within the danger zone of the epidemic. After 
 a little more than six months, during which time 
 he had quarantined about 400 cases, Doctor Norred 
 was able to present the city with a clean bill of 
 health. However, this did not end the matter with 
 him. His experience had brought out many defects 
 in schemes and methods for handling any contagious 
 disease. At the beginning of his service as special 
 quarantine officer he found one little filthy pest 
 house, with a capacity of sixteen beds, as the only 
 building which could be used as a quarantine hospital. 
 Many of the patients had to be allowed to remain 
 in their homes, thus endangering their families and 
 neighbors. Furthermore, there was no suitable place 
 to which the patients could be taken who would be 
 willing to pay for their board and nursing, and who 
 were very unwilling: to be considered charity or city 
 patients, and the idea of becoming an inmate of a 
 
1590 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 city pest house, notably wretched in its condition, 
 was very repugnant to people of refinement and of 
 self-supporting circumstances. As soon as he had 
 become conscious of the extraordinary necessities of 
 a large city in the grip of contagion, he sought to 
 give expression to this necessity in practical action 
 and in such provisions as would afford the city 
 adecpiate means to cope with that or any subsequent 
 epidemic. He was the leader in a movement which 
 had the cooperation of hundreds of public spirited 
 men and women in the city, and as a result of the 
 campaign he was able to present to Minneapolis what 
 was known as the “Cottage Quarantine Hospital,” 
 one of the most complete of its size and character 
 in the Northwest. This was built from contributions 
 by citizens of Minneapolis to the amount of about 
 $30,000. Actively cooperating with him in this cam- 
 paign were the organized bodv of the public school 
 teachers, of the Commercial Club, and many indi- 
 viduals. It was with a great deal of commendable 
 pride that Doctor Norred was able to present, on 
 January 26, 1901, this hospital to the city, and in his 
 presentation address Doctor Norred, after describing 
 the history of the movement and describing the 
 buildings in the quarantine hospital, concluded the 
 address with the following paragraph : “Thus Min- 
 
 neapolis has a complete, first class, properly equipped, 
 hygienically constructed quarantine hospital adequate 
 for all requirements, and also hospitals of proper 
 size and character for quarantining diphtheria and 
 scarlet fever, now being constructed on the citv 
 hospital grounds as a result of this movement. With 
 vaccination, isolation and disinfection thoroughly 
 and vigorously applied at the outset with every case 
 of smallpox, and with a new modern quarantine 
 hospital at her service, there is no reason why the 
 city's fair face cannot be kept clean, her commercial 
 interests conserved and her citizens protected.” 
 
 For a number of years Doctor Norred was con- 
 sulting surgeon to and examining surgeon for the 
 Minnesota State Soldiers’ Home, in which noble in- 
 stitution he finally became resident surgeon and 
 sanitary officer. In that capacity he effected many 
 improvements in the service of the hospital and in 
 the general sanitary conditions of the institution, 
 which he brought to the highest standard of sanita- 
 tion that it has ever known. In other ways he has 
 shown his deep interest in old comrades of the Civil 
 war, and was at one time medical director of the 
 Department of Minnesota, G. A. R., in which organi- 
 zation he has local affiliation with John A. Rawlins 
 Post No. 126 in Minneapolis. When he became a 
 candidate for the post of member of the Board of 
 United States Pension Examining Surgeons at Min- 
 neapolis in 1889, Doctor Norred was able to present 
 many letters of commendation and support from 
 very prominent and influential sources. Among them 
 were recommendations from Dr. John F. Randolph, 
 surgeon United States army who had charge of 
 Jefferson Barracks at the time Doctor Norred was 
 there, and also Gen. Edward Hatch, at whose com- 
 mand Doctor Norred had served during the war. 
 Other letters came from a former president of the 
 Illinois State Medical Society; from Hon. Richard 
 J. Oglesby, at that time governor of Illinois ; and 
 from Hon. Joseph W. Fifer, who was later governor 
 of Illinois. Further endorsement was given by a 
 recommendation signed by representative citizens of 
 Minnesota, and a similar testimonial marked the 
 doctor’s appointment as surgeon of the Minnesota 
 Soldiers’ Home. He served with characteristic 
 
 ability as a member of the board of pension ex- 
 aminers under the administration of President Har- 
 rison, and was further distinguished by being chosen 
 president of Board No. 1 United States Examining 
 Surgeons for Pensions in Minneapolis, an office 
 which he still holds. He served for some time as 
 consulting surgeon of the Minneapolis City Hospital, 
 and has long enjoyed a high reputation as a skillful 
 surgeon. 
 
 Doctor Norred, since casting his first vote for the 
 great emancipator, has been unswerving in his alle- 
 giance to the republican party. For a number of years 
 after the war he was influential in oarty councils in 
 the State of Illinois. He is well known in the 
 Hennepin County Medical Society, the Minnesota 
 State Medical Society and the American Medical 
 Association. He has completed the circle of York 
 and Scottish Rite Masonry ; in the latter he has 
 received the thirty-second degree. He is a member 
 of Zuhrah Temple, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, 
 and in the York Rite has his maximum affiliation 
 with Zion Commandery of Knight Templars in 
 Minneapolis. He is a member of Wesley Methodist 
 Episcopal Church in Minneapolis. Doctor Norred 
 has resided for many years in the Rogers Hotel, in 
 which he is house surgeon, and is also surgeon to 
 the Andrews Hotel. Minnesota and its medical 
 profession have been honored by the life and serv- 
 ices of Doctor Norred, whose character, ability and 
 achievements are only suggested, not fully described, 
 in these paragraphs. His services in the great con- 
 flict by which the integrity of the nation was pre- 
 served are also properly distinguished in his asso- 
 ciation with the Order of the Loyal Legion of the 
 LTnited States, in which he is affiliated with the 
 Minnesota Commandery. 
 
 On November 16, 1865, at the residence of Joseph 
 A. Dalbey, near Elkhart City, Logan County, Illinois. 
 Doctor Norred married Miss Elizabeth Sedate Dal- 
 bey. To them were born two children, Charles Elmer 
 and William A., both of whom are deceased, as is 
 also the wife and mother. 
 
 It is only proper to conclude this article by 
 emphasizing the points already noted in a general 
 way establishing the eminent position of Doctor 
 Norred as a sanitarian. Preventive medicine, as a 
 science and in a broad application to social com- 
 munities, is comparatively new. Only recently some 
 of the great universities have contrived degrees 
 which might properly recognize individual attain- 
 ments in this important field of human welfare work. 
 The older doctors, with few exceptions, devoted 
 themselves to curative medicine. It is only giving 
 credit where credit is due to recognize _ Doctor 
 Norred as a pioneer of preventive medicine, one 
 whose practice was far in advance of his time. 
 Even when in the army, and during his twenty-five 
 vears practice in Illinois, he undertook to impress 
 his clients and communities with the truth that 
 preventive medicine was better than curative. Many 
 years asro he had patients who paid him for sanitary 
 supervision of their homes and premises, and that 
 service was fully as important as curing after his 
 clients got sick. He was one of the first to put into 
 practice the old oriental rule that a doctor should 
 be paid only as long as his patients were kept well. 
 
 Rudolph A. and William C. Bierbauer. _ Tn the 
 Citv of Mankato the pioneer brewing establishment 
 and one that has existed for at least fifty years 
 was founded by the late William Bierbauer and a 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1591 
 
 brother and is now owned by the Bierbauer family 
 estate, with the sons as active managers, including 
 Rudolph A. and William C., both of whom are 
 among the young and aggressive business men of 
 the city. 
 
 The late William Bierbauer was born in Germany, 
 February 26, 1826, and died at Mankato, November 
 30, 1893. He was a member of one of the substantial 
 German families, and like many of the students 
 became a sharer in the new and advanced political 
 theories of the ’40s and was drawn into participation 
 with the revolutionary troubles which culminated in 
 1848. He was one of the many Germans who in 
 consequence of these political troubles emigrated to 
 America, and in 1855 he located as one of the 
 pioneers in Mankato. Here he and his brother 
 Jacob started the first brewery, a modest establish- 
 ment, but carried on with growing success, until 
 it has now expanded into one of the largest brew- 
 eries of Minnesota. William Bierbauer in the old 
 country had acquired some experience in the brew- 
 ing trade, and was also a cooper. William Bier- 
 bauer was married at Mankato in 1856, _ the year 
 after his arrival in that community, to Miss Louisa 
 Dornberg, who was born in Germany, January 7 > 
 1836, and died November 9, 1912. William Bier- 
 bauer was a democrat in politics, and served as one 
 of the early members of the city council of Mankato. 
 He was always noted as an aggressive business man. 
 During the Civil war he raised a company for active 
 service in the South, but instead was placed in 
 command as captain of the company and sent to 
 New Ulm to serve during the Indian troubles. 
 William and Louisa Bierbauer were the parents 
 of six children : Albert G., a member of the brewing 
 firm; Bruno W., a physician at Brooklyn, New York; 
 Rudolph A.; William C. ; Adelaide M. and Ella A., 
 both unmarried and living at home. 
 
 Rudolph A. Bierbauer was born in Mankato, 
 April 26,. 1868, and was educated in the Mankato 
 public schools, and as soon as his education was 
 completed he was taken into the brewery and given 
 a thorough instruction in the brewing art and the 
 general business, and has been identified with its 
 management for about thirty years. In December, 
 1897, at Cincinnati, Mr. Bierbauer married Olga L. 
 Heimbach. 
 
 William C. Bierbauer, the younger of these two 
 brothers, was born at Mankato, February 24, 1870, 
 was graduated from the Mankato High School in 
 1887 and is still unmarried, having been connected 
 with the brewery since he left school. 
 
 The Bierbauer Brewery was originally a very 
 small institution conducted with meager capital, 
 but with an output that had a standard of excellence 
 which popularized it with a growing trade. At the 
 present time it has an annual capacity of 10,000 
 barrels, and nearly all the product is sold and con- 
 sumed in Mankato and adjoining counties. The 
 business is now incorporated with a capital stock of 
 $150,000, and is entirely owned by the surviving 
 members of the family. Rudolph A. Bierbauer and 
 his brother. Albert G., are both charter members 
 of the Mankato Lodge No. 225 of the Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks. All the sons are in- 
 dependent in politics. They have a large business 
 and devote practically a" their time and attention 
 to its management 
 
 Robert M. Dodds. There is a pleasing consistency 
 in the fact that the chief importer and breeder of 
 
 Vol. Ill— 21 • 
 
 Airedale dogs in the Northwest is a Scotchman. 
 Dr. Robert M. Dodds is a Scotchman by birth and 
 training, with an ancestry that for several genera- 
 tions has been identified with one of the primary 
 industries of the land of the hills and heather, 
 sheep herding, and Doctor Dodds holds a degree 
 of doctor of veterinary surgery from one of the 
 Scotch schools. He has had an interesting life, 
 spent in many parts of the world, has been a resi- 
 dent of Minnesota more than thirty-five years, and 
 while earlier years were taken up with the practice 
 of his profession, since 1898 he has given more and 
 more attention to his industry as an imported and 
 breeder of Airedale dogs, which has now become 
 an important business and has served to advertise 
 Mankato all over the Northwest. 
 
 Robert M. Dodds was born in Scotland, October 
 21, 1852, a son of Robert and Margaret (Laidlay) 
 Dodds. The paternal grandparents were Robert 
 and Marian (Dickman) Dodds, who were shepherds 
 in Scotland, and the maternal grandparents were 
 James and Janet (Purves) Laidlay, Scotch farmers. 
 Robert Dodds, the father, was born in Scotland in 
 June, 1808, spent his life in his native land and was 
 a land steward and overseer, and died in 1898. His 
 wife was born in 1812 and died in 1864, and they 
 were married in August, 1834. Of their ten children 
 only two are living, both widely separated, not only 
 from native land, but from each other, the brother 
 of Doctor Dodds, James Dodds, being a resident 
 and in the sheep business at Melbourne, Australia. 
 The Dodds family held to the strict Presbyterian 
 doctrines of Scotch people. 
 
 Robert M. Dodds attended school at Kelso, Scot- 
 land, also a night school, and was trained in the 
 arts of veterinary surgery in that country. He had 
 left the care of his parents at the age of twelve, 
 and since then has been self-suppprting and has gone 
 through a great variety of interesting and sometimes 
 difficult experience. He came to the United States 
 in 1878 and located at Northfield, Minnesota, where 
 he engaged in the practice of veterinary surgery 
 until 1895. In that year he moved to Mankato, 
 and has since relaxed his professional interest in 
 favor of the management of what are known as the 
 Gopher Kennels. Doctor Dodd^ was the first one to 
 engage in the introduction of the Airedale terriers 
 into the Northwest, and , now has a reputation as 
 the largest and best known of such importers and 
 breeders. He has brought to this country some of 
 the most famous prize winning animals of the Aire- 
 dale breed and on the basis of this imported stock 
 has shown his own individuality and skill as a 
 breeder in producing many animals that can only 
 rank as superior to anything in that special stock 
 anywhere. No one breed of dogs has enjoyed a 
 more rapid increase in popular esteem and favor 
 than the Airedales. They have qualities that make 
 them useful not only to sportsmen, but also as trust- 
 worthy watch dogs and house companions, and com- 
 bine a fidelity and kindliness with a fearlessness and 
 aggressiveness that on occasions make them exceed- 
 ingly formidable. Doctor Dodds now ships his stock 
 all over the country, including Alaska and Canada. 
 
 In 1880 Doctor Dodds married Sophia Simpson 
 of Northfield, Minnesota. _ Of their eight children, 
 seven are living. Robert is a veterinary surgeon at 
 Lake Crystal, Minnesota ; Alice married Arthur 
 Eugene Rayner of Seattle, Washington: John is a 
 civil engineer, now assistant in the Agricultural 
 Co'lege at Ames, Iowa; Lewis T. is a veterinary 
 
1592 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 surgeon and serving as city veterinarian of Man- 
 kato, a graduate of the McKillip Veterinary College 
 of Chicago, and has been in practice at Mankato 
 since 1909, and one of the most skillful men in his 
 line in the state; Everett is an architect practicing 
 his profession in Omaha; Elizabeth is a teacher in 
 the public schools at St. Cloud; and Clarence is 
 now a student in Carleton College at Northfield. 
 
 The family are members of the Presbyterian 
 Church, and Doctor Dodds is affiliated with the 
 Order of Good Samaritans and in politics is a 
 republican. 
 
 Frederick W. Zollman has been identified with 
 the Minnesota bar nearly thirty years, and his varied 
 practice has taken him into all the courts of the state 
 and into many important cases contested before them. 
 He has seen official service, is now serving his third 
 term on the charter commission of the City of St. 
 Paul, and prior to 1897 was quite prominent in 
 republican politics. 
 
 A native son of Minnesota, Frederick W. Zollman 
 was born near LeSueur Center, Minnesota, June 1, 
 i860, the oldest son of Frederick W. and Barbara 
 Zollman. His father, a native of Germany, came 
 to the United States when a young man, landing in 
 New York City and spending some time in Ohio, 
 after which he came to Minnesota as a pioneer, and 
 for some years was a farmer near LeSueur Center. 
 The family moved to St. Paul in 1864, where the 
 father followed the business of a contractor until 
 his death in 1905. 
 
 Mr. Zollman attended the common schools of St. 
 Paul and for four years was a student at North- 
 western College of Naperville, Illinois. His pre- 
 ceptor in the study of law was John H. Ives, a 
 prominent lawyer. After his admission to the bar 
 in 1885, Mr. Zollman spent some time in the office 
 of Mr. Ives, but for many years has been in active 
 practice. From 1897 to 1901 he served as assistant 
 county attorney of Ramsey County and now has his 
 offices in the Merchants National Bank Building. 
 
 In 1887 Mr. Zollman married Miss Elizabeth F. 
 Ives of Prescott, Wisconsin. They are the parents 
 of two children, William Ives and John Harris. 
 
 Mr. Zollman takes much interest in Masonic affairs, 
 and has affiliations with Ancient Landmark Lodge 
 No. 5, A. F. & A. M., with the Royal Arch Chapter, 
 with Damascus Commandery of the Knights Tem- 
 plar, and with Osman Temple of the Mystic Shrine. 
 A republican, his interests and activities have been 
 chiefly in behalf of his friends. For ten years he 
 was a member of the republican committee. He 
 stands high as a lawyer. 
 
 Daniel R. Barber. Among the sterling and hon- 
 ored pioneers who wielded a large influence in con- 
 nection with the civic and industrial development 
 of Minneapolis, a position of special prominence 
 was that of the late Daniel R. Barber, who died 
 at his home in this city April 17, 1886, and who 
 from 1855 until his death had been interested in 
 real estate, merchandising and the milling industry. 
 
 Representing a family that was founded in New 
 England in Colonial days, Daniel R. Barber pos- 
 sessed the best traditions and characteristics asso- 
 ciated with the sons of New England. His ancestry 
 included men of thorough patriotism and construct- 
 ive achievements. Several of the name had fought 
 in the various Colonial wars and also in the Rev- 
 olution. 
 
 Daniel R. Barber was born at Benson, Rutland 
 County, Vermont, February 14, 1817, and was sixty- 
 nine years of age at the time of his death. His 
 parents were Roswell and Amelia (Munson) Bar- 
 ber, both of stanch English origin. They both lived 
 in Vermont until their death. 
 
 Daniel R. Barber had the average conditions and 
 influences of a New England boy, but received a 
 better education than the average at that period. 
 He graduated from Castleton College and then, 
 studied law, but on account of trouble with his eyes 
 gave up the law and went into merchandising, his 
 father assisting him to buy out the general store 
 in his native village of Benson. For the following 
 ten years he gave close attention to its management, 
 and on selling out had a considerable capital to 
 bring with him when he sought a newer and broader 
 field in the developing Northwest. In 1855 he made 
 a prospecting trip through the Northwest, and 
 selected as his future home the village at St. 
 Anthony Falls, where he was much impressed, as 
 a New Englander would naturally be, with the pos- 
 sibilities of the great water power and the pros- 
 pects of a splendid city at that locality. The fol- 
 lowing year he moved to Minneapolis, and became 
 one of the pioneers in the real estate business, being 
 associated with Carlos Wilcox, another young man 
 from the Green Mountain State. They tied up 
 most of their capital in local real estate, but the 
 panic of 1857 reduced real estate activity to a min- 
 imum, and it was impossible to realize without 
 heavy loss on any of their investments. While 
 waiting for the springs of enterprise to rise and 
 flow again, Mr. Barber cultivated some of the 
 tracts of land which he owned near the village of 
 Minneapolis, and also again turned his attention to 
 general merchandising. Eventually prosperity re- 
 turned to the Northwest, and he realized on the 
 faith which had prompted him to a generous in- 
 vestment of his capital in this city. In 1861 Mr. 
 Barber was elected one of the county commissioners, 
 and in the same year was appointed assessor, an 
 office he held in the town and city for eleven years. 
 
 The late Mr. Barber was one of the men who 
 early perceived the tremendous opportunities pre- 
 sented by an inexhaustible water power and the 
 rapidly developing grain areas of the Northwest. 
 He had closely watched and studied the develop- 
 ment of the flour milling business, and finally with- 
 drew much of the capital invested in other enter- 
 prises in order to devote and concentrate his energies 
 on the industry which more than anything else has 
 made Minneapolis famous throughout the world. 
 In 1871 Mr. Barber bought the Cataract Flouring 
 Mill, the pioneer mill at the falls. Even for that 
 day he found it antiquated and inefficient. His 
 first step was to remove all the old machinery and 
 introduce the newest and most approved appliances 
 and methods known to the industry. Then for sev- 
 eral years, in association with his son-in-law, J. 
 Welles Gardner, he operated the mill to its utmost 
 capacity and upon a profitable basis. Mr. Gardner 
 died in 1876, and Mr. Barber’s son, Edwin R., was 
 then admitted to partnership. The son is now 
 president and treasurer of the Barber Milling Com- 
 pany of Minneapolis. The joint management of 
 the mill by father and son continued until the death 
 of Daniel R. Barber in 1886. From the time he 
 acquired the old Cataract Mill he had an ambition 
 to turn out the best possible products, and the suc- 
 cess of the business was largely a result of this 
 
s' fa % f\ C\ 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1593 
 
 care and progressiveness. The products of the Cat- 
 aract Mills were sold all over the country, and the 
 business at first conducted as D. R. Barber & Son 
 was finally incorporated as the Barber Milling Com- 
 pany. Since this is the successor of the old Cat- 
 aract Mill, it may lay just claim to the distinction 
 of being the oldest of the many flouring milling con- 
 cerns of Minneapolis. The old Cataract Mill has 
 undergone frequent changes in its mechanical equip- 
 ment in order to keep the plant up to the mosr 
 approved standard. 
 
 The late Daniel R. Barber was a man of unas- 
 suming worth of character, somewhat reserved, but 
 imbued with deep human tolerance and sympathy 
 and commanding the unqualified esteem and confi- 
 dence of his business associates and all others who 
 had appreciation of his integrity and nobility. He 
 was conservative in all things, his judgment was 
 mature and authoritative, his influence was given 
 to the furtherance of high civic ideals, and he con- 
 tributed much to the social and material develop- 
 ment and progress of the city which for more than 
 thirty years was his home. An earnest, sincere, 
 direct and stainless life record was that of Daniel 
 R. Barber. Though a republican, he showed no 
 aspirations for public office or for the turmoil of 
 practical politics. He was an active member of 
 the Plymouth Congregational Church. 
 
 In February, 1845, Daniel R. Barber married Miss 
 Ellen L. Bottum of Orwell, Vermont. They were 
 the parents of two children : Julia B., who was 
 first the wife of J. Welles Gardner, who died in 
 1876, and in 1888 she married Maj. John Bigelow 
 of Minneapolis. She died September 3, 1911. Edwin 
 R. is president of the Barber Milling Company. 
 Mrs. Daniel R. Barber died January 3, 1903. 
 
 Edwin Roswell Barber. President of the Bar- 
 ber Milling Company, with the management of 
 which he became associated with his father, the 
 late Daniel R. Barber, nearly forty years ago, Edwin 
 R. Barber was born at Benson, Rutland County, 
 Vermont, November 22, 1852. He was four years 
 of age when the family moved to St. Anthony Falls, 
 and his early education came from the public schools 
 and from the University of Minnesota, leaving col- 
 lege before graduation. Mr. Barber was old enough 
 to appreciate the early pioneer surroundings of St. 
 Anthony Falls, and recalls the fact that as a boy 
 he shot partridges where the West Hotel now stands, 
 and remembers when the site of the Milwaukee 
 depot was practically a bog. After a course in a 
 business college Mr. Barber had some practical ex- 
 perience in business in the office of Gardner, Pills- 
 bury & Crocker in one of the mills now operated 
 by the Washburn-Crosby Company, then entered the 
 office of Gardner & Barber, the latter his father, 
 this being the firm engaged in the operation of the 
 old pioneer Cataract Mill. 
 
 Mr. Barber became identified with the Cataract 
 Mill on May 1, 1871, the same year that his father 
 had bought the plant and from pne responsibility 
 to another has risen to president of the business. 
 The old Cataract Mill was founded in 1859, and the 
 Barber Milling Company therefore has a contin- 
 uous history of sixty-five years. The business was 
 incorporated under its present title in 1896. This 
 name is now known all over the Northwest, and 
 the products of the mill are sold in almost every 
 country of the world. 
 
 Mr. Barber is a republican, but is more interested 
 
 in the real public welfare and in good government 
 than in party successes. As to his connection with 
 civic affairs a recent publication said : “Mr. Bar- 
 
 ber is modest about what he has done to aid m 
 building up and improving the city of his home. 
 But it is only just to him to record that he was 
 one of the liberal contributors for the purchase 
 of the site of the old Chamber of Commerce 
 Building and the post office site, and one of the 
 most .. effective promoters of the Minneapolis In- 
 dustrial Exposition and the erection of the Young 
 Men's Christian Association building, Westminster 
 Presbyterian Church and the Lake Street Bridge. 
 In connection with the enterprise last named he 
 joined with others in paying the interest on the 
 bonds issued for the construction of the bridge for 
 three years in advance, Hennepin County at the 
 time having insufficient resources to assume any 
 more interest-bearing obligations. His public spirit 
 in these undertakings is expressive of his real 
 character and clearly indicates the value of his 
 citizenship.” 
 
 Mr. Barber is a member of the Presbyterian 
 Church and of the Minneapolis, the Minikahda, 
 Lafayette and Automobile clubs, and of the Minne- 
 apolis Chamber of Commerce, and has many times 
 worked in the spirit of friendly co-operation and 
 interest with movements undertaken for the ben- 
 efit of his city. On October 1, 1873, Mr. Barber 
 married Miss Hattie S. Sidle, daughter of Henry 
 G. Sidle, a Minneapolis banker whose career is 
 sketched elsewhere. Their children are : Henry S., 
 secretary of the Barber Milling Company; Kath- 
 arine S. ; Edwin Roswell, Jr„ cashier of the Bar- 
 ber Milling Company, and Nellie L., who was born 
 in 1882 and died December 28, 1888. 
 
 Henry Godfrey Sidle. The First National Bank 
 of Minneapolis is a great bank, with prestige, age, 
 influence and solid integrity. It is a fine monument 
 to the business power of the city, and is also a mon- 
 ument to those sagacious and enterprising men who 
 founded the original institution more than half a 
 century ago, and who for many years were primarily 
 concerned with the active direction and manage- 
 ment of the bank’s interests and resources. The 
 history of this bank will always be closely associated 
 with the name Sidle, primarily with the late Jacob 
 K. Sidle, and also with his brother, Henry G. Sidle, 
 who succeeded the former as president when Jacob 
 died in 1888. The Sidle family has since pioneer 
 times had many important relations with the City 
 of Minneapolis. 
 
 The late Henry Godfrey Sidle was born in York, 
 Pennsylvania, July 22, 1822, and died in Minneapolis, 
 August 29, 1898. He was the youngest of three 
 sons born to Henry and Susanna H. (Kootz) Sidle, 
 who were also natives of Pennsylvania and of Ger- 
 man ancestry. The great-grandfather, Godfrey 
 Sidle, for whom the late Minneapolis banker was 
 named, was a native of Hamburg, Germany, and 
 came to this country in the early part of the 
 eighteenth century. The grandfather saw active 
 service with the American army in the War of the 
 Revolution. The Sidles were, as a rule, hotel and 
 store people, and of that hard working and thrifty 
 class who did so much for the development of 
 American resources in the early days, and who 
 in many cases established fortunes for their descend- 
 ants. Henry Sidle, the father, learned the trade of 
 blacksmith, but afterwards became a merchant and 
 
1594 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 hotel proprietor, and in those pursuits trained his 
 two sons, Jacob and Henry G., and with advancing 
 age finally turned over the store in York, Pennsyl- 
 vania, to them, and they conducted it together for 
 about seventeen years. 
 
 Henry G. Sidle had the advantages given to 
 sons of thrifty families in the public schools of 
 York, and at the age of seventeen was taken into 
 the store and in a short time had mastered mer- 
 cantile details. He was one of the clerks in the 
 business for eleven years, and the father then 
 turned the concern over to the two sons, who man- 
 aged it jointly. They had a large and prosperous 
 trade, and enjoyed to the full extent the confidence 
 of the community where they had grown up. In 
 the meantime both brothers had been looking abroad 
 for larger opportunities, and in 1857 Jacob K. Sidle 
 made a tour of the West and determined that Ihe 
 little City of Minneapolis possessed the possibilities 
 of growth and development best suited to his own 
 purposes. Associated with him in his enterprise 
 was Peter Wolford, a wealthy capitalist of York 
 County, Pennsylvania. Under the firm name of Sidle, 
 Wolford & Co. they opened a private banking 
 house at Minneapolis, and as soon as the Nicollet 
 House was completed the firm took an office on the 
 ground floor of the building. Their bank fronted 
 Washington Avenue. 
 
 In the meantime, while the private banking firm 
 were getting established and building up a business 
 based on integrity and confidence, Henry G. Sidle 
 continued to conduct the store at York, though from 
 the first he had a financial interest in the banking 
 house at Minneapolis. In 1858 he paid a visit to 
 Minneapolis, and while favorably impressed, decided 
 that the time had not yet come to relinquish a pros- 
 perous business until the new enterprise had dem- 
 onstrated all that was expected of it. This dem- 
 onstration was not long in coming, and in 1863 the 
 business in Pennsylvania was sold and Henry G. 
 Sidle joined his brother Jacob in Minneapolis and 
 took an active part in the banking firm. About 
 that time the private firm of Sidle, Wolford & Co. 
 was dissolved, Mr. Wolford turning his attention 
 to other lines, while the Sidle brothers organized a 
 bank under a state charter, named the Minneapolis 
 Bank, with capital stock of $50,000. Under state 
 charter this bank had the authority to issue circulat- 
 ing notes, and also carry on the regular banking 
 functions of deposit, discount and circulation. Jacob 
 Sidle was president and Henry G. was cashier. 
 Soon afterward the national banking system was 
 extended over the United States, one of the features 
 of which taxed the circulating notes of state banks 
 out of existence. Owing to the changed conditions 
 resulting from this measure, the First National Bank 
 of Minneapolis was organized in 1865, and was 
 the second bank northwest of Chicago to come 
 under the new national banking law. The business 
 of the Minneapolis Bank was then transferred to 
 the new institution. It was really only the con- 
 tinuation of the old bank under a new name, with 
 the same capital, officers and business. As to the 
 continued growth and prosperity of the First Na- 
 tional Bank, it is only necessary to refer to its suc- 
 cessive increases of stock, first to $100,000, then to 
 $400,000, later to $600,000, and finally, in 1879, to 
 $1,000,000 of capital. Few banks in the West have 
 enjoyed such a tremendous growth, and the affairs 
 of none have been managed with more consummate 
 ability and with a better adjustment between con- 
 
 servatism and a helpful co-operation with legitimate 
 business interests. The Sidle brothers, as the lead- 
 ing factors in the bank, strictly adhered to a policy 
 of never speculating or engaging in outside opera- 
 tions except for the investment of surplus capital. 
 After the death of Jacob K. Sidle, who had been 
 president of the First National Bank since organ- 
 ization until 1888, the board of directors unan- 
 imously chose Henry G. Sidle as president, and he 
 continued to occupy that high position in Minnesota 
 finance until shortly before his death. 
 
 John E. Regan. In the course of half a dozen 
 years John E. Regan has built up a good practice 
 as a lawyer at Mankato, and is well known as one 
 of the vigorous young leaders in local affairs and in 
 the democratic party. In early manhood he was a 
 telegraph operator, and while handling the key 
 determined to fit himself for another profession, and 
 began studying law at night. Mr. Regan represents 
 some of the old and prominent names in the frontier 
 and pioneer life of the Northwest. 
 
 John E. Regan was born at Mendota, Minnesota, 
 ’October 18, 1883. He is the son of Timothy and 
 Ellen (Kennedy) Regan. The Regan family in 
 America dates back before the Revolutionary war, 
 and some of its members participated in that strug- 
 gle for independence. The paternal grandfather, 
 William Regan, was reared in Massachusetts, moved 
 with his wife and seven children to St. Louis, Mis- 
 souri, and in one of the terrible scourges of cholera 
 which visited that city his entire family was swept 
 away with the exception of himself and his son 
 Timothy. He afterwards moved out to Mendota, 
 Minnesota, and then to Butte, Montana, and became 
 one of the wealthy men in 'that mining district. 
 He died in Montana. The mother’s family, the 
 Kennedys, is one of those that find mention in some 
 of the earliest annals of Minnesota. The maternal 
 grandfather, John Kennedy, who was born in Ireland, 
 came to Minnesota during the decade of the ’40s, 
 about ten years before Minnesota Territory was 
 transformed into a state. His settlement was near 
 Pine Bend at the old town which is usually regarded 
 as the first center of population and settlement in 
 Minnesota and which has long since passed out of 
 local geography. Several members of the Kennedy 
 family came from Ireland, some of them settling 
 in Maine, some in New York, while John Kennedy, 
 with three brothers, located in Minnesota. He took 
 up a homestead from the Government and was still 
 its owner at the time of his death. The Kennedy 
 family lived in Minnesota during the times of 
 Indian troubles, and were exposed to many of the 
 early Indian raids. 
 
 Timothy Regan was born at Quincy, Massachu- 
 setts, in August, 1847, and died in 1884. His wife 
 was born in Rich Valley, Minnesota, in 1852, and 
 is now living at St. Paul. They were married at 
 Mendota, January 25, 1875, and of their two children 
 the son William is now living in St. Paul. Both 
 parents were Catholics, and Timothy Regan was a 
 democrat. He served as deputy sheriff in Dakota 
 County one term. He had an interesting experience 
 as a soldier in the Northwest. August 31, 1864, 
 b° enlisted at Fort Snelling and was sent to the old 
 Benton Barracks in Company G of the Fortieth 
 Volunteer Infantry, and continued in service till the 
 close of the war. Among other engagements he was 
 at the battles of Franklin and Nashville, and also 
 was present on March 27, 1865, at the capture of 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1595 
 
 Spanish Fort on Mobile Bay. He was once wounded 
 during the war. When his command was mustered 
 out he was not yet satisfied with his military career, 
 and in 1869 enlisted in the regular army for five 
 years, being in Company F of the Twentieth United 
 States Infantry. He was discharged from service 
 in 1874 at old Fort Pembina in Dakota Territory, 
 close up to the Canadian line. He then came to 
 Minnesota and was engaged in the hotel business at 
 Mendota until his death. 
 
 John E. Regan spent most of his youth in Men- 
 dota, attended the public schools there, but after 
 completing the fifth grade went to St. Paul and 
 spent one year in the Cretin High School of that 
 city. He learned telegraphy, and then spent six 
 years as a telegraph operator in different offices. 
 While in that work he spent one year of night study 
 at law, and then entered the St. Paul College of 
 Law and was admitted to the bar in 1908. Mr. 
 Regan practiced for one year at Balaton, Minnesota, 
 and then moved to Mankato in November, 1909. 
 But his time is more and more engaged for his 
 professional services. 
 
 In 1908 Mr. Regan married Mary J. Martin, 
 daughter of John Martin of Marshall, Minnesota. 
 They are the parents of three children. John and 
 • Robert are both in school and the daughter is Mary 
 Patricia. Mrs. Regan is a descendant on her father’s 
 side from Edmund Burke, the great Irish states- 
 man. Her mother was a native of Holland, and 
 her maternal grandfather was a burgomaster in 
 one of the Dutch cities. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Regan are both members of the 
 Catholic Church, and he is a member of the Fraternal 
 Order of Eagles and the Knights of Columbus. 
 
 Since casting his first vote he has been active in 
 
 democratic politics and has served as secretary of 
 
 the county committee and also, as a delegate to 
 
 numerous conventions. 
 
 Frank W. Bates. Among the officials of Man- 
 kato who, through efficient service and close devo- 
 tion to the duties of office are contributing to the 
 city’s welfare, is found Frank W. Bates, who is 
 serving in the capacity of city clerk. Mr. Bates was 
 born at Clayton, Faribault County, Minnesota, April 
 26, 1873, and is a son of George B. and Mary M. 
 (Hu'.bert) Bates. 
 
 George B. Bates was born at Goshen, Massachu- 
 setts, in 1838, and there grew to manhood as a 
 farmer. He was still a young man when he came 
 West, locating in Faribault County, Minnesota, 
 where he took up land and engaged in agricultural 
 pursuits. In 1883 he gave up farming operations 
 and moved to Wells,. Minnesota, where he became 
 identified with railroad work, and so continued until 
 1900, and since that year has lived in quiet retire- 
 ment, his many years of faithful and industrious 
 labor having gained for him a satisfying competence. 
 Mr. Bates is a republican in politics, but has not 
 taken a particularly active part in public affairs. 
 His religious connection is with the Baptist Church, 
 to which Mrs. Bates also belongs. Mr. Bates was 
 married in Hardin County, Iowa, in 1845, to Miss 
 Mary M. Hulbert, who was born in 1845, at Mead- 
 ville, Pennsylvania, and they have had four children, 
 all of whom are living : Mrs. J. W. Foster, wife 
 
 of a stock buyer of Bricelyn, Minnesota; Mrs. W. B. 
 Chittenden, who lives with her daughter at Wyom- 
 ing, Minnesota; Frank W., of this review; and R. 
 W., who is engaged in the dry cleaning business at 
 Mankato. 
 
 Frank W. Bates received his education in the 
 graded and high schools at Wells, following his 
 graduation from the latter of which he entered a 
 business college, thus fitting himself for a commer- 
 cial career. He subsequently took up accounting, at 
 which he worked in various offices until 1911, when 
 he was elected clerk of the Municipal Court, and 
 was subsequently elected city clerk of Mankato, 
 which office he still holds. In 1914 Mr. Bates 
 became a candidate for the office of clerk of the 
 District Court and made a strong race, but was 
 defeated by the narrow margin of less than one 
 hundred votes. Mr. Bates has now become thor- 
 oughly identified with and a potent factor in the 
 republican party councils in Mankato. If fealty to 
 party, loyalty to political friends, unwavering integ- 
 rity in the fulfillment of every trust, untiring per- 
 sonal effort, and a wise and efficient administration 
 of all the affairs of his office constitute any just 
 foundation of merit, then the political future of 
 Mr. Bates should hold much in store for him. 
 
 Mr. Bates is widely known in fraternal circles. 
 He is present exalted ruler of the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks; has passed' through the 
 chairs of the Royal Arcanum ; has passed through 
 the chairs of the Lodge and Chapter of Masonry, and 
 is at present secretary of the former ; is a member 
 of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and is 
 worthy patron of the Order of the Eastern Star, 
 of which .Mrs. Bates is also a member. They are 
 faithful members and liberal supporters of the Pres- 
 byterian Church. 
 
 On June 16, 1903, Mr. Bates was married to Miss 
 Myrtle Stillings, of Windom, Minnesota, and they 
 have three children: Lowell, born in 1904; Donald, 
 born in 1910; and Helen, born in 1913. 
 
 Hon. Henry Moll. In the person of Judge Henry 
 Moll, who has served so long and so ably on the 
 probate bench, is linked the St. Peter of the past 
 and the present. He has given his strength, mind, 
 heart and soul to the upbuilding of the community 
 from the period of his early manhood, has assisted 
 in laying its material foundation broad and deep, 
 and at the same time has given his best efforts 
 toward the establishment of an honest public ad- 
 ministration. His eminence as a judge is not based 
 on celebrated cases, but has grown out of the long 
 judicial service in which his character and methods 
 have become positive features of the court over 
 which he presides. 
 
 Born February 13, 1848, at Philadelphia, Penn- 
 sylvania, Judge Moll is a son of Emanuel and 
 Henrietta (Miller) Moll, the former a native of 
 Switzerland and the latter of Germany. The father 
 came to the United States in 1846 and located at 
 Philade’phia, where he found employment at his 
 trade of harness-making, but after five years re- 
 moved to Mount Eaton. Wayne County, Ohio, 
 where he continued to follow his vocation for nine 
 years. Coming to Ottawa, Minnesota, in i860, Mr. 
 Moll turned his attention to agricultural pursuits, 
 in which he engaged until 1871, and at that time 
 located permanently at St. Peter, where for ten 
 years he was engaged in following his trade, and 
 then retired from active life and lived quietly until 
 his death in 1892, Mrs. Moll following him to the 
 grave in 1893. Mr. Moll was a man of quiet, retiring 
 disposition, and a reputable and honorable citizen 
 in every sense, and he and Mrs. Moll were long 
 devout members of the Baptist Church. Of their 
 four children, Judge Moll is the only survivor. 
 
1596 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Henry Moll secured a meagre education in the 
 public schools of the various localities in which his 
 parents made their home, and on coming to St. 
 Peter entered upon his business career as a clerk 
 with F. A. Donahowen, in the dry goods business. 
 After five years of experience he formed a partner- 
 ship with C. R. Davis and for one year conducted 
 a grocery store under the firm style of Davis & 
 Moll. When this was discontinued, Mr. Moll was 
 employed by A. G. Miller & Company in the hard- 
 ware and agricultural implement business for five 
 years, succeeding which he joined his father in the 
 harness and saddlery business until 1881, when the 
 establishment was sold. In that same year he was 
 elected sheriff of Nicollet County, an office which he 
 held from 1881 until 1887, when he turned his atten- 
 tion to the book and stationery business, continuing 
 therein with some success for eighteen years. In 
 1892 Mr. Moll became the republican party’s candi- 
 date for the office of mayor of St. Peter, to which 
 he was elected, and his administration of two years 
 was marked by much progress and many civic re- 
 forms. In 1902 he received the appointment from 
 Judge Van Zant as judge of the Probate Court, 
 an office to which he was elected in 1902 and which 
 he still continues to fill with the greatest ability. 
 
 Judge Moll has long been connected with enter- 
 prises and movements calculated to advance the inter- 
 ests of his adopted city. With the late Governor 
 Johnson, who was his personal friend, Judge Moll 
 organized the Nicollet Agricultural Society, and for 
 seventeen years they were associated in promoting 
 county fairs with the best exhibits of their kind in 
 the state, with the exception of the state fair. 
 Governor Johnson reposed much confidence in Judge 
 Moll's judgment and frequently consulted him upon 
 matters of importance bearing upon his city and 
 county. During the past twenty-five years the judge 
 has been president of Woodlawn Cemetery, to the 
 management and interests of which he has given 
 his close thought and conscientious energies. For 
 a number of years he was one of the standard 
 bearers of the republican party in Nicollet County, 
 took an active part in all campaigns and was presi- 
 dent of the republican county committee for several 
 years, but at the present time is a non-partisan. 
 He was interested in the election of W. D. Wash- 
 burn when he was made senator by the vote of the 
 people, always having a great admiration for the 
 senator, whom he deemed eminently worthy to be 
 entrusted with the responsibilities of high office. 
 Fraternally Judge Moll is connected with St. Peter 
 Lodge No. 54, A. F. & A. M., the Independent 
 Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and 
 the Modern Woodmen of America. He is the 
 oldest living member of the Presbyterian Church 
 at St. Peter, with which he has been connected for 
 a period of thirty years, and is now serving as a 
 member of the board of trustees. 
 
 On June 12, T873, Judge Moll was married to Miss 
 Isabel! A. Dunning, a daughter of Samuel Dunning 
 and a descendant of Paris C. Dunning, of Gosport, 
 Owen County, Indiana, one of the Hoosier State’s 
 silvery-tongued orators and leading attorneys. One 
 child has been born to this union : Clare Dunning 
 Moll, born January 28, 1878, and now cashier of the 
 First National Bank of St. Peter. 
 
 John C. Noj:. As an active member of the Man- 
 kato bar during the greater part of the past forty- 
 one years, John C. Noe wields an influence that 
 
 only men of more than ordinary strength of char- 
 acter and power can exercise in such a stirring 
 community. He came to this city from the East, 
 casting in his hopes and ambitions with those of 
 a growing locality, and has lived to see it grow 
 and develop in importance, and to share in the 
 prosperity which has come to it. 
 
 Mr. Noe was born at Newburgh, Orange County, 
 New York, May 2, 1844, and is a son of Albert 
 and Phoebe Ann (Marsh) Noe. The family origi- 
 nated in France and its members were Huguenots, 
 and October 22, 1685, when Louis XVI revoked 
 the edict of Nantes, they fled with others to Eng- 
 land, from whence they made their way to the 
 shores of America. John Clark Noe, the grand- 
 father of John C. Noe, was a resident of Rahway, 
 New Jersey, where he was engaged in agricultural 
 pursuits throughout his life. On his farm was 
 born his son, Albert Noe, who in early life adopted 
 the vocation of his father, but later moved to 
 Newburgh, Orange County, New York, and estab- 
 lished himself in the grocery business, in which he 
 won a full measure of success, by reason of his 
 business ability and straightforward policies. A 
 republican in his political views, he took an active 
 part in the movements of his party, and attained 
 a high position in his community, being frequently 
 called upon to act in official positions and serving as 
 supervisor and assessor of his township, and as 
 United States revenue assessor. During the Civil 
 war he did not participate actively as a soldier, 
 but was a strong Union man, and in numerous ways 
 assisted the cause of the North. Fraternally, Mr. 
 Noe was identified with the Masons and Odd Fel- 
 lows, and his religious connection was with the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church. Mr. Noe was married 
 at Newburgh, New York, to Miss Phoebe Ann 
 Marsh, who was born at that place, a daughter of 
 Abraham and Johanna Marsh, natives of England. 
 Ten children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Noe, 
 of whom two are living: John C., of this review, 
 
 and Emma, who is now living at Westfield, New 
 Jersey. 
 
 John C. Noe received his early education at New- 
 burgh (New York) Academy, after leaving which 
 he turned his attention to the study of his chosen 
 profession, and for several years read law in the 
 office of a relative. Admitted to the bar about 
 1865, at Poughkeepsie, New York, he returned to 
 Newburgh and established himself in practice, but 
 after about four or five years decided to move 
 West, and accordingly made his way to Winona, 
 Minnesota, where he remained about six months. 
 At the end of that period Mr. Noe came to Mankato, 
 and this city has continued to be his home and 
 field of labor to the present time. For a number 
 of years Mr. Noe did a large loan business for 
 eastern clients, but at this time devotes himself 
 to an office practice and probate business. Mr. 
 „ Noe has an excellent record for success won with 
 honor and without animosity, and in the ranl« of 
 his professional brethren in the various organiza- 
 tions of his calling to which he belongs he is held 
 in the highest regard. 
 
 Mr. Noe was married June 23, 1868, to Miss Anna 
 Chandler, of Fishkill, Dutchess County, New York. 
 In 1912 Mr. and Mrs. Noe made a trip to California, 
 intending to make that state their future home, 
 but after a short stay in the Golden _ State they 
 returned to Mankato, satisfied that this was the 
 place in which they should spend the balance of 
 

 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1597 
 
 their lives. In the month of March, 1915, Mrs. 
 Noe departed this life after an illness of upwards 
 of thirty years. Mr. Noe is a republican in politics, 
 but his public labors have been confined to positions 
 of appointment only, having never come before the 
 public as a candidate for any office. 
 
 Hon. Franklin F. Ellsworth. In November, 
 1914, the citizens of the district comprising Mankato 
 elected to Congress a prominent young lawyer of 
 Mankato, Franklin F. Ellsworth. Mr. Ellsworth 
 becomes one of the members of the House of 
 Representatives, but has had a long and varied ex- 
 perience in politics, and gives every promise of 
 great usefulness, both during the immediate term 
 and in the coming years, when his powers shall 
 have fully matured. 
 
 Franklin F. Ellsworth was born in Watonwan 
 County, Minnesota, July 10, 1879, being a son of 
 Clinton and Louisa (Manning) Ellsworth. His 
 father was born in the State of Maine in 1848, 
 a son of Charles Ellsworth, who came from Frank- 
 lin County, Maine, to Monticello, Wisconsin, and 
 died there. The mother was born in Canada in 1856, 
 a daughter of Nelson H. Manning, who was born in 
 Boston, Massachusetts, and located in Minnesota 
 prior to the Civil war. He served as a first lieu- 
 tenant in the Cleveland Guards, being subsequently 
 transferred to Company K of the Seventh Minnesota 
 Infantry, and was in the Union army almost from 
 the beginning to the end of the war. Later he 
 became a member of the State Legislature, being 
 elected from Cottonwood County. Congressman 
 Ellsworth’s parents were' married at St. James, 
 Minnesota, and still live in that city. The father 
 came to Minnesota in 1871, settling at St. James, 
 where he is now president of the First National 
 Bank and for fifteen years has been engaged in 
 the mercantile business. He has had an active 
 career, having served in Company K of the Forty- 
 sixth Wisconsin Infantry in the closing months of 
 the Civil war, and afterwards for about twenty-six 
 years as a railway engineer. He is a member of the 
 lodge, chapter and Knight Templar commandery 
 of Masonry, having served as master and high 
 priest, and is active in the Grand Army Post. In 
 politics a republican, he served as mayor of St. 
 James and also as president of the school board, 
 and his church is the Presbyterian. There were 
 two children : Franklin F. and Stanley F. 
 
 Franklin F. Ellsworth received his early education 
 in the St. James public schools, graduating from 
 high school in 1897, took the freshman and sopho- 
 more years in the. University of Minnesota, and in 
 1901 was graduated in law. He began his practice 
 at St. James, where he continued until November, 
 1910. Since then his home has been in Mankato. 
 His partner at Mankato is William F. Hughes, 
 and they practice under the name of Hughes & 
 Ellsworth and have a large general clientage. 
 
 On July 27, 1902, Mr. Ellsworth married Lurline 
 Mae Bader of Minneapolis. Mr. Ellsworth is affili- 
 ated with the Masonic order in Libanus Lodge No. 
 96, A. F. & A. M. ; with Mankato Lodge No. 225, 
 B. P. O. E.; is a past master of the Ancient Order 
 of LTnited Workmen; a past consul of the Woodmen 
 of the World, having affiliation with Blue Earth 
 Camp No. 730; is a member of the Fraternal Order 
 of Eagles ; is a past chancellor in Mankato Lodge 
 No. 36, Knights of Pythias, and in 1909-1910 was 
 past grand chancellor of the State of Minnesota. 
 
 He is also a member of the St. James and Mankato 
 Commercial Clubs, and his college fraternity was 
 the Phi Gamma Delta. 
 
 A republican, Mr. Ellsworth has become especially 
 well known in the political field and is regarded as 
 one of the ablest debaters and most forceful orators 
 in the state. He served as county attorney of 
 Watonwan County, and city attorney of St. James, 
 holding each office for two terms. His first political 
 speech was made in 1898 at New Ulm, when Com- 
 pany H, with which he had served during the 
 Spanish-American war, was mustered out. For the 
 past fourteen years he has been engaged in every 
 state campaign. He announced his candidacy for 
 Congress in October, 1909, being opposed by the 
 late C. C. Dinehart, who at that time was state 
 treasurer. Mr. Dinehart’s death occurred in June, 
 after which Albert L. Ward, of Fairmont, became 
 a candidate and was defeated by Mr. Ellsworth by 
 265 votes. In the general election of 1910 Mr. 
 Ellsworth was defeated by W. S. Hammond, the 
 present governor of the state. In 1912 Mr. Ellsworth 
 received the nomination for Congress a second time, 
 but was again defeated by Mr. Hammond. In 1914 
 he again became a candidate, his rival for the 
 nomination being Hon. Julius E. Haycroft, then a 
 state senator of Madelia. He won the primary 
 contest, and in the general election contested the 
 field with Gene A. Flittie, the democratic nominee, 
 and defeated him by 8,128 votes, and is now serving 
 his first time in the Sixty-fourth Congress. For two 
 seasons he delivered lectures for the Wright Bureau 
 of St. Louis and has appeared on platforms in 
 North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota and 
 Wisconsin. 
 
 Merrill C. Tifft. In the general field of law, as 
 also in his specialty of insurance law, one of the 
 prominent practitioners at the bar of Minnesota is 
 Merrill C. Tifft, who since 1906 has been engaged 
 in practice in Minneapolis. He has fairly earned 
 his position in the law, since he has for many 
 years been not only an earnest student of its gen- 
 eral principles, but also for his persistent and well- 
 rewarded research into the details of his specialty. 
 During more than a quarter of a century of prac- 
 tice he has been a faithful conserver of all the inter- 
 ests confided to his care and fine judgment, and his 
 entire professional career has been one that has 
 earned him the highest commendation by his fel- 
 low members of the bar. 
 
 An Illinoisan by nativity, Merrill C. Tifft was 
 born in Sycamore, April 23, 1865, a son of Samuel 
 L. and Charlotte A. (Selts) Tifft. The father, a 
 native of New Hampshire, came to Illinois as a 
 young man in 1842 and took up government land 
 in DeKalb County, establishing himself on a farm 
 of 120 acres when but eighteen years of age. He 
 was a man of industry and enterprise, and his ener- 
 getic operations resulted in the accumulation of 
 large tracts of land, so that at the time of his 
 death he owned 200 acres in DeKalb County, 600 
 acres in McLeod County, Minnesota, and 160 acres 
 in North Dakota, it always being his ambition to 
 give a good farm to each of his children. There 
 were -five sons and three daughters in his family, 
 all of whom lived to grow to maturity: John S. 
 and Libby M., who are now deceased; Alberto P., 
 who resides in Alberta, Canada; Hattie, who is 
 now Mrs. H. J. Zierke, of Hutchinson, Minnesota ; 
 Merrill C. and his twin brother, Cyril M., the latter 
 
1598 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 a resident of Glencoe, Minnesota; Mrs. Marcia L. 
 Rebstock, who is now deceased; and Wallace L., of 
 Glencoe, all the children having been born in Illi- 
 nois. Mrs. Tifft, who was born in the State of 
 New York, went to Illinois with her parents in 
 young womanhood, and was married to Mr. Tifft in 
 the present City of Sycamore. 
 
 The earlier steps of Merrill C. Tifft’s education 
 were taken in the public schools of Hutchinson, 
 Minnesota, where he was graduated from the high 
 school in the class of 1885, and after making con- 
 siderable progress through private readings entered 
 the law department of the University of Michigan, 
 wherq he received the degree of Bachelor of Laws 
 in 1888. In that year he entered practice in Glen- 
 coe, Minnesota, where he remained until 1902, and 
 while residing there was elected judge of probate of 
 McLeod County, an office which he held for twelve 
 years. At that time he was the youngest judge of 
 probate in the state, and was succeeded by his 
 twin brother, Cyril M., who has occupied the bench 
 for twelve years. Politically a democrat, Mr. Tifft 
 served as a member of the board of education of 
 Glencoe and as a member of the Stevens Seminary 
 Board of Trustees. Mr. Tifft left Glencoe in 1902 
 and went tc Long Prairie, Minnesota, where he re- 
 mained in practice for four years, and while there 
 became the organizer of the Peoples National Bank, 
 of which he continued as president until January 1, 
 1914. In 1906 Mr. Tifft came to Minneapolis, and 
 has here continued in practice until the present time. 
 He is known as an attorney of broad legal informa- 
 tion engaged in the successful handling of involved 
 and important litigation, and, although engaged in a 
 general practice, has become particularly successful 
 in insurance law. His offices are located at Nos. 
 829-32 Plymouth Building. Since coming to this 
 city he has served 3L2 years as deputy insurance 
 commissioner. In January, 1915, the Mercantile 
 State Bank of Minneapolis opened its doors to busi- 
 ness, and Mr. Tifft was one of its organizers and 
 is its vice president and its general counsel. He is 
 connected fraternally with the Masonic Lodge and 
 chapter at Glencoe, with the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows and with the Ancient Order of United 
 Workmen, of which latter he served for three years 
 as grand master. He also holds membership in the 
 Minneapolis Athletic Club, and with his family is 
 connected with the Hennepin Avenue Method.ist 
 Episcopal Church. 
 
 On June 9, 1901, Mr. Tifft was married at Glencoe, 
 Minnesota, to Miss Grace M. Pryor, daughter of 
 William and Minerva (Shadinger) Pryor, of Cas f le 
 Rock, Rice County, Minnesota, where she was born, 
 but her education was secured in the public schools 
 of Glencoe. Mr. Pryor died at Hawley, Minnesota, 
 and Mrs. Pryor at Glencoe. Five children have 
 been born to Mr. and Mrs. Tifft, namely : Ethel M. 
 and Elda L., born at Glencoe; Merrill C., Jr., born 
 at Long Prairie; and Marjorie ,H. and Kermyt W., 
 at Minneapolis. 
 
 Anton J. Mayer. The citizens of Scott County 
 are generally agreed that the affairs of the county 
 auditor’s office were never in better hands than in 
 those of the present incumbent, Anton J. Mayer, 
 who had a long preparation for his present duties 
 as deputy and has been regularly elected to the 
 office since 1910. He has spent all his life in and 
 about Shakopee, and represents a family of very 
 early settlers in this locality of Minnesota. 
 
 Anton J. Mayer was born in Shakopee, May 17, 
 1874, a son of Mathias and Margaret (Klinkhammer) 
 Mayer. His grandfather was Lambert Mayer, who 
 came to the United States with his children when 
 quite an old man. He was born in 1799 and died 
 in 1880. By profession he was a school teacher. 
 The maternal grandfather, Joseph Klinkhammer, 
 was a stone mason by trade and many years ago 
 assisted to build the large Catholic Church at 
 Shakopee. Mathias Mayer was born at Wuenchrin- 
 gen, Kreis Saarburg, Germany, in 1833, and died 
 April 17, 1910. His wife was born in Germany in 
 1843, and died May 14, 1881. They were married 
 at Shakopee in i860. Mathias Mayer came to the 
 United States in 1857 and in the same year located 
 at Shakopee, being one of the early settlers in Scott 
 County. His work was that of school teacher until 
 1863, in which year he was made deputy auditor 
 of the county, and after that served as auditor and 
 clerk of court for sixteen years in the former office 
 and four years in the latter, and had also been 
 deputy auditor for a number of years. Thus for 
 a large portion of the existence of Scott County 
 as an organized civil division the office of auditor 
 has been entrusted to a member of the Mayer family. 
 He was one of the prominent leaders in the demo- 
 cratic party, and also acquired some extensive finan- 
 cial interests. He and his family were members of 
 the Catholic Church and for forty years he sang 
 in the church choir. He and his wife had ten 
 children, and the seven still living are : Amelia, 
 
 wife of G. Kohler, a harness maker at Morris, 
 Minnesota ; Julia, wife of Frank Thompson, who is 
 in a wholesale house at Salem, Oregon; Veronica, 
 of Los Angeles, California; Anton J. ; Mary M., 
 also living in Los Angeles ; Joseph G., a stove 
 moulder at Shakopee; and William A., a harness 
 maker at Portland, Oregon. 
 
 Anton J. Mayer received his education in the 
 common schools, and in early youth took up the 
 trade of harness maker. While learning his trade 
 he acquired further advantages of education, and 
 for three years was engaged in teaching school. In 
 1903 he entered the employ of his father in the 
 courthouse, and for five years was deputy county 
 auditor. He was elected as the principal of that 
 office in 1910, and since his first election has en- 
 countered no opposition for the office. He was 
 re-elected in 1914. 
 
 On June 10, 1902, Mr. Mayer married Louisa R. 
 Schmied of Shakopee. She was born in Anoka 
 County, Minnesota, November 17, 1883. They have 
 two children. Alphonse J., jporn March 31; 1903 ; 
 and Florence E„ born December 2, 1006. The family 
 are regular communicants of the Catholic Church. 
 Mr. Mayer is on the auditing board of St. John’s 
 Society, is a member of the St. John’s Benevolent 
 Society, has served as trustee of the Knights of 
 Columbus, and also belongs to the Catholic Order 
 of Foresters. Politically he has been active in the 
 democratic party since reaching his majority. He 
 concentrates all his time and energy upon the routine 
 management of his office and takes just pride in 
 the efficient manner in which he has performed his 
 duties. 
 
 Charles G. Bowdish. A native son of Minnesota 
 and intensely loyal to this great northwestern com- 
 monwealth. Charles G. Bowdish has had a career 
 in which his own ambition and industry have been 
 the primary factors in his advancement. He is now 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1599 
 
 editor and proprietor of the Tribune at Shakopee, 
 and is also court reporter for his district. 
 
 Charles G. Bowdish was born in Hutchinson, Min- 
 nesota, March 21, 1870, a son of Rev. William M. 
 and Mary (Washburn) Bowdish. Both his father 
 and grandfather were ministers of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. His father was born in Oneida 
 County, New York, in 1843 and died in 1886, while 
 the mother was born in Pennsylvania in 1845 and 
 died in 1874. The father came to Minnesota in 1862, 
 becoming one of the pioneer missionaries of the 
 Methodist Church in Anoka County. He was mar- 
 ried in Anoka. In the early days he filled the pulpit 
 in many localities of the state, and was distinguished 
 both for his ministerial work and as a successful 
 educator. In 1866 he became .superintendent of 
 schools at Glencoe and was at one time superin- 
 tendent of the county schools in Wabasha County. 
 He took a prominent interest in Masonic affairs, 
 affiliated with the lodge and Knight Templar com- 
 mandery; was master of the lodge at Zumbrota at 
 the time of his death, and was also a noble grand 
 in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Politi- 
 cally he was a republican. Of his five children 
 only two are now living, the daughter, Ella, being 
 the wife of Ralph Crawford, a stock buyer at 
 Chatfield, Minnesota. 
 
 Charles G. Bowdish was graduated from the Chat- 
 field High School in 1887. Later he spent two years 
 as a student in the Hamline University at St. Paul. 
 He paid his own expenses for his higher education 
 and in early youth learned the printing trade as a 
 compositor, and at the age of seventeen began 
 teaching. He was employed one year in the city 
 schools of Chatfield before entering university. At 
 St. Paul he spent a year as superintendent of the 
 night school. In 1890 Mr. Bowdish removed to 
 Shakopee and the following three years was prin- 
 cipal of the city schools. He then became connected 
 with the Shakopee Argus, and was its editor for 
 seven years. In 1900 he bought the Shakopee 
 Tribune, and has successfully managed this paper 
 for the past fifteen years, and has built its circula- 
 tion up to nearly a thousand, and besides the regular 
 issue of the paper maintains a well equipped job 
 printing plant. Besides looking after the newspaper 
 he has since 1905 filled the office of court reporter 
 for five counties. He is thus one of the busy men 
 in his section of the state and has always done well 
 in whatever position the fortunes of life have placed 
 him. 
 
 On November 24, 1892, Mr. Bowdish married Clara 
 M. Wilder of Shakopee. They have two children, 
 Boyd and Beulah, one of them sixteen and the 
 other fifteen years of age. Mrs. Bowdish is a 
 member of the Episcopal Church while Mr. Bowdish 
 was reared in the church of his father and grand- 
 father. He is affiliated with Shakopee Lodge No. 44, 
 A. F. & A. M. ; with Minnesota Chapter No. 1, 
 R. A. M., at St. Paul, and with the Royal and Select 
 Master's. In his lodge he is past warden and past 
 senior deacon. In politics he is a republican. 
 
 Rev. Alon Plut. One of the devoted priests of 
 the Catholic Church in Minnesota is Rev. Alon 
 Plut, who first became identified with his parish 
 at Shakopee nearly forty years ago, and is now 
 pastor of St. Mark’s Church of that city. 
 
 Father Plut was born in Austria, June 21, 1841, 
 received his early education in literature and theology 
 in that country, and at the age of twenty-three came 
 
 to the United States, being ordained to the priest- 
 hood immediately after his arrival. His first church 
 was at Stillwater, Minnesota, where he remained 
 eighteen months, and for a like period was at New 
 Prague. Then followed eight years of successful 
 ministry at Winona, and in 1876 he came to Shako- 
 pee. He organized the St. Matthew's congregation 
 at St. Paul, after having spent ten years in the 
 church at Shakopee, but three years later his health 
 failed and he had to give up the active work of the 
 ministry. For about two years he traveled in 
 Europe, and in 1900 returned to Shakopee and has 
 been the devoted pastor of that parish for the past 
 fifteen years. 
 
 Father Plut has been unusually successful in build- 
 ing up the various interests of his parish, and is now 
 at the head of a large and prosperous congregation, 
 and he also has a parochial school with 150 pupils. 
 All his time is devoted to his church and its people, 
 and so far as he interests himself in politics it is 
 as an independent voter. 
 
 Lewis P. Hunt and Frank W. Hunt are 
 the business men who have had most to do with 
 the development of the Free Press Printing Com- 
 pany of Mankato, one of the largest and most 
 successful establishments of its kind in Minnesota. 
 The company, besides publishing the daily and week- 
 ly issues of the Free Press, a journal whose circula- 
 tion and influential leadership are recognized facts 
 in Minnesota journalism, does a large business as 
 manufacturing printers and lithographers. 
 
 Lewis P. Hunt, who for thirty years was identified 
 with the management of the Mankato Free Press, 
 is now living retired in the State of Washington, 
 but has many associations and interests in Minne- 
 sota, and is well known over this state. He bought 
 an interest in the Weekly Free Press in 1881, and 
 in 1887 established the daily. He was a capable 
 newspaper man and successful in business. After 
 selling his interests in the Free Press Printing 
 Company in 1904 he moved out to Seattle in the 
 following year, and has since occupied himself to 
 some extent with interests in the Alaska canning 
 and fishing industry. While in Minnesota he took 
 a prominent park in republican politics, attended 
 four national conventions of the party, and at 
 Mankato served as postmaster from 1883 to 1885 
 and was again appointed by McKinley, holding the 
 office five years, until resigning to take charge of 
 business matters on the coast. He was an executive 
 officer in the Chicago World’s Fair. The state 
 had appropriated $75,000 for a Minnesota building 
 at the fair, and Mr. Hunt undertook the heavy task 
 of raising money for an adequate exhibit. He 
 visited every county in the state except one, collect- 
 ing $97,000, which was expended for the handsome 
 exhibits from the state. He has been an active 
 member of the Knights of Pythias many years, 
 and at one time was grand chancellor commander 
 of Minnesota in the order. 
 
 Lewis P. Hunt was married in Iowa-, September 6, 
 1874, to Miss Lizbeth Putnam, who died in 1912. 
 She was a very accomplished woman, was descended 
 from the New England Putnams, and was active in 
 various movements in her home state. She had 
 charge of the campaign by which the fund was 
 raised, by school children, through small subscrip- 
 tions from all over the state, for the erection of the 
 Hiawatha statue at Minnehaha Falls. 
 
 Frank W. Hunt, who has been president of the 
 
1600 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 company since 1903, was born in St. Lawrence 
 County, New York, September 24, 1856, a son of 
 Nathan F. and Caroline (Gates) Hunt. Back in 
 colonial times four English brothers named Hunt 
 came to America and established themselves in 
 different localities. This branch has lived in Ver- 
 mont for several generations, where Nathan F. 
 Hunt was born in 1811. He died in New York 
 State in 1889. He was married in the latter state 
 in 1839 to Caroline Gates, who was born in New 
 York in 1815 and died in 1893. A wagon maker 
 and contractor, Nathan Hunt moved out to the 
 State of Iowa in 1865, his plant having been burned 
 in his home state in 1863, bringing a loss of every 
 dollar of property he possessed. At Independence, 
 Iowa, he started life anew, did work in a wagon 
 shop for a time, afterwards moved to a farm, which 
 he sold in 1873 and returned to New York and 
 spent the rest of his years in Jefferson County. 
 He was a Universalist in religion, and in politics 
 a- democrat. Of a family of fifteen children, twelve 
 reached maturity, and seven are living. Those be- 
 side the brothers above named are : Eliza Sampson, 
 
 a widow, living in Carthage, New York; Mrs. 
 Harriett Ackerman, a widow, living in Massachu- 
 setts ; Mrs. Sevilla Wilcox, a widow, living at 
 Cartbage, New York; Edwin D., tvho is now sixty- 
 eight, and retired in Iowa; and Bion F., a farmer 
 in New York State. 
 
 Frank W. Hunt had an education from the com- 
 mon schools, but owing to an affliction of the eyes 
 had to be sparing in his application to books, and is 
 more a practical man than a student. He had con- 
 siderable experience in early life as a farmer, and 
 for a time engaged in the business of importing 
 horses from Canada. In 1887 he moved to Mankato, 
 where he became associated with his brother Lewis 
 in the Free Press, becoming assistant business man- 
 ager and dividing his time between office and road 
 work. The business was then in its infancy, with 
 only half a dozen persons in the office force. In 
 1887 the daily paper was established, and soon 
 afterward the Mankato Register was bought from 
 W. R. Geddes and consolidated with the Free Press. 
 In March, 1902, a syndicate of the Hunt brothers, 
 with Michael D. Fritz and J. W. True, bought the 
 entire business, and in 1908 the company acquired 
 the large building in which the plant and offices 
 are now located. The Daily Free Press now has a 
 circulation of 4,500, while the job printing and 
 lithographing departments comprise an important 
 business in themselves. Printing and illustrative 
 work from this office are distributed over half a 
 dozen states, and five men are constantly traveling 
 over Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, both Dakotas and 
 Montana. In 1904 Frank W. Hunt succeeded his 
 brother as president of the company. 
 
 Mr. Hunt is a director of the Citizens Fire Asso- 
 ciation. Plis fraternal affiliations are with the 
 Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen of 
 America and the Benevolent and Protective Order 
 of Elks, is a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, and in politics is a republican. He was 
 married, in 1877, to Miss Nellie L. Morse. She 
 was born at Wilna, Jefferson County, New York, 
 was educated in a seminary at Antwerp, of that 
 state, and since girlhood has been very active in 
 the Foreign Missionary Society of the Methodist 
 Church. Since 1900 she has "been district corre- 
 sponding secretary of the society. Mr. and Mrs. 
 
 Hunt have three daughters, Bertha B., Marion and 
 Beulah, the two youngest being married. 
 
 John Wesley Andrews, M. D. In the nearly 
 forty years of his active practice in Southern Min- 
 nesota, Doctor Amlrews has made a distinguished 
 name, especially in the field of surgery. His skill 
 in surgery has come to be recognized in probably 
 every section of the state, and in the opinion of 
 people best qualified to judge Doctor Andrews has 
 no superior in his section of Minnesota as a skillful 
 and scientific operator. He is also a well known 
 man of affairs, and is at the present time a member 
 of the State Senate from the Mankato District. 
 
 John Wesley Andrews was born in Lawrence 
 County, Illinois, April 6, 1849, a son of John R. and 
 Delilah (Armstrong) Andrews. His father was 
 born in Indiana in 1813 and died in 1894, and his 
 mother was born in Kentucky in 1818 and died in 
 1882. The parents were married in Illinois. His 
 father was a farmer and a local minister of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church. After living in Illinois 
 a number ot years he moved out to Minnesota in 
 1856 and became one of the pioneer settlers at St. 
 Peter. He homesteaded a claim in Lesueur County, 
 lived there for a number of years, but died in 
 Mankato. His wife died on the old homestead near 
 Lake Washington. Both were active members of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church and the father was 
 a republican and held such local offices as member 
 of the school board and town clerk. He was liberally 
 educated, and was noted for his eloquence as a 
 public speaker. 
 
 Doctor Andrews, who was the fourth in a family 
 of ten children, seven of whom are still living, 
 received his education at St. Peter and in the 
 Mankato Normal School, subsequently attending the 
 University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the Rush 
 Medical College of Chicago, where he graduated 
 M. D. in 1877. Several years later he went to New 
 York City and received a diploma from the Bellevue 
 Hospital Medical College in 1880, and his unusual 
 natural ability and attainments have been constantly 
 supplemented by association with noted physicians 
 and surgeons and by post-graduate work. Doctor 
 Andrews spent one year in Europe as a student in 
 several of the noted continental medical centers. 
 
 In the year of his graduation from Rush Medical 
 College he took active practice at Marshall, Minne- 
 sota, lived there five years, and since 1882 has had 
 his home and offices in Mankato. His fellow physi- 
 cians credit him with having the largest and most 
 valuable practice in Mankato, but his practice is not 
 confined to that one locality, in fact extending all 
 over Southern Minnesota. Surgery is his specialty, 
 and he is surgeon for both the hospitals in Mankato. 
 
 In 1878 Doctor Andrews married Miss Jennie 
 French of Wellsville, New York. Their only son, 
 Roy N. Andrews, graduated from the University 
 of Minnesota in the medical department in 1908 and 
 is now in active practice with his father. 
 
 Doctor Andrews since early manhood has taken 
 an active part in the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 and almost continually has served in some official 
 position. For a number of years he was president 
 of the board of trustees, and at one time was a 
 delegate to the general conference at Los Angeles. 
 Fraternally he is a Knight Templar Mason and 
 member of the Mystic Shrine, and passed all the 
 chairs in the blue lodge. He is also affiliated with 
 the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Doctor 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1601 
 
 Andrews is a member of the Medical Society of 
 Southern Minnesota, the State Medical Society, the 
 Western Surgical Association and the American 
 Medical Association. He has been president of both 
 the county and state medical societies, and is on 
 the lecture bureau of the American Medical Asso- 
 ciation and a fellow of the American College of 
 Surgeons. For a number of years his interest in 
 and participation in politics has made him well 
 known in public affairs. He served as alderman one 
 term and one term as mayor of Mankato, was for 
 two terms chairman of the county central com- 
 mittee, and in November, 1914, was elected to the 
 State Senate. He is 4 stockholder and director in 
 the First National Bank of Mankato, and president 
 of the board of the Y. M. C. A. 
 
 David Chauncey Shepard. There is still living 
 in St. Paul the man who broke the ground for 
 Minnesota’s first railroad more than half a century 
 ago. During his active career in the field of rail- 
 way construction, David Chauncey Shepard set rec- 
 ords for energy, efficiency and speed which have 
 long been unbroken, and probably no other one 
 man has directly supervised the laying of more 
 miles of railway trackage in America. 
 
 David Chauncey Shepard was born near Geneseo, 
 New York, February 20, 1828, a son of David and 
 Dolly Olmsted (Foote) Shepard. He received his 
 early education in district schools, attended the 
 Temple Hill Academy at Geneseo and the Brock- 
 port Collegiate Institute at Brockport, New York, 
 and did his first professional work as civil engineer 
 in 1847, when appointed a member of the engineer 
 corps engaged in the construction of the Genesee 
 Valley Canal by Governor Young of New York. He 
 resigned in 1851 to engage in surveys for the Roches- 
 ter & Genesee Valley Railroad, now a part of the 
 Erie System; spent the summer of 1851 on the Erie 
 Canal, and was in the state engineer’s office at 
 Rochester until 1852. He had charge of the con- 
 struction of the Canandaigua & Niagara Falls Rail- 
 road, and was engaged in various surveys and rail- 
 road work during 1852-53. From 1853 to 1856 he 
 was chief engineer of the Atlantic and Great West- 
 ern Railway, now part of the Erie System. He was 
 chief engineer of the Milwaukee & Beloit Railroad 
 from 1856 to 1857, and became chief engineer of the 
 Minnesota & Pacific in 1858. From 1859 to 1862 
 he was a wheat shipper, and from 1863 to 1870 was 
 chief engineer of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. 
 Paul Railway in Minnesota. Until his retirement 
 from business in 1894 he was a member of the 
 Northwestern Construction Company, railway con- 
 tractors, and for many years its general manager. 
 
 The story of how he broke the ground for Minne- 
 sota’s first railroad and of his remarkable achieve- 
 ments as a railway builder was told in a magazine 
 article some years ago by W. P. Kirkwood. Since 
 his work has so much significance historically in 
 connection with the industrial development of the 
 Northwest, the greater part of this article is quoted 
 from Mr. Kirkwood’s own words : 
 
 “The cry of a railroad, or for railroads, in Minne- 
 sota had been long, loud and insistent. In 1857, 
 just fifty years ago, the man who broke ground for 
 Minnesota’s first railroad had made surveys for a 
 railroad across the territory from Stillwater by way 
 of St. Paul and St. Anthony to Big Stone Lake, 
 and northward from St. Anthony to Crow Wing, 
 and other surveys had been made in the southern 
 
 part of the territory. Furthermore, there had been 
 a bitter debate in the Territorial Legislature, and 
 out of it, in the spring of 1858, as to whether the 
 territory should lend its credit to the extent of 
 $5,000,000 for railroad construction. The question 
 had been submitted to the people, and by an over- 
 whelming vote, on April 15, the people had declared 
 for the loan. 
 
 “Yet with all this agitation just preceding the 
 event, and with the enthusiasm of the public for 
 railroads, when ground was actually broken on what 
 is now the Great Northern track between St. Paul 
 and Minneapolis, nothing was done to celebrate 
 the occasion beyond the opening of a bottle of 
 champagne ; no brass bands paraded, no spellbinder 
 proclaimed the day as of unusual significance, no 
 poet sang the shovel and the man who that day 
 began the enactment of a great railroad transpor- 
 tation epic of the Northwest. 
 
 “The young man who actually drove the shovel 
 through the sod for the first railroad in Minnesota 
 and the Northwest, and who saw enough signifi- 
 cance in the event to warrant the breaking of a 
 bottle of champaigne in its honor was Mr. D. C. 
 Shepard, now living a life of retirement worthily 
 won in St. Paul. Mr. Shepard was chief engineer 
 of the newly surveyed land, then known as the 
 Minnesota & Pacific; accompanying him were Mr. 
 A. H. Linton, special representative of Mr. Selah 
 of Cleveland, who had the construction contract, 
 and Mr. Dunbar, now deceased, who was to have 
 charge of the field work. The three men drove to 
 a point directly south of the site of the present 
 Calvary Cemetery, between the Como Interurban 
 Trolley Line and the Great Northern four-track, 
 Twin City line, near Lake Como. Finding a spot 
 that was favorable for grading operations under 
 the wheelbarrow system of the day, the three men 
 poured a libation to the success of the venture. Mr. 
 Shepard then took the shovel and broke ground, and 
 the trio returned to town. Simple as the ceremony 
 was, so simple that even the day of the month is 
 unrecorded and forgotten, it was the commence- 
 ment of more than 8,000 miles of railroad that now 
 gridiron the state, making Minnesota the focus of 
 traffic between the far West and the busy East. 
 
 “If the event was epoch-making for the state, it 
 was also epoch-making for the chief actor, Mr. 
 Shepard, who, lifting the first shovelful of earth 
 for a railroad in Minnesota that day in May, 1858, 
 began a railroad-building career that has never been 
 equalled and that had won for him at the time 
 of his retirement in 1894 the title of ‘The World’s 
 Greatest Railroad Builder.’ Up to that time, 1894, 
 he had built as a contractor, aided and unaided, 
 7,026 miles of iron and steel highways, 6,666 miles 
 of which were in the Northwest, and had built many 
 of them at a pace and in a manner to awaken the 
 astonishment of the railroad world. The record by 
 states is: Ohio, 40 miles; Indiana, 42; Illinois, 217; 
 Iowa, 859; Missouri, 61; Nebraska, 43; Wisconsin, 
 236; Minnesota, 1,452; South Dakota, 950; North 
 Dakota, 984; Montana, 898; Idaho, 80; Washing- 
 ton, 439; Canada, 725. 
 
 “The total includes such roads as the Northern 
 Pacific from the point west of Duluth to Fargo ; the 
 Canadian Pacific from a point just west of Winnipeg 
 to Calgary; the Great Northern from Minot, North 
 Dakota, to Puget Sound and up and down the 
 sound; the Chicago, Burlington & Northern, now 
 a part of the general Burlington system; the Chi- 
 
1602 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 cago Great Western; the Cleveland, Lorain & Wheel- 
 ing, and other lines. 
 
 "The great achievements of Mr. Shepard as a 
 railroad contractor, however, lay not so much in 
 the amount of his work as in the speed with which 
 he and those associated with him did it. Two bril- 
 liant examples of this were in the construction 
 of the Canadian Pacific from Oak Lake, Manitoba, 
 to Calgary, 675 miles, and of the Great Northern, 
 then the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba, from 
 Minot to Helena, 643 miles. 
 
 “In 1882, in association with R. B. Langdon of 
 Minneapolis under the firm name of Langdon & 
 Shepard, Mr. Shepard commenced work on the Can- 
 adian Pacific from Oak Lake to Calgary. In fifteen 
 months the 675 miles of track were completed, a 
 then unheard of speed in railroad building, and 
 accomplished in the face of tremendous obstacles. 
 Ten million cubic yards of earth had to be removed, 
 and all the timber and piling use as bridges, cul- 
 verts and other structures in the roadbed had to be 
 hauled ahead from the end of the track and placed 
 in the work before track could be laid. In a single 
 day in the course of this contract 6 miles and 600 
 feet of track were laid.” 
 
 While the rapidity with which work on the Cana- 
 dian Pacific was done occasioned wide comment at 
 the time, it was to be far surpassed in 1887, when 
 Mr. Shepard, in association with the Messrs. Win- 
 ston of Minneapolis, under the firm name of Shepard 
 & Winston, built the Great Northern line from 
 Minot to Helena. In all, the firm built 1,175 miles 
 of railroad that year, including the 643 miles alluded 
 to. The track-laying on this 643 miles commenced 
 April 1 and was completed on November 18, an 
 average rate for each working day of 3 % miles. 
 Five hundred miles of the work were graded and 
 bridged ahead of the track layers by September 1, 
 an average of 100 miles a month. From the mouth 
 of the Milk River to Great Falls, 200 miles, the grad- 
 ing progressed at the rate of seven miles a day. 
 In the whole work 9,700,000 cubic yards of earth, 
 15,000 cubic yards of loose rock and 17,500 cubic 
 yards of solid rock were removed. Nine million 
 feet of timber and 390,000 lineal feet of piling were 
 hauled ahead of the track and placed in the work. 
 On July 16, 7 miles, 1,040 feet of track were laid, 
 leaving the record made on the Canadian Pacific 
 far behind. But even the new record was to be 
 outdone. On August 8, 8 miles and 60 feet of track 
 were put down without any increase in the regular 
 force, all materials being transported by teams from 
 trains near the end of the track on the day, and 
 the rails being laid continuously from the end of 
 the track as taken there by iron cars. This was 
 frenzied railroad building, but the frenzy was only 
 that of intense activity, working with the utmost 
 precision, guided by the sound judgment and clear 
 vision of a master mind. Under the guidance of 
 this mind, an army of nearly 9.000 men and 3,500 
 teams went marching across the prairie, leaving a 
 completed steel highway behind it. 
 
 “The personality of this man has been largely 
 overlooked. His achievements have overshadowed 
 him. Of course, his dominant trait is energy. This 
 may be seen to this day in the look of the eye, 
 the carriage of the head, and the quick, eager, 
 restless movements of the hands, though Mr. Shep- 
 ard is now well to four score years of age. His 
 energy, however, is of the mind rather than of 
 the body, and one can easily imagine that in the 
 
 days when he was driving great enterprises for- 
 ward his mind often drove his body almost to 
 the breaking point. Foresight, sound judgment, clear 
 vision and accurate penetration have gone hand in 
 hand with energy. 
 
 "At the early age of thirty, in the winter of 1857- 
 58, before a foot of ground had been moved for 
 a railroad in the Northwest he was talking of the 
 great future before the Red River Valley as a 
 wheat country, of the construction of a railroad to 
 the Pacific to connect with lines he had surveyed 
 in the summer of 1857, and of extensions into the 
 fertile Valley of Saskatchewan — all prophecies now 
 realized, and pushed to early realization by his own 
 force of mind and will. 
 
 “In all his railroad building Mr. Shepard lost 
 money but once, and that contract was undertaken 
 deliberately with the foreknowledge of the out- 
 come. Likewise he has never been engaged in seri- 
 ous litigation. His prompt and sound decision is 
 notable, and no doubt is largely responsible for his 
 brilliant successes. While superintendent of the 
 Minnesota and Iowa lines of the Milwaukee & St. 
 Paul road, prior to 1871, he was one day west- 
 ward bound from Winona, when the train came to 
 a sudden halt. A great boulder of many tons’ 
 weight had rolled from a bluff and blocked the 
 track. The conductor appealed to Mr. Shepard. 
 ‘Go around it,’ was the prompt order he received. 
 The order was carried out, the track was shifted, 
 and in less than three hours the train was on its 
 way. In the building of the Milwaukee & St. Paul 
 line southward from Minneapolis a serious problem 
 arose as to how to cross the Minnesota River at 
 Fort Snelling. A high bridge from the fort bluff 
 was proposed. But high bridges were costly then 
 as they are now, and had other disadvantages, and 
 Mr. Shepard offered a plan for an 1, ioo-foot tun- 
 nel under the fort as a solution of the difficulty. 
 This still seemed too costly to the builders of the 
 road, and as a compromise the present route around 
 the bluff was taken. Mr. Shepard insists to this 
 day that his plan was the only right one. 
 
 “Mr. Shepard is blunt, but his very bluntness has 
 made friends for him. An Iowa editor once said 
 in his paper: ‘Shepard is a pretty good “boy”; 
 
 we like him for his bluntness.’ Others, many others, 
 have been warm friends of the railroad builder. 
 When he came to leave Minneapolis to become gen- 
 eral manager of the company that had the con- 
 tract to build the Northern Pacific road across the 
 state a great reception was given in his honor 
 in the only opera house that Minneanolis then 
 boasted. This was followed by a supper at the 
 Nicollet House at which 500 of the Twin Cities’ 
 best people sat down. The employes of the Mil- 
 waukee Road, when he left, gave him an elaborate 
 silver service. 
 
 “With all his tireless activity, one of the things 
 which probably enabled Mr. Shepard to maintain 
 the pace he early set himself was a delightful home 
 life, given to his family, to pleasure in works of 
 art, and to reading. Much of his time was spent 
 with books and magazines of the more solid sort. 
 Having lived the life of a pioneer empire builder, 
 Mr. Shepard still exercises the influence that be- 
 longs to a serene old age, surrounded with the 
 fruits of thrift and great industry and unspoiled 
 by success, one of the best examples of that striking 
 class of men who made the Northwest what it is 
 

 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1603 
 
 in less than half a century from the breaking of 
 the ground for the first railroad.” 
 
 Mr. Shepard was married December 24, 1850, and 
 several of his posterity have also become prominent 
 as railroad builders and business men in the North- 
 west. 
 
 Frank P. Shepard. A son of David Chauncey 
 Shepard, the pioneer railway builder in the North- 
 west, whose career and its achievements have been 
 described on other pages, Frank P. Shepard followed 
 in the footsteps of his father. He died at his St. 
 Paul home, and at that time was engaged in double 
 tracking the Pacific Coast Extension of the Chicago, 
 Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. 
 
 Frank P. Shepard was born at Cleveland, Ohio, 
 October 30, 1853, and spent the greater part. of his 
 life there. After he acquired his education he 
 became identified with the great work which his 
 father was then carrying on as a railroad con- 
 tractor. He was for a number of years associated 
 with his father and with Alvin W. Krech and Peter 
 Siems until the principals of that business retired. 
 He then became associated with the firm of Morris 
 & Shepard, railroad contractors. 
 
 Frank P. Shepard married Miss Anna M. Mc- 
 Millan, a daughter of the late United States Sen- 
 ator S. J. R. McMillan. Mrs. Shepard survived 
 her husband, and for many years they had lived at 
 the old homestead, 325 Dayton Avenue, one of the 
 most beautiful places in the City of St. Paul. Mr. 
 Shepard 1 was also survived by four sons — David C., 
 Samuel M., Roger B. and Frank P., Jr. David 
 Chauncey Shepard (second), grandson of the man 
 whose name he bore, is now secretary of the Finch, 
 Van Slyck & McConville wholesale house of St. 
 Paul, and is a director of the First National Bank. 
 Samuel M. Shepard is one of the firm of Morris, 
 Shepard & Daugherty, railway contractors, whose 
 business is a continuation of that established by the 
 elder David C. Shepard in the pioneer times of the 
 Northwest. Roger C. Shepard is treasurer of the 
 Finch, Van Slyck & McConville wholesale house, 
 and is a director of the Merchants National Bank. 
 Frank P. Shepard, the youngest son, is a student in 
 Yale College. 
 
 Hon. Miles Porter. A resident of Minnesota all 
 the forty odd years of his life, Miles Porter has been 
 a farmer, merchant, lawyer and public official and 
 is one of the men of recognized high standing at 
 the Mankato bar. 
 
 He was born in Blue Earth County, Minnesota, 
 December 7, 1873, a son of John and Ellen (Parks) 
 Porter. The Porter family are of Scotch-Irish 
 descent, while the Parks family was early settled in 
 New England, and the maternal grandfather, Elisha 
 Parks, was captain of state militia in New Hamp- 
 shire. John Porter was born in Steuben County, 
 New York, in 1822 and died in 1894, and his wife 
 was born in Acworth, New Hampshire, in 1842 and 
 is still living at Vernon Center, Minnesota. The 
 parents were married in Blue Earth County in 1861. 
 John Porter came to this state as a pioneer in 1857, 
 and Miss Parks in the spring of 1858. John Porter 
 preempted a piece of land in Blue Earth County and 
 was its owner until his death. Several years prior 
 to his location in Minnesota he had gone out to 
 California by the overland route, was more than 
 ordinarily successful as a miner, accumulated some 
 treasure, and returned to the states by way of the 
 
 Panama route. He was a man of no little promi- 
 nence in his section of Minnesota. In politics he 
 was a supporter of the democratic party. He served 
 as town clerk of Ceresco Township for a number 
 of years, and at one time was an unsuccessful candi- 
 date for the State Legislature, being defeated by 
 only two votes. He was one of the rare men in 
 political life, practicing the principle that the office 
 should seek the man rather than the man the office, 
 and never made a formal canvas for votes in con- 
 nection with any office to which he aspired. Of the 
 four children of John Porter and wife two are 
 living: Mrs. Frank Clague, Mr. Clague being a well 
 known attorney and state senator of Redwood 
 County. 
 
 Miles Porter grew up in Minnesota on a farm, 
 attended common schools, and in 1894 was graduated 
 from the Mankato State Normal School. For sev- 
 eral years he was engaged in the hardware business 
 at Vernon Center, and studied law under Mr. Frank 
 Clague, above mentioned, and on removing to Man- 
 kato in 1908 took active practice and has since en- 
 joyed a large clientage, always practicing alone. 
 
 In November, 1904, Mr. Porter married Margaret 
 E. Lovell, daughter of F. R. Lovell of Vernon Cen- 
 ter, a farmer in that vicinity. They are the parents 
 of three children: Stella, born in 1906; Joyce, born 
 January 2, 1909; and Barbara, born in 1913. Mr. 
 Porter with his family attends the Congregational 
 Church, and he is affiliated with the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks, is a past chancellor com- 
 mander of the Knights of Pythias, having held that 
 office three consecutive years, and also belongs to 
 the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the 
 Ancient Order of United Workmen. Politically he 
 is a progressive republican. For five years in suc- 
 cession he served as president of the city council at 
 Vernon Center, and held the office of city attorney 
 at Mankato one term. In 1912 he was elected a 
 member of the state legislature for the session of 
 1913. Ever since reaching his majority he has been 
 interested more or less in politics and possesses 
 many distinctive qualities of civic leadership. Along 
 with a good practice as a lawyer he possesses some 
 extensive farming interests, and most of his summer 
 months are devoted to the supervision of his farm. 
 Mr. Porter was the originator of the Northwestern 
 Lawyers Association, which was recently established 
 with general offices at Waseca. This is an associa- 
 tion for the protection of attorneys practicing in 
 the Northwest. Mr. Porter is also a member of 
 the American Bar Association and of the Com- 
 mercial Law League of America. 
 
 William B. Davies. For a long term of years 
 William B. Davies has been official court reporter at 
 Mankato. Mr. Davies is a lawyer by profession, 
 but most of . his time has been occupied with public 
 affairs and for a number of years he has been out 
 of practice altogether. Mr. Davies is of New Eng- 
 land birth and antecedents, his father was a Con- 
 necticut lawyer, and the reason for his coming to 
 the Northwest was failing health, which caused an 
 interruption of his early preparation for the law 
 and during his residence of upwards of half a cen- 
 tury in Minnesota he has found many opportunities 
 for usefulness and advantageous service to himself 
 and the community. 
 
 William B. Davies was born in New York State 
 July 27, i8a8, a Son of Lemuel Sanford and Stella 
 M. (Scovill) Davies, both of whom were natives 
 
1604 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 of Connecticut. He is a direct descendant of Col. 
 John Davies, who was an officer in Washing- 
 ton’s army during the Revolution. The paternal 
 grandfather, Thomas F. Davies, was a minister of 
 the Congregational Church in Connecticut. The ma- 
 ternal grandfather was Edward Scovill, who was 
 born in Massachusetts, was for many years a manu- 
 facturer in Waterbury, Connecticut, and died in that 
 city. Lemuel S. Davies was a graduate of Yale 
 College, and after his admission to the bar practiced 
 all his active life in Waterbury, Connecticut. He 
 had a prominent and influential place in local affairs, 
 was a democrat, and at one time mayor of Water- 
 bury, was judge of probate in the county, also 
 county treasurer. He and his family were members 
 of the Episcopal Church. 
 
 William B. Davies was the oldest in a family of 
 seven children, six of whom are living. He was 
 educated through the eighth grade of the public 
 schools at Waterbury, and had further instruction 
 in a private academy. He lived on a farm for a 
 time, studied law under the direction of his father, 
 but on account of ill health left Connecticut and 
 came to the Northwest in 1868. He spent the fol- 
 lowing eight years as a farmer, and found health 
 and vigor in the bracing atmosphere of Minnesota 
 and in the rugged life of a pioneer farming com- 
 munity. In 1876 Mr. Davies went to Minneapolis, 
 and for several years traveled about engaged in 
 contracting. Returning to Mankato in 1886, he was 
 admitted to the bar and began active practice. In 
 the same year of his admission to the bar he was 
 elected city recorder, an office he held for two years. 
 He was also appointed a member of the Board of 
 Public Works for one year, and in 1887 became re 
 porter for the District Court, an office which he has 
 now held for more than a quarter of a century, and 
 in point of continuous service is probably one of the 
 oldest if not the oldest court reporter in the state. 
 Along with his official duties he carried on a sub- 
 stantial practice as a lawyer until 1893, but since 
 that time the duties of his office have claimed all his 
 time and attention. 
 
 In 1870 Mr. Davies married Laura Presson, daugh- 
 ter of Harrison Presson, who was a native of Illi- 
 nois, but lived a number of years at Henderson, Min- 
 nesota. Mr. and Mrs. Davies are the parents of 
 eight children : William T., who is a railroad man 
 in California; Mrs. Julia E. Riddle, of Jacksonville, 
 Florida; Joseph S., agent for the Wells, Fargo & 
 Company's Express at Mankato ; Laura B. Koch, 
 whose husband is general manager of the George E. 
 Breet Dry Goods House at Mankato ; Stella M., 
 wife of Edward C. Minea, formerly of St. Paul and 
 now connected with the Wells, Fargo & Company’s 
 Express at Seattle, Washington; Irma and Mary, 
 twins, the former the wife of Harry Marquette, who 
 is in the engineering department of the Chicago, 
 Rock Island & Pacific Railway at Chicago, while 
 Mary lives at home in Mankato ; and Edward F., 
 who is connected with the Wells, Fargo & Company 
 at Seattle. 
 
 Mr. Davies is a member of the Christian Science 
 Church. He is a past exalted ruler of the Benevo- 
 lent and Protective Order of Elks, a past chancellor 
 in the Knights of Pythias, and also has membership 
 in the Ancient Order of United Workmen and the 
 Modern Woodmen of America. Politically he is 
 classified as an independent democrat. Mr. Davies 
 began his life in the Northwest without capital, and 
 his success is due to his own efforts and his ambition 
 
 to achieve something for himself and for his com- 
 munity. Besides his residence in Mankato he has 
 a summer home on Lake Francis. 
 
 George Robert Curran, M. D. The profession of 
 surgery is eminently represented at Mankato by Dr. 
 George Robert Curran, who has been engaged in 
 practice in this city since 1902 and has established 
 himself in high position in his calling, in the confi- 
 dence of the community and in the possession of 
 an excellent practice. Doctor Curran was born at 
 Cannon Falls, Minnesota, July 1, 1863, and is a son 
 of Charles W. and Rebecca (Clark) Curran. 
 
 The Curran family was founded in the United 
 States by the great-grandparents of Doctor Curran, 
 Patrick and Clara Curran, who emigrated to this 
 country from Ireland and located in Pennsylvania, 
 where they passed the remainder of their lives in 
 modest farming ventures. Their son, Robert Cur- 
 ran, the grandfather of the doctor, was born in 
 Pennsylvania in 1800, and grew up on his father’s 
 homestead, so that he naturally adopted the voca- 
 tion of an agriculturist when he came to years of 
 maturity. In 1828, desiring to see something of the 
 country that lay to the west, he made himself a raft, 
 which he launched on French Creek, not far from 
 his home, and on this he floated down to the Ohio 
 River, and then on past the State of Ohio to Indiana, 
 finally stopping at Madison. He remained in Indiana 
 until 1837, in which year he made his way to Mil- 
 waukee, Wisconsin, that city at that time having 
 but two houses. Subsequently Mr. Curran settled 
 on a farm nine miles west of Milwaukee, on which 
 he continued to spend the balance of his life. 
 
 Rev. Charles W. Curran, the father of Dr. George 
 R. Curran, was born in Pennsylvania in 1819. He 
 was a lad of nine years when he made the long and 
 perilous trip down the Ohio with his parents, and 
 was eighteen years of age when he went with them 
 to Wisconsin, but in spite of his various movings 
 from point to point was successful in securing what 
 was considered a very good education for his day. 
 the principal part being gained in the schools of 
 Mount Vernon, Illinois. As a young man he entered 
 the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and 
 for a number of years preached at various points 
 in Indiana, but in 1855 took up his residence in Min- 
 nesota, his first sermon in this state being preached 
 at Cannon Falls. This sermon was also the first 
 preached in that vicinity. Here he continued to re- 
 side until his death in 1868, and when not engaged 
 in ministerial work followed farming and school 
 teaching. He was married in Bartholomew County, 
 Indiana, in 1851, to Miss Rebecca Clark, who was 
 born at Columbus, Indiana, in 1832, daughter of 
 Benjamin Clark, and she died in 1866, having been 
 the mother of five children, of whom three are liv- 
 ing: Mrs. Mary Clifford, of Cannon Falls, Minne- 
 sota; Mrs. Belle Price, of Seattle, Washington; and 
 Dr. George R., of this review. 
 
 George Robert Curran received his early education 
 in the country schools of Minnesota, following which 
 he attended the Hastings High School. His aca- 
 demic course was pursued at Carleton College, 
 Northfield, Minnesota, from which institution he was 
 graduated in 1887, and he entered the medical depart- 
 ment of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, 
 where he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine 
 in 1892. Doctor Curran at once entered upon the 
 practice of his profession at Worthington, Minne- 
 sota, and there remained nine years, the following 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1605 
 
 year being spent in post-graduate study in the col- 
 leges and hospitals of Europe. On his return to the 
 United States he opened an office and took up his 
 residence at Mankato, and here has continued in the 
 enjoyment of a constantly increasing practice, he 
 now devoting his entire time to surgery. Doctor 
 Curran has not only a large home oractice, but is 
 often called to distant parts of the state, for his 
 reputation has extended far beyond the limits of 
 his community. He has always been a close student 
 of his profession and has made constant and rapid 
 progress, keeping well informed concerning all the 
 theories and discoveries relating to surgical science 
 and leading the way in some lines of original investi- 
 gation. At this time he maintains offices in the Na- 
 tional City Bank Building. He is a member of the 
 Blue Earth County Medical Society, the Minnesota 
 State Medical Society, the Southern Minnesota 
 Medical Society, the Southwestern Medical Society 
 and the American Medical Association, and frater- 
 nally is identified with Mankato Lodge No. 12, An- 
 cient Free & Accepted Masons, and Mankato Lodge 
 No. 225, Benevolent and Protective Order Elks. In 
 political matters he is a republican. 
 
 On December 20, 1892, Doctor Curran was mar- 
 ried to Miss Katrina Manson. Her father, Dr. Mel- 
 ville Manson, was born in Maine, in 1835, became 
 an eminent practitioner, and at the outbreak of the 
 Civil war was made surgeon of the Fifth Maine 
 Volunteers, with which organization he participated 
 in the Battle of Gettysburg and most of the engage- 
 ments of the Peninsula campaign. In 1868 he came 
 to Minnesota and for a number of years practiced 
 his profession at South Bend, Shakopee and St. 
 Paul. He married Miss Elizabeth Moody, a young 
 lady from the East, who was born in 1840. One 
 child has been born to Doctor and Mrs. Curran : 
 Doris Elizabeth, who was born October 4, 1893, and 
 is now a senior at Carleton College, Northfield. 
 Doctor and Mrs. Curran and their daughter are 
 members of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
 Tean A. Flittie’s chief service as a lawyer at 
 Mankato has been rendered through his occupancy 
 of the office of referee in bankruptcy, which he 
 has held for a number of years. His findings have 
 been almost uniformly satisfactory, and in this 
 quasi-judicial position he has gained the respect 
 and esteem of all who have handled matters under 
 his jurisdiction. Mr. Flittie has been a member of 
 the Mankato bar more than twenty years, and has 
 also been an important factor in local civic and 
 municipal work. 
 
 Jean A. Flittie was born in Norway, July_4, 1866, 
 a son of Johannes and Anna (Afden) Flittie. The 
 paternal grandfather, Thron Flittie, died in Norway, 
 where he was a farmer. There is a farm in Norway 
 called Flittie, and this family have had their resi- 
 dence there for a numbet of generations. Both 
 parents were born in Norway, Johannes on July 14, 
 1823, and his wife on July 24, 1827. He died in Sep- 
 tember, 1900, and she on September 8, 1909. On 
 July 4, 1869, just three years after Jean was born, the 
 family set out from Bergen. Norway, taking passage 
 on a sailing vessel, and after seven weeks on the 
 ocean landed in Quebec. They came on to Minne- 
 sota, and the father homesteaded a farm near Ma- 
 delia, and that farm is still owned by the family. The 
 father was reared in the faith of the Lutheran 
 Church, but later became a Seventh Day Adventist. 
 He was a republican in politics but took little part in 
 
 public affairs, since he never learned to speak the 
 English language. Though he was a poor immigrant 
 when he arrived in Minnesota, by industry he suc- 
 ceeded in rearing his family in some degree of com- 
 fort and fitting them for useful citizenship. There 
 were nine children in all, and the five still living 
 are: Jorgen, a farmer at Brookings, South Dakota^ 
 Mrs. Hans Jorgenson, whose husband is a merchant 
 tailor at Mankato; Matt J„ living at Battle Moun 
 tain, Nevada; Jean A.; and Thron, who occupies 
 the old homestead. One of the sons, John Flittie. 
 who was born in Norway March 22, 1856, and died 
 at Williston, North Dakota, January 21, 1913, gained 
 a prominent position in the Northwest. He was 
 graduated from the Mankato Normal School in 1878, 
 and moved out to Dakota Territory soon afterwards. 
 He was a member of the legislature for one term 
 at Yankton, and was the first secretary of state in 
 North Dakota, serving two terms. 
 
 Jean. A. Flittie received his first training in local 
 schools near his home, and in 1888 graduated from 
 the Mankato Normal School. Four years of 
 his early career were spent in teaching and for two 
 years he was principal of the schools at Mayville, 
 North Dakota. In 1892 Mr. Flittie was graduated 
 in law from the University of Minnesota, and took 
 active practice at Mankato in 1893. For more than 
 sixteen years he has held the office of referee in 
 bankruptcy. 
 
 In 1898 Mr. Flittie married Elizabeth Keysor of 
 Mankato, a daughter of Capt. Clark Keysor, who 
 gained his title by service in the Civil war in Com- 
 pany E of the First Minnesota Regiment. Captain 
 Keysor was of an old New England family, and his 
 wife is the granddaughter of a Revolutionary sol- 
 dier. Mr. and Mrs. Flittie are the parents of one 
 daughter, Louise Ingrid, now fifteen years of age 
 and attending high school. The family are members 
 of the Methodist Church. Mr. Flittie has served as 
 master of Mankato Lodge No. 12, Ancient Free & 
 Accepted Masons, has passed the chairs of Mankato 
 Lodge No. 15, Independent Order Odd Fellows, and 
 is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, 
 and Mankato Lodge No. 225 Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks. 
 
 His part in politics has been as a member of the 
 democratic party. In 1914 he was candidate for 
 Congress from his district, but was unable to over- 
 come the heavy normal republican majority. For 
 six years he served on the library board, was also 
 a member of the park commission, and was on the 
 city’s utility commission. Mankato people recog- 
 nize his thorough public spirit and his usefulness in 
 any responsibility placed upon him. 
 
 Benjamin Taylor. A successful lawyer and a 
 fearless leader of public opinion in the City of Man- 
 kato, Benjamin Taylor has practiced his profession 
 there for the past twenty years. He is a native 
 Minnesotan, and is an alumnus of the university. 
 
 Benjamin Taylor was born in Minneapolis, De- 
 cember 14, 1871, a son of Benjamin and Hannah J. 
 (Monaghan) Taylor. His paternal grandfather was 
 Lowndes Taylor, a native of Pennsylvania, but of 
 English parents, and spent his life in Pennsylvania 
 as a farmer. He was in religion a member of that 
 quiet sect of Quakers. The maternal grandfather 
 was John J. Monaghan, who was also born in Penn- 
 sylvania, followed the trade of tanner, and his par- 
 ents came from Ireland. Benjamin Taylor, Sr., was 
 born in Pennsylvania in 1825 and died in 1887, while 
 
1606 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 his wife was born in 1836 and died in 1906. After 
 their marriage in Pennsylvania they moved out to 
 the Northwest in 1867, locating in Minneapolis. Ben- 
 jamin Taylor, Sr., was one of the pioneer millers of 
 the great flour metropolis, and that was the business 
 which occupied him all his active career. In the 
 early days of the development of Minneapolis as a 
 flour center he was associated in the industry with 
 Charles A. Pillsbury. The senior Taylor and wife 
 were the parents of seven children, all of them liv- 
 ing, as follows : Frederick J., who is division en- 
 gineer on the Northern Pacific Railway with head- 
 quarters at Livingston, Montana; George H., a resi- 
 dent of Hastings, Minnesota ; Mary H., who is _ a 
 Christian Science practitioner at Minneapolis ; Wil- 
 liam J., a pastor of the Universalist Church at Oak 
 Park, Chicago, Illinois; Benjamin, Jr.; Anna R., of 
 Minneapolis ; and Joseph E., who is with the United 
 States Fidelity and Guaranty Company of Chicago. 
 Mr. Taylor’s father was a Universalist in religion 
 and in politics a republican. 
 
 Benjamin Taylor attended public schools m his 
 youth, was graduated Bachelor of Science from the 
 University of Minnesota in 1893, and then continued 
 in the law department until taking the degree 
 LL. B. in 1895. His professional career has been 
 passed' in Mankato, where he began practice in 1895 
 associated with Mr. Fletcher of Minneapolis under 
 the firm name of Fletcher & Taylor. Since this 
 partnership was dissolved Mr. Taylor has practiced 
 as an individual, and enjoys a large general 
 clientage „ , . . 
 
 In 1901 he married Lucy Pope of Mankato, daugh- 
 ter of Edmund M. Pope, who attained the rank of 
 brigadier general in the Civil war, having entered 
 the service as major of the Eighth New York Cav- 
 alry and remaining until the close of hostilities. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Taylor are the parents of three chil- 
 dren: Virginia Pope, Harlan Pope and Benjamin, 
 Jr. The two older are now students in the Man- 
 kato Normal School. The family all attend the 
 Presbyterian Church. 
 
 Mr.” Taylor has been quite prominent in the Bene- 
 volent and Protective Order of Elks, having served 
 as exalted ruler of Mankato Lodge No. 225 in 1910, 
 as district deputy in 1911, and has attended grand 
 lodges both at Portland, Oregon, and Atlantic City. 
 He is also affiliated with the Royal Arcanum, with 
 the Psi Upsilon and the Delta Tan Delta college 
 fraternities. 
 
 ' A republican in politics, Mr. Taylor has been fre- 
 quently heard in state and local campaigns, and is 
 an effective worker for the party and for the gen- 
 eral cause of good government. At the present 
 time he is serving as United States commissioner 
 at Mankato through appointment by the United 
 States district judge. Every year he makes a few 
 campaign speeches, and in 1914 was unsuccessful 
 candidate for election as district judge. Mr. Tay- 
 lor is one of the trustees of the Mankato Savings 
 Bank. 
 
 Hon. Clarence Bennett Buckman. The forty- 
 two years since Mr. Buckman located in the vicinity 
 of Little Falls have been employed in activities and 
 a varied service which render him one of the fore- 
 most citizens of Minnesota. He has always been 
 a leader in public affairs, as he has been successful' 
 in business, and besides the various local offices 
 which he has at times filled he has represented his 
 district in Congress, served a number of years in 
 
 the State Legislature, both in the House and in the 
 Senate, and for the past six years has been deputy 
 United States marshal. 
 
 Clarence Bennett Buckman was born in Doyles- 
 town, Pennsylvania, April 1, 1851, a son of William 
 and Jennie (Bennett) Buckman, substantial farming 
 people of Pennsylvania. The Buckman family came 
 to America early in the seventeenth century, and the 
 original ancestor made the voyage on the sailing 
 ship Welcome. 
 
 When Clarence B. Buckman came out to Little 
 Falls in 1872 he took up a homestead in Morrison 
 County, proved up on his claim, and his enterprise 
 as a farmer was the foundation of his commercial 
 success. 
 
 He continued to buy land until at one time he 
 owned 1,400 acres, all under cultivation. Between 
 1873 and 1906 practically all his time was devoted 
 to the management of his agricultural interests. Dur- 
 ing that time he established on his farm the Town 
 of Buckman, a prosperous little village, now of about 
 500 population. 
 
 In 1873 Mr. Buckman held his first local office, 
 as justice of the peace. In 1881 he was sent to the 
 State Legislature, serving two years in the lower 
 house, and in 1883 became state senator, and was 
 in that body for eight successive years, and was 
 later elected for another four-year term. Mr. Buck- 
 man represented his district in the Fifty-eighth and 
 Fifty-ninth Congress, and while in Washington 
 served as a member of several important commit- 
 tees. 
 
 Since 1880 he has lived in the City of Little Falls. 
 For twenty years he was engaged in the lumber 
 business, and built a sawmill at Sauk Rapids. At 
 Little Falls he gave the city Hotel Buckman, a 
 modern house of entertainment containing fifty-five 
 rooms. He also built a garage 80 by 150 feet, and 
 constructed the Realty Block, where the Merchants 
 State Bank is now located. 
 
 He was also one of the principals in the Little 
 Falls Packing Company. He is one of the prominent 
 men in his section of Minnesota, and has done 
 much in the way of public service, and his appoint- 
 ment to the office of deputy United States marshal 
 was one based upon his singular fitness for public 
 position. 
 
 In 1887 Mr. Buckman married Emina Harvy, of 
 St. Cloud, Minnesota. To their union were born 
 two children. The daughter Maude is the wife of 
 John A. Burg, of Little Falls, where he is engaged 
 in the automobile business. The son, Mark M., 
 who lives in Little Falls, is proprietor of the Motor 
 Inn Garage. He married Grace M. Schroder of 
 Little Falls, and they have one child, Clarence Ben- 
 nett. 
 
 In the year 1905 Mr. Buckman married Alice R. 
 Shea of St. Paul, Minnesota. Fraternally he is 
 identified with the lodge. and chapter of the Masonic 
 order, with the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks, the Modern Woodmen of America and the 
 Ancient Order of United Workmen. 
 
 George G. Krost. Now serving as clerk of courts 
 for Blue Earth County, George G. Krost is^ the son 
 of a pioneer family of this section of Minnesota, 
 and is a man whose worth is well known and ap- 
 preciated and has been an independent worker and 
 the architect of his own fortunes since twenty-one 
 years of age. 
 
 George G. Krost was born at Mankato, August 
 


HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1607 
 
 24, 1866. His parents were J. P. and Gertrude 
 (Keifer) Krost, both of them natives of Germany. 
 His father was born in 1823 and died in 1877 and 
 his mother was born in 1828 and died November 
 29, 1905. They came to America when young, were 
 married at Detroit, Michigan, and in 1854 came out 
 to Minnesota Territory and were among the early 
 settlers of Blue Earth County. J. P. Krost con- 
 ducted a grist mill at Lake Washington for a num- 
 ber of years, but afterwards moved to Mankato and 
 while employed by the Rocky Flour Mill contracted 
 pneumonia and died. He and his wife were both 
 active members of St. Peter and St. Paul Catholic 
 Church, having membership in the church societies, 
 and in politics he was a democrat. They were the 
 parents of eight children, seven of whom are living. 
 Besides George G. the children are mentioned brief- 
 ly as follows. John and Clara, twins; Mary; 
 Peter; Theresa; and Jennie. John is a harness 
 salesman with the O. W. Schmitt Saddlery Com- 
 pany of Mankato. Clara is the wife of John B. 
 Hodapp, of Mankato. Mrs. Mary Power is now a 
 widow and lives at Corpus Christi, Texas. Peter 
 is proprietor of a confectionery store in St. Paul. 
 Theresa is the wife of Mr. Borgmeier, while Jen- 
 nie married Mr. Hefner of El Campo, Texas, where 
 she now resides. 
 
 George G. Krost acquired his early education in 
 the parochial schools at Mankato, attended the high 
 school, and before his majority was engaged in his 
 own support and has been an active and vigorous 
 worker for himself and others for many years. His 
 first employment was with Moore, Piper & Com- 
 pany, wholesale druggists and agents for the Stand- 
 ard Oil Company. After three years the firm went 
 out of business, and Mr. Krost then was employed 
 by the Standard Oil Company for eleven years. He 
 was connected with the Standard Cement Company 
 until 1893, at which time the business failed, then 
 was with the firm of Lamm & Laudkammer, and 
 subsequently became bookkeeper for the Minne- 
 apolis Brewing Company at Moorehead. As man- 
 ager for this company he was sent to Mankato, and 
 somewhat later became identified with local poli- 
 tics. In March, 1909, Mr. Krost was elected city 
 recorder, and on May 15, 1909, the clerk of court, 
 Stephen Thorn, having died, he was appointed to 
 the vacant position by Hon. A. R. Pfau. Mr. 
 Krost was regularly elected clerk of court in 1910, 
 and re-elected in 1914. He gives all his time to the 
 duties of his office, and is one of the best known 
 citizens of Mankato. Politically he is a democrat, 
 but stands somewhat independently so far as party 
 affiliation is concerned. 
 
 In 1895 Mr. Krost married May Schleif of St. 
 Paul. Their three children are : George P., born 
 
 March 29, 1896, now attending the Mankato High 
 School ; Dorothy, born September 27, 1903, in the 
 public schools ; and Kenneth M., who was born at 
 Moorehead, November 6, 1906, and is also in school. 
 The family are members of St. John’s Catholic 
 Church. Fraternally Mr. Krost has a number of in- 
 teresting affiliations, has served for sixteen years as 
 recorder for the lodge of Ancient Order of United 
 Workmen, is a member of the Catholic Order of 
 Foresters, of the Sons of Hermann, of the Knights 
 of Columbus, the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the Degree of 
 Honor, and the Order of Samaritans. 
 
 Charles L. Pillsbury. The ability and effective 
 service of Mr. Pillsbury in connection with his 
 Voi. in— 22 
 
 chosen profession have been shown by results. He is 
 one of the representative consulting engineers of 
 Minnesota, and is the executive head of the Charles 
 L. Pillsbury Company, Engineers, with offices in 
 Minneapolis and St. Paul, and consulting engineers 
 to the Minnesota State Board of Control. Mr. Pills- 
 bury is also at present engaged as chief engineer of 
 the valuation bureau of the Public Utilities Com- 
 mission of the District of Columbia, which is con- 
 ducting a valuation of all the public utilities of the 
 District. 
 
 Charles Lucien Pillsbury was born in the City of 
 Minneapolis, and is a son of Charles F. and Fran- 
 ces H. (Boynton) Pillsbury, the former of whom 
 was born at Kingfield, Maine, and the latter at 
 East New Portland, that state, each being a de- 
 scendant in the sixth generation of families that 
 were founded in New England in the early colonial 
 era, the original American progenitors having emi- 
 grated from England and representatives of both 
 families having been aligned as patriot soldiers in 
 the war of the Revolution. Charles F. Pillsbury, 
 who was a lawyer by profession, came to Minne- 
 sota and established his residence in Minneapolis in 
 the late ’60s. Here he engaged in the real estate 
 business, of which he became an influential and suc- 
 cessful representative, and here he continued to re- 
 side until his death in 1887 ; his venerable widow 
 now resides in the home of her daughter in the 
 City of Seattle, Washington. 
 
 Charles L. Pillsbury is indebted to the public 
 schools of Minneapolis for his early educational dis- 
 cipline and here availed himself also of the advan- 
 tages of the Minneapolis Academy. Thereafter he 
 took special work in electrical engineering at Pur- 
 due University, at Lafayette, Indiana, and in the 
 University of Minnesota. He has since been ac- 
 tively and effectively identified with the work of his 
 chosen profession, in connection with which he has 
 filled many important contracts in the designing and 
 supervising of municipal and private electric light 
 and power plants, waterworks systems, etc., in the 
 designing and supervising of the mechanical equip- 
 ments of large buildings and industrial plants, and 
 in valuations and rate investigations of public utili- 
 ties. 
 
 From 1893 to 1899 Mr. Pillsbury served as city 
 electrician of Minneapolis ; from 1899 to 1901 he 
 was general superintendent of the Minneapolis In- 
 ternational Electric Light, Heat and Power Com- 
 pany; from 1902 to 1904 he was a special partner 
 of the firm of W. I. Gray & Company, contracting 
 engineers, Minneapolis ; in 1905-06 he was pro- 
 prietor of the engineering business conducted at St. 
 Paul, under the title of the Northwest Engineering 
 Company; since 1906 he has held the position of 
 consulting engineer to the Minnesota State Board 
 of Control and has been frequently engaged in 
 valuations and rate investigations of public utilities 
 and other engineering undertakings by the cities of 
 Minneapolis, St. Paul and Duluth. For the past 
 year. Mr. Pillsbury, as a matter of course, has 
 passed much of his time in the City of Washing- 
 ton, District of Columbia, but still gives his per- 
 sonal supervision to the Minneapolis and St. Paul 
 offices of the Charles L. Pillsbury Company. He 
 holds active membership in the American Society 
 of Civil Engineers, the American Society of Me- 
 chanical Engineers, the American Institute of Elec- 
 trical Engineers, and the Engineers Club of Minne- 
 apolis. He is identified with the Interlachen Coun- 
 
1608 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 try Club of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Athletic 
 Club, the Minnesota Club of St. Paul, and the 
 University Club of Minneapolis. Mr. Pillsbury is 
 a member of the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce 
 Association, and is affiliated with the Masonic 
 Fraternity and the Royal Arcanum. 
 
 On the 4th of October, 1899, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Pillsbury to Miss Eva M. Kinsey, 
 of Minneapolis, her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Isaac P. 
 Kinsey, having come to Minnesota from Albany, 
 New York. 
 
 William Patrick Murphy. One of the leading 
 lawyers of Crookston, William P. Murphy has al- 
 ways shown himself a man of independence, self 
 reliance and willing to make his success in the 
 world through his individual efforts. He was never 
 sent through college as the son of a rich father, 
 but gained his education like everything else in life 
 by dint of concentration and earning his livelihood 
 at the same time as advancing his abilities to fit 
 himself for his profession. 
 
 William Patrick Murphy was born at Ottawa, 
 Canada, March 7, 1876, a son of Patrick and Mary 
 Ann (Keegan) Murphy. His father was a lumber- 
 man, and when William P. was five years of age 
 the family removed to Wisconsin, locating at Eau 
 Claire. In that city he attended the public schools, 
 worked in different lines for a time, finally learned 
 stenography, and while thus employed took up the 
 study of law in private offices. He came to Crook- 
 ston in January, 1899, and was admitted to the Min- 
 nesota bar in March, 1903. 
 
 For the past twelve years he has been engaged 
 in a substantial general practice as a lawyer, and 
 has also interested himself in various local move- 
 ments and organizations. He was an alderman of 
 the city from 1908 to 1910, and was a charter mem- 
 ber of the Commercial Club. He is a past exalted 
 ruler of the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks, and is a member of the executive board of 
 the Modern Samaritans. At the present time he 
 holds the position of United States commissioner. 
 Other fraternal affiliations are with the Royal 
 League and the Knights of Columbus. He takes 
 much part in out of door sports, is a member of 
 the Crookston Gun Club, the Tennis Club, and the 
 Crookston Automobile Club. He is one of the men 
 who has helped to establish what is known as the 
 old “Territorial Road’’ from St. Anthony Falls to 
 Winnipeg, Canada, and he used his influence of 
 getting this road located through Crookston. 
 
 Mr. Murphy was married June 12, 1901, to 
 Beatrice McAvoy of Crookston. 
 
 D. Grashius. One of the prominent citizens of 
 Chippewa County, a banker at Montevideo, D. 
 Grashius is a native of Holland, and came to Minne- 
 sota as representative for a large Holland emigra- 
 tion company. Though at the time unacquainted 
 with the American language and customs, he quick- 
 ly adapted himself to the conditions of a new 
 country, and has since become one of the stable 
 and valuable business men of his home locality. 
 
 D. Grashius was born in Holland in 1858, a son 
 of A. and Willemtje Grashius. His father was 
 born in Holland in 1825, and his mother in 1834, 
 she passing away in 1885. D. Grashius came to 
 Minnesota in 1889 representing the Netherland- 
 American Agricultural Company, which bought 
 twenty thousand acres in this state. Mr. Grashius 
 
 was one of the representatives of this large immi- 
 gration and settlement concern for thirteen years, 
 and since 1902 has been engaged in the real estate 
 business for himself. He subsequently became in- 
 terested in the German-American State Bank of 
 Montevideo, which he assisted to organize with C. 
 B. Enkema, A. J. Prince, and A. Enkema. For sev- 
 eral years he held the office of president, and has 
 recently become its cashier. 
 
 Mr. Grashius was married in 1891 to Ida Douma. 
 They have one son, William D., now twenty-three 
 years of age and. serving as assistant cashier in the 
 German-American Bank. This son was educated 
 in the public schools, graduated from Carleton Col- 
 lege at Northfield with the degree of Bachelor of 
 Arts and also took two years in law at the State 
 University. Mrs. Grashius is a daughter of G. M. 
 and Stemka Douma, both of whom were natives of 
 Holland and were early settlers in Minnesota. 
 
 Thomas Olsen. The business life of any com- 
 munity depends upon and is largely characterized 
 by the personality and enterprise of its effective 
 leaders. Every successful institution has some suc- 
 cessful man or men connected with it. The thriving 
 business community of Stephen has a prosperous 
 bank known as the Scandia State Bank, and closely 
 identified with its management from the time of its 
 organization down to the present has been Thomas 
 Olsen, whose previous record was that of a sub- 
 stantial real estate man and farmer, and who has 
 supplied the effective influence of his personality 
 and experience in the handling of the material re- 
 sources and commercial service of this local bank. 
 
 The Scandia State Bank was organized in 1901 
 with a capital stock of $10,000. Its president since 
 organization has been H. L. Melgaard, the well 
 known banker of Marshall County. The vice presi- 
 dent is O. L. Melgaard, and as already stated 
 Thomas Olsen has been cashier from the beginning. 
 The bank is housed in a substantial one-story 
 frame building 22x40 feet. At the close of the 
 year 1914 its total resources amounted to over 
 $110,000. The capital stock is $10,000, surplus $4,000, 
 and undivided profits $1,500. The deposits at the 
 present writing aggregate approximately $100,000. 
 An interesting feature of the statement is that the 
 cash reserve approximated 140 per cent, though the 
 requirements of the banking laws provide for only 
 20 per cent. 
 
 Thomas Olsen, whose position in the business 
 community has thus been briefly noted, was born 
 in Norway, July 5, 1866, a son of Ole O. and Agot 
 Rishovd. His father was a farmer, and about 
 1886 brought the family to America and located in 
 Norman County, Minnesota. Thomas Olsen re- 
 ceived his early education in Norway, and had 
 practical farming experience in the old country be- 
 fore coming to America. In Minnesota he was 
 employed for a time as clerk in general stores, and 
 has been a resident of Stephen since 1895. In that 
 village he opened an office for the handling of 
 loan and real estate business and gave all his at- 
 tention to that line until he became associated with 
 Mr. Melgaard in 1901 in the organization of the 
 Scandia State Bank, and was its first and has been 
 its only cashier. 
 
 Mr. Olsen is also a director of the Stephen Im- 
 plement Company. He owns farm land in Mar- 
 shall County to the extent of 800 acres. His only 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1609 
 
 fraternal association is with the Modern Woodmen 
 of America. 
 
 In November, 1893, he married Bella Armot, 
 who was born in Norway, but was reared in Min- 
 nesota. They have one son, Odin T. Olsen, born 
 May 19, 1895, and in addition to his duties as as- 
 sistant cashier of the Scandia Bank has the active 
 supervision of his father’s farming interests. This 
 son was educated in the public schools and a com- 
 mercial college. Mr. Thomas Olsen is treasurer of 
 the Scandia Lutheran Church, in which he and his 
 family worship. 
 
 Berton J. Branton, M. D. Of the native sons 
 of Kandiyohi County who have gained eminence in 
 professional life through the possession of supe- 
 rior talents, none have achieved more deserved suc- 
 cess than has Dr. Berton J. Branton, physician and 
 surgeon of Willmar, where he has a very large prac- 
 tice and conducts a modern hospital. He was born 
 at Willmar, September 20, 1883, and is a son of 
 J. F. and Alice (Thompson) Branton. 
 
 The Branton family was founded in America by 
 the grandfather of Doctor Branton, Robert Bran- 
 ton, a native of England, who emigrated to Can- 
 ada and there passed the remaining years of his life. 
 His son, J. F. Branton, was born in Ontario, Can- 
 ada, in 1859, and was married at St. Thomas, On- 
 tario, January n, 1880, to Alice Thompson, who was 
 born in the same province in 1864. They moved 
 to the United States and settled at Willmar in 
 1882, and here for manv years Mr. Branton was 
 connected with the Great Northern Railroad as a 
 train dispatcher. He is now a resident of Minne- 
 apolis, where he is state manager for Minnesota 
 of the Central Life Insurance Company. A repub- 
 lican in politics, Mr. Branton was active in public 
 affairs for a number of years. He is a Mason, and 
 both he and Mrs. Branton are members of the Pres- 
 byterian Church. They are the parents of two 
 sons : Dr. Berton J. ; and Allays, who is studying 
 
 medicine at the University of Minnesota. 
 
 Berton J. Branton graduated from the Willmar 
 High School in 1901, and after some further prep- 
 aration entered the medical department of the Uni- 
 versity of Minnesota, from which he was graduated 
 in 1903, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. 
 He began practice at Atwater, Minnesota, where he 
 continued for 2V2 years, and then returned to Will- 
 mar and opened an office, being successful in build- 
 ing up an excellent private practice. Realizing the 
 needs of the community, Doctor Branton, after sev- 
 eral years of residence at Willmar, began the erec- 
 tion of a private hospital, which was completed 
 and ready for service in 1914, and of this he has 
 since remained as sole proprietor. Here he has 
 twenty beds, with every appliance known to the 
 profession for the successful treatment of the most 
 difficult and delicate cases. He has specialized in 
 surgical cases, and that this institution has filled 
 a long-felt want is evidenced by the fact that 
 during the first year of its existence Doctor Bran- 
 ton handled successfully over 250 cases. Doctor 
 Branton is a close and careful student, a thoroughly 
 learned practitioner and a steady-handed surgeon. 
 He maintains membership in the Swift County Med- 
 ical Society, the Kandiyohi County Medical Society, 
 the Southern Minnesota Medical Association, the 
 Minnesota State Medical Society and the American 
 Medical Association. During the past eight years 
 he has rendered the community invaluable service 
 
 as county coroner. Politically he is a republican, 
 and his fraternal connections include membership 
 in Sharon Lodge No. 104, A. F. & A. M., of which 
 he is master, and the Royal Arch Chapter of 
 Masonry. Both he and Mrs. Branton are consistent 
 members of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
 In 1906 Doctor Branton was married to Miss Alice 
 A. Brown, daughter of Hon. C. L. Brown, judge of 
 the Supreme Court of Minnesota, and three children 
 have been born to this union : Alice, who was born 
 
 in 1907; Elizabeth, born in 1909; and Calvin, born 
 in 1911. Both Doctor and Mrs. Branton are well 
 known in social circles of Willmar, where they 
 have numerous appreciative friends. 
 
 Josiah B. Crooker. A publication of this order 
 exercises one of its supreme and most consistent 
 functions when it enters memorial tribute to such 
 sterling and influential pioneers as was the late 
 Josiah B. Crooker, who left a definite impress upon 
 the history of Minnesota, and who aided potently in 
 the civic and material development of the state. He 
 was one of the most honored citizens of Minne- 
 apolis at the time of his death, which here occurred 
 on the 30th of May, 1912, and it is most gratifying 
 to offer in this work a brief review of his career. 
 
 Josiah B. Crooker was born in Cayuga County, 
 New York, on the 3d of August, 1828, and thus he 
 was nearly eighty-four years of age at the time 
 when he was summoned to the life eternal, — a man 
 who had accounted well to himself and to the world 
 in all the relations of life, and who commanded the 
 unqualified esteem of all who knew him. The 
 Crooker lineage is traced back to English origin 
 and the name became identified with American his- 
 tory in the early colonial era, several representa- 
 tives of the family having been found aligned as 
 valiant soldiers in the Continental forces in the 
 war of the Revolution. Josiah B. Crooker was 
 accorded good educational advantages, as gauged 
 by the standards which obtained in his youth, and 
 in 1849, at the time of the memorable discovery of 
 gold in California, he was to have been found en- 
 gaged in teaching in an academy at Homer, New 
 York. The gold excitement made definite appeal 
 to his ambition and adventurous spirit, and in the 
 early ’50s he joined the throng of argonauts who 
 were making their way to the New Eldorado. He 
 crossed the plains to California, where he met with 
 definite success in his operations as a placer miner, 
 and where he remained for some time. After his 
 return to the old Empire State he there took unto 
 himself a wife, in the person of Miss Frances 
 Phillips, who proved to him a devoted companion 
 and helpmeet during the long years of their wedded 
 life. About the year 1855 the young couple came 
 to Minnesota and numbered themselves among the 
 early settlers of Steele County. There Mr. Crooker 
 entered claim to a tract of wild land and instituted 
 the development of a farm. A considerable por- 
 tion of the present thriving little City of Owatonna, 
 the judicial center of that county, is situated on a 
 part of his original homestead place. Mr. Crooker 
 did well his part in furthering the development 
 and upbuilding of that section of the state, en- 
 dured his share of the hardships and trials that 
 ever fall to the lot of the pioneer, and became one 
 of the prominent and influential citizens of the 
 community. He was one of the first merchants at 
 Owatonna, where he continued in business until 
 the late ’60s, likewise giving his supervision to his 
 
1610 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 farm, and he finally turned his attention to the 
 lumber business, as a member of the firm of 
 Crooker Brothers & Lamoreaux, with main office 
 and lumber yards in the City of Minneapolis, where 
 he established his home in 1870, the firm having 
 a number of lumber yards scattered over the state 
 and having long controlled a large and profitable 
 business. The Minneapolis office of this firm stood 
 on the site of the present Metropolitan Life Build- 
 ing, and the lumber yards of the firm occupied the 
 block where the old postoffice now stands, together 
 with the block across the street, where is situated 
 the Soo Railway Building. 
 
 Mr. Crooker retired from the lumber business in 
 1877 and then went to the Black Hills in South 
 Dakota, where he engaged in mining operations, 
 with which he there continued to be actively con- 
 cerned until 1883, as did he also in Arizona during 
 the same interval. In the year last mentioned Mr. 
 Crooker returned to Minneapolis, where he en- 
 gaged in the real estate business and built up a 
 large and substantial enterprise, his business hav- 
 ing also included operations in and from the City 
 of Chicago. In 1893 he went to Everett, Washing- 
 ton, to inspect and report on conditions for John 
 D. Rockefeller, who was making investments in 
 that state. As a result of his report Mr. Rocke- 
 feller employed him to take charge of the latter’s 
 interests on Puget Sound, these interests including 
 the townsite hotel and lumber operations at Ever- 
 ett. as well as the local electric light plant, electric 
 railway service, nail and paper mills, smelter, a 
 ship building plant, the railway from Everett to 
 the Monte Cristo mining camp in the Cascade 
 Mountains, with a large concentrator and a number 
 of mines at Monte Cristo. The total valuation of 
 the properties of which Mr. Crooker thus had 
 supervision was approximately $10,000,000, and he 
 remained in the far west about six years, until he 
 had closed out all of the Rockefeller interests. He 
 then returned to Minneapolis, and here he con- 
 tinued actively engaged in the real estate business 
 until a few days prior to his death. 
 
 Mr. Crooker was a most zealous and devoted 
 member of the Baptist Church and was for many 
 years an influential figure in its work in Minne- 
 sota. He was president of the first Baptist con- 
 vention held in the state, and at the time of his 
 death he was a deacon of the Central Baptist 
 Church of Minneapolis, a position which he had 
 held for many years. While a resident of Steele 
 County Mr. Crooker served two terms in the 
 State Legislature, and as chairman of the house com- 
 mittee on education he made the address at the 
 laying of the cornerstone of the old Washington 
 School building, which stood on the site of the 
 Hennepin County Court House, Minneapolis, his 
 children having received the advantages' of this 
 school at a somewhat later period. His was a life 
 of signal activity and usefulness, and his course 
 was ever guided and governed by the loftiest prin- 
 ciples of integrity and honor, so that his name is 
 revered by all who knew him in the state to which 
 he gave much and to which his loyalty was inviol- 
 able. The brick residence which Mr. Crooker 
 erected at Owatonna is still in an excellent state 
 of preservation and is one of the veritable land- 
 marks of Steele County. It is now occupied by 
 one of the leading merchants of the town. In the 
 pioneer days, when the Indians constituted an al- 
 most constant menace, men were stationed on the 
 
 roof of this house to warn the inhabitants of the 
 approach of the Indians, as the settlers in the com- 
 munity would all gather at this stronghold for pro- 
 tection in times of danger, the brick walls of the 
 building being virtually bullet and arrow proof, and 
 the roof being too high to permit the Indians to set 
 fire to the same. It has been stated on excellent 
 authority that when Mr. Crooker came to Minne- 
 sota and erected this now historic brick house he 
 was undoubtedly the richest man in the state at the 
 time. His cherished and devoted wife preceded 
 him to eternal rest by a term of several years, and 
 she held the affectionate regard of all who came 
 within the sphere of her gentle and gracious in- 
 fluence. Of the children only two are now living, 
 Edward H., concerning whom individual mention 
 is made elsewhere in this work; and Mrs. Edward 
 G. Critchett, of Minneapolis, her husband being a 
 member of the Board of State High-School 
 Inspectors. 
 
 Edward H. Crooker. For nearly thirty years Mr. 
 Crooker had been actively engaged in the practice 
 of law at Minneapolis, and his death on August 6, 
 1914, was a loss not only to the profession but to 
 the good citizenship and society of that city, which 
 had been his home from boyhood days. Represent- 
 ing an old and honored pioneer family of Minne- 
 sota, and the son of Josiah B. Crooker, whose 
 prominent career is sketched in this work, the late 
 Edward H. Crooker had always moved in the best 
 circles of Minneapolis life, and had many close as- 
 sociations with large affairs and distinguished men. 
 
 Edward H. Crooker was born at Owatonna, Steele 
 County, Minnesota, April 20, 1861, and death found 
 him in his fifty-fourth year. At the age of nine 
 when his family moved to Minneapolis, his early 
 education was acquired partly in the public schools 
 of Owatonna and partly in Minneapolis. Mr. 
 Crooker was a graduate in 1879 of the old Central 
 High School, an institution that furnished advan- 
 tages to many of the young men of that time. Mr. 
 Crooker was a graduate of Cornell University, with 
 the class of 1883, degree of Bachelor of Literature. 
 While at college he was a member of the Theta 
 Delta Chi fraternity and subsequently was a mem- 
 ber of the Minneapolis University Club. Among 
 his classmates and intimate friends in the university 
 were Hon. John Dix, who was later a governor of 
 New York State; and Edward W. Huffcut, who be- 
 came a prominent member of the New York bar 
 and at one time was legal adviser to Governor 
 Hughes, now in the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. After his university career Mr. Crooker 
 returned to Minneapolis, took up the study of law 
 under the preceptorship of Judge James M. Shaw 
 and Judge Wil'ard R. Cray in the firm of Shaw & 
 Cray. Judge Shaw is now deceased, while Judge 
 Cray is still in active practice at Minneapolis. By 
 earnest and close application to _ his studies, Mr. 
 Crooker was admitted to the bar in 1885, and after 
 taking up practice soon became recognized as a lead- 
 ing lawyer in Minneapolis. For a short time his 
 practice was as a member of the firm of Crooker & 
 Gaylord, his partner being E. S. Gaylord. In 1888, 
 when his former classmate at Cornell University, 
 Edward F. Huffcut, came to Minneapolis, the new 
 partnership of Crooker & Huffcut was formed and 
 continued for two years until Mr. Huffcut returned 
 east to take a place as instructor in law. From 
 1890 Mr. Crooker conducted an independent prac- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1611 
 
 tice, and his offices were in the New York Life 
 Building. An effective trial lawyer, with many im- 
 portant victories to his credit, and with a broad 
 and exact knowledge of law that made him a for- 
 midable advocate in any case, Mr. Crooker dur- 
 ing the last ten years had given special attention to 
 bankruptcy and commercial law. it is said that his 
 collection of works upon bankruptcy law was the 
 largest and most complete in the state, and many 
 of his books were not duplicated in the state law 
 library. He held membership in the Minneapolis Bar 
 Association, and its members paid him unusual 
 tributes of respect at the time of his death. Mr. 
 Crooker was a stanch republican, and in former 
 years was prominent in Hennepin County politics. 
 
 On February 17, 1886, was celebrated the mar- 
 riage of Edward H. Crooker and Miss Louise 
 Jones, daughter of H. K. and Anna (Clough) 
 Jones of Ithaca, New York. Mrs. Crooker has 
 long been one of the prominent women in Minne- 
 apolis society. They became the parents of one 
 son, Herbert B., who was born in Minneapolis, 
 graduated in 1913 from the West Side High School, 
 and then entered Cornell University. He has be- 
 come prominent in university circles, and his ex- 
 ceptional talents in music and dramatic affairs have 
 given him a reputation much beyond his years. He 
 is the author of two musical comedies, both of 
 which have been presented in Minneapolis, and on 
 the presentation of one of them at the Minneapolis 
 Opera House he personally directed the orchestra. 
 
 Judge Evan Hughes. Now serving his third 
 term as probate judge of Blue Earth County, Judge 
 Evan Hughes is one of the prominent lawyers of 
 Mankato, has practiced successfully for a number 
 of years, and in his present office has shown great 
 proficiency and ability in taking care of the many 
 delicate responsibilities intrusted to his charge. 
 
 Judge Evan Hughes is a native of Minnesota, 
 born in Cambria Township, Blue Earth County, 
 February 10, 1862. He is a son of Henry and 
 Eliza (Davis) Hughes, both of whom were born in 
 Wales, his father on June 4. 1833, and his mother 
 in 1831. They came to the United States and lived 
 for a time in Ohio, and in October, 1855, joined the 
 early pioneers of Blue Earth County. In the fol- 
 lowing year they located on a farm in Cambria 
 Township, where Judge Hughes was born. 
 
 Judge Hughes grew up in Blue Earth County, at- 
 tended the common schools, and was a student in 
 Carleton College at Northfield until his junior year. 
 After leaving college he took up the study of law 
 with his brother Thomas, and after his admission 
 to the bar began to practice in partnership with his 
 brother in 1897. This firm was one of the strong- 
 est in the Mankato bar, and practiced successfully 
 until January, 1911. In the preceding fall Mr. 
 Hughes had been elected to the office of probate 
 judge, beginning his term of office in January, 1911, 
 and in 1914 was elected for his third two-year term. 
 
 On January 31, 1899, Judge Hughes married Amy 
 E. Mason, of Spring Valley, Minnesota. Her par- 
 ents were William and Amanda Mason, her father 
 an early settler at Spring Valley, where he was in 
 business as a contractor. Judge Hughes and wife 
 are the parents of three children : Ralph M., aged 
 eleven; Floyd T., aged eight; and Ruth Alice, aged 
 five. The family are members of the Congregational 
 Church and Judge Hughes has long been a worker 
 in that denomination, has been a member of the 
 
 choir for twenty-five years, and has sung at nearly 
 all the funerals held in the church for many years. 
 Fraternally he is affiliated with the Lodge, Chapter 
 and Knight Templar Commandery of the Masonic 
 Order and with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- 
 lows. Politically he is a republican. 
 
 Judge Hughes has long been interested in educa- 
 tional matters and his name is familiar to educators 
 all over the state. Prior to his admission to the 
 bar he taught for three years at Mankato, being 
 principal of the Franklin School for a time and also 
 of the Pleasant Grove School. He is now a mem- 
 ber of the school board at Mankato and was presi- 
 dent five years. For one year Judge Hughes served 
 as president of the State Board of Education, and 
 from that position was elected a delegate to the 
 National Educational Association in its meeting at 
 Denver. His leadership and interest in educational 
 affairs at Mankato were instrumental in securing the 
 introduction of departments of agriculture, do- 
 mestic science and manual training in the city 
 schools. 
 
 Thomas Hughes. For more than thirty years 
 Thomas Hughes has been one of the prominent at- 
 torneys of the Blue Earth County bar. His official 
 record is familiar to the citizens of Mankato and 
 vicinity, and he has also been a leader in business 
 and civic affairs, and is one of the authorities on 
 local and state history. Mr. Hughes was elected 
 county attorney in 1896, holding that office four 
 years, and for fifteen years was attorney for the 
 Mankato Mutual Building & Loan Association, and 
 took the same position with the successor of that 
 organization, the Mankato Savings & Building As- 
 sociation, which he still holds. For a number of 
 years he has been a member and director of the 
 Mankato Board of Trade, and besides his law prac- 
 tice has been president of the Wisconsin and Min- 
 nesota Land Company. 
 
 Thomas Hughes was born at Minersville, Ohio, 
 September 23, 1854, a son of Henry and Eliza 
 Hughes. Both parents were natives of Wales, the 
 father born June 4, 1833, and the mother in 1830. 
 They came from Wales to the Llnited States, lived 
 for some time in Ohio, and in October, 1855, be- 
 came pioneer settlers in Blue Earth County, Minne- 
 sota. In June, 1856, they located on a farm in 
 Cambria Township, still owned by the family. The 
 parents moved to Pasadena, California, in 1908, 
 where the father died in 1912. 
 
 Thomas Hughes grew up in the new and pioneer 
 district of Blue Earth County, lived on a farm, 
 worked with his father, and had the advantages of 
 the local public schools. In 1874 he entered the 
 preparatory department of Carleton College at 
 Northfield, and in 1880 was graduated from Carle- 
 ton College with the degree Bachelor of Arts. His 
 law studies were pursued in the office of Waite & 
 Porter at Mankato, and he was admitted to the bar 
 in 1882. From February, 1884, to July, 1887, Mr. 
 Hughes was a partner of M. G. Willard, then prac- 
 ticed alone ten years, and in 1897 became associated 
 with his brother, the present Evan Hughes, a satis- 
 factory relationship which continued until the elec- 
 tion of Judge Hughes to the probate bench. Mr. 
 Hughes has invested his earnings as a lawyer in 
 real estate, and much of his practice has been in 
 real estate law. 
 
 Politically he is a republican, and has made his 
 influence count for local betterment both in civic 
 
1612 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 affairs and in material improvement. In the Con- 
 gregational Church, of which he is a member, he 
 has served as trustee and deacon and as superin- 
 tendent of the Sunday school. Historical subjects 
 have long interested him, and he has delivered a 
 number of addresses before the State Historical 
 Society, and also before the Blue Earth Territorial 
 Association. Mr. Hughes is author of “History of 
 the Welsh in Minnesota,’’ published in 1895, and is 
 editor of the semi-centennial work on Mankato. He 
 is also the author of “The History of Blue Earth 
 County,” published in 1907, and has published a 
 number of short historical pamphlets. 
 
 On November 25, 1885, Mr. Hughes married Alice 
 0 . Hills. She was born on the Island of Jamaica, 
 July 6, 1856, a daughter of Amos B. and Sybil 
 (Rawson) Hills. Both her parents were born near 
 Pekin, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Hughes are the 
 parents of two sons : Burton E., who completed his 
 education in Harvard Law School, and Evan Ray- 
 mond, a student of Carleton College, Northfield, 
 Minnesota. Both sons were born and grew up in 
 Mankato. 
 
 James I. Vermilya. Prominent among the hon- 
 ored residents of Olmsted County, Minnesota, is 
 found James I. Vermilya, for more than a half a 
 century a resident of the county, where he has 
 been successfully engaged in agricultural pursuits 
 and has also taken an active part in those move- 
 ments which have made for the growth and de- 
 velopment of the community. He has led an ex- 
 ceptionally busy and industrious career, and his high 
 standing in the community in which he has resided 
 for so long is but evidence of his honorable deal- 
 ing at all times. 
 
 Mr. Vermilya was born November 30, 1849, at 
 Oswego, Tioga County, New York, which was also 
 the birthplace of United States Senator Thomas C. 
 Platt, whom Mr. Vermilya well remembers. His 
 father was Avery Vermilya, born at Roxbury, Dela- 
 ware County, New York, September 20, 1820, and 
 his mother was Fannie (Mead) Vermilya, born 
 March 20, 1821, in Delaware County. The history 
 of the Vermilya family has been traced back to the 
 middle of the fifteenth century (1460-1485) to the 
 province of Perugia, Italy, when Count Stefano 
 Vermigli resided at that place. His son, Peter 
 Martyr, born on his father’s estate in 1500, was 
 dedicated to the church by his pious mother, who 
 had lost several older sons in early infancy. 
 
 Peter Martyr Vermigli was at an early age or- 
 dained to the priesthood and obtained rapid pro- 
 motion in the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 At the age of about thirty he came under the 
 domination of the eloquence of Savaronola preach- 
 ing at Florence and became a convert to Protestant- 
 ism. He married, and on account of his religion 
 was obliged to flee to Switzerland with his wife, 
 whence he was called to Oxford, England, by Arch- 
 bishop Cranmer with whom he collaborated in com- 
 piling the first English prayer book (for details as 
 to Peter Martyr see any biographical dictionary). 
 
 Driven out of England on the accession of Queen 
 Mary to the throne “Peter Martyr” returned to 
 Switzerland, where his first wife having died, he 
 married a second time and on the accession of Ed- 
 ward VI he returned to Oxford, resumed his labors, 
 but in 1560 returned again to Zurich, where he died 
 in 1562. 
 
 His grandson, Isaac Vermelje (the Dutch man- 
 ner of spelling the name), with his family came to 
 New Amsterdam (New York), in 1662, on the 
 ship Pumberland Church, Capt. Johannes Vermilye, 
 and became a prominent citizen and a member of 
 the common council under Jacob Leisler, in 1689. 
 From the marriage of Johannes Vermilye and Aelt- 
 je Waldren are descended all those bearing the 
 name in America spelled Vermilyea, Vermilya and 
 (New York City) Vermilye. James I. Vermilya is 
 the great-great-great-great-grandson of John and 
 Sarah (Odell) Vermilya. His great-grandfather was 
 William Vermilya, who married Phebe Husted, while 
 his grandfather was Abram Vermilya, who married 
 Charity Molineux, whose mother was Ethan Allen’s 
 niece. 
 
 Avery and Fannie (Mead) Vermilya were mar- 
 ried in 1844, and in April, 1863, came West, lo- 
 cating in Olmsted County, the father taking up 
 land in Section 18, Quincy Township, where he con- 
 tinued to be engaged in successful agricultural pur- 
 suits during the remainder of a long and active 
 life. Both he and Mrs. Vermilya were widely 
 known in this section where they spent so many 
 years, and were held in the highest esteem by those 
 who came into contact with them in any way. The 
 father passed away in August, 1905, while the 
 mother died in 1898. They were the parents of 
 eleven children, as follows : David M., who was 
 born June 9, 1844, and died in October, 1887; Abram, 
 who was born December 2, 1846, and resides in 
 Dexter County, Minnesota; James I., of this re- 
 view; John K., who was born September 12, 1851, 
 and now a resident of Kansas ; Joseph and Joseph- 
 ine, twins, born November 29, 1853, the former of 
 whom is a resident of Oregon, while the latter 
 is now Mrs. Putnam and a resident of Granite 
 Falls; Samuel, who was born May 28, 1858, and now 
 a resident of Los Angeles, California, being one of 
 the leading lawyers of the Pacific coast; Orville A., 
 born April 14, 1861, and now residing at Verndale, 
 Minnesota; Jesse C., who was born June 26, 1863; 
 Eulila Frost, born November 17, 1866, and living 
 near Portland, Oregon; and Reuhen, born January 
 5, 1869, who died April 14, 1904. 
 
 James I. Vermilya was a lad of thirteen years 
 when brought to Olmsted County, Minnesota, by 
 his parents, and here his education was completed 
 and he has always made his home. He was mar- 
 ried October 12, 1875, to Miss Mary A. Hinton, 
 who was born January 4, 1857, the fourth white 
 child born in Quincy Township, daughter of George 
 and Sarah (George) Hinton, early pioneers of Olm- 
 sted County. Her parents, born, reared and mar- 
 ried in England, came to the United States in 1850, 
 and for some time resided in New York State, but 
 in 1856 came to Olmsted County, and here passed 
 the remainder of their lives in the, pursuits of the 
 soil. Mrs. Vermilya had two brothers and one sis- 
 ter: James, born in England, October 19, 1849, 
 
 who died in Quincy Township, December 12, 1876; 
 Frank, who was born in Ohio, February 22, 1853; 
 and Elizabeth Odell, born October 9, i860, died Oc- 
 tober 2, 1883. To the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Vermilya there were born four children, as fol- 
 lows: Cora F. Stocker, born February 22, 1877; 
 
 J. Mead, born February 17, 1884; R. Ervin, born 
 August o, 1890: and George H., born December 5, 
 1893. The last two named reside under the par- 
 ental roof, while the other two make their homes 
 in the immediate neighborhood. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 o 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1613 
 
 Mr. Vermilya has been eminently successful in 
 his undertakings, and is at present the owner of 
 325 acres of finely cultivated land in Sections 9, 17 
 and 18. In connection with his agricultural labors, 
 he has engaged in auctioneering during the past 
 thirty years, and has as much business as he cares 
 to handle in this line, being widely known for his 
 talents in conducting sales. He bears an excellent 
 reputation for integrity and straightforward deal- 
 ing, and as a citizen is known to have borne his 
 full share in the responsibilities which have arisen 
 during the growth and development of Olmsted 
 County. In political matters Mr. Vermilya has al- 
 ways maintained an independent stand, refusing to 
 be tied down by party lines. He has at different 
 times been a candidate for various offices, was nomi- 
 nated and defeated for the State Legislature, and 
 was then nominated by the people’s party for Con- 
 gress, his opponent being James A. Tawney, who 
 canvassed his district in a palace railroad train, 
 while Mr. Vermilya, evidencing his democratic 
 spirit and membership in the mass of the people, 
 made his journeys by horse and carriage. In 1910 
 Mr. Vermilya was again a candidate for the state 
 Senate, and made such a remarkable campaign that 
 he was defeated by but fifty-seven votes. In 1914 
 he was again a candidate for state senator and eas- 
 ily fulfilled his friends’ predictions of victory. 
 
 Hon. Otto N. Raths. The present postmaster of 
 St. Paul is a man of considerable experience in the 
 business world and has spent nearly all his life in 
 the Twin Cities, where he has been successively 
 connected with banking, with the grocery and com- 
 mission business and other lines of activity. His 
 appointment to the postoffice was particularly grat- 
 ifying to the employes of that office, all of whom are 
 grouped together as a class in the St. Paul local 
 of the N. F. P. O. C. Mr. Raths went into this 
 responsible office with a sense of fairness and im- 
 partiality which will permit no barrier in the path 
 of the constitutional and legitimate efforts of the 
 union postoffice clerks in St. Paul. His appoint- 
 ment was largely the result of the successful efforts 
 of Congressman Van Dyke, a member of the N. F. 
 P. O. C. 
 
 The extended and versatile career of the man now 
 at the head of the St. Paul postoffice began with 
 his birth at Minneapolis, August 30, 1874. He is of 
 German descent, both his parents having come from 
 Luxembourg. Mr. Raths as a boy attended St. 
 Joseph’s Parochial School and the North Side High 
 School at Minneapolis, and from the age of eighteen 
 was in the employ of the Bank of Minneapolis, from 
 1892 to 1897. He then became connected with the 
 Security Bank of Minnesota, a national bank, and 
 served until the outbreak of the Spanish-American 
 war. On April 29, 1898, a few days after the war 
 began, he enlisted in Company B of the Thirteenth 
 Minnesota Volunteer Infantry as a sergeant, and 
 was with his regiment in the Philippine Islands 
 campaign until October, 1899, and participated in 
 eleven engagements. 
 
 After the conclusion of his military career he 
 spent a short time in Minneapolis, and then re- 
 turned to San Francisco and was for one year con- 
 nected with the Wells, Fargo & Co.’s banks. Mr. 
 Raths came to St. Paul in 1901 and for seven years 
 was secretary and treasurer of the People’s Pro- 
 vision Company, at 447-449 Wabasha Street. Selling 
 h’s interest in this company in 1908, he was con- 
 
 nected with the firm of Schuneman & Evans until 
 1909. During the past five years his business inter- 
 ests have had broad scope. In 1909 he organized 
 and became part owner of the Gaiety Theater, and 
 has since then been manager and part owner of 
 this well-known entertainment house. He is senior 
 member of the Raths-Seavold Film Manufacturing 
 Company, engaged in the manufacture of motion 
 pictures. He is also a stockholder and manager of 
 the Ideal Theater of South St. Paul. 
 
 For a number of years Mr. Raths has been actively 
 interested in the Minnesota National Guards, and for 
 eleven years has been a member of that organization 
 and for six years an officer. He is a prominent 
 member of the Modern Woodmen of America, and 
 has been especially concerned with its foresters’ 
 department, where as major commanding the One 
 Hundred and Ninth Battalion and colonel command- 
 ing the Tenth Regiment, Modern Woodmen of 
 America, he won the first prizes for drill both at 
 Peoria, Illinois, and Buffalo, New York, and many- 
 other prizes in Toledo, Ohio, during the last en- 
 campment. 
 
 Mr. Raths is chairman of the Bolo Club, an organ- 
 ization comprising 1,800 voters of Ramsey County, 
 who are honorably discharged soldiers of the wars 
 in which, the United States has engaged, including 
 the Mexican, the Civil, the Spanish-American and 
 the Philippine insurrection. For three years Mr. 
 Raths was president of the Motion Picture Exhibit- 
 ors’. Association of Minnesota, composed of the 
 motion picture theaters of the state. 
 
 Owen M. Parry. The proprietor and editor of 
 the Revere Record has illustrated in an interesting 
 manner the great principle of self help, and that 
 hardly any physical handicap can prevent a life of 
 usefulness and service in the case of a man of real 
 ambition, Mr. Parry deserves mention among in- 
 teresting people as probably the only editor and 
 publisher in the United States who does all his own 
 work with one hand, including the setting of type, 
 the operation of a printing press, the composing of 
 editorials and news items, and all the other mani- 
 fold duties about a printing office. He gets out a 
 first class paper too, and one that has a wide read- 
 ing and influence in Redwood County. 
 
 Owen M. Parry was born in Wales, July 11, 
 1886. His father, Owen M. Parry, Sr., also a na- 
 tive of Wales, came to the United States in 1896, 
 settling in Utica, New York. He is a tailor by 
 trade. Owen M. Parry, Sr., married Charlotte 
 Hughes, who died in Wales in 1890. Their chil- 
 dren v/ere : William E., who is a resident of Seat- 
 tle, Washington ; Lottie, who married Mr. Hughes, 
 a coal miner at St. Helens, England ; Lizzie, who 
 married Mr. Williams, a farmer at Anglesea, Wales; 
 and Owen M. 
 
 Owen M. Parry came over to the United States 
 with his' father, being then about ten years of age, 
 and shortly afterwards came out to Walnut Grove, 
 Minnesota, to live with his uncle, Evan M. Parry. 
 He was sent to the common schools and to the high 
 school at Walnut Grove, but at the age of sixteen 
 began an apprenticeship in newspaper work with 
 the Walnut Grove Tribune. After mastering the 
 details of a printing shop he became manager for 
 the Potter County News-Courier at Gettysburg, 
 South Dakota, remaining there one year. His next 
 location was in Seattle, Washington, where he was 
 employed for nearly four years in a job printing 
 
1614 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 office, and it was while in the Northwest that he 
 suffered the misfortune which has interfered with 
 but by no means seriously impaired his usefulness 
 as a worker in the world. While employed for a 
 few months in a sawmill in Washington, he had 
 the misfortune to lose his left hand in the ma- 
 chinery. In 1911 Mr. Parry returned to Walnut 
 Grove, Minnesota, and soon after in the same year 
 bought the Revere Record. This paper was founded 
 by C. W. Folsom on May 20, 1902. It is inde- 
 pendent in politics, and has a circulation not only 
 in Redwood, but in Cottonwood, Murray and Lyon 
 counties. The office is well equipped with me- 
 chanical appliances, and Mr. Parry is at the head of 
 a good business. 
 
 Politically he is also independent, and has served 
 as justice of the peace in Revere. His church is the 
 Methodist Episcopal, and he is affiliated with Wal- 
 nut Grove Lodge No. 148, Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows, and also with the Rebekahs at Lam- 
 berton. Besides his newspaper he owns the bil- 
 liard parlors in Revere and has charge of the. State 
 Public Free Traveling Library, which he originated 
 in Revere. Mr. Parry was married March 7, 1914, 
 in Walnut Grove to Miss Maude Downing, of Do- 
 wagiac, Michigan. 
 
 Frank P. McQuillin is one of the oldest busi- 
 ness men of Aitkin, having been identified with that 
 city more than thirty years, with a business record 
 which has identified him with a number of important 
 concerns in this section of the state. Mr. McQuillin 
 is president of the Farmers & Merchants State Bank 
 of Aitkin, and has been connected with several large 
 land companies and other local corporations. 
 
 Frank P. McQuillin was born at Delta, Ohio, 
 January 2, 1853. Flis parents, Jacob and Maria C. 
 (Eddleman) McQuillin, were farming people of 
 Ohio. Mr. McQuillin acquired a public school edu- 
 cation, and in early manhood came out to the 
 Northwest, where he has found wide and diverse 
 opportunities for a business career. He was first 
 located in Fillmore County, Minnesota, and for 
 sixteen years served as an examiner of lands for the 
 Northern Pacific Railway. For eight years he was 
 engaged in selecting lands for the Wisconsin, Minne- 
 sota & Pacific Railway Co. from the State of Minne- 
 sota. Since 1882 his home has been in Aitkin, 
 where he has been prominent both in business and 
 in public affairs. In 1888 Mr. McQuillin was elected 
 county treasurer, serving two terms, and was city 
 treasurer four years. He has also been chairman 
 of the board of county commissioners, holding that 
 office four years, until giving his resignation. 
 
 For twenty years Mr. McQuillin was in the real 
 estate business at Aitkin under the name McQuillin 
 Land Company. He is general manager for the 
 Central Minnesota Land & Investment Company, 
 and president of the Farmers & Merchants State 
 Bank. This bank is one of the newer banks in 
 Northern Minnesota, having been organized July 
 1, 1914. A statement of business four months after 
 organization showed capital stock and surplus paid 
 in of $30,000, with deposits of more than $45,000. 
 The bank has nearly three times the amount of 
 reserve required by law and pays interest on deposits 
 of 4 per cent on six months deposits and 5 per cent 
 on deposits left one year or more. The officers of 
 this bank are: F. P. McQuillin, president: C. H. 
 
 Warner, vice president; W. T. Mount, cashier, and 
 D. A. Foley, second vice president. Other directors 
 
 are B. W . Ke.ly, A. Zoerb, M. Frederickson, J J 
 Ratcliffe, J. Heft, B. L. Hollister, Ben Olson. 
 
 Mr. McQuillin is affiliated with the Masonic Order 
 and with the Royal Arcanum. At Rockford, Minne- 
 sota, in 1878 he married Catherine S. George. Their 
 family of five children are: Grace K., now Mrs. 
 
 Edmond L. Young, of Minneapolis; Alice L., at 
 home; Margaret, now Mrs. Thomas A. Brooks, of 
 Peoria, Illinois; Beulah M., at home; and Leslie D., 
 at home. Mr. McQuillin is a member and trustee of 
 the Methodist Episcopal Church and was a member 
 of the building committee which erected the hand- 
 some new church in Aitkin in 1914. 
 
 Edmund Henry Krelwitz. An attorney who has 
 gained a well earned reputation at Aitkin, Edmund 
 H. Krelwitz has been in practice there for over 
 fifteen years, has filled various offices which indicate 
 his standing in popular esteem, and now has a large 
 professional business and varied relations with the 
 community, both in business and civic and social 
 affairs. 
 
 Edmund Henry Krelwitz was born November 4, 
 1872, a son of Edmund and Elizabeth Krelwitz, his 
 father having for many years been identified with 
 real estate and mining. In 1891 Mr. Krelwitz gradu- 
 ated from high school, began earning his own way, 
 and subsequently prepared for his profession in the 
 law department of the University of Minnesota, where 
 he was graduated in 1898. After two years’ practice 
 in Minneapolis . Mr. Krelwitz moved to Aitkin in 
 1900, and has since looked after a growing general 
 clientage. From 1903 to 1909 he served as county 
 attorney of Aitkin County, and in 1914 was re- 
 elected to that office for four years. He also held 
 the office of village attorney during 1901-02, and 
 from 1913 to 1914. Mr. Krelwitz is treasurer of the 
 Lake Investment Company of Duluth. 
 
 He has affiliations with the Masonic Order and is 
 a past master of Mystic Lodge No. 213 of Aitkin, 
 is a member of the Eastern Star and the thirty- 
 second degree of Scottish Rite, and also of the 
 Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. Fie is affiliated with 
 the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, is a 
 past noble grand of the Independent Order of Odd 
 Fellows, a past chancellor of the Knights of Pythias, 
 and belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America, 
 the Modern Samaritans, and the Fraternal Order of 
 Eagles. 
 
 On June 30, 1903, Mr. Krelwitz married Annabell 
 Huston of Minneapolis, who, prior to her marriage, 
 was a popular teacher in both Aitkin and Duluth. 
 They have a son, Huston, born June 25, 1904, and 
 a daughter, Marion, born November 13, 1905. Mr. 
 Krelwitz and wife are members of the Episcopal 
 Church, and politically he is identified with the 
 republican party. 
 
 Wallace Barker. During a residence of nearly 
 a quarter of a century at Aitkin, Mr. Barker has 
 been identified with business and public affairs, has 
 held the office of mayor, and is well known through 
 his extensive relations as a real estate man. 
 
 Wallace Barker was born in Huntington, Lorain 
 County, Ohio, July 9, 1857, a son of Orlando and 
 Aurelia Adaline (Hempstead) Barker, the mother a 
 native of Ohio and the father of Massachusetts. 
 The father was a contractor and builder, but later 
 in life located on a farm and followed agriculture 
 and dairying. The son was educated in the public 
 schools, graduating . from the high school at Well- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1615 
 
 ington, Ohio, and soon afterwards took up practical 
 work as a farmer. His interests finally led him 
 into the insurance field, and in 1890 he located at 
 Aitkin, Minnesota, and for a number of years was a 
 traveling commercial man, making his headquarters 
 at Aitkin. In 1901 he opened real estate offices, and 
 has since built up a large business in the general 
 brokerage of real estate, and has done considerable 
 farm development on his own account and with his 
 own capital. At the present time Mr. Barker owns 
 470 acres of farm land, and has developed much of 
 it to profitable cultivation. 
 
 Always actively interested in his home town and 
 ready to serve the interests of his fellow citizens, 
 he was twice honored with the office of mayor. 
 Mr. Barker is an active republican, and formerly 
 was chairman of the County Republican Central 
 Committee. Fraternally he is affiliated with the 
 Knights of Pythias. Outside of his regular business 
 interests he is a director of the Cuyuna Iron Com- 
 pany, with offices in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 
 
 J. B. Galarneault. The Aitkin County State 
 Bank of Aitkin, one of the most prosperous financial 
 institutions in Northern Minnesota, was organized 
 in September, 1895, with a capital of $10,000. Its 
 first president was Col. Warren Potter, and the first 
 cashier was J. B. Galarneault, who has thus been 
 identified with the institution at post of cashier for 
 nearly twenty years. In 1903 the capital stock was 
 increased to $25,000, with stock and surplus of 
 $60,000. Its capital is now $50,000, and surplus 
 $10,000. In September, 1914, the total resources 
 aggregated over $420,000, and besides the stock and 
 surplus the undivided profits were over $13,000. 
 The deposits aggregated at that time about $357,000. 
 The amount of legal reserve required for this bank 
 is a little over $26,000, whereas the actual reserve 
 is more than double that figure. The bank owns a 
 two-story brick building 40 by 50 feet, with offices 
 on the second floor. It is an exceedingly prosperous 
 and well managed institution. Its officers are : C. 
 
 P. Delaittre, president; James J. McDonald, first 
 vice president; Walter F. Knox, second vice presi- 
 dent, and J. B. Galarneault, cashier. 
 
 John B. Galarneault, the cashier, was born in 
 Sherburn County, Minnesota, November 4, 1863, a 
 son of Casimir and Margaret (Malone) Galarneault. 
 His father was a farmer, and the son grew up in a 
 rural district, received an education in the public 
 schools and at the St. Cloud Normal College, and 
 since early manhood has pursued an effective and 
 energetic career. In 1886 he was elected county 
 superintendent of schools in Benton County and 
 served one term, and then, for three terms, occupied 
 the office of county auditor. Mr. Galarneault came 
 to Aitkin in 1895 and has since been cashier of the 
 Aitkin County State Bank. For one term during 
 Governor Johnson’s administration he served as 
 superintendent of banks in Minnesota, and has a 
 wide acquaintance among bankers over the state 
 and in the nation. He is a member of the executive 
 council of the American Bankers' Association, and in 
 1913 was vice president of the Minnesota branch 
 of the American Association. For one term he 
 served as president of the Aitkin City Council, and 
 for a number of years was a member of the school 
 board. He is secretary of the Clover Dells Land 
 Company. Mr. Galarneault was married, February 
 14, 1893, to Susie Toan of Lyons, Michigan. They 
 have a son, John T., born September 23, 1899, and 
 
 at the present time a student in St. Thomas College 
 at St. Paul. Mr. Galarneault, besides his relations 
 with Aitkin, is also president of the First State 
 Bank of Crosby. 
 
 Gen. Reece M. Newport. Distinguished as a sol- 
 dier, a railway official, and as the founder of one 
 of the strongest and best-known real estate and 
 mortgage loan concerns in Minnesota, Gen. Reece 
 M. Newport was actively identified with Minnesota 
 affairs for more than forty years. General Newport 
 came from Ohio to Brainerd, Minnesota, in 1870, 
 moved to Minneapolis in 1875, and from 1876 lived 
 in St. Paul. From 1870 to 1882 he was local treas- 
 urer, auditor and land commissioner with the North- 
 ern Pacific Railway, and as representative of this 
 company, was the first to promote immigration and 
 colonization by Scandinavians in this section of the 
 country, and for this purpose circulated and posted 
 bills and other forms of advertisement all over 
 Sweden and Norway. At the occasion of the driv- 
 ing of the golden “spike,” marking the comple- 
 tion of the Northern Pacific Railway, General New- 
 port had charge of the banquet at the Lafayette 
 Hotel at Lake Minnetonka, at which celebration 
 President Arthur, Gen. U. S. Grant and many other 
 dignitaries, including ambassadors from foreign 
 countries, were present. General Newport in 1882 
 engaged in the real estate and mortgage loan busi- 
 ness, at first under the name Cochran & Newport, 
 after 1885 as Newport & Peet, in 1887 as R. M. 
 Newport & Son, continuing actively identified with 
 that firm until 1901, and later as R. M. Newport until 
 1910. It has been estimated that General Newport 
 loaned in round figures $35,000,000 on first mortgages 
 in the Twin Cities, a sum that was a valuable factor 
 toward the upbuilding of both St. Paul and Minne- 
 apolis. General Newport was also president of the 
 Seven Corners Bank. 
 
 General Newport became a captain of United 
 States Volunteers at the age of twenty r four, was 
 promoted to colonel at twenty-five, and was breveted 
 brigadier-general at twenty-seven for meritorious 
 services. During his long lifetime he had a per- 
 sonal acquaintance with Abraham Lincoln, U. S. 
 Grant and Presidents Hayes, Cleveland and McKin- 
 ley, and was also a close personal friend of Sec- 
 retary of War Edwin M. Stanton. He was a mem- 
 ber of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Marietta Col- 
 lege, his alma mater, belonged to the Minnesota, 
 Town and Country and Commercial clubs, and was 
 a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and 
 a member and commander of the Military Order of 
 the Loyal Legion. 
 
 In the preceding brief summary only the larger 
 facts in the career of General Newport have been 
 presented. To supplement and amplify this brief 
 sketch it will be appropriate to quote a memorial 
 prepared by a committee from the Minnesota Com- 
 mandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion 
 of St. Paul on November 23, 1912. The essential 
 parts of this memorial are as follows : 
 
 “Brevet Brig. Gen. Reece Marshall Newport was 
 born at Sharpsburg, near Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, 
 May 27, 1838, and in his early childhood moved 
 with his parents to a farm near the village of New- 
 port, Ohio, and on which he later engaged in farm 
 work. He graduated at Marietta College in i860, 
 and edited a republican paper during the Lincoln 
 campaign. In 1862 he took part in Fremont’s cam- 
 paign against Stonewall Jackson, and later was for 
 
1616 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 a short time with the Army of the Potomac. Jan- 
 uary 24, 1863, he was appointed captain and assist- 
 ant quartermaster of volunteers ; was assigned to 
 duty at Washington City and finally at Baltimore. 
 In 1864 he was appointed colonel and made chief 
 quartermaster at Baltimore. A large amount of sup- 
 plies for the army of General Sheridan, operating in 
 the Valley of Virginia, and for General Grant’s army, 
 were forwarded under his direction. His money 
 disbursements, though much less than the stores and 
 supplies handled, amounted during the last year of 
 the war to more than $13,000,000. Simply one check 
 issued by him to the Baltimore & Ohio Railway 
 Company for transportation was for $850,000. For 
 faithful and meritorious services he was breveted 
 brigadier general of volunteers and mustered out 
 of the service March, 1866. 
 
 “In 1872 he came to Minnesota as local treasurer 
 of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, in which 
 capacity and as auditor he continued for ten years, 
 and finally was given charge of its land depart- 
 ment. In this capacity he contributed to immigra- 
 tion into the northwest and to the founding of 
 many flourishing communities. In 1882 he engaged 
 in loan and real estate business, which became ex- 
 tensive. Though his health was far from robust:, 
 he was very industrious and painstaking in busi- 
 ness affairs. He was universally regarded as an 
 accomplished public-spirited citizen. He was a man 
 of fine presence, of dignified yet kindly manner; a 
 devoted husband and father. 
 
 “General Newport was married in 1863 to Miss 
 Eliza Edgerton of Marietta, Ohio. Their children 
 are Luther E., Mary M. and Reece Marshall New- 
 port. Mrs. Newport died May 27, 1909. 
 
 “General Newport became a member of this com- 
 mandery October 7, 1885; registrar, May 4, 1887; 
 junior vice commander, May 12, 1896; served as 
 commander from May 10, 1904, to May 9, 1905. He 
 died at Greenwich, Connecticut, where he was tem- 
 porarily staying on account of ill health, November 
 1, 1912. His funeral occurred at St. Paul, and he 
 was buried in Oakland Cemetery. He had been for 
 many years a member of the House of Hope Pres- 
 byterian church.” 
 
 Reece Marshall Newport, Jr. Since the death 
 of the late General Newport the large business estab- 
 lished and built up by him has been carried on by 
 his son, Reece Marshall Newport, who is now pres- 
 ident of R. M. Newport & Co., dealers in real 
 estate, mortgages, loans and insurance at St. Paul. 
 
 Mr. Newport, recognized as one of the leading 
 business men of St. Paul, was born in that city 
 June 8, 1878. His early education was obtained from 
 private schools at St. Paul, and later he attended 
 the Westminster School in Connecticut, and from 
 that entered Yale College, where he was graduated 
 in 1901. He soon afterwards began his business 
 career, and succeeded to the loan and real estate 
 business after the death of his father. Prior to 
 that time the concern was conducted as a partner- 
 ship, and in January, 1913, was incorporated as R. 
 M. Newport & Co., with capital stock of $50,000. 
 Its officers are: Reece Marshall Newport, Jr., pres- 
 ident; M. M. Newport, vice president; C. B. Baker, 
 secretary ; and R. E. Stower, treasurer. The firm is 
 extensively engaged in the handling of bonds, mort- 
 gages, lands and real estate and loans, and by its 
 transactions, both under the late General Newport 
 and under the present corporate form, has a posi- 
 
 tion second to none among concerns of this class in 
 Minnesota. 
 
 Reece Marshall Newport, Jr., aside from this 
 company, is connected with several business indus- 
 tries at St. Paul. He is a director of the State Bank 
 at Cloquet, Minnesota; of the Farmers and Mer- 
 chants State Bank of Carlton, Minnesota, and the 
 hirst State Bank at Brookston. He is president of 
 the Edgeciiff Realty Company of St. Paul. Mr. 
 Newport is a member of the Military Order of the 
 Loyal Legion, the Town and Country, University 
 and Minnesota Boat clubs of St. Paul, the Yale Club 
 of New York and the Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity. 
 His offices are in the Pioneer Building. 
 
 George A. Norton. For a full half century has 
 the name of the Norton family been prominently 
 identified with the history of Dodge County, Minne- 
 sota, where the subject of this review has resided 
 from his boyhood days and where he now holds 
 distinct precedence as one of the able members of 
 the bar of this section of the state. He is engaged 
 in the practice of his profession at Mantorville, the 
 judicial center of the county, and he also has the 
 general supervision of the large estate of the late 
 Thomas S. Slingerland. 
 
 George A. Norton was born in Marquette County, 
 Wisconsin, on the 4th of March, 1853, and is a son 
 of Ichabod and Luana (Reynolds) Norton, both 
 natives of the State of New York, the father having 
 been born in Lewis County, in 1819, and his death 
 having occurred January 28, 1907, and the mother, 
 who was born in Erie County, in 1823, having been 
 summoned to the life eternal in 1886, George A. 
 being the younger of the two children and the other 
 child having died at the age of eighteen years. The 
 marriage of the parents was solemnized in Erie 
 County, New York, in 1845, and in the following 
 year they settled at Waupon, Wisconsin, as pioneers 
 of the Badger State. Ichabod Norton was a man of 
 much mechanical skill, especially as a carpenter, 
 and he followed his trade in Wisconsin until 1864, 
 when he came with his family to Dodge County, 
 Minnesota, where he became a citizen of much 
 influence in the furtherance of civic and industrial 
 progress. In 1875 he was elected judge of the 
 Probate Court of Dodge County, and of this position 
 he continued the incumbent two terms. He was a 
 stalwart republican, was affiliated with the Masonic 
 fraternity, and both he and his wife held membership 
 in the Baptist Church. Judge Norton was a son of 
 Joseph Norton, who was born and reared in the 
 State of New York and who became a pioneer 
 farmer in Wisconsin, from which state he came to 
 Minnesota in 1856, here passing the residue of his 
 life. The maternal grandfather of George A. Norton 
 was an early settler in Erie County, New York, 
 in which state he maintained his home until his 
 death. 
 
 George A. Norton was about eleven years of age 
 at the time of his parents’ settlement in Dodge 
 County, Minnesota, and in addition to receiving the 
 advantages of the common schools of the locality 
 and period he was enabled to attend a well conducted 
 academy at Wasioja, this county. He then studied 
 law under the able preceptorship of William A. 
 Sperry, and in 1879 he was admitted to the bar. He 
 forthwith engaged in the practice of his profession 
 at Mantorville and success attended his efforts, but 
 he was soon called upon to serve in the position of 
 county auditor, an office of which he continued the 
 
/ 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1617 
 
 valued incumbent for the long period of sixteen 
 years. Since his retirement from office he has been 
 engaged in the practice of his profession and found 
 insistent demands upon his time and attention in 
 the management of the extensive Slingerland estate. 
 
 Mr. Norton has shown deep interest in all that 
 has concerned the social and material well being of 
 his home village and county, is an uncompromising 
 and effective advocate of the basic principles which 
 have made the republican party the safe guardian 
 of national government, and he has served as presi- 
 dent, secretary and recorder of the board of trustees 
 of Mantorville, besides having been for twenty-six 
 years in continuous service as a member of the board 
 of education. Mr. Norton is the owner of a pleasant 
 residence property in Mantorville, as well as a well 
 improved farm in Dodge County. He is affiliated 
 with the Knights of Pythias, the American Yeomen 
 and the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and his 
 wife holds membership in the Baptist Church. 
 
 On the 26th of May, 1881, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Norton to Miss Phidelia Perley, 
 daughter of the late Stephen Perley, who came to 
 Dodge County in 1864 and became a representative 
 farmer of this section. Mr. and Mrs. Norton have 
 three children. Allen P. completed the curriculum 
 of the Mantorville High School and took one year's 
 academic work in Hamline University, in the City 
 of St. Paul, and thereafter graduated from the St. 
 Paul College of Law. He is now engaged in the 
 practice of his profession at Mantorville. George 
 A., Jr., is a successful farmer in Dodge County; and 
 Harrison E. was graduated in Hamline University 
 as a member of the class of 1913 and is now (1915) 
 taking post-graduate work at Hamline and first year 
 law at St. Paul College of Law. 
 
 William S. Willyard. The efficient and popular 
 cashier of the Kasson National Bank of Kasson, 
 Dodge County, has achieved success through his own 
 ability and well ordered endeavors and is recognized 
 as one of the substantial and influential citizens of 
 the prosperous village in which he maintains his 
 home and in the welfare and progress of which he 
 maintains a lively and helpful interest. 
 
 Mr. Willyard was born in the State of Pennsyl- 
 vania, on the 3d of January, 1853, and is a son of 
 Henry and Sarah M. (Grier) Willyard, the former 
 of whom likewise was a native of the old Keystone 
 State, where he was born in the year 1828, and the 
 later of whom was born in Ohio, in 1833, their 
 marriage having been solemnized in Pennsylvania 
 in 1852. Of the five children, William S. is the first 
 born, and of the others only one is living, Sarah 
 Belle, who is the wife of Charles Edmondson, of 
 Cloquet, Carlton County, Minnesota. He whose 
 name initiates this article was a child of two years 
 at the time of the family removal to the Territory 
 of Minnesota, in 1855, and his parents established 
 their home at Mantorville, thus becoming pioneer 
 settlers of Dodge County. The father was a skilled 
 millwright and carpenter and worked at his trade 
 for a number of years after he came to Minnesota. 
 He later purchased a tract of land near Cloquet, 
 Carlton County, where he developed a farm, this 
 homestead continuing to be his place of abode until 
 his death and his widow having there passed the 
 remainder of her life. Henry Willyard was a re- 
 publican in politics, was affiliated with the Masonic 
 fraternity, and special honor was his for his service 
 as a soldier of the Union in the Civil war. He 
 
 enlisted in Company B, Tenth Minnesota Volunteer 
 Infantry, which was later transferred to an artillery 
 command, and he was in active service during the 
 major part of the war. In later years he was in 
 active affiliation with the Grand Army of the Re- 
 public, and both he and his wife commanded the high 
 regard of all who knew them. 
 
 William'S. Willyard gained his early education in 
 the public schools of Wasioja, Dodge County, and 
 Waseca, Waseca County, in which latter place he 
 availed himself of the advantages of the high school. 
 As a youth he entered upon an apprenticeship to 
 the trade of telegraphist, in the service of the Chi- 
 cago & Northwestern Railroad, and he familiarized 
 himself with the various local details of railway 
 service, with the result that he was finally made 
 station agent for the Chicago & Northwestern Rail- 
 road at Kasson, his present place of residence. He 
 retained this position four years, and for four years 
 thereafter he was cashier of a bank at Mantorville, 
 the judicial center of Dodge County. During the 
 ensuing nine years he held the position of assistant 
 cashier of the National Bank, now the National Bank 
 of Dodge County, at Kasson, and in 1908 he was 
 promoted to the office of cashier of this institution, 
 a position of which he has since continued the able 
 and valued incumbent. During an absence of thir- 
 teen years from Dodge County Mr. Willyard was 
 engaged in railway service — with the Soo Line and 
 the Great Northern Railroad. 
 
 In politics, though never imbued with ambition 
 for public office, Mr. Willyard is a stanch repub- 
 lican, and both he and his wife are communicants 
 of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 
 
 In the year 1872 was solemnized the marriage of 
 Mr. Willyard to Miss Elva L. Long, daughter of 
 Seth Long, who was a well known citizen of Waseca 
 County, and who, as a representative of the demo- 
 cratic party, served for a long period as sheriff of 
 that county. Mr. and Mrs. Willyard have one son, 
 Clyde Long Willyard, who acquired his early educa- 
 tion in the public schools of the cities of Minneapolis 
 and Duluth, including the high school in the latter 
 place, and who is now assistant cashier of the Kas- 
 son National Bank. 
 
 Clarence C. Crawford. Ambition, resolute pur- 
 pose and proper application of his powers have 
 enabled Mr. Crawford to achieve through his own 
 efforts a substantial success in connection with the 
 productive activities of life, and he is today num- 
 bered among the substantial citizens and representa- 
 tive business men of the county that has been his 
 home from infancy. He is cashier of the First State 
 Bank of Mantorville, judicial center of Dodge 
 County, is a stockholder of this and other banking 
 institutions in this section of the state, and is secre- 
 tary and treasurer of the Mantorville Farmers’ 
 Elevator & Mercantile Company. He has depended 
 upon his own ability and exertions for the accumu- 
 lation of every dollar that stands to his credit and is 
 known and honored as one of the reliable, progres- 
 sive and public-spirited citizens of Dodge County. 
 
 Mr. Crawford was born in the Village of Oxford 
 Mills, Grenville County. Province of Ontario, 
 Canada, on the 9th of February, 1877, and is a son 
 of Thomas and Susan (Cooper) Crawford, the 
 former of whom was born in the State of New 
 York and the latter in the Province of Ontario, 
 Canada, where their marriage was solemnized in 
 1876. In 1878, when their son, Clarence C., was about 
 
1618 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 one year old, they came to Minnesota and settled 
 in the Village of Kasson, Dodge County, where they 
 still maintain their home, the father having given 
 his attention principally to the teaming and draying 
 business. He is a republican in politics, is affiliated 
 with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the 
 Modern Woodmen of American and the Ancient 
 Order of United Workmen, and both he and his 
 wife hold membership in the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. Of their five children the subject of this 
 review is the first born ; Harry C. is engaged in 
 the moving picture business at Marion, South Caro- 
 lina; Effie is the wife of Knute H. Finseth, who 
 is engaged in farming near Kenyon, Goodhue 
 County, Minnesota; Ashley E., of Minneapolis; and 
 Ruth, who remains at the parental home, was grad- 
 uated in the Kasson High School as a member of the 
 class of 1914. 
 
 Clarence C. Crawford acquired his early education 
 in the public schools at Kasson and as a youngjnan 
 he entered the employ of the Standard Oil Com- 
 pany, with which he remained nine years, as one of 
 its representatives in Dodge County. Thereafter he 
 held for four years the office of clerk of the County 
 Court of Dodge County, and during the last two 
 years of this incumbency he served also as cashier 
 of the First State Bank of Mantorville, the county 
 seat, a position which he still retains. This is one 
 of the stanch and well managed financial institu- 
 tions of this part of the state, with a capital stock 
 of $15,000, a surplus fund of $10,000, and with 
 deposits that have attained to an average aggregate 
 of $200,000. Mr, Crawford is likewise a director 
 of this bank, as is he also of the Farmers’ State 
 Bank at Hayfield, Dodge County, and he is a stock- 
 holder and director in the National Bank of Dodge 
 County at Kasson, besides being secretary and 
 treasurer of the Mantorville Farmers’ Elevator & 
 Mercantile Company, an important and thriving 
 institution of Dodge County. 
 
 That Mr. Crawford is a stalwart in the local 
 camp of the republican party needs no further 
 voucher than the statement that he has served as 
 secretary of the Republican County Committee of 
 Dodge County. He is affiliated with the local lodge 
 of Ancient, Free & Accepted Masons, has held offi- 
 cial chairs in the Mantorville Lodge of Knights of 
 Pythias, and is identified also with the Modern 
 Woodmen of America, both he and his wife being 
 members of the Congregational Church. 
 
 On the 12th of May, 1904, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Crawford to Miss Clara M. Mantor, 
 a representative of the influential family in whose 
 honor Mantorville was named. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Crawford have no children. 
 
 Harry J. Edison. The professional ability and 
 ambitious application of Mr. Edison have given 
 him secure prestige as one of the representative 
 members of the bar of his native county and he 
 is engaged in the successful practice of law at 
 Kasson, Dodge County, with an excellent clientage 
 and substantial ' business. He is a scion of a well 
 known and highly honored pioneer family of this 
 county, within whose gracious borders he has main- 
 tained his home from the time of his nativity and 
 in which his circle of friends is coincident with 
 that of his acquaintances. 
 
 Harry J. Edison was born on the old homestead 
 farm of his father, in Milton Township, Dodge 
 County, on the 9th of June, 1878, and is a son of 
 
 William H. and Marian C. (Cramond) Edison, the 
 former of whom was born in the Province of 
 Ontario, Canada, in 1835, and the latter of whom 
 was born in Wisconsin, in 1839, their marriage hav- 
 ing been solemnized in Dodge County, Minnesota. 
 William H. Edison, a first cousin of Thomas A. 
 Edison, the celebrated wizard of electricity, was 
 reared and educated in his native province and as 
 a young man came to Minnesota and established 
 his residence in Dodge County. Here he became a 
 successful farmer and through his own industry and 
 good management he accumulated a competency, the 
 while he became one of the progressive and influ- 
 ential citizens of the county, with secure place in 
 popular confidence and esteem. He was a democrat 
 in his political allegiance, held various township 
 offices and served also as a member of the board of 
 county commissioners. He was affiliated with the 
 Masonic fraternity. Mr. Edison continued to reside 
 on his fine homestead farm until his death, which 
 occurred in December, 1903, and his widow now 
 resides in the Village of Kasson, her father having 
 been a native of England, whence he came to the 
 United States when a young man, and, having be- 
 come one of the pioneer settlers in Dodge County, 
 Minnesota, where he developed an excellent farm 
 and continued to reside until his death. Harry 
 Edison, paternal grandfather of him whose name 
 initiates this review and who was named in honor 
 of this grandsire, passed his entire life in the 
 Province of Ontario, Canada. William H. and 
 Marian C. Edison became the parents of six children, 
 of whom four are now living, Harry J., of this 
 review, having been the fifth in order of birth ; 
 Victorine is the wife of Frank E. Decker, of Byron, 
 Olmsted County; Inez is the wife of John J. Mc- 
 Caughey, a Dodge County lawyer of whom individual 
 mention is made in this publication ; and George W. 
 is a resident of Stanford, Fergus County, Montana, 
 a county named in honor of the same sterling old 
 pioneer of the Northwest as was Fergus Falls, 
 Minnesota. 
 
 After completing the curriculum of the public 
 schools of Kasson, Harry J. Edison began the work 
 of preparing himself for the profession of his choice. 
 He entered the law department of the University 
 of Minnesota, in which he was graduated as a mem- 
 ber of the class of 1906 and from which he received 
 the degree of bachelor of laws, with concomitant 
 admission to the bar of his native state. Mr. Edison 
 had the good judgment not to seek a far field in 
 initiating the active practice of his profession for he 
 established his office at Kasson, where he was 
 associated in practice with his brother-in-law, Mr. 
 McCaughey, until 1909, since which time he has con- 
 ducted an individual practice, with an excellent 
 clientage and with well proved reputation as a skilled 
 trial lawyer and well fortified counselor. He has 
 served two terms as county attorney, to which office 
 he was first elected in 1910, with reelection in 1912. 
 and he is one of the loyal and valiant advocates of 
 the cause of the republican party, in whose local 
 ranks he has been an active worker. He is affiliated 
 with the Masonic fraternity, and aside from the 
 exacting demands of his profession he gives a 
 general supervision to the fine farm which he owns 
 in his native county. 
 
 In 1909 Mr. Edison wedded Miss Myrtle A. Sax- 
 ton, of St. Charles, this state, and they have one 
 child, Ralph S. 
 

 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
V 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1619 
 
 Orren E. Safford. Junior member of the law firm 
 of Belden & Safford, with offices in the McKnight 
 Building, Orren E. Safford has practiced law at 
 Minneapolis for the past five years. 
 
 He was born in Richland County, North Dakota, 
 March 7, 1882, a son of Orren W. and Hattie R. 
 (Price) Safford. His father was born and reared 
 in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, followed farming 
 there until his removal to North Dakota, and finally 
 came to Minnesota, living in Aitkin County as a 
 substantial farmer and citizen until his death. His 
 death occurred in Aitkin County, March 17, 1905, 
 and his widow now resides in the Village of Aitkin. 
 Their three sons were : Arthur A. of Aitkin County; 
 Orren E. ; and Robert R. of Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 Orren E. Safford gained his early education in 
 the public schools of Aitkin and Hutchinson and 
 in 1902 graduated from the Duluth High School. 
 Already for one term he had taught in Aitkin 
 County, and after leaving high school was again 
 a teacher for one term. Teaching supplied him with 
 some of the means which he used for his higher 
 education. For 3P2 years he was a student in the 
 literary department of the University of Minnesota, 
 and in 1910 graduated from the law department with 
 the degree LL. B. Admitted to the bar, he pos- 
 sessed, in addition to the training given him by 
 his university course, two years of experience with 
 the law department of the Minneapolis Street Rail- 
 way Company. For one year after his admission 
 he was associated with James D. Shearer, with 
 offices in the Loan & Trust Building. January 1, 
 1912, he entered a partnership with Judge Henry 
 Clay Belden, under the firm name of Belden & 
 Safford. Mention is made of Judge Belden on other 
 pages of this work. 
 
 Mr. Safford is a member of the Minneapolis 
 Bar Association and the Minnesota State Bar 
 Association, of the Minneapolis Civic and Com- 
 merce Association and the University Club of 
 Minneapolis. On April 2, 1914, in Christ Episcopal 
 Church in New York City, Mr. Safford married Miss 
 Virginia Wetherby, who was born and reared in 
 Minneapolis, a daughter of John K. Wetherby of 
 that city. Mrs. Safford is a niece of former Gov. 
 P. C. Lounsbury of Connecticut. She received her 
 preliminary education in the public schools of her 
 native city and subsequently attended one of the 
 leading eastern schools for young women. 
 
 Theophilus L. Haecker. Dairy and animal hus- 
 bandman is the title of Mr. Haecker, on the staff 
 of the experiment station of the Agricultural School 
 of the University of Minnesota. As chief of the 
 division of dairy and animal husbandry his greatest 
 work in behalf of Minnesota has been accomplished. 
 Among thousands of Minnesota dairymen he is 
 gratefully acknowledged as the Father of Co-oper- 
 ative Dairying, and nearly every progressive dairy 
 farmer, not only in Minnesota, but in other states 
 of the Northwest, knows him either through his 
 practical demonstrations and personal lectures or 
 through the standard literature of which he is author. 
 
 His career has been one of unusual experience 
 and successful achievement. Theophilus L. Haecker 
 was born at Liverpool, Medina County, Ohio, May 
 4, 1846. When he was seven years old his parents 
 moved to a farm in Wisconsin, near Cottage Grove, 
 and all the education he had until sixteen years of 
 age was acquired by attendance during the brief 
 winter terms at district schools. He grew up on 
 
 the farm, and the interest which he early acquired 
 in agriculture, and particularly live stock, has been 
 the one vital enthusiasm of all his subsequent 
 career. When he was sixteen he entered the State 
 University at Madison, but the following winter ill- 
 ness compelled him to give up his studies. Mr. 
 Haecker made a record as a boy soldier in the 
 Civil war. At the close of his first term in uni- 
 versity he enlisted in Company A of the Thirty- 
 seventh Wisconsin Infantry, and was at first de- 
 tailed to clerical work at headquarters. That did 
 not prevent him from active service, however, and 
 during Grant’s campaign before Richmond he was 
 in the ranks as a private and regimental bugler, 
 serving in the trenches before Petersburg. He was 
 finally put on detached service in the medical depart- 
 ment at City Point, and was rapidly promoted until 
 given charge of the quartermaster’s supplies of the 
 Ninth Corps Hospital Department. Toward the close 
 of the war he rejoined his regiment, was put in 
 charge of the drum corps, and participated in the 
 great review at Washington. Mr. Haecker was dis- 
 charged with his regiment at Madison in August, 
 1865, and was then only nineteen years of age. His 
 parents had in the meantime removed to Hampton, 
 Franklin County, Iowa, and the first two years after 
 his muster out were spent in working his father’s 
 farm. 
 
 In the spring of 1867 Mr. Haecker again entered 
 the University of Wisconsin, and again his health 
 failed during his third year, and he returned home. 
 Work as a teacher in public schools then kept him 
 busy until 1870, and a new direction to his activities 
 was given when he established the Ackley Inde- 
 pendent in Hardin County, Iowa. As a newspaper 
 man and publisher he was unusually successful, but 
 in 1873 disposed of the paper and the following 
 February located on a farm near Cottage Grove, 
 Wisconsin, with the intention of building up an 
 extensive enterprise as a stock raiser and dairyman. 
 Shortly afterwards, however, without any solicitation 
 on his part, he was offered a position on the execu- 
 tive staff of William R. Taylor, then governor of 
 Wisconsin. This position he accepted as an attache 
 of the governor’s office ; he served through five suc- 
 ceeding administrations, covering a period of seven- 
 teen years. Many responsible duties were assigned 
 to him in the course of this time, and for ten years 
 he reviewed all pardon cases coming before the 
 governor. He also assisted in the adjustment of the 
 noted St. Croix land grant case. 
 
 The duties of this public position did not cause Mr. 
 Haecker to lose his interest in stock raising. He 
 usually spent each evening on his farm, personally 
 inspecting every animal on the place, and drove a 
 distance of ten miles to office in the morning. In 
 the meantime he had become an intimate friend and 
 associate of Professor Henry, who was placed in 
 charge of the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment 
 Station established in 1880, and through this associa- 
 tion acquired a highly technical as well as practical 
 knowledge of agriculture and agricultural education. 
 His exceptional qualifications in this field led to his 
 being commissioned by the board of regents in 1882 
 to make a tour of the East to select foundation 
 stock for the experiment station. The animals he 
 selected proved of excellent merit, and on the 
 organization of the Farmers’ Institute he was chosen 
 to discuss subjects of breeding and handling of 
 dairy stock. In the fall of 1890 Mr. Haecker moved 
 his family to the City of Madison in order to 
 
1G20 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 afford his children the advantages of better schools. 
 The following January he was unexpectedly relieved 
 of his official duties, and accepted this as an oppor- 
 tunity for joining the first class in the Wisconsin 
 Dairy School. In the second week he was^ appointed 
 assistant to the chief instructor in the dairy school, 
 and was thus engaged in the work of the experiment 
 station at Madison until August, 1891. 
 
 Mr. Haecker then moved to Minnesota and became 
 connected with the Agricultural College, and on the 
 resignation of Professor Hays was appointed assist- 
 ant in agriculture in charge of live stock and dairy- 
 ing. In June, 1893, he was appointed full professor 
 in the College of Agriculture and placed in charge 
 of the dairy- school. 
 
 It is an assertion that the facts will readily sustain 
 that Mr. Haecker has done more to promote the 
 interests of the dairy men in the Northwest than 
 any other man, and is one of the few great dairy 
 experts in America. He has been engaged in the 
 scientific investigation of dairy problems for the 
 past fifteen years, and during that time has earned 
 a wide reputation both as a practical expert and 
 adviser and as an author of dairy literature. He 
 is not only a scientist, a teacher and an investigator, 
 but a moulder of thought and an inspiration to his 
 colleagues and students. Of the hundreds who know 
 him as a teacher all recognize above his ability to 
 impart knowledge the fine inspiration which flows 
 from him and becomes a permanent influence in 
 vitalizing the activities of his followers. Fully thirty 
 years ago Mr. Haecker was* considered among his 
 associates an authority on farming and dairy stock 
 raising, and at that time his publications on the 
 “Jersey Interests” and “Principles of Breeding” and 
 other articles had a general circulation among 
 breeders and farmers of Wisconsin. Thus his repu- 
 tation was well established at the time he came to 
 Minnesota. 
 
 His first important work in this state was the 
 organization of the creamery interests along co- 
 operative lines. At that time the creameries in 
 Minnesota were nearly all private concerns, conducted 
 largely for the benefit of the individual owners, and 
 with the widest diversity in effectiveness and profits 
 to producers and sellers. Mr. Haecker’s first task 
 was the coordination of the dairy interests. He 
 spent many months in field work, holding meetings 
 and delivering addresses all over the state. Largely 
 through the results of his individual work Minnesota 
 now has the most perfect system of cooperation 
 among creameries in any state of the Union. Twenty 
 years ago Minnesota dairy products were practically 
 unknown in the great markets, while at the present 
 time the producers are receiving the highest market 
 price for Minnesota creamery butter. The state also 
 holds more national contest banners for high quality 
 than all other states combined. As a result of general 
 cooperation, the standard of products has risen, there 
 has been a greater diffusion of knowledge among 
 farmers, system has taken the place of the old hap- 
 hazard methods at farm and in creamery manage- 
 ment, and foremost among the results is that the 
 producer gets the benefit of high prices. Since com- 
 ing to Minnesota Mr. Haecker has worked con- 
 sistently for the people of the state and for the 
 producer against all fraud, and his vigilance has 
 meant and will mean millions of dollars to the dairy 
 interests of Minnesota. It has been conclusively 
 demonstrated again and again that the dairy farmers 
 who depend upon the advice and assistance of the 
 
 State Agricultural College and the various agencies 
 for instruction and organization enjoy benefits and 
 profits from 50 to 100 per cent greater than those 
 who are content to follow the old routine and “prac- 
 tical” methods which had no relation to system and 
 efficiency. Among progressive Minnesota dairymen 
 one of the standard books of instruction, a handbook 
 that has become the ready reference volume in thou- 
 sands of dairy farms, is Mr. Haecker’s “Feeding 
 Dairy Cows,” published as a bulletin by the Agri- 
 cultural College of the University. This work alone 
 is one that will give Mr. Haecker a lasting reputation 
 among the great American dairy experts. 
 
 Judge C. W. Stanton. A prominent lawyer of 
 Northern Minnesota, Charles Willard Stanton has 
 been in active practice for more than a quarter of a 
 century, and for the past seven years has been judge 
 of the Fifteenth Judicial District, with residence at 
 Bemidji. Judge Stanton is one of the older native 
 sons of Minnesota, his father died while in the Union 
 army, and in his professional and judicial career 
 he has measured up to the high ideals of the true 
 lawyer, and in many ways has exercised his ability 
 for the benefit and welfare of the people. 
 
 Charles Willard Stanton was born at Pine Island, 
 Goodhue County, Minnesota, August 5, 1861, a son 
 of Flarrison M. and Alida (Parker) Stanton. His 
 father was a merchant, an early settler in Minne- 
 sota, and left his business at the beginning of the 
 war to enlist in the Union army. He became lieu- 
 tenant of Company D in the Fourth Minnesota 
 Infantry in October, 1861, and in June, 1862, died 
 at- Benton Barracks in St. Louis, Missouri. 
 
 Judge Stanton received his early education in the 
 public schools, in the Wesleyan Seminary in Dodge 
 County, Minnesota, and in the University of Minne- 
 sota. His early career found him engaged in news- 
 paper work, and while in that occupation he studied 
 iaw, a part of the time with the former attorney- 
 general, E. T. Young, of Appleton. Admitted to the 
 bar at Appleton in 1888, Judge Stanton was in active 
 practice in that city until 1904, and during his resi- 
 dence there, in addition to a large private practice, 
 he served four years as judge of probate, as mayor 
 of the city and also as city attorney. In 1904 he 
 removed to International Falls, and while there 
 served both as city and county attorney. 
 
 In March, 1908, Governor Johnson appointed Mr. 
 Stanton judge of the Fifteenth Judicial District, and 
 the duties of that office caused his removal to 
 Bemidji. In 1910 he was elected for the regular 
 term, and is still on the bench. 
 
 In addition to many other services special credit 
 is due to Judge Stanton for his effective leadership 
 in the fight to regain 25.000 acres of land granted 
 to a railway company, which failed and never ful- 
 filled the obligations on which the land grant was 
 based. The railway company assigned its land grant 
 to Russell Sage, and made vigorous efforts to retain 
 this property. Judge Stanton fought the case 
 through both the state and federal courts, and 
 after eleven years won his contentions and safe- 
 guarded the rights of the hundreds of settlers who 
 had located on those tracts of forfeited railway 
 lands. 
 
 Judge Stanton is a member of the Minnesota and 
 the American Bar associations, and fraternally has 
 taken interest in Masonic work. He is a member 
 of the lodge and chapter at Bemidji, of Damascus 
 Commandery of Knights Templar at St. Paul, and 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1621 
 
 oi the Minneapolis Consistory of the thirty-second 
 degree Scottish Rite and the Temple of the Mystic 
 Shrine at Minneapolis. He is also affiliated with 
 the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the 
 Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows, and is warden in the Episcopal 
 Church. 
 
 William Alwin, Sr. In any account of the fine 
 old German community about New Ulm mention 
 must be made of the late William Alwin, who was 
 among the pioneers of that region and had a large 
 share in shaping its destinies. He was a man of the 
 true pioneer type, willing to sacrifice much for the 
 sake of the community, and his own efforts con- 
 tributed not a little to the improvement of that sec- 
 tion of the great State of Minnesota. His name is 
 associated with early Indian affairs, he was one of 
 the soldiers who participated in the battle at New 
 Ulm during the Civil war and is remembered as a 
 man of great strength and nobility of character. 
 
 William Alwin was born in Putzig, the Province 
 of Posen, Germany, September 6, 1825, and his death 
 occurred in his cottage home at New Ulm on Feb- 
 ruary 6, 1910, at the ripe age of eighty-four years. 
 Both his parents died when he was an infant, he 
 never knew his mother at all and had only a faint 
 recollection of his father. His early boyhood was 
 spent in the home of an uncle, and he lived there 
 until reaching military age. Because of his physical 
 build, sturdy health and regulation size, which is 
 so greatly valued by the German military authori- 
 ties, he was placed with the imperial guard of the 
 Uhlans, and after serving the regular time pre- 
 scribed by law was given an honorable discharge. 
 
 At the age of twenty-eight Mr. Alwin married 
 Miss Wilhelmina Gruening, and they soon after- 
 wards emigrated to America, making their first home 
 at Milwaukee, the cepter of German colonization in 
 the Northwest. While there they learned of a move- 
 ment promoted by some prominent Germans of Chi- 
 cago to establish an independent colony in Minne- 
 sota, which was then far out on the Northwestern 
 frontier. Mr. and Mrs. Alwin embraced the project 
 as being in accord with their ideas of independence, 
 and they joined their friends and relatives in their 
 march to the promised land. The journey was made 
 in prairie schooners drawn by oxen, and they and 
 others arrived at New Ulm in the early summer of 
 1855. Soon afterwards Mr. Alwin made selection of 
 a tract of land and homesteaded what for many 
 years has been known as the Alwin Farm on the 
 Cottonwood River, a mile and a half southwest of 
 New Ulm. That was his home, there his children 
 were born and reared, and for thirty-five years he 
 had an active part in the improvement of that 
 pioneer district. It is a truth that cannot be too 
 frequently asserted that what the present generation 
 enjoy in the comforts and facilities of civilization 
 is due primarily to the hardships and strenuous 
 efforts put forth by the pioneers who first turned 
 the soil, built homes, cleared the wilderness, founded 
 towns, schools and churches, and blazed the broad 
 path of civilization in a new country. The late Wil- 
 liam Alwin was one of the sturdiest of these 
 pioneers, and in all the hardships he was accom- 
 panied both in spirit and in fact by his estimable 
 wife, who had equal fortitude with himself in meet- 
 ing the dangers and difficulties that stood in the 
 way of making a home in this new country. For 
 several months the family lived in the prairie 
 
 schooner which had brought them to Minnesota, but 
 with the approach of winter they moved from that 
 shelter to a cozy dugout, constructed by Mr. Alwin 
 in an embankment. In that humble dwelling the 
 little family of three, the parents and a son who 
 had been born in the prairie schooner, lived during 
 the first Minnesota winter, with very few neighbors 
 and for weeks at a time without sight of a human 
 being except their own household. The necessity 
 for earning some ready money during the first win- 
 ter caused Mr. Alwin to accept employment near 
 Fort Ridgely. That was the hardest kind of physi- 
 cal labor, but the endurance he displayed in perform- 
 ing it was equalled by the courage of his wife, who 
 was thus left isolated in the little dugout home and 
 her most frequent visitors were the friendly In- 
 dians who occasionally passed by. Mr. Alwin with 
 remarkable perseverance and diligence cleared the 
 ground of his homestead, turned it into fields of 
 grain, and in time made the wilderness yield ample 
 fruits for home and in provision for the future. The 
 patches of cultivated ground year after year in- 
 creased in size, home and living conditions were 
 improved, and in time he and his wife were at the 
 head of a noble family of children, eight sons and 
 one daughter. 
 
 As Mr. Alwin had been so diligent in the per- 
 formance of his duties toward his family, he was 
 likewise never negligent of his obligations as a citi- 
 zen. During the terrible days of the Indian out- 
 break, soon after the beginning of the Civil war, he 
 showed the courage of the true pioneer. At the 
 beginning of the Indian rebellion he moved his fam- 
 ily into New Ulm, placed them in safety in what 
 was then known as the Fuller Building, and then 
 took his place in the front rank of the defenders 
 of the little village. During the entire time of the 
 siege he was found on the firing line, his wife not 
 knowing but what he too, like many others, had 
 fallen victim to Indian bullets. In after years he 
 frequently related the horrors and incidents of, this 
 Indian siege, related many facts concerning indi- 
 vidual performance by his neighbors, but it is note- 
 worthy that in his modesty he could never be pre- 
 vailed upon to refer to his own actions. His old 
 comrades, however, gave him credit for always 
 being foremost to incur danger and for exceeding 
 valorous conduct throughout the battle and siege. 
 
 In the course of thirty years of residence on the 
 homestead Mr. Alwin provided well for himself and 
 family, and in 1885 took up his permanent residence 
 in the little cottage home in New Ulm where the rest 
 of his years were spent in quiet retirement. He 
 never aspired to nor accepted any public office. 
 
 As a well deserved tribute to this fine old German 
 pioneer it will be appropriate to quote an article 
 which appeared in the New Ulm Review shortly 
 after his death : “Mr. Alwin was one of those rare 
 characters who through the rough and practical 
 school of life had acquired a firmly fixed principle, 
 which became the guiding star and from the course 
 of which he never deviated. Charitable, forbearing, 
 patient, forgiving, honest and honorable, he com- 
 bined in his noble self an aggregate of personal 
 virtues which made him well nigh an ideal character. 
 In considering him we might well paraphrase the 
 English playwright : ‘Here was a man, where is 
 
 there such another?’ Although profoundly re- 
 ligious and of pronounced convictions in his faith, 
 he gladly and unhesitatingly granted his fellow citi- 
 zens the right and privilege to work out their own 
 
1622 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 spiritual destiny and salvation according to their best 
 understanding. It was but natural that he was 
 greatly respected and loved by all who knew him. 
 He was one of the founders of the German Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church of this city and for full 
 forty years was a trustee of that organization. And 
 a more faithful and self-denying servant, intensely 
 true to his trust, it would be difficult to imagine. A 
 loving husband, a kind father, a loyal and patriotic 
 citizen, his memory will be truly cherished, not 
 only by the members of his family but by all who 
 ever came in contact with him.” 
 
 This sketch should not close without a deserved 
 tribute to his venerable wife, now a widow, who is 
 living at the age of ninety years in her home in 
 New Ulm. She is one of the oldest of Minnesota’s 
 living pioneers, and in spite of the early hardships 
 through which she passed, and her devotion and 
 hard work in behalf of her family, she is still well 
 preserved, has always been a reader and well in- 
 formed on current topics, and an interesting fact is 
 her interest in the present European war. The 
 sturdiness of physical and mental character of these 
 venerated pioneers is well exemplified in the fact 
 that all their nine childen are still living, and they 
 were all at the bedside of the father before he 
 passed away. The oldest of the children is Fred 
 W. Alvvin, who was born in the prairie schooner 
 near New Ulm on July 4, 1855. His birth occurred 
 only a few days after the arrival of the family in 
 Minnesota, and he has the distinction of having 
 been the first white male child born in Brown 
 County. The rest of the children are as follows, 
 born in the order given: Herman J., Adolph A., 
 
 Rudolph E., Emil G., Albert J., Edward L., Wil- 
 liam G., and Elwina M., now Mrs. Herman 
 Breitkrentz. 
 
 All the children were born at New Ulm. The 
 eight sons, obeying the last request of their father, 
 bore his body to its final resting place. 
 
 Dennis A. Foley. For a young man who came 
 to America and began life as a common laborer, 
 Dennis A. Foley has reached a position of most 
 satisfying accomplishment and is now well known 
 as a contractor, banker and general business man at 
 Aitkin. 
 
 Dennis A. Foley was born May 5, 1876, in County 
 Kerry, Ireland, a son of Timothy and Johanna 
 (O’Connor) Foley. His father was a farmer. The 
 son was educated in Ireland, and in 1893, at the age 
 of seventeen, came to America, and utilized his 
 Irish intelligence and strength as a common laborer 
 for some time. He became a master of details, was 
 thrifty and showed ability to carry out undertakings 
 on his own responsibility, and finally began inde- 
 pendent work as a contractor in 1905. Mr. Foley 
 has been a resident of Aitkin since 1908, and is now 
 president of the D. A. Foley & Company, a cor- 
 poration which has done a great deal of work in the 
 ditching and reclamation of lands in Northern Min- 
 nesota. Nearly all his work is now done in that 
 line. In less than ten years Mr. Foley through his 
 company organization has constructed about 425 miles 
 of reclamation ditching in Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Foley is a'so vice president of the Farmers & 
 Merchants State Bank of Aitkin. He is affiliated 
 with the Knights of Columbus, and is a man very 
 fond of travel, and has a large following and many 
 close friendships with the best people of Aitkin 
 County. 
 
 John B. Lemire. In the office of county auditor 
 of Aitkin County, John B. Lemire has for six years, 
 through three terms, performed his duties with the 
 highest efficiency and a most creditable sense of 
 responsibility for the public welfare. Mr. Lemire 
 is one of the progressive young men in politics in 
 Minnesota, and prior to taking up the duties of his 
 present office was a successful teacher and also has 
 banking experience. 
 
 John B. Lemire was born at Stillwater, Minnesota, 
 May 7, 1880, son of Benjamin and Eleanor (Papin) 
 Lemire. His father was a lumberman. Mr. Lemire 
 was educated in the public schools and in St. John’s 
 University, graduating in 1904. His home has been 
 in Aitkin since 1887. Five years of his early life 
 were spent as a teacher, and for three years he was 
 assistant cashier of the Aitkin County State Bank. 
 In 1908 the citizens of Aitkin County chose him for 
 the office of auditor, and repeated this manifestation 
 of confidence in his work by re-electing him to the 
 same office in 1910 and 1912. 
 
 Mr. Lemire is affiliated with the Knights of Col- 
 umbus and the Fraternal Order of Eagles, and with 
 his family is a member of St. James Catholic Church 
 at Aitkin. On November 6, 1906, he married Diana 
 LaFreniere, who was of a Canadian family. Their 
 four children are Eleanor R., Clement B., John B., 
 Jr., and Cecilia L. 
 
 Edwin N. Newhouse. One of the young business 
 men of Spring Grove and a representative of one of 
 the old families was chosen by the people of Houston 
 County in 1914 for the office of county auditor. Ed- 
 win N. Newhouse is one of the most popular young 
 citizens in the county, and has been active in the 
 republican party since reaching his majority. He 
 was an unsuccessful candidate for the same office in 
 1912. In 1914 he defeated Mr. Burns, who had 
 occupied the place of auditor for the last eight 
 years. Mr. Newhouse assumed the duties of office 
 in January, 1915. 
 
 Edwin N. Newhouse was born in Caledonia, Min- 
 nesota, October 11, 1886, a son of N. T. and Anna 
 (Rosaaen) Newhouse, and a grandson of Tollef 
 Newhouse, who came from Norway to the United 
 States in 1853 and became one of the solid pioneers 
 of Houston County, where he spent the rest of his 
 life. N. T. Newhouse was born in Houston County 
 in 1861, and his wife was born there in 1866, and 
 they grew up, married and have been residents of 
 this locality to the present time. For the past 
 twenty-eight years N. T. Newhouse has been in the 
 mercantile business at Spring Grove, is one of the 
 older merchants of the county, and has developed 
 a fine paying business. He takes an active part in 
 the Lutheran Church and is a republican in politics. 
 He and his wife became the parents of nine children, 
 eight of whom are living, the present auditor being 
 the oldest. 
 
 County Auditor Newhouse has spent nearly all 
 his days in Spring Grove, where he Was graduated 
 from the high school in 1903, and after taking a 
 course in the Wisconsin Business College at La- 
 Crosse began assisting his father and has since been 
 connected with the business which is one of the 
 chief landmarks in Spring Grove. 
 
 Hon. James T. Elwell is easily one of the most 
 prominent figures in Minnesota’s public life today. 
 While he has been a successful business man since 
 youth the characteristic which has been most import- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1623 
 
 ant in his public life has been his constant readiness 
 to leave his own interests and work heart and soul 
 for something he thought Minneapolis or Minnesota 
 ought to have. His public spirit is active, not 
 passive. That the value of his services will be known 
 and appreciated more in the future than at the pres- 
 ent time is a thought that has been expressed in 
 varying forms frequently within the last few months, 
 and among Minneapolis’ forceful figures at the pres- 
 ent time it is doubtful if any of his contemporaries 
 have done so much to enrich the community in those 
 elements which make for civic wholesomeness and 
 material prosperity as Mr. Elwell. 
 
 James T. Elwell was born on a farm in Ramsey 
 County, near the Hennepin County line, July 2, 1855. 
 His early life was spent in Washington County, 
 where he attended a district school, and for a time 
 was a student in Carleton College. The oldest of 
 eight children, he early showed the independence 
 and enterprising spirit of a true son of Minnesota 
 and launched himself on an independent business 
 career when not more than seventeen years of age. 
 At that time he invented what was known as the 
 Minneapolis Spring Bed, and soon began manu- 
 facturing it in Minneapolis. That invention and 
 business constituted the nucleus of the present large 
 Minneapolis furniture company owned by George 
 H. Elwell, a brother of Senator Elwell, and also of 
 the Minneapolis Bedding Company, of which C. M. 
 Way is at the head. From his first venture into 
 business life Mr. Elwell has never shown any tend- 
 ency to rest on the honor of past accomplishments, 
 and' has found and utilized almost countless oppor- 
 tunities to make himself useful both in business and 
 in citizenship. He has taken a large view of the fu- 
 ture of his home city and state, and it was his confi- 
 dence and faith in the continued development of 
 Minneapolis as a city that opened the way for his 
 most conspicuous business successes. Many years 
 ago Senator Elwell began investing in lands and 
 city real estate, and in 1882 laid out the first Elwell’s 
 Addition to Minneapolis. His faith in the develop- 
 ment of the city was shown by the immediate erec- 
 tion of fifty-five homes, and the first addition was 
 followed soon afterward by Elwell’s Second, El- 
 well’s Third and Elwell & Higgins Addition. These 
 additions are in the beautiful University District of 
 Minneapolis, and among the many ways in which 
 Senator Elwell has sought to improve the district, 
 mention should be made of the planting of hundreds 
 of elm trees at the time the additions were, laid out, 
 and these handsome trees now line all the streets 
 and avenues, and almost as much as anything else 
 have added to the beauty and attractiveness of the 
 district. 
 
 Senator Elwell has also been prominent in the 
 development of the rural districts. In 1886 he ac- 
 quired 57,200 acres of land in Eastern Anoka County, 
 the greater portion of the lands being meadows and 
 requiring drainage before they could be profitably 
 used. Instead of allowing his land to wait for the 
 tardy progress of public improvement, Senator El- 
 well showed his initiative and enterprise by the con- 
 struction of o-ver 200 miles of ditches on his own 
 and adjoining properties, and at his own expense. 
 In this way thousands of acres of land were re- 
 claimed for farming purposes, and his example was 
 not only a good investment so far as his own returns 
 were concerned, but proved an inspiration to other 
 land owners in the same part of the state. 
 
 Vol. Ill— 2 3 
 
 At the present time one of the best laws on the 
 statute books of Minnesota is the Elwell Road Law. 
 This is a product of long and careful study and 
 experience on the part of Senator Elwell. Many 
 years ago he perceived the economic advantage of 
 good country highways for farming communities, 
 and in this, as in the improvement of his lands by 
 drainage, he showed himself no theorist, but a prac- 
 tical man willing to back up his judgment by invest- 
 ing heavily in the construction of highways. He has 
 a penchant for straight roads as well as good roads, 
 and some years, ago constructed the first air-line 
 wagon road in this portion of the state, connecting 
 his two large stock farms in Anoka County. This 
 highway is eight miles long and was constructed at 
 a cost of a thousand dollars a mile. During his 
 membership in the Legislature in 1899 Senator El- 
 well was one of the leaders in the good roads move- 
 ment as well as in legislation for the general welfare 
 of the farming community and in behalf of the 
 stock interests of the state. He was the author 
 of the Elwell Road Law, the provisions of which 
 enable country districts to undertake the construction 
 of improved highways at a cost which will not 
 prove burdensome upon the property owners. 
 
 According to the law, the state bears one half the 
 cost of construction, the county one-fourth, while 
 the remaining fourth falls upon the property owners 
 directly benefited by such improvement. The as- 
 sessments for road improvements are so graduated 
 that the heaviest cost falls upon land directly ad- 
 jacent to the highway and which may extend back 
 a distance of from two to three miles, but the aver- 
 age expense over the entire three miles district 
 amounts to only one cent an acre per year while the 
 total cost of the road is $1,500 a mile, payable one- 
 tenth each year, with option to pay at any time. 
 Senator Elwell is also the author of the popular 
 Inside Elwell Road Law for the improvement of all 
 arterial streets, highways, parks and parkways, and 
 under its provision hundreds of thousands of dollars 
 worth of improvements in Minneapolis are now 
 being made. 
 
 During the last eight years no one has worked 
 with greater effectiveness and earnestness for the 
 interests of the University of Minnesota than Sen- 
 ator Elwell. Long a resident of the university dis- 
 trict, he was elected to the state senate from the 
 thirty-ninth district in the fall of 1906. Since that 
 time he has been practically in charge of all uni- 
 versity bills and measures considered in the senate. 
 Most noteworthy among his acts was the securing 
 of the appropriation of $800,000 for the Greater 
 University campus, and his colleagues in the 
 senate credit him with the leadership in this im- 
 portant measure which is of so great current and 
 future value to the university. 
 
 Senator Elwell served as the first president of the 
 St. Anthony Commercial Club, which is the second 
 largest club in membership in Minneapolis today. 
 His unlimited faith in the City of Minneapolis has 
 been shown in many ways. He has constructed a 
 number of factories, and these industries furnish 
 employment to hundreds of men. He is con- 
 vinced that the commercial if not the municipal 
 union of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and 
 St. Paul must be accomplished at no distant date. 
 His election to the office of state senator in 1905, 
 with term beginning in January, 1906, has given the 
 city and state eight years of continuous service as 
 a legislator, and his second term expires in January, 
 
1624 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1915. While in the senate he served as a mem- 
 ber of the sub-committee of finance, and this com- 
 mittee has charge of appropriations involving mil- 
 lions of dollars. Senator Elwell is a member of the 
 Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Association, and 
 on the highway committee of that body, and is a 
 member of the Minneapolis Real Estate Board. He 
 is a member of the Native Sons of Minnesota, 
 belongs to the Hennepin County Territorial Pioneer 
 Association, with membership on the executive com- 
 mittee, is a member of the Minneapolis Athletic Club, 
 a trustee of Carleton College, and he and his family 
 are members of the Como Avenue Congregational 
 Church. 
 
 Early in 1914 Senator Elwell filed as a candi- 
 date for the republican nomination for the office 
 of governor. He was one of the four republi- 
 cans who agreed to submit their candidacy for en- 
 dorsement by a conference of delegates all over the 
 state. Senator Elwell’s statement preceding the con- 
 ference is one that should be inserted in this article: 
 “Believing in the sincerity and patriotic purpose of 
 the citizens who are to meet in this conference, and 
 with full confidence in the wisdom of their delibera- 
 tions, and desirous to aid the conference in the sin- 
 cere and orderly expression of its best wisdom, I 
 agree to abide by its conclusions when so expressed. 
 I am disposed to go before the conference on Thurs- 
 day on my well known record on good roads, labor 
 legislation, county option, woman's suffrage, uni- 
 versity legislation, economy of administration, the 
 development of the unproductive portions of the 
 state and other progressive measures.” 
 
 While Senator Elwell has been prominent in many 
 ways as a contributor to the material and civic 
 prosperity of his city and state, a fact that deserves 
 almost equal notice is that he is father of a large, 
 useful and happy family. Senator Elwell was mar- 
 ried June 28, 1882, to Miss Lizzie E. Alden. They 
 have a family of nine children, five sons and four 
 daughters. James T., Jr.', the eldest of the children, 
 lives on a farm at Forest Lake in Anoka County, and 
 is married and has three children. Margaret A., who 
 is the wife of George E. Cook, has a daughter. 
 Edwin S. is married and has established the Elwell 
 Dairy Company, which supplies pure milk to Min- 
 neapolis. The other children are Alden W., who is 
 married and has two children ; and Elizabeth, Ruth, 
 Mary Isabelle, Lawrence Robert, and Watson 
 Rickord. Margaret, Edwin, Alden, Elizabeth and 
 Ruth are graduates of the university, and Mary is 
 a graduate of Carleton College, while Lawrence and 
 Watson are of high school age. 
 
 Alphonse E. Sohmee, M. D. While in the field 
 of surgery Minnesota has no cause to fear compari- 
 son with any state in the Union, there are a number 
 of men who share in and have chiefly contributed 
 to this worthy distinction. In point of attainments, 
 individual skill, and professional associations and 
 training, Dr. Alphonse Sohmer of Mankato stands 
 easily in the front rank of Minnesota surgeons. 
 
 Doctor Sohmer was born in New York City, June 
 2, 1879, and is of German parentage, the family hav- 
 ing been prominent and enjoying many high social 
 connections in that city. The godmother of Doctor 
 Sohmer, was Mrs. Herman Ridder, and his god- 
 father was Judge Edward Amend, a supreme judge 
 of the State of New York. Doctor Sohmer is a 
 son of Conrad and Theresa (Schroepfer) Sohmer. 
 His father was born in Germany in 1845 and died 
 in 1912. He came to the United States in 1864, and 
 
 soon afterwards joined the regular United States 
 army, in which he saw three years of service. His 
 discharge was dated February 7, 1870, and across 
 the face of it his captain wrote: “Good, excellent 
 and reliable man.” He was in the artillery branch 
 of the United States army. A cabinet maker by 
 trade, he spent many years in the employ of the 
 Hazelton Brothers of New York City, piano manu- 
 facturers, and rose to the position of foreman in the 
 plant. He and his wife were members of the 
 Catholic Church, and he belonged to the Catholic 
 Benevolent Legion, and in politics was independent. 
 His wife, Theresa Schroepfer, was born in New 
 York City in 1848 and is still living. They were 
 married in 1872. Her father was Valentine Schroep- 
 fer, who was born in Germany and came when a 
 young man to New York City and spent the rest 
 of his life as a teacher. Dr. Sohmer was one of a 
 family of nine children, and the only other one now 
 living is Aloys, piano tuner at Mankato. 
 
 Doctor Sohmer attended the parochial schools of 
 New York until thirteen years of age, and then 
 entered St. John’s College at Brooklyn, taking the 
 four years’ course. After his college training he 
 entered the Long Island Hospital College at Brook- 
 lyn, and remained until graduating medical doctor 
 in 1899. He then spent two years as an interne in 
 the German Hospital of New York City. As a stu- 
 dent and as assistant in clinical work he had the 
 benefit of the instruction and association with a 
 number of eminent men in the medical profession, 
 two in particular having been Dr. Abraham Jacobi 
 and Dr. Willy Meyer, both of whom are among 
 America’s foremost physicians and surgeons. Doc- 
 tor Sohmer spent eleven years in his profession in 
 New York City, and in 1910 came to Mankato, and 
 has since made a specialty of surgery; his work is 
 now practically all done either in the hospitals or 
 in special consultation. His growing practice has 
 caused him to employ the services of an assistant. 
 
 Doctor Sohmer is a member of the Catholic 
 Church, is affiliated with Mankato Lodge No. 225, 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, with the 
 Knights of Columbus, with the Catholic Order of 
 Foresters, the Ancient Order of LInited Workmen. 
 In politics he is independent. He is an active mem- 
 ber and at this writing president of the County 
 Medical Society, and also a member of the Southern 
 Minnesota and the Minnesota State Medical Society, 
 and the American Medical Association, surgeon for 
 the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Company. 
 
 Harry L. Robinson. Secretary and treasurer, one 
 of the directors and one of the largest stockholders 
 in the Gamble-Robinson Company, and also officially 
 identified with its many associated houses, Harry 
 Leigh Robinson was born February 22, 1869, at 
 Leon in Monroe County, Wisconsin. 
 
 His parents were Henry J. and Cynthia E. (Burr) 
 Robinson. On the Robinson side the grandparents, 
 were English people who came to this country about 
 1830. The genealogical record of the Burr family is 
 traced back to the year 1630 in the American col- 
 onies, and from that back to the eleventh century 
 in England. The Burrs were Connecticut colonists, 
 and among the notable members of the family was 
 one of the founders of Princeton College in New 
 Jersey and another the vice president of the United 
 States. Mrs. Cynthia E. Robinson is still living and 
 has her home with her son, Harry L., at Minneapolis. 
 Henry J. Robinson was born in Kent County, Can- 
 ada West, and died at Owatonna, Minnesota, Jan- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1625 
 
 uary 4, 1885, at the age of forty-one years, five 
 months, six days. In early manhood he came to 
 America and on March 28, 1865, enlisted in the 
 Fifty-second Wisconsin Infantry and served until 
 receiving his honorable discharge on July 28th of 
 the same year. He was one of the charter members 
 of James A. Goodwin post, G. A. R., and was buried 
 by his comrades of that post in Owatonna. 
 
 Harry Leigh Robinson grew up in Owatonna, at- 
 tended the public schools of that city and graduated 
 from the high school in the class of 1887. His early 
 business experience soon led him into the produce 
 and grocery business, and when he was still a young 
 man he became one of the principals in the estab- 
 lishment of the Gamble-Robinson Commission Com- 
 pany at Minneapolis in 1892. He has since been 
 continuously identified with this organization and 
 is one of the men chiefly responsible for perfecting 
 the systematic operation of the business over such 
 a large territory. The Gamble-Robinson Commis- 
 sion Company was. incorporated in 1903 and in 1912 
 the name changed to the Gamble-Robinson Company. 
 A more complete account of this splendid wholesale 
 organization, easily one of the most notable in the 
 country, will be found on other pages of this publi- 
 cation! In the same place Mr. Robinson’s individual 
 relations as an officer with the various companies are 
 mentioned. 
 
 Mr. Robinson is naturally one of the business 
 leaders of Minneapolis and has been a factor in 
 the Civic and Commerce Association of that city and 
 is at present a director of the traffic division. He is 
 a republican in politics, a member of the Minne- 
 apolis Athletic Club, of the Interlachen Club, the 
 Automobile Club, is one of the trustees of the Park 
 Avenue Congregational Church, and a director of 
 the Hennepin County Sunday School Association. 
 
 On January 26, 1897, at Minneapolis Mr. Robinson 
 was married to Miss Irene A. Allen, daughter of 
 Charles A. and Carrie W. Allen of Minneapolis. 
 To this union have been born three children, all in 
 Minneapolis, named Harold Allen, Harry Leigh, Jr., 
 and Douglas Burr Robinson. 
 
 William A. Beach, M. D. Deference is instinct- 
 ively paid by his fellowmen to the individual whose 
 success has been worthily achieved, who has attained 
 prosperity by honorable methods, who has acquired 
 the highest reputation in his chosen calling through 
 individual merit, and whose prominence in society 
 is not less the result of a life of probity and integrity 
 than of recognized natural gifts. Thus has been 
 achieved the enviable position now occupied by Dr. 
 William A. Beach, of Mankato, one of the city’s 
 prominent physicians and surgeons and a man who 
 has been pre-eminently the architect of his own 
 fortunes. 
 
 Doctor Beach was born at Ionia, Ionia County, 
 Michigan, October 20, 1868, and is a son of Ben- 
 ajah and Clarinda (Weston) Beach. The family js, 
 of English origin and one of the earliest settled in 
 Connecticut, to which colony the founder of the 
 name in America came as early as 1640. The grand- 
 father of William A. Beach, M. D., Artemus H. 
 Beach, who was also the grandfather of Rex Beach, 
 the famous novelist, was born in New York State, 
 and in middle life moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, 
 where he was successfully engaged in business, and 
 where he died. On his mother’s side, Doctor Beach 
 is the grandson of a soldier of the War of 1812, who 
 participated in the battle of Plattsburg, and is also 
 
 a descendant of Lieutenant Preston, a Revolutionary 
 war officer. Benajah Beach, father of Doctor Beach, 
 was born in New York in 1836, and was there mar- 
 ried to Clarinda Weston, who was born in that 
 state in 1834. While they were residing in New 
 York, the Civil war broke out, and Mr. Beach en- 
 listed in the Ninety-first Regiment, New York Heavy 
 Artillery, with which he continued to serve until 
 peace was declared, although the greater part of his 
 service was in detail duty at Baltimore, Maryland. 
 Upon receiving his honorable discharge, Mr. Beach 
 came west to Wisconsin, and subsequently moved to 
 Michigan, being engaged in the milling business in 
 both states, with a full measure of success. He was 
 an excellent business man and so well conducted 
 his large mill at Grand Rapids, Michigan, that in 
 1878 he was able to sell his interests, retire from 
 active participation in business activities, and come 
 to Minnesota, where his late years were spent in the 
 enjoyment of a handsome competence. He died in 
 1897, but Mrs. Beach still survives him. He was a 
 republican in politics and a member of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, to which Mrs. Beach belongs. 
 They were the parents of seven children, of whom 
 four are living: Walter, of Bellingham, Washington, 
 an expert machinist, now living on a ranch ; Ernest, 
 of ■ Mount Hamilton, California, who has been an 
 extensive traveler in this and other countries, hav- 
 ing passed eight years in Alaska, and now the owner 
 of a valuable ranch ; Dr. William A-., of this review ; 
 and Clara, the wife of Mr. McLaskey, manager of 
 the telephone company at Anacortes, Washington. 
 
 William A. Beach was ten years of age when 
 brought to Minnesota by his parents, and here he 
 completed his primary education in the graded 
 schools. He entered the academic department of 
 the University of Minnesota, and was graduated 
 therefrom in 1890, and three years later received 
 his diploma and degree from the medical department 
 of the same institution. While at college he became 
 a charter member of the Delta Upsilon fraternity. 
 Doctor Beach made his advent in Mankato under 
 decidedly unfavorable circumstances, for the great 
 financial panic of 1893 had reached its height, and 
 after a short time he decided to seek his living in 
 other sections. He did not lose faith in the future 
 of the city, however, and four years later returned, 
 with a capital of $60, and opened an office and took 
 up his residence here. He has had no reason to 
 regret the confidence which brought him back to 
 Mankato, for here he has been successful in the 
 acquirement of a large and lucrative professional 
 business of the best kind that can fall to the lot of 
 a physician, and has gained a high standing among 
 his medical brethren. He belongs to the various or- 
 ganizations of his profession, has served three years 
 as a member of the state board of medical exam- 
 iners, was county physician for two years, and at 
 the present time is treasurer of the school board of 
 Mankato. His offices are in the Coughlin & Hickey 
 Building. Naturally, the major portion of his atten- 
 tion is given to his calling, but he is also the owner 
 of a splendidly cultivated farm of 240 acres, which 
 is stocked with fine blooded Holstein cattle and 
 Chester White hogs. Fraternally, Doctor Beach 
 is connected with the Masonic order, the Royal 
 Arcanum and the Knights of the Maccabees. He is 
 a republican in his political views. 
 
 On December 10, 1902, Doctor Beach was married 
 to Mrs. Gertrude (Corp) Hanna, of Mankato, and 
 to this union there have been born two children : 
 
1626 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Helen, who is ten years old; and William, aged five 
 years. 
 
 Arthur Schaub, As an active and successful 
 attorney of Mankato for the past twenty years, 
 Arthur Schaub has occupied a prominent place, both 
 in his profession and in public affairs. His has been 
 a varied and broad experience as a lawyer, and what 
 he has done for his own advancement from the 
 position of a poor boy and the efficient way in 
 which he has served his community is deserving of 
 the highest credit. 
 
 Arthur Schaub was born in Blue Earth County, 
 Minnesota, October 20, 1873, a son of Casimir and 
 Magdeline (Kasper) Schaub. Both parents were 
 born in Germany, were married there, and in 1868 
 came to America and were early settlers on a farm 
 in Blue Earth County. The father acquired two 
 farms in this section of the state. They were 
 members of the Catholic Church, and though a 
 democrat in politics the father was never conspic- 
 uous in affairs, and applied himself quietly to the 
 business of making- a living. Of the eight children, 
 six are living: Mrs. Caroline Wanamaker of Colo- 
 rado; Mrs. Lina Koos of Albert Lea; Frank, a 
 farmer at Trego, Wisconsin; Charles, who is a 
 farmer in Canada ; Mrs. Lena Kauffman of Man- 
 kato; and Arthur. 
 
 Arthur Schaub received his education in the 
 country schools in Blue Earth County, also attended 
 a parochial school at Mankato, and finished his 
 early education in 1891 at Buffalo, New York. Re- 
 turning to Mankato he took up the study of law 
 under C. L. Benedict of Mankato, and was admitted 
 to the bar in 1895. Since that year, for a period of 
 twenty years, he has been rising to success and promi- 
 nence in his profession. He also was in the real 
 estate business for four years, and he recalls that 
 period of his life with regret, since it was the 
 means of losing a large amount of money. 
 
 In 1901 Mr. Schaub married Anna M. Groschaus 
 of Lesueur, Minnesota. Both are members of the 
 Catholic Church, and are people of the highest social 
 standing in Mankato. 
 
 Many people in Minnesota know Mr. Schaub best 
 through his activity in politics and particularly 
 through his service in the office of city attorney, to 
 which he was appointed in April, 1913. In the 
 democratic party he has been assistant chairman of 
 the State Democratic Executive Committee, and was 
 chairman of the County Executive Committee in 
 1898-1900 and again in 1908, and was chairman of the 
 Congressional Committee in 1906. Ever since cast- 
 ing his first vote he has been interested in political 
 affairs. Mr. Schaub is a stockholder and director in 
 the Mankato German Post, and was the first presi- 
 dent of the company publishing that influential 
 journal. 
 
 He deserves particular credit for his efficient 
 handling of the city’s affairs through his office as 
 city attorney. When he took charge of the office 
 the city was in a tangle of financial difficulties. Peo- 
 ple were complaining of the high rate they were 
 paying for gas supplied by the gas company, at $1.50 
 per thousand feet. In two years, operating under a 
 plan suggested and with the advice of Mr. Schaub, 
 the city has reduced its debt considerably, and the 
 bonded debt has been refunded, and instead of 6 per 
 cent the interest rate is now 4 per cent. At the same 
 time a new arrangement has been effected between 
 the gas company and its patrons so that the rate 
 is now only $1.10. 
 
 Jacob Charles Rothenburg, M. D. For twenty- 
 seven years the name of Dr. Jacob Charles Rothen- 
 burg has been identified with the medical profession 
 of Brown County, and during this time his zeal has 
 found an outlet not alone in his chosen and honored 
 vocation, but in enterprises of a business and finan- 
 cial character, and in the performance of important 
 public services. From the time of his arrival in 
 Springfield, in 1887, he has steadily advanced in pub- 
 lic confidence and popularity, in the esteem of the 
 members of his profession, and in the material 
 rewards that accompany such well deserved develop- 
 ment. It is not too much to name him as one of his 
 community’s foremost men. 
 
 Doctor Rothenburg is a product of the East, hav- 
 ing been born in Erie County, New York, in April, 
 i860, a son of Valentine and Paulina (Loefler) 
 Rothenburg. His grandfather, Stephen Rothenburg, 
 was the founder of the family in the United States, 
 coming to this country from Germany in 1835 and 
 settling in Erie County, New York, where the re- 
 maining years of his life were spent in agricultural 
 pursuits. Through steady application and intelligent 
 management of his affairs he became the owner of a 
 valuable property, and was looked up to and es- 
 teemed as one. of his adopted community’s substan- 
 tial citizens. 
 
 Valentine Rothenburg was born at Reinheim, 
 Baden, Germany, in 1827, and was a lad of eight 
 years when brought by his parents to this country, 
 his entire subsequent life being passed within the 
 limits of Erie County, New York. Reared to the 
 pursuits of the soil, in his youth he adopted farming 
 as his life work, but later took up merchandising, 
 and also followed contracting and building with 
 some measure of success. Like his father, he took 
 an active interest in the affairs of his community, 
 assisted in the growth and development of his lo- 
 cality, and was known as an important and stirring 
 factor in civic affairs. He died in Erie County, in 
 1889. Mr. Rothenburg was married to Miss Paulina 
 Loefler, also a native of Germany, born in 1831, and 
 she passed away in Erie County, in 1866. They 
 became the parents of eight children, as follows : 
 Henry, who died at the age of twelve years ; Wil- 
 liam, who engaged in farming at Mount Clemens, 
 Michigan, and died there at the age of thirty years ; 
 John, who is a railroad agent and resides at Loomis, 
 Placer County, California ; David, who is a farmer 
 in the vicinity of Hartly, Kent County, Delaware; 
 Dr. Jacob Charles, of this review; Mary, the widow 
 of John Measer, formerly a farmer, who resides at 
 Williamsville, Erie County, New York; Franklin, 
 who died at the age of eleven years ; and Caroline, , 
 who died at the age of six years. 
 
 After securing his primary training in the public 
 schools of Erie County, New York, Jacob Charles 
 Rothenburg became a student in Clarence Academy, 
 where he took his preparatory course. Succeeding 
 •this he entered the medical department of the Uni- 
 versity of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, where he was 
 duly graduated with the class of 1885, receiving his 
 degree of Doctor of Medicine. Unlike many others, 
 however. Doctor Rothenburg did not give up his 
 professional studies with the attainment of his 
 diploma, but has continued as a close and careful 
 student to the present time, and has taken post- 
 graduate courses in New York in 1896 and 1906. 
 Immediately following his graduation, in June, 1885, 
 Doctor Rothenburg entered upon the practice of his 
 profession in Livingston County, New York, and 
 

 6> 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1627 
 
 made that his field of endeavor until September i, 
 1886, when, feeling that the West offered better 
 opportunities for the young medical man, he started 
 for Minnesota, and December 31st of that year 
 opened an office at New Ulm, Brown County. There 
 he remained about nine months, coming, October 
 1, 1887, to Springfield, where he has since continued 
 to carry on a general medical and surgical practice. 
 At this time he is a member of the firm of Rothen- 
 burg and Shrader, his partner being Dr. J. S. 
 Shrader, a sketch of whose career will be found on 
 another page of this work, and they maintain well- 
 appointed offices in the Lehrer-Ross Building. 
 
 Doctor Rothenburg’s practice has been broad and 
 general in its range, for he has not tied himself 
 down to specializing in any one confined line. He 
 holds membership in the Brown County Medical 
 Society, the Redwood County Medical Society, the 
 Minnesota State Medical Society and the American 
 Medical Association, in each of which he has high 
 standing among his fellow members. He has kept 
 fully abreast of the marvelous advancements being 
 constantly made in the profession, and his undoubted 
 skill, talent and knowledge have attracted to him 
 a practice of the most desirable kind. 
 
 Doctor Rothenburg has been more than ordinarily 
 successful in a financial way, and has identified him- 
 self with a number of enterprises, being at this time 
 vice president of the Springfield State Bank. He 
 is prominent fraternally, as past master of Zenith 
 Lodge No. 20, Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons, 
 and past high priest of McKinley Chapter No. 69, 
 Royal Arch Masons, and is a member of De Molay 
 Commandery, Knights Templars, Minneapolis Con- 
 sistory No. 2, and Zurah Temple, Ancient Order 
 Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, and a thirty-second 
 degree Scottish Rite Mason. He belongs also to 
 Springfield Lodge No. 102, Ancient Order of United 
 Workmen. A stalwart republican in his political 
 views, he has, at various times, been called upon to 
 fill offices of local importance, and has served as 
 coroner for eight years, as school director for six- 
 teen years, and as health officer for a long period, a 
 position which he holds at present. Every beneficial 
 and progressive movement has his support and co- 
 operation, and his activities have done much to 
 advance the welfare of his adopted place. 
 
 Doctor Rothenburg was united in marriage at New 
 Ulm, Minnesota, in 1899, to Miss Clara D. Doehne, 
 daughter of George Doehne, who for many years 
 was a miller of New Ulm, but is now living retired 
 at that place. To this union there have been born 
 three children, namely: Robert, Norman and Mar- 
 
 ion, all of whom are attending the public schools 
 of Springfield. 
 
 Judge George W. Holland. During his active 
 career as a lawyer, banker, judge and public spirited 
 citizen, no resident of Brainerd enjoyed a higher 
 position in the esteem of that city than the late 
 Judge George W. Holland. He was a man of many 
 activities and interests, had the clear understanding 
 of the well educated lawyer, possessed the sterling 
 character of a just and true judge, and left his 
 impress for good on many affairs with which he had 
 been identified. 
 
 George W. Holland was born at Westville, New 
 York, March 17, 1843. He was liberally educated, 
 given a thorough training for the law, and arrived 
 at Brainerd October 9, 1871, opening his law office 
 and beginning the career which in a short time 
 
 brought him the substantial honors of his profession. 
 He served several terms as county attorney, and for 
 twelve years occupied the bench as judge of his 
 circuit. In the course of his career many appoint- 
 ments to places of trust and responsibility came to 
 him, usually at the hands of the governors of the 
 state. 
 
 Judge Holland was one of the organizers of the 
 First National Bank of Brainerd, and served as its 
 vice president. His financial interests extended to 
 real estate, and he was one of the early developers 
 of mining properties, and through his investments 
 in that field acquired a substantial fortune. 
 
 His position in the community was well indicated 
 by the respect paid to his memory at the time of 
 his death, when all business houses were closed on 
 the day of his funeral. Judge Holland's career of 
 usefulness came to a tragic end. While cleaning a 
 revolver he accidentally shot himself. He was active 
 in Masonry and a member of Ascalon Commandery, 
 No. 16, of Brainerd. Judge Holland's will was 
 unique, in that he left every church in Brainerd the 
 ■ sum of $1,000, and there were more than forty 
 bequests, ranging from $200 to $1,000 each, to old 
 friends and associates. Most of them were bequests 
 of $1,000 each, and they were paid to railway men, 
 doctors, newspaper men, and all with whom he had 
 been actively associated in business and private life. 
 
 George D. LaBar. One of the oldest and sound- 
 est banking institutions in central Minnesota is the 
 First National Bank of Brainerd. Its capital stock 
 has always been $50,000, and at the present it has a 
 surplus of $50,000 with undivided profits of $17,000. 
 Its prosperity is reflected in some of the figures 
 taken from a report of its condition made in Sep- 
 tember, 1914. At that time the total resources ag- 
 gregated $1,286,318.58. This is one of the compara- 
 tively few banks outside the larger cities in Minne- 
 sota that have deposits of more than $1,000,000. Its 
 deposits at the last report were $1,116,428.46. The 
 First National Bank was organized by William Fer- 
 ris and the late Judge G. W. Holland, and Mr. Hol- 
 land was its cashier for a number of years. At the 
 present time the bank occupies a modern building 
 at the corner of Front and Sixth streets, with well 
 equipped banking rooms below and offices above. 
 The chief officers at the present time are: G. D. La- 
 Bar, president ; F. A. Farrar, vice president ; and 
 R. B. Withington, cashier. 
 
 George Daniel LaBar, the president has been 
 identified with this bank for more than thirty years, 
 having begun as a boy in a clerical position and 
 having advanced himself on the merit of efficiency 
 to the executive direction. He is a banker of broad 
 experience, has a large acquaintance with men in 
 the banking- world, and has a thorough insight into 
 all the details of the business. He was born in Ber- 
 lin, Wisconsin. September 4, 1866, a son of Denison 
 D. and Marv C. (Holland) LaBar. His father was 
 a soldier in the Union army, and later died from dis- 
 ease contracted while in the service. George D. La- 
 Bar was educated in the public schools, and for one 
 year worked as a telegraph operator with the Chi- 
 cago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. Coming to 
 Brainerd, to become associated with his uncle, the 
 late George W. Holland, he entered the First Na- 
 tional Bank as a clerk on January 13, 1883, and was 
 subsequently advanced to assistant cashier, cashier, 
 vice president, and since September, 1903, has held 
 the post of president. 
 
1628 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Mr. LaBar is also president and treasurer of The 
 G. W. Holland Company, vice president of the 
 Lrainerd Mining Company, president of the Minne- 
 sota Park Region Land Company, secretary of the 
 Rabbit Lake Mining Company, and secretary of the 
 Park Opera House Association. He is a member 
 and was one of the organizers of the Brainerd 
 Chamber of Commerce. With all his varied busi- 
 ness relations he has been quite active in local af- 
 fairs, and served seven years as city treasurer of 
 Brainerd and for two terms has been a member of 
 the Board of Education, of which board he is still 
 a member and vice president, his incumbency thereon 
 covering a period of six and a half years. Frater- 
 nally he is a member of the Blue Lodge, Chapter and 
 Commandery of the Masonic fraternity and has 
 ascended to the thirty-second degree of Scottish 
 Rite Masonry, is a Shriner, and is also a member 
 of the Modern Woodmen of America. 
 
 On October 3, 1900, occurred the marriage of Mr. 
 LaBar to Mayme Mitchell, of Brainerd. 
 
 John Strickler Shrader, M. D. When, in 1901, 
 the name of John Strickler Shrader was added to the 
 citizenship of Springfield, this thriving Brown 
 County city secured the services of a man who 
 possessed the ability, the ambition and the experi- 
 ence to make himself a factor of large professional 
 usefulness. He had already had sixteen years of 
 practice in various parts of the country, had sup- 
 plemented a good primary training by great study 
 and observation in this and other countries, and was 
 moreover a man of tactful and sympathetic manner, 
 with a personality which inspired instant confidence 
 in his ability. During his residence at Springfield 
 a gratifying patronage has grown up about him, and 
 a large following has responded to his practical 
 demonstration of skill and resource in the sciences 
 of medicine and surgery, and at the same time he 
 has taken an active and useful part in the affairs 
 which govern the daily life of the community and 
 its people. 
 
 Like many others who have adopted Minnesota 
 as their home and field of endeavor, Doctor Shrader 
 is a son of the Empire State. He was born in 
 Niagara County, New York, in March, 1858, his 
 parents being Philip and Fannie (Strickler) Shrader, 
 while his grandfather was Christian Shrader, who 
 left his native home in the Fatherland in 1833 and 
 became the progenitor of the family in the United 
 States. Christian Shrader was a shoemaker by trade, 
 an honest, industrious workman who made a good 
 and comfortable home for his family and lived to 
 advanced years, dying in Erie County, New York. 
 The. grandmother, whom he married in Germany, 
 bore the maiden name of Catherine Schafer, and 
 died in Erie County in i860, at the age of sixty 
 years. 
 
 Philip Shrader was born at Wiltsburg, Germany, 
 in 1830, and was an infant in arms when brought 
 to the United States by his parents. He grew up 
 to know the value of thrift and industry, received 
 an ordinary education in the public schools, and 
 when he embarked upon his career chose the voca- 
 tion of agriculturist, in which field he was engaged 
 throughout the entire period of his active life. In 
 1854 he was married, in Erie County, New York, 
 to Miss Fannie Strickler, who was a native of New 
 York, born in 1832, and four years after their 
 marriage they removed to Niagara County, New 
 York, where they resided on a farm for some ten 
 
 years. In 1868 they returned to Erie County, where 
 the mother died during the same year, while the 
 father survived her for many years, passing away 
 at Clarence, New York, in 1903. He was a man 
 of energy and enterprise, and through earnest effort 
 accumulated a competency. The children born to 
 Philip and Fannie (Strickler) Shrader were as 
 follows: Lena, who became the wife of John C. 
 Seyfang, and resides on a farm in Erie County, 
 New York; Dr. John Strickler, of this notice; 
 Hattie, deceased, who was the wife of Lewis Pleb- 
 ding, an agriculturist of New York; and Edwin, a 
 graduate of Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, 
 who is engaged in the practice of medicine and 
 surgery at Watertown, South Dakota. 
 
 After completing the course of study provided 
 in the curriculum of the public schools of Niagara 
 and Erie counties, New York, John S. Shrader be- 
 came a student in Clarence (New York) Academy, 
 following his graduation from which he went to the 
 University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. There he 
 took a regular course in medicine, and in 1885 was 
 graduated with the class of that year and given 
 the degree of doctor of medicine. At that time 
 Doctor Shrader opened an office at Hadley, Michi- 
 gan, and entered upon the practice of his calling, 
 but after six months decided that he might find a 
 fairer field in Minnesota, and accordingly moved to 
 Delano, Wright County, where he was engaged in 
 practice from February 26, 1886, until July 11, 1901. 
 On the latter date he came to Springfield, where 
 he at once formed a partnership with Dr. J. C. 
 Rothenburg, who had been a classmate at the Uni- 
 versity of Michigan, and a review of whose career 
 will be found in this work. They have well-equipped 
 offices in the Lehrer-Ross Building. 
 
 Doctor Shrader is engaged in a general medical 
 and surgical practice, and has been successful in 
 attracting to himself a liberal professional business. 
 By many of the longest established and most con- 
 servative families his skill, resource and obliging 
 temperament have come to be regarded as indis- 
 pensable. He has the zeal which recognizes no 
 limitations in his calling, and much of his time 
 has been spent in research and investigation of a 
 personal character. In the search for clearer vision 
 and larger capacity for usefulness, in 1901 he took 
 post-graduate courses at Vienna, Austria, at Berlin, 
 Germany, at Paris, France, and at London, England. 
 Doctor Shrader may be said to represent an entirely 
 different kind of medical science from that practiced 
 several decades ago, his progressive mind merci- 
 lessly rejecting dogmas whose only claim is their 
 antiquity. He holds membership in the Brown 
 County Medical Society, the Minnesota State Medi- 
 cal Society and the American Medical Association, 
 and stands high in the esteem of his fellow-practi- 
 tioners. His business connections at Springfield 
 include holdings in the Springfield State Bank. 
 Doctor Shrader is well known fraternally, belonging 
 to Zenith Lodge No. 20, A. F. & A. M., of which 
 he is past master; McKinley Chapter No. 69, R. A. 
 M., of which he is high priest; De Molay Com- 
 mandery, K. T. ; Minneapolis Consistory No. 2, and 
 Zurah Temple A. A. O. N. M. S., and being a 
 thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason. He has 
 formed a wide acquaintance since coming to Spring- 
 field, and in it claims many warm friends. 
 
 Doctor Shrader was married in t888, at Minne- 
 apolis, to Miss Charlotte MacDonald, daughter of 
 John MacDonald, now deceased, who was a Minne- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1629 
 
 apolis contractor. Three children have been born 
 to this union : Elizabeth, who is the wife of Dr. 
 
 T. A. Peppard, a practicing physician of Minneapolis ; 
 Donald, who died in childhood ; and Dorothy, who 
 is attending the graded schools. 
 
 William H. Wilcox. One of the old established 
 plants of Mankato, which has grown steadily since 
 its founding here, is that of the Mankato Manu- 
 facturing Company, the present directing head of 
 which is William H. Wilcox. Mr. Wilcox’s career 
 furnishes an illustration of the rewards to be gained 
 through industry and persistent effort, as he entered 
 the employ of his present firm in a humble capacity 
 and steadily worked his way to the positions of 
 president and general manager. 
 
 William H. Wilcox was born in Buckfastleigh, near 
 Plymouth, England, February 12, 1856, and is a son 
 of William and Lavinia (Prowse) Wilcox, both 
 born in the same community. His paternal grand- 
 father was William Wilcox, who passed his entire 
 life in England, where he was engaged in business 
 as a tanner, and the grandfather on the maternal 
 side was John Prowse, also of England. William 
 Wilcox, the father of William H., was educated 
 in his home community, and was there married in 
 1853. Four years later he came to the United States 
 alone and secured the means with which to return 
 to England for his family, which he did during the 
 Civil war, returning to America in 1867 and locating 
 in Canada. There he passed the balance of his life as 
 a wool sorter, and through industry and good 
 management succeeded in the accumulation of a 
 modest competency. He died in 1910, while Mrs. 
 Wilcox still survives at the age of eighty-one years. 
 They were the parents of four children, namely: 
 George, who is a machinist of Sherbrooke, Canada; 
 William H., of this notice; John W., who is secre- 
 tary of the Mankato Manufacturing Company; and 
 Mary, who is the wife of William Cote, a locomo- 
 tive engineer on the Boston & Maine Railway, 
 residing in Vermont. The parents were members 
 of the Church of England, and the children were 
 reared in that faith. 
 
 William H. Wilcox was educated in the public 
 schools of Sherbrooke, Canada, and there learned 
 the trade of machinist, which he followed in the 
 Dominion for a number of years. Mr. Wilcox came 
 to Mankato, Minnesota, in 1880, and accepted a 
 position with the Mankato Manufacturing Company, 
 a concern which had been founded here in 1873. 
 His ability, industry and faithfulness to duty won 
 him promotion, and gradually he obtained an interest 
 in the business, which was incorporated in 1873, 
 with a capital of $30,000. The present officers of 
 the company are : William H. Wilcox, president 
 
 and general manager; John W. Wilcox, secretary; 
 and Fred Prowse, treasurer. Each of these gentle- 
 men is a man of substantiality and worth in the 
 business circles of Mankato, and any enterprise with 
 which their names are connected is rated high in 
 commercial centers. The Mankato Manufacturing 
 Company employs twenty-five skilled mechanics and 
 manufactures creamery engines and boilers, roller 
 and feed mills and general machinery of all kinds, 
 and in the workshop all kinds of repair work is 
 done, including plow work, gas welding, etc. The 
 factory is a brick structure, the machine shop being 
 35 by 100 feet, the foundry 45 by 60 feet and the 
 blacksmith shop 30 by 60 feet. 
 
 Mr. Wilcox was married, in 1878, to Miss Mary 
 
 George, of Canada, who died during the same year 
 without issue. In 1882 Mr. Wilcox was again 
 married, his wife being Charlotte George, the sister 
 of his first wife. Three children have been born to 
 this union : Ethel, who resides with her parents ; 
 
 George, who is a bookkeeper in the automobile works 
 at Mankato; and Ray, who is a musician and plays 
 in theater orchestras. 
 
 Mrs. Wilcox is a member of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church. Mr. Wilcox has shown some interest 
 in fraternal matters, having passed through the 
 chairs of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, 
 and being a member of the Modern Woodmen of 
 America. A republican in politics, he has taken a 
 more or less active part in civic affairs, and has 
 served very acceptably as alderman of Mankato for 
 two years. At all times he has shown himself a 
 good and public-spirited citizen, worthy of the regard 
 and esteem in which he is almost universally held. 
 
 Alois M. Schaefer. The cashier of the Peoples 
 State Bank of Jordan is one of the native sons of 
 that village, and is a keen and aggressive young 
 business man who has won the confidence of all 
 people with whom he has relations, is a thorough 
 banker, and stands in the front rank of local citizen- 
 ship. 
 
 Alois M. Schaefer was born in Jordan, Minnesota, 
 November 19, 1877, a son of John and Anna Maria 
 ( Wermerskirchen) Schaefer. Both parents were 
 natives of Germany. The father was born in 1835 
 and died in 1890, and his mother was born in 1840 
 and died in 1895. The father located at Jordan, 
 Minnesota, in 1873, and was married there. By 
 occupation he was a merchant, and a man who had 
 risen from a position of comparative poverty to a 
 commendable degree of prosperity. He and his wife 
 were both members of the Catholic Church, and in 
 politics he was a democrat, though he paid little 
 attention to politics and gave his efforts almost 
 undividedly to his business affairs. Of the eight 
 children six are living: John, who runs a summer 
 
 resort at Rice Lake; Alois M. ; Anna, wife of A. 
 Ricklick, a railway conductor with headquarters at 
 Fort Dodge, Iowa; Phillip M„ a salesman for a 
 St. Paul wholesale house; Tillie, wife of A. M. 
 Seifert, of St. Paul; and Mamie, unmarried, and 
 living in St. Paul. 
 
 Alois M. Schaefer received his early education 
 in the Jordan schools and was graduated in 1894 
 from the St. Francis College at Quincy, Illinois. 
 Part of his early experience was clerking in a store 
 for four years, and in 1903, on the organization of 
 the Peoples State Bank of Jordan, he accepted the 
 position of cashier and has had a large share of the 
 executive and administrative responsibilities of that 
 institution from the beginning. In addition to his 
 banking he also handles insurance. 
 
 The Peoples State Bank has a capitalization of 
 $23,000, with surplus, of $17,000, and its deposits 
 range at about $275,000. It is one of the solid 
 institutions of Scott County, and Mr. Schaefer 
 probably deserves as much credit as any other in- 
 dividual for its continued prosperity. 
 
 On October 15, 1902, Mr. Schaefer married Miss 
 Lucy Smith, daughter of George C. Smith. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Schaefer are members of the Catholic Church, 
 he belongs to the Knights of Columbus, is a demo- 
 crat in politics, and for 4P2 years held the office of 
 city clerk. 
 
1630 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 John Casey, a pioneer. John and Mary (Howe) 
 Casey were both natives of Ireland. The former 
 was born in 1822 and died in 1896. The latter was 
 born in 1839 and died in 1898. John Casey came to 
 America in 1843 and for several years lived in New 
 York State. He was one of the very first settlers 
 in St. Paul, when it was a village of only about 600 
 population. For several years he was employed as 
 gardener by Mr. Oakes, a pioneer St. Paul banker, 
 and by dint of thrift acquired a small sum of money 
 which he husbanded to begin farming operations. 
 
 Accordingly, in the year 1853, he went to Scott 
 County and homesteaded a claim in Cedar Lake 
 Township. He carried on the work alone for a few 
 years, building the cabin and making clearings, then 
 returned to St. Paul and was married to Mary Howe, 
 bringing his bride to the farm when the county was 
 still undeveloped and supporting only a scanty popu- 
 lation. He lived the usual life of the early settlers 
 and frequently in those pioneer days carried flour 
 home on his back from Mendota, a distance of more 
 than twenty miles. He was a man of upright char- 
 acter and his wife a woman of much charm and 
 many noble traits, whose good deeds in the early 
 settlement are still spoken of. They gave all their 
 children the advantages of good schooling. Both 
 were active members of the Catholic Church and 
 their pioneer home for a number of years was where 
 Monsignor Oster held services whenever he visited 
 Cedar Lake Settlement. John Casey helped to build 
 both the churches of St. Catherine and St. Patrick. 
 He was in politics a democrat. He was progressive, 
 had the first self-binder, first platform buggy and 
 first Shorthorn cattle in his neighborhood. 
 
 In the family there were four sons and a daughter, 
 all of whom, excepting the daughter, are living in 
 Scott County. W. J. Casey is a large landowner 
 residing in Credit River Township; Mrs. Nellie 
 Kelley lives at Faribault, Minnesota; C. H. Casey 
 is a hardware merchant in Jordan and has served 
 as president of the Minnesota Retail Hardware 
 Dealers’ Association ; Joseph Casey, a University of 
 Minnesota man, is now serving as postmaster of 
 Jordan, and John E. Casey is publisher of the 
 Jordan Independent, the most widely circulated news- 
 paper published in Scott County. He has published 
 this newspaper for fifteen years as owner. Born 
 of a pioneer Scott County family, he has a deep 
 interest in the county’s welfare and progress. He 
 has served as member of the Minnesota Democratic 
 State Central Committee from Scott County and 
 has been of recent years chairman of the Scott 
 County Democratic Committee. 
 
 George F. Sullivan. The present county attorney 
 of Scott County is George F. Sullivan, a young 
 and able lawyer, who is a native of Minnesota and 
 has been in active practice of the law at Jordan 
 since 1908. 
 
 George F. Sullivan was born at Shakopee, Minne- 
 sota, January 30, 1886, a son of James and B. C. 
 (O'Regan) Sullivan. Both his grandparents were 
 natives of County Cork, Ireland. Michael Sullivan, 
 the grandfather, came to the United States, first 
 lived in Indiana, and was one of the early settlers 
 in Scott County, Minnesota, where he died on a 
 farm. The maternal grandfather, Timothy O’Regan, 
 also came to Minnesota in the early days, was a 
 boat man on the Mississippi River several years, 
 located in St. Paul, and then moved to a farm where 
 he died. James Sullivan was born in Newcastle, 
 
 Indiana, in 1856, and died in 1902. His wife, who 
 is still living in Shakopee, was born in Dakota 
 County, Minnesota, in i860, and was married in that 
 locality. Her three children are : Maude, wife of 
 
 Joseph G. Barens, a general merchant at Shakopee; 
 George E. ; and Jessie, living with her mother. The 
 father was an active member of the Catholic Church, 
 and in politics a democrat, and took a decided part 
 in public affairs in Scott County. He held the office 
 of county treasurer, and for one term was mayor 
 of Shakopee. Though he came to Minnesota and 
 began his career with no capital, at his death he 
 left a good estate, having followed farming for 
 many years and owning a well improved farmstead 
 at the time of his death. 
 
 • George F. Sullivan grew up in Shakopee, getting 
 his early education in the public schools and graduat- 
 ing from the high school in 1905. For six months he 
 was engaged in teaching in a district school in 
 Newmarket Township, then entered and spept one 
 year in the literary department of the University of 
 Minnesota, following which he was a law student 
 until graduating LL. B. in 1908. In the same year 
 he began his practice at Jordan, and the success 
 with which he has followed the various interests 
 entrusted to his charge has commended him to the 
 confidence of a large private clientage and also to 
 the public at large. He was elected city attorney 
 of Jordan in April, 1909, still holds that office, and 
 in 1912 was elected county attorney. Mr. Sullivan 
 is unmarried, is a member of the Catholic Church, 
 of the Knights of Columbus, and belongs to the 
 Sigma Nu College fraternity. He has always been 
 active in politics, though the law is with him the 
 object of his dominating ambition and effort. 
 
 Gamble-Robin son Company. One of the largest 
 and most conspicuous firms in the Minneapolis 
 wholesale district is the Gamble-Robinson Company, 
 wholesale fruits and groceries, whose large ware- 
 house and offices are at 220 to 226 Sixth Street, 
 North. This business, large as it is taken individual- 
 ly, is really only the central house in a chain of 
 affiliated companies engaged in the suonlying of 
 fruit and produce to retail merchants over a terri- 
 tory extending from the eastern border of the 
 Great Lakes west to the Rocky Mountains. While 
 the “associate house” idea is not an unfamiliar one 
 in both wholesale and retail merchandising, the Gam- 
 ble-Robinson people have been essentially pioneers 
 in its development as a phase of the wholesale busi- 
 ness. In this particular case the plan has been 
 carried out with exceptional success. Each asso- 
 ciated house has been located in a position of 
 strategic importance, and as a result of the close 
 organization and prompt relationship between the 
 various constituent members it has become possible 
 to place the goods within the reach of the ultimate 
 consumer at minimum transportation expense, and 
 this feature alone gives the organization a decided 
 advantage over firms that try to do their business 
 altogether from one central location, with the heavy 
 expense and natural delays incident to the shipment 
 of goods long distances to individual customers. 
 
 Some idea of the great volume of business trans- 
 acted through this organization is found in the state- 
 ment that it receives and distributes more than 
 6,000 cars of goods annually, and furnishes the 
 largest outlet of any wholesale fruit house in the 
 Northwest. The Gamble-Robinson Company -of 
 Minneapolis has a capital stock of $1,000,000. The 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1631 
 
 officers of the company are : Ross A. Gamble, presi- 
 dent; David F. Gamble, vice president; Harry L. 
 Robinson, secretary and treasurer; and George T. 
 Freeman, credit manager — these men constituting 
 the board of directors together with Ernest L. 
 Robinson. Like every great concern in which the 
 systematic efficiency of organization is the prime 
 factor, the business has been developed gradually. 
 About twenty-five years ago the two Gamble brothers 
 who now fill the above offices in the company had 
 a small commission house in Minneapolis. Early in 
 1892 Harry L. Robinson entered the firm and the 
 name was changed to Gamble-Robinson Commission 
 Company, and when the business was incorporated 
 under that title about ten years later a further stage 
 was marked in its progress, and subsequently the 
 present title of Gamble-Robinson Company was 
 adopted. While the business has been developed 
 as a combined fruit and grocery house, emphasis is 
 gradually being placed more and more on the grocery 
 department of the business. 
 
 The various houses or companies, each an inde- 
 pendent organization and with relations to the cen- 
 tral company that are better described by the word 
 “associate” than the word “branch,” are as fol- 
 lows : Gamble-Robinson Fruit Company of St. 
 
 Paul ; Gamble-Robinson Fruit & Produce Company 
 of Mankato ; Gamble-Robinson Fruit Company of 
 Aberdeen, South Dakota ; Gamble-Robinson & Com- 
 pany, Rochester, Minnesota; Gamble-Robinson Fruit 
 Company, Oelwein, Iowa; Gamble-Robinson Com- 
 pany of Miles City, Montana ; Gamble-Robinson 
 Shaw Company of Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan ; Gam- 
 ble-Robinson Fruit Company of Bismarck, North 
 Dakota; Gamble-Robinson Fruit Company, Ltd., of 
 Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario ; Gamble-Robinson Com- 
 pany, Billings, Montana ; Gamble-Robinson & Com- 
 pany of Great Falls, Montana ; Gamble-Robinson- 
 Bemidji Company of Bemidji, Minnesota; Gamble- 
 Robinson-Jamestown Company of Jamestown, North 
 Dakota; Gamble-Robinson-Sheridan Company of 
 Sheridan, Wyoming; Gamble-Robinson-W a d e n a 
 Company of Wadena, Minnesota; and Escanaba 
 Gamble-Robinson Company of Escanaba, Michigan. 
 
 The territory covered by these affiliated concerns 
 extends east and west about 1,700 miles, the farthest 
 point west being Big’ Tirober, Montana, and the 
 most easterly point Sudberry, Ontario. The busi- 
 ness is entirely wholesale and has always been on 
 that basis, the dealings being with the retail mer- 
 chants only. At the present time the organization 
 has more than sixty regular traveling men in the 
 field and about 300 employes. All the houses are 
 well located in a fast developing country where the 
 prospects are that for years to come the facilities 
 for supplying the demands of local trade must be 
 on the increase. Many of the individual houses, 
 however, were established when the country was 
 quite new and thinly settled, and when the distribu- 
 tion of goods was subject to many delays and diffi- 
 culties no longer present. 
 
 Commenting on the general system of this busi- 
 ness one of the company’s officials says: “There are 
 
 many advantages in a business way that these allied 
 institutions enjoy. Each one is fully officered and 
 established on an independent basis, but we all work 
 together in obtaining our supply of goods where 
 we can and buying in large quantities naturally can 
 secure the agency for many brands and packs of 
 goods that give a distinctive character to our busi- 
 ness, which is one strong point in making it suc- 
 
 cessful. Of course, the most important point in our 
 success is in the manner of the organization, the 
 system and the economy of management, which can 
 be maintained by co-operation.” 
 
 The officers and directors of the various associate 
 houses comprised under the Gamble-Robinson or- 
 ganization are as follows: Gamble-Robinson Fruit 
 Company of Aberdeen, South Dakota, — David F. 
 Gamble, president, Ross A. Gamble, vice president, 
 Frank R. Thompson, secretary, and Harry L. Robin- 
 son, treasurer. The Gamble-Robinson-Bemidji Com- 
 pany of Bemidji— Harry L. Robinson, president, 
 David F. Gamble, vice president, Ross A. Gamble, 
 treasurer, and Forest G. Halgren, secretary. The 
 Gamble-Robinson Company of Billings, Montana, — 
 Harry L. Robinson, president, David F. Gamble, 
 vice president, Frank R. Thompson, treasurer, War- 
 ner L. Halgren, secretary. The Gamble-Robinson 
 Fruit Company of Bismarck, North Dakota, — David 
 F. Gamble, president, Ross A. Gamble, vice presi- 
 dent, Frank R. Thompson, treasurer, and Anton B. 
 Olson, secretary. Gamble-Robinson Company of 
 Great Falls, Montana, — David F. Gamble, president, 
 Ross A. Gamble, vice president, Frank R. Thompson, 
 treasurer, and Alfred L. Smith, secretary. The Gam- 
 ble-Robinson Jamestown Company of Jamestown, 
 North Dakota, — Ross A. Gamble, president, David 
 F. Gamble, vice president, Frank R. Thompson, 
 treasurer, and James A. McKenzie, secretary. The 
 Gamble-Robinson Fruit & Produce Company of 
 Mankato, — Harry L. Robinson, president, Ross A. 
 Gamble, vice president, Frank D. Sleight, secretary, 
 and David F. Gamble, treasurer. Gamble-Robinson 
 Fruit Company of Miles City, Montana, — Harry L. 
 Robinson, president, David F. Gamble, vice presi- 
 dent , Frank R. Thompson, treasurer, Alex B. 
 Browne, secretary. Gamble-Robinson Wadena Com- 
 pany of Wadena, — David F. Gamble, president, 
 Harry L. Robinson, vice president, R. A. Gamble, 
 treasurer, and Walter W. Ellis, secretary. Gamble- 
 Robinson Fruit Company of Oelwein, — Harry L. 
 Robinson, president, Ross A. Gamble, vice president, 
 David F. Gamble, treasurer, George H. Valentine, 
 secretary. Gamble-Robinson & Company of Ro- 
 chester, — David F. Gamble, president, Ross A. Gam- 
 ble, vice president, Harry L. Robinson, treasurer, 
 and William A. Mair, secretary. Gamble-Robinson 
 Fruit Company of St. Paul, — Ross A. Gamble, presi- 
 dent, David F. Gamble, vice president, Harry L. 
 Robinson, treasurer, and Corwin M. Blackmun, sec- 
 retary. Gamble-Robinson-Sheridan Company of 
 Sheridan, Wyoming, — Harry L. Robinson, president, 
 David F. Gamble, vice president, Warner L. Halgren, 
 treasurer, and W. R. Peril, secretary. Gamble- 
 Robinson-Shaw Company of Sault Ste. Marie, Mich- 
 igan, — Ross A. Gamble, president, David F. Gamble, 
 vice president, Harry L. Robinson, treasurer, and 
 Fred F. Shaw, secretary. Gamble-Robinson Fruit 
 Company, Ltd., of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, — Ross 
 A. Gamble, president, David F. Gamble, vice presi- 
 dent, Harry L. Robinson, treasurer, and Carl J. 
 Sanders, secretary. Merchants Cold Storage Com- 
 pany of Minneapolis, — A. D. Ellis, president, Ross 
 A. Gamble, vice president, and Harry L. Robinson, 
 secretary and treasurer. Escanaba-Gamble-Robin- 
 son Company of Escanaba. Michigan, — David F. 
 Gamble, president, Ross A. Gamble, vice president, 
 Harry L. Robinson, treasurer and Jesse Owens, 
 secretary. 
 
 The Minneapolis house of Gamble-Robinson Com- 
 pany operate also two distinctively branch concerns 
 
1632 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 at St. Cloud and Alexandria, and the officers there 
 are the same as those in the Minneapolis company. 
 The Gamble-Robinson Company are members of the 
 Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Association, of 
 the Western Fruit Jobbers’ Association of America, 
 of the National League of Commission Merchants, 
 and the International Apple Shippers’ Association. 
 
 Ross A. Gamble is a Minneapolis business man 
 who twenty-five years ago laid the foundation for 
 the great Gamble-Robinson Company of that city. 
 A son of the Owatonna pioneer, the late William 
 Gamble, whose life is sketched on other pages, Ross 
 Alexander Gamble was born at Owatonna, May 22, 
 1867, and completed his education in the Owatonna 
 High School. In 1890, at the age of twenty-three, 
 he began the jobbing business at Minneapolis on a 
 very modest scale, and probably not one of his con- 
 temporaries and seniors in the business predicted 
 for him any part of the phenomenal success that 
 has characterized the business of which he is the 
 head. A few months later he was joined by his 
 brother, David F., and together they operated as 
 Gamble Brothers. From that the style of business 
 in 1892 was changed to Gamble-Robinson Commis- 
 sion Company, and ten years later Ross Gamble be- 
 came president of the incorporated company, and 
 has been continuously president of the central cor- 
 poration. As already mentioned in the separate 
 account of the Gamble-Robinson organization, he is 
 an officer and director in all the eighteen associate 
 houses. 
 
 He was formerly a director of the Minneapolis 
 Produce Exchange and is now its president, and is 
 a director of the Western Fruit Jobbing Association 
 of America. In the old Commercial Club, now 
 merged with the Minneapolis Athletic Club, he was 
 a director, and has a life membership in the new 
 organization, and is also a member of the committee 
 on industrial development for the location of new 
 enterprises in Minneapolis in the Minneapolis Civic 
 and Commerce Association. He is a member of the 
 Minneapolis Club, the Automobile Club, the Minne- 
 apolis Tennis Club and the Institute of Fine Arts. 
 He and his family belong to the Trinity Baptist 
 Church. Mr. Gamble’s chief recreations are motor- 
 ing and golf. 
 
 At Owatonna on September 18, 1894, he married 
 Miss Marguerite Farmer, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. 
 A. A. Farmer, a sketch of whom will be found on 
 other pages. Mr. and Mrs. Gamble have two sons, 
 Robert G. and William Gamble, both now students 
 in the Blake School for Boys at Minneapolis and 
 both natives of that city. 
 
 Amasa A. Farmer. One of the chief distinctions 
 of this publication on the history of Minnesota is 
 the inclusion in its pages of memorial tributes to 
 those sterling pioneers who came to the Northwest 
 when Minnesota was in its formative period of de- 
 velopment and who practically gave their energies 
 and their lives to making the state what it now is. 
 It is only giving honor where honor is due to men- 
 tion in this class the name of Amasa A. Farmer, who 
 was especially well known and esteemed in Owaton- 
 na and vicinity, and who died in that city July 2, 
 1885. 
 
 Amasa A. Farmer was born in the State of New 
 York in 1839, and was twenty years of age when he 
 came out to Minnesota and located in Steele County 
 at the little village of Owatonna. Two years later 
 
 he gave up the business of making a home in a new 
 country and was one of the first to offer his services 
 in the defense of the Union. He served as a soldier 
 three and a half years, and then returned to 
 Owatonna, where in 1868 he married Miss Annette 
 Phelps. Her father was Squire Phelps, one of the 
 most noteworthy pioneers of Southern Minnesota, 
 prominent in the development of the state and a 
 leader in the civic and political life of Owatonna. 
 Mrs. Farmer is now living in Minneapolis. 
 
 In 1878 Amasa A. Farmer took his family to Lyon 
 County, and purchased a farm and began again the 
 task of development. While a resident of Lyon 
 County there came much sorrow to darken his life. 
 Two of his children died, a son and a daughter. 
 At the time of his death he still owned his home- 
 stead near Marshall in Lyon County, but had re- 
 turned to his old home in Owatonna for medical 
 treatment, and thus his death occurred in that city. 
 
 He was survived by a widow, a son and three 
 daughters. Two of his daughters are the wives of 
 conspicuous business men of Minneapolis, Ross A. 
 and David F. Gamble. The late Mr. Farmer was 
 marked for the generosity of his disposition, and 
 was a strong man in times of tribulation and mis- 
 fortune, and though giving freely to others seldom 
 asked favors in return. As a soldier he was im- 
 pressed by both the moral and political arguments 
 which justified the war against slavery and for the 
 preservation of the Union, and therefore went 
 through the performance of his duty justified by the 
 conviction that he was fighting for a righteous 
 cause. The qualities of faithfulness and courage 
 which he exemplified on the field of battle_ he also 
 displayed in his daily walk and life in Minnesota. 
 
 Ernest L. Behnke. A wide-awake young man, 
 full of push and energy, Ernest L. Behnke, of St. 
 Paul, has long been associated with the agricultural 
 prosperity of Ramsey County, and as secretary, 
 treasurer and general manager of the Minnesota 
 Milk Company has been an important factor in 
 promoting its dairy interests. A son of the late 
 Gustave H. Behnke, he was born in Minneapolis, 
 Minnesota, December 1, 1880, of German ancestry. 
 
 Born and reared in Germany, Gustave H. Behnke 
 determined as a young man t <5 begin life for himself 
 on American soil. Securing passage on a vessel 
 bound for the United States, he was fortunate 
 enough to meet at Shakopee, Minnesota, a most 
 estimable young woman, Miss Caroline Rose Haack, 
 whom he wooed and won, their marriage taking 
 place at Shakopee, Minnesota. He was a carpenter, 
 and subsequently followed his trade m Minneapolis 
 until retired, in 1909, at the age of sixty-two years. 
 Taking an active interest in public matters, he was 
 a stanch adherent of the democratic party, and a 
 faithful member of the German Lutheran Church, 
 to which his family also belonged. To him and his 
 wife four children were born and reared, as follows : 
 Ernest L., the subject of this brief sketch: Dorothy, 
 living in Minneapolis; Edward A., chief engineer 
 for the Metropolitan Milk Company, which is a 
 branch of the Minnesota Milk Company, is a resi- 
 dent of Minneapolis; and Flora. The mother died 
 in 1889, when but thirty-two years old. 
 
 While yet a pupil in the public schools of Minne- 
 apolis, Ernest L. Behnke made up his mind to 
 further advance his education by paying his own 
 wav through Agricultural College. With that object 
 in view he became chore boy for Mr. Albert 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1633 
 
 Ruhnke, president of the Metropolitan Milk Com- 
 pany. Pleased with the young fellow’s high ambi- 
 tions, and his willingness to work in order to 
 accomplish his object, Mr. Ruhnke sent his chore 
 boy to the State Agricultural College, paying all of 
 his expenses while in that institution. In 1899 Mr. 
 Behnke was graduated from the dairy department 
 of the college, and was at once made foreman of 
 the Metropolitan Milk Company, of which Mr. 
 Ruhnke was the head. For the next two years he 
 held that important position, having charge of the 
 thirty-five men under him, and performed the duties 
 devolving upon him most satisfactorily to all con- 
 cerned. At the end of that time, having been with 
 the company 8(4 years, two years as foreman, Mr. 
 Behnke resigned his office and accepted a position 
 in the traffic department of the Rapid Transit Com- 
 pany in Minneapolis. During the eleven years Mr. 
 Behnke remained with that company he had several 
 promotions, during the last six years having charge 
 of all train schedules, a position of great responsi- 
 bility, and one requiring a man possessing a thor- 
 ough knowledge of the duties connected with it. 
 
 In 1912 Mr. Behnke, after a steady grind of 
 twenty years, without any rest, decided that he 
 needed a vacation, his six years as train despatcher 
 having been a severe strain upon him. Resigning 
 his position, therefore, he made a leisure trip to 
 the western coast, where he spent a year recuperat- 
 ing. Returning then to Minneapolis, he entered the 
 service again of his first employer, Mr. Ruhnke, 
 and was at once given charge of the Minnesota 
 Milk Company, a branch of the Metropolitan Milk 
 Company, located in St. Paul, and was later made 
 secretary and treasurer of the company. He has 
 thirty men in his employ, and is carrying on a large 
 and successful business, disposing of his milk, 
 cream and butter in St. Paul, the products of his 
 plant being in great demand in the local markets. 
 
 Mr. Behnke married, October 2, 1901, in Minne- 
 apolis, Myrta Gertrude Thomson, who was born in 
 Minneapolis, a daughter of Hugh J. Thomson, a 
 retired engineer of that city, and they have an 
 attractive home at No. 41 1 Aldine Street, St. Paul. 
 Politically Mr. Behnke is a straightforward republi- 
 can, and religiously both Mr. and Mrs. Behnke are 
 members of the Olivett Congregational Church. 
 
 Frank D. Smith, M. D. In his native state Doctor 
 •Smith is engaged in the active practice of his 
 profession, of which he is one of the representative 
 members of the younger generation. He is now 
 engaged in practice at Kasson, Dodge County, and 
 his business shows a constantly cumulative tendency, 
 indicating his close application. 
 
 Doctor Smith was born in Olmsted County, Min- 
 nesota, on the 19th of June, 1881, and is a son of 
 James C. and Nellie J. (Jenkins) Smith, the former 
 of whom was born in Ohio, in 1836, and the latter 
 in Maine, in 1848, though she was reared in Wis- 
 consin, where her father, William Jenkins, estab- 
 lished his residence when she was a child. James 
 C. Smith came from Wisconsin to Minnesota in 
 1856, when he was about twenty years of age. He 
 became one of the pioneer settlers near the present 
 village of Center Grove, Olmsted County, where 
 he entered claim to a tract of Government land and 
 instituted the reclamation of a farm. He became 
 one of the representative agriculturists and stock 
 growers of his community, as well as a loyal citizen 
 who commanded unqualified esteem. He was a 
 
 stanch republican in politics and served in various 
 township offices of minor order. At the time of the 
 Civil war he served for over a year as a member 
 of Company H, Eleventh Minnesota Volunteer In- 
 fantry, doing service in Tennessee under General 
 Thomas. Mr. Smith was affiliated with the York 
 Rite Lodge and Chapter of the Masonic fraternity. 
 Their only^ living child is Doctor Smith of this 
 review. 
 
 Doctor Smith attended the public schools of his 
 native county until his graduation from the Rochester 
 High School, in 1901, and in preparation for the 
 profession of his choice he entered the medical de- 
 partment of the University of Minnesota, in which 
 he was graduated as a member of the class of 
 1905 and from which he received his well earned 
 degree of doctor of medicine. The doctor’s profes- 
 sional novitiate was served at Oronoco, Olmsted 
 County, where he remained three years and built up 
 an excellent practice. He then took up his residence 
 at Reeder, North Dakota, and practiced there until 
 November, 1913, when he came to Kasson, Dodge 
 County, Minnesota, where he has received a rep- 
 resentative support and is building up a substantial 
 practice. He is a member of the American Medical 
 Association, the Minnesota State Medical Society 
 and the Dodge County Medical Society. Doctor 
 Smith is the owner of his father’s old homestead 
 farm in Olmsted County, which is doubly valued by 
 him by reason of the gracious memories and associa- 
 tions which it recalls. He is a zealous supporter 
 of the cause of the republican party; both he and 
 his wife hold membership in the Presbyterian 
 Church; and he is affiliated with the Masonic fra- 
 ternity as a member of Kasson Lodge, besides which 
 he holds membership in the Modern Woodmen of 
 America and the American Yeomen. 
 
 On the 12th of June, 1912, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Doctor Smith to Miss Pearl Olson, 
 daughter of George H. Olson, a successful farmer 
 and honored citizen of Olmsted County. 
 
 John J. McCaughey. A representative member 
 of the bar of Dodge County, Mr. McCaughey is 
 engaged in successful practice in the attractive and 
 thriving village of Kasson, which has been the 
 headquarters of his professional activities from the 
 time of his admission to the Minnesota bar, twenty 
 years ago. He is not only a prominent lawyer of 
 the county but is also known as a progressive citizen 
 and business man. 
 
 Mr. McCaughey was born in Dane County, Wis- 
 consin, on the 13th of May, 1868, and is a son of 
 John and Jane (Simpson) McCaughey, the former 
 of whom was born in Scotland, on the 18th of 
 June, 1822, and the latter of whom was born in the 
 State of New Jersey, on the 6th of June, 1850. 
 The death of the father occurred October 29, 1897, 
 and the mother was summoned to the life eternal on 
 the 16th of April, 1914. Their marriage was 
 solemnized at Madison, the capital city of Wisconsin, 
 in July, 1867, and of the two children John J. is the 
 elder; William C. resides in Mantorville and owns 
 and operates one of the fine farms of Dodge County. 
 
 John McCaughey was reared and educated in his 
 native land, whence he immigrated to the United 
 States in 1844, as a young man of twenty-two years. 
 He settled in Dane County, Wisconsin, and within 
 a year after his marriage, and while the subject of 
 this review was an infant, he came with his family 
 to Dodge County, Minnesota, in 1868. In Scotland 
 
1634 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 he had followed the trade of silk-weaver, but after 
 he came to America he gave his attention to agri- 
 cultural pursuits during the remainder of his active 
 career. He was one of the substantial farmers and 
 honored citizens of Dodge County and in 1890 he 
 retired from active labors and established his resi- 
 dence in the village of Ivasson, where both he and 
 his wife passed the residue of their lives, both 
 having been earnest members of the Presbyterian 
 Church. Mr. McCaughey was a man of noble char- 
 acter, quiet and unassuming, kindly and charitable, 
 but always showed the courage of his convictions. 
 He was one of the well known and venerable pioneer 
 citizens of Dodge County at the time of his death, 
 his father, John McCaughey, Sr., having likewise 
 come to America and having engaged in the manu- 
 facturing of silk in the City of Philadelphia. Mrs. 
 McCaughey was a daughter of James Simpson, who 
 was born in Ireland and who was still a young man 
 at the time of his death, he having contracted 
 cholera during the epidemic that raged at the time, 
 not many years after he came to America. 
 
 John J. McCaughey passed the days of his child- 
 hood and early youth on the old homestead farm in 
 Dodge County, and is indebted to the district schools 
 for his early education, which was supplemented by 
 a course in the high school at Mantorville, in which 
 he was graduated in 1889. He then began the study 
 of law in the office of Lovely & Edgerton, in the 
 City of St. Paul, later had as his preceptor Judge 
 Jaggard, of same city, and he finally entered the law 
 department of the University of Minnesota, 'in which 
 he was graduated in 1894, with the degree of bachelor 
 of laws. Pie forthwith established himself in prac- 
 tice at Kasson, where he has since maintained his 
 home and where he has long controlled a sub- 
 stantial and representative law business, in con- 
 nection with which he has appeared in many im- 
 portant litigations in both the State and Federal 
 courts of Minnesota. He served nearly twelve years 
 as county attorney, resigning that office in 1910, and 
 in 1912 he was the republican candidate for repre- 
 sentative of his district in the United States Com 
 gress, his defeat being compassed by the political 
 exigencies that brought victory to the national demo- 
 cratic ticket in that year. He has been a forceful 
 advocate of the principles of the republican party 
 and his allegiance to its cause has never wavered. 
 Mr. McCaughey is a director of the Farmers State 
 Bank of Kasson, is the owner of valuable farming 
 land in Dodge County, and has also a large ranch 
 in the State of Montana. He and his wife hold 
 membership in the Presbyterian Church and he is 
 affiliated with both the York and Scottish Rite 
 bodies of the Masonic fraternity, as well as with 
 the adjunct organization, the Ancient Arabic Order 
 Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. He is past master of 
 the Kasson Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons 
 and past high priest of the local chapter of Royal 
 Arch Masons, his chivalric affiliation being with the 
 commandery of Knights Templars at Rochester, and 
 his Consistory and Mystic Shrine affiliation with the 
 organization in the City of Winona and the capital 
 city of Minnesota respectively. He holds member- 
 ship also in the Modern Woodmen of America, the 
 Ancient Order of United Workmen and the Yeo- 
 men. 
 
 In 1890 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. 
 McCaughey to Miss Inez M. Edison, daughter of 
 William Edison, a pioneer settler and substantial 
 
 farmer of Dodge County and a first cousin of the 
 great electrical wizard, Thomas A. Edison. 
 
 William H. Eustis. A lawyer of fine attain- 
 ments, a business man of experience and tested 
 ability, a citizen of unqualified public spirit, the 
 period of more than thirty years spent by William 
 H. Eustis in Minneapolis has been not only im- 
 portant from his own standpoint in working out a 
 large and generous success, but has been a vital 
 force in many ways in the improvement and de- 
 velopment of the city and the Northwest. There is 
 inspiration in his career not only on account of its 
 absolute accomplishment, but especially owing to 
 the fact that he was once a poor boy, struggling 
 with all his courage and the resources of a versatile 
 mind to make some worthy use of his years among 
 men. 
 
 Of English lineage, he was born in the Village 
 of Oxbow, Jefferson County, in 1845, the second of 
 eleven children born to Tobias and Mary (Mark- 
 wick) Eustis. Tobias Eustis was born in Cornwall, 
 England, where his forefathers had for generations 
 been identified with the mining industry. Tobias 
 took a radical departure from the usual family 
 pursuits and learned the trade of wheelwright. He 
 came to America when a young man, and was mar- 
 ried in this country, finally establishing his residence 
 at Hammond, St. Lawrence County, New York, 
 where he and his wife spent the rest of their years. 
 
 His position as second in a large family made it 
 necessary for William H. Eustis to become a worker 
 and wage earner when most boys of his age have 
 no responsibilities beyond those of the schoolroom. 
 He attended school, but not regularly, and when 
 about fifteen years of age met with an accident which 
 incapacitated him for further manual labor. It was 
 not in keeping with his independent nature to become 
 dependent upon others, and as is often the case the 
 handicap imposed by the accident proved a blessing 
 in disguise. It quickened his ambition to action 
 and achievement, but a hard course lay ahead before 
 he was fitted for the work he had chosen, which 
 was the legal profession. He learned telegraphy 
 and also mastered bookkeeping, and taught select 
 classes in both the arts. He also sold life insurance, 
 and from these different sources paid his expenses 
 through a preparatory course in the seminary at 
 Gouverneur in St. Lawrence County, New York. 
 In 1871 he entered Wesleyan University at Middle- 
 town, Connecticut, and there again paid his expenses 
 by teaching and was graduated in 1873. The next 
 stage of his early career was in New York City, in 
 the law department of Columbia University, where 
 his energy enabled him to accomplish two years’ 
 work in one, and he was graduated LL. B. in 1874. 
 
 On leaving law school Mr. Eustis owed a debt of 
 $1,000, which he had borrowed for his education. 
 He turned to teaching, in which his previous experi- 
 ence had chiefly lain, and at the end of about a year 
 had paid his obligations. A suit of clothes and $15 
 in cash constituted his worldly possessions. As a 
 result of his previous acquaintance with John R. 
 Putnam, who was already established in practice at 
 Saratoga Springs, a partnership was formed between 
 them and they soon had a promising and profitable 
 practice, which together they managed for six years. 
 The partnership was terminated in 1881 when Mr. 
 Eustis went abroad, with the intention of spending 
 two years in Europe. He had already come into 
 some distinction in New York politics, and was 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1635 
 
 especially valuable to the republican party as a 
 campaign orator. Leaving America for Europe in 
 the summer of 1881, he returned a few months later, 
 his presence being demanded by political events in 
 which he was greatly interested. 
 
 After a careful investigation of western cities Mr. 
 Eustis concluded to locate permanently in Minne- 
 apolis, where he established his home, October 23, 
 1881. In a short time his work had given him an 
 enviable prestige as a lawyer, and for fully thirty 
 years he has been one of the leaders in local business 
 affairs. His unlimited faith in the future of the city 
 caused him to invest his limited capital in local real 
 estate, and those acts of a sound judgment have 
 been justified many fold. Mr. Eustis erected the 
 building now known as Elks Hall at the corner of 
 Hennepin and Sixth streets, and this has been a well 
 known landmark in the city, and was utilized for 
 many years as the headquarters of the local Repub- 
 lican Union League. He also built the Flour Ex- 
 change and the Corn Exchange buildings, and other 
 similar structures. He was a member of the build- 
 ing committee in charge of the erection of the 
 Masonic Temple in Minneapolis, was one of the 
 projectors and organizers of the North American 
 Telegraph Company, which was formed for the 
 purpose of giving competitive telegraph service 
 throughout the Northwest, and in that company he 
 served as a director and as secretary. 
 
 He was one of the incorporators of the Minne- 
 apolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railway 
 Company, whose lines were built to provide cheap 
 transportation facilities to the East. For some time 
 he was a member of its board of directors. At the 
 present time large and valuable real estate interests 
 are owned and controlled by Mr. _ Eustis. In 1907 
 his splendid energy and executive ability were 
 demonstrated in a remarkably expeditious real estate 
 transaction. He obtained from the United States 
 Government an order for a block of land to be 
 utilized as the site for the New Federal Building in 
 Minneapolis. In seven weeks he perfected title to 
 the desired property, cut through yards of Washing- 
 ton red tape, obtained Government acceptance of 
 the deeds and abstracts in two days time, though 
 usually months are required by the postoffice depart- 
 ment for such adjustment, and in forty-eight hours 
 secured his warrant for the requisite money for the 
 property, though the issue of such warrant usually 
 requires many weeks. The entire transaction was 
 closed with such energy and facility that it served 
 to establish a record in the handling of Government 
 business and greatly astonished Washington officials. 
 
 In 1892 Mr. Eustis was elected mayor of Minne- 
 apolis. His administration has been characterized 
 as “one of the most careful and economical in the 
 history of municipal affairs in Minneapolis.” He 
 made a very careful study of the saloon question 
 and the laws relating to the liquor traffic, a subject 
 to which he gave much attention at the beginning 
 of his term. He looked rather to conditions than 
 to theories, and sought to enforce the laws in such a 
 way as would gain the best results. His policy did 
 not demand the undue restriction of the rights 
 granted to saloon keepers, but urged just coopera- 
 tion on the part of the dealers in so enforcing the 
 provisions of the law as to insure as far as possible 
 the suppression of crime and drunkenness. Early 
 in his administration the rule, suggested by experi- 
 ence, potent and far reaching in good results, was 
 adopted : “Let every saloon be held responsible 
 
 for what takes place in that saloon within the bounds 
 of reason.” The rigid enforcement of this simple 
 and just rule quickly eliminated the “knock out 
 drop” robbing and other vicious practices so frequent 
 in saloons of the tougher sort in all large cities. If 
 a man were robbed in a saloon the proprietor was 
 compelled to make the loss good to the victim. 
 There were no exceptions to the rule. A few ex- 
 amples only were necessary to effect the complete 
 and permanent elimination during his administration 
 of this class of evils. The enforcement of this rule 
 added greatly to the efficiency of the police depart- 
 ment. Written reports were received on all saloons 
 and according to the character of these reports 
 they were divided into classes. This principle ap- 
 pealed to their pride, and many sought by change 
 of methods to work up from a lower to a higher 
 class. In this business, different from any other, 
 in the formation of public opinion, the low and 
 tough saloons make the reputation for all. On this 
 basis it was easy to appeal to the better element 
 to aid in the improvement or elimination of the 
 dives. The statistics of the police department and 
 the workhouse for the two years of his administra- 
 tion showed a great decrease in crime under his 
 system. Drunkenness was materially diminished, 
 commitments to the workhouse were cut down, while 
 many confirmed drunkards from this institution were 
 given the Keeley cure, the sale of liquors to minors 
 and habitual drunkards was noticeably reduced, and 
 the evils resulting from the liquor traffic were very 
 greatly minimized. It was an administration char- 
 acterized by progressive and broad-minded policies 
 and at the same time systematic efforts in every 
 department for just economy. 
 
 At a later date Mr. Eustis was made republican 
 nominee for governor of Minnesota. He made a 
 vigorous canvass of the state, but the political power 
 of the opposition was unfavorable to the republican 
 candidates that year. The subtle, though natural 
 and strong influence of nationality was the con- 
 trolling factor in the election. He accepted defeat 
 with characteristic good nature. He still continues 
 an unswerving supporter of the republican party. 
 He was reared in the faith of the Methodist Episco- 
 pal Church, to which he is a liberal supporter and 
 is also a member of various fraternal and social 
 organizations in Minneapolis. Mr. Eustis has never 
 married. 
 
 At the present time he is virtually retired from 
 the practice of law, owing to the demands made 
 upon him by his various business interests. He is 
 still a popular orator and has been of great service 
 to the republican party as a campaign speaker in 
 Minnesota and other states. In 1892 he was a dele- 
 gate to the national convention, in which he gave 
 his support to the candidacy of James G. Blaine. 
 A sterling citizen, a genial and whole souled per- 
 sonality, and a man of affairs, Mr. Eustis is one of 
 the notable citizens of Minneapolis. 
 
 Charles F. Sawyer. Since the age of eighteen 
 identified with banking, and now vice president and 
 cashier of the First National Bank of Goodhue, 
 Charles F. Sawyer is a native of Goodhue County, 
 represents one of the old and most prominent fami- 
 lies of Southeastern Minnesota, and has made a 
 name and reputation as an able financier in this and 
 other states. Mr. Sawyer has applied his efforts to 
 one line and as a result of that concentration has 
 reached a place of success and high esteem. 
 
163G 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Charles F. Sawyer was born in Goodhue County, 
 Minnesota, January 22, 1874, a son of Charles L. 
 and Anette (Hagler) Sawyer. The Sawyer family 
 is of English descent, and the Haglers of Dutch 
 stock. Grandfather D. C. Sawyer was born in New 
 Hampshire and located as a pioneer in Minnesota 
 Territory in 1854. His homestead was in Goodhue 
 County, and he also followed the business of con- 
 tractor and builder for a number of years and 
 afterwards was in the furniture trade at Pine 
 Island, where he died. The maternal grandfather 
 was Fletcher Hagler, a native of Illinois, who also 
 pioneered to Minnesota in 1856, locating on a farm, 
 and afterwards becoming a citizen of Pine Island. 
 He was prominent in the early days of Goodhue 
 County, serving as sheriff a number of years, also 
 as postmaster at Pine Island, and in the office of 
 justice of the peace. During the Civil war he was 
 for two years in the Union army and had his son 
 Amos in the same regiment with him. 
 
 Charles L. Sawyer was born in New Hampshire 
 in 1852, and was about two years of age when the 
 family came to Minnesota. He finished his education 
 in the Wasioja Seminary of Minnesota, and is now 
 a resident of Minot, North Dakota, and superin- 
 tendent of the Victoria Elevator Company of Min- 
 nesota. He is the owner of real estate and farm 
 property and has been successful in business affairs. 
 In politics he is a republican, is affiliated with the 
 Masonic order, and a member of the Methodist 
 Church. His wife, a Miss Flagler, was born in 
 Illinois in 1853, and they were married in .Goodhue 
 County in 1872. There are four living children: 
 Charles F. ; W. R., a banker at Bellechester, Min- 
 nesota; Julia, wife of G. Johnson of Minneapolis; 
 and Guy, connected with the Second National Bank 
 of Minot, Minnesota. 
 
 After finishing his education in the high school 
 at Cannon Falls, in 1893, Charles F. Sawyer had 
 ten years of thorough training in the Citizens State 
 Bank of Cannon Falls, and then organized the First 
 National Bank at Fosston, Minnesota, and was its 
 active manager for two years. Selling out his 
 interests there, Mr. Sawyer organized the State 
 Bank of Sarles, North Dakota, lived in that state 
 four years, and in 1909 returned to Goodhue County 
 and bought an interest in the First National Bank 
 of Goodhue. He has since held the office of vice 
 president and cashier, and is its chief executive offi- 
 cial. This bank has a capital of $25,000, with $10,000 
 surplus and undivided profits, and the average de- 
 posits are $350,000, which is ample proof of its 
 financial soundness and popularity. Mr. Sawyer also 
 has an interest in the bank at Bellechester and is its 
 vice president. 
 
 In 1902 Mr. Sawyer married Joanna Libbey, daugh- 
 ter of Howard Libbey, a Goodhue County farmer. 
 Their four children are : Marion, Mildred, Charles 
 
 and David, the two oldest being in school. Mr. 
 Sawyer is a member of the Methodist Church, has 
 affiliations with the Masonic Lodge at Zumbrota, 
 and as a republican has been honored with some 
 local offices, though practically all his career has 
 been sedulously devoted to banking, and through 
 that work he lias performed his best service to the 
 community. 
 
 Thomas J. Nary. The name of Thomas J. Nary 
 is perhaps more widely known among the old set- 
 tlers of northern Minnesota than that of any other, 
 and wherever it is spoken it recalls the hardy lum- 
 
 berman whose high tide of vigorous activity fell 
 across the period when lumbering was an industry 
 only for the strong and daring. For upwards of 
 forty years Thomas J. Nary has had the chief 
 responsibilities in the management of the great Pills- 
 bury lumbering and timber land interests in Minne- 
 sota, and in the practical operation of that company 
 his word has been law for many years. Mr. Nary 
 is a graduate from that rugged school of the old 
 days on the river and in the lumber woods, when 
 weaklings were unknown and when muscular 
 strength and agility and the ready acceptance of 
 the hazards and circumstances of a rough life were 
 the highest badge of manhood and fellowship. In 
 recent years Mr. Nary has given up his more im- 
 mediate supervision of lumbering operations, ^nd is 
 now retained in an advisory and semi-retired* rela- 
 tion with the great business of which he was so long 
 the active head. His home is in Park Rapids, Hub- 
 bard County, and one of the little settlements in 
 northern Minnesota bears his name as a memorial 
 to his extended influence and enterprise in that sec- 
 tion of the state. 
 
 Thomas J. Nary was born at Providence, New 
 Brunswick, May 23, 1842, and has spent nearly all 
 his life in the zone of lumbering activities, extending 
 from the Atlantic Coast to the Northwest. His 
 father was Thomas W. Nary, a native of Augusta, 
 Maine, and by occupation a lumberman. He moved 
 to the Province of New Brunswick, where he mar- 
 ried Sarah Sutter, who was born in New Brunswick 
 of Scotch ancestry. She died in the State of Maine 
 at the age of about forty-six years, and the father 
 was again married before leaving Maine and com- 
 ing to Wisconsin in 1856. In Wisconsin he located 
 at the heart of the then great lumber industry of 
 northern Wisconsin, at Eau Claire, and continued 
 actively associated with lumbering interests until 
 his death at the age of about seventy years. He 
 had nine children. 
 
 The fourth in this family Thomas J. Nary was 
 the oldest son, and was about fourteen when his 
 father moved out to Wisconsin. His first education 
 in the common schools was in the State of Maine, 
 and in Eau Claire he continued to attend the public 
 schools until about eighteen years old. From that 
 time forward, for a period of more thkn half a cen- 
 tury, his chief interest has been in lumbering, and 
 perhaps no man living in Minnesota today has a 
 broader and more thorough practical experience 
 of all the details of this business. For a time he 
 was with his father in Wisconsin, and afterwards 
 with C. W. Hutchinson, at Eau Claire. He reached 
 manhood about the time the Civil war broke upon 
 the country, and his individual record as a Union 
 soldier is one of the most prominent chapters in his 
 life, and one for which he deserves special honor 
 and memory. He enlisted in Company L of the 
 Second Wisconsin Cavalry as a private, and for 
 proficiency and faithfulness was promoted from the 
 ranks to second lieutenant, and about a year later to 
 first lieutenant. 
 
 After the war Mr. Nary returned to Eau Claire, 
 and resumed the lumber business on his own account. 
 Four years later he sold out his Wisconsin interests, 
 and in 1868 removed to Minnesota, locating at 
 Anoka. That was the scene of his operations for 
 about four years, at the end of which time he be- 
 came associated with J. S. Pillsbury & Company, as 
 general superintendent of their logging and had the 
 management of their extensive timber land holdings. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1637 
 
 Mr. Nary has explored practically every important 
 timber section in northern Minnesota, has superin- 
 tended operations on a magnificent scale, and his 
 judgment and ability have been chief factors in the 
 foundation of a number of fortunes acquired in the 
 Minnesota lumber industry. While a large part of 
 his career has been spent in managing interests for 
 others, he has to a large extent been independent, 
 and his suggestions and instructions have been as 
 promptly obeyed by boards of directors and in gen- 
 eral offices as in the lumber and logging camps along 
 the rivers and in the forests of the North. 
 
 Mr. Nary was first married in 1865 to Henrietta 
 Armstrong, who was born in New Brunswick, and 
 died about 1875. Both her daughters are also 
 deceased, having been named Blanche and Maude. 
 The daughter Blanche, who died at the age of 
 twenty-six, married Professor C. F. Sidner. The 
 daughter Maude died when about nine years of 
 age. In 1882 Mr. Nary married Jennette Douglas. 
 To this union were also born two children: Blanche 
 M., who died in 1912 as the wife of Elmer Wilson ; 
 and Thomas D., who lives at home with his parents. 
 
 Mr. Nary has always been a stanch republican, 
 and cast his first v6te for Abraham Lincoln during 
 the war. He possesses not only the character of 
 the able executive, but also the gift of congenial 
 companionship and has hundreds of fast friends all 
 over the Northwest. He was postmaster at Gull 
 River six years, and occupied the same office for 
 six years at Walker. For twelve years he was one 
 of the county commissioners of Cass County, and as 
 a republican attended all the state conventions of 
 the party from 1879 to 1910. He is also well known 
 in Masonic circles. He belongs to old Anoka Lodge 
 No. 30, Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, and has 
 taken thirty-two degrees in the Scottish Rite and is 
 also a member of the Mystic Shriners. He affiliates 
 with Lodge No. 615 of the Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks. 
 
 Charles T. Goodrich. Through his successful 
 career as a traveling man, Charles T. Goodrich is 
 known pretty well all over the Northwest, and has 
 sold goods in almost every town of Minnesota. 
 Mr. Goodrich is now living somewhat retired from 
 his strenuous business career at Mantorville, and 
 is one of the substantial men of that community. 
 
 Charles T. Goodrich was born at Owego, New 
 York, September 2, 1847, and represents an old New 
 England family. His ancestors came to America 
 about the time of the Mayflower. His grandfather 
 was Erastus Goodrich, a native of New York State 
 and a farmer, and the great-grandfather was Enos 
 Goodrich, also a native of New York State. Charles 
 T. Goodrich’s parents were Davis and Fannie (Tru- 
 man) Goodrich, both natives of New York State. 
 His father was born in 1813 and died in 1899, and 
 his mother was born in 1823 and died in 1894. The 
 mother was a daughter of Aaron Truman, who spent 
 all his life on a New York farm. David Goodrich 
 was a merchant in New York, and spent sixty years 
 in merchandising. There were three children : Mary 
 E., wife of W. D. Cady of Binghamton, New York, 
 who was general agent for the Home Sewing Ma- 
 chine Company for a number of years ; Charles T. ; 
 and Lyman T., who lives at Binghamton. The father 
 was a member of the Congregational Church, taught 
 in the Sunday school for sixty years, and was a 
 republican in politics. 
 
 Charles T. Goodrich acquired an education in the 
 
 common schools of his native village and also at 
 White Plains, New York. His career began in the 
 store of his father, and there he got the experience 
 in handling goods which furnished the foundation 
 for his subsequent career. In 1868 Mr. Goodrich 
 married Sarah M. Crouch, daughter of Sam Crouch, 
 who for many years was a conductor on the Erie 
 Railroad. To their marriage were born four chil- 
 dren : Dora T., the wife of Mr. Summerville of 
 Idaho; Samuel Goodrich, clerk of court at Mantor- 
 ville ; David, who lives in St. Charles, Minnesota, 
 and is vice president of the Peffercorn Bank; and 
 Fannie McKeen, the wife of H. W. Brown, station 
 agent at Kasson, Minnesota. The mother of these 
 children died in 1875. She was an active member 
 of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1882 Mr. 
 Goodrich married Janette M. Johnson. This mar- 
 riage has brought one child, Louise, the wife of 
 Ralph H. Cole, one of the officials in the Rapid 
 Transit Company of Minneapolis. 
 
 Mr. Goodrich is a member of the Episcopal 
 Church, and has taken both the lodge and chapter 
 degrees in Masonry, and for four terms has served 
 as master of his lodge. In politics he is a repub- 
 lican and takes a quite active part in behalf oi his 
 friends, though without personal aspirations. 
 
 After his marriage Mr. Goodrich traveled a year 
 and a half for the Hahn, Knight & Co. Hat House, 
 and during that time sold more goods than any 
 other representative of the company. His next con- 
 nection was with the Wyman, Mullen & Co., and 
 continued for eight years. The following fourteen 
 years were spent with the well known St. Paul Hat 
 & Fur Co., the Albrecht, Lanpher & Finch. He 
 was also with the A. Hursick Sons & Co. and other 
 firms, and his career as a traveling salesman covered 
 a total of thirty years. For a number of years Mr. 
 Goodrich was also in the cigar manufacturing busi- 
 ness and then settled down to a quiet routine of 
 existence in Dodge County, where he owns a nice 
 home and 240 acres of land. 
 
 Samuel Goodrich. With punctilious care and 
 marked efficiency Mr. Goodrich is giving most satis- 
 factory administration in the office of clerk of the 
 County Court of Dodge County, and he is one of 
 the progressive and public-spirited citizens of Man- 
 torville, the judicial center of his native county. 
 
 Samuel Goodrich was born in the village of 
 Kasson, Dodge County, on the 30th of June, 1872, 
 and is a son of Charles T. and Sarah (Crouch) 
 Goodrich. He was but three years of age at the 
 time of his mother’s death and was taken into the 
 home of his maternal grandparents, in the State 
 of New York, where he was reared to adult age and 
 afforded the advantages of the public schools, includ- 
 ing the high school in the City of Binghamton. 
 Thereafter he was for two years a student in the 
 State Normal School at Mansfield, Pennsylvania, 
 and in initiating his independent career he returned 
 to his native village of Kasson, Minnesota, where he 
 was engaged in the operation of a flour mill for two 
 years, with fair success. For the ensuing three 
 years he was there engaged in the manufacturing 
 of cigars, and he then became the incumbent of a 
 position in the Kasson Postoffice, with the manage- 
 ment of which he continued to be identified nearly 
 twelve years. In 1911 he was elected clerk of the 
 County Court of Dodge County, of which position 
 he has since continued the valued and efficient in- 
 cumbent, having been nominated for a second term 
 
1638 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 without opposition and having been reelected in 1913. 
 He has served also as clerk for the county auditor 
 for two years. Mr. Goodrich has shown a con- 
 sistent interest in political affairs and is essentially 
 progressive and public-spirited as a citizen. He 
 is the owner of a well improved farm and other 
 property in his native county, and his father, who 
 was long numbered among the representative agri- 
 culturists of Dodge County, is now living retired at 
 Kasson, a well known and highly esteemed citizen 
 of the county. 
 
 In politics Mr. Goodrich is a stalwart supporter 
 of the cause of the republican party, and he is 
 affiliated with the Kasson Lodge of the Ancient, Free 
 and Accepted Masons, of which he is past master ; 
 with the Mantorville Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, 
 and with the Knights of Pythias and the Independent 
 Order of Odd Fellows. Both he and his wife are 
 popular factors in the representative social activities 
 of Mantorville. 
 
 On the 27th of June, 1894, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Goodrich to Miss Julia E. Houston, 
 daughter oT William A. Houston, an honored pioneer 
 and substantial farmer of Dodge County. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Goodrich have two children, both of whom re- 
 main at the parental home: Nadine was graduated 
 
 in the Mantorville High School as a member of 
 the class of 1913; and Samuel T., who celebrated 
 his sixteenth birthday anniversary on the 22d of 
 August, 1914, is now a student in the public schools. 
 
 Ely Parker Adams. One of the oldest active 
 members of the Little Falls bar is Ely P. Adams, 
 who began practice in that city in 1887, and has 
 enjoyed many of the associatipns which indicate 
 leadership and success in this profession. Among 
 his qualifications recognized by his associates are 
 sound learning, long experience in all the important 
 departments of practice, keen ability as a debater, 
 and an unwavering fidelity to the interests intrusted 
 to his charge. 
 
 Ely Parker Adams was born in Coles County, 
 Illinois, July 28, 1851. He is a son of Christopher 
 B. and Sarah (Gannaway) Adams, who were Coles 
 County farmers. As a boy he attended the public 
 schools, and received his higher education in the 
 Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington, where 
 he was graduated from the academic department 
 with the degree bachelor of science in 1875, and 
 from the same institution took his degree LL. B. 
 in 1878. From 1878 to 1881 Mr. Adams was engaged 
 in teaching school, and at one time was principal of 
 the schools at Oakland, Illinois. 
 
 Coming out to Minnesota, he established an office 
 at Little Falls in 1887, and has since been engaged 
 in a general practice. For two terms he was city 
 attorney, and has also been public examiner of 
 titles for Morrison County. Among his business 
 relations Mr. Adams is vice president of the Lenox 
 Development Company. 
 
 He is an active republican, a trustee of the Metho- 
 dist Episcopal Church, and has fraternal associations 
 with the Modern Brotherhood of America and the 
 Ancient Order of United Workmen. 
 
 On August 25, 1880, Mr. Adams married Emma 
 A. Ross of Pontiac, Illinois. Their son, Mark Ross, 
 born October 21, 1887, is now cashier of the First 
 State Bank at Big Falls, Minnesota. The son was 
 married December 14, 1912, to Ella Doten of Little 
 Falls. 
 
 _ Hon. Alfred W. Mueller is a typical Brown 
 County man, exemplifying the energy, virility and 
 resource of the younger generation. Here he has 
 been engaged in an extensive law practice for the 
 past several years, as a member of the firm of 
 Sompsen, Dempsey & Mueller, and recently has 
 entered, with characteristic progressiveness, the 
 public arena, being the present representative-elect 
 to the House of Representatives from his district. 
 However guardedly we must speak of youth, Mr. 
 Mueller is still a young man, but this has seemed 
 to have retarded his progress in no way, for his 
 standing both in the ranks of his profession and in 
 the confidence of his fellow citizens has reached a 
 height and a strength that might well be envied 
 by men many years his senior. 
 
 Mr. Mueller is a product of New Ulm, and was 
 born May 19, 1888, a son of Theodore and Anna 
 (Schulz) Mueller. The family is one of the pioneers 
 of Brown County, having been founded at New 
 Ulm by his grandfather, Carl F. Mueller, who came 
 to this country as an emigrant from Germany and 
 settled at New Ulm among the early residents. He 
 spent his active life here at the trade of stone mason, 
 and is still residing in this city, now being retired. 
 Theodore Mueller was born at New Ulm, in 1864, 
 and has been identified with business affairs as a 
 cigar merchant for many years, having built up an 
 excellent business through enterprise and industry. 
 Long prominent in republican politics, he was acting 
 mayor until 1914, and is still president of the city 
 council. Mr. Mueller married Miss Anna Schulz, 
 also of German parentage and herself a native of 
 the Fatherland, and to this union there have been 
 born six children: Alfred W., of this review; Alice, 
 who is the wife of Elmer Haeberle, who resides at 
 New Ulm and is identified with the New Ulm Ice 
 Company; Olga, who is the wife of Harry Bing- 
 ham, manager of the firm of Bingham Brothers, 
 grain merchants of New Ulm; Vera, who is stenog- 
 rapher for the Eagle Rolling Mills of New Ulm; 
 Hertha, who is attending the New Ulm High School; 
 and Anna, who is a student in the graded schools 
 of this city. 
 
 Alfred W. Mueller first attended the graded and 
 high schools of New Ulm, from the latter of which 
 he was graduated in 1906, then being a student in the 
 Minneapolis Business College for one year. At the 
 end of that time he commenced reading law in the 
 office of Joseph A. Eckstein, at New Ulm, and 
 subsequently entered the office of the attorney-gen- 
 eral at St. Paul. While in the latter city he was a 
 student in the St. Paul College of Law, and in 1911 
 took the examination for the bar, being admitted to 
 practice on July 26th of that year. Since his ad- 
 mission Mr. Mueller has carried on a general prac- 
 tice at New Ulm, being now a member of the firm 
 of Somsen, Dempsey & Mueller, with offices in the 
 Vogel Block. Mr. Mueller belongs to the various 
 organizations of his calling and continues to be an 
 earnest and painstaking student. His knowledge of 
 the law is comprehensive and accurate, and in its 
 application he is logical and forceful, which accounts, 
 in part, for the high standing he enjoys among his 
 fellow practitioners. Since attaining his majority, 
 Mr. Mueller has displayed an active and intelligent 
 interest in the movements of the republican party 
 and has been an active worker in the ranks, and in 
 1914 became the candidate of his party for the office 
 of representative of his district in the House of 
 Representatives, meeting with success at the general 
 

 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1639 
 
 election, November 3rd of that year. His fraternal 
 connection is with Charity Lodge No. 98, A. F. & 
 A. M., and his religious faith is that of the Lutheran 
 Church. 
 
 Mr. Mueller was married in March, 1914, at New 
 Ulm, to Miss Ellen Siegler, the daughter of Henry 
 Siegler, who is foreman in the cooper shop at 
 Sleepy Eye, Minnesota. 
 
 Hon. Henry J. Berg. One of the most important 
 county offices within the gift of the people is that 
 which pertains to the reception and disbursement, 
 pursuant to law, of all the revenues and other public 
 money belonging to the county. Having it in his 
 power to countersign county orders and to render 
 accounts to the board of commissioners, the county 
 treasurer must be a man of great business ability, 
 with unblemished reputation for integrity, and an 
 individual in whom the people may place the greatest 
 trust. That Henry J. Berg, of New Ulm, measures 
 up to this standard was shown in 1914, when, after 
 eight continuous years in office, he was re-elected by 
 the people for a term of four years more in the office 
 of county treasurer of Brown County. His public 
 service has been one that has been eminently satis- 
 factory to the citizens of this locality, and under 
 his capable administration of affairs the business 
 of the office has been discharged in an expeditious 
 and thoroughly efficient manner. 
 
 Mr. Berg is a native son of Brown County and a 
 product of the farm, having been born in the vicinity 
 of New Ulm, on the homestead of his father, John 
 Berg. The latter was born near the River Rhine, 
 in Germany, in 1824, and was thirty-seven years of 
 age when he came to the United States, settling in 
 Illinois in 1861. He did not participate in the Civil 
 war, but while in his native land had seen military 
 service, having been for the customary time a private 
 in the standing army. After two years in Illinois 
 Mr. Berg came in 1863 to Brown County, Minnesota, 
 where he settled as a pioneer farmer, and here 
 rounded out a long and successful career as an 
 agriculturist. Several years prior to his death he 
 retired from active pursuits and moved to New Ulm, 
 where he passed away in 1901, at the age of seventy- 
 seven years. Mr. Berg married Fredericka Bumm, 
 who was born in 1828, also in the Fatherland, and 
 she passed away at New LTlm the same year of 
 her husband’s demise. They were the parents of 
 eight children, as follows : Louisa, who died at the 
 
 age of six years; Mary, who became the wife of 
 Fred Kretsch, a retired resident of New Ulm; John, 
 who resides on the old homestead farm in Brown 
 County; Hubert, a retired merchant, who makes his 
 home at New Ulm; Henry J., of this review; Annie, 
 who died in childhood; Bertha, who died at the age 
 of thirty-six years as the wife of Henry Leisenfeld, 
 who is now a resident of the Town of Sigel, Brown 
 County, and is engaged in farming; and Lena, who 
 was the wife of the late John Kretsch, a harness 
 maker, and now makes her home at New Ulm. 
 
 The common schools of Brown County furnished 
 Henry J. Berg with his educational advantages in 
 his youth, but when he was fourteen years of age 
 he gave up his studies and commenced to devote 
 all his attention to assisting his father in the work 
 of the farm. He remained until reaching his majority 
 with his parents, and then embarked upon a career 
 of his own, being for two years occupied in farming, 
 and then becoming identified with the livery business 
 as a member of the firm of Kretsch & Berg, his 
 Tot in— 24 
 
 partner being his brother-in-law. This business was 
 dissolved in 1895, when Mr. Berg sold out to his 
 partner and went from New Ulm to Sleepy Eye, 
 where he embarked in a cafe business. This estab- 
 lishment he conducted successfully until 1905, when 
 he disposed of his business and entered politics as 
 an active participant. He became the candidate of 
 the democratic party for the office of county treas- 
 urer of Brown County in 1906, and was elected to 
 that office, and his subsequent services during his 
 first and succeeding terms so favorably impressed 
 the people that November 3, 1914, he was once 
 more elected for a full term of four years. His 
 faithful and conscientious labors in this most im- 
 portant office have left nothing to be desired, and 
 as the years have passed he has but strengthened 
 himself in the confidence of those who have continued 
 to support him. Mr. Berg is a member of the Roman 
 Catholic Church. His fraternal connections include 
 membership in the Knights of Columbus, No. 1076, 
 New LTlm, of which he is grand knight; St. Joseph’s 
 Society, New Ulm ; Catholic Order of Foresters, 
 No. 639, Sleepy Eye; St. John’s Society, Sleepy Eye, 
 and the Arbeiter Verein, New Ulm. 
 
 Mr. Berg was married, August 7, 1887, in Brown 
 County, to Miss Mary Hoffman, daughter of Clement 
 Hoffman, a farmer of Brown County, now deceased. 
 To this union there have been born eight children, 
 as follows : Mary, who married Dr. A. W. Eck- 
 stein, a practicing physician of Holdingford, Stearns 
 County, Minnesota ; Edward, who is deputy county 
 treasurer in his father’s office at New L T lm; Henry, 
 who is a college student, preparing for a career as a 
 pharmacist; Dora, Leo and Helen, who are attending 
 the New Ulm High School; Clement, who is a 
 student in the parochial school; and Walter, the 
 baby. 
 
 Samuel D. Works. One of _ the important ap- 
 pointments by the present administration of state 
 government that has given unusual satisfaction and 
 has strengthened the administration with the public, 
 was the selection of Samuel D. Works to the 
 important post of commissioner of insurance. Mr. 
 Works has had a long and varied business experience 
 in the Northwest. He has been prominently identi- 
 fied with politics. He served two terms in the 
 State Senate. Is engaged in the real estate, mortgage 
 and investment business and is president of the Com- 
 mercial State Bank of St. Paul. 
 
 Mr. Works was born in Steuben County, New 
 York, February 3, 1862, one of seven sons of Leoni- 
 das and Helen (Gasleigh) Works. Both parents 
 were natives of New York, and his father was a 
 farmer, giving the best years of his life to that call- 
 ing. He died in New York in 1884, and his wife in 
 1894. 
 
 The boyhood days of Samuel D. Works was spent 
 in one of the typical rural communities of New York 
 State, where he attended the country and select 
 schools in the village where he was born. He also 
 attended Cook Academy at Montour Falls, New 
 York, and afterwards the University of Chicago 
 and the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In 
 July, 1888, he was ordained to the ministry of the 
 Baptist Church, and after spending five years was 
 elected general missionary to the State of North 
 Dakota; going from there to the City of Huron, 
 South Dakota, and then to Mankato, Minnesota. 
 
 Resigning the ministry, he entered active business 
 
1640 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 life in Mankato, and has since continued in various 
 business activities until the present time. 
 
 He was elected state senator to represent the 
 Eleventh District in 1906, being the first democrat 
 who had represented that district in thirty years. He 
 has always been identified with the democratic party. 
 While in the Senate he served on several important 
 committees, viz. : railroad, grain and warehouse, 
 finance, and others and was always a disinterested 
 and zealous advocate of good government and 
 sound legislation. 
 
 During the various political campaigns in Minne- 
 sota, he has been much in demand as a stump 
 speaker, and is recognized as one of the foremost 
 orators of the state. 
 
 In 1913 Mr. Works removed from Mankato to 
 St. Paul, and has since become identified with the 
 Commercial State Bank, and was elected president 
 of this institution February 1, 1915. On January 12, 
 1915, he assumed the duties of commissioner of 
 insurance under appointment of Governor Ham- 
 mond, which post he now fills with ability. During 
 his long residence in Minnesota he has acquired an 
 extensive acquaintance both with men and affairs, 
 and his fitness is recognized in every respect for his 
 present office. 
 
 Mr. Works was married in 1888 to Miss Agnes 
 Owens of Troupsburg, New York. They have two 
 sons : Donald Harper, and Phil Owens, both of 
 
 whom are attending the Shattuck Military School at 
 Faribault, Minnesota. Mr. Works is a ' member of 
 several clubs in St. Paul, and is a member of the 
 Elks, and the blue lodge of the Masonic fraternity. 
 
 William D. Bell. A newspaper which has had a 
 fine and vitalizing influence on the community is the 
 Journal-Gazette at St. James. Its editor and proprie- 
 tor, William D. Bell, is a journalist from the ground 
 up, and for many years has successfully edited and 
 published newspapers in Minnesota and South Da- 
 kota, and under his management has elevated the 
 Journal-Gazette to the position of a profitable 
 financial enterprise and a paper of more than local 
 influence. 
 
 William D. Bell was born in Monroe County, 
 Wisconsin, October 18, 1866, and is descended from 
 a family that came from England to America during 
 the colonial days and settled in New York State. 
 The father, Richard Bell, was born in Albany County, 
 New York, in 1839, came west and settled in 
 Wisconsin in 1862, followed farming as a pioneer 
 in that state, and in 1880 moved out to Brookings 
 County, South Dakota, where he lived on a farm 
 until 1887, when he moved to Brookings City and 
 retired, remaining there until his death in 1907. A 
 short time after locating in Wisconsin he enlisted, 
 in 1864, in the Forty-ninth Regiment of Wisconsin 
 Infantry, and saw active service until the close of 
 the war. Richard Bell married Elizabeth A. Palmer, 
 who was born in Albany County, New York, in 1838 
 and died at Brookings, South Dakota, in 1912. 
 
 The only child of his parents, William D. Bell 
 grew up in Monroe County, Wisconsin, attended the 
 public schools there, and after the family moved out 
 to South Dakota he continued attending school in 
 Brookings County, and in 1891 was graduated 
 Bachelor of Science from the South Dakota State 
 College. While at college Mr. Bell was distinguished 
 for his work in oratory, and for a year and a half 
 served as instructor in telegraphy and electricity in 
 the college. After leaving college Mr. Bell spent 
 
 a year as principal of schools at Iroquois, SoutK 
 Dakota, another year in the same capacity at Hudson 
 in that state, and the next year he was in the jewelry 
 and photography business in Castlewood, South 
 Dakota. At Ashton, South Dakota, he combined 
 photography and newspaper work. In 1896 Mr. Bell 
 re-entered South Dakota State College, and after a 
 post-graduate course went to Slayton, Minnesota, 
 and in the fall of 1897 bought the Herald, of which 
 he was editor until 1905. Since the spring of the 
 latter year he has lived in St. James. On moving to 
 St. James he bought the Journal, one of the older 
 papers of Watonwan County, having been established 
 in 1878. In 1906 a partnership was formed with 
 W. M. Barrett, owner of the Gazette, and the two 
 newspapers were consolidated as the Journal-Gazette. 
 In the fall of 1908 Mr. Bell bought his partner's 
 interest, and has since been sole proprietor and 
 editor of the Journal-Gazette. It is conducted as 
 an independent republican paper, and its circle of 
 readers covers the entire county. The paper main- 
 tains a liberal and public-spirited policy in support 
 of all progressive measures, and it is not only the 
 best medium of news but also influential as a 
 moulder of public opinion. 
 
 Like his paper he maintains the attitude of an 
 independent republican in politics. He belongs to 
 the Presbyterian Church, and is affiliated with 
 Libanus Lodge No. 96, A. F. & A. M. ; with the 
 Order of Eastern Star; with St. James Camp No. 
 1538 of the Modern Woodmen of America; with 
 the Knights of Pythias Lodge at St. James, and the 
 Brotherhood of American Yeomen. 
 
 October 21, 1891, at Estelline, South Dakota, 
 Mr. Bell married Miss Eva I. Robinson, daughter 
 of the late John W. Robinson, who was a farmer 
 in that section of South Dakota. The children of 
 their marriage are: Fred E., a graduate of the St. 
 
 James High School, and now assisting his father; 
 Ralph W., attending public schools in St. James; 
 and Grace Eva. 
 
 John C. Jensen. The present efficient county 
 auditor of Watonwan County, Minnesota, John C. 
 Jensen, has been the incumbent of this office since 
 January, 1911, and during his administration of its 
 duties has established the reputation of being a man 
 who can secure results. Aside from his personal 
 accomplishments and abilities, he has been aided 
 by the possession, in a marked degree, of that 
 faculty possessed by men of large and successful 
 affairs of bringing about him able co-workers and 
 communicating to them his enthusiasm and deter- 
 mination to get the greatest and best results from 
 the matters in hand. 
 
 Mr. Jensen was born on his father’s farm in 
 Seneca Township, Kossuth County, Iowa, May 26, 
 1871, and is a son of P. W. Jensen. The father was 
 born three miles out of Christiania, Norway, in 
 1846, and was a young man of twenty-three years 
 at the time of his emigration to the United States. 
 He took up his residence in Wisconsin in 1869, 
 and was there married to Maria Jacobson, who was 
 also born in Norway, and who came as a young 
 woman to America on the same vessel that brought 
 her husband. After a residence of two years in 
 Wisconsin the parents moved to Kossuth County, 
 Iowa, and settled on a farm in Seneca Township, 
 where they carried on agricultural operations until 
 1911, at which time they retired from active labor. 
 They are now living in their comfortable home at 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1641 
 
 Ringsted, Emmet County, Iowa. Nine children were 
 born to P. W. and Maria Jensen, namely: John C., 
 
 of this review; Mary, who became the wife of Ed 
 Helgason, a farmer and elevator owner at Arm- 
 strong, Iowa; Louise, who became the wife of Jens 
 Peterson, a blacksmith of Ringsted, Iowa ; J. M., 
 who is engaged as a successful merchant at Ringsted; 
 Otto, who is engaged in agricultural pursuits in 
 Seneca Township, Kossuth County, Iowa; Henrietta, 
 who died unmarried at the age of twenty-two years ; 
 Fred, who is a farmer and resides in Seneca Town- 
 ship ; Edward, who is cultivating the old homestead 
 place in Seneca Township ; and Martha, who is 
 the wife of Peter Jensen, a farmer of Seneca Town- 
 ship. The children were all given good trainings 
 by their parents, and well fitted to fill the honorable 
 and useful positions in life to which they have been 
 called. 
 
 The early education of John C. Jensen was secured 
 in the district schools of Seneca Township, and 
 during his vacation periods was given his intro- 
 duction to business affairs on his father’s farm. He 
 furthered his training by a course in the Algona 
 Business College, Algona, Iowa, from which he was 
 graduated in 1893, and then entered upon his career 
 by securing employment in a lumber yard at Sioux 
 Falls, South Dakota, where he remained until 1897. 
 In that year Mr. Jensen returned to his native 
 township and opened a store, being successfully 
 engaged in business there until 1901, when he recog- 
 nized and accepted an excellent opportunity to enter 
 the banking business at Odin, Watonwan County, 
 Minnesota. Mr. Jensen’s experience as a banker 
 continued for ten years, during which time he came 
 into close contact with the leading farmers, business 
 men and bankers of this section, who recognized and 
 appreciated his ability, his trustworthiness and his 
 fidelity to engagements, so that, in the fall of 1910, 
 when he became the republican candidate for county 
 auditor of Watonwan County, he was given their 
 combined support and secured the election. He 
 assumed the duties of his office in January, 1911, 
 and his first term was so eminently satisfactory 
 to the people that in the elections of 1914 he was 
 re-elected to succeed himself, without opposition. On 
 first taking up his official duties, Mr. Jensen moved 
 to St. James, the county seat, where he has since 
 resided and where his offices are located in the 
 courthouse. During the entire time of his residence 
 at Odin, Mr. Jensen served in the capacity of mem- 
 ber of the school board, and in each of his offices 
 he has evinced a worthy and earnest desire to serve 
 the people to the extent of his ability. He still 
 maintains interest in business matters, and is vice 
 president of the Odin State Bank. Fraternally he 
 is connected with St. James Lodge No. 207, Inde- 
 pendent Order of Odd Fellows; the St. James Lodge 
 of the Rebekahs, St. James Lodge No. 58, and the 
 Modern Brotherhood of America, Bradford Lodge 
 No. 361, of which he is president. With his family 
 he is a member and consistent attendant of the Nor- 
 wegian Lutheran Church, and has been liberal in 
 his support of its various enterprises and move- 
 ments. 
 
 Mr. Jensen was married at Brookings, Brookings 
 County, South Dakota, in 1897, to Miss Emma Sin- 
 jem, daughter of the late B. Sinjem, formerly a 
 farmer of Brookings County. Three children have 
 been born to this union : Miss Myrtle, who is at- 
 
 tending the high school at St. James; and Prescott 
 and Norvil, who are students in the graded schools. 
 
 Knute Sevrin Thompson. Now serving as clerk 
 of the District Court of St. James, Knute S. Thomp- 
 son is a Watonwan County citizen who has always 
 shown a capacity for service and efficiency, whether 
 as a farmer or in public office, and is one of the 
 best known and most highly esteemed men in that 
 section of the state. 
 
 A native of Norway, he was born at Kragro, May 
 19, 1865, a son of Jens Thompson, who was born 
 in the same locality in 1829, and who died in August, 
 1908, in the Town of Rosendale, Watonwan County, 
 Minnesota. Jens Thompson brought his family to 
 America in 1868, landing at Quebec, Canada, and 
 shortly afterward coming to Minnesota and taking 
 up a homestead in the Town of Rosendale. He was 
 a farmer who developed his land from wilderness 
 conditions, and lived to enjoy the fruits of material 
 prosperity and the esteem of his community. He 
 married Sevrine Swenson, who was born at Kragro 
 and died at Rosendale in February, 1900. Brief 
 mention of their children is as follows : Marie is 
 
 the wife of Henry Madson, a farmer in Watonwan 
 County ; Thomas J., lives on a farm at Mobridge, 
 South Dakota; Eliza is the widow of Andrew 
 Graven, who was a painter and decorator, and she 
 now lives in Minneapolis ; Louisa A. is the wife of 
 John A. Johnson, a real estate man at Windom, 
 Minnesota; Henry died at the age of fourteen; and 
 J. Caroline is in Windom, Minnesota. 
 
 Knute S. Thompson has lived in Minnesota since 
 early childhood, acquired his education in the com- 
 mon schools in the Town of Rosendale in Watonwan 
 County, and also took a course in a business college 
 at Mankato. On reaching mature years he engaged 
 in business as a farmer in Watonwan County, and 
 prospered along those lines and still has extensive 
 interests in the agricultural districts of this section. 
 In 1909 Mr. Thompson was elected clerk of the 
 District Court, and has since lived in St. James. 
 His term expires in 1916. Other service by which 
 he has identified himself with the community and 
 gained a record of admirable efficiency in positions 
 of trust has been as town tlerk, assessor, justice 
 of the peace, and as a member of the school board in 
 the Town of Rosendale. Politically he is a 
 republican. 
 
 Mr. Thompson is a member of the Norwegian 
 Lutheran Church. He is noble grand in the St. 
 James Lodge of Independent Order of Odd Fellows 
 and affiliates with the Modern Woodmen of America 
 and the M. B. A. On May 3, 1898, at Canton, South 
 Dakota, he married Miss Christina Thompson, a 
 distant relative. At the time of her marriage she 
 was serving as a nurse at St. Peter, Minnesota. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Thompson have three children : Henry J. 
 and Irven S., both in the public schools of St. 
 James; and Lenora Marie. 
 
 Edward C. Farmer is one of the successful law- 
 yers at St. James, and a partner in practice with W. 
 S. Hammond, who was elected governor of the state 
 in 1914. Since his admission to the bar in 1897 Mr. 
 Farmer has had a steadily growing and successful 
 practice as a lawyer, and at the same time has ac- 
 quired some important business interests in Waton- 
 wan County. 
 
 Edward C. Farmer was born at Savage in Scott 
 County, Minnesota, September 19, 1876. His father, 
 Hugh Farmer, who was of Irish descent, was born 
 in Canada in 1847, and is now living at Madelia, in 
 Watonwan County. After his marriage he moved 
 
1642 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 to the United States, located near Shakopee, 
 Minnesota, and became one of the pioneers at 
 Madelia in 1878. For many years his work was as 
 section foreman on the railroad, but he has lived 
 retired since igoo. Hugh Farmer married Margaret 
 Grady, a native of Elgin, Illinois. Their children 
 are: Edward C. ; Florence, wife of John Tigh, a 
 farmer near Madelia; and Mary, wife of Alfred E. 
 LeBlanc, station agent at Wahkon, Minnesota. 
 
 Edward C. Farmer grew up at Madelia, attended 
 the grammar and high schools there, and began 
 preparation for law in the same town. He received 
 his higher education in Lincoln University one year, 
 and in 1897 graduated LL. B. from the University of 
 Minnesota Law School. His old home town of 
 Madelia was the scene of his early career as a 
 lawyer, and he remained there until 1911 and has 
 since been located at St. James. As a partner of 
 Mr. Hammond he has offices in the Peck Building, 
 and they have a splendid general practice both in 
 civil and criminal cases. Mr. Farmer is vice presi- 
 dent of the C. E. Brown Land Company of Madelia, 
 and is a stockholder in the State Bank of Madelia, 
 the St. James Telephone Company, the Madelia 
 Telephone Company and the Twin City Fire Com- 
 pany. 
 
 Politically he is classified as an independent 
 republican. For four years he held the office of 
 county attorney of Watonwan County, and made a 
 creditable record in that position. Mr. Farmer is a 
 member of the Catholic Church and is affiliated with 
 Mankato Lodge No. 225 of the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks. In 1907 at Denver, 
 Colorado, he married Miss Elizabeth M. Price. Her 
 father, John Price, is now a retired farmer at Lime 
 Springs, Iowa. 
 
 Edson A. Gibbs. The founder of what is now the 
 leading hotel of the city, the chief business interests 
 of Edson A. Gibbs for nearly twenty years have 
 been in the line of real estate, and his clientage in 
 both city and farm property is now one of the most 
 profitable, enjoyed by* any of his competitors in 
 Watonwan County. 
 
 Mr. Gibbs is a native Vermonter, and comes of 
 substantial old English and Colonial American stock. 
 The first Americans of the name left England and 
 of three brothers one settled in Massachusetts, one 
 in New York and one in Pennsylvania. The 
 descendants of the Massachusetts colonists finally 
 moved to Vermont, and established the family of 
 which Edson A. is a representative. Edson A. Gibbs 
 was born at Woodstock, Vermont, November 4, 1855. 
 His father, Seth W. Gibbs, was born at Bridge- 
 water, Vermont, in 1816 and died at Norwich in the 
 same state August 5, 1865. For the greater part of 
 his active career he was proprietor of a hotel, and 
 that business has been followed by his son so that 
 it is almost a family profession. Seth W. Gibbs 
 married Levina W. Holland, who was born in Pitts- 
 field, Vermont, in 1824 and died in St. James, 
 Minnesota, January 19, 1890. Of their children the 
 oldest, William W., died at Los Angeles, California, 
 September 25, 1914. He was one of the pioneer 
 citizens of St. James, Minnesota, having located in 
 the village in 1876. His business was as hotel 
 proprietor, and he was one of the most prosperous 
 men in Watonwan County, and his estate now com- 
 prises more than a thousand acres of land in the 
 vicinity of St. James. The son, Myron D., who 
 died at Tracy, Minnesota, in 1908, was also a hotel 
 
 man and in business at Tracy for a number of 
 years. 
 
 Edson A. Gibbs grew up at Woodstock, attended 
 the public schools there, and finished his education 
 by graduation from the Norwich Classical and 
 English Boarding School at Norwich with the class 
 of 1874. His first regular employment was as a 
 telegraph operator at Bradford, Vermont, and 
 afterwards he was stationed at the White River 
 Junction in Vermont until 1876. Moving to Wal- 
 tham, Massachusetts, he had charge of the retail 
 jewelry store of George H. Whitford from 1876 
 until 1883. Going to the extreme West, Mr. Gibbs 
 was proprietor of a hotel in Marysville, California, 
 until 1885, and then came to Minnesota and was in 
 the gas and electric fixture business at Minneapolis 
 until 1890. 
 
 His activities have identified him with St. James 
 since 1890, and on moving to this city he opened 
 the Hotel Gibbs, which now under the name of 
 Boston is still the leading hotel of the town. In 
 1895 Mr. Gibbs retired from the active management 
 of the hotel to enter the real estate business, and 
 has since been one of the extensive dealers in farm 
 lands and city property. His offices are in the Olson 
 Block. 
 
 His service as a mayor was for two terms, and 
 for a number of years he was a member of the 
 school board. Mr. Gibbs is a republican, is a past 
 master of service of Libanus Lodge No. 96, A. F. & 
 A. M. ; is past high priest of Concordia Chapter No. 
 25, R. A. M. ; and is a member of Mankato Com- 
 mandery No. 4, K. T. ; Order of the Eastern Star; 
 St. James Lodge No. 207, I. O. O. F. ; and was the 
 first chancellor commander of the Knights of 
 Pythias lodge of St. James. 
 
 Mr. Gibbs was married December 4, 1878, in Brad- 
 ford, Vermont, to Miss Kate S. Stevens. Her 
 father, Harry B. Stevens, died in 1911 at the vener- 
 able age of ninety-three, was a distinguished charac- 
 ter in Vermont, and for more than forty years had 
 conducted the White Mountain Stage Line. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Gibbs have one son, Harry W., who is now 
 serving as deputy sheriff of Watonwan County. 
 
 Maj. R. R. Henderson. The following is the 
 record of a gallant soldier in the great struggle 
 which preserved the Union, of a thorough and suc- 
 cessful business man, and of a steadfast and useful 
 citizen, who during his thirty odd years of residence 
 at Minneapolis has been again and again honored 
 with those distinctions which are most prized in any 
 community or state. Major Henderson retired from 
 active business life many years ago, and his time 
 has since been chiefly devoted to civic affairs and 
 the interests of the old soldiers in Minnesota. In 
 December, 1912, Major Henderson was appointed 
 adjutant of the Minnesota Soldiers’ Home at Minne- 
 haha Falls, and is now giving that institution the 
 benefit of his long and varied experience and ability 
 in affairs. As will be shown in later paragraphs, 
 he deserves the chief credit for the location of the 
 institution at Minnehaha. 
 
 The active military career of Major Henderson 
 came very early in his young manhood and he left 
 the army a youthful major, having, won his promo- 
 tion by successive steps from the ranks. Even 
 before the outbreak of the war his experience was 
 much more varied than that of the average youth of 
 his time and had taken him to many parts of .the 
 country. Born in the City of Washington, Wash- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 0 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1643 
 
 ington County, Pennsylvania, on April 24, 1837, he 
 grew up in Southwestern Pennsylvania and for a 
 time was a student at the fine old college in his 
 native town. A boy of nineteen, in 1857, he removed 
 to Delaware, Ohio, and the two following years were 
 spent in railroad service. In the spring of 1859 he 
 accompanied a small party of prospectors who went 
 across the plains to the Rocky Mountains. The 
 discovery of gold in the Pike’s Peak region several 
 years before had attracted a vast throng of eager 
 fortune hunters, and life in the western mining 
 camps in those days was one of stirring incident 
 and adventure, while a journey across the west 
 intervening and desolate region between the Mis- 
 souri River and the mountains was fraught with 
 hardship, privation and danger. The party of four 
 of which Major Henderson was a member left 
 Leavenworth, Kansas, on April 4, 1859, driving three 
 yoke of cattle to a wagon, and it was fifty-four days 
 before they arrived in the new Town of Denver. 
 The following year was spent by young Henderson 
 in the West, as a prospector and miner, and then 
 with his zest for adventure somewhat satisfied he 
 returned to the quiet routine of affairs in the State 
 of Ohio. He became a bookkeeper for W. W. 
 Woods, a grain dealer at Marysville, and was there 
 at the time of the breaking out of the War of the 
 Rebellion. 
 
 Only a few days after Fort Sumter was fired upon, 
 on April 17, 1861, he enlisted as a private in Com- 
 pany F of the Thirteenth Ohio Infantry. His service 
 with that regiment continued until and through the 
 battle of Shiloh on April 7, 1862. Going out as a 
 private, his service was so faithful and efficient that 
 he was promoted first to sergeant-major, then to 
 first lieutenant and to adjutant. He was captain of 
 Company I of the Thirteenth Ohio Infantry in the 
 battle of Shiloh. His regiment was a portion of 
 the forces under General Buell who arrived from 
 Nashville in time to help Grant fight the second day 
 of that critical battle. On that day, while charging 
 the famous Washington Battery of New Orleans, 
 Major Henderson was stricken down, badly 
 wounded, and spent several months, attended with 
 much suffering, first in the hospital at Mound City 
 and afterwards at home. For his gallant conduct 
 in the battle of Shiloh he was promoted to the rank 
 of major in the One Hundred and Twenty-first 
 Regiment of Ohio Infantry, on September 10, 1862. 
 Upon returning to the field Major Henderson con- 
 tinued in active service as a soldier of the Union 
 army until he had nearly completed his term, and 
 was obliged on account of wounds to resign. For 
 gallant and meritorious services during the war he 
 was brevetted lieutenant-colonel and colonel. 
 
 At the close of the war having returned to Marys- 
 ville, he engaged in the dry goods business as a 
 member of the firm of Whelply & Henderson. From 
 Marysville in 1868 he transferred his business con- 
 nections to Delaware, and there set up a merchant 
 tailoring and men’s furnishing goods store. Dela- 
 ware continued to be his home until 1881. In that 
 year Major Henderson became a resident of Minne- 
 apolis. He bought the interest of C. A. Fuller, in 
 the old firm of Fuller & Simpson, which then became 
 Simpson & Henderson. Most of the older residents 
 of Minneapolis remember the fine store for men’s 
 furnishing goods conducted by this firm and they 
 also operated a laundry. On August 4, 1890, Major 
 Henderson bought out his partner in the retail store 
 and continued business under his own name until 
 
 1891. The laundry business was finally incorporated, 
 and Major Henderson was president of the company 
 until the year 1893. Among Minneapolis merchants 
 Major Henderson stood in the front rank, and his 
 store was noted for its large and excellent stock. 
 It had a splendid trade among the best classes. 
 
 It was only natural that his record as an army 
 officer and an efficient business man should give him 
 prominence as a citizen in any locality which became 
 his home. Hence, during the greater portion of his 
 career since the war Major Henderson has served 
 in some official position of trust. . During his resi- 
 dence at Delaware, Ohio, he was for six years a 
 trustee of the Girls’ Industrial Home. His first 
 appointment came from the democratic governor, 
 R. M. Bishop, and was afterwards re-appointed by 
 Gov. C. A. Foster, a republican. 
 
 At the time of the organization of the Minnesota 
 Soldiers’ Home, in the spring of 1887, Major Hen- 
 derson was appointed by Gov. A. R. McGill, one 
 of the board of seven trustees. The first duty of 
 the board was to select a site for the prooosed 
 institution, which had just been authorized by the 
 State Legislature. Eligible locations were - abundant 
 and the towns of the state were overflowing with 
 public spirit. Twelve or fifteen cities made formal 
 offers of tracts of land free of expense to the state, 
 on which to build the home, and all strove for the 
 honor and prestige of securing the institution on 
 which, it could be foreseen, the state would be lavish 
 in its generosity. The trustees conscientiously 
 visited all these cities, listened to their proposals and 
 arguments and inspected the tracts offered. The 
 City of Minneapolis offered the fifty-one acres at 
 Minnehaha, afterwards selected, for which $55,000 
 was paid. Major Henderson strongly and constantly 
 urged the acceptance of this offer and was tireless 
 in his efforts to convince his colleagues in the board 
 of the superiority of that site. The board, however, 
 was divided in opinion and many ballots were taken 
 before a majority could be secured for any locality. 
 Finally, on the 107th ballot, on every one of which 
 Major Henderson voted for Minnehaha, that site 
 received the necessary four votes and was chosen. 
 The home was built there, as described in a chapter 
 of this book. Thus the great prize was secured to 
 his city, and so manifest were the intrinsic merits 
 of the beautiful location that not a serious criticism 
 has ever been made of the wise selection by the 
 board, even by the most zealous of the rival 
 aspirants. Few who see the magnificent home which 
 has grown up there now question the wisdom of the 
 choice, and all who are advised of the facts award 
 to Major Henderson the principal credit for the 
 admirable selection. 
 
 Major Henderson served six years as a trustee 
 without compensation. These were the formative 
 years of the institution, when it had to be organized 
 from the foundation ; officers chosen ; buildings 
 erected; discipline maintained and large sums from 
 the outside relief fund disbursed. In all this work 
 Major Henderson, as the resident trustee in Minne- 
 apolis, had an extra share and a special responsibility. 
 He gave unremitting devotion to his varied duties, 
 with a zeal that commanded the admiration of his 
 fellow trustees — one of whom writes these lines, as 
 a feeble tribute to his great services to the veterans 
 and to the people of the state. 
 
 When the time came, nearly twenty years after his 
 retirement from the board, that his valuable services 
 as an officer of the home could be secured, it was 
 
1644 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 graceful recognition of his past voluntary work for 
 the institution, as well as a knowledge of his 
 efficiency, that prompted his appointment to the place 
 he now fills. 
 
 For a number of years Major Henderson has been 
 active in Grand Army circles, and has at different 
 times been honored with high offices in that great 
 organization, among them that of chief of staff to 
 the national commander-in-chief. Major Henderson 
 is an active and popular member of the Commandery 
 of the State of Minnesota, Military Order of the 
 Loyal Legion, in which he has held the office of 
 commander. In 1884 Major Henderson organized 
 John A. Rawlins Post No. 126, Department of 
 Minnesota G. A. R. He was its first commander 
 and for more than thirty years has been one of its 
 most useful and honored members. He admired a 
 true soldier loyal to the cause he believed to be 
 right. Through his efforts a library was established 
 at Cardinal, Mathews County, Virginia, as an ex- 
 pression of his fraternal feelings for the ex-Con- 
 federate soldier. 
 
 It was not only a compliment to a distinguished 
 soldier and successful business man, but also the 
 good fortune of the city which claimed his residence, 
 when on January 5, 1891, Major Henderson accepted 
 the post of chief of police of Minneapolis. This 
 appointment was tendered by the late P. B. Winston, 
 a prominent Minneapolis citizen whose career is 
 sketched elsewhere. Major Henderson’s experience 
 in military discipline and his skill as an organizer 
 and his unquestioned integrity fitted him for the 
 responsible position, which he held during P. B. 
 Winston’s administration as mayor. 
 
 William J. Julius. With the expiration of his 
 present four-year term of office, in 1918, William 
 J. Julius will have completed a service of sixteen 
 years in the capacity of sheriff of Brown County. 
 He was first sent to this office in 1902 and so faithful 
 has been his discharge of the duties of the shrievalty 
 that at each succeeding election he has secured a 
 majority of the people’s votes, and has continued 
 to vindicate their faith in his ability and fidelity. 
 Mr. Julius has a wide acquaintance throughout this 
 part of the state, and particularly in journalistic 
 circles, for during a long period of years he was 
 connected with newspapers in various localities, but 
 always returned to the vicinity of his birth. Sheriff 
 Julius was born at Milford, one-half mile from New 
 Ulm, Brown County, Minnesota, May 15, 1869, and 
 is a son of Fred and Mary (Kalb) Julius. 
 
 Fred Julius was born in Germany, in 1841, and 
 was a lad of fifteen years when he came to the 
 United States to seek his fortunes, settling among 
 the pioneers of Brown County, where he was 
 engaged in farming for a number of years. He was 
 residing there at the time of the Indian outbreak 
 and took an active part in that trouble, being 
 stationed at Fort Ridgely. In 1870 Mr. Julius 
 removed to New Ulm and engaged in merchandising, 
 being thus successfully occupied until his death, in 
 1880. He married Miss Mary Kalb, who was born 
 in 1841, in Ohio, of German descent, and who still 
 survives him and makes her residence at New Ulm. 
 Four children were born to them, namely : William 
 J., of this review ; Bertha, who married Henry 
 Vedder, proprietor of a barber shop at New Ulm; 
 Mary, of New Ulm, the widow of Charles Roeder, 
 who was employed by the Schell Brewing Company; 
 
 and Rosa, who is the wife of Emil Hoffman, the 
 proprietor of a hotel business at Maquoketa, Iowa. 
 
 William J. Julius was given ordinary educational 
 advantages at New Ulm, but at an early age laid 
 aside his school books and became self-supporting, 
 learning the trade of printer in the office of the 
 New Ulm Post and the New Ulm Review, continuing 
 with one or the other of these newspapers con- 
 tinuously until 1887. In that year he went to 
 Minneapolis, and for one year was identified with 
 the Minneapolis Free Press-Herald, the following 
 winter being passed in the State of Ohio. Returning 
 to New Ulm, in 1888, he assisted in the founding 
 of a newspaper at Springfield, Minnesota, known as 
 The Springfield Adler, but remained with that sheet 
 only eight months, then again coming to New Ulm. 
 Here he adopted the vocation of painting, in which 
 he was occupied until 1892, when he again turned 
 his attention to journalistic labors, assisting in 
 starting the New Ulm Volksblatt, a paper with 
 which he was connected for two years, during which 
 time he also helped to organize the New Ulm 
 Fortschritt. 
 
 In 1897 Mr. Julius began his official services when 
 he was appointed night policeman of the City of 
 New Ulm, a position which he held for five years. 
 Previous to this time he had had some experience 
 in the capacity of constable, and his excellent 
 services in both these offices commended him to the 
 people, so that when, in January, 1902, he became 
 the candidate of the republican party for the 
 shrievalty, he secured the election at the hands of his 
 fellow-citizens of Brown County. Sheriff Julius has 
 established an excellent record for duty well and 
 courageously performed. He has been prompt in 
 the serving and return of all writs, warrants, pro- 
 cesses, orders and decrees ; has been an able con- 
 servator of peace in his county, has been effective 
 in the suppression of crime and the bringing of 
 criminals to the bar of justice, and faithful in attend- 
 ing the courts of record and obeying their orders. 
 Sheriff Julius is a member of the Roman Catholic 
 Church, is an enthusiastic and valued member of 
 the Commercial Club of New Ulm, and fraternizes 
 with the Knights of Columbus, St. Joseph’s U. V. 
 of Minnesota, and the Catholic Order of Foresters. 
 
 Mr. Julius was married November 23, 1891, at 
 New Ulm, Minnesota, to Miss Charlotte May Blass, 
 daughter of the late William Blass, who until his 
 retirement to New Ulm was a well known farmer of 
 Nicollet County. Five children have been born to 
 this union, as follows : Hildegaard, a graduate of 
 New Ulm High School, who also took a course of 
 one year at the Mankato Normal School, is a teacher 
 in the public schools, single, and resides with her 
 parents; Louisa, who is the wife of Herman Janke, 
 of New Ulm, now acting as deputy sheriff; and 
 Florence, William and Walter, who are all attending 
 the public schools of New Ulm. 
 
 Enoch Germaine Larson. One of the ambitious 
 younger members of the Minneapolis bar, Mr. Larson 
 entered the profession with exceptional natural 
 qualifications and training, and few men in so short 
 a time have given so excellent an account of them- 
 selves in their chosen field of work. Mr. Larson’s 
 offices are in the First National-Soo Line Building 
 at Minneapolis. 
 
 Enoch Germaine Larson was born in Dunn 
 County, Wisconsin, July 27, 1888, a son of Erik -S. 
 and Eliza (Hegge) Larson, both natives of Norway. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1645 
 
 Erik S. Larson was reared and educated in his 
 native land and about i860 emigrated to the United 
 States, finding a home in Wisconsin. His loyalty 
 to the land of his adoption was manifested by his 
 enlistment in a Wisconsin regiment of volunteers 
 during the Civil war, though he was never called 
 to the front. His wife came with her parents to 
 Wisconsin when she was a girl, settling at LaCrosse, 
 where her father was one of the Norwegian 
 pioneers. Erik S. Larson became a successful 
 farmer in Dunn County, and finally transferred his 
 home to North Dakota, where he was an early 
 settler and developed a large landed estate. He 
 now owns an entire section in Williams County, and 
 is living retired at the county seat, Williston. In 
 Dunn County, Wisconsin, he owns 300 acres of 
 land, the greater part of which had been developed 
 and improved by his own hands or under his direct 
 management. In Dunn County he served a long 
 term of years as postmaster in the little village of 
 Fosbroke, and has likewise been prominent and 
 influential in Williams County, North Dakota. He 
 and his wife are the parents of five sons and nine 
 daughters, all of them living with the exception of 
 Mrs. Julia Hoigaard, who died in Africa in the 
 year 1900, Mi 11 a Larson, who died in 1902 in Mada- 
 gascar, and G. Adolph, who died in the fall of 1914 
 in Minneapolis, and all the sons are residents of 
 North Dakota with the exception of the Minneapolis 
 lawyer above named. In order of birth they are : 
 Mrs. E. P. Harbo, wife of Professor Harbo, a 
 Minneapolis educator; Mrs. O. B. Sanders, who lives 
 in Canada; Edwin E., of Wild Rose, North Dakota; 
 Emma, Sister Superior of the leading hospital at 
 Grand Forks, North Dakota; Mrs. C. G. Jorgenson, 
 wife of Rev. C. G. Jorgenson, of Ashland, Wis- 
 consin; Mrs. O. L. Christensen, wife of Rev. O. L. 
 Christensen, of Hendricks, Minnesota; L. Herman, 
 of Marmon, North Dakota; William Alfred, a com- 
 mercial traveler with headquarters in Minneapolis; 
 E. Germaine; Edna, a trained nurse in the Nor- 
 wegian Lutheran Hospital at Grand Forks, North 
 Dakota; and Hilda, who graduated from the 
 LaCrosse High School in 1914 and is now a student 
 in the University of Minnesota. All the children 
 were born in Dunn County, Wisconsin. 
 
 E. Germaine Larson as a boy attended the public 
 schools of his native county, spent one year in the 
 North Side High School at Minneapolis and for six 
 years was a student in the excellent^ Minneapolis 
 institution maintained by the Norwegian Lutheran 
 church, the Augsburg Seminary, where he was 
 graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1910. In the mean- 
 time he had made definite choice of the law as a 
 profession, and was a student in the law department 
 of the University of Minnesota until graduating 
 LL. B. in 1913. Mr. Larson began practice at Minne- 
 apolis in July, 1913, and his energy and ability made 
 his novitiate one of brief duration. He has built up 
 a general practice and gives considerable attention 
 to the handling of Minneapolis real estate. He is 
 legal representative for the M. Rumley Company, 
 manufacturers of traction engines and other agricul- 
 tural machinery, and spent the fall of 1913 traveling 
 in North and South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin 
 in the interests of that company. 
 
 Mr. Larson for several years has made himself a 
 factor in politics, and is a progressive republican. 
 He was a candidate on the non-partisan ticket for 
 Alderman of the Sixth Ward in 1914 but was 
 defeated by the combined opposition of the socialist 
 
 and liquor votes. He has been particularly success- 
 ful as a political manager. He has managed several 
 local and congressional campaigns. His early 
 interest in politics is indicated by the fact that 
 before he reached his majority he traveled from 
 Wisconsin to attend the National Republican Con- 
 vention at Columbus, Ohio. Mr. Larson is a man 
 of self attainment. At the age of sixteen he chose 
 to become dependent upon his own resources and 
 from his own earnings paid his expenses throughout 
 his college career. He was distinguished at Augs- 
 burg Seminary as an orator and debater, and repre- 
 sented the institution in the oratorical contest held 
 at Holton, Kansas, and had previously gained two 
 victories as representative of the seminary in con- 
 tests with Red Wing College at Red Wing, Minne- 
 sota. The first of these debates was on the tariff 
 question and the second was on the question of 
 compulsory arbitration of industrial disputes. While 
 a student at the university he was president of the 
 LaFollette Club, organized at the university for the 
 purpose of furthering the nomination of Robert 
 LaEollette of Wisconsin as republican candidate for 
 president in 1912. 
 
 Mr. Larson is a member of the Minneapolis Civic 
 and Commerce Association, the Minneapolis Athletic 
 Club, and the South Side Commercial Club, the 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of 
 Pythias, and the Camels of the World. He has 
 served as a member of the First Regiment of the 
 Minnesota National Guard. 
 
 Hon. William Vinson Sanford. High on the 
 roll of Mille Lacs County’s bench is found the name 
 of Hon. William Vinson Sanford, who for the past 
 six years has served efficiently and impartially in 
 the capacity of judge of probate. Although not a 
 lawyer by profession, he is well versed in law and 
 jurisprudence and possesses the judicial mind which 
 is so important an asset to the jurist. That his 
 services have been appreciated by the people of 
 Mille Lacs County has been demonstrated by his 
 re-elections to office and by the esteem and con- 
 fidence in which he is universally held. 
 
 Judge Sanford was born at Princeton, Mille Lacs 
 County, Minnesota, January 28, 1867, and is the son 
 of Saul S. and Rachel (Burk) Sanford. He is the 
 oldest of a family of twelve children, ten of whom 
 are now living. The names of those living are as 
 follows excepting the subject of this writing: Dillie 
 (Sanford) Tower, Charles B. Sanford, Henry J. 
 Sanford, Leon Sanford, Ernest N. Sanford, Elwood 
 Sanford, Noah Sanford, Enola (Sanford) Tower 
 and Gordon Sanford. The family has been repre- 
 sented in this county for more than a half a century, 
 for Judge Sanford’s father came to Princeton in 
 1863, where he is engaged in agricultural pursuits 
 and where he still remains and probably will to 
 the end of his days. He is now seventy-three years 
 of age. His worthy companion and the mother of 
 the family parted with this life some seven years 
 ago, and was of the same age, being born in the 
 same year. His energy and enterprise established 
 a good home for the family, and while he took no 
 active part in public affairs was a good, public 
 spirited citizen who could be at all times depended 
 upon to assist civic movements in his community. 
 
 The public schools of Princeton furnished William 
 Vinson Sanford with his primary educational train- 
 ing, and after completing the elementary course he 
 prepared himself for a career as a teacher. Four 
 
1646 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 years of experience as teacher in country schools 
 followed, at the end of which time he gave up the 
 educator’s vocation to become clerk and bookkeeper 
 for a commercial concern at Princeton. Thus he 
 continued to be engaged for another four years, and 
 thereafter was variously employed until 1908, when 
 he announced himself as a candidate for the office 
 of judge of probate of Mille Lacs County, to which 
 he was elected. His services in that office have been 
 of a nature to insure his re-elections and he is justly 
 accounted one of his county’s most popular and 
 impartial jurists. Prior to assuming his judicial 
 duties, Judge Sanford had served in the capacity of 
 supervisor of Princeton Township, but when elected 
 judge resigned that office. In political matters Judge 
 Sanford is generally a supporter of republican 
 principles and candidates, but it is his belief that a 
 just jurist should not retain partisan views, and his 
 leanings are decidedly independent in character. 
 Fraternally he is connected with the local lodge of 
 the Knights of Pythias. 
 
 October 18, 1894, Judge Sanford was united in 
 marriage with Miss Myrtilla A. Northway of the 
 Township of Milo, County of Mille Lacs and State 
 of Minnesota, who was born March 15, 1872. She 
 is the daughter of Marshall C. and Mary (Bonney) 
 Northway and is the oldest of a family of three 
 children. Her father and mother are now alive, 
 the one being seventy-eight years of age and the 
 other sixty-five. The names of the other two mem- 
 bers of the family are Maud and Charles. Judge 
 Sanford has a family of seven children, named as 
 follows : Lee E., Clement E., Roe E., Wilford A., 
 
 Hollis E., Mary Enola, and Lysle W., born respec- 
 tively on the following dates : April 14, 1896, May 
 
 25, 1902, October 13, 1903, September 21, 1905, Sep- 
 tember 23, 1909, June 16, 1911, and November 30, 
 1913. The children have been and are being given 
 good educational advantages in the public schools 
 in as much as their parents are warm supporters 
 and friends of education. The family is connected 
 with the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 Hon. William E. Lee. When, in 1914, the anti- 
 machine republicans of Minnesota, in their search 
 for a candidate for gubernatorial honors, finally 
 agreed upon the Hon. William E. Lee, the zenith was 
 reached in a career that in achievements, experiences 
 and rise from humble station' and poverty to state- 
 wide prominence and financial independence has been 
 phenomenal. Whether one considers the obstacles 
 thrown in his path by the lack of educational train- 
 ing, the early necessity of his becoming self-support- 
 ing, his indomitable courage in not merely accepting 
 conditions as he found them, but improving them 
 and making them subservient to his wishes and con- 
 tributory to his promotion, or his final attainment 
 of the well-won fruits of victory, here is a man of 
 remarkable personality, of remarkable perseverance, 
 of remarkable power — such a man as could only be 
 a product of American soil, with such a record as 
 could only have been achieved in this land. 
 
 The birthplace of William E. Lee was the little 
 river town of Alton, Illinois, and his natal date 
 January, 1852. He was a lad of seven years when 
 he accompanied his father, mother, four brothers and 
 four sisters to Minnesota, the father, a millwright, 
 settling near Little Falls. There the lad secured his 
 educational training in the little village school, but 
 when between the ages of thirteen and fourteen 
 years laid aside his books to take his place among 
 
 the world’s workers. In partnership with his 
 brother, Sam, he embarked in the ferry business, 
 with a little, old-fashioned, flat-bottomed ferry boat’ 
 its location being near the mouth of the Swan River’ 
 on the swift-flowing Mississippi. The boat was 
 built by the two boys and had a capacity for two 
 teams, its motive power being the current of the 
 river, a plan often employed in the old pioneer days 
 when a cable across the stream did not interfere with 
 navigation. Twenty-five cents per team and ten 
 cents for each foot passenger was charged, and the 
 business averaged about $40 monthly. This income, 
 however, did not satisfy the ambitions of William, 
 who one year later sought and secured a contract 
 from the Government to carry the mail afoot to 
 Long Prairie, a distance of thirty miles, the round 
 trip being made once a week and from eleven to 
 twelve hours being consumed each way of the 
 journey. 
 
 In the Minneapolis Journal of April 2, 1914, there 
 appeared an article, from which much of the matter 
 for this sketch was secured, and which said in 
 writing of Mr. Lee’s life at this time: “It is not 
 
 unlikely the journey could have been completed in 
 less time, but midway on the road, tucked away on 
 the banks of a little stream, stood a roughly-hewed 
 log schoolhouse. Old-fashioned hollyhocks grew in 
 the schoolyard and morning glories climbed over its 
 door. In the school, attended by half a score of 
 children, who for the most part trudged a mile or 
 more through the woods to be taught the old- 
 fashioned three R’s, there presided a rosy-cheeked, 
 bright-eyed little schoolma'am — Eva Gibson by name. 
 Here it was the youthful mail carrier usually ‘hap- 
 pened’ along about noon time. While the children 
 ate their lunches and romped away the hours, he 
 chatted with the little teacher, lagging until school 
 ‘took up’ again. Often he passed and as often he 
 paused ‘just to see if there was anything she wanted 
 from the store.’ And that was a long time ago, and 
 it might as well be at this time as another, to say 
 that Mrs. Eva Gibson Lee lives now in Long Prairie, 
 Minnesota, and her husband, also at this time, is a 
 candidate for governor.” 
 
 Always enterprising and progressive, the young 
 man never allowed an opportunity to pass which 
 might help him in any way. He learned something 
 about carpentering as well as the trade of millwright 
 and assisted his father and brothers in erecting many 
 of the early mills of his section, another of the 
 structures in the erection of which he participated 
 being the Northern Pacific Railway station at Brain- 
 erd. Later, with the desire to see something of the 
 great world beyond that of his home locality, he 
 journeyed up to the Elk River lumber country and 
 there secured employment as a camp cook. The 
 foreman there was Lyman W. Ayer, a university 
 graduate, and after the supper dishes were washed 
 and put away, Mr. Lee would get out a well-thumbed 
 geometry, and by the light of a pine-knot fire, 
 worked out the intricacies of mathematics on the 
 mess table, under the willing tutelage of this man 
 of “learning.” It may be interesting to note that 
 about forty-three years later, March 26, 1914, Lyman 
 W. Ayer came to Minneapolis from his home in 
 Morrison County as a delegate to the anti-machine 
 conference which selected his old pupil. William E. 
 Lee, as the gubernatorial candidate for the primaries. 
 
 Mr. Lee left his position as camp cook to accept 
 that of woodsman, later drove logs down the Sandy 
 River, and finally received his introduction to busi- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1647 
 
 ness life as clerk in a small general store located 
 at Long Prairie. By dint of tireless energy, constant 
 industry and strict economy, he managed to save 
 enough from his earnings to purchase a small stock 
 of goods and establish himself in business as a 
 merchant at Vurnhamville, Todd County, and shortly 
 thereafter was elected to his first public office, that 
 of justice of the peace. At this time Mr. Lee 
 founded a home of his own, when he married the 
 little teacher acquaintance of his youth, and for 
 two years more the young couple resided at Vurn- 
 hamville, which struggling hamlet they then left 
 for the larger community of Long Prairie, where 
 Mr. Lee became the owner of a much more preten- 
 tious establishment. That he impressed himself 
 favorably upon his new community as a man of 
 sterling worth and ability is demonstrated in the 
 fact that in the fall following his arrival he was 
 elected register of deeds of Todd County, and in 
 1885, after a bitterly-contested campaign, was elected 
 to the Minnesota Legislature, serving also through 
 the sessions of 1887 and 1893. At the latter session 
 Mr. Lee was selected as the speaker of the house. 
 During the earlier term of his legislative work, Mr. 
 Lee was chairman of the committee on banks and 
 banking, and had much to do with the enactment 
 of laws for official inspection of grain and grain 
 warehouses, and later a railway commission. 
 
 Mr. Lee’s earliest connection with educational 
 work, in which he has subsequently become widely 
 known, came as a result of an appointment from 
 Governor Merriam as a member of the State Normal 
 School Board. In 1894 he was appointed superin- 
 tendent of the State Reformatory at St. Cloud, but 
 resigned this office in the following year, not, how- 
 ever, until he had gained an entirely new idea of and 
 attitude toward boys. This resulted in his making 
 a careful study of penal institutions and reform- 
 atories throughout the country, that he might better 
 his own methods, and through all of many journeys 
 taken by Mr. Lee in this and foreign countries, he 
 has never failed to visit and study corrective institu- 
 tions. In 1895, Governor Van Sant, having the 
 appointment of a board of control to supervise the 
 state’s public institutions, asked Mr. Lee to serve as 
 its chairman, an offer which was accepted, although 
 two years later, when the board was thoroughly 
 organized and in good running order, Mr. Lee 
 resigned to devote his attention to his rapidly grow- 
 ing and important commercial interests. 
 
 In the field of finance Mr. Lee has been long arid 
 favorably known throughout the state. In 1881 he 
 organized the first banking institution -of Todd 
 County, the Bank of Long Prairie, a state concern 
 which he still controls. He organized and _ still 
 controls a majority of the stock in the First National 
 Bank of Browerville ; the First National Bank of 
 Eagle Bend and the State Bank of Bertram, all in 
 Todd County. In addition to these institutions he 
 has large lumber interests in his section of the 
 state, and is the directing head of a manufacturing 
 plant at Long Prairie, with a branch at Winnipeg, 
 which manufactures what is known as the Hahnman 
 device, a series of patented appliances for extending 
 the usefulness of traction engines in farming. Orders 
 have been shipped from the Long Prairie plant to 
 Russia, Roumania, Argentina, Ecuador, Australia, 
 Austria, Germany and Hungary, and from the 
 Winnipeg branch to points throughout Canada. Mr. 
 Lee was the inventor of the machine now used 
 throughout the country for cleaning grain, but not 
 
 having the capital at that time to properly secure his 
 patents, his device was seized by others and placed 
 in general use, and although later Mr. Lee brought 
 suit against the infringers the damages secured by 
 him were just about sufficient to pay for the litiga- 
 tion. 
 
 Mr. Lee is an extensive traveler, and in his fre- 
 quent journeys throughout the United States and 
 other lands has invariably devoted a large part of 
 his time to a study of civic conditions. Banking 
 matters have also attracted his attention, and he 
 has followed both state and federal legislation with 
 much intelligent interest. His pride in his com- 
 munity and its developments has led him to identify 
 himself with movements making for public better- 
 ment, and from the erection of the first log school- 
 house in Todd County until the recent building of 
 the new $40,000 high school building he has been a 
 helpful factor in everything that has contributed to 
 educational, moral and religious progress. The 
 public park and library of Long Prairie are evidences 
 of his generosity and public pride. 
 
 An intimate pen picture of Mr. Lee appeared in 
 the article formerly referred to: “Nature gave Mr. 
 
 Lee a tremendous asset in the way of physical and 
 mental vigor, and at manhood he faced his career 
 with six feet of height and 200 pounds of bone 
 and sinew. Today, although his hair is threaded 
 with gray, he walks with shoulders thrown back and 
 the swinging stride of a young man. In appearance 
 the candidate presents a curious mixture of the 
 pioneer and thoughtful and successful man of busi- 
 ness. His head is large and his forehead high; his 
 eyes gray, deep set, wide apart and observing; his 
 mouth is well moulded and his chin square and 
 aggressive, and his hands, like his feet, are large, 
 the fingers knotted with the toil of the woods. Mr. 
 Lee’s speech is slow, distinct and deliberate, and 
 although educated mainly in the school of hard 
 knocks, with the lumber camps of a generation ago 
 as his campus, his address is that of the studious, 
 scholarly man. His public utterances show thought- 
 ful preparation, and a thorough knowledge of 
 governmental affairs. Of hobbies, he has but one, 
 and that is thoroughness and system in his business 
 affairs, for of procrastination he knows but little. 
 His recreations are two — travel and reading. ‘The 
 best job I have ever accomplished in my career,’ 
 Mr. Lee declared, ‘from my way of thinking has 
 been to raise my three sons, all of whom I have 
 taught to work.’ ” 
 
 Mr. Lee’s three sons are : Rudolph, a graduate 
 
 of the University of Minnesota, and editor of the 
 Long Prairie Leader; Harry, cashier of the Brower- 
 ville Bank, and Raymond, a graduate of Hamline 
 University and vice president of the Long Prairie 
 Bank. 
 
 In the opening speech of his campaign for nomina- 
 tion in 1914, Mr. Lee outlined his platform and 
 pledged his candidacy to a policy of sound business- 
 like government for the commonwealth, declaring 
 for a comprehensive plan of state, industrial and 
 agricultural development, local control of public 
 utilities, submission of woman suffrage to the people 
 for a vote, a more efficient civil service law, old age 
 pensions for state employes, including school teachers 
 and nurses in state hospitals, strict enforcement of 
 the liquor and anti-trust laws, good and even better 
 schools untrammeled by politics, conservation of 
 the state's natural resources, local control of good 
 roads as far as is compatible with a broad state 
 
1648 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 development policy. It may not be inappropriate in 
 this connection to close this short review of the 
 life of one of the foremost of Minnesota’s citizens 
 with a few excerpts from his opening campaign 
 speech and platform pledges, which serve to illus- 
 trate those things which he represents and for which 
 he stands : “The need of our government is an ener- 
 getic and competent business direction. The evil 
 days that have fallen to us politically are due to a 
 failure to recognize the necessity of united action 
 against the organized forces who look upon the 
 power of government as opportunity to despoil. The 
 commission (efficiency commission) found enough 
 useless state boards to wall up the state and roof 
 it over. A thorough investigation would reveal 
 opportunities for saving that would make possible 
 the abolition of the general tax levy. We should 
 have a civil service law to apply to all offices other 
 than heads of departments where service and effi- 
 ciency would thereby be promoted. A comprehen- 
 ' sive and workable program of state development is 
 of large import to the future of the state. I favor 
 a roads policy that takes into consideration first the 
 needs of the farmer. No unnecessary expense 
 should attach to the product of the farm ; unneces- 
 sary tolling stations and the middleman’s profits 
 must be eliminated. I am in full accord with the 
 world movement to better protect lives, health and 
 welfare by prohibiting excessive hours of labor and 
 improving conditions under which labor is per- 
 formed. The state should provide a service pension 
 system to include schoolteachers, nurses in state 
 hospitals and others of long and arduous service. 
 I believe in the matter of public utilities, the prin- 
 ciples of home rule and local control should govern 
 a system that will recognize as paramount the rights 
 and powers of local government. The right kind of 
 legislature and governor working in harmony can 
 regenerate the political conditions of the state. The 
 machine has but one issue — the control of the gov- 
 ernment. The machine constitutes the large brewery 
 interests, the corporations whose owners desire to 
 get more out of the public than they are entitled to, 
 the multitude of appointive office holders, and the 
 ‘Boss.’ Like a spider in his web, feeding upon the 
 degradation of mankind, plotting enticements and 
 allurements for innocents, sits the astute and cunning 
 manipulator. He collects tributes and dictates 
 appointments and policies. The brewers contribute 
 to the campaign fund and violations of the law are 
 winked at in return.” 
 
 At the state primaries on June 16, 1914, Mr. Lee 
 was chosen the candidate of the Minnesota republi- 
 cans by a plurality of about 16,000 over his chief 
 opponent, Governor Eberhart. In the campaign Mr. 
 Lee made a vigorous fight for the progressive prin- 
 ciples contained in his platform, but was unable to. 
 overcome the handicap of a triangular contest and 
 was defeated in November by the democratic can- 
 didate, Mr. Hammond. 
 
 William H. Bremner is general solicitor of the 
 Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Company, with 
 headquarters in the City of Minneapolis. He came 
 to Minneapolis on the 1st of July, 1909, as general 
 attorney for the railroad company, and was made 
 general solicitor on the 1st day of January, 1913. 
 
 Mr. Bremner was born at Marshalltown, Marshall 
 County, Iowa, on the 24th day of October, 1869. 
 He is the youngest son of William asid Katherine C. 
 (Hampton) Bremner, the former of whom was 
 
 born in Scotland, the latter in the State of Ohio. 
 His father, William Bremner, was two years of age 
 at the time of his parents’ immigration to the United 
 States. The family home was first established in 
 New Hampshire, from whence the family removed 
 to Marshalltown, Iowa, in 1856. Mr. Bremner’s 
 father continued to reside in Marshalltown until 
 the time of his death in 1911 at the age of eighty 
 years. _ The death of the mother occurred in the 
 following year. 
 
 Mr. Bremner’s mother was of English and Irish 
 lineage, and she was a direct descendant of the 
 first governor of Vermont. 
 
 Mr. Bremner is the youngest of four children, 
 the eldest being George H., who resides in the City 
 of Chicago and who is assistant district engineer of 
 the valuation board of the Interstate Commerce 
 Commission ; Fanny H. is the wife of Otto A. Bying- 
 ton of Iowa City, Iowa, and Annabel P., who died 
 in 1896. 
 
 Mr. Bremner acquired his early education in the 
 public schools of Marshalltown, Iowa, where he 
 graduated from the high school as a member of the 
 class of 1886. After employment for one year in 
 the passenger department of the Iowa Central Rail- 
 way Company he entered the University of Iowa in 
 the fall of 1887, graduating in 1891 with the degree 
 of civil engineer. After his graduation Mr. Bremner 
 served for two years in the engineering department 
 of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railway Com- 
 pany and then returned to the University of Iowa 
 as a student in the law department. He was grad- 
 uated as a member of the law class of 1895 with a 
 degree of Bachelor of Laws. He commenced the 
 practice of law in the City of Des Moines in 1895 
 as a member of the firm of Bremner & Shular, Mr. 
 Shular having been a classmate. Mr. Bremner 
 remained in the City of Des Moines for fourteen 
 years, and during that period served six years as 
 the head of the legal department of the city. 
 
 Since his removal to Minneapolis in 1909 Mr. 
 Bremner has devoted his entire time to the service 
 of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad Company. 
 
 In June, 1903, he was married to Miss Emily T. 
 McKell, daughter of Capt. Jas. C. and Emily 
 (Thorpe) McKell, of Omaha, Nebraska. Mrs. Brem- 
 ner was born in the City of Burlington, Iowa, and 
 was educated in the schools of Omaha and Des 
 Moines. 
 
 C. J. Miss. About forty-five years ago a German 
 emigrant boy arrived in this country, and was at 
 once confronted with the severe conditions imposed 
 upon a stranger in a strange land and one uneducated 
 in the language and customs of a new country. Not 
 long afterward he came to St. Paul, and by his 
 industry and persistent efforts at gaining an educa- 
 tion and making himself useful had in a few years 
 reached a responsible position with the well known 
 St. Paul shoe house of C. Gotzian & Company. C. 
 J. Miss was one of the important factors in building 
 up that great business in the Northwest, and has for 
 years been regarded as one of St. Paul’s leading 
 business men and citizens. 
 
 C. J. Miss was born in Hatzfeld, Grand Duchy of 
 Hessen, Germany, and came to America in 1870 and 
 first located in McGregor, Iowa. He was a boy at 
 the time, and had to earn his own living while learn- 
 ing the English language. He entered a school in 
 Iowa, and paid his way by doing hard work. In 
 T871 he came to St. Paul, and was first employed in 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1649 
 
 the John S. Prince lumber yards. He continued 
 his education by night school work with Prof. E. E. 
 Taylor, in whose school he remained for four years. 
 He realized the necessity for adequate training in 
 English schools as a requisite for a business career, 
 and thus laid a solid foundation on which to build 
 a permanent success. 
 
 In 1872 he was fortunate in making the acquaint- 
 ance of the late Conrad Gotzian, dealer and manu- 
 facturer in boots and shoes. Mr. Gotzian offered 
 him employment as stock boy and general utility 
 worker. In the new business he rapidly acquainted 
 himself with its details, and became a valuable sales- 
 man, particularly among German business men. In 
 1879, 011 account of business depression in America, 
 he returned to Germany with the intention of living 
 there permanently. However, Mr. Gotzian knew his 
 value and requested his return, offering a position 
 as traveling salesman. In that work he continued 
 for eight years, and gained a large volume of busi- 
 ness for the Gotzian Shoe Company. In 1887, at the 
 death of Mr. Gotzian, he was recalled from the road 
 and made head salesman in the home house, and for 
 many years continued with the firm in important 
 capacities. He was finally elected vice president of 
 the company, and continued in that office until the 
 reorganization of the house of C. Gotzian & Com- 
 pany. 
 
 During his residence at St. Paul Mr. Miss 
 interested himself in the upbuilding of the city, and 
 was one of the founders of the American District 
 Telephone Company and its president for years. He 
 is an active member of the German Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, and a loyal citizen in every good 
 sense of the term. Mr. Miss married Miss Nette 
 Kruger, daughter of the late Louis Kruger. There 
 are two sons, Walter and Allen, and two daughters, 
 Florence and Dorothy. 
 
 Victor E. Lawson. One of the most forceful and 
 energetic of the citizens of Willmar, Victor E. 
 Lawson has taken an active participation in all move- 
 ments of importance that have combined to make 
 the city’s history since his arrival here in 1895. 
 During the two decades that have passed, he has 
 been successful in building up a large newspaper, 
 the Willmar Tribune, recognized as one of the 
 leading organs of this part of the state, and has also 
 been interested in other business enterprises; but 
 while his personal interests have been of a most 
 important nature, those of his city have found an 
 equally high place in his attention, and few men 
 have done more to advance Willmar’s prosperity and 
 general progress. 
 
 Mr. Lawson was born at Paxton, Ford Count}', 
 Illinois, March 24, 1871, and is a son of Charles M. 
 and Maria (Lindstrom) Lawson, natives of Sweden, 
 and a grandson of Lars Johanson, who came to the 
 United States with his family in 1852 and died at 
 Peru, Illinois, and Jonas Gummeson Lindstrom, who 
 died shortly after his arrival in the United States. 
 Charles M. Lawson was born April 7, 1834, and 
 was eighteen years of age when he came to the 
 United States. He learned the trade of carpenter, 
 and soon secured employment at Rock Island in a 
 sash and door factory. For fifty years he was 
 engaged successfully in both contracting and build- 
 ing, in Illinois and Minnesota. Mr. Lawson came 
 to the latter state in 1880, in the spring, and was 
 followed by his family in the following fall. Fie 
 is now living in retirement at New London. He is 
 
 a member of the Swedish Lutheran Church. Mr. 
 Lawson was married to Maria Lindstrom, who was 
 born November 9, 1836, and who also survives. Of 
 their thirteen children a number died in infancy, 
 while five still survive : Carrie, who is the widow 
 
 of Mr. F. O. Swanson, and lives on a farm at Spicer, 
 Minnesota; Theodora, who is single and resides 
 at home with her parents; Victor E., of this review; 
 Eden E., educated at the Chicago Art Institute, and 
 now associated with his brother in the newspaper 
 business ; and Esther, who is single and resides with 
 her brothers. A foster brother of these children is 
 Thomas J. Lawson, who „ is a successful business 
 man and farmer and now resides at New London, 
 Minnesota. Of Eben E. Lawson, it was said by the 
 late Gov. John A. Johnson: "He is the best carica- 
 turist in the state." 
 
 Victor E. Lawson began his education in the 
 schools of Paxton, Illinois, attending a Swedish 
 primary school and the public schools but when he 
 was nine years of age was brought to Kandiyohi 
 County, where he attended the New London schools. 
 Fie became a teacher for one year, and also was 
 engaged in farming for a short period, but his 
 inclinations ran toward journalistic work, and from 
 early boyhood it had been his desire to learn the 
 printing trade. Finally he was given the opportunity 
 to Indulge his ambition, and in 1889 he began work 
 on the New London Times. Not long thereafter, he 
 purchased the paper and became the youngest editor 
 in the State of Minnesota. While this enterprise 
 proved a successful one, Mr. Lawson was desirous 
 of finding a broader field for his activities, and 
 accordingly, in February, 1895, came to Willmar and 
 became editor and partial owner of the Willmar 
 Tribune. Since that time he has purchased the 
 remaining interest, and now continues as sole owner, 
 editor and publisher of a flourishing weekly news- 
 paper, with a circulation o'f 3,400, which is generally 
 acknowledged to be a potent factor in influencing 
 public opinion in Kandiyohi and the surrounding 
 counties. The Willmar Tribune is a thoroughly 
 reliable, well-edited, well-printed publication, which 
 has grown out of the needs of the community and 
 which has come to occupy an established place in 
 the lives of its citizens. In connection with his 
 newspaper Mr. Lawson conducts a printing office, 
 fully equipped with presses and paraphernalia for 
 the best class of work, and in addition operates an 
 art department. Mr. Lawson is president of the 
 Kandiyohi County Fair Association and secretary 
 of the Chautauqua Park Board and has worked 
 faithfully and energetically to establish the assembly 
 park property for public use. A firm believer in the 
 benefits of good schools, he is serving on the board 
 of education and is at present its president. He 
 belongs to the board of directors of Gustavus 
 Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minnesota, is a 
 member and trustee of the Lutheran Church and 
 has attended several of the synod meetings, and at 
 all times has been a liberal contributor to educational 
 and religious movements. A stirring member of the 
 Commercial Club, he has been a member of the 
 publicity committee and its chairman for several 
 years. Mr. Lawson is possessed of considerable 
 literary ability and is particularly interested in his- 
 torical works, being a life member of the Minnesota 
 Historical Society and a sustaining member of the 
 American Scandinavian Foundation of New York. 
 In 1905 Mr. Lawson was associated in the publish- 
 ing of a county history of Kandiyohi County which 
 
1650 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 is universally acknowledged to be one of the best 
 works of its kind ever placed before the public. In 
 political matters an independent democrat, he has 
 taken somewhat of an active part in public affairs. 
 
 Mr. Lawson was married in 1894 to Miss Wilhel- 
 mina Nelson, daughter of S. M. Nelson, an early 
 settler of Kandiyohi County. She died in 1901. Mr. 
 Lawson was married again' in 1910, when he was 
 united with Miss Julia Kallstrom, whose father, an 
 early settler of Michigan, was killed in a mine 
 accident in that state. Mrs. Lawson is a member of 
 the Lutheran Church, is well known in religious and 
 social circles, and, like her husband, is generally 
 popular and has numerous friends at Willmar. 
 
 Samuel Nelson, of Willmar, is an honored citizen 
 in whom the people have manifested their confidence 
 by electing him to the position of county auditor of 
 Kandiyohi County. He is now discharging the 
 duties of that office with marked promptness and 
 fidelity, and with such men at the head of public 
 affairs a community may feel assured that its 
 interests will be administered with the strictest 
 honesty and after the most approved business 
 methods. Although elected to his present position 
 only in 1914, Mr. Nelson is not a newcomer nor 
 unfamiliar with its duties, for he has been in the 
 county auditor’s office as deputy since the year 1901. 
 
 Mr. Nelson was born at Carver, Carver County, 
 Minnesota, July 1, 1864, and is a son of Rev. John 
 S. and Bengta (Thomson) Nelson, natives of 
 Sweden. Llis father was born February 7, 1829, 
 and was given a fairly good education in the schools 
 of this country, coming to the United States at the 
 age of twenty years. Settling in Nicollet County, 
 Minnesota, he soon entered the ministry of the 
 Swedish Lutheran Church, and continued to preach 
 at various parishes in the state until within ten 
 years of his death, when he retired. Although a 
 quiet and unassuming man, he was an earnest and 
 zealous preacher, and when he died, April 19, 1904, 
 his church lost one of its most energetic workers. 
 He was a republican in politics and took a fairly 
 active part therein. Mr. Nelson was married at 
 St. Peter, Minnesota, May 26, i860, to Bengta 
 
 Thorson, who was born January 3, 1839, and died 
 June 13, 1870, and they became the parents of three 
 children: Samuel, born July 1, 1864; Benjamin, born 
 July 11, 1867, who died May 27, 1871; and Cecilia, 
 born March 23, 1861, now Mrs. J. E. Hedberg, of 
 Minneapolis, Minnesota, the wife of a minister of 
 the Lutheran Church. Reverend Mr. Nelson was 
 married a second time, and his widow, who was born 
 February 15, 1840, is still living. They became the 
 parents of seven children. 
 
 The public schools of Carver and Wright counties, 
 Minnesota, furnished Samuel .Nelson with his early 
 education, this being supplemented by a course in 
 Gustavus Adolphus College, at St. Peter. He then 
 adopted the vocation of educator, and for eighteen 
 years was a teacher in the district and parochial 
 schools in various parts of Minnesota, achieving an 
 enviable reputation as an efficient and popular 
 teacher. He first entered public life in 1901, when he 
 was made deputy auditor of Kandiyohi County, and 
 he continued to discharge the duties of that office 
 satisfactorily until 1914, when he was elected auditor. 
 His subsequent services in this capacity have given 
 the people of the county no reason to regret of their 
 choice. 
 
 In 1895 Mr. Nelson was united in marriage with 
 
 Miss Christine Freeberg, who was born in Sweden, 
 August 29, 1877, and to this union there have been 
 born six children, as follows : Minnie Rosalie, age 
 
 nineteen, who is a graduate of the Willmar High 
 School; Chester Laurentius, age seventeen, in third 
 year high school; Plildur Cecelia Christine, who died 
 in infancy in the year 1900; Lenhardt Vincent, age 
 nine, and Vernon Samuel, age seven, who are also 
 attending school ; and Marvis Lucile Ingeborg. 
 Reared in the faith of the Lutheran Church, Mr. 
 Nelson has always taken an active part in its work, 
 and has served as organist for several years and as 
 superintendent of the Sunday school. Mrs. Nelson 
 has also been interested in religious work and both 
 she and her husband are held in high esteem by a 
 wide circle of friends. 
 
 Elvero Lewis McMillan. There is much benefit 
 to be gained from the increasing tendency of the 
 man learned in law to engage in pursuits which do 
 not immediately come under the head of professional 
 duties. The individual trained in legal learning has 
 the advantage of belonging to a calling which touches 
 many others and gives its devotees a broad outlook 
 and a thorough knowledge of principles and men. 
 Prominent among the men of this class in Minnesota, 
 is found Elvero Lewis McMillan of Princeton, a 
 lawyer of marked ability and of more than local 
 reputation, who is also interested in farm lands and 
 farm loans as a member of the firm of McMillan & 
 Stanley. 
 
 Mr. McMillan was born at Wilmington, Clinton 
 County, Ohio, April 4, 1866, and is a son' of Eli and 
 Phoebe H. McMillan. His father, then a young 
 Ohio farmer boy, enlisted as a private and served 
 some three years in the Union army during the 
 Civil war, being made first lieutenant before its 
 close. After his father’s death, which occurred in 
 1870, the family moved to Minnesota, going first to 
 Howard Lake and thereafter, and in the fall of 
 1880, to Minneapolis, where Elvero L. early entered 
 into active business life, engaging in such employ- 
 ment as was then available. Later, deciding upon 
 following the legal profession, Mr. McMillan entered 
 the law department of the University of Minnesota, 
 graduating therefrom in 1892, with the degree of 
 Bachelor of Laws, and at once beginning the prac- 
 tice of his profession in Minneapolis. He also con- 
 tinued his university studies, taking the night course 
 then offered, leading to the degree of Master of 
 Laws, which was granted to him in 1894. He con- 
 tinued the practice of law in Minneapolis until 1902 
 when he moved to Princeton, where his business and 
 home has been continued to the present time. 
 
 His practice is broad and general in its scope and 
 his ability and talent have attracted to him a very 
 valuable professional business. At various times he 
 has been called upon to fill public offices, having 
 served five terms as city attorney of Princeton and 
 one term as county attorney of Mille Lacs County. 
 He has also served as treasurer of the school board, 
 a position which he held for nine years, and in each 
 capacity has shown himself an able, conscientious 
 and active official. He is not interested in politics as 
 a politician, but at all times is ready to aid his com- 
 munity in movements for the public welfare. 
 
 Fraternally Mr. McMillan is identified with the 
 Blue Lodge, Chapter, Commandery and Shrine of 
 Masonry. 
 
 While his law practice has been extensive and 
 important, demanding the larger share of his atten- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1651 
 
 tion, Mr. McMillan has found some time to devote 
 to other pursuits. After going to Princeton he 
 became interested in land and loan operations as 
 one of the firm of M. S. Rutherford & Company. 
 After the dissolution of this firm by the death of 
 Mr. Rutherford, it was, in 1911, reorganized as Mc- 
 Millan & Stanley, Mr. Ira G. Stanley being the other 
 partner. Since then the present firm has actively 
 continued the work of settling and improving the 
 country tributary to Princeton, including the Mille 
 Lacs Lake country. 
 
 On June 22, 1898, Mr. McMillan was married 
 to Miss Marian Campbell of Litchfield, Minnesota, 
 and to this union have been born six children, 
 Esther Louise, Harriet Emerette, Marian Campbell 
 and Elvero James, who are in the high school, 
 graded and primary schools of Princeton, and twin 
 boys, David Reid and Otho Harold, who arrived 
 in January, 1915. 
 
 Hon. Joseph M. Thornton. Now serving his sec- 
 ond term as a member of the lower house of the 
 Legislature, representing the Thirty-ninth District 
 in St. Paul, Joseph M. Thornton is a well known 
 contractor and member of the firm of Thornton 
 Brothers, comprising his brothers, M. E. and P. 
 M. Thornton. This firm of general contractors rep- 
 resent many years of solid experience and have a 
 large amount of capital invested in equipment and 
 in general business organization for handling all 
 kinds of contracts in grading, sewer construction, 
 waterworks, cellar excavations, steam shovel and 
 heavy team work, and makes a specialty of concrete 
 paving. 
 
 Joseph M. Thornton was born in the City of St. 
 Paul, September 5, 1872, being the oldest son of 
 P. H. and M. A. Thornton. His father was born 
 in Ireland, spent his boyhood and received his educa- 
 tion there, and became a resident of Minnesota dur- 
 ing the early days of the territory. For a number of 
 years his home was in Scott County, and he was 
 elected from that county on the democratic ticket 
 as representative to the Legislature, serving through 
 the sessions of 1879 and 1881. He is still living in 
 St. Paul, a well preserved old gentleman, and still 
 takes a considerable interest in local and state 
 politics, has always been an extensive reader, and a 
 well informed man on affairs. 
 
 Joseph M. Thornton acquired his primary educa- 
 tion in the St. Paul public schools, for three years 
 was a student in the Cretin Catholic School, and 
 then was in the Central St. Paul High School until 
 taking up active work. His first employment was 
 with a company engaged in handling contracts for 
 public work, and this took him into the states of 
 Indiana and Illinois. He traveled over a number 
 of states, spent about four years in the territories 
 of Idaho, Montana and Oregon, and then returned 
 to St. Paul to take up business on his own account. 
 In 1906 was formed the present partnership of 
 Thornton Brothers, which is one of the leading firms 
 of its kind in St. Paul. The brothers are all enter- 
 prising business men, well known and well estab- 
 lished. 
 
 Besides looking after his business interests Joseph 
 M. Thornton takes a lively interest in politics as 
 a democrat. In 1912 he was elected to the Legis- 
 lature, serving through the sessions of 1913-14, and 
 in November, 1914, was reelected by the Thirty- 
 ninth District. Mr. Thornton is unmarried and is 
 a member of the Junior Order of Pioneers, the 
 
 Knights of Columbus and the Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks. His home is at 369 Von 
 Minden Street, St. Paul. 
 
 William Gamble. One of the fine old pioneers 
 of Steele County was the late William Gamble, who 
 died at his home in Owatonna in 1911 at the age 
 of eighty-two. He was a pioneer settler and farmer 
 in Lemond Township, was a veteran of the Civil 
 war, and his life contained all those elements which 
 lend it dignity and usefulness. 
 
 William Gamble, of Scotch and Irish ancestry, 
 was born November 15, 1829, at Linneus, Maine. 
 When a young man he and his brother Ross moved 
 out to Wisconsin, and like so many emigrants from 
 the Pine Tree State engaged in the lumber business 
 at Portage. When the war came on he enlisted in 
 Company D of the Nineteenth Wisconsin Infantry, 
 and served with distinction for 3^4 years. After 
 the close of his first term of enlistment he re- 
 enlisted and continued with the Union forces until 
 the final cessation of hostilities. He lived in Wis- 
 consin only a short time after the war, and in 1866 
 took his family to Steele County, Minnesota, locat- 
 ing on a farm in Lemond Township, where he set 
 to work industriously to develop the virgin soil and 
 in time surrounded himself with all the accompani- 
 ments of material prosperity. About fifteen years 
 ago he removed to Owatonna, and lived there until 
 his death. William Gamble was a man of sterling 
 worth, had hosts of personal friends, and was active 
 in local affairs, having served several years as county 
 commissioner of Steele County. His death occurred 
 after a long illness. He was buried at Owatonna, 
 and his comrades in the James A. Goodwin Post 
 of the Grand Army of the Republic had charge of 
 the ceremony. In politics he was a democrat who 
 believed in the basic principle of free trade and 
 was also a strong advocate of sound money on the 
 gold standard. His church was the Universalist. 
 
 At Sparta, Wisconsin, in 1859, Mr. Gamble mar- 
 ried Matilda E. Robinson. She was born in War- 
 wick, Canada, July 15, 1839, lived in that locality 
 during early childhood, subsequently moved to 
 Wisconsin, and taught school for several years in 
 that state before her marriage. She was of English 
 ancestry. She died at Owatonna, Minnesota, in 
 December, 1899. She was likewise one of the 
 pioneers of Steele County, and during her residence 
 of thirty-five years in that locality came to possess 
 the esteem of every acquaintance and friend. Her 
 funeral was attended by relatives from Minneapolis 
 and a host of her old friends in Steele County. She 
 had lived on the homestead farm in Lemond Town- 
 ship until about two weeks before her death, when 
 the family removed to a beautiful new home just 
 completed in Owatonna. The children of William 
 and Matilda Gamble were: Mary; Emma, Mrs. L. 
 
 E. Cochrane; Ross A.; David F. ; Ray H. ; and 
 Ralph R. The four sons are all Minneapolis busi- 
 ness men. Mrs. Cochrane lives in Clear Lake, South 
 Dakota, and Miss Mary is a resident of Owatonna. 
 
 David F. Gamble. Vice president and director in 
 the Gamble-Robinson Company and director in 
 seventeen of its affiliated houses, David F. Gamble 
 has given almost his entire active lifetime to the 
 development and management of this great whole- 
 sale fruit and grocery business. As a business 
 organization which operates all over the North 
 and Northwest from the eastern end of the Great 
 
1652 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Lakes to the Rocky Mountains, an appropriate sketch 
 has been prepared for this publication and will be 
 found on other pages, where Mr. Gamble’s particular 
 relations with the organization are given in detail. 
 
 David F. Gamble, a son of the late William and 
 Matilda E. (Robinson) Gamble, who were early 
 settlers in Southern Minnesota and are given some 
 memorial in preceding paragraphs, was born at 
 Owatonna, Minnesota, May 21, 1869. After com- 
 pleting his high school education he taught school 
 for a time in Southern Minnesota, but then removed 
 to Minneapolis to engage in the wholesale fruit 
 business, being one of the organizers of the old 
 Gamble-Robinson Commission Company, and has 
 been closely concerned in the development of that 
 corporation and its affiliated houses for more than 
 twenty years. 
 
 Mr. Gamble is one of the leading citizens in Min- 
 neapolis, and has been active in civic matters and in 
 social settlement work. He is a republican, a mem- 
 ber of the Minneapolis Club, the Lafayette Club, 
 the Interlachen Country Club and the Automobile 
 Club. He indulges, whenever possible, his tastes 
 for country life, and is fond of golf and other 
 outdoor recreations. His church home is the Ply- 
 mouth Congregational Church of Minneapolis. 
 
 On February 15, 1898, at Owatonna, Mr. Gamble 
 married Miss Jessie Farmer, daughter of Amasa 
 A. and Annette (Phelps) Farmer. Her father died 
 in Owatonna, July 2, 1885, while Mrs. Farmer is 
 now living in Minneapolis. The Phelps family were 
 among the pioneers of Southern Minnesota, promi- 
 nent in the development of the state in early days, 
 and the name is especially identified with civic 
 and political affairs in Owatonna. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Gamble are the parents of three children : Donald 
 Phelps, David Franklin, and Philip Bruce. 
 
 Willard L. Comstock. On January 4, 1915, Wil- 
 lard L. Comstock assumed his duties as judge of the 
 District Court at Mankato. Judge Comstock has 
 been prominently identified with the bar at Mankato 
 for the past twenty-five years, during his young man- 
 hood served a term in the State Legislature, was 
 municipal judge for a number of years, and in the 
 opinion of the bar and the general public as well as 
 his immediate friends possesses exceptional qualifi- 
 cations for the dignities and responsibilities of his 
 present office. 
 
 Judge Willard L. Comstock is a native of Man- 
 kato, born in that city November 24, 1861. His 
 parents were Marshall T. and Sarah E. (Patten) 
 Comstock. It is an old American family. His 
 paternal grandfather, Thomas H. Comstock, was 
 reared in Herkimer County, New York, served as 
 high sheriff of the county, and was one of the 
 prominent men of his generation. The Patten family 
 were early settlers in Ohio, and had previously lived 
 in the colonies for several generations, four men of 
 the name having served as soldiers in the Revolu- 
 tion and four in the Civil war, one having been in 
 the navy and having died during the war. The late 
 Marshall T. Comstock was born in Herkimer County, 
 New York, in 1827 and died at Mankato, Minnesota, 
 in 1908. He came out to Minnesota in 1853 and was 
 married at Mankato to Miss Patten who was born 
 in Eastern Ohio near the Ohio River in 1836, and is 
 now living in South Dakota. Marshall T. Comstock 
 after coming to Minnesota engaged in the saw mill- 
 ing industry for a time, and erected the first sawmill 
 in the vicinity of Mankato. Later his attention was 
 
 engaged in the manufacture of wagons and sleighs 
 and other implements. In the meantime his invest- 
 ments had been well placed in farm lands, and his 
 later years were devoted to the supervision of his 
 farms. Judge Comstock was first in a family of six 
 children. The daughters are : Mrs. E. J. Cook of 
 McIntosh, South Dakota; Mrs. S. S. Washburn of 
 Bellingham, Washington; Grace E., who is an in- 
 structor in the well known school for girls, Stanley 
 Hall, at Minneapolis. The parents were members of 
 the Presbyterian Church, and the father was a 
 Mason and in politics a democrat and quite active in 
 local affairs. 
 
 Judge Comstock received his education in the 
 Mankato High School and the Normal School, and 
 six years of his early life were spent as a teacher. 
 He studied law in the offices of Collester & Foster 
 for five years, being admitted to the bar in May, 
 1890. That was twenty-five years ago, and his place 
 in the bar is one of successful prominence and from 
 the early years he had a large and profitable practice. 
 For two years Judge Comstock was in partnership 
 with Byron Hughes, then county attorney of Blue 
 Earth County. He was elected a member of the 
 State Legislature in 1892, serving one term. A 
 democrat, he is regarded as an independent rather 
 than a strict party man. For six years he was a 
 member of the Mankato school board, and held the 
 office of municipal judge ten years. His campaign 
 for the office of district judge was made against A. 
 R. Pfau, and in the November election of 1914 he 
 received a good majority. 
 
 In 1890 Judge Comstock married Phila F. Fletcher, 
 daughter of John Fletcher, who was one of the 
 early settlers of Lake City, Minnesota, conducted a 
 hotel there and afterwards a grain dealer. Judge 
 Comstock and wife have two children : Philip F., 
 
 assistant county surveyor ; and Dorothy L., attend- 
 ing St. Mary’s Hall. Judge Comstock’s family are 
 members of St. John’s Episcopal Church, and he is 
 affiliated with , the Knights of Pythias and the 
 Ancient Order of United Workmen and the Royal 
 Arcanum. During the years 1909-10-11 he was grand 
 master workman in the Ancient Order of United 
 Workmen, and did much to give this order its 
 permanent strength in Minnesota. He also served 
 in 1904 as grand regent of the state for the Royal 
 Arcanum. After ten years of service as a member 
 of the National Guard Mr. Comstock retired with 
 the rank of captain of Company F of the Second 
 Regiment. 
 
 Chelsea C. Pratt, M. D. For ten years Doctor 
 Pratt has been connected with the work of the 
 State Board of Health of Minnesota, and is now in 
 charge of the laboratory conducted by that depart- 
 ment at Mankato. He is an expert in laboratory 
 analysis, a graduate physician, and enjoys an excel- 
 lent reputation in his profession and as a citizen. 
 He is a young man who paid his way through college 
 by his own work, and has already realized some of 
 his chief ambitions in life. 
 
 Dr. Chelsea C. Pratt was born at Chippewa Falls, 
 Wisconsin, June 6, 1877. He comes of a family 
 which has been identified with Wisconsin through 
 three generations since the early settlements. His 
 grandfather, who was of Holland-Dutch descent, 
 was born in Wisconsin, as was also the father, 
 Atlee D. Pratt, who was born in that state in 1850 
 and is now living with his son. Doctor Pratt, in 
 Mankato. Doctor Pratt’s mother is Mary E. 
 

 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1653 
 
 (Meyers) Pratt, who was born in Wisconsin in 
 1853, a daughter of Charles G. Meyers, who was 
 born in England and settled in Wisconsin during 
 the ’40s. Charles Meyers entered the service of the 
 United States army from Wisconsin, and went 
 through the Civil war, being quartermaster of his 
 regiment. Atlee D. Pratt and wife were married 
 at Madison, Wisconsin, in 1876. He was a graduate 
 of the University of Wisconsin in the law depart- 
 ment, practiced for a short time at Madison, and 
 the year following the Custer massacre went out to 
 live at Bismarck, among the Indians and the few 
 white settlers who then populated the Dakota Ter- 
 ritory. The senior Mr. Pratt is affiliated with the 
 Masonic fraternity, is a republican in politics, and 
 his wife is a member of the Episcopal Church. They 
 were the parents of six children : Dr. Chelsea C. ; 
 
 Mrs. C. M. McConn, whose husband is registrar 
 of the University of Illinois at Urbana; B. A. Pratt, 
 who is a senior student in the University of Minne- 
 sota; R. A. Pratt, a civil engineer at Yankton, 
 Oregon; Harlow, of Medford, Oregon; and 
 Margaret, a student in the University of Oregon. 
 
 Doctor Pratt received his early education in the 
 Minneapolis public schools, graduating from high 
 school, and later working his way through the medi- 
 cal department of the state university, where he was 
 graduated M. D. in 1906. After a brief practice in 
 Minneapolis he removed to Mankato, and now has 
 charge of the State Board of Health Laboratory 
 in that city. He also does a large amount of clini- 
 cal work, and is one of the most enthusiastic men 
 in the scientific side of his profession in the state. 
 
 Doctor Pratt was married June 5, 1907, to Blanche 
 Wheeler, of Minneapolis. They have two children : 
 Chelsea Wheeler Pratt, born September 3, 1912; and 
 Wilbur Carroll, born January 5, 1914. Doctor Pratt 
 and wife are members of the Episcopal Church, and 
 he is affiliated with Mankato Lodge No. 225, of the 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and with 
 the medical fraternities, Nu Sigma Nu and Sigma 
 Alpha Epsilon. Politically he is a republican. 
 
 Peter M. Ferguson. Among the telephone men 
 of Minnesota one of the best known is Peter M. 
 Ferguson of Mankato, who has been manager of 
 the business at Mankato for several years, and his 
 prominence among telephone circles is indicated by 
 the fact that he is now on his second term as treas- 
 urer of the Independent State Telephone Company. 
 
 Peter M. Ferguson was born in Glasgow, Scot- 
 land, October 24, 1885, a son of William and Mary 
 (McCauley) Ferguson. His father owned a large 
 ship chandlery business in Glasgow, and was a 
 victim of the failure of the Glasgow Bank, said 
 to have been the only bank that ever failed in 
 Scotland. After this disaster he brought his family 
 to Minnesota, in 1890, and is now a resident of 
 Aitkin. He is a prosperous farmer and owns 220 
 acres of good land. He has also been active in 
 republican politics, and at the present time is a 
 member of the Board of County Commissioners of 
 Aitkin County. His wife was a daughter of Peter 
 McCauley, a prominent ship builder in Scotland. 
 All the eight children were born in Scotland, except 
 the three youngest. Their names are : Mary, now 
 thirty-eight years of age, living in St. Paul; James, 
 also a resident of St. Paul; Isabelle, wife of Charles 
 Demming; Jessie, wife of William Blaylock of St. 
 Paul; Peter M. ; William, aged twenty- four; Jennie, 
 
 aged twenty-two ; and Duncan, now nineteen years 
 of age. 
 
 Peter M. Ferguson was five years old when he 
 came to America, and received his early education 
 in St. Paul public schools, graduating from high 
 school in 1900. His first occupation was as an 
 office boy in the Northwestern Telephone Exchange, 
 and he has thus been identified with one line of 
 business all his practical career. He rose to the 
 position of superintendent of switchboards and for 
 the past six years has been manager of the Mankato 
 Citizens’ Telephone System. 
 
 Mr. Ferguson is affiliated with Lodge No. 12 of 
 the Masons, with Mankato Lodge No. 225 of the 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and has 
 an official post in the Knights of Pythias. Relig- 
 iously he is a Scotch Presbyterian' and in politics 
 a republican. 
 
 Mr. Ferguson married Lydia Ludwig of St. Paul, 
 a daughter of Ferdinand and Christine Ludwig. 
 The Ludwig family were among the pioneers of 
 St. Paul, and the old homestead first located by 
 them is now in the center of the most fashionable 
 residence district of the city. Ferdinand Ludwig 
 was one of the members of the first fire department 
 of St. Paul. Mr. Ferguson and wife have one child, 
 Peter M., now two years of age. 
 
 George E. Nettleton. Probably no education in 
 Mankato has a more practical relation to the business 
 community and to the individual welfare of many 
 young men and women than the Mankato Commer- 
 cial College, of which George E. Nettleton has been 
 the secretary and treasurer for the past fifteen years. 
 Mr. Nettleton has made education his life work, and 
 it has been his aim and successful achievement to 
 make his school at Mankato as thoroughly equipped 
 and as complete in every detail as any commercial 
 college in the Northwest. 
 
 Mr. Nettleton is a native of Minnesota, born in 
 Lesueur County, April 22, 1861, a son of Edward 
 F. and Elizabeth (Stone) Nettleton. The Nettleton 
 family came originally from England, and grand- 
 father Lehman Nettleton was a native of New 
 York State and spent his life there. The maternal 
 grandfather, Simon S. Stone, was born in Canada, 
 moved to Minnesota and spent the rest of his days 
 as a farmer in Scott County. Elizabeth (Stone) 
 Nettleton was born in the Province of Quebec, 
 Canada, in 1832, and died in. 1891. Edward F. 
 Nettleton was born at Albion, New York, in 1830 
 and died in 1904. He is numbered among the 
 pioneers of Lesueur County, having taken up a 
 homestead there in 1856, and the rest of his days 
 were devoted to its cultivation. For many years 
 he was identified with the Methodist Church, but 
 later became a Seventh Day Adventist. Politically 
 a republican, he served a number of years as justice 
 of the peace, was also a veteran of the Civil war, 
 having enlisted in 1861 in Company G of the Tenth 
 Minnesota Regiment, and serving until mustered 
 out in 1864. During the various campaigns in which 
 he participated in the South he twice suffered a 
 sunstroke, and the last year of his military service 
 was assigned as a cook. There were four children 
 in the family: George E. ; William F. is now head 
 miller at New Richland, Minnesota; Luella South- 
 wick lives at Alexandria, Minnesota ; and Theron S. 
 is a bookkeeper and office man at Fort Worth, Texas. 
 
 George E. Nettleton had the advantages of public 
 schools during his youth, but had to work out his 
 
1654 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 own salvation from an early age, and educated him- 
 self largely through the means secured by his own 
 efforts. For three years he was a student in the 
 Mankato Normal School, was employed as a teacher 
 in the rural schools three years, and then spent the 
 winter of 1884-85 in the Gem City Business College 
 at Quincy, Illinois. For thirty years he has held 
 positions as an instructor or as an executive in a 
 number of different schools. For three years he 
 taught in Johnson’s Business College in St. Louis, 
 for three years in Brown’s Business College at 
 Peoria, Illinois, for nine years was connected with 
 the Brown’s College at Jacksonville, Illinois, and 
 also held positions as principal of schools at both 
 Peoria and Jacksonville. Mr. Nettleton located at 
 Mankato in 1899 and bought a half interest in the 
 Mankato Commercial College, which he still owns. 
 The enrollment in this school during 1914 was 860 
 pupils, and during the present school year this number 
 will be still larger. The college was established in 
 1891, and its influence and success have been steadily 
 growing, particularly during the past fifteen years. 
 Students are enrolled from twelve different states 
 of the Union, and some even from Canada. 
 
 Mr. Nettleton was married, September 19, 1883, 
 to Emma E. Hodge, a daughter of William B. 
 Hodge, who was one of the early settlers of Man- 
 kato. To their marriage have been born five chil- 
 dren : George IT, who for three years was in the 
 
 insurance department of the State of Minnesota 
 and is now state inspector of buildings at St. Paul ; 
 Neva, wife of Myron M. Weisenberger, pastor of 
 Olivet Methodist Church in Minneapolis ; Edward 
 Paul, bookkeeper and stenographer for J. C. Mar- 
 low of Mankato ; Elizabeth L. and Ruth Darling, 
 both of whom are students in' the Asbupy College 
 at Wilmore, Kentucky. 
 
 Mr. Nettleton was reared in the Methodist Church, 
 and is a local preacher in the denomination. He is 
 recording secretary of the official board of the 
 Centenary Methodist Eoiscopal Church at Mankato. 
 He is affiliated with Lodge No. 12, A. F. & A. M., 
 and has passed all the chairs in the Royal Arcanum. 
 Politically he is a republican. His interest in and 
 experience in educational affairs have made him- 
 a valuable worker in different organizations, and 
 he has interested himself personally in the Mankato 
 Y. M. C. A., in which he is a director and recording 
 secretary. 
 
 Fred J. Busch. One of the commercial establish- 
 ments which have given rank and standing to 
 Mankato as a distributing center is the A. J. Busch 
 Company, wholesale grocers, of which Fred J. 
 Busch is now president and general manager. This 
 business has a history of about thirty years. The 
 energy of father and sons has gone into the estab- 
 lishment, and from a retail store its relations have 
 been expanded until now four traveling salesmen 
 represent the house and distribute its goods all over 
 the state. The present officers of the company are : 
 Fred J. Busch, president; Francis Busch, vice presi- 
 dent, and John McKasy, secretary and treasurer. 
 
 Fred J. Busch, the present executive of the com- 
 pany, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, March 12, 
 1863, but has spent nearly all his life in Minnesota. 
 His parents were Antone J. and Frances (Schutte) 
 Busch, both natives of Germany. The grandfather 
 was Fred Busch, a native of Germany, where at one 
 time he was a stage driver, but subsequently came 
 to the United States and died at Red Wing in 
 
 Minnesota. Antone J. Busch, who was the founder 
 of the A. J. Busch & Co. Wholesale Grocery House, 
 and for many years one of the most prominent 
 business leaders in Mankato, was born in Germany 
 in 1837 and died at Mankato, April 22, 1914. He 
 married at St. Louis, in April, 1862, Frances Schutte, 
 who was born in 1837 and is still living. Antone J. 
 Busch came to the United States at the age of 
 eighteen years, to join an older brother, who was 
 at that time in the bakery business in Chicago. 
 From there the brothers went to St. Louis, and he 
 was a baker in that city until 1863. He then removed 
 to Red Wing, Minnesota, went on a farm, on 
 account of poor health, enjoyed a steadily growing 
 prosperity, ■ and in 1876 removed to Mankato. He 
 lived somewhat retired for a year or so, and then 
 invested his capital in a large building, which was 
 rented for mercantile purposes. Later on he formed 
 a partnership with Peter Miller, who lived only a 
 year and a half, leaving the sole responsibility to 
 Mr. Busch. He had the business judgment and 
 energy required for successful merchandising, and 
 under the name of A. J. Busch the establishment 
 enjoyed continuous prosperity. His son, Fred J. 
 Busch, became a partner in the enterprise in 1884, 
 and thereafter the title of the firm was A. J. Busch 
 & Son. It was continued as a retail store until 
 1899, but has since grown into one of the chief 
 wholesale houses west of St. Paul and Minneapolis. 
 Antone J. Busch was a vigorous factor in Mankato 
 commercial and civic affairs for many years. He 
 was a member of the German Catholic Church and 
 a democrat in politics. He served on the Mankato 
 School Board, had interests in the Citizens Fire 
 Insurance Company and was president of its board 
 of directors, and also was a director in the First 
 National Bank. Though he was recognized as a 
 successful man for many years before his death, 
 his start in life had been as a poor boy, and in 
 addition to other handicaps had to overcome those 
 of unfamiliarity with the English language and with 
 American customs. Fred J. Busch is the oldest of 
 six children, and the others are: Bertha, wife of 
 
 George Kline, in the furniture business at Mankato ; 
 Henry, a resident of California; Frank J., a Man- 
 kato undertaker; Mary, wife of John McKasy, who 
 lives in Lesueur ; and Joseph, who is associated in 
 the wholesale grocery house with his brother. 
 
 Fred J. Busch was an infant when the family 
 removed to Minnesota, acquired his early education 
 in the Mankato schools, and at the age of twenty- 
 one was taken into the business as a partner with his 
 father. On February 7, 1893, he married Josephine 
 Hillesheim of Mankato, daughter of Henry Hille- 
 sheim, who was an early settler of Mankato and a 
 wagon maker by trade. To their marriage have been 
 born five sons : Louis, who is employed in the City 
 
 National Bank; Joseph, clerk in a clothing store; 
 Edmund, attending parochial schools : Raymond and 
 William, also school boys. The family are members 
 of the Catholic Church, and in politics Mr. Busch 
 is an independent democrat. Mr. Busch, who has 
 followed the example of his father as a vigorous ex- 
 ponent of Mankato’s commercial and civic advan- 
 tages, can always be found aligned with the most 
 progressive workers for his community's welfare. 
 
 Walter A. Plymat. The name Plymat has been 
 well known in legal circles at Mankato for a number 
 of years, both Walter A. and his father having been 
 regarded among the successful lawyers during this 
 

 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1655 
 
 time. Walter A. Plymat is one of the most 
 industrious men in his profession, and while enjoy- 
 ing a good general practice has also come in for 
 some of the responsibilities and honors that belong 
 particularly to men in his profession. 
 
 Walter A. Plymat was born in Mapleton Township 
 of Blue Earth County on Christmas Day of 1877. 
 His parents were William M. and Mary E. (Young) 
 Plymat. His grandfather was Alexander Plymat, a 
 native of Pennsylvania, who moved out to Wiscon- 
 sin in the early days, later to Minnesota, and spent 
 his last years in California. The maternal grand- 
 parents were Richard and Rachael Young, natives 
 of New Brunswick, and among the pioneer settlers 
 of Wisconsin, from which state they removed to 
 Minnesota, and Richard Young, who was a farmer 
 in Blue Earth County, died there at a good old age. 
 William N. Plymat was born in Pennsylvania in 
 July, 1845, and died in 1907. His wife, who was 
 born in Wisconsin, October 13, 1847, is still living, 
 with home at Mankato. They were married at 
 Garden City, Minnesota, November 26, 1866. Wil- 
 liam M. Plymat came to Minnesota with the early 
 settlers of the state in 1862, and located on a farm 
 in Garden City Township. His career was one of 
 varied experience and activity. In 1863 he enlisted 
 in Company B of Beckett’s Minnesota Cavalry, and 
 was with his command until mustered out and 
 honorably discharged on June 1, 1866. His regiment 
 was in the South during the first two years of the 
 war, participated in many campaigns, and afterwards 
 was sent out to do duty in the bad lands of Dakota, 
 and they were among the first to go through that 
 broken section of country. After the war Mr. 
 Plymat returned to Minnesota, was a homesteader in 
 Mapleton Township, read law, was admitted to the 
 bar, taught school, but from 1880 to the time of his 
 death was actively engaged in practice of the legal 
 profession. He was affiliated with the Masonic 
 Lodge, with the Grand Army of the Republic in 
 which he was commander of the post a number of 
 terms, was a trustee of the Benevolent and Protective 
 Order of Elks, and at the time of his death was 
 grand trustee of the Knights of Pythias Lodge. In 
 politics he was a republican, and for a year and a 
 half held the office of municipal judge of Mankato. 
 His widow is a member of the Episcopal Church. 
 They were the parents of four children: Genevieve 
 
 Mechelke, a widow who is now teaching school in 
 Duluth; Mrs. L. W. Wells, who lives in Cheyenne 
 Wells, Colorado, where her husband is a merchant; 
 Harry E., engaged in the practice of law at Rolla, 
 North Dakota; and Walter A. 
 
 Walter A. Plymat has lived in Mankato since early 
 childhood, was graduated from the high school there 
 in 1895, and in 1899 took his degree bachelor of 
 science from the University of Minnesota, and two 
 years later became a bachelor of laws from the 
 university law department. After one year of prac- 
 tice at Madelia Mr. Plymat came to Mankato, and 
 was associated with his father in practice until the 
 latter’s death. Since then he has managed his office 
 according to his own convenience and has handled a 
 large volume of litigation. 
 
 On September 20, 1904, Mr. Plymat married Ida 
 F. Robel of Blue Earth County. They have one 
 son, William N., now 3Jd years of age. Mrs. Plymat 
 is a member of the Catholic Church, while Mr. 
 Plymat is of the Episcopal faith. 
 
 Mr. Plymat has held some of the important offices 
 in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks,, is a 
 
 Vol. HI— 25 
 
 past chancellor commander of the Knights of 
 Pythias, a past master workman in the Ancient 
 Order of United Workmen, and has affiliations with 
 the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Modern 
 Woodmen of America and the D. D. H. S. Politi- 
 cally a republican, Mr. Plymat has given considerable 
 time to public office, and for four years, from 1906 
 to 1910, was county attorney. He has been special 
 judge at Mankato since 1911, and is now serving as 
 municipal judge of Mankato. Mr. Plymat is well 
 remembered in university circles in Minneapolis 
 where he was active not only in the usual student 
 affairs but for five years played on the university 
 baseball team, from 1897 to 1901. 
 
 Frank E. Wade. The life of Frank E. Wade is 
 the career of a strong man, one who has accom- 
 plished some big things and always in a large way. 
 Mr. Wade for a number of years has had his home 
 and business headquarters in Fairmont, where he is 
 known as president of the Fairmont National Bank 
 and president of the Fairmont Gas Engine and Rail- 
 way Motor Car Company. In the past thirty-five 
 years that cover his practical career he has bepn an 
 engineer, a contractor and builder, a merchant, a 
 public official, traveling salesman, and miner, and 
 now as a banker and financier is at the head of some 
 of the most important business enterprises in South- 
 ern Minnesota and has numerous relations with com- 
 panies operating outside the state. 
 
 Frank E. Wade was born at Whitehall, Wisconsin, 
 March 6, 1862. The Wade family came originally 
 from England, settled in New York and New 
 Jersey, and some of the family connections of 
 Mr. Wade are with old Ben Wade, a notable 
 figure in democratic politics and public affairs 
 many^ years ago, and others of the family were 
 prominent in the City of Cleveland, and it was 
 a Wade who built the first telegraph line across 
 the continent to California. Edward F. Wade, 
 father of the Fairmont banker, was born at Newark, 
 New Jersey, in 1842, and died at Fairmont, Minne- 
 sota, in August, 1911. His was an active and varied 
 career. In early life he moved out to Rock Prairie, 
 Wisconsin, and in 1872 to Cedarville, and established 
 his home in Fairmont in 1881. During the Civil 
 war he was for three years a member of the Thir- 
 tieth Wisconsin Infantry, with the rank of captain, 
 for a number of years held the office of county treas- 
 urer of Trempealeau County, Wisconsin, and after 
 moving to Martin County, Minnesota, lived on a 
 farm for a time, and then for eighteen years was 
 clerk of court in that county. He subsequently be- 
 came a justice of the peace, an insurance agent and 
 acted as attorney in the handling of land matters 
 and for old soldiers’ pensions. Edward F. Wade 
 married Miss Amelia A. Sherwood, who was born 
 at Whitehall, Wisconsin, in 1843, and is still living, 
 with home at Fairmont. 
 
 Frank E. Wade spent his youth in several different 
 places, attending public school at Galesville, Wiscon- 
 sin, in Martin County, and also in Fairmont Village. 
 He also had a course in the Curtis Business College 
 at St. Paul. His natural disposition and energy took 
 him into affairs at an early age. Under C. F. 
 Loweth, who is now chief engineer of the Milwaukee 
 railway, he had considerable engineering practice 
 and instruction, and at the age of nineteen, in 1881, 
 became connected with G. W. Sherwood & Co., a 
 firm engaged in the building of bridges along the 
 Mississippi River. That was his line of work until 
 
1656 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1886, the firm being Sherwood, Sutherland & Fitz, 
 of St. Paul. Before he had reached his majority 
 he was superintendent of construction, with 370 men 
 under him, and in full charge of bridge construction. 
 
 In 1887 Mr. Wade moved to Primghar, Iowa, con- 
 ducted -a general store there under the name of 
 Herrick & Wade for a year, and then moved to 
 Sheldon, Iowa. For a number of years Mr. Wade 
 was prominently identified with O’Brien County, 
 Iowa, and is well remembered in that section. He 
 did general building and contracting, and as engi- 
 neer made plans and specifications, and was engaged 
 in the construction of water works. For twelve years 
 Mr. Wade served as county surveyor of O’Brien 
 County. Another employment which furnished him 
 the experience now utilized in the Fairmont Gas 
 Engine and Railway Motor Car Company, was as 
 general salesman with Fairbanks, Morse & Company 
 of Chicago. While selling goods for that company 
 he also assisted to perfect the engines manufactured 
 by that well known firm. During the year 1899, 
 of all the men traveling from the eighteen sales 
 agencies of the company, Mr. Wade sold the largest 
 number of gasoline engines, and this distinction 
 in competition with other salesmen gave him a prize 
 of a hundred dollars offered for the largest aggre- 
 gate of sales. 
 
 Mr. Wade laid the substantial basis of his fortune 
 in the mining district of the Black Hills. He went 
 into that region in 1902, and was one of the inter- 
 ested principals in the Home Stake Mining Company, 
 and was also connected with the Globe Gold Mining 
 Company from 1902 to 1906. Returning to Fairmont 
 in 1906, Mr. Wade’s first efforts were in assuming the 
 management and the rehabilitation of the Water and 
 Light Commission, and he is still connected with 
 that important local municipal plant. In the same 
 year he also engaged in the banking business, estab- 
 lishing the Fairmont National Bank, and since that 
 time has been its president. This bank has a capital 
 stock of $25,000, with a surplus of $4,000, and the 
 banking house is situated on North Avenue, Fair- 
 mont. 
 
 The largest industrial establishment in Martin 
 County is the Fairmont Gas Engine and Railway 
 Motor Company, of which Mr. Wade is president, 
 and in the upbuilding of which he has concentrated 
 his broad and thorough experience. At the present 
 time a new factory is being erected on Fifth Street, 
 a building 300 by 80 feet. The group of buildings 
 include a factory 420 by 40 feet ; a shop building 
 180 by 40 feet; a foundry. 130 by 46 ; a core room 
 80 by 26; and also general offices, the entire plant 
 fronting on Fifth Street for a distance of a quarter 
 of a mile. The older buildings are now used for 
 store rooms. This company manufactures the Fair- 
 mont Gasoline Engines. Mr. Wade has not only 
 done much to perfect this engine in its mechanical 
 details, but more than anyone else has by his ag- 
 gressive salesmanship opened up a splendid field 
 for the use of the factory’s output. At the present 
 time the company supplies more than four hundred 
 of the important railways and their subsidiary lines 
 with all the gasoline engines required for the dif- 
 ferent departments of the service. Thus the Fair- 
 mont engine is the type employed in the majority 
 of all the railways in the United States. The company 
 has an authorized capital of $1,000,000, with a paid- 
 up capital of $350,000. 
 
 Mr. Wade is also president of the Fairmont Boat 
 Company, which is incorporated with a capital of 
 
 $14,000, and under his management it has been made 
 a growing concern, principally a public enterprise for 
 boating, fishing, outing, etc. He is also secretary of 
 the Southern Florida Land Company, and is a vice 
 president in the labasco Plantation Company, the 
 largest sugar manufacturing plant in Mexico, and 
 the only industry of that kind which during the past 
 year made financial profits, notwithstanding the un- 
 settled political conditions in the southern republic. 
 
 Mr. Wade is a member of the Christian Science 
 Church. Politically a republican, he is and has been 
 chairman of the State Central Committee for the 
 past ten years. In 1915 he was elected mayor and 
 forced them to start paving the streets, notwithstand- 
 ing objections. While business affairs have not al- 
 lowed him to engage in public service to any impor- 
 tant extent in recent years, Mr. Wade made a spe- 
 cially noteworthy record in the office of fish and 
 game warden. On account of the abundance of its 
 game resources, public opinion in Minnesota has been 
 notably lax in the enforcement of the laws for pro- 
 tection of game, and in few places have the wardens 
 been efficient and sufficiently courageous to oppose 
 this public opinion. However, Mr. Wade was a 
 notable exception to this rule, and proved himself 
 entirely fearless in the enforcement of the law, and 
 while in office prosecuted and convicted seven offend- 
 ers, and his work did much to educate the people to 
 the needs of proper law enforcement in the con- 
 servation of fish and game resources. 
 
 Mr. Wade is a member of the Commercial Club 
 of Fairmont and the Minneapolis Commercial Club, 
 and is vice president of the Federation of Commer- 
 cial Clubs of the state. He is also affiliated with 
 Chain Lake Lodge No. 64, A. F. & A. M. ; Fairmont 
 Chapter No. 50, R. A. M. ; Fairmont Commandery 
 No. 27, K. T. ; Zurah Temple of the Nobles of the 
 Mystic Shrine at Minneapolis; with Fairmont lodges 
 of Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Knights of 
 Pythias and Modern Woodmen of America, and 
 with the United Commercial Travelers at Sheldon, 
 Iowa. 
 
 On January 2, 1888, at Minneapolis, Mr. Wade 
 married Miss Georgia St. John, daughter of Adam 
 St. John, now deceased, who was a farmer at Wel- 
 come, Minnesota. Mrs. Wade was born in Lyle, 
 Moyer County, Minnesota. Their children are : 
 Harold E., who graduated from the public schools 
 at Fairmont and for three years was a student in 
 the University of Minnesota, is now purchasing 
 agent for the Fairmont Gas Engine and Railway 
 Motor Car Company; Fern O., who graduated from 
 the Fairmont High School and from the Flandicraft 
 Guild at Minneapolis, was for some time a student 
 in the Chicago Art School and is now a student of 
 vocal music in Chicago; Helene G. is a student in 
 the Principia School at St. Louis, Missouri. 
 
 Hon. Ralph J. Parker is considered one of the 
 able and reliable lawyers of his district. He is 
 located at Spring Valley, Fillmore County, Minne- 
 sota, where he has been in practice for more than 
 twenty years, having come here soon after graduating 
 from the state university, and throughout his career 
 has made himself effective on the basis of merit 
 and proved ability. Mr. Parker has recently been 
 elected a member of the Legislature. 
 
 He was born at Frankford, in Mower County, 
 Minnesota, December 17, 1867, a son of W. H. 
 and Hannah (Wiseman) Parker. His father -was 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1657 
 
 born in New York State in 1824, a son of William 
 Parker, of that state. The father died in 1889. The 
 mother was born in England, a daughter of Phillip 
 Wiseman, who came from England and settled near 
 Berlin, Wisconsin, on a farm in the early '50s. The 
 mother is still living, having her home in California. 
 The parents moved out to Minnesota in 1858, when 
 it was still a territory, and located on a farm in 
 Mower County. The father was a man who at that 
 time had practically no capital, but before his death 
 was the owner of a well improved estate of 500 
 acres. During his career in Mower County he held 
 several township offices, and was at one time county 
 commissioner. His wife was active in the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. There were six children, and the 
 four now living are : Carrie, living with her mother 
 
 in California; Ralph J. ; Mrs. W. H. Goodsell, whose 
 husband is an extensive farmer in Mower County, 
 owning 1,000 acres of land in that section; and 
 Mrs. Dora Walker, who lives in California. 
 
 Ralph J. Parker was educated in the Spring 
 Valley public schools, and after finishing the high 
 school course and earning some money of his own 
 he entered the University of Minnesota and gradu- 
 ated in 1890 in the first class that finished the law 
 course. After his graduation he remained about a 
 year working as clerk for a law firm in Minneapolis, 
 and in 1892 opened an office in Spring Valley. For 
 twenty years he practiced as an individual, and in 
 1913 took into partnership Ludwig Gullickson. 
 
 In 1909 Mr. Parker married Caroline Hendershot, 
 who was born in Spring Valley. Her father, David 
 Hendershot, was a very early settler in Minnesota, 
 and by trade was a blacksmith and liveryman. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Parker have one child, Suzanne, now at- 
 tending school. Fraternally he has taken the York 
 Rite degrees in Masonry, and is a member of the 
 Lodge, the Royal Arch Chapter and the Knight 
 Templar Commandery. Almost since establishing a 
 home in Fillmore County he has been active in 
 republican politics, and served for six years as county 
 attorney. In 1914 he was a successful candidate 
 for representative from Houston and Fillmore 
 counties. As a lawyer Mr. Parker has for a num- 
 ber of years had all the business he could attend to. 
 He is a director in the First State and in the First 
 National banks of Spring Valley and also represents 
 these institutions as attorney. 
 
 Thomas H. Bunn. The official distinction of 
 Thomas H. Bunn as postmaster at Pine Island is 
 only one of many marks of a successful business 
 career, which, beginning as a clerk, has brought 
 him to independent success as a merchant and has 
 left him with ample material prosperity and full 
 opportunity to serve his community. Mr. Bunn was 
 made postmaster at Pine Island under the present 
 administration on July 1, 1914. Though now retired 
 from merchandising, he is the owner of a creamery 
 at Pine Island, and still has his father’s old home- 
 stead in the county. 
 
 On that homestead Thomas H. Bunn was born 
 October 12, 1866. His parents were Isaac and 
 Cynthia (Criley) Bunn. The Bunn family is of 
 Holland-Dutch ancestry, and was established in this 
 country by three brothers about 300 years ago. A 
 great-great-grandfather of Thomas H. Bunn was a 
 soldier on the American side in the Revolutionary 
 war, and lived to the great age of ninety-nine years. 
 The maternal grandfather was Karl Criley, a native 
 of Pennsylvania, who moved west to Illinois and died 
 
 in that state. Isaac Bunn was born in Pennsylvania 
 in 1817 and died in 1887, and his wife was born 
 in the same state in 1827 and died in 1907. They 
 were the parents of fourteen children, ten of whom 
 are living, and Thomas H. is the eleventh in order 
 of birth. Isaac Bunn was one of Minnesota’s 
 pioneers, moving to the territory in 1856 and getting 
 120 acres of land from the Government. That 
 homestead was the scene of his activities and his 
 residence until his death. Isaac Bunn was the son 
 of Benjamin Bunn, who spent all his life in Penn- 
 sylvania. Isaac was a member of the Presbyterian 
 Church and in politics a democrat. 
 
 Thomas H. Bunn grew up in Goodhue County, 
 was educated in the .common schools, and after 
 working as a farmer until eighteen found a position 
 as clerk in a drug store. His knowledge of the 
 business and experience in merchandising enabled 
 him, in 1892, to buy the store, and he conducted it 
 successfully for more than twenty years until selling 
 out in February in 1913. In 1892 Mr. Bunn married 
 Florence Miller, daughter of Charles R. Miller, of 
 New York State. They have one son, Lloyd, who 
 is now a student in the state university of Minnesota. 
 Mr. Bunn is a trustee in the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, has passed all the chairs in the Masonic 
 Lodge and is also a member of the Modern Wood- 
 men of America. For a number of years the demo- 
 crats of Goodhue County have considered him a 
 leader, and through his private business and influ- 
 ence as a citizen it has been possible for him to 
 promote in many ways the welfare of his com- 
 munity. 
 
 William L. Craddock, M. D. For a period of 
 more than a quarter of a century Doctor Craddock 
 has quietly and efficiently performed his services as 
 a physician at the Village of Pine Island and vicinity. 
 A man of high standing in his profession, the town 
 and township has reason for congratulation that he 
 chose to spend his career in a country community 
 where the opportunities for service are just as great 
 as in a city, and where he has enjoyed many of the 
 rewards of community esteem in a richer degree 
 than are ever paid to the city practitioner. 
 
 Dr. William L. Craddock is a native of Ireland, 
 born March 29, 1858, a son of George and Margaret 
 (Kelly) Craddock. As he left Ireland at the age 
 of ten with his sister, and has since made his home 
 in America, Doctor Craddock never knew his parents 
 after that time. His early youth was spent with 
 an uncle in Philadelphia, where he attended the city 
 schools, took up the study of medicine, and in 1879 
 was graduated M. D. from the Philadelphia Medical 
 College. His early experience was in metropolitan 
 practice at Brooklyn, New York, but in 1887 he came 
 west and located at Pine Island, and there is no 
 adequate measure for the usefulness of his profes- 
 sional services in that community since the begin- 
 ning of his practice. While he has done a great deal 
 of unremunerated work, Doctor Craddock has also 
 been successful in business, and has enjoyed some 
 of the distinctions of public life. For a number of 
 years he has served as health officer, also as mayor 
 of Pine Island, but it is as Doctor Craddock that 
 he is best known and esteemed over the country 
 about Pine Island. Doctor Craddock owns a farm 
 and has always enjoyed farm work and has done 
 something to advance rural prosperity in his section. 
 In politics he is a republican and he is a member of 
 the Goodhue County Medical Society. 
 
1658 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 In 1889 Doctor Craddock married Mary O’Neill, 
 who was born in Wisconsin. To their marriage 
 have been born four children : Catherine, who has 
 finished the work of the public schools; Helen, 
 Margaret and William J., all attending school. 
 
 John H. Towey. Now filling the office of post- 
 master at Stewartville, Olmsted County, John H. 
 Towey is a native son of Olmsted County, where 
 his parents were early settlers, and his business 
 career as a merchant and his faithful service and 
 public spirited attitude in all the relations of life 
 have well justified his recent appointment to his 
 present office. 
 
 John H. Towey was born in Olmsted County, 
 June 10, 1874, and his parents, Thomas and Catherine 
 (Grady) Towey, still reside on their well improved 
 farm in High Forest Township. Thomas Towey 
 was born in Ireland in 1834 and his wife in the 
 same country in 1837. They were married in Wis- 
 consin in 1859. The paternal grandfather spent all 
 his life in Ireland, while the maternal grandfather 
 Grady was a resident of Olmsted County, Minne- 
 sota, at the time of his death. Thomas Towey came 
 to Olmsted County nearly half a century ago, and 
 is one of the honored pioneer citizens and rep- 
 resentative farmers of the county. He is a stanch 
 democrat, and both he and his wife are members 
 of the Catholic Church. Of the ten children John 
 H. was the seventh, and the six others still living 
 are: Mrs. Peter M. Burns, wife of a successful 
 
 farmer in the State of Montana ; Hugh, an Olmsted 
 County farmer; Mrs. Thomas Warren, who lives on 
 a farm near Rochester in Olmsted County; Cath- 
 erine, living at home; Agnes, now in Montana; and 
 Thomas F., a farmer in Olmsted County. 
 
 John H. Towey grew up on a farm, and his early 
 education came from the district schools. Though 
 many years of his active career have been spent an a 
 merchant, he continues loyal to his early influences 
 and was a farmer until the spring of 1896. At that 
 date he established his home in Stewartville, and in 
 partnership with Albert T. Danielson engaged in 
 the furniture and undertaking business. The part- 
 nership was continued nearly three years, following 
 which, for eighteen months, Thomas A. Nelson was 
 the partner of Mr. Towey. Since that time Mr. 
 Towey has conducted the enterprise in an individual 
 way, and has an establishment well equipped and 
 with a large and representative patronage. 
 
 Mr. Towey has been specially active in local poli- 
 tics as an advocate of the prirfciples and policies of 
 the democratic party. He did some effective service 
 as chairman of the county committee in Olmsted 
 County. It was in recognition of this service and 
 of his personal qualifications that resulted in his 
 appointment as postmaster of Stewartville on Feb- 
 ruary 11, 1914. He has since given a very careful 
 and efficient administration to that office. 
 
 In 1901 Mr. Towey married Miss Nellie Z. Toher 
 of Stewartville. Both are members of the Catholic 
 Church, in which faith they were reared. Their 
 five children are named : Ralph J., Robert F., 
 
 Richard L., Andrew E. and Katherine Zeida. 
 
 George Regelsberger. One of the largest and most 
 important concerns of the kind in the twin cities 
 is the George Regelsberger & Company, plumbing 
 and heating, at 180 West Seventh Street, St. Paul. 
 This is a business which has been developed through 
 many years of experience and substantial service, 
 
 and from small beginnings, and credit for its success 
 must be given to the initiative and ability of George 
 Regelsberger, who is not only one of the solid and 
 responsible citizens of St. Paul, but also one of the 
 city's oldest native sons. 
 
 George Regelsberger was born at St. Paul, Sep- 
 tember 6, 1854, the oldest son of Peter and Amelia 
 (Hubener) Regelsberger. His parents were both 
 natives of Germany, were educated in that country, 
 and emigrated to the United States, landing in New 
 York City; from there they went to Wisconsin, were 
 married in Wisconsin, and in 1852 settled in St. 
 Paul, which was then a village on the outskirts of 
 the frontier of civilization. Peter Regelsberger was 
 a farmer and gave the best years of his life to that 
 calling. He died in 1888, and his wife passed away 
 in 1910 at the age of seventy-six. 
 
 The earliest memories of George Regelsberger are 
 associated with St. Paul when it was still a village. 
 He acquired his education in the public schools, 
 attended high school for a time, but soon took up 
 the serious responsibilities of practical life as an 
 employe of the J. IT. Wolsey & Co. of St. Paul, and 
 subsequently was with Kenney & Hudner, plumbers. 
 In this way he was introduced to the business which 
 he has made his permanent profession. He was 
 with Kenney & Hudner nine years, and at the end 
 of that time formed a partnership with P. W. Hud- 
 ner under the firm name of Pludner & Regelsberger. 
 This was a well known partnership in the plumbing 
 business until 1904, at which time a reorganization 
 occurred with James K. Stark as one of "the inter- 
 ested principals. The name of the business was at 
 that time changed to George Regelsberger & Com- 
 pany. In the course of many years’ experience Mr. 
 Regelsberger has installed the varied appliances and 
 apparatus for plumbing and heating in hundreds 
 of the first class public buildings, stores and resi- 
 dences of St. Paul and vicinity. At the headquarters 
 on West Seventh Street the company carries a large 
 and varied stock, and some of the best ideals of 
 prompt and efficient service have been realized in 
 this concern. Mr. Regelsberger’s wife is deceased, 
 and he has no children. He is a member of the 
 Assumption Catholic Church. 
 
 George Willard Deivey, M. D. Though Doctor 
 Dewey has practiced at his present home in Fair- 
 mont only since 1910, his career as a physician and 
 surgeon is one of nearly twenty years in extent, and 
 has been rich and fruitful in experience and service 
 in the various localities of his residence. DoctorDewey 
 is one of the best equipped and successful physicians 
 and surgeons in Southern Minnesota. 
 
 George Willard Dewey was born at Marshall, in 
 Dane County, Wisconsin, August 26, 1871, in the 
 same log house in which his father was born. His 
 ancestors were New England people, and the family 
 was represented in the Revolutionary war. Doctor 
 Dewey’s great-grandfather was David Dewey, a na- 
 tive of Vermont, and related closely with the other 
 collateral branch of the Dewey family which pro- 
 duced Admiral George Dewey. Doctor Dewey’s grand- 
 father was Asa Dewey, who was also born in Ver- 
 mont and came out as a pioneer farmer to Wiscon- 
 sin during the forties. Adelbert Dewey, father of 
 Dr. George W„ was born in Marshall, Wisconsin, in 
 1847, and died there September, 1913. Adelbert was 
 a lifelong farmer in Dane County. He married 
 Abbie Jane Pierce, who was born in the State of 
 Vermont in 1852 and died at Marshall, Wisconsin. 
 

 V 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1659 
 
 in 1912. Their children were : George W. ; Edith, wife 
 of William Pyburn, a farmer at Spring Valley, Min- 
 nesota; Lyda J., who is a trained nurse in the 
 Asbury Hospital in Minneapolis ; and Leon H., a 
 druggist in Dundee, Illinois. 
 
 Dr. George Willard Dewey spent his early life on 
 a farm in Dane County, Wisconsin, and in 1889 was 
 graduated from the Marshall High School. For 
 two years he was a student in the University of 
 Wisconsin at Madison, not far from his home, and 
 prior to beginning his professional studies was for 
 two years a teacher in the Dane County public 
 schools. Doctor Dewey was graduated from the Mil- 
 waukee Medical College with the degree M. D. in 
 1896, and for one year was an interne in St. Mary’s 
 Hospital at Oshkosh. Doctor Dewey began practice 
 in December, 1896, at Columbus, Wisconsin, lived 
 there until 1898, and then established a home at 
 Burnett Junction in Dodge County, Wisconsin, and 
 lived there and practiced successfully until 1910. 
 In that year he moved out to Fairmont and has 
 since built up a large general practice as a physician 
 and surgeon, both in Fairmont and extending 
 throughout Martin County. He maintains his offices 
 in the Pfeiffer Block, and his home is at 408 North 
 Avenue. 
 
 Doctor Dewey is a member of the County and State 
 Medical societies and the American and Southern 
 Minnesota Medical associations, and during his resi- 
 dence at Burnett Junction served as health officer. 
 He is an independent republican in politics, and is 
 active as a member and also as steward of the 
 Methodist Episcopal Church. His fraternal affilia- 
 tions are with Chain Lake Lodge No. 64, A. F. & 
 A. M. ; Fairmont Chapter No. 50, R. A. M. ; the 
 Knights Templar Commandery of Fairmont, and 
 with the Modern Woodmen of America and the 
 Knights of Pythias at Fairmont. z At Marshall, Wis- 
 consin, March 24, 1897, Doctor Dewey married Cora 
 E. Mitchell. They have four children : Artis Marie, 
 Dudley Leon and Carter, all three of whom are 
 students in the public schools of Fairmont, while 
 Opal is the youngest and is still at home. 
 
 Thomas Barlow Walker. No citizen of the 
 Northwest has contributed as much to the develop- 
 ment of the commercial, educational, social, religious 
 and political life of Minneapolis and incidentally to 
 the Northwest as Thomas B. Walker. A man of 
 intense business energy and ability and in practical 
 achievement the peer of any in his generation, he 
 has been successful not only in the typical American 
 sense of accumulating riches, but even more so in 
 his wise use and distribution of what fortune has 
 lent him as a .steward and trustee. In his own 
 career he has exemplified some truths that are of 
 special significance in an age of industrial and social 
 unrest — emphasizing the fact that living is as vital 
 as activity and that the soul must be satisfied not 
 only jvith things but with ideals, culture and benefit. 
 
 Thomas Barlow Walker was born at Xenia, Greene 
 County, Ohio, February 1, 1840, son of Platt Bayliss 
 and Anstis (Barlow) Walker. His father was a 
 descendant from early American settlers originally 
 from England, and when Thomas was born was a 
 prosperous business man at Xenia. A few years 
 later his adventurous spirit led him to undertake 
 a trip to the newly discovered gold fields of Cali- 
 fornia. He invested all his capital in outfitting and 
 collecting a supply of goods to be sold on the Pacific 
 coast. While on the way he was stricken with 
 
 cholera, and died at Warrensburg, Missouri. His 
 partner in the business went on to California and 
 sold the goods at a large profit, but never made any 
 returns to the widow and children back in Ohio. 
 Mr. Walker’s mother was a woman of great force 
 of character and came of a strongly intellectual 
 family. Two of her brothers were prominent lawyers 
 and judges, Thomas Barlow in New York and Moses 
 Barlow in Ohio. With the courage and resourceful- 
 ness which were so intimate a part of her character, 
 she set herself resolutely to provide not only the 
 necessities of life but means of education for her 
 children. Thomas B. Walker was at that time nine 
 years of age and soon began to contribute to the 
 expenses of the home by selling papers, cutting wood, 
 working in stores and other employment. As an 
 early indication of his commercial genius it has been 
 noted that when he undertook to pick berries or do 
 similar work he would hire other boys to work for 
 him and pay them a certain amount, and thus get- 
 ting pay not only for his individual services but also 
 for what he did in directing others. When he was 
 sixteen years of age the family removed to Berea, 
 near Cleveland, Ohio, where the mother hoped to 
 secure better educational advantages for her children. 
 Here Mr. AValker had the benefit of a few terms in 
 Baldwin University, but the insistent necessities of 
 the home kept him at work in stores and also at a 
 worker in the lumber woods. Though his occupa- 
 tion was one of daily labor, he used many of his 
 night hours and his Sundays in study. He was 
 finally commissioned to travel and sell Berea grind- 
 stones, wooden bowls and wagon spokes, and it is 
 said that no other representative of the firm turned 
 in more orders than young Walker. While traveling 
 he carried his clothes in one grip and books in the 
 other, and studied the latter as industriously as his 
 work would allow. His inclination led him to con- 
 tinue his study in the higher branches of mathe- 
 matics and science, and in later days he has con- 
 fessed a large debt to mathematics as the source of 
 his success. As one student of his career has ex- 
 pressed it : “Mathematics taught him the practical 
 
 necessity of keeping corrected up all along the line ; 
 of retracing his steps the moment he found himself 
 on the wrong road and not waiting until the error 
 had grown important ; of taking advantage of all 
 the knowledge and experience of others and not 
 waiting to find a thing out all over again for himself.” 
 His knowledge of business was gained by travel 
 and experience, contact with other business men, 
 studying business methods, solving- big problems, 
 and pushing himself forward in the world generally, 
 in which he employed all his ability, courage and self 
 reliance to advantage and with good judgment. 
 
 In 1859, at the age of nineteen, he undertook a 
 contract, which in view of his meager experience 
 and capital, well indicate his courage and resource- 
 fulness. He was then selling grindstones at Paris, 
 Illinois, where a railroad company was engaged in 
 construction work. Without friends, without capi- 
 tal, without credit at the local banks, he took a con- 
 tract to supply the railroad with a large amount of 
 cross ties and cordwood. He bought some timber 
 land, to be paid for from proceeds, and soon had 
 his workmen organized and was filling his contract 
 engagement in a manner indicating a profitable 
 enterprise ; but at the end of eighteen months the 
 railroad company failed, and after settling up the 
 contracts on a basis of onl> about 50 per cent of 
 the amount due him he had only a few hundred 
 
1660 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 dollars left above the amount of his obligations, 
 which he fully paid. He then returned to Ohio and 
 began teaching school. In this occupation the out- 
 break of the Civil war found him, and, while the 
 war caused the discontinuation of his school and 
 made the general business outlook ominous, Mr. 
 Walker volunteered for service in an artillery com- 
 pany, but failed to secure admission. 
 
 The necessity of getting employment caused him 
 to go west to Wisconsin, where he applied to the 
 president of the board of regents of the state univer- 
 sity for a position as assistant teacher in mathe- 
 matics. His qualifications were adequate, but while 
 waiting for a decision on his application he went 
 on to Iowa, and there his attention was first at- 
 tracted to the new town of Minneapolis, described 
 as being “ten miles above St. Paul.” 
 
 Thus, in the year 1862, Thomas B. Walker arrived 
 in Minneapolis, having previously accepted a position 
 in a surveying party under government direction. 
 The turning point in important careers are always 
 of interest, and had Mr. Walker not accepted a 
 place in this surveying party before the receipt of 
 the delayed appointment as an instructor in the 
 University of Wisconsin he might have devoted his 
 life, certainly with eminent success, to university 
 life of which he would probably have been in com- 
 mand before many years had elapsed instead of to 
 the lumber industry. As a surveyor he quickly 
 proved himself an adept, and during the greater 
 part of the ’60s was engaged in work with the 
 compass in running township lines and also part 
 of the time in surveying for some of the railway 
 routes then under construction. His engagements 
 as a surveyor took him all over Northern and 
 Western Minnesota and the experience was of the 
 greatest advantage to his future operations. It made 
 him familiar with the white pine regions of the 
 state, and led him to begin purchasing tracts of 
 timber, in connection with other persons, for the 
 manufacture of lumber. 
 
 In 1868 Mr. Walker formed a combination with 
 Levi Butler and Howard W. Mills to exploit these 
 lumber regions. It was not an easy matter to con- 
 vince skeptical capitalists that any profit could be 
 made from working up the isolated timber district 
 so far from the markets. Mr. Walker, with his 
 characteristic earnestness, managed to convince the 
 two men who became his partners, and they com- 
 bined their money with his experience. The enter- 
 prises which the new firm undertook were all worked 
 out under the personal supervision of Mr. Walker. 
 He examined every piece of land taken up and knew 
 the exact value of each acre of property. From the 
 beginning the firm of Butler, Mills & Walker grew 
 and flourished. After the withdrawal of Mr. Mills 
 on account of ill health the firm became Butler & 
 Walker. This firm built one of the largest sawmills 
 on the Mississippi and did a very extensive manu- 
 facturing business for several years. In 1877 Mr. 
 Walker and Maj. George J. Camp formed the firm 
 of Camp & Walker and bought the old Pacific mills, 
 which burned down in 1880 but were subsequently 
 rebuilt. 
 
 In 1880 Mr. Walker began to purchase large 
 quantities of pine lands on the headwaters of Red 
 Lake and Clear Water River, and to utilize this 
 timber he and his oldest son, Gilbert M. Walker, 
 organized the Red River Lumber Company, erecting 
 mills at Crookston, Minnesota, and Grand Forks, 
 North Dakota. In 1887 Mr. Walker became asso- 
 
 ciated with H. C. Akeley, and it was said that the 
 logging firm of Walker & Akeley handled larger 
 quantities of logs than any other firm in the North- 
 west. 
 
 Mr. Walker exhibited the breadth of judgment 
 and foresight of his nature twenty-five years ago, 
 when the limits of Minnesota’s timber resources 
 began to be realized, in extending the field of his 
 operations and timber land purchases to the extreme 
 Northwest. He investigated the timber lands of the 
 Pacific Coast as early as 1889, and beginning about 
 1896 invested heavily in the timber lands of Oregon, 
 Washington and California. He chose as the most 
 desirable the immense sugar and yellow pine timber 
 of the upper Sierra Nevada Mountains, and bought 
 huge tracts in that region, magnificently stocked with 
 the great white pine, spruce and fir trees. In these 
 purchases and in their management he has had the 
 active co-operation of his sons, all of whom are now 
 actively identified with some one department or 
 other of the immense business controlled by Mr. 
 Walker. 
 
 As one of the largest individual owners of timber 
 resources in America, Mr. Walker’s position on the 
 conservation question is one of vital significance. 
 His views have been so frequently expressed in his 
 writings and addresses that there is no difficulty in 
 assigning him to the ranks of the most ardent con- 
 servationist, and still more important, Mr. Walker 
 has endeavored and is endeavoring to translate his 
 ideals into concrete practice, and the intelligent man- 
 agement of the vast timber holdings of the Walkers 
 in the Northwest probably furnishes more encourage- 
 ment to the friends of the conservation movement 
 than any other individual example. His practical 
 course in this matter has been well stated in the 
 following sentences : “Soon after migrating to the 
 
 North Star State he was afforded an opportunity 
 of realizing the coming value of the large virgin 
 forests that grew along the northern border. To 
 secure a goodly supply of this bounty of nature and 
 to husband it for future generations was his ambi- 
 tion. The greedy tax shark and the exigencies of 
 the times, however, compelled him to cut off, with 
 the other lumbermen, his supply of pine trees. To 
 carry out his fixed purpose he then searched our 
 country over and finally in the far West, in the 
 Golden State, found an immense tract of timber 
 that promised to afford an opportunity of carrying 
 out his ideas of economical use and perpetuation 
 of the supply. I am confident that it is not for the 
 purpose of laying claim to the title of being the 
 owner of the largest amount of timber in this 
 country, or in the world, that Mr. Walker has been 
 investing many millions of dollars in these valuable 
 assets. The millions of feet of timber that he has 
 now the undisputed title to is vastly more than he, 
 his sons, or even his grandsons can profitably utilize. 
 This vast forest, utilized as he has planned, will be 
 an incalculable blessing to those that require lumber 
 in the centuries to come. By simply utilizing the 
 matured trees and protecting the young and growing 
 ones an endless supply is insured. From a strictly 
 commercial and mercenary standpoint such enter- 
 prises as this are not considered logical, and cer- 
 tainly entail expenses and annoyances which Mr. 
 Walker can never expect to be compensated for 
 in his life or the next generation to come. Any 
 combination or conspiracy intended to restrain trade 
 nr impose hardship on the people has ever received 
 his most emphatic disapproval. He has repeatedly 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1661 
 
 declined to pool or consolidate his interests in timber 
 lands either in Minnesota or in the West, although 
 constantly importuned to do so and offered exceed- 
 ingly tempting proposals. His experience and study 
 of forestry problems have led him to conceive a 
 broad and comprehensive plan for co-operation be- 
 tween the general government and local governmental 
 bodies and all private owners of forests, and only 
 by such co-operation, he believes, can anything of a 
 practical or far-reaching benefit be gained. He feels 
 that his personal interest in conservation and that 
 of the public are identical. The forests, he holds, 
 grew for the benefit of all, and a solemn obligation 
 rests upon the men into whose hands they come to 
 use them with economy, and to replant them and to 
 provide for a future supply. 
 
 So far this article has been concerned only with 
 Mr. Walker’s stupendous business achievements. 
 His public spirited efforts in behalf of his home 
 city are perhaps known to everyone who has been 
 interested in the development of Minneapolis during 
 recent years, and some reference to the part he has 5 
 taken in local development is only demanded for 
 the judgment of the future. A resident of Minne- 
 apolis fully fifty years, his desire has constantly 
 been for the welfare of the city, and his ambition 
 to see it among the leading centers of the country 
 in educational, industrial, commercial and social im- 
 portance. He was the founder of Business Men's 
 Union, which was succeeded by the Commercial 
 Club. With the co-operation of Major Camp he 
 planned and established the central market and com- 
 mission district, now one of the greatest wholesale 
 markets and wholesale exchanges in the world, and 
 which has made Minneapolis the third city in this 
 country as a commission center, outclassed only 
 by New York and Chicago. He also furnished the 
 capital for and built the Butler Building when it 
 was a question whether the Butler Company would 
 locate its western branch in Minneapolis or St. 
 Paul. He thus secured for Minneapolis the largest 
 wholesale establishment west of Chicago. 
 
 From the standpoint of the future undoubtedly 
 Mr. Walker’s greatest achievements will be regarded 
 on the cultural side. Only a few great American 
 business men have so fully expressed their intel- 
 lectual and social ideals in such enduring manner 
 for the benefit of all the people. With all the 
 intensity of his business activity he has remained a 
 student and is a master of many lines of thought and 
 action. He is a recognized connoisseur in art, an 
 authority on literature, both ancient and modern. 
 The manifold phases of his genius have made him 
 a captain of industry, an eminent citizen, a student, 
 thinker, writer and speaker, a humanitarian, a politi- 
 cal economist and ' a collector and discriminating 
 judge of the beautiful and rare in art. Many men 
 of great wealth turn their resources to the benefit 
 of humanity largely by proxy. This has not been 
 Mr. Walker’s course. Minneapolis is indebted to 
 him for its fine library and for the greatest indi- 
 vidual collection of art open absolutely free to public 
 enjoyment in the world, and yet these and other 
 benefits are only the direct expression of his own 
 character and depth of mind and heart. Mr. Walker 
 was one of the early members and patrons of the 
 old Athenaeum Library, and with the increase of his 
 individual means he utilized the membership in that 
 association so as to make its collection of books 
 practically free to the public, and later secured the 
 enactment of the law which gave to the city its 
 
 present fine library building. The rapid growth of 
 the library in capacity and popular favor since it 
 was opened in 1889 has given it a standing and cir- 
 culation fourth among the public libraries in the 
 United States. Its first board of directors elected 
 Mr. Walker president and he has been annually 
 re-elected now for nearly thirty years. 
 
 As an art collector Mr. W aiker deserves a place 
 in the same category with the late Pierpont Morgan 
 and Henry Altman and other wealthy Americans, 
 who have not only used their vast resources to 
 collect the best in the field of art but have also 
 placed their collections for the use and enjoyment 
 of the public. In some respect Mr. Walker has 
 gone beyond any others in the liberality which he 
 has shown in making his art treasures absolutely 
 free to all who may enjoy them. The Walker 
 homestead in Minneapolis occupies more than half a 
 block on Hennepin Avenue, well within the busi- 
 ness district. Mr. Walker was one of the first 
 citizens to set a worthy example by converting his 
 grounds into a park, from which the public are 
 not excluded by fences. While the public has be- 
 come familiar with his art gallery, less is known 
 of his remarkable collection of books, said to 
 constitute one of the finest private libraries in the 
 United States. Mr. Walker is not only a book 
 collector and buyer, but one who has an intimate 
 knowledge of the contents of his library in all the 
 chief subjects represented there — philosophy, religion, 
 science, therapeutics, history, political economy, 
 biography, art, poetry and all the standard authors, 
 both ancient and modern. 
 
 Some years ago Mr. Walker erected a large gal- 
 lery, in which he has placed 500 or more examples 
 of medieval and modern painters, together with one 
 of the largest and most valuable collections of 
 porcelains and glass, jades, jewels and examples of 
 carving and the goldsmith’s art. It is one of the 
 great private collections of the world, . and has been 
 assembled by Mr. Walker personally during the last 
 thirty years. In addition to this collection at his 
 home he has about a hundred paintings in the public 
 library and a large number not yet hung. His art 
 gallery is enriched by a large assortment of the 
 finest Chinese, Persian, Japanese and Corean pottery 
 and porcelains, and the collection of jade stands 
 ahead of any known collection in beauty of form 
 and color. This gallery, with its wealth of treas- 
 ures, is open every day in the week to the public 
 without any charges for entrance fees or catalogs. 
 It consists of fourteen rooms adjacent to his resi- 
 dence. Besides the part of his collection found in 
 the public library he has placed in the museum of 
 the Academy of Science a fine collection of ancient 
 art work, pottery, porcelain, ancient glass, Greek 
 and Persian vases, and some ancient bronzes, num- 
 bering some forty cabinets. 
 
 Fpr nearly half a century Mr. Walker has been a 
 member and active supporter of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. He has been president of the 
 Methodist Church Extension and Social Union of 
 Minneapolis, and has contributed largely to the 
 upbuilding of many Methodist churches in his home 
 city and state. He has been especially interested in 
 the cause of the Young Men’s Christian Association, 
 and for years has served as northwestern member 
 of the national committee of that organization. In 
 1914 Mr. Walker was named as one of the com- 
 missioners from the State of Minnesota to the 
 Panama-Pacific Exposition. 
 
1662 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 It is perhaps a result of the broad culture of such 
 a man that the tremendous rugged energy of his 
 nature and his forcefulness in business and all affairs 
 should be concealed under a quiet demeanor and an 
 unassuming simplicity, sincerity and gentleness. He 
 well exemplifies the old maxim, “suaviter in modo 
 fortiter in re.” Large interests, strenuous action, 
 successful command of resources, have only 
 increased the courtesy of the heart which he betrays 
 in all his personal relations with his fellow men. 
 
 On December 19, 1863, Mr. Walker married Miss 
 Harriet G. Hulet. Mrs. Walker has been one of the 
 notable philanthropists of Minneapolis, and as such 
 her career deserves individual mention, which will 
 be found in the succeeding sketch. To their union 
 have been born six sons and two daughters. The 
 five living sons, all of them associated with the large 
 business interests of their father, are Gilbert M., 
 Fletcher L., Willis ]., Clinton L. and Archie D. 
 The son Leon B. died in 1887. The living daughter 
 is Julia, wife of Ernest F. Smith, and has four 
 children. The daughter Harriet, who died in 1904, 
 was the wife of Rev. Frederick O. Holman, formerly 
 pastor of the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church. 
 
 Mrs. Thomas B. Walker. That a woman’s work 
 must be limited by no arbitrary distinction or tradi- 
 tional customs, but solely on the basis of fitness and 
 ability, is rapidly becoming American practice, and 
 perhaps more slowly is being accepted by the moral 
 and logical sense of the nation. Many persons have 
 commented on the ideal character of the home rela- 
 tions of the Walker family in Minneapolis. The 
 making of a home and the rearing of sons and 
 daughters under competent direction and training 
 for a proper sense of responsibility and service in 
 the world is not only a primary obligation, but one 
 that transcends all others in human life. While 
 assuming and discharging these duties in so credit- 
 able a manner that parenthood is one of their finest 
 achievements, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas B. Walker 
 have also extended their activities and influence to the 
 broadest and most substantial objects of social 
 endeavor. While in previous paragraphs an attempt 
 has been made to review concisely the character and 
 work of Mr. Walker, it is only a matter of justice 
 to give a similar tribute to his wife, who has long 
 stood as one of the foremost woman philanthropists 
 in Minneapolis and also the country at large. 
 
 While never neglecting or slighting any of the 
 details pertaining to the rearing, training and wel- 
 fare of her large family. Mrs. Walker has for 
 years been foremost in planning, developing and 
 managing many large public and charitable works 
 carried on by women of Minneapolis and has also 
 been more or less prominent in matters of national 
 importance. She has been a determined foe of all 
 forms of intemperance and the liquor traffic. She 
 was the principal factor in planning, establishing and 
 maintaining the Northwestern Hospital, of which 
 organization she served continually as president from 
 its beginning. She is the only survivor among the 
 four originators of the Bethany Home, and was also 
 one of the originators of the Woman’s Council, an 
 organization of great practical benefit, and of which 
 she was president during the greater part of its 
 existence. For years her time and means have been 
 taxed to the utmost in responding to the calls from 
 the unfortunate members of society, particularly 
 women and children. All this work has been super- 
 imposed upon, and has not been substituted for, the 
 
 immediate duties of her home. Her character, 
 energy, remarkable judgment, clear understanding of 
 home and public affairs, has been an important 
 element in giving character and direction to her sons 
 and daughters, and it has been well said that her 
 part in the development of the ideal family life of 
 the Walker home has been equally important with 
 that of her husband. 
 
 Harriet Granger Hulet was born in Brunswick, 
 Medina County, Ohio, September 10, 1841, a daughter 
 of Fletcher and Fannie (Granger) Hulet. Both her 
 parents were Massachusetts people and of English 
 colonial descent. Her grandfather, John Hulet, was 
 a soldier of the Revolution and fought at Bunker 
 Hill, while the father of this patriot, also named 
 John Hulet, is said to have built the first Methodist 
 Episcopal Church erected in Massachusetts. When 
 Mrs. Walker was six years of age her parents 
 removed to Berea, Ohio, in order to secure for their 
 children the educational advantages of Baldwin 
 University. There - she lived in a home radiated 
 with ideals of service, and during young womanhood 
 cultivated her natural gifts in music, language, and 
 absorbed readily all the cultural influences of the 
 time. Fler earliest ambition was to become a pro- 
 ducer in the field of literature, she wrote for period- 
 icals, and cherished a design to write a book which 
 might have a permanent place among the standard 
 authors. While she never accomplished this purpose, 
 her literary tastes and ability have found expression 
 in lectures and addresses in behalf of her numerous 
 philanthropies. 
 
 In the sketch of Mr. Walker mention has been 
 made of the Hulet family. Mr. Walker was 
 employed by Fletcher Hulet as a traveling salesman, 
 and the two young people were together in Baldwin 
 University. It was in 1856 that their acquaintance 
 began and it was maintained with increasing affection 
 during the years while young Walker was struggling 
 to establish himself in business affairs. After her 
 graduation from Baldwin Miss Harriet spent two 
 years as a piano instructor in that institution with 
 which her family had many associations, her father 
 having been one of the board of trustees and a 
 contributor of the funds for the erection of Hulet 
 Hall on the campus. 
 
 On November 19, 1863, seven years after they first 
 met, Mr. and Mrs. Walker were married at Berea. 
 Mr. Walker had in the meantime made his first 
 excursion to the Northwest and after preparing a 
 simple home in St. Anthony Falls sent for his bride. 
 Six years later he built a residence at Ninth Street 
 and Fifth Avenue South, which was then so far 
 out of town that he felt obliged to keep a horse for 
 transportation between the city and his home. 
 During the first twelve years of her married life 
 Mrs. Walker devoted her energies to her growing 
 family and gave little time to any work outside of 
 her home. Her husband in his business as surveyor 
 and lumberman was absent from home for months 
 at a time. The little family had only limited means, 
 and Mrs. Walker had to meet and solve many per- 
 plexing problems. She accepted her lot with 
 fortitude and cheerfulness, and was a constant source 
 of inspiration and encouragement to her husband, 
 and devoted herself unreservedly to the care and 
 training of the children who at that time filled the 
 modest home. 
 
 For fully forty years Mrs. Walker has been 
 engaged in the active work of philanthropy. She 
 has helped in the founding of benevolent and helpful 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1663 
 
 institutions, has given generously of money, and 
 the results of her life work in this field serve to 
 place her name among the most capable, efficient and 
 admirable women of America. 
 
 Mrs. Walker was a member of the first organiza- 
 tion of Women’s Christian Associations of Minne- 
 apolis, which at its beginning assumed the care of 
 all the poor of the community. A few years later 
 she. joined in organizing and managing the Sister- 
 hood of Bethany, an association for the care of 
 erring women and their infant children, and as 
 already stated she was either secretary or president 
 of the organization almost throughout its existence. 
 The Sisterhood of Bethany finally developed into a 
 larger agency, known as the Northwestern Hospital 
 Association, organized to care for the worthy poor 
 who are ill. Mrs. Walker has been president of 
 this association since its beginning. The hospital 
 was started in a poorly furnished house, with meager 
 facilities, and with neither cash nor credit to support 
 it. At the present time the Northwestern Hospital 
 has an equipment and service that rank it among the 
 best institutions of its kind in the country, with a 
 capacity of ioo patients and with a training school 
 for nurses. The buildings are now free of debt and 
 the association has an endowment fund of over 
 $40,000. Since 1901 the hospital has been open for 
 men as well as women. 
 
 Other movements of practical benevolence with 
 which Mrs. Walker's name is closely associated are 
 the Women’s Christian Union, the Newsboys Home, 
 the Kindergarten Association and the Children's 
 Home, the last being an outgrowth of the Sisterhood 
 of Bethany. She had long been eminent in tem- 
 perance work, has conducted many meetings in her 
 home city, has published temperance literature, and 
 at the World's Temperance Conference in the 
 Columbian Exposition in 1893 delivered a lecture on 
 the Keeley Cure, which had a wide distribution both 
 in America and in other countries. 
 
 One of the interesting facts in connection with 
 Mrs. Walker's benevolent activities is that she 
 believes in and has introduced business system into 
 her work, keeps regular office hours and brings to 
 her duties the same judgment and prompt decision 
 which are characteristic of successful business men. 
 Mrs. Walker was responsible for the introduction 
 and establishment of police matronship in connection 
 with the city government of Minneapolis. Through 
 investigations in the eastern cities she became fully 
 convinced that all women prisoners in the custody 
 of the police ought to be under the care of a woman. 
 Great opposition was encountered to the movement, 
 but having become convinced of its desirability she 
 never desisted until her purpose was accomplished. 
 
 Her promptness in acting in emergencies was 
 illustrated by her actions at the time of the Sauk 
 Rapids cyclone. In a few hours after she had been 
 notified of the pressing need for assistance in the 
 devastated districts she started for the scene with 
 twelve nurses, most of them from the training school 
 of the Northwestern Hospital. She remained in 
 Sauk Rapids two weeks, taking care of one of the 
 hospitals, and several of the nurses continued on 
 duty there two or three months. 
 
 Such is only a brief review and condensed report 
 of the many beneficent activities of this noble Minne- 
 apolis woman, who as a wife has been a wise coun- 
 selor and a loyal supporter, whose motherhood has 
 been such that her children may rise up and call 
 her blessed, and who for many years has been 
 
 almost constant in tending the highways and byways 
 of sordid existence and not only lifting up but sup- 
 plying practical relief and hope and courage to 
 thousands who have fallen by the way. 
 
 The Walker Art Galleries. This really great 
 collection is more than a veritable surprise to all 
 visitors who are to material extent acquainted with 
 the public and private art galleries of Europe and 
 America. The owner is Mr. T. B. Walker, who has 
 assembled, personally, this magnificent collection of 
 paintings, ancient and modern, and ancient and early 
 Chinese, Persian, Japanese, Greek, Corean and old 
 delft and English wedgewood. porcelains and pot- 
 tery, finest examples of ancient Chinese bronzes, 
 temple incense burners, and sacred images or statues. 
 He has the finest known collection of jades and cut 
 stones, crystals and gems, with a matchless collection 
 of ancient Roman, Egyptian, Babydonian and Persian 
 pottery and jewels, including by far the largest and 
 finest collection of necklaces known. He has 
 gathered and collected this rare and costly collection 
 of the world’s finest examples, some of them running 
 back for long periods reaching 5,000 years, as in old 
 Egypt, to 2,500 years in Greek art, to 2,000 or more 
 years of Syrian and Roman, and from the Christian 
 era to the present time in Chinese, Japanese, Euro- 
 pean and American art. This collection is most 
 generously open to the nublic every week day from 
 8 o'clock in the morning to as late as the daylight 
 will show the collection, which is most unusual and 
 exceptional. The gallery is also open a great many 
 evenings during the year to clubs and associations 
 and classes, as well as for receptions. Many of the 
 finest examples from many of the famous private 
 collections of England, France, Spain, Italy and 
 America, that have come into the market, have been 
 secured and brought into this most select collection. 
 
 Not only is the art gallery open to the public, but 
 the grounds on which the residence and gallery are 
 built, located in the center of the business part of 
 the city and on the main and widest avenue, have 
 along the front for 250 feet and on the side 
 street about an equal distance, steel benches running 
 this whole distance under the large spreading oak 
 and elm trees. These benches are occupied in the 
 warm season of the year, day and night, by multi- 
 tudes of people, who use them more freely than if 
 they were on public grounds for there are no “Keep 
 of the Grass” signs and the lawn is not fenced in. 
 but left open. Mr. Walker originated the idea of 
 the open lawn, his being absolutely the first instance 
 of the open lawn known, and from this beginning 
 the custom has spread not only over the City of 
 Minneapolis, but to practically every city and village 
 of the country. 
 
 The editor of the Congregationalism after a visit 
 in T012, to the Walker Art Galleries, writes : 
 
 “The Journambulist returned to his hotel that 
 afternoon, thoughtful as from a church service. The 
 Presbyterian editor with his ideals of journalism, 
 the Congregational banker with his conceptions of 
 public service, the Methodist millionaire with his 
 priceless collection of treasures, shared freely with 
 all who cared — it was the Christian manhood of the 
 northwest dominating the hustle and hurricane of 
 prosperity. As the dollars grow more numerous, 
 they often, too. grow smaller. The rushing flood of 
 money-getting is succeeded, perhaps more often than 
 the pessimist lets us realize by the still, deep tides 
 
1664 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 of philanthropy and public welfare. The signs of 
 Roman decay do not yet appear in the northwest.” 
 
 Men who have seen many of the finest art galleries 
 in Europe and America consider this the finest col- 
 lection. It is much larger and finer than the Wallace 
 collection and more uniformly magnificent than the 
 National Gallery, or the Tate Gallery. The Turners 
 here are finer than in any other collection reported, 
 as are also the Rembrandts and the Van Dycks. 
 Every picture is of the highest grade of art and 
 there are no commonplace ones in the entire col- 
 lection. 
 
 It would be impossible to mention all of the 
 pictures and objects of art which Mr. Walker has so 
 generously placed in the public view. He is con- 
 stantly adding pictures, objects of ethnological and 
 anthropological interest, making several collections 
 of which the city may well be proud. A collection 
 which Mr. Walker has just completed is the great 
 Indian and Scout pictures, of which there are 130, 
 by H. H. Cross. This is probably the greatest 
 assemblage of Indian portraits in the world. Skeptics 
 can be excused for incredulity when you tell them 
 that samples of Raphael, Michelangelo, Rubens, 
 Carlo Dolci, Murillo, three of Van Dyck’s, eleven of 
 Rembrandt’s, sixteen of Turner’s, four portraits by 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds and portraits by Gainsborough, 
 Hogarth, Holbein and other equally great artists are 
 hanging on the walls of a Minneapolis house. 
 
 Among the paintings by Rembrandt are: Two of 
 the many portraits which he painted of himself ; 
 the portrait of the wife of some Dutch merchant or 
 alderman — a plain, wholesome woman of his time ; 
 a burgomaster with a reddish beard from the col- 
 lection of Jacob Anthony Van Damm, of Dortrecht, 
 which the catalogue says “is in the great master’s 
 most attractive style.” It would be difficult to find 
 among all his works a more beautiful portrait, and 
 it is considered one of the most characteristic in 
 softness and refinement of tone. 
 
 The largest collection of Turners that can be 
 found outside of a public museum is said to be here, 
 and includes sixteen characteristic works of the 
 great artist, who, experts say, is the most difficult to 
 copy of any man who ever wielded a brush. 
 
 A portrait that has greater interest to Americans 
 is of Benjamin Franklin, made in 1775 by Jean 
 Baptiste Greuze in Paris, where Franklin was agent 
 of the American colonies. It was presented by 
 Franklin to Archibald Hamilton Rowen and passed 
 through the hands of several other owners before 
 it reached Mr. Walker’s gallery. 
 
 William Dobson, who in 1641 succeeded Van 
 Dyck as court painter of England during the reigns 
 of Charles I and Charles II, is represented by three 
 fine examples. 
 
 The four portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds are all 
 characteristic. One of them, which has been pro- 
 nounced the finest portrait in America, is an exquisite 
 picture of the wife of Edmund Burke, the great 
 Irish patriot and advocate. 
 
 Some comprehension of the magnitude of this 
 collection may be gained from the fact that the 
 splendid pictures are over 600 in number, the pro- 
 ductions of more than 250 distinguished artists. 
 
 In the new addition there is a long gallery filled 
 with fine canvases, many of which are new. The 
 room in the rear contains a marvelous collection of 
 rarest old porcelains ; Chinese. Persian, Corean, 
 Japanese. Babylonian, Greek, Old English cameo 
 and basalt ware, with finest sets of old Dutch delft. 
 
 The adjoining room is devoted to priceless old jade 
 and crystal, said to be the finest collection of its 
 kind in the world. In another room there is a 
 splendid collection of small ivory carvings, and 
 several cases of jade, crystal, amber, agate, amethyst, 
 chalcedony and other old Chinese snuff bottles, on 
 which a day could easily be spent with much pleasure 
 and profit. In still another room is a magnificent 
 collection of miniatures, without doubt one of the 
 largest and finest collections of the kind in existence. 
 It would be impossible to go into detail concerning 
 the contents of these rooms, for there is so much 
 in them which would be of interest to the student of 
 art and the lover of color and design. 
 
 George T. Slade. Now first vice president of the 
 Northern Pacific Railway Company, George T. Slade 
 began his career in the railway service soon after 
 his graduation from Yale University. His first work 
 was as a clerk in the accounting department of the 
 Great Northern Railway Company. In that position 
 he remained at St. Paul during 1893-94, and the 
 following year was spent as timekeeper, foreman 
 and assistant roadmaster at St. Cloud, Minnesota, 
 Leavenworth, Washington, Spokane, Washington, 
 and at various points along the Pacific Coast. His 
 next promotion was to chief clerk to superintendent 
 at Superior, Wisconsin, which he held in 1895-96, 
 and in 1896 became assistant superintendent at 
 Superior, and in 1897 was promoted to superinten- 
 dent at Superior. He closed this consecutive service 
 for the Great Northern Railway in 1899, resigning to 
 become general manager of the Erie & Wyoming 
 Valley Railroad Company at Scranton, Pennsylvania. 
 When that company was absorbed by the Erie Rail- 
 road in 1901, he became its general superintendent, 
 with headquarters at Jersey City, New Jersey. In 
 1903 Mr. Slade again returned to the Northwest and 
 until 1907 was general superintendent of the Great 
 Northern Railway Company, having reached this 
 position of responsibility just ten years after enter- 
 ing the St. Paul offices as clerk. In 1907 Mr. Slade 
 transferred his services to the Northern Pacific 
 Railway Company as general manager, held that 
 office until 1910, from 1910 to 1913 was third vice 
 president, and since 1913 has been first vice presi- 
 dent of the Northern Pacific Railway Company with 
 headquarters at St. Paul. 
 
 George T. Slade was born in New York City July 
 22, 1871, a son of George P. and Cornelia W. Slade. 
 His education was acquired at St. Paul’s School in 
 Concord, New Hampshire, and at Yale University, 
 where he was graduated with the class of 1893. His 
 American ancestry is indicated by the fact of his 
 membership in the Sons of the Revolution, and the 
 Sons of Colonial Wars. Mr. Slade has membership 
 in various clubs in New York, Chicago and St. Paul. 
 He is a director in the First National Bank of St. 
 Paul. Mr. Slade was married October 9, 1901, at 
 St. Paul, to Miss Charlotte E. Hill, daughter of Mr. 
 and Mrs. James J. Hill. 
 
 Roger B. Shepard. One of the younger group of 
 men now in active control of St. Paul’s business 
 affairs is Roger B. Shepard, treasurer of the whole- 
 sale house of Finch, Van Slyke & McConville, and 
 also a director of the Merchants National Bank of 
 St. Paul. The name Shepard has been prominently 
 identified with railway construction, banking and 
 other business affairs of the Northwest since 'the 
 pioneer period of Minnesota. 
 
r/7 ^-/7 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1665 
 
 Roger B. Shepard was born at St. Paul Septem- 
 ber 14, 1885, the third son of the late Frank P. 
 Shepard. The grandfather was David Chauncey 
 Shepard, a man conspicuous in the early railway 
 construction and development of the Northwest. 
 
 Frank P. Shepard, who was born at Cleveland, 
 Ohio, in 1853, came to St. Paul with his parents in 
 1857. and after reaching manhood was for many 
 years closely associated with his father in railway 
 construction and in extended financial operations. 
 He was a director of the First National Bank of St. 
 Paul, a stockholder in many corporations, and 
 throughout his career a man of the highest integrity 
 and influence. He died in St. Paul December 24, 
 1912. Frank P. Shepard was married in 1880 to 
 Miss Anna McMillan, who is still living at 325 Day- 
 ton Avenue, St. Paul. 
 
 Roger B. Shepard grew up in St. Paul, attended 
 the city schools and after his high school course 
 entered Yale University in 1904, graduating in 1908. 
 Following his university career came three years of 
 experience in a Chicago banking house and on 
 returning to St. Paul he became connected with the 
 firm of Finch, Van Slyke & McConville, and for 
 several years has held the position of treasurer. 
 This is one of the large wholesale dry goods houses 
 of the Northwest, has had a long and honorable 
 record of business and a reputation for stability and 
 solid integrity. The firm's location is well known to 
 the St. Paul citizens, a large brick office and ware- 
 house at the corner of Fifth and Wacouta streets. 
 
 Mr. Shepard, as one of the enterprising and liberal 
 citizens of St. Paul, has numerous -associations with 
 both business and social life. His home is at 45 
 South St. Albans Street. In 1910 he married Miss 
 Katherine Kohlsaat of Chicago, daughter of H. H. 
 Kohlsaat, one of the oldest and most prominent 
 business men and editors of Chicago. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Shepard have two children: Roger Jr. and Blake. 
 
 Hon. Louis Albert Fritsche, M. D. An acknowl- 
 edged leader in the financial, commercial, social and 
 official life of Brown County, Dr. Louis Albert 
 Fritsche, of New Ulm, is also numbered among the 
 prominent professional men of this part of Minne- 
 sota, having acquired an» extensive practice and a 
 broad reputation in the sciences of medicine and 
 surgery. At the present time he is serving efficiently 
 as mayor of New Ulm, a position he has held for 
 two terms ; is president of the Brown County Bank, 
 and vice president of the New Ulm Roller Milling 
 Company, and is an accepted leader in every move- 
 ment that is making for progress and civic better- 
 ment in this thriving community. 
 
 Doctor Fritsche is a native son of New Ulm, and 
 belongs to a family that settled here during the 
 days of the county’s infancy. He was bqrn May 
 28. 1862, and is a son of Fred Fritsche, who was born 
 in Saxony, Germany, in 1838, and was sixteen years 
 of age when he accompanied his parents in their 
 emigration to the United States. Carl J. Fritsche, 
 the grandfather of Doctor Fritsche, was a member of 
 the land association that laid out the Village of 
 New Ulm, and his property was a part of the land 
 that now forms the town. He took an important 
 part in the settlement and development of this 
 region, and was justly accounted one of the com- 
 munity’s stirring and helpful citizens, and during 
 the Indian outbreak of 1862 served as a defender 
 of New Ulm. Fred Fritsche completed his educa- 
 tion in the schools of Saxony and in the Chicago 
 
 schools in 1855. He participated in the struggles 
 that arose because of the depredations of the hostile 
 Indians in 1862. His attention early turned to agri- 
 cultural pursuits and he became a large land owner 
 in Nicollet County, but in 1872 moved to St. Peter, 
 Minnesota, and there served in the capacity of treas- 
 urer of Nicollet County for a period of ten years. 
 Mr. Fritsche married Miss Louise Lillie, who was 
 born in Hanover, Germany, and was four years of 
 age when she accompanied her parents to the United 
 States, her father, Christian Lillie, settling in New 
 York State in 1853 and coming to New Ulm, Minne- 
 sota, in 1858, to take up a claim. Eight children 
 were born to Mr. and Mrs. Fritsche, namely: Dr. 
 
 Louis xMbert ; Emil H., who is engaged in farming 
 in Nicollet County, Minnesota; Dr. Fred, a dental 
 practitioner, who died in New Ulm, February 1, 
 1913 ; Otto, who is engaged in agricultural opera- 
 tions in Nicollet County ; and Bertha, the wife of 
 William H. Mueller, who is a member of the firm of 
 Johnson & Company, overall manufacturers of Saint 
 Peter. The other brothers died young. 
 
 The early education of Doctor Fritsche was secured 
 in the graded and high schools of Saint Peter, fol- 
 lowing which he took up his medical studies in the 
 University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor, from which 
 institution he was graduated with the degree of 
 Doctor of Medicine in 1887. Previous to this time, 
 in order to further prepare himself, and to add to 
 his resources he had taught for one year in the 
 country schools. While at the university. Doctor 
 Fritsche made a very creditable record in his 
 studies, was popular with his mates, and was a 
 member of the Adelphi Literary Society. In 1887 
 Doctor Fritsche returned to New Ulm and entered 
 upon the practice of his profession, but two years 
 later, feeling the need of further preparation, he 
 went to Berlin and in 1889 and 1890 took post- 
 graduate courses, being graduated from Berlin Uni- 
 versity March 31, 1890, with the degree of Doctor 
 of Medicine. While abroad at that time Doctor 
 Fritsche was a member of the Tenth International 
 Medical Congress in Berlin, August 7-12, 1890. He 
 now maintains well appointed and excellently 
 equipped offices in the Brown County Bank Build- 
 ing, and has a large professional business, his prac- 
 tice being broad and general in character, although 
 he has specialized in surgery, a field in which he 
 has gained wide recognition and reputation. He be- 
 longs to the Brown County Medical Society, the 
 Minnesota State Medical Society, American Medical 
 Association and the Southern Minnesota Medical 
 Society, and was first president of the last-named 
 organization. 
 
 A democrat in politics, he served as pension med- 
 ical examiner under President Cleveland’s second 
 administration ; was appointed a member of the 
 State Board of Medical Examiners in the year 1900 
 by Governor John Lind, and served for three years, 
 the last of which was as president of the board. In 
 the year 1907 he was commissioned by Gov. John 
 A. Johnson as brigade surgeon of the Minne- 
 sota National Guard on the staff of Brigadier-Gen- 
 eral Bobleter, with the rank of major. This com- 
 mission was renewed by Gov. A. O. Eberhart, and 
 he still serves in this capacity. He has served as 
 health officer of the City of New Ulm, as well as 
 coroner of Brown County, for a number of years, 
 and in the year of 1912 was the choice of the people 
 for the office of mayor. His administration was 
 made notable by a business-like handling of the 
 
1666 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 affairs of the office and the introduction of a number 
 of much needed reforms, and in 1914 he was again 
 chosen mayor. Everything seems to indicate that 
 he endeavors to the fullest of his ability to ad- 
 vance the city’s interests, and his services in this 
 connection have but placed him further in the con- 
 fidence of the people. In 1904 he served as a dele- 
 gate to the National Democratic Convention, where 
 he supported the nomination of John A. Johnson, the 
 great Minnesota governor, for President. Doctor 
 Fritsche is president of the Brown County Bank 
 and in business circles is accounted by his asso- 
 ciates a man of many attainments. In addition to 
 his private practice he is surgeon to the Loretto 
 and the Union hospitals in New Ulm. 
 
 Doctor Fritsche has traveled extensively, both in this 
 and foreign countries, and in his last trip to Europe 
 met with some thrilling experiences. He was a mem- 
 ber of United States Senator Fletcher’s party of 
 mayors and civic leaders in the summer of 1914, 
 attending an International Congress of Municipal 
 Executives held at London, July 20th and 25th. Sub- 
 sequently he went to Paris and to the International 
 Urban Exposition at Lyons, where the party dis- 
 banded. They were royally entertained by the lord 
 mayors' of London and Liverpool, and officials at 
 Paris and Lyons. Doctor Fritsche was still in the 
 latter city when war was declared by the European 
 countries, in August, 1914, and by the narrowest 
 possible margin was able to escape being confined 
 in that city, getting out by the last train to Berne, 
 Switzerland. 
 
 On June 14, 1890, Doctor Fritsche was married in 
 Berlin, Germany, to Miss Amalie Pfaender, daughter 
 of Col. William Pfaender, deceased, who served in 
 the Union army during the Civil war, and who. had 
 charge of Fort Ridgely from the year 1862 until its 
 abandonment in 1866. Six children have been born to 
 Doctor and Mrs. Fritsche, namely: Elsa and Albert, 
 who are attending the University of Minnesota ; 
 William, who is a student in the University of Wis- 
 consin ; Louise, who is a pupil in the New Ulm 
 High School ; and Carl and Theodore, who are at- 
 tending the graded schools of New Ulm 
 
 Nels O. Nelson. In the career of Nels O. Nel- 
 son, both as business man and public servant, success 
 to him has meant an earnest and untiring struggle 
 every step of the way. From the time he came to 
 the United States with his parents, as a lad of 
 seventeen years, he has found that nothing of victory 
 has come easy to him as it does to many less worthy, 
 or has been thrust upon him. However, the fruits 
 of success, when won through personal effort, are 
 doubly sweet. As a business man, Mr. Nelson has 
 been and is identified with a number of enterprises 
 of an important character; in public life he has long 
 held offices of responsibility and trust, and at 
 present is serving his county, Kandiyohi, as treasurer 
 for the fourth consecutive term. 
 
 Nels O. Nelson was born October 17, 1854, in 
 Malmohus Lan, Sweden, and is a son of Ola and 
 Kama (Swanson) Nelson. His father was born in 
 Sweden, November 26, 1822, and his mother in the 
 same country, April 27, 1821, and in 1871 the family 
 emigrated to the LTnited States, landing at New York 
 City May 21st of that year, and arriving in Kandi- 
 yohi County, Minnesota, June 1st following. Here 
 Ola Nelson located on a farm at Whitefield, and 
 during the remaining years of his life continued to 
 
 be engaged in successful and extensive agricultural 
 operations. 
 
 Nels O. Nelson received his education in the 
 public schools of his native land and was brought up 
 to the pursuits of agriculture. For several years 
 after coming to this country he was engaged in 
 assisting his father in the cultivation of the home 
 place, bu>t when he accumulated the means purchased 
 some land of his own in the same locality and 
 settled down to farm on his own account. Mr. 
 Nelson’s operations as a tiller of the soil ha-ve been 
 eminently satisfactory, and at the present time he is 
 the owner of the southeast one-quarter of section 22, 
 the northeast one-quarter of section 27, and the 
 south one-half of the southwest one-quarter of 
 section 33, all located in the Town of Whitefield, 
 eight miles from Willmar, and only forty rods from 
 the district school. He has modern, substantial 
 buildings on his property, the latest machinery and 
 modern equipment of all kinds, and raises large 
 crops of grain and breeds a high grade of cattle. 
 While a large part of his attention has been given 
 to farming, he has alsQ been interested in other 
 directions, having been manager of the Farmers 
 Elevator of Willmar since its inception, when he 
 leased the building from the company in partnership 
 with Swan Nelson, but later took over Mr. Nelson’s 
 interest and is now conducting it alone. 
 
 Mr. Nelson has always maintained an independent 
 stand in political matters, and it has been solely 
 upon the merits of his general good citizenship and 
 well-known integrity that he has been elected to 
 public office. During his residence in the Town of 
 Whitefield, he was connected with the management 
 of its affairs, serving as town clerk, chairman of 
 the board of supervisors and as a member of the 
 school board for years. Since taking up his resi- 
 dence at Willmar, he has continued to serve the 
 people in responsible capacities, having been aider- 
 man of the Fourth Ward and a member of the 
 Municipal Light and Water Commission. In 1898 
 he was elected a representative to the Minnesota 
 Legislature, being nominated on both the republican 
 and democratic tickets, and served in that body for 
 one term, making an excellent record. In 1908 he 
 first became a candidate for the office of treasurer 
 of Kandiyohi County, and by successive elections is 
 now serving in his fourth term. His administration 
 in this high office has been one of the greatest benefit 
 to the county’s interests, and Mr. Nelson has 
 strengthened his position in the confidence of the 
 people materially by his many wise and sagacious 
 acts. With his family, Mr. Nelson attends the 
 Swedish Lutheran Church, in the faith of which he 
 was reared and a member of which he has been since 
 boyhood. 
 
 On July 14, 1880, Mr. Nelson was married to Miss 
 Olga Hanson, who was born at Fjelkinge, Christian- 
 stad Lan, Sweden, September 5, i860, a daughter of 
 Hans Larson and Nilla (Rasmussen) Hanson. She 
 died April 12, 1888, having been the mother of three 
 children: Hattie Carolina, born May 30, 1881, the 
 
 wife of S. L. Benton, who is engaged in the real 
 estate, loan and insurance business at Willmar; 
 Nannie Alfreda, born September 14, 1883; and Maria 
 Adelia, born September 17, 1887, who is engaged in 
 teaching in the graded schools of Willmar. On June 
 7, 1889, Mr. Nelson was again married when united 
 with Miss Lena Regina Westerberg, who was born 
 in Elmstad Parish. Smoland, Sweden, July 2 7, 1864, 
 daughter of Lars Magnus Westerberg, born August 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1667 
 
 7, 1831, and Anna (Frederickson) Westerberg, born 
 December 11, 1835, both native of the same place. 
 Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Nelson : Amy Olga Regina, born April 23, 1891, and 
 now engaged in teaching school at Delano, Minne- 
 sota; and Carl Herbert, born April 26, 1896, who 
 died in infancy. 
 
 Charles H. Cooper, president of the Mankato 
 Normal School, is a schoolman who has been active 
 in his profession since the age of sixteen, is an 
 experienced educator, with practical and progressive 
 ideals, and keenly alive to the needs of modern 
 education, and possessed of the ability to fit educa- 
 tional training into practical relations with the 
 scheme of twentieth century society. As a teacher 
 Mr. Cooper has had experience in the best schools 
 of both the East and West, and has brought to his 
 present position the ability of the administrator as 
 well as sound knowledge and ideals. 
 
 Charles H. Cooper was born in LaCrosse, Wis- 
 consin, June 16, 1855, the only son of James M. and 
 Anna (Hermance) Cooper. His father was born in 
 New York State in 1794 and died in 1865, came out 
 to LaCrosse, Wisconsin, in 1853, and his occupation 
 was chiefly as a gardener and a drayman. He was 
 a republican in politics, and a member of the 
 Baptist Church. The mother was born in New York 
 State in 1816, and died in 1906. 
 
 Charles H. Cooper from an early age was brought 
 into close touch with the actualities of life. His 
 education and his career are the product of his 
 individual efforts, and his own early struggles have 
 made him all the more sympathetic in his relation 
 with those whose preparation for life he has super- 
 vised. After an education in the common schools, 
 he began teaching at the age of sixteen, and by 
 alternating his work as a teacher with that of 
 student he finally acquired a liberal education, and 
 is a graduate of one of the best of the eastern 
 colleges. He received his degree A. B. from Dart- 
 mouth College at Hanover, New Hampshire, in 
 1877, and his alma mater conferred upon him the 
 degree Master of Arts in 1880. One of his earlier 
 positions was as sub-master of the Abbott School at 
 Washington, D. C., where he remained one year, and 
 then became sub-master and later master of the 
 Hitchcock Academy at Brimfield, Massachusetts, his 
 relations with that institution continuing from 1878 
 to 1882. For one year he was an instructor in Dart- 
 mouth College, and then accepted the Chair of 
 History and Science at Carleton College in North- 
 field, Minnesota, and was one of the professors of 
 that splendid institution of higher learning from 
 1883 to 1898. Mr. Cooper in January, 1899, assumed 
 his duties as president of the Mankato State Normal 
 School, and for sixteen years has directed its admin- 
 istration and has impressed his ideals and enthusiasm 
 on his faculty and the student body. At the present 
 time he is at the head of a staff of thirty-seven 
 teachers and instructors, and the enrollment in all 
 departments aggregates 1,345. 
 
 In 1883 Mr. Cooper married Caroline A. Wheeler 
 of Woburn, Massachusetts. They are the parents of 
 three children : Helen, educated in the Carleton 
 
 College, spent five years as teacher in a high school, 
 then was abroad as a student of languages one year, 
 and is now an instructor of French in the East High 
 School of Minneapolis. Margaret, who graduated 
 from Carleton College, and in the kindergarten train- 
 ing course of Mankato Normal, is now instructor of 
 
 primary methods in the Des Moines College of Iowa. 
 Robert, the only son, is a student in Carleton College. 
 Mr. Cooper is a member of the Presbyterian Church, 
 is independent in politics, and during his residence 
 at Northfield was a member of the local school board 
 a number of years. 
 
 Christian J. Laurisch. The Mankato bar has 
 always been recognized in Minnesota for the high 
 qualifications of its members, and outside of the two 
 largest cities there is probably no bar in the state 
 outranking that of Mankato. A lawyer whose attain- 
 ments and connections justify a foremost position 
 in this list of attorneys is Christian J. Laurisch, 
 whose active career covers nearly twenty years, and 
 all of it in Blue Earth County. 
 
 Christian J. Laurisch was born on a farm in Blue 
 Earth County October 2, 1873. His parents were 
 John C. and Mary (Krause) Laurisch, both natives 
 of Germany. The grandfather Christian Laurisch 
 emigrated from Germany to the United States in the 
 early days, and spent his last years in Blue Earth 
 County. The maternal grandfather Krause lived all 
 his life in Germany. John C. Laurisch was born in 
 1842 and died in 1900, and his wife was born in 
 1844 and died in May, 1914. They were married at 
 Mayville, Wisconsin, in 1866. John C. Laurisch was 
 brought to the United States when a boy in 1856, 
 and lived on a Wisconsin farm until the beginning 
 of the Civil war. In 1861 he volunteered for service 
 in the Union army, with Company E of the Third 
 Wisconsin Infantry, and his record as a soldier 
 covers almost the entire period of hostilities. He 
 was wounded in the battle at Antietam, and spent 
 six months in hospital at Annapolis. After his 
 recovery he returned to his command and continued 
 without interruption from duty until the war was 
 over. After the war he returned to Wisconsin, was 
 married, and in 1867 moved to Minnesota and bought 
 a farm in Blue Earth County. He began life as a 
 poor boy, eventually prospered, and at his death left 
 a valuable estate of 225 acres. For many years he 
 was a recognized leader in the republican party in 
 Blue Earth County, and for thirteen years held the 
 office of assessor in Danville Township. He was 
 affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- 
 lows at Mapleton, was a member of the Lutheran 
 Church, while his wife was a Catholic. They had 
 a large family of ten children, nine of whom are 
 still living: Nicholas, an engineer at Appleton, Wis- 
 consin; John, a farmer in Pine County, Minnesota; 
 Mrs. Lena Sauerhering of Warsaw, Wisconsin ; 
 Frank, a farmer in Blue Earth County ; Christian J. ; 
 Gertrude, who is cashier with a hardware company 
 at Minnesota Lake ; Marie, a trained nurse in a Min- 
 neapolis hospital who has recently returned from 
 professional service in the Philippine Islands ; Eliza- 
 beth, also a nurse in St. Paul ; and Theresa. 
 
 Christian J. Laurisch had the usual training and 
 experiences of a farm boy, attended local schools and 
 the Wells High School, and in 1892 entered the law 
 office at Mankato of Pfau & Young, remaining with 
 them as clerk and student three years. After one 
 year in the law department of the University of 
 Minnesota he was graduated LL. B. in 1895 and 
 admitted to the bar the same year. Mr. Laurisch 
 began his practice at Mapleton and in the community 
 where he had been reared succeeded in building up 
 a substantial practice. Ten years later he came to 
 Mankato and became a partner in the prominent 
 and old established law firm of Pfau & Pfau, under 
 
1668 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 the firm name of Pfau, Pfau & Laurisch. After the 
 election of the senior member to the bench Mr. 
 Laurisch continued in practice with A. R. Pfau, Jr., 
 under the name Pfau & Laurisch, until January 15, 
 1915. Since that date he has maintained an office of 
 his own. In the course of twenty years Mr. 
 Laurisch’s services have been retained in most of 
 the important cases, both criminal and civil, before 
 the local, state and federal courts, and is the local 
 attorney for the Chicago & Northwestern and the 
 Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad companies. 
 While a resident of Mapleton he served on the city 
 council and as city attorney and is a director of the 
 Mapleton State Bank. While the law is his chief 
 business, he also deals to some extent in real 
 estate. 
 
 Mr. Laurisch was married at Watertown, South 
 Dakota, to Lulu Anna Littel, a daughter of Robert 
 Littel of Blue Earth County, a retired farmer. They 
 were married in 1903. Mrs. Laurisch is a member 
 of the Baptist Church. Mr. Laurisch is affiliated 
 with Mankato Lodge No. 225 of the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks, and has passed all the 
 chairs except that of worshipful master in the Ma- 
 sonic Order, and he and his wife are both members 
 of the Eastern Star. Politically he is a republican. 
 
 Edward Carty Boxell, M. D., Ph. G. Measured 
 by the extent of his practice and his prominent pro- 
 fessional associations, Dr. Edward C. Boxell is one 
 of the leading physicians and surgeons of St. Paul. 
 A native of Minnesota himself, he is a son of one 
 of the territorial pioneer families. 
 
 His father, the late John William Boxell, was a 
 pioneer and is also remembered as a successful 
 educator. John William Boxell was born in Ohio, 
 February 6, 1824, was educated in public schools 
 and in the McIntyre Academy at Zanesville, Ohio, 
 and on November 23, 1848, married Mary Shaw, a 
 native of Pennsylvania. In 1854, four years before 
 Minnesota became a state, the family came to Minne- 
 sota, Mr. Boxell being accompanied by his mother, 
 his wife and children. He settled in Washington 
 County, and bought a large farm fifteen miles east 
 of St. Paul, near Afton. While looking after his 
 farming interests he also organized a school in that 
 locality, and for thirty years gave most of his 
 attention to educational interests. In 1885, having 
 sold his farm, he moved into St. Paul in order to 
 be with his children, and for the following ten 
 years was connected more or less actively with the 
 Northwest Magazine. John W. Boxell died March 
 1, 1899, and was buried under the auspices of the 
 Knight Templar organization, of which he was a 
 member. 
 
 Dr. Edward Carty Boxell was born at his father’s 
 old home near Afton, Minnesota, November 13, 
 1863. His early education came from the public 
 schools, and his early ambition was to be a lawyer. 
 For one year he read law under the tuition of Sen. 
 Cushman K. Davis at St. Paul. Later he spent a 
 year in the Duluth Yale School, and then entered 
 the University of Minnesota. In the meantime he 
 had turned from the law to medicine, and after one 
 year in the state university entered the Minneapolis 
 College of Physicians and Surgeons, and was gradu- 
 ated with the highest honors in 1893. In 1892 he 
 had taken the degree Ph. G. from the Minnesota 
 College of Pharmacy. Between his college terms he 
 had practiced medicine at Buffalo, Minnesota, and 
 also filled the post of health officer. After procuring 
 
 his degree Doctor Boxell engaged in general practice 
 at St. Paul Park, but in June, 1897, removed his 
 office to the City of St. Paul, and soon was in the 
 enjoyment of a large practice and became well known 
 for his advanced ideas in therapeutics. 
 
 Doctor Boxell has associations with many frater- 
 nal, scientific and other organizations. He. is a 
 member of the Ramsey County Medical Society, the 
 Minnesota State Medical Society and the American 
 Medical Association; of the National Geographic 
 Society of Washington ; of the Minnesota Society of 
 the Sons of the American Revolution, his ancestry 
 including men who participated in the war for in- 
 dependence ; an honorary member of the Anthologi- 
 cal Society of London, England. Doctor Boxell 
 possesses one of the largest private libraries of 
 general literature in St. Paul. Politically he is a 
 republican. 
 
 On June 25, 1902, Doctor Boxell married Mary 
 Elizabeth Hess of St. Paul. They were married at 
 Atlanta, Georgia. ■ Mrs. Boxell was born at Lang- 
 don, Minnesota, in 1876, daughter of Samuel Hess. 
 One son has been born to their union, Allen, who 
 was born at St. Paul, June 9, 1905. 
 
 H. L. Melgaard. In the banking circles of North- 
 western Minnesota there is no name associated more 
 influentially and more extensively than that of H. L. 
 Melgaard, who is the organizer and president of 
 half a dozen or more institutions in Marshall and 
 adjoining counties. Mr. Melgaard is a banker in 
 the best sense of the term, and not only an able 
 manager of 'finance from a conservative point of 
 view, but one who judiciously uses the resources 
 of the banking business in such a way as to profit 
 to the largest possible extent the commercial and 
 industrial community in which his institutions are 
 located. 
 
 Mr. Melgaard has his home in Argyle, and is 
 president of the Farmers and Merchants Bank of 
 that city, which he organized as a private bank in 
 1886 and which has the distinction of being the 
 oldest bank in Marshall County. He has been the 
 controlling factor in this institution since its begin- 
 ning. In 1895 a state charter was taken out under 
 the name Farmers and Merchants Bank, with a 
 capital of $10,000. Mr. Melgaard was the first 
 president. In 1892 he erected a substantial building 
 in which the bank still has its quarters, a brick 
 block 22 by 45 feet. In 1915 the capital stock of 
 this bank is $25,000, with surplus of an equal amount 
 and undivided profits of over $8,000. The total 
 deposits aggregate over $400,000. It is a bank of 
 service, and includes among its customers hundreds 
 of the most substantial farmers and business men 
 in Marshall County. Besides Mr. Melgaard the 
 other officers and some of the principal stockholders 
 are : P. I. Holen, vice president ; O. L. Melgaard, 
 
 who has served as cashier since the bank was 
 organized, with the exception of the first two years ; 
 E. I. Amundgaard, Andrew Olson, Henry Keye, 
 C. J. Moline and F. D. Keye. 
 
 Hans Larson Melgaard is a native of Norway, 
 born November 4, 1859. His parents were Lars and 
 Anne (Melgaard) Melgaard, farming people of the 
 old country. Mr. IT. L. Melgaard secured his educa- 
 tion in Norway, and was about twenty-three years 
 of age when he came to this country and located 
 in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1882. The following- 
 four years, spent as bookkeeper in the First National 
 Bank of that city, gave him a detailed knowledge 
 

 
 
 -•>? 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1669 
 
 of American banking, and he then supplemented this 
 experience with his individual ability and private 
 capital in organizing the first banking house at 
 Argyle in April, 1886. Since that time he has 
 organized and has served officially in a number of 
 other local banks. He is organizer and president 
 of the Scandia State Bank of Stephen, organizer 
 and president of the State Bank of Kennedy, organ- 
 izer and president of the State Bank of Middle 
 River, organizer and president of the Citizens State 
 Bank of Oslo, these constituting a string of sub- 
 stantial banking institutions in Marshall County, and 
 all offering the guaranty of prudent and conservative 
 banking, the same as the Farmers and Merchants 
 Bank of Argyle. Mr. Melgaard is also vice president 
 of the State Bank of Warren, vice president of the 
 State Bank of Viking, vice president of the Farmers 
 State Bank of Alvarado, and vice president of the 
 Farmers State Bank of Newfolden. 
 
 While these banking interests have necessarily 
 taken the best energies of his active career, Mr. 
 Melgaard has at the same time been a leader in local 
 affairs of a general nature. He organized and served 
 as the first president of the Commercial Club at 
 Argyle. He was one of the charter members in 
 establishing the first lodge of Masons at Argyle 
 and was worshipful master of the lodge five years. 
 He is also a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite 
 Mason and a member of the Mystic Shrine. Mr. 
 Melgaard indulges his fancy for country life, and 
 also gets considerable profit, at the same time fur- 
 nishing an example of his enterprise to others in 
 the community by operating a model farm of 640 
 acres, known as "the Spring Bank Farm, where he 
 raises thoroughbred stock, fruit and other crops. 
 For several years Mr. Melgaard served as president 
 of the council of Argyle. In politics a republican, 
 he has long been a leader in that party, has served 
 in county and state central committees, and was a 
 delegate at the Republican National Convention in 
 Philadelphia in 1900, when McKinley and Roose- 
 velt were nominated. 
 
 On May 17, 1893, Mr. Melgaard married Miss 
 Hulda Elizabeth Mankell, who was born in Minne- 
 sota. They are the parents of six children : Agnes 
 
 Lucile and Irene Margaret, both students in Carleton 
 College in Northfield : Ruth Eleanor, Mildred Dag- 
 mar, Harold Lucian and Carmen Elizabeth, who are 
 still at home. 
 
 Roland L. Barry. Now general superintendent 
 of the Tri-State Telephone Company, with offices 
 in St. Paul, Roland L. Barry is an acknowledged 
 expert and authority in telephone matters in the 
 Northwest. He was born in the State of Maine in 
 1874, a son of William P. and Henrietta M. 
 (Dormer) Barry. Both parents were natives of 
 Maine, and their ancestors came, respectively, from 
 France and Scotland. William P. Barry brought 
 his family from Maine to Minneapolis in 1882, and 
 was for a number of years connected with the traf- 
 fic department of the Northwestern Consolidated 
 Milling Company. 
 
 Roland L. Barry received his early education in 
 the public schools of Minneapolis, where he has 
 lived since he was eight years of age, and_ after 
 leaving school found his first employment in the 
 commercial department of the Minneapolis, St. Paul 
 & Sault Ste. Marie Railroad, known as the "Soo 
 Line.” He was connected with that company for 
 about five years, and then in 1897 entered the me- 
 
 chanical department of the Northwestern Telephone 
 Company. In 1901 he transferred his services from 
 the Northwestern to the Twin City Telephone Com- 
 pany, which is now a part of the Tri-State Tele- 
 phone and Telegraph Company. He became man- 
 ager of the St. Paul exchange, and held that office 
 until his advancement in 1911 to the general super- 
 intendency of the whole system embraced under this 
 corporation. In 1912 the government of the Prov- 
 ince of Manitoba enlisted his services to carry out 
 a thorough investigation of the affairs of the Pro- 
 vincial Telephone Company. After conducting a 
 thorough examination of the system and its com- 
 mercial and mechanical organization, he reorganized 
 the entire system, appointing a new set of officers 
 who, under his direction, have built up one of the 
 very few government-owned corporations that is 
 giving satisfaction to the public and showing a profit 
 from operation each year. The 1914 published re- 
 port shows a surplus of almost 10 per cent of the 
 capital invested. Seldom has there been a better 
 proof of what can be done by the introduction of 
 efficient methods into corporate management, and 
 the results were largely due to Mr. Barry’s thorough 
 experience and efficiency as a telephone manager. 
 
 He is a member of the American Institute of Elec- 
 trical Engineers, and has membership in the Com- 
 mercial Club of St. Paul, the Town and Country 
 Club, and the Association of Commerce. In 1902, at 
 St. Paul, he was married to Miss Gertrude Colter, of 
 St. Paul. Their two children are Harlan William, 
 aged seven, and Roland C., aged four. The family 
 attends the Trinity Methodist Church, of which Mr. 
 Barry is one of the trustees. Their home is at 1633 
 Portland Avenue. 
 
 Christ J. Sylling. Now serving as mayor of 
 Spring Grove. Christ J. Sylling is a native of Hous- 
 ton County, had a thorough training and is an 
 expert in farming matters, and for a number of 
 years has carried on an extensive business, both as a 
 farmer and stock buyer and shipper. 
 
 Christ J. Sylling was born in Houston County, 
 February 22, 1877, a son of Jul and Bertha (Blexrud) 
 Sylling. Both the Sylling and Blexrud families have 
 been identified with Minnesota since pioneer times. 
 His grandfather, Hans Sylling, brought his family 
 from Norway to Houston County and lived on a 
 farm until his death, and the maternal grandfather, 
 Lars Blexrud, was also prominent as an early farmer 
 of Houston County. Jul Sylling was born in Norway 
 in 1832 and died in 1911, and his wife, who was a 
 native of the same country, is still living. They 
 were married in Houston County, and the father 
 spent all his life as an active farmer. He was one 
 of the leading members in his Lutheran Church, 
 and in politics was a republican. By industry and 
 the overcoming of the obstacles of pioneering he 
 made a substantial property and at his death left a 
 good estate. There were six children : Helmer, 
 
 who lives on a farm in Houston County; Lars, a 
 Houston County farmer; Christ J., at Spring Grove; 
 George, who occupies the old homestead ; Albert, a 
 farmer in Houston County; and Anna, wife of Mr. 
 Bekkemo, a farmer in Houston County. 
 
 Christ J. Sylling grew up on a Houston County 
 farm, was educated in the common schools, and 
 for a time was a student in the Normal College at 
 Decorah. Iowa. After farming for a couple of 
 years, he moved to Spring Grove in 1902, and for 
 the following ten years devoted most of his time 
 
1670 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 to the creamery business. He finally sold his inter- 
 est in that line and then began the buying and 
 shipping of live stock. Chicago has been his chief 
 market, and in recent years he has all he could attend 
 to. Mr. Sylling is also the owner of two farms, 
 one comprising 160 acres and the other eighty acres, 
 and supervises their management. 
 
 In 1900 Mr. Sylling married Louise Larson of 
 Iowa. Their six children are: Geneva, aged eleven; 
 Oberlin, aged nine ; Gladys, aged seven ; Charlotte, 
 aged five; Harold, aged three; and Alfred. The 
 family are members of the Lutheran Church and 
 Mr. Sylling is a republican. He has shown much 
 interest in local affairs, and the people of Spring 
 Grove congratulated themselves on his choice to 
 the office of mayor. 
 
 Frederick H. Warwick. The H. M. Smyth Print- 
 ing Company of St. Paul is a business that has more 
 than local distinction, since its trade relations extend 
 over several states of the Northwest. The plant in 
 size and equipment would bear favorable comparison 
 with other concerns anywhere in the country. The 
 company has a three-story brick building 80 by 100 
 feet, all the floors being used for the business, and 
 about fifty people are employed in the various de- 
 partments. The power for the machinery is supplied 
 by electric motors, and the equipment comprises all 
 facilities for printing, lithographing, binding, de- 
 signing and fine color work, and the execution of 
 such high grade products as maps, bonds, checks, 
 drafts, etc. The company published the New Atlas 
 of St. Paul, Kirk’s Public Map of St. Paul and 
 Minneapolis and Curtis’ Street Guide Map of St. 
 Paul. 
 
 This business was started in 1881 by LI. M. Smyth 
 and was conducted by him individually until 1899. 
 The company is now incorporated, with a capital 
 stock of $30,000. 
 
 Guel G. Morehouse, M. D. In this history of 
 Minnesota it will be found that there are many 
 salient points that make specially interesting a con- 
 sideration of the career of Doctor Morehouse. He 
 is a native son of the city and county in which he 
 now maintains his home and is a representative 
 physician and surgeon, besides holding preferment 
 as mayor of Owatonna, in 1914, and is a scion of 
 one of the best known and most honored pioneer 
 families of Steele County, where he is well upholding 
 the prestige of the name which he bears. His 
 father, the late Dr. Eli M. Morehouse, established 
 a home at Owatonna, judicial center of Steele County, 
 in 1853, about four years prior to the admission of 
 Minnesota to statehood, and with the civic and 
 material development and progress of this section 
 of the state the name of Morehouse has been promi- 
 nently and influentially identified. 
 
 Dr. Guel G. Morehouse was born at Owatonna, 
 on the 27th of October, 1876, and is a son of Dr. 
 Eli M. and Lorinda A. (McRostie) Morehouse, the 
 former of whom was born at Warren, Ohio, in 
 1835, and the latter of whom is a native of Ogdens- 
 burg, New York. The father died at Owatonna in 
 1891, and his widow still maintains her home in 
 this fine little city. As a youth Dr. Eli M. Morehouse 
 learned the trade of cabinet maker, but at the age 
 of eighteen years he made effective protest against 
 such limitation of his powers and ambitions, as he 
 began the study of medicine, under the preceptorship 
 of Dr. William Payne, a representative physician of 
 
 the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Lie admir- 
 ably fortified himself for the work of his chosen 
 profession and in 1834 he located at Independence, 
 Iowa, where he was engaged in practice about one 
 year, his removal to Owatonna, Minnesota, having- 
 occurred in 1855. He was one of the first physicians 
 to engage in practice in Steele County and long held 
 precedence as one of the able and representative 
 physicians of this section of the state. He was 
 broad-minded and progressive as a citizen and his 
 life was guided and governed by the highest prin- 
 ciples, so that he had inviolable place in popular 
 confidence and esteem. He was a leader in the 
 local councils of the democratic party, ..though he 
 had been a republican prior to the Civil war, and in 
 1879 he represented Steele County as a member 
 of the State Legislature. He served several terms 
 as a member of the board of aldermen of Owa- 
 tonna and was serving his third term as mayor of 
 the city at the time of his death. A strong and 
 noble character, he wielded large and benignant 
 influence in civic and material affairs and his memory 
 is revered in the city and county that long repre- 
 sented his home. He was a zealous member of the 
 Presbyterian Church, was a Knights Templar Mason 
 and was affiliated also with the Independent Order 
 of Odd Fellows and the Ancient Order of United 
 Workmen. 
 
 Concerning the children of Dr. Eli M. and Lorinda 
 A. (McRostie) Morehouse, the following brief rec- 
 ord is entered: Dr. Eli M., Jr., who was graduated 
 in Bennett Medical College, in the City of Chicago, 
 is now engaged in the practice of his profession at 
 Yankton, South Dakota; Effie L. is the wife of 
 John W. Adsit, manager of the Owatonna Hotel ; 
 Timothy N., who was a commercial traveling sales- 
 man, met his death in a stage-coach accident at 
 Roseburg, Oregon ; and Dr. Guel G., of this review, 
 is the youngest of the children. 
 
 To the public schools of Owatonna Dr. Guel G. 
 Morehouse is debted for his early educational dis- 
 cipline, and he was graduated in the high school as 
 a member of the class of 1897. 1° preparation for 
 
 the work of the profession that had been signally 
 honored by the services of his father, he was matricu- 
 lated in Bennett Medical College at Chicago, in which 
 he was graduated in 1902 and from which he received 
 the degree of Doctor of Medicine. In the following- 
 year, after an effective post-graduate course, he was 
 graduated also in the medical department of Val- 
 paraiso University, and in 1904 he gained valuable 
 clinical experience through his service as interne in 
 Cook County Hospital, one of the great institutions 
 of the nation’s western metropolis. For a short time 
 after his graduation in Bennett Medical College 
 Doctor Morehouse was engaged in practice in South 
 Dakota, but since December, 1904, he has been 
 established in the practice of his profession in his 
 native city, with a clientage whose scope and rep- 
 resentative character attest alike to his ability and 
 his personal popularity, his well appointed offices 
 being at 120 West Broadway. The Doctor is an 
 enthusiast in all that pertains to his profession and 
 insistently keeps in touch with the advances made 
 in medical and surgical science. He is identified 
 with the Steele County Medical Society, the Minne- 
 sota State Medical Society, the Southern Minnesota 
 Medical Association, the American Medical Associa- 
 tion and the Clinical Congress of Surgery. In the 
 Masonic fraternity the ancient craft affiliation. of 
 Doctor Morehouse is with Star of the East Lodge 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1671 
 
 No. 33, Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons, in his 
 home city, and he has received the thirty-second 
 degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, in 
 which he is affiliated with Winona Consistory, besides 
 being a member of Zurah Temple, Ancient Arabic 
 Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, in the 
 City of St. Paul, and of the Owatonna Lodge of the 
 Knights of Pythias. 
 
 Doctor Morehouse maintains an independent atti- 
 tude in politics, and in the spring of 1914 he was 
 elected, on an independent ticket, to the office of 
 mayor of Owatonna, his administration showing 
 his loyalty to his native city and his ability as a 
 municipal executive of progressiveness and excel- 
 lent judgment. The Doctor is president and secre- 
 tary of the Owatonna Hotel Company, which owns 
 one of the fine hotel properties of Southern Minne- 
 sota. He is the owner of his attractive residence at 
 717 South Cedar Street, and, with Mrs. Morehouse 
 as its gracious and popular chatelaine, the home is a 
 center of hospitality and of much of the representa- 
 tive social activity of the community. 
 
 In November, 1911, was solemnized the marriage 
 of Doctor Morehouse to Miss Margaret Moore, 
 daughter of Henry R. Moore, who is a retired busi- 
 ness man and representative citizen of Owatonna. 
 Doctor and Mrs. Morehouse have no children. 
 
 In a retrospective way it may be stated that the 
 founder of the Morehouse family in America was 
 Thomas Morehouse, a stanch Scotch Presbyterian 
 who was driven by religious difficulties from his 
 native land to Holland and who came from the latter 
 country to America in 1640, his home having been 
 established at Boston, Massachusetts. 
 
 Orville W. Walker. To those who are still 
 struggling with the vicissitudes of the world and 
 to young men who must soon face the responsi- 
 bilities of serious life, there will be found a great 
 deal of inspiration and encouragement in the fol- 
 lowing paragraphs, which furnish a suggestive out- 
 line of the career of Orville W. Walker, now a 
 prosperous business man of Mankato and head of 
 the O. W. Walker Company, one of the leading 
 real estate and insurance firms of Minnesota. 
 
 Born March 7, 1873, at Verona, Frontenac County, 
 Ontario, Canada, he is the third son of Samuel W. 
 Walker and Lavina (Percy) Walker, both natives 
 of Canada and a grandson of George Walker and 
 Michael Percy, natives of England, who emigrated 
 to Canada and spent their declining years there. 
 Samuel W. Walker was born in 1841, and when but 
 eight years of age left home and became self- 
 supporting. Steady industry and economy finally 
 gave him sufficient means to purchase a small tract 
 of land, with which he entered upon a career of 
 agriculture. In 1891 he came to the United States, 
 locating at Caldwell, Kansas, where he has since 
 made his home and has accumulated a fortune in 
 farming wheat and corn. During the last ten years 
 he has spent most of his time in travel, passing most 
 of his winters in Florida, California or Texas and 
 hot summers in Duluth and Colorado. He is a con- 
 sistent member of the Methodist Church, to the 
 cause of which he has donated liberally of his 
 means, is a republican in politics and maintains a 
 fraternal connection with the Ancient Order of 
 United Workmen. Mrs. Walker, who was born 
 in 1846, passed away in 1885, leaving her husband 
 and eight children. 
 
 The early education of Orville W. Walker came 
 
 Vol. m— 26 
 
 from a log schoolhouse in Canada, and at Caldwell, 
 Kansas, to which place he went with his parents 
 when he was eighteen years old, he finished the 
 eighth grade of public schools. His first vocation 
 was working on a farm at $8 a month, and he con- 
 tinued that until twenty-one, at which time he pur- 
 chased a relinquished claim in the recently opened 
 Cherokee Strip of the Indian Territory, and set 
 about to improve the same. He built a sod dug-out 
 in the side of a bank and batched there three years 
 during the hard times of 1894-95-96. The year 
 1897 gave good crops to the people of Oklahoma, 
 and on the promise of continued prosperity, in the 
 fall of that year he took to himself a wife. She 
 was Oma Lee Fleming, who came with her people 
 from Missouri and homesteaded a claim a few miles 
 from Mr. Walker's location. After marrying Mr. 
 Walker continued to farm two years, proving up his 
 claim under the Free Homestead Bill, and during 
 this, time two sons were born, W. Paul and Tor- 
 rance D. Having acquired unrestricted ownership 
 of their land, and Mrs. Walker being somewhat frail 
 and in ill health, they decided to leave the farm and 
 try city life. The farm was sold for $3,500. They 
 moved to Kingfisher, Oklahoma, and ventured into 
 the hotel business. It was a successful venture up 
 to the third month, when smallpox broke out in 
 the city, the town was quarantined, and in six months 
 time business had collapsed and their money was 
 practically all gone. Being dissatisfied with the 
 climate of Oklahoma as it affected the health of 
 his family, and believing that all would enjoy better 
 health in the northern states, Mr. Walker left Okla- 
 homa and removed to Duluth, Minnesota. There 
 they bought a rooming flat, which Mrs. Walker 
 cared for while her husband tested his powers as a 
 life insurance salesman. After one years as local 
 agent he was promoted to an assistant superin- 
 tendency and transferred to Ironwood, Michigan. 
 His record there during the next four months was 
 so satisfactory that the company transferred him to 
 Superior, Wisconsin, and made him superintendent 
 in charge. During this period his third son, Mark 
 F. F., was born. 
 
 Having become tired of his position in the insur- 
 ance business, Mr. Walker resigned and accepted 
 traveling work on the road writing insurance. Later 
 he became identified with the International Corre- 
 spondence School of Scranton, making his head- 
 quarters at Mankato, Minnesota, to which city he 
 moved his family in 1905. After his second year 
 with the school the owners of the Eagle Roller 
 Mill of New Ulm, Minnesota, met him and induced him 
 to accept a position selling their flour through West- 
 ern Pennsylvania, Maryland and West Virginia. In 
 order to be near his work he removed his family 
 to Greensburg, Pennsylvania, and lived there one 
 year. While a resident at Duluth and Superior he 
 had invested the proceeds of his farm in real estate, 
 and owing to a slump in values lost practically every- 
 thing he had accumulated. The one year he spent 
 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, was a time of illness 
 for his wife and children and as a result of the 
 experience he resigned his position and returned to 
 Mankato, Minnesota. In that city his fourth son 
 was born, named James S. 
 
 On returning to Mankato Mr. Walker himself 
 was stricken down by la grippe, and during a linger- 
 ing illness he was reduced to bed rock financially. 
 For six weeks he was able to accomplish little, 
 spending his time in looking up a promising business 
 
1672 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 in which to engage. Finally convinced of the oppor- 
 tunities in real estate and insurance he opened an 
 office on April i, 1908. That was a panic year among 
 the banks and he found it hard sledding, but by 
 continual hard knocks every day and every evening 
 he finally developed a clientage that gave him a good 
 living and eventually brought him to the front 
 among the business men of Blue Earth County. He 
 founded the O. W. Walker Company, real estate, 
 insurance and loans, with offices in the Coughlan- 
 Hickey Building. This company specializes in city 
 properties, including residence, business building, 
 city and suburban lots. Mr. Walker is regarded as 
 an expert in real estate and realty values. His busi- 
 ness record in the city has attracted to him many 
 friends and well wishers, and in the past six years 
 his company has bought and sold more city property 
 than any two firms in Blue Earth County. His 
 judgment is much in demand by both buyers and 
 sellers. He was the builder and is still the owner 
 of the Omalee Place, a six apartment building located 
 in the best portion of the City of Mankato on the 
 corner of Second and Liberty streets, next door to 
 his large brick residence. He also owns property 
 in Duluth and in the State of California. 
 
 The O. W. Walker Company accepts the manage- 
 ment of estates, collects rents, and on a great many 
 occasions he has rendered an invaluable service to 
 his clients, both renters and owners, and is probably 
 one of the most popular agents of property in the 
 city. His firm writes fire, life, sick and accident, 
 steam boiler, plate glass, casualty and compensation 
 insurance and also does bonding. He represents the 
 National Surety of New York, the Casualty Company 
 of America, the New York Plate Glass, the Plartford 
 Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Company, the 
 North American Accident, the German American 
 Fire Insurance Company, the Fire Association, the 
 Aetna, Twin City, Sun Office of London, Hand in 
 Hand, Western of Toronto, etc. Through Mr. 
 Walker’s operations he has done much to promote 
 the interests of both buyers and sellers, has effected 
 some sales noteworthy for the quickness of the 
 transaction, and his capable handling of business 
 and his ability to get mutual advantages for both 
 parties to every transaction has resulted in bringing 
 to him many firm friendships. In the fall of 1912 
 the people of North Mankato, feeling they needed 
 a bank, and Mr. Walker being public spirited, organ- 
 ized a co-operative state bank, known as the Peoples 
 State Bank of North Mankato, capital $15,000, and 
 he was elected its first president and a member of 
 the board of directors, and served as such until the 
 spring of 1913, at which time his real estate business 
 called for all of his time and attention, and he sold 
 his interest in the bank and resigned his position as 
 president of’ the institution. 
 
 Mr. Walker is connected fraternally with the local 
 lodge of the Knights of Pythias, is a member of 
 the Mankato Commercial Club, and has allied himself 
 as a booster with all movements that have promised 
 to benefit the community. His political views are 
 those of the republican party, but he has found little 
 time to devote to politics. With his family he 
 attends the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which 
 all are members. 
 
 Clifford C. Eaton. The Eaton family has been 
 identified with Southern Minnesota through three 
 generations since pioneer days in Minnesota Terri- 
 tory. Clifford C. Eaton is known not only as editor 
 
 and owner of the Winthrop News, but also for his 
 activity in stimulating agricultural enterprise in that 
 section of the state, and particularly for his work in 
 securing adequate representation at the state fair of 
 the agricultural products of several counties. 
 
 Clifford C. Eaton was born at Sleepy Eye in 
 Brown County, Minnesota, July 16, 1883. He is a 
 grandson of a pioneer Minnesota newspaper man, 
 William S. Eaton, who for a number of years was 
 editor of the Rochester Post before it was con- 
 solidated under its present form as the Post Record. 
 William S. Eaton also served as state senator from 
 Olmsted County, and was one of the early settlers 
 in that section of the state. Clifford C. Eaton is a 
 son of Horace G. and Lida (Kendall) Eaton. His 
 father, who was born in Rock County, Wisconsin, 
 May 31, 1841, and died January 19, 1911, was promi- 
 nent from the early days as a grain buyer. He put 
 in forty-eight years in that service, and the State 
 Grain Journal gave him credit for being the oldest 
 man in the business. Soon after the Indian outbreak 
 during the Civil war he located at New Ulm, re- 
 moving to that city from Rochester. For a number 
 of years he bought grain from the boats that used 
 to ply the Minnesota River between New Ulm and 
 Riverside. Riverside is now the site of North Red- 
 wood. He had enlisted for service in the Union 
 army about the time of Lee's surrender. He was 
 also active in republican politics in the state. Clif- 
 ford C. Eaton has a brother, Bernie A., who was 
 born in 1881, and married Minnie Schon, and is 
 now located in North Dakota. 
 
 Clifford C. Eaton was educated in the high school 
 at Morgan and took a commercial course at Mankato. 
 Llis first occupation was the printing business, and 
 he has spent all his active career in the printing- 
 trade and in newspaper work. In October, 1912, 
 he became editor and owner of the Winthrop News, 
 and has made that one of the bright and interesting 
 journals of Sibley County. During his residence in 
 Morgan County he interested himself in county 
 agriculture exhibit work, and placed the first county 
 display of Redwood County products at the Minne- 
 sota State Fair. He followed that work for about 
 four years, and after locating in Sibley County 
 collected the first exhibits from that county for the 
 state fair. He is vice president of the Minnesota 
 State Exhibitors Association. 
 
 Mr. Eaton is affiliated with the Sibley Lodge, No. 
 209, of Winthrop, and with the Chapter of the 
 Masonic Order at New Ulm, and with Gaylord 
 Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. 
 Politically he is a republican. Mr. Eaton was mar- 
 ried, in 1906, to Antoinette Schnobrich. Their one 
 child, Genevieve, is now two years of age. 
 
 Alfred J. Krank. The development of one of St. 
 Paul’s leading mercantile concerns can be read in the 
 career of Alfred J. Krank, a native son of Minne- 
 sota, and for more than thirty years identified with 
 business in St. Paul. 
 
 Alfred J. Krank was born January 10, 1866, in 
 New Ulm, Minnesota, a son of Frank William and 
 Susan (Sausen) Krank, who were early settlers in 
 the German community of New Ulm. Mr. Krank 
 received his early education in the common schools 
 of St. Paul and St. Louis, Missouri, living in St. 
 Paul since 1877, and in the year of 1879 beginning 
 to learn the cutler’s and grinder’s trade with Franke 
 & Schnell. He became foreman of this firm in 
 1881, and in the year of 1883 bought the interest of 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1673 
 
 Mr. Schnell, who had succeeded Franke & Schnell. 
 The firm then became known as Alfred J. Krank, 
 but later on Mr. Schnell again bought an interest, 
 and the name became H. Schnell & Company in 
 1884. It was then Schnell & Krank until 1903, at 
 which date Mr. Krank established the present busi- 
 ness of Alfred J. Krank, manufacturer and dealer 
 in barbers’ supplies and cutlery, the largest concern 
 of its kind in the Northwest. 
 
 This business occupies an eligible location at 142 
 East Sixth Street, in a three-story building 25 by 
 135 feet, a floor over 140 East Sixth Street, all the 
 floors and space being required for the stock and 
 salesrooms and general offices of the firm. A fur- 
 ther idea of the extent of the business is conveyed 
 by the fact that sixty people are employed in the 
 establishment. The business is conducted both 
 wholesale and retail, and its outside trade extends all 
 over the northwestern states. Mr. Krank is also 
 president of the A. J. Krank Manufacturing Com- 
 pany, manufacturers of all toilet necessities; a mem- 
 ber and director of the Barbers Supply Dealers 
 Association of America ; also a member of the Per- 
 fumers Association of America ; a director in the 
 People’s Bank; vice president of the Association of 
 Commerce ; chairman of the advisory committee of 
 the local division of the Association of Commerce ; 
 and is a member of the building committee of the 
 St. Paul Athletic Club. He is a member of the Elks 
 and is a member and has been treasurer of the St. 
 Paul Turnverein and a member of the Automobile 
 Club, the Commercial Club and a life member of 
 the Minnesota Historical Society ; also a member 
 of the United Commercial Travelers. 
 
 Mr. Krank and family reside at 893 Osceola Ave- 
 nue. He was married February 17, 1891, to Miss 
 Emma Hundt. They have two daughters and a son, 
 Virginia, Erma and Walter A. 
 
 Rudolph H. Werges. A popular young banker of 
 Gaylord in Sibley County, Rudolph H. Werges, 
 though still in his twenties, has made himself a 
 useful factor in the community where he has spent 
 his career, and represents one of the solid old 
 pioneer families of Minnesota. 
 
 Rudolph H. Werges was born at Gaylord in 1891. 
 His father. John H. Werges, was born in Sibley 
 County in 1858, the year Minnesota was admitted 
 to the Union, has followed business as a contractor 
 and farmer, and is still living. He has held all the 
 chairs in the local lodge of Odd Fellows, and is a 
 member of the Lutheran Church and a republican in 
 politics. John H. Werges is a son of Frederick 
 Werges, who was one of the very first settlers in 
 Kelso Township of Sibley County. The mother of 
 Rudolph H. Werges was Margaret Otting, who was 
 born at Gaylord in 1864 and is still living. Other 
 members of the family are Hertha Spellman. Isabel 
 and Ella. 
 
 Rudolph H. Werges grew up in Sibley County, 
 attended the public schools and was graduated from 
 high school in 1909, and his first activities in self 
 support were as a farmer and one year as a teacher 
 in the rural schools. He became identified with the 
 Citizens State Bank at Gaylord in 1910 and has since 
 been advanced as experience has merited until he is 
 the cashier of that institution. Mr. Werges was 
 married, April 20, 1915, to Elsie M. Byhoffen. He 
 is a progressive republican in politics and has filled 
 several chairs in the lodge of Odd Fellows. 
 
 Charles W. Quandt. Both in the law and in 
 banking Charles W. Quandt has had a career of 
 successful achievement. Born on a Minnesota farm, 
 he has created most of his opportunities through 
 persistent industry and application, has been steadily 
 increasing his powers and his influence, and is re- 
 garded as one of the most successful men of Sibley 
 County. 
 
 Charles W. Quandt was born in Nicollet. County, 
 Minnesota, in 1876, a son of August and Fredericka 
 (Blumrick) Quandt. Both parents were natives of 
 Germany. His father was born in 1837 and died 
 in 1914, having brought his family to Minnesota in 
 1871, and as an early settler having followed farming 
 in Nicollet County to the close of his active career. 
 He was a republican in politics and a member of the 
 Lutheran Church. His parents were married in Ger- 
 many, and the mother was born in 1843 and died in 
 1898. Of their children seven are living: Mrs. 
 
 Mary Sivert, whose husband is a farmer in Nicollet 
 County, and they have three living children; Mrs. 
 Rieka May, wife of an electrician living in Buffalo, 
 New York, and the mother of one child; William, 
 a Sibley County farmer ; Paul, also a farmer in 
 Sibley County; Herman, a farmer in Nicollet 
 County; Charles W. ; and Albert, a farmer in 
 Canada. 
 
 Charles W. Quandt grew up on a farm, had an 
 education in the common schools, and from early 
 boyhood was noted for his studious inclinations. 
 After his school career, while incidentally engaged 
 in farming in Nicollet County, he also taught school. 
 Mr. Quandt finished his education for his profession 
 by attendance at the St. Paul College in St. Paul 
 Park, was graduated in 1899 from the Illinois College 
 of Law, and was awarded the degree LL. B. by the 
 law school of the University of Minnesota in 1900. 
 His practice for the past fifteen years has been one 
 of growing importance at Winthrop. and while look- 
 ing after the interests of his clientele he has also 
 given considerable service in public office and as a 
 banker. Mr. Quandt has served as county attorney 
 and as city attorney, as president of the school 
 board, and has never failed to give response to calls 
 upon his services and leadership in public affairs. Mr. 
 Quandt is president of the State Bank of Winthrop, 
 is president of the Farmers State Bank of Rock 
 Creek, Minnesota, and vice president of the Farmers 
 State Bank at Atwater, Minnesota. He has passed 
 all the chairs in the Masonic lodge, and politically 
 is identified with the republican party. 
 
 In 1904 Mr. Quandt married Sarah Erickson, 
 whose people were among the early settlers of 
 Sibley County, having located there about 1866. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Quandt have two children : Bernice, 
 aged three, and Charles, aged two. 
 
 Emil W. Olson. An important individual part in 
 business service has been performed in Sibley County 
 by Emil W. Olson, who is cashier of the First 
 National Bank of Winthrop. Mr. Olson is a native 
 Minnesotan, and since early manhood has been 
 steadily progressing to larger accomplishments in 
 business affairs, having begun as a farmer, later was 
 in merchandising, and now looks after the affairs 
 of one of the sound financial institutions of Sibley 
 County. 
 
 Emil W. Olson was born on a farm in Sibley 
 County in 1875, a son of John W. and Lottie 
 (Kulander) Olson. Both parents were natives of 
 Sweden, his father born in 1844 and still living. 
 
1674 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 He came to Minnesota in 1868, was one of the 
 early settlers in Sibley County, and as a farmer has 
 been unusually successful, being the owner of about 
 600 acres in that section of the state. He is a 
 republican and a member of the Lutheran Church. 
 The mother, who was born in Sweden in 1851, is 
 also still living. The parents were married in Sib- 
 ley County in 1874, and of their six children five 
 are living : Emil YV. ; August W., a farmer oc- 
 
 cupying 220 acres and who married Amelia Peterson 
 and has four children; Charles O., also a farmer; 
 Arthur L., who is assistant cashier of the First 
 National Bank at Wintbrop, married Alice Ander- 
 son, and has two children ; Esther A., living at 
 home. 
 
 Emil W. Olson was reared on a farm, had the 
 usual training of a country boy, and graduated from 
 the farm first into the mercantile business and later 
 into the bank at Winthrop, which he is now capably 
 serving as cashier. 
 
 In 1896 Mr. Olson married Hilda A. Asp. By 
 their marriage five children have blessed their home : 
 Edith A., Laura H., Mildred L., Leonard T. and 
 Everett A. Mrs. Olson's people came from Sweden 
 about 1890. tier father is one of the successful 
 men of Minnesota. Mr. Olson is prominent as a 
 banker, being president of the Farmers State Bank 
 of Almont, North Dakota; vice president of the 
 Farmers State Bank at Lafayette, Minnesota, and a 
 stockholder in state banks at Atwater and Rock 
 Creek, Minnesota. 
 
 Hon. LeForest E. Potter. The activities of Hon. 
 LeForest E. Potter, state senator of Brown and 
 Redwood counties, Minnesota, during a long and 
 uniformly successful career, have embraced farming, 
 the breeding of blooded stock, business and financial 
 activities of a varied character and politics, as well 
 as useful participation in the movements which have 
 done so much to make this one of the important 
 commercial and agricultural centers of the state. 
 Mr. Potter was born in the State of Wisconsin, 
 August 10, 1858, and on his mother’s side belongs to 
 a family which originated in England and came to 
 New England prior to the Revolutionary war, while 
 on his father’s side he is of Scotch descent. 
 
 John A. Potter, father of LeForest E. Potter, 
 was born in the State of Maine, in 1832, and as a 
 young man migrated to the West, settling first in 
 Wisconsin and subsequently, in 1865, removing to 
 Watonwan County, Minnesota. Later he moved to 
 Blue Earth County, Minnesota, and in 1869 took up 
 his residence in Brown County as a farmer. From 
 that time until his retirement he continued to be 
 actively identified with agricultural operations, and 
 his death occurred in 1885, at his home at Spring- 
 field. Mr. Potter married Miss Olive S. Weymouth, 
 who was also a native of Maine, where she was 
 born in 1835, and she still survives him and makes 
 her home at Springfield. They were the parents of 
 ten children, as follows : Andrew, who is a suc- 
 
 cessful farmer and resides near Vesta, Minnesota; 
 George, also a farmer, who resides near Springfield ; 
 LeForest E., of this review; Ida, who is the wife 
 of Simon Dotson and resides in California; Lottie, 
 who married James Casserly and resides at Tracy. 
 Minnesota, Mr. Casserly being a railroad fireman ; 
 John F., who is engaged in farming on his property 
 near Springfield ; Accie, who married Ed Crumlett 
 and resides on a farm in Cottonwood County, Min- 
 nesota; Allen, who carries on agricultural operations 
 
 in the vicinity of Springfield ; Elsie, who married the 
 late P. McLaughlin and resides on the old home- 
 stead farm ; and Arthur, a farmer of Cottonwood 
 County. 
 
 LeForest E. Potter was reared amid agricultural 
 surroundings, and as a youth assisted his father' on 
 the homestead while securing his education in the 
 district schools. He remained with his father until 
 reaching the age of twenty-seven years, at which 
 time he embarked in farming on his own account, 
 and has continued to be engaged therein to the 
 present time, being now the owner of a well- 
 cultivated property of 330 acres located two miles 
 out of the Village of Springfield. He carries on 
 diversified farming, under modern methods, but has 
 given particular attention to the breeding of blooded 
 stock, principally Hereford cattle and Poland-China 
 hogs. 
 
 Probably no man in this part of the state has 
 done more to advance agricultural standards than 
 has Mr. Potter. As president of the Brown County 
 Farmers’ Association he has encouraged the agricul- 
 turists of this region in their efforts to secure 
 larger and better crops, and has labored unselfishly 
 in educating the farming population in new methods 
 and processes. He is president of the Hereford 
 Breeders’ Association of the state, a capacity in 
 which he has been an important factor in making 
 this breed of cattle popular among stock raisers. He 
 also has the presidency of the Farmers Elevator 
 Company, is president of the State Live Stock 
 Breeders’ Association, and has been able to secure 
 many benefits for the grain growers here. A non- 
 partisan in his political views, he has taken an active 
 and intelligent interest in civil affairs, and Novem- 
 ber 3, 1914, was elected state senator from his 
 district, and he is also a trustee of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church. His activities in finance have 
 been as vice president of the First National Bank 
 of Springfield. Mr. Potter is a director of the 
 Village Cemetery Association. 
 
 At Springfield, Minnesota, in 1885, Mr. Potter 
 was united in marriage with Miss Ada May Red- 
 ford, daughter of the late James Redford, who was 
 for some years a farmer in Brown County, and to 
 this union there have been born the following child- 
 ren : Olive M., who has charge of the home 
 
 economics department of the Morris (Minnesota) 
 State School ; Reuben M., who is his father's asso- 
 ciate in the management of the home farm; Fern, 
 who is assisting her sister, Olive M., at the State 
 School; Forest, who died young; and Hettie, who 
 died at the age of eighteen months. 
 
 A. Xavier Schall, Sr. Now a business man and 
 resident of Duluth, Mr. A. X. Schall has a number 
 of interesting connections with the life of Minne- 
 sota and the Northwest, where at different times 
 he has been a manufacturer, a newspaper man, and 
 at the present time is manager of the Fitger Brewing 
 Company of Duluth. 
 
 His family has been prominent in manufacturing 
 and other lines of endeavor in this country for 
 several generations. A. Xavier Schall was born 
 June 9, i860, in Manayunk, Philadelphia, Pennsyl- 
 vania. His father, Francis Schall, started the first 
 machine shop in what is now the Twenty-first 
 Ward of Philadelphia, and died at Matanzas, Cuba, 
 while engaged in the installation of machinery of 
 his own manufacture. His wife, Susanna S. Schall, 
 was the youngest daughter of Francis P. Barat, who 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1675 
 
 built and operated the first cotton mill in Manayunk, 
 which is now the Twenty-first Ward of Philadelphia. 
 
 Mr. A. X. Schall finished his liberal education in 
 Manhattan College and in Columbia University at 
 New York City. His first important post in the 
 business world was as cashier of the Reading Iron 
 Works at Reading, Pennsylvania. For several years 
 he was a merchandise broker in New York City, 
 and then became interested in coal mines in Southern 
 Indiana. He should be given credit as the pioneer 
 in the manufacture of charcoal on a large scale for 
 iron smelting purposes in the northern peninsula of 
 Michigan, which was the scene of an important por- 
 tion of his business career. Subsequently Mr. 
 Schall turned his attention to newspaper enter- 
 prises in Minneapolis, and his name is familiar to 
 most of the older journalists of the state. He held 
 the office of president of the Minneapolis Press 
 Club when that organization was at the height of 
 its power. In addition to other business interests 
 at Duluth Mr. Schall is a stockholder in various iron 
 mines. 
 
 As to his relations with politics he can be classed 
 as strictly independent, and one who has always 
 worked for better and cleaner government and the 
 introduction of high ideals into public service. He 
 is a member of the Minneapolis Press Club, of the 
 Kitchi Gammi Club at Duluth and of the Duluth 
 Commercial Club. While not a member of any 
 church, he attends regularly some denomination, 
 and his convictions may be defined as in favor of a 
 free expression of thought on religious subjects and 
 the right of each individual to worship as his con- 
 science dictates. He has been a strong believer in 
 and practitioner of the simple rules of charity. 
 
 Mr. Schall was married in New York City in 1879 
 to Miss Mary G. McLaughlin, daughter of Peter 
 McLaughlin, who was a railroad contractor at Read- 
 ing, Pennsylvania. There are three children : A. X. 
 
 Schall, Jr„ who married Ethel Cannon and is a 
 resident of Minneapolis; Mayme G., the wife of 
 John Schmutte of Indiana; and L. Leon, a student 
 in the University of Minnesota. 
 
 Capt. Anthony Xavier Schall, Jr., is a young 
 Minneapolis lawyer whose name is quite frequently 
 mentioned in connection with outside affairs. He 
 is one of the alumni of the state university, made a 
 military record of active service during the war 
 with Spain, has been identified with the state na- 
 tional guard, is prominent in various civic and 
 social organizations, and in his profession has a 
 large practice in real estate and tax law. 
 
 Anthony Xavier Schall, Jr., was born in Brooklyn, 
 New York, June 9, 1880, a son of A. Xavier Schall, 
 Sr., and Mary Gertrude (McLaughlin) Schall. His 
 father was born in Manayunk, a suburb of Phila- 
 delphia. and his mother in Reading, Pennsylvania, 
 and they were married in New York City. 
 
 Captain Schall has had his home in Minnesota 
 since the spring of 1894. His first location was at 
 Duluth, and while in that city he attended the high 
 school, and from there entered the law department 
 of the University of Minnesota, which graduated 
 him in the class of 1904 with the degree Bachelor 
 of Laws. He did not begin active practice at 
 Minneapolis until 1907, and looked after his_ legal 
 business alone until 1911, when H. A. Brown joined 
 him under the firm name of Schall & Brown. On 
 January 20, 1913, Judge Elliott made a new member 
 of the firm, then known as Elliott, Schall & Brown, 
 
 until August 20,1913, since which time the firm has 
 £ ee .n Bchall & Brown, with offices in the Security 
 building. v\ hue his practice is of a general nature 
 he has made a reputation for skill and successful 
 handling of real estate and taxation questions 
 
 During his university career Captain Schall earned 
 nis way by work in the city engineer's office and 
 later m the county auditor s office, beginning as 
 draftsman, and when he left he was chief counter 
 deputy. Some years ago he made an unsuccessful 
 race for the office of court commissioner and muni- 
 c w J-1 1 , ■ His P° Iitics , is progressive republican. 
 
 While his active military service was in the 
 Spanish-American war and Philippine insurrections, 
 Captain Schall gained his first acquaintance with 
 military_ tactics as captain of Company H in the 
 University Cadets during 1903-04. He served as 
 corporal in Company I in the Thirteenth Minnesota 
 Volunteers in the Philippines and was in all the 
 engagements participated in by Company I. Since 
 that time he has been connected with, the national 
 guard, holding various non-commissioned offices, both 
 company and regimental, and on April 2, ’ 1908, 
 organized and was first captain of Company M, First 
 Infantry, Minnesota National Guard, holding his 
 commission as captain of that company until his 
 resignation about two years ago. 
 
 Captain Schall has membership in the Lake Harriet 
 Commercial Club, the Traffic Club, the American 
 and State Bar Associations, and is a popular member 
 of professional and civic circles in the city On 
 August 31, 1904, at Duluth, Captain Schall married 
 Miss Ethel Frances Cannon, daughter of George H. 
 Cannon of Duluth, where her father is now a com- 
 mission merchant. Mrs. Schall was born in Mari- 
 nette, Wisconsin, but was educated in Duluth. They 
 are the parents of four children : Marion Gertrude 
 Anthony Xavier III, Richard C„ and Charles Leon! 
 all of whom were born in Minneapolis. The family 
 home is at 4553 Xerxes Avenue, South. 
 
 James E. Trask’s active membership in the St. Paul 
 bar has been maintained for over a quarter century, 
 and with such associations and scope of practice as 
 only the leading lawyers enjoy. Fie is of New Eng- 
 land birth and training, and since coming to the 
 Northwest has been able to realize many of the ideals 
 of service which he had set for himself at the out- 
 set of his career. His St. Paul offices are in the 
 Germania Building. 
 
 James E. Trask was born March 2, 1855, in that 
 part of the Town of New Sharon, Maine, originally 
 a part of the Town of Industry. His parents were 
 Robert and Zelphia (Drew) Trask. His New Eng- 
 land family record goes in direct line back to Osman 
 Trask, who came to this country from Somerset- 
 shire, England, in 1645, and settled at Beverly, Mas- 
 sachusetts. From Osman (1) the line of descent 
 is through: 2. John Trask, who was born in Beverly, 
 August 15, 1653. 3. Nathaniel Trask, born in Bever- 
 ly, January 15, 1695, moved to Lexington, Massa- 
 chusetts, in 1715. 4. Rev. Nathaniel Trask, born in 
 Lexington, March 18, 1721, graduated from Harvard 
 College in 1742, studied theology, and for many 
 years was pastor of the Congregational Church at 
 Brentwood, New Hampshire. 5. Jonathan Trask, 
 born in Brentwood, December 12. 1764, married Eliz- 
 abeth Leavitt, moved to that part of Industry, Maine, 
 which in 1832 was annexed to New Sharon, and 
 died September 27, 1838. 6. Jonathan Trask, born 
 
1676 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 in Brentwood, September i, 1787, was married June 
 4, 1810, to Martha Jewell, and died September 7, 
 1838, in that part of Industry previously mentioned. 
 7. Robert Trask was born October 8, 1818, and died 
 October 19, 1869. 
 
 James E. Trask is therefore in the eighth genera- 
 tion of the family in America. He left the home- 
 stead farm in New Sharon in 1874 to begin a col- 
 lege preparatory course of study in the Waterville 
 Classical Institute, from which he graduated in 
 June, 1876. In September of the same year his 
 college career began in that fine old institution, Colby 
 College, at Waterville, Maine, from which he grad- 
 uated in the class of 1880. From 1880 to 1887 Mr. 
 Trask taught the branches of natural science in the 
 South Jersey Institute at Bridgeton, New Jersey, 
 and while in that work his alma mater conferred 
 upon him the degree A. M. While teaching his vaca- 
 tion periods were devoted to the study of law, part 
 of the time in the law office of his brother, Robert 
 D. Trask, Haverhill, Massachusetts, and part of the 
 time with H. and W. J. Knowlton, at Portland, 
 Maine. 
 
 Mr. Trask came out to St. Paul in 1887, and since 
 his admission to the Minnesota bar in 1888 has been 
 engaged in practice with office and residence in that 
 city. Although his business has been and is that 
 of a general practitioner, he has become best known 
 by his work in conducting litigation for the enforce- 
 ment of what is known as the individual or con- 
 stitutional liability of stockholders in insolvent 
 Minnesota corporations. As the stockholders are 
 often widely scattered, and as the non-resident stock- 
 holders generally resist payment upon one ground 
 or another, this line of litigation has extended his 
 business outside of Minnesota and given him a wide 
 practice in the courts of other states. 
 
 Mr. Trask married, in June, 1897, Harriet Feagles. 
 Their three children are: Allen Trask, born July 12, 
 1898; Catherine Trask, born January 23, 1900; and 
 James E. Trask Jr., born May 23, 1903. 
 
 He is a member of the Baptist Church, though 
 usually attends the Episcopal Church, of which the 
 others of his family are members. Politically his 
 support has usually been given to the republican 
 party. In college he was a member of the Zeta Psi 
 fraternity, and has since joined the Royal Arcanum 
 and the Modern Woodmen of America. His favorite 
 amusements are music and long walks in the country. 
 
 Hon. John Lind. While John Lind has been 
 known throughout the State of Minnesota for many 
 years as a prominent lawyer, a member of Congress, 
 fourteenth governor of the state, and in many other 
 important civic relations, it was through his effective 
 service as the personal diplomatic representative of 
 President Wilson in Mexico in 1914 that his name 
 became permanently fixed in national recognition. 
 While at this time it is impossible to estimate or 
 understand the full extent of Mr. Lind's service in 
 the adjustment of the difficulties between the United 
 States and Mexico, there is no question that Mr. 
 Lind performed his exacting and delicate duties in 
 such manner as to win the unqualified approbation of 
 President Wilson and other high officials, and in 
 the history of this international controversy his part 
 will always have a prominent place. Mr. Lind re- 
 turned to Washington after this important mission on 
 April 13, 1914. Until his services were thus called 
 into the national adminstration, Mr. Lind had for 
 more than ten years, since leaving state politics, been 
 identified with the practice of law at Minneapolis, 
 
 and is senior member of the firm of Lind, Veland and 
 Jerome. 
 
 As one of Minnesota’s leading public men, the 
 biography of John Lind is not only an interesting 
 story of the rise of a poor boy to eminence, but also 
 reflects many important features in the state’s politics 
 and civic affairs during the past quarter of a cen- 
 tury. John Lind was born in Sweden March 25, 
 1854, a son of Gustav and Catherine (Johnson) Lind. 
 His father was born April 11, 1826, and died August 
 11, 1895, and his mother was born April 26, 1831, and 
 reached a ripe old age. She was a woman of un- 
 usual intellect, devoted to her church, the Methodist, 
 kept herself thoroughly posted on current affairs, and 
 was a good business woman. In the early genera- 
 tions Mr. Lind’s forefathers were farmers, freemen 
 owning the soil which they tilled, and have been 
 identified with their home province in Sweden for 
 many generations. The older men on both sides 
 had always been connected with the administration 
 of communal affairs and as peace officers. They 
 were neither wealthy nor poor, and their record 
 for character was without stain. They were proud 
 of their standing, and resented an insult with a 
 promptitude that commanded respect. 
 
 In 1867, incited by the stories of American op- 
 portunities, the Lind family emigrated to the United 
 States, and settled in Goodhue County, Minnesota. 
 When the family located there John Lind was thir- 
 teen years old. Born in a humble home, with a 
 comparatively limited education, he raised himself 
 by his talent and industry to a controlling position 
 in the affairs of the state. Soon after locating in 
 Minnesota and at the age of thirteen years, he lost 
 his left hand by the accidental exploding of a gun 
 while hunting. This was one of those misfortunes 
 which are often blessings, and turned him from 
 manual labor to intellectual pursuits. He entered 
 the public schools, and at the age of sixteen was 
 given a certificate entitling him to teach. He taught 
 in Goodhue County one year, and then moved to 
 New Ulm. By hard work and study in a local law 
 office and the exercise of close economy he was able 
 to enter the University of Minnesota in 1875. Later 
 he passed the examination for the bar in 1877. Be- 
 ginning with a limited practice, he eked out his in- 
 come by serving as superintendent of the schools 
 of Brown County for two years. In 1881 President 
 Garfield appointed him receiver of the United States 
 Land Office at Tracy in Lyon County. In a short 
 time his legal ability began to be recognized, and 
 he won reputation by his success in some important 
 cases against the railroad companies. 
 
 For a number of years John Lind was one of the 
 energetic workers in the republican party of Minne- 
 sota. In 1886 he was nominated for Congress in the 
 Second District, comprising nearly all Southwestern 
 Minnesota. It was an exciting campaign and Mr. 
 Lind was elected by a majority of nearly ten thou- 
 sand. In 1888 he was elected over former United 
 States Senator Morton S. Wilkinson by a majority 
 of over nine thousand. By 1890 when Mr. Lind 
 was nominated for the third time, the alliance party 
 had gained great strength in Minnesota, and he con- 
 tested the campaign against Gen. James H. Baker, 
 who received the votes of both the democrats and 
 the alliance, and Mr. Lind was elected by a plurality 
 of less than five hundred. Mr. Lind was the only 
 republican in the state in that year elected to Con- 
 gress. During his six years in Congress Mr. Lind 
 took much interest in Indian affairs, securing the 
 passage of a bill establishing seven Indian schools 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1677 
 
 in different parts of the country, and secured the 
 payment of many long standing claims for Indian 
 depredations to citizens in his district. Another 
 measure was the “Lind Bill,” for the reorganization 
 of the Federal courts in Minnesota, as a result of 
 which Federal courts were held at Minneapolis, 
 Mankato, Winona and Fergus Falls as well as in 
 St. Paul, thus saving long journeys and great ex- 
 pense to litigants. Mr. Lind also upheld the in- 
 tegrity and enforcement of the Interstate Commerce 
 Act, had charge in the House of the original bill 
 providing automatic couplings and air brake and 
 similar devices for the protection of human life in 
 railway service. It was due to him that Minneapolis 
 was made a port of entry. He became an acknowl- 
 edged authority on all questions relating to the pub- 
 lic lands. Mr. Lind resisted a tariff on lumber be- 
 cause he believed it hastened depletion of the forests 
 of the United States. He favored free sugar, free 
 material for binding twine, and showed himself pro- 
 gressive in many tariff measures. In 1892 Mr. Lind 
 absolutely refused to become candidate for re- 
 election. ... 
 
 During the early ’90s Mr. Lind allied himself with 
 the free silver wing of the republican party, an<J 
 by his position on that issue he naturally and grad- 
 ually became identified with the populist movement, 
 and in 1896 accepted the nomination for governor at 
 the hands of the populist and free silver convention, 
 and his nomination was endorsed by the democrats. 
 The popularity of his candidacy wa.s illustrated by 
 the reduction of the republican majority to a little 
 more than three thousand. In 1898 Mr. Lind aban- 
 doned his large law practice and offered his services 
 to the United States Government during its war 
 with Spain. He was made quartermaster of the 
 Twelfth Regiment, commanded by Colonel Bobleter 
 of Uam, and was commissioned with the rank of 
 first lieutenant. Though the regiment did not reach 
 the scene of actual hostilities, Mr. Lind performed 
 important service in keeping the men well equipped 
 and provisioned during their stay in Camp Thomas 
 and Chickamauga National Park. While still in 
 the service of the army, Mr. Lind was nominated 
 in October, 1898, by the people’s silver republican 
 and democratic organizations for governor. Though 
 he had formally retired from politics, the call from 
 these different sources was too pressing to decline, 
 and though the time left before election allowed 
 him the opportunity of making only two short 
 speeches, his well known position on the financial 
 question and other reforms, his splendid record in 
 Congress, and his popularity with the Scandinavian 
 people and with the best classes of Americans in 
 the state, gave him a decided majority over all the 
 other candidates, and thus he began his term as 
 fourteenth governor of the state on January 2, 
 1899, and served until January, 1901. In 1900 Gover- 
 nor Lind was a candidate for reelection, but was 
 defeated by Samuel R. Van Sant. 
 
 In the history of Minnesota state politics the note- 
 worthy fact about Mr. Lind’s election to the office 
 of governor was that he was the first candidate to 
 break through the continuous possession of power 
 by the republican party, which had been vigorously 
 maintained in all the important campaigns for forty 
 years. During his term as governor Governor 
 Lind’s views and policies as expressed through his 
 messages were of particular interest as concerned 
 taxation and the regulation of railways and state 
 institutions. 
 
 On retiring from the executive office, Governor 
 
 Lind took up his residence in the City of Minneapolis, 
 where he Iras since enjoyed one of the largest 
 clienteles given to any lawyer in the state. Though 
 he had no desire for further political preferment, 
 Mr. Lind was nominated and elected on the demo- 
 cratic ticket to Congress from the Fifth Congres- 
 sional District in 1902, and served during the follow- 
 ing term. In 1907 Governor Johnson appointed him 
 a regent of the State University, and he was a 
 member of that body and president of the board 
 until relieved by Governor Eberhart in February, 
 1914, at which time he was sent to Mexico by Presi- 
 dent Wilson. After his return from Mexico in 
 April, 1914, the Navy League of the United States 
 at its annual meeting elected Mr. Lind a director, 
 this honor being paid him in recognition of his 
 interest in the navy and the men in the service dur- 
 ing his experience in Mexico. 
 
 On September 15, 1879, Mr. Lind married Miss 
 Alice A. Shepard, a daughter of Richard Shepard, 
 of Mankato, who had seen service as a soldier in 
 the Union army. Mrs. Lind was educated at Man- 
 kato, and while teaching in Brown County formed 
 acquaintance with John Lind. To their marriage 
 were born the following children: Norman, Jenny, 
 
 Winifred, and John Shepard. Mr. Lind in his pri- 
 vate and personal character possesses those sterling 
 qualities which entitle a public man to confidence 
 and respect. His life has been one of personal 
 purity, 'his family ties are such as to enhance the 
 domestic virtues which should govern every true 
 American home, and whatever his relations in the 
 course of his active career he has never deviated 
 from the path of high rectitude and his convictions 
 of right and honor. 
 
 Milie Bunnell is vice president and man- 
 ager of the Duluth News-Tribune Company, 
 one of the leading newspaper corporations of 
 the state, and one that has exerted a powerful 
 influence in furthering the civic and material prog- 
 ress of the City of Duluth. 
 
 Only a newspaper man can appreciate the exac- 
 tions and vicissitudes that must have attended the 
 early journalistic career of Mr. Bunnell. Born in 
 the Village of Goodrich, Genesee County, Michigan, 
 on the 4th of December, 1861, he represents a sterl- 
 ing pioneer family of the Wolverine Commonwealth. 
 His parents, Miron and Viola (Mathewson) Bunnell, 
 were born in the State of New York, and married 
 in Michigan. Miron Bunnell was a boy at the 
 time of his parents’ removal from his native state 
 to Michigan, in the pioneer days, and was reared 
 and educated in the latter state, where he long main- 
 tained his home and became prominent in business 
 and public affairs. For a number of years he 
 served as sheriff of Bay County, Michigan. He 
 moved to Duluth, Minnesota, in 1882 and became 
 one of the honored and influential citizens of Duluth 
 and was actively identified with its development 
 and upbuilding. He served as a member of the 
 village council and after Duluth obtained its city 
 charter, was a member of the first municipal board 
 of public works. He died in Phoenix, Arizona. 
 
 Milie Bunnell is indebted to the public schools 
 of his native state for his early educational disci- 
 pline, and was granted also the advantages of the 
 University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He entered 
 the literary department of this institution as a mem- 
 ber of the class of 1882, but left before completing 
 his course to engage in newspaper work. In 1880 
 he went to Cheboygan, Michigan, where he founded 
 
1678 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 the Cheboygan Democrat, a weekly paper. The fol- 
 lowing year he located at Albuquerque, New Mexico, 
 where he continued in newspaper work until Feb- 
 ruary, 1883, when he came to Duluth, Minnesota, 
 and established the Duluth Herald, of which he con- 
 tinued editor and publisher for six years. In 1889 
 Mr. Bunnell went to Kansas City, Missouri, where 
 he was employed in various capacities on the local 
 newspapers, resigning his position as managing 
 editor of the Kansas City Globe to become Kansas 
 political editor of the Kansas City Times. This lat- 
 ter position took him to Topeka, Kansas, where he 
 lived until December, 1896, when he returned to 
 Duluth. Two years later he purchased a half inter- 
 est in the Duluth News-Tribune, which has been 
 under his personal supervision since that time. 
 
 Mr. Bunnell, both in a personal way and through 
 the columns of the News-Tribune, has done all in 
 his power to further the best interests of Duluth 
 and St. Louis County. As a citizen he is loyal and 
 public spirited, his political allegiance is given to 
 the republican party, and in his home city he is 
 identified with such representative civic organizations 
 as the Kitchi Gammi Club, the Northland Country 
 Club, the Commercial Club, the Duluth Boat and 
 Curling Clubs, the Washington Club and the 
 Tetegausch Club, besides which he retains member- 
 ship in the Minnesota Club of St. Paul. 
 
 In 1888 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. 
 Bunnell to Miss Elizabeth Birney Cook, of' Duluth, 
 and they have one son, Miron, who was born at 
 Duluth in the year 1889. Miron Bunnell was grad- 
 uated from William College, at Williamstown, Massa- 
 chusetts, as a member of the class of 1911, and after 
 spending six months in European travel returned to 
 Duluth, where he has since been business manager 
 of the News-Tribune. 
 
 William E. McEwen. Among the individuals 
 who are justly entitled to a place in the roll of 
 honor of American men of energy, William E. Mc- 
 Ewen, publisher of The Labor World, of Duluth, 
 and postmaster at that city, stands prominently 
 forth. Possessed of breadth of vision, invincible 
 faith in the cause to which he has devoted his best 
 energies, and a first-hand experience which has 
 come to him as a product of the working classes, 
 he has led countless others to his belief, has 
 accomplished broad and sweeping reforms and has 
 solidified and strengthened the brotherhood of man. 
 Surely his name will not be forgotten when the 
 story of American development is told. The value 
 of Mr. McEwen to the cause of labor lies no less 
 in his character than in his activities. His deeds 
 and words, whether upon the public platform, 
 through the columns of his publication or in con- 
 ference with those high in official authority, are 
 the simple, direct, true expressions of his integrity, 
 and none who know him doubt the absolute honesty 
 and disinterestedness of his views on labor and 
 economic questions. 
 
 Born August 10, 1874, at Duluth, Minnesota, Mr. 
 McEwen is a son of William and Anna (Grant) 
 McEwen. His father was born at Inverness, Scot- 
 land, a descendant of the famous clan of that name, 
 nearly all of whose members lost their lives on 
 the bloody battlefield of Culloden. He was mar- 
 ried in his native land to Anna Grant, who was born 
 at Rosshire, Scotland, a member of the Grant clan, 
 and in 1865, the family came to the United States, 
 locating at Duluth four years later. The father 
 was for some time employed on the Great Lakes in 
 
 various capacities and for a quarter of a century 
 was jailer at the Duluth Police Station. He died 
 in 1913, when seventy-four years of age, the mother 
 having passed away in 1884. 
 
 William E. McEwen has the distinction of being 
 the first white child born at Rice’s Point, now a part 
 of Duluth. He received very limited educational 
 advantages, and early began to be self-supporting 
 as a newsboy in the streets of his native place. Sub- 
 sequently he apprenticed himself to the plumber's 
 trade, and upon becoming a journeyman plumber 
 came into direct contact with the labor movement. 
 With enlistment of his sympathies in the cause of 
 the workingman, Mr. McEwen began to make a 
 thorough and systematic study of the fundamental 
 causes underlying the constant friction between 
 capital and labor, and in 1900 left the plumbing trade 
 to become owner and editor of The Labor World, a 
 weekly publication, which at that time had a circu- 
 lation of about one thousand copies. That he has 
 been successful in the management of this organ is 
 shown by the fact that it now has a subscription 
 list of about ten thousand, and circulates through- 
 out all northern Minnesota and parts of Wisconsin. 
 Its columns are not alone devoted to labor matters, 
 but also to questions of economic importance. 
 
 As editor of this enterprising weekly, Mr. Mc- 
 Ewen came into public prominence and favor, and 
 in 1896 was elected secretary and treasurer of the 
 State Federation of Labor, a position which he held 
 until July, 1914, when he received the appointment 
 from President Wilson as postmaster at Duluth. 
 Although he has held this office but a comparatively 
 short time, his able executive management has been 
 felt in the service and many reforms have been 
 made and others are under way. For a period of 
 six years, from 1902 to 1908, he served the city as 
 alderman, from 1907 to 1908 was state oil inspector, 
 and in 1909 and 1910 acted in the capacity of state 
 commissioner of labor. In the latter capacity his 
 work was that of a fearless official, who insisted 
 upon the observation of the laws, whether by 
 employe or employer. He is the father of the 
 Compensation Law, which has proven of such ben- 
 efit to the laboring classes. In 1909, as the best 
 man who could be secured for such a mission, he 
 was appointed by Governor Johnson a member of 
 the Minnesota Employes’ Compensation Committee, 
 to make a study of workingmen’s compensation, and 
 in this capacity was sent by the State of Minne- 
 sota to Europe to observe and familiarize himself 
 with working conditions in that country. His report 
 to the 1911 Legislature resulted in a bill being intro- 
 duced, but not passed at that session, owing to 
 many causes, the principles of which were almost 
 of a revolutionary character of legislation, bringing 
 out many divisions of opinion on the subject. In 
 the Legislature of 1913, the bill in an amended form 
 was passed, this containing the general principles 
 of his original measure, so that workingmen injured 
 at their occupation now automatically receive spe- 
 cific compensation, provided by law, and without 
 suit, irrespective of the question of negligence. 
 His observations while in Europe led him to 
 inaugurate in America the “safety movement” 
 which is now being effectually taken up in various 
 sections of the United States. Mr. McEwen has 
 the characteristic qualities of his forebears— indus- 
 try, sharp-sightedness, clear-headedness and capacity 
 in molding opportunities and managing affairs. To 
 these the circumstances of his youth combined to 
 add quiet resoluteness, self-reliance and concentra- 
 

 
 
 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1679 
 
 tion upon a given purpose. He has taken a leading 
 part in all reform movements in Minnesota since 
 1896. He was a member of the Charter Commis- 
 sion of Duluth, and. in 1913, when the new com- 
 mission form of government came into effect in 
 this city, was a candidate for mayor, but lost the ■ 
 election by the narrow margin of six votes on the 
 face of the returns. He has been a prominent 
 member of Plumbers Union No. 11, of Duluth, and 
 has held numerous offices in the local, including 
 those of president, secretary and a delegate to all 
 the conventions of the American Federation of 
 Labor. His fraternal connections include member- 
 ship in the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks, the Ancient Order of United Workmen, the 
 Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen of 
 America, the Order of Scottish Clans and the Mod- 
 ern Samaritans. 
 
 In 1897 Mr. McEwen was married to Miss Pearl 
 Mary Holding, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John S. 
 Holding of St. Paul, pioneer residents of Minnesota, 
 and to this union there has come one daughter : 
 Ann Grant. The family home is located at No. 
 2022 East Fifth Street, Duluth. 
 
 Robert E. Denfeld. Few citizens of Duluth have 
 rendered greater or more helpful public service to 
 the city than that contributed by Robert E. Denfeld, 
 the accomplished and energetic superintendent of 
 public schools, whose labors have culminated in the 
 building up of a school system which' for efficiency 
 and results accomplished ranks second to none in 
 the country in a city of this size. The preservation 
 of our free institutions is dependent primarily upon 
 the successful solution of the problem of educa- 
 tional reform, a problem which it would seem has 
 been solved by Superintendent Denfeld. His entire 
 career has been devoted to work in his present field 
 of endeavor and his high achievements in recent 
 years have come as a result of the most thorough 
 training and broad experience in the line of his 
 vocation. 
 
 Robert E. Denfeld was born at Westboro, Massa- 
 chusetts, June 29, 1853, and is a son of Franz 
 and Margaret (Weigand) Denfeld. His parents 
 were well educated in their native home in Ger- 
 many and came to the United States in 1848 with 
 the object in view of organizing a school of physical 
 culture in New York City, but at that time this 
 country was not ready for this innovation, and the 
 project, being in advance of the times, proved a 
 failure. Finally, after numerous discouragements, 
 the father moved to Westboro, Massachusetts, where 
 he engaged in the boot and shoe business and con- 
 tinued therein until his death in 1904, the mother 
 surviving him only three months. 
 
 The public schools of Westboro furnished Robert 
 E. Denfeld with his primary educational training 
 and subsequently he entered Amherst College, from 
 which institution he received the degree of Bachelor 
 of Arts in 1876 and that of Master of Arts in 1878. 
 While attending that college in his sophomore year 
 (1874) he started to teach school in order to secure 
 the necessary means with which to defray his ex- 
 penses. After his graduation, in 1876, the position 
 of principal of the Peters High School, Southboro, 
 Massachusetts, was tendered him and held by him 
 until 1878 when he went to Needham, Massachusetts, 
 as principal of the Needham High School. There 
 he remained three years, in the meantime devoting 
 himself to the study of law, and in 1881 he resigned 
 his charge to take an ocean trip. While in the 
 
 Pacific Ocean, the ship on which he was a passen- 
 ger became disabled and was forced to put into 
 port at Valparaiso, Chile, South America, where 
 Mr. Denfeld remained several months, then return- 
 ing to the United States and entering the Boston 
 University Law School, to complete his studies. 
 While there he was invited to accept the principal- 
 ship of the Webster High School, at Webster, 
 Massachusetts, and, accepting, occupied that position 
 for part of a year and then went to Weymouth, 
 Massachusetts as principal of the high school at 
 that place. There, on examination in 1882, he was 
 admitted to the bar, although he continued his edu- 
 cational duties until 1884. In the summer of 1884, 
 while en route to Helena, Montana, where he in- 
 tended to enter upon the practice of law, Mr. Den- 
 feld stopped at Minneapolis and there became 
 acquainted with Dr. D. L. Kiehle, the state superin- 
 tendent of schools of Minnesota, and at his urgent 
 request accepted the position of superintendent of 
 the Mankato High School, which he held for one 
 year. In 1885 occurred his advent in Duluth as 
 superintendent of schools, a position he has occupied 
 to the present time. In 1907 he became president 
 of the Minnesota State High School Board, by ap- 
 pointment from Governor Johnson, and in this 
 capacity has done probably more than any other 
 individual in bringing the high schools of Minnesota 
 to their present high efficiency. He is an active 
 member of the National Educational Association, 
 of which he was at one time secretary, and is a 
 lecturer and writer upon educational subjects of 
 national repute. 
 
 For a nqmber of years Mr. Denfeld has been 
 prominently identified with fraternal matters, and 
 is now a thirty-third degree Mason, holding the 
 office of honorary inspector general. He is grand 
 master of the Grand Lodge of Minnesota, A. F. & 
 A. M. ; past master of Ionic Lodge No. 186, A. F. 
 & A. M. ; member of Keystone Chapter No. 20, R. 
 A. M., and of Duluth Council No. 6, R. & S. M. ; 
 past eminent commander and member of Duluth 
 Commandery No. 18, K. T.; a member of Aad 
 Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., a member of the Scot- 
 tish Rite bodies, including Duluth Consistory No. 
 3, of the thirty-second degree, and has taken both 
 the York and the Scottish Rites. Mr. Denfeld also 
 holds membership in the Duluth Commercial Club. 
 
 In 1882 Mr. Denfeld was married to Miss Helen 
 Boyd, daughter of Capt. A. P. Boyd, of Needham, 
 Massachusetts, who was a sea captain and ship 
 owner during the days of wooden sailing vessels. 
 Four children have been born to this union: 
 Margaret, who married Irving McLaren Hudson, of 
 Benson, Minnesota ; Kathryn, who is now a teacher 
 in the Virginia High School; Gilbert, who graduated 
 from the Duluth Central High School in the class 
 of 1914; and Frederick, a member of the junior 
 class of the same school. The family home is at 
 No. 18 Oxford Street, Duluth. 
 
 Charles N. Parker. .On December 20, 1911, 
 Charles N. Parker passed from the scenes of his 
 labors in Brainerd, yet the memory of his pure life, 
 his many benefactions and his kindly deeds still 
 remains. A man of sterling character, he was honor- 
 able in business, stanch in his friendships, sincere 
 in his religious professions and true to every trust, 
 and probably no man ever lived in Brainerd whose 
 removal caused more general regret than did his. 
 
 Charles N. Parker was born at Bridgeton, Maine, 
 April 6, 1834. His was a long career and one of 
 
1680 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 varied activities and accomplishments. In youth he 
 learned the trade of machinist, and subsequently be- 
 came a locomotive engineer. On coming West he 
 found employment with the early railways of Minne- 
 sota, and was promoted to the position of master 
 mechanic of the St. Paul & Pacific Railway, now the 
 Great Northern system. He resided in St. Paul for 
 many years, and while there served as a member of 
 the fire commission. It was during his residence 
 in St. Paul that he established a large foundry. In 
 April, 1885, he removed to Brainerd to operate the 
 Northern Pacific foundry. Associated with Mr. 
 Parker in this enterprise was H. W. Topping of St. 
 Paul, under the firm name of Parker & Topping. 
 The late Mr. Parker had built the first foundry in 
 Brainerd about 1872, and at one time he operated 
 foundries in Brainerd and the northwestern states of 
 Oregon and Washington. The firm of Parker & 
 Topping from 1885 prospered and extended its busi- 
 ness rapidly, and for many years was one of the 
 chief centers of industry in Brainerd and a large 
 asset to the commerce of that community. In 1911 
 the business was incorporated under the name of 
 Parker & Topping Company. 
 
 The late Mr. Parker was the type of business man 
 whose activities give breadth and prosperity to a 
 community, and he often at sacrifice of his own 
 means undertook improvements for the benefit of 
 the city. He built an electric street railway at 
 Brainerd during the '90s, and that enterprise cost 
 him a great deal of money. He also established the 
 first telephone system. He was interested in the 
 Citizens State Bank, and was the heaviest stock- 
 holder in the Parker-Dunn corporation which built 
 the fine bank block now the home of that institution. 
 The late Mr. Parker was actively identified with 
 the Masonic order, had taken thirty-two degrees of 
 Scottish rite, and had membership in Osman Temple 
 of the mystic shrine at St. Paul. 
 
 On October 28, 1856, the late Mr. Parker married 
 Miss Almina Smith, who was born August 1, 1836, 
 in Ohio and died January 10, 1899. Surviving Mr. 
 Parker and wife is one son, Fred S. Parker, of 
 Brainerd. 
 
 The late Mr. Parker had unusual relations of 
 intimacy and old-fashioned loving kindness with the 
 people who were his employes and with all his fellow 
 citizens at Brainerd. Though for many years a 
 large employer of labor, he had no strikes and the 
 men at the foundry were most sincere and earnest 
 in their expressions of admiration for their execu- 
 tive head. The late Mr. Parker until the last re- 
 tained the old-fashioned custom of mingling on 
 terms of personal intimacy with his subordinates, 
 and this was no doubt a large factor in the success 
 of his industry. There were many tributes paid 
 him at the time of his death, and the keynote of 
 them all was an expression of admiration for his 
 practical honesty, his simple kindliness, and his 
 unostentatious citizenship. There was recently dedi- 
 cated in the city park at Brainerd a simple and 
 dignified band stand, erected and given to the city 
 by F. S. Parker and family as a memorial to the late 
 Mr. Parker. In one of the addresses delivered at 
 the dedicatory services the following sentences ex- 
 press an excellent estimate of the man. The fact 
 that the stand had no marble tablet commemorating 
 the life and accomplishments of an active and use- 
 ful citizen, merely the one word “Parker” was taken 
 as a significant illustration of the simplicity in the 
 character of Mr. Parker, “a plain, unassuming, mod- 
 est man, whose quiet dignity and self poise gave 
 
 him the confidence, the esteem and the respect of all 
 with whom he came in contact. He was a successful 
 business man and at various times during his long, 
 active business life was extensively interested in a 
 number of large business enterprises, both in Brain- 
 erd and elsewhere. He was also a public-spirited 
 citizen. He loved Brainerd and was always en- 
 deavoring to build up and benefit in every way pos- 
 sible the community in which he made his home. 
 He was an extensive employer of labor, but as he 
 was always fair and just with the workingmen he 
 was popular with all. He was a most lovable man, 
 possessed of a genial, happy, sunny disposition, he 
 scattered sunshine and flowers along his pathway 
 through a long and useful life. His charity was as 
 broad as it was boundless, but it was his nature to 
 avoid all publicity whenever possible, and as it was 
 his habit in such cases to act through a third party, 
 those he helped in the hour of need seldom knew 
 who was their benefactor.” 
 
 The tribute of a friend to the late Mr. Parker was 
 happily expressed through some verses which are 
 quoted in conclusion of this brief sketch: 
 
 Gifted with judgment rare and true, 
 
 A broad and liberal mind; 
 
 A friend to any one in need, 
 
 A friend to all mankind. 
 
 A sunny smile, a cheery word 
 To all upon the street; 
 
 And many weary hearts grow light 
 When him they chanced to meet. 
 
 No glittering show he ever made 
 Of deeds of kindness done, 
 
 But they’re recorded in the Book 
 That’s read when life is run. 
 
 And few will have a greater count 
 Of Credits to their name ; 
 
 And Honor will be his, now he’s 
 Returned from whence he came. 
 
 And though success has crowned his life, 
 
 He did not look or turn, 
 
 From him who won by manual work, 
 
 His daily bread must earn. 
 
 His friends were chosen for themselves 
 And not outward show; 
 
 With him, a man was still a man, 
 
 Be his station high or low. 
 
 And should you wonder why he was loved, 
 
 And ask the reason why, 
 
 “God made but few as good as he; 
 
 Too bad such men must die.” 
 
 Fred S. Parker was born April 11, 1858, at Mil- 
 waukee, Wisconsin, was educated in the public schools 
 of St. Paul, and in June, 1885, came to Brainerd with 
 his father, and became connected with the foundry 
 of Parker-Topping Company. He continued with 
 that company actively until 1892. About that time his 
 father built the first street car line in Brainefd, and 
 the son took its active management, and was also 
 superintendent and manager of the telephone plant, 
 which was also installed through the enterprise of 
 his father. Later Mr. Parker resumed an active re- 
 lation with his father’s manufacturing business. 
 He was one of the men interested in the Cit- 
 izens State Bank and the erection of the handsome 
 three-story brick building in which that institution 
 now has its headquarters. Mr. Parker is secretary 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1681 
 
 and treasurer of the Parker-Dunn Corporation, and 
 a director of the Parker-Topping Foundry Company. 
 
 He is a member of the Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks and the Brainerd Chamber 
 of Commerce. Outside of his manufacturing and 
 financial interests he is the owner of 1,100 acres, 
 comprising a splendid farm at Long Lake, and has 
 his summer home there. 
 
 At St. Paul on November 17, 1880, Fred S. Parker 
 married Hattie M. Emerson, who was born at She- 
 boygan, Wisconsin, October 28, 1856. To their union 
 have been born four children : Ethel Parker is now 
 Mrs. R. T. Campbell of St. Paul ; Clyde E., who was 
 born June 9, iS&i, is secretary and treasurer of the 
 Parker-Topping Company of Brainerd ; Irma is the 
 wife of George E. Brown of Miles City, Montana; 
 and Ruth is the wife of Allen M. Lowry, manager 
 of the Lowry Letter Company of St. Paul. 
 
 Herbert W. Topping. The career of the late H. 
 W. Topping, who died at Sierra Madre, California, 
 February 20, 1915, was a potent influence for good in 
 two localities of Minnesota — Brainerd, where he was 
 long in the foundry business, and also in St. Paul, 
 where he was likewise identified with industrial af- 
 fairs and was at one time president of the St. Paul 
 Park Board. 
 
 Born in Maryport, Solway, England, July 9, 1850, 
 Herbert Wilken Topping was well educated and 
 trained for business by practical experience. He was 
 a resident of Minnesota from 1870, and as a result 
 of his business enterprise acquired a substantial com- 
 petence which in recent years enabled him to travel 
 extensively. He made several trips around the world, 
 and lived in California a good share of the time. 
 
 In 1885 Mr. Topping became secretary and gefteral 
 manager of the St. Paul Foundry & Manufacturing 
 Company, and for many years was engaged in the 
 manufacture of brass and iron goods. He was asso- 
 ciated in this enterprise with the late Charles N. 
 Parker, under the firm name of Parker & Topping, 
 and in April, 1885, they began the operation of the 
 Northern Pacific Foundry at Brainerd. The firm of 
 Parker & Topping from 1885 prospered and extended 
 its business rapidly and for many years was one of 
 the chief centers of industry in Brainerd and a large 
 asset to the commerce of that community. In 1911 
 the business was incorporated as the Parker & Top- 
 ping Company. 
 
 During his residence in St. Paul Mr. Topping 
 served as alderman from the Seventh Ward from 
 1884 to 1886, and in 1906 was elected president of 
 the Park Board. He also had important relations 
 with banking and other affairs. He was married at 
 St. Cloud, Minnesota, September 4, 1873, to Miss Ida 
 B. Mead of St. Paul. 
 
 The late Mr. Topping was affiliated with Palladin 
 Lodge and with the Knight Templar Commandery of 
 St. Paul and stood high in Masonic circles. Though 
 not a member, he was a liberal contributor to church 
 and to organized philanthropy, but in the highest de- 
 gree his charity was performed unostentatiously. In 
 later years he took a great deal of pleasure in motor- 
 ing and in various outdoor exercises and aside from 
 business found a constant pleasure in his library and 
 was a student of many subjects and one of the best 
 informed men among his large circle of associates. 
 The late Mr. Topping was a successful business man, 
 of a genial, kindly and generous disposition, and his 
 somewhat sudden death was cause for sincere grief 
 to a wide circle of friends. 
 
 George M. Gilbert. This gentleman comes fairly 
 within the representative class of younger men who 
 in Duluth have successfully followed the law. Al- 
 though he has been engaged in practice here but 
 a little more than three years, he has already won 
 an excellent standing and reputation among his 
 professional brethren, and as a member of the firm 
 of Abbott, MacPherran, Lewis & Gilbert has been 
 connected with a number of the important and note- 
 worthy cases that have recently been tried before 
 the Minnesota bar. He was born at Deer Park, 
 Wisconsin, September 3, 1884. 
 
 George M. Gilbert commenced his education in 
 the public schools of Minnesota and at the age of 
 nine years accompanied his parents to Duluth, where 
 he became a student in the graded schools. This 
 training was supplemented by a course in the Duluth 
 High School, and subsequently he pursued his 
 academic studies at Hamline University at St. Paul, 
 Minnesota, which institution he attended for two 
 years. He then entered the University of Minne- 
 sota, and with the class of 1911 was graduated 
 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He is a 
 member of the Alpha Kappa Phi fraternity. Mr. 
 Gilbert was admitted to the bar in 1911, and imme- 
 diately came to Duluth and embarked in practice, 
 and now belongs to the firm of Abbott, MacPherran, 
 Lewis & Gilbert, now known as one of the strongest 
 legal combinations in the city, with offices at No. 
 1000 Alworth Building. He is a member of Pales- 
 tine Lodge No. 79, A. F. & A. M., of Duluth, and 
 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, 
 Lodge No. 133, of this city. 
 
 George M. Peterson. Though a young man of 
 thirty-five, George M. Peterson is one of the alert 
 and progressive business men of Duluth, and is 
 particularly well known in retail merchandise circles, 
 being secretary of the Retail Grocers and of the 
 Retail Merchants Association. His career has been 
 one of steady progress and of substantial accom- 
 plishment from the time he left school. 
 
 George M. Peterson was born at Vermillion, South 
 Dakota, April 1, 1879, a son of L. H. and Bertha 
 (Martin) Peterson. His grandfather, Jorgen Peter- 
 son, was a native of Denmark, emigrated to the 
 United States in 1850, and died on a homestead in 
 Dakota Territory. L. G. Peterson, who was born 
 in Denmark in 1834 and died in Iowa in 1913, was 
 sixteen years of age when he came to the United 
 States, locating near Yankton, South Dakota, then 
 Dakota Territory, and assisted his parents in proving 
 upon the large homestead acquired in that vicinity. 
 His home was with his father for a number of 
 years, but afterwards he followed the trade of 
 carpenter and cabinetmaker. His wife, Bertha Mar- 
 tin, came from Madison, Wisconsin, and now lives 
 in Sioux City, Iowa. 
 
 The early education of George M. Peterson was 
 acquired in the public schools of Northwestern 
 Iowa, and finished with his graduation at the State 
 Normal School in 1898. A little later Mr. Peterson 
 went to Washburn, Wisconsin, where he found a 
 position in a wholesale grocery, and remained for 
 six years. With this thorough experience in the 
 grocery trade, he arrived in Duluth in 1904 and took 
 charge of a retail store owned by his uncle, H. 
 Peterson, for two years. Since 1906 Mr. Peterson 
 has been district manager of the Red Star Com- 
 pressed Yeast Company of Milwaukee, and the ener- 
 getic manner in which he has built up the business 
 of that company in Duluth territory is a well known 
 
1682 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 feature of his business record. A distinction that 
 has brought him a large acquaintance among busi- 
 ness men in Northern Minnesota was his election 
 in 1911 as secretary of both the Retail Grocers 
 and secretary of the Retail Merchants Association, • 
 positions which he has held ever since. Mr. Peter- 
 son is a member of the Asparagus Club, a club of 
 merchants limited to ninety-nine members, and no 
 vacancy is filled except upon the death of a mem- 
 ber. He is also secretary of the St. Louis County 
 Good Roads Committee, secretary of the Merchants 
 Mercantile Company, secretary of the Head o' the 
 Lakes Committee, member of the Duluth Industrial 
 Exposition, of the Duluth 1915 Pageant Committee, 
 and through these organizations and in other ways 
 has taken a very prominent part in Duluth affairs. 
 A republican, he has served as secretary of the St. 
 Louis County Republican Committee, and at the 
 present time is a strong candidate for the state 
 senate from the Fifty-ninth District, on non- 
 partisan ticket. Mr. Peterson is past grand of 
 Zenith Lodge No. 160, I. O. O. F. ; is past patriarch 
 of Duluth Encampment No. 36, is past commander 
 of the North Star Canton No. 14, and is the young- 
 est man who has ever gone through the different 
 chairs of Odd Fellowship at Duluth. Mr. Peterson 
 also has membership in Zenith Lodge No. 40 of 
 the United Commercial Travelers, and has passed 
 all the chairs and is grand conductor of the Grand 
 Council for North Dakota and Minnesota. In the 
 Modern Woodmen of America he is past counsel 
 of Duluth Camp No. 2341, belongs to the West 
 End Commercial Club and to the Duluth Rotary 
 Club. 
 
 Mr. Peterson and family reside at 310 Twenty- 
 fifth Avenue West. In November, 1905, at Duluth, 
 he married Mary Josephine Bjorge, of Duluth. 
 Their two children are Grace Alice and Harriet 
 Winifred. 
 
 Arthur H. Burg. This truly representative 
 son of Duluth, one of the most widely known men 
 of the state in real estate, mortgage, building and 
 loan circles, and a leading citizen, was born Decem- 
 ber 29, 1879. 
 
 The Burg family came originally from Germany, 
 where the father of Arthur H. Burg, Herman Burg, 
 was born. He accompanied his parents to the 
 United States in 1852, and at that time located in the 
 City of Detroit, Michigan, residing there four years 
 and then coming as a pioneer to Duluth. After two 
 years he went to Ontonagon County, Michigan, but 
 in 1866 returned to Duluth, and shortly thereafter 
 made a trip to Lake Cermillion, where he was 
 employed in the mines until removing to Superior 
 City. In 1870 he again returned to Duluth and 
 here opened the Lake Superior Meat Market, a 
 business with which he was identified until his re- 
 tirement, supplying many of the vessels at the head 
 of the lake in addition to furnishing a large city 
 trade with its meats. He was engaged also in the 
 retail lumber business and in various ways con- 
 tributed to the growth and development of Duluth. 
 His death occurred February 2, 1907. Mr. Burg 
 married Miss Anna Ivugler, also a native of Ger- 
 many, and she still survives and makes her home 
 with her son at Duluth. 
 
 Arthur H. Burg was given good educational ad- 
 vantages in his youth, attending first the graded 
 and high schools, from which latter he was grad- 
 uated with the class of 1897, and then the Duluth 
 Business College, where he completed the course 
 
 in 1898. In that year he formed a partnership with 
 his father, in the retail lumber business, and was 
 engaged therein until 1906, when his father retired 
 from active pursuits and the younger man estab- 
 lished a real estate, mortgage, loan and building 
 business, with offices at No. 23 Fourth Avenue, 
 West. Since that time he has carried on a large 
 real estate enterprise at Duluth and in Northern 
 Wisconsin, representing the only company that has 
 loaned money in Chisholm, Beaudette and Warroad 
 and the other large towns which were destroyed by 
 forest fires. In addition Mr. Burg has erected 
 numerous structures of a public, business and pri- 
 vate nature, throughout Duluth, thus contributing 
 materially to its development and welfare. He is 
 president of the A. H. Burg Company and the 
 Burg Acreage and Townsite Company and is vice 
 president of the Northern Securities & Loan Asso- 
 ciation. Few men have a more comprehensive 
 knowledge of realties and realty values in this sec- 
 tion of the Northwest, and his judgment is relied 
 upon implicitly by his associates. Mr. Burg is a 
 member of the German Evangelical Church. His 
 fraternal connections include membership in Ionic 
 Lodge No. 186, F. & A. M. ; Keystone Chapter No. 
 20, R. A. M. ; Duluth Commandery No. 18, K. T., 
 and Aad Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., having attained 
 to the thirty-second degree in Scottish Rite Masonry; 
 and in Lodge No. 133, Benevolent and Protective 
 Order of Elks. Mr. Burg is also a member of the 
 Old Settlers Head o’ the Lakes Society and the 
 Duluth Boat Club. 
 
 Otto J. Wendlandt. A business at Duluth that 
 represents individual enterprise and development 
 from small beginnings is the Wendlandt Brothers 
 Book Bindery at 114-116! West First Street. It has 
 been in existence for a dozen years, and its proprie- 
 tors have displayed great progressiveness and expert 
 skill in improving a service that is much appreciated 
 throughout the City of Duluth and vicinity. Otto 
 J. Wendlandt is also extensively interested in min- 
 ing and other lines of business at Duluth. 
 
 Born April 3, 1877, at Bloomer, Wisconsin, he is 
 the son of John Wendlandt, who was born in Ger- 
 many in 1851, was educated in that country, came 
 to America before his marriage, and at Bloomer, 
 Wisconsin, a town then on a boom, built and owned 
 a brewery and had a very successful career. In 
 1891 he moved to Superior, Wisconsin, where his 
 death occurred in 1900. The maiden name of his 
 wife was Minnie Berg, who still lives in Duluth. 
 Her children are : Robert, a deputy sheriff at 
 
 Duluth, married Lydia Brooks, now deceased ; 
 Henry, who is unmarried and is at the mines on the 
 Cuyuna Range; William H., who is the partner of 
 Otto in the book bindery; Bertha, wife of R. A. 
 Bartholomew, secretary of the Stone Of"dean Wells 
 Company; Ida, who married Christian Behring, of 
 Duluth ; and Louis G., who is unmarried and an- 
 other member of the firm of Wendlandt Brothers. 
 
 Otto J. Wendlandt has depended largely upon his 
 own resources for his advances in life, and after 
 attending the public schools of his native town of 
 Bloomer, including two years in the high school, 
 began practical work but continued study at night 
 and has become a man of broad general informa- 
 tion and of strong executive faculties. His first 
 employment was along general lines, and at Superior 
 he and his brother, William H., spent nine years in 
 the book bindery of R. C. Mast, and thus acquired 
 the experience and skill which have served them 
 

 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1683 
 
 so well in their present independent business. On 
 leaving Superior and moving to Duluth in 1902, the 
 brothers established their book bindery, and now 
 have a large and complete equipment, with machinery 
 and trained employes for all classes of book bind- 
 ing. Much of their work is in blank books and loose 
 leaf work, and they supply practically all the county 
 offices with this class of supplies. 
 
 Mr. Wendlandt is vice president and assistant 
 treasurer of the Cuyuna Mille Lacs Iron Company, 
 and vice president and assistant treasurer of the 
 Cuyuna Duluth Iron Company, both of which con- 
 cerns are now consolidated with the American Man- 
 ganese Manufacturing Company, with which larger 
 corporation Mr. Wendlandt is assistant treasurer. 
 
 In politics he is independent, and his fraternal 
 associations are with the Duluth Lodge No. 133, 
 B. P. O. E., and the Sons of Hermann, and he also 
 has membership in the Duluth Commercial Club 
 and is a trustee of the German Lutheran Church. 
 On June 13, 1900, at Superior, Mr. Wendlandt mar- 
 ried Christina Yeska, of Long Prairie, Minnesota. 
 Her parents were William and Christina Yeska, her 
 father a farmer who died in Cornucopia, Wisconsin, 
 while her mother lives in Duluth. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Wendlandt, whose home is at 1101 East Third Street, 
 have the following children : Pearl, Vernon, George, 
 Violet, and Marion, all at home. 
 
 Horace E. Emerson. The capable and energetic 
 chief deputy state grain inspector of Minnesota, 
 Horace E. Emerson, has served continuously in 
 this position for twelve years, and his services have 
 been such as to gain him the well-merited approba- 
 tion of the general public. Mr. Emerson was born 
 June 15, 1867, at Portage, Wisconsin, and is a son 
 of Horace Emery and Emma C. (Kittredge) Emer- 
 son. 
 
 Of Welsh origin, the Emerson family was founded 
 in America during Colonial days, the progenitor 
 settling in one of the New England colonies, from 
 whence one of the forefathers of Mr. Emerson 
 enlisted for service in the War of the Revolution. 
 Horace Emery Emerson, the father of Horace E. 
 Emerson of this review, was born at Bangor, Maine, 
 in 1839, and as a young man went to Wisconsin, 
 where at the outbreak of the Civil war he enlisted 
 in the Second Regiment, Wisconsin Volunteer 
 Infant^, this being attached to the far and justly 
 famed “'Iron Brigade.” Mr. Emerson served with 
 this organization for three years, participated in 
 numerous engagements, and was honorably dis- 
 charged after a particularly valiant service with the 
 rank of orderly sergeant. Subsequently he took 
 up the vocation of locomotive engineer, and con- 
 tinued to be thus occupied until his retirement. He 
 died at St. Paul, Minnesota, January -30, 1912, aged 
 seventy-three years. Mrs. Emerson, who was born 
 at Grand Rapids, Michigan, still survives, and is now 
 making her home at St. Paul, in hale old age. 
 
 After completing the course of study in the pub- 
 lic schools of St. Paul, Horace E. Emerson enrolled 
 as a student in Delano (Minnesota) High School, 
 from which he was graduated in the class of 1886. 
 He then entered upon his career as an employe of 
 a coal concern at St. Paul, and continued in that 
 capacity until 19027 when he was appointed deputy 
 grain inspector. He has continued to be connected 
 with this department of the state’s affairs to the 
 present time, and through industry, close applica- 
 tion and fidelity has won promotion to the office of 
 chief deputy inspector. His record as an official is 
 
 an excellent one and his services have contributed 
 materially to the civic welfare. Mr. Emerson main- 
 tains offices at No. 7 2 4 Board of Trade Building, 
 Duluth. In political matters a republican, Mr. Emer- 
 son has supported his party and its candidates with 
 energy and enthusiasm. His fraternal connection 
 is with Duluth Lodge No. 133, Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks, and his religious faith is that 
 of the Episcopal Church. 
 
 Mr. Emerson was married at Chicago, Illinois, in 
 1904, to Miss Harriet Louise Hall, daughter of B. A. 
 and Harriet Hall, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Emerson have no children. They reside at 
 No. 1223 East Fourth Street. 
 
 George H. Ramer. As president of the A. M. 
 Ramer Company, manufacturing confectioners in 
 the City of Winona, Mr. Ramer is recognized as 
 one of the progressive and representative men of 
 affairs in the corrimercial circles of this thriving 
 city, and the important industrial enterprise of which 
 he is the executive head was founded by his father, 
 who was a member of one of the sterling pioneer 
 families of Minnesota. 
 
 George H. Ramer was born at Lewiston, Winona 
 County, Minnesota, on the 18th of June, 1878, 
 and is a son of Abraham M. and Augusta M. 
 (Lasansky) Ramer, the former of whom was born 
 in Ripley County, Indiana, on the 30th of July, 
 1851, and the latter of whom was born near the 
 City of Berlin, Germany, on the 12th of Augusi, 
 1833, her death having occurred in the City of 
 Winona, on the 21st of February, 1910, and her 
 husband having passed away on the 30th of the 
 following September, so that their companionship 
 was not long severed. Abraham M. Ramer was 
 about two years of age at the time of his parents' 
 removal from the old Hoosier State to Minnesota, 
 in 1833, and his father became one of the pioneer 
 farmers of Winona County. In this state Abraham 
 M. Ramer was reared and educated and during 
 his youth and early manhood he continued to be 
 actively identified with the great basic industry 
 of agriculture. In 1878 he became the proprietor 
 of a general store in the Village of Lewiston, where 
 he continued his successful operations in this field 
 of enterprise until 1890. He then removed to the 
 City of Chicago, where he became associated with 
 his brother in introducing and placing on the mar- 
 ket the Pettijohn California Breakfast Food. They 
 finally sold their distribution contract to the Ameri- 
 can Cereal Company, and on the 1st of April, 1894. 
 A. M. Ramer engaged in the manufacturing of candy 
 in the City of Winona, this modest enterprise having 
 been the nucleus around which has been developed 
 the large and substantial manufacturing business now 
 controlled by the A. M. Ramer Company, of which 
 George H. Ramer, of this review, has been general 
 manager since 1901. The trade of the company is 
 now disseminated throughout the various states of 
 the Union and in its service is retained a corps of 
 eight traveling representatives. The fine manufac- 
 tory, modern in all details of equipment, now has an 
 annual output of about four million pounds of candy, 
 and the high grade of the products constitutes the 
 most effective advertising for the same. Employ- 
 ment is given to an operative force, of fully two 
 hundred persons, and the capital stock and surplus 
 of the company is now $180,000, so that it may read- 
 ily be understood that the enterprise is one that has 
 contributed much to the commercial precedence of 
 
1684 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Winona, one of the most thriving and progressive 
 cities of Minnesota. 
 
 In the year 1894 Abraham M. Ramer began the 
 manufacturing of the now celebrated Ramer choco- 
 lates, and the original factory in Winona was a 
 modest establishment at 62 East Second Street. 
 From this location removal was made to 48-50 East 
 Second Street, and in 1895 removal was made to the 
 present eligible location, each change having been 
 made to accommodate the ever increasing demands 
 placed upon the institution with the substantial ex- 
 pansion of its trade. Abraham M. Ramer conducted 
 the enterprise in virtually an individual way until 
 1901, on the 1st of May of which year the A. M. 
 Ramer Company was organized and incorporated, 
 with Abraham M. Ramer as president ; George H. 
 Ramer as secretary and general manager, and George 
 B. Stager, vice president. After the death of the 
 president, on the 30th of September, 1910, George 
 H. Ramer became president and treasurer of the 
 company; S. L. Prentiss, vice president, and Fred- 
 erick H. Ramer, secretary. The present head of 
 this representative corporation has been identified 
 with the business from the time of his youth, and 
 in all the relations of life he is well upholding the 
 prestige of the honored name which he bears. 
 
 At Lewiston, this state, on the 30th of May, 1875, 
 was solemnized the marriage of Abraham M. Ramer 
 to Miss Augusta M. Lasansky, and of the three chil- 
 dren the eldest is Gertrude, who is now the wife of 
 George B. Stager, her husband being engaged in the 
 jewelry business in Winona; George FL, of this 
 sketch, was the next in order of birth ; and Frederick 
 H., who was born at Lewiston, Winona County, on 
 the 5th of November, 1887, is secretary of the A. M. 
 Ramer Company, as already noted. 
 
 George H. Ramer is one of the progressive and 
 public-spirited citizens who are doing a fine service 
 in furthering the commercial and civic advancement 
 of Winona, and in his native county and state he has 
 a wide circle of friends in both business and social 
 relations. He acquired his early education in the 
 public schools of Winona County and the City of 
 Chicago, and has been identified with the business 
 founded by his honored father from the beginning 
 of operations, in 1894. His political allegiance is 
 given to the republican party, and in the time- 
 honored Masonic fraternity he has completed not 
 only the circle of the York Rite, in which his maxi- 
 mum affiliation is with the Winona Commandery of 
 Knights Templars, but has also received the thirty- 
 second degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish 
 Rite and is identified with the Ancient and Arabic 
 Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, besides 
 which he is a member of Winona Lodge of the 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is 
 also a member of the LTnited Commercial Travelers 
 and a director of the Deposit Bank of Winona. 
 
 _ On the 3d of Tuly, 1900, was solemnized the mar- 
 riage of Mr. Ramer to Miss Gertrude Pohlman, 
 daughter of Louis H. and Dora ( Stark) Pohlman, 
 of Winona, and the names of their four children 
 are here designated, with respective dates of birth: 
 Stanley H„ January 10. 1902 ; Milton G., March 19, 
 TQ03; Alice, December 21, 1906; and Frank W., 
 November 18, 1912. 
 
 Lynn L. Culbertson. One of the largest com- 
 mercial houses of Duluth is the Culbertson Brothers 
 Company, engaged in the general commission busi- 
 ness and extensive dealers in wholesale fruit and 
 produce. The president of this company has been 
 
 a resident of Duluth since early youth, and his 
 career is a proof of the value of concentration along 
 one line, since his first regular employment after 
 leaving school was in the general line of business 
 with which he is now identified, and from a clerical 
 position he has risen to control a large and important 
 concern, and has various other extensive interests 
 in the business affairs of Duluth. 
 
 Lynn L. Culbertson was born in Enfield. Iowa, in 
 1876, a son of John T. and Orlena (Kidner) Cul- 
 bertson. The Culbertson family comes of good old 
 American stock, and was established in Philadelphia 
 as early as 1776. In 1890 the family moved from 
 Iowa to Duluth, and Lynn L. Culbertson finished his 
 education in the public schools of that city. 
 
 In 1895 the firm of Thomas Thompson Company, 
 successors to the older firm of Bevier, Williams & 
 Company, gave him employment as a clerk. In a 
 few years his ability had grown with his experience, 
 and in 1902 when the Thomas Thompson Company 
 was incorporated with Thomas Thompson as' presi- 
 dent and W. T. Smith vice president, Mr. Culbertson 
 was given an office in the company as secretary and 
 treasurer. In 1906 Mr. Thompson and Mr. Smith 
 withdrew from the business, and in the reorganiza- 
 tion that followed under the new name Culbertson 
 Brothers Company, Mr. Culbertson became presi- 
 dent and has since been at the head of this general 
 commission and fruit and produce house. Mr. Cul- 
 bertson is also president of the Cuyuna- Sultana Com- 
 pany and president of the Almar Iron Mining Com- 
 pany. 
 
 His relations with social affairs in the city are 
 indicated by membership in the following clubs : 
 The Commercial, the Tennis, the Boat, the North- 
 land Country, the Gun, the Curling Clubs, the United 
 Commercial Travelers, the Masonic Order and the 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. 
 
 In June, 1903, Mr. Culbertson married Louisa 
 Grandy, daughter of John and Jane Grandy. Their 
 two children are John Randolph and William Har- 
 rison. 
 
 Norval Seabring Mitchell. A representative of 
 Duluth’s progressive enterprise, Norval S. Mitchell 
 has been identified with that city for nearly twenty- 
 five years, was long connected with the railway serv- 
 ice, and since 1906 has been in the stock and grain 
 brokerage business, with very influential connec- 
 tions with that branch of business in the Northwest. 
 
 Norval Seabring Mitchell was born at St. Mary’s. 
 Canada, November 1, 1870, a son of Burley and 
 Elizabeth (Griggs) Mitchell. His father came from 
 England to Canada at the age of nine years, and 
 his active life was spent as a Canadian farmer. The 
 formal schooling of Mr. Mitchell was concluded in 
 1886 with a course at St. Mary’s Collegiate Institute. 
 While a resident of Canada he learned telegraphy, 
 became an operator, and in 1890 came to Duluth 
 in the employ of the Northern Pacific Railroad 
 Company. For three years Mr. Mitchell was chief 
 train dispatcher for that road at Duluth. His resig- 
 nation in 1906, after a long experience and acquain- 
 tance with business affairs and business men of the 
 Northwest was followed by establishing himself in 
 the brokerage business under the firm name of N. S. 
 Mitchell & Company, grain, stocks and bonds. 
 
 Mr. Mitchell was a member of the Duluth Stock 
 Exchange during its existence. He was one of the 
 charter members of the Duluth Commercial Club, 
 and has affiliations with the Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks. Mrs. Mitchell before her 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1G85 
 
 marriage was Matilda E. Schonning of Northfield, 
 Minnesota. Her father, Peter N. Schonning, was 
 a farmer. 
 
 Charles F. Haley. One of the best known men 
 in the Minnesota grain trade is Charles F. Haley, 
 manager of the firm of A. D. Thompson & Com- 
 pany, of Duluth. A pioneer of this city, where he 
 has been located for more than a quarter of a cen- 
 tury, Mr. Haley has been continuously identified 
 with the growing business interests of the city and 
 has gained a recognized position among Duluth’s 
 business leaders as a result of the display of 
 superior abilities. He was born at Dayton, Ohio, 
 November 15, 1867, and is a son of Michael J. Haley. 
 
 Michael J. Haley was born in County Tipperary, 
 Ireland, where the family has made its home for 
 many generations, in 1815, and as a young man came 
 to the United States and settled at Cincinnati, Ohio, 
 where he was married to Miss Elizabeth Smith, a 
 native of that city. When the Civil war broke out, 
 Mr. Haley enlisted in an Ohio volunteer infantry 
 regiment, and served three years, establishing an 
 honorable record for bravery and devotion to duty, 
 and only leaving the service after receiving a severe 
 wound on the shin bone. After his return from 
 the Southland, he took up his residence at Dayton, 
 Ohio, where he established himself in a paper manu- 
 facturing business, and to this he continued to devote 
 himself during the remainder of his active career, 
 his death occurring at Dayton in 1896, when he was 
 eighty-one years of age. Mrs. Haley passed away 
 at Dayton some years before her husband's demise. 
 
 After attending the graded and high schools of 
 Dayton, Charles F. Haley, at the age of fifteen years, 
 began to make his own way in the world, his first 
 position being that of billing clerk with Marshall 
 Held & Company, of Chicago, the famous merchant 
 prince, in whose employ he remained for a period 
 of three years. In 1885 he secured a position with 
 the Mitchell Grain Company, of Milwaukee, Wiscon- 
 sin, in the employ of which concern he remained 
 until 1888, in May of which year he came to Duluth. 
 Here he secured a position in the Minnesota Grain 
 Inspection Department and remained until 1895, 
 when he became associated with A. D. Thompson & 
 Company, of which he is now manager, with offices 
 at Nos. 406-410 Board of Trade Building. Mr. 
 Haley’s career evinces not alone the possession of 
 high business talents as well as executive ability of 
 more than ordinary character, but also of industry 
 and fidelity, for in each of his different engagements 
 he has. been completely successful, and has been 
 most highly valued and esteemed by every firm he 
 has served. A man of attractive presence and 
 courteous and genial disposition, he has made hosts 
 of friends, who are frequently entertained at the 
 family residence at No. 2401 East Fifth Street. Mr. 
 Haley is a republican, but not a politician; his re- 
 ligious connection is with the Church of the Sacred 
 Heart, and he is a good and devout Catholic. His 
 social connections include membership in the Kitchi 
 Gammi and Northland Country Clubs, both of 
 Duluth. 
 
 In 1901, at Dayton, Ohio, Mr. Haley was married 
 to Miss Katherine O’Donnell, daughter of Thomas 
 and Mary O’Donnell, of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, 
 where Mr. O’Donnell, now deceased, was a con- 
 tractor. Mrs. O’Donnell still survives her husband 
 and makes her home with Mr. and Mrs. Haley and 
 their two children : Francis, who attends the Cathe- 
 
 dral School ; and Katherine, who is a pupil of the 
 Sisters’ School. 
 
 Henry F. Seitz. Prominent in furniture manu- 
 facturing and wholesale circles, and also in the 
 broader sphere of business, civic and social life, 
 Mr. Seitz is vice president and treasurer of the De- 
 Witt, Seitz & Company, one of the largest estab- 
 lishments of its kind in Northern Minnesota, and 
 with an immense trade covering several states of 
 the Northwest. 
 
 Henry F. Seitz is of substantial German stock, his 
 grandfather having come from Germany and settled 
 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Mr. Seitz was born at Milwau- 
 kee, Wisconsin, November 5, 1875. His father, John 
 Seitz, who was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1847, and 
 died in Superior, Wisconsin, in 1912 was for many 
 years a manufacturer of chairs, and was one of the 
 constituent members of the Webster Manufacturing 
 Company of Superior. John Seitz married Mary 
 Wintz, who now lives in Duluth. Their children 
 are: Henry F. ; Albert, who is a business repre- 
 
 sentative of the DeWitt, Seitz & Company, lives in 
 Duluth and married Miss Wansborough of South 
 Bend, Indiana ; Oscar M., who is unmarried and is 
 connected with the brokerage business in Tacoma; 
 Lillian, Ida and Hettie, all of whom are teachers ; 
 and John, Jr., bookkeeper in the First National Bank 
 of Duluth. 
 
 Henry F. Seitz was educated in the grammar and 
 high schools at Menasha, Wisconsin, leaving high 
 school at the age of sixteen to take up the practical 
 work of life as an employe in the Webster Manufac- 
 turing Company, makers of chairs at Superior, Wis- 
 consin. While with that firm he acquired a thorough 
 and expert knowledge of furniture making, especial- 
 ly chairs, and in 1905 carried his experience and 
 training to the establishment of the new firm of 
 DeWitt, Seitz & Company, with Mr. Charles E. De- 
 Witt as his chief associate. The business is incor- 
 porated, and besides manufacturing several lines of 
 furniture also handles a large trade as wholesalers. 
 Their goods are sold over the extensive territory 
 covering Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wis- 
 consin and Michigan. The offices and warehouses 
 are located at the corner of Lake Avenue and 
 Buchanan Street. 
 
 Mr. Seitz’s standing in business and social circles 
 is also indicated by his membership in Palestine 
 Lodge No. 79, A. F. & A. M. ; Duluth Council, R. & 
 S. M. ; Duluth Commandery of the Knights Tem- 
 plars; Aad Temple of the Mystic Shrine; Duluth 
 Lodge No. 133, B. P. O. E. ; The Duluth Commercial 
 Club ; Kitchi Gammi Club ; Northland Country Club ; 
 Duluth Curling Club; Duluth Boat Club; and his 
 home is in the Kitchi Gammi Club. Mr. Seitz is a 
 republican in politics. 
 
 William Allen Hunt, for twenty-five years a 
 Duluth architect, with an expanding reputation, is 
 one of the men whom the Buckeye State has con- 
 tributed to the professional citizenship of Minnesota. 
 Coming to this city a practical stranger, a new- 
 comer in his calling, he soon displayed such ability 
 and resource that he was admitted to the ranks of 
 the fraternity, in which he has since won a fore- 
 most place. Many of Duluth's largest buildings stand 
 as monuments to Mr. Hunt’s talent and bear the im- 
 print of his distinctive style of architecture. 
 
 Mr. Hunt was born in the city of Cincinnati, 
 Ohio, February 13, 1859, and is a son of Porter 
 DeWight and Anna Montgomery (Beard) Hunt. 
 
1686 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 The Hunt family is of English and Irish extraction 
 and was founded in America in 1700, the progenitor 
 coming from Lancaster, England, and locating in 
 Massachusetts. Among the men which this family 
 has contributed to the public and military history 
 of the country may be mentioned General Warren, 
 of Bunker Hill fame; Colonel Stall, a Civil war 
 veteran, to whom Mr. Hunt is related on his 
 mother’s side ; and the first governor to be elected 
 on the republican ticket in Kentucky, Governor 
 Bradley. Porter DeWight Hunt was born in 1831 
 at Southampton, Massachusetts, later moved to Ohio, 
 and there engaged in the manufacture of brooms, 
 at one time handling all the broom corn grown in the 
 lower section of Ohio. He was known as Major 
 Hunt, because of his service during the Civil war, 
 and in Morgan's Raid, and died at Cincinnati in 1872. 
 Mrs. Hunt, who survives him, still makes her home 
 in that city. 
 
 William Allen Hunt attended the grammar and 
 high schools of Cincinnati, and after his graduation 
 from the latter, in 1874, began studying for the 
 profession of architecture in the office of a Mr. 
 Cropsey, of Cincinnati, with whom he remained four 
 years. At that time he came to Minnesota, and after 
 spending eight years at his vocation at Minneapolis, 
 came to Duluth in 1889. Here he was first asso- 
 ciated with the firm of Palmer, Hall & Hunt, but 
 in 1904 Mr. Hall retired from the business, to be 
 followed by Mr. Palmer in 1907, and since the 
 latter year Mr. Hunt has conducted the business 
 alone. Among the more prominent of' the structures 
 erected by him may be mentioned the Wolvin, Sell- 
 wood and Lonsdale buildings, the last-named being 
 the first steel building to be constructed in the state, 
 in 1894; the Patrick Wholesale Dry Goods House; 
 the Marshall-Wells Wholesale Hardware Building; 
 the Rush-Parker Wholesale Grocery Building; the 
 Duluth Central Hiph School; the State Normal 
 School, a great many of the finest residences in the 
 east end of the city, as well as all classes of struc- 
 tures throughout Duluth, and a number of buildings 
 on the Vermillion and Mesaba ranges. He is widely 
 and favorably known in business circles of the city, 
 and is president and treasurer of the Cuyuna and 
 Bessemer Iron Company. He maintains offices at 
 No. 307 Lonsdale Building. Mr. Llunt is a repub- 
 lican, but the part he has taken in shaping the laws 
 of his adopted community has been only as a sup- 
 porter of good movements. He belongs to the 
 Duluth Commercial Club and to Lodge No. 133, 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. 
 
 On April 23, 1909, Mr. Hunt was married to Miss 
 Marie B. Newberg, of Minneapolis, daughter of John 
 Newberg, of Red Wing, Minnesota, a contractor and 
 recently a candidate for the office of sheriff. One 
 daughter has been born to this union, Mary 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 Henry W. Morgan. Of the lawyers practicing at 
 the bar of Minnesota, none have gained more de- 
 served success than that which has attended the 
 activities of Henry W. Morgan. Coming from an 
 old and honored family of the East, he took up his 
 residence in Minnesota in 18 87, and since that time 
 has been in continual practice at Lake City, where 
 his excellent attainments and thorough devotion to 
 his profession have attracted to him a clientage 
 second to none. Mr. Morgan was born on a farm 
 ■ in Gloucester County, New Jersey, ten miles from 
 Camden, May 1, 1850, and is a son of Hiram and 
 Sarah (Llewellyn) Morgan. 
 
 The Morgan family originated in Wales and 
 early settled in New Jersey, where the great-grand- 
 father of Henry W. Morgan, David Morgan, was 
 born in 1740 and died in 1789. His son, Randell 
 W. Morgan, was born in Camden County, New 
 Jersey, January 15, 1782, and died April 7, 1848. 
 On the maternal side, Mr. Morgan is also of Welsh 
 descent, being a grandson of Reuben and Sarah 
 (Gauntt) Llewellyn, the former of whom was 
 born in Burlington County, New Jersey, and held 
 the commission of colonel in the state militia until 
 his death. Hiram Morgan was born in Camden 
 County, New Jersey, November 25, 1813, and fol- 
 lowed farming throughout his life in New Jersey, 
 dying there in 1900. He was a strong abolitionist 
 and a republican, and at the outbreak of the Civil 
 war had 3,000 bushels of potatoes stored in the 
 building which later became the famous Libby 
 Prison, and when the war had closed the consignees 
 paid for them in full. A man of great business 
 ability and much energy he was successful in his 
 operations and became the possessor of a fortune. 
 Both he and his wife were members of the Baptist 
 Church. Mrs. Morgan, who was born in Burling- 
 ton County, New Jersey, in 1812, died March 22, 
 1892, the mother of five children, of whom two are 
 still living: Anna M., who is the wife of Mr. 
 Sweeten, a retired citizen of Wenonah, New Jersey; 
 and Henry W. 
 
 Henry W. Morgan secured good educational ad- 
 vantages in his youth, first attending the Black- 
 wood school, subsequently taking his preparatory 
 course at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, and Bridgeton 
 and Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and after his grad- 
 uation from the last named place going to Lehigh 
 University, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He com- 
 menced his career as a member of a railroad en- 
 gineering corps which built a line from Amboy to 
 Camden. New Jersey, and subsequently assisted in 
 the construction of two other lines. His legal 
 training was commenced under the preceptorship 
 of Furman Shepard, of Philadelphia, following 
 which he was in the office of his cousin, J. Willard 
 Morgan, of Camden, but after several }^ears of 
 practice in his native state decided to seek the 
 opportunities offered by the West, and accordingly, 
 in 1887, came to Minnesota and chose the city of 
 Lake City as his field of endeavor, a decision which 
 he has never had the slightest cause to regret. 
 Were a comparison instituted among lawyers in 
 general practice to prove which of them all enjoy 
 the largest measure of public confidence as a man- 
 ager of cases calling for deep knowledge of law 
 and practice, readiness of resource, energy of action 
 and power of logical argument, the name of Mr. 
 Morgan would be found very close to the top in 
 Wabasha County. He has stood in the front rank 
 of lawyers in Lake City for more than a quarter 
 of a century, and nothing has been allowed to 
 divert him from his profession. He has never re- 
 lied upon others to do his work; every question 
 is investigated until it is exhausted. His manner 
 is one of honesty and candor which leaves no 
 room for doubt as to his own convictions. His 
 large practice has been of the best kind that can 
 come to a lawyer, and has been very remunerative, 
 so that he has been successful in a material way, 
 and has invested his means in city and farm realty, 
 of which he owns a considerable amount. He has 
 taken an interest in democratic politics, but not 
 as a candidate for office or as a blatant advocate: 
 rather as a strong man seeking the best laws and 
 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1687 
 
 the best legislators. His only public service has 
 been as a member of the board of education of 
 Lake City. While in college Mr. Morgan was a 
 member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity. 
 
 Mr. Morgan was married in 1884 to Miss Mary 
 L. Kelley, daughter of Patrick and Martha L. Kel- 
 ley, the former born in County Down, Ireland. Mr. 
 Kelley came to the United States in young man- 
 hood, and in 1857 settled in Minnesota, where for 
 many years he was engaged in successful agricul- 
 tural pursuits, and he passed away at Lake City, 
 Minnesota, at the remarkable age of one hundred 
 and four years. Mrs. Kelley, who was born in 
 County Donegal, Ireland, September 13, 1816, also 
 attained advanced years, dying August 1, 1898. She 
 was a member of the Scotch Presbyterian faith, 
 while her husband belonged to the Roman Catholic 
 church. Mrs. Morgan still owns her father's old 
 homestead, in Minnesota, a very valuable piece of 
 property. 
 
 Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Morgan : Hiram, who is twenty-seven years of 
 
 age ; Patrick, aged twenty years, a high school 
 graduate; and Alexander, eighteen years of age, 
 in the junior class at the high school. They also 
 have an adopted daughter, Dorothy, who is twelve 
 years old. Mrs. Morgan is a member of the Pres- 
 byterian church, and is widely and favorably known 
 in Lake City. 
 
 Thomas J. Joyce. Although a late comer into the 
 legal world of Duluth life, Thomas J. Joyce, who 
 possesses qualifications for his profession in a quick 
 grasp of salient points, an impressive manner of 
 presentation of his cases to the jury, has already 
 achieved prominence in his profession. Mr. Joyce 
 is a native son of Duluth, having been born Decem- 
 ber 11, 188S. His parents were Martin and Catherine 
 (Flannery) Joyce, the former of whom is now de- 
 ceased. Martin Joyce was born in County Galway, 
 Ireland, in 1868, and was twelve years old when he 
 came to the United States, being of a well to do 
 family. Locating first in Boston, Massachusetts, he 
 came to Duluth as a young man and engaged in 
 business as a contractor, and subsequently removed 
 to the City of Superior, Wisconsin. He was suc- 
 cessful in his ventures, because of his energetic 
 nature and fidelity to engagements, and was rea- 
 sonably successful in a business way when suddenly 
 called by death in 1896, when but twenty-eight years 
 of age. Mr. Joyce was married at Duluth to Miss 
 Catherine Flannery, who was born in Ireland and 
 came to the United States as a young girl in 1870, 
 locating in the City of Duluth, and she still survives 
 and makes her home at Superior. Three children 
 were born to Martin and Catherine Joyce, namely: 
 Thomas J., of this review; Martin; and Patrick, 
 who resides with his mother at Superior. 
 
 Thomas J. Joyce was a small child when taken 
 by his parents to Superior, and there his education 
 was commenced in the graded schools. He was less 
 than eight years old when his father died, but the 
 mother kept him in school, determined that he 
 should secure a good educational training, and in 
 1908 he was graduated from the Superior High 
 School. Succeeding this he became a student in the 
 University of Minnesota, from which he came after 
 a course of something more than two years, and 
 then applied himself so assiduously to the study of 
 law that in March, 1911, he was admitted to the 
 bar at St. Paul. During the next year Mr. Joyce 
 was engaged in practice at Minneapolis, but in 1912 
 
 Vol. m— 27 
 
 transferred his operations to Duluth, where he 
 opened offices at Ros. 1005-6 Torrey Building. His 
 practice has since enjoyed a steady and consistent 
 growth, and at this time he is generally recognized 
 as one of the mosj successful among the younger 
 attorneys of the city. Ever studious, industrious, 
 conscientious, and alive to the interests of all his 
 clients, thorough in the preparation ,and complete 
 in the presentation of all his cases, fair-minded and 
 honorable in his methods of trial, he is known as a 
 most careful practitioner, a safe counselor and a 
 legist thoroughly equipped in the various depart- 
 ments of his profession. Mr. Joyce is not unknown 
 in business circles of Duluth, being a director in 
 a mining company here and in the Minnesota Com 
 crete Stone Company. He belongs to the Sacred 
 Heart Catholic Church, and his fraternal connections 
 are with the Knights of Columbus, and Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks, of Superior, Wis- 
 consin. 
 
 Mr. Joyce is unmarried and resides at No. 214 
 East Fourth Street, Duluth. 
 
 John Christie. Citizens of Duluth often point 
 out the Christie Building as the first example of 
 reinforced concrete steel construction in that city, 
 and it is a fine office building, seven stories high and 
 now one of many structures that give character to 
 the business district. The Christie Building has a 
 further interest from the large and flourishing busi- 
 ness which has its home there, a complete printing 
 binding, lithographing and general stationery and 
 office supply house, which is the best equipped con- 
 cern of its kind west of Chicago. About twenty- 
 three years ago John Christie was a newcomer in 
 Duluth, had a very modest printing office, with one 
 helper, and from that small beginning has developed 
 one of the most distinctive enterprises in the city. 
 
 John Christie is a Scotchman, born in Blairgowrie, 
 January 12, i860. His family record deserves men- 
 tion in detail. His parents were David and Jane 
 (Nicol) Christie. His father was born in Perth 
 February 21, 1824, and died September 1, 1900, while 
 his mother was born in the same place July 13, 
 1831, and died March 19, 1891. They were married 
 at Perth April 25, 1851. David Christie was a son 
 of John and Ann (McIntosh) Christie, the former 
 of whom died May 6, 1870, at the age of seventy- 
 eight, and the latter on February 24, 1859, aged 
 sixty. Jane Nicol was the daughter of Robert and 
 Margaret (McEwen) Nicol, the former of whom 
 died January 19, 1865, aged seventy-four, and the 
 latter April 4, 1872, aged seventy-four. Robert Nicol 
 was a ship owner. The children of David and Jane 
 (Nicol) Christie were as follows: Margaret Nicol, 
 who married Frank Morrison, was born September 
 4, 1852; Robert Nicol, born April 23, 1854; Ann, who 
 married David Gow, was born January 25, 1856 and 
 died August 21, 1891; Jane Nicol, who married 
 James Cuthbert, was born March 18, 1858; John, the 
 subject of this sketch; Isabella, born May 15, 1861, 
 and died in infancy; Isabella, who married John 
 Reid, born May 4, 1862; a son born May 25, 1863, 
 died unnamed ; Alexandra Mary, who married Harry 
 Black, was born July 18, 1864; Marjory Nicol, Mrs. 
 John Stewart, was born October 24, 1865, and died 
 April 29. 1914; Davina, Mrs. Charles G. Watkins, 
 born November 22, 1867; Agnes Cuthil, Mrs. Sam 
 McLees, born December 30, 1868; David, born No- 
 vember 19, 1870 and died June 6, 1871; Williamina 
 Dron, Mrs. David Ross, born May 10, 1872; and 
 Elizabeth Isabella Russell, born July 19, 1873, and 
 
1688 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 died July 2 2, 1875. All except the three oldest were 
 born in Blairgowrie. John Christie’s father estab- 
 lished the Blairgowrie Advertiser the year of the 
 Crimean War, published it for over thirty years, and 
 it is still a flourishing weekly. He also operated a 
 job printing office at Glasgow, and was subsequently 
 proprietor of the Forfar Herald at Forfar County 
 Seat. 
 
 John Christie grew up in Blairgowrie, attended 
 the public schools until sixteen, had lived in the 
 atmosphere of a printing office since childhood, and 
 on leaving school went to Edinburgh and spent two 
 years in special training in a printing house. At the 
 age of eighteen his father made him foreman of the 
 Glasgow printing office, and that was his work until 
 his father sold the plant two years later, and he then 
 accompanied the elder Christie to Forfar County Seat 
 and they were associated in business until 1882. 
 John Christie then emigrated to America, spent two 
 years in the printing department of the Dickinson 
 Type Foundry at Boston, Massachusetts, and in 1884 
 turned his attention to real estate, a business which 
 he followed in the East until coming to Duluth in 
 1891. As already mentioned, Mr. Christie began 
 business in Duluth on a small scale, and with meager 
 equipment, though his long and thorough experience 
 was an excellent capital. He had two small presses 
 and hired only one boy assistant at first. The energy 
 with which he pushed the business, and the quality of 
 his work caused a rapid growth and the necessity 
 of larger quarters. In August, 1907, his plant, which 
 was located on an upper floor, was completely gutted 
 by a fire that originated in rooms beneath his office. 
 Owing to the fact that he carried co-insurance and 
 had to contribute to the general loss, he determined 
 to acquire a plant of his own, and about that time 
 began the construction of the present seven-story 
 Christie Building. Mr. Christie was the first in 
 Duluth to show his faith in the modern type of the 
 reinforced concrete construction. His business in its 
 present dimensions comprises stationery and office 
 furniture, filing devices, complete printing and book- 
 binding plant, lithographing plant both with the 
 stone and rubber offset process, a steel die and em- 
 bossing plant, and altogether his equipment is suffi- 
 cient for practically every demand made in printing 
 and binding and illustration work. His trade in 
 office supplies and stock stationery and his custom 
 work have a broad territory covering all of Minne- 
 sota, all of Wisconsin, Northern Michigan and North 
 Dakota. 
 
 Mr. Christie is well known in fraternal and social 
 circles in Duluth, is a democrat in politics, and for 
 five years was national president of the Modern 
 Samaritans, the general office of which order is in 
 the Christie Building. Other affiliations are with 
 Palestine Lodge No. 79, A. F. & A. M. at Duluth; 
 Keystone Chapter No. 20, R. A. M. ; Duluth Com- 
 mandery No. 18, K. T. ; and in the Scottish Rite with 
 North Star Lodge of Perfection No. 6, with A. T. C. 
 Pearson Rose Croix Chapter No. 4, with the thirty- 
 second degree Consistory, and with Aad Temple of 
 the Mystic Shrine. Mr. Christie belongs to the 
 Modern Woodmen of America, the Independent 
 Order of Foresters, the Royal Neighbors, the Royal 
 Arcanum. His Scotch ancestry gives him eligibility 
 in the Clan Stewart, and in a business way he has 
 membership in the Commercial Club. 
 
 Mr. Christie was married in Boston, Massachu- 
 setts, in 1884 to Isabella Wilson, a native of Scot- 
 land, whose father was a farmer in Forfarshire 
 and was killed by the kick of a horse when she was 
 
 a child. Mrs. Christie is a member of the Pilgrim 
 Congregational Church. Ihey have no living chil- 
 dren. Mr. Christie about every second year re- 
 turns to Scotland, and keeps up regular communica- 
 •tion with his family. His last trip to Blairgowrie 
 was in 1913, and in the family reunion of that year 
 twenty-seven relatives were present, twenty- five of 
 whom were residents of Scotland and England. Mr. 
 Christie’s home is at 1811 East Second Street. 
 
 Watson S. Moore. A leader in Duluth commer- 
 cial affairs, president of the W. S. Moore Grain 
 Company, and interested in other local concerns, 
 YY'atson S. Moore is a type of a self-made American 
 citizen, having advanced from the capacity of tele- 
 graph messenger when a boy to prominence in one 
 of the leading cities of the Northwest. Mr. Moore 
 has been a resident of Duluth for thirty years, and 
 while his business success has been won in this city 
 his highest distinction among the people of the 
 community has come from his forceful and influen- 
 tial part in public affairs, both while a member of 
 the city council and as a private citizen. 
 
 Watson S. Moore was born in Franklin County, 
 Pennsylvania, November 13, 1867, a son of James 
 G. and Carrie (Sadler) Moore. His father, who 
 was born in Indiana in 1834 an d died at Baltimore, 
 Maryland, in 1875, was a minister of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, and his father, James G. Moore, 
 Sr., was also a minister in that denomination and 
 died in Indiana. 
 
 After the age of twelve years Watson S. Moore 
 had no formal schooling, and educated himself by 
 practical experience and a keen observation. His 
 first work was as an A. D. T. messenger at Balti- 
 more, but the following year he found employment 
 in the secretary’s office of the Baltimore Corn and 
 Flour Exchange, and the three years spent there 
 gave him an insight into the business which has been 
 his regular work through most of his career. In 
 1884 Mr. Moore located in Duluth, and up to 1889 
 was employed in the office of George Spencer & 
 Company, grain dealers. In 1890 a partnership was 
 formed with Mr. George Spencer and continued 
 until 19 1 1 , at which time Mr. Moore established 
 the W. S. Moore Grain Company, of which he is 
 now president. He is also president of the Moore, 
 Gary Land & Improvement Company, which is de- 
 veloping town sites adjoining the plant of the Minne- 
 sota Steel Company at Duluth. Mr. Moore was a 
 joint owner with A. C. Volk of the property sold 
 to the steel company, and now occupied by its 
 plant. 
 
 As a man who had to struggle through his boy- 
 hood, Mr. Moore has manifested a thorough sym- 
 pathy with young men ,and has performed much 
 practical social service. He is president of the 
 Duluth Y. M. C. A., vice president of the Duluth 
 Commercial Club and superintendent of the First 
 Methodist Episcopal Church Sunday School. On 
 national issues his politics is republican, but he has 
 shown strong independence in local affairs. From 
 1900 to 1910 he was one of the members in the 
 Duluth city council. The joint commission ap- 
 pointed by the Commercial Club and the city council 
 for the investigation of the commission form of 
 government included Mr. Moore as one of its mem- 
 bers, and he was one of those most instrumental 
 in securing the adoption of this form of government 
 under the new charter in 1910. His council record 
 was also noteworthy for his efforts to maintain law 
 enforcement policies throughout the city and state. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1689 
 
 he introduced a resolution in the council, which was 
 adopted, abolishing the red light district, the 
 resolution that abolished the slot machine, was one 
 of the council group that stood aggressively for 
 municipal ownership of public utilities, and asso- 
 ciated with one or two others started the movement 
 that brought about municipal ownership of the elec- 
 tric light plant. Mr. Moore was a member of the 
 committee that provided for the construction of the 
 unique aerial bridge at Duluth, one of the wonders 
 of engineering construction, and the only one of its 
 kind in the world. He was chairman for nine 
 years of the street commissioners, and whether in 
 the council or as a private citizen has worked steadily 
 and consistently for civic and social progress. 
 
 Mr. Moore was married in Duluth in 1891 to Miss 
 Jessie Tyler, whose father, E. A. Tyler, is connected 
 with the American Exchange National Bank of 
 Duluth. Mrs. Moore’s grandfather served in the 
 War of the Revolution, while her father was for 
 four years in the Union army during the Civil War, 
 and she is eligible to membership in the Daughters 
 of the American Revolution. Mr. Moore and wife 
 reside at 1829 East First Street, and their family of 
 children are as follows: Wendell, who has taken 
 two years of study in the Rensselaer Polytechnic 
 Institute at Troy, New York, and now lives at 
 home ; Irving, attending a preparatory school in 
 Andover, Massachusetts; Warren and Dorothy, both 
 of whom are students in the Duluth High School. 
 
 Rollo Nichols Chaffee.. A young Duluth law- 
 yer who has done much to prove his ability and open 
 a way towards a successful career in the law, Rollo 
 N. Chaffee is an eastern man, was thoroughly 
 trained in the schools and universities of New York 
 State, and since 1906 has practiced as a member of 
 the Duluth bar, giving special attention to real 
 estate, corporation and probate work. 
 
 Rollo Nichols Chaffee was born in Amenia, New 
 York, February 28, 1882, a son of James S. and 
 Lydia A. (Judd) Chaffee. His preliminary training 
 was acquired in the Wesleyan Academy at Wilbra- 
 ham, Massachusetts, graduating in 1900, and in 
 1904 he graduated LL. B. from the law department 
 of Columbia University at New York City. Ad- 
 mitted to the New York Bar in the same year, his 
 university training was supplemented by two years 
 of practical experience in the law offices and courts 
 of New York City, and in the fall of 1906 he came 
 to Duluth and opened an office for the practice of 
 real estate, corporation and probate law. Mr. Chaf- 
 fee has membership in the St. Louis County and 
 State Bar associations and has prominent connec- 
 tions both with the professional and social life of the 
 city. 
 
 He is a member of the Presbyterian Church, of 
 the Duluth Boat Club, the Long View Tennis Club 
 and Duluth Automobile Club. On May 20, 1908, 
 occurred his marriage to Millie McKee of Duluth, 
 a daughter of William and Louise (Tucker) 
 McKee. 
 
 Jed L. Washburn, lawyer, Duluth, was born in 
 Montgomery County, Indiana, December 26, 1856, 
 a son of Christopher C. and Julia A. (Showen) 
 Washburn, the former a native of Ohio but of New 
 England descent, and the latter of Kentucky, of an 
 old family of South Carolina. In 1857 the parents 
 brought their children from Indiana to Minnesota, 
 locating among the early settlers in Blue Earth 
 
 County in the Town of Vernon, where Christopher 
 C. Washburn was a substantial farmer. 
 
 Jed L. "Washburn received an academic education, 
 but is mainly self educated, studied law with Hon. 
 Martin J. Severance at Mankato, was admitted and 
 began practice in May, 1880, and continued at Man- 
 kato until March, 1890, when he removed to Duluth 
 and has since lived and practiced there, being senior 
 member of the firm of Washburn, Bailey & Mitchell, 
 with offices in the Alworth Building. Mr. Wash- 
 burn has always been keenly interested in the school 
 system of the state, was a member and president 
 of the board of education of Mankato, a member 
 of the board of education of Duluth from 1900 to 
 1907, and resident director of the State Normal 
 School at Duluth since 1903. He has served on 
 other public boards, but never held a paid political 
 office nor accepted any recompense or reimburse- 
 ment for expenses involved in his public service. 
 In 1907 and 1908 he served as president of the 
 Minnesota State Bar Association and has been active 
 in the Eleventh Judicial District Bar Association. 
 Mr. Washburn has enjoyed a large practice and the 
 confidence of the public. His opinions are con- 
 sidered unselfish and unprejudiced. He has large 
 business interests, and is president of the Northern 
 National Bank of Duluth and of several other 
 financial and industrial concerns. 
 
 Mr. Washburn is a member of the Ivitchi Gammi, 
 Commercial, Northland Country, Duluth Curling, 
 and Duluth Boat clubs of Duluth, the Minnesota 
 Club of St. Paul, the Minneapolis Club of Min- 
 neapolis, and the Chicago Club of Chicago. His 
 home is at 101 Oxford Street, while he also has 
 a winter home in North Carolina, and spends about 
 three months of the year there, taking a great inter- 
 est in both places in the beautification of his grounds. 
 
 In June, 1882, Mr. Washburn was married to Miss 
 Alma J. Pattee, daughter of the late Joseph R. 
 Pattee of Stockton, Portage County, Wisconsin. 
 His oldest son, Claude C. Washburn, an author, re- 
 sides in Florence, Italy; his next son, A. McC. 
 Washburn, lawyer, is with the law firm of Wash- 
 burn, Bailey and Mitchell ; his youngest son, John 
 Lawrence,' is a student at the Asheville (North Car- 
 olina) School. His daughters, Genevieve, Mildred 
 and Hope, reside at home, and all the children have 
 been given the best educational advantages both at 
 home and abroad. Mrs. Washburn has been for 
 many years interested in club, educational and 
 charitable work and is well known throughout Min- 
 nesota and other states. 
 
 Benjamin F. Nelson. The lumber industry early 
 became and has ever since remained one of the 
 leading lines of business in Minnesota, and the rea- 
 sons for this are strong and manifest. The bounty 
 of nature in providing the material for the industry 
 was almost unlimited, and the quality of that ma- 
 terial was superior in some respects to that of what 
 was to be found in many other heavily timbered re- 
 gions. The men who initiated the industry were 
 men of broad views, fine business capacity, resolute 
 purpose and all-daring courage; and those who have 
 followed them have shown the utmost capability for 
 developing the industry to its full limitations and to 
 handling it with unequivocal wisdom and success. 
 Here was the raw material in lavish quantity, ready 
 and waiting for the commanding power of mind to 
 come and convert it into marketable form for the 
 service of mankind, and the practical results of this 
 initiative and constructive power have been manifest 
 
1690 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 in the magnitude, value and far-reaching results of 
 the work achieved. 
 
 As a representative of both the earlier and the 
 present day magnates in the lumber industry in 
 this section of the country, Benjamin Franklin 
 Nelson, of Minneapolis, stands in the front rank. 
 His operations have been and still continue to be 
 very extensive. His foresight and sweep of vision 
 are great. His knowledge of the business has from 
 the first been comprehensive and accurate, and his 
 daring and acumen are of the highest and most 
 legitimate type. Whether measured by the scope 
 and importance of his undertakings or by the skill 
 with which they have been directed, he is easily one 
 of the foremost men in the lumber industry in the 
 United States. 
 
 Benjamin Franklin Nelson was born in Greenup 
 County, Kentucky, on the 4th of May, 1843, and is 
 a son of William and Emeline (Benson) Nelson, 
 who were natives of Maryland and who immigrated 
 thence to Kentucky in early life. The family was 
 in moderate circumstances and its record was vir- 
 tually that voiced by the immortal Lincoln, himself 
 a Kentuckian, who said of his own family that its 
 history was "the short and simple annais of the 
 poor.” It may thus be seen that to the children of 
 the Nelson family only limited educational advan- 
 tages could be offered, owing to the exigencies of 
 time and place. Benjamin F. Nelson attended the 
 common schools in Greenup and Lewis counties for 
 brief and irregular periods, and while he was still 
 a youth the impaired health of his father placed 
 upon him the duty of assisting his brothers in pro- 
 viding for the needs of the household. At the age 
 of seventeen years he began cutting logs and raft- 
 ing them down the Ohio River. This gave him his 
 first experience in the lumber trade, and the fiber 
 and activity of his mind were such that he made it 
 tell greatly to his advantage at that period in his 
 career, as well as in subsequent years. 
 
 But Mr. Nelson was not permitted to continue his 
 efforts along this line without early and definite 
 interruption. When the dark cloud of the Civil war 
 that had for several years cast its pall over the na- 
 tional horizon at length burst in a deluge of death 
 and disaster, he responded to the call of higher 
 duty and tendered his aid in defense of the Con- 
 federate cause and the political views and theories 
 of government under the influence of which he had 
 been reared. In 1862, when but nineteen years of 
 age, he enlisted in the Second Kentucky Cavalry, 
 and during the progress of the great internecine 
 conflict he served successively in the commands of 
 Generals Morgan, Forrest and Wheeler, whose 
 names are written large upon the history of the 
 Civil war. Although the commands in which Mr. 
 Nelson thus served were engaged in and ever per- 
 forming the most hazardous duties, he escaped with- 
 out disaster, save that he was taken prisoner, and he 
 was held in confinement at the Federal prison at 
 Camp Douglas, near Chicago, when the long and 
 weary struggle came to its close. 
 
 After his release as a prisoner of war Mr. Nelson 
 returned to Kentucky and with characteristic cour- 
 age and determination he girded himself for the 
 winning of the victories which peace ever has in 
 store. The havoc of warfare had left its trail in 
 Kentucky, and after remaining a few months in his 
 native state he determined to seek his fortune in a 
 more promising field of endeavor. In September, 
 1865, he came to Minnesota and located at St. An- 
 
 thony, the nucleus around which was built up the 
 present great city of Minneapolis. His experience 
 in lumbering secured to him immediate employment 
 in connection with that business, and he has been 
 connected with this industry during the long inter- 
 vening years. 
 
 Mr. Nelson passed his first year in Minnesota as 
 a laborer in the lumber woods and mills and on the 
 river. But such a post in the association with the 
 great industry in which he was intensely interested 
 did not easily satisfy his ambition or meet the re- 
 quirements of his faculties, although he manfully 
 accepted it as a stepping-stone to the realization of 
 his high hopes, and faithfully and laboriously did 
 he perform the incidental duties. In his second win- 
 ter in the state he secured a contract to haul logs, 
 and some time afterward he entered into a contract 
 for the manufacturing of shingles. Even this ad- 
 vance he looked upon as but a means to an end, for 
 he had his vision fixed on loftier heights. In 1872 
 this aspiring lumberman formed a partnership with 
 others in the planing-mill business, and this led 
 directly to the manufacturing of lumber. In 1881 
 the firm of Nelson, Tenny & Company, consisting 
 of Mr. Nelson and William M. Tenny, bought a 
 sawmill. Mr. Nelson was now in a position en- 
 tirely suited to his taste and his abilities. He gave 
 his whole attention to the business of the firm, and 
 as the city and the country around it advanced in 
 development and improvement, the firm’s trade 
 greatly expanded, with the result that before the 
 expiration of ten years it became one of the heaviest 
 operators in Minneapolis. 
 
 For more than forty years Mr. Nelson was en- 
 gaged directly, and most of the time extensively, in 
 manufacturing lumber. His energies in this field 
 were not, however, confined to the company of 
 which he was the head, nor were they wholly ab- 
 sorbed in this line of effort. He acquired interests 
 in many other companies in the trade and those 
 affiliated therewith, and he took part also in carry- 
 ing forward other lines of manufacturing enter- 
 prise, as well as in the financial and public affairs 
 of the city and county of his residence, in which he 
 is still deeply and helpfully interested. He is presi- 
 dent of the Leech Lake Lumber Company, the Hen- 
 nepin Paper Company, B. F. Nelson & Sons Com- 
 pany, and chairman of the board of directors of the 
 B. F. Nelson Manufacturing Company. He is a 
 member of the directorate of the Northwestern Na- 
 tional Bank of Minneapolis and holds similar posi- 
 tion in connection with other Minnesota banks in 
 which he is financially interested. He has also ex- 
 tensive holdings in mineral lands in Northern Minne- 
 sota and in paper mills in the Dominion of Canada. 
 
 This is a record of long-continued, extensive, very 
 exacting and highly successful business operations, 
 but it shows only a part of Mr. Nelson’s activities 
 and achievements. He has been as liberal and zeal- 
 ous in philanthropic, educational and religious work 
 as he has in business, and for years he took a prom- 
 inent part in public affairs in his home city. He 
 served as a member of the city council from 1879 
 to 1885, and was chairman of the ways and means 
 and the railroad committees, at the time when he 
 formed the acquaintance of James J. Hill, one of the 
 greatest of all railroad men. Mr. Nelson, fully be- 
 lieved that Minneapolis was just emerging from her 
 swaddling clothes and as a city could afford to be 
 liberal with railroads. Holding such views, he was 
 able to assist materially in securing to railroads such 
 
1 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1691 
 
 rights and privileges as were necessary for their 
 expansion and economical operation, and the close 
 friendship which he formed with Mr. Hill has re- 
 mained inviolate to the present time. Mr. Nelson 
 was a member of the first board of park commis- 
 sioners, and in this association he rendered wise and 
 appreciated service in laying the foundation of the 
 Minneapolis park system. He was for many years a 
 member of the old Minneapolis Board of Trade, of 
 which he was president in 1890-91, and in 1890 he 
 was treasurer and a director of the Minneapolis 
 Men’s Union. 
 
 From 1884 to 1891 Mr. Nelson was a member of 
 the Minneapolis Board of Education. During this 
 period the increase in the school population of the 
 community was phenomenal, and the necessity of 
 providing for it taxed to the utmost the ability of 
 those in direct charge of the educational affairs of 
 the city. In this pressing time Mr. Nelson’s special 
 fitness for the position which he held was amply 
 demonstrated, and he won high praise for his re- 
 sourcefulness, readiness and adaptability in the dis- 
 charge of his duties as a member of the board. 
 The experience which he gained in this important 
 connection, as co-ordinated with his recognized busi- 
 ness capacity, marked him for other and even higher 
 positions of public trust. In 1896 he was appointed 
 a member of the board of managers of the Minne- 
 sota State Prison, and in 1899 he became president 
 of the board. In 1905 he was appointed a member 
 of the board of regents of the University of Minne- 
 sota, and in February, 1914, he was elected presi- 
 dent of this body, his present, and second, term as a 
 member of the board expiring in 1916. Mr. Nelson 
 has rendered to Minnesota service of the highest 
 character and most productive order in the depart- 
 ments noted, and in the connection he has shown 
 forth most significantly his breadth of view, his civic 
 loyalty, his admirable resourcefulness, and his 
 prescience as to future needs as well as circumspec- 
 tion in ordering affairs under existing conditions 
 and demands. For thirty years Mr. Nelson has 
 been a valued member of the board of trustees of 
 Hamline University, another of the noble educa- 
 tional institutions of Minnesota, and contributed 
 largely to its endowment fund. The civic and indus- 
 trial interests of Minnesota have received Mr. Nel- 
 son’s intelligent and fruitful interest. In 1902 he 
 was chosen a member of the board of directors 
 of the State Agricultural Society, and after several 
 years of most effective service he was chosen presi- 
 dent of the board, in 1907, as was he also in the 
 following year. Another line of enterprise that en- 
 gaged his active and helpful cooperation was that 
 for which the Minneapolis Commercial Club stands 
 sponsor. In 1904 he became a member of the di- 
 rectorate of this fine organization and chairman of 
 its committee on public affairs. He proved in- 
 defatigable in furthering the high civic ideals and 
 progressive movements of the club, assisted in work- 
 ing out, under its auspices, conspicuous commercial 
 development, and wrote his name in enduring way 
 upon the pages of its history. In 1907 he was 
 elected president of the club, and of this office he 
 continued the incumbent until 1909. He is a valued 
 member of the Minnesota Historical Society, and in 
 the social and fraternal life of the community he is 
 identified with the Minneapolis Club, the Lafayette 
 Club, the Minikahda Club, the Minnesota Club, the 
 Minneapolis Automobile Club, and the time-honored 
 Masonic fraternity, in which he has received the 
 
 Knights Templar degrees in the York rite and the 
 thirty-second degree of the Ancient Accepted Scot- 
 tish Rite, besides having affiliation with the local 
 temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles 
 of the Mystic Shrine. 
 
 In 1869 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Nel- 
 son to Miss Martha Ross, whose death occurred in 
 1874 and who is survived by two sons, William Ed- 
 win and Guy Henry, both of whom are associated 
 with their father in business. In 1875 Mr. Nelson 
 contracted a second marriage, when Miss Mary 
 Fredenberg, of Northfield, Minnesota, became his 
 wife. They have one child, Bessie E. 
 
 From the dawn of his manhood Mr. Nelson has 
 given his political allegiance and services to the 
 democratic party, but he has never sought an office 
 or been chosen to one by a partisan election. The 
 offices which he has held have been conferred either 
 by non-partisan election or by appointment — in tacit 
 recognition of his special fitness for them rather 
 than on account of political services or partisan con- 
 siderations. He has frequently been importuned to 
 become a candidate for high elective offices, but has 
 steadfastly refused such overtures. 
 
 Concerning Mr. Nelson, his character and his 
 achievement the following consistent and pertinent 
 statements have been written, and they are well 
 worthy of perpetuation in this history of a state 
 which has honored and been honored by him : “How 
 like a thread of gold the splendid record of this 
 excellent business man and superior citizen runs 
 through the history of Minneapolis ! And what a 
 credit it is, not only to the community in which he 
 has expended his activities but also to the whole 
 range of American citizenship. It is an engaging 
 theme for the pen of the biographer, and must prove 
 a strong stimulus and incentive to those young men 
 of the present day who become familiar with it — 
 furnishing an exagiple worthy of the emulation of 
 the most ambitious.” 
 
 William Edward Tracy. Though one of the 
 3 r ounger members of the bar of Northern Minnesota, 
 William Edward Tracy has served two terms as 
 judge of probate of Lake County and is one of the 
 able and thoroughly qualified lawyers of that part 
 of the state. When first elected to the office of 
 judge of probate it was his distinction to have been, 
 up to that time, the youngest judge of probate of 
 the State of Minnesota. For seven years Mr. Tracy 
 was engaged in the general practice of law at Two 
 Harbors and during that period was also interested 
 in the real estate and insurance business. 
 
 William Edward Tracy was born at LaCrosse, 
 Wisconsin, February 8, 1886, but his home since 
 childhood and until the middle part of the year 
 1915 was made in Two Harbors. His parents are 
 William and Laura Elizabeth (Bates) Tracy, his 
 father a locomotive engineer in the employ of the 
 Steel Corporation at Two Harbors for more than 
 thirty years. Judge Tracy was educated in the 
 public schools at Two Harbors, to which place the 
 family removed in 1888, graduated from the Two 
 Harbors High School in 1905, and then entered the 
 law department of the University of Michigan at 
 Ann Arbor, and finished the law course with a 
 degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1908. In June of 
 the same year he was admitted to the Michigan bar 
 and at once returned to Two Harbors where he 
 was formally admitted to the bar of Minnesota in 
 February, 1909. Mr. Tracy was elected judge of 
 
1692 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 probate of Lake County in 1908, at the age of twenty- 
 two years, and was returned to the office in 1910. 
 He did an important service in the careful and im- 
 partial administration of the probate affairs of Lake 
 County and since his retirement from that office has 
 enjoyed a lucrative probate practice. 
 
 Since leaving the office of judge of probate, Mr. 
 Tracy has been actively engaged in looking after a 
 large and growing practice and in June, 1915, formed 
 a law partnership with Mr. Abe Feldman of Eve- 
 leth, Minnesota, for the general practice of law 
 with offices at Duluth and Eveleth, Minnesota, Mr. 
 Tracy devoting his entire time to the business of 
 the Duluth office. The new firm brought about by 
 this association is known at both places as Tracy 
 & Feldman. 
 
 Mr. Tracy is affiliated with Fortitude Lodge No. 
 188, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; is a thirty- 
 second degree Scottish Rite Mason, belonging to 
 the Duluth Consistory in the southern jurisdiction 
 and is a member of Aad Temple of the Ancient 
 Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine at 
 Duluth, Minnesota. He is a member of the Two 
 Harbors Commercial Club, St. Louis County Bar 
 Association, the Minnesota State Bar Association, 
 and the Chippewa Club. His church is the Pres- 
 byterian. He was one of the organizers, and since 
 its organization, has been president, of the Two 
 Harbors High School Alumni Association. 
 
 Mr. Tracy was married October 19, 1910, to Miss 
 Lucy McNutt, daughter of Thomas G. and Josephine 
 (Beach) McNutt of Minneapolis. Her father was 
 a veteran of the Civil war, with ancestors in the 
 War of 1812, Revolutionary war, and the party 
 arriving on this continent in the Mayflower in 
 1620. Mrs. Tracy, for several years prior to her 
 carriage, was a successful school teacher at Two 
 Harbors, Minnesota. Their two children are Wil- 
 liam Edward, Jr., and Thomas lianiel. 
 
 William N. Parkhurst. A citizen of influence 
 in Dodge County is Mr. Parkhurst, who is cashier 
 of the Farmers State Bank of Kasson, of which 
 institution he was the organizer. He has been the 
 primary force in making this one of the solid and 
 popular financial institutions of Southeastern Minne- 
 sota, has been prominently identified with farming 
 and stock-growing in this section of the state and is 
 known as a citizen of utmost loyalty and progressive- 
 ness. 
 
 Mr. Parkhurst is a scion of old colonial New 
 England stock and is himself a native of the Empire 
 State of the Union. He was born on the paternal 
 homestead farm, in Essex County, New York, on 
 the 31st of March, 1876, and is a son of Lemuel 
 S. and Ellen (Kennedy) Parkhurst, who have main- 
 tained their home in Minnesota since 1911, the 
 father being now retired from active business after 
 long years of close and effective identification with 
 the great basic industry of agriculture. He was 
 born at Burlington, Vermont, on the 26th of Feb- 
 ruary, 1838, and is a son of Roswell and Lovina 
 (Wait) Parkhurst, the former having been a native 
 of Mccretown, Vermont, and having devoted his 
 active career to agricultural pursuits. His wife was 
 a representative of one of the old and influential 
 families of Washington County, Vermont, and the 
 Town of Waitsfield, that county, was named in 
 honor of this family, Mrs. Parkhurst having been a 
 direct descendant of General Waite, a gallant officer 
 of the continental line in the War of the Revolution. 
 The genealogy of the Parkhurst family is traced 
 
 back to sterling Scotch origin. James and Eliza 
 (Parrish) Kennedy, the maternal grandparents of 
 him whose name introduces this sketch, passed their 
 entire lives in New England. Azel Parkhurst, great- 
 grandfather of William N., served in the Revolu- 
 tionary war, in the capacity of blacksmith. William 
 N. Parkhurst is the eldest in a family of three chil- 
 dren. Orville W. is vice president and active in 
 the management of the First State Bank of Kemp- 
 ton at Kempton, North Dakota, which bank is con- 
 trolled by the Parkhurst family, W. N. Parkhurst 
 being president of that institution. Mettie E. re- 
 mains at the parental home, her father and mother 
 being now residents of Kasson and both being mem- 
 bers of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Lemuel 
 S. Parkhurst is a stanch democrat in politics and 
 held various minor offices in Essex County, New 
 York, where he continued to be identified with the 
 work and management of his fine farm until he 
 sold the property and came to Minnesota, in 1911. 
 He is affiliated with the ancient craft order of the 
 Masonic fraternity. 
 
 William N. Parkhurst was reared on the old 
 homestead farm which was the place of his, birth 
 and was afforded the advantages of the public schools 
 of Lake Placid, an attractive town in picturesque 
 Essex County, New York. He continued to be asso- 
 ciated with the work of the home farm until he 
 was sixteen years of age, when he assumed a cleri- 
 cal position in a bank at Hunter, North Dakota. 
 About five years later he went to Kindred, Cass 
 County, that state, where, in December, 1898, he 
 became cashier of the Kindred State Bank, which 
 was organized through his efforts and of which he 
 is still a stockholder and director. Mr. Parkhurst 
 continued his effective service as cashier of this 
 institution until 1902, when he came to Kasson, 
 Minnesota, and organized the Farmers State Bank, 
 of which he has been cashier from the time of its 
 corporation. This bank bases its operations on a 
 capital stock of $15,000, and it now has a surplus 
 fund of $15,000, with average deposits of $275,000. 
 These figures indicate emphatically the able manage- 
 ment of the institution and the hold that it has 
 upon popular confidence. 
 
 Mr. Parkhurst has been closely identified with 
 practical banking operations from his youth and has 
 become a financier of ability and discrimination, his 
 sterling integrity and admirable administrative ability 
 having been effectively brought into play in the up- 
 building of the substantial business of the institution, 
 of which he still continues as cashier, and the 
 policies of which he has directed with much cir- 
 cumspection. Mr. Parkhurst is progressive as a 
 citizen, is arrayed as a stanch supporter of the cause 
 of the republican party, has passed the various official 
 chairs in the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, 
 besides which he is affiliated with the Kasson Lodge 
 of Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons, and the 
 Chapter of Royal Arch Masons and Commandery at 
 Rochester, Minnesota. Lie and his wife are earnest 
 communicants of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 Mr. Parkhurst became the owner of one of the 
 large and valuable farms of Dodge County, and he 
 sold this property in the spring of 1914 for a con- 
 sideration of $35,000. He gave special attention to 
 the breeding of high-grade Holstein cattle and 
 Percheron horses, and he disposed of his remaining 
 stock of cattle at auction at the time of selling his 
 farm. The sale attracted wide attention on the part 
 of buyers from diverse sections of the state, and high 
 prices were obtained for the animals, many of them 
 being purchased for breeding purposes. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1693 
 
 On the 19th of June, 1901, was solemnized the 
 marriage of Mr. Parkhurst to Miss Nellie Little, 
 of Kasson, she being a daughter of John Little, who 
 was a pioneer settler and successful farmer of Dodge 
 County and who is one of the substantial capitalists 
 of this section of the state. Mr. Little is now living 
 retired at Kasson and is one of the principal stock- 
 holders and a director of the Farmers State Bank. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Parkhurst have three children : Wil- 
 liam N., Jr., Ellen J., and Roberta I. 
 
 John G. Phillips, M. D. Rice County claims as 
 one of its representative physicians and surgeons 
 and loyal and public-spirited citizens Doctor Phillips, 
 who has since 1907 been engaged in the practice of 
 his profession in the fine little city of Northfield, 
 where he was associated with his uncle, the late Dr. 
 J. R. Phillips, until the death of the latter, since 
 which time he has virtually continued in control of 
 the large and important practice that had been built 
 up by his uncle and himself, the former having been 
 one of the honored and influential citizens of North- 
 field and one of the leading physicians and surgeons 
 of this section of the state. 
 
 Dr. John G. Phillips was born in the Province 
 of Ontario, Canada, on the 7th of January, 1877, 
 and in the same province were born also his parents, 
 Richard and Sarah (Leader) Phillips, who estab- 
 lished their home at Marlette, Sanilac County, Michi- 
 gan, in 1888, the father having become one of the 
 representative farmers and stock-growers of that 
 county, where he continued to reside until his death, 
 in 1912, his birth having occurred in 1851. His 
 widow still resides at Marlette, and of their children 
 Dr. John G. is the eldest; Robert, a traveling sales- 
 man, resides at Bay City, Michigan ; Dr. Frederick 
 Phillips, a graduate of the Detroit Medical College, 
 is now engaged in the practice of his profession in 
 the City of Battle Creek, Michigan; Roy is a pros- 
 perous farmer of Sanilac County, that state ; Earl 
 is a student in the law department of the University 
 of Michigan, as a member of the class of 1915; Mrs. 
 Clara Jensen resides in the State of Washington, 
 her husband being a dentist by profession ; and 
 Pearl, who remains with her widowed mother, is 
 devoting special attention to the study of music, in 
 which connection she has attended the conservatory 
 of Hillsdale College, Michigan. 
 
 Doctor Phillips was a lad of about eleven years 
 at the time of his parents' removal from Canada to 
 Sanilac County, Michigan, where he was reared to 
 adult age and was afforded the advantages of the 
 public schools of Marlette. There he was gradu- 
 ated in the high school as a member of the class 
 of 1895, after which he was for one year a student 
 in Ferris Institute, at Big Rapids, Michigan. For 
 five years thereafter he was engaged in teaching in 
 the public schools of Michigan, and during the 
 major part of this period he was principal of the 
 schools at Brown City, in his home county. In 
 preparation for the work of his chosen profession 
 Doctor Phillips finally went to the City of Chicago 
 and entered the medical school of Northwestern L T ni- 
 versity, in which he was graduated as a member of 
 the class of 1905 and from which he received his 
 degree of Doctor of Medicine. For the two ensuing 
 years he held the position of interne in the Union 
 Hospital of Chicago, and this experience proved of 
 inestimable value to him. Upon coming to Minne- 
 sota the doctor was identified with the hospital at 
 Virginia, St. Louis County, about one year, and in 
 1907 he removed to Northfield and became associated 
 
 in practice with his uncle, the late Dr. J. R. Phillips, 
 with whom he maintained a most grateful personal 
 and professional alliance until the death of his uncle, 
 since _ which time he has conducted an individual 
 practice of general order and of broad scope. His 
 uncle represented Rice County in the State Legisla- 
 ture in 1909 and was otherwise influential in civic 
 affairs in this part of Minnesota. Doctor Phillips is 
 actively identified with the Rice County Medical 
 Society, the Minnesota State Medical Society and 
 the American Medical Association. 
 
 Though intrinsically progressive and loyal in his 
 civic attitude, Doctor Phillips has not been animated 
 by a desire for public office, though he served for 
 some time as a member of the board of education at 
 Marlette, Michigan. He has identified himself thor- 
 oughly with Minnesota interests, as shown by his 
 connection with a number of land companies and 
 other business organizations, including the Northfield 
 Iron Company, of which he is vice president. Both 
 he and his wife are communicants of the Protestant 
 Episcopal Church, and they are popular factors in 
 the leading social activities of Northfield, where the 
 doctor has recently completed the erection of his fine 
 modern residence at 420 Union Street. In the time- 
 honored Masonic fraternity his affiliations are as 
 here noted: Social Lodge No. 41, Ancient, Free and 
 Accepted Masons ; Corinthian Chapter No. 33, Royal 
 Arch Masons, both at Northfield ; Faribault Com- 
 mandery No. 8, Knights Templar, at Faribault; 
 Osman Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles 
 of the Mystic Shrine; and he is also identified with 
 Faribault Lodge No. 1166, Benevolent and Protec- 
 tive Order of Elks. 
 
 On the 28th of September, 1911, was solemnized 
 the marriage of Doctor Phillips to Miss Nellie 
 Phillips, daughter of Ross Phillips, a well known 
 citizen of Northfield. Though of the same name 
 the two families can trace no kinship, even of remote 
 order. Doctor and Mrs. Phillips have one child, 
 Margaret Elizabeth. 
 
 In conclusion it may be stated that the paternal 
 grandfather of Doctor Phillips immigrated to Amer- 
 ica from Scotland and first settled in the State of 
 New York. He later removed to the Province of 
 Ontario, Canada, where, as a man of high scholastic 
 attainments, he became a member of the faculty of 
 a leading college, the residue of his life having been 
 passed in Canada. 
 
 William T. Smith. Born to parents in modest 
 circumstances, and belonging to that class of young 
 Americans whose every faculty must be exerted to 
 achieve distinction through the stimulating friction 
 of battling with difficulties. William T. Smith, presi- 
 dent of the Florence Mining and Milling Company, 
 of Duluth, was given no advantages over his fellows 
 in his youth. He had his own way to make, his 
 own battles to fight; no helpful influences started 
 him upon life’s journey. Yet in his career he has 
 succeeded wonderfully in diversified fields of 
 endeavor. As merchant, wholesaler, real estate 
 dealer and mine operator he has shown his business 
 ability, his executive, organizing and promotive 
 powers, his capacity for handling large affairs and 
 his courage in grasping and making the most of his 
 opportunities. Mr. Smith was born at Virocqua, 
 Wisconsin, May 4, 1864, and is a son of Isaac W. 
 and Susan (Josephs) Smith. His father, born at 
 Zanesville, Ohio, in 1830, came to Wisconsin in 
 1854, and there was engaged in agricultural pursuits 
 
1694 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 until his death, May 12, 1906. The mother is still 
 living at Duluth, and is seventy-seven years of age. 
 
 William T. Smith was educated in the common 
 schools of Wisconsin and worked with his father 
 on the home farm until he reached the age of twenty- 
 three years. At that time he went to Fargo, North 
 Dakota, where he spent the years 1887 and 1888 in 
 the grocery business with Mr. E. A. Perry. The 
 year 1889 was passed in St. Paul, where he was 
 engaged in the grocery trade, and April 1, 1890, Mr. 
 Smith came to Duluth, which city has since been his 
 home. For the two years that followed he was 
 associated with Henry Folz in the grocery line, and 
 in 1892 he became a partner in the wholesale fruit 
 firm of Smith, Koors & Company, a business with 
 which he was identified until 1894. In that year he 
 associated himself with the firm of Bevier, Williams 
 & Company, wholesale fruits, etc., a concern that 
 was succeeded in 1895 by that of Thomas Thompson 
 & Company, this latter being incorporated in 1902 
 as the Thomas Thompson Company, Mr. Lewis be- 
 coming vice president and general manager. This 
 company did an extensive wholesale fruit business, 
 dealing only with jobbers. In 1906 Messrs. Smith 
 and Thompson disposed of their interests in this 
 connection, and Mr. Smith then organized the firm 
 of Parker, Smith & Warner, to deal in Canadian 
 lands in Southern Alberta. Here' followed one of 
 the most remarkable deals in real estate that has 
 occurred in that remarkable country. Within the 
 short space of three years the partners, as agents 
 for the owners, disposed of 800,000 acres of land, 
 clearing up the deal entirely. Since that time Mr. 
 Smith has devoted his time to and concentrated his 
 energies upon the mining business in Montana, Idaho 
 and Oregon. He has large copper interests in 
 Montana ; is largely interested in the Consolidated 
 Interstate-Callahan Mine, in the Coeur d’Alene 
 country in Idaho, one of the largest silver and lead 
 mines in the United 1 States, and is also largely 
 interested in gold mining in Southern Oregon, in 
 Josephine County, on the Illinois River. He is also 
 president of the Florence Mining and Milling Com- 
 pany of Duluth and maintains offices at No. 513 
 Selwood Building. Mr. Smith is a thorough master 
 of every detail of his manifold enterprises. He 
 finds time to keep in constant touch with the com- 
 merce of the world, and is keenly awake to every 
 improvement for advancement along progressive 
 lines. With rare comprehension and a masterful 
 grasp of business principles, he has led and his 
 associates have followed him to success. Surely his 
 career should prove encouraging to those who have 
 not yet found their proper place among the world’s 
 workers and who imagine themselves hopelessly 
 handicapped by the lack of favoring advantages. 
 
 On May 12, 1894, Mr. Smith was married to Miss 
 Anna D. Sullivan, daughter of Mrs. Catherine Sulli- 
 van, of Hornellsville, New York. They have one 
 son, Edgar, born in 1897. Mr. Smith is a thirty- 
 second degree Mason, belonging to Ionic Lodge No. 
 186, A. F. & A. M. ; Duluth Consistory No. 3, A. & 
 A. S. R., and all the Scottish Rite bodies. He is 
 also a member of the Benevolent and Protective 
 Order of Elks No. 133, of Duluth, and of the Duluth 
 Commercial Club. The family home is at No. 117 
 West Fourth Street. 
 
 A. FI. Turrittin. There is now serving in the 
 office of superintendent of banks for Minnesota one 
 of the ablest bankers of the state, with a notable 
 record of efficient management over half a dozen 
 
 or more individual institutions. Mr. Turrittin is 
 well known throughout Minnesota both in banking 
 and civic circles, and is one of the men at the state 
 capital who are devoting themselves with all the 
 energy and wisdom at their command to the duties 
 of an office which is intimately connected with the 
 basic welfare of business. 
 
 Mr. Turrittin, who lives at Sauk Rapids, was born 
 at Kasota, LeSueur County, Minnesota, July 12, 1874, 
 a son of James B. and Wilhelmina (Zwanziger ) Tur- 
 rittin. His father was a pioneer in LeSueur County, 
 having located at Cleveland in 1859. There he op- 
 erated a sawmill, and for many years was engaged 
 in the manufacture of both hard and soft lumber 
 and continued in that industry until a short time 
 before his death. He passed away January 17, 1911. 
 He was also an old soldier, having enlisted as a pri- 
 vate in Company K of the Seventh Minnesota Volun- 
 teer Infantry early in the war, and being promoted 
 to sergeant and later to second lieutenant of his 
 company. The regiment was commanded by 
 Col. William R. Marshall. Fie was with the regi- 
 ment in its various campaigns through the South, 
 and was severely wounded in the battle of Nashville 
 at the end of 1864. For some time he was under the 
 command of the Federal general, A. J. Smith. His 
 wife died in LeSueur County about the same time 
 as her husband. 
 
 A. H. Turrittin was graduated from the Mankato 
 State Normal School in the advanced Latin course 
 in 1894, at the age of twenty years. After several 
 years of experience as a teacher and in business 
 affairs, in 1900 he became president of the First 
 National Bank of Royalton. Since then continuously 
 for fifteen years he has enjoyed a high position as 
 a financier. He continued as president of the bank 
 at Royalton until 1903, and from that year until 1912 
 was president of the Rice State Bank at Rice. He 
 was president of the State Savings Bank of Ortley, 
 South Dakota, from 1909 to 1912. Fie has also 
 served as cashier and director of the Benton County 
 State Bank, as president of the State Bank of Long 
 Lake, and of the Farmers State Bank of Bruce, 
 South Dakota. During his residence in Rice he 
 served as president of the village four years, and 
 has been a member of the village council, mayor 
 and member of the school beard at Sauk Rapids. In 
 1908 Mr. Turrittin was a republican presidential 
 elector for Minnesota. 
 
 He began his career as an educator, and from 1894 
 until T903 was superintendent of schools at Motley, 
 St. Clair and Royalton, Minnesota, having grad- 
 uated from school work into banking. He was made 
 superintendent of banks for the State of Minnesota 
 on May 21, 1914, and now resides in St. Paul. Mr. 
 Turrittin is a Presbyterian, and in politics a repub- 
 lican. He has fraternal affiliations with the Masons, 
 the Elks, the Knights of Pythias, the Modern Wood- 
 men of America, the Improved Order of Red Men, 
 the Order of Owls, the Independent Order of Odd 
 Fellows, and the Order of the Eastern Star. He is 
 now associate grand patron of the O. E. S. On 
 June 22, TQ05, at Royalton, Minnesota, Mr. Turrittin 
 married Miss Bessie L. Bouck. They are the parents 
 of two children: Hugh Lonsdale, born in 1906; and 
 
 an infant daughter, named Phyllis Asenath Tur- 
 rittin. 
 
 Melvin S. Nelson, M. D. The son of an old Min- 
 nesota physician. Dr. Melvin S. Nelson has had an 
 active practice for the past five years, and at his 
 present place of residence, Spring Grove, where he 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1695 
 
 located in 1914, has already come into a substantial 
 professional business. Doctor Nelson has special- 
 ized in surgery, and much of his experience has been 
 in that branch of practice. 
 
 Melvin S. Nelson was born in Appleton, Minne- 
 sota, September 6, 1882, a son of N. A. and Jennie 
 (Boe) Nelson. His grandfather, Nels Nelson, 
 which name was adopted after coming to America, 
 was born in Norway. His wife’s people are still 
 prominent in Norway. She and her husband left the 
 old country and came to the United States about 
 1848, settling in Iowa, where Nels Nelson was a 
 farmer. Dr. N. A. Nelson was born in Iowa in 
 1853, was educated for his profession at St. Louis, 
 and has been in active and successful practice for 
 thirty-two years. He is a member of the Lutheran 
 Church and in politics a democrat. He was married 
 in Benson, Minnesota, to Miss Jennie Boe, who was 
 born in Norway in 1855, and her father came from 
 Norway to the United States in time to serve as a 
 soldier in the Civil war, after which he was a 
 farmer. Doctor Melvin is the older of two chil- 
 dren, his sister Eleanor being principal of the high 
 school at Elk River. 
 
 Dr. Melvin S. Nelson received his early education 
 in the schools at Dawson, where his parents reside, 
 graduating from the high school in 1902, and in 1906 
 finished the regular college course at the University 
 of Minnesota. He continued at Minneapolis as a 
 student of medicine in the university, graduating 
 M. D. in 1908, and during the following year had an 
 appointment at the St. Barnabas Hospital. 
 
 Doctor Nelson engaged in private practice at 
 Mora, where he remained five years, and had a 
 12-bed hospital, which he made a very successful 
 institution. He sold this in 1914 with the intention 
 of pursuing his studies abroad,, but had to give up 
 his plans on account of the war. He then came to 
 Spring Grove, in September, 1914, and during the 
 first month had a practice on the profit side of the 
 ledger. 
 
 Doctor Nelson was married in 1908 to Miss Ethel 
 Stansberry, of Minneapolis. Their one child, Mar- 
 garet Jane, died in the spring of 1914. Mrs. Nelson 
 is a member of the Episcopal Church, and he is 
 affiliated with the lodge and chapter of Masonry. 
 Politically he is independent, and has served as 
 county coroner and county health officer. He is a 
 member of the Central Minnesota and the Minne- 
 sota State Medical societies and the American Med- 
 ical Association, and of the Sigma Nu college fra- 
 ternity, and also Nu Sigma Nu medical fraternity. 
 Mrs. Nelson’s father was one of the earliest settlers 
 of Wright County, Minnesota, fought in the Indian 
 troubles and for four years in the Civil war, and 
 was also prominent in politics, having served in the 
 State Senate. 
 
 Thomas H. Shevlin. A strong and noble char- 
 acter was that of the late Thomas- Henry Shevlin, 
 who exerted an emphatic and benignant influence in 
 connection with civic and industrial affairs in Minne- 
 sota during the course of a significantly successful 
 career, his life having been conspicuous for the mag- 
 nitude and variety of its achievement, for steadfast- 
 ness of purpose, for exalted integrity and for the 
 broad humanitarian spirit that made him apprecia- 
 tive of the responsibilities that success imposes. He 
 manifested in marked degree the power of concen- 
 trating the resources of the entire individuality and 
 lifting them to the plane of high achievement. Along 
 the manifold lines in which he directed his splendid 
 
 energies, as a man of large affairs, as a broad- 
 minded and loyal citizen and as a philanthropist of 
 the best type, he made of success not an accident but 
 a logical result. Not yet have sufficient years elapsed 
 since he was called from the scene of his fruitful 
 labors, to enable us to gain a clear definition of the 
 perspective of his life and thereby determine the full 
 benefit of his services to the world. He was much 
 to Minnesota, and especially its metropolis, the fair 
 City of Minneapolis, and the state and city were 
 much to him. No history of Minnesota can be con- 
 sistent with itself if, in touching its civic and ma- 
 terial development and upbuilding, there is failure to- 
 render a large measure of grateful recognition to him 
 who is the subject of this brief memoir. 
 
 Thomas Henry Shevlin was born in the City of 
 Albany, New York, on the 3d of January, 1852, and 
 his death occurred at Pasadena, California, on the 
 morning of January 15, 1912. He was a son of John 
 and Matilda (Leonard) Shevlin, and his lineage, both 
 agnatic and maternal, traces back to fine old Irish 
 stock. His father was a merchant in the capital 
 city of the Empire State, where his death occurred, 
 his widow having survived him by many years. 
 Thomas H. Shevlin attended the public schools of 
 his native city until he had attained to the age of 
 fifteen years, when he initiated his association with 
 the practical affairs of life and began to make his- 
 own way forward to the goal of large and worthy 
 success, for to him was to come that sterling title 
 which the true American ever holds in highest honor, 
 that of self-made man. At the age noted Mr. Shevlin 
 entered the employ of John McGraw & Company, a 
 lumber firm in the City of Albany, and this early ex- 
 perience is the more interesting to contemplate by 
 reason of the fact that it was through the medium 
 principally of the great lumber industry that Mr. 
 Shevlin became a man of large wealth and important 
 industrial interests. In 1879 Mr. Shevlin severed his 
 association with the firm mentioned and came to the 
 West. In the City of Chicago he was employed by 
 Thomas W. Harvey, a representative lumberman, to 
 look after the latter's interests at Muskegon, Michi- 
 gan, in which city he established his residence. In 
 1882 he there became treasurer and general manager 
 of the S. C. Hall Lumber Company, and it was in the 
 interests of this corporation that he finally came to 
 Minnesota, in 1884. Concerning the progressive 
 stages in his career no better record can be evolved 
 than that which was prepared by another writer and 
 which is well worthy of reproduction in this review : 
 “It was at this time that Mr. Shevlin began to look 
 beyond the timber supply of Michigan for sources 
 upon which to draw in lumbering activities. He 
 began to make timber investments for his company 
 in the white pine woods of Minnesota, and in 1884 
 he organized in Minneapolis a branch company for 
 the manufacture of lumber. This was known as the 
 North Star Lumber Company. Mr. Shevlin removed 
 to Minneapolis early in 1886 and soon afterward 
 assisted in the organization of The Hall & Ducey 
 Lumber Company. The following spring Mr. Ducey 
 sold his interest to the other partners and withdrew 
 from the company. In the fall of 1887 The Hall & 
 Shevlin Lumber Company was organized. Mr. Hall 
 died in 1889, and in 1892 E. L. Carpenter, a member 
 of the firm of Carpenter Brothers, purchased an in- 
 terest in the business. In 1893 The Hall & Ducey 
 Lumber Company and The Hall & Shevlin Lumber 
 Company were consolidated and succeeded by the 
 Shevlin-Carpenter Company, with Mr. Shevlin as 
 president. The company has continued operations to 
 
1696 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 the present time and its business has been most ex- 
 tensive and important. 
 
 ‘‘Mr. Shevlin did not confine his energies to this 
 one corporation. In 1895 he formed a partnership 
 with J. Neils, of Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, and they 
 organized tlie J. Neils Lumber Company, its Sauk 
 Rapids mill sawing 15,000,000 feet of lumber annu- 
 ally. In the autumn and winter of 1899-1900 the 
 J. Neils Lumber Company built a band and band- 
 resaw mill at Cass Lake, Minnesota, in the northern 
 part of the state, and this was later enlarged by the 
 addition of a gang saw, thereby increasing the com- 
 pany's output to 50,000,000 feet per annum. Im- 
 pressed with the advantage of manufacturing near 
 the stump as well as near the consuming territory, 
 Mr. Shevlin, in 1896, became associated with Frank 
 P. Hixon, of La Crosse, Wisconsin, in the purchase 
 of a large amount of. timber on the Red Lake Indian 
 Reservation, tributary to Clearwater River, and or- 
 ganized the St. Hilaire Lumber Company, which 
 built a sawmill with a capacity of 40,000,000 feet a 
 year. A year later the Shevlin interests bought the 
 sawmill and logs of the Red River Lumber Company, 
 at Crookston, Minnesota, together with all its tribu- 
 tary timber holdings, and effected the organization 
 of the Crookston Lumber Company, with Mr. Shevlin 
 as its president. In 1902-3 this company built a 
 large mill at Bemidji, with an annual capacity of 
 70,000,000 feet. To supply this mill with logs the 
 company constructed a logging spur twelve miles in 
 length, penetrating their timber east of Red Lake and 
 connecting with the Minnesota & International Rail- 
 way at Hovey Junction, the St. Hilaire Lumber Com- 
 pany having in the meanwhile been consolidated with 
 the Crookston Lumber Company. This spur line 
 gave direct rail transportation from the company’s 
 timber to their mills and made available a large body 
 of timber that had previously been practically inac- 
 cessible. During the summer of 1905 the Crookston 
 Lumber Company further augmented its railroad 
 facilities for the transportation of logs, by the con- 
 struction of a railroad from Wilton, Minnesota, on 
 the Great Northern Railroad, to Island Lake, a dis- 
 tance of about twenty-five miles. In January, 1904, 
 the general offices of the Crookston Lumber Com- 
 pany were removed to Bemidji, and since that time 
 the sales from the three plants have been handled 
 from that point. In connection with the manufac- 
 turing plants a number of retail yards are now oper- 
 ated. under the name of the St. Hilaire Retail Lum- 
 ber Company. In 1906 Crookston Lumber Company 
 owned about 400,000,000 feet of stumpage, tributary 
 to its various plants, and though definite inroads have 
 since been made on this vast reserve there remains 
 a sufficient amount to insure the operation of the 
 mills for many years. 
 
 “As the opportunities for investment in Minne- 
 sota timber became more limited, Mr. Shevlin di- 
 rected his well trained organization to the investiga- 
 tion of opportunities in other localities. A thorough 
 investigation of the timber resources and lumber 
 business in the South led to the purchase of a large 
 interest in the Winn Parish Lumber Company, own- 
 ing nearly 1,000,000,000 feet of virgin pine in Louisi- 
 ana and operating a mill at Pyburn, that state. Like 
 investigations of the Pacific Coast territory led to the 
 purchase by Mr. Shevlin of large timber boldines in 
 British Columbia In the autumn of 1003 Mr. Shev- 
 lin and his associates organized the Shevlin-Clarke 
 Company. Limited, in the Province of Ontario. 
 Canada, and purchased a number of timber berths 
 from the Canadian government, aggregating 300.000.- 
 000 feet of pine stumpage. In the same year the 
 
 Rainy River Lumber Company, Limited, was organ- 
 ized by Mr. Shevlin, and this company purchased 
 from the Canadian government a large amount of 
 timber, and in the winter of 1903-4 the company 
 erected at Rainy River, Ontario, one of the most 
 complete sawmill plants in the world, with a capacity 
 of 70,000,000 feet annually. The products of this 
 plant have found a ready demand both in the United 
 States and the Canadian Northwest. In the winter 
 of 1905-6 Mr. Shevlin organized the Shevlin-Mathieu 
 Lumber Company, and the company erected a large 
 sawmill at Beaudette, Minnesota, just across the in- 
 ternational boundary from Rainy River, Ontario. 
 The various lumber companies in which Mr. Shevlin 
 was interested, largely under his effective executive 
 control, had a total annual output in excess of 300,- 
 000,000 feet of lumber. His genius for organization 
 and his accurate judgment of men and their capaci- 
 ties made possible the successful inception and opera- 
 tion of these wide and varied activities and the 
 development of the great industry of which he was 
 the directing spirit.’’ 
 
 The capacity for achievement that indicated Mr. 
 Shevlin seemed practically illimitable, and in all of 
 the great army of the world’s productive workers 
 none has more fully merited than did he the title 
 of captain of industry. Since his death the vast 
 interests which he so long and ably directed have 
 been in charge of his only son, who is well uphold- 
 ing the prestige of the name which he bears and who 
 is one of the representative citizens of Minneapolis. 
 Aside from the extensive association which Mr. 
 Shevlin maintained with lumbering enterprise he 
 gave also his capitalistic support to many other lines 
 of business. He was a heavy stockholder and a 
 director of the Security National Bank of Minne- 
 apolis at the time of his death. 
 
 Notwithstanding the exactions placed upon him 
 through his association with industrial and other 
 business affairs of broad scope and importance, Mr. 
 Shevlin was thoroughly alive to the duties of citi- 
 zenship and was a man of broad intellectual grasp, 
 with well fortified views concerning matters of gov- 
 ernmental and economic import. He was unwavering 
 in his allegiance to the republican party and gave 
 yeoman service in support of its cause. He was a 
 member of the Republican National Committee from 
 1900 to 1904, inclusive, and in the national campaign 
 of 1900 he was specially influential in furthering the 
 success of his party. In 1901 he served as vice presi- 
 dent of the Minnesota State Fair, representing 
 Minneapolis on its board of managers. Knowing 
 the well-spring of human thought and action, he was 
 tolerant in his judgment and his acts of charity and 
 benevolence were as numerous as were they inva- 
 riably unostentatious. In the field of broader and 
 more public bequests his state shall ever honor him 
 for his magnificent gift of the beautiful women’s 
 building at the University of Minnesota, this building 
 being known as Alice Shevlin Hall and constituting 
 a memorial to his wife. To the same institution he 
 gave also five scholarships of $10,000 each, and in 
 Minneapolis he gave liberal support to the various 
 organized charities and benevolences. Mr. Shevlin 
 was a man of fine social instincts and bearing, and 
 his essential strength and nobility of character gained 
 to him warm friends in all classes. He was a mem- 
 ber of the Union League clubs of both New York 
 and Chicae'o, and held membership also in the Minne- 
 apolis Club, the Minnesota Club, the Manitoba Club, 
 and various other social organizations of minor 
 order. 
 
 On the 8th of February, 1882, was solemnized the 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1697 
 
 marriage of Mr. Shevlin to Miss Alice A. Hall, and 
 the great loss and bereavement of his life came when 
 his loved and devoted wife was summoned to eternal 
 rest, in April, 1910. They are survived by three chil- 
 dren — Thomas Leonard, Florence and Helen. Thomas 
 L. Shevlin, who is ably carrying forward the great 
 business enterprises with which his father was long- 
 identified, wedded Miss Elizabeth Sherley, of Louis- 
 ville, Kentucky, and they have one daughter and one 
 .son. Florence is now the wife of David D. Tenney, 
 •of Minneapolis ; and Helen is the wife of George C. 
 Beckwith, of Minneapolis. Mr. and Mrs. Tenney 
 have one son and one daughter. 
 
 Will Curtis. The public press of Minnesota, 
 •outside of the largest cities, has no more conspicuous 
 example of what a newspaper should be, both as to 
 its contents and its business management, than the 
 St. James Plaindealer. It is a clean paper in its 
 news and editorial columns, stands for the advance- 
 ment of progressive policies, and has gained an influ- 
 ence based on confidence in the integrity of its man- 
 ae-ement. The editor and proprietor of the Plain- 
 dealer is Will Curtis, a newspaper man of long and 
 varied experience who came to Minnesota about 
 seven years ago from Illinois, where he had been an 
 editor and publisher for a number of years. The 
 Plaindealer was established at St. James in 1891. 
 Its political policy is progressive republican. The 
 ■offices of the paper are in the Citizens National 
 Bank Building, and as to circulation it enjoys the 
 widest reading of any paper published in Watonwan 
 County. 
 
 Will Curtis was born at Patch Grove, Wisconsin, 
 January 18, 1865. His father, James A. Curtis, was 
 born at Schenectady, New York, in 1827 and died 
 at Patch Grove, Wisconsin, in 1893. As a young 
 man in 1852 he moved out to Wisconsin and settled 
 in the wilderness about Patch Grove, locating on 
 land which he developed from a virgin condition. 
 Successful as a farmer, he was a man of more than 
 ordinary influence in that state, was regarded as an 
 authority on grain raising, and in the Association 
 of Farmers took an active part and read numerous 
 papers at their meetings. James A. Curtis married 
 Jane Howe, who was born at Utica, New York, in 
 1827, and died at Kewanee, Illinois, in 1903. Their 
 children were : Herbert, who is a photographer at 
 
 Magazine, Arkansas; Clara, wife of John Olinger, 
 a Missouri farmer ; Ella, wife of Charles Wolcott, 
 owner of an orange grove at Redlands, California; 
 Will ; Clement, a printer at Aurora, Illinois ; Ethel- 
 red, an optometrist, practicing his profession at La- 
 Porte, Indiana; Bertha, wife of John Moore, a 
 farmer at Patch Grove, Wisconsin ; and Elwyn, a 
 merchant at Irvington, Alabama. 
 
 Will Curtis spent his boyhood in Wisconsin, at- 
 tended the district schools at Patch Grove and the 
 high school at Bloomington, and with an ambition 
 for a higher education and the industry necessary 
 to provide the means to obtain it, he earned his way 
 while attending the Michigan Agricultural College 
 at Lansing, and was graduated there with the class 
 of 1889. His first regular work was as teacher at 
 Bee Town, Wisconsin, where he was principal of 
 the schools one year, and in 1890 became identified 
 with newspaper work at Kewanee, Illinois. At Ke- 
 wanee Mr. Curtis bought the Star, of which he was 
 editor five years, and at the end of that time the 
 Star and the Courier were combined as the Star- 
 Courier, under the ownership of a stock company, 
 which also took over a job printing concern. Mr. 
 Curtis remained as manager of this combination 
 
 until 1908. In the meantime he had become a promi- 
 nent figure in Illinois press circles, was an active 
 member of the Illinois Press Association, served as 
 secretary of the Military Tract Press Association, 
 and was president of the Inland Daily Press Asso- 
 ciation, comprising the daily, papers of six states. 
 In 1907 Mr. Curtis was treasurer of the National 
 Editorial Association during its convention at St. 
 Paul, and that was his first visit to Minnesota. The 
 following year, in 1908, he left Illinois and bought 
 the St. James Plaindealer at St. James, and has 
 since been its editor and proprietor. 
 
 Outside of his newspaper business Mr. Curtis is 
 also active in real estate, and is secretary and man- 
 ager of the Curtis-Sawyer Land Company. In in- 
 dividual politics he is classed as a republican. Mr. 
 Curtis is a member and steward of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, is a past noble grand in the 
 St. James Lodge No. 207, Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows, and also affiliates with the Modern 
 Woodmen of America. 
 
 In 1895 at Kewanee Mr. Curtis married Lida 
 Jane Giffen. Her father was Rev. John Giffen, 
 well known as a Presbyterian minister and now de- 
 ceased. To their marriage have been born five chil- 
 dren : Harold, who graduated with the 1915 class 
 
 of the St. James High School; Lucile, in the junior 
 year of high school ; Leslie, attending the local public 
 schools ; Elizabeth, a public school student ; and 
 Bruce, three years of age. 
 
 The Curtis family originally came from England, 
 and Mr. Curtis had ancestors in the Revolutionary 
 war. 
 
 Johann G. Preibe. The assistant city attorney of 
 Minneapolis is a native of the fine city that he is 
 now serving efficiently in this official post, and he is 
 known as one of the able and popular younger mem- 
 bers of the bar of the Minnesota metropolis, besides 
 being a scion of a sterling pioneer family of the 
 state. 
 
 Johann Gustav Preibe was born in Minneapolis 
 on the 9th of May, 1886, and is a son of Henry G. 
 and Wilhelmina (Schafer) Preibe, the former of 
 whom was born in Greenwood Township, Hennepin 
 County, this state, of staunch German lineage, and 
 the latter of whom was born in the kingdom of 
 Baden, Germany. Martin Preibe, grandfather of 
 him whose name introduces this article, was a native 
 of Germany and became a pioneer of Minnesota, as 
 he settled near Hanover, Hennepin County, in the 
 ’50s, and became one of the substantial farmers of 
 the county, within the limits of which is situated 
 the fair metropolis of the state. He made loyal 
 response to the nation’s call at the time of the Civil 
 war, as he enlisted in a Minnesota volunteer regi- 
 ment, with which he saw active service and gave 
 splendid account of himself as a gallant soldier of 
 the Union, Minnesota continuing to be his home till 
 death. Henry G. Preibe was reared to maturity on 
 his father’s farm and he continued to be actively 
 identified with agricultural pursuits in Hennepin 
 County until about the year 1884. He then estab- 
 lished his residence in Minneapolis, and here he has 
 been an efficient and valued member of the city fire 
 department since 1894. He and his wife are the 
 parents of three children, all born and reared in 
 Minneapolis, where they still reside, namely: Mrs. 
 
 E. A. Scherer. Johann G. and Mrs. E. E. Ibberson. 
 
 Johann G. Preibe attended the public schools of 
 Minneapolis until he had completed the curriculum 
 of the North Side High School, in which he was 
 
1698 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 graduated in 1907. He had in the meanwhile formu- 
 lated a definite plan for his future career, and in 
 consonance with his ambitious purpose he was 
 matriculated in the law department of the Univer- 
 sity of Minnesota, in which he was graduated as 
 a member of the class of 1910 and from which he 
 received his degree of Bachelor of Laws, his ex- 
 penses in the university having been defrayed by 
 himself, showing that he early learned the lessons 
 of practical industry and personal responsibility. 
 Under the civil service code he has served as as- 
 sistant city attorney during virtually the entire time 
 since he was graduated and admitted to the bar, and 
 he has proved a most capable official, the while he 
 has matured his powers as a skillful trial lawyer 
 and well-informed counselor. He is a member of 
 the Minneapolis Bar Association and has been an 
 efficient and influential figure in the local activities 
 of the republican party. He was secretary of the 
 republican convention of Hennepin County in 1912, 
 and was manager of the campaign of Hon. Edward 
 Young, the republican candidate for governor of the 
 state in that year. 
 
 Mr. Preibe is a member of the Tenth Ward Com- 
 mercial Club, has attained to the thirty-second de- 
 gree in the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of the 
 Masonic fraternity, besides holding membership in 
 Zuhrah Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of the 
 Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. His ancient-craft af- 
 filiation is with Khurum Lodge No. in, Ancient 
 Free & Accepted Masons. He is, in 1914. esteemed 
 lecturing knight of Minneapolis Lodge, Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks. Mr. Preibe is a zeal- 
 ous member of St. Peter's Church, German Lu- 
 theran, and as a communicant of the same he has 
 been active in other departments of church work. 
 He has served as treasurer of the English Lutheran 
 League of Minnesota and is past president of the 
 Northwestern German Lutheran League. Mr. Preibe 
 is still a bachelor and remains at the parental home. 
 
 John O. Ackerman. A citizen who has exerted 
 much influence in connection with the civic and 
 industrial advancement of the fine little City of 
 Blastings, judicial center of Dakota County, Mr. 
 Ackerman is serving with marked acceptability as 
 postmaster of this place. He has been a resident of 
 Dakota County from boyhood and has long been 
 active in business affairs, besides having served four- 
 teen years as register of deeds of the county. He 
 is known as one of the most liberal and progressive 
 citizens of Hastings and his various official prefer- 
 ments indicate the high estimate placed upon him in 
 the community that has long represented his home. 
 
 John Otto Ackerman was born in the City of 
 Minneapolis, Minnesota, on the 2d of November, 
 1865, and is a son of Belshazzar and Magdaline 
 (Jung) Ackerman, both natives of Germany. Bel- 
 shazzar Ackerman came to Minnesota in the late ’50s 
 and entered claim to a tract of wild land near the 
 present Village of Jordan, Scott County, where he 
 instituted the reclamation of a farm. After his mar- 
 riage he continued to devote his attention to agri- 
 cultural pursuits for seven years and then removed 
 to the City of Minneapolis, after having lived up to 
 the full tension of the life of a pioneer farmer. In 
 Minneapolis he was engaged in the operation of a 
 sawmill unti 1 1869. when he removed with his fam- 
 ily to Lakeville, Dakota County, where he engaged in 
 the general merchandise business, besides which he 
 there erected and conducted the Union Hotel. With 
 these lines of enterprise he continued to be actively 
 
 identified until his death, which occurred on the 24th 
 of December, 1907, at which time he was eighty- 
 two years of age. He served as village treasurer 
 of Lakeville and was otherwise prominent and in- 
 fluential in public affairs of a local order. He was 
 a stalwart supporter of the cause of the democrat 
 party and both he and his wife were zealous com- 
 municants of the Catholic Church, the faith of 
 which is strictly held also by their children. Mrs. 
 Ackerman was summoned to the life eternal in July, 
 1911, at the age of seventy-three years. Of the 
 twelve children one died in infancy and all of the 
 others attained to adult age: Rosa died in 1885, as 
 a young woman; Anna is the widow of Charles F. 
 Stieger and resides in the City of St. Paul; Lena 
 is the wife of John Young, a prosperous farmer of 
 Lakeville Township, Dakota County; Celia and 
 Mary conduct the Union Hotel at Lakeville, hav- 
 ing assumed charge of the same after the death of 
 their father; John O., of this review, was the next 
 in order of birth; Augusta is the wife of John 
 Leach, of Seattle, Washington ; Matilda is the wife 
 of Anthony Mahonald, of Newmarket, Scott County, 
 Minnesota; William C. resides at Lakeville, the old 
 home of the family; Louis J. and Louise are twins, 
 the former being a prosperous merchant at North- 
 field, this state, and Louise being the wife of Peter 
 Mahonald, a brother of the husband of her sister 
 Matilda. 
 
 John O. Ackerman was about four years of age 
 at the time of the family removal to Lakeville, 
 Dakota County, and after availing himself of the 
 advantages of the district schools he attended the 
 public schools in the City of Minneapolis and St. 
 John College, in Stearns County. At the age of 
 seventeen years he took a course in a business col- 
 lege, in which he devoted special attention to book- 
 keeping. Thereafter he assisted in the work and 
 management of his father’s store, at Lakeville, until 
 the 5th of January, 1895, when he was elected 
 register of deeds for Dakota County, as candidate 
 on the democratic ticket. He retained this impor- 
 tant office fourteen consecutive years, through regu- 
 lar re-elections, and gave an administration marked 
 by the utmost efficiency, as the records of the office 
 fully demonstrate. He retired from office in 1905, 
 and in the meanwhile he had engaged in the mer- 
 cantile business in Hastings, in which city he estab- 
 lished his residence at the time of assuming the 
 position of register of deeds. In 1909 Mr. Acker- 
 man so’d his mercantile establishment and effected 
 the organization of the Brandt Manufacturing Com- 
 pany. This corporation, of which he was a director 
 from the time of its organization until he disposed 
 of his interests in the business, in the autumn of 
 1911, engaged in the manufacturing of fruit-tree 
 sprayers, and the enterprise, still successfully con- 
 tinued, has proved a potent influence in furthering 
 the industrial and commercial prestige of Hastings, 
 the company giving regular employment to a force 
 of about sixty persons. After selling his interest 
 in this business, in the upbuilding of which he 
 wielded much influence, Mr. Ackerman became one 
 of the organizers of the company which projected 
 and is completing an electric interurban line of much 
 importance, the same extending from St. Paul to 
 Rochester. At the time of this writing eighteen 
 miles of the line have been completed and regular 
 service is established between St. Paul and Hastings. 
 Construction work on the extension of the line to 
 Rochester will be pushed forward and the road will 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1699 
 
 do much to foster the progress and prosperity of 
 the section which it traverses. 
 
 Mr. Ackerman has ever been a loyal and enthu- 
 siastic advocate of the principles and policies of the 
 democratic party and has been an active worker in 
 its local ranks in Dakota County. This fact, coupled 
 with his personal popularity, made him a specially 
 eligible candidate for the office of postmaster of 
 Hastings, to which position he was appointed on 
 the 8th of July, 1914, and in which his administra- 
 tion is fully justifying the preferment thus granted 
 to him. . He is affiliated with the Knights of Colum- 
 bus and both he and his wife are earnest communi- 
 cants of the Catholic Church, Mrs. Ackerman being 
 active in church and charitable work and a popular 
 factor in the representative social affairs of her 
 home city. 
 
 At Hastings, on the 4th of June, 1901, was solem- 
 nized the marriage of Mr. Ackerman to Miss Mag- 
 daline Heinan, who was born at Vermillion, Dakota 
 County, a daughter of the late Michael and Eliza- 
 beth (Schwartz) Heinan, who were honored pioneers 
 of this county. Mr. and Mrs. Ackerman became 
 the parents of three children, two of whom died in 
 infancy, the one surviving child being Jerome Otto, 
 who was born March x, 1909. 
 
 John W. Adsit. A stockholder of the Owatonna 
 Hotel Company, Mr. Adsit has also the distinction 
 of being the able and popular manager of the Owa- 
 tonna Hotel, which is owned by this company and 
 is recognized as one of the finest hotels to be found 
 in any city of the same comparative population in 
 Minnesota. The possession of such a modern and 
 effectively managed hotel is a source of pride to 
 the thriving little city that is the judicial center of 
 'Steele County and is in concrete evidence of the 
 progressiveness and public spirit of the enterprising 
 citizens who erected the building and those who 
 now own and control the property. 
 
 Mr. Adsit was born in Aurora Township, Steele 
 County, Minnesota, on the 12th of December, 1869, 
 and is a son of Charles and Jeanette (Woodruff) 
 Adsit, both natives of the State of New York and 
 both residents of Owatonna, Minnesota, at the 
 'time of their death. Charles Adsit was born in 
 Jefferson County, New York, in 1841, and he became 
 a pioneer settler in Steele County, Minnesota, 
 -where he reclaimed and developed a fine farm, in 
 Aurora Township. On this homestead he continued 
 to reside for many years, as an honored and influen- 
 tial citizen of the community, but he passed the 
 closing period of his life at Owatonna, where he died 
 in 1906, his wife having preceded him to eternal 
 rest. The lineage of the Adsit family is traced 
 back to sterling English origin and the first represen- 
 tatives . in America settled in Massachusetts in the 
 colonial days. Members of the family were found 
 enrolled as patriot soldiers in the War of the Revo- 
 lution, and thus the subject of this review is eligible 
 for membership in the Society of the Sons of the 
 American Revolution, even as are his daughters for 
 affiliation with the Society of the Daughters of 
 the American Revolution. 
 
 After duly availing himself of the advantages of 
 the public schools of his native county John W. 
 Adsit pursued higher studies for three years in 
 Pillsbury Academy. When about twenty years 
 of age he became identified with the buying and 
 shipping of live stock, and thereafter he conducted 
 a shoe store in Owatonna for eight years. He still 
 has secure place as one of the progressive and repre- 
 
 sentative business men of his native county, to which 
 his loyalty is unqualified. Since 1907 Mr. Adsit has 
 had the active management of the Owatonna Hotel, 
 and after assuming this position he retained his 
 interest in the shoe business for several years, 
 finally selling his interest in the latter enterprise. 
 He is one of the two interested principals in the 
 Owatonna Hotel Company, in which his associate 
 is Dr. G. G. Morehouse, of whom mention is made 
 on other pages of this work. These two enterprising 
 citizens purchased the hotel property from William 
 Kingsley, in 1907, and under the effective manage- 
 ment of Mr. Adsit many improvements have been 
 made on the building and in its appointments, the 
 while the service has been kept up to the best 
 standard, so that the hotel caters to a large and 
 appreciative patronage and finds its capacity so 
 tested that an enlargement of the building is con- 
 templated in the near future. 
 
 Mr. Adsit is independent of strict partisan lines in 
 political affairs but takes a deep concern in all that 
 touches the welfare of his home city, where he has 
 served for the past decade as a member of the board 
 of trustees of the public library. He has also served 
 as a trustee of the city hospital. In a fraternal way 
 he is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd 
 Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and the Yeomen. 
 Mr. Adsit has a wide acquaintanceship with the 
 traveling public and is known as one of the success- 
 ful and popular hotel men of Minnesota. 
 
 On the 29th of September, 1896, was solemnized 
 the marriage of Mr. Adsit to Miss Effie L. More- 
 house, daughter of. the late Dr. Eli M. Morehouse, 
 a pioneer physician and honored and influential 
 citizen of Owatonna, more definite record concern- 
 ing him being given in the sketch dedicated to his 
 son, Dr. G. G. Morehouse, elsewhere in this volume. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Adsit have two children, Eugenie and 
 Irene, both of whom are students in Pillsbury 
 Academy. 
 
 George Harvey Tyler. In no other professional 
 field of endeavor is the value of thorough prepara- 
 tion more evident than in the legal calling. With 
 the ambition to rise above the ranks of the mediocre, 
 the young man finds the training of the university 
 a vital necessity ; its advantages can be gained in 
 no other way. Prior to entering the active prac- 
 tice of his profession, George Harvey Tyler, of 
 Elk River, Minnesota, prepared himself with patience 
 and thoroughness, with the result that during the 
 comparatively short period of years in which he has 
 been engaged in professional affairs he has made 
 decided advance towards a substantial practice, and 
 has been honored by election to responsible positions, 
 he at this time being county attorney of Sherburne 
 County, a position which he has held since 1908. 
 
 George Harvey Tyler was born at Willmar, Kan- 
 diyohi County, Minnesota, July 30, 1881, and is a 
 son of George W. and Eulalia (Brown) Tyler. His 
 father, who came to Minnesota many years ago, was 
 for a long period connected with railroad service 
 and had runs as a locomotive engineer out of various 
 points. After completing his elementary studies in 
 the public schools of Willmar, George H. Tyler 
 entered the College of Northfield, Minnesota, and 
 was duly graduated therefrom. He had early de- 
 cided upon the law as the career to which he would 
 devote his life, and accordingly entered the law 
 department of the University of Minnesota, from 
 which he was graduated in 1906 with the degree of 
 Bachelor of Laws. In that same year he came to 
 
1700 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Elk River, where he opened an office and engaged 
 in a general professional business, and this city, the 
 county seat of Sherburne County, has continued to 
 be his home and field of endeavor to the present 
 time. As a lawyer Mr. Tyler has a good standing 
 at the bar. His eloquence, his strong personality, 
 his constructive ability, his knowledge of human 
 affairs, his liberal education and his tact as an advo- 
 cate have all combined to give him a high standing 
 among lawyers. In 1908 Mr. Tyler was elected 
 county attorney of Sherburne County, a position 
 which he has continued to fill to the present time and 
 as an incumbent of which he has made an enviable 
 record. Fraternally he is associated with the 
 Masonic order and the Independent Order of Odd 
 Fellows, the Theta Delta Phi and Phi Delta Phi 
 college fraternities and the Minneapolis Athletic 
 Club. As may be gathered from this brief sketch 
 and from the prominent office he now holds, Mr. 
 Tyler is a man not only of a high order of talent, 
 but also of great energy and perseverance, while 
 in disposition he is warm and kindly and his manner 
 is never failing in courtesy, characteristics which 
 make easily understood the estimation in 'which 
 he is held not only by his professional associates, 
 but by his host of personal friends. 
 
 Mr. Tyler was married to Miss Carlotta Bamber, 
 of Rochester, Minnesota, June 29,, 1912. 
 
 John Larson Brown. One of the leading lawyers 
 of Bemidji, John L. Brown is a man who has made 
 the best of his opportunities throughout his career. 
 Largely through his own efforts he secured a liberal 
 education, and began practice fifteen years ago not 
 only with a scholarly equipment but also with the 
 self reliance and training which come from sus- 
 tained effort. 
 
 John Larson Brown is a native of Norway, in 
 which country he was born July 10, 1872, a son of 
 Lars and Anna (Bonntvedt) Brown. John L. 
 Brown came to America when thirteen years of age, 
 in 1885, and grew to manhood in Polk County, Iowa, 
 where he finished his education in the public schools. 
 Later he attended a commercial college and also 
 took a normal course, in order to teach school, 
 which was a means of furthering him upon his 
 career. Mr. Brown finally entered Drake Univer- 
 sity at Des Moines, and was graduated from the 
 law department with the degree LL. B. in 1899. For 
 the following three years he was in practice at 
 Kanawha, Iowa, and then in Cambridge, Iowa, two 
 years. In 1908 he removed to Bemidji, and has 
 since been able to establish a large clientage in gen- 
 eral practice. He is a member of the Minnesota 
 State Bar Association. 
 
 Mr. Brown was married May 28, 1901, to Miss 
 Belle J. Jacobson, who was also born in Norway. 
 They have one son, Lewis Anthony, born March 
 8, 1902. 
 
 Paul A. Schultz. One of the largest retail com- 
 panies in the lumber trade at St. Paul is the Louis 
 F. Schultz Lumber Company, which was founded 
 by the late Louis F. Schultz more than twenty-five 
 years ago. This is a family that has lived in Minne- 
 sota for many years and has had important relations 
 with commercial affairs at St. Paul. 
 
 The late Louis F. Schultz was born in Mecklin- 
 burg-Schwerin, Germany, a son of John G. and 
 Augusta (Kettlehohn) Schultz. Louis F. Schultz 
 was educated in the German schools, and before 
 leaving that country married Minnie Killingberg. 
 
 He brought his wife to the United States, and from 
 New York City proceeded west directly to Minne- 
 sota, and for several years was employed as a farm 
 laborer in Scott County. During 1884-86 he was 
 engaged in the meat business at Pryor Lake, Minne- 
 sota, and in 1886 came to St. Paul. First in the lum- 
 ber trade, he soon resumed the meat business, but 
 sold that and became proprietor of the L. F. Schultz 
 Lumber Company. He was actively engaged in that 
 branch of commerce from 1889 until his death on 
 February 12, 1915. The late Mr. Schultz was a 
 member of the Masonic fraternity, the Knights of 
 Pythias and was a popular figure in both social and 
 business circles at St. Paul. 
 
 Paul A. Schultz, who is secretary and treasurer 
 of the Louis F. Schultz Lumber Company, was one 
 of the two sons of the founder of that business. 
 His brother is John W. Schultz, who is president 
 of the company. Their mother is also still living at 
 St. Paul. Since the death of the father these sons 
 have succeeded to and have continued the business. 
 It has a well established trade in and about the City 
 of St. Paul, and the firm carries a large stock of 
 hard and soft lumber and all kinds of building 
 material. 
 
 In 1910 Paul A. Schultz married Miss Martha 
 Schultz, a daughter of John G. Schultz, of the same 
 name but not related. They have a daughter, Mar- 
 garet N. Mr. Schultz and family are members of 
 the St. Mark's Lutheran Church, and he is one of the 
 most representative among the circle of younger 
 business leaders in St. Paul. 
 
 Edwin Mattson. An old soldier, long a resident 
 of Minnesota and active in business and politics at 
 Breckenridge, Edwin Mattson, since the assembling 
 of the present Legislature, the Thirty-ninth ses- 
 sion, has been postmaster of the House of Repre- 
 sentatives at St. Paul. 
 
 Edwin Mattson was born in Delaware County, 
 Pennsylvania, a descendant of the early Swede 
 settlement and a son of Peter W. and Evaline 
 (Hannum) Mattson, both also natives of Delaware 
 County. His father was one of the prosperous farm- 
 ers in the vicinity of Philadelphia, where he lived 
 on the old homestead until his death. The early life 
 of Edwin Mattson was spent on the farm, receiving 
 his education in select boarding schools, the normal 
 school at Chester and in Crittenden# College at 
 Philadelphia. On November 1, 1861, the common- 
 place routine of the farm was exchanged for the 
 active and strenuous life of a soldier. He enlisted 
 as a private in Company A, Second Pennsylvania 
 Cavalry, for three years, or during the war, and 
 during the course of his service was promoted from 
 time to time through the grades of non-commis- 
 sioned, second and first lieutenant and appointed 
 aide on General Gregg's staff early in 1864. He 
 was severely wounded on August 16, 1864, near Rich- 
 mond, while carrying dispatches. He served through 
 all the campaigns, excepting the early three months, 
 through Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania for 
 three years and was honorably discharged at the 
 close of 1864. 
 
 After returning home and after varied experiences 
 Mr. Mattson in 1879 located in Wilkin County, near 
 Breckenridge, and engaged in farming for twenty- 
 five years, was also active in local affairs, and was 
 a member of the Legislature in 1887-8, represent- 
 ing Wilkin, Clay and Becker counties. For eight 
 years he was postmaster of the City of Breckenridge, 
 his first appointment occurring in 1906 from Pres- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1701 
 
 ident Roosevelt, and his second, from President 
 Taft, in 1910. He has long been active in repub- 
 lican politics, for ten years was a member of Con- 
 gressman Halvor Steenerson's Committee of the 
 Ninth Congressional District, was a member of the 
 Republican State Central Campaign Committee of 
 1914, and was an alternate delegate to the Repub- 
 lican National Convention at Chicago in 1912. He 
 also served as major on Governor Knute Nelson’s 
 staff. 
 
 Mr. Mattson was married to Miss Hanna Rebecca 
 Gause, of Chester County, Pennsylvania, on May 
 30, 1863, at Washington, D. C., by the chaplain of 
 the United States Senate, the Rev. Byron Sunder- 
 land. Eight children were born to this union. 
 
 Paul D. Neff. One of the oldest newspapers 
 in Minnesota under one continuous family owner- 
 shin and management is the Lake Crystal Union, the 
 present editor and proprietor of which is Paul D. 
 Neff, a son of the founder. During the thirty odd 
 years of its existence the Union has enjoyed increas- 
 ing circulation and influence in Blue Earth and sur- 
 rounding county and both the paper and the read- 
 ing public have profited through the continuity of 
 policy and ownership. 
 
 Paul D. Neff, who has a large acquaintance with 
 newspapermen over the state, and who is regarded 
 as one of the leading citizens of Blue Earth County, 
 was born at Mankato in 1871. His parents were 
 George Washington and Sarah Lucretia (Fancher) 
 Neff. His father was born at Allentown, Penn- 
 sylvania, February 29, 1844, and his mother was 
 born at Valparaiso, Indiana, representing an old 
 family of that part of the state, and is still living 
 at the age of sixty-four. Mr. Neff’s maternal grand- 
 father, Thomas Campbell, was of the famous Camp- 
 bell clan of Scotland, and emigrated from his native 
 land to America about 1812. The paternal grand- 
 mother was living near Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 
 at the time of the memorable flood of 1889, and she 
 and her son survived that calamity. The late George 
 Washington Neff established at Mankato more than 
 forty years ago the Mankato Free Press, and was 
 one of the early newspaper men in Southern Min- 
 nesota. One distinction which belongs to him is 
 that he printed the first immigration pamphlet issued 
 from any press in Minnesota. George W. Neff had 
 a long and active career. During his residence in 
 Pennsylvania he served four years in the Civil 
 war with the Ninth Pennsylvania Regiment, and 
 one of his commanders was General Rosecrans. He 
 participated in the seven days’ battle, in the engage- 
 ment at Balls Bluff and many other historic battles. 
 Tn 1882 he removed from Mankato to Lake Crystal 
 and in that year established the Lake Crystal Union, 
 which was under his control and editorship until his 
 death, at which time he was its mayor. 
 
 Paul D. Neff received his early education in the 
 Mankato public schools, learned the printing and 
 newspaper business under his father, and has been 
 active head of the Lake Crystal LTnion since his 
 father’s death. He has always identified himself 
 with local affairs in a public spirited manner and at 
 one time was justice of the peace of Lake Crystal. 
 Fraternally he is affiliated with the Knights of 
 Pythias and with Bethel Lodge No. 103, A. F. & 
 A. M., being a past master of this lodge. Mr. Neff 
 married Marie T. Allon. They have two children. 
 Lawrence C., now nineteen years of age, is in the 
 United States navy, serving as captain’s gunner on 
 
 the cruiser Washington. The daughter Margaret 
 is nine years old. 
 
 Samuel James Renwick McMillan. One of the 
 first lawyers to practice in Minnesota Territory, 
 Judge McMillan in the course of forty years rose 
 to the highest position in the state judiciary and for 
 two terms represented Minnesota in the United 
 States Senate. He was easily one of the most dis- 
 tinguished men of his time in the Northwest. 
 
 The McMillan familv to which he belonged was 
 identified with the early settlement of Southwestern 
 Pennsylvania, where the name has been associated 
 with official positions in educational affairs and the 
 Presbyterian Church and with many civil positions 
 for more than a century and a quarter. A son of 
 Thomas Long and Jane (Gormley) McMillan, 
 Samuel James Renwick McMillan was born at 
 Brownsville, Pennsylvania, February 22, 1826. In 
 1846 he was graduated from Duquesne College, 
 afterwards merged with the Western University of 
 Pennsylvania, and from the latter institution he re- 
 ceived the honorary degree LL. D. in 1891. Judge 
 McMillan studied law in the office of Edwin M. 
 Stanton, who was secretary of war under Abra- 
 ham Lincoln. Admitted to the bar in 1849 he re- 
 mained at Pittsburg in practice from that year until 
 1853. He then came to Minnesota Territory and 
 practiced at Stillwater until 1856, in which year he 
 removed to St. Paul and upon the admission of Min- 
 nesota to the Union was chosen on May 24, 1858, 
 as first judge of the First Judicial District in the state 
 judiciary. He served in that office until July 1, 1854, 
 resigning to accept a position as associate justice of 
 the Supreme Court of the state. He was on the su- 
 preme bench as an associate justice until 1874, and 
 from April 7th of that year to March 10, 1875, was 
 chief justice of Minnesota. In the meantime he had 
 been elected by the republican party as United States 
 senator and took his seat in the Senate March 10, 
 1873, was reelected for a second term, and was a 
 prominent man in the Government at Washington 
 until March, 1887. He served as chairman of the 
 committee on claims and succeeded Roscoe Conkling 
 as chairman of the committee on commerce. At the 
 close of his second term as senator he resumed the 
 practice of law at St. Paul, and remained an honored 
 resident of that city until his death on October 3, 
 i 8 97 - 
 
 A republican in politics his ideals as to the ethics 
 of the judiciary caused him to hold himself aloof 
 from politics or from any political expression as 
 long as he was on the bench. Judge McMillan was 
 a member of the Scotch-Irish Society and also be- 
 longed to the Minnesota chapter of the Sons of the 
 American Revolution. Like his ancestors, he was 
 prominent in the Presbyterian Church, and served as 
 ruling elder in the Dayton Avenue Church from its 
 organization. In 1890 he was appointed by the 
 general assembly as a member of the committee for 
 the revision of the confession of faith. 
 
 In the Allegheny Arsenal at Pittsburg, Pennsyl- 
 vania, on October 31, 1850, Senator McMillan mar- 
 ried Harriet Eizabeth Butler, a daughter of Major 
 John B. Butler, then serving as paymaster of the 
 LTnited States Army. 
 
 Samuel S. Thorpe. Realty is the basis of all 
 security and in every community the man who con- 
 ducts substantial and honorable operations in the 
 handling of real estate plays a large and positive part 
 in the furtherance of civic and industrial progress 
 
1702 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 and prosperity. The representative Minneapolis 
 citizen whose name initiates this paragraph has 
 achieved national prestige and high reputation as 
 the leading real-estate operator of the Northwest, 
 and his status in his chosen sphere of endeavor is 
 measurably indicated by the fact that he was for- 
 merly president of the National Real Estate Associa- 
 tion of the United States. Tie has made a deep and 
 careful study of real-estate values and of the 
 general data and policies of the real-estate business, 
 so that he is a recognized authority in the line to 
 which he is giving his attention and in which his 
 achievement has been prodigious in scope and benefi- 
 cent results. He is essentially and emphatically one 
 of the most progressive and broad-minded citizens 
 of the Minnesota metropolis, and his character and 
 accomplishment make most consistent the recogni- 
 tion accorded to him in this history of the state. 
 
 Samuel S. Thorpe has previously been made the 
 subject of the following merited and pertinent, state- 
 ments, which are well worthy of perpetuation in 
 this connection : “The career of Mr. Thorpe affords 
 a grand example of the success which may be ac- 
 quired in the present day by ceaseless activity, per- 
 severance and a determination to reach the front 
 rank, notwithstanding the obstacles in the path that 
 is necessary to travel to advance to that goal. To 
 coin a word, ‘stick-to-it-iveness’ has been the motto 
 that he has followed through life. His story is 
 the more wonderful for the simple reason that, 
 starting in business without a dollar of capital and 
 with a very limited education, his first desire was 
 for knowledge, and after earning enough money for 
 his purpose he gave up business for a time, went 
 East to a leading college, and after his graduation 
 he at once re-entered business, in which his success 
 has been simply phenomenal. He is to-day one of 
 the largest handlers of real estate in Minneapolis, 
 and the volume of his annual business will compare 
 very favorably with that of anyone in his line in the 
 country.” 
 
 Mr. Thorpe is a native son of Minnesota, a scion 
 of one of the sterling pioneer families of this state, 
 and he exemplifies most fully the substantial personal 
 values and progressive spirit that are so character- 
 istic of the West. He was born at Red Wing, the 
 judicial center of Goodhue County, Minnesota, on 
 the 20th of April, 1864, and is a son of Rev. Samuel 
 S. and Caroline (Emory) Thorpe, both representa- 
 tives of staunch old families that were founded in 
 New England in the colonial era of our national 
 history, the Emory family having been one of not 
 a little prominence in the State of Maine and the 
 Thorpe family having been established in the State 
 of New York a number of generations ago, upon re- 
 moval of a representative from New England. Rev. 
 Samuel S. Thorpe was a man of fine intellectual 
 attainments and was one of the early and influential 
 clergymen of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 
 Minnesota, where he also served for a number of 
 years as a member of the faculty of Hamline Uni- 
 versity, in the City of St. Paul. The parents names 
 merit a high place on the roll of the honored pio- 
 neers of Minnesota. 
 
 Samuel S. Thorpe, the immediate subject of this 
 review, acquired his early education in the public 
 schools and thereafter attended Hamline University, 
 in which his father was at that time a professor. 
 As a mere boy he initiated his independent career, 
 by selling newspapers on the streets of St. Paul, 
 and in 1883 procured a position as clerk in a hat 
 store in the Minnesota capital city. Thereafter he 
 
 was employed for two years in a banking institution, 
 where he gained valuable discipline and knowledge. 
 Mr. Thorpe engaged in the real-estate business in 
 an independent way, and his energy, discrimination 
 and ability enabled him to accumulate about $70,000 
 in two years' time. At the expiration of this period 
 he gave distinctive evidence of his mature judgment 
 and laudable ambition by withdrawing entirely from 
 business for the purpose of supplementing his educa- 
 tion. He had come to full realization of the prac- 
 tical value of fuller mental training than had been 
 given him, and the young business man accordingly 
 entered Princeton University, New Jersey, in which 
 he continued his studies for two years and in which 
 he was graduated as a member of the class of 1889, 
 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. 
 
 With this additional and valuable reinforcement 
 for the practical duties and responsibilities of life, 
 Air. Thorpe returned to Minnesota soon after his 
 graduation, and in the City of Alinneapolis he 
 engaged actively in the real-estate business, in part- 
 nership with his younger brother, J. R. Thorpe and 
 under the firm name of Thorpe Brothers. This title 
 is still retained, though the business was finally in- 
 corporated, to meet the demands placed upon it by 
 rapid and substantial expansion of operations. 
 Thorpe Brothers have played a large part in further- 
 ing the material development and upbuilding of 
 Minneapolis, where they have erected the fine build- 
 ings occupied by many leading mercantile and job- 
 bing houses, besides having exploited and sold 
 through their agency many of the large properties 
 of Minneapolis. Here they are agents for the 
 Andrus, the Palace and the Plymouth buildings, and 
 the Dyckman Hotel, as well as of many other im- 
 portant business properties in the city. Samuel S. 
 Thorpe is president of the real-estate corporation 
 of Thorpe Brothers, and since 1904 his brother has 
 maintained a home in Denver, Colorado, where he 
 is successfully engaged in the real-estate business, 
 while retaining his interests in Minneapolis. 
 
 Samuel S. Thorpe is a man of broad views and 
 distinct initiative and administrative ability. He 
 is essentially loyal and progressive as a citizen and 
 business man and is specially prominent in the Na- 
 tional Real Estate Association, of which he served 
 as vice president and to the presidency of which 
 great organization he was elected in 1911, his incum- 
 bency of this office continuing for one year. Pie 
 served for five years as a member of Company B, 
 First Infantry of the Minnesota National Guard, 
 and in his home city he is a valued and popular 
 member of the Minneapolis Club, the Commercial 
 Club, the Minikahda Club, and the University Club, 
 of which last mentioned he is president in 1914. He 
 is secretary and a member of the board of trustees 
 of Plamline University, and is vice president of the 
 Asbury Plospital of Alinneapolis. Both he and his 
 wife are zealous members of the Alethodist Episco- 
 pal Church and they are popular factors in the repre- 
 sentative social activities of Minneapolis. 
 
 In the year 1899 was solemnized the marriage of 
 Air. Thorpe to Aliss Alargaret P. Andrus, a daughter 
 of the late Hon. John E. Andrus, of Yonkers, New 
 York, and the three children of this union are James 
 R., Julia, and Samuel S., Jr. 
 
 John F. Beunhagen. It is gratifying to note 
 that of the representative members of the Alinne- 
 apolis bar a very appreciable quota finds specific 
 recognition in this history, and well entitled to such 
 consideration is John Frederick Bernhagen, who 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1703 
 
 served five years as assistant county attorney of 
 Hennepin County and who now controls a substan- 
 tial private practice, with offices in Suite 605-7 Palace 
 Building. Further interest attaches to his career 
 by reason of the fact that he is a native of Minne- 
 sota, within whose gracious borders his parents 
 established their home nearly forty years ago. 
 
 Mr. Bernhagen was born at Waseca, Minnesota, 
 the judicial center of the county of the same name, 
 and the date of his nativity was January 19, 1878. 
 He is a son of John and Clara A. (Manthey) Bern- 
 hagen, both of whom were born in Germany and 
 the latter of whom accompanied her parents on 
 their immigration to America, in 1871, in which year 
 the family settled in Minnesota, where was solem- 
 nized, a few years later, her marriage to John Bern- 
 hagen, who came to the United States from the 
 German Fatherland in 1857 and who became closely 
 associated with the lumber industry. As a lumber 
 ' cruiser he did a large amount of effective service 
 and prior to his marriage he had visited every state 
 in the union. He finally settled in Waseca County, 
 Minnesota, where he engaged in agricultural pur- 
 suits, having been a pioneer of that section of the 
 state and having there developed a valuable farm. 
 He continued to be actively identified with agricul- 
 ture and stock-growing until 1893, when he removed 
 with his family to Minneapolis, where he lived vir- 
 tually retired until his death, in 1899. His widow 
 survived him by nearly a decade and was summoned 
 to eternal rest in 1907. They became the parents 
 of three children, of whom the eldest is John F., 
 of this review ; Lewis 0 . is a chemist at the Min- 
 neapolis municipal filtration plant ; and Clara H., 
 who is a trained nurse, likewise remains in Minne- 
 apolis. 
 
 After gaining his preliminary training in the public 
 schools of his native county John F. Bernhagen 
 entered the Pillsbury Academy, at Owatonna, this 
 state, and in this institution he was graduated as a 
 member of the class of 1897. Thereafter he com- 
 pleted the classical course in the University of Min- 
 nesota, in which he was graduated in 1901, with the 
 degree of Bachelor of Arts. He had in the mean- 
 while formulated definite plans for his future career 
 and in harmony therewith he began the study of 
 law, making rapid progress in his absorption and 
 assimilation of the science of jurisprudence and 
 being admitted to the bar of his native state in 190 3. 
 He forthwith began the service of his professional 
 novitiate, in Minneapolis, and that he soon proved 
 his powers is shown by the fact that he was ap- 
 pointed assistant county attorney under the adminis- 
 tration of Albert J. Smith. He served five years in 
 this capacity and incidentally his work did much 
 to enhance and establish firmly his reputation as a 
 versatile trial lawyer. Since his resignation of the 
 position noted he has conducted a general practice 
 in an individual way, though he shows a tendency 
 to specialize in casualty and bond insurance and lia- 
 bility law, along which lines he retains a representa- 
 tive clientage. 
 
 In politics Mr. Bernhagen is found arrayed as an 
 effective and unswerving advocate of the cause of 
 the republican party; he is affiliated with various 
 Masonic bodies in his home city, including Zurah 
 Temple of the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles 
 of the Mystic Shrine; and he holds membership in 
 the Town and Country Club and the University Club. 
 He is an appreciative member of the Hennepin 
 County Bar Association and the Minnesota State 
 Bar Association. 
 
 Vol. Ill— 28 
 
 On the 8th of August, 1907, Mr. Bernhagen wed- 
 ded Miss Harriet J. Hutchinson, of Minneapolis, 
 who was born and reared in this city, their ac- 
 quaintanceship having had its inception when both 
 were students in the University of Minnesota, in 
 which Mrs. Bernhagen was graduated as a member 
 of the class of 1903, with the baccalaureate degree. 
 She is a daughter of Thomas E. and Jane H. Hutch- 
 inson, the latter of whom is deceased. Mr. Hutchin- 
 son was born and reared in England, where he 
 learned the miller’s trade, and he still resides in 
 Minneapolis, where for thirty-five years he was asso- 
 ciated with the Northwestern Milling Company. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Bernhagen have four children. 
 
 Daniel Webster Longfellow. One of the oldest 
 native sons of Minneapolis, born at the little village 
 around St. Anthony Falls more than sixty years ago, 
 Daniel W. Longfellow has for many years had an 
 active career in the business and civic interests of 
 his home city, and in business circles is best known 
 as treasurer and general manager of the Longfellow 
 Brothers Company, wholesale dealers in fruits and 
 other provisions. 
 
 Daniel Webster Longfellow, who was named for 
 the great orator and statesman by his grandfather, 
 Washington Getchell, one of the very earliest set- 
 tlers at St. Anthony Falls, was born at Minneapolis 
 April 14, 1852, a son of Jacob and Martha Jane 
 (Getchell) Longfellow, his father a prominent lum- 
 berman and farmer of early Minnesota. Jacob Long- 
 fellow comes of an old New England family, another 
 branch of which gave to the world the poet Long- 
 fellow. Some of the ancestors had an exciting 
 share in the events of the American Revolution, and 
 this branch of the family established a home at 
 Mathias, Maine. Jacob Longfellow was a lumber 
 manufacturer at Mathias, and in 1851 came to St. 
 Anthony Falls, where his wife’s parents, Washington 
 and Mary (Berry) Getchell, had located in 1848. 
 The second frame residence built in the village was 
 erected by Washington Getchell. The home of the 
 Longfellows was at Brooklyn Center in Hennepin 
 County until after the Civil war, and Jacob Long- 
 fellow died in Minneapolis in 1884. 
 
 Daniel W. Longfellow received his early education 
 in the country schools at Brooklyn Center and with 
 two years in the state university. His first eighteen 
 years were spent on a farm, and Mr. Longfellow 
 recalls that period of his existence as one in which 
 he devoted much time and attention to the peculiar 
 habits of all domestic animals and of wild game, 
 birds, fishes and insects. His admission that very 
 early in life he contracted the habit of getting up 
 early in the morning, eating three meals a day and 
 going to bed at night, to be a fact not without its 
 value in estimating the reasons for his success in 
 business. When he was seven years of age he 
 played almost a man’s part on the farm, milking five 
 cows night and morning, feeding the pigs, sheep, 
 horses and other stock, cutting wood and finding 
 abundant occupation for all his leisure in the meadow 
 or in the fields. Even as a boy he was fond of fish- 
 ing and hunting, and in his later busy career has 
 now and then found time to indulge that taste. After 
 leaving the farm his first work was in teaching the 
 country school, and he says he was attracted to that 
 vocation by his misunderstanding as to the easy time 
 a teacher seemed to have. 
 
 During the ’70s Mr. Longfellow spent several 
 years in North Dakota, where he found his wife, 
 and on his return to Minneapolis in 1881 joined his 
 
1704 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 brother Levi in the fruit and produce business, be- 
 coming a partner in the firm of Longfellow Brothers 
 in 1883. Later the business was incorporated under 
 its present title of the Longfellow Brothers Company. 
 For a number of years he was also on the board of 
 directors of the Morse Produce Company of Gran- 
 ite Falls, Minnesota, and is still a stockholder in 
 that corporation. Mr. Longfellow is recognized as 
 one of the leading authorities and factors in the fruit 
 and produce business of the Northwest. For six 
 years he was president of the Minneapolis Produce 
 Exchange, and for one year was president of the 
 National League of Commission Merchants, and is 
 now a member of the advisory board of that body, 
 comprising five members of different parts of the 
 country appointed by the president of the league. 
 In politics Mr. Longfellow is a republican, was a 
 census enumerator in North Dakota in 1880 and 
 took the census over nearly a half of that state. 
 For many years he has been a member of the board 
 of Asbury Hospital, and also is on the board of the 
 Union City Mission. Other relations include the 
 Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Association; the 
 Minneapolis Automobile Club; Ark Lodge No. 176, 
 A. F. & A. M. ; the consistory of the Scottish Rite; 
 Durah Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He is a mem- 
 ber and for a number of years was chairman of the 
 Board of Trustees of Simpson Methodist Episcopal 
 Church at Minneapolis. 
 
 At Fort Berthold, North Dakota, June 4, 1879, 
 Mr. Longfellow married Myra J. Calhoun, who was 
 born in Berkshire, Delaware County, Ohio, and was 
 reared and educated in her native state, graduating 
 from the Western Female Seminary at Oxford, 
 Ohio, in 1876. In 1878, associated with Rev. O. L. 
 Hall, she went out to the Indian country in North 
 Dakota as a missionary and was engaged in that 
 work on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. Mr. 
 Longfellow had located there in 1876, and was en- 
 gaged for four years as an Indian trader, in the 
 meantime meeting Miss Calhoun and making her his 
 wife. After their marriage they returned to Min- 
 neapolis on September 1, 1881. Mrs. Longfellow, 
 who was one of the prominent women in church 
 and philanthropic affairs at Minneapolis, died Feb- 
 ruary 11, 1912. She was a member of the Board of 
 Directors of Asbury Hospital, was active in the 
 Simpson Methodist Episcopal Church, and was one 
 of the first women in Minneapolis to become inter- 
 ested in the free kindergarten movement, and at 
 one time she was state superintendent of the W. C. 
 T. LT. Department of Work Among the Indians. Of 
 the five children born to Mr. and Mrs. Longfellow 
 only two are living, both natives of Minneapolis. 
 The son, Dwight W., who has charge of construc- 
 tion of concrete bridges all over the state under 
 George W. Cooley, head of the State Highway Com- 
 mission, is a graduate of the Central High School 
 of Minneapolis, graduated at the University of Min- 
 nesota in June, 1908, and on commencement day left 
 Minneapolis for the Philippines, where he was lo- 
 cated as a civil engineer for three years. Before 
 leaving the Philippines he had been promoted to 
 district engineer, and for a time had charge of the 
 northern half of Panay and two other small islands 
 in the Philippine group. His daughter, Emily Myra, 
 who lives at home with her father, is now in "the first 
 year of her high school course at the New Central 
 High School. 
 
 Henry T. McColl. A long established business 
 man of St. Paul, Henry T. McColl is probably best 
 
 known in that city through his public services. He 
 has been in the Legislature several terms, has sat as 
 a member of the city council, and at the present 
 time is giving a capable administration of the office 
 of commissioner of public safety, with offices in the 
 courthouse. His business is that of druggist and he 
 has a large store and a thriving business at 1275 
 West Seventh Street. 
 
 Henry T. McColl is a native of Illinois, born in 
 the City of Chicago March 2, 1866, a son of Edward 
 and Mary (Foley) McColl. His parents were both 
 born in Ireland, emigrated to the United States, 
 lived in Chicago for a number of years, and in 1873 
 established their home in St. Paul. His father was 
 a shoemaker by trade and gave the best years of his 
 active life to that work. Later for eight years he 
 had general supervision of the building of the St. 
 Paul Cathedral. He died in 1880. 
 
 Henry T. McColl was seven years old when the 
 family removed to St. Paul, received his education 
 in the parochial and public schools, and when a boy 
 of about fourteen, in 1880, had his first experience 
 as an employe of a drug store. That experience he 
 has utilized to give him his regular business, and 
 since 1880 he has been a merchant in this line for 
 himself. 
 
 Mr. McColl soon after reaching his majority iden- 
 tified himself actively with the democratic party, and 
 has been more or less a factor in democratic politics 
 in St. Paul and Ramsey County ever since. In 1902 
 he was elected as a democrat to represent the Thirty- 
 fourth District in the State Legislature, serving dur- 
 ing the sessions of 1903 and 1905, and was again 
 elected and served in the sessions of 1907 and 1909. 
 Since leaving the Legislature Mr. McColl has filled 
 the position of commissioner of public safety in 
 Ramsey County, and is one of the most popular and 
 efficient of the men entrusted with public responsi- 
 bilities in the Ramsey County courthouse. He also 
 served three years as an alderman from the Third 
 Ward, and during the last year was president of the 
 city council. 
 
 Rev. Alfred 0. Johnson. The head of one of 
 the largest Lutheran churches in Minnesota, at 
 Spring Grove, Reverend Mr. Johnson has spent all 
 his active life in the ministry, and was for a number 
 of years pastor of a Chicago church until accepting 
 the call to the congregation at Spring Grove about 
 five years ago. 
 
 A native of Minnesota, Alfred O. Johnson was 
 born at Zumbrota, May 12, 1871, a son of Hans and 
 Julia (Strand) Johnson. His grandfather, John 
 Hanson, was a native of Norway and died at Red 
 Wing at the age of eighty-six, while the maternal 
 grandfather Asle Strand, was for a number of 
 years a farmer in Goodhue County. Hans Johnson 
 was born in Norway in 1844, and was brought to 
 America in 1833, while his wife was born in 1849 
 and came to this country in 1855. They were mar- 
 ried at Zumbrota in 1868. The father lived in Iowa 
 until the Civil war, and in 1862 enlisted in the 
 Twenty-seventh Iowa Infantry and was out three 
 years. He took part in numerous campaigns and 
 engagements, and at Mount Pleasant, Louisiana, was 
 wounded, and that, together with long exposure due 
 to his lying on the battlefield for days together, 
 brought on an affliction to the eyes which has since 
 become total blindness. After the war he engaged 
 successfully in merchandising at Zumbrota, and was 
 elected county clerk of Goodhue County in which 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1705 
 
 office he served for twelve years but had to resign 
 on account of his eyes. He has lived retired 
 for the last twenty-five years. He has taken an 
 active and influential part in republican politics, and 
 though dependent on his own exertions for most of 
 the advantages he ever received, is well informed 
 and has had much experience with men and affairs. 
 He and wife are both devout members of the Lu- 
 theran Church. ! They became the parents of five 
 children : Julius Melvin is a farmer near Bowman, 
 
 South Dakota; Alfred O. was second in order of 
 birth; Edwin Casper is a dentist at Cannon Falls, 
 Minnesota ; Wilford Alpheus is a minister of the 
 Lutheran Church at Capron, Illinois ; Clara Oline 
 married Rev. N. S. Magelsen, of the Lutheran 
 Church. 
 
 Mr. Johnson was reared in Red Wing, and from 
 the public schools took collegiate training in the 
 Lutheran College at Decorah, Iowa, graduating in 
 1891. He prepared for the ministry by a theological 
 course in the Lutheran Seminary in Minnesota, and 
 after graduating in 1895 his first work was at Mor- 
 risonville, Wisconsin, as as§istant to Rt. Rev. H. A. 
 Preus, then president of the Norwegian Synod. In 
 1895 Reverend Mr. Johnson was called to the Church 
 of Our Savior, at Chicago, and was pastor of that 
 Norwegian Lutheran congregation until 1910. In the 
 latter year he returned to Minnesota to take charge 
 of the Trinity Lutheran Church at Spring Grove. 
 This is the only church in that town with a popula- 
 tion of 800, and this commodious church home has 
 a seating capacity of 1,000. There are 350 families 
 who have membership in the church, being one of 
 the largest churches of this denomination in the 
 state. The members have a high regard for their 
 pastor, and he has done a very important work since 
 locating here. 
 
 Reverend Mr. Johnson was married June 11, 1895, 
 to Miss Bertina Marie Olson, of Red Wing. Her 
 father, Peter Olson, was in the shoe business in that 
 city. Seven children have blessed their union, five 
 of them living: Paul Gerhard, aged eighteen, is a 
 
 student in the Lutheran College at Decorah, Iowa ; 
 Bernard Alfred is a student in the same college; 
 Harold Edward, born in 1902, is in the public 
 schools ; Helen Marie, who died in Chicago in 1909, 
 aged five years ; Clara Ovedia, who is eight years 
 old and in school; Alfred O., Jr., aged six and be- 
 ginning his studies ; and Helen Marie, who died in 
 1914 at the age of three years. In politics Mr. John- 
 son is an independent republican, but all his time 
 and energy are taken up by his church duties and 
 his studies. He is not yet in the prime of his years 
 and powers, and has the promise of many years of 
 continued usefulness in his high calling. 
 
 Saul Goldberg. Former president, treasurer and 
 manager of the Hotel Holland Company of Duluth, 
 Saul Goldberg has been more or less actively iden- 
 tified with the City of Duluth for the past seventeen 
 years. 
 
 He was born in the City of Chicago, Illinois, 
 August 1, 1876, a son of David and Anna Goldberg, 
 of an old and honored Russian family. The father, 
 who still lives in Chicago and is a retired manufac- 
 turer of tinware, was born in Russia in 1841, and 
 emigrated to the United States at the age of twenty- 
 one, settling first in Indianapolis and a short time 
 later going to Chicago. He established himself in 
 business in a small way, and through the exercise 
 of native energy, industry and ability became the 
 owner of a business which made him independent. 
 
 Saul Goldberg as a boy attended the Chicago pub- 
 lic schools, but most of his intellectual training has 
 come in the schools of hard work and experience. 
 At the age of fifteen he laid aside his books to take 
 up the stern duties of life as a worker, at that time 
 entering his father's factory. He left that work in 
 1898 and came to Duluth, investing a small capital 
 which he had been able to save in a general mer- 
 chandise business. This was a profitable venture, 
 and after three years he returned to Chicago and 
 engaged in the importing business for two years. 
 When he came back to Duluth in 1907 he turned his 
 attention to the wholesale and retail liquor business, 
 and in 1910 became president, treasurer and manager 
 of the Hotel Holland Company, which erected the 
 first concrete, fireproof hotel in this city, at the cor- 
 ner of Fifth Avenue West and Superior Street. 
 The hotel was at first six stories and subsequently 
 four more stories were added, providing accommoda- 
 tions for 400 guests. While in the hotel business 
 Mr. Goldberg was a member of the Hotel Men’s 
 Association and the Hotel Men’s Mutual Beneficial 
 Association. His religious connection is with the 
 Temple Emanuel. 
 
 Mr. Goldberg was married in 1902 in Chicago to 
 Miss Annie Rosenfield, daughter of Louis Rosen- 
 field, now living retired in Chicago. They have four 
 children: Jerome and Lawrence, attending the In- 
 
 diana School at Duluth ; Arthur ; and Beatrice. 
 
 Neill Malcolm Watson, M. D. One of the old- 
 est physicians and surgeons in active practice in the 
 Red River Valley is Dr. Neill Malcolm Watson, of 
 Red Lake Falls, where he has been identified with 
 his profession for over twenty years, and his suc- 
 cessful work in his chosen field has also brought him 
 opportunities for influential connection with business 
 and various civic and political movements. 
 
 Neill Malcolm Watson was born at Williamstown 
 in Glengary County, Ontario, August 20, 1865, a son 
 of Rev. Peter and Marjorie (Monro) Watson. His 
 father was a Presbyterian minister. Doctor Watson 
 was educated in the public schools of Canada, and 
 then entered what is regarded as the foremost pro- 
 fessional institution of Canada, the McGill Univer- 
 sity of Montreal, where he was graduated in the 
 medical department in 1891. In the following year, 
 1892, Doctor Watson located at Red Lake Falls, 
 and has since built up and carried on a large general 
 practice in both medicine and surgery. 
 
 For two terms he held the office of mayor of his 
 village, and for a number of years was president of 
 the school board. Both politics and movements af- 
 fecting the basic welfare of this section of Northern 
 Minnesota have made a strong appeal to him. He 
 is a former president of the Red Lake County Agri- 
 cultural Society, is a former chairman of the County 
 Republican Committee and a member of the State 
 Republican Committee, is vice president of the First 
 State Bank of Red Lake Falls and a director of the 
 Mutual Investment Company of St. Paul. Mr. Wat- 
 son is a member of the Masonic fraternity, the 
 Knights of Pythias and the Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks, and in Minneapolis belongs 
 to the Athletic Club. He has professional associa- 
 tions with the Red River Valley and the Minnesota 
 State Medical societies and the American Medical 
 Association. 
 
 Eli Southworth. One of Minnesota’s surviving 
 veterans of the Civil war, Eli Southworth has lived 
 in this state nearly sixty years, and for over forty 
 
1706 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 years has been a member of the bar and the posses- 
 sor of a large practice at Shakopee. While in his 
 work as a lawyer and public official he has been 
 intimately identified with affairs in Scott County 
 for many years, Mr. Southworth, through his long 
 connection with the State Board of Law Examiners, 
 is one of the best known members of the Minne- 
 sota bar, and is also prominent in the old soldiers’ 
 associations. ( 
 
 Eli Southworth is a New Englander, and was born 
 at Mattepoisett, Massachusetts, September 4, 1844, a 
 son of Newton and Rhoda (Sparrow) Southworth. 
 This branch of the family have been particularly 
 identified with the profession of medicine. Not only 
 was his father a pioneer Minnesota physician, but 
 his grandfather Wilbur was also of the same profes- 
 sion, and spent his active career in Massachusetts. 
 The great-grandfather, also named Wilbur South- 
 worth, was a native of Massachusetts, a physician, 
 and saw active service in the Revolutionary war. 
 The Southworths came from England to Massachu- 
 setts in the year 1624. Mr. Southworth's maternal 
 grandfather, Edward Sparrow, was a native of Mas- 
 sachusetts and spent his life there as a farmer, 
 owning a fine estate near Rochester. Dr. Newton 
 Southworth was born in Massachusetts September 25, 
 1803, and died at Shakopee, in Minnesota, May 3, 
 1863. His wife was born at Rochester, Massachu- 
 setts, May 13, 1811, and died in Minneapolis May n, 
 1898, at the venerable age of eighty-seven. They 
 were married at Rochester March 27, 1838, and 
 came out to Minnesota in August, 1856, spending 
 a short time in St. Paul and reaching Scott County 
 on September 10th. There Doctor Southworth 
 bought a farm and also pre-empted land in LeSueur 
 County. This property he still owned at the time 
 of his death. He had received medical training 
 back East under his father’s direction, and had prac- 
 ticed as a physician both in Massachusetts and after 
 coming to Minnesota, where he did much service 
 among the early settlers, tie was a democrat and 
 a member of the Masonic fraternity, and his wife 
 back in her native state had worshiped with the 
 Congregational Church, but was a Presbyterian in 
 Minnesota. Of their six children three died young: 
 Sophia W. is the widow of J. G. Kirkland, of White 
 Bear Lake ; the second is Eli ; and Susan E. is the 
 wife of Charles C. Dyke, a farmer of White Bear 
 Lake. 
 
 Mr. Eli Southworth spent the first eleven years 
 of his life in Massachusetts, where he attended com- 
 mon schools and had three terms in the schools at 
 Belle Plaine, Minnesota. He was not yet seventeen 
 years of age when the Civil war broke out, and on 
 September 26, 1861, enlisted in Company A of the 
 Fourth Minnesota Infantry. He was with his regi- 
 ment thirteen months, and participated in the siege 
 of Corinth. His honorable discharge came on ac- 
 count of sickness, and when he left the army he 
 weighed only no pounds. As a result of the hard- 
 ships of the war he was almost an invalid for sev- 
 eral years, and part of the time was clerk in a 
 drug store for two years. He then bought a drug 
 store at Anthony, conducted it six years, and after 
 selling out took up the study of law. Mr. South- 
 worth was admitted to the bar June 16, 1874, and 
 since that date has been in active practice as a lawyer 
 at Shakopee. 
 
 On April 24, 1867, he married Miss Lenora Eliza 
 Walter. Her father, Andrews B. Walter, was a 
 Virginian, moved to Indiana, and thence to the 
 
 northwestern frontier, where he was one of the 
 earliest settlers in Scott County. His location in 
 this state was in 1853. He also was a physician 
 and practiced for a number of years. Of the two 
 children born to Mr. and Mrs. Southworth, Walter 
 Newton is an attorney and has been for a number 
 of years in active association with his father. He 
 was educated in the common schools of Shakopee, 
 in the Shattuck Military School and in the state 
 university, and for two years played halfback on 
 the university football team. He was graduated in 
 law in 1895 and for the greater part of twenty 
 years has been partner of his father. For eight 
 years he served as county attorney and is now city 
 attorney of Shakopee. The second child is Alice 
 Virginia, wife of Llarold J. Hard, of Thompson 
 Falls, Montana, Mr. Hard being a civil, engineer. 
 
 Mr. Southworth and family are members of the 
 Episcopal Church, and for twenty years he has 
 served as vestryman and is now treasurer of the 
 church, in the work of which his wife and daughter 
 take a particularly active part. During 1892-93 Mr. 
 Southworth was grand jnaster . workman in Minne- 
 sota of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and 
 is also affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of Amer- 
 ica. 
 
 In politics he has long been aligned with the 
 democratic party, has made many speeches in vari- 
 ous campaigns. A number of years ago he was a 
 law partner with Mr. McDonald and assisted his 
 partner in his candidacy for Congress, managing 
 the campaign. He has also given service as county 
 attorney, and for fifteen years was city attorney. 
 Through all the forty years he has enjoyed a good 
 practice, and among his various interests the law is 
 paramount to all others. 
 
 Mr. Southworth has always manifested an interest 
 in Grand Army affairs, and for one year was presi- 
 dent of the Fourth Minnesota Regiment Associa- 
 tion. He was elected to this office following the 
 death of Gen. John B. Sanborn. He had a responsi- 
 ble part in the placing of the statues on the capitol 
 grounds at St. Paul, being chairman of the commit- 
 tee which selected and placed the monuments. This 
 committee consisted of two members of the Histo- 
 rical Society and three members from General San- 
 born's regiment, one of them being former Governor 
 General Hubbard. Mr. Southworth and General 
 Hubbard went to New York together to select the 
 statues and to. see that they were properly executed 
 and given appropriate positions on the capitol 
 grounds. 
 
 Mr. Southworth has served as a member of the 
 State Board of Law Examiners in Minnesota since 
 the organization of that board in 1891, and is now 
 the only surviving charter member left on the board. 
 He was president of the board in 1895-96, and has 
 since been its secretary and treasurer. 
 
 Joseph A. Ring. A former mayor of Shakopee, 
 Joseph A. Ring has been successfully identified with 
 business in that county for many years, and has been 
 a familiar figure and leader in republican politics in 
 this section of the state. His family came to Min- 
 nesota when the territory was in process of being 
 merged into a state, and he is himself one of the 
 older native sons of Scott County, where he was 
 born at Newmarket. February 19, 1866. His parents 
 were John J. and Christina (Baltes) Ring, both na- 
 tives of Germany. His grandfather, Anton Ring, 
 brought his family from Germany in 1841 and was 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1707 
 
 an early settler in Wisconsin Territory, living on a 
 farm in that state until 1857, when with other mem- 
 bers of the family he drove with wagon and team 
 to the northwestern frontier and located in Minne- 
 sota. John J. Ring was born in Germany in 1832 
 and died in 1912, while his wife, who was born in 
 1835, is still living. He was about nine years of age 
 when his father settled in Wisconsin and was mar- 
 ried in Kenosha in 1836. The following year he 
 came to Scott County and identified himself with 
 the pioneer farming development of that section. 
 He was always active in the Catholic Church, and 
 built the first church at Newmarket. He was also a 
 leader in democratic politics, served as county com- 
 missioner from 1866 to 1872, for eight years was 
 county treasurer and after leaving the office lived in 
 Shakopee. He acquired considerable means, but 
 towards the end of his life lost most of his prop- 
 erty. 
 
 Joseph A. Ring, the fourth in a family of ten 
 children, nine of whom are living, had only a com- 
 mon school education, and started life on a gravel 
 train. Later he learned the printer’s trade and 
 worked at it for three years, but never got a cent of 
 pay for his labor. He next took up the trade of 
 bricklayer, and found steady employment at that 
 occupation for thirteen years. Finally the Hamms 
 Brewing Company made him their traveling auditor, 
 and he has been continuously in the service of this 
 company for the past twenty-two years. He now 
 manages a branch of the business in Shakopee and 
 supplies all the retail concerns in a radius of forty 
 miles. 
 
 In 1886 Mr. Ring married Eva Vierling of Shako- 
 pee. Her father, Henry Vierling, was one of the 
 early German settlers in Scott County and a profes- 
 sional musician. He served a number of years as 
 musician in the United States navy, and on receiving 
 his discharge at Boston in 1865 came out to Scott 
 County, where he was long familiarly known as 
 leader of an orchestra or band. To the marriage of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Ring have been born eight children : 
 Minnie, wife of Hal Huth, of Savage, Minne- 
 sota; Bertha, wife of Pete Barr, of Shakopee; 
 Blanche, who lives at home and has finished the high 
 school course ; Esther, a teacher in the public schools 
 of Scott County; Elvira, who is still in school; 
 George, Evelyn, Joseph A., Jr., also pupils in the 
 local schools. The family are members of the 
 Catholic Church, and Mr. Ring is affiliated with the 
 Catholic Order of Foresters, the Fraternal Order 
 of Eagles and the United Commercial Travelers. 
 He is also a member of the Sons of Hermann, and 
 for six years was president of the Minnesota State 
 Traveling Men’s Association. 
 
 In pub'ic life he has always been associated with 
 the republican party. For six years he held the 
 office of mayor of Shakopee. For fifteen years he 
 was chairman of the Republican County Committee, 
 and at the present time is serving in the city council. 
 His interests are those of a broad gauge and public- 
 spirited citizen. For fifteen years he was president 
 of the County Agricultural Society, and has also 
 been president of the Good Roads Association of his 
 home county. Though starting life in very humble 
 circumstances, Mr. Ring has gained both influential 
 position and a large degree of material prosperity. 
 He owns a large farm on which he raises corn and 
 alfalfa, and has some valuable real estate in Shako- 
 pee. However, all his best energies are devoted to 
 the management of the brewing company’s business. 
 
 William Michael O’Donnell. Prominent among 
 the men whose extensive operations have given 
 prestige to the City of St. Paul as a manufac- 
 turing center is William Michael O’Donnell, presi- 
 dent of the O Donnell Shoe Company. Few mem- 
 bers of the trade have a more thorough or compre- 
 hensive knowledge of the shoe business, for from 
 the time he entered upon his active career Mr. 
 O’Donnell has been identified with the business of 
 shoe manufacturing. In his present enterprise he 
 has met with phenomenal success, developing his 
 business from a humble start into a concern which 
 makes St. Paul the largest shoe manufacturing com- 
 munity outside of New England and St. Louis. 
 
 Mr. O’Donnell was born in LeSueur County, Min- 
 nesota, August 17, 1870, and is a son of William and 
 Honora O’Donnell, natives of Ireland. He grew up 
 amid rural surroundings and received his education 
 in the country schools of LeSueur County and the 
 high school at LeSueur, but it was not his intention 
 to become a farmer, preferring a career in commer- 
 cial pursuits. Fie had early decided that the man 
 who would succeed in the world is not he who has 
 a_ little knowledge of various subjects, but the indi- 
 vidual who is a thorough master of every detail of 
 one line of endeavor. Accordingly, when he came 
 to St. Paul at the age of seventeen years, he found 
 employment with a large shoe manufacturing con- 
 cern, with which he remained steadily from 1887 
 until 1907, working his way through every depart- 
 ment until in the year 1895 the entire management 
 and superintendency of this large establishment was 
 placed in his hands. In 1907 Mr. O’Donnell resigned 
 his position with the house with which he had been 
 connected so long and started to organize the O’Don- 
 nell Shoe Company, which began operations in 1908 
 in its building at Sixth and Sibley streets, where 
 fifty men were employed in the making of men’s 
 shoes. The splendid success enjoyed by the concern 
 from that time to the present is largely due to the 
 excellence of its product and also to the thorough 
 knowledge of all the minutiae of the business gained 
 by Mr. O’Donnell during his long years of experi- 
 ence. Not long after its inception it was found 
 necessary to erect on the southeast corner of Tenth 
 and Sibley streets a large, modernly-equipped fac- 
 tory, covering many thousands of square feet of 
 floor space, of brick construction and five stories in 
 height, this being completed in 1910, and employing 
 400 hands. At the present time, on the opposite cor- 
 ner, there is in process of construction a new factory, 
 six stories in height and covering no by 150 feet, 
 which will be of brick and reinforced concrete, and 
 fireproof throughout. This is located on property 
 secured from the Congress Realty Company, will be 
 completed about January 1, 1915, and will cost in 
 the neighborhood of $150,000. At present the 
 O'Donnell Shoe Company employs 400 hands and 
 when the new building is done between 600 and 700 
 will be employed in both factories. The establish- 
 ment of the O’Donnell Shoe Company in its two big 
 factories will make St. Paul the largest shoe manu- 
 facturing center in the United States outside of 
 St. Louis and New England, and hundreds of buyers 
 now visit St. Paul instead of going to St. Louis or 
 Chicago. The enlarged O'Donnell Shoe Company 
 will give St. Paul five big shoe factories, employing 
 5,000 men. The directors and officers of the O’Don- 
 nell Shoe Company are all young men who have 
 grown ud in the business, being Mr. O’Donnell, 
 Charles Patterson, George J. Freeman and Andrew 
 
1708 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 J. Schmitz. The corporation has a capital of $250,- 
 000, which will eventually be materially increased. 
 Forty traveling representatives are kept constantly 
 on the road, and the product of the company is 
 favorably known and enjoys a wide sale in all the 
 western states right up to the Pacific Coast. 
 
 Mr. O’Donnell is essentially a business man, with 
 large interests devolving upon him, but he has al- 
 ways found the time and the inclination to devote to 
 public-spirited enterprises for the general welfare. 
 He is independent in his political views, preferring 
 to choose his own candidates for office rather than 
 to be restricted by any set party lines. He is a mem- 
 ber of the Association of Commerce, and is well and 
 favorably known in fraternal and social circles, be- 
 longing to the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks, the Knights of Columbus, and the University 
 and Town and Country clubs. His diversion is golf, 
 and he is also exceptionally fond of travel, in which 
 he frequently indulges. A strictly self-made man, he 
 has every reason to be proud of what he has 
 achieved, and St. Paul has every reason to be proud 
 of and grateful to him. 
 
 St. Peter Herald. One of the leading demo- 
 cratic newspapers of Southern Minnesota, and one 
 which has long been noted for its loyalty to party 
 principles, is the St. Peter Herald, published at 
 St. Peter by the firm of Essler & Quane. This old 
 and reliable sheet has ever maintained the best 
 ethics of journalism, and the people of St. Peter and 
 Nicollet County are to be congratulated that it is in 
 the hands of such trustworthy citizens as its present 
 owners. 
 
 Henry J. Essler was born December 24, 1862, a 
 descendant of German parents. After acquiring his 
 education in the public schools he commenced his 
 newspaper career at the case, learning the printer's 
 trade in the office of the St. Peter Tribune. In 
 October, 1884, Mr. Essler associated himself with 
 John Blackiston, under the firm name of Blackiston 
 & Essler, but later Mr. Blackiston sold his interest 
 to John A. Johnson, of St. Peter, and the firm be- 
 came Essler & Johnson, publishers of the St. Peter 
 Herald. This style continued until 1904, when the 
 proprietorship was changed to Essler & Quane, its 
 present style. The paper has been democratic since 
 its inception and has been a powerful force in ad- 
 vancing democratic interests in this county. It has 
 stood for cleanliness and progress in public office, 
 and its publishers have endeavored to give its read- 
 ers an interesting, well-edited sheet, containing all 
 the important news, both national and local, and 
 pithy editorials on the live subjects of the day. They 
 have evidently succeeded in their efforts if their suc- 
 cess may be gauged by the measure of public support 
 in circulation and advertising. 
 
 Mr. Essler is well known in newspaper circles 
 throughout the state, and is also well known in fra- 
 ternal circles, being a member of St. Peter Lodge 
 No. 54, A. F. & A. M., the Benevolent and Pro- 
 tective Order of Elks, the Knights of Pythias and 
 the Modern Woodmen of America. He was mar- 
 ried to Miss Minnie L, Stickney, a daughter of J. D. 
 Stickney, of Potsdam, New York, who was a co- 
 worker in the democratic party for a long period 
 with Governor Johnson and a personal friend of 
 the late governor up to the time of his death. 
 
 Oliver J. Quane, junior member of the firm of 
 Essler & Quane, was born at Mankato, Minnesota, 
 December 21, 1879, a son of J. D. Quane, a promi- 
 
 nent newspaper man of that city. Educated in the 
 public schools Mr. Quane began his career on his 
 father's newspaper and was subsequently connected 
 with the Morning Record, Mankato; the Austin 
 Daily Mail; the Austin Transcript and the Janes- 
 ville Argus, and then went to New Ulm, where he 
 was identified with the Journal and Review of that 
 city. Mr. Quane came to St. Peter in 1904 and 
 formed a partnership with Mr. Essler, and this asso- 
 ciation has continued to the present time with mu- 
 tual satisfaction and success, and is considered one 
 of the strong newspaper combinations of this part 
 of the state. 
 
 Mr. Quane, like his partner, is well known in 
 democratic circles. He has displayed his public 
 spirit on numerous occasions, and is a friend of 
 civic advancement and education, and has served as 
 a member of the school board of St. Peter and as a 
 member of the State Hospital Commission. He has 
 an honorable military record, having joined Com- 
 pany D, Fourteenth Regiment, Minnesota Volunteer 
 Infantry, in 1898, with which he participated in the 
 Leech Lake Indian campaign. In 1908 he was com- 
 missioned captain of the Second Regiment, Minne- 
 sota National Guard, and this was followed in 1913 
 by his promotion to major, a rank which he has 
 continued to hold to the present. His acquaintance 
 in St. Peter is extensive, and his friends are numer- 
 ous. 
 
 Paul C. Cooper. The activities of the successful 
 lawyer and public-spirited relations with the com- 
 munity have employed Paul C. Cooper at Truman 
 for a dozen years or more, and he holds a position 
 of influence and assured success in that section of 
 Martin County. 
 
 Representing a pioneer family in this section of 
 Minnesota, Paul C. Cooper was born in Blue Earth 
 County, September 7, 1875. He is a son of S. A. 
 and Guila (Williams) Cooper. The Coopers are 
 English, while the mother is a direct descendant 
 of Oliver Cromwell, the ancestors of both families 
 having left England and settled in New England dur- 
 ing Colonial times. S. A. Cooper was born in New 
 York in 1832, and is now living retired at Ceylon, 
 Minnesota. As one of the early settlers he located 
 in Watonwan County in 1865, later moved to the 
 Village of Madelia and from there to Ceylon, and 
 has now been retired from active affairs about thirty 
 years. His wife was born in Vermont. Their chil- 
 dren are as follows : E. A. Cooper, who is in the 
 grain business at Dunnell, Minnesota ; F. E. Cooper, 
 a hardware merchant at Vernon Center, Minnesota; 
 Albert W., who is president and sole proprietor of a 
 business college at Marysville, Missouri ; Paul C. ; 
 and Earl, a farmer in Ceylon. 
 
 Paul C. Cooper has spent nearly all his life in 
 that part of Minnesota which was his birthplace, 
 was educated in Blue Earth County public schools 
 and in the Madelia High School and finished his 
 education in the University of Minnesota, where, 
 after a special course, he attended the Law Depart- 
 ment and was graduated LL. B. with the class of 
 1901. Beginning practice in the same year, he lo- 
 cated at Truman, and his work as a lawyer has 
 been one of steadily increasing proportions in both 
 general civil and criminal practice. He is secretary 
 of the Martin County Bar Association, and a mem- 
 ber of the State Bar Association, and an active re- 
 publican. Mr. Cooper has served on the village 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1709 
 
 council of Truman and is now village attorney, and 
 is also secretary of the school board. 
 
 Outside of his profession and his public duties 
 Mr. Cooper finds both recreation and profit in farm- 
 ing. He is the owner of a quarter section of land 
 in Martin County, and operates it through tenants 
 in diversified agriculture. This farm is situated in 
 Waverly Township. Mr. Cooper is affiliated with 
 Truman Lodge No. 251 of the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows. 
 
 In 1905 at Minneapolis he married Miss Anna 
 Brown, daughter of George A. Brown, a retired 
 millwright living in Minneapolis. They have three 
 children : Arloine and Curtis, both attending the 
 
 public schools at Truman; and Dorothy. 
 
 Gerhard A. Dahl, M. D. A Mankato physician 
 and surgeon who has won his way to front rank by 
 proficiency and ability. Dr. Gerhard A. Dahl is a na- 
 tive Minnesotan, and has been in active practice for 
 seventeen years. He is a former president of the 
 Blue Earth County Medical Society, and is the type 
 of the modern doctor who keeps up his associations 
 with his colleagues and avails himself of every op- 
 portunity for individual advancement. 
 
 Gerhard A. Dahl was born in Blue Earth County, 
 Minnesota, June 23, 1872. His parents were Rev. 
 T. H. and Mathia (Teige) Dahl, both natives of 
 Norway. His paternal grandfather, Torger Dahl, 
 came to the United States and spent the rest of his 
 life as a farmer in Wisconsin. The maternal grand- 
 father was killed in one of the first battles of the 
 Civil war, and died for the Union cause. Rev. T. H. 
 Dahl was born June 21, 1843, and was brought to 
 the United States in 1855. He came to Minnesota 
 in 1869, and for many years has been a minister of 
 the Norwegian Lutheran Church, and at the present 
 time lives in Minneapolis and serves two congrega- 
 tions near that city. His wife, who was born April 
 1, 1846, came to the United States at the age of 
 eight years, and they were married in Wisconsin. 
 Of nine children only three are now living. Mrs. 
 Ola Hagoes is the wife of a Lutheran minister at 
 Tacoma. Washington, and the other daughter, Mag- 
 dalene, is a stenographer in Minneapolis. Reverend 
 Mr. Dahl is a republican in politics. 
 
 Doctor Dahl grew up in Minnesota and took his 
 degree A. B. "from Luther College at Decorah, 
 Iowa, in 1893. Preliminary to college he had at- 
 tended schools in Nebraska. In 1894 he entered the 
 Hahnemann Medical College of Chicago and was 
 graduated M. D. in 1897. Since then he has prac- 
 ticed at Mankato, and while his chief work is in 
 general medical practice, he has many appointments 
 as a surgeon in both the city hospitals. 
 
 Doctor Dahl was married in 1903 to Alma Hanson, 
 daughter of E. L. Hanson, of Mankato, a carpenter 
 of that city. Doctor Dahl and wife are members 
 of the Lutheran Church, and he is a member and 
 medical examiner for the Ancient Order of United 
 Workmen, the Brotherhood of American Yeomen, 
 and the Degree of Honor. Politically he is a re- 
 publican. He has been interested in politics only to 
 the extent he could be of service through his pro- 
 fession. and for two terms held the place of health 
 officer at Mankato. He was honored with the office 
 of president of the Blue Earth County Medical 
 Society in 1914, and is also a member of the Southern 
 Minnesota and the Minnesota State Homeopathic 
 Medical Society. 
 
 M. L. Klein. One of the prominent enterprises 
 which is contributing to the commercial importance 
 of the City of St. Peter, Minnesota, is the furniture 
 and undertaking establishment of the Klein Com- 
 pany, a business which has been located here for 
 many years and which has always retained the 
 patronage and confidence of the people. The active 
 directing head of this business is M. L. Klein, a man 
 of broad experience, progressive views and much 
 business ability. The son of the founder, he pos- 
 sesses much of the initiative that characterized the 
 elder man, and is, like him, a public-spirited and 
 helpful citizen. 
 
 M. L. Klein was born February 28, 1870, at St. 
 Peter, Minnesota, and is a son of William and Eliza- 
 beth (Shultz) Klein, the former a native of Germany 
 and the latter of Pennsylvania. The father came 
 to the United States as a young man in 1852, locat- 
 ing for a short time at Seneca Falls, where he estab- 
 lished himself in the furniture business. In 1855, 
 however, seeking a more western field, he came to 
 St. Peter and here embarked in the same line of 
 business, in addition to which he carried on opera- 
 tions as a contractor, building many- of this city’s 
 early structures and winning a reputation for honest 
 dealing and fidelity to engagements. He also manu- 
 factured the furniture in which he dealt, character- 
 ized it by his good workmanship, and attracted to 
 his factory an excellent trade from all over the sur- 
 rounding country. When he died, April 9, 1888, 
 St. Peter lost an able business man, a citizen who 
 had the full confidence of the people with whom 
 he came into contact, and a devout member of the 
 Catholic Church. He was a firm believer in the 
 principles of the democratic party, which he sup- 
 ported on every occasion, although he was not a 
 seeker after personal preferment. He and his wife 
 were the parents of eight children, of whom four 
 are living. 
 
 After the death of William Klein the business was 
 conducted for a time by one of Mr. Klein’s brothers, 
 but eventually he purchased the interests, and the 
 business is now known as the Klein Company, being 
 the leading dealer in furniture, as well as the leading 
 undertaker, of St. Peter. After the elder man’s 
 death the manufacturing end of the business was 
 sold, but the other departments have expanded so 
 rapidly that recently it was found necessary to 
 erect a new building in which to house the large 
 and up-to-date stock of furniture, and the store- 
 room is not surpassed by any of the stores of the 
 larger cities. The undertaking department is mod- 
 ern in every respect, furnishing the latest equipment 
 for the respectful handling of the dead. 
 
 Mr. Klein has been well known in public life at 
 St. Peter, having served for ten years as a member 
 of the city council, where his services did much to 
 advance the interests of the community. Formerly 
 a republican, he was for seventeen years chairman of 
 the Republican County Committee, but in more re- 
 cent years has acted independently of any party 
 lines. * His acquaintance is extensive throughout the 
 city, and his friends are numerous and loyal. 
 
 Dr. Julian A. Hielscher. In Julian A. Hiel- 
 scher, M. D., is found one who has attained to dis- 
 tinction in the line of his profession, who has been 
 an earnest and discriminating student, and who holds 
 a position of due relative importance among the 
 medical practitioners of Mankato, Minnesota. He 
 came to this city in modest circumstances, and with 
 
1710 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 little to aid him save his talent and ambition, and 
 by ceaseless effort and endeavor he has attained a 
 marked success in professional life, has gained the 
 respect and confidence of men, and is accounted one 
 of the distinctively representative citizens of his 
 adopted community. 
 
 Doctor Hielscher was born at LeSueur Center, 
 LeSueur County, Minnesota, October 21, 1864, and 
 is a son of Ernst Julius and Barbara (Lohrig) 
 Hielscher. His grandfather, William Hielscher, was 
 a miller at Liegnitz, Germany, was one of the 
 peasant patriots of 1848, and at the time of his death 
 in 1887 left a moderate estate, gained through long 
 years of honest toil. Ernst Julius Hielscher was 
 born in Germany, August 12, 1826, and as a young 
 man entered the German army, in which he was 
 serving as an officer when the peasants arose in 1848. 
 With his command he was ordered to capture the 
 Town of Liegnitz, but upon his arrival at that 
 point found his father among the defenders, and 
 accordingly refused to take action against the little 
 force of patriots. For this he was courtmartialed 
 and sent to the military prison, but after five years 
 managed to make his escape to England, from 
 whence, in 1853, he emigrated to the United States. 
 Many years later, in 1897, he was pardoned and re- 
 turned to his native country to settle up his father’s 
 estate, but this accomplished he returned to the 
 United States during the same year. 
 
 In 1857 Ernst Julius Hielscher came to LeSueur 
 County, Minnesota, making the journey by rail to 
 Dubuque, Iowa, and thence by boat inland. He took 
 up a homestead at LeSueur Center, on which he 
 resided until 1868, but in the meantime joined the 
 ministry of the Evangelical Church, and from that 
 time forward lived at various places, including New 
 Ulm and Blue Earth, and experienced all the vicissi- 
 tudes that fell to the lot of the early preachers of 
 this region. He was one of the first county com- 
 missioners of LeSueur County and served as county 
 coroner for a number of years, and wielded a wide 
 influence throughout this region, standing high in 
 the councils of the republican party. Mr. Hielscher 
 died, honored and respected by all, December 19, 
 1914, at which time he left to his descendants a 
 handsome estate. Mr. Hielscher was married at 
 Altoona, Pennsylvania, in 1855, to Miss Barbara 
 Lohrig, who was born in Germany, October 30, 
 1827, and died at St. Cloud, Minnesota, September 
 3, 1895, and they became the parents of six children, 
 as follows: George W., of St. Paul, a minister of 
 
 the Evangelical Church ; Augusta, who married Mr. 
 Kienholz, of Big Stone County, South Dakota, a 
 retired farmer; Dr. Julian A., of this review; John 
 F., now a resident of Seattle, Washington, who dur- 
 ing the early days of gold discovery in Alaska made 
 frequent trips to that country, and at one time 
 brought into Dawson City 136 hogs, the first live 
 hogs brought there, which he sold at $1.35 per pound; 
 Mary E., who is single ; and Lydia E., who became 
 the wife of Alfred Riehl, a farmer of Preston, 
 Minnesota. 
 
 After attending the public schools of LeSueur 
 County, Julian A. Hielscher entered the Minneapolis 
 High School, from which he was duly graduated. 
 He next entered Northwestern College, at Naper- 
 ville, Illinois, being graduated in the spring of 1888, 
 and in the fall of the same year entered the 
 Medical Department of the University of Minne- 
 sota, from which he received his degree of Doctor 
 of Medicine in June, 1891. In that same year Doctor 
 
 Hielscher opened a modest office and began prac- 
 tice at Mankato, and here he has continued to the 
 present time, with the exception of two years spent 
 at Rolla, Missouri, where he attended the School of 
 Mines and Meteorology during the winter months 
 and graduated in 1912. He has been in the enjoy- 
 ment of a constantly increasing practice, is a close 
 student of his profession, and keeps fully abreast 
 of the advancement that is continually being made 
 therein. His knowledge is comprehensive and ac- 
 curate, and his skill is demonstrated in the excellent 
 success which has followed his efforts in the sick 
 room. Doctor Hielscher is a member of the Dis- 
 trict Medical Society, the Blue Earth County Med- 
 ical Society, the Minnesota State Medical Society and 
 the American Medical Association, and observes 
 most closely the ethics of the unwritten professional 
 code. From 1902 until 1906 he was health officer of 
 Mankato. A democrat in politics, Doctor Hielscher 
 was alternate delegate to the first convention of his 
 party which nominated William J. Bryan for the 
 presidency. His offices are located in the National 
 City Bank Building. Fraternally Doctor Hielscher 
 belongs to the Masons. 
 
 On May 2, 1910, Doctor Hielscher was united in 
 marriage with Dr. Helen Hughes, a graduate of the 
 Medical Department of the University of Minne- 
 sota, class of 1896, who was engaged in practice at 
 Blue Earth until 1905, when she came to Mankato, 
 where she is now in practice with her husband. She 
 is a member of the Catholic Church. 
 
 George T. Olsen. A native son of Nicollet 
 County, and incumbent of the county attorney’s 
 office during the past seven years, George T. Olsen 
 occupies a recognized position at the Minnesota bar. 
 His training has been thorough and comprehensive 
 and the abilities which he has displayed in the dis- 
 charge of his duties have been developed by close 
 application and connection with some important cases 
 of jurisprudence. Mr. Olsen was born in Nicollet 
 County, Minnesota, June 24, 1871, and is a son of 
 Mathias Olsen, a native of Sweden who came to the 
 United States in 1865 and settled at St. Peter. For 
 a number of years he was engaged in agricultural 
 pursuits, and became known as one of his locality’s 
 substantial and reliable men, a good farmer and a 
 public-spirited citizen. He was the father of twelve 
 children, all of whom are still living, and of these 
 George T. is the tenth in order of birth. 
 
 George T. Olsen secured his primary educational 
 training in the district schools of his native county, 
 following which he attended Gustavus Adolphus 
 College of St. Peter. Subsequently he pursued a 
 seminary course, at Minneapolis, and then entered 
 the University of Minnesota, being graduated from 
 the law department of that institution in 1893. In 
 that same year he was admitted to the bar, and 
 immediately entered practice at Springfield, Minne- 
 sota, and while residing at that place held the office 
 of county attorney of Brown County for two terms, 
 or from January 1, 1899, to January 1, 1903. In 
 the latter year Mr. Olsen came to St. Peter and 
 opened an office, continuing in general practice until 
 1907, when he was placed in the county attorney’s 
 office. The manner in which he has discharged the 
 duties of this important position has thoroughly 
 established him in the confidence of the people of 
 Nicollet County, and few men have worked more 
 helpfully in behalf of the community’s interests. 
 Mr. Olsen is also known as a friend of education, 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1711 
 
 and since 1910 has been president of the library 
 board of St. Peter. He hold membership in the 
 Commercial Club, and in politics is a nonpartisan. 
 
 Mr. Olsen was married February 17, 1899, to Miss 
 Stella J. Brown, of Springfield, Minnesota. 
 
 Elbert L. Carpenter. A directory of Minnesota’s 
 lumbermen would include a large proportion of the 
 most forceful and successful men of affairs from 
 the earliest days of the territory to the present. 
 Among those whose achievements and associations 
 are sufficient to justify his mention in such a list is 
 Elbert Lawrence Carpenter, for many years a resi- 
 dent of Minneapolis, and not only a business man 
 of the highest standing but a citizen of varied use- 
 fulness and public spirit. Mr. Carpenter, whose 
 offices are in the Palace Building at Minneapolis, is 
 vice president of the Shevlin, Carpenter & Clarke 
 Company; treasurer of the Shevlin-Carpenter Lum- 
 ber Company, the Shevlin-Clarke Company, Limited, 
 the Shevlin-Mathieu Lumber Company, and has 
 many other financial and business associations in 
 the Northwest. 
 
 Elbert L. Carpenter was born at Rochelle, Ogle 
 County, Illinois, March 6, 1862, a son of Judson E. 
 and Olivia (Detwiler) Carpenter. His father is now 
 living retired at the age of eighty years in Pasadena, 
 California. The mother died in 1884., Of the seven 
 children two died in childhood, while E. J. and 
 F. H. Carpenter live in Minneapolis; S. J. Carpen- 
 ter is a southern lumberman with home and business 
 headquarters at Jacksonville, Florida, and the young- 
 est son is Elbert L. The only daughter is Mrs. Wil- 
 liam J. Murphy, of Pasadena, California. 
 
 Judson E. Carpenter has been an influential fig- 
 ure in the lumber industry for many years, and 
 though at advanced age still has extensive holdings. 
 He was born in New York State, went to Illinois 
 when a young man, and from there came to Minne- 
 sota, and during his residence in Minneapolis for 
 about twelve years made himself a large figure in 
 the lumber industry. He is still president of the 
 Carpenter-Lamb Lumber Company of Minneapolis 
 and a stockholder in various Minneapolis corpora- 
 tions, and has extensive interests in the McCloud 
 Lumber Company at McCloud, Siskiyou County, 
 California. He is a member of the Minneapolis 
 Club, the Minikahda Club and various civic organ- 
 izations in Minneapolis. 
 
 Elbert L. Carpenter during his youth had those 
 opportunities which come from a home of means 
 and was able to choose his career with deliberation 
 and started under auspicious circumstances. He had 
 an excellent education, and learned the details of 
 lumbering in connection with his father's operations. 
 In 1887 he became an independent factor in the 
 lumber industry in Minneapolis and has since devel- 
 oped the relations with the prominent organizations 
 already mentioned. He is also a director of the 
 First National Bank of Minneapolis, of the Min- 
 neapolis Trust Company and the Northwestern Na- 
 tional Life Insurance Company. His support and 
 influence have been behind some of the institutions 
 by which Minneapolis is best known to the outside 
 world. He is a member of the Minneapolis Civic 
 and Commerce Association, and is president of the 
 Minneapolis Orchestra Association and of the North 
 Shore Good Roads Association. He and his wife 
 are members of the Westminster Presbyterian 
 Church, and some of his clubs are the Minneapolis 
 Club and the Minneapolis Athletic Club, the Mini- 
 kahda Club, the Lafayette Club and the Interlachen 
 
 Club. Mrs. Carpenter is likewise active in club and 
 social work, and is a member of the Woman's Club 
 of Minneapolis and of the College Women’s Club 
 of New York City. 
 
 On June 4, 1890, Mr. Carpenter married Miss 
 Florence Isabelle Welles, of Clinton, Iowa. Mr. 
 Carpenter himself was a former resident of Clinton 
 and attended school there. Mrs. Carpenter is a 
 daughter of the late Edwin P. Welles, mentioned 
 on other pages. To their marriage have been born 
 two children : Lawrence Welles and Leonard Gris- 
 wold. The oldest son attended the Minneapolis pub- 
 lic schools and the Hotchkiss Preparatory School at 
 Lakeville, Connecticut, and in 1914 graduated from 
 Yale University with the degree Bachelor of Arts. 
 The younger son is now a student in the Blake 
 School, near Minneapolis. 
 
 Edwin P. Welles. The late Edwin P. Welles, 
 who died at Minneapolis October 14, 1904, began 
 the operations which brought him wealth and promi- 
 nence as a lumberman in the Mississippi Valley about 
 the close of the Civil war, and for the last ten 
 years of his life has lived at Minneapolis, where he 
 was treasurer of the Brainerd Lumber Company and 
 otherwise well known for his business and financial 
 associations. 
 
 He came of an illustrious New England family, 
 and was a descendant in the sixth generation from 
 Thomas Welles, the first governor of the Province 
 of Connecticut. Governor Welles had emigrated 
 from England to America in 1635. One of his 
 descendants was Gideon Welles, who was secretary 
 of the navy in the cabinet of President Lincoln. 
 
 Edwin P. Welles was born at Wethersfield, Hart- 
 ford County, Connecticut, in 1835, and lived to be 
 nearly three score and ten years of age. His father. 
 Leonard Welles, was a manufacturer of edged tools 
 and a well known citizen of Wethersfield, Con- 
 necticut. Leonard Welles married a member of the 
 New Hampshire Pillsbury family, which has given 
 some of the most prominent citizens to Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Welles had such educational advantages as 
 the normal youth of a prosperous New England 
 family received in his generation, and in 1855, at 
 the age of twenty, came west and began his busi- 
 ness career in the Mississippi Valley. About 1865 
 he became actively connected with lumbering and 
 for many years had his home at Clinton, Iowa, from 
 which point he directed his broad business interests 
 as a lumberman extending over several states. His 
 success as a business man is indicated by his rating 
 prior to his death as a millionaire. He possessed 
 many of the best qualities of the old-time lumber 
 kings. He had the rugged virtues of New England 
 manhood, possessed initiative and constructive abil- 
 ity, was a leader of men, and knew how to direct the 
 operations involving large capital and compact or- 
 ganizations of equipment and men. From 1894 until 
 his death he lived in Minneapolis, where lie was 
 treasurer of the Brainerd Lumber Company, one of 
 the most extensive logging companies in Minnesota. 
 His enterprise was largely responsible for the devel- 
 opment of the Brainerd & Northern Railroad. He 
 was also a director of the First National Bank of 
 Minneapolis, and his support was freely given to 
 every movement for the general good of the com- 
 munity. Like all strong men, he was simple and 
 unassuming in manner, and the worth of his char- 
 acter commanded for him the respect and high re- 
 gard of those with whom he came in contact in the 
 varied relations of life. He was a stanch republican. 
 
1712 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 and for forty years a member of the Presbyterian 
 Church. 
 
 In 1857 Mr. Welles married Miss Isabelle Gris- 
 wold, who, nearly sixty years since her marriage, is 
 still living and has her home in Minneapolis. The 
 two daughters who survive their father are : Mary 
 
 Alice, wife of William F. .Coan, cashier of the Clin- 
 ton National Bank of Clinton, Iowa; and Florence 
 Isabelle, wife of Elbert L. Carpenter, of Min- 
 neapolis. 
 
 Hon. Fred F. Brown. Soon after his admission 
 to the bar of St. Paul, and while vigorously em- 
 ployed in building up a good practice, Mr. Brown 
 was drawn into politics, has been one of the active 
 workers on the democratic side, and in 1914 was 
 honored with the nomination and subsequently with 
 election as a member of the Lower House from the 
 Forty-first Legislative District. Mr. Brown is now 
 one of the capable young legislators in the session 
 of 1915, having taken his oath of office January 5, 
 1915. Mr. Brown has also served as a member of 
 the Democratic Central Committee. 
 
 Fred F. Brown was born in the City of Dubuque, 
 Iowa, May 28, 1882. His parents, Martin and Beulah 
 E. (O'Reilly) Brown, were both natives of Ireland 
 and came to the United States when young. Martin 
 Brown located in Iowa, where he .married, and for 
 a number of years was a farmer in the vicinity of 
 Dubuque. He subsequently removed to St. Paul and 
 died in that city in 1884, while his wife passed away 
 in 1909. 
 
 Fred F. Brown attended the public schools of St. 
 Paul, advancing his education in a select school, and 
 finally comp’eted a course in St. Paul College. His 
 first work after leaving college was teaching, and in 
 the meantime he took up the study of law and in 
 1911 was admitted to the Ramsey County bar. Mr. 
 Brown began active practice in 1912 and has already 
 won a good reputation in the Ramsey County bar. 
 He is unmarried and makes his home with his sister 
 on Bates Street. Mr. Brown is affiliated with the 
 Knights of Columbus. 
 
 Lars O. Thorpe. During a long and active busi- 
 ness career Lars O. Thorpe has experienced the 
 many vicissitudes which occur in the life of an indi- 
 vidual whose ambition and energy lead him into 
 various fields for endeavor. He was a youth of 
 seventeen years when he first came to the United 
 States, and his initial attempts to gain a foothold 
 were marked by much hard labor and numerous dis- 
 couragements, but he kept working persistently, and 
 his perseverance and industry were finally rewarded 
 by a success such as comes to but few men. During 
 his long residence at Willmar, he has been identified 
 with various business and financial ventures, in which 
 his fine abilities were instrumental in the develop- 
 ment of various concerns, while in public life he has 
 acted in numerous official capacities to the eventual 
 benefit of the community. 
 
 Mr. Thorpe was born in Norway, December 24, 
 1847, and is a son of Olaf and Britha (Skaar) 
 Thorpe, and a grandson of Trond Thorp and Jan 
 Skaar, the grandfathers both passing their entire 
 lives in Norway in agricultural pursuits. Olaf Thorpe 
 followed in the footsteps of his father and took 
 up farming in his youth, in addition to which he 
 was for many years a schoolteacher. He and the 
 mother both passed away in their native land, in 
 the faith of the Lutheran church, in the work of 
 
 which both had been very active. They were the 
 parents of two children : Mikel, who is a success- 
 ful real estate man of Willmar; and Lars O. 
 
 Lars O. Thorpe was educated in the public schools 
 of Norway, and early displayed an industrious 
 spirit, starting to work when he was only nine years 
 of age. As a lad he became convinced that better 
 opportunities awaited him in the United States, and 
 finally received his parents’ consent to come to this 
 country, but only under the condition that he return 
 after four years. Accordingly, in 1864, he arrived 
 in America and took up his residence at Jefferson 
 Prairie, Wisconsin, where he secured employment 
 as a farm laborer, but in March, 1865, removed to 
 Winona County, Minnesota, and subsequently spent 
 short periods in Olmsted and Dodge counties. In 
 the fall of 1867, to redeem his promise to his parents, 
 he returned to Norway, but he had become so im- 
 pressed by the advantages of American life, that 
 in the spring of 1868 he again came to this country 
 and for a short time worked as a farm hand and 
 in the harvest fields. In 1869 he went to the West 
 in search of employment, and while there secured 
 a railroad contract under General DeGraft, from 
 whom he sub-contracted, but in the same year re- 
 turned to Minnesota and took up a homestead in 
 Kandiyohi County. The following winter was 
 passed in Dodge County, and he next went to 
 Minneapolis, where he learned typesetting, and for 
 a period worked on the Minneapolis Budstiken. In 
 the same line, in 1871, Mr. Thorpe went to Kandiyohi 
 and set type for the Reveille, but in the fall, when 
 the county seat was moved to Willmar, the paper 
 suspended operations and Mr. Thorpe found himself 
 out of employment. Returning to the farm, he had 
 an unfortunate experience in agriculture, as heavy 
 hailstorms destroyed a large part of his crops, and 
 what grain was left turned out badly, causing him 
 to lose the greater amount of his means that he had 
 labored so faithfully to attain. 
 
 In 1875 Mr. Thorpe was elected register of deeds, 
 an office in which he served capably for three terms. 
 He had always been a stanch republican, and in 1880 
 was made presidential elector. Since that time he 
 has served in various capacities, in each of which 
 he has demonstrated the possession of strong execu- 
 tive and administrative ability. Elected state senator 
 in 1894, he served in the sessions of 1895, 1897, 1903, 
 1907 and 1909, and in that body was known as a 
 forceful worker in behalf of the rights of . his con- 
 stituents and his district, and a stanch friend and 
 supporter of beneficial legislation. In 1881 Mr. 
 Thorpe became cashier of the Kandiyohi County 
 Bank, and served in that capacity for a period of 
 thirty-three years, resigning in 1914 because of 
 advancing years and the increasing demands of his 
 large business interests. He still retains holdings 
 in the bank, however, and continues to act in an 
 official capacity, being vice president of the institu- 
 tion which he built up from a small concern into a 
 substantial enterprise, with capital of $135,000, and 
 average deposits of $750,000. Mr. Thorpe in addi- 
 tion to being a property owner in Willmar and Kan- 
 diyohi and adjacent counties, is president of the 
 Willmar Seminary, a school under the direction of 
 the Lutheran Church, which was organized in 1881 
 and which has a large attendance. _ He has been 
 liberal in his support of movements initiated by the 
 Lutheran Church, of which he has been a member . 
 since boyhood. Mr. Thorpe is eminently entitled to 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 ] 713 
 
 be known as a self-made man, for every dollar he 
 possesses has come to him as a result of his own 
 industry. His standing in business and financial 
 circles is of the highest, and his record in public 
 and private life is -one on which there is not the 
 slightest stain or blemish. 
 
 In 1870 Mr. Thorpe was married to Miss Martha 
 Quale, who was born in Wisconsin, May 30, 1851, 
 a daughter of Ellend Quale, and to this union there 
 have been born five children : Edward Lawrence, 
 a graduate of Willmar Seminary and the State Agri- 
 cultural College, and now cashier of the State Bank 
 of Pennock, Minnesota; Rev. C. S., a graduate of 
 the Lutheran College, and now minister of Hope 
 Lutheran Church, Minneapolis; Edith, who is the 
 wife of Dr. C. O. Estrem, a practicing physician of 
 Fergus Falls, Minnesota; Miss Jane, who resides at 
 home and is a teacher in the public schools of Kan- 
 diyohi County; and Miss Bertha, a graduate of the 
 University of Minnesota, who is a teacher in the 
 Farmington High School. 
 
 John S. Bangs. One of the prominent men in 
 that great industrial section, South St. Paul, is 
 John S. Bangs, manager for Swift & Company, vice 
 president . of the Stock Yards National Bank and 
 vice president St. Paul Union Stock Yards Co. 
 Swift & Company operates the largest packing 
 houses in South St. Paul, and is one of the largest 
 industries of the kind in the Northwest. Closely 
 affiliated with this large corporation is the St. Paul 
 LTnion Stock Yards Company. It will not be out 
 of place to mention some of the figures which will 
 serve to measure this great market center of Min- 
 nesota. The stockyards have a yarding accommoda- 
 tion for 40,000 hogs, 20,000 cattle and 45,000 sheep, 
 and there are sheds sufficient for the feeding at 
 one time of 72,000 sheep. Modern brick barns pro- 
 vide accommodations for 400 horses and mules. The 
 annual value of the live stock received at South St. 
 Paul will average $45,000,000. The yearly receipts 
 approximate 6,000 mules and horses, 550,000 cattle, 
 
 600.000 sheep and 1,500,000 hogs. The daily re- 
 quirements of the packing houses located in the 
 South St. Paul district amounts to 2,000 cattle, 
 
 3.000 sheep and 8,000 hogs. The annual pay roll 
 in the packing houses, stockyards and kindred indus- 
 tries aggregates about $2,000,000 and some 4,000 per- 
 sons are employed. The immense trade in live stock 
 in South St. Paul is handled chiefly by nineteen 
 commission firms, each of which is bonded in the 
 sum of $20,000 for the protection of its customers. 
 It is a fact not generally known that South St. Paul 
 Is the largest market in the United States for feeder 
 and milch cows. 
 
 John S. Bangs, who has been connected with the 
 Swift & Company business at South St. Paul since 
 1897, was born at Eastham, Massachusetts, in De- 
 cember, 1861, a son of John H. and Laura P. 
 (Horton) Bangs, the father being a house builder 
 and carpenter of that place. His early education 
 was received from a district school and afterward 
 he attended the schools of Chelsea, Massachusetts, 
 up to his sixteenth year. In his early manhood Mr. 
 Bangs became identified with Swift & Company at 
 their Chicago plant, and during the eight years he 
 was employed there received many promotions. He 
 was transferred to the company’s plant at South 
 Omaha, Nebraska, and remained there until 1897, in 
 which year he was elected by Swift & Company to 
 take the management of the South St. Paul plant. 
 
 Mr. Bangs is also a stockholder and director and 
 the vice president of the Stock Yards National Bank 
 and the St. Paul Cattle Loan Company, which serve 
 the large financial interests represented in South St. 
 Paul. 
 
 Mr. Bangs married Miss Bessie F. Swift, a niece 
 of the founder of the packing company of Swift. 
 They are the parents of six children : Laura B., 
 Florence A., Nathaniel S., J. Milton, Mildred and 
 Bessie S. 
 
 Mr. Bangs is well known in social circles in St. 
 Paul, is a member of the Town and Country Club, 
 of the Automobile Club, of the Commercial Club 
 and the Association of Commerce, and in Masonry 
 is affiliated with Mizpah Lodge, A. F. & A. M., and 
 with Delta Chapter of the Royal Arch, both of Chi- 
 cago, and Paladin Commandery, of St. Paul. 
 
 John Earl Palmer. One of the ablest and best 
 known lawyers of Martin County is John Earl 
 Palmer of Fairmont. He was admitted to the bar 
 in 1899, and had already been a useful worker 
 through the avenue of teaching. Mr. Palmer is a 
 man of forcible ability in the everyday work of his 
 profession and out of the richness of his experience 
 and his broad knowledge has become one of the 
 most successful members of the bar, as well as one 
 of the most gifted public speakers in Southern Min- 
 nesota. 
 
 He represents good old New England stock, and 
 was born at Boothbay in the State of Maine, Feb- 
 ruary 28, 1 , 873 ' He is a son of John F. and 
 Rebecca W. (Loring) Palmer. Great-grandfather 
 Palmer emigrated from England and settled at Wis- 
 casset, Maine, while on his mother’s side Mr. Palmer 
 is descended from ancestors who located in New 
 England during the colonial times, his mother's 
 grandmother having been a Hancock, a member of 
 the same family which gave the great general and 
 statesman, John Hancock. John F. Palmer, the 
 father, was born in the State of Maine, in 1834, and 
 died at Fairmont, Minnesota, in 1913. His birth- 
 place was Wiscasset in Lincoln County, Maine, and 
 during his residence along the Atlantic coast he was 
 a sea captain and mail contractor, and after coming- 
 west and locating in Fairmont in 1882 followed mail 
 contracting and placed the first steamers on the 
 chain of lakes at Fairmont and vicinity. John F. 
 Palmer married Miss Rebecca W. Loring, who was 
 born in East Otisfield, Maine, in 1840 and died at 
 Fairmont in 1900. Her father, Rev. Joseph Loring, 
 was a graduate from Bowdoin College as a classmate 
 with Rutherford B. Hayes, became an early Congre- 
 gational minister and preached at Yarmouth, Port- 
 land, Edgecomb, Pownal, and other places. John F. 
 Palmer and wife had the following children: J. L., 
 who is a chauffeur, living at Fairmont; Maude F., 
 who married William Lepine, of Welcome, Minne- 
 sota, where he is a prosperous farmer and mail car- 
 rier; John E., who comes next in order; Ellen C., 
 wife of C. D. Welcome, living on a farm at Wel- 
 come, Minnesota ; Roy W., who is secretary and 
 treasurer of the Palmer-Edwards Company at Fair- 
 mont; E. D., who is a mail carrier living at Fair- 
 mont; and Margaret B., a teacher by profession but 
 now a student in Hamline University at St. Paul. 
 
 John E. Palmer has been a worker and student 
 from boyhood days, and has made his position largely 
 through his own efforts. The public schools fur- 
 nished him his early training, and after leaving the 
 high school at Fairmont he entered the state normal 
 
1714 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 school at Mankato and finished there with the class 
 of 1894. The following three years were spent in 
 active school work as principal of graded schools 
 in Carver, Martin and Scott counties. His ambition 
 was for the law, and while engaged in other duties 
 he was also a stenographer in law offices in Fair- 
 mont and carrying on active preparations until ad- 
 mitted to the bar in 1899. Mr. Palmer was first asso- 
 ciated with E. C. Dean under the firm name of Dean 
 & Palmer, a partnership which continued for thir- 
 teen years with mutual satisfaction and profit. In 
 the fall of 1912 Mr. Palmer opened law offices for 
 himself in the Sinclair Block at Fairmont, and 
 has since looked after a large general practice, and 
 at the same time a number of business affairs and 
 relations which have accumulated. Mr. Palmer was 
 one of the organizers of the Palmer-Edwards Com- 
 pany, of which he is vice president and counsel, a 
 company that does an extensive business throughout 
 Southern Minnesota in real estate, loans, insurance, 
 abstracts, etc. In 1892 Mr. Palmer was elected to 
 the office of county attorney of Martin County, and 
 filled that office continuously for eight years, and 
 was again reappointed and served from 1909 to 
 1912. Since the fall of 1912 he has been city attor- 
 ney of Fairmont' and is treasurer of the school 
 board. Mr. Palmer is a republican, is a member of 
 the First Congregational Church and chairman of 
 its board, and has numerous fraternal affiliations, 
 with Chain Lake Lodge No. 64, A. F. & A. M. ; 
 Fairmont Chapter No. 50, R. A. M. ; with Fair- 
 mont Lodge No. 154, Knights of Pythias; with the 
 Royal Arcanum, the Knights of the Maccabees 
 and the Modern Woodmen of America. 
 
 In September, 1898, at Mankato, Mr. Palmer 
 married Miss Winnifred Ibertson, also a student of 
 the Mankato Normal School and prior to her mar- 
 riage a teacher in the Martin County public schools. 
 Mr. Palmer and wife have the following children : 
 Ray G., who is a member of the sophomore class in 
 the Fairmont High School ; Harold D. and John 
 Marshall, both in the grammar schools at Fair- 
 mont. 
 
 Carl Henry Wessel. The majority of citizens 
 in Martin County at once recognize Carl H. Wessel 
 as one of the interested principals in the large land 
 company with offices at Fairmont. Mr. Wessel is 
 a real estate man who has invested both capital 
 and experience in the business and with his partner 
 handles a large aggregate of farm land both in his 
 home state and in other states, and owns much of 
 the property handled through his company. Mr. 
 Wessel is a practical farmer both in Illinois and in 
 Minnesota, and on the subject of Minnesota lands 
 has an experience and judgment rarely if ever at 
 fault. 
 
 Carl Henry Wessel was born in Woodford County, 
 Illinois, August 13, 1873. His father was Henry 
 Wessel, who was born in Germany in 1845 and was 
 brought to America by grandfather Carl Wessel in 
 1859. Carl Wessel settled in Woodford County, 
 became a pioneer there, and the family through thiee 
 generations have been identified with that section 
 of the Prairie State. The wife of grandfather Carl 
 Wessel had died in Germany before the emigration. 
 Henry Wessel now lives in Secor, Woodford County. 
 He was married in Woodford County to Carrie 
 Loger, who was born in Germany. Their children 
 are: Mary, who is unmarried and lives with her 
 parents; Lena, wife of George Ludemann, a large 
 
 land owner and land speculator with residence at 
 Chillicothe, Texas ; Carl Henry ; William, who is a 
 horse buyer and farmer at Brunnie, Nebraska; Car- 
 rie, wife of William Rippel, a farmer at Secor, Illi- 
 nois ; Herman, who lives on the old homestead at 
 Secor, Illinois ; Anetta, wife of Louis Clausen, a 
 farmer at Secor; and Henry M., Jr., on a farm ad- 
 joining the old home farm place. 
 
 Carl Henry Wessel acquired his early education 
 in the public schools of Woodford County, and his 
 life was spent on his father’s farm until twenty-one 
 years of age. The following six years he was an 
 independent farmer in Woodford County, and in 
 1900 moved to Roanoke, Illinois, and operated a 
 threshing outfit and corn sheller for two seasons. In 
 the spring of 1902, having returned to his farm, 
 he spent one more year as an Illinois farmer, and 
 in October of the same year came out to Minnesota 
 and located at Manyaska Station in Martin County. 
 That was the scene of his practical farming opera- 
 tions until 1905, in which year he engaged in the 
 hardware business in Ceylon, and was a merchant 
 and also in the real estate business there for five 
 years. In October, 1911, Mr. Wessel transferred 
 his business headquarters to Fairmont, and has since 
 been identified with land operations. His partner is 
 Mr. A. D. Alton. They handle chiefly farm lands 
 in Minnesota, but also have agencies for Texas 
 and North Dakota tracts. Mr. Wessel has in- 
 dividual holdings in land and real estate, and is a 
 stockholder in the First National Bank of Ceylon. 
 
 Mr. Wessel is a republican in politics and attends 
 the German Lutheran Church. In 1896 in Wood- 
 ford County, Illinois, he married Miss Minnie Been- 
 ders. Her father, the late Claus Beenders, was a 
 Woodford County farmer. Mr. Wessel and wife 
 have the following children : Lenora, who is a stu- 
 dent in the Fairmont High School; Alma, Walter, 
 Arthur, Paul and Esther, who are attending the 
 grammar schools ; while Vera, Garnet and Gwen- 
 dolyn are not yet of school age. 
 
 Ezra Carter Dean. Now serving as county at- 
 torney of Martin County, and in practice at Fair- 
 mont, Ezra Carter Dean has spent all his profes- 
 sional career in Minnesota, was admitted to the 
 bar when a very young man, and has practiced suc- 
 cessfully in Pipestone and Martin counties for more 
 than thirty years. 
 
 Ezra Carter Dean was born at LaMoille, Illinois, 
 March 22, 1858. His father, Jonathan P. Dean, was 
 born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1817, and died 
 at LaMoille in 1897. He married Julia Durland, 
 who was born in Morristown, New Jersey, in 1816, 
 and died in 1877. The Deans are of English and 
 Welsh ancestry, while the Durlands are Dutch. 
 Grandfather Jonathan Dean, who died at Morris- 
 town, New Jersey, where he was engaged in the iron 
 industry, had seen service as a soldier and officer 
 in the Revolutionary war. Jonathan P. Dean moved 
 out to Illinois in 1834, locating in Canton, and in 
 1857 establishing a home in the rich farming dis- 
 trict about LaMoille. He and his wife were the 
 parents of the following children : Electa, who died 
 at LaMoille, aged seventy-two ; Daniel R., who died 
 in Montezuma, Iowa, having followed business as a 
 stock buyer and farmer; Julia, the widow of James 
 FI. Lloyd, who was a merchant, now resides in 
 Nevada, Missouri; Lewis was a furniture merchant 
 and died at Spring Valley, Illinois; I. D. is a farmer 
 at Arlington, Illinois ; George is a real estate broker 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1715 
 
 at LaMoille; Serepta is the wife of Frank A. 
 King, a hardware merchant at LaMoille. 
 
 Ezra Carter Dean, the youngest in the family, 
 grew up in the town and vicinity of LaMoille, at- 
 tended the public schools through high school, and 
 in 1877 took his degree Bachelor of Arts from the 
 University of Illinois. Two years later, in 1879, 
 Mr. Dean was graduated LL. B. from the law de- 
 partment of the University of Iowa. His college 
 fraternity was the Delta Tau Delta. 
 
 Admitted to the bar in 1881 Mr. Dean at once 
 located in Pipestone, Minnesota, and successfully 
 handled an increasing business in the courts of that 
 city and county until 1898. Since then his home has 
 been in Fairmont, where his reputation followed 
 him and where he has acquired a good general prac- 
 tice. His offices are in the First National Bank 
 Building. Mr. Dean is a member of the Seventeenth 
 Judicial District Bar Association. During his resi- 
 dence in Pipestone County he was elected county 
 attorney in 1880, -soon after locating there, and held 
 the office continuously for ten years. In 1912 a sim- 
 ilar honor was paid him in Martin County, and in 
 1914 he had no opposition to his candidacy. 
 
 For two years Mr. Dean has served as president 
 of the Fairmont Commercial Club. He is also a 
 member of the Fairmont Library Board. Mr. Dean 
 is a member of the official board of the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church, is affiliated with Chain Lake 
 Lodge, A. F. & A. M., and has served as captain of 
 hosts in Fairmont Chapter, R. A. M., and is also 
 affiliated with the Royal Arcanum. He is a director 
 of the Building and Loan Association at Fairmont. 
 
 In 1883 at LaMoille, Illinois, Mr. Dean married 
 Miss Minnie L. Lewis, daughter of W. W. Lewis, 
 now deceased, who was a stock buyer at LaMoille. 
 Their children are : Robert L., who is now a stu- 
 dent in the Armour Institute of Technology at Chi- 
 cago. and Marjorie L., attending Oberlin College 
 in Ohio. 
 
 Henry C. Nolxe. In the election of Henry C. 
 Nolte to the office of county auditor in 1912, the 
 citizens of Martin County honored a man whose 
 record for many years has been distinguished for 
 a high degree of .public service and efficiency both 
 in office and in private affairs. He was formerly a 
 merchant, and more than twelve years ago entered 
 the office of county auditor in a subordinate capacity, 
 and his thorough experience in the practical man- 
 agement of the office gave him exceptional qualifica- 
 tions for his responsibilities as elective chief of the 
 position. 
 
 Henry C. Nolte was born at Downers Grove, Illi- 
 nois, April 15, 1872. His father, Carl Nolte, was 
 born in the Kingdom of Hanover, Germany, in 
 1841, and is now living a retired farmer at 
 Fairmont, Minnesota. In 1868 he emigrated from 
 Germany to America, lived at Downers Grove, Illi- 
 nois, in the vicinity of Chicago, for seventeen years, 
 and in 1885 moved to a farm in Martin County. 
 His wife’s maiden name was Louisa Meyer, who was 
 also born in Hanover in 1848 and is still living. 
 They became the parents of a large family of chil- 
 dren whose names and a brief mention of their 
 positions in life are given as follows: Emma, wife 
 
 of Henry Oltman, a farmer in Ottertail County, 
 Minnesota: Henry C.. who is second in order of 
 birth ; William, who is a minister of the German 
 Lutheran faith and now residing at Elmore, Minne- 
 sota; Carl, a twin brother of William, lives at Fair- 
 
 mont, a farmer; Adolph and Gustav, both of whom 
 are farmers in the vicinity of Fairmont; Matilda, 
 who is the wife of Emanuel Haertel, in the monu- 
 ment business at Fairmont; Emilie, wife of Edward 
 Eversman, a farmer at Fairmont; Louis, who lives 
 on the old homestead in Martin County; Louisa, 
 wife of L. Poppe, a farmer near Fairmont; Amanda, 
 the wife of Ed. Wessel, and Fred, a farmer at Fair- 
 mont. 
 
 Henr.v C. Nolte grew up on a farm and attended 
 public schools at Lagrange, Illinois, and after com- 
 ing to Martin County, being a student in the high 
 school at Fairmont and pursuing a two years’ course 
 in the Mendota Business College. Leaving college 
 in 1896 Mr. Nolte worked for one year in the law 
 offices of Vories & Mathwig at Fairmont, and from 
 1898 to 1901 was a salesman and bookkeeper for 
 J. H. Gorman’s implement house at Fairmont. Dur- 
 ing 1902 he conducted an implement business at Dun- 
 nell, Minnesota, but gave up the business on receiv- 
 ing an appointment in the office of the county 
 auditor at Fairmont. He had practical manage- 
 ment of the office there for ten years and in 1912 
 was elected county auditor, and in 1914 had no oppo- 
 sition for re-election to the extended term of four 
 years. Mr. Nolte has always been a ready servant 
 of the public, and during his residence at Dunnell 
 served as a member of the village council. He is 
 active in business affairs and is vice president and 
 treasurer of the Fairmont Mercantile Company and 
 is a director in the Martin County National Bank, 
 also member of the Water & Light Commission, 
 of Fairmont. 
 
 In politics he is a republican. Mr. Nolte has 
 been collector for the German Lutheran Church 
 during the past eight years and is active in church 
 affairs. In 1897 in Fairmont he married Minnie 
 Brodt, daughter of the late Henry J. Brodt, who 
 was a farmer at Fairmont. Mr. and Mrs. Nolte 
 have the following children : Lester and Harold, 
 both of whom are students in the high school at 
 Fairmont; Sylvan, Roland, Alice and Ralph, who 
 attend the grammar schools at Fairmont; while 
 Lucile, Esgar and Floyd are young children still 
 at home. 
 
 John Frederick Haeckel. One of the most pop- 
 ular members in the official group in the court- 
 house at Fairmont is John F. Haeckel, the present 
 county treasurer of Martin County. From early 
 boyhood he grew up on a farm in this county, has 
 been known to the people of this section for many 
 years and always with a high esteem, and after serv- 
 ing for several years in the office of deputy county 
 treasurer he well deserved the confidence of the 
 people bestowed upon him when he was elected to 
 the regu'ar term as count)' treasurer. 
 
 John Frederick Haeckel was born in Lake County, 
 Illinois, February 19, 1880, a son of Louis Haeckel. 
 Louis Haeckel was born in 1849, in Alsace, then a 
 province of France, but since 1870 a portion of the 
 German Empire. Louis Haeckel left his native land 
 at the age of twenty-four, came to America and set- 
 tled in Lake County. Illinois, and in 1893 moved out 
 to Martin County, Minnesota. He followed his trade 
 as blacksmith until 1893. and after coming to Martin 
 County cultivated a farm until 1912, in which 
 year he retired and now lives in Fairmont. When 
 a young man in Alsace he saw the regular period of 
 service in the army. He married Sophia Sauer, who 
 was born in Lake County. Illinois, of German parent- 
 
1716 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 age. She is still living, and their children are: 
 John Frederick; Laura Sophia, wife of D. N. Spee, 
 living on a farm in Martin County, Minnesota; Vic- 
 tor Albert, a farmer in Stevens County, Minnesota ; 
 Christopher Adam, who is a bookkeeper and stenog- 
 rapher for the Stacy Fruit Company at Valley 
 City, North Dakota; Cora May, wife of Nicholas 
 Juhl, a farmer in Martin County; Sarah, who lives 
 at home ; and Ella, also unmarried and living at 
 home. 
 
 John Frederick Flaeckel acquired his education 
 first in the public schools of Lake County, Illinois, 
 and was thirteen years old when the family moved 
 to the farm in Martin County, Minnesota. Here 
 he continued to attend school, and for several terms 
 was in the schools at Fairmont, and in 1904 grad- 
 uated from Sweet’s Business College at Fairmont. 
 The first twenty-five years of his life Mr. Haeckel 
 spent on his father's farm and was actively identified 
 with farm operations. He then received an appoint- 
 ment as deputy county treasurer of Martin County 
 and gave all his time and attention to the duties of 
 that office and that led up in the fall of 1910 to 
 his election as chief of the office of county treasurer. 
 In 1914 Mr. Haeckel had no opposition and was re- 
 elected county treasurer for another term of four 
 years. 
 
 He is a director of the Fairmont Building & Loan 
 Association, is affiliated with Sylvania Camp of the 
 Modern Woodmen of America at Fairmont, with 
 Chain Lake Lodge of the Masonic fraternity at 
 Fairmont, and is a member and secretary of the 
 Brotherhood of American Yeomen. Mr. Haeckel 
 attends the Congregational Church. 
 
 In March, 1907, at Fairmont, he married Miss 
 Effie Hengen, daughter of Peter Hengen, who was 
 formerly a section foreman with the Omaha Rail- 
 road, and now lives in Fairmont. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Haeckel have four children, as follows : Fay Eliza- 
 beth, Raymond Louis, Hazel Barber and Warren 
 Peter. 
 
 William S. Carver. Now serving in his second 
 term as sheriff of Martin County, William S. Carver 
 has had a career which well justifies the confidence 
 of the citizens displayed in choosing him as sheriff, 
 and in the management of his private affairs and the 
 administration of public office has evinced good 
 judgment, efficiency, thorough honesty and a rare 
 insight and courage with his dealings with men. 
 
 William S. Carver was born in Martin County, 
 Minnesota, July 14, 1868, and represents a pioneer 
 name in Southern Minnesota. His father, the late 
 S. H. Carver, was born in Wisconsin, in 1824, and 
 died at the Soldiers Home in Minneapolis in 1894. 
 He was descended from one of three brothers who 
 came from England long before the Revolutionary 
 war, settled in New England, and his particular 
 branch of the name subsequently was carried out to 
 Wisconsin, and thence transplanted in Minnesota. 
 S. H. Carver in 1859 moved from Wisconsin to Ten- 
 haffen Township in Martin County, Minnesota, home- 
 steaded a tract of land there, and lived the life 
 of a pioneer until the beginning of the Civil war. 
 He then enlisted with the Union forces after being 
 raised along the northwestern frontier, and saw 
 three years of active service during the war, and 
 afterwards drew a pension. S. H. Carver married 
 Nettie Babcock, who was born in Michigan and 
 lives in Fairmont, Minnesota. Their children are: 
 Henry R., who is a farmer in Stanley County, South 
 
 Dakota; John H., who lives on a farm in Tenhaffen 
 Township of Martin County; Ellen, whose first hus- 
 band was George Cook, a Martin County farmer, 
 and after his death she married Conrad Brutsch, 
 formerly a farmer and now a carpenter and builder 
 living in Ceylon, Minnesota; William S.; Lottie, wife 
 of Charles Personius, who manages a summer resort 
 at Center Chain, Minnesota ; and Lucy, who mar- 
 ried Frank Theobald, chief of police at Ceylon, Min- 
 nesota. 
 
 William S. Carver was reared in Martin County 
 and lived on his father’s farm until eighteen years 
 of age, and his education was that supplied by the 
 public schools of the locality. After leaving school 
 and arriving at maturity he took up farming for 
 himself in Martin County and was actively engaged 
 along those lines until 1904. Eight years had been 
 spent in the Far West in the State of Oregon as a 
 farmer, but the rest of the time he was a resident 
 of Martin County. In 1904 Mr. Carver engaged in 
 stock buying and butchering in Fairmont, and con- 
 tinued along that line until 1911. During 1911-12 
 he was manager for the Ward & Company Packing 
 House, and his election to the office of sheriff 
 in 1912 caused him to relinquish practically all busi- 
 ness affairs in favor of his public duties. In 1914 
 Mr. Carver had no opposition as candidate for the 
 office of sheriff, and was re-elected for a period 
 of four years. 
 
 Mr. Carver has various fraternal relations, being 
 affiliated with Chain Lake Lodge No. 64 , A. F. & 
 A. M. ; Fairmont Chapter No. 50, R. A. M. ; Knights 
 of Pythias at Fairmont; Modern Woodmen of 
 America and Ancient Order of United Workmen in 
 the same place, and also belongs to the Pythian 
 Sisters and the Order of Eastern Star. He has never 
 aspired to offices in these organizations, though sev- 
 eral times elected to different posts. Mr. Carver 
 attends the Congregational Church. In 1899 in the 
 State of Oregon he married Miss Mary E. Lilly, who 
 was a daughter of S. N. Lilly, a farmer at Cor- 
 vallis, Oregon. Mr. and Mrs. Carver have no chil- 
 dren. 
 
 Hon. James A. Everett. A career of unusual 
 experience and service has been that of James A. 
 Everett, of Fairmont. His early life was spent in 
 the Pine Tree State of Maine, from which he went 
 out to serve in the ranks of the Union and was 
 raised from private to the rank of captain. Soon 
 after that great struggle he came to the Northwest 
 and for more than forty years has lived in Martin 
 County. Mr. Everett was a homesteader in the 
 early days, and has filled nearly every office in the 
 gift of the people and is now acting as justice of 
 the peace at Fairmont. 
 
 James A. Everett was born in the State of Maine 
 January 16, 1843, and has now passed the age of 
 three score and ten. The Everett family came 
 originally from Wales, and settled in America in 
 the early colonial times. His great-grandfather 
 Josiah Everett, was a soldier with the American 
 troops in the Revolution, and died at the age of 
 eighty-eight years in New Portland, Maine, when 
 James A. Everett was a small child. Josiah Everett 
 was a sailor and later a farmer, and for the last 
 twenty years of his life was crippled. William A. 
 Everett, father of James A., was born in the State 
 of Maine in 1799 and died at a good old age in 
 Manyaska in Martin County, Minnesota, in 1880. 
 He came West in 1863, first settling in Allamakee 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1717 
 
 County, Iowa, but in 1876 moved to Martin County, 
 Minnesota, where he was a farmer. William A. 
 Everett’s first wife was a Miss Churchill, and her 
 children are all deceased. His second wife was Mary 
 E. Twitchell, who was born in the State of Maine in 
 1808 and died in Manyaska Township in Martin 
 County in 1878. Her children were: James A.; and 
 Charles, who died at Hibbing, Minnesota, in 1909, 
 having followed farming for many years and at 
 Hibbing was a contractor and speculator. 
 
 James A. Everett grew up in his native state, was 
 reared on a farm, and attended district schools. He 
 was still under age when the war broke out, and 
 almost at the beginning of that struggle he enlisted 
 in Company F of the Seventh Regiment of Maine 
 Infantry, and was not mustered out until February, 
 1865. Going in as a private he had many unusual 
 experiences. At the time of his enlistment he was 
 between eighteen and nineteen years of age. In 
 less than six months he was raised to corporal. His 
 impetuous and hot-headed temperament soon caused 
 a reduction to the rank of private. Another six 
 months and he was made sergeant, and shortly 
 afterwards again reduced to the ranks. On May 
 3, 1864, Mr. Everett was given a sergeant’s commis- 
 sion, and on May 18th of the same year was made 
 first sergeant. On July 9th he was commissioned sec- 
 ond lieutenant and on August 5th was advanced to 
 first lieutenant and on August 21st received a cap- 
 tain’s commission, having received three promotions 
 in about six weeks. On the day that he was com- 
 missioned a captain during a minor skirmish near 
 Charleston, West Virginia, he was shot and sent 
 to a hospital, and was finally mustered out for dis- 
 ability. During his service he was in the Army of 
 the Potomac and his regiment was attached to the 
 Sixth Army Corps. He also took part in the cam- 
 paign ; n Shenandoah Valley, and fought at Antietam 
 and in the Wilderness campaign. 
 
 In March, 1865, following his discharge from the 
 army, Captain Everett came west to Houston County. 
 Minnesota, and was one of the early settlers and 
 helped to develop the wild land in that district into 
 cultivated areas. He followed farming there until 
 the fall of 1869 and then took up his residence on a 
 homestead in Martin County. This county has been 
 his home now for forty-five years. He followed 
 farming until the spring of 1876, and then moved to 
 the county seat at Fairmont. His residence is on 
 Lake Avenue. On coming to Fairmont Mr. Everett 
 entered a law office and did a collection business and 
 handled insurance. Then came appointment to the 
 office of postmaster, and for seven years he was in 
 charge of the Fairmont postoffice, but finally resigned 
 in order to go on the road as representative for the 
 Northwestern Life Insurance Company. For thir- 
 teen years Mr. Everett represented this company 
 and in that time sold a large amount of insurance 
 over his assigned district. In 1896 he turned his 
 attention to the newspaper field, buying the Fair- 
 mont News, and was its owner until 1904. Ill health 
 kept him out of the harness for a time, but his elec- 
 tion to the office of justice of the peace gave him 
 employment for the greater part of the time, and he 
 also did considerable business in the insurance field. 
 Governor Eberhart appointed Mr. Everett deputy oil 
 inspector, for four years. 
 
 As a republican he has long been identified with 
 public affairs in Minnesota and has served in many 
 capacities aside from those already mentioned. He 
 was elected a member of the Legislature and served 
 
 during the session of 1876. In 1870 he assisted in 
 the organization of Manyaska Township in Martin 
 County and was chairman of the first board and for 
 the following seven years was either a member of 
 the board or town clerk in Manyaska. In Fair- 
 mont Mr. Everett has served as city treasurer and 
 as clerk of the school board. He has long been iden- 
 tified with the military organizations, and is con- 
 nected with the Minnesota Commandery of the 
 Order of the Loyal Legion, and has been commander 
 of Phil Kearney Post No. 18 of the Grand Army of 
 the Republic and was commander of the State Grand 
 Army in 1911. Mr. Everett is also one of the board 
 of trustees that have charge of the Soldiers' Home 
 at Minneapolis. Other affiliations connect Captain 
 Everett with Chain Lodge No. 54, A. F. & A. M. ; 
 Fairmont Chapter No. 50, R. A. M. 
 
 On January 31, 1864, in New Vineyard, Maine, 
 Captain Everett married Miss Sally E. Moody, whose 
 father, David Moody, was a farmer at New Vine- 
 yard. Captain Everett and wife are the parents of 
 the following children: Susie, wife of Wilbur E. 
 Brown, who lives on a farm two miles from Fair- 
 mont; Hattie E., wife of Fred C. Gould, who also 
 lives on a farm two miles from Fairmont; and Roy 
 A., who is a farmer in the Province of Alberta, Can- 
 ada. 
 
 Geokge Henry Warren, of Minneapolis, was one 
 of the early schoolteachers in Minnesota, but soon 
 left that vocation for the more practical and adven- 
 turous occupation of lumberman. During the decade 
 of the ’70s, as a surveyor and locater of timber 
 lands, he traversed the unexplored forest regions of 
 a large part of the Northwest, in the states of Wis- 
 consin and Minnesota. For more than forty years 
 he has been actively engaged in the land and general 
 real estate business, with residence at Minneapolis 
 since 1872. 
 
 Mr. Warren was born at Oakfield, New York, Jan- 
 uary 16, 1845, a son of James and Sarah (March) 
 Warren. His grandfather, Henry Warren, was a 
 descendant of the Varrennes or Warren (ne)s, 
 who were Normans and went to England with Wil- 
 liam the Conqueror, and from the old family seat 
 in Devonshire some later descendants came to 
 America and settled in Stafford, New York. Grand- 
 father Henry Warren was the inventor of the first 
 grain separator then known in New York and prob- 
 ably in America. James Warren, the father, was 
 also a manufacturer of threshing machines, car- 
 riages and sleighs, combined with farming. 
 
 George Henry Warren had his early experience 
 in Western New York in his father's factory and 
 in the timber woods. He thus received an early 
 training in the selection of kinds and qualities of 
 woods and of trees that proved valuable in later 
 years. His education was acquired in the Oakfield 
 common schools, he prepared for college at the 
 Cary Collegiate Seminary in Oakfield and at the 
 Genesee Wesleyan Seminary at Lima. New York. 
 In 1866 he graduated Bachelor of Science from 
 Genesee College, then located at Lima but now Syra- 
 cuse University at Syracuse. In 1872 his alma mater 
 conferred upon him "the Master’s degree in science. _ 
 
 Mr. Warren came to Minnesota directly after his 
 graduation from college, and in 1867-68 was principal 
 of the high school at Hastings. For the two j^ears 
 following he was principal of the high school and 
 superintendent of public schools at Faribault. The 
 work of educator, in which he was very successful. 
 
1718 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 was not to hold his energies long, since on coming 
 to the state he was greatly impressed with the timber 
 resources and the magnificent opportunities for the 
 lumber industry. In 1870 he accepted an attractive 
 offer to enter the timber land business in the North- 
 west. His work as surveyor and timber land ex- 
 aminer began in 1871 in the pine forests of Wiscon- 
 sin. He was engaged in this line of work for a 
 number of years. At that time it was pioneer work, 
 and now there is hardly a place in the world which 
 requires the peculiar services performed by those old 
 time timber cruisers. Mr. Warren has written con- 
 cerning the work of the pioneer woodsmen in an 
 effort to preserve some of the facts concerning a 
 class of people whose services were invaluable in 
 opening up a new country but who as a class are 
 now practically extinct. While in his writings Mr. 
 Warren describes the work and experience of others 
 as much as of himself, a few sentences quoted from 
 his writings will serve to illustrate this early chap- 
 ter in his individual career, and the quotation is 
 only a deserved tribute to the hardy woodsmen of 
 the Northwest of whom he was one example among 
 many. 
 
 “The occupation of the pioneer woodsman,” writes 
 Mr. Warren, “as he is related to lumbering in the 
 Northwest is one which demands many of the 
 highest attributes of man. He must be skillful 
 enough as a surveyor to always know which de- 
 scription of land he is on, and where he is on that 
 description. He must be a good judge of timber, 
 able to discern the difference between a sound tree 
 and a defective one, as well as to estimate closely 
 the quantity and quality of lumber, reckoned in piece, 
 board measure, each tree will likely produce when 
 sawed at the mill. He must examine the contour of 
 the country where the timber is, and make calcula- 
 tions how the timber is to be gotten out, either by 
 water or by rail, and estimate how much money per 
 thousand feet it will cost to bring the logs to market. 
 The value of the standing pine or other timber in 
 the woods is dependent on all these conditions, 
 which must be reckoned in arriving at an estimate 
 of the desirability of each tract of timber as an in- 
 vestment for himself or for whomsoever he may 
 represent. Possessing these qualifications he must 
 also be honest ; he must be industrious ; he must 
 be courageous. He must gain the other side of 
 rivers that have no bridges over them, and he must 
 cross lakes on which there are no boats. He must 
 find shelter when he has no tent, and make moccasins 
 when his shoes are worn out and no longer of 
 service, and new ones are not to be obtained ; he 
 must be indefatigable, for he will often be tempted 
 to leave some work half finished rather than over- 
 come the physical obstacles that lay between hifn 
 and the completion of his task. On the character 
 of this man and on his faithfulness, his honesty, his 
 conscientiousness, and on the correctness of his 
 knowledge concerning the quality, quantity and situa- 
 tion as to marketing the timber he examines, depends 
 the value of the investment. Hundreds of thousands 
 of dollars are invested on the word of this man, 
 after he has disappeared into the wilderness and 
 emerged with his report of what he has seen. The 
 requisitions of manhood for this work are of a 
 very high degree, and when such a man is found he 
 is entitled to all of the esteem that is ever accorded 
 to an honest, faithful, conscientious cashier, banker 
 or administrator of a large estate.” 
 
 Since 1872 Mr. Warren has been a resident and 
 
 loyal citizen of Minneapolis, actively interested in 
 civic and educational conditions. In 1889 he was 
 elected a member of the city council for the Thir- 
 teenth Ward and was made chairman of the commit- 
 tee on railroads. At that time the street railway 
 was required to change its system of motive power 
 from horse to electric, and as chairman of the coun- 
 cil committee Mr. Warren took a prominent part in 
 the framing of ordinances relating to the electrifica- 
 tion and to the control of the local traction system. 
 
 In the days of the Business Men’s Union, the pre- 
 decessor of the Commercial Club, and of the Athletic 
 Club, Mr. Warren was active in promoting the civic 
 and educational interests of Minneapolis. In 1892, 
 because of an acquaintance with men of affairs 
 in the northern part of the state that gave him 
 inside information regarding a movement to se- 
 cure the School of Mines for Duluth, he was able 
 to do a most valuable service both to the city and the 
 state university. Knowing that the outcome of a 
 fight with Duluth for this school would be uncer- 
 tain, Mr. Warren urged the Business Men’s Union 
 to appoint a committee to raise money for a build- 
 ing for an ore testing plant at the university. As 
 chairman of the committee which the Business Men’s 
 Union appointed, he raised the funds for the build- 
 ing and kept the School of Mines at Minneapolis. 
 
 Mr. Warren is a member and supporter of the 
 Civic and Commerce Association and of the Society 
 of Fine Arts. He is also a member of the American 
 Institute of Mining Engineers and of the Academy 
 of Natural Sciences, of the Masonic fraternity and 
 of the Psi Upsilon. He belongs to the University, 
 Athletic, Minneapolis and Minikahda clubs of Min- 
 neapolis. 
 
 Mention has already been made of Mr. Warren’s 
 contribution to the literature of the northwestern 
 woods. The title of his book, which was published 
 in 1914, is “The Pioneer Woodsman as He is Related 
 to Lumbering in the Northwest,” a book of 184 
 pages, handsomely illustrated, and copyrighted by the 
 author. Mr. Warren dedicates the book “To the 
 Memory of William S. Patrick, guiding friend and 
 helpful counselor of my earlier manhood years.” In 
 addition to the quotation which has already been 
 made as descriptive of some phases of the experience 
 which Mr. Warren shared forty years or more ago, 
 the following sentences from the Foreword may 
 serve to attract deserved attention to this interesting 
 historical and descriptive account of the northwest- 
 ern timber woods and the early woodsmen : “The 
 
 aim of this book is to take the reader along on the 
 journey of the pioneer woodsman from comfort- 
 able hearthstone, from family, friends, books, maga- 
 zines and daily papers, and to disappear with him 
 from all evidence of civilization and from all human 
 companionship save, ordinarily, that of one helper 
 who not infrequently is an Indian, and to live for 
 weeks at a time in the unbroken forests, seldom 
 sleeping more than a single night in one place. The 
 woodsman and his one companion must carry cook- 
 ing utensils, axes, raw provisions of flour, meat, 
 beans, coffee, sugar, rice, pepper and salt; maps, 
 plats, books for field notes ; the simplest and lightest 
 possible equipment of surveying implements ; and, 
 lastly, tent and blankets for shelter and covering at 
 night to protect them from storm and cold. Inci- 
 dents of the daily life of these two voluntary re- 
 clusionists, as they occurred to the author and some 
 of the results obtained, will be told to the reader in 
 the pages of this work.” 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1719 
 
 Mr. Warren was married on November 6, 1872, 
 to Miss Jennie L. Conkey, a daughter of the late 
 J. H. Conkey, whose sketch is found on other pages. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Warren became the parents of two 
 children : Aurie Sarah, who was born September 13, 
 1873, and died March 28, 1876; and Frank Merton, 
 born December 1, 1875, and now associated with 
 his father in business. 
 
 James Henry Conkey. About 1880 a number of 
 Minneapolis men, all of them at that time sixty 
 years of age, formed a little social organization 
 known as the “1820 Club.” While similarity in age 
 was the superficial bond uniting them, they had also 
 other common ties and interests, and all of them 
 were men who had been in various ways closely and 
 prominently identified with the business and civic 
 life of the Northwest. Of this little group the last 
 survivor was James Henry Conkey, who had resided 
 in Minneapolis for thirty-five years, was one of the 
 pioneer railroad men of the West, and who died 
 at the home of his daughter, Mrs. George H. War- 
 ren, 3443 Irving Avenue South, on April 11, 1908. 
 Among other members of this 1820 Club were 
 Col. John H. Stevens, Judge E. B. Ames, Win- 
 throp Young, Sumner Farnham, Capt. John Mar- 
 tin and R. P. Russell, all names that are firmly linked 
 with the beginning of Minnesota and particularly 
 with the pioneer settlement at St. Anthony Fall's. 
 
 James Henry Conkey was born at Plattsburg, 
 New York, December 25, 1820. His father, Lucius 
 Conkey, moved to Massena, New York, when the 
 son was nine years old. There in the common 
 schools he received his education. He became a 
 civil engineer, and in that capacity was employed 
 on the Vermont Central in 1846. While surveying 
 across the farm of Seth Langdon, in Vermont, he 
 by chance met one of that prosperous farmer's beau- 
 tiful daughters, Martha A. Langdon, a sister of the 
 late Robert B. Langdon, a sketch of whom appears 
 on other pages of this publication. These young 
 people were married in 1848. 
 
 Mr. Conkey removed to Burlington, Wisconsin, 
 and in 1850 laid the first rails of the Milwaukee & 
 St. Paul railway between Milwaukee and Waukesha. 
 The following year he laid track on the Cincinnati 
 & Dayton Railway in Ohio. 
 
 The late Mr. Conkey identified himself with Min- 
 nesota in 1864, and was thus one of the pioneers of 
 the state. His first location was at Faribault, and 
 it is recalled that he and his family made the jour- 
 ney from Mendota to that city on the first passenger 
 train entering Faribault over the Milwaukee Rail- 
 way. Mr. Conkey was for many years engaged in 
 the manufacture of flour at Faribault, and during the 
 winter of 1864-65 manufactured and shipped to Men- 
 dota the first cargo of flour ever sent out of Fari- 
 bault. In 1872 he removed to Minneapolis, and 
 was engaged in the planing of lumber until his re- 
 tirement from business in 1894. After that he and 
 his wife lived with their daughter, Mrs. George H. 
 Warren, and Mrs. Conkey is still living in the War- 
 ren home at Minneapolis. Mrs. Warren is the only 
 survivor of the children. The oldest son, Frank 
 L. Conkey, is buried at Khartoum, Africa, while 
 Robert Bruce Conkey and the daughter, Emma L. 
 Conkey, are buried in Minneapolis, at Lakewood, 
 where the body of Mr. Conkey was also interred. 
 
 The late Mr. Conkey served as an alderman at 
 Minneapolis in 1876-77, and among his associates in 
 the council at that time were Solon Armstrong, 
 
 "Vol. m— 29 
 
 Thomas F. Andrews, Maj. George A. Camp, N. R. 
 Thompson and Frank Griswold. Eugene M. Wil- 
 son was city attorney, Gen. Thomas L. Rosser, city 
 engineer, and Robert Angst assistant engineer. All 
 of these men, who helped to make Minneapolis his- 
 tory, passed away before Mr. Conkey. Mr. Conkey 
 was for half a century a member of the Masonic 
 fraternity. 
 
 Hon. Albert Pfaender. One of the strong and 
 forceful figures of Brown County, Albert Pfaender 
 has always used his high legal attainments in the 
 furtherance of those movements which he has con- 
 ceived to be for the best interests of the community, 
 combining the two 'characters of lawyer and citizen 
 in such a manner that he is generally recognized as 
 an important and helpful factor in his community’s 
 life. Possessed of more than ordinary executive 
 capacity, he has been called at times to positions of 
 high public trust, and from 1909 until 1915 repre- 
 sented the people of New Ulm and the surrounding 
 country in the State Legislature. 
 
 Mr. Pfaender was born at New Ulm, Brown County, 
 Minnesota, September 9, 1873, and is a son of 
 Col. William and Catherine (Pfau) Pfaender. His 
 father was born in Wuertemberg, Germany, in 1826, 
 and as a young man of twenty-two years emigrated 
 to the United States, settling first in the City of Cin- 
 cinnati, Ohio, and in 1856 moving on to Minnesota 
 as a pioneer farmer of Brown County. He was thus 
 engaged at the outreak of the Civil war, and in 
 1861 enlisted in the First Minnesota Battery of Light 
 Artillery, as first lieutenant. With this- battery he 
 participated in a number of engagements including 
 the Hornet’s Nest at Shiloh, and after the Indian 
 Massacre at New Ulm was transferred to Fort 
 Ridgely, in Nicollet County, Minnesota, where he 
 was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and 
 served with the Mounted Rangers who operated 
 against the Indians. Upon receiving his honorable 
 discharge, in 1867. Colonel Pfaender returned to his 
 farm in Brown County, and later removed to New 
 L r lm, where he was engaged in the insurance and 
 real estate business and where his death occurred 
 in 1905, when he had reached the advanced age of 
 seventy-nine years. For many years he took a prom- 
 inent and leading participation in republican politics 
 in Brown County, and from 1877 until 1881 served 
 in the capacity of state treasurer. Colonel Pfaender 
 was married to Miss Catherine Pfau who was born 
 in Bavaria, Germany, in 1833, and who died at New 
 LTlm, Minnesota, in 1892. They became the parents 
 of ten children, as follows : William, a resident of 
 
 New LPm, where he is successfully engaged in the 
 nursery business ; Kate, who became the wife of 
 Charles Albrecht, a furrier of St. Paul; Louisa, the 
 wife of Dr. A. Stamm, a practicing physician of that 
 city; Josephine, who is unmarried and resides at 
 New Ulm; Fred, now postmaster of this city; Ama- 
 lia, who is the wife of Dr. L. A. Fritsche, a sketch 
 of whom will be found elsewhere in this work; 
 Emma, who is the wife of Charles Hauser, a maltster 
 of St. Paul ; Minnie, who became the wife of Hein 
 Loenholdt, a contractor, and resides in the City 
 of Homburg vor der Hoehe, Germany; Herman, 
 who is carrying on operations on the old home- 
 stead in Brown County; and Albert of this review. 
 
 Albert Pfaender received his early education in 
 the public schools, graduating from the New Ulm 
 High School with the class of 1891 and from the 
 Mankato Normal School in 1892. At that time he 
 
1720 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 commenced his career as a school teacher, and spent 
 two years in charge of a class at New Ulm, thus 
 earning the means wherewith to enter the University 
 of Minnesota, from which institution he was grad- 
 uated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1897. 
 After his first year in the university he was assistant 
 in the office of the registrar, E. B. Johnson, thus 
 making his own way through college. Turning his 
 attention to his chosen profession at that time, Mr. 
 Pfaender devoted two years to study in the legal 
 department of the university, then entering the office 
 of Joseph A. Eckstein, of New Ulm, under whose 
 preceptorship he completed his preparation for prac- 
 tice. He was admitted to the bar in 1900, and from 
 that time to the present has been in the enjoyment 
 of a constantly increasing professional business. 
 The character of his practice is general and broad 
 in its scope, he having confined himself to no special 
 line, and he practices in all the courts, where his 
 connection with a number of important cases has 
 made him a well known figure. He maintains offices 
 in the Olson Building. Aside from his profession, 
 he has interested himself in a number of business 
 ventures, among which is the Pfaender Realty Com- 
 pany, of which he is secretary. He is also interested 
 in military matters, having been a member of the 
 Second Regiment, Minnesota National Guard, since 
 1901, and now serving as major in that organization. 
 
 Mr. Pfaender has been a supporter of democratic 
 principles, and after his first term in the Minnesota 
 House of Representatives was recognized as the 
 minority leader of that body. He has served as 
 city attorney of New Ulm for three years, and was 
 lately re-appointed to that office, and was represen- 
 tative from his district in the House of Representa- 
 tives for three terms, or from 1909 until 1915. While 
 in that body he showed himself an active and work- 
 ing member, and was credited with some very conr- 
 mendable work in behalf of his constituents’ inter- 
 ests, serving as a member of the committees on 
 Judiciary, Appropriations, University of Minnesota 
 and Military Affairs, and, during his last term, being 
 chairman of the committee on Crimes and Punish- 
 ments. In matters religious, Mr. Pfaender is very 
 liberal, inclining towards Unitarianism, but at pres- 
 ent is a member only of the Men’s Congregational 
 Club of New Ulm. He is fraternally connected with 
 the state lodge of the Knights of Pythias, the 
 Modern Woodmen of America and the Theta Delta 
 Chi Greek letter college fraternity, and also holds 
 membership in the New Ulm Commercial Club. He 
 is interested in athletics, wherein he received train- 
 ing in the classes of the New Ulm Turnverein. His 
 support has never been withheld from good and 
 beneficial measures. 
 
 Mr. Pfaender was married at New Ulm, Minne- 
 sota, in 1907, to Miss Marie T. Neumann, daughter 
 of John F. Neumann, a successful merchant of this 
 city, and to this union there have been born two 
 children : John Albert and Marion Alberta. 
 
 M. W. Grimes is editor and publisher of the Le 
 Sueur News at Le Sueur, Minnesota. He has been 
 located at that place, as a publisher, since 1895. He 
 was born in Sibley County on September 21, 1861. 
 He is married and his wife is a native of Wisconsin. 
 Ten children were born to them, eight of whom 
 are living. 
 
 Adolph Frederickson. The career of Adolph 
 Frederickson, county attorney of Brown County, 
 
 has in many respects been similar to that of other 
 men who have gained prominence at the Minnesota 
 bar. The common type brings to mind an ambitious 
 and gifted youth, born in moderate circumstances, 
 giving his early thoughts to the acquisition of an 
 academic or collegiate training, and in the mean- 
 time working at the pursuits which lie at hand. An 
 interval of labor, not seldom in the schoolroom, fol- 
 lows, this opening an entrance into professional 
 schools, and after a call to the bar comes the secur- 
 ing of a foothold in practice by slow and painful 
 steps. After a few years of more marked prosper- 
 ity comes a selection for official honors, and then a 
 service of conscientious devotion, of which the high- 
 est praise is that of duty done. Mr. Frederickson’s 
 career has departed little from this type. He won 
 a liberal education through his own labor, spent years 
 in the schoolroom before being admitted to the bar, 
 and has gained recognition and official preference 
 through the display of his inherent abilities. 
 
 Mr. Frederickson is a native of Denmark, born 
 May 25, 1869, a son of Lars and Olina (Johansen) 
 Frederickson. His father, born in Denmark in 1834, 
 brought the family to the United States in 1881, and 
 settled first in Brown County and later in Redwood 
 County, Minnesota, where he continued in agri- 
 cultural pursuits until his death in 1890. Mrs. Fred- 
 erickson, who was born in Denmark in 1836, died 
 in North Dakota, in 1913. They were the parents 
 of eight children, as follows : Matina, whose death 
 occurred in the State of Idaho, in 1904; C. H„ who 
 is engaged in agricultural pursuits in Redwood 
 County, Minnesota ; Regina, who remained in Den- 
 mark and died there after the family emigrated to 
 the United States; Adolph, of this notice; Molly, 
 who became the wife of Jens Peterson, a farmer of 
 North Dakota; Peter, who follows farming on his 
 well-cultivated property in Redwood County; Laura, 
 who is the wife of Jorgen Rusmussen, a North Da- 
 kota farmer and stockraiser ; and Harry, who also 
 follows farming in that state. 
 
 Adolph Frederickson began to attend the public 
 schools of his native land when he was seven years 
 of age, and continued as a pupil there until the 
 family started on their journey to the United States, 
 he then having reached the age of twelve. After the 
 settlement of the family in Brown County, he con- 
 tinued his education in the district schools, and after 
 attending the high school at Sleepy Eye became a 
 school teacher, continuing as such for six years in 
 Brown and Redwood counties. During this time he 
 had applied himself to the study of law, and when 
 he ceased his educational work he became a student 
 in the University of Minnesota, being graduated 
 from the law department of that institution in 1896, 
 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. In 1896 he 
 entered active practice at Springfield, and here has 
 continued to the present time, building up an ever- 
 increasing professional business of a general civil 
 and criminal nature. Mr. Frederickson has con- 
 tinued as an earnest and assiduous student of his 
 calling, and maintains membership in the Brown: 
 County and Minnesota State Bar associations. His 
 well-appointed offices are located in the First Na- 
 tional Bank Building. Studious, broad-minded, log- 
 ical and judicial in his perceptions and practice, Mr. 
 Frederickson has attracted to himself the best kind 
 of practice that may fall to the lot of the lawyer. 
 
 Politically a republican, he has served fifteen years 
 as a member of the school board and twelve years, 
 on the city council, and is now acting efficiently as- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1721 
 
 attorney of Brown County. He belongs to Machine 
 Gun Companyj Second Regiment, Minnesota Na- 
 tional Guard, stationed at New Ulm. Fraternally he 
 is popularly known and has numerous connections, 
 being past master of Zenith Lodge No. 200, A. F. 
 & A. M., and past high priest of McKinley Chapter 
 No. 69, R. A. M., patron of Ionic Chapter, No. 84, 
 O. E. S., and holding membership also in DeMolay 
 Commandery No. 28, K. T. ; Zurah Temple, A. A. 
 O. N. M. S.; the Ancient Order of United Work- 
 men, the Knights of the Maccabees, and the Modern 
 Brotherhood of America. With his family he at- 
 tends the Lutheran Church. 
 
 Mr. Frederickson was married in Redwood County, 
 Minnesota, in 1896, to Miss Jennie Jensen, daughter 
 of Theodore Jensen, a farmer of that county, and to 
 this union there have been born four children, as 
 follows: Muriel, who resides at home; Myrtle, 
 
 a sophomore at the University of Minnesota; and 
 Hubert and Cyrus, who are attending the Springfield 
 public schools. 
 
 Henry C. Belden. Exemplifying in his character 
 and bearing the best traditions and principles of his 
 native New England, that cradle of much of our 
 national history, Judge Belden has lent dignity and 
 honor to the bench and bar of Minnesota, where he 
 has been a representative exponent of the highest 
 ethics of his profession for the long period of thirty 
 years. He is one of the prominent and honored 
 members of the bar of the Minnesota metropolis, 
 where he has maintained his residence since 1884. 
 
 Judge Henry Clay Belden is a native of the old 
 Green Mountain State and in both the agnatic and 
 maternal lines is a scion of Colonial stock in New 
 England. He was born at Burke Hallow, Caledonia 
 County, Vermont, on the 30th of August, 1841, and 
 at the age of five years he became a pupil in the vil- 
 lage school at East Haven, in Essex County, Ver- 
 mont, where he continued his studies about six years, 
 after which he availed himself of the advantages of 
 a well ordered private school at Burke Hollow, his 
 native town. While attending this institution he 
 found it incumbent upon him to add to his financial 
 resources and assist in the defraying of his incidental 
 expenses, and this object was realized through his 
 work in the hay fields for a compensation of $1 
 a day. It may well be understood that through 
 such varied discipline the youth waxed strong in 
 both mental and physical vigor and doubly fortified 
 himself for the duties and responsibilities that were 
 later to devolve upon him in a workaday world. 
 For a time he attended school at East Burke, in his 
 native county, and in the meanwhile found generous 
 hospice in the home of his uncle, Woodruff Belden, 
 a representative citizen of that place. In 1859, when 
 about eighteen years of age, Judge Belden became a 
 student at Barnston Academy, an excellent institu- 
 tion of its day, located at Barnston, Stanstead County, 
 in the Province of Quebec, Canada. There he ap- 
 plied himself to higher academic studies for a period 
 of four years, at the expiration of which he was 
 graduated at the head of his class and as its vale- 
 dictorian, the institution having had at the time a 
 student body of 300 persons.* After his graduation 
 he was retained as a teacher in the schools of Comp- 
 ton, and he received $150 for his pedagogic services 
 for the term, this being the largest amount of money 
 he had ever had in his possession or even had the 
 privilege of viewing. From Compton the judge 
 finally returned to his native county, and at Lyndon 
 
 he began reading law, devoting two years to careful 
 and determined study of Blaekstone’s Commentaries 
 and a little interpretive volume known as Twiney’s 
 Blackstone. On the 9th of December, 1863, he 
 proved that his absorption and assimilation of the 
 involved science of jurisprudence had made him 
 eligible for admittance to the bar of Vermont, and 
 this distinction was conferred upon him on that 
 day, after he had passed a duly critical examination. 
 On the 15th of July of the following year he was 
 admitted to practice in the Federal Court of his 
 native state. He engaged in the practice of his pro- 
 fession at St. Johnsbury, Vermont, and eventually 
 became eligible for practice in all of the courts of 
 the state, including its Supreme Court and the Fed- 
 eral courts. He recalls that he was admitted to the 
 United States Circuit Court, at Windsor, Vermont, 
 on the 25th of July, 1872 — the day that witnessed 
 the nomination of Hon. Thomas B. Reed for repre- 
 sentative in Congress,- in which national legislative 
 body he was destined to rise to the office of speaker 
 and to become known as “Czar of the House of Rep- 
 resentatives.” 
 
 Judge Belden soon gained prestige as one of the 
 able and representative younger members of the 
 Vermont bar, and he became also an influential figure 
 in political affairs, as a stalwart in the camp of 
 the republican party. In 1880 he was a member of 
 the Vermont delegation through which Gen. James 
 A. Garfield was nominated for the presidency of 
 the United States, and he represented his delegation 
 in nominating the chairman of the national conven- 
 tion of that year. In 1878 Judge Belden was elected 
 a member of the State Senate of Vermont, and in 
 the ensuing session he had the distinction of being 
 the youngest man who had even been chosen chair- 
 man of the Senate Judiciary Committee in the his- 
 tory of the state. He continued to be engaged in the 
 successful practice of his profession at St. Johns- 
 bury, judicial center of his native county, until the 
 time of his removal to Minnesota, in 1884, and he 
 was one of the prominent attorneys and influential 
 citizens of Caledonia County. 
 
 It may further be noted that many influential citi- 
 zens of his native state wrote to Judge Belden let- 
 ters of protest, when he announced his intention of 
 removing to the West, and while he retains a deep 
 appreciation of the sentiments thus expressed and 
 an abiding affection for the old Green Mountain 
 State, he has entered fully into the spirit of the West 
 and has no regret for the decision that led him 
 to establish his home in Minneapolis. The Cale- 
 donia bar tendered to Judge Belden a farewell supper 
 and reception on the eve of his departure for the 
 West, and unanimously adopted the following reso- 
 lutions : "Resolved, That it is with sincere regret 
 
 that we part with our brother, Henry Clay Belden. 
 as a member of the Caledonia County bar, on his 
 departure for a new field of labor and practice of 
 his chosen profession in the comparatively new and 
 growing Northwest. Resolved, That we cheerfully 
 bear testimony to the ability, energy, skill and devo- 
 tion to the principles of justice, as well as to the 
 interests of his clients, with which he has practiced 
 his profession as a member of this bar, in a large, 
 varied and growing practice, for more than twenty 
 years. Resolved, That we heartily commend him 
 to his brethren in his new field of labor as an honor- 
 able, high-minded man, a learned, skillful and ju- 
 dicious counselor and advisor, and an energetic, de- 
 voted practitioner of the law. And we earnestly 
 
 
1722 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 hope that amid new scenes and in new surroundings 
 he may fully recover his pristine health and vigor, 
 and win new laurels, and gather larger fruitage in 
 his new field of labor.” 
 
 Judge Belden arrived in Minneapolis on the 13th 
 of December, 1884, and in the following spring he 
 was here admitted to the Minnesota bar. He soon 
 became a member of the law firm of Gilfillan, Belden 
 & Willard, and this relation he sustained until the 
 failure of the Guarantee Loan Company, when he 
 withdrew from the firm and gave his attention to 
 adjusting the affairs of the corporation mentioned, 
 his efforts assisting in the avoidance of more than 
 nominal financial loss to the various persons inter- 
 ested in the company. In the autumn of 1894 Judge 
 Belden was elected to the bench of the Fourth Ju- 
 dicial District, and he assumed office in the following 
 January, retaining the incumbency until his resigna- 
 tion, on the 5th of May, 1897. On the bench he ex- 
 emplified fine judicial acumen and few of his deci- 
 sions met with reversal by the courts of higher 
 j urisdiction. 
 
 After his retirement from the bench Judge Belden 
 became a member of the law firm of Hahn, Belden 
 & Halley, and this alliance continued two and one- 
 half years. In 1911 he formed a partnership with 
 Orrin E. Safford, under the firm title of Belden & 
 Safford, with offices in Suite 448, McKnight Building. 
 In the earlier years of his residence in Minneapolis 
 the practice of Judge Belden called him into all parts 
 of the state, and he relates many graphic reminis- 
 cences concerning the courts and lawyers of that 
 period. He is a staunch and effective advocate of 
 the principles for which the republican party has 
 ever stood sponsor, but during his residence in Min- 
 nesota he has not consented to appear as a candidate 
 for political office. He was one of the organizers of 
 the Minneapolis Board of Trade and the Commercial 
 Club, and in all that pertains to good citizenship he 
 stands forward as an exponent of public spirit and 
 utmost civic loyalty. 
 
 Floyd David Minium. Having charge of the con- 
 struction, maintenance and operation of bridges, 
 waterworks, sewers and pavements, and the duties 
 which require the skill and experience of a civil 
 engineer, the city engineer of any thriving com- 
 munity holds a position of responsibility which con- 
 cerns the people as closely as that of any other de- 
 partment of the public service. When added to 
 these duties are those connected with the office of 
 county surveyor, the incumbent of which is required 
 to make all official surveys in the county, the task 
 becomes a doubly arduous and laborious one. In the 
 discharge of the responsibilities of city engineer of 
 New Ulm and county surveyor of Brown County 
 Floyd David Minium so ably and satisfactorily con- 
 ducted himself during his first term of office that 
 in 1914 he was re-elected by the people for four years 
 more. Still a young man, his advancement from the 
 time he left college has been rapid and consistent, so 
 that today he occupies a high and important place 
 in his profession. 
 
 Mr. Minium was born in Juniata County, Penn- 
 sylvania, January 20, 1886, a member of an old and 
 honored family of that state and a son of J. D. and 
 Lydia (Barner) Minium. His father, who was born 
 in the same county in 1861, brought the family West 
 in 1887. settling first at Sioux Falls, South Dakota, 
 where he was engaged in the grain and agricultural 
 implement business, and in 1904 removed to Clear 
 Lake, Iowa, where he now resides, being employed 
 
 as agent for a large commission house of Des 
 Moines, Iowa. Mrs. Minium is also a native of 
 Pennsylvania, and has been the mother of four chil- 
 dren, namely : Floyd David, of this review ; Nora, 
 
 who is unmarried and resides at Clear Lake, Iowa; 
 Maude, who married A. R. Woods, who is engaged 
 in agricultural pursuits in the vicinity of Fielding, 
 Indiana; and Evelyn, who resides with her parents. 
 
 Floyd D. Minium was an infant when taken by 
 his parents to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and there 
 his boyhood and youth were spent, his early educa- 
 tion being secured in the graded and high schools. 
 After his graduation from the latter he entered the 
 South Dakota College, where he spent three and one- 
 half years in study for the profession of civil engi- 
 neering. His first practical experience came to him 
 in February, 1906, when, as a rodman, he became 
 engaged in work with the Great Northern Railway 
 on its location in the Cascade Mountains. After 
 eleven months spent thus Mr. Minium returned to 
 Sioux Falls, and in January, 1907, went to work as 
 instrument man for the South Dakota Central Rail- 
 way, being identified with that line until November, 
 1908, when he was appointed assistant engineer to 
 the city engineer of Sioux Falls. There he gained 
 much valuable experience and remained in that 
 capacity until April, 1909, then becoming identified 
 with the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad in its lo- 
 cation west of the Missouri River, on the Cheyenne 
 Indian Reservation. Mr. Minium continued as in- 
 strument man on this important piece of railroad 
 building until September of the same year, his next 
 employment being in a different field, irrigation, in 
 the vicinity of Greeley, Colorado, he remaining in 
 that state until May, 1910, and then going to Denver, 
 Colorado. There he became instrument man on 
 terminal yard work for the Denver, Laramie & 
 Northwestern Railroad, where he continued until 
 August 1, 1910. Succeeding this he became super- 
 intendent of sewers and concrete work at Water- 
 town, South Dakota, a position which he held until 
 November, 1910, and then returned again to Sioux 
 Falls as deputy county surveyor. In August, 1911, 
 he went back to Watertown as superintendent of 
 construction work, and when his labors there were 
 finished, in May, 1912, came to New Ulm. 
 
 Mr. Minium's reputation as a thoroughly skilled 
 and experienced civil engineer had preceded him, 
 and in May of the same year he was appointed city 
 engineer of New Ulm, this appointment being fol- 
 lowed shortly afterward by that which placed him 
 in the office of county surveyor. Here he demon- 
 strated his abilities so forcibly that November 3, 
 1914, he was elected to county office for a term of 
 four years, and was reappointed as city engineer in 
 April, 1913,. 1914 and 1915, by the city council. While 
 his duties are many and arduous, Mr. Minium has 
 also found time to carry on the superintendency of 
 drainage work for Renville County, Minnesota. He 
 is a young man of energy, enterprise and resource, 
 capable of handling the most intricate problems, and 
 with an enthusiasm which he is able to communicate 
 to his assistants. He is a stalwart republican in poli- 
 tics, and his religious connection is with the Congre- 
 gational Church. Fraternally he belongs to Water- 
 town (South Dakota) Lodge No. 838, Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks, and Charity Lodge No. 98, 
 A. F. & A. M., New Ulm. 
 
 On March 14, 1911, Mr. Minium was married to 
 Miss Marjorie Fletcher, daughter of H. S. Fletcher, 
 one of the owners and manager of the Watertown 
 Gas Company,, of Watertown, South Dakota. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1723 
 
 Fred J. Von Bohland, M. D. During more than 
 twenty years of residence at Belle Plaine, Doctor 
 Von Bohland has acquired not only a large private 
 practice as a physician and surgeon, but on the basis 
 of his experience and skill has been entrusted with 
 the responsibilities of a director of the public health 
 and has gained a substantial station in the com- 
 munity as business man and citizen. 
 
 Fred J. Von Bohland is a native of Germany, born 
 in Bremerhafen, December 29, 1866. His parents 
 were Louis and Frieda (Klatte) Von Bohland, and 
 his grandfather was August Von Bohland, who spent 
 his life in Germany as a extensive land owner. 
 Louis Von Bohland was born in Germany in 1833, 
 and died in 1884. His wife was born in 1830, and 
 died in 1882. They were married in 1865, and of 
 their three children Doctor Von Bohland is the only 
 one living, his brothers William and Otto having- 
 died young. The father spent all his active career 
 as a chief engineer on one of the largest passenger 
 steamers in the North German Lloyd Line. Both 
 parents were members of the Lutheran faith. 
 
 Doctor Von Bohland received his early education 
 in Germany and came to America in 1884 at the age 
 of eighteen. He pursued his medical studies in the 
 University of Minnesota, where he was graduated 
 M. D. in 1891, and spent the following year in Ger- 
 many attending the clinics of some of the celebrated 
 hospitals. In the university he was assistant to the 
 professor of anatomy, but resigned this position in 
 order to take up his private practice. In 1892, after 
 his return from abroad, Doctor Von Bohland located 
 at Belle Plaine, and has since been steadily engaged 
 in looking after his extensive practice. 
 
 In 1891 Doctor Von Bohland married Sophia Mil- 
 ler, a native of Germany. Their son, Frederick D., 
 is now studying dentistry in the University of Min- 
 nesota. The daughter, Juanita, has completed the 
 high school course and entered the University of 
 Minnesota in 1915. The family are members of the 
 Episcopal Church, and Doctor Von Bohland has 
 served as junior and senior warden of the Masonic 
 Lodge, also, belongs to the Royal Arch Chapter. 
 For a number of years he has been active as a re- 
 publican, and is chairman of the Scott County com- 
 mittee, a member of the state central committee. 
 He has been a member of the Board of Health of 
 Scott County and at the present time is county 
 physician, and is also physician to the Home of the 
 Aged and Orphans. He is a member of the Scott 
 and Carver Counties Medical Society, the Southern 
 Minnesota and the State Medical societies, and the 
 American Medical Association. At one time Doctor 
 Von Bohland was vice president of the First Na- 
 tional Bank of Belle Plaine. 
 
 Clarence H. Deane. The record of successful 
 business men needs no introductory preface among 
 the citizens of the community in which their activi- 
 ties have been carried on for more than three 
 decades, and Clarence H. Deane, of Minneapolis, is 
 a member of the class just referred to. By his 
 strict personal integrity and honorable dealings, com- 
 bined with good business qualifications, he has be- 
 come not only one. of the leading business men, but 
 also one of the most highly respected and valued 
 citizens of his city. 
 
 Mr. Deane was born in Meigs County, Ohio, near 
 the Town of Pomeroy, and is a son of Gaston and 
 Martha (Wiley) Deane, natives of Pennsylvania. 
 His father was a farmer and stockman, and bought 
 
 and shipped cattle extensively, and died about the 
 year 1867. Owing to a disability he was not an 
 active participant in the Civil war, but enlisted for 
 service in the Home Guards. Mrs. Deane was mar- 
 ried a second time, and came to Champlin, Minne- 
 sota, where she spent the remainder of her life, pass- 
 ing away at the age of seventy years. There were 
 five children in the family : Elmer G., who died at 
 
 Champlin, Minnesota, at the age of nine years ; Airs. 
 Edward J. Davis, a resident of Minneapolis; Mrs. 
 Frank Elwell ; Clarence H., of this review; and 
 Mrs. William H. Hanscom, of St. Mary’s, Idaho, all 
 of whom were born in Ohio. 
 
 The public schools of Champlin and St. Cloud fur- 
 nished Clarence H. Deane with his primary educa- 
 tion, and following his graduation from the high 
 school of the former place he enrolled as a student 
 in the University of Minnesota. He never attended 
 that institution, however, as he was offered and 
 accepted a position in the building of Fort Assini- 
 boin, Montana, under Colonel Lee, who commanded 
 the post there at that time. Air. Deane was there 
 for one year, then going through the Yellowstone 
 Park country and returning to Alinneapolis, but later 
 went to Denver, Colorado, and for one and one-half 
 years was interested in mining ventures. Returning 
 to Minneapolis again, he was married to Aliss Emma 
 S. Quanstrom, of this city, who was born in Scott 
 County, Minnesota, and there educated. She was 
 a daughter of C. P. Quanstrom, of that locality. 
 
 For about five years Mr. Deane was largely in- 
 terested in the milling and flour business, wholesal- 
 ing to the trade. When he disposed of his interests 
 in that enterprise he turned his attention to the 
 mortgage loan and building business, and erected 
 many structures in Alinneapolis. At the present 
 time he gives more attention to the mortgage end of 
 the business, although he continues to do some 
 building. Air. Deane possesses superior natural en- 
 dowments, and these have been broadened by con- 
 tact with the business affairs of life from early man- 
 hood. Fraternally Air. Deane belongs to Lodge No. 
 44. Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, of 
 Minneapolis. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Deane have one daughter : Hazel 
 
 M., who was born in Minneapolis and is a graduate 
 of the West High School and Pomona College, of 
 Claremont, California. Miss Deane is a popular 
 member of the Thursday Musical Club. The pleas- 
 ant family home of the Deanes is located at No. 2616 
 Colfax Avenue, South. Alinneapolis. 
 
 John W. Irwin. One of the institutions by which 
 a city is judged is its hotels. Any city that is more 
 than a residence and local trading center has rela- 
 tions with the great outside world of affairs, and 
 must furnish accommodations for that important 
 transient population that come and go through its 
 gates. For these reasons the St. Louis Hotel at 
 Duluth is an institution which helped to give a fair 
 fame to the city along with its tremendous commer- 
 cial enterprises and transportation facilities. The 
 president of the St. Louis Hotel Company is John W. 
 Irwin, who in recent years has made it an object of 
 care and ambition to give Duluth one of the best 
 hotels in the Northwest, and whose name has long 
 been associated prominently with the lumber indus- 
 try and with other affairs which are distinctive of 
 the commercial life centering at Duluth. 
 
 John Wesley Irwin was born in the Province of 
 New Brunswick, Canada, February 12, 1862. The 
 
1724 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Irwin family many generations ago left their native 
 Scotland and established their home in the north 
 of Ireland, where it was prominent for many gen- 
 erations. Thomas Irwin, father of John W., was 
 born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1832, was reared 
 and educated in his native land, and then emigrated 
 to America and settled in New Brunswick, where he 
 was both a farmer and lumberman and where he 
 now lives retired, having passed his eightieth year. 
 He was married in New Brunswick to Lucy Jane 
 Humphreys, who was born in New Brunswick. 
 
 John YV. Irwin was educated in the public schools 
 of Canada and in the Caton Business College. A 
 valuable part of his early training was derived from 
 work on the farm and in the lumber woods. In 
 1881, at the age of nineteen, coming to Minneapolis, 
 he entered the employ of Thomas B. Walker, and 
 for fourteen years was in his service as a lumber 
 estimator. Since 1895 Mr. Irwin has been an inde- 
 pendent operator in timber lands and lumbering, 
 having been associated with William O’Brien, of St. 
 Paul. This farm has conducted extensive operations 
 in the buying of timber lands and in lumber manu- 
 facturing. 
 
 Since 1911 Mr. Irwin has had his permanent home 
 in Duluth, which city is also the headquarters of his 
 various business interests. The St. Louis Hotel, 
 managed by the company of which he is president, 
 has for twenty years been one of the leading hostel- 
 ries of ■ Duluth, and its favorable reputation is in 
 itself a large commercial asset. The house has a 
 location known to every traveler through the North- 
 west, in the heart of the business district, between 
 Second and Third avenues West. It is a 5-story 
 building, with accommodations for 300 guests, and 
 has long furnished political headquarters in this sec- 
 tion of the state, and is the favored Duluth home of 
 the traveling business public. 
 
 Mr. Irwin is one of the progressive business men 
 of Duluth, and has always given his greatest support 
 to enterprises projected for the general good of the 
 city. He is an active member of the Duluth Com- 
 mercial Club, is a republican in politics, is a charter 
 member of Bemidji Lodge No. 1052, Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks, and his church is the 
 Methodist. Mr. Irwin was married at Montreal, 
 Canada, in December, 1908, to Miss Sadie Irene 
 Epps, daughter of Henry Epps, who was long and 
 prominently identified with lumbering in the Province 
 of New Brunswick, where he is now living retired. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Irwin have one son, John Paul. They 
 reside at the St. Louis Hotel. 
 
 Calvin H. Draper. One of the best known 
 bankers of Faribault County is Calvin H. Draper, 
 now president of the First National Bank of Wells. 
 Mr. Draper has had a long and varied experience as 
 a citizen of Minnesota, was in early life a teacher 
 and has a number of important relations both with 
 business and civic affairs in Wells and surrounding 
 country. 
 
 Calvin H. Draper was born in St. Joseph County, 
 Michigan, April 29, 1865, and belongs to a pioneer 
 family in that old section of Southern Michigan. 
 His grandfather, Hiram Draper, was born in New 
 Hampshire in 1808 and died in St. Joseph County, 
 Michigan, in 1893. He was one of the many New 
 England men who were the first settlers in St. 
 Joseph County. A civil engineer by profession, he 
 later took up farming, and acquired large bodies 
 of land in St. Joseph and other sections of Michigan. 
 
 M. R. Draper, father of Calvin H., was born in St. 
 Joseph County, Michigan, in 1843, on a farm, and 
 has spent all his life in that section of the state, 
 being now past three score and ten years, and a 
 farmer all his active career. He married Sarah J. 
 Fogelman, who was a native of Pennsylvania. 
 
 Calvin H.‘ Draper was educated in the public 
 schools of his native county, and in 1884 graduated 
 from Kalamazoo College in that state. His work 
 for several years was that of an educator, and besides 
 teaching he was in various lines of business, and 
 eventually became identified with Faribault County 
 in Southern Minnesota. In 1902 Mr. Draper ac- 
 cepted the position of cashier of the First National 
 Bank of Wells, and after twelve years in that office 
 was elected, in January, 1914, president of the bank. 
 The First National Bank of Wells was established 
 in 1887, and organized with a national charter in 
 1892. It is located on C Street, the main business 
 thoroughfare of the city, has a capital stock of 
 $50,000, aiid a special evidence of its strength and 
 good management is the surplus, now aggregating 
 $50,000. Mr. Draper is also president of the State 
 Bank of Matawan, Minnesota, is secretary of the 
 Building & Loan Association of Wells, and president 
 of the South Minnesota Improvement Association. 
 
 Politically a republican he served fourteen years 
 as town clerk of Wells, and has been a member of 
 the school board twelve years and is president of 
 the Wells Library Board. His fraternal affiliations 
 are with Wells Lodge, A. F. & A. M., with the 
 Modern Woodmen of America at Wells, the Ancient 
 Order of United YVorkmen in that town, and the 
 Modern Brotherhood of America. 
 
 In October, 1889, Mr. Draper married Miss Julie 
 Hall, daughter of A. D. Hall, now deceased, who for 
 a number of years was in the brokerage business 
 in Chicago. Mr. Draper's children are : Dorothy, 
 
 who is a teacher in the Mapleton High School in 
 Minnesota; Marjorie, a student in Carlton College; 
 Miles H., also a student in Carleton ; and Barbara, 
 living at home. 
 
 George E. Lynott was born in the City of Otta- 
 wa, Canada, March 31, 1878, a son of Bernard and 
 Bridget Murphy Lynott. His parents have lived in 
 Duluth since 1887, where he received his educa- 
 tion in the Catholic schools of the city and began 
 his business career as an insurance solicitor and 
 real estate salesman. In 1909 he was one of the 
 group of men who assisted in the organization of 
 the Alliance Real Estate Company, of which he 
 is general manager. 
 
 Mr. Lynott is a member of the Commercial Club, 
 Duluth Boat Club, Duluth Curling Club, is affiliated 
 with the Knights of Columbus and the Benevolent 
 and Protective Order of Elks and belongs to the 
 Catholic church. In 1911 he married Miss Maude 
 Dardis of Duluth. They have two children, George 
 E„ Jr., born December 1, 1912, and Dorothy, born 
 September 15, 1914. 
 
 Philip Joseph Brady, M. D. While his active 
 practice in his native City of Hastings has covered 
 less than four years, Doctor Brady is generally recog- 
 nized as one of the leading practitioners in the city. 
 His technical skill, broad experience and extensive 
 training have enabled him to win a reputation and 
 practice such as would be creditable to an active 
 career of many years. 
 
 Philip Joseph Brady was born at Hastings, April 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1725 
 
 19, 1882, a son of Thomas J. and Catherine (Austin) 
 Brady. The family have been identified with Minne- 
 sota since pioneer times. The doctor’s grandfather, 
 Philip Brady, a native of New York State, settled in 
 Wisconsin a short time before the Civil war, and 
 with the outbreak of hostilities enlisted in Company 
 K of the Fifth Wisconsin Regiment of Infantry, and 
 continued in active service with the army until 1864. 
 On his discharge he moved out to Minnesota, and 
 had the distinction of being one of the first settlers 
 in Nininger Township of Dakota County. Isolated 
 from neighbors, he began a career which eventually 
 made him one of the most successful farmers and 
 esteemed residents of the township. He reared a 
 fine family of children, was an active democrat, and 
 for a number of years served as county overseer of 
 the poor. He was a devout member of the Catholic 
 faith. His death occurred in 1894 at the age of eighty 
 years. Thomas J. Brady, the father, grew up on 
 the old homestead in Dakota County, took up farm- 
 ing as his occupation and, like his father, served for 
 several years as the county's overseer of the poor. 
 He continued the management of the old farm until 
 1894, and after the death of his father sold the prop- 
 erty and brought his family to Hastings, where for the 
 past twenty years he has been successfully engaged 
 in the agricultural implement business. His wife is 
 a native of Vermont. The father is a democrat. 
 There were three sons. Dr. Philip J. of this sketch 
 is the second oldest. His brother, the late Dr. Rich- 
 ard Brady, born in Hastings, July 29, 1884, was 
 educated in the public and parochial schools of that 
 city; entered Jefferson Medical College at Phila- 
 delphia; graduated M. D. in the class of 1909, and 
 had already made a reputation for himself as a phy- 
 sician in his native city when he was stricken with 
 pneumonia and died November 26, 1912. At the time 
 of his death he was serving as deputy county coroner. 
 The other son, William Brady, also a native of Has- 
 tings. is now associated with his father in business, 
 and during the last year has taken over the Interna- 
 tional Harvester line and like his father is making 
 good at his new venture. He is known in the vicinity 
 as the I. H. C. man. 
 
 Philip J. Brady grew up in Hastings, was educated 
 in the parochial and district schools of Nininger 
 Township, and in 1902 graduated B. A. from St. 
 Thomas College, Merriam Park, Minnesota. He pur- 
 sued his medical studies in the old and noted Jeffer- 
 son Medical College of Philadelphia, and was gradu- 
 ated M. D. in 1909 in the same class with his brother. 
 Both before and after his graduation Dr. Brady was 
 active as an interne and in general hospital work, and 
 accepted every opportunity for experience and devel- 
 opment of his skill in his chosen vocation. He was 
 an interne at St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul and 
 at St. Luke’s Hospital in Spokane, Washington. In 
 1911 Doctor Brady took uo the active practice of 
 medicine at Rosemount, in Dakota County, but after 
 the death of his brother at Hastings moved to that 
 city and assumed his practice. 
 
 Doctor Brady is a member of the Ramsey County 
 Medical Society and the American Medical Associa- 
 tion, is city health officer of Hastings, and during 
 1910-12 served as Dakota County coroner. He is a 
 Catholic, and is a member of the Knights of Colum- 
 bus and A. O. H„ Division No. 1, Dakota County, 
 the American Yeomen, the Booster Club and the 
 Commercial Club. Doctor Brady is a vigorous, red- 
 blooded young man, fond of outdoor sports, a hunter 
 and fisherman, belongs to the Hastings Gun Club, 
 
 and drives the fastest racing automobile in the 
 county. He has the qualities which make him popu- 
 lar with all classes of people, while his professional 
 ability is such as to open a wide field for increasing 
 service to humanity. 
 
 Thomas C. Heneghan holds the responsible posi- 
 tion of cashier of the Farmers and Merchants State 
 Bank at West Concord, Dodge County, and is known 
 as one of the progressive and representative young 
 business men of this section of his native state, his 
 parents having been numbered among the sterling 
 pioneers of Minnesota, where his father so admirably 
 availed himself of the opportunities presented that 
 he achieved definite independence and prosperity, the 
 while he so lived as to merit and receive the implicit 
 confidence of his fellow-men. 
 
 Thomas Charles Heneghan was born on the old 
 homestead farm of hi& father, in Olmsted County, 
 Minnesota, and the date of his nativity was July 28, 
 1880. He is a son of James and Elizabeth ( Pitts) 
 Heneghan, the former of whom was born in Ireland, 
 in 1841, and the latter of whom was born in the 
 State of Illinois, in 1845. The subject of this review 
 was about fourteen years of age at the time of his 
 father’s death, in 1894, and the devoted mother sur- 
 vived her husband by more than a decade, her death 
 having occurred in the year 1908. James Heneghan 
 was reared and educated in his native land, and at the 
 age of twenty-one years he severed the ties that bound 
 him to the fair old Emerald Isle and set forth to seek 
 his fortunes in the United States, his parents having 
 continued their residence in Ireland until their death. 
 He had neither fortuitous influence nor financial re- 
 sources to foster his success in America, but his 
 native ability and determined efforts enabled him to 
 achieve the prosperity which he merited and which 
 caused him to pay unfaltering allegiance and loyalty 
 to the land of his adoption. He remained for some 
 time in the State of New York, and at the time of 
 the Civil war he gave emphatic proof of his loyalty 
 by tendering his aid in defense of the Union. He 
 served as a member of a New York regiment of 
 volunteer infantry, took part in numerous engage- 
 ments, and received injuries that permanently crip- 
 pled him and eventually caused his death, though he 
 lived many years after the close of the war and 
 proved himself a most productive worker, notwith- 
 standing his physical infirmity. After the close of the 
 war Mr. Heneghan came to Minnesota, and for a 
 time he was a resident of St. Paul, whence he re- 
 moved to Rochester, the judicial center of Olmstead 
 County, his attention at this time having been given 
 principally to work at the carpenter’s trade, as he 
 had marked skill as a mechanic. Finally he pur- 
 chased a tract of land near Rochester, and there he 
 developed one of the excellent farms of Olmstead 
 County, this homestead continuing to be his place of 
 abode" until his death. He was significantly the 
 architect of his own fortune, and his life was char- 
 acterized by industry and inflexible_ integrity of pur- 
 pose. He continued to give considerable attention 
 to mechanical work for several years after he had 
 established bis residence on his farm, and the build- 
 ing of St. Bridget’s Church, near Rochester, was 
 one of the structures erected by him in Olmsted 
 County. He was a republican in politics, was affili- 
 ated with the Grand Army of the Republic, and both 
 he and his wife were devout communicants of the 
 Catholic Church. They became the parents of twelve 
 
1726 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 children, of whom ten are living, and the subject of 
 this sketch was the seventh in order of birth. 
 
 Thomas C. Heneghan passed the days of his child- 
 hood and youth on the old homestead farm and was 
 afforded the advantages of the public schools of the 
 City of Rochester. He was but a lad at the time 
 of his father's death, as previously noted, and he 
 continued to operate the home farm for his mother 
 from the time he left school until he had attained 
 to his legal majority. At this juncture in his career, 
 after the sale of the farm upon which he had been 
 reared, he became associated with one of his brothers 
 in the purchase of a farm in Grant County, but three 
 years later he went to North Dakota, where he 
 entered a homestead claim and became one of the 
 popular settlers of McKenzie County. He perfected 
 his title to his farm, which he still owns and which 
 is now a productive estate of definite value. 
 
 On the ist of January, 1912, Mr. vHeneghan as- 
 sumed the position of cashier of the Farmers and 
 Merchants State Bank of West Concord, and in this 
 executive office he has since continued his efficient 
 service, the while he has won the respect and confi- 
 dence of the people of the community and is known 
 for his progressiveness and public spirit in connec- 
 tion with local affairs. The bank of which he is 
 cashier has a capital stock of $10,000 and its average 
 deposits aggregate $100,000. He is a stockholder of 
 this institution, and other tangible evidence of the 
 success that he has achieved through his own ability 
 and efforts is his ownership of five farms in North 
 Dakota. He has depended upon his own resources 
 from his boyhood days and has made excellent ac- 
 count of himself as one of the world’s, productive 
 workers. While a resident of North Dakota Mr. 
 Heneghan conducted for some time a prosperous 
 business in the handling of real estate, and he gave 
 efficient service in the position of chief of police 
 at Williston, Williams County, that state. 
 
 By training and baptismal rite Mr. Heneghan is 
 a member of the Catholic Church. He is affiliated 
 with the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and the 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows. While he has 
 no ambition for political preferment, Mr. Heneghan 
 accords a stalwart allegiance to the republican party. 
 
 The year 1902 gave record of the marriage of Mr. 
 Heneghan to Miss Lillian Osman, daughter of Henry 
 Osman, of Red Wing, Minnesota, and of the two 
 children of this union one died in infancy, the sur- 
 viving child being Florence, who is now attending 
 the public schools. 
 
 George H. Gerlich, Jr. Since beginning practice 
 at St. Paul in 1907 Mr. Gerlich has gained the dis- 
 posal of a large and choice clientage, has repre- 
 sented many important cases in the courts and as 
 counsel, and also has influential commercial connec- 
 tions in that city. His reputation as a high grade 
 lawyer and business man is well founded. 
 
 George H. Gerlich was born in Blue Earth County, 
 Minnesota, February 24, 1878, and is the second son 
 of George H. Gerlich, Sr., who for many years was 
 identified with railway construction enterprise and is 
 now living in the City of St. Paul. The mother’s 
 maiden name was Miss Minnie Dolan, who was born 
 in Berlin, Germany, spent part of her girlhood in 
 that city, and then came to Minnesota. 
 
 George H. Gerlich, Jr., was educated in the St. 
 Paul public schools, was a student in the St. Paul 
 College, and in 1906 passed a successful examination 
 for the bar. Previous to taking up law he served 
 
 eight years as deputy clerk of the District Court. In 
 1907 he opened a law office in St. Paul, with offices 
 in the Globe Building, and since 1910 his office has 
 been in the New York Life Building, where he has 
 a well selected law library and all the facilities for 
 ready and capable service to his growing list of 
 clients. Mr. Gerlich is also president of the Star 
 West Ware Land Company. 
 
 In 1890 Mr. Gerlich married Miss Myrtle Ham- 
 mond, of Detroit, daughter of Captain Hammond, a 
 prominent Detroit citizen. Mr. and Mrs. Gerlich 
 have four children : Harold B., Russell R., Flora E. 
 and Laura. Mr. Gerlich is a member of the St. Paul 
 Commercial Club. 
 
 Michael Reimringer. One of the oldest residents 
 of St. Paul was the late Michael Reimringer, who 
 knew that city when it was a frontier village during 
 the middle ’50s, and who died at his, home at 413 
 North Exchange Street, February 27, 1915, at the 
 extreme age of ninety-two years. 
 
 Michael Reimringer was born in Lorraine, a prov- 
 ince which at that time was part of France, on April 
 2, 1823. His parents spent their lives in the same 
 locality. After his education in the schools of his 
 native country Michael Reimringer worked at farm- 
 ing in Lorraine and about 1855 emigrated to America 
 and settled in St. Louis. He soon afterwards came 
 to St. Paul and became engaged in the cattle busi- 
 ness. For about twenty years he was foreman for 
 the street commissioner, Schmitz, and in every rela- 
 tion of life proved himself vigorous, faithful and 
 conscientious in performance. The last twenty-two 
 years of his life he lived retired. 
 
 While in France he served in the regular army, but 
 had no military record in this country and belonged 
 to no lodges. However, he was a member of St. 
 Peter’s Society and a member of the Assumption 
 Catholic Church in St. Paul. His tastes were for the 
 quiet and orderly activities of life, and he evinced 
 great fondness for hunting and for dogs and all 
 kinds of animals. 
 
 In St. Paul, in September, 1856, Mr. Reimringer 
 married Mrs. Martha (Davis) Tayson, a widow, 
 daughter of Frank and Mary Davis, who were both 
 natives of Prussia. Mrs. Reimringer came to St. 
 Paul in 1855. She is now seventy-eight years of age, 
 and still preserves good health and spirits. By this 
 union was born one child, Camilla Margaret Reim- 
 ringer, who is unmarried and lives at the home of her 
 mother. 
 
 George M. Miller. Through his profession as 
 engineer, and in the capacity of county surveyor and 
 city engineer of Fairmont, George M. Miller has per- 
 formed a broad and valuable service to the public 
 for many years in Martin and adjacent counties. 
 Mr. Miller in his career has relied on the principle 
 of self help to a large extent and has equipped him- 
 self for the larger opportunities of service. 
 
 George M. Miller was born in Columbia County, 
 Wisconsin, June 27, 1835. a son of John and 
 Samantha (Woodard) Miller. The Miller family 
 was established in the LTnited States by the grand- 
 father, who was a musician in the English army 
 during the War of 1812, and after the close of hos- 
 tilities between the United States and Great Britain 
 chose to remain on this side of the Atlantic. John 
 Miller, the father, was born at Sackett’s Harbor, 
 New York, a place that figured conspicuously in the 
 War of 1812. He was born in T 8i4, and died in 
 

 

HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1727 
 
 Freeborn County, Minnesota, in 1906. In 1848 he 
 pioneered to Wisconsin, and in 1864 again moved 
 out to the frontier in Minnesota and became a 
 pioneer farmer. His wife, Samantha Woodard, was 
 born in 1824 in New York State', also in the vicinity 
 of Sackett’s Harbor, and died in Freeborn County, 
 Minnesota, in 1909. 
 
 George M. Miller was about nine years of age 
 when the family lhoved to Minnesota, and had begun 
 his education in the public schools of Columbia 
 County, continuing in the public and high schools of 
 Freeborn, and was also a student in the Mankato 
 Normal School. His years up to nineteen were spent 
 on his father's farm, and he then began the vocation 
 of teaching, an occupation he followed five years in 
 Freeborn County. Mr. Miller has been a student 
 and a worker for broader ends ever since boyhood, 
 and has never been content with his present state of 
 progress. After teaching he engaged in merchandis- 
 ing in Steele County for a period of six years, and 
 then for some time followed the trade of carpenter 
 and builder during the summer seasons and taught 
 school in the winter months. In 1893 Mr. Miller 
 began a line of work which kept him busy more or 
 less for a number of years. From 1893 to 1900 he 
 was manager of the creamery in Freeborn Village, 
 and then became manager of the creamery at Wells 
 and remained in that city until 1910. In Freeborn he 
 was for a number of years county surveyor while 
 managing the creamery there, and when he removed 
 to Fairmont in September, 1910, he turned all his 
 professional attention to the duties of public office 
 and to service in the drainage interests in Martin 
 County. In 1912 he was appointed city engineer, and 
 in 1914 was elected county survej'or, and now holds 
 both offices. Mr. Miller educated himself for his 
 profession as surveyor, and is a man of thorough 
 equipment. During a residence in Carlston, Free- 
 born County, he served as justice of the peace and 
 was chairman of the town board a number of years. 
 At Wells, besides his work as manager of the cream- 
 ery, he spent several years as city engineer. 
 
 Mr. Miller is affiliated with Doric Lodge No. 87, 
 A. F. & A. M., at Wells; Wells Chapter, R. A. M. ; 
 the .Camp of the Modern Woodmen of America at 
 Wells; the Modern Brotherhood of America, and 
 the Mutual Benefit Association of Freeborn. In 
 1877, in Freeborn Village, Mr. Miller married Miss 
 Abbie L. Scoville, daughter of D. A. Scoville, now 
 deceased, who, for many years was the village black- 
 smith at Freeborn. Mr. Miller and wife are the 
 parents of the following children : George Edward, 
 who is an engineer practicing his profession with his 
 father and living at Fairmont; John C., a farmer in 
 Freebor.n County; Gertrude, who is the wife of Otis 
 Gilmore, who has been a merchant up to 1914, but is 
 now a Freeborn County farmer; Florence Spirling, 
 who resides with her husband on a farm in Idaho, 
 and Ralph, who is a farmer with his brother John. 
 
 Theodor Bratrud, M. D., F. A. C. S. Holding 
 prestige in the ranks of the Marshall County medical 
 profession by reason of superior natural ability, 
 aided by a thorough training, broad experience and a 
 comprehensive understanding of human nature, Dr. 
 Theodor Bratrud has firmly established himself in 
 the confidence of the people of Warren. Engaged in 
 practice here since 1900, he has not only built up a 
 large general medical and surgical practice, but was 
 the founder and builder of the Warren Hospital, of 
 which he is now at the head. 
 
 Doctor Bratrud was born in Fillmore County, Min- 
 nesota, February 14, 1874, and is a son of Ole and 
 Elsie (Torginson) Bratrud, natives of Norway. The 
 parents came to the United States in 1848 and to 
 Minnesota in 1850, and here spent the remainder of 
 their lives in agricultural pursuits. Theodor Bratrud 
 received his early education in the schools of Fill- 
 more County, and after his graduation from the 
 Spring Valley High School entered the University 
 of Minnesota, being graduated from the medical de- 
 partment of that institution in 1899. In the follow- 
 ing year he came to Warren and established an office 
 for the general practice of medicine, but since that 
 time had gradually limited his practice to surgery, 
 in which he has gained a well-merited reputation. 
 In addition to his large private practice, he is sur- 
 geon for the Soo Railway, and in 1905 founded and 
 built the Warren Hospital, a thoroughly equipped 
 institution, with thirty-five beds. Doctor Bratrud is 
 a member of the Red River Valley Medical Asso- 
 ciation, the Minnesota State Medical Society and the 
 American Medical Association, and is a Fellow of the 
 American College of Surgeons. His fraternal con- 
 nection is with the Masons. He has various inter- 
 ests aside from his professional duties, and is the 
 owner of a valuable farming property in the vicinity 
 of Warren. As a citizen he has allied himself to 
 every enterprise which has been founded with the 
 idea of bettering the community in any way, and his 
 services to Warren have been of a decidedly helpful 
 character. 
 
 William S. Anderson, M. D., who is associated with 
 Dr. Theodor Bratrud at Warren, was born in Hous- 
 ton County, Minnesota, in 1875, and received his early 
 education in the public schools. Following this, he 
 attended Saint Olaf’s College, from which he was 
 graduated in 1898, and after some further preparation 
 entered the medical department of the University of 
 Minnesota. He received his doctor’s degree there 
 with the class of 1903, and in that year came to 
 Warren and associated himself with Dr. Theodor 
 Bratrud, with whom he has continued in practice. 
 From the inception of the Warren Hospital he has 
 been physician of this institution and has shared 
 with Doctor Bratrud the credit for building up and 
 developing this helpful asset to Warren. Doctor An- 
 derson is chairman of the Marshall County Sanitary 
 Commission, and a member of the Red River Valley 
 Medical Association, the Southern Minnesota Med- 
 ical Association, the Minnesota State Medical Society 
 and the American Medical Association. Fraternally, 
 he is a Mason and a Pythian Knight. Doctor Ander- 
 son was married in June, 1907, at Chicago, Illinois, 
 to Miss Anna Anderson, and they have two chil- 
 dren : Almida and Sigurd. 
 
 Henry Montgomery Serle. While the City_ of 
 Fairmont has no more useful and public spirited 
 citizen than Henry Montgomery Serle, the present 
 mayor, it probably has no resident more thoroughly 
 cosmopolitan and whose experiences and travels in 
 the world have been more extensive. Mr. Serle 
 has been identified with Fairmont for more than 
 thirty-five years, is prominent in business affairs, and 
 probably deserves greater credit than any other indi- 
 vidual for the development of municipal improve- 
 ments. 
 
 Henry Montgomery Serle was born in the City of 
 Madras, in the East Indies, May 25, 1855. His 
 father, William Ambrose Serle, was born in Paris, 
 France, about 1804, and died at the City of Madras 
 
1728 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 in i860. Though a native of Paris, he was of High- 
 land Scotch ancestors, and spent practically all his 
 career in the East Indian Civil Service and was reg- 
 ister of the Supreme Court of Madras at the time 
 of his death. William A. Serle married Miss Helen 
 McKenzie, who was born in the City of Inverness, 
 Scotland, in 1833, and died at Windsor, England, in 
 1904, She was his second wife. Their children were: 
 Anna, widow of Captain Armstrong, a captain of 
 infantry stationed at Madras, and she now lives in 
 Folkstone, England; William, who died at Mankato, 
 Minnesota, was for many years a locomotive engi- 
 neer with the Milwaukee Railway ; Alexander, who 
 died at Toledo, Ohio, was at one time a lieutenant 
 in the English navy ; Emily married Colonel Plant 
 of the Royal Artillery, and she lives at Gloucester- 
 shire, England; Henry M. was the fifth among the 
 children; Charles lives in Santa Anna, California; 
 while Margaret died in England at the age of twenty- 
 one. 
 
 Henry M. Serle was educated in England, whither 
 his mother returned after the death of his father. 
 At the age of twelve years he began his active career, 
 and followed the sea until 1876. In 1875 he landed 
 at San Francisco, and then made the long voyage 
 around the Horn to England. In 1876 he came to 
 America again, locating in Decorah, Iowa, and in 
 1877 came to Fairmont, Minnesota. The first year he 
 spent driving a stage between Fairmont and Winne- 
 bago. Then a year was spent in railroading, and he 
 was a practical farmer in Martin County up to 1883, 
 when he engaged in the ice business, of which he has 
 had a monopoly in Fairmont for fully thirty years. 
 His ice houses are situated on the east bank of Budd 
 Lake, and has a capacity of 3,600 tons. 
 
 Mr. Serle has been best known to Fairmont citizens 
 for his efficient public service. In 1883 he organized 
 the fire department at Fairmont, and largely due to 
 his public spirit and energy has made the department 
 second to none in efficiency in the state for towns of 
 the size. In 1914 Fairmont had the State Firemen’s 
 Convention. Years ago Mr. Serle served as chief 
 of the department, and for the past eight years has 
 held the same office. Fairmont has engine head- 
 quarters, forty-nine regular members of the depart- 
 ment, a team and combination wagon with a 35-gallon 
 chemical, 1,200 feet of hose, a Seagrave hook and 
 ladder truck, and the normal water pressure for fire 
 protection is eighty pounds, but it is possible to get 
 175 pounds when needed. In April, 1913, Mr. Serle 
 was elected mayor of Fairmont for a term of two 
 years. Previously lie had served as a member of the 
 city council ten years, and for ten years had per- 
 formed the voluntary and unremunerated service of 
 deputy game warden. Mr. Serle is a democrat in 
 politics. He is a member of the Episcopal Church, 
 and has fraternal affiliations with Chain Lake Lodge 
 No. 64, A. F. & A. M. ; Fairmont Chapter No. 50, 
 R. A. M. ; Fairmont Commandery No. 27, K. T. ; 
 Zuhrah Temple of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine; 
 Fairmont Lodge No. 70, I. O. O. F. ; Fairmont Lodge 
 No. 154, Knights of Pythias, and the lodge of the 
 Ancient Order of United Workmen at Fairmont, 
 having been master workman four years. 
 
 Mr. Serle was married in Fairmont in 1880 to 
 Miss Mary Goldsmith, daughter of S. F. Goldsmith, 
 for many years a merchant at Fairmont, but now 
 deceased. They have two children: Helen, wife of 
 Frank Zalesky, who is engaged in the ice business 
 with his father-in-law in Fairmont, and Maude, wife 
 
 of William Dietz, who is a merchant at Ceylon, 
 Minnesota. 
 
 Edward M. Zuel. Mankato’s successful citizen- 
 ship is well represented by Edward M. Zuel, who has 
 been in the real estate and insurance business in that 
 city for many years, and is now chiefly identified 
 with the insurance department, and as representative 
 of the general classes of insurance has acquired and 
 built up a fine business. His success is his own, 
 since he made his start in life with no better equip- 
 ment or advantages than thousands of other young 
 men, but has succeeded in outdistancing most of 
 those with whom he started on even terms. 
 
 Edward M. Zuel was born in Wilmington, Illinois, 
 February 24, 1872, a son of Archibald and Alice 
 (Cross) Zuel. His father was born in Scotland in 
 1838 and was brought to the United States at the age 
 of six months, the family settling first in Mont- 
 gomery County, New York, and from that state he 
 came out to Illinois when young. He was a farmer 
 by occupation, and from Illinois removed in 1879 to 
 Kansas, where he bought a farm and remained until 
 his death in 1884. His wife was born in Zanesville. 
 Ohio, in 1851. They were married in Illinois, and 
 she died also in 1884. They were members of the 
 Methodist Church, in which the mother was par- 
 ticularly active, and he was a republican in politics. 
 Three of their four children are still living: Eliza- 
 beth, wife of Olney Monroe, of Kansas ; Olive, wife 
 of W. J. Case, of Kansas, and Edward M. 
 
 Edward M. Zuel acquired his general education by 
 attending several different institutions. For a time 
 he was a student in the Wilder Episcopal College at 
 Wilder, Minnesota, later in the Omaha Commercial 
 College in Omaha, Nebraska, and spent one year in 
 the college at Winfield, Kansas, where his father 
 lived for a time. 
 
 In 1894 Mr. Zuel engaged in the farm implement 
 business with his cousin, R. W. Zuel, at Windom, 
 Minnesota, and remained there until 1896. Having 
 sold out his interests he took a traveling agency as 
 representative of the D. M. Osborn & Company, and 
 sold their machinery and implements all over the ter- 
 ritory covering Southwestern Minnesota and Eastern 
 South Dakota. He continued on the road until De- 
 cember, 1899. having in the meantime removed his 
 residence to Mankato in 1897. In 1899 he opened an 
 office as a real estate and insurance man, and that has 
 been his primary interest in business affairs since. 
 More and more he has concentrated 'his efforts in 
 building up an insurance business. He is a special 
 agent over fifty-two counties in Southeastern Minne- 
 sota, and writes all kinds of insurance — life insur- 
 ance, fire, accident, health, industrial, hail and tor- 
 nado, and steam boiler, plate glass, and other forms 
 of insurance adapted to special lines of business and 
 for special purposes. Among other companies he 
 represents the Northwest National Fire of Milwau- 
 wee, the Anglo Insurance Company of Chicago, the 
 Travelers Life Company, etc., Mr. Zuel also owns 
 some lands in Wisconsin and Minnesota. 
 
 In 1895 he married Myrtle Cheadle, who died in 
 1897, leaving one son, Archibald C., who is now 
 seventeen years of age and is in the service of the 
 Lffiited States navy, with assignment to the battle- 
 ship New Jersey. On November 19, 1902. Mr. Zuel 
 married Louise E. Dykes of LeSueur, Minnesota. 
 He is .a member of the Episcopal Church, is affili- 
 ated with Lodge No. 12, A. F. & A. M., and in 
 politics is a republican. For one year he was sec- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1729 
 
 retary of the Mankato Automobile Club, is a member 
 of the Commercial Club, and also of the Y. M. C. A. 
 
 I 
 
 Edwin G. Gove. In the little City of Madelia a 
 number of the most important and commercial inter- 
 ests are concentrated in Edwin G. Gove. When Mr. 
 Gove sold out the lumber business in which he had 
 been engaged for a number of years, in 1914, he was 
 ready to accept the office of mayor, to which he was 
 elected at that time, and being relieved temporarily 
 from the pressure of business affairs has devoted 
 his time with characteristic public spirit to looking 
 after the welfare and improvement of his home com- 
 munity. Mr. Gove is president of the Madelia Com- 
 mercial Club, is president of the Armstrong Tele- 
 phone and Exchange Company, and is a director of 
 the First National Bank of Madelia. 
 
 A member of an old family in Minnesota, he was 
 born in Watonwan County, February 5, 1871. The 
 first representatives of the Gove name came from 
 Scotland, and were early settlers in the State of Ver- 
 mont. Luther C. Gove, father of the Madelia mayor, 
 came from the East and brought his family to 
 Watonwan County in 1865, where he was one of the 
 prominent pioneer farmers. Charles Gove, father of 
 Edwin G., was born in Vermont in 1848, and is now 
 living retired in Minneapolis. Fie grew to manhood 
 on a farm in Watonwan County and was long identi- 
 fied with business affairs in this vicinity. In 1881 
 he established a lumber business at Madelia, having 
 previously for a year and a half been in the milling 
 business. In 1896 he sold out his lumber interests 
 and has since lived retired. Charles Gove married 
 Alvira Crandall, a native of Wisconsin. Their chil- 
 dren are: Edwin G. ; Ella, wife of Henry Lamm, a 
 Minneapolis grocer, and Loren, living with his 
 parents. 
 
 Edwin G. Gove as a boy attended the district 
 schools of Watonwan County, and also the public 
 schools at Madelia, and at the age of sixteen left his 
 books to take part in active affairs. His first work 
 was in operating: an elevator and in the buying of 
 grain. In 1891, at the age of twenty, Mr. Gove 
 embarked in the lumber business with his father at 
 Madelia, and on the retirement of the elder Gove 
 acquired all the interests in the business and con- 
 ducted an extensive establishment supplying lumber 
 and building matrials all over this section until the 
 spring of 1914. Mr. Gove then sold out, and at the 
 present time has only the interests which have 
 already been indicated. He is independent in politics 
 and first served the Town oi Madelia as maj'or in 
 1894. He was also a member of the town board 
 from 1912 to 1914, and was elected mayor in April 
 of the latter year. 
 
 His fraternal affiliations are with Madelia Lodge 
 No. 116, I. O. O. F. ; with the Rebekahs ; with the 
 M. B. A., and the Brotherhood of American Yeomen. 
 In 1892 he was married in Madelia to Miss Nellie 
 M. Estes, daughter of S. B. Estes, who is now 
 retired from business and a resident of Madelia. 
 They are the parents of three children : Iola B., a 
 graduate of the Madelia High School and living at 
 home; Charles, a student in the high school, and 
 Marlow, attending the public schools. 
 
 William D. Hinchon. Though a lawyer by pro- 
 fession, William D. Hinchon has been best known 
 in Madelia as editor and proprietor of the Tirnes- 
 Messenger. The Times was established at Madelia 
 in 1873, as a republican newspaper, while the Mes- 
 
 senger came into existence a number of years later, 
 advocating the same brand of politics. Later the two 
 were consolidated as the Times-Messenger. This is 
 now a paper of established influence, with a circu- 
 lation throughout Watonwan County and extending 
 into Blue Earth County. It has a large and well 
 equipped plant, located in the center of the busi- 
 ness district on Main Street, and occupying all the 
 ground floor of a large brick building. 
 
 William D. Hinchon was born at Lansing, Iowa, 
 July 21, 1877. His father, J. W. Hinchon, who was 
 born in 1854 in County Cork, Ireland, was a child 
 when the grandparents left the old country and set- 
 tled in Allamakee County, Iowa. He grew up in that 
 state, attended public schools there, and for a number 
 of years was identified with educational work. He 
 became superintendent of the city schools at Lansing, 
 and afterwards was county superintendent of schools 
 in Allamakee County. From school work he went 
 into the newspaper business at Waukon, Iowa, in 
 1880, and in 1887 moved to Algona, in that state, 
 where he is now proprietor of the Algona Courier. 
 J. W. Hinchon married Jennie Hastings, who was 
 born in New York State and died at Algona in 1888. 
 
 William D. Hinchon received his education in the 
 public schools in Waukon and Algona, Iowa, attend- 
 ing high school in the latter place and finishing with 
 one year in St. John’s University at Collegeville, Min- 
 nesota, and three years in special work in the Aca- 
 demic Department of the Iowa State University at 
 Iowa City. Mr. Hinchon prepared for his profession 
 by two years in the Law Department of the LTniver- 
 sity of Iowa, graduating LL. B. in the class of 1901. 
 Admitted to the bar in the same year, being licensed 
 to practice in both State and Federal Courts, he spent 
 two years in the work of his profession at Algona. 
 Mr. Hinchon in 1905 came to Madelia and bought the 
 Times-Messenger, of which he has been editor and 
 proprietor. 
 
 He is a republican and is affiliated with the Modern 
 Woodmen of America. In January, 1909, at Madelia, 
 he married Miss Pearl Christensen, whose, father, 
 C. S. Christensen, is proprietor of the Madelia Flour 
 Mills. Mr. and Mrs. Hinchon have one child, Ruth 
 Pearl. 
 
 Charles P. Montgomery. Manager of the Hack- 
 ney Investment Company of St. Paul, Charles P. 
 Montgomery has for ten years or more been one 
 of the active business men of the capital city and has 
 also taken an active part in local affairs and politics. 
 
 Charles P. Montgomery was born at St. Peter. 
 Minnesota, December 30, 1872, being the second son 
 of Thomas and Sarah (Pummell) Montgomery. His 
 father was born in Ireland, spent his boyhood and 
 received his education' there, and on emigrating to 
 America spent some time in Canada, but in 1855 
 became one of the pioneers of Minnesota Territory. 
 After a short residence at St. Cloud, he moved to 
 St. Peter and located on a farm that is now included 
 within the city limits of that city. He was a. car- 
 penter by trade, developed his trade into a business 
 as contractor and builder, and afterwards was in real 
 estate business until 1890. During his residence at 
 St. Peter he served as a member of the board of 
 public works, and after coming to St. Paul took 
 charge of the office of public works and held that 
 position about twenty vears. For four years he 
 represented the Tenth Ward in the City Council of 
 St. Paul, being a republican, and for a number of 
 years was a member of the St. Paul School Board. 
 
1730 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Thomas Montgomery died at St. Paul, June 7, 1907- 
 He was a man of thorough integrity, had a fine 
 record both in private business and in public affairs, 
 and left behind him an honored name. Plis widow 
 is still living, with home at 1494 Capitol Avenue. 
 
 Charles P. Montgomery acquired his education in 
 the public schools, graduating from the St. Peter 
 High School in 1891 ; was for two years a student in 
 Hamline University at St. Paul, and then entered the 
 dental college of the University of Minnesota, 
 where he was graduated. Mr. Montgomery practiced 
 dentistry in St. Paul until 1902, but has since been 
 engaged in business affairs, having entered the em- 
 ploy of the Hackney Investment Company, later 
 becoming manager of the investment and bond de- 
 partment. This is one of the old and solid concerns 
 of the kind in the Northwest, and Mr. Montgomery 
 has proved the possession of qualities which make 
 him an expert in the handling of this department. 
 The offices of the company are in the Hackney 
 Building. 
 
 Mr. Montgomery was married to Miss Elizabeth 
 Meachan of St. Paul, daughter of A. J. Meachan, 
 an old resident of Ramsey County. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Montgomery have one daughter, Ruth. For six 
 years, from 1898 to 1904, Mr. Montgomery was an 
 alderman from the same ward which his father had 
 represented at an earlier time, the Tenth Ward of 
 St. Paul. In 1914 he was a candidate for the Legis- 
 lature. Fraternally he is affiliated with Lodge No. 
 185, A. F. & A. M. ; Palmyra Chapter No. 55, R. 
 A. M. ; St. Paul Council No. 1, R. & S. M. ; Damas- 
 cus Commandery No. 1, K. T., and Osman Temple 
 of the Mystic Shrine. 
 
 Litton E. Shields. For many years identified with 
 the development of the Northwest through his busi- 
 ness as a railw’ay construction contractor, and now 
 living retired at St. Paul, Litton E. Shields is one 
 of the old and honored residents of Minnesota. 
 
 He was born August 30, 1852, at Altmore, County 
 Tyrone, Ireland. His parents were Daniel and Hannah 
 Shields, and the family had resided long at Altmore, 
 having settled there about the beginning of the eight- 
 eenth century. 
 
 Having many relatives in America, some of whom 
 were quite prominent, his mind was naturally filled 
 with the desire to go there. Consequently at a very 
 early age he migrated to this country, arriving in New 
 York in 1869. After spending a year in New York, he 
 pushed on to Chicago, where he remained about a 
 year, finally reaching Minnesota, where two of his 
 brothers had preceded him. After trying his hand 
 at many things he finally had an opportunity to join 
 a party of engineers going out on the location of the 
 Northern Pacific Railway between the Red River and 
 the Yellowstone in Montana under General Rosser, 
 then chief engineer of that line. In this occupation 
 he spent the seasons of 1872 and 1873, returning to 
 Minnesota in the fall of 1873. 
 
 Having been in correspondence with his uncle, Gen. 
 James Shields, then a resident of Carrollton, Mis- 
 souri. he accepted an invitation to visit him. After 
 visiting a while, his uncle persuaded him to take up 
 the study of law with him, as he needed a young 
 man in his office. This gave young Shields an op- 
 portunity to improve his education, and although he 
 was not admitted to the bar, the knowledge of the 
 law he acquired was invaluable to him in after life, 
 as he was able to draw up legal papers when neces- 
 sary for the protection of his business interests. 
 
 After becoming satisfied that he was not cut out 
 for the practice of law, Mr. Shields decided to try 
 his fortune in the gold fields of the Black Hills, 
 then much talked about, although on account of 
 Indians it was a dangerous country for white men. 
 He joined a party in March, 1876, and after an 
 eventful trip found himself in the Black Hills region. 
 It was soon evident that this was not a poor man’s 
 mining country — prices were very high and it was 
 hard to live on wages. There seemed to be more 
 profit in hauling supplies to the hills than in min- 
 ing, and eventually he went into freighting for the 
 Northwestern Stage and Transportation Company, 
 located at Bismarck, North Dakota. Gradually em- 
 barking in business for himself, he had acquired ten 
 teams when the railroad began building into the 
 Black Hills and destroyed the freighting industry. 
 This compelled him to look around for other occu- 
 pation for his transportation facilities. 
 
 The Northern Pacific was now starting to build 
 from Bismarck west. This gave Mr. Shields an 
 opportunity to engage in railroad building, which 
 proved to lie his proper sphere of action. He formed 
 a partnership with Peter Larson, who afterwards 
 became a prominent figure in the Northwest. They 
 built a part of the first hundred miles of road from 
 Mandan to Green River, Dakota. After working for 
 three years on the Northern Pacific, Mr. Shields 
 went to Canada, where General Rosser was now 
 chief engineer of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, 
 building through to the coast. There he again met 
 Mr. Peter Siems of St. Paul, with whom he had 
 worked for the old stage company at Bismarck, and 
 joined him on a contract for construction of part of 
 the Canadian Pacific. After working two years on 
 that transcontinental road he came back to Dakota 
 and built the “Jim River’’ Road from Oakes to 
 Jamestown. 
 
 Mr. Shields riow joined Langdon & Company, 
 who were just starting to build the Sault Ste. Marie 
 Line west from Minneapolis, and while connected 
 with this firm he superintended the building of sev- 
 eral hundred miles and helped to double-track most 
 of the line from Chicago to Belle Plaine, Iowa, for 
 the Northwestern Railway. In 1892 he became as- 
 sociated with Shepherd, Siems & Company, who were 
 then the largest contracting firm in America. After 
 the retirement of Mr. D. C. Shepherd the new firm 
 of Siems & Shields was formed and continued until 
 1909, when it was dissolved by mutual consent, Mr. 
 Shields wishing to retire from active business. Dur- 
 ing this partnership the firm built most of the lines 
 in the West for the Great Northern and the North- 
 ern Pacific, and completed some of the heaviest con- 
 tracts ever performed in the country, in all amount- 
 ing to over $50,000,000. 
 
 This detailed statement of the useful activities of 
 Mr. Shields during over thirty eventful years of 
 Northwestern development shows how much the 
 country owes to the intelligence and energy of such 
 men for its present prosperity. They were the real 
 “empire builders,” the advance agents of settlement 
 and civilization. Since his retirement Mr. Shields 
 has interested himself largely in looking after his 
 private interests and traveling. 
 
 He has visited almost every country in Europe, 
 but has not forgotten the motto “see America first,” 
 having traveled in forty-four of the forty-eight 
 states in our nation. He is enjoying his well-earned 
 rest as much as possible, living at present quietly at 
 his home on Lincoln Avenue, St. Paul, showing an 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1731 
 
 active and helpful interest in public affairs and ever 
 ready to encourage or assist any worthy enterprise. 
 Life stories of men like him, in themselves, consti- 
 tute a history of Minnesota as well as of her daugh- 
 ter commonwealths and provinces, which have been 
 built up by their industry. 
 
 Mr. Shields was married to Anna Bell Caughren at 
 Bismarck, Dakota, April 13, 1880. He has four chil- 
 dren living — Mabel, Ethel, Lytton and Florence, all 
 born and educated in St. Paul, and all of them went 
 through the Central High School and spent some 
 time at the University of Minnesota. Lytton after- 
 wards studied two years at Yale in the Sheffield 
 Scientific School, is now president of the Electric 
 Manufacturing Company doing business at 162-164 
 West Sixth Street, St. Paul, in wholesale and job- 
 bing automobile and electric supplies, and is favor- 
 ably known over the Northwest.’ 
 
 William R. Hodges. A resident of Sleepy Eye, 
 Minnesota, during a quarter of a century, in which 
 time he has exercised a broad dominating and bene- 
 ficial influence as proprietor and editor of the oldest 
 newspaper in Brown County, William R. Hodges is 
 one of the best known figures in- journalism in the 
 southern part of the state. His connection with 
 newspaper life began in 1882, when, fresh from col- 
 lege halls, he accepted a position in a minor capacity 
 with a Moorhead publication, and from that time to 
 the present his activities have been confined to> the 
 work of his profession and his labors have tended at 
 all times to preserve the high ideals of the craft. 
 
 Mr. Hodges was born in the City of Winnipeg, 
 Canada, August 5, 1862, and is a son of George W. 
 and Catherine (DeMers) Hodges. While of Cana- 
 dian birth, he belongs on his father's side to a family 
 which for a number of years made its home in the 
 United States, the progenitor coming from Scotland 
 and settling in Virginia during colonial times. 
 George W. Hodges was born in the City of Nash- 
 ville, Tennessee, in 1818, and there grew to manhood 
 amid agricultural surroundings. When war was de- 
 clared between the United States and Mexico he 
 enlisted in the army, served throughout the short- 
 lived struggle, and established an excellent military 
 record. Some years later he went to Canada, and 
 while there met and married Catherine DeMers, who 
 was born in that country, of French descent, in 1827. 
 They moved to St. Cloud, Minnesota, in 1868, and to 
 Moorhead four years later, settling as pioneer 
 farmers. Mr. and Mrs. Hodges continued to be in- 
 terested in the pursuits of the soil during the re- 
 mainder of their lives, the mother dying in 1903, at 
 Moorhead, and the father two years later at the 
 same place. 
 
 William R. Hodges was but six years of age when 
 taken by his parents to St. Cloud, and there his 
 education was commenced in the public schools. He 
 completed his primary training in the Moorhead High 
 School, following which he entered the University of 
 Minnesota, but left that institution in 1882 to accept 
 a position with the Moorhead Daily News, and was 
 connected with that publication for a period of seven 
 years. Following a short experience in the same 
 Business at Fargo, North Dakota, Mr. Hodges came 
 to Sleepy Eye, in 1890, and here purchased Senator 
 Thomas Bowen’s paper, the Herald, the oldest news- 
 paper in Brown County, which had been established 
 in 1880. This he conducted until 1907, when he pur- 
 chased the Dispatch and combined the two under the 
 name of the Herald-Dispatch, the present style of the 
 
 publication. Mr. Hodges is giving his readers an 
 excellent newspaper, which is well worthy of the 
 support, both in subscriptions and advertisements, 
 that is being given it. He has a large, modern and 
 well equipped plant on Main Street, in the center of 
 the business district, and in connection with his 
 newspaper maintains an up-to-date job printing office. 
 As a molder of public opinion. Mr. Hodges supports 
 energetically and enthusiastically every movement 
 which promises to make for progress and civic bet- 
 terment, and his labors have done much to add 
 prestige to the thriving city of Sleepy Eye. He is a 
 democrat in his political views and has taken some 
 part in helping his party to success. As a friend of 
 education he has done everything in his power to 
 better the school system of Brown County, and for 
 the past eighteen years has served as a member of 
 the school board of his adopted place. Fraternally, 
 Mr. Flodges is well and favorably known, being a 
 member of Keystone Lodge No. 94, A. F. & A. M. • 
 Albert Chapter No. 34, R. A. M. ; New Ulm Com- 
 mandery, K. T., and Zurah Shrine, A. A. O. N. M. S., 
 all of the Masonic order; and of the Knights of 
 Pythias, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the 
 Modern Woodmen of America, the Knights of’ the 
 Maccabees and the Ancient Order of United Work- 
 men, all of Sleepy Eye; and Mankato Lodge No. 225, 
 Benevolent and. Protective Order of Elks, of Man- 
 kato, Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Hodges was married December 1, 1887, at 
 Moorhead, Minnesota, to Miss Minnie M. Higgins, 
 daughter of William H. Higgins, deceased, formerly 
 a contractor of Moorhead. 
 
 Charles W. Schoregge, M. D. In the medical 
 profession of Sibley County, Charles W. Schoregge, 
 while one of the younger men, is recognized as a 
 physician and surgeon of thorough ability and of the 
 highest standing, and has already developed a suc- 
 cessful practice about his home town of Henderson. 
 
 Dr. Charles W. Schoregge was born at Sleepy Eye, 
 Brown Countv, Minnesota, a son of Charles H. and 
 Ida ( Behnke) Schoregge. His father was born at 
 Olivia,. in Renville County. Minnesota, in 1861, and 
 until his death was engaged in business as a druggist 
 at Sleepy Eye. Both the Schoregge and Behnke 
 families were among the pioneers of Minnesota, and 
 the paternal grandfather was a successful physician 
 at Beaver Falls and in Olivia in Randall County. 
 The maternal grandfather fought in the Indian wars 
 and was at the massacre at New Ulm. The mother 
 was born at New Ulm in 1861. Dr. Schoregge had 
 a brother who was killed in the well remembered 
 explosion of the battleship Bennington, at the age 
 of twenty-two. 
 
 Charles W. Schoregge received his early education 
 in the public schools, graduated from the high school 
 at New Ulm in 1907, and then entered the University 
 of Michigan, where he was graduated M. D. in 1911. 
 For the following year he was house physician of 
 the Asbury Flospital in Minneapolis, and since 1912 
 has been engaged in the work of his profession at 
 Henderson. Besides his professional associations, 
 Dr. Schoregge is affiliated with Charity Lodge No. 
 98, A. F. & A. M.._ at New Ulm, and with the Uni- 
 versity Club of Minneapolis. 
 
 Dr. Olaf Th. Sherptng. There is no profession 
 to which men devote themselves more dignified in 
 its ethics or more reasonably helpful to the world 
 than that of medicine and surgery. Similar claims 
 
1732 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 have been made by the church and by the law, but 
 they are based on other foundations, although essen- 
 tially true enough. The healing art demands of its 
 followers that natural reverence for the dignity of 
 the human body that commands the exercise of all 
 the skill that years of study and training have 
 brought to them to cure its ills ; its discoveries of a 
 scientific nature and the skill with which its devotees 
 wield their instruments have not only eased the for- 
 mer bed of torture, but have found a cure for almost 
 every bodily affliction. Justly is this noble profes- 
 sion in the forefront. Methods may differ, systems 
 may not be quite alike, and personality counts for 
 much, but the aim and principle remain the same. 
 Among the capable physicians and surgeons of Min- 
 nesota, one who has gained more than a local repu- 
 tation in the latter branch of the calling is Dr. Olaf 
 Th. Sherping, surgeon of the famous St. Luke’s Hos- 
 pital of Fergus Falls, whose skill and faithfulness, 
 together with his determined hopefulness and cheer- 
 fulness, have gained him the gratitude and affection 
 of those who have come under his care. 
 
 Doctor Sherping was born at Hallingdal, Norway, 
 August 6, 1861, and is a son of Thorsten and Mar- 
 garet (Opheim) Sherping, natives of the same local- 
 ity, where the father was born in 1804 and the mother 
 in 1815. In his youth Thorsten Sherping served his 
 regular time in thei army of his country, and then 
 engaged in dealing in timber lands, but in his later 
 years turned his attention to agricultural pursuits 
 and continued to be engaged therein during the re- 
 mainder of his life. He died in 1898, an honored and 
 respected member of his community, with a substan- 
 tial property. Mrs. Sherping passed away in 1881. 
 
 Olaf Th. Sherping was given good educational ad- 
 vantages in his own country, where he attended the 
 public schools and a university and obtained the 
 degree of Bachelor of Sciences, but in May, 1884, 
 desiring to verify the stories which he had heard in 
 regard to the opportunities for success to be found 
 in America, boarded a vessel for this country, and 
 in May of that year arrived at Canton, South Dakota. 
 There for two years he was engaged in general work, 
 and the next four years were passed at Wittenburg, 
 Wisconsin, where he continued in the same line. At 
 the end of that period he went to Keokuk, Iowa, 
 which was his home for three and one-half years, 
 during which time he studied medicine in the Keokuk 
 Medical College, from which he was graduated in 
 1894, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. Since 
 that time he has been a constant student and earnest 
 investigator, and has taken post-graduate work at 
 Chicago and at Vienna, Austria, with Dr. Anton von 
 Eiselsberg. 
 
 Doctor Sherping began practice at Enderlin, North 
 Dakota, at the time of his graduation from the med- 
 ical college, in 1894, and there remained for eight 
 years, at the end of which time he came to Fergus 
 Falls, where he has continued to practice, specializing 
 in surgery. When he came to Fergus Falls in 1902, 
 he found no hospital here, and, realizing the com- 
 munity's need, he made preparations to build a pri- 
 vate institution. However, the Norwegians at Fergus 
 Falls and vicinity offered to build a hospital, and 
 thus was founded St. Luke’s, now known all over 
 this part of the country, the hospital being built by 
 public subscriptions and donations. Dr. Sherping 
 personally donated $2,000. The institution was com- 
 pleted and ready for service in 1904, and since that 
 time an addition has been built, so that it now accom- 
 modates thirty-five patients, has all up-to-date equip- 
 
 ment, appliances, instruments and inventions, and is 
 worth at least $45,000, has paid for itself, and now 
 has sufficient money in the treasury to build a nurses’ 
 home. The hospital is located on Mill Street, five 
 blocks from the, principal business district, and its 
 officers are: Rev. Mr. Skyberg, of Aastad, Minne- 
 
 sota, president; Oliver Olson, manager, and Dr. Olaf 
 Th. Sherping, surgeon. Five other physicians of 
 Fergus Falls are on the staff. Dr. Sherping main- 
 tains offices in the Scandia Bank Building. He 
 belongs to the Ottertail County Medical Society, the 
 Minnesota State Medipal Society and the American 
 Medical Association, and has served as a member of 
 the state board of health of Minnesota. 
 
 Politically a republican, while a resident of Ender- 
 lin, North Dakota, Dr. Sherping served in the ca- 
 pacity of mayor. He has always taken a helpful 
 interest in the cause of education and has served 
 as a member of the normal school board. His re- 
 ligious belief is that of the Norwegian Lutheran 
 Church. Dr. Sherping is well known in fraternal 
 circles and belongs to Liberty Lodge, A. F. & A. M., 
 Enderlin, North Dakota; Lisbon Chapter, R. A. M. ; 
 Fergus Falls Commandery, K. T., and Fargo Temple,. 
 A. A. O. N. M. S., Fargo, North Dakota; to Lodge 
 No. 1093, Benevolent .and^ Protective Order of Elks 
 of Fergus Falls, and to the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows of this city. He has been very suc- 
 cessful in a financial way, and has interested himself 
 in several of the large business ventures of this- 
 section, being president of the Scandia State Bank 
 of Fergus Falls, president of the Farmers State Bank 
 of Ypsilanti, North Dakota, and a stockholder in 
 the First State Bank of Southart, North Dakota. 
 Dr. Sherping is also president of the Hallinglay 
 Society Norway, an organization for social purposes,, 
 as well as for collecting data for the history of the 
 emigration from that part of Norway. 
 
 Doctor Sherping was married in 1895 at Enderlin, 
 North Dakota, to Miss Ma)' M. Sollin, daughter of 
 C. A. Sollin, who resides at Valley City, North 
 Dakota. To this union there has come one son,. 
 Ralph V., a cadet in the military school at Delafield, 
 Wisconsin, with the rank of lieutenant. 
 
 John S. Robbins. The active career of John S. 
 Robbins is a part of the yesterday of Kandiyohi 
 County, but his substantial industrial and financial 
 efforts are brought constantly to mind by his familiar 
 presence at Willmar, where he has been living in 
 retirement since iqii. Mr. Robbins was born at 
 Phillins, Franklin County, Maine, December 28. 1849, 
 and is a son of Daniel and Mary (Shaw) Robbins, 
 a grandson of John Shaw, and a great-grandson of 
 Colonel Shaw, who participated in the Revolutionary 
 war. 
 
 Daniel Robbins was born in Maine, was there 
 reared and educated, and married Mary Shaw, also 
 a native of that state. 'When their son John S. was 
 but a child they migrated to Minnesota, settling first 
 at St. Anthony for one year and then moving to 
 Anoka, where the father spent the remaining years' 
 of his life. He was engaged in the lumber business 
 and also operated sawmills, and built one of the first 
 steam sawmills in the state. Through a life of 
 industry and well-directed effort he accumulated a 
 comfortable fortune, although he was ever liberal 
 with his means and would never refused support to 
 a worthy cause. Politically he was a republican, and 
 for some years took an active part in the ranks of his' 
 party, being a man of much influence in his com- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1733 
 
 munity. He was a Hard Shell Baptist in his religious 
 belief, and for a number of years served as deacon 
 in the church. Six children were born to Daniel 
 and Mary Robbins, but only two are now living : 
 Emily F. Hennion, who is a widow and resides at 
 Minneapolis, and John S. 
 
 After attending the graded and high schools of 
 Anoka, John S. Robbins entered upon his career as 
 an employe of Merril Ryder, of St. Paul, in the fur 
 business, and continued to be thus engaged for one 
 and one-half years. At the end of that period he 
 went to work for Couley, House & Edgerton, and for 
 three years conducted the Portage La Prairie trading 
 post, with headquarters at White Horse Plains, Can- 
 ada, and when he left the employ of that concern 
 came to Minnesota and began to deal in horses in 
 partnership with his brother, D. M. Robbins. This 
 business was carried on so energetically, systemat- 
 ically and intelligently that at the end of three years, 
 when the business was dissolved, Mr. Robbins found 
 himself in possession of a capital of $4,000, but did 
 not at that time see an opening for a business enter- 
 prise. Accordingly, he accepted a position with the 
 St. Paul & Pacific Railway, having charge of their 
 freight house at Minneapolis for two years, and in 
 1874 resigned that position to enter the lumber and 
 farming implement business at Willm'ar, [Minnesota. 
 In this he continued through the balance of his active 
 career and, like in his other ventures, in it he attained 
 an eminent degree of success. He disposed of his 
 lumber interests in 1911 to the Standard Lumber 
 Company, and since that time has been living in semi- 
 retirement, although he still takes care of his large 
 landed interests and his Minneapolis property, which 
 latter is worth in the neighborhood of $40,000. He 
 also continues to take a keen and active interest in the 
 affairs of Willmar and Kandiyohi County, and will 
 always be found among the list of contributors to 
 good and beneficial measures and movements. 
 
 Mr. Robbins was married in 1873 to Miss Ella S. 
 Prescott, daughter of George Prescott, who was first 
 the operator of a locomotive and later a stationary 
 engineer with the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad. To 
 this union there has been born one son, George M., 
 who lives at Willmar and is successfully engaged in 
 the automobile business. Mrs. Robbins, who was a 
 member of the Presbyterian Church, died in 1896. 
 Mr. Robbins is a member of the Benevolent and 
 Protective Order of Elks, Lodge No. 952, and of the 
 Ancient Order of United Workmen, of which he is 
 past master workman. A republican in politics, his 
 public services have included one term of effective 
 and faithful service as a member of the city council. 
 Among other interests, he is a director of the Bank 
 of Willmar, of which his brother, A. B. Robbins, was 
 the founder. Mr. Robbins is held in high esteem by 
 a wide circle of acquaintances. 
 
 Joseph J. Moriarty. With growing distinctions 
 as an able and successful lawyer at Shakopee, Joseph 
 J. Moriarty, soon after beginning his practice as a 
 lawyer, also entered democratic politics, and in 1910 
 was elected a member of the Legislature, serving 
 during the session of 1911. In that Legislature he 
 was marked among his colleagues as the youngest 
 member of the House of Representatives. 
 
 Representing a family of Minnesota pioneer's, 
 Joseph J. Moriarty was born at Belle Plaine, Minne- 
 sota. March 23, 1884, a son of Michael and Catherine 
 (Daily) Moriarty. His father and mother both were 
 born in Ireland, and the grandparents on both sides, 
 
 Morris Moriarty and Cornelius Daily, were Irish 
 sailors, _ and spent their lives in Ireland. Cornelius 
 Daily lived to be one hundred and nine years of age, 
 and as his parents are both in venerable years Mr. 
 Moriarty is evidently of hardy and long-lived stock. 
 His father was born in 1827 and his mother in 1839, 
 and both are still alive. They came to Minnesota in 
 the early days and were married at St. Paul in 1857. 
 Soon afterwards Michael Moriarty located a home- 
 stead claim in Belle Plaine Township, and though at 
 the beginning he had nothing but the industry of his 
 willing hands, he eventually acquired a large estate 
 and was one of the substantial men of the community. 
 Before he retired from farming he owned 540 acres, 
 and divided that among his children. The parents 
 are members of the Catholic Church, and the father 
 is a democrat. Nine of the eleven children are still 
 living, and Joseph was the tenth in order of birth. 
 
 . His youth was spent on a farm, with an education 
 in the country schools, after which he attended St. 
 Thomas College and the St. Paul College of Law, 
 and in 1910 he took the state bar examinations and 
 was admitted to practice, and his first year as a 
 lawyer was spent in Belle Plaine. Since June, 1911, 
 he has his offices in Shakopee and is associated with 
 H. J. Peck in the firm of Peck & Moriarty. 
 
 _ Mr. Moriarty was married June 20, 1911, to Hen- 
 rietta McGuire of Grand Forks, North Dakota. 
 Their one son, Patrick, was born April 23, 1913. The 
 family are members of the Catholic Church. Mr. 
 Moriarty is president of the Scott County Fair Asso- 
 ciation and during the past year this fair was cred- 
 ited with being the second best in the entire state. 
 
 Milton B. Wood. The distinction of being the old- 
 est member of the dental profession at Mankato, in 
 continuous service, belongs to Milton B. Wood, who 
 began practice there more than thirty-five years ago. 
 Mr. Wood is also an acknowledged authority as a 
 Guernsey cattle breeder and a dairy expert, and 
 among dairymen in the Northwest is probably best 
 known for his proficiency and long experience in 
 this field. 
 
 Milton B. Wood is a native of Providence, Rhode 
 Island, though most of his life has been passed in 
 Minnesota. He was born June 26, 1853, a son of 
 Phares and Pheopa A. (Cole) Wood. Through both 
 lines his ancestry goes back to colonial times. The 
 first Wood was an Englishman, who received a grant 
 of land from King George the third, and that land 
 remained in the family until 1868, when an uncle of 
 Doctor Wood sold it. William Wood, Jr., gentle- 
 man, lived during the reign of King George the third, 
 had his home at Warwick, Rhode Island, and served 
 in the Revolutionary war with the rank of ensign. 
 Stukeley Wood, son of the last mentioned, and 
 grandfather of Doctor Wood, was a soldier in the 
 War of 1812, and also lived at Warwick, Rhode 
 Island, where he combined the vocations of shoe- 
 maker and farmer. Stukeley Wood married Free- 
 land Gerauld. Phares Wood continues the military 
 activities of the family, since at the beginning of the 
 Civil war he enlisted in Company B of the Twelfth 
 Rhode Island Volunteers, and saw thirteen months 
 of active service, participating in the battle of Fred- 
 ericksburg. After the expiration of his enlistment 
 he returned to Rhode Island, sold out his interests 
 there, and in November, 1864, arrived with his family 
 in Minnesota, locating in Winona County and later 
 in Faribault, and in 1867 came to Mankato. In 1870 
 he and his wife returned to Rhode Island, and lived 
 
1734 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 there until they died. He was a carpenter by occu- 
 pation, a republican in politics, a member of the 
 Methodist Church, - while his wife was a Baptist. 
 His wife was a daughter of Benjamin Miller Cole, 
 who was born in Rhode Island and spent his life 
 in that state. Benjamin M. Cole was a son of Col. 
 Benjamin Cole, who served with that rank and title 
 in the Revolutionary war. He was twice taken a 
 prisoner, and the first time was sent to Jamaica, made 
 his escape, and was again captured and spent several 
 months on the prison ship the Jersey in New York 
 harbor. The Cole family has an American lineage 
 going back to an ancestor who came to the colonies 
 between 1640 and 1650, and was a surveyor at Swan- 
 sea, Massachusetts. 
 
 Milton B. Wood received his early education in the 
 public schools of Providence, Rhode Island, and 
 Mankato, taking a two-year course in the Mankato 
 Normal School. For three years he was engaged in 
 teaching, and served an apprenticeship of three 
 years in dentistry. In 1877 he opened his office and 
 began practice as a dentist in Mankato, and his rec- 
 ord in that profession has been continuous since that 
 time. He has always enjoyed an excellent patronage. 
 
 In 1879 Doctor Wood married Minnie B. Monks of 
 Winchester, Indiana. Three children have been born 
 to their marriage : Leander J. is a shoe dealer in 
 Mankato; Mrs. M. E. Bowen is the wife of a travel- 
 ing man whose home is in Mankato ; Mrs. E. A. Lip- 
 pert is the wife of the manager of a clothing store 
 in Minnesota. The family worship in the Episcopal 
 Church, and Doctor Wood is in politics a republican 
 and served three years as an alderman and for six 
 years was on the library board and was president 
 of the board at the time the appropriation was 
 secured from Mr. Carnegie for the new library 
 building. 
 
 It was in 1884 that Doctor Wood became inter- 
 ested in the Guernsey cattle as a breeder, and has 
 continued his work along that line ever since. He 
 has been a purchasing agent for Mr. Loring of Min- 
 nesota, and has twice gone abroad for the purchase 
 of blooded stock. Doctor Wood is considered the 
 best judge in Minnesota of this class of cattle, and 
 for fifteen years was judge of dairy breeds at the 
 Minnesota State Fair. He was also the chief judge 
 at the First National Dairy Show held in Chicago in 
 1906. 
 
 Charles E. Campton. The men to whom is en- 
 trusted the responsibility of educating the youth of 
 the land today are called upon to meet and overcome 
 manv obstacles with which those of an oider genera- 
 tion were unacquainted. The enlarging of the cur- 
 riculum of the public schools necessitates a long and 
 careful training, with constant study, research and 
 investigation, and popular demand has resulted in 
 the production of a class of men who as educators 
 have had no superiors in the history of the country. 
 The position of superintendent of schools in any live 
 and growing community calls for the exhibition of a 
 profound knowledge of educational work and a broad 
 fund of general information, together with a mind 
 capable of handling the business affairs connected 
 with the office. It is the possession of these quali- 
 ties that has made Charles E. Campton one of the 
 most popular and efficient officials of Brown County 
 in the line of educational labors, and as superintend- 
 ent of schools of Sleepy Eye, he has succeeded in 
 building up a system that compares favorably with 
 those of any city of its size in the state. 
 
 Mr. Campton was born at Hillsboro, Ohio, Octo- 
 ber 27, 1876, and is a son of Amos and Helen (Ames) 
 Campton. The family is of Scotch-Irish extraction, 
 was founded in America during colonial times, and 
 the great-grandfather of Charles E. Campton took 
 up a homestead at an early day on the site of the 
 present City of Cincinnati, Ohio. The grandfather, 
 William Campton, was for many years a resident of 
 Hillsboro, Ohio, where he was engaged in business 
 as a cooper, butl in his declining years retired and 
 moved to Hubbard, Minnesota, where he passed 
 away. Amos Campton was born at Hillsboro, Ohio, 
 in 1851, and there grew to manhood, coming to Hub- 
 bard, Minnesota, March 20, 1880, and settling as a 
 farmer among the pioneers. Here he continued to 
 be engaged in agricultural pursuits during the re- 
 mainder of his career, and died at Hubbard in 1894, 
 at the age of forty-three years. He married Helen 
 Ames, who was horn at Hillsboro, Ohio, in 1850, 
 and she still survives him and makes her home at 
 Menahga, Wadena County, Minnesota. Two chil- 
 dren were born to Amos and Helen Campton, 
 namely : Charles E., of this review ; and George C., 
 who is engaged in farming near Menahga. 
 
 Charles E. Campton received his early education in 
 the public schools of Hubbard, Minnesota, to which 
 place he had been brought as a child of four years, 
 and in his youth began his career as an educator, 
 teaching for several years in the rural schools. To 
 further his training, he subsequently took the ele- 
 mentary course in the St. Cloud Normal School, 
 being graduated in 1901, and thus prepared secured a 
 position as teacher in the graded schools of Hubbard. 
 Thus he secured the means necessary to re-enter the 
 normal school at St. Cloud, being graduated from 
 the advanced course in 1906, and in that same year 
 went to Westbrook, Minnesota, as principal of 
 graded schools, remaining there five years. During 
 the terms of 1911, 1912 and 1913, he attended the 
 LTniversity of Minnesota, taking a special course in 
 agricultural work, and in 1913 was given his degree 
 of Bachelor of Arts by that institution. In the lat- 
 ter year he was called to Sleepy Eye to take the 
 position of superintendent of schools, and his con- 
 tract here has still three years to run. Mr. Campton 
 has fifteen teachers under his direction, and his 
 earnest and enthusiastic spirit has been communi- 
 cated to them, so that the school system here has 
 advanced rapidly during his administration. The 
 large high school building, in which his office is lo- 
 cated, is a handsome structure, erected in 1895. 
 While his duties during the last six years have been 
 exceptionally heavy, he has found the time and incli- 
 nation to serve in other capacities, and for two 
 years taught during the summer months in the train- 
 ing schools, and for the past four years has devoted 
 the summer months to teaching in the training school 
 at the University Farm College, at St. Paul. Pie 
 has high standing among the educators of Southern 
 Minnesota, and his reputation in his profession is 
 all the more creditable in that his position and suc- 
 cess have been gained entirely through the medium 
 of his own unaided efforts. Professor Campton is a 
 member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He is 
 somewhat interested in fraternal work, being a mem- 
 ber of Keystone Lodge No. 94, A. F. & A. M„ and 
 Sleepj r Eye Lake Lodge No. 8t, Independent Order 
 of Odd Fellows, and also holds membership in the 
 Sleepy Eye Commercial Club. 
 
 On December 26, 1903, at Selby, South Dakota, 
 Professor Campton was united in marriage with Miss 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1735 
 
 Esther M. Elfrink, daughter of J. J. Elfrink, of that 
 city, a well known and successful merchant. 
 
 Otto Petersen. A practical and experienced 
 farmer himself, Otto Petersen has made that experi- 
 ence the foundation for a valuable service as a dealer 
 in farm lands in Minnesota. He is now conducting 
 a business under the name Petersen Land Company 
 at Mankato, and does a large business in both im- 
 proved and unimproved farm lands, and also handles 
 city property and writes both life and fire insurance, 
 representing the German Underwriters and the 
 Equitable Life Insurance Company. 
 
 Otto Petersen was born in DeWitt, Iowa, May 21, 
 1879, a son of Peter and Anna (Howe) Petersen. 
 Both parents were natives qf Denmark. Grandfather 
 Petersen also came to America, but finally returned 
 to his native land and died there at the age of ninety- 
 three. Peter Petersen was born in 1839 and died 
 January 16, 1915. His wife was born in 1849 and 
 died January 15, 1905. They were married in Den- 
 mark, where most of their children were born, and 
 emigrated to the United States in 1877, settling in 
 Iowa on a farm. In 1879 they removed to Minnesota, 
 and located two and a half miles from Amboy, 
 where Peter Petersen spent the rest of his life as a 
 successful farmer. He was a man of good citizen- 
 ship as well as of substantial qualities in other direc- 
 tions, was a friend of church and school, affiliated 
 with the Lutheran Church and in politics was a demo- 
 crat. Otto was the ninth of ten children, and only 
 four are now living, the other three being: C. L. 
 Petersen, at Thief River Falls, Minnesota ; Kate 
 Petersen, who lives on the homestead; and Tilda, also 
 on the old home farm. 
 
 Otto Petersen has spent practically all his life in 
 Minnesota, was educated in the country schools near 
 the old farm at Amboy, and the training he received 
 as a boy he turned to practical usefulness in his own 
 work as a farmer up till 1912. In the meantime he 
 had been handling farm property. He finally re- 
 moved to Mankato, and since April 5, 1914, has main- 
 tained an office there and now gives all his time to 
 the real estate business. He buys and sells all kinds 
 of farm land and his transactions are not confined 
 to any one locality of Minnesota. He owns eighteen 
 or twenty farms, and his advice in real estate mat- 
 ters is thoroughly reliable and has practical ex- 
 perience as well as business integrity behind every 
 deal he makes. 
 
 November 22, 1900, Mr. Petersen married Martha 
 L. Bakken of Martin County, Minnesota. They have 
 four sons : Peter, aged thirteen ; Melvin, aged eight ; 
 Russell, aged six ; and Robert, aged four. Mr. Peter- 
 sen worships in the Presbyterian Church, is affiliated 
 with the Knights of Pythias, the Modern Woodmen 
 of America, the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
 Elks, the Modern Brotherhood of America, and in 
 politics is a republican. He is active in citizenship, 
 and is one of the progressive members of the Man- 
 kato Commercial Club. 
 
 Jens L. Lobben. Now regarded as one of the 
 ablest members of the bar at St. James, Jens L. Lob- 
 ben has made himself useful since early manhood, 
 as a teacher, clerk, and for the past twenty years in 
 the active practice of law. Throughout his career 
 he has lived in close touch with the people, and along 
 with ability in the law has manifested an integrity 
 which has gained for him the complete confidence of 
 
 Vol. in— 30 
 
 his fellow citizens. Mr. Lobben is the present mayor 
 of St. James. 
 
 A native of Norway, Jens L. Lobben, was born 
 in the Parish of Eker near Drammen, August 1, 1862. 
 His father was the late Rev. Anders L. Lobben, who 
 was born in the same parish in Norway in 1832 and 
 who died at St. James, Minnesota, in 1904. Emigrat- 
 ing to America in 1875, he first located in Jackson 
 County, Wisconsin, and in 1879 established his home 
 at St. James. He is well remembered as a devoted 
 and useful worker in the ministry of the Norwegian 
 Lutheran Synod of America. Reverend Lobben mar- 
 ried Sophie Stangeby, who was born at Tonsberg, 
 Norway, in 1837, and died at St. James in 1909. They 
 were the parents of a large family of children, the 
 first being Jens L. ; L. L., the second, is manager 
 of a lumber yard at Brooten, Minnesota. The 
 son Olaf died several years ago. Dorothy, now de- 
 ceased, married H. M. Serkland, who up to about 
 eight years ago was cashier of the Citizens National 
 Bank of St. James and is now president of the First 
 National Bank at Gridley, California. The daughter 
 Marie is now the second wife of H. M. Serkland. 
 The son Anders L. died young. Peter S. is a rail- 
 way mail clerk, on a run between Minneapolis and 
 Omaha, and resides at Shakopee, Minnesota. Carl 
 M., the eighth child, died at the age of twenty-seven, 
 unmarried. 
 
 Jens L. Lobben, about twelve years of age when 
 his family came to America, acquired training in the 
 English schools in Jackson County, Wisconsin. For 
 his higher education he took the preparatory course 
 at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, and for three 
 years was a student in the regular academic course 
 in the same institution. Following school he taught 
 one year, worked on a farm, clerked in stores, and 
 took up the study of law with John W. Seager at St. 
 James. Admitted to the bar in 1896, Mr. Lobben 
 for six years was associated in practice with his for- 
 mer preceptor, Mr. Seager, and since that time has 
 looked after a large and growing general practice as 
 an individual lawyer, with offices in the Miller Glass 
 Block, on First Avenue in St. James. While most 
 of his time has been spent in the strict lines of his 
 profession, Mr. Lobben served as city attorney of 
 St. James nine years, and in April, 1914, was the 
 choice of the municipality for the office of mayor, 
 where his progressive administration is now making 
 itself felt in many ways for the advancement and 
 betterment of the communty. He also served during 
 1900-1903 as a member of the St. James Board of 
 Education. 
 
 Mr. Lobben is a republican, a member of the 
 Lutheran Church, and has fraternal affiliations with 
 Libanus Lodge No. 96, A. F. & A. M„ St. James; 
 with Concordia Chapter No. 25, R. A. M., St. James; 
 with De Molay Commandery No. 26, Knights 
 Templar, New Film ; with Watonwan Lodge No. 207, 
 I. O. O. F., with St. James Lodge No. 64 of the 
 Ancient Order of United Workmen, and with Camp 
 No. 1538 of the Modern Woodmen of America, both 
 of St. James. For some time he was a stockholder 
 and director in the St. James Telephone Company. 
 Mr. Lobben married at Linden, Brown County, Min- 
 nesota, May 7, 1884, Miss Julia Anderson, daughter 
 of Hans Anderson, now deceased, who was a Brown 
 County farmer. 
 
 Ernest W. Campbell. One of the leading lawyers 
 of Western Minnesota is Ernest W. Campbell, who 
 was graduated from the law school of Yale Univer- 
 
1736 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 sity twenty years ago and has since gained a high 
 standing both in legal circles and as a business man 
 and public official. He is a learned lawyer and 
 scholarly gentleman and a citizen in whose character 
 the community has implicit trust and confidence. 
 
 Ernest W. Campbell was born in Meeker County, 
 Minnesota, in 1870, a date which indicates that his 
 family were among the pioneers of that section. His 
 father is Otho H. Campbell who was born in Con- 
 necticut in 1845, and coming out to Minnesota in 
 1868 was one of the early settlers at Clearwater. For 
 many years he was engaged in business as a mer- 
 chant, and is now vice president of the Bank of 
 Litchfield and interested in several other financial in- 
 stitutions in various parts of the state. He is an 
 active republican, a Knight Templar Mason, and a 
 man of high standing and influence in Meeker 
 County. Otho H. Campbell married Isa Creath, who 
 was born in the State of Maine in 1848 and is still 
 living at Litchfield. 
 
 Ernest W. Campbell finished his course in high 
 school in 1891, and then went East and entered the 
 Yale Law School where he was graduated with his 
 Bachelor’s degree in 1893, and in 1894 was awarded 
 the degree Master of Laws. Since then he has been 
 actively identified either with his profession or with 
 business and office. During the Spanish-American 
 war he enlisted and was made first sergeant in Com- 
 pany C of the Fifteenth Minnesota Volunteers, sub- 
 sequently being promoted to second lieutenant of the 
 same company. His father also has a military record, 
 having served as a private during the Civil war. Mr. 
 Campbell was appointed by Judge William C. Loch- 
 ran as referee in bankruptcy for the United States 
 District Court in 1899, and has given a capable ad- 
 ministration of the affairs coming before that court 
 for over fifteen years. Since locating at Litchfield, 
 and in addition to his large private practice, he 
 served two terms as county attorney of Meeker 
 County. He is a director of the Bank of Litchfield 
 and politically is a republican. 
 
 Mr. Campbell married Marian R. Roraback, daugh- 
 ter of Uriah Roraback. They have one child, Myra, 
 tw.elve years of age. 
 
 ( 
 
 Charles W. Wagner. As lawyer, banker, editor, 
 Charles W. Wagner has made himself almost an in- 
 dispensable factor in the life and affairs of Litchfield, 
 with which community he has been identified for 
 upwards of twenty years. Mr. Wagner is a native of 
 Minnesota, and has made himself useful in some 
 capacity or other since early youth. 
 
 He was born in Waseca County in 1869, a son of 
 Christopher and Marie (Zieger) Wagner. His father 
 was born in Germany in 1842 and died in 1894. He 
 came to America when a young man and was here 
 in time to serve three years as a private in the Union 
 army. He was in the army under General Banks and 
 in one battle was wounded. He became a pioneer 
 farmer in Waseca County, Minnesota, in 1867, and 
 under his energetic labors his land holdings grew 
 from 160 acres to 360 acres. He was also in the 
 lumber business for a time at New Richland, and was 
 one of the organizers and president of the State 
 Bank of New Richland. He was one of the leading 
 men in Waseca County, and in 1881 represented his 
 district in the Legislature and held various local 
 offices. Politically he was a republican. His wife, 
 who was born in Germany in 1842 and came to this 
 country in 1854, is now living at New Richland. She 
 was the mother of eleven children, and the eight still 
 
 living are : Charles W. ; Mrs. Emma Echternach of 
 New Richland; Della A. Lange of New Richland; 
 Ida M. of New Richland; Bertha M. of New Rich- 
 land; Alma H. Archer of Princeton, Minnesota; 
 Elsie D. Hemmingway of Waseca; and Otto H. of 
 Minneapolis. All the children are well located and 
 of independent means. 
 
 Charles W. Wagner received his education in rural 
 schools while living on the old homestead in Waseca 
 County, afterwards attended the Mankato Normal 
 School, and in 1894 was graduated from the law de- 
 partment of the University of Minnesota. In the 
 meantime he had pursued an active career as a 
 teacher. He was superintendent of schools at New 
 Richland four years and county superintendent, of 
 Waseca County schools four years. After locating 
 in Litchfield he bought the Litchfield Review in 1898, 
 and has since been its owner and editor, and, has 
 made this paper not only an influential organ of 
 opinion and a medium of news but also a profitable 
 business enterprise. It now has a circulation of 
 2,000, all over Meeker and adjoining counties. Mr. 
 Wagner aside from his newspaper business and his 
 law practice is director of the Bank of Litchfield 
 and of the First State Bank of Grove City. 
 
 Politically he has always identified himself with 
 the republican party. He is president of the board 
 of education of Litchfield, and for four years served 
 in the city council. In 1906 he married Emma V. 
 Chandler. They have one daughter, Harriet, thirteen 
 years of age. 
 
 Charles Devereaux Gould was born at Garland, 
 Warren County, Pennsylvania, June 4, 1867, and is a 
 son of Theodore L. and Louise (Devereaux) Gould, 
 natives of Erie County, Pennsylvania. His father, at 
 the outbreak of the Civil war enlisted in Company 
 E, Twenty-ninth Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry. 
 He served throughout the Peninsular campaign and 
 in many of the hardest fought battles of the great 
 struggle. At the end of three years he was in- 
 capacitated by sickness and was compelled to leave 
 the army and was honorably discharged as lieutenant. 
 Returning to his home in Springfield, Pennsylvania, 
 he remained there until 1869, and at that time came 
 to Minnesota, settling at Spring Valley, where he 
 established himself in the general merchandise busi- 
 ness, in connection with which he operated a farm 
 until 1886, then coming to Minneapolis, where he 
 died two years later. The mother resides with her 
 daughter, Mrs. Harry H. Harding, of Hudson, 
 Wisconsin. Several of Mrs. Gould’s brothers served 
 in the Civil war, one being killed in battle. Theodore 
 L. and Louise Gould were the parents of three chil- 
 dren : Charles Devereaux ; one who died in infancy, 
 and Mrs. Harry H. Harding, of Hudson, Wisconsin. 
 
 Charles Devereaux Gould received his early edu- 
 cation in the Spring Valley Public School, graduating 
 from the high school there in 1886. At that time he 
 entered the University of Minnesota and spent two 
 years in the academic department. Later he entered 
 the law department and was graduated in 1891 with 
 the degree of Bachelor of Laws and in July of that 
 year commenced practice in Minneapolis with George 
 H. Selover, with whom he continued for two years 
 under the style of Selover & Gould. Subsequently this 
 firm was dissolved and Mr. Gould became associated 
 with Lincoln J. Bodge, with whom he remained until 
 1897 as Bodge & Gould and since that time Mr. 
 Gould has continued alone. Mr. Gould’s offices were 
 in the Boston Block on Hennepin Avenue for some 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1737 
 
 fifteen years, or until the building of the Security 
 Bank Building, where he has since maintained offices 
 and carried on a general practice. Mr. Gould belongs 
 to the Minneapolis, Minnesota and American Bar 
 associations. 
 
 For a number of years Mr. Gould has been promi- 
 nent in political matters, and his activities in civic 
 matters have brought him favorably before the pub- 
 lic. As alderman of the largest ward in the city, 
 the Fourth, located in the down town district, from 
 January i, 1900, until January 1, 1913, he was in close 
 touch with many important municipal developments, 
 and was exceedingly active in behalf of his city’s 
 best interests. He served as chairman of the water 
 board, and it was largely through his continuous and 
 untiring efforts and the efforts of the city council 
 of which he was a member that Minneapolis secured 
 its filtration plant, which had been so badly needed 
 for years. 
 
 In 1912 Mr. Gould became a candidate for mayor 
 of Minneapolis, and he and Hon. Wallace G. Nye, 
 now mayor of the city, were the candidates nomi- 
 nated out of eleven who announced their candidacy. 
 Here followed events which at once stamped Mr. 
 Gould as one of his city’s most public-spirited men. 
 They are well explained in an article which appeared 
 in November, 1912, in the University .of Minnesota 
 Alumni, the annual number of the Minnesota Alumni 
 Weekly. Mr. Gould feels justly proud of this article, 
 coming from the source it did and without any 
 solicitation on his part. Under the caption “An 
 Honor to his Alma Mater,” it said : “In order to 
 understand the action of Charles D. Gould, law ’91, 
 in retiring from the race for the mayoralty of this 
 city, it is necessary to say a few words as to the 
 situation here. Mr. Gould was second man in the 
 primary, he and Mr. Selover running neck and neck 
 close up to the leader in the race, Mr. Nye. Mr. 
 Gould and Mr. Selover both appealed to the same 
 class of voters and had either one been out of the 
 race, the other would have won by a handsome 
 plurality. The socialist candidate, taking advantage 
 of an oversight in the law, determined to make sure 
 of a divided opposition and came into the race later, 
 by petition. 
 
 “It was seen that there was danger of the election 
 of a socialist, if both Mr. Gould and Mr. Nye should 
 remain in the field, and both men consented to submit 
 the matter to a group of citizens for advice. The 
 advice of this group was that Mr. Gould should 
 retire from the race, in order that there might be a 
 clean-cut issue to be decided between socialism and 
 those opposed to socialism. This action has aroused 
 the most bitter attacks on Mr. Gould by the socialists 
 and some of his former supporters. 
 
 “In consenting to eliminate himself, Mr. Gould has 
 shown sturdy qualities of patriotism and manhood 
 that have brought him greater honor than the win- 
 ning of the election would have brought. Though 
 intensely disappointed, more largely on account of 
 his family and friends than on his own account, Mr. 
 Gould made no half-way work of his action and has 
 thrown all of his influence in favor of his former 
 and only legitimate opponent.” 
 
 In July, 1914, Mr. Gould was elected city attorney 
 of Minneapolis, thereby making him the head of the 
 legal department of the city, to fill the unexpired 
 term of Judge Daniel Fish, appointed to the District 
 Court bench. 
 
 In January, 1915, Mr. Gould was re-elected as 
 city attorney for a term of two years. The duties of 
 
 that office have been faithfully and successfully dis- 
 charged by him. 
 
 Mr. Gould is a member of the Minneapolis Ath- 
 letic Club and is also well known in fraternal circles, 
 belonging to Minnesota Lodge No. 224, A. F. & 
 A. M., of which he is past master; and Zurah Tem- 
 ple of the Mystic Shrine ; also a member of the Psi 
 Upsilon college fraternity. He holds membership 
 also in the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Asso- 
 ciation, and with his family attends the Trinity Bap- 
 tist Church. 
 
 On January 9, 1897, at Minneapolis, Mr. Gould 
 was united in marriage, with Miss Viola C. Cauvet, 
 daughter of Capt. Edward C. Cauvet, who was cap- 
 tain of the famous Tammy News Boys Regiment of 
 New York City. He died in Minneapolis February 
 26, 1896. Captain Cauvet, who was on General Han- 
 cock’s staff, was born in New York, but was of pure 
 French stock, his parents being both born in France. 
 He married Emma Knight, who was born in Brook- 
 lyn, New York, of English parents, and she died in 
 Minneapolis on Easter day, 1910. Mrs. Gould was 
 born in New York City and .received her early edu- 
 cation in Minneapolis, subsequently spending one year 
 in Pratt Institute, a noted art school of Brooklyn, 
 New York, and later completing a musical education 
 in Minneapolis. Two children have been born to 
 Mr. and Mrs. Gould, both in Minneapolis, Marjorie 
 C. and Edward C. 
 
 Edward P. Peterson represents one of the earliest 
 families to become identified with the development 
 and settlement of Meeker County, and not only has 
 the distinction of early residence but also that of 
 long and effective co-operation with local affairs. 
 Mr. Peterson is a lawyer of more than thirty years’ 
 standing and in many ways has been a valuable 
 leader, not only in politics but in the economic affairs 
 of his locality. 
 
 Edward P. Peterson is a native of Minnesota, born 
 when it was a territory, at White Rock in Goodhue 
 County in 1855. His parents were Olaf and Johanna 
 (Akerson) Peterson. Both parents were natives of 
 Sweden, his father born in 1827 and coming to Min- 
 nesota in 1853, five years before the admission of 
 Minnesota to the Union. His death occurred in 1911. 
 He was an early settler and farmer in Goodhue 
 County, and in 1867 brought his family to Meeker 
 County and took up a homestead of eighty acres. He 
 was quite active in local politics as a republican. In 
 1903 he sold his property in Meeker County, went to 
 Des Moines, Iowa, farmed for a time near Ames 
 in that state, and then lived retired at Des Moines 
 until his death. His wife was born in 1829 and died 
 in 1864. Of their children the three living are Ed- 
 ward P. ; Henry I., who is editor and owner of the 
 Litchfield Independent; and Albin M., who is also 
 connected with the Litchfield Independent. 
 
 Edward P. Peterson has lived in Meeker County 
 since he was twelve years of age. After beginning 
 his education he began making himself serviceable 
 to others in the capacity of teacher, an occupation 
 he followed four years in Meeker County. He was 
 a student of law under E. A. Campbell and L. C. 
 Spooner, and also attended the State University one 
 year, but was compelled to leave on account of ill 
 health. Mr. Peterson was admitted to the Minnesota 
 bar in 1883, and since that time, for a period of more 
 than thirty years, has been in active practice at Litch- 
 field, the county seat of Meeker County. For seven 
 years he held the office of county attorney, and the 
 
1738 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 record he made in that office was the basis for his 
 promotion in 1910 to the State Senate. He is now 
 serving his second term as senator. Politically he is 
 a democrat. Mr. Peterson is also vice president of 
 the First National Bank of Litchfield. 
 
 In 1886 he married Miss Jennie Crowe, who died 
 in 1909. She was a daughter of George J. and Jane 
 Crowe, also one of the pioneer families of Meeker 
 County. Mr. Peterson has two daughters : Marie, 
 aged twenty-one, is a member of the class of 1915 
 in the University of Minnesota; while Frances, aged 
 eighteen, is now in her freshman year at the 
 university. 
 
 William P. Allred, Jr., was born of American 
 parentage near Seymour, Iowa, September 1, 1879. 
 Choosing architecture as a profession, he secured 
 employment with a competent contractor, working a 
 number of years at the carpenter trade. During this 
 time he took a complete architectural course with the 
 International Correspondence School of Scranton, 
 Pennsylvania, and was awarded high honors for 
 scholarship. Thus he is equipped thoroughly with 
 practical as well as technical knowledge. 
 
 He was first employed in the architectural profes- 
 sion by Libby, Nourse & Rassmussen of Des Moines, 
 Iowa, Mr. Libby being the state architect. Later he 
 joined the office force of W. R. Parsons & Son Com- 
 pany also of Des Moines. A year after he joined 
 this firm, having proven his ability, he was appointed 
 to take charge of their branch office in Duluth, Min- 
 nesota. Leaving the employment of the W. R. Par- 
 sons & Son Company, Mr. Allred, on January 1, 
 1909, formed a partnership with Frank L. Young, of 
 Duluth, the company being known as Frank L. Young 
 & Company. During this association, many promi- 
 nent buildings were designed for Duluth and North- 
 ern Minnesota. 
 
 Mr. Young, retiring, the association was discon- 
 tinued' after the fourth year. Mr. Allred has since 
 continued practicing under his personal supervision. 
 He has proven himself one of Duluth’s able archi- 
 tects. A set of plans from his office will have every 
 detail studied from the utilitarian as well as the 
 artistic side. Much of his time is given to the de- 
 signing of school buildings and those recently de- 
 signed for and erected in Northern Minnesota receive 
 high commendation from state officials and edu- 
 cators. Mr. Allred came to Minnesota in 1906, resid- 
 ing in Duluth. 
 
 John" W. Barber is a successful business man at 
 Spring Valley who graduated from a long career 
 in the railroad service into his present occupation as 
 a banker. Mr. Barber began life with nothing, ex- 
 cept his native industry 1 and talent for hard work, 
 and has gained those things which ambitious men 
 most desire, an honored place in the community and 
 a satisfying degree of material prosperitv. 
 
 John W. Barber was born in LaCrosse County, 
 Wisconsin. August 26, 1865, a son of M. and Lydia 
 (Kirkland) Barber. The grandfather was Elkanah 
 Barber, who was born in Connecticut, in which state 
 the Barber family was established after coming from 
 England in 1530. The emigrant ancestor was Elihu 
 Barber, who was a ship contractor by trade, and is 
 said to have built one of the first church houses in 
 Connecticut. Mr. Barber’s great-grandfather served 
 as a soldier in the Revolutionary war. The father 
 was born in Connecticut in 1830 and is still living. 
 
 He came to Wisconsin in 1854, being a millwright 
 and carpenter by trade, and was married in that state 
 in LaCrosse County to Miss Kirkland, who was born 
 in New York State in 1823 and died in 1902. After 
 his marriage the father gave up his trade and moved 
 to a farm, and was one of the substantial farmers 
 of LaCrosse County for many years. Fie was a 
 member of the Presbyterian Church at LaCrosse and 
 in politics a republican. His success was quietly won, 
 and he is now living retired at a good old age. There 
 were only two children, and the son George is in the 
 plumbing business at LaCrosse, Wisconsin. 
 
 John W. Barber was educated in the public schools 
 at LaCrosse, and as soon as he had completed the 
 common schools began learning telegraphy at the age 
 of sixteen. He was soon appointed to the responsi- 
 bilities of telegraph operator, and for many years 
 performed all the duties of telegrapher, train dis- 
 patcher, agent, and was for twenty-six years con- 
 nected with the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paui Rail- 
 way Company. For a large part of this time he was 
 stationed at Spring Valley as agent, and resigned 
 his position there on January 1, 1910, to accept the 
 position of assistant cashier of the First National 
 Bank of Spring Valley. He was promoted to cashier 
 September 1, 1914, and many of the important execu- 
 tive responsibilities now devolve upon him. The 
 First National Bank of Spring Valley is a prosper- 
 ous institution with a capital of $50,000, surplus $10,- 
 000, and carries deposits averaging about $400,000. 
 
 In 1885 Mr. Barber married Susan S. Baxter, 
 daughter of B. F. Baxter, who was an early settler 
 and carpenter at Bangor, Wisconsin. Three of the 
 five children born to Mr. and Mrs. Barber are living : 
 Eva B., who is a teacher in Superior, Wyoming; 
 Charles F., express agent at Spring Valley; and 
 John W., still in school. The family are members 
 of the Conngregational Church. Mr. Barber has 
 taken much interest in Masonry, is a past master 
 of his Blue Lodge and secretary of the Royal Arch 
 Chapter, and is also affiliated with the Knight Tem- 
 plar Commandery and the Osman Temple of the 
 Mystic Shrine. Politically his party is the republi- 
 can. His substantial success is not only represented 
 by his position as cashier of the bank, but also in the 
 ownership of a nice home in Spring Valley and a 
 farm in North Dakota. 
 
 William M. Meixner. It is in the printing busi- 
 ness that William M. Meixner has found his position 
 among the world’s workers and though still a young 
 man in his twenties is proprietor of a successful and 
 well patronized establishment at Mankato. 
 
 William M. Meixner was born at Mankato May 
 25, 1887, a son of Vincent and Anna (Ramert) Meix- 
 ner. Both his parents were born in Germany and 
 his father died in 1897. They were married in their 
 native land, and came to the United States about 1880 
 locating in Mankato. Here the father followed his 
 trade of blacksmith until his death. They were both 
 members of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church. 
 Of the four children, three are now living: Vincent, 
 who is in the Tower House at Mankato; Charles, 
 associated with his brother William in the printing 
 business. 
 
 William M. Meixner was educated in both the 
 parochial and the public schools at Mankato, and 
 when a boy began an apprenticeship in a local printing 
 shop and is a master of the printing trade. Owing to 
 his proficiency he was advanced to a foremansliip 
 in the job department of a local concern, and from 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1739 
 
 that went into business for himself, establishing his 
 present shop in November, 1913. He makes a 
 specialty of high class work, particularly in com- 
 mercial printing and the printing of books. 
 
 Mr. Meixner is affiliated with Mankato Lodge No. 
 225 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks 
 and with the Knights of Columbus. Politically he 
 is independent. All his time is given to his printing 
 business, and for one who began life without partic- 
 ular advantages, without wealth or influential friends, 
 he has done exceedingly well in the twenty-eight 
 years since his birth. 
 
 William Charles Humphrey. A career of quiet 
 but faithful performance of duty was that of William 
 Charles Humphrey, who was a resident of St. Paul 
 for many years, and the closing period of his life 
 was spent as custodian of the Minnesota Supreme 
 Court. As a young man he spent three years in the 
 Union army, where he became noted among his com- 
 rades for his fearlessness and dashing courage. In 
 spite of the wounds received in that conflict he was 
 afterward a capable business man for many years at 
 Detroit, Michigan, and St. Paul, and had almost at- 
 tained the psalmist’s span of years when death came 
 suddenly to him on December 12, 1913. In every re- 
 lation of life he discharged the score of every re- 
 sponsibility with credit, though he never desired the 
 abundant reward of wealth. He was a Minnesotan 
 whose name and career have a fine fitness in the 
 records of the state. 
 
 William Charles Humphrey was born in Phillips- 
 burg, Ontario, Canada, June 12, 1804, but from an 
 early age lived in the United States. His parents 
 were Austin and Harriet Humphrey, who, when 
 William C. was about twelve years of age, removed 
 to St. Albans, Vermont, where the father continued 
 his vocation as a carpenter. William C. Humphrey 
 received the most of his education in Canada, and 
 after the age of twelve employed most of his time 
 in getting a business experience and paying his own 
 way. He worked as clerk in a book store at St. 
 Albans, and was there five years. He was only seven- 
 teen years of age when he ran away from home and 
 joined the army, and had been fighting eight months 
 before his enlistment on the battlefield, July 1, 1862. 
 For his brave act at Port Royal, Virginia, July 1, 
 1862, the captain sent for him and asked his age. 
 Mr. Humphrey replied that he had just turned eight- 
 een on the 12th of June, and then said the captain, 
 “you have been fighting long enough for nothing, 
 you are this day enlisted.” He became a member of 
 the First Vermont Cavalry, and was with his com- 
 mand for three years and eight months, having been 
 present at Appomattox when Lee surrendered in 
 1865, and was hardly at his majority when he re- 
 turned home a veteran soldier. His father and two 
 brothers were also in the Civil war, in Vermont regi- 
 ments, while another brother, who was living in St. 
 Louis, Missouri, fought on the Confederate side. The 
 First Vermont Cavalry had the distinction of en- 
 gaging in sixty-eight battles or skirmishes during the 
 war. Mr. Humphrey participated at Gettysburg and 
 the Battle of the Wilderness and may other historic 
 conflicts, and it was his valor and faithfulness that 
 brought him promotion from the ranks to quarter- 
 master sergeant. On one, occasion, at Port Royal, 
 Virginia, July 1, 1862, his regiment was making a 
 retreat across a bridge which had been covered with 
 oil by the Confederates, and it was only by an 
 intrepid act of cool judgment and heroism on the 
 
 part of Mr. Humphrey that the enemy were prevented 
 from destroying the bridge before the Union forces 
 succeeded in crossing it to safety. Among his com- 
 rades for this and other acts he received the sobriquet 
 of “Daredevil Bill." He was twice taken prisoner 
 on the battlefield, but both times escaped. In the 
 first instance quite a number of captured Union 
 soldiers were being marched through a field, and Mr. 
 Humphrey noticing a neck of woods that they were 
 approaching nudged a comrade in front of him, who 
 understood the signal, and when the critical moment 
 came they both ran through the woods, with many 
 volleys fired after them, but after several hours made 
 good their escape. On another occasion they located 
 tire enemy in a big barn, and it being April the first 
 they thought to fool them, but were fooled them- 
 selves because the enemy came out of the barn as 
 thick as bees ; outnumbering the Union soldiers three 
 to one. W hile trying to escape Mr. Humphrey was 
 greeted with “Halt you Yankee,” which he did, hand- 
 ing over his pistols, but the Confederate, in his ex- 
 citement to capture another soldier, overlooked his 
 sabre, and spurring up his horse until he was by the 
 side of the Confederate, Mr. Plumphrey with one 
 mighty blow of his sabre knocked him from his 
 horse and joined his comrades, with whom he made 
 his escape. On another occasion, when shot through 
 the leg and knocked off his horse in a battle in which 
 the Union forces were being defeated, a comrade 
 named Edmund Yates picked him up, tied him on his 
 own horse and both succeeded in making good their 
 escape. 
 
 After leaving the army Mr. Humphrey removed to 
 Detroit, Michigan, and spent seven years with the 
 Hargrave Manufacturing Company. He then kept a 
 tea store on Michigan Avenue in Detroit for seven- 
 teen years, and in October, 1888, removed to St. 
 Paul and for several years conducted a tea store in 
 the market house. He later studied medicine and 
 conducted a pill business, having the pills manu- 
 factured by Parke Davis & Company, of Detroit. In 
 1907 Mr. Humphrey was appointed by Governor 
 Johnson as custodian to the Supreme Court. This 
 was a position requiring extreme discretion and judg- 
 ment, as well as courage in resisting importunate re- 
 quests and in guarding carefully every court secret. 
 His faithful performance of these responsibilities 
 gained him the high commendation of the justices, 
 and there was no more popular employe around the 
 capitol building than William C. Humphrey. 
 
 Mr. Humphrey refused to attend the Gettysburg 
 convention in July, 1913, as a guest of the state, and 
 in explanation of his refusal he showed a deep scar 
 on his chest, and said he had no desire ever to see. 
 that battlefield again. He had also received a wound 
 in the leg during another engagement. The army 
 surgeon wanted to amputate, but a comrade, a 
 Frenchman, exclaimed that he would shoot the doctor 
 if he cut the boy’s leg off, and Mr. Humphrey used 
 that member all the rest of his life. For forty-four 
 years he was active in the Masonic fraternity, having 
 been affiliated with the order in Detroit, and be- 
 longed to Detroit Chapter No. 2 of the Royal Arch 
 Masons. He was also a member of the Ancient Or- 
 der of United Workmen in Detroit. He was a mem- 
 ber of the Central Park Methodist Episcopal Church 
 in St. Paul, and in politics an ardent republican. 
 While strictly attentive to business the late Mr. 
 Humphrey indulged his interest in the great national 
 pastime of base ball as frequently as possible, was 
 also fond of trotting horses, and frequently took ex- 
 
1740 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 cursions into the woods of Minnesota and Michigan 
 during the shooting season. When Mr. Humphrey 
 died it was very suddenly and while on duty in the 
 capitol in Chief Justice C. L. Brown’s chambers. 
 His funeral was conducted under the auspices of 
 Garfield Post, No. 8, G. A. R., and his body was also 
 followed by a guard composed of capitol officials. 
 
 At Detroit, May 19, 1868, Mr. Humphrey married 
 Mary Webster Naismith, who had lived in Detroit 
 from the age of two years. Her father, Ebenezer 
 Naismith, was a worker in the coal mines in Scot- 
 land. Her mother was Isabelle (Reid) Naismith. 
 Of the children born to Mr. and Mrs. Humphrey 
 one, Charles Leslie, died in early childhood. The 
 four still living are : Lillian Belle, wife of R. O. 
 Barnard, who for a number of years was treasurer 
 with the Great Western Railroad, is the mother of 
 two children, Olive Belle and Raymond H. Louise 
 A., who is an artist in St. Paul, has two children, 
 Evelyn Marie, aged seven and Florence Viola, aged 
 five. Clara M. is the, wife of Loyal A. Partridge, 
 who owns a dental supply house and is at Seattle, 
 and their two children are Ruth E., aged thirteen, 
 and Evelyn D., aged five. George E., the youngest 
 of the living children, is a telegraph operator of St. 
 Paul with the Great Northern Railroad, and has six 
 children, Vera M. and Lillian M., twins, aged twelve, 
 and Charles Edmund, Nellie M., and George D. and 
 Louis R., the last two named being also twins. Mrs. 
 Humphrey, who survives her husband, resides in St. 
 Paul, at 187 E. Thirteenth Street. 
 
 Newton Horace Winchell. One of the highest 
 places in American scholarship was enjoyed by the 
 late Newton Horace Winchell, who died at the age of 
 seventy-five on May 2, 1914. With the science of 
 geology, in both its theoretical and practical phases, 
 no other American name has more distinguished as- 
 sociations, a fact that is due not only to the many 
 achievements of Newton H. Winchell but also to the 
 attainments in the same field of his two sons, Elorace 
 V., who for many years has practiced his profession 
 as economic geologist and mining engineer at Min- 
 neapolis, and Alexander N. Winchell, who has been 
 recipient of many scholastic honors and for the past 
 seven years has occupied a chair in the University of 
 Wisconsin. The late Newton H. Winchell deserves 
 particular mention in a history of Minnesota because 
 of his service through twenty-eight years as state 
 geologist, and in the closing years of his life as 
 archaeologist to the Minnesota Historical Society. 
 
 Newton Horace Winchell was born at North East, 
 Dutchess County, New York, December 17, 1839, a 
 .son of Horace and Caroline (McAllister) Winchell. 
 He had early aspirations to a life of scholarship, and 
 in 1866 was graduated A. B. from the University of 
 Michigan, and received the degree Master of Arts 
 from the same institution in 1869. From 1866 to 
 1869 he was superintendent of public schools at 
 Adrian, Michigan, and then became assistant state 
 geologist of Michigan during 1869-70. He was as- 
 sistant to the geological survey of Ohio from 1870 
 toi 1872, and in the latter year was appointed state 
 geologist to Minnesota, an office he held continuously 
 until 1900. During the greater part of his time, 
 from 1873 to 1900, he was also professor of geology 
 and mineralogy in the University of Minnesota. In 
 May, 1906, Professor Winchell became archseologist 
 to the Minnesota Historical Society, and his duties 
 in that position only ended with his death. 
 
 Professor Winchell was a member of the United 
 
 States Assay Commission in 1887. He was the 
 founder of the American Geologist and its editor 
 from 1888 to 1905. He was a fellow and in 1884 
 vice president of the American Association for the 
 Advancement of Science, and in 1902 was president 
 of the Geological Society of America. He also had 
 membership m the foreign societies in this depart- 
 ment of science, was a member of the American 
 Anthropological Association, one of the founders and 
 three times president of the Minnesota Academy of 
 Sciences, a member of the New York Academy of 
 Sciences, the Washington Academy of Sciences, the 
 American Geographic Society, the Minnesota His- 
 torical Society, the Mississippi Valley Historical 
 Association, the Buffalo Society of Natural History, 
 the Lake Superior Mining Institute, and on the score 
 of his own ancestry was a member of the Sons of 
 the American Revolution. 
 
 On other pages in this publication the author has 
 spoken of some of his special contributions to the 
 fund of knowledge regarding Minnesota’s geology 
 and archaeology, and his authorship had a wide 
 range. Among other writings representing his 
 many years of research were : Catalog of the Plants 
 of the State of Michigan, 1861 ; Geology of Ohio 
 and Minnesota, 1872-1900 ; The Iron Ores of Min- 
 nesota, prepared in collaboration with his son, 
 Horace V., in 1891 ; Elements of Optical Mineralogy 
 prepared with his son, Alexander N., 1909; The Ab- 
 origines of Minnesota. 
 
 Professor Winchell died at his home at 501 Esat 
 River Road, Minneapolis. He was married at Gales- 
 burg, Michigan, August 24, 1864, to Charlotte Sophia 
 Imus, who still survives. 
 
 Albert J. Payant, a general contractor, of Fari- 
 bault, represents a family that has been iden- 
 tified with this section of Minnesota for nearly half 
 a century. He has a thorough and broad ex- 
 perience in the line of his present business, learned 
 the carpenter trade when a young man, and en- 
 tered into partnership relations with Mr. Kingsley, 
 advanced from journeyman carpenter to superin- 
 tendent of construction labor, and continued in part- 
 nership with Mr. Kingsley until February 20, 1915. 
 Since that time he has continued operations alone. 
 
 Albert J. Payant was born at Faribault, Minnesota, 
 October 3, 1875, a son of Joseph Payant, who was 
 born in Montreal, Canada, in 1833, and belonged to 
 an old French Canadian family that had been iden- 
 tified with Canada for generations. Joseph Payant 
 came to the United States in 1862, spent two years 
 in the State of Minnesota, and then went west to 
 California, where he was engaged in business as a 
 commission merchant. Returning to Minnesota in 
 1866, he located at Faribault, and from that time until 
 his death in 1912 was engaged in business as a con- 
 tractor. In 18 66 Joseph Payant married Georgiana 
 Tetrault, who was born at Quebec, Canada, and now 
 lives at Faribault. Their children were : Ernestine, 
 wife of William Lynch, who is a plumbing and heat- 
 ing contractor at Faribault; Ernest, who is unmar- 
 ried and is in the employ of J. Patten, the well known 
 grain speculator of Chicago; Thais, widow of Wesley 
 Taylor, who formerly was engaged in the transfer 
 business at Faribault, while Mrs. Taylor now resides 
 at Minneapolis ; Albert J. ; Isabel, wife of Charles 
 Le Brash, a fire extinguisher contractor at Minne- 
 apolis ; Arthur, who is employed by the firm of 
 Kingsley & Payant at Faribault; Martha, wife of 
 William Thomm, a carpenter at Faribault; and 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1741 
 
 Felix, who is a professor in the University of Ohio 
 and resides at Cincinnati. 
 
 Albert J. Payant was educated in the public 
 schools, left high school at the age of nineteen, and 
 after learning the carpenter’s trade followed that em- 
 ployment as a journeyman for three years. His next 
 work was as superintendent of building construction 
 in Oklahoma, but at the end of two years he re- 
 turned to Faribault in 1908 and formed his present 
 partnership with William S. Kingsley, general con- 
 tractor. A sketch of Mr. Kingsley appears on other 
 pages of this work, and also some account of the 
 extensive building operations carried on by this firm. 
 
 Mr. Payant is a democrat, a member of the 
 Catholic Church, affiliates with the Knights of Col- 
 umbus, the Faribault Lodge No. 1166 of the Benevo- 
 lent and Protective Order of Elks, and with the 
 Knights of the Maccabees. Mr. Payant was married 
 July 25, 1899, at Faribault, to Miss Catherine Vogele, 
 daughter of Joseph Yogele, now deceased, who was a 
 farmer in Rice County. Mr. Payant and wife have 
 the following children : Margaret, who is in the 
 
 Faribault High School ; Florence, attending the grade 
 school; and Victor. The family home is at 400 
 East Division Street. 
 
 William A. Hunt, M. D. For more than thirty 
 years engaged in the practice of his profession at 
 Northfield, Doctor Hunt is an excellent type of the 
 modern and successful American physician. Through 
 his practice he has contributed a large amount of 
 individual service, at the same time has taken part 
 in the organized activities of the profession and 
 served in a professional capacity on several boards 
 and organizations, and in business affairs has exer- 
 cised a judgment that has brought liberal material 
 prosperity. 
 
 Probably, however, Doctor Hunt’s most conspicu- 
 ous service, and the one with which his name is 
 most identified in the minds of the people of North- 
 field, was his splendid administration of the city in 
 the office of mayor during the years 1910, 1911, 1912, 
 1913. It has been a persistent tradition and con- 
 stantly quoted argument in hundreds of American 
 communities that an efficient municipal government 
 could not be carried on without the revenues derived 
 from liquor license. This has been disputed both by 
 theory and practical example, but perhaps nowhere 
 so effectively as in the prosperous and progressive 
 little city of Northfield. Doctor Hunt became mayor 
 of Northfield in 1910. About six months after the 
 city council had voted out saloons from the city. 
 Thus Doctor Hunt entered upon his duties at a 
 critical time, when it was apparent that a strict 
 economy and the utmost efficiency in the use of 
 means were necessary in order to carry on the 
 government with the reduced revenues; Without 
 entering into all the details of the situation, it is 
 sufficient to state that not only did the City of North- 
 field conduct a wholesome municipal government 
 during the next four years and make notable progress 
 in municipal improvement, but at the same time with 
 an actually reduced cost to the taxpayers. The mu- 
 nicipal tax at Northfield in 1910 was 10.91 mills, in 
 1 91 1, 9.88 mills, and in 1912, 9.27 mills. Confidence 
 in the ability of the city to carry on its business at 
 reduced cost having been restored, during the third 
 -year of Mayor Hunt’s administration there was 
 undertaken a plan of important improvement, and 
 notwithstanding the increased expenditures on this 
 account the municipal tax in 1913 was only 10.82 
 
 mills, less than the tax for 1910. During the last 
 year in which the city had the revenues from saloons 
 the city tax was 11.37 mills. Among the noteworthy 
 improvements undertaken and carried out during 
 the last year of Doctor Hunt's term were the paving 
 of West Third Street, the improvement of the city 
 lighting service, and the new bridge, which was com- 
 pleted the following year. The record of the entire 
 administration is an important contribution to the 
 annals of municipal government in America, and a 
 salutary lesson to those who insist that liquor reve- 
 nues are necessary to a community's prosperity and 
 progress. 
 
 Dr. William A. Hunt was born in Northfield, Min- 
 nesota, January 2, 1858, and his loyalty is therefore 
 in part due to the fact that this city has been his 
 home from childhood. His father, Joseph A. Hunt, 
 was one of Northfield’s pioneer citizens. He was 
 born in Franklin County, Massachusetts, in 1823, and 
 died at Northfield in 1909. The Hunt family came 
 from England and settled in America before the 
 Revolution, having been founded by three brothers 
 who located in New England. Joseph A. Hunt came 
 out to Northfield in the spring of 1856, when Minne- 
 sota was a territory, and was one of the three mem- 
 bers of the first board of Supervisors of the Town 
 of Northfield. He took up a homestead, became a 
 pioneer farmer, and was long active in local affairs. 
 He was a member of the Congregational Church, 
 was affiliated with Social Lodge No. 41, A. F. & 
 A. M. He married Mandana L. Hicks, who was 
 born in Reedsboro, Vermont, in 1825, and died at 
 Northfield in 1901. Their oldest son, Hiram A., who 
 died in Seattle, Washington, in 1912, had an interest 
 in a fleet of twenty-two steamboats operating on the 
 Puget Sound. The one daughter, Olive, died in 
 infancy. 
 
 Dr. William A. Hunt grew up in Northfield, ac- 
 quired his education in the public schools, and after 
 finishing the high school course became a student 
 in Carlton College, graduating A. B. in the class of 
 1878. His studies in medicine were continued in the 
 University of Michigan, where he was graduated 
 M. D. in 1882. Doctor Hunt is a member of 
 the Phi Kappa Psi Greek Letter Fraternity. Though 
 the old saying that a “Prophet is not without honor 
 save in his own country” would apply most of all to 
 a young physician endeavoring to secure practice in 
 the community where he was born and reared, 
 Doctor Hunt quickly refuted this adage so far as 
 himself was concerned, and for many years has been 
 successfully engaged in his duties as a physician and 
 surgeon. Four times since leaving medical college 
 he has taken post-graduate courses, twice in New 
 York City and twice in Chicago. Doctor Hunt is 
 a republican in politics. Besides his service as 
 mayor he has been chiefly instrumental in a public 
 way in the upbuilding of the public school system of 
 Northfield. In 1892 he was elected a member of the 
 school board and in 1893 elected president to fill 
 an unexpired term caused by the death of Hon. O. 
 F. Perkins. For four consecutive terms served as 
 president, and centered his efforts on the develop- 
 ment of the high school department. He had the 
 satisfaction of seeing his efforts rewarded in the 
 increase of high school enrollment from 56 to 228. 
 Many friends and admirers who had followed Doc- 
 tor Hunt’s work in civic affairs, in promoting the 
 educational, civic and welfare of his city, were 
 loath to see his activity discontinued at the close 
 of his term as mayor, and as a result of their impor- 
 
1742 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 tunings Doctor Hunt became a candidate for the 
 State Legislature in 1914. Doctor Hunt is a mem- 
 ber of the county, state and American medical 
 organizations, and has a general medical and sur- 
 gical practice in Northfield and vicinity. His fra- 
 ternal relations are with Social Lodge No. 41, A. F. 
 & A. M., of which he has been worshipful master; 
 with Corinthian Chapter No. 33, R. A. M. ; with 
 Faribault Commandery No. 8, K. T. ; Osman Temple 
 of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine; with North- 
 field Lodge No. 50, I. O. O. F. ; with the Ancient 
 Order of United' Workmen ; the Brotherhood of 
 American Yeomen; with the Equitable Fraternal 
 Union, and the Degree of Honor. 
 
 Doctor Hunt was married in 1893 at Hillsdale to 
 Miss Florence M. Bishop, daughter of William 
 Bishop, now deceased, formerly a farmer at Hills- 
 dale. Doctor Hunt has three children : William B., 
 
 a student in Carlton College; Harold J., a member 
 of the Northfield High School class of 1915; and 
 Arthur B., now in the grade schools. Doctor Hunt 
 resides at 310 Union Street. 
 
 Wilbur F. Booth was born at Seymour, New 
 Haven County, Connecticut, August 22, 1861, and is 
 of New England ancestry and training. His parents, 
 Rev. Albert and Louisa T. Booth, still live in Con- 
 necticut at Bridgeport in Fairfield County. Rev. 
 Albert Booth celebrated his eighty-ninth birthday 
 August 22, 1914, that being also the birthday anni- 
 versary of his son, Judge Booth. Mrs. Louisa T. 
 Booth was eighty-five years of age on June 29, 1914. 
 Of their eight children two died in infancy, while 
 all the others grew to maturity. The only one now 
 deceased is Samuel A., who was a prominent Min- 
 nesota lawyer and associated with his brother, Judge 
 Booth, in the practice of law at Minneapolis for 
 some time prior to his death on December 3, 1898. 
 Rev. Albert Booth consecrated his life to the min- 
 istry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, but for sev- 
 eral years has lived retired and his career has been 
 a long and fruitful one. 
 
 Concerning his early life Judge Booth, at the time 
 of his appointment as United States District Judge, 
 replied to the queries of some newspaper men as 
 follows : “I remember father changed pastorates 
 
 about every three years, so I had no little variety 
 in my experience in attending country and village 
 schools, and later I continued my studies in the 
 Cheshire Military Academy at Cheshire, Connecti- 
 cut.” With this as his early preparation. Judge 
 Booth in the fall of 1880 entered Yale University, 
 where he graduated with the class of 1884. He con- 
 tinued at Yale in post-graduate studies for two years, 
 and in 1886 entered the Yale Law School, graduat- 
 ing in 1888 LL. B. His last four years in college 
 he defrayed his university expenses by teaching in 
 the Hopkins Grammar School at New Haven, and 
 was also employed as a private tutor. 
 
 Admitted to the Connecticut Bar in the fall of 
 1888, Judge Booth soon afterwards came to Min- 
 nesota, and was admitted to the bar of this state 
 early in 1889. After about one year of practice at 
 St. Paul, he removed to Minneapolis and became 
 assistant counsel of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Rail- 
 road Company, and occupied that position from 1890 
 to the spring of 1898. He then became associated 
 in general practice with his brother, Samuel A., and 
 the firm of Booth & Booth continued until it was 
 dissolved by the death of Samuel Booth. Judge 
 Booth then continued in individual practice until 
 
 the spring of 1904, when he became the partner of 
 Charles J. Tryon under the name Tryon & Booth. 
 This partnership continued until Judge Booth’s ele- 
 vation to the bench. 
 
 The late Gov. John A. Johnson appointed Judge 
 Booth to the district bench in Hennepin County May 
 20, 1909. It was one of a number of appointments 
 by Governor Johnson that met with general ap- 
 proval by all persons irrespective of politics. Judge 
 Booth quickly gained the thorough respect of both 
 the bench and bar. It was his record as a district 
 judge in the state courts that lent him the prestige 
 which called for higher honors when a vacancy oc- 
 curred in the United States District Court by the 
 death of Judge Charles A. Willard. There was then 
 a general movement among the members of the 
 bench and bar to have the name of Judge Booth 
 placed before the president. All of the judges of 
 the Hennepin County District Bench wrote letters 
 urging that he be appointed to the new and larger 
 field. 
 
 President Wilson recommended in April, 1914, to 
 the Senate of the United States the appointment of 
 Judge Booth to the bench of the Federal District 
 Court in Minneapolis, and the President’s nomination 
 was confirmed by the Senate May 4, 1914. His term 
 as judge of Hennepin County District Court would 
 have expired January 1, 1917. 
 
 Judge Booth has devoted a lifetime to his pro- 
 fession. In politics he has always been a democrat. 
 He is a member of the Minnesota State Bar Asso- 
 ciation and the American Bar Association. He is 
 a bachelor, has a wide circle of friends in Minnesota, 
 and is a member of the Minneapolis Club, the Uni- 
 versity Club, the Minneapolis Athletic Club, the 
 Minikahda Club, the Town and Country Club and 
 an honorary member of the Minneapolis Automobile 
 Club. 
 
 William John Yanz. There is no institution of 
 the state that needs finer qualifications in breadth of 
 character, sympathy and honest and disinterested 
 service than the position of general superintendent of 
 the State Insane Asylum. The asylum at Hastings, 
 Minnesota, is peculiarly fortunate in the possession 
 of such a superintendent as William John Yanz, who 
 has been identified with his present office for the 
 past thirteen years. Measured either by the strict 
 standards of the most advanced ideas in the manage- 
 ment of charitable institutions, or according to the 
 practical ideals of broad humanitarianism, the record 
 of Mr. Yanz has invited inspection, and it is agreed 
 his management and administration are competent, 
 efficient and kindly. 
 
 Supt. William John Yanz is a native of 
 Dakota County, born on a farm not far from Hast 
 ings, August 6, 1867. He represents one of the early 
 families that settled in this section of Minnesota., 
 His parents were Frank and Mary (Memmer) Yanz. 
 His father and grandfather were natives of Ger- 
 many, and the former was a child when the grand- 
 father settled in Pennsylvania. The mother was also- 
 born in Pennsylvania. After their marriage they 
 moved out to Indiana, spent several years as farmers 
 in that state, and in 1864 came as pioneers to the 
 Northwest and located at Miesville in Dakota County. 
 The father engaged in the grocery business at Hast- 
 ings, and was a successful merchant of that city until 
 1895. At that time he sold out his interests in 
 Minnesota, retired from active life, and subsequently 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1743 
 
 he and his wife moved to Lodi, California, where 
 they now reside. During his residence in Hastings 
 Frank Yanz was one of the leaders in commercial 
 and civic development of the community, and left as 
 a monument to his enterprise the opera house and 
 business block that now bears his name, and one of 
 the good residences of the city, while he also shared 
 in industrial enterprise. For one term he served as 
 mayor, and was an active man in democratic politics. 
 He and his family were members of the Catholic 
 Church. His record as a business man and citizen 
 is one that will be long remembered in Hastings. 
 There were three sons, of whom William J. was the 
 oldest. Jacob Yanz, born in Hastings, is now asso- 
 ciated with the Batcher Lumber & Mercantile Com- 
 pany at Staples, Minnesota. Frank Yanz, the young- 
 est, was born in Hastings and now lives with his 
 parents in Lodi, California. 
 
 William John Yanz, though born on a farm in 
 Dakota County, was reared in Hastings and acquired 
 his education in the parochial and public schools, 
 and afterwards at St. John’s University in Stearns 
 County. His first employment was as clerk in the 
 register of deeds office at Hastings under John 
 Heinen, the register. He also clerked in his father’s 
 store, and for seven years was cashier at the Gard- 
 ner Milling Company, and then continued the retail 
 grocery business of his father with his brother 
 Jacob in Hastings. In 1898, on account of the 
 financial panic, he closed out his business and became 
 clerk and bookkeeper for the State Insane Asylum 
 at Hastings. Three years later came his appoint- 
 ment as superintendent of the institution, and in its 
 management he has found the work for which he is 
 best fitted. His chief aim throughout the thirteen 
 years of his superintendency has been the comfort 
 of the 700 or more patients that are inmates of the 
 asylum, coming from all parts of the state. With a 
 natural endowment of tenderness and kindness, he 
 has a capacity for work equal to the bigness of his 
 heart, and it would be difficult to find a man whose 
 qualifications were more admirable for this distinctive 
 and important responsibility. 
 
 Mr. Yanz is a republican in politics, is a member 
 of the Catholic Church, affiliates with the Knights of 
 Columbus and the Catholic Order of. Foresters, and 
 is a charter member and director of the Hastings 
 Commercial Club. He was married at Hastings, 
 May 14, 1891, to Anna M. Volk, who was born in 
 St. Paul, a daughter , of Joseph H. and Mary M. 
 (Dreis) Volk. Her parents were natives of Germany, 
 and were pioneers of Minnesota, settling in 1858 at 
 Jordan in Scott County. When her father was 
 eighteen years of age he enlisted with a company of 
 Minnesota infantry and saw active service until the 
 close of the War of the Rebellion. Mr. Yanz and 
 wife are the parents of eleven children, all of whom 
 were born in Hastings. Mary B„ born May 1, 1893, 
 died June 19, 1909; Frank, born August 23, 1895; 
 Madeline F., born April 20, 1898; Norbert, born Sep- 
 tember 13, 1900; Martha, born December 11, 1901; 
 Agatha, born September 22, 1902 ; Henry, born 
 
 November 16, 1904, died March 5, 1905; Rita, born 
 February 9, 1906; Joseph, born August 27, 1908; 
 Dorothea and Roman, twins, born April 29, 1909, 
 the former dying in October, 1909. 
 
 Frank Leslie Bosworth. In any mention of the 
 men who in the past quarter of a century have been 
 most prominent in the upbuilding and development 
 of the wholesale trade interests of the Twin Cities, 
 
 the name of the late Frank L. Bosworth claims a 
 large share of attention. His was a record of re- 
 markable activity, a mingling of sound business prin- 
 ciples, shrewd judgment, and incessant energy, and 
 those qualities brought him to a well deserved leader- 
 ship among the wholesale jewelry men of the Middle 
 West and Northwest. 
 
 Frank Leslie Bosworth was born at Spring Hill, 
 Pennsylvania, October 28, 1859, and died at his home 
 in St. Paul, July 14, 1914, when in his fifty-fifth year. 
 His parents were Stewart and Sophia (Ackley) Bos- 
 worth. For a number of years his father was en- 
 gaged in manufacturing in Pennsylvania, and later 
 removed to a farm near Marshalltown, Iowa. Frank 
 L. Bosworth received his early education in the 
 public schools at Spring Hill, and was about seven- 
 teen years old when he accompanied his father to 
 Iowa. There his business training was continued 
 with experience as clerk in the hardware store of 
 J. C. Bullock at Marshalltown. After several years 
 of employment in 1889 he went to work on the road, 
 traveling for Coulter & Proctor, a firm of Illinois 
 stove manufacturers at Peoria. He spent about three 
 years covering the territory of Minnesota for this 
 firm, and then left the road to organize the New 
 Jersey Silverware Company of Minneapolis, a busi- 
 ness which occupied his time and attention for three 
 years. He then removed to Chicago and for a similar 
 time was connected with the S. & H. Trading Stamp 
 Company. In 1900 he organized the F. L. Bosworth 
 Wholesale Silverware Company in the Boston Block 
 in Minneapolis. In a short time the business had 
 outgrown its quarters, and was removed to 23-25. 
 North Fourth Street in Minneapolis, and some years 
 later continued expansion of the trade caused a 
 removal to 17-19 South Third Street, where the 
 company is still engaged in a large business, and is 
 one of the important corporations of the Twin Cities. 
 It is continued under the old name of Fi L. Bosworth 
 Company, of which the late Mr. Bosworth was secre- 
 tary, treasurer and manager. 
 
 Mr. Bosworth was a resident of St. Paul nearly 
 a quarter of a century, excepting the three years 
 spent in Chicago. Living in that city, he directed 
 his business affairs which were largely centered in 
 Minneapolis. As to his political manifestations he 
 was classified as an independent republican, but had 
 only a voter's part in politics. As a boy he was a 
 member of the Presbyterian Church and Mrs. Bos- 
 worth attends the Christian Science Church. He was 
 active in Masonry, belonging to Lodge No. 224, 
 Ark Chapter, No. 43, R. A. M., but beyond paying his. 
 dues and practicing the principles of the order he 
 was not a regular attendant at the lodge meetings. 
 
 In 1912 Mr. Bosworth took the leading part in the 
 organization and at the time of his death was presi- 
 dent of the Association of Wholesale Jewelers of 
 Minnesota, and also one of the directors. At Mar- 
 shalltown, Iowa, October 6, 1886, he married Louise 
 Colyer, a daughter of Henry and Emily (Goff) 
 Colyer. Her father, who is still living and a member 
 of the Bosworth household at St. Paul, was for 
 many years in business at Marshalltown, at first in 
 the confectionery business and later as a flour and 
 feed merchant. Pie removed to Minnesota about a 
 year before Mr. Bosworth did. Mr. and Mrs. Bos- 
 worth were the parents of two children : Lillian. 
 
 Marie and Dorothy Lorain, both of whom live with 
 their mother at 2312 Alden Avenue in St. Paul. 
 
 The late Mr. Bosworth was a man of many popular 
 and genial qualities, lived up to the strictest standards. 
 
1744 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 of business integrity, believed in providing every 
 comfort and every attainable luxury for his family, 
 and the tremendous energy with which he prose- 
 cuted his business affairs undoubtedly shortened his 
 life. His chief interest in outside recreations was 
 in the national pastime of baseball. His last illness 
 was of five months duration, he having taken sick on 
 February 14th and passing away July 14th. 
 
 Gustave M. Helland, M. D. One of the best 
 known physicians of Houston County is Doctor Hel- 
 land, whose work both in his profession and as a 
 citizen at Spring Grove has shown ability, training 
 and a public-spirited interest in the community and 
 its welfare. Doctor Helland was graduated in medi- 
 cine in 1908, and gives his time to a general practice. 
 
 Gustave M. Helland was born in Illinois, December 
 23, 1876, a son of Ole M. and Ragnhild (Ki. ingle' 
 Helland. Both parents were natives of Norway, the 
 father born in 1842 and died in 1912, and the mother 
 born in 1846 and still living. They were married 
 at Black Earth, Wisconsin. Ole M. Helland, who 
 came to America at the age of sixteen and settled 
 in Wisconsin, did his greatest service as an educator, 
 and especially among the Americans of foreign birth 
 like himself. He was well educated in the schools of 
 his native land, and after coming to this country 
 attended the Albion Academy in Wisconsin, where 
 one of his classmates was the distinguished Minne- 
 sotan, Knute Nelson. Four years after his arrival 
 in Wisconsin he began teaching in the English 
 schools, and that was his vocation most of his active 
 career. While in Dane County, Wisconsin, he was 
 elected on the republican ticket to the office of county 
 treasurer, but his ardent support of the prohibition 
 cause subsequently caused him to take his place in 
 the prohibition party. He exercised a worthy influ- 
 ence in behalf of temperance, and as an educator 
 many young people of foreign origin were trained 
 for usefulness and effectiveness under his instruc- 
 tion. He was very active in the Lutheran Church, 
 and in various ways took an official part. Most of 
 his active life was spent near Black Earth, Wisconsin, 
 where he was held in especial esteem, while his last 
 days were passed at Mount IToreb. His wife was a 
 daughter of Anners Kringle, who came from Norway 
 and lived many years in Wisconsin. Doctor Helland 
 was the seventh in a family of thirteen children, 
 eleven of them still living. 
 
 He had his early education from the country 
 schools of Vermont Township, Wisconsin, and the 
 high school at Black Earth. At the age of sixteen he 
 went to Chicago intending to study pharmacy, at- 
 tended classes and at the same time worked in a drug 
 store and later as prescription clerk, and finally re- 
 turned to Wisconsin and started a drug store. About 
 that time his plan was formed to study medicine, 
 which he began while in the drug business, and in 
 1908 graduatedaM. D. from the medical department 
 of Marquette University at Milwaukee. Doctor Hel- 
 land practiced one year at Mount Horeb and one 
 year at Alban}', and then, on January 4, 1910, arrived 
 at Spring Grove. A large and valuable practice has 
 since rewarded his efforts in this community. 
 
 Doctor Helland is a member of the examining 
 board of pensions, and is the president of the Spring 
 Grove School Board. He takes much interest in the 
 various medical societies, having membership in the 
 Houston and Fillmore Counties Medical Society, the 
 Southern Minnesota and the Minnesota State Medical 
 Society, and the American Medical Association. In 
 
 politics he is a democrat, a member of the Lutheran 
 Church, and has affiliations with the Masons and the 
 Modern Woodmen of America. Doctor Helland was 
 married in July, 1895, to Miss Ada Claire Campbell, 
 of Norwood, Illinois. Five children have been born 
 to them, and the four living are : Gynith, aged 
 
 fifteen; Virginia, aged thirteen.; Hope, eleven; and 
 Kenneth, nine, all of them in school. 
 
 Aaron Franklin Schmitt, M. D. Among the 
 men of large ability and splendid professional and 
 intellectual attainments who have served to give the 
 Minnesota medical fraternity a reputation second to 
 none among all the states of the Union, Dr. A. F. 
 Schmitt of Mankato deserves mention as one who 
 has achieved special honors in the field of surgery. 
 In the estimation of those best qualified to judge he 
 is one of the most skilled practitioners in the state, 
 and exemplifies the American spirit of energy and 
 progressiveness with the Old World spirit of 
 thoroughness. 
 
 Aaron Franklin Schmitt was born at New Trier, 
 Dakota County, Minnesota, February 12, 1870, a son 
 of John and Maria C. (Lipp) Schmitt. His grand- 
 father, Christian Schmitt, came from Alsace Lorraine 
 to the United States during the decade of the ’ 3 ° s j 
 and died in Dodge County, Minnesota. Doctor 
 Schmitt’s father was born in Pennsylvania in 1831, 
 moved out to Iowa in 1864, and having been educated 
 for the ministry was for many years a prominent 
 worker in the German Evangelical Church. Because 
 of his vocation he did not serve in the Civil war, 
 but one of his brothers, George, met a soldier’s death 
 on the battlefield while fighting for the Union cause. 
 Rev. John Schmitt was a devout and zealous man, 
 held some of the best churches in Minnesota, to 
 which state he removed about 1877, and died while 
 still at his work at Waseca in 1889. He was a 
 republican in politics. Rev. John Schmitt was mar- 
 ried near New Ulm, Minnesota, to Maria C. Lipp, 
 who was born at Hohenstaufen, Germany, in 1843, 
 daughter of Ulrich Lipp, who was a sheep raiser in 
 Germany, but on coming to the United States became 
 a farmer, first in Wisconsin and later at New Ulm, 
 Minnesota, to which place he had gone as a pioneer, 
 making the journey with ox team. Mrs. John 
 Schmitt, who is still living, was the mother of seven 
 children : George W., who holds the chair of 
 
 French and German at Lake Forest University, Illi- 
 nois, and is also owner of a farm in Wisconsin; 
 Harrison L., a well known lawyer at Mankato ; Mary, 
 who married Mr. Ivienholtz, and lives on a farm in 
 Wisconsin ; Dr. Aaron F. ; Dr. Samuel C., of Min- 
 neapolis ; John W., an attorney associated with his 
 brother Harrison ; and Lillian, wife of Mr. Bailey, 
 assistant superintendent of schools at Pittsburg, 
 Pennsylvania. 
 
 Aaron Franklin Schmitt spent his early life in 
 several different towns in Minnesota, where his 
 father was located as a minister, was educated in the 
 common schools, graduated from the high school at 
 Mankato in 1891, and during the following year was 
 principal of the Franklin School in Mankato. He 
 was superintendent of city schools at Jackson, Min- 
 nesota, from 1892 to 1898, and for about six years 
 was an instructor in the State Teachers’ Training 
 School. His work as a teacher, important though it 
 was, was only a stepping stone to his chosen field 
 of work. Doctor Schmitt spent two years as a 
 student of the medical science in the University of 
 Minnesota, and followed that with two years of 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1745 
 
 clinical work in the Rush Medical College, of the 
 University of Chicago. He received his degree M. D. 
 from Rush College in June, 1902, and spent the 
 following three years in general practice at Wells, 
 Minnesota. Since 1905 Doctor Schmitt has been 
 located at Mankato, where as a surgeon he ranks 
 second to none and has practically all his profes- 
 sional time engaged in hospital work. During 1910 
 he spent six months abroad in clinical work in 
 Berlin, Vienna, Berne, Switzerland, and in London. 
 As a surgeon he is on the staff of both the St. Joseph 
 and the Emanuel hospitals of Mankato. 
 
 Doctor Schmitt was married in 1895 to Elizabeth 
 Baugerter of Mankato. Her father, Benedict 
 Baugerter, was a native of Berne, Switzerland, and 
 came to Mankato in 1856, as one of the pioneers. He 
 was successful as a merchant and shoe dealer. 
 Doctor Schmitt and wife are the parents of three 
 children: Margaret Elizabeth, born June 21, 1897; 
 
 Mertyce Marie, born in 1903 ; and Genevieve 
 Catherine, born in 1905. The family are members 
 of the Presbyterian Church. 
 
 Doctor Schmitt is affiliated with Lodge No. 12 of 
 the Masonic fraternity, also with the Knights 
 Templar Commandery and with Osman Temple of 
 the Mystic Shrine. In politics he is a republican. 
 He is a member of the county, the Southern Minne- 
 sota and the state societies and of the American 
 Medical Association, and has taken much interest 
 in the work of medical organizations, and has fre- 
 quently contributed to the discussions and the litera- 
 ture, largely the results of observation and experi- 
 ence in his own work as surgeon. 
 
 John A. Anderson. One of the leading manu- 
 facturing enterprises of Willmar, Minnesota, is the 
 Willmar Tractor Company, an industry which has 
 been built up through the mechanical genius, prgan- 
 izing power and business ability of its founder, presi- 
 dent and general manager, John A. Anderson. While 
 this concern has been located at Willmar only since 
 1914, it has already contributed greatly to the prestige 
 of this city as a center of manufacturing activity, 
 while its proprietor has shown himself a substantial, 
 solid business man who will assist other public- 
 spirited men in the attainment of civic and business 
 advancement. 
 
 John A. Anderson was born at Dalsland, Sweden, 
 February 26, 1858, a son of Andrew and Christina 
 (Johnson) Anderson. His father was born Sep- 
 tember 29, 1833, in Sweden, and his mother, Decem- 
 ber 15, 1837, and they were married in their native 
 land in 1857. They immigrated to the United States 
 in 1883, settling in Stillwater, Minnesota, where the 
 father secured employment in the thresher works 
 and continued to be so engaged until moving to 
 St. Paul. There he rounded out a long, useful and 
 successful career, and died March 1, 1914, the mother 
 having passed away September 27, 1906. Mr. Ander- 
 son was a republican in his political views, and he 
 and Mrs. Anderson were faithful members of the 
 Lutheran Church, which they joined in childhood 
 and in which they were always active workers. They 
 were the parents of five children, of whom three 
 are still living: John A., of this notice; Alex T., a 
 
 foreman engaged in state business at Stillwater, Min- 
 nesota; and Freda, who is the wife of Carl Olson, 
 a patternmaker of St. Paul. 
 
 John A. Anderson received his early education in 
 the public schools of his native land, and this was 
 subsequently supplemented after he came to the 
 
 United States by attendance at the schools of 
 Houston County, Minnesota, where he gained a 
 knowledge of the English language. He entered 
 upon his career as a worker in. the shops at Still- 
 water, where he was brought into daily contact with 
 the manufacture of threshing machinery, and there, 
 probably, were born the ideas which later developed 
 into the foundation of his present extensive business. 
 He remained in the shops at Stillwater from 1881 
 until 1890, and in the latter year accepted an offer 
 from the Duluth Iron Shop, where for two years 
 he was engaged in the building of mining machinery. 
 Following this he went to Marinette, Wisconsin, 
 entering the Marinette Iron Works, and then to 
 Duluth, where he erected some massive mining 
 machinery, including a number of engines for cus- 
 tomers in England, one piece of work in particular 
 being a masterly example of construction, an engine 
 of 2^600 horsepower. Following this experience came 
 the manufacture of waterworks machinery in the 
 shops, at Duluth, and Mr. Anderson then returned 
 to Stillwater to take charge of the shops. At that 
 time the system of employing convict labor was 
 eliminated, and Mr. Anderson started the plant work- 
 ing independently, remaining there from 1897 until 
 1909. In the latter year he went to St. Paul and 
 entered the threshing machine and tractor business, 
 being associated with the Russell Grader Company 
 and the Hackney Manufacturing Company. Event- 
 ually Mr. Anderson devised an improved tractor of 
 his own, on which he has patents in the United 
 States and Canada, and began the manufacture of 
 this superior article on his own account. He did 
 very well at St. Paul and this encouraged him to 
 enlarge his business and remove his plant to Willmar, 
 where he was offered better facilities for manufacture 
 and for the transportation of his product. This now 
 finds a ready and constant market throughout the 
 West, and the sales are increasing annually. The 
 Willmar Tractor Company is capitalized at $500,000, 
 with John A. Anderson as president and general 
 manager and Andrew Bjorsell, another substantial 
 business man of Willmar, as secretary and treasurer. 
 
 While essentially a business man, Mr. Anderson 
 has taken a keen interest in political affairs and has 
 been an active and influential worker in the ranks 
 of the republican party. He has various fraternal 
 and social connections, and is personally as popular 
 as he is highly respected in business circles. With 
 his family he attends the Lutheran Mission Church, 
 in the work of which he has taken a helpful part. 
 
 Mr. Anderson was married in 1881 to Miss 
 Andrena Hanson of Christiana, Norway, and to this 
 union there have come ten children, born as follows : 
 Hilda Mary, 1882 ; Alfred W., 1885, and now fore- 
 man of his father's factory; Jennie, 1887; Agnes, 
 1889; Nellie, 1890; Dagmar, 1893; Stanley, 1897; 
 Conrad, 1901 ; Florence, 1903 ; and Gordon, 1905. 
 
 William W. Mayo, M. D. The name of Dr. Wil- 
 liam W. Mayo is found indelibly inscribed high on 
 the roster of those who have achieved distinction in 
 medical science in Minnesota. His long and faithful 
 devotion to the highest tenets of his calling, his con- 
 tribution to its advancement and development, and 
 the honored positions to which he was called by his 
 fellow practitioners, make his name synonymous with 
 all that is best in medical science. He was born 
 May 31, 1819, in Lancashire. England, and was a son 
 of James and Ann (Bousal) Mayo, members of an 
 old and honored English family whose ancestry is 
 
1746 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 traced back to the year 1527. James Mayo, his 
 father, followed the sea for many years as a voca- 
 tion, with the rank of captain. 
 
 During the boyljood days of Dr. William , W. 
 Mayo occurred the persecution of those who had 
 assisted or sympathized with Napoleon, and the 
 doctor’s instructor in Greek and Latin was an ex- 
 patriated French nobleman. He was a pupil and 
 protege of the famous physicist, John Dalton, un- 
 der whose direction he was trained as a physicist 
 and chemist in Manchester, England. 
 
 He emigrated to New York City in 1845, where 
 he worked for two years as a chemist. In 1847 he 
 went to Lafayette, Indiana, where he began the 
 study of medicine and where he continued its prac- 
 tice with his preceptor, Doctor Deming, of Lafay- 
 ette, after graduating from the medical department 
 of the University of Missouri in 1854. At the Uni- 
 versity of Missouri he was a pupil of the great 
 surgeon, Hodges. In the fall of 1854, while suffer- 
 ing from fever and ague, he hitched a team to his 
 buggy and left his home with the intention of trav- 
 eling until his malady was cured. On arriving at 
 Galena, Illinois, he left his horse and buggy and re- 
 turned to Lafayette for his family and household 
 effects, and upon his return to Galena boarded a 
 boat for St. Paul. While on this vessel he success- 
 fully treated several cases of Asiatic cholera, which 
 was so prevalent during that year. In January, 1855, 
 leaving his family at St. Paul, Doctor Mayo, accom- 
 panied by a companion, traveled with a pack on his 
 back to Duluth, filed on a claim in St. Louis County, 
 on the present site of West Duluth. While there he 
 was made chairman of the first board of county com- 
 missioners. In the spring of 1856 he returned to 
 St. Paul and resided in Nicollet County until 1859, 
 when he moved to LeSueur. During the Sioux In- 
 dian war he was a surgeon at New Ulm, and 
 remained there through the great Indian Massacre 
 of 1862. In the following year he was made provost 
 surgeon of Southern Minnesota and secured his 
 first view of Rochester while engaged in the recruit- 
 ing services. Being favorably impressed with the 
 locality, in 1863 he settled in Rochester where he 
 continued to practice medicine until his retirement. 
 
 During the winter of 1870-71, Doctor Mayo at- 
 tended Bellevue Medical College, New York, taking 
 there an addendum degree. Pie was elected presi- 
 dent of the Minnesota Medical Society in 1873. In 
 1881 he became the organizer of the Olmsted County 
 Medical Society, with which he continued to be 
 identified during the remainder of his life. For 
 fifty years he held membership in the American 
 Medical Association, and at various times was hon- 
 ored by the profession because of his noteworthy 
 accomplishments and his frequent contributions to 
 medical science. He was liberal in his religious 
 views, but was a Christian and generously supported 
 religious and charitable institutions. In politics a 
 democrat, Doctor Mayo was for some years promi- 
 nent in public affairs, and served several times as 
 mayor of Rochester, and two terms as state sena- 
 tor. His life was a useful and active one, and was 
 crowned with success in his beloved calling and the 
 love and reverence of those who had occasion to 
 come in contact with him' in any way. 
 
 In 1851 Doctor Mayo was married to Miss Louise 
 A. Wright, of Scotch descent, and they became the 
 parents of six children, as follows : Gertrude, who 
 is now Mrs. D. M. Berkman ; Dr. William J. and 
 Dr. Charles H., distinguished physicians of Roches- 
 
 ter; Phoebe, who died in 1885; and two children 
 who died in infancy. 
 
 William J. Mayo, M. D. In the annals of med- 
 ical science in Minnesota, there is probably no name 
 better known than that of Mayo. Members of this 
 family have been engaged in practice here for more 
 than half a century, and through their high accom- 
 plishments and distinguished abilities have been ele- 
 vated to the highest positions in the profession. 
 
 William J. Mayo, M. D., of Rochester, is ranked 
 among the leading surgeons of the world, and evi- 
 dence of the high esteem in which he is held by 
 members of the calling is found in the fact that 
 he has been granted the highest honors that may 
 be conferred upon a member of his profession: the 
 presidency of the Minnesota State Medical Society 
 in 1895, the presidency of the American Medical 
 Association in 1905, the presidency of the Society 
 of Clinical Surgery in 1911, and the presidency of 
 the American Surgical Association in 1913. 
 
 Doctor Mayo was born at Le Sueur, Minnesota, 
 June 29, 1861, a son of the late distinguished Dr. Wil- 
 liam W. Mayo. He came to Rochester with his fa- 
 ther's family as a child of two years. He early adopt- 
 ed the profession of medicine, graduating from the 
 University of Michigan in 1883. For more than 
 thirty years he has been engaged in the practice of 
 surgery at St. Mary's Hospital, Rochester, and his 
 advancement has been commensurate with his high 
 attainments and accomplishments. 
 
 Doctor Mayo continues to carry on his large prac- 
 tice and to make extensive investigations which have 
 contributed materially to the advancement of sur- 
 gery. He holds membership in the various organiza- 
 tions of his calling, is frequently called into consul- 
 tation by his brother practitioners, and by them 
 has been honored on numerous occasions. Both 
 as a physician and citizen he has capably discharged 
 every duty devolving upon him, and it is safe to- 
 say that Rochester has no more distinguished resi- 
 dent. 
 
 November 20, 1884, Doctor Mayo was married to 
 Miss Hattie May, daughter of Eleazer Damon, of 
 Rochester, Minnesota. They have two daughters, 
 Mrs. Carrie I. Mayo Balfour and Miss Phoebe C. 
 Mayo. 
 
 Doctor Mayo had conferred upon him the follow- 
 ing degrees: M. D., University of Michigan, 1883; 
 A. M., University of Michigan, 1889; F. R. C. S., 
 University of Edinburgh, 1905; LL. D., University 
 of Toronto, 1906; LL. D., University of Maryland, 
 1907; D. Sc., University of Michigan, 1908; D. Sc., 
 University of Columbia, 1910; LL. D., University 
 of Pennsylvania, 1912; F. R. C. S., Royal College of 
 Surgeons of England, 1913; F. A. C. S., American 
 College of Surgeons, 1913. 
 
 He is a member of the following learned bodies: 
 American Medical Association, its president in 
 1903-06; American Surgical Association, its president 
 in 19x3-14 ; Society of Clinical Surgery, its presi- 
 dent in 1911-12; Minnesota State Medical Society, its 
 president in 1895-96; Clinical Congress of Surgeons 
 of North America; Royal College of Surgeons of 
 Scotland; Royal College of Surgeons of England; 
 Societe de Chirurgie de Paris; Academie de Mede- 
 cine de Paris, corresponding member in 1913 ; Amer- 
 ican College of Surgeons; board of regents of the- 
 LTniversity of Minnesota. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1747 
 
 Charles H. Mayo, M. D., youngest son of William 
 Worrel and Louise Abigail' (Wright) Mayo, and 
 brother of William J. Mayo, was born in Rochester, 
 July 19, i 8£>5» and here secured his primary educa- 
 tion in the graded and high schools. He graduated 
 in medicine from the Chicago Medical College in 
 1888, and in that same year entered practice at 
 Rochester where he soon came to be numbered 
 among the leading members of his profession. 
 
 In 1902 Dr. Charles H. Mayo received the hon- 
 orary degree of Master of Arts from Northwest- 
 ern University and, in 1909, Doctor of Laws from the 
 University of Maryland. He was one of the foun- 
 ders of the American College of Surgeons, and was 
 made regent of that society in 1913. 
 
 Dr. Charles H. Mayo is a most skillful and versa- 
 tile surgeon, operating with equal facility on every 
 part of the body. A great European surgeon, wit- 
 nessing his operations, said: “He has the soul and 
 the hand of the artist.” He has made many original 
 contributions to surgery and has developed new oper- 
 ations for a number of conditions. 
 
 In 1893 Dr. Charles H. Mayo married Miss Edith 
 Graham, of Rochester, Minnesota, and to them seven 
 children have been born : Dorothy, Charles, Edith, 
 Joseph, Louise, Rachel and Esther. 
 
 Dr. Charles H. Mayo has had conferred upon him 
 the following degrees: M. D., Northwestern Uni- 
 versity, 1888; A. M., Northwestern LTniversity, 1902; 
 LL. D., University of Maryland, 1909; F. A. C. S., 
 American College of Surgeons, 1913. 
 
 He is a member of the following societies : Amer- 
 ican Medical Association, Section on Surgery, its 
 president in 1912 ; Minnesota State Medical So- 
 ciety, its president in 1903; Western Surgical & 
 Gynecological Society, its president in 1904-05 ; Inter- 
 national Congress on Tuberculosis, Section on 
 Surgery, its president in 1908-09; American College 
 of Surgeons, its regent in 1913 ; Clinical Congress 
 of Surgeons of North America, its president in 
 1914-15 ; Southern Surgical & Gynecological Society; 
 American Association of Railway Surgeons. 
 
 Aaron E. Henslin, M. D., C. M. As a physician 
 and surgeon no member' of the profession in Mower 
 County has a better reputation and larger practice 
 and has given abler services to that community than 
 Doctor Henslin. 
 
 Doctor Henslin was born at Racine in Mower 
 County, Minnesota, June 20, 1865. His parents were 
 Frederick and Ernestine (Weckworth) Henslin. 
 They were both natives of Germany, the father 
 born in 1830 and the mother in 1841. The father 
 died in 1904 and the mother in 1891. Fred- 
 erick Henslin, Doctor Henslin’s father, came to this 
 country at the age of twenty, and worked on a rail- 
 road to pay for his passage. He scent some time 
 in Wisconsin, was employed at different lines of 
 work, and finally made enough to buy a sma'l farm. 
 In 1858 Frederick Henslin married at Princeton. 
 Wisconsin, and in the same year brought his bride 
 to Minnesota, locating at Brownsdale. In 1863 he 
 moved to Racine and spent his last 3'ears at Sargent. 
 He was a successful farmer, and about igoo retired 
 from business. He was a member of the Evangelical 
 Association and in politics a republican. He and his 
 wife were the parents of nine children, and the seven 
 now living are : Mrs. Christina Pfuhl, Dr. Aaron E., 
 Mrs. Emma Rein, Mrs. Sarah Davis, Julius, Mrs. 
 Bertha Schroder, and Miss Marie. 
 
 Doctor Henslin acquired his early education while 
 living on the farm, in the district schools and in 
 the Spring Valley High Schdol. For three years 
 he was engaged in teaching. In 1888 Doctor Henslin 
 entered the medical college at Keokuk, Iowa, gradu- 
 ating in 1891. During the following year he took 
 post-graduate work at Rush Medical College in 
 Chicago,' in 1893 took another course in the Chicago 
 Policlinic, and in 1894 and 1895 spent a year in post- 
 graduate work at Milwaukee. Doctor Henslin in 
 1891 located at Adams, and from there moved to 
 Leroy. For a number of years he has enjoyed a 
 large and extended practice. He is a member of the 
 county and state medical societies and the Ameri- 
 can Medical Association, also of the Austin Flint 
 Cedar Valley Medical Society in Iowa, and has 
 served as president of his county society. At the 
 present time he is serving as coroner of Mower 
 County. 
 
 On June 1, 1895, Doctor Henslin married Mary 
 L. Pinckney, daughter of James and Mary (Wood) 
 Pinckney. Her parents came from New York and 
 settled in Hamilton, Fillmore County, Minnesota. 
 Doctor Henslin and wife have one living child. 
 Merrill Edgar, now four years of age. The doctor 
 is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- 
 lows, the Modern Woodmen of America, and the 
 Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and has 
 passed through all the chairs of the Odd Fellows 
 Lodge and is past chief patriarch. He was the 
 organized of the Lero}'- Telephone Comparn^, and 
 has served as its treasurer and is still owner of 
 considerable stock. Outside of his present office he 
 has also served on the town council. 
 
 Alva R. Hunt. During his twenty-five years of 
 active membership in the Minnesota bar, Alva R. 
 Hunt has enjoyed not only the usual successes of 
 a lawyer of first-rate ability, but is known to the 
 profession in general through his contributions as a 
 legal author. 
 
 He was born in 1862 in Coles County, Illinois, a 
 son of John and Eliza J. (Gowin) Hunt. His 
 father was born in 1837 in Ohio and died in Illinois 
 in 1885. after a successful career as a merchant. 
 He was a democrat in politics. The mother was 
 born in North Carolina in 1837 and died in 1886. 
 The two living children are Alva R. and Orris, the 
 latter a resident of California. 
 
 Mr. Hunt grew up in Coles County, was gradu- 
 ated from high school in 1881. and later for one 
 year was a student in Lee’s Academy at Loxa in 
 Coles County. Coming out to Minnesota in rS86, 
 at Benson he took up the study of law with S. H. 
 Hudson. Later for one year he was in the office 
 of the late T. F. Young. In the spring of 1889 he 
 was admitted to the bar at Montevideo, being ex- 
 amined in open court before the Hon. C. L. Brown. 
 In July of the same year he opened a law office in 
 Montevideo, but in the fall of 1890 entered the law 
 department of the University of Minnesota, where 
 his* previous reading and experience enab'ed him 
 to finish the law course and to graduate LL. B. in 
 1891. Following his graduation Mr. Hunt was for 
 eight years in practice at St. Paul, hut in the spring 
 of 1899 located at Litchfield in Meeker County. For 
 six terms he filled the office of city attorney at 
 Litchfield. 
 
 His contributions to legal literature have been co- 
 incident with his residence at Litchfield. All his 
 spare time has been devoted to study and writing 
 
1748 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 on legal subjects. He is the author of “Hunt on 
 Tender, Bringing Money into Court and Offer of 
 Judgment, - ' published' in 1904; of “Accord and Sat- 
 isfaction Compromise and Composition at Common 
 Law,” published in 1912. He is one of the con- 
 tributors to the “Cyc,” the well known encyclopedia 
 of law and procedure. 
 
 At St. Paul, in 1895, Mr. Hunt married Alice M. 
 Adams, a native of New Brunswick, Canada. They 
 are the parents of two children: John Roscoe, born 
 in 1899, and Phillip Douglas, born in 1901, both stu- 
 dents in the high school. 
 
 Claus O. Giere. Though he claims the Badger 
 State as the place of his nativity, Mr. Giere gives, 
 through conviction and long association, the greater 
 loyalty to Minnesota, which has been his home since 
 boyhood, his parents having been sterling pioneers 
 of this state, as were they also representatives of 
 the pioneer element in Wisconsin. He whose name 
 initiates this review is now engaged in the real- 
 estate business, with residence and office headquar- 
 ters in the Village of Hayfield, Dodge County, and 
 he gives special attention to the handling of farm 
 lands, both in Minnesota and Wisconsin. He is one 
 of the substantial business men and highly esteemed 
 citizens of Dodge County and is fully entitled to 
 specific recognition in this history. 
 
 Mr. Giere was born in Dane County, Wisconsin, 
 on the 1 1 th of April, 1862, his native county being 
 one of the most opulent and picturesque in the en- 
 tire state and within its borders being situated the 
 fair City of Madison, capital of Wisconsin and seat 
 of the great university of the state. Mr. Giere is a 
 son of Ole Nelson and Inger (Himley) Giere, both 
 natives of Norway, where the former was born in 
 1824 and the latter in 1828, their marriage having 
 been solemnized in Dane County, Wisconsin, in 1850. 
 Ole N. Giere was a son of Nels Giere, and the family 
 immigrated to America in 1846, establishing a home 
 in Dane County, Wisconsin, this being the year that 
 state was admitted to the Union. Ole N. Giere devel- 
 oped one of the productive pioneer farms in Dane 
 County and there operated one of the first flour mills 
 in that section of the state. He operated this mill 
 three years and thereafter gave his attention to the 
 management of his farm until 1868, when he sold the 
 property and came to Minnesota with his family, his 
 venerable father accompanying him and passing the 
 residue of his life in this state. Mr. Giere obtained 
 a tract of land in Olmsted County and developed one 
 of the model farms of the county, this homestead 
 continuing to be his place of residence until his death, 
 which occurred in the year 1893, his venerable widow 
 being still a resident of the same county. She is a 
 daughter of Claus Himley, who likewise immigrated 
 from Norway and became a pioneer of Wisconsin, 
 where he passed the remainder of his life. The sub- 
 ject of this sketch was fifth in order of birth in a 
 family of ten children, all of whom are living except 
 one. The father was a man of sterling character 
 and his life was marked by industry and unassum- 
 ing loyalty to the land of his adoption, his political 
 support having been given to the republican party 
 and his religious faith having been that of the Lu- 
 theran Church, of which his widow also is a devout 
 member. 
 
 Claus O. Giere was a lad of about six years at 
 the time of the family removal to Minnesota and 
 he was reared to adult age on the old homestead 
 farm, the while he availed himself of the advantages 
 
 of the public schools of the vicinity. As a young man 
 he engaged in farming on his own responsibility, 
 and for a long period of years he was numbered 
 among the enterprising and successful agriculturists 
 and stock-growers of Dodge County. He continued 
 his operations in these lines until 1892, when he 
 established his residence in the Village of Hayfield 
 and engaged in the hardware and agricultural-imple- 
 ment business. He built up a substantial and repre- 
 sentative trade and continued to give it his atten- 
 tion for a decade, at the expiration of which, in 1912, 
 he sold his stock and business. In the spring of 
 1914 he instituted his active operations in the buy- 
 ing and selling of real estate, and in this field of 
 enterprise he is meeting with distinctive success, es- 
 pecially in the handling of farm lands, his valuation 
 of which is recognized as authoritative. He is the 
 owntr of farm lands not only in Minnesota, but 
 also in Wisconsin and North Dakota. 
 
 Mr. Giere is aligned as a loyal supporter of the 
 cause of the republican party, and while he has 
 always shown vital interest in public affairs, espe- 
 cially those of a local order, he has manifested no 
 ambition for official preferment. Both he and his 
 wife are zealous members of the Lutheran Church. 
 
 In the year 1889 Mr. Giere wedded Miss Carolena 
 Fingerson, whose parents came to America from 
 Norway. The two children of this union are Cyril, 
 who is attending a commercial college at the time 
 of this writing, in 1914, and Esther, who is a student 
 in the Hayfield High School. 
 
 Thomas Tollefson. Most thoroughly have the 
 finest of the Scandinavian traditions and sentiments 
 been assimilated in the complex social fabric of the 
 United States, which has had much to gain and noth- 
 ing to lose through the winning of its sturdy ele- 
 ment of citizenship from the far Norseland. He 
 whose name introduces this review was an infant 
 at the time of his parents’ immigration from Nor- 
 way to the United States, and they became pioneers 
 of Minnesota, where they passed the remainder of 
 their lives and proved worthy exemplars of the 
 best in the Scandinavian contingent that has figured 
 prominently and effectively in the development and 
 progress of the various states of the great North- 
 west. Thomas Tollefson has had secure status as 
 one of the representative agriculturists and influential 
 citizens of Dodge County, is serving, in 1914, his sec- 
 ond term as mayor of West Concord, in which 
 village he has resided since his retirement from his 
 farm, and further evidence of his popularity in his 
 home community has been shown in the loyal sup- 
 port given him in his candidacy for member of the 
 State Legislature. 
 
 Mr. Tollefson was born in Norway, on the 17th 
 of March, 1852, and in the following year his par- 
 ents immigrated to America and established their 
 residence in Goodhue County, Minnesota. He is a 
 son of Olef and Olina (Olson) Tollefson, repre- 
 sentatives of sterling old families of Norway, where 
 the father was born in the year 1824 and the mother 
 in 1827. In his native land Olef Tollefson learned 
 the blacksmith trade, which he there followed as a 
 vocation until he came to the United States. Upon 
 coming to Minnesota he numbered himself among 
 the pioneer settlers of Goodhue County, where he 
 entered a pre-emption claim to Government land. He 
 instituted, with all of energy and industry, the im- 
 provement of his farm, but he was not spared to 
 see the fruition of his efforts, as he was called from 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1749 
 
 the stage of life's mortal endeavors about five years 
 after he had established his home in Minnesota. His 
 death occurred in 1863 and his wife survived him by 
 more than forty years, she having been summoned 
 to the life eternal in 1906 and both having been 
 devoted communicants of the Lutheran Church. Of 
 the six children, Thomas, of this review, is the 
 oldest of the four surviving; Betsey is the wife of 
 John Erickson and they reside in North Dakota; 
 Mrs. Geo. Lyon is a resident of Faribault, Minne- 
 sota; Olef maintains his home at Thief River Falls, 
 this state. 
 
 Thomas Tollefson was reared to adult age in 
 Goodhue County and there availed himself of the 
 advantages of the public schools, thus laying a firm 
 foundation for the substantial superstructure of lib- 
 eral education that he has developed through self- 
 application and association with the practical affairs 
 of life. He was a mere boy at the time of his 
 father’s death and his earliest experiences were in 
 connection with the farm and its manifold activities. 
 It was thus but natural that in working out his plans 
 for the winning of success and independence he 
 should continue to pay allegiance to the great basic 
 industry of agriculture, in connection with which he 
 has long been known as one of the representative 
 farmers and stock-growers of Dodge 'County, where 
 he still owns a well improved and valuable farm of 
 160 acres, though he has maintained his residence 
 in the Village of West Concord since 1896. At West 
 Concord he erected an excellent cold-storage plant, 
 but he disposed of the same after having conducted 
 a successful business for four years. 
 
 Mr. Tollefson has shown a broad-minded and loyal 
 interest in public affairs of a local order and has 
 been a zealous supporter of the cause of the repub- 
 lican party. He has given admirable service as a 
 member of the Board of Supervisors of Ellington 
 Township, and was for some time its chairman. 
 Vitally interested in all that concerns the welfare of 
 his home village, Mr. Tollefson has given a most 
 effective administration as head of the municipal 
 government, his second term as mayor of West Con- 
 cord expiring in 1915. He was the republican can- 
 didate for representative of Dodge County in the 
 State Legislature in the election of 1912, and though 
 political conditions were of unusual order during 
 the national campaign of that year and party lines 
 were broken in Minnesota as elsewhere, Mr. Tollef- 
 son was defeated by only sixteen votes. He appeared 
 as candidate for the same office in the election of 
 November, 1914. Mr. Tollefson is actively affiliated 
 with both the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and 
 the Ancient Order of United Workmen, in each of 
 which he has held the highest official preferments, 
 and both he and his wife are communicants of the 
 Protestant Episcopal Church. 
 
 In the year 1877 Mr. Tollefson wedded Miss 
 Martha Reberg, daughter of the late John P. Reberg, 
 a native of Norway. The one child of this union 
 is Carrie, who is the wife of Ivan Quackenbush, 
 their home being in the northern part of Minnesota. 
 
 Hon. John Frank. Among those figures who 
 deserve distinctive mention as pioneers in Southern 
 Minnesota, Mower County, has no name more 
 familiar because of its widely extended activities 
 and influences in the larger civic and business life 
 of the community than that of Frank. The late Hon. 
 John Frank came to Minnesota about five years 
 before the Civil war. He was a pioneer settler, 
 
 a soldier of long and active experience, a farmer, 
 extensive land holder and held many offices which 
 measured the high esteem accorded him by his fel- 
 low citizens. In the present active generation one 
 of the most prominent members of the family is Wil- 
 liam M. Frank, the well known banker of Leroy, 
 who is mentioned on following pages. 
 
 The late John Frank was born in the Kingdom of 
 Wuertemberg, Germany, February 13, 1834, the 
 
 youngest of seven children of Jacob F. and Fred- 
 erika (Jeds) Frank. The parents were middle-class 
 German farmers, prosperous and thrifty people. The 
 father died when this son was fifteen years of age, 
 and the mother had died three years previously. John 
 Frank was reared to manhood in his native land, 
 acquired a substantial education and training for 
 life, and on June 4, 1854, arrived in New York City 
 to win his fortune in the New World. Several 
 months were spent in the East, the summer of 1855 
 was passed as a clerk in a store at Rockford, Illi- 
 nois, and in September of that year he moved on to 
 the extreme frontier of the Northwest, spending the 
 winter in Howard County. Iowa, and in the spring 
 of 1856 reaching Mower County, Minnesota. Only 
 in small communities had the wave of westward 
 expansion extended to this territory, and John Frank 
 had all the qualities requisite for pioneer endeavor 
 and usefulness in the front rank of emigration. He 
 preempted a quarter of section of wild land in sec- 
 tion 30 of Leroy Township, and from that time, until 
 his death, more than half a century later, continued 
 to call Mower County his residence. With increas- 
 ing years came added prosperity and larger honors 
 as a citizen. On his arrival he erected a log cabin, 
 kept house for himself a time, but as soon as his 
 prospects were fairly well established he returned to 
 Rockford, Illinois, and married Catherine E. Lachele. 
 Miss Lachele was born in Geisingen, Wuertemberg, 
 Germany, October 30, 1833, and was the daughter 
 of a well-to-do family. In 1854 at the age of twenty- 
 one, having lost her mother and her father having 
 married again, she and a sister left Germany and 
 came to America. At Forest City, Ohio, she spent 
 a time, and in Cleveland met John Frank, her fellow 
 countryman. Their acquaintance ripened into the 
 affection which subsequently at Rockford resulted in 
 their marriage. Mrs. Frank was well fitted for the 
 duties of a pioneer wife, and for many years they 
 traveled life’s highway together. She was a shrewd, 
 frugal and capable woman, and contributed in many 
 ways to the success of her husband. In the course 
 of time they enlarged their original homestead to an 
 area of 1,580 acres. The log cabin was replaced by 
 a modern home, and it was a house of hospitality 
 and good cheer, known to all the older and later 
 residents of Mower County. 
 
 A few years after John Frank had located in 
 Mower County he took up arms as a soldier in 
 behalf of his adopted country. In October, 1861, he 
 enlisted in Company K of the Fourth Minnesota Vol- 
 unteer Infantry for three years. At the end of his 
 three years he re-enlisted until the close of the war, 
 serving until the summer of 1865 and mustered out 
 at Louisville, Kentucky. He was discharged at Fort 
 Snelling, but continued to serve as sutler’s clerk for 
 two years and was then appointed sutler and con- 
 tinued in that office until 1877. During the war he 
 was with his regiment in all its battles and cam- 
 paigns and well exemplified the faithfulness, courage 
 and devotion to duty which were characteristic of 
 the German-American volunteers in our Civil war. 
 
1750 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 In 1877 he returned to the farm and lived there until 
 his death. In 1899, having accumulated abundant 
 prosperity, and rich in the honors of a long life, he 
 retired from active business, and remained on the 
 old homestead until his death on April 2, 1913, when 
 nearly eighty years of age. 
 
 The late John Frank was a democrat from the 
 time he acquired his American citizenship. He was a 
 member of the State Legislature in 18S2, and for 
 twenty-five years was clerk of his school board and 
 gave his services to the town in many other capaci- 
 ties, as supervisor and road overseer. In 1886 his 
 name was placed on his party’s ticket as candidate 
 for the office of lieutenant-governor, and it added 
 much to the strength of the minority party. In 1884 
 he was a presidential elector. Mr. Frank was a 
 member of the German Lutheran Church, was a 
 Knight Templar Mason, and was always a popular 
 figure in the Grand Army of the Republic. 
 
 John Frank and wife became the parents of three 
 children : Louisa, who married John Le Borius, a 
 Hennepin County farmer; William Monroe; and 
 Irene M., wife of W. D. Bassler, a merchant of 
 Austin. 
 
 William M. Frank, who continues the substantial 
 and honorable influence of his father in business and 
 civic affairs, was born at Fort Snelling, Minnesota, 
 May 9, 1866. He has had a wide and varied ex- 
 perience in business. After a thorough public school 
 education he attended Shattuck Military Academy in 
 Faribault, and then went East and for a year was 
 employed in a real estate office in New York City. 
 His next work was with W. IT. Goadby and Com- 
 pany, Wall Street bankers in New York City, and 
 after two years there, which gave him a thorough 
 metropolitan experience, he returned to Minnesota 
 and entered the bank at Glencoe as bookkeeper. Two 
 years later, in 1885, with Hon. M. H. Dunnell, he 
 started a bank at New Rockford, and was its cashier 
 for two years. He then became cashier for the Pow- 
 ers Wholesale Dry Goods House in St. Paul, was 
 there four years, and returning to Leroy in 1894 be- 
 came assistant cashier of the First National Bank. 
 That was his work seven years, and in that time he 
 gained a largely extended acquaintance among the 
 bankers of the state. With the mature qualifications 
 acquired by this varied training, Mr. Frank then es- 
 tablished the Citizens Bank of Leroy, and served 
 as its cashier until it was merged with the First Na- 
 tional Bank in 1904. Mr. Frank then became cashier 
 of the larger institution, and has since held that office 
 and has been prominently identified with its man- 
 agement. 
 
 Mr. Frank, like his father, has manifested a high 
 degree of public spirit and is always willing to ad- 
 vance the interests of his community. He has served 
 as village treasurer of Leroy from 1897 to 1903, but 
 in politics maintains an independent attitude and 
 votes for good government and the best man rather 
 than according to strict partisan lines. Mr. Frank 
 is prominently affiliated with Masonry, being a 
 Knight Templar and a thirty-second degree Scottish 
 Rite Mason. He is also a member of the Inde- 
 pendent Order of Odd Fellows, che Benevolent & 
 Protective Order of Elks, and is a member of the 
 Episcopal Church. 
 
 Walter Johns. Throughout Minnesota and in 
 the Dakotas and other sections of the Northwest, 
 Walter Johns has a name and reputation that are 
 valuable business assets. Mr. Johns has for more 
 
 than thirty years been identified with the dry goods 
 business, luegan as a clerk in a wholesale house at 
 St. Paul, went on the road as salesman, and for 
 many years now has traveled about the country 
 placing goods with retail merchants and jobbers, and 
 has built up a business which is in reality a “going 
 concern." No man in the dry goods trade in the 
 Northwest has earned such a high reputation for 
 honest service, square dealing and authoritative 
 knowledge. 
 
 Walter Johns was born in Lake City, Minnesota, 
 October 11, 1859, son of Martin and Mary A. 
 (Frantz) Johns. His family were pioneers in Min- 
 nesota and were established in America back in the 
 Colonial days. Both parents were natives of Lan- 
 caster County, Pennsylvania. The Johns family has 
 lived there since 1692 and the Frantz name has been 
 identified with the same section since 1696. The an- 
 cestors on both sides were German Quakers or Dunk- 
 ards, and left Germany on account of religious per- 
 secution for their peculiar faith, and found homes in 
 free America. Martin Johns and his wife were mar- 
 ried at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1853, and in 
 1857 pioneered to Minnesota and settled at Lake 
 City. The first boot and shoe store in Lake City 
 was opened and conducted by Martin Johns. He was 
 successfully engaged in business there until his death 
 in 1866 at the age of forty years. At the beginning 
 of the Civil war he attempted to enlist but was de- 
 barred on account of physical disability. His widow 
 on August 8, 1872, married A. W. Ditmars, a well- 
 to-do business man of Lake City, who died there 
 in 1882. Mrs. Ditmars in 1882 moved to St. Paul 
 and thereafter had her home with her son Walter 
 until her death in 1911 at the age of seventy-eight 
 years. ' 
 
 Mary A. (Frantz) Johns during her early life was 
 a Dunkard, but after locating in Lake City joined 
 the Episcopal Church, and thereafter was prominent 
 in the affairs of her home church. While on the 
 frontier and also after her removal to St. Paul she 
 was admired and loved by a large circle on account 
 of her generous and kindly character, her willing- 
 ness to assist her neighbors in distress or need, and 
 she was one of the fine women of the older genera- 
 tion. The old Frantz family homestead, . in which 
 she was born and reared, is at Oregon, Pennsylvania, 
 a suburb of Lancaster. It was built by her great- 
 grandfather in 1762. Both her grandfather and 
 father lived and died in the old home, and it also 
 sheltered her until she went out to the Minnesota 
 frontier with her husband. The house is a solidly 
 built stone structure, with a s'ate roof, and is in an 
 excellent state of preservation and will last another 
 century. Mr. Walter Johns recently visited the old 
 homestead, and ’found the private burying ground 
 on the farm, with twenty-five graves, all of them 
 marked by tombstones. At his own expense he had 
 the grounds beautified and a new fence built around 
 the cemetery., Martin Johns and wife had five chil- 
 dren : Horace F. Johns, the oldest, who was born in 
 Lancaster, Pennsylvania, April 8, 1855, is one of the 
 prominent men of Lake City. He served several 
 terms as city recorder there and refused the office 
 of mayor which was tendered him without opposi- 
 tion. He is one of the partners in the Neal-Johns 
 Wagon Manufacturing Company. At the age of fif- 
 teen he entered the employ of the Neal Company, 
 learned the business in all its details, subsequently 
 became a partner, and the concern is now one of 
 the largest institutions of its kind in the state, em- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1751 
 
 ploying over a hundred men. William F. Johns, the 
 second son, was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 
 July 8, 1857, is a member of the firm of Meyer & 
 Johns, leading merchants in Lake City. The third 
 child is Walter Johns. Elizabeth F. Johns, born at 
 Lake City in 1863, died when a year and a half of 
 age. John Franklin Johns was born at Lake City 
 December 23, 1864, and died November 18, 1881. 
 
 Walter Johns is a graduate of the Lake City Pub- 
 lic Schools. At the age of eighteen he became a 
 clerk in a Lake City store, and in 1880 arrived in St. 
 Paul and found work in a minor capacity with the 
 William Lee & Company’s wholesale dry goods es- 
 tablishment. In 1882 this firm sent him out as its 
 traveling representative in Minnesota and South Da- 
 kota, and he sold the first goods for the firm in 
 South Dakota. The firm went out of business in 
 1884, and his services were then transferred to the 
 Finch Auerbach Wholesale Dry Goods Company. 
 Several years were spent in the employ of this firm 
 in covering the same territory, and Mr. Johns has 
 continued to sell dry goods over the Northwest for 
 an aggregate of thirty-two years. Few traveling 
 men anywhere have so well established and reliable 
 a clientele. 
 
 Mr. Johns has passed through all the chairs in 
 the United Commercial Travelers, is a member of 
 the Christ Episcopal Church at St. Paul, is promi- 
 nent in the St. Paul Commercial Club, and in poli- 
 tics a republican, and especially interested in national 
 politics. He owns a pleasant home and other real 
 estate in St. Paul, his residence being at 339 Selby 
 Avenue. Mr. Johns is unmarried. 
 
 Judge James H. Quinn. As judge of the courts 
 for the district comprising Faribault, Martin and 
 Jackson counties, Judge Quinn is one of the older 
 members of the bench and bar in Southern Minne- 
 sota, has practiced law upwards of thirty years, and 
 for more than half of that time has sat on the 
 district bench. Possessed of scrupulous honesty and 
 a fine sense of justice, his friends and associates 
 unite in declaring him one of the most competent 
 -men who have held court in this district. 
 
 James H. Quinn was born in Kilbourn City, Wis- 
 consin, June 23, 1857. His grandfather was James 
 Quinn, a land owner in County Tyrone, Ireland, 
 where he died. Andrew Quinn, father of the judge, 
 was born in County Tyrone in 1823, and in 1837 left 
 his native land, became one of the pioneers of 
 Columbia County, Wisconsin, was a farmer all his 
 life and died at Medo in Blue Earth County, Min- 
 nesota, in 1897. He married Hannah . Mountford, 
 who was born in England and brought as a child by 
 her parents to Columbia County, Wisconsin. She 
 was born in 1828 and died in 1896. Their children 
 were: H. M., who is a hardware merchant at 
 
 Mapleton, Minnesota; Sarah, wife of P. G. Johnson, 
 a retired merchant now living at South Shore, South 
 Dakota; Judge James H. ; Thomas, who was a 
 farmer and died at the age of forty-four in De- 
 troit, Minnesota ; Walter A., who was a grain buy- 
 er at Flandreau, South Dakota ; Ella is the wife of 
 Henry Avery, a machinist residing in New York 
 State ;' Carrie is assistant postmaster at Wells, Min- 
 nesota; and William A. is cashier of the First Na- 
 tional Bank at Exeter, California. 
 
 When Judge Quinn was six years of age his 
 parents brought him, in June, 1863, to Blue Earth 
 County, Minnesota, and a year later they established 
 a home in Medo Township of that county. However, 
 "Voi. ra— 31 
 
 he returned to his home county in Wisconsin for 
 most of his education, and attended the public 
 schools at Poynette in Columbia County, and was 
 graduated from an academy in that town in 1880. 
 Then returning to Blue Earth County, he took up 
 the study of law in the office of William N. Plymat 
 at Mapleton and was admitted to the bar in 1885 at 
 Mankato before M. J. Severance. In the same year 
 Judge Quinn began practice in Faribault County, and 
 almost at once was drawn into the responsibilities 
 of public office, and for five successive terms, alto- 
 gether ten years, served as county attorney. During 
 which time his home was in Wells. He resigned the 
 office of county attorney on his appointment to judge 
 of the district bench on March 19, 1897. After serv- 
 ing the unexpired term, he was regularly elected 
 district judge, and is now in his third elective term 
 of service. In April, 1900, Judge Quinn removed 
 from Wells in Faribault County to Fairmont in Mar- 
 tin County. 
 
 Judge Quinn is a republican. He is a director in 
 the First National Bank of Wells, and is now the 
 only one of the original incorporators represented on 
 the board of directors. Judge Quinn was married 
 in 1881 at Mapleton, Minnesota, to Miss Sarah M. 
 Annis, who was born at Mapleton, her father, Ira 
 Annis, now deceased, having been a farmer in that 
 locality. Judge Quinn and wife have three children: 
 Cecelia L., born September 16, 1891, educated in 
 Hamline University at St. Paul, and now wife of 
 Fred Bingham, of Minneapolis ; Roswell J., born Sep- 
 tember 24, 1897, a student in the Fairmont High 
 School; and Donald A., born March 20, 1899, and a 
 student in the Culver Military Academy, Indiana. 
 
 John C. Marlow. One of the more recent addi- 
 tions to the business life of Mankato, and one which 
 has already contributed materially to the commer- 
 cial prestige of the city, is the Hinman Milking 
 Machine Company, the offices and salesrooms of 
 which, at No. 508 South Front Street, are under the 
 capable management of John C. Marlow, general 
 manager of the company for North and South 
 Dakota and Minnesota. Mr. Marlow, previous to 
 coming to Mankato, in March, 1914, was engaged in 
 the selling of the Hinman milking machine in Wis- 
 consin, where he had formerly sold imported horses 
 and engaged in farming. He is essentially a self- 
 made man, and one whose progressive ideas and 
 energetic spirit will prove of the greatest benefit to 
 the city of his adoption. 
 
 John C. Marlow was born in Grant County, Wis- 
 consin, October 29, 1878, and is a son of George W. 
 and Angeline (Druen) Marlow. His paternal grand- 
 father was a very early settler of Wisconsin, to which 
 state he removed from Pennsylvania, and continued 
 as a farmer all his life, and the grandfather on the 
 maternal side was Samuel Druen, a native of Eng- 
 land, who located in Wisconsin and there passed the 
 remainder of his life. George W. Marlow was born 
 in Wisconsin in 1841, and there has passed his en- 
 tire career as a tiller of the soil, still being engaged 
 in active pursuits on the old homestead formerly 
 owmed by his father. During the Civil war he served 
 two years as a member of the Tenth Regiment, Wis- 
 consin Volunteer Infantry. He is a republican in 
 politics and a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. Mr. Marlow was married in Wisconsin to 
 Miss Angeline Druen, who was born in that state 
 
1752 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 in 1847 and also survives, and they became the par- 
 ents of nine children, of whom six survive: _ Dr. 
 George C., who is a dental practitioner of San Diego, 
 California; Clara, who is the wife of Daniel Kinney, 
 engaged in the land business at Lancaster, Wisconsin; 
 Alanson, who is a dental practitioner of Bloomington, 
 Wisconsin; Vernon, who is engaged in the electrical 
 business at Calgary, Canada; John C., of this notice; 
 and Melvin, who is carrying on farming operations 
 in Grant County, Wisconsin. 
 
 John C. Marlow was educated at Lancaster, Wis- 
 consin, where he was graduated from the high school 
 in 1891, and following this was engaged in farming 
 for a number of years. Subsequently he went on 
 the road as a salesman of imported horses, and was 
 thus engaged for six years, when he became inter- 
 ested in the Hinman milking machine and began 
 traveling in behalf of the interests of that concern. 
 After representing the Hinman Milking Machine 
 Company in Wisconsin for a number of years, Mr. 
 Marlow secured the exclusive agency for Minnesota, 
 and North and South Dakota, and in March, 1914, 
 came to Mankato and in the following month opened 
 up his place of business. Mr. Marlow is conducting 
 his business under a special arrangement, through 
 which he furnished the capital and has sole charge 
 of his operations. His business has grown rapidly 
 under his progressive and enterprising methods, and 
 the greater part of his time is devoted to its manage- 
 ment, although he is also the owner of a valuable 
 farm in Wisconsin. A short description of the Hin- 
 man invention may not prove out of place here. 
 With this milking machine one man can easily do 
 the work of three and can do it better and in a far 
 more sanitary manner, and its construction is so 
 simple that it may be operated by a fourteen-year-old 
 boy. In the Hinman the vacuum is confined to the 
 chamber in the pump, and not the pail, thus requir- 
 ing a smaller amount of vacuum to operate and re- 
 quiring less horsepower. It is absolutely noiseless 
 and automatically regulates itself and its pressure. 
 It has only two moving parts — the pump piston and 
 chamber valve. No springs or weights are used in 
 its construction, while the cups are sprung from 
 metal and are perfectly smooth inside and without 
 seams. At present Mr. Marlow has several men on 
 the road, while he manages the business from the 
 Mankato office. Mr. Marlow has identified himself 
 with the social and civic life of Mankato, is a mem- 
 ber of Mankato Lodge, No. 12, A. F. & A.. M., and 
 a republican in his political views. With his family 
 he attends the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
 
 In 1900 Mr. Marlow was married to Miss Ursa 
 B. Salis, of Grant County, Wisconsin, and they have 
 three children : Beulah Marie, aged thirteen years ; 
 
 Beva Margerine, eleven years of age ; and Dorothy 
 Grace, who is eight years of age. All are attending 
 the Mankato public schools. 
 
 Mose S. Winthrop. This well known Minneapolis 
 lawyer and leader in democratic politics first be- 
 came known to the public under the title “boy 
 orator’’ during the presidential campaign of 1896, 
 when, a high school youth in his eighteenth year, 
 he traveled over many states and spoke with 
 effective brilliance and eloquence in behalf of 
 William Jennings Bryan. Mr. Winthrop has had 
 a somewhat remarkable career, is a native of 
 Southern Russia, has lived in America since he was 
 thirteen, and has exercised his versatile gifts to 
 
 promote himself in spite of handicaps to prominence 
 in his adopted land. 
 
 Mose S. Winthrop was born in Odessa, Russia, 
 September 15, 1878. His parents, Samuel and Pearl 
 (Cossack) Winthrop, came from Odessa to the 
 United States in 1891, landing in New York and 
 proceeding directly to Minneapolis, where Samuel 
 Winthrop was for a number of years engaged in 
 the wholesale and retail meat business, but is now 
 retired, he and his wife living in Minneapolis. There 
 were four sons and three daughters in the family, 
 and all now live in Minneapolis. 
 
 The oldest of the family, Mose S. Winthrop, ac- 
 quired most of his education in Minneapolis, and 
 is a graduate of the South Side High School with 
 the class of 1895. After a varied experience in 
 public office and other lines of work, and in the 
 study of law with the firm of Hall & Collins, he 
 took three years in the University of Minnesota law 
 department, and since his admission to the bar in 
 1908 has been engaged in a general practice with 
 offices in the Temple Court Building. Mr. Winthrop 
 is state lecturer for the Modern Woodmen of 
 America and also represents several local corpora- 
 tions. He has had no partners in practice and has 
 always been noted for his independence, self- 
 reliance and determined work in any cause that 
 engages his attention. 
 
 Mr. Winthrop was an officer of the police court 
 under the late ex-Mayor James C. Haynes during 
 his first administration from 1901 to 1904. In the 
 latter year he made the race for the State Legislature 
 against the late John Lunn, and was beaten by only 
 570 votes. During the recent municipal campaign 
 Mr. Winthrop’s name appeared as candidate for the 
 office of municipal judge, and he failed of election 
 by only 102 votes. The late Governor Johnson had 
 his services for two years as game and fish commis- 
 sioner. Many people have marked with admiration 
 his work in politics and particularly as an orator 
 and effective campaigner. During the campaign of 
 1896, when Mr. Bryan was first running for presi- 
 dent, young Winthrop was the boy orator of the 
 party conducted by United States Senator Jones, 
 and toured all of Minnesota and neighboring states. 
 Mr. Winthrop had been in this country only five 
 years, and was a high school student, and when 
 school opened in September the principal of the 
 South Side High School commanded his pupil to 
 return on pain of expulsion. The principal was. 
 Charles Sawyer, who is now a member of the State 
 Legislature. In 1900 Mr. Winthrop’s services were 
 again of value to his party, and he spoke in nearly 
 all the principal parts of Minnesota and in nearly 
 half the states of the Union. In the spring of 1914 
 Mr. Winthrop made the nominating speech for W. S. 
 Hammond for governor of Minnesota on the demo- 
 cratic ticket, and his first formal speech in a con- 
 vention was in St. Paul in 1900, at what is known 
 as the Lind convention held in the old Auditorium, 
 and his address was regarded as the hit of the con- 
 vention, and at that time favored Mr. Hammond. 
 
 Mr. Winthrop is affiliated with the Modern Wood- 
 men of America, the Knights of the Modern Macca- 
 bees, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the Order of 
 Owls, the Yeomen, the Knights of Pythias and the 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In June, 1914, 
 he was a delegate to the national convention of 
 Modern Woodmen of America at Toledo, Ohio. 
 Other relations connect him with the Minneapolis*. 
 Civic and Commerce Association, the Metropolitan 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1753 
 
 Art Society, and the Hennepin County Bar Asso- 
 ciation. On June 20, 1904, Mr. Winthrop married 
 Miss Jennie Karatz of Minneapolis, where she was 
 born and educated, a daughter of I. Karatz, who is 
 a metal dealer. 
 
 Carl Johan Petri, D. D. One of the most dis- 
 tinguished Lutheran clergymen in the Northwest is 
 Rev. Carl Johan Petri of Minneapolis. Doctor 
 Petri was a member of the first graduating class of 
 Augustana College in Illinois, was at that time 
 conspicuous for his scholarship, and his early studies 
 were directed in the plan in view of becoming per- 
 manently identified with the profession of educator. 
 Thirty-five years ago he was ordained to the Swedish 
 Lutheran ministry and for many years has com- 
 bined his activities as pastor with those of an edu- 
 cational leader. 
 
 Carl Johan Petri was born in Rockford. Illinois, 
 June 16, 1856. His father was a tailor in Rockford, 
 and the son attended the public schools of that city. 
 He then entered the Augustana College at Paxton, 
 Illinois, and was graduated A. B. with the class of 
 1877, the first class sent out from that college. In 
 1884 the degree A. M. was given him by the same 
 institution, and in 1899 the Theological Seminary at 
 Rock Island conferred upon him the degree Doctor 
 of Divinity. During his college work he showed 
 special efficiency in the modern and classical lan- 
 guages and history, and paid particular attention to 
 classical English. On graduating from Augustana 
 he came to Minneapolis, with the intention of con- 
 tinuing his English studies and eventually becoming, 
 at the request of the board of directors, an instructor 
 in that subject at Augustana College. He entered 
 and spent one year in the University of Minnesota, 
 giving his attention primarily to English and Anglo- 
 Saxon. He then went East to Philadelphia, where 
 he accepted a call as pastor of a Swedish Lutheran 
 congregation. He was ordained to the ministry in 
 1880. While a pastor in Philadelphia he continued 
 his studies in the University of Pennsylvania, paying 
 attention to English and history. While in that city 
 he also attended Doctor Krauth’s lectures on 
 philosophy. 
 
 From 1884 to 1888 Doctor Petri was a member of 
 the faculty of Gustavus Adolphus College at St. 
 Peter, Minnesota, being an instructor in history. He 
 was called to Minneapolis to assume the responsi- 
 bilities of pastor over the largest congregation in 
 his denomination in the city, the Augustana Swedish 
 Lutheran Church. This was the beginning of a 
 long and successful pastorate which has now con- 
 tinued more than a quarter of a century. 
 
 During his residence in Minneapolis Doctor Petri 
 has been active both in educational and public affairs. 
 He has served as a member of the board of directors 
 of Gustavus Adolphus College, and was a member of 
 the first board of directors of the Minnesota College 
 at Minneapolis and still serves on that body, being 
 now vice president. For a number of years he has 
 been vice president of the Minnesota conference of 
 the Swedish Augustana Synod, and is now secretary 
 of the board of missions of the conference. In 1881 
 he was one of the founders of the Augustana 
 Observer, a Lutheran religious paper, the first of its 
 kind to be published by the Swedish people in the 
 English language in America. At a later time he 
 was also associated with the editorial department 
 of an English Sunday school paper issued under the 
 direction of the church, and is now a member of 
 
 the board of publication of the synod at Rock 
 Island. Doctor Petri was the originator and took 
 the lead in promoting the celebration in 1888 at 
 Minneapolis of the two hundred and fiftieth anniver- 
 sary of the landing of the Swedes in America. He 
 was likewise active in arranging the celebration in 
 1893 of the three hundredth anniversary of the 
 Upsala Decree, and was the first scholar to trans- 
 late that decree into the English language. In the 
 same year he was a member of the advisory council 
 of the Religious Congress at the Chicago World’s 
 Fair. 
 
 Doctor Petri is a member of the Institute of 
 Civics, and was one of the most influential in organ- 
 izing the Swedish Hospital in 1898, being the first 
 president of the board of the hospital association. 
 Aside from the literary work involved in his min- 
 istry, Doctor Petri has written much for the public 
 press, and has delivered many formal lectures 
 throughout the Northwest. In 1880 Doctor Petri 
 and Miss Christine Anderson were married in the 
 historic old Swedes’ church, or the Gloria Dei 
 Church, in Philadelphia. Mrs. Petri comes from 
 Rattvik, Delarne, Sweden. To their marriage have 
 been born six children. 
 
 Hon. Magnus Johnson. The citizens of any 
 stirring and growing community, in making their 
 choice of the man who shall occupy the highest civic 
 office within the gift of the municipality, may gen- 
 erally be trusted to settle upon an individual who 
 has proven his worth and ability in his private 
 affairs, his fitness for handling important issues and 
 his fidelity to the welfare of his section. The diver- 
 sified and complex duties connected with the office 
 of mayor of a thriving city are such as to call for 
 a high order of courage, absolute integrity in civic 
 affairs, and enterprise tempered with conservatism, 
 for a community is not infrequently judged by the 
 character and actions of its chief executive and the 
 stand he takes in matters of issue. The present 
 incumbent of the mayoralty chair of Rushford, 
 Magnus Johnson, has shown himself not only a 
 man of excellent judgment and executive abilities 
 in the discharge of his official duties, but is also 
 widely known in business circles and particularly in 
 the grain trade. 
 
 Mayor Johnson was born in Sweden, September 5, 
 1871, and is a son of Martin and Ellen (Munson) 
 Johnson, natives of that country, where the father 
 was. born in 1842 and the mother in 1838. The 
 family came to the United States in 1891, settling 
 in Olmsted County, Minnesota, where the father 
 was for some years engaged in successful farming 
 operations, but is now living in quiet retirement at 
 his home at Stewartville. He is a republican in 
 politics, but has taken no active participation in 
 public affairs. Mrs. Johnson died in 1907, in Olmsted 
 County, and, like her husband, was a devout member 
 of the Lutheran Church. They were the parents of 
 seven children, of whom six are now living: Ellen, 
 
 who married John Erickson, of Stewartville, Min- 
 nesota; Magnus, of this review; Andrew, who is 
 engaged in the lumber business at Balaton, Min- 
 nesota; Olaf, who lives in Colorado, where he is 
 engaged in mining ventures ; Hilda, who is now Mrs. 
 McElliott, of Great Falls, Minnesota; and Matilda, 
 who is the wife of John Wickstart, and resides at 
 Spokane, Washington. 
 
 .Magnus Johnson received his early education in 
 the public schools of his native country, this being 
 
1754 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 supplemented by a course in a military institution, 
 and following this he devoted two years to service 
 in the standing army of his country. He was twenty 
 years of age when he accompanied the family to 
 America, and at Stewartville, Minnesota, spent two 
 years in school, thus familiarizing himself with the 
 American language. For a short period he was asso- 
 ciated with his father in farming pursuits at Stewart- 
 ville, where he served as marshal for one year, and 
 at the end of that time turned his attention to the 
 grain business, in which he has since achieved an 
 enviable success. Mr. Johnson came to Rushford, 
 Fillmore County, in 1904, and established himself as 
 the proprietor of the grain business known as the 
 Farmers Elevator, and this he conducted for about 
 nine years, or until 1912, when he purchased his 
 present plant. He has built up an excellent elevator 
 business, and sells coal, feed and grain, his cus- 
 tomers being attracted from all over this part of 
 the county. While the greater part of his attention 
 has been devoted to this enterprise, he has also had 
 an interest in other ventures, and at present is 
 president of the Citizens and Farmers Telephone 
 Company, of which he was one of the organizers in 
 1907. Mr. Johnson entered upon his career a's a 
 poor youth, and has made his own way to inde- 
 pendence and position, receiving no outside assist- 
 ance. He has maintained at all times an excellent 
 reputation for integrity in business life and probity 
 in his private affairs, and this, coupled with the 
 evidence of his excellent services in the capacity of 
 alderman, made him the choice of his party for the 
 mayoralty in 1914, a position to which he was elected 
 by a handsome majority. While he has been in office 
 only a comparatively short time, he has already 
 shown good faith in looking after the people’s in- 
 terests, and his administration, conducted upon busi- 
 ness lines, will probably be one of the best Rush- 
 ford has known. Mr. Johnson has always been a 
 stanch republican. He is a member of the Masonic 
 order, and at the present time is serving his second 
 term as master of Omistic Star Lodge, No. 69, 
 A. F. & A. M. 
 
 In 1900 Mr. Johnson was married to Miss Eliza- 
 beth Erickson, of Olmsted County, Minnesota, and 
 to this union there has been born one daughter, 
 Elizabeth, who was born in I9i2._ Mayor and Mrs. 
 Johnson are attendants of the Presbyterian Church, 
 and liberal contributors to its movements. 
 
 Hon. Jens J. Opsahl. There are in every com- 
 munity men of great force of character who by 
 reason of their leadership become recognized as 
 foremost citizens, and bear a most important part 
 in public affairs. Such a man in Northern Min- 
 nesota is Jens J. Opsahl, who for fifteen years or 
 more has been prominently identified with the larger 
 movements of development and improvement in his 
 section of the state. Every enterprise requires a 
 leader, and when leadership is combined with such 
 public spirit and unselfishness as Mr. Opsahl has 
 manifested it means practical benefit to every resi- 
 dent and sharer in community progress. 
 
 Jens P. Opsahl is, a Norwegian by birth, born at 
 Eidsvold, December 21, 1865. In 1867 his parents 
 emigrated to America and located in Monroe 
 County, Wisconsin, on a farm. The farm was his 
 environment until the age of nineteen, and he 
 started life with a common school education. On 
 leaving the farm he was in construction work on 
 the St. Paul branch of the Chicago, Burlington & 
 
 Quincy Railway, and in the fall of 1888 arrived in 
 Todd County, Minnesota. He became an expert 
 timber cruiser, and followed that vocation for a 
 number of years either independently or in con- 
 nection with other lines of business. From 1892 to 
 1897 he was engaged in the retail lumber business 
 at Moorhead, and then at Felton until 1901. Mr. 
 Opsahl has been a resident of Bemidji since 1901, 
 and since then much of his time is taken up with 
 the real estate business and the farming develop- 
 ment of Northern Minnesota. He is a representa- 
 tive of the extensive land and timber interests con- 
 trolled by T. B. Walker of Minneapolis. Mr. Opsahl 
 settled upon and developed a homestead in Northern 
 Minnesota, and improved his land while working as 
 a timber cruiser. For a time he was on the govern- 
 ment survey in the Red Lake District, and from 
 this varied experience got the ideas for roads and 
 ditches which have been developed under his leader- 
 ship. At the present time there are over 10,000 miles 
 of roads and ditches in Northern Minnesota, and 
 no one man has deserved more credit for their 
 construction and the consequent development of the 
 country than Mr. Opsahl. As a result of the move- 
 ment which he started and led, Northern Minnesota 
 during the past seven years has spent over $2,000,000 
 annually in development work. Since 1903 he has 
 had his permanent business headquarters at Bemidji, 
 and through his real estate office there has been 
 transferred from one owner to another at least 
 90,000 acres of Northern Minnesota lands. 
 
 For two terms Mr. Opsahl has represented the 
 Sixty-first District in the Minnesota House of Rep- 
 resentatives, and in his campaign for re-election polled 
 practically 75 per cent of the votes. In the Legisla- 
 ture he was a member of the house committee that 
 created the State Board of Emigration, and was 
 very earnestly concerned in laying the foundation 
 for the work and usefulness of that important state 
 body. The State Emigration Bureau has carried on 
 a wisely planned campaign of publicity concerning 
 the resources of Minnesota, has gathered statistics 
 concerning agricultural, mineral and other resources, 
 and has accomplished a great work in developing 
 regions hitherto unexploited and in introducing into 
 the state industrious and thrifty people from other 
 sections. 
 
 As a real estate man Mr. Opsahl has in many 
 ways led the van of improvement and has shown 
 faith and courage in undertaking improvements 
 Vhich without his leadership could never have been 
 successfully carried out. On coming to Beltrami 
 County he began buying up farm land and timber 
 tracts and finally brought about the organization 
 of the Selke Land Company, which has undertaken 
 the development of a large number of farms and 
 timber tracts. Mr. Opsahl has platted and developed 
 the resort known as Lavinia six miles from Bemidji, 
 and also the Riverside addition to Bemidji. It is 
 said that Mr. Opsahl has consummated more trans- 
 actions in realty than any other man in Beltrami 
 County, and the material benefits of his work are 
 reflected in increased population, general develop- 
 ment, and the rise of values in both city and town 
 property to an average of more than 100 per cent. 
 
 Mr. Opsahl is a member of the Bemidji Commer- 
 cial Club and chairman of its development com- 
 mittee, and is also president of the Minnesota Potato 
 Growers’ Association. He is a member of the 1865 
 Treaty Association. In May, 1898, he married Miss 
 Clara Swanson, of Fargo, North Dakota. Their 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1755 
 
 four children are : Roy, Leo, Morris and Vera. 
 
 Mr. Opsahl has fraternal affiliations with the Ancient 
 Order of United Workmen, the Knights of Pythias, 
 the Modern Brotherhood of America, and the lum- 
 bermen’s social organization the “PIoo-Hoos.” 
 
 John G. Gerlich. Of the tillers of the soil who 
 have been called to positions of prominence in the 
 government of the state, John G. Gerlich, prosperous 
 farmer and member of the State Legislature, from 
 Blue Earth County, is an excellent example. Bear- 
 ing an unsullied reputation in the trade circles of 
 his native state, where his integrity and honesty 
 have gained him the unqualified regard of all with 
 whom he has come into contact, he manages large 
 business interests and is compelled to devote his 
 attention largely to the control of his property, yet 
 he still finds opportunity to discharge faithfully 
 every duty of citizenship and to lend active support 
 and co-operation to every movement for the public 
 good. 
 
 Mr. Gerlich was born in Blue Earth County, Min- 
 nesota, October 18, 1871, and is a son of B. H. and 
 Catherine (Haag) Gerlich. The family originated 
 in Germany, but the grandfather of Mr. Gerlich 
 was taken as a child to Holland, where, as a mere 
 lad, he was put to work on the dykes. About the 
 year 1825 he emigrated to the United States, settling 
 first in Ohio and then moving to Wisconsin as a 
 pioneer, and while thus engaged was for some time 
 employed by one of the early railroads running to 
 Chicago. He passed away in Wisconsin in advanced 
 years. B. H. Gerlich, father of John G. Gerlich, 
 was born October 3, 1834, in the City of Milwaukee, 
 Wisconsin, where he grew to manhood and received 
 his education. In 1869 he moved to Minnesota and 
 settled on a farm in Blue Earth County, buying 640 
 acres from the United States Government. Through 
 many years of hard and industrious labor he accumu- 
 lated a competency, and when he retired from 
 active pursuits divided a large estate among his 
 children. He was a republican in his political views, 
 and took a keen and active interest in the success 
 of his party, although he never consented to hold 
 office, preferring to devote himself to his labors as 
 an agriculturist. He was fraternally connected with 
 the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, in which 
 order he passed through the chairs. When he retired 
 from active life he removed to Portland, Oregon, 
 and there his last years were spent, he passing away 
 there January 1, 1912. Mr. Gerlich married Miss 
 Catherine Haag, who was born at Lair, Baden, Ger- 
 many, December 5, 1836, and she died in June, 1905, 
 having been the mother of six children, of whom 
 four are living: Mrs. George E. Hoerr, the wife 
 
 of a well-known lumberman of Lebanon, Oregon ; 
 John G., of this review; Clara, who became the wife 
 of John M. Edwards, M. D., a practicing physician 
 of Portland, Oregon; and Henry, who is success- 
 fully engaged in the lumber business in that city. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Gerlich were faithful members of the 
 Presbyterian Church, in the faith of which the 
 children were reared. 
 
 John G. Gerlich grew to manhood on his father’s 
 farm, and received his education in the graded 
 schools of Mankato, this being supplemented by two 
 years in the Mankato High School. He then laid 
 aside his studies to turn his whole attention to 
 farming, and in this he has continued to be engaged 
 to the present time. Mr. Gerlich is now the owner 
 of 214 acres of finely cultivated land, located not far 
 from Mankato, and in addition to general farming 
 
 he has devoted a good deal of attention to the breed- 
 ing of thoroughbred Poland-China hogs and pure 
 Holstein cattle with such success that in 1914 he 
 had the grand champion son of the state, receiving 
 first prize at the State Fair, in addition to numerous 
 other premiums. He has a fine set of buildings, with 
 every modern appliance and equipment known to 
 twentieth century farming, and his farm clearly evi- 
 dences the presence of farming ability and good 
 business management. 
 
 Politically a republican, Mr Gerlich has long 
 taken an active part in city and county politics, 
 and is an acknowledged leader in his section of 
 the state. From the time he reached his majority 
 he has labored faithfully in behalf of his party’s 
 interests, and his reward has come from his fellow- 
 citizens in the form of a number of important offices. 
 For several years he has been serving in the capacity 
 of city commissioner of Mankato, and in November, 
 1914, he was sent as representative to the State 
 Legislature, where he has since become known as 
 a working member. He is chairman of the com- 
 mittee on transportation, and a member of the com- 
 mittee on banks and banking, corporations, other 
 than municipal elections, and tax and tax laws. He 
 has worked faithfully for his constituents and has 
 been able to secure for his community some very 
 helpful legislation. Mr. Gerlich has always been a 
 stirring “booster” for Mankato and its many activi- 
 ties and industries, and has been particularly active 
 in promoting its fairs and fair associations. He is 
 widely known in fraternal circles, having been a 
 member of Schiller Lodge, No. 29, Independent 
 Order of Odd Fellows, for the past twenty-two 
 years, and also holding membership in Lodge No. 
 225, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, in 
 which he is chairman of the house committee; and 
 to Lodge No. 12, A. F. & A. M., Royal Arch 
 Chapter, No. 7, R. A. M. ; Commandery No. 4, K. T. ; 
 and Zurah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. He is secre- 
 tary of his Blue Lodge. In all these orders Mr. 
 Gerlich has numerous friends, as he has, indeed, 
 in every walk of life. 
 
 Mr. Gerlich was married April 8, 1896, to Miss 
 Tillie Hoerr, also a native of Blue Earth County, 
 and a daughter of George P. Hoerr, who came to 
 this region in 1853 and engaged in the cattle busi- 
 ness, becoming the owner of large tracts of land. 
 To Mr. and Mrs. Gerlich there has been born one 
 daughter : Marie Elizabeth', born July 18, 1901, 
 
 who is now attending the public schools of Man- 
 kato. Mr. and Mrs. Gerlich are members of the 
 Presbyterian Church, and have supported the vari- 
 ous movements of the church at Mankato. 
 
 Henry Robel, Sr. A representative of one of the 
 honored pioneer families of Southern Minnesota 
 Mr. Robel has been a resident of this state from 
 the time of his nativity and is today known as one 
 of the most progressive and public-spirited citizens 
 of the thriving City of North Mankato, Nicollet 
 County, his vocation being that of traveling com- 
 mercial salesman. He was born at Mankato, Blue 
 Earth County, in the year i860, and is a son of 
 Gottfried Robel, who was born in Prussia in 1820, 
 and who was reared and educated in his native land, 
 where he continued to reside until about 1854, when 
 he immigrated to America and numbered himself 
 among the early settlers of the present Blue Earth 
 County, Minnesota, where he obtained a tract of 
 Government land and became one of the prosperous 
 agriculturists of this part of the state. In the early 
 
1756 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 days he did also a successful business in the burning 
 of charcoal and he was one of the honored and 
 influential citizens of Blue Earth County at the 
 time of his death, in 1880. His political allegiance 
 was given to the democratic party, he was affiliated 
 with the leading German social organization of Man- 
 kato, and both he and his wife were earnest com- 
 municants of the Catholic Church. Mrs. Robel, 
 who was born in France, in 1826, was married to 
 Gottfried Robel shortly after she came to Mankato, 
 about the year 1855, and she long survived her hus- 
 band, her death having occurred in 1911. Of their 
 eight children five are living, and of the number the 
 subject of this sketch is the eldest, all of the others 
 being married and having children and all being 
 well established in life, namely: Mrs. Frances Son- 
 tag, Leon, Mrs. Lizzie Heckel, and Gottfried, Jr. 
 
 Reared to the sturdy discipline of the home farm 
 and afforded the advantages of the pioneer schools, 
 Henry Robel, Sr., waxed strong in mind and body 
 and after severing his association with agricultural 
 pursuits he engaged in the general merchandise busi- 
 ness. Later he became a traveling salesman for one 
 of the representative wholesale houses of Minnesota 
 and in this capacity he has continued to be em- 
 ployed as one of the resourceful and successful com- 
 mercial men of the West. During his many years 
 of residence in North Mankato, Mr. Robel has been 
 prominent and influential in political and general 
 public affairs, and he has been zealous and inde- 
 fatigable in the furtherance of enterprises and meas- 
 ures advanced for the general good of the com- 
 munity, notably in connection with the promotion 
 and building of the admirable dike which protects 
 North Mankato from the annual overflow of the 
 river, this improvement having been made at a cost 
 of $6,000. Mr. Robel is known as the father of the 
 waterworks system of North Mankato, and .it was 
 principally due to his suggestions and influence that 
 the water storage tank was constructed on a neigh- 
 boring hill, at such elevation as to afford ample 
 gravity pressure without recourse to the stand-pipe 
 system, the advocates of which waged a vigorous 
 fight. He is chairman of the bridge committee of 
 the North Mankato Commercial Club, and this com- 
 mittee and the club have put forth successful efforts 
 which are destined to result in the construction of a 
 new bridge for the city within the year 1915, at an 
 expenditure of about $80,000. Mr. Robel’s son and 
 namesake, Henry, Jr., is known as a young man of 
 remarkable mechanical and mathematical ability and 
 is frequently called upon to formulate estimates on 
 important public improvements, including bridge 
 proj ects. 
 
 In politics Mr. Robel accords ' stanch allegiance 
 to the republican party, he and his wife are com- 
 municants of the Catholic Church, and he is one of 
 the prominent representatives in Minnesota of the 
 Catholic Order of Foresters, for which he has 
 organized eighteen courts in this state. 
 
 In the year 1881 was solemnized the marriage of 
 Mr. Robel to Miss Caroline Ulman, who was born 
 in Mankato, in 1859, and whose father, Mathias 
 Ulman, was one of the well known and highly 
 esteemed pioneers of this part of the state, he having 
 owned and conducted the first hotel in the City of 
 Mankato. Mr. and Mrs. Robel became the parents 
 of eight children, of whom five are living, namely: 
 Henry, Jr., who resides in North Mankato, married 
 Miss Lucille Velson; Ida is the wife of Judge 
 Phynat, of North Mankato, and they have one child; 
 Annie is the wife of Doctor Chaplin, and they reside 
 
 at Orange, California ; Leo wedded Miss Ruby 
 Estrand and they reside at Canton, South Dakota; 
 and Florence, who remains at the parental home, 
 is a student in the high school. 
 
 Henry Wetzel. Probate judge of LeSueur 
 County, Henry Wetzel has spent all his life in this 
 section of the state, and is well and favorably known 
 by the people of his home county, where he has 
 been a farmer, business man, and in his present 
 office has given a most capable administration of its 
 affairs. 
 
 Henry Wetzel was born on a farm in LeSueur 
 County, Minnesota, June 27, 1869. His father is 
 Joseph Wetzel, who was . born in Germany in 1833 
 and is now living at Waterville in LeSueur County 
 at the venerable age of eighty-two. He came to 
 America and located in Illinois in 1852, was married 
 in that state, and in 1862 became one of the early 
 settlers in LeSueur County. By trade he was a 
 cooper, but spent the greater part of his life as a 
 farmer in LeSueur County. He is a member of 
 the Catholic Church, while his wife is a Lutheran, 
 and in politics he is a republican. 
 
 Judge Wetzel, the sixth in a family of seven chil- 
 dren, grew up in the country districts of LeSueur 
 County, attended the local schools, and was an active 
 farmer until the age of thirty-seven. He then en- 
 gaged in merchandising at LeSueur Center for one 
 year, returned to the farm for four years, and in 
 the fall of 1910 the peoole of the county gave him 
 the special honor of election to the office of probate 
 judge. He has since been regularly re-elected, and 
 now gives all his time to the duties of his office. 
 
 On October 22, 1907, Judge Wetzel married Ethel 
 F. Whipps, daughter of Henry and Frances (Katley) 
 Whipps. Her father was born in Ohio and her 
 mother in Iowa, and they came to Minnesota in 
 1880. Mrs. Wetzel was born at LeSueur Center in 
 1882. To their union has been born one son, Louis 
 Henry Wetzel, now two and a half years of age. 
 Mrs. Wetzel is a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church. In the Independent Order of Odd Fellows 
 Judge Wetzel has passed through all the chairs. 
 
 Martin J. O’Malley. A citizen of Ramsey 
 County with a host of friends and qualified by a 
 long experience in general business management and 
 accountancy, Martin J. O’Malley was well chosen 
 for the office of county treasurer, and since the 
 beginning of 1915 has given a capable and thoroughly 
 methodical administration of his official duties in the 
 St. Paul courthouse. 
 
 Martin J. O’Malley was born at Mackinaw, 
 Alichigan, February 15, 1878, a son of Anthony and 
 Elizabeth (McDonald) O’Malley. The parents were 
 born in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, where 
 the father had his early experience in the wholesale 
 fish business, moved from there to Michigan, and 
 later to Chicago, where he established himself in 
 the fish business. He died soon afterwards, leaving 
 his son Martin J. O’Malley at the age of twelve 
 years. The mother is still living and now resides 
 with her son Mr. O’Malley in St. Paul. 
 
 Martin J. O’Malley acquired his early education 
 in the public schools of Chicago, and at an early 
 age left school to take up the practical work of 
 life. After a course in a commercial college, he 
 found employment as a bookkeeper with the Morris 
 Packing Company, and for ten years was with that 
 firm of meat packers, and for about twelve months 
 was with Armour & Company. While these com- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1757 
 
 panies employ thousands of men, promotion and 
 advancement are almost invariably bestowed upon 
 efficiency and industry, and Mr. O’Malley’s long and 
 faithful service in the general offices finally brought 
 him promotion to the position of manager of the 
 Armour & Company’s branch house at Oskaloosa, 
 Iowa. He was also for a time traffic manager for 
 the St. Paul Foundry Company. 
 
 In 1914 Mr. O’Malley was the nominee at the 
 primaries for treasurer of Ramsey County, and in 
 the general election of November contested the 
 place with two opposing candidates and was elected 
 by a substantial plurality on the non-partisan ticket. 
 He assumed the duties of his office January 4, 1915. 
 
 Mr. O’Malley was married in 1903 to Mary 
 Sebastian of St. Paul, where she was born and 
 reared and educated. 
 
 Frank C. Irwin. In the history of that section 
 of Scott County of which Belle Plaine is the com- 
 mercial center, the names of the most prominent 
 early families are those of Irwin and Chatfield. One 
 member of the family is named above, Frank C. 
 Irwin, who has the distinction of being the first 
 white child born in the Village of Belle Plaine, and 
 for nearly thirty years one of the leading members 
 of the bar. On Main Street of that village there 
 still stands what is known as the oldest structure 
 in the village, a landmark of early days, the old 
 Chatfield home, which belonged to Mr. Irwin's 
 maternal grandfather, Judge Andrew G. Chatfield. 
 
 To speak of the family relationship more in 
 detail, Frank C. Irwin was born at Belle Plaine, 
 April 15, 1857, when Minnesota was still a territory. 
 His parents were Robert A. and Celia C. (Chatfield) 
 Irwin. The paternal grandfather was Alexander J. 
 Irwin, who was one of the pioneers of Northern 
 Wisconsin, having located about the shores of 
 Green Bay in 1810. He was one of the early fur 
 traders and was at one time associated with General 
 Sibley. In the very early days when Wisconsin and 
 Minnesota were both territories he served as the 
 United States marshal with jurisdiction over por- 
 tions of both the present states. 
 
 The maternal grandfather, Andrew G. Chatfield, 
 was born January 27, 1810, in Otsego County, New 
 York, was admitted to the bar in 1837, and soon 
 afterwards located in Kenosha, Wisconsin. In 1853 
 he was appointed territorial judge for the Territory 
 of Minnesota, and at that time removed to Mendota, 
 where he lived in the stone house next to the 
 General Sibley home. In the exercise of his duties 
 as territorial judge he finally removed to Belle 
 Plaine, and was the first settler of that village. In 
 1870 he was appointed judge of the newly created 
 Eighth Judicial District, and in that capacity held 
 the first courts in Scott, Sibley, Carver, LeSueur, 
 Nicollet, Blue Earth, Wright, Dakota, Hennepin and 
 Winona counties. In June, 1836, Judge Chatfield 
 married Eunice E. Beeman, who came with her hus- 
 band to Belle Plaine in 1854. Judge Chatfield died 
 in 1875, and for almost twenty years Mrs. Chatfield 
 held the office of postmaster at Belle Plaine. She 
 died in October, 1902. 
 
 Robert A. Irwin, father of Frank C., was born 
 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, February 14, 1833, and 
 died October 17, 1891. His wife was born in Addi- 
 son, New York, in July, 1837, and died January 19, 
 1915. Theirs was the first marriage celebrated in 
 
 the Village of Belle Plaine. Robert Irwin moved to 
 Belle Plaine on May 5, 1855. In Wisconsin he had 
 attended common schools and had read law under 
 the direction of his father-in-law, Judge Chatfield, 
 being admitted to the bar in 1864, and thereafter 
 following his profession. He served as clerk of 
 court of Scott County from 1861 to 1863, and for 
 a short time was in the Union army during the 
 Civil war, but was discharged on account of illness. 
 As a lawyer he always enjoyed a substantial practice 
 and at the time of his death was a partner of his. 
 son Frank. He and his wife were members of the 
 Episcopal Church, and in politics he was a democrat. 
 Of the eight children, five are now living: Frank; 
 
 Andrew G., a farmer and engaged in conducting 
 a summer resort in Hubbard County; Charles W., 
 who runs a restaurant ; Alex J., who was educated 
 in the public schools of Belle Plaine and read law 
 with his brother Frank, being admitted to the bar 
 in 1907 and since engaged in practice with his older 
 brother; Elvira F., wife of William Martin, a St. 
 Paul real estate man. 
 
 Frank C. Irwin received his early training in the 
 Belle Plaine schools, and spent one year in school 
 at Green Bay, Wisconsin. He took up the study 
 of law under his father, and was admitted to the 
 bar in April, 1S86. In 1892 he was admitted to prac- 
 tice in the United States Circuit Court, in the District 
 Federal Court in 1900, and in the United States 
 Court of Appeals in 1903. 
 
 In October, 1878, Mr. Irwin married Elizabeth C. 
 Bay, who was born in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, 
 May 26, 1855. To their marriage have been born 
 two children. Francis C., who finished the course 
 in the Belle Plaine High School and the Mankato 
 Normal, is now teaching in the country school of 
 Scott County. Harry A., born September 27, 1887, 
 is a graduate of the local high school, finished his 
 law course in the University of Minnesota in 1910, 
 with post-graduate studies during 1911, and is now 
 located in St. Paul as an editorial writer for the 
 Lawyers’ Co-operative Publishing Company. 
 
 Mr. Irwin and wife are both active members of 
 the Episcopal Church and for a number of years 
 he served as warden. For three years he was head 
 of the Independent Order of Foresters in Minnesota, 
 and is now attorney for that order. Politically his 
 actions have been in line with the democratic party, 
 and for thirteen years he served as mayor of Belle 
 Plaine, and out of seventeen years’ service on the 
 school board was president eight years. A large 
 clientage have entrusted their legal business to his 
 charge, and at this writing he has twenty cases set 
 for the present term of court. 
 
 Hans M. Orfield. The Scandinavian element in 
 the great Northwest has contributed much to a pro- 
 gressive and uplifting civilization, and from this 
 source the American republic has had much to gain 
 and nothing to lose. Great have been the gifts of 
 the sons of the Norseland to Minnesota and great 
 should be the appreciation on the part of this favored 
 commonwealth. Prominent among those of Scandi- 
 navian birth or extraction who have not only achieved 
 distinctive success in connection with the civic and 
 industrial activities of Minnesota stands Hans Mar- 
 tin Orfield, whose fine initiative power, ambitious 
 purpose and progressive policies have made him one 
 of the influential representatives of the real estate 
 business in the Minnesota metropolis and also promi- 
 nent in public affairs. He has aided materially in 
 forwarding the sturdy march of progress in this 
 
1758 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 state and in the handling of Minnesota lands his 
 operations have been extensive and fruitful, with 
 admirable results in bringing about industrial de- 
 velopment and general civic advancement. Mr. 
 Orfield’s family name was Olson, from which it 
 was changed to the present form in the spring of 
 1914, as indicated in the following quotation, taken 
 from a Minneapolis paper: 
 
 “During the last few years it has become a very 
 common practice among Scandinavians to adopt the 
 ‘gaardsnavn’ or name of the farm or place from 
 which the family originally hailed. These changes 
 are very frequent in Christiania, and in Denmark a 
 national law has been passed which will abolish 
 most of the names ending in ‘son’ or ‘sen.’ H. M. 
 Olson and D. J. Olson, who have been known here 
 in real estate circles for a number of years, have 
 just received an order from the District Court 
 authorizing the changing of their name to Orfield, 
 a name adopted from the place in Norway where 
 they were born. Their brother, Dr. M. N. Olson, an 
 instructor of the State University, and their father, 
 Lars J. Olson, also made the change at the same 
 time. There still remain 4,000 Olsons in Min- 
 neapolis.” 
 
 Hans Martin Orfield (Olson) was born in North- 
 ern Norway, within a short range of the Arctic 
 Circle, on the 4th of October, 1875, and is a son of 
 Lars J. Orfield. He was seven yeats of age at the 
 time of the family immigration to America and his 
 parents now reside in Minneapolis, where his father 
 is living retired, after having gained independence 
 and prosperity through his well ordered endeavors 
 as a farmer in Minnesota. There are eight children, 
 all of whom are residents of this state, and the 
 subject of this review was the fifth in order of birth. 
 Qf the sons it may be noted that Dr. M. N. Orfield 
 is a teacher of political science in the University of 
 Minnesota and that D. J., who was graduated in the 
 University of Minnesota and devoted a number of 
 years to teaching in the public schools, is now en- 
 gaged in the real estate business in Minneapolis. Nels 
 E., the youngest son, remains at the parental home. 
 Of the daughters, Lydia A., who has been a success- 
 ful and popular teacher, was graduated in one of 
 the state normal schools of Minnesota ; and another 
 is the wife of Dr. Henry J. Rice, of Benson, Swift 
 County. 
 
 The district schools in the vicinity of the old 
 homestead farm afforded Hans M. Orfield his early 
 educational privileges, and in 1900 he was graduated 
 in the Minnesota State Normal School at. Mankato. 
 He then entered the academic department of the 
 University of Minnesota, in which he was graduated 
 as a member of the class of 1903 and with the 
 degree of Bachelor of Arts. He thereafter com- 
 pleted the prescribed curriculum in the law depart- 
 ment of his alma mater, in which he was graduated 
 in 1905, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, a 
 subsequent post-graduate course giving to him the 
 degree of Master of Laws. Mr. Orfield was ad- 
 mitted to the bar on the 21st of February, 1905, and 
 while well fortified for the practice of law, he has 
 found it expedient to divert his attention into other 
 fields and has achieved pronounced success and 
 prestige as an enterprising and reliable representa- 
 tive of the real estate business. He is a member 
 of the Minneapolis Real Estate Board and has given 
 special attention to the handling of fine tracts of 
 unimproved prairie land in Roseau, Kittson and 
 Marshall counties. On his books are represented 
 at all times the most desirable of investments in 
 
 Minnesota farm lands of the best order, and every 
 transaction made through his agency is certain to be 
 fair and honorable, all titles being guaranteed and 
 easy terms offered to those who wish to develop land 
 and make for themselves desirable homes. Mr. 
 Orfield has authoritative knowledge of land values, 
 both through extensive travel and observation 
 through the Northwest, and practical experience in 
 farming. He has sold land in thirty-three counties 
 in Minnesota and is familiar with the resources and 
 advantages of the different sections of the state. 
 
 In completing his courses in the university, Mr. 
 Orfield depended upon his own resources in defray- 
 ing his expenses of all kinds, and his law course 
 was taken in the night classes, while he devoted the 
 days to the handling of real estate. He has never 
 abated his ambition to engage in the active practice 
 of law, and while he still continues to give close 
 attention to his extensive real estate business, he 
 has recently, in 1914, become associated with his 
 brother, Dr. M. N. Orfield, in establishing a law 
 office in Minneapolis, under the firm name of Or- 
 field & Orfield, Doctor Orfield having been graduated 
 in the law department of the State University in 
 June, 1914. Since 1912 Mr. Orfield has also con- 
 ducted a successful general merchandise business in 
 a fine rural section near Irving, Kandiyohi County, 
 the store being under the active management of 
 Charles Sorbye. 
 
 In politics Mr. Orfield is a stalwart advocate of 
 the principles of the republican party and he has 
 been an active worker in behalf of its cause. In 
 1910 he was republican candidate for the State Sen- 
 ate, but was defeated, and in the election of Novem- 
 ber, 1914, he appeared as candidate for representa- 
 tive of the Thirty-third District, comprising the 
 Seventh and Thirteenth wards of Minneapolis, in 
 the lower house of the Legislature. Mr. Orfield is 
 affiliated with Anchor Lodge, Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows ; Hennepin Council, Royal Arcanum ; 
 the Sons of Norway; and the Odin Club. He holds 
 membership in the Minneapolis Bar Association and 
 the Minnesota State Bar Association, and is a mem- 
 ber of the Saturday Lunch Club and of the Thu- 
 lanian Club of the University of Minnesota. 
 
 On the 2d of May, 1911, Mr. Orfield wedded Miss 
 Alice Paulson, who likewise was afforded the ad- 
 vantages of the University of Minnesota, her home 
 prior to her marriage having been at Cottonwood, 
 Lyon County. She is a daughter of Ole Paulson, 
 who was engaged in the mercantile business in the 
 City of Chicago prior to his removal to Minnesota, 
 where he became a successful farmer and where 
 both he and his wife passed the remainder of their 
 lives. Mr. and Mrs. Orfield have two children, Alice 
 Virginia and Horace Maxwell. 
 
 Josiah Leavitt. For a little more than thirty 
 years, until his death at Minneapolis, January 4, 
 1895, Josiah Leavitt was one of the principal figures 
 in the lumber and logging industry, associated with 
 his son, Rensselaer C., and with his son-in-law, 
 Augustus E. Horr, and with other notable pioneer 
 lumbermen, including the Pillsburys, Chases, the 
 Havens and others. 
 
 Josiah Leavitt was born in the State of Maine in 
 1808 and at the time of his death was eighty-seven 
 years of age. He grew up in the Pine Tree State, 
 and when he came to the Northwest as a pioneer 
 brought with him long and successful experience as 
 a Maine lumberman. He was married in 1831 to 
 Miss Sallie Hill of Waterboro, Maine, and soon 
 afterwards began his active operations as a logger 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1759 ' 
 
 and lumberman. His business operations in that 
 field were continued for over thirty years. 
 
 In 1864 Josiah Leavitt came to St. Anthony, Min- 
 nesota, to visit his son, R. C. Leavitt, and his 
 daughter, Mrs. Augustus E. Horr, who had located 
 here about a year before. So impressed was the vet- 
 eran lumberman with St. Anthony that he soon re- 
 turned East, wound up his business affairs there, and 
 in 1865 began a residence and business activity in 
 Minneapolis which were only terminated by his 
 death. In connection with his son and Mr. Augustus 
 E. Horr he engaged in the lumber business and 
 bought the sawmill of Todd & Haven. Jonathan 
 Chase was soon admitted to the firm, which went 
 under the name of Leavitt, Chase & Company. In 
 1876 this partnership was dissolved and a new firm 
 known as Chase, Pillsbury & Company was formed, 
 with Mr. Leavitt, his son and son-in-law, as partners. 
 Three years later was organized the still larger cor- 
 poration, the Gull River Lumber Company, in which 
 Josiah Leavitt had a holding interest until his death. 
 
 Mrs. Leavitt died in 1877 and his remaining years 
 were spent with his children and grandchildren. At 
 the time of his death there was a great-grandchild, 
 a son of Mr. and Mrs. E. W. Backus, four years of 
 age. Josiah Leavitt, though more than ordinarily 
 successful as a business man, was devoted to his 
 home, and was proud of his children and particularly 
 of his little great-grandson. Almost until the last he 
 retained the vigor of mind and body which had been 
 his chief asset in the successful accomplishments of 
 his business career. His is one of the names that will 
 always deserve recognition among the pioneer busi- 
 ness men of Minnesota. 
 
 Rensselaer C. Leavitt. In the death of Rens- 
 selaer C. Leavitt, which occurred at San Diego, 
 California, December 3, 1897, while spending the 
 winter in that city for his health, there passed away 
 one of the men whose work and influence had been 
 most conspicuous in the development of the early and 
 later fortunes of Minneapolis and the Northwest. He 
 was a pioneer lumberman, a man with whom hard 
 work was a native characteristic, was an excellent 
 manager of men, a keen and resourceful business 
 man and faithful and efficient in the performance 
 of his civic responsibilities. Years before his death 
 he had worked his business activities into the perma- 
 nent structure of Minneapolis commerce, and while 
 the material resources of his career are likely to 
 endure for many years, he left an even greater 
 fortune in the memory of his sterling character, and 
 a name of unimpeachable integrity. 
 
 Rensselaer C. Leavitt was born at Naples, Maine, 
 May 5, 1835, and wa s one of a number of notable 
 figures, possessed of the rugged virtues and business 
 efficiency associated with their native state who sub- 
 sequently filled a prominent part in the development 
 of the Northwest, particularly in the lumber fields. 
 In his native state he spent his young manhood, 
 farming and lumbering with his father, and at the 
 age of twenty-six moved to Boston and for two 
 years was engaged in the ice and fish business. Mr. 
 Leavitt came to St. Anthony in 1863, and Minneapolis 
 was his home and business headquarters until his 
 death. 
 
 From 1863 until 1875 he was engaged in the buy- 
 ing and selling of pine lands and logging operations 
 as head of the firm of Leavitt, Horr & Company, 
 the members of which were his father (Josiah 
 Leavitt), Augustus E. Horr and himself. In 1875 Mr. 
 
 Leavitt former a partnership with his father, 
 Augustus E. Horr, S. D. Todd, C. D. Haven and 
 John Chase under t)ie firm name of Todd, Haven, 
 Leavitt & Company. This firm operated a sawmill 
 on the east side of the river at the falls until 1879. 
 In 1879 was organized one of the foremost lumber 
 companies of the Northwest, the Gull River Lum- 
 ber Company, the chief organizers of which were 
 Mr. Augustus Horr. Mr. Chase, R. C. Leavitt and 
 George A., John S. and C. A. Pillsbury. Mr. 
 Leavitt was secretary of this organization until his 
 death. In 1894 he became one of the incorporators 
 of E. W. Backus Lumber Company, which is now 
 the Backus-Brooks Company, and remained one of 
 the largest stockholders and vice president of the 
 company until his death. He was also president of 
 the Sylvan Lake Live Stock Company. To anyone 
 at all familiar with the lumber manufacturing in- 
 dustry of Minnesota and the Northwest during the 
 past thirty or forty years, this mere mention of 
 Mr. Leavitt’s business connection is sufficient to in- 
 dicate his high standing as a business and industrial 
 leader. 
 
 Mr. Leavitt’s widow, Annette E. Leavitt, survived 
 her husband and made her home at the old Leavitt 
 homestead, 425 Fourth Street, S. E., with Mrs. 
 Augustus E. Horr, until her death, December 27, 
 1914. They had one child, who died in infancy, but 
 always showed a parental affection and regard for 
 the children of Mr. Leavitt’s sister, Mrs. Augustus 
 E. Horr, the wife of his lifetime friend and associate 
 in business. These two children are Mrs. E. W. 
 Backus and Rensselaer L. Horr, both of Minneapolis. 
 
 Mr. Leavitt was a prominent Mason. During his 
 long residence in Minneapolis he exercised a faculty 
 almost as prominent as his ability in business in the 
 making of friendships, and was a man of many asso- 
 ciations with Minneapolis’ leading men and was a 
 well known figure throughout the Northwest. All 
 who knew him recognized his true gentlehood and 
 honorable character in business as in social affairs. 
 His life was lived without reproach and his record 
 is one that affords inspiration and encouragement 
 because his achievements were never associated with 
 anything but the most blameless integrity. 
 
 Augustus E. Horr. The late Augustus E. Horr 
 was one of the pioneer leaders in the lumber and 
 logging industry in Minnesota, coming to St. An- 
 thony in 1865, immediately after the close of the Civil 
 war. He was a member of the old lumbering firm of 
 Leavitt, Horr & Company until 1878, when an asso- 
 ciation with J. S. Pillsbury and others was formed 
 under the name of the Gull River Lumber Company, 
 Mr. Horr serving as its treasurer. 
 
 He also became interested with his son-in-law, 
 Mr. E. W. Backus, in what is now the Backus-Brooks 
 Company, lumber manufacturers and merchants of 
 Minneapolis. Mr. Horr was vice president of the 
 latter organization at the time of his death. He died 
 at his home in Minneapolis September 15, 1908, after 
 an illness of more than two years. His high ideals, 
 simplicity and straightforwardness of character in 
 his everyday life made his name synonymous with 
 business integrity for nearly fifty years in Minneapo- 
 lis commercial circles. 
 
 Augustus E. Horr was born at Waterford, Maine, 
 in 1838. A native of the Pine Tree State, he pos- 
 sessed the rugged qualities of its hills and forests 
 and came almost naturally into lumbering as a busi- 
 ness, and it is a noteworthy fact that many of the 
 
1760 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 ablest characters in not only the lumbering but other 
 industrial lines of the Northwest have been from 
 Maine and adjacent states of New England. 
 
 In 1861 Augustus E. Horr enlisted in Company G, 
 First Maine Volunteer Infantry, and saw active 
 service with that regiment, contracting while in the 
 service a malignant form of measles, which left his 
 eyes in a very weak condition. However, immedi- 
 ately upon being released from the hospital he re- 
 joined his regiment, and as a result, entirely lost the 
 sight of one eye. He was an ardent patriot and for 
 many years was identified with the Rawlins Post No. 
 126 of the Grand Army of the Republic at Minneapo- 
 lis. For many years he was also a trustee of the 
 First Congregational Church of Minneapolis. 
 
 Mr. Horr’s associates knew him to be a man with 
 whom hard work was a native characteristic, straight- 
 forward in all his dealings, a keen and efficient busi- 
 ness man of scrupulous honesty whose word was as 
 good as his bond and the mere mention of his name 
 in connection with any business or enterprise was 
 sufficient guaranty of its worthiness. 
 
 Mr. Horr is survived by his widow, Emily Leavitt 
 Horr, a daughter of Josiah Leavitt, and by two chil- 
 dren- — a daughter, Mrs. E. W. Backus, and a son, 
 Mr. Renselaer Leavitt Horr. Mrs. Horr still resides 
 at the old homestead, No. 421 Fourth Street, S. E., 
 Minneapolis, and her son, Mr. Renselaer L. Horr, 
 resides at No. 419 Fourth Street, S. E., next door 
 to the place where he was born. He has followed in 
 his father's footsteps in the lumber business and is 
 one of Minneapolis’ progressive business men. 
 
 Carl H. Finseth. The Citizens State Bank of 
 Hayfield, Dodge County, is fortunate in having 
 gained the co-operation of so well disciplined, 
 efficient and sterling an executive officer as its pres- 
 ent cashier, Mr. Finseth, who has been actively 
 identified with the banking business since early 
 youth and whose career has been marked by con- 
 secutive advancement as well as by a high sense of 
 responsibility and a clear conception of the principles 
 on which all business should be founded. He is a 
 native of Minnesota and a scion of a sterling pioneer 
 family of this state, where both his paternal and 
 maternal grandfathers settled in an early day, here 
 passing the residue of their lives. 
 
 Carl H. Finseth was born in Goodhue County, 
 Minnesota, on the 20th of November, 1883, and is a 
 son of A. K. and Karen (Haugen) Finseth, both 
 natives of Norway, where the former was born in 
 1834 and the latter in 1846, their marriage having 
 been solemnized in Minnesota, where the respective 
 families settled upon their immigration from Nor- 
 way. A. K. Finseth was a young man at the time 
 when he came to America, in company with his 
 father, Knut Finseth, who passed the remainder of 
 his life in Minnesota. The son became one of the 
 representative farmers and influential citizens of 
 Goodhue County, where he accumulated a large 
 estate and finally became a prominent factor in local 
 banking operations, as president of the Citizens 
 State Bank of Kenyon. He was a leader in the 
 activities of the republican party in his section of 
 the state, and he served two or more terms as a 
 member of the State Senate. He was a resident of 
 Kenyon at the time of his death, which occurred in 
 May, 1913, and there his widow still maintains her 
 home, she being a zealous member of the Lutheran 
 Church, as was also her honored husband. Of the 
 the eleven children, nine survive the father, and of 
 
 the number the subject of this sketch was the tenth 
 in order of birth. 
 
 Carl H. Finseth is indebted to the public schools 
 of Kenyon for his early educational discipline, and 
 was there graduated in the high school as a member 
 of the class of 1903. Thereafter he completed the 
 studies of the sophomore year in Luther College, at 
 Decorah, Iowa, and he initiated his business career 
 by assuming the position of bookkeeper in the 
 Farmers State Bank of Nerestrand, Rice County, 
 Minnesota. A few years later he became cashier of 
 the State Bank of Lafayette, Nicollet County, an 
 incumbency which he retained three and one-half 
 years. He then resigned his position to accept that 
 of cashier of the Citizens State Bank of Hayfield, 
 on the 1st of January, 1914. He is proving the right 
 man in the right place and is most effectively direct- 
 ing the practical executive affairs of this bank, which 
 was organized in 1910, and which is incorporated 
 with a capital stock of $15,000, its deposits now being 
 in excess of $175,000. 
 
 Mr. Finseth is essentially progressive and loyal as 
 a citizen, but has had no desire for public office. 
 His political allegiance is given to the republican 
 party, he is a communicant of the Lutheran Church, 
 and his wife holds membership in the Congregational 
 Church. 
 
 In the year 1910 Mr. Finseth wedded Miss Lutitia 
 Priscilla Landers, daughter of Frank Samuel 
 Landers, of Decorah, Iowa, and the one child of this 
 union is a son, Frank Landers Finseth, born in the 
 year 1911. 
 
 Hon. Sydney Anderson. The career of Hon. 
 Sydney Anderson, congressman from the First Dis- 
 trict of Minnesota, has been a remarkable one in 
 many ways. Elected first to his present office in 
 1900, as the youngest member of this distinguished 
 body, he established such a record for faithful and 
 conscientious service, that in 1914 he was re-elected 
 by a majority of 10,000 votes. From boyhood, when 
 he began to make his own way in the world and to 
 educate himself for the profession of law, his labors 
 have been characterized by steady progress, and, still 
 in his early ’30s, he has attracted to himself the 
 attention of statesmen all over the country and a 
 reputation that is nation-wide in its scope. 
 
 Mr. Anderson was born at Zumbrota, Goodhue 
 County, Minnesota, September 17, 1882, and is a son 
 of Charles B. and Anna Knudsdatter (Strand) 
 Anderson. His father was born in 1842, in the 
 neighborhood of Gothenburg, Sweden, and came to 
 the United States in 1867, settling at Zumbrota, 
 Minnesota, where he served for several years in the 
 capacity of postmaster. He is a harnessmaker by 
 trade, and has been reasonably successful in a 
 financial way, and now makes his home at Ocean 
 Park, California. In politics he is a democrat, and 
 his fraternal connections are with the Blue Lodge 
 and Chapter of Masonry, while his religious affilia- 
 tion is with the Episcopal Church, with which Mrs. 
 Anderson was also identified. She was born in 1851, 
 in the Valley of Hallingdal, Norway, married Mr. 
 Anderson in Minnesota, and died in 1901. She was 
 a daughter of Knut Strand, who died in Norway. 
 Six children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Anderson, 
 namely : Adolph, who is a mail carrier and resides 
 
 at Denver, Colorado ; Herman, a fruit farmer of 
 Jeffersonville, Kentucky; Dr. Oscar, a physician of 
 Ocean Park, California; Leonard, a linotype oper- 
 ator; Carl, a clerk of Ocean Park, California; and 
 Sydney, of this review. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1761 
 
 Reared by a father who believed that the best 
 education a lad could receive was to be obtained in 
 the schools of hard work and practical experience, 
 Sydney Anderson at the age of twelve years began 
 to spend his summer vacations in working on a farm. 
 From that time forward steady work and study were 
 his constant companions. While he was still at- 
 tending the high school at Zumbrota, the Spanish- 
 American war broke out, and although he was but 
 sixteen years of age he secured his parents’ consent 
 to his enlistment as a volunteer. For some time he 
 had been a member of the local state militia, and 
 May 8, 1898, he was made a non-commissioned 
 officer in Company D, Fourteenth Regiment, Min- 
 nesota Volunteer Infantry, with which he served 
 until November 18th of that year. While the regi- 
 ment got no further than Chickamauga Park, and 
 did not see active fighting, its members found plenty 
 to do to occupy themselves in battling the enemies 
 of malaria and typhoid fever. When he received 
 his honorable discharge, Mr. Anderson returned to 
 high school, from which he was graduated in 1899, 
 and at that time decided to study law. He was 
 thrown upon his own resources and had to depend 
 entirely upon himself, but he had carefully saved 
 the money he had earned in farming and as a soldier, 
 and was able to spend the winter of 1899-1900 in 
 attending the Highland Park College, at Des Moines, 
 Iowa. 
 
 Mr. Anderson was married at St. Paul, Minnesota, 
 June 16, 1901, to Miss Florence Douglas, whose 
 parents had originally come from Maine, but whose 
 widowed mother was at that time living at Little 
 Falls, Minnesota. Immediately after his marriage, 
 he accepted employment as a laborer in a sawmill 
 at Little Falls, and with the money earned that 
 summer entered the night school at the University 
 of Minnesota, in December, 1901, and during the day 
 time worked in a minor capacity in a law office. In 
 June, 1903, he took the examination and was ad- 
 mitted to the bar, and for a few months carried on 
 a rather precarious practice at Minneapolis. In the 
 same fall he was offered and accepted a position with 
 a law firm in Kansas City, Missouri, but after a 
 winter there found that the climate did not agree 
 with his health, and he accordingly came to Lanes- 
 boro. There was much competition here and it was 
 difficult for the young legist to get himself estab- 
 lished, but he persevered and finally attracted to 
 himself a professional business that has since grown 
 to large proportions. During the first several years 
 he added to his income by acting in the capacity of 
 secretary of the Fillmore County Business Men’s 
 Association, continuing in that position until 1911. 
 In the meantime, in 1908, he had made the race for 
 county attorney, but lost after a bitter three-cornered 
 fight. In 1910 he became the candidate of the 
 republican party for Congress from the First Dis- 
 trict against the Hon. J. A. Tawney, who had for 
 eighteen years represented that district, and as a 
 campaigner and public speaker swept this part of 
 the state. At the primary election in September of 
 that year he was nominated over Mr. Tawney by 
 nearly 2,700 votes, and at the general election which 
 followed defeated his democratic opponent by 3,500 
 votes, taking his seat in Congress in March, 1911. 
 There he immediately began to show his fellow 
 members that he had come there to accomplish 
 things. One of his first acts was the introduction 
 of a bill for the construction of a national railroad 
 in the Territory of Alaska, a measure which has 
 attracted nation-wide interest, and is being en- 
 
 dorsed by all who are interested in developing the 
 immense and treasure-filled American territory. 
 
 When Mr. Anderson entered the House of Repre- 
 sentatives it was under exceedingly difficult cir- 
 cumstances. He was its youngest and most inex- 
 perienced member, followed a man who had attained 
 a position of great power and influence, and found 
 the House controlled by the opposite political party. 
 That he was given somewhat unusual recognition 
 is shown by the fact that at the beginning of his 
 second term he was elected a member of the Com- 
 mittee on Ways and Means, which was then about 
 to frame a revenue bill. He resigned from that 
 committee to emphasize and give point to his objec- 
 tions and protest against a system of legislation 
 which he felt deprived northern representatives of 
 any effective voice in making the laws. Subsequently 
 he was elected a member of the Committee on Agri- 
 culture, a position for which there are more applica- 
 tions than for any other, and in that capacity was 
 of the greatest service to the district and state, both 
 of which are predominantly agricultural. In his 
 legislative work he studies each bill presented with 
 a view to understanding its effect in operation and 
 its results when its details shall be applied to the 
 facts and conditions of every-day life to which it is 
 related. He has done his own thinking, formed his 
 own conclusions and cast his own votes, yet he has 
 likewise taken every opportunity of ascertaining the 
 views of his constituents upon the general policies 
 to be followed, and has not hesitated to inquire of 
 those whose business situation has made them con- 
 versant with the facts as to what effect the proposed 
 election would have upon the people and industries 
 of the district and the state. His entire record has 
 been one of straightforward and conscientious efforts 
 to conserve the interests of the people, and recog- 
 nizing this fact, they have given him their unswerv- 
 ing and unfaltering support. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are the parents of two 
 children: Sydney Douglas, born July 18, 1905; and 
 Derrice Ernestine, born December 19, 1909. They 
 are members of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. An- 
 derson is a well-known Mason, and has passed 
 through the chairs of the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows. 
 
 Daniel S. Prinzing. Those employments or call- 
 ings of mankind which have to do with the personal 
 rights and welfare of humanity are among the most 
 highly regarded occupations, and one of these which 
 stands pre-eminent is the profession of law. Deal- 
 ing with the property rights of his fellow-citizens, 
 their personal freedom, their public responsibility 
 relative to others, and the ways and means of con- 
 serving our material resources, the lawyer must also 
 be in touch with commercialism, with industrial activ- 
 ity and with civic enterprise. In this most difficult 
 of callings, Daniel S. Prinzing, of Rushford, has won 
 a firmly-established position among the men of Fill- 
 more County. His success has been a matter of 
 personal achievement, as at all times he has relied 
 upon his own talents and enterprise for his advance- 
 ment, and his career may be said to be an exemplifi- 
 cation of the value of the traits of perseverance and 
 industry. 
 
 Mr. Prinzing was born at Glassboro, Gloucester 
 County, New Jersey, April 24, 1867, and is a son of 
 Daniel S. and Jeannette (Espenmiller) Prinzing, 
 natives of Germany. The father was born in 1836, 
 and after the death of his father in Germany, left 
 that country with his mother, who later died at 
 Millersburg, Rice County, Minnesota. When the 
 
1762 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Civil war broke out, Daniel S. Prinzing was a resi- 
 dent of New Jersey, and there he enlisted as a 
 private in Company G, Fifth Regiment, New Jersey 
 Volunteer Infantry, with which he served until re- 
 ceiving a serious wound at the battle of Bull Run. 
 Fie was taken to the hospital and after his recovery, 
 eight months later, rejoined his command, only to 
 receive a second serious wound at the terrific en- 
 gagement at Fair Oaks, from which he never fully 
 recovered, his death occurring May 6, 1876. His 
 army service covered a period of two and one-half 
 years, and he established an excellent war record 
 as a brave and faithful soldier of the Union. He 
 was a republican in his political views, and his re- 
 ligious faith was that of the Baptist Church. Mr. 
 Prinzing was married at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 
 in 1866, to Miss Jeannette Espenmiller, who was born 
 in 1837, and she died in 1892. Of their children, all 
 but one are still living and are as follows : Daniel 
 
 S., of this notice; Wilhelmina, who married John 
 Houston and resides at Springbrook, North Dakota; 
 Charles, who is engaged in farming at Faribault, 
 Minnesota; Dr. Jacob, a practicing physician of On- 
 tario, Oregon ; and Mary, who married Mr. Richard- 
 son and lives at Bemidji, Minnesota. 
 
 The primary education of Daniel S. Prinzing was 
 secured in the public schools of Faribault, Minnesota, 
 to which city he was taken as a child, and subse- 
 quently he attended the St. Paul schools, after leav- 
 ing which he obtained employment as a mail clerk 
 and carrier in the latter city, occupations which he 
 followed for a period of twenty-one years. Eventu- 
 ally he turned his attention to "the study of law, and 
 after some preparation entered the St. Paul College 
 of Law, an institution from which he was gradu- 
 ated with his degree in 1908. He was admitted to 
 the bar during the same year and at once entered 
 upon the practice of his profession in St. Paul, 
 but after two years there moved to Preston, and 
 from the latter place came to Rushford, where he 
 has since been successful in building up an excellent 
 practice. At the present time he is serving as city 
 attorney of Rushford, in addition to which he is a 
 member of the library board and board 'of education 
 and secretary of the Rushford Commercial Club. 
 His practice is broad and general in its character, he 
 has been a close and assiduous student, and is a mem- 
 ber of the various organizations of his profession, in 
 which he has gained a standing commensurate with 
 his acknowledged talents. Mr. Prinzing’.s hobby is 
 the raising of bees, but he has made it something 
 more than a mere recreation, for he has devoted 
 much time to the study of the subject, has a large 
 library devoted to bee raising, and maintains a large 
 apiary in the City of Rushford, where he has a pleas- 
 ant modern home. That he is recognized as an 
 authority upon the subject is shown by the fact that 
 for several years he has held the position of state 
 inspector of apiaries. 
 
 Mr. Prinzing was married in 1898 to Miss Lina 
 Shillock, daughter of John C. Shillock, a farmer 
 of Mound, Minnesota, and to this union there have 
 been born six children : Gladys and Lucille, who are 
 attending high school ; Daniel S. and Mildred and 
 Glenwynne, who are in the graded schools ; and 
 Ardis. Mr. Prinzing is an interested and valued 
 member of the Masonic Order, belonging to the 
 Blue Lodge, Royal Arch Chapter, Knights Templar 
 and Osman Temple of the Mystic Shrine. 
 
 Edward Buttrick Graves. A St. Paul lawyer, 
 with offices in the New York Life Building, Edward 
 Buttrick Graves came to this city in 1887, a few 
 
 years after finishing his course in Yale Law School, 
 and has long enjoyed a practice of most substantial 
 character and influential relations with the general 
 citizenship. 
 
 Mr. Graves represents the best traditions and 
 family stocks of New England — early colonial set- 
 tlers, upholders of religious and civil freedom, In- 
 dian fighters, participants in early wars and civic 
 affairs, and exponents of the rugged virtues and cul- 
 ture that are generally associated with the oldest 
 and best families of the northeastern states. 
 
 He was born at Rutland, Vermont, June 22, 1859, 
 a son of Charles Emmett and Sarah Lawrence (Butt- 
 rick) Graves. The Graves family is of Norman- 
 English origin, and is descended from Thomas 
 Graves, who came to this country about 1640, from 
 England, and settled at Hartford, Connecticut. He 
 thought the church there had “leanings toward Pres- 
 byterianism,’’ and as he would not stand for that, 
 being an Independent (or Congregationalist), about 
 1660, though then an old man, he headed a band which 
 were known as the “Engagers,” among whom were 
 his two sons and their families, and leaving Hart- 
 ford pushed up into the wilderness and settled on 
 the' Connecticut River in Massachusetts, at what is 
 now known as Hadley, where his only two sons 
 were promptly killed by the Indians. Of these sons, 
 Tsaac was the direct ancestor of the St. Paul lawyer. 
 The descendants of Thomas Graves are very nu- 
 merous and are scattered all through the Connecti- 
 cut Valley and the Berkshire Hills, Graves being 
 one of the most common names there. Nineteen of 
 these descendants were in the French and Indian 
 wars, and eleven of them were killed during those 
 hostilities, while fifty-six of the descendants were 
 soldiers or officers in the colonial forces during the 
 Revolution. 
 
 Nathan Graves, the great-great-grandfather of Mr. 
 E. B. Graves, moved to Whately, Massachusetts, and 
 settled on the top of a high hill known as Chestnut 
 or Whately Mountain. The youngest of his nine 
 sons was Daniel, the great-grandfather. Nathan 
 was a soldier in the French and Indian wars, and 
 the local town histories say “he and his sons were 
 noted hunters and marksmen.” Six of these sons, 
 all those living and old enough at the time, were 
 soldiers on the American side in the Revolution. 
 However, despite this wealth of military lineage, Mr. 
 Graves had no direct ancestor of that name in the 
 Revolution. This was due to the fact that at the 
 outbreak of the war Nathan Graves was over sixty, 
 while his son Daniel was only six. When a very 
 young man Daniel, the great-grandfather, moved to 
 Ira, Vermont, and spent the rest of his life there, 
 serving at various times in the Vermont Legislature 
 and honored with other public offices. Ira was the 
 birthplace of both the grandfather and father of 
 Mr. Graves. The grandfather was George Graves, 
 who in early manhood moved to Rutland, where he 
 lived until his death in 1875. He was actively en- 
 gaged in business, and was a prominent abolitionist 
 in that vicinity. George Graves married Lucretia 
 Adeline Collins, a native of Ira, Vermont. 
 
 Charles Emmett Graves, the father, was born De- 
 cember 10, 1830, at Ira, Vermont, but was very young 
 when his father moved to Rutland. After spending 
 two years in Middlebury College at Middlebury, 
 Vermont, he entered the junior year at Trinity Col- 
 lege, Hartford, Connecticut, and graduated A. B. 
 with the class of 1850. The honorary M. A. was., 
 given him by Trinity about 1859, and he received 
 from the same source the LL. D. in 1905, and it is 
 thought that Middlebury also made him M. A. 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1763 
 
 After his graduation he spent a year or so in the 
 West, most of the time in Iowa, having gone out 
 with the expectation of settling permanently. His 
 home after that was at Rutland except during the 
 Civil war and a year or two afterward, while he 
 held a government position at Washington, D. C., 
 though even then Rutland was considered the family 
 residence. In 1867 he moved his family to New 
 Haven, Connecticut, which city was his home the 
 remainder of his life. By profession he was a 
 lawyer, but after the breaking out of the Civil war 
 was not engaged in active general practice. He had 
 business interests in the chemical works at New 
 Haven, being an officer in the corporation, and for 
 that reason established his residence in the city. 
 After giving up those interests, he was engaged in 
 looking after his private affairs and the interests of 
 others, and among other things was for thirty-five 
 years treasurer of Trinity College at Hartford. 
 While temporarily resident of Dansville, New York, 
 he died April 12, 1906. 
 
 Sarah Lawrence Buttrick, his wife, was born June 
 20, 1829, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, of English 
 origin. She is descended from William Buttrick, 
 who sailed to America from England on the ship 
 Planter, in 1835, landing in Boston, and after the 
 founding of Concord settled there.- The line of 
 descent is through his son Samuel, who married a 
 daughter of Maj. Simon Willard. The latter was 
 the chief founder of Concord, Massachusetts, a 
 colonial soldier and statesman, an officer in the 
 French and Indian wars, and for forty years a mem- 
 ber of the Massachusetts General Court. Other 
 Buttrick ancestors were in the French and Indian 
 wars. The great-grandfather of Sarah L. Buttrick 
 was another Samuel Buttrick, who was a “minute- 
 man” at the battles of Lexington and Concord, and 
 whose brother, Maj. John Buttrick, commanded the 
 American forces in those battles, and was the one 
 who, at Concord Bridge, said, “For God’s sake, fire, 
 boys,” when was “fired that shot heard around the 
 world.” The Buttrick family have always kept up 
 their connection with Concord. 
 
 Sarah L. Buttrick’s father was Ephraim Buttrick, 
 who was born at Concord, but after his graduation 
 from college moved to Cambridge and lived there 
 all his life. He was a lawyer in very active prac- 
 tice, and a leader of the bar in Middlesex County, 
 as the frequency with which his name appears in 
 the early Massachusetts Reports will show. He mar- 
 ried Mary King. Her father, Samuel King, and his 
 father, at the breaking out of the Revolutionary 
 war, espoused the English side, and at the time the 
 Colonial forces drove Howe out of Boston, went 
 with him to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Mary King 
 was born. After the war and in the early part of 
 the nineteenth century, Samuel King returned to 
 Massachusetts, and spent the rest of his life in 
 Cambridge. 
 
 Concerning this interesting ancestral record, it 
 may be said in summary that all of Mr. Graves’ 
 ancestors were English or of English stock settled 
 in New England at a very early date, and Mr. Graves 
 himself was the first of the family to live perma- 
 nently out of New England, and he confesses that 
 Vermont is the state of which he is fondest and to 
 which he peculiarly owes allegiance. The family has 
 also had many college men. His maternal grand- 
 father was a Harvard graduate, an uncle was of the 
 same school, his father and another uncle attended 
 Trinity College, while two of his brothers finished 
 at Yale and two at Trinity. 
 
 Edward Buttrick Graves had his home in Rutland 
 
 until March, 1867, though a considerable part of 
 those first eight years of his life was spent in Wash- 
 ington, while his father was in the Government serv- 
 ice, and also with his grandparents at Cambridge, 
 Massachusetts. His father moving to New Haven in 
 1867, that city was his home for about twenty years. 
 In the meantime he had attended primary school, 
 and from the age of eleven spent six years in the 
 Hopkins Grammar School at New Haven. A dif- 
 ference with the school authorities caused him to 
 leave during his senior year, and he studied for a 
 time with a cousin, a clergyman, at Littleton, New 
 Hampshire, and alone at New Haven, until entering 
 the class of 1881 in the freshman year at Yale. His 
 collegiate career was passed without special inci- 
 dent, save that he managed to hold the lightweight 
 wrestling championship during most of the time. 
 He was a member of the Delta Kappa in the fresh- 
 man year, and of the Linonia Society. After gradu- 
 ating, B. A., in 1881, he went to Stetsonville, a little 
 lumbering town in Wisconsin, and was employed 
 about a year and three months in outside work by 
 the owner of a lumber mill. He then returned to 
 New Haven and entered the Yale Law School, 
 graduating LL. B. in the class of 1884. He was on 
 the honor list in the junior year, and in the senior 
 year stood at the head of the class, graduated “cum 
 magna laude,” and took the Jewell prize for best 
 examinations at graduation. 
 
 Beginning practice at New Haven, in 1885 he went 
 into partnership with Cornelius T. Driscoll, then 
 corporation counsel of the city, under the name of 
 Driscoll & Graves. In September, 1887, Mr. Graves 
 came out to St. Paul and for the first six months 
 was a salaried employe on the legal staff of the St 
 Paul Title Insurance Company. In March, 1888, 
 was formed a partnership with Robert C. Hine, 
 also of the class of ’81 at Yale, and for three years 
 the firm of Hine & Graves was in general practice, 
 with growing success. The partnership was dis- 
 solved owing to Mr. Hine’s intention to leave the 
 law and enter business, an idea that he afterwards 
 abandoned. The former partners maintained most 
 cordial relations until the death of Mr. Hine. For 
 the past twenty-three years Mr. Graves has con- 
 tinued as an individual in general practice at St. 
 Paul. For the most part he has found his work 
 congenial, profitable and an ideal way of serving 
 himself and others in the sphere for which he is 
 best fitted, and his associates regard him as one of 
 the most admirably equipped lawyers of the capital 
 city. Outside of his profession he has formed few 
 business connections, except as attorney for various 
 companies. 
 
 Mr. Graves has always affiliated with the repub- 
 lican party, though he has not agreed with it on the 
 tariff question, and has exercised independence in 
 voting for candidates for state, county and municipal 
 offices, and has been strictly non-partisan as to can- 
 didates for judicial position He was baptized in 
 infancy in the Protestant Episcopal Church, and has 
 always kept up his connection with this church, and 
 is a member of Christ Church at St. Paul. Mr. 
 Graves is a member of the Commercial Culb and of 
 a few other social organizations. He is married 
 and resides at 147 Western Avenue, North St. Paul. 
 
 Lyndon A. Smitji. To the responsible duties of 
 the attorney-general’s office, in which he has served 
 as assistant and later as chief for the past five 
 years, Mr. Smith brought an exceptional training and 
 experience, the results of a New England education, 
 a business and professional training in eastern uni- 
 
1764 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 versities and cities, and as a successful attorney and 
 public official in Minnesota for nearly thirty years. 
 
 Lyndon A. Smith was born at Boscawen, Merri- 
 mack County, New Hampshire, July 15, 1854, a son 
 of Ambrose and Cynthia M. (Edgerton) Smith, who 
 married in Vermont in May, 1846. His father was 
 born July 9, 1820, in New Hampshire, was a clergy- 
 man in the Congregational Church at Boscawen from 
 1852 until his death on October 3, 1862, and the 
 mother was born January 2, 1821, and died in April, 
 1S99. 
 
 Reared in a home of culture, and of high ideals, 
 Lyndon A. Smith received his early education in the 
 Pembroke Academy of New Hampshire and the 
 Norwich Academy of Vermont, was graduated Bach- 
 elor of Arts in 1880 from Dartmouth College, and 
 during the following five years, spent as assistant 
 to the United States commissioner of education at 
 Washington, he was a student in the law department 
 of Georgetown University and received the degrees 
 LL. B. and LL. M. 
 
 Mr. Smith began practice at Montevideo in Chip- 
 pewa County, Minnesota, in 1886, and was a lawyer 
 with rising reputation and secure success in that 
 section of the state until 1909. Mr. Smith served 
 as county attorney of Chippewa County from 1889 
 to 1890 and again from 1903 to 1909. He was presi- 
 dent of the Village of Montevideo during 1894-95 
 and again held the same office from 1904 to 1906. 
 He has also been active in business affairs, and has 
 been vice president of the First National Bank of 
 Montevideo since its organization, and from 1905 to 
 1908 was president of the Montevideo Telephone 
 Exchange. 
 
 For many years Mr. Smith has been prominent in 
 the republican party, and his name first acquired a 
 state-wide significance with his election to the office 
 of lieutenant-governor, in which he served from 
 1899 to 1903. Mr. Smith was appointed assistant 
 attorney-general on January 4, 1909, and on the resig- 
 nation of General Simpson from office on January 
 1, 1911, was promoted to the vacancy by Governor 
 Eberhart. He was nominated and elected to the 
 office for the regular term at the primaries and 
 general election of 1912. 
 
 Mr. Smith has membership in the Ramsey County, 
 the Minnesota and American Bar associations ; has 
 taken thirty-two degrees in Scottish Rite Masonry, 
 and is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd 
 Fellows and the Ancient Order of United Work- 
 men ; belongs to the Montevideo Commercial Club 
 and the St. Paul University Club; and is a member 
 of the Congregational Church. 
 
 Mr. Smith was married at St. Paul February 3, 
 1886, to Dora Rogers, a daughter of John Rogers of 
 Kittery, Maine, and a granddaughter of Joseph Cox, 
 who was connected with the United States navy 
 either actively or on the retired list for sixty-two 
 years. Mr. Smith and wife have one daughter, 
 Charlotte, born at Montevideo, Minnesota, graduated 
 from the state university in 1910, and in 1912 was 
 given the degree Master of Arts at Columbia Uni- 
 versity in New York. 
 
 Charles E. Fuller. As postmaster at St. James 
 for the past fifteen years, Charles E. Fuller is one 
 of the best known citizens of Watonwan County, 
 has performed a large amount of useful public serv- 
 ice, and outside of his public duties engaged in the 
 real estate business and has other interests in his 
 home town. Most of his life has been spent in Min- 
 nesota, and he has witnessed the development of 
 this state since pioneer times. 
 
 Charles E. Fuller was born at Ogdensburg, New 
 York, September 7, 1855. His father, Edwin Fuller, 
 was born in Vermont in 1827, and is still living, at 
 the venerable age of eighty-seven, in Minneapolis. 
 The Fuller family is one of the oldest in New Eng- 
 land, its first ancestor having come over in the 
 Mayflower very early in the seventeenth century. 
 Edwin Fuller grew up in St. Lawrence County, New 
 York, and early in his career went West, locating 
 in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and in 1866 becoming 
 one of the early settlers of Blue Earth County, Min- 
 nesota. His active career was all spent in farming, 
 and when he finally retired it was with ample fruits 
 in material circumstances so that he now enjoys 
 peace and comfort in his old age. Edwin Fuller mar- 
 ried Sarah Medcalf, who was born in New York 
 State in 1831 and died at St. James, Minnesota, in 
 1904. The first of their children was Sarah, who 
 married Emery Drew, both of them now deceased ; 
 Susie married William Lambert, and she is now de- 
 ceased, her husband residing on a farm near Seattle, 
 Washington; Charles E. ; Lillian is the wife of Wil- 
 liam E. Odenwald, a painter and decorator at Min- 
 neapolis; Elroy C. is a rancher at Bend, Oregon; 
 Alice is the wife of Capt. William Denny, a painter 
 and decorator at Minneapolis. 
 
 Charles E. Fuller spent part of his boyhood in 
 Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, attended public schools in 
 that city, and was about eleven years of age when 
 his father came to Blue Earth County, where he 
 attended schools, finishing his education in the St. 
 James High School. Leaving school when about 
 sixteen years of age, Mr. Fuller spent the remaining 
 years of his minority at work on a farm. His career 
 has been one of varied and useful activity for the 
 past forty years. In 1876 he began clerking in a 
 store at Byron, Minnesota, and employed himself in 
 mercantile lines, while his winters were spent in 
 the arduous and active life of the pineries until 1881. 
 Mr. Fuller is an old railroad man, and for sixteen 
 years was in the employ of the Omaha Railway, with 
 headquarters at St. James. In 1897 he left railroad- 
 ing and engaged in the flour and feed business, con- 
 ducting a successful establishment in that line until 
 March, 1899. That was the date of the beginning of 
 his first term as postmaster of St. James, under ap- 
 pointment from President McKinley. He has been 
 reappointed to this office three times, and is now in 
 his fourth term, which expires in 1915. He also 
 handles a large amount of real estate and is presi- 
 dent of the St. James Telephone Company. 
 
 Mr. Fuller is a republican, and is affiliated with 
 Lodge No. 207 of the Independent Order of Odd 
 Fellows, with the Knights of Pythias and the Ancient 
 Order of United Workmen at St. James. . 
 
 March 5, 1882, at St. James, Miss Lillian Pedvin 
 became his wife. Her father was the late Daniel 
 Pedvin, a farmer at Riverdale, Minnesota. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Fuller are the parents of six children: Edna 
 
 is the wife of John R. Schoffman, a merchant at 
 St. James; Fred is a farmer at Truman, Minnesota; 
 Grace is the wife of Hugo Stumm, a train dispatcher 
 employed by the Omaha Railway at St. James; Nina, 
 wife of C. W. Johnson, who is in the book business, 
 with residence at Chicago ; Harry, attending high 
 school at St. James; and Grant, also a student in 
 the St. James public schools. 
 
 George McKenzie, Jr. The McKenzie family have 
 been identified with Minnesota as pioneer settlers,- 
 lawyers, legislators and bankers, and always in rela- 
 tions which have meant value to the community as 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1765 
 
 well as to their individual welfare. George Mc- 
 Kenzie, Jr., is prominent as a banker at Gaylord. 
 
 He was born at Gaylord in 1889, and is a son of 
 George A. McKenzie, who was born in Illinois in 
 1857, and has long been prominent in Minnesota as 
 a lawyer. This branch of the McKenzie family is 
 closely related with the noted Alexander McKenzie, 
 who was an explorer in the wilds of Western Can- 
 ada and discovered the river which bears his name. 
 The paternal grandfather, Malcolm McKenzie, was 
 one of the pioneer settlers in Lesueur County, Min- 
 nesota, and represented his district in the Minnesota 
 Legislature in 1877. George A. McKenzie was three 
 times a member of the Legislature, and is remem- 
 bered as the persistent and finally successful advocate 
 of the legislative measure providing for the abolition 
 of capital punishment in the state, having introduced 
 a bill to that effect three times before he secured its 
 passage. He also served four terms as county at- 
 torney of Sibley -County, and is still in active prac- 
 tice. He is a republican, and has been prominent in 
 politics for the last thirty years, has been associated 
 with many of the state leaders in the republican 
 party, and a number of years ago was a guest at 
 the Roosevelt and Marquis de Moris ranches in 
 North Dakota. George A. McKenzie married 
 Martha Oblinger, who was born in Indiana in 1862, 
 and was brought to Minnesota about 1870 by her 
 father, Samuel Oblinger, one of the early settlers 
 about Lake Sakatah in Lesueur County. George A. 
 McKenzie and wife were married at Waterville in 
 Lesueur County, in 1879. They were the parents of 
 three children. One of the daughters is Mrs. W. H. 
 Westcott. 
 
 George McKenzie, Jr., acquired a substantial train- 
 ing at home and in school when a boy, and banking 
 has been his chief experience in business affairs. He 
 was assistant cashier of the Farmers State Bank at 
 Schafer, North Dakota, later was elected cashier of 
 the Farmers State Bank at Lester Prairie, in Min- 
 nesota, and in May, 1914, bought the controlling in- 
 terest in the First State Bank at Gaylord, and is 
 now its president. He is a factor in local affairs, and 
 besides the banking position he holds is also secre- 
 tary of the Sibley County Road Improvement Asso- 
 ciation. Like his father, he affiliates with the repub- 
 lican party. In June, 1914, Mr. McKenzie married 
 Myrtle H. Barger, a daughter of Louis Barger, one 
 of the pioneer settlers at Henderson, Minnesota. 
 
 Jason Lee Lewis. Among men everywhere there 
 must always be leaders. Persons not naturally demon- 
 strative in too great a degree, with a high regard 
 for the rights of others, and possessing proper ideas 
 as to the best method of advancing the interests of 
 their communities, are doubtless best fitted for 
 leadership. They do not always attain to that posi- 
 tion, but when they do their very characters serve 
 as a guarantee that the tasks entrusted to them will 
 be well and faithfully performed, and that community 
 that comes under their influence will be materially 
 bettered in its condition because of their labors. The 
 possessor in a marked degree of the qualities that 
 fit one for leadership among his fellows, Jason Lee 
 Lewis has steadily risen to a position of prominence, 
 and in the capacity of general publicity agent has 
 rendered signal services to the Village of Hibbing. 
 That village has been his home for the past five 
 years and from the restricted sphere of one locality 
 he has recently been appointed to the larger respon- 
 sibilities of state service, becoming a special examiner 
 for the State of Minnesota in the insurance depart- 
 
 ment under Commissioner Sam D. Works in March, 
 1915 - 
 
 Like many of the leading men of Minnesota, Mr. 
 Lewis is the product of an agricultural community, 
 having been born on his father’s homestead place in 
 Furnas County, Nebraska, March 3, 1880, a son of 
 John and Louisa (Rosa) Lewis. His father was a 
 prominent farmer and stock dealer of that locality 
 and still holds large agricultural interests in Western 
 Nebraska. After attending the public and high 
 schools of his native vicinity, Jason L. Lewis be- 
 came a student in the Northwestern Business and Nor- 
 mal School at Beatrice, Nebraska, graduating from 
 the business and normal departments. When he em- 
 barked upon his independent career he adopted the 
 vocation of educator, and for two years taught in 
 the country schools of Nebraska, then going to Su- 
 perior, Wisconsin, to accept the position as in- 
 structor in a business college. From this work he 
 drifted into the banking business, being for seven 
 years teller and chief clerk in different institutions 
 at Superior. In 1909 he came to Hibbing as cashier 
 of the Merchants and Miners Bank, a position he 
 held five years, resigning in 1914 when elected secre- 
 tary of the Commercial Club and manager of the 
 publicity department of the Village of Hibbing. 
 
 Air. Lewis has always been foremost in movements 
 of a progressive and beneficial character, and has 
 been ready at all times to sacrifice his own inter- 
 ests in order to secure time to assist in serving on 
 committees and doing like service. His high abilities 
 in this direction have led to his election to various 
 positions of civic and business importance, and it 
 will be appropriate to mention several of his con- 
 nections with local affairs at Hibbing and in St. 
 Louis County. He has been secretary of the Busi- 
 ness Men's Treaty Association; secretary and 
 treasurer of the Mesaba Gun Club ; secretary and 
 treasurer of the St. Louis County Club; a member 
 of various farmers’ organizations; belongs to the 
 lodge and chapter of the Masonic Fraternity, and 
 has held the rank of Archon, the highest local office, 
 in the Royal League, and is affiliated with the Be- 
 nevolent & Protective Order of Elks. Always taking 
 a great interest in the National Guard, he served in 
 that organization in Nebraska, Wisconsin and Min- 
 nesota, and at the present writing is first lieutenant 
 of Company M, Third Regiment, M. N. G. Few 
 men have a larger acquaintance in this part of the 
 state and none a wider circle of sincere friends. 
 
 On December 20, 1909, Mr. Lewis married Miss 
 Jessie May McLeod of Duluth, Minnesota, daughter 
 of Capt. M. McLeod, who for thirty years was mas- 
 ter of vessels on the Great Lakes. To this union has 
 come one son, John Randall, who was born Decem- 
 ber 16, 1910. 
 
 Anthony M. Bayer, a Minneapolis lawyer, and 
 since 1907 connected with the firm of Barnes Bros., 
 was born in Minneapolis June 10, 1876, a son of 
 Andrew and Anna (Berndgen) Bayer. His father 
 came to Minnesota in 1858, and his mother to Min- 
 nesota Territory in 1856. From 1859 until his death 
 in September, 1892, Andrew Bayer was in business 
 in Minneapolis. He was a soldier of the Civil war, 
 having enlisted in the first company organized in 
 Minnesota in response to Lincoln’s first call for 
 volunteers. He was a private in Companj^ F, First 
 Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. He and his wife 
 were married in Scott County, Minnesota, and the 
 latter died in 1882. Their children were: John 
 
1766 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Henry Robert, George G., Lucy, Anthony M., and 
 Mathew F. X. 
 
 After graduating from the South High School in 
 1893, Mr. Bayer studied law in the office of Judge 
 John Day Smith, and in 1898 graduated from the 
 law department of the state university. For three 
 years he was a member of the firm of Bayer, Phelps 
 & Hand, but since 1908 has had charge of the legal 
 department of Barnes Bros., the prominent Min- 
 neapolis farm mortgage loan concern, whose busi- 
 ness record covers more than a quarter of a century, 
 during which time no client has ever lost any interest 
 ■or principal through investment placed by this firm. 
 
 Mr. Bayer married November 11, 1906, Miss Agnes 
 A. Bouska of Duluth. She was born at Prairie du 
 Chien, Wisconsin, but was ' reared and educated in 
 Minnesota. Her parents, Emanuel J. and Josephine 
 Bouska, have for many years lived in Duluth. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Bayer have four children : Lucile Ann, 
 Margaret Agnes, Anthony Bell and Ann Helen. 
 
 Andreas P. Lommen, M. D. The Town of Lanes- 
 boro, in Fillmore County, has had the professional 
 services of Doctor Lommen for the past eighteen 
 years. He is a physician and surgeon of proved 
 ability and experience, and while his work has been 
 mainly along professional lines he has also prospered 
 in a business way and is a man of influence in local 
 affairs. While Doctor Lommen represents one of 
 the substantial pioneer families of Minnesota, he 
 chose to make his own way in the world, and since 
 his early training has depended upon himself for 
 advancement and success. 
 
 Andreas P. Lommen was born in Spring Grove, 
 Minnesota, May 10, 1867, a son of Peder J. and 
 Maria (Engelstuen) Lommen. Both parents were 
 Torn in Norway, and according to the best available 
 information the family (on mother’s side) originally 
 lived in Germany or Denmark and from there settled 
 in Norway. One of the ancestors of Doctor Lommen 
 was an officer in the Danish army and later estab- 
 lished his home in Norway. Peder J. Lommen was 
 born in Norway in 1822 and died in 1888. His wife 
 was born in 1832 and died in 1901. He came to 
 Minnesota in 1851, locating on wild land in Houston 
 County, and for several years lived on almost the 
 ■ extreme verge of settlement.. He married his sec- 
 ond wife after coming to Minnesota, and spent the 
 rest of his life in the vicinity of the old homestead. 
 He succeeded in accumulating a good property and 
 with success enjoyed the esteem of all the people in 
 Houston County, and was always very liberal with 
 his practical service and with his means. In politics 
 he was a republican and with his wife worshipped 
 in the Lutheran faith. The father was twice mar- 
 ried and had eleven children, ten of whom are liv- 
 ing. Doctor Lommen was the second of four chil- 
 dren born to his mother. His brother, Christian P., 
 was educated in the University of Minnesota and at 
 Berlin, Germany, and is now dean of the medical 
 department in the State University of South Dakota ; 
 Mrs. Sarah Eley is the wife of a Chicago attor- 
 ney; and Ingeborg is an instructor in the Iowa Agri- 
 cultural College at Ames. 
 
 Dr. A. P. Lommen received his early education 
 in the schools of Houston County and had two years 
 of academic instruction in Gale College of Wiscon- 
 sin, largely worked his way through college, and was 
 graduated in medicine in 1895. For 2)4 years he 
 practiced at Mable, Minnesota, and then in 1897 
 established his home and office at Lanesboro. Al- 
 most from the beginning he had a paying practice, 
 
 and now ranks as one of the most popular and 
 thoroughly successful physicians and surgeons in 
 Fillmore County. 
 
 In 1897 Doctor Lommen married Stella C. John- 
 son, a daughter of Rasmus P. Johnson, who was an 
 early settler and farmer in Fillmore County. To 
 their marriage have been born three children : Helen 
 M., aged twelve ; Robert M., aged four ; and Andrew 
 P., aged six months. Doctor Lommen attends the 
 Lutheran Church and fraternally is affiliated with 
 the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Modern 
 Woodmen of America and the Order of Yeomen. 
 Politically he is a republican, quite active in party 
 affairs, being chairman of the First District Congres- 
 sional Committee. It was Doctor Lommen who 
 first suggested the name of Mr. Anderson for Con- 
 gress from this district. At the present time Doctor 
 Lommen is giving much of his time to the office of 
 mayor of Lanesboro and is also president of the 
 school board, having served in that capacity for the 
 past four years. He is a member of the Houston and 
 Fillmore Counties Medical Society, the Minnesota 
 State Medical Society and the American Medical 
 Association. Doctor Lommen and family occupy 
 one of the finest homes in Lanesboro and he also has 
 some farm land. He is a stockholder and director 
 in the First National Bank of Lanesboro. 
 
 Charles S. Bigelow, M. D. Engaged in the active 
 practice of his profession for more than forty years, 
 Doctor Bigelow has kept abreast of the advances 
 made in medical and surgical science. His labors 
 have been ofttimes arduous, but his zeal and fidelity 
 have not faltered in the face of the cares and respon- 
 sibilities that ever devolve upon a physician prac- 
 ticing in a community where his work is largely in 
 rural districts, and he is known as one of the rep- 
 resentative physicians and surgeons of Dodge County, 
 where he has maintained his residence in the Vil- 
 lages of Claremont and Dodge Center since 1881. 
 
 Doctor Bigelow claims the Buckeye State as the 
 place of his nativity and is a representative of 
 sterling pioneer families of that commonwealth, his 
 paternal ancestors having settled in New England in 
 the colonial days and the lineage being traced back 
 to sturdy Scotch origin. The maternal ancestors in 
 America early settled in Pennsylvania. The doctor 
 was born in Middleberry, now East Akron, the 
 judicial center and metropolis, of Summit County, 
 Ohio, on the 15th of December, 1845, and is a son 
 of Thomas S. and Clarissa (Jacobs) Bigelow, the 
 former of whom was born in Vermont, in 1808, 
 and the latter of whom was born in Erie, Pennsyl- 
 vania, in 1810, and their marriage having been 
 solemnized at Middleberry, Portage County, Ohio, in 
 1834. Thomas S. -Bigelow was a son of Elisha Bige- 
 low and Eliza P. Sumner, who was a cousin of 
 Charles Sumner, formerly United States senator of 
 Massachusetts, and a cousin of Judge Charles Sum- 
 ner, who, with his brothers, settled at Akron, Ohio, 
 in early days.. He was a boy at the time of the 
 family removal to Ohio, where his father became 
 a successful hardware merchant and continued his 
 residence until death, his birth having occurred 
 in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Thomas S. 
 Bigelow acquired his early education in Ohio and 
 supplemented this discipline by a collegiate course 
 in the City of Pittsburgh and a medical course in 
 Philadelphia. He was a man of superior intel- 
 lectuality and of great mechanical genius. While at- 
 tending school at Pittsburgh he invented and put in 
 successful operation the first machine for cutting 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1767 
 
 and heading nails — the heading of nails formerly 
 being done by hand. 
 
 For many years of his active career he was en- 
 gaged in the jewelry business in Ohio. One of his 
 most important inventions was the double seamer 
 tin machine for putting tight bottoms on tinware, 
 which came into general use. He also invented the 
 chain paddlewheel for use principally on canal boats 
 to prevent washing the banks. A machine for the 
 manufacture of the “Patent brick,” having the re- 
 volving platform. When sorghum was being raised 
 to a great extent in the North at the time of the 
 Civil war he invented, and with the aid of Luther E. 
 Porter of Lake Mills, Wisconsin, put into practical 
 operation a sorghum mill with self-adjustable hori- 
 zontal rollers. A few years before his death he 
 perfected an improved machine for cutting and head- 
 ing tacks and nails from the cold steel plate. In 
 1849 l ie removed to Wisconsin and died while mak- 
 ing a visit to his son, Charles S., of this review, 
 having passed away at Buffalo Prairie, Illinois, on the 
 20th of November, 1878 at the age of seventy years. 
 He was originally a democrat in politics but at the 
 time of the imminence of the Civil war he trans- 
 ferred his allegiance to the republican party, with 
 which he continued to be aligned until his death. 
 Both he and his wife were zealous and consistent 
 members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the 
 mother of Doctor Bigelow having been summoned 
 to the life eternal in 1848, when he was two and a 
 half years of age. Of the eight children the doctor 
 is the youngest of the two now living, the eldest 
 being Dr. Edward E. Bigelow, who is a resident 
 of Owatonna, Steel County, Minnesota. 
 
 Doctor Bigelow was about four years of age at 
 the time of his father’s removal to Wisconsin, the 
 devoted mother having died the preceding year. The 
 doctor acquired his early education in the common 
 schools at Lake Mills, Jefferson County, Wiscon- 
 sin, in which state he was reared to adult age, and 
 he prosecuted higher branches of study in Milton 
 Academy after the close of the Civil war. In prep- 
 aration for his chosen profession he entered the 
 medical department of the great University of Michi- 
 gan, at Ann Arbor, in which institution he was 
 graduated as a member of the class of 1873 and 
 from which he received the degree of Doctor of 
 Medicine. For the ensuing eight years he was en- 
 gaged in practice in the State of Illinois, and he 
 then, in 1881, came to Minnesota, where he has 
 continued to follow the work of his profession dur- 
 ing the long intervening period of more than thirty 
 years and where his success has been in consonance 
 with his recognized technical ability and his unselfish 
 devotion to the alleviation of human suffering and 
 distress. He was engaged in practice at Claremont, 
 Dodge County, until 1892, when he removed to Dodge 
 Center, where he has since maintained his home and 
 continued his faithful and zealous services. He is 
 well known throughout the county that has long rep- 
 resented his home and is held in affectionate regard 
 by the many families to whom he has ministered, 
 in many of them even to the third generation. In 
 this county he has had a large and representative 
 practice, and he has at all times stood exponent of 
 the highest professional ideals and of the most loyal 
 citizenship. The doctor served one year as a soldier 
 of the Union in the Civil war, as a member of Com- 
 pany F, Third Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and 
 the loyal memories of his military career are per- 
 petuated through his affiliation with the Grand Army 
 of the Republic. 
 
 Vol. n— 32 
 
 Doctor Bigelow is a stalwart republican and has 
 implicit faith in the basic principles that have ever 
 been held by his party. He holds membership in 
 the Minnesota State Medical Society, the Southern 
 Minnesota Medical Society, and the Dodge County 
 Medical Society; is affiliated with the Dodge Center 
 Lodge of Ancient Free & Accepted Masons, and is 
 a member of the Congregational Church, as was 
 also his wife, who was summoned to the life eternal 
 in 1910. 
 
 In the year 1873 was solemnized the marriage of 
 Doctor Bigelow to Miss Alma A. Pierce, and their 
 companionship continued more than a quarter of a 
 century. Mrs. Bigelow was born in Mercer County, 
 Illinois, and was a daughter of Charles T. Pierce, 
 who removed from Maine to that state and became 
 one of the pioneer settlers of the county mentioned. 
 He was a farmer by vocation and was a resident of 
 Kansas at the time of his death, two of his sons 
 having sacrificed their lives when serving as soldiers 
 in the Civil war. Doctor and Mrs. Bigelow became 
 the parents of five children, of whom four are liv- 
 ing. Delia is the wife of George A. Young and 
 they reside at Albion, Indiana. Amy G. remains with 
 her father. Dr. Charles Edward is a successful 
 physician and surgeon engaged in practice at Dodge 
 Center, where he is fully upholding the profes- 
 sional prestige of the name which he bears; and 
 Albert S. graduated in June, 1909, at Pillsbury Acad- 
 emy, at Owatonna, Minnesota, with highest honors, 
 at the head of his class, and was major of the cadet 
 brigade during his senior year. In the following 
 autumn he entered the College of Arts and Science 
 of the University of Chicago and after remaining 
 in attendance for three years, the spring of 1912 
 was elected assistant professor and commandant in 
 Pillsbury Academy, where he served acceptably for 
 two years, when he resigned, in 1914, to accept the 
 position of principal of the high school at Hiawatha, 
 Kansas, and was re-elected for the following year. 
 During these three years of teaching he has kept 
 up his senior work during the summer vacations at 
 the University of Chicago and expects to receive the 
 degree of Bachelor of Arts in the fall of 1915. Since 
 1907 he has kept up his membership in Company I, 
 Second Minnesota National Guard, going into camp 
 each year and performing honorable service. 
 
 John B. Richards. With an active experience of 
 thirty years merchandising in Mankato, John B. 
 Richards and daughter now have one of the prin- 
 cipal dry goods establishments of the city and in 
 many ways one of the distinctive stores engaged in 
 the exclusive handling of dry goods in Southern 
 Minnesota. Mr. Richards has made a success by 
 devoting himself unreservedly to business, and while 
 a public-spirited and willing worker for anything 
 that means a better and greater Mankato, quite 
 rigidly adhered to the principal that in concentra- 
 tion lies the best success. 
 
 John B. Richards was born near Utica, New York, 
 December 15, 1857, a son of Thomas J. and Margaret 
 (Owen) Richards. Both his parents were born in 
 Wales, his father in 1809 and he died in 1893, and 
 his mother in 1816 and died in 1879. They were 
 married in Wales and came to this country about 
 1850 in a sailing vessel that was six weeks on the 
 ocean. During the voyage they buried a little 
 daughter. The father was a stone mason by trade, 
 and in New York State worked as a farmer and 
 was also employed in lime kilns. In 1859 the family 
 went out to Wisconsin, and from there moved to 
 
1768 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Minnesota in 1868. The father bought a farm in 
 Blue Earth County and continued its management 
 and cultivation and owned it at the time of his 
 death. He was a man of honest intentions, and did 
 his work well, but never sought any of the con- 
 spicuous places in the world. He and his wife were 
 active members of the Welsh Presbyterian Church, 
 and for many years he served as a deacon in that 
 denomination. In politics he was a republican. Of 
 the twelve children born to their union only three are 
 now living: Mrs. J. J. Edwards, wife of a retired 
 
 merchant at Mankato ; -David Richards, associated 
 with his brother in business. 
 
 John B. Richards was educated in the Mankato 
 public schools and the State Normal, and his first 
 business experience was as clerk in a grocery store. 
 He later became identified with a dry goods store and 
 for four years traveled out of Minneapolis as the 
 representative of a wholesale dry goods house. In 
 1885 Mr. Richards opened a business in Mankato 
 under the firm name of Frink & Richards. With his 
 brother David he bought this business in 1889 and 
 since that date the firm of J. B. and D. Richards has 
 been in existence as one of the largest and most 
 progressive mercantile concerns in the city. While 
 their business has been steadily growing and their 
 reputation as reliable merchants expanding over a 
 larger territory, they have also had their setbacks 
 and vicissitudes, and in 1906 their store was burned 
 with a total loss. They then constructed a large 
 building at 402-404 South Front Street, and were 
 once more serving their trade by the month of 
 October. They have operated as an exclusive dry 
 goods store. Their stock will compare favorably 
 with any stock carried in the large dry goods 
 stores of the Twin Cities. The building in which 
 their store is located is a large three-story build- 
 ing and is owned by the company. 
 
 In 1886 John B. Richards married Jennie Williams 
 of Cambria, Wisconsin. Her father, Dr. J. L. L. 
 Williams, was an early settler in that section of 
 Wisconsin and was prominent both as a physician 
 and a citizen. Mr. and Mrs. Richards have one 
 daughter, Edith, who is a graduate nurse from a 
 Chicago hospital training school and is now follow- 
 ing her profession in Mankato. Mrs. Richards and 
 her daughter are both active members of the Welsh 
 Church at Mankato. Mr. Richards is a past exalted 
 ruler of Mankato Lodge, No. 225, B. P. O. E., is past 
 chancellor of the Knights of Pythias, and is also 
 past grand vice chancellor of the state lodge of 
 Knights of Pythias. In politics he is a republican, 
 but his business has allowed him only little partici- 
 pation in politics. 
 
 Judge J. N. Edwards. Twenty years of continu- 
 ous service as probate judge of Swift County, the 
 holding of many offices in the village and City of 
 Benson, and the prosecution of varied interests in 
 business affairs, have been the chief points in the 
 career of Judge Edwards, now for thirty-eight years 
 a continuous resident of Benson, and one of the 
 most influential as well as the oldest of local citi- 
 zens. A rare fidelity to duty and a quick responsive- 
 ness to the demands for action have characterized 
 him throughout his active life and these charac- 
 teristics readily account for the various honors which 
 his fellow-citizens have paid him. 
 
 James Newton Edwards was born in Warren 
 County, Illinois, October 18, 1846. The family is of 
 Welsh origin. Berry W. Edwards, his father, was 
 
 born in Tennessee and when six years of age was 
 taken by his parents to Illinois. His grandfather 
 was Thomas Edwards, who served in the War of 
 1812-13, married a Miss Sweet both being natives of 
 Tennessee. In Illinois the family first lived on a 
 farm in Fayette County, where Berry W. Edwards 
 was reared to manhood, with a common school edu- 
 cation. He followed farming, and was also in busi- 
 ness as a miller and merchant. He married for his 
 first wife Sarah Bivens, who was born in Indiana 
 but reared in Illinois. She died in young woman- 
 hood, and had only two sons, the younger being 
 Judge Edwards, while the older was William 
 Jasper, who served four years as a soldier of the 
 Union during the Civil war and died in 1879. Berry 
 W. Edwards, who died in 1867 at the age of forty- 
 four, married for his second wife Sarah A. Ervin, 
 and by that union there is one daughter now living, 
 Isabella Bennyhoff of St. Elmo, Illinois. 
 
 The boyhood days of Judge Edwards were spent 
 in Fayette County, Illinois, having moved from War- 
 ren County when a babe. His early education was 
 the result of attending the common schools. His 
 business experience began as a clerk in a general 
 store. He was not yet fifteen years of age when 
 the Civil war broke out, but had a brief taste of 
 military life before its conclusion. His service was 
 in Company E of the One Hundred and Forty-third 
 Illinois Infantry, and at the expiration of his term 
 he received an honorable discharge. He then re- 
 turned to his Illinois home, worked on a farm, made 
 rails, cut cordwood and grubbed out a small field 
 in the timber, made ties and cut hoop-poles ; then 
 resumed his business as a clerk. In 1877, with a 
 considerable experience in business and with a very 
 small amount of capital he arrived in Minnesota, 
 spending the first two years in the townships of 
 Hegbert and Moyer on a farm and then taking up 
 the residence which has proved to be a permanent 
 one at Benson. For about three years he was em- 
 ployed by Captain Thornton in the hardware, coal 
 and lumber trade, and in 1882 entered the United 
 States land office and was connected with that de- 
 partment until 1886. For the following nine years 
 be was connected with the Swift County Bank, but 
 in the meantime, in 1894, was elected judge of 
 probate of Swift County, and gave up his business 
 as a banker in 1896. 
 
 The twenty years spent in the office of probate 
 judge is the service for which Mr. Edwards has his 
 most widespread popularity and esteem, but it has 
 been by no means his only public service. For about 
 eight years he was a member of the school board 
 and treasurer of the board of education several 
 years, was also on the village council, was presi- 
 dent of the village when it was incorporated as a 
 city, and was the first man to be honored by elec- 
 tion as mayor, an office he held two terms. Was also 
 city treasurer several years. 
 
 In 1879 Judge Edwards married Ellen Kocher, who 
 died in 1890. The children of this union are: Eugene 
 N. ; Inez, wife of S. H. Cozzens; Zula, widow of 
 Ross Hodgkinson; May, wife of Albert Leslie; and 
 Eunice, who died in 1887. Judge Edwards married 
 for his second wife Mary E. Hunter, who died in 
 1899. The present Mrs. Edwards was before her 
 marriage Alvira Turner. 
 
 Judge Edwards has enjoyed many interesting asso- 
 ciations with social and civic organizations. He has 
 always been a stanch republican and a valuable 
 worker in the interests of his party. His chief activity 
 
JUDGE J. N. EDWARDS 
 

 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ft 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
ANSEL OPPENHEIM 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1769 
 
 in fraternal work has been in the Masonic order. 
 He is a member of Swift Lodge, No. 129, A. F. & 
 A. M. ; Mount Lebanon Chapter, No. 4 7, R. A. M., 
 at Morris; is worthy patron of Chapter No. 157 of 
 the Order of Eastern Star, and has been identified 
 with the Masonic order since 1882. He joined the 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows in 1870, and is 
 a member of Benson Lodge, No. 114, I. O. O. F. 
 His associations with his old army comrades are 
 with McPherson Post No. 17, G. A. R. 
 
 Ansel Oppenheim. Not every man who followed 
 the advice of Horace Greeley and went West suc- 
 ceeded. One who did succeed, however, and to an 
 extraordinary degree, was Ansel Oppenheim, of 
 New York and St. Paul, former vice president of 
 the Chicago Great Western Railway, real estate 
 operator, and financier with a reputation on two 
 continents. To the new field he brought an 
 intelligent appreciation of the opportunities it 
 afforded and an insight into conditions, present and 
 future, that amounted to positive genius. He was 
 energetic and forceful, and by enterprising and 
 progressive methods became in comparatively short 
 time an important factor in the upbuilding of the 
 great Northwest. 
 
 Ansel Oppenheim was born in New York City, 
 January 5, 1847, the son of Isaac and Henrietta 
 Oppenheim. His parents came to this country from 
 Germany in 1842, and settled in New York City, 
 where his father engaged in the mercantile business, 
 amassing a fair competency prior to his death, which 
 occurred in 1879. Mr. Oppenheim’s educational 
 advantages were excellent for he attended the public 
 schools, the Free Academy, and later the College of 
 the City of New York. At an early age he was sent 
 West on a matter of business for his father. On 
 this trip he went to Sparta, Wisconsin. At that 
 time, Herman Greve, who later removed to St. 
 Paul and became known as one of that city's largest 
 real estate holders and most prominent men, was 
 living in Sparta and held a well established position 
 and high reputation throughout the state. Mr. 
 Oppenheim met and fell in love with Josie Greve, 
 daughter of Herman Greve, who combined with an 
 exquisite and charming personality intellectual gifts 
 of a high order. They were married June 21, 1869. 
 
 After a few years spent in New York, the young 
 couple came back to Sparta in order that Mrs. 
 Oppenheim might be near her father, who was at 
 that time in poor health. Mr. Oppenheim took up 
 the study of law and after a short time removed to 
 St. Paul, where he was admitted to the St. Paul 
 bar in 1878, becoming almost from the start one 
 of its distinguished members. He formed a law 
 partnership with Judge John Brisbin and the firm 
 was soon in possession of an enviable practice and 
 reputation. But the keen insight and judicial mind 
 which made Mr. Oppenheim a successful lawyer soon 
 led him to an appreciation of the opportunities 
 afforded by this wonderful Western land and his 
 temperament demanded a more active and vigorous 
 life than his profession permitted. A study of con- 
 ditions convinced him of the exceptional advantages 
 on every hand and he abandoned the law for real 
 estate. With his father-in-law he organized the 
 firm of H. Greve & Co. This firm put through some 
 of the most extensive and important real estate deals 
 ever made in St. Paul. In 1880, the firm purchased 
 the St. Paul City Railway from the bond holders 
 and from this time on Mr. Oppenheim began to 
 
 give the larger share of his attention to railway 
 interests. 
 
 He became actively interested in many things ; and 
 some of the largest enterprises ever launched in the 
 Minnesota capital were sponsored by Ansel Oppen- 
 heim. He was one of the number of public spirited 
 investors who built the Metropolitan Opera House 
 in St. Paul, which is still regarded as the finest 
 structure of its kind in the Northwest; and he was 
 president of the Union Stock Yards of St. Paul 
 when they were first built Among the railroads in 
 which he was interested was the Chicago, St. Paul 
 & Kansas City Railroad, afterwards merged into the 
 Chicago Great Western Railway, and of which he 
 was vice president and director. Although he has 
 spent the most of the past fifteen years in New York 
 City and abroad, Mr. Oppenheim is still interested as 
 director in numerous corporations in St. Paul, 
 including the Interstate Trustee Company, Ltd., of 
 which he is vice president. He is also a director 
 of Wm. Jessopp’s Sons, Ltd., of New York and 
 London, and of the Computing Tabulating Company. 
 
 It is as a financier that Mr. Oppenheim has 
 achieved his greatest success. His connections in 
 the financial world are far-reaching and important, 
 and he is not intimately associated with the most 
 notable financiers of the East and West, but has 
 valuable connections abroad. He has crossed the 
 ocean more than a hundred times, and is not only 
 a well known figure in the offices of the great 
 bankers and financiers of England, but a welcome 
 guest in the homes of the most prominent men on 
 the other side. No man is better versed in values 
 and investments than he, and he has long been con- 
 sidered an authority on these subjects, especially on 
 financial conditions in the Northwest. He is 
 frequently interviewed by the financial papers of 
 New York and has written several articles on 
 Minnesota and the Northwest for the London 
 financial journals. On his return from England at 
 the beginning of the great war of 1914, his opinions 
 were much sought and he wrote several articles on 
 the subject of European financial conditions as he 
 viewed them, for the New York papers. 
 
 Aside from his important business connections, 
 Mr. Oppenheim has always found time for public 
 spirited effort in behalf of anything that related to 
 the public welfare. Before he left New York for the 
 West he had served as a member of the Thirty- 
 seventh Regiment of the New York State National 
 Guard. In the West, his belief in the great future 
 of his adopted state and city impelled him to take 
 an active interest in political and municipal affairs. 
 In 1880, shortly after coming to St. Paul, he was 
 appointed a member of the board of equalization of 
 the State of Minnesota. In 1890, he was elected a 
 member of the assembly of the City of St. Paul. 
 He is a democrat in his political affiliations, and 
 served as chairman of the Democratic County Com- 
 mittee of Ramsey County, Minnesota, with head- 
 quarters at St. Paul. He was chairman of the State 
 Democratic Committee of Minnesota, and one of the 
 secretaries of the National Democratic Convention 
 which met at Chicago in 1884, and nominated Grover 
 Cleveland for his first presidential term. 
 
 A born story teller and a notably good one, the 
 possessor of a keen intellect and strong in his con- 
 victions, Mr. Oppenheim is a welcome visitor in any 
 social circle. His love for music amounts to a 
 passion. He was one of the first of the famous men 
 who used to gather in the well remembered “Amen 
 
1770 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Corner” of the old Fifth Avenue Hotel. He is a 
 member of a number of clubs and societies, among 
 them, the Town and Country Club of St. Paul; the 
 Minnesota Club of New York, and the Historical 
 Club of Minnesota. He is also a member of the 
 National Democratic Club of New York, and is a 
 Mason. His New York office is located at No. 50 
 Broad Street, and in St. Paul he makes his head- 
 quarters in the Oppenheim Building. 
 
 During his long career, Mr. Oppenheim has had 
 the advantage of possessing that most valuable aid 
 to happiness and success — a congenial and sympa- 
 thetic wife. Mrs. Oppenheim herself is worthy of 
 deep interest, not only as a potent influence in her 
 husband’s life, but as a leader in the various circles 
 in which she has lived. Her mother was Marie 
 Lindemann, and on both sides she came of Prussian 
 parentage. Her father, Herman Greve, was a man 
 of unusual personality, being a combination of the 
 visionary and the keen business man. Mrs. Oppen- 
 heim inherited many of his traits of character and 
 was his favorite daughter and close companion. In 
 addition to this advantage she was given a very 
 superior education. While she devoted herself 
 mostly to the forwarding of her husband’s interests, 
 she -is the author of several interesting books and 
 has contributed much charming verse to the mag- 
 azines. Her novel, “Evelyn,” written early in her 
 married life, is remarkable both for its philosophical 
 insight and marked literary excellence. She was a 
 leader in St. Paul society, but gave much time and 
 energy to practical and helpful civic and charitable 
 movements. She reorganized the Free Dispensary 
 of St. Paul, and for eight years was its president. 
 She was also the organizer and the leading figure in 
 the Ladies Auxilliary of the Northwest Manufac- 
 turers Association. She spent one winter in Wash- 
 ington where she was a social favorite, and on long 
 visits abroad with her husband she has seen much 
 of social life of England and the Continent. During 
 her residence in New York she has been prominent 
 in literary circles of the city. 
 
 Three children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Oppen- 
 heirs. The oldest, Herman, born July 19, 1870, 
 followed his father’s profession and served as 
 assistant corporation attorney of St. Paul. He 
 always had a preference for country life and bought 
 a farm near Bound Brook, New Jersey, where he 
 died from pneumonia, December 18, 1913. The 
 second son, Lucius Julius Oppenheim, is a member 
 of the New York Stock Exchange, and in 1906 mar- 
 ried Miss Genevieve Thomas of Baltimore. The 
 third son, Greve Oppenheim, resides in St. Paul. He 
 married, October 12, 1910, Miss Lillian King of 
 Minneapolis, and has one child, Josephine. 
 
 For many years past Mr. and Mrs. Oppenheim 
 have resided in New York, at the Waldorf-Astoria. 
 
 Perhaps the most important public service which 
 Mr. Ansel Oppenheim rendered to the State of 
 Minnesota was his able and enthusiastic co-opera- 
 tion, more than thirty years ago, with Mr. A. B. 
 Stickney and others, in the establishment of the 
 packing industries and live stock market at South 
 St. Paul. The value of this great enterprise to the 
 state and to the entire Northwestern country has 
 been set forth in the historical chapters of this work. 
 No pen can exaggerate its present importance nor 
 predict its future magnitude. In its very beginning, 
 Mr. Oppenheim was a firm believer in its merits 
 and tireless in working out all its numerous details 
 of operation. South St. Paul is one of his prom- 
 inent Minnesota monuments. 
 
 Joseph S. Collins, M. D. A physician and 
 surgeon whose work has commended him to the 
 community in and about Caledonia, and who is the 
 proprietor of a well equipped hospital and sanitar- 
 ium, Dr. Joseph S. Collins is one of the younger 
 members of the medical profession in Minnesota, 
 but possesses the qualifications and native ability and 
 thorough training which have brought high rank to 
 many young men in this profession. 
 
 Joseph S. Collins was born on a farm at Geneseo, 
 Illinois, March 23, 1882. His parents were John S. 
 and Catherine (Meagher) Collins, both natives of 
 Ireland. His father was born in 1834 and his mother 
 in 1846. John S. Collins, who died in 1908, came to 
 the United States in 1856, and after a brief residence 
 in Connecticut moved out to Illinois, and with no 
 capital except willing hands started to acquire a 
 competence for himself and family. He possessed 
 excellent business judgment, and in time acquired 
 an estate of 540 acres in the rich Illinois farming 
 district of Henry County. He fed cattle and was 
 a large shipper for a number of years. A roan of 
 education and combining broad reading with prac- 
 tical business enterprise, he enjoyed large influence 
 in the community, and was a frequent writer for 
 local papers. Politically his associations were with 
 the democratic party. His widow, who came to the 
 United States after her husband, is still living on 
 the old homestead in Illinois. 
 
 Dr. Joseph S. Collins was educated in Illinois, and 
 was graduated M. D. from the University of Iowa 
 in 1905. The first three years in practice were spent 
 at Atkinson, Illinois, and in 1908 he came to Cale- 
 donia and established an office for general practice. 
 For some time he was associated with Doctor 
 Murphy, and finally bought out his interests and has 
 since practiced alone. In 1908 Doctor Collins bought 
 a hospital at Caledonia, and now has accommoda- 
 tions for seventeen patients. He has well equipped 
 operating rooms, and maintains the institution 
 largely as a sanitarium. 
 
 Doctor Collins is at the present time county 
 physician, and resigned the office of county coroner 
 to accept that post. He is a member of the County 
 Medical Society and the Southern Minnesota 
 Medical Association and the American Medical 
 Association. Among other interests Doctor Collins 
 has farm lands in Illinois. In 1908 he married Mary 
 Finley of Faribault, Minnesota. He and his wife 
 are members of the Catholic Church, he is affiliated 
 with the Knights of Columbus and is a democrat in 
 politics. 
 
 Leslie Loran Sloniger. A Minnesota educator 
 of the progressive type, whose work is best illustrated 
 by the present conditions of the Hastings High 
 School, Professor Sloniger has been identified with 
 that institution for the past six years. When he took 
 charge the Blastings High School measured up to 
 the usual standards of such institutions, but under 
 the direction of Mr. Sloniger and with the co-opera- 
 tion of the board the course has been greatly 
 broadened and adapted to the varied needs of its 
 pupils and a new vitality has been instilled into all 
 the work. The first noteworthy improvement was 
 the introduction of a manual training department, 
 following which came a course in agriculture, and 
 now the school has domestic science and household 
 art. The agricultural course takes the student 
 through four years, beginning with agronomy and 
 offering opportunities for the study of animal 
 husbandry, dairying, soils, horticulture, and general 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1771 
 
 farm management. The course in mechanics is 
 equally comprehensive, while the girls are offered 
 training in cooking, sewing and other useful domestic 
 arts. The school also has a normal course for the 
 training of teachers. 
 
 Leslie Loran Sloniger was born at Moorefield, 
 Nebraska, February 27, 1886, a son of Commodore 
 Perry and Margaret (Urmson) Sloniger. The 
 Sloniger family originated in Germany, and the 
 great-grandfather came from Berlin about 1800 and 
 settled in Pennsylvania. The grandfather, Commo- 
 dore Oliver H. P. Sloniger, was born in Pennsyl- 
 vania, and died in 1904 at the age of ninety years. 
 Professor Sloniger’s father is a prominent real 
 estate man of Lincoln, Nebraska, and for a number 
 of years has taken much part in city and state 
 affairs. In 1875 the Sloniger family settled in 
 Eastern Nebraska, moved out to Western Nebraska 
 in 1885 and was subsequently located in Lincoln. 
 
 Professor Sloniger, the oldest in a family of 
 nine children, was educated in the Moorefield 
 graded schools, in a preparatory academy at Crete, 
 Nebraska, and in 1904 entered Doane College and 
 was graduated Bachelor of Science in 1908. In that 
 year he did his first work as an educator as teacher 
 of science at Madelia, Minnesota, and in 1910 
 accepted the principarlship of the Hastings High 
 School. The year following he was elected superin- 
 tendent of the high school, and his administration 
 has done more than anything else to bring this high 
 school into the front rank of similar institutions in 
 the state. It now has an enrollment of more than 
 650 pupils, and the work of the school has been so 
 diversified as to offer every one adequate training 
 for useful citizenship. Among other improvements 
 which Mr. Sloniger has introduced is the savings 
 deposit system among the high school pupils, in co- 
 operation with a local bank. At the present time 
 there are about 300 depositors among the pupils of 
 the public school, and the total of deposits amount to 
 more than $2,000. Mr. Sloniger has also organized 
 the high school literary association, and this associa- 
 tion publishes a monthly journal known as The Moc- 
 casin, which has completed its fifth volume, and is a 
 well edited and illustrated school magazine, furnish- 
 ing opportunities for literary and editorial work 
 among the pupils, and keeping the general public 
 and the alumni of the school informed as to progres- 
 sive developments. 
 
 Mr. Sloniger is a Knight Templar Mason, a mem- 
 ber of the Hastings Commercial Club, and is a man 
 of broad and generous interests and active both in 
 and out of his special profession. He is a past presi- 
 dent of the Hastings Beethoven Club and a member 
 of the library board. He was one of the organizers 
 of the Chautauqua and Lyceum at Hastings, and has 
 done a great deal of work in Lyceum and Chautau- 
 qua circles, as an organizer. He is secretary of the 
 Southeastern Minnesota Educational Association. 
 In politics he is a republican on national issues, 
 but independent in state, county and municipal affairs 
 and gives his support to the man best qualified for 
 office. On June 19, 1912, Mr. Sloniger was married at 
 Hastings to Miss Florence Beatrice Hanson, who 
 was born in Hastings, a daughter of Charles and 
 Hilda (Erickson) Hanson. Her family were among 
 the pioneer settlers during the early ’60s of Dakota 
 County. They have one son, George Esmond, born 
 at Hastings July 1, 1913. 
 
 Winfield Scott Hammond. At the general elec- 
 tion of November, 1914, the people of Minnesota 
 
 expressed both a personal and political choice in 
 electing Winfield Scott Hammond of St. James to 
 the governor’s chair. Mr. Hammond had many 
 qualifications and experiences to commend him for 
 this high honor. He made a clean, vigorous cam- 
 paign against his competitors and went into office 
 after a striking expression of the people’s will. 
 
 Winfield Scott Hammond was born in South- 
 borough, Worcester County, Massachusetts, Novem- 
 ber 17, 1863, a son of John W. and Ellen (Panton) 
 Hammond. He grew up and received his early 
 education in his native town, graduating from the 
 Peters High School in June, 1880. The same year he 
 entered Dartmouth College, and was graduated A. B. 
 in June, 1884. He received his master’s degree from 
 Dartmouth in 1889. Governor Hammond has been 
 identified with Minnesota for thirty years, having 
 come to the Northwest soon after his graduation 
 and served as principal of the high school at Man- 
 kato from September, 1884, to June, 1885. He was 
 superintendent of schools at Madelia, Minnesota, 
 fr.om 1885 to 1890, and in the meantime had pursued 
 the study of law and was admitted to the bar in 
 1891. He began his practice at Madelia, where he 
 remained until 1895, and since May of the latter 
 year has been a popular citizen and an able lawyer 
 at St. James, in the same county. 
 
 Governor Hammond first entered practical politics 
 soon after his admission to the bar, having been N 
 democratic candidate for Congress in the Second 
 Minnesota District in 1892. He was county attorney 
 of Watonwan County during 1895-96, and again 
 from 1900 to 1905. In 1898 Governor Lind appointed 
 him a member of the board of directors for state 
 normal schools of Minnesota, and under re-appoint- 
 ment from Governor Van Sant he served as a 
 normal school director for eight years. He was 
 president of the board of education at St. James 
 from 1898 to 1903. He is a member of the Minne- 
 sota State Bar Association, and for a number of 
 years has been one of the state managers of the 
 Sons of the Revolution. In 1906 Governor Ham- 
 mond again became a candidate for Congress, and 
 this time was successful at the general election, 
 and was re-elected in 1908, 1910 and 1912, serving 
 continuously frojn 1907 to 1913. In 1914, as above 
 stated, he was elected governor of Minnesota to 
 succeed Gov. A. O. Eberhart, and he was duly 
 inaugurated, in the presence of a joint session of 
 the Legislature, January, 1915. 
 
 The career of Governor Hammond vividly illus- 
 trates the opportunities open to American citizens, 
 especially in Minnesota, for advancement, provided 
 they have the required ability, force of character and 
 elements of genial personality, which commend them 
 to popular approval. Governor Hammond came to 
 this state from the Atlantic Coast a very young man 
 and a stranger. He was not an aggressive self- 
 seeker, but his solid merits were at once recognized. 
 By performing, with energy and intelligence every 
 task assigned him, he has risen, successively, from 
 one position to a higher one, until now, he stands at 
 the apex of honor and responsibility the worthy peer 
 of many illustrious predecessors. 
 
 St. Cloud Public Library. The nucleus of the 
 present flourishing and well equipped public library 
 of the City of St. Cloud was formed June 8, 1865, 
 by a number of ladies who organized what was 
 known as a Library Association, for the purpose of 
 establishing and maintaining a library and reading 
 room. 
 
1772 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 One hundred and fifty volumes, belonging to the 
 old Everett School, originally donated by Edward 
 Everett, of Massachusetts, after whom the school 
 was named, were added to those purchased with a 
 fund raised by the association through sewing cir- 
 cles, tea parties, and suppers. 
 
 The books were housed in various rooms, and 
 store buildings, and several times were stored away, 
 once almost destroyed by fire. 
 
 The old Library Association, through many vicis- 
 situdes, tenaciously kept it in existence until their 
 organization was merged into the present Ladies’ 
 Reading Room Society, incorporated December 2, 
 1872. 
 
 It continued to maintain a library, where books 
 were issued upon the payment of a very small fee, 
 and a free reading room, until March 31, 1883, when 
 the books were turned over to the city, to be sup- 
 ported by an annual tax levy, and made entirely free 
 to the public, administered by a library board ap- 
 pointed by the mayor. 
 
 The library was then incorporated under the name 
 of the St. Cloud Public Library and Free Reading 
 Room. It was situated in a room on the second 
 floor above Carter’s Drug Store, on St. Germain 
 Street, whence it was moved in a few years to the 
 room on the first floor in the southwest corner of 
 the West House, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 
 First Street South. 
 
 These quarters soon proved inadequate and the 
 library was established in the old lobby of the same 
 building, occupying the two commodious rooms, 
 joined by large arches, on the northwest corner. 
 The Reading Room Society contributed $500 to the 
 annual appropriation toward paying rent and heat. 
 
 These quarters bid fair soon to become too small 
 also, when the building was destroyed by fire on 
 the morning of February 8, 1901, necessitating a 
 hasty removal to the store building, between St. 
 Germain Street and First Street South, on the west 
 side of Fifth Avenue, known as the Schultz Build- 
 ing. 
 
 All the fixtures, including the newly installed 
 steel library stacks, were destroyed, but all but 300 
 of the books were saved, owing to the magnificent 
 work rendered by citizens. 
 
 February 9, Alvah Eastman and H. C. Ervin, with- 
 out each other’s knowledge, wrote a letter to Mr. 
 Andrew Carnegie, who was just beginning his mag- 
 nificent contributions toward library buildings, in an- 
 swer to a letter, setting forth the resources of the 
 city and its needs of a library building, since the 
 destruction of the old, its want of a suitable loca- 
 tion, etc. 
 
 A few days later an answer was received offering 
 $25,000 for a building, on condition that the city 
 contributed a desirable site and 10 per cent of the 
 gift annually for its maintenance. 
 
 The generous gift was accepted. The Reading 
 Room Society, that up to this had generously added 
 sums to the annual appropriation, gave the present 
 beautiful site, at a cost of $5,000, of which $2,000 
 was donated by J. J. Hill. 
 
 The building, which was completed in 1902, sit- 
 uated on the corner of Fifth Avenue South and 
 Second Street, is constructed of Roman pressed 
 brick and the native red granite, with two magnifi- 
 cent, tall, polished red granite pillars gracing each 
 side of the handsome entrance. Above the doorway 
 is a metal tablet with the following inscription : 
 “This Tablet Is Inscribed to Andrew Carnegie, 
 
 Through Whose Generosity This Building Has Been 
 Erected Upon a Site Donated by the Ladies Read- 
 ing Room Society 1902.” The four granite pillars, 
 in the interior, were given by the Reading Room 
 Society, as were also the substantial mission' tables 
 and chairs, and the valuable Arundle Prints. This 
 society continues its contributions, as the library 
 needs them, and up to this date has given about 
 $15,000 to the institution since its organization in 
 1872. 
 
 The present library is a thoroughly up-to-date, 
 exceedingly progressive institution, with an unusu- 
 ally well selected, practical equipment of books num- 
 bering over 12,600 volumes, in the circulating and 
 reference departments. 
 
 Its circulating department includes about 2,000 
 volumes of German and Swedish books. Non-resi- 
 dents have the privileges of the library by paying a 
 very small annual fee. 
 
 There are about 150 current magazines and papers 
 in the reading room. The children’s room, used ex- 
 tensively, is supplied with attractive well filled 
 shelves. 
 
 The reference department is used daily by a great 
 number of normal and high school students as well 
 as the general public. 
 
 The basement is used for classes in the Minnesota 
 University Extension Course lectures and the 
 monthly meeting of the G. A. R. veterans. The first 
 librarian was N. F. Barnes. The present efficient 
 librarian, Mrs. Marie E. Brick, was appointed in 
 1895 - 
 
 William E. Browning, M. D., has practiced medi- 
 cine and surgery in Caledonia during the past fifteen 
 years. 
 
 His fine ability, amiable disposition and close ap- 
 plication to his profession have gained for him pros- 
 perity and the respect of the community. Soon after 
 coming to Caledonia he took the medical examina- 
 tion before the state board, and among all the ap- 
 plicants he took the first premium, his general aver- 
 age being above ninety-three per cent. 
 
 Dr. William E. Browning comes from a family of 
 physicians and was born in Ontario, Canada, July 
 31, 1873, a son of J. W. and Nellie (Cash) Brown- 
 ing. His father was born in Somerset, England, in 
 1845, a son of William Joseph Browning, who emi- 
 grated to Canada and followed his trade as watch- 
 maker there until his death. Doctor Browning’s 
 mother was born in Ontario in 1848 and died in 
 1875. Her father, David Cash, was born in England 
 and settled in Ontario where he was engaged in the 
 manufacturing business. J. W. Browning has had 
 a long career as a physician, was graduated from 
 the Victoria University of Toronto in medicine and 
 has since practiced at Exeter, Ontario. While all his 
 time is devoted to his practice, he is the owner of 
 a drug business in Exeter. He belongs to the re- 
 form party in politics, served as president of the. 
 County Reform Association, but has never sought 
 office for himself. By his marriage to Miss Cash 
 there were two children : Mrs. Addie Mahaffy, who 
 lives in Medicine Hat, Alberta; and Dr. William E. 
 By his second marriage his five children are: H. J. 
 Browning, who is a physician practicing in Manitoba; 
 Mrs. George Hawkins of Exeter, Ontario; P. H. 
 Browning, who is connected with the American Rub- 
 ber Company at Hamilton, Ontario ; E. F. Browning, 
 a hardware merchant at Niagara, Canada; and Mrs. 
 Ollie Becker at New Hamburg, Ontario. 
 
c 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CALEDONIA HOSPITAL 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1773 
 
 Dr. W. E. Browning was educated in his home 
 town of Exeter and is a graduate in medicine from 
 McGill University of Montreal, having taken his 
 degree in 1899. He had a brief experience at Exeter 
 in his father’s office, but arrived in Caledonia, Min- 
 nesota, Christmas, 1899, and has since been in active 
 practice. He soon became interested in a small hos- 
 pital, but later bought the splendid site occupied by 
 the Caledonia Hospital, and in 1908 erected the fine 
 structure above described. 
 
 In 1900 Doctor Browning married Dorothy J. 
 Gould of Exeter, Ontario. They have one child, E. 
 Reginald. Mrs. Browning has long been an invalid 
 and since 1902 has been in the Oak Grove Sanitarium 
 at Flint, Michigan. Doctor Browning is a member 
 of the Methodist Church, and is actively interested 
 in Masonry, is a past master and now presides as 
 high priest in the local chapter; is a Knight Tem- 
 plar, having affiliations with the commandery at 
 Preston, the Consistory at Winona, and the Temple 
 of the Mystic Shrine at St. Paul. 
 
 Doctor Browning has long been active in medical 
 societies, served for several years as president of the 
 Houston-Fillmore Counties Medical Societies, is an 
 ex-vice president of the Southern Minnesota Medical 
 Society, and has membership in the State Medical 
 Society, the American Medical Association, the Brit- 
 ish Medical Society, and Association of Railway 
 Surgeons of America. He is serving as surgeon for 
 the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. Doctor 
 Browning is president of the local pension board and 
 is health officer at Caledonia. For a number of years 
 he was vice president and is now president of the 
 Commercial Club. Everything in connection with 
 the' forward movement in Caledonia is a matter of 
 interest to him. He is a “Good Roads” booster and 
 after serving as chairman of the “Roads Committee” 
 of the Caledonia Commercial Club, and the Houston 
 County Automobile Association, is now president of 
 the latter organization and is one of the public- 
 spirited of the local citizens. His intellectual inter- 
 ests extend beyond his profession and his work as a 
 citizen and his avocations have some interesting evi- 
 dences at his downtown office on the second floor 
 of the Abbotts Block. He has what is conceded to 
 be one of the 1 best collections of Indian relics and 
 curios in the state, and has also gathered together 
 a large number of rare fossils. These collections 
 are found in his reception room, and have proved a 
 source of entertainment and instruction to his pa- 
 tients and his friends and other visitors. He is also 
 a philatelist of no mean distinction, and his collec- 
 tion of coins has been gathered from practically all 
 the civilized nations of the world, and is one of the 
 most complete found in the northwestern states. 
 
 Caledonia Hospital. One of the institutions 
 which might well prove a source of pride to any 
 town or community is the Caledonia Hospital, at 
 Caledonia, of which Dr. William E. Browning is 
 resident physician and proprietor. Few hospitals 
 anywhere have a more complete equipment and more 
 attractive surroundings. To a large group of pa- 
 tients who find it necessary to resort to hospitals 
 and sanitaria the surroundings and the atmosphere 
 are of greater importance in effecting a cure than the 
 purely mechanical equipment. This fact has been 
 kept in mind by Doctor Browning ever since he es- 
 tablished Caledonia Hospital in 1903. The hospital 
 occupies a handsome building, as far removed as 
 possible from the associations and appearance of an 
 institution, and yet is built with the modern fire- 
 
 proof features and equipment of the best establish- 
 ments of its kind. A three-story structure, sur- 
 rounded by trees, with its outer walls overgrown 
 with ivy, approached by a curving driveway, sur- 
 rounded by io l A acres of land adorned with 
 shrubs and flowers — the aspect is such as to sug- 
 gest rather the atmosphere of a beautiful country 
 home than a hospital. Among the details of con- 
 struction may be noted a hydraulic elevator, hot 
 water and steam heat, electric light, private gas plant 
 for lighting and for. heating, five large bathrooms, 
 tile floors and walls, marble partitions, and with 
 other most approved arrangements, all of them meas- 
 uring up to the best standards of sanitation and con- 
 venience. 
 
 The service of the Caledonia Hospital affords not 
 only the usual facilities found in the average of 
 such institutions, but also is a place for people to 
 be cured and completely restored to health, and thus 
 partakes in a measure of the service furnished in 
 the best sanitaria of the country. It has accommo- 
 dations for twenty patients and the staff consists of 
 one hospital trained graduate physician as interne 
 and three regular nurses, while others are employed 
 as needed. While Doctor Browning is proprietor of 
 the hospital its equipment is for the use of other 
 legitimate physicians, and it is really a public insti- 
 tution and of much importance to Caledonia and 
 vicinity. 
 
 Francis John Hanzel. For several years Francis 
 John Hanzel has had the reputation of being one 
 of the most scholarly, hard working, and thoroughly 
 equipped lawyers of Le Sueur County, and is now 
 serving in his third term as prosecuting attorney. 
 His relations with the State of Minnesota are those 
 of a native son, his family were pioneers, and his 
 own career has been a steady progress from a youth 
 in which hard work, ill health and a steadfast 
 ambition were factors until he now is one of the 
 leading men of Montgomery. 
 
 Francis John Hanzel was born at New Prague, 
 in Scott County, Minnesota, January 21, 1883. He 
 comes of a community of thrifty Chech people 
 who settled about the Town of New Prague in Scott 
 County, and is a son of Thomas and Barbara 
 (Kubat) Hanzel, w r ho still live in New Prague, his 
 father being a retired lumberman and farmer. The 
 grandfather, Thomas Hanzel, was born in Chechy, 
 Austria, and his son, Thomas, was likewise a native 
 of that country, and about 1855 brought the family to 
 the United States. The grandfather first settled in 
 Illinois, and later moved to Dubuque, Iowa, and then 
 came to New Prague, Minnesota, and joined the 
 colony of his fellow countrymen who were early 
 settlers in that vicinity. The grandfather met an 
 accidental death. Thomas Hanzel, the father, lived 
 in Dubuque for two years after his parents went on 
 to Minnesota, worked on farms in Iowa, and on 
 s.etting out for Minnesota walked all the distance 
 from Dubuque to New Prague, finally reaching the 
 home of his parents. In Scott County he operated 
 the first sawmill, and remained a lumber manu- 
 facturer until the supply of timber was exhausted. 
 He gave up the sawmilling industry in 1900, but in 
 the meantime had for a number of years been a 
 lumber merchant. By strict honesty and hard work 
 he became a man of more than ordinary consequence 
 in that community. John Kubat, the maternal 
 grandfather, was a native of Chechy, learned the 
 trade of master carpenter in that country, and sub- 
 sequently founded his family in Minnesota. He 
 
1774 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 died at the age of eighty-four, while his wife, 
 Josephine, passed away at the age of seventy-six. 
 All members of the family have been devout adher- 
 ents of the Catholic faith. Thomas and Barbara 
 (Kubat) Hanzel were the parents of eight children, 
 and all are now deceased except Francis J. 
 
 The latter received his early education in the public 
 and parochial schools of New Prague, and his 
 studious disposition inclined him when a boy toward 
 a learned profession, and he never lost sight of this 
 aim until it was accomplished. He was graduated 
 from Iowa City Academy in 1902, and subsequently 
 became a student in the law department of Notre 
 Dame University at South Bend, Indiana. His 
 studies there were interrupted by ill health, but he 
 persisted and was graduated from the law school in 
 
 1906. He continued his studies in the law office of 
 Hon. A. J. Edgerton of New Prague and after a 
 thorough course of reading he was admitted to 
 practice by the state board of examiners in January, 
 
 1907. 
 
 For the past eight years Mr. Hanzel has been 
 in active practice at Montgomery, in Lesueur County. 
 For three years he served as city attorney, and in 
 the fall of 1908 was elected prosecuting attorney 
 for the county, and has served his third consecutive 
 term. In 1910 he resigned his office as city attorney 
 owing to his increased responsibilities in the county 
 office. An active republican, Mr. Hanzel has the 
 interesting distinction of having made a house to 
 house canvass of the entire county four different 
 times in the interests of the republican ticket. He 
 is a Catholic, and has served two years as Grand 
 Knight of the local lodge of Knights of Columbus, 
 and one year as chancellor. He belongs to the 
 Town and Country Club, and hunting and fishing are 
 among his favorite pastimes. Mr. Hanzel possesses 
 a good professional and general library, and is a 
 constant student. He is a member of the Eighth 
 Judicial District Bar Association. 
 
 However, apart from his profession, his chief 
 interest is dairy farming. Mr. Hanzel owns 320 
 acres of land, and has made his one of the model 
 farms, specializing in fine Holstein cattle. His estate 
 is located in Rice County, on the banks of Lake 
 Shields, 2P2 miles from Shieldsville. Shieldsville, it 
 should be noted, was named in honor of General 
 Shields, the founder of the town, an officer in the 
 Civil war, and a United States senator from four 
 different states. Mr. Hanzel’s farm is nine miles 
 from Montgomery. In the latter place he resides in 
 a pleasant home, and has a fine family. 
 
 On November 22, 1910, at Montgomery, Mr. Han- 
 zel married Miss Charlotte Bolton. She was born 
 at Wegatchie, St. Lawrence County, New York, a 
 daughter of Frank E. and Margaret (Carr) Bolton. 
 Her grandfather Carr is now living at Ox Bow, 
 New York, at the age of seventy-six years. Mrs. 
 Hanzel’s parents live at Mankato, Minnesota, where 
 her father is head miller of the Hubbard Milling 
 Company, while for nine years he was head miller at 
 Montgomery. Mrs. Hanzel is an active member 
 of the Altar Society of the Catholic Church of 
 Montgomery. Their three children were all born in 
 Montgomery, as follows : Cecelia, born November 
 
 30, 1911; Francis John, Jr., April 9, 1913, and Marie, 
 born September 19, 1914. 
 
 John N. Gayner. One of the leading lawyers 
 and business men of Meeker County is John N. 
 
 Gayner, who has for many years been identified 
 with public affairs, and his business in real estate 
 has also shared with his activities as a lawyer. 
 
 John N. Gayner was born in Sweden in 1861, but 
 has lived in Minnesota since 1877. His parents were 
 Nelson and Kerna Gayner, both natives of Sweden. 
 The father died in that country, and the widowed 
 mother, who was born in 1822, brought her family 
 to Minnesota in 1877- She died in this state in 1908. 
 There are four children still living: Louis N., who 
 is a retired real estate man at Minneapolis; Swan 
 Dassel, a merchant; John N., and Elna, who is still 
 living in Sweden. 
 
 John N. Gayner received his early education in the 
 public schools of Sweden, and afterwards attended 
 the English schools in Minneapolis. As a young 
 man he took a correspondence course in pharmacy, 
 and while a registered pharmacist does not practice. 
 His first regular occupation was as clerk in a store, 
 and after coming to Meeker County he was elected 
 and served, four successive terms in the office of 
 county auditor. It was while in that public office 
 that he took up the study of law, at first by corre- 
 spondence, and later as a student under E. W. 
 Campbell. He was admitted to the bar in 1908, and 
 has since maintained both a law and real estate office. 
 Mr. Gayner is secretary of the Litchfield Land Com- 
 pany. For three years he served as a special ex- 
 aminer of the state. He is active in Masonic circles, 
 being affiliated with the Knight Templar Com- 
 mandery and is financier of the Ancient Order of 
 United Workmen. Politically he is a democrat. 
 
 In 1896 Mr. Gayner married Thilda Olson, daugh- 
 ter of Andrew Olson, one of the early settlers in 
 Carver County. To their marriage have been born 
 three children: Arthur, aged twenty-four; Lillian, 
 
 aged twenty-three, and Leroy, aged twenty-one. 
 
 Dana T. Colby. Editor and owner with his 
 brother, Everett C., of the Barnesville Headlight, 
 Dana T. Colby is one of the younger representatives 
 of the newspaper profession in Minnesota, and as. 
 might be suspected from his name his father was 
 likewise of the guild of printers, though now identi- 
 fied with a. large and successful real estate business 
 at Barnesville. 
 
 Dana T. Colby was born at West Duluth, Minne- 
 sota, November 30, 1891, his father, Charles E. Colby, 
 has spent a number of years in Barnesville and 
 has done much toward making that a thriving village 
 of Clay County. The Colby family is of Scotch- 
 English descent, the Colbys having come to New 
 York State in colonial times. Through the mother 
 of Charles E. Colby the ancestry goes back to the 
 time of the Mayflower. 
 
 The family was established in Minnesota by the 
 grandfather, George H. Colby, who came to this state 
 from New .York. He was for two years a Union 
 soldier during the Civil war. For many years he 
 lived in the Town of Plainview, in Wabasha County, 
 subsequently removed to Glencoe, and finally to the 
 vicinity of Hector, Minnesota, where he died Novem- 
 ber, 1912. George H. Colby was one of the oldest 
 members of the Masonic fraternity in the Northwest 
 at the time of his death. 
 
 Charles E. Colby was born in the Town of Plain- 
 field, Wabasha County, Minnesota, October 21, 1865, 
 and at Glencoe finished the course of the local high 
 school, and was subsequently a student in the Archi- 
 bald Business College at Minneapolis. Prior to 
 entering college he had had some experience in a 
 

 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1775 
 
 printing office, and was more or less closely identified 
 with that trade from the time he was thirteen yeais 
 of age. In 1884 he moved to Groton, South Dakota, 
 spent the next four years as clerk in the postoffice 
 and as mailing clerk in the railway postal service. 
 In 1888 he bought the Glencoe Enterprise was its 
 editor and manager two years, and sold the news- 
 paper in order to establish a job printing- office in 
 Duluth. He conducted this printing business until 
 1893. During his residence in Duluth Charles E. 
 Colby married Anna Termath, who was born at 
 LeSueur, Minnesota, of American parents but of 
 German stock. In 1893 Mr. Colby left Duluth to 
 become foreman of the Magnet at Grand Rapids, 
 Minnesota, and was connected with that plant until 
 1896. In January, 1897, he established the Baines- 
 ville Record, a republican paper, which was sub- 
 sequently consolidated with the Review, and m 1903 
 he sold this consolidated journal to a stock company. 
 The following two years were spent as a salesman 
 traveling in Western Canada. Mr. Colby then re- 
 sumed the foremanship of the Record-Review at 
 Barnesville, and only gave up that position m April, 
 1913. Though he now gives some assistance and 
 attention to the management of the Barnesville Head- 
 light, he is chiefly concerned with the handling ol a 
 °rowing real estate business, in which he has been 
 engaged more or less actively since coming to Barnes- 
 ville He has handled farm lands all over Minne- 
 sota and North Dakota. Charles E. Colby and wife 
 have two sons, already mentioned as joint owners 
 of the Headlight. The son, Everett Charles, who was 
 born in Duluth, March 17, 1893, graduated from the 
 Barnesville High School in 1913, spent one year at 
 Fargo College in North Dakota, and in both schools 
 was prominent in baseball, football and general 
 athletics. He is now active manager of the jobbing 
 and mechanical department of the Headlight. He 
 is a member of the college fraternity Eta Chi Omega, 
 of Pierson Lodge No. 169, A. F. & A. M., and the 
 Modern Brotherhood of America. 
 
 Dana T. Colby is a graduate of the Barnesville 
 High School of the class of 1911, following which 
 he had two years of study in Fargo College, in 
 1913 he became proofreader and reporter for the 
 Fargo Courier-News, and had paid his way through 
 high school by reporting for Twin City papers and 
 through college in a similar way. June IS 1913, 
 the family established the Barnesville Headlight, 
 with Dana Colby in charge of the editorial depart- 
 ment. On July 18, 1914- the Headlight was con- 
 solidated with the Moorhead Independent, and the 
 property is now jointly owned by Dana and Everett 
 Colby. The . business headquarters are on Mam 
 street, and the paper has a circulation in Clay and 
 Wilkin counties, with a large foreign list. It main- 
 tains an independent position in politics. 
 
 Mr. Dana Colby is himself an independent re- 
 publican, and in religious matters . Jeans to the 
 Christian Science faith. He is affiliated with the 
 Modern Brotherhood of America, the Independent 
 Order of Odd Fellows in Colfax Lodge, in which 
 he is taking the chairs successively, and is a member 
 and has been secretary of Lincoln Camp of the Sons 
 of Veterans. He is also an active member of the 
 High School Alumni Association at Barnesville. 
 
 Edward Clarence Kiley. Editor and publisher, 
 postmaster, former probate judge, influential citizen, 
 Edward C. Kiley has been a man of prominence in 
 Minnesota for twenty-two years. He is a veteran 
 
 newspaper man and has published papers or worked 
 in the stations of reporter and editor with many 
 journals in many different localities of the North- 
 west. In 1913, he was president of the Northern 
 Minnesota Editorial Association and served a num- 
 ber of years as president of the Grand Rapids Com- 
 mercial Club.. 
 
 Edward Clarence Kiley is of Irish parentage, and 
 was born February 28, 1865, at Poughkeepsie, New 
 York, the son of James and Agnes (McNulty) 
 Kiley. When he was two years of age his parents 
 came west and settled on a farm in Grant County, 
 Wisconsin. The father’s death occurred in Feb- 
 ruary, 1878, the mother's a year and a half earlier. 
 Being thus left an orphan at the age of thirteen years 
 with no resource except the application of his own 
 industry, he first turned his attention to the only 
 occupation of which he had any knowledge — that 
 of employment on a farm. His first earnings were 
 at the rate of $6 per month and board. After 
 having earned a living at various employments until 
 May, 1880, young Kiley went into the office of 
 Odebolt Observer at Odebolt, Iowa, and commenced 
 to learn the printing trade. That he was especially 
 adapted to newspaper work, is attested by the fact 
 that two years later, when but seventeen years old, 
 he was offered and accepted the position of editor 
 and manager of the McCook County News at Salem, 
 South Dakota, a democratic paper of considerable 
 influence. From Salem, Mr. Kiley removed to North- 
 wood, North Dakota, where he purchased the Head- 
 light. He was appointed postmaster of Northwood 
 by President Cleveland, but there being little op- 
 portunity to build up a business in that town, he 
 went to Grafton, North Dakota, where he pur- 
 chased the Grafton Herald. He conducted this paper 
 for a time when he sold out and for the next two- 
 years traveled extensively throughout the United 
 States, doing reportorial work on various metropol- 
 itan papers. In 1890, he was managing editor of 
 the Daily Union, a paper established in Duluth by the 
 journeymen printers, who were at that time involved 
 in a strike. Later he became identified with the 
 Progressive Age at Duluth, a democratic paper 
 devoted to the interests of the laboring classes. He 
 spent the following year in the upper peninsula of 
 Michigan, where he was married at Marquette, July 
 30, 1892, to Mrs. Wilhelmina Desjardins Yates, 
 daughter of Dr. J. A. Desjardins, a prominent 
 physician of that place. In January, 1893, Mr. Kiley 
 located at Grand Rapids, Minnesota, where for a 
 time he was identified with one of the local papers. 
 On February 15, 1894, he established the Grand 
 Rapids Herald. To most men the outlook for the 
 success of this venture would not have appeared 
 inviting, as two papers already occupied the field. 
 But Mr. Kiley assumed that such a paper as he 
 determined to publish would find a permanent place 
 in the new County of Itasca. He endeavored to- 
 outrank his competitors by producing a bright, at- 
 tractive and aggressive paper. In May, 1896, he pur- 
 chased the Review and consolidated the two pub- 
 lications. In politics, Mr. Kiley has always been a 
 consistent democrat. He was a delegate to the 
 National Democratic Convention held in Chicago in 
 1896, when Bryan was first nominated for the pres- 
 idency. In the campaign of the same year he was 
 elected judge of probate of Itasca County. He has 
 served a number of terms as a member of the 
 Democratic State Central Committee and as chair- 
 
1776 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 man of the Itasca County Democratic Committee. 
 On March 3, 1914, he was appointed postmaster of 
 Grand Rapids by President Wilson. Fraternally he 
 is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order 
 of Elks. 
 
 While Mr. Kiley has always taken an active part 
 in politics and is recognized as one of the leaders 
 of his party in the state, it is as an editorial writer 
 and newspaper manager that he is most distin- 
 guished. The Herald-Review is recognized by men 
 of the fraternity as a model typographically; force- 
 ful, clean and influential editorially and as main- 
 taining a high standard in its news efficiency. 
 
 Irving A. Caswell. An able member of the bar 
 of his native state, Mr. Caswell was engaged in the 
 active practice of his profession at Anoka, judicial 
 center of the county of the same name, until he 
 was appointed deputy clerk of the Supreme Court of 
 Minnesota in 1909, his election to the office of clerk 
 of this tribunal occurring in the following year, and 
 his incumbency of the exacting and important office 
 having continued to the present time. He is one 
 ■of the well known and popular citizens of St. Paul, 
 is a member of a sterling pioneer family of the state 
 and his character and services fully entitle him to 
 specific recognition in this history. 
 
 Mr. Caswell was born on a farm in Anoka County, 
 Minnesota, on the 25th of February, 1870, and is a 
 son of Albert J. and Martha A. (Hayden) Caswell, 
 the former of whom was born in the Province of 
 Ontario, Canada, and the latter in the State of New 
 Hampshire. The parents came to Minnesota in the 
 year 1857 and first settled in Meeker County and later 
 Albert J. Caswell became one of the representative 
 farmers and successful business men of Anoka 
 County, the closing period of his life having been 
 passed in the attractive little City of Anoka, where 
 he died in the year 1892. His widow still maintains 
 her home at Anoka, though she passes a portion 
 of her time in California since the death of her 
 honored husband, who was one of the influential 
 citizens of Anoka County and who ever commanded 
 the unqualified confidence and esteem of all who 
 knew him. 
 
 Irving A. Caswell attended the public schools of 
 Anoka until he had completed the curriculum of the 
 high school and as a youth he became identified with 
 the newspaper business in his home city, where for 
 •several years he was editor and publisher of the 
 Anoka Herald. In preparation for the profession of 
 his choice he finally entered the law department 
 of the University of Minnesota, in which he was 
 graduated as a member of the class of 1904 and from 
 which he received the degree of Bachelor of Laws. 
 After his admission to the bar he engaged in active 
 practice at Anoka, where he built up a substantial law 
 business, and he there continued in general practice 
 until 1909, when Charles A. Pidgeon appointed him 
 deputy clerk of the Supreme Court of the state. 
 Mr. Pidgeon resigned the office of clerk on the 1st 
 of December of the same year, and his deputy was 
 chosen as his successor, holding the office under 
 appointment until his formal election to the position, 
 on the 8th of November, 1910, he having been 
 nominated for the office at the Republican State 
 Convention in the preceding June and having had 
 no opponent in the ensuing election. 
 
 Mr. Caswell has given a most careful and effective 
 administration of the affairs of his office and his 
 reports have been model documents in their line. 
 
 He has been unswerving in his allegiance to the 
 republican party and has been active in the further- 
 ance of its interests in his state. Mr. Caswell is 
 prominently identified with the Masonic fraternity, 
 being affiliated with the lodge and chapter of the 
 York Rite and also with Zurah Temple of the Ancient 
 Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, 
 besides which he holds membership in the Woodmen 
 of the World. At the time of the Spanish- American 
 war he enlisted as a member of the Fourteenth 
 Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, in which he was com- 
 missioned first lieutenant, his command having been 
 held in one of the reserve camps in the South and 
 having not been called into definite action at the 
 front. 
 
 In 1897 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Cas- 
 well to Miss Mary Woodbury, daughter of Dwight 
 Woodbury, a prominent citizen of Anoka, and the 
 one child of this union is Dwight W. 
 
 S. F. Jarvis. The Beardsley News at Beardsley, 
 in Bigstone County, was established in 1907 and its 
 present editor and proprietor is S. F. Jarvis, a prac- 
 tical printer and newspaper man, young in years 
 but with an experience in printing shops and news- 
 papers covering fully half his lifetime. The News 
 maintains an independent position in politics, and has 
 a large subscription list in Bigstone and Travers 
 counties, and also is mailed to many patrons outside 
 the state. 
 
 S. F. Jarvis was born at Blunt, Hughes County, 
 South Dakota, April 24, 1885. Jarvis is an old New 
 England family name, identified with America since 
 the Revolutionary days. His father, S. F. Jarvis, 
 Sr., was born in the State of Maine, January 20, 
 1835, and is now living a retired farmer at Blunt, 
 South Dakota. His parents moved out to Illinois 
 when he was young, and from there he came to 
 Blunt in 1883 as one of the pioneers and has since 
 had his home on the ranch which he improved from 
 the raw prairie. While a resident of Illinois in early 
 manhood, in 1862, he enlisted in the Fifty-third 
 Illinois Infantry, and was a soldier during the rest 
 of the war. S. F. Jarvis, Sr., married Martha Free- 
 land, a native of Indiana. Their children are : Clara, 
 wife of John Frederick, a farmer at Sturgis, South 
 Dakota; William, a farmer at Blunt, South Dakota; 
 Emma, wife of C. H. Garravrant, a farmer at Blunt; 
 Jeanette, wife of L. G. Lillibridge, who is a minister 
 of the Church of Christ at Doland, South Dakota, 
 and S. F. Jarvis, Jr. 
 
 Mr. Jarvis has spent most of his life in the North- 
 west, was reared and attended common schools near 
 Blunt, South Dakota, and at the early age of twelve 
 began an apprenticeship in the newspaper and print- 
 ing business in the offices of the Blunt Advocate. 
 In the meantime he continued attending school a 
 term or two each year, and at the age of seventeen 
 entered a business college at Sioux City, Iowa. 
 Returning to Blunt after this course he was employed 
 a year and a half on the Advocate, then for a simi- 
 lar time on a paper at Jessup, Iowa, and another 
 year on the Watchman at Oneida, South Dakota. 
 Mr. Jarvis was next with the State Publishing Com- 
 pany at Pierre, South Dakota, and in various towns 
 in South Dakota and Wyoming, always working at 
 his trade, until March, 1907. He returned to Blunt 
 for a time, then was connected with a paper at 
 Oneida for one year, and for a year and a half 
 managed the Agar Argus at Agar, South Dakota. 
 Just prior to his removal to Beardsley, Mr. Jarvis 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1777 
 
 was connected with the Pioneer Printing Company 
 of St. Paul until February 9, 1912, at which date he 
 accepted a place in the office of the Beardsley News. 
 A year and a half later Mr. Jarvis bought the News, 
 and has since employed his broad experience and 
 •capabilities as a newspaper man in making this a 
 well expressed medium of public intelligence in Big- 
 stone County. 
 
 Mr. Jarvis is a republican in politics. In 1907, at 
 Pierre, South Dakota, he married Miss Zoa Stur- 
 geon. Her father, H. Z. Sturgeon, is a farmer living 
 at White Bear, Minnesota. Mr. and Mrs. Jarvis are 
 the parents of three young children : Clarence, Paul 
 
 and Robert. 
 
 Elmer E. McDonald, who for many years has 
 practiced law successfully in Northern Minnesota 
 and is a resident of Bemidji, is a native of Wiscon- 
 sin, born at New Richmond, June 15, 1861, a son of 
 William C. and Louvisa Jane McDonald. His father 
 was a Wisconsin farmer. Mr. McDonald is also 
 descended from Clyde McDonald, who was an early 
 settler in Western Pennsylvania, having located 
 there upon land acquired under a grant from King 
 George III. 
 
 Reared and educated in his native state, spending 
 his early days on his father’s farm, Elmer E. Mc- 
 Donald was graduated from the University of Wis- 
 consin, and has been a resident of Minnesota more 
 than twenty-five years, and during the greater part 
 of that time has been an active member of the bar. 
 He was a resident of St. Paul a number of years 
 and while there served as a member of the school 
 board, and in 1897 was elected a member of the 
 State Legislature. Mr. McDonald is a republican in 
 politics. He was married at St. Paul, November 18, 
 1891. 
 
 Bert S. Colton. A business man of long and 
 tried experience in Martin County, for many years 
 a resident of Fairmont, and now proprietor of a 
 drug store and postmaster at Granada, Bert S. Col- 
 ton has been a resident of Minnesota more than 
 forty-five years, nearly the entire period of his life- 
 time. He comes of good family stock, his father 
 having been a pioneer both in Wisconsin and in 
 Minnesota, and in New England the first Colton was 
 a man of note during the colonial settlement. 
 
 Bert S. Colton was born at Lowell in Dodge 
 County, Wisconsin, April 30, 1863. His father, H. 
 W. Colton, was born in Vermont in 1820, and died 
 in Fairmont, Minnesota, in 1885, having moved west 
 to Wisconsin about 1850 and in 1868 pursued his 
 westward migration as far as Minnesota, and in 
 1871 located at Fairmont among the early settlers 
 of that village. He was by trade a harness maker. 
 The emigrant ancestor was George Colton, and 
 tradition says that his birthplace was the town of 
 Sutton, Coldfield in County Warwick, England. He 
 was first married about 1644 to Deborah Gardner 
 of Hartford, Connecticut. She died September 5, 
 1689, and in 1692 he married a widow, Lydia 
 (Wright) Lamb, daughter of Deacon Samuel Wright. 
 From military service George Colton derived the 
 rank of quartermaster. As early as 1644 he had lo- 
 cated in the Springfield settlement, and assisted in 
 laying out and establishing the Town of Suffield, a 
 work which was begun March 20, 1672. His death 
 occurred before 1722, since in that year fifty acres 
 of land were laid out in Suffield to the assigns of 
 George Colton. 
 
 H. W. Colton was married to Amelia Rhoda Man- 
 zer, who was born at S wanton, Vermont, in 1822 
 and died at Fairmont in 1904. Their children were : 
 Anna, who married M. Pratt and lived in Portland, 
 Oregon; Edward H., who was an engineer with the 
 Milwaukee railway and died at LaCrosse, Wiscon- 
 sin, in 1908; Charles M., a policeman, who died in 
 New York city in 1909; Ella, who married G. H. 
 Reed, a physician at Evansville, Wisconsin, and 
 both are now deceased ; William H., who is a farmer 
 at Fairmont; J. B., a merchant at Fairmont; and 
 Bert S. 
 
 Bert. S. Colton, who has never married, was edu- 
 cated in the public schools at Fairmont, for two 
 years was a student at Carleton College at North- 
 field. On leaving that institution he spent a year 
 as teacher in West. Fairmont, and then in 1884 
 identified himself with the drug trade as an em- 
 ploye in Edwards store at Fairmont. While his in- 
 terests acquired broadening scope and much of his 
 time is taken up with official affairs. Mr. Colton 
 remained with his first business association for 
 fully twenty years, up to 1904, in which year he 
 established a drug store of his own at Granada. 
 This store is well situated and has a good stock and 
 being the only store of its kind in the village, has a 
 monopoly on the drug trade in the town and sur- 
 rounding country. Recently Mr. Colton received 
 appointment as postmaster of Granada, his com- 
 mission being signed by President Wilson. 
 
 Mr. Colton is a democrat and has been identified 
 with that party in his public service. For four years 
 he served as a county commissioner. His fraternal 
 relations are with the Knights of Pythias and the 
 Modern Woodmen of America at Fairmont. 
 
 Eugene E. Lane. The activities and enterprise of 
 Eugene E. Lane as one of Southern Minnesota’s 
 leading editors and publishers have been concen- 
 trated at Sherburn for the past thirteen or fourteen 
 years. Mr. Lane has been more or less closely as- 
 sociated with printing and publishing and editorial 
 work since fourteen years of age, and is a veteran 
 in that profession, although not yet in the prime of 
 his years. At Sherburn Mr. Lane is editor of the 
 Advanced Standard and is also postmaster. 
 
 Eugene E. Lane was born July 12, 1872, in Fari- 
 bault County, Minnesota, and belongs to a family of 
 pioneer settlers in that section of the state. His 
 father was Alonzo Lane, who was born in Penn- 
 sylvania in 1846 of a family long settled in that 
 state. He came out to Minnesota as an early set- 
 tler in Faribault County and died there of typhoid 
 fever in 1874. He was a carpenter and builder by 
 trade, but followed farming for the most part in 
 Faribault County. He married Susan Young, who 
 was born in Wisconsin in 1843 and died in Delavan, 
 Minnesota, in 1910. The children of their marriage 
 were : Frank M., who is secretary of the Scranton 
 
 Coal Company at Tacoma, Washington; and 
 Eugene E. The mother during her widowhood mar- 
 ried T. J. Andrews, a dentist, now deceased, and 
 her only child by this union was Charles E., who 
 was killed in a railroad accident in 1910. 
 
 Eugene E. Lane grew up and attended the schools 
 at Delavan, and his school days were finished at the 
 age of fourteen. Already he had acquired some ex- 
 perience in the printing office of the Herald at 
 Delavan, and his first four years in regular employ- 
 ment was with the Mankato Journal. Mr. Lane was 
 then with the Windom Citizen three and a half 
 
1778 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 years, and at the end of that time bought the Moun- 
 tain Lake View at Mountain Lake, and edited this 
 paper until May, 1901. In that month he moved to 
 Sherburn, bought the Sherburn Standard, and in 
 1905 acquired the opposition paper, the Sherburn 
 Advance, and the consolidation has resulted in the 
 Sherburn Advance Standard, a newspaper that is a 
 profitable financial enterprise and enjoys a large cir- 
 culation and influence in Sherburn and tributary 
 vicinity. The newspaper plant is located on Main 
 Street at the rear of the postoffice. Mr. Lane is an 
 independent republican in politics, and in 1908 was 
 appointed to the office of postmaster at Sherburn 
 and still holds that position. 
 
 Other relations with the community are as stock- 
 holder in the Farmers Elevator Company at Sher- 
 burn, as a member of the Sherburn Commercial 
 Club, and for one year he was a member of the 
 school board. Fraternally he is identified with Man- 
 kato Lodge No. 225 of the Benevolent and Protec- 
 tive Order of Elks and with the Modern Woodmen 
 of America and the Independent Order of Odd Fel- 
 lows at Sherburn. Mr. Lane was married at Sterling 
 Center in Blue Earth County to Miss Sadie A. Dobie, 
 a daughter of Joseph Dobie, now deceased, who for 
 many years was a farmer at Sterling Center. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Lane have two children : Floyd M., a stu- 
 dent in the Mankato Commercial College; and Fern 
 A., a student in the Sherburn High School. 
 
 Joseph Edward Lynds. Among the men foremost 
 in Cloquet as identified with Minnesota industrial 
 enterprises, those who have become known far and 
 wide by reason of the breadth of their operations 
 and the importance of their business connections, 
 none is there whose career has been more impressive 
 as an object lesson of public-spirited citizenship than 
 Joseph Edward Lynds. A man whose interests are 
 of such an extensive character as to demand his 
 almost constant attention, he has still found the 
 leisure and the desire to contribute .of his energy 
 and ability to those movements which have made 
 for civic advancement, and his services have done 
 much to give the city of his adoption a reputation 
 among Northeastern Minnesota communities. 
 
 Born December 9, 1854, at Sterling, Massachusetts, 
 Mr. Lynds attended the public schools of his native 
 community and completed his education with a me- 
 chanical engineering course at Worcester Polytechnic 
 Institute, where he was graduated with his degree in 
 1875. His advent in Cloquet occurred in August, 
 1886, when he became general manager of the store 
 connected with the Cloquet Lumber Company, a posi- 
 tion which he retained until 1900, in the meantime, 
 in 1896, being made treasurer of the company. This 
 latter office he still holds. Aside from his connection 
 with this concern, his business interests are important 
 and embrace a wide range of enterprises. He is vice 
 president of two of the Cloquet Electric companies, 
 president of the Reliable Investment Company and 
 treasurer of the Duluth and Northeastern Railroad. 
 By his own energy and labor Mr. Lynds has suc- 
 ceeded in achieving a high position, and what he 
 has accomplished is due entirely to his own am- 
 bitious nature, his patient endeavor, and his un- 
 wearying application. Systematic methods, prompt 
 and decisive action under all circumstances, good 
 judgment and tact united to a high sense of honesty, 
 and an absolute fidelity in every undertaking have, 
 when in such combination, placed Mr. Lynds in his 
 present position and given him the reputation of 
 being a truly worthy citizen and a thoroughly repre- 
 
 sentative Minnesotan. While his leisure moments 
 have been few and far between, he has still found 
 time to devote to worthy civic interests. A zealous 
 friend of education, he served as a member of the 
 school board for six years, did more, perhaps to se- 
 cure the public library for his city than any other 
 man, and has served on its board from its inception. 
 He has also served one term as a member of the city 
 council, and in 1899 was sent as the representative 
 of his district to the State Legislature. His public 
 career has at all times been characterized by a high 
 ideal of the responsibilities of office, and his reputa- 
 tion gained in business circles has been but strength- 
 ened by his services as a public servant. 
 
 On January 14, 1886, Mr. Lynds was married to 
 Miss Elizabeth Shaw, who comes of Revolutionary 
 stock and is a daughter of George S. and Mary 
 (Ross) Shaw. One son has been born to this union : 
 Edward Shaw, who is connected with a leading 
 wholesale grocery concern of Duluth. Mr. and Mrs.. 
 Lynds spend their vacations in travel, and have been 
 fortunate enough to visit all parts of the world but 
 invariably return feeling that the United States is. 
 the true and only place to call home. 
 
 Hon. Fred Douglas Vibert. Among the men of 
 Northeastern Minnesota who, as public servants,, 
 have made enviable records for their faithful, earnest 
 and successful efforts in securing beneficial and wise 
 legislation, none is better or more favorably known 
 than Fred Douglas Vibert, mayor of the thriving, 
 and prosperous City of Cloquet. An earnest worker 
 for the advancement of his party’s interests, he yet. 
 has never allowed his partnership to interfere with 
 his efforts in the advancement of what he has con- 
 sidered best for the interests of his city and its- 
 people; and in every walk of life, whether public or 
 private, the same high principles have been found 
 to govern his actions. Aside from his public affairs, 
 Mr. Vibert has a wide reputation in the field of 
 journalism, as editor and proprietor of the Pine 
 Knot, one of the leading newspapers of Carlton 
 County, and in business circles, being connected with, 
 a number of enterprises which contribute to the com- 
 mercial importance of Cloquet. 
 
 Fred Douglas Vibert was born November 14, 1874, 
 at Gaspereaux, Canada, and is a son of Douglas 
 and Helen (Hallick) Vibert. The parents are natives 
 of England, returned to that country after the birth 
 of Fred D., and then came to the United States,, 
 settling at Cloquet, Minnesota, in 1883. The father, 
 who had been engaged in the real estate and in- 
 surance business in Canada, became identified with 
 the lumber interests of Minnesota upon locating here, 
 and continued to follow that line during the active 
 period of his career. The early education of 
 Fred Douglas Vibert was secured in the public 
 schools of England, where he was taken as a child, 
 and after the return of the family to America he 
 completed his studies at Valparaiso, Indiana. When 
 he left the school room he began to learn the 
 printer’s trade, at which he worked as a journeyman 
 until 1896, in that year purchasing the Pine Knot, 
 at Cloquet, a newspaper which had been established 
 here in 1884. He has continued as the editor and 
 publisher of this newspaper to the present time and 
 is giving his readers a reliable and interesting paper, 
 which, while its principles are republican in. char- 
 acter, aims to present a fair and unbiased review of 
 conditions and important subjects. Since he as- 
 sumed control of this organ, Mr. Vibert has been 
 successful in greatly increasing its circulation, and' 
 

 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1779 
 
 it is known as one of the best advertising mediums 
 in the county. In connection with the plant a first- 
 class printing establishment is maintained. Mr. 
 Vibert has been identified with a number of business 
 enterprises of the city, is vice president of the 
 Reliable Investment Company, and is president of 
 the Cloquet Building and Loan Association. From 
 the time he reached his majority he has been an 
 active worker in the ranks of the republican party, 
 and at various times has been called upon to serve 
 in public office, being an ex-member of the library 
 board, and a member of the park board for a number 
 of years. On January i, 1914, he was his party’s 
 successful candidate for the office of mayor, and 
 already his administration has been marked by im- 
 provements that evidence Mr. Vibert’s earnest desire 
 to advance the interests of the city both in a civic 
 and business way. For several years he was presi- 
 dent of the commercial club, and still holds mem- 
 bership in that organization, being one of Cloquet’s 
 most enthusiastic “boosters.” His fraternal connec- 
 tion is with the Blue Lodge of the Masonic fra- 
 ternity. 
 
 On May 8, 1897, Mayor Vibert was married to 
 Miss Amelia Roney, of Cloquet, Minnesota. Mayor 
 and Mrs. Vibert are consistent members of the 
 Episcopal Church, in which he is at present serving 
 as warden. 
 
 1 
 
 Frederick A. Pike. A St. Paul lawyer who has 
 lived in that city and practiced his profession for 
 more than a quarter of a century, Frederick A. 
 Pike has been well known as an attorney, in business 
 affairs and in politics, and is now special assistant 
 to the LTnited States attorney general. His offices 
 are in the Globe Building at St. Paul. 
 
 Frederick A. Pike was born at Oshkosh. Wiscon- 
 sin, July 16, 1863, fourth son of Charles E. and Mary 
 A. (Bowls) Pike. Both parents were natives of 
 Maine, and grew up in that state. In 1859 they re- 
 moved to Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and later to Northern 
 Minnesota, where they spent several years on a 
 farm. Charles E. Pike was a contractor and builder, 
 and his interests in politics finally led to his appoint- 
 ment as internal revenue collector with headquarters 
 at Washington, D. C. In 1889 he returned to_ Min- 
 nesota, and lived there until his death in his eighty- 
 third year. His widow still survives and is now 
 eighty-two years of age. 
 
 Frederick A. Pike acquired his early education in 
 the public schools at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and on 
 leaving high school entered the University of Wis- 
 consin at Madison and was graduated in the literary 
 department in 1885. He continued his work in the 
 law school, and was graduated LL. B. in 1888. That 
 year marked his coming to St. Paul, and he was soon 
 admitted to the bar and began active practice. For 
 twelve years he was a member of the firm of 
 Hutchinson & Pike, but otherwise has practiced alone 
 for the greater part of the time. In 1892 he was 
 appointed city attorney of St. Paul and held that 
 office two years. For a number of years he was a 
 member of the Minnesota Surety Company. 
 
 He has been especially well known in democratic 
 politics. He did some active campaigning in 1896 
 for Mr. Bryan, and in 1904 was chairman of the 
 city and county democratic organizations, and did 
 much stump speeching himself. He served as a 
 member of the city council from 1908 to 1912. In 
 June, 1913, Mr. Pike was appointed special assistant 
 to Atty. Gen. J. C. McReynolds, and much of his 
 
 official work has been in connection with the adjust- 
 ment of land allotments in the White Earth Indian 
 Reservation. 
 
 Mr. Pike was married in 1895 to Miss Stella 
 Sheldon of Otterville, Minnesota, daughter of D. J. 
 Sheldon. They have the following children : Fred- 
 erick A., Jr., Bertie B., Robert S. and Marion H., 
 all of them in school. 
 
 Henry J. Frundt. In the acme of virile strength, 
 with well disciplined mind, with high civic ideals, 
 with unfaltering progressiveness and public spirit, 
 Mr. Frundt js a citizen whose influence has extended 
 into many fields and invariably proved helpful and 
 benignant. He is one of the representative members 
 of the bar of Faribault County, is well known, in 
 connection with public affairs in Minnesota, and he 
 has given a most admirable administration in the 
 office of mayor of Blue Earth, a position from which 
 he retired at the opening of the year 1915, his resig- 
 nation having been impelled by the fact that he then 
 assumed the office of county attorney of Faribault 
 County, a position to which he had been elected in 
 the preceding autumn. He has been engaged in the 
 practice of his profession at Blue Earth since 1907, 
 with offices in the Eder Building. 
 
 Henry John Frundt was born in the City of 
 Waterloo, judicial center of Blackhawk County, 
 Iowa, on Christmas day of the year 1879 and is a 
 son of John Henry Frundt and Julia (Saul) Frundt, 
 both natives of Germany, the former having been 
 born in Mecklenburg, in 1840, and the latter in the 
 Province of Pommern, or Pomerania, Prussia, in 
 1848. The parents passed the closing years of their 
 lives in the City of St. Paul, Minnesota, where the 
 father died in October. 1886, and where the mother 
 was summoned to the life eternal on the 9th day of 
 September, 1910, both having been earnest members 
 of the German Evangelical Association. John H. 
 Frundt was a son of Henry John Frundt, who like- 
 wise was born in Mecklenburg, and who immigrated 
 with his family to the United States in 1854, his home 
 having been established in the City of Chicago, which 
 then gave slight evidence of its future prestige as a 
 great metropolitan center. There he engaged in the 
 work of his trade, that of carpenter, and he became 
 one of the prominent and representative contractors 
 and builders of the city, continuing his residence in 
 Chicago for nearly half a century and having been 
 one of its venerable pioneer business men at the 
 time of his death, in August, 1898, his age at the 
 time having been eighty-two years, eight months 
 and twenty days. 
 
 John H. Frundt acquired his rudimentary educa- 
 tion in his native land and was a lad of about four- 
 teen years at the time of the family immigration to 
 America. He was reared in Chicago, where he 
 continued to reside until 1859 when he numbered 
 himself among the vigorous young pioneers of the 
 State of Iowa. He established his home on an 
 embryonic farm near the present City of Daven- 
 port, and in that state he continued to reside until 
 his deep spirit of loyalty prompted him to go forth 
 in defense of the Union, then in the throes of 
 Civil war. On the 2d of August, 1862, he enlisted 
 as a private in Company B, Thirty-first Iowa Vol- 
 unteer Infantry, and with this gallant command 
 he continued in service until the close of the war. 
 save for periods of incapacitation from wounds re- 
 ceived in battle. Mr. Frundt participated in thirty- 
 six spirited engagements, including the memorable 
 
1780 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 second charge in the battle of Gettysburg, and he 
 was with Sherman’s forces in the Atlanta Campaign 
 and the historic march to the sea. That he lived 
 up to the full tension of the great conflict is shown 
 by the fact that he received wounds from which 
 resulted thirty scars that remained in evidence until 
 the time of his death. He was mustered out on the 
 27th of June, 1865, with a record that reflects en- 
 during honor upon his name. 
 
 After the close of the war Mr. Frundt returned 
 to Iowa and engaged in the blacksmithing and car- 
 riage-making business at Waterloo, where he re- 
 mained until 1882, when he removed with his family 
 to Minnesota and established his home in St. Paul. 
 He entered the service of the city in the capacity 
 of bridge builder until his death, which resulted 
 from a fracture of the skull when he fell from the 
 Como Avenue Bridge, on which he was working 
 at the time. He was a man of sterling character 
 and well fortified opinions, was an ardent sup- 
 porter of the cause of the republican party, and 
 was affiliated with the Grand Army of the Republic. 
 Of the children the eldest is Luella, who is the wife 
 of Otto A. Nordnann, of St. Paul, where he is in the 
 employ of the Great Northern Railroad Company; 
 Sophia Minnie is the wife of Joseph E. La Bross, 
 who is foreman of the lithographing department 
 in the publishing establishment of Brown & Bigelow, 
 of St. Paul; Lena died at Waterloo, Iowa, at the 
 age of nine years; Mary is the wife of Albert H. 
 Nicholai, employed as a skilled box-maker in the 
 City of St. Louis, Missouri ; Henry J., of this re- 
 view, was the next in order of birth ; and Samuel 
 C., a traveling salesman by vocation, resides in St. 
 Paul. 
 
 Henry J. Frundt was about three years of age at 
 the time of the family removal from Iowa to St. 
 Paul, and in the public schools of Minnesota’s capital 
 city he acquired his early educational discipline. 
 After feeling the spur of ambition and formulating 
 definite plans for a future career, Mr. Frundt en- 
 tered the St. Paul College of Law, and in this in- 
 stitution he was graduated as a member of the class 
 of 1905, with coincident admission to the Minnesota 
 bar. His novitiate in the active work of his pro- 
 fession was served at St. Paul, where he continued 
 his residence until 1907, when he removed to Blue 
 Earth, the county seat of Faribault County, where 
 he has since continued in the active work of his pro- 
 fession and attained to high standing. 
 
 From the time of his majority to the present Mr. 
 Frundt has shown no wavering in his allegiance 
 to the republican party, and he has been a zealous 
 and effective advocate of its cause. During the 
 session of the State Legislature in 1907 he served 
 as clerk of the judiciary committee of the house, 
 and during the session of 1909 he was private secre- 
 tary to the speaker of the house, Hon. Andrew J. 
 Rockne. A specially noteworthy service rendered 
 by Mr. Frundt was that given in position of secre- 
 tary of the commission appointed by Governor Eber- 
 hart to consider and provide measures for the ad- 
 justment in Minnesota of the compensation of work- 
 ing men. In this position he was sent to Europe, 
 where he passed three months in investigating labor 
 conditions and policies in England. Belgium, Ger- 
 many and France, members of the commission prose- 
 cuting similar investigations in Scotland, Austria 
 and Switzerland. In more recent days he cannot but 
 contrast with unmitigated sorrow the peaceful con- 
 ditions and prosperity that prevailed in the countries 
 
 which he visited and which have since been in the 
 midst of the most devasting war in the history of 
 the world. 
 
 In April, 1913, Mr. Frundt was elected mayor of 
 Blue Earth, and assisted in giving Blue Earth a pro- 
 gressive administration. He has served also as a 
 member of the board of trustees of the public library 
 of Blue Earth. Mr. Frundt is a director of the Blue 
 Earth State National Bank and the State Bank 
 of Frost, Faribault County, and is a stockholder 
 also in each of the following named Minnesota 
 financial corporations: Citizens State Bank of 
 
 Guckeen, First National Bank of Elmore, and the 
 First National Bank of Bricelyn, besides which he is 
 a stockholder in the bonding and loan corporation of 
 Schanke and Company, of Mason City, Iowa. In 
 the Masonic fraternity Mr.. Frundt is affiliated with 
 a St. Paul lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted 
 Masons, and with the Blue Earth Chapter of Royal 
 Arch Masons. He was reared in the faith of the 
 German Evangelical Association. 
 
 On the 1st of May, 1911, was solemnized the mar- 
 riage of Mr. Frundt to Miss Mary Ann Graham, 
 daughter of John M. and Catherine D. Graham, of 
 Blue Earth; the mother is now deceased and Mr. 
 Graham is a resident of Colorado Springs, Colorado, 
 where he is the owner of the largest livery and 
 feed stables in the celebrated resort city. Mr. and 
 Mrs. Frundt have one child, John Henry, named 
 with the generation transposition of the two given 
 names that has been followed for a number of 
 generations in the Frundt family. 
 
 Clarence Augustus French. During the thirty 
 years of his residence at Monticello, Clarence 
 Augustus French has seen this thriving Minnesota 
 city grow and prosper, and through his personal 
 activities has contributed greatly to its development 
 and progress. A veteran publisher and editor, he 
 is widely known among the craft in this part of the 
 Northwest, and since 1912 has been conducting the 
 News, which is rapidly becoming one of the influen- 
 tial sheets of Wright County. Mr. French’s private 
 interests have been large and their duties exacting, 
 but he has always found time to discharge the 
 responsibilities of offices to which he has been called 
 by his fellow-citizens, and it is doubtful if any one 
 man has accomplished more for the advancement of 
 education and good citizenship. 
 
 Clarence Augustus French was born in Ports- 
 mouth Harbor, England, on board the American ves- 
 sel Caroline Read, of which his father was captain 
 and part owner, March 1, 1853, the parents being 
 Capt. William Wallace and Elizabeth D. (Burleigh) 
 French. Captain French was born at Eastport, 
 Maine, and as a youth followed the trade of machin- 
 ist, but eventually went to sea with his brother, Capt. 
 Nathaniel E. French, of Walpole, Massachusetts, and 
 during the years that followed rose from the rank 
 of common seaman to that of master of a vessel and 
 part owner thereof. He had been identified with the 
 same vessel for twenty years, when, at the age of 
 forty-eight years, in 1865, as captain of the ship 
 Madurese, in the harbor of Pernambuco, South 
 America, a mutiny broke out upon his ship and he 
 was stabbed to death while asleep in his cabin. Mrs. 
 French was born at Sanbornton, Belknap County, 
 New Hampshire, and died August 8, 1899, at the age 
 of seventy-nine years, at Brentwood, that state.* She 
 went to sea with her husband for about eight years, 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1781 
 
 circumnavigating the globe twice. Four children were 
 born to her and Captain French, three at sea: Wil- 
 liam Frank, who is deceased; Clarence Augustus, of 
 this review; and Charles H., whose death occurred 
 in 1904. and Clara B., who died at Exeter, New 
 Hampshire, at the age of 2)4 years. 
 
 Clarence Augustus French attended the public 
 schools of Newfield, New Hampshire, and was but 
 twelve years of age when his father died. When 
 fifteen years of age he began to learn the trade of 
 printer, at Harwich, Massachusetts, on the Press, a 
 paper which has long since been discontinued. In 
 1869 his ventures went to Minneapolis, the train trip 
 taking four days, and there secured emplojunent as 
 a printer with Edward A. Stevens, in whose employ 
 he continued for two years, later going with David 
 Ramaley. In 1872 Mr. French again became identi- 
 fied with newspaper work when he secured a posi- 
 tion as compositor with the Dispatch, of St. Paul, of 
 which H. P. Hall was then editor, and in 1876 went 
 with the Minneapolis Tribune, as assistant proof- 
 reader. In 1879 he purchased an interest in the 
 Minneapolis Evening Journal, which he assisted in 
 establishing, with Charles H. Stevens, Frank E. Cur- 
 tis and J. Hastings Rowell. Later Mr. French suc- 
 ceeded Mr. Rowell in his position, and conducted the 
 paper until 1881, the venture proving a very profitable 
 one until the plant was burned in the serious fire 
 which destroyed Brackett’s Block. The good will of 
 the paper was sold by the partners to Nimmocks 
 Brothers and George K. Shaw, for whom Mr. French 
 worked for some time as foreman, with seventeen 
 men in his employ, but, desiring to be at the head of 
 an enterprise of his own, resigned his position in 
 1885 and came to Monticello. Here, in October of 
 that year, he purchased the Times, from George W. 
 McDonald, this being a small local paper with a cir- 
 culation of 250, which Mr. French built up to 1,000, 
 making it one of the prominent papers of Wright 
 County. This was conducted as a republican organ 
 until 1900, when he changed its policy to an inde- 
 pendent standing, giving his support to men and 
 principles rather than to party. In 1912 this paper 
 was sold to O. G. Bates, its present owner, and Mr. 
 French founded the News, October 7th. So highly 
 had his efforts in the past been appreciated that dur- 
 ing the first week he was able to secure 200 subscrip- 
 tions for his new paper, and this has since grown to 
 600. With an excellent, up-to-date equipment, Mr. 
 French is conducting a thoroughly modern and pro- 
 gressive newspaper. He is endeavoring, as in the 
 past, to give his readers reliable information as to all 
 the news of all the world, and his columns have been 
 freely given to the support of helpful and beneficial 
 movements. That he is progressive in his ideas and 
 methods is evidenced by the fact that he was second 
 in Wright County in placing a cylinder press into 
 operation. He is widely and favorably known among 
 newspaper men. in the state, is a member of the 
 Northern Minnesota Editorial Association, and is 
 also connected with the Minnesota Editorial Associa- 
 tion, of which he has served as vice president. 
 
 Mr. French's public services have been numerous 
 and helpful. In 1889 he was elected record clerk of 
 the State Legislature, an office in which he served 
 two terms and was re-elected in 1891, has served on 
 the Monticello council as trustee, and for eighteen 
 years was a member of the board of education, 
 resigning in 1912 after a number of years as presi- 
 dent and clerk of that body, an office to which he was 
 
 first elected in 1898. He is the only charter member 
 left in Monticello of Garfield Lodge No. 145, Inde- 
 pendent Order of Odd Fellows, is past noble grand 
 and a member of the Grand Lodge of Minnesota, and 
 has attended several assemblies. Mrs. French is also 
 prominent socially, was one of the promoters of the 
 public library, and has been particularly active in 
 the work of the Women's Relief Corps and the 
 W. C. T. U. 
 
 On July 14, 1881, Mr. French was married at Ply- 
 mouth Church, Minneapolis, to Miss Loretta S. 
 Stevens, daughter of John Hucks Stevens, a New 
 York inventor, who designed the modern match, in 
 1856, and died in i860. He was a brother of William 
 Stevens of England, and his wife was a native of 
 that country. Four children have been born to Mr. 
 and Mrs. French: Clara B.. Edith Elizabeth, Clar- 
 ence Edwin and William Wallace, the two latter 
 dying in infancy. Clara married Dr. Percy T. Wat- 
 son. a graduate of Johns Hopkins University and 
 Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, and during 
 the past six years they have resided at Feu Chow Fu, 
 China, where Doctor Watson has a hospital under 
 the direction of the American Board of Foreign 
 Missions. They have three children : Edith, William 
 Wallace and Janet. Edith Elizabeth French was 
 graduated from Monticello High School in 1901, and 
 then attended Carleton College one year, after wffiich 
 she became proprietress of the Big Lake Herald, 
 which had been established by her father and pre- 
 sented to her, and which she successfully conducted 
 until her marriage, June 4, 1908, to Hubert Mac 
 Miller, of Big Lake, the proprietor of a successful 
 grain and feed business. Airs. Mac Miller died 
 March 2, 1909, leaving one daughter, Dorothy C., 
 born February 27, 1909, who has been taken by her 
 grandfather, Air. French. 
 
 Hon. John Moonan. One of the native sons of 
 Waseca County, was born in Waseca County, Alinne- 
 sota, February 9, 1866. and is a son of Patrick and 
 Alary Ann (Delaney) Moonan. His father, a native 
 of County Louth, Ireland, was born in 1812, and as 
 a young man emigrated to the United States and set- 
 tled in Rock County, Wisconsin, where for some 
 years he was engaged in agricultural pursuits. In 
 1853 sensing greater opportunities in Alinnesota he 
 came to this state, taking up a farm nine miles north 
 of Waseca, and here passed the remaining years of 
 his life in the pursuits of the soil, passing away at 
 Waseca in 1900. He was a man of industry and 
 energy, and through a long life of earnest endeavor 
 accumulated a handsome competency, so that his 
 declining years were spent in the enjoyment of a 
 well earned reward. Mr. Moonan married Alary 
 Ann Delaney, who was also a native of Ireland, and 
 she survived him ten years, dying at Waseca in 1910. 
 
 John Moonan read law in the office of Hon. L. 
 Brownell of Waseca, applying himself so assiduously 
 to his studies that he was admitted to the bar in 
 1887 the year he attained his majority. Mr. Aloonan 
 at once opened offices in Waseca, and here for more 
 than a quarter of a century has been engaged in a 
 general civil and criminal practice. He holds mem- 
 bership in the Waseca County Bar Association, the 
 Minnesota State Bar Association, and the American 
 Bar Association. Politically a democrat he has long 
 been active in the ranks of his party, has served as 
 county attorney two terms, and as mayor of W aseca, 
 and in 1907 was elected state senator, and was re- 
 
1782 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 elected without opposition in 1911, his present term 
 expiring in 1915. In the Senate he has become known 
 as one of the working members of that distinguished 
 body, and has acted on various committees, including 
 those on judiciary, railroads, and general legisla- 
 tion. The manner in which he has discharged the 
 duties of his high office has won the universal com- 
 mendation of his constituents. With his family Mr. 
 Moonan attends the Roman Catholic Church. He is 
 fraternally connected with the Knights of Colum- 
 bus, the Ancient Order of United Workmen, the 
 Modern Woodmen of America, and the Knights of 
 the Maccabees. 
 
 In 1890 Mr. Moonan was married at Waseca to 
 Miss Rose Mary Breen, daughter of the late Nicholas 
 Breen, who at various times was engaged in black- 
 smithing, manufacturing oatmeal and farming, and 
 is now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Moonan have seven 
 children and reside at their pleasant home on Second 
 Street, Waseca. 
 
 Gustav Carl Dreier. The late Gustav Carl 
 Dreier is well remembered in Duluth, of which city 
 be was a resident a number of years, as a successful 
 business man, a citizen who exerted a quiet but up- 
 lifting influence in his community and a man of 
 many valuable attributes of character. 
 
 Gustav Carl Dreier was born November 27, 1852, 
 and died in Duluth June 26, 1911. His birthplace was 
 Copenhagen, Denmark, where his parents lived, Dr. 
 Frederick E. and Ida (Ederoth) Dreier. Both were 
 natives of Denmark, and the Dreier family is of a 
 long line of Danish descent. The late Mr. Dreier’s 
 uncle was a representative of the Danish govern- 
 ment in the United States for over thirty years. 
 
 Gustav C. Dreier was educated in the common 
 schools and also under private tuition in his native 
 city. At the age of eighteen, in 1870, he came to the 
 United States and from that time forward was en- 
 gaged in general contracting and building. He had 
 his headquarters in several states at several different 
 times, and did a large business, represented by many 
 business and private structures and other kinds of 
 structural work. He was in active business almost 
 until the time of his death, and for several years 
 had his headquarters in Duluth. 
 
 Mr. Dreier was married April 19, 1888, to Miss 
 Margaret Elizabeth McLaren, a daughter of John 
 and Rachel (Oliver) McLaren. Mrs. Dreier was 
 born in Galt, Ontario, Canada, and is a descendant 
 of Finlay McLaren, who was an early pioneer in 
 Onondaga County, New York, and one of the promi- 
 nent ministers of his time in the Reform Presby- 
 terian Church. Both Mr. and Mrs. Dreier were 
 members of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Dreier 
 took much interest in local affairs at Duluth and in 
 other communities where he lived, was affiliated with 
 the Knights of Pythias, and aside from his prac- 
 tical business activities found much diversion 'in his 
 interests as a student and reader. 
 
 Ernest Yost. Thirty-one years of age, Ernest 
 Yost has for nearly a decade been proprietor and 
 editor of the Welcome Times, and besides his influen- 
 tial relations with the city and surrounding country 
 as a newspaper publisher, has also made himself a 
 factor in public affairs. Mr. Yost is one of the best 
 known newspaper men in Southern Minnesota. 
 
 Ernest Yost was born in Fox Lake Township of 
 Martin County June 28, 1884. His father, Fred Yost, 
 was born in Germany about 1842 and died at Wel- 
 
 come in 1897. Coming to America at the age of 
 twenty-one he lived in Minneapolis for several years, 
 and in 1883 moved to Martin County and established 
 his home in Welcome in August, 1889. He was a 
 farmer, a man of quiet industry, and was thoroughly 
 esteemed in each community of his residence. He 
 married Lena Kletzke who was born in Pomeroy, 
 Germany, and was also about twenty-one years of 
 age when she crossed the Atlantic and found a home 
 in Minneapolis. She now lives in Pine City, Minne- 
 sota. The children are : Alfred and Albert, who 
 
 live in Pine City and are well drillers; Emil, who is 
 a fur buyer for a St. Paul company with headquar- 
 ters at Frazee in Becker County, Minnesota; Ernest; 
 Elizabeth, who died at the age of twenty-three; and 
 August, who is a printer living in Pine City. 
 
 Ernest Yost left school when seventeen years of 
 age, having attended the schools of Welcome up to 
 that time, and spent the next two years as a flour 
 packer in the mill at Welcome. A fortunate direc- 
 tion was then given to his career when he entered the 
 offices of the Welcome Times and beginning at the 
 bottom as an inexperienced employe, mastered every 
 detail of the art of printing and finally became pro- 
 prietor and editor of this well known paper. The 
 Times was started many years ago at Welcome by 
 Chamberlain Brothers, and has long been a medium 
 of news and advertising, and a factor for good in 
 the community. It is independent in politics, and 
 the paper circulates widely throughout the county. 
 
 Mr. Yost is himself independent in politics, but 
 has served as recorder in Welcome and also as a 
 member of the school board. He was married at 
 Fairmont July 11, 1910, to Miss Eva Swanson, daugh- 
 ter of Andrew Swanson, who was one of the early 
 settlers in the farming district in Martin County near 
 Fairmont, and now lives retired in the county seat. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Yost have two children, Wayne and 
 Velva. 
 
 Otis Gibson Bates. It is within the province of 
 the editor and publisher of a newspaper and particu- 
 larly so in the smaller cities, to make or mar a repu- 
 tation, to secure the passage of a good bill or to 
 defeat a bad one, to encourage those movements 
 which make for progress and development, and to 
 defeat the measures which will prove detrimental to 
 a community. Therefore, the locality is fortunate 
 whose newspaper is in such thoroughly clean, reliable 
 and safe hands as those of Otis Gibson Bates, editor 
 and guiding head of the Times, at Monticello, Minne- 
 sota, a good business man, a capable newspaper con- 
 ductor and a progressive and public-spirited citizen, 
 alive to the needs of his community and commetida- 
 bly anxious to see that they are filled. 
 
 Mr. Bates was born November 23, 1873, at Wells- 
 boro, Pennsylvania, and is a son of James K. and 
 Emma L. Bates, the former of whom died in 1876 
 while the latter still lives with her son, at the age 
 of seventy years. The father was born at Owego, 
 New York, where he learned the trade of machinist, 
 and after his marriage removed to Wellsboro, Penn- 
 sylvania, where he continued to follow his vocation 
 until the time of his early death, which was undoubt- 
 edly hastened by the severity of his army service 
 during the Civil war, when he was a commissioned 
 officer in Company K, First Regiment, Pennsylvania 
 Volunteer Infantry. On his return to Wellsboro, he 
 served as a member of the city council for several 
 years, being elected to that office as a republican, and 
 
* 
 
 % 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1783 
 
 was a member of Wellsboro Lodge of the Masonic 
 order. Two children were born to James K. and 
 Emma L. Bates, namely: Edwin G., who is con- 
 nected with the Parker Art Company, at Minneapo- 
 lis, and Otis Gibson. 
 
 Otis Gibson Bates received his early education in 
 the schools of his native place, this being followed 
 by two years in the Wellsboro High School. He 
 was only sixteen years of age when he decided to 
 try his fortunes in the West, and in 1889 arrived at 
 Pipestone, Minnesota, from whence he went to Min- 
 neapolis. In that city Mr. Bates secured employment 
 with the Minnesota Linseed Oil and Paint Com- 
 pany, as a clerk, and during the twelve years he was 
 associated with that concern won promotion through 
 industry, ability and faithfulness, from position to 
 position until he reached that of sales manager. Mr. 
 Bates resigned from this employment to accept the 
 position of city salesman, with Forman, Ford & Com- 
 pany, in 1902, and continued with that firm until 
 1910, then going to the Glidden Varnish Company, 
 as salesman in charge of North and South Dakota 
 and Montana. He continued as a knight of the grip 
 until 1912, in which year he entered the perilous field 
 of journalism, purchasing the Times, at Monticello, 
 of which he has since been editor, and publisher. 
 Here Mr. Bates’ long business experience and broad 
 outlook on life, gained through coming into contact 
 with all manners and conditions of people, have stood 
 him in good stead, and he has steadily built up this 
 reliable and up-to-the-minute newspaper, advancing 
 its circulation from 600 to 1,000, placing it upon a 
 substantial footing and making it an influential factor 
 in republican politics in this part of the state. The 
 readers of the Times are getting an eight-page, well- 
 printed, well-edited newspaper, containing all the 
 news, both national and local, with well written 
 editorials and many interesting features. Mr. Bates 
 at all times is ready to devote his columns to the 
 support of progressive movements, and is an excel- 
 lent type of the energetic, pushing and vigorous man 
 of affairs who finds time to devote to his community’s 
 interests. In connection with his newspaper plant, 
 he conducts a large, up-to-date printing office, op- 
 erated by gasoline power, and capable of turning out 
 the best jobwork. A stalwart republican, he has 
 stanchly supported his party's interests, but his only 
 public office has been that of secretary of the Mon- 
 ticello School Board. Fraternally he is connected 
 with Monticello Lodge, A. F. & A. M., and his 
 religious association is with the Methodist Church, 
 of which he is a trustee. 
 
 Mr. Bates has been twice married, his first union 
 taking place June 23, 1901, when he was united with 
 Miss Zadie E. Wedgewood, of Monticello, daughter 
 of G. R. and ijarah Wedgewood, natives of Monti- 
 cello, the father being a pioneer farmer of Wright 
 County. He is a veteran of the Civil war and a mem- 
 ber of Sedgwick Post No. 52, Grand Army of the 
 Republic, and is now living retired at Monticello, 
 Mrs. Wedgewood having died in 1904 at the age of 
 eighty-four years. Mrs. Bates died January 24, 1910, 
 leaving two children: Russel J., born in 1906; and 
 Eleanor, born in 1909. On July 6, 1912, Mr Bates 
 was married to Elsie E. Lewis, who was born at 
 Marquette, Michigan, daughter of John I. and Mary 
 E. Lewis, natives of that city. Mr. Lewis is a mine 
 “cruiser,” or prospector, at Marquette, and has been 
 the father of three children : Mrs. Bates, Pearl and 
 Hattie. Mrs. Bates taught domestic science in the 
 voi. m— 33 
 
 Monticello High School from 1908 to 1912, is a 
 graduate of the Detroit School of Domestic Science, 
 and is a lady of fine talents and much culture. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Bates have had no children. 
 
 Charles L. Fink. 1 he qualities that make the 
 successful merchant have been present in an emi- 
 nent degree in the career of Charles L. Fink, whose 
 business enterprise is now the leading feature of the 
 commercial life of Bricelyn in Faribault County. Mr. 
 Fink was reared a farmer, followed agriculture for 
 several years, but about twenty years ago became 
 interested in merchandising as a clerk, and his prog- 
 ress has been one of steady prosperity ever since that 
 time. 
 
 Charles L. Fink was born in Freeborn County, 
 Minnesota, February 6, 1868. His father, Fred Fink, 
 who was born in Germany in 1830 and died in Pick- 
 erel Lake Township of Freeborn County in 1906, 
 emigrated from his native land after getting an edu- 
 cation when about twenty-three years of age, lived 
 in New York State a time, and in 1834 took up a 
 homestead in Pickerel Lake Township in Freeborn 
 County, and was one of the very early settlers in that 
 vicinity. His life was spent in the quiet activities of 
 the old homestead until his death, for more than 
 half a century. While a young man in Germany he 
 had served in the army. He married Frederika 
 Weiser, who was born in Germany in 1844, and died 
 in Pickerel Lake Township in 1910. Their children 
 are : Henry, who lives on the old homestead in Pick- 
 erel Lake Township; Rosa, wife of Albert Warnke, a 
 clothing merchant in Jackson, Minnesota; Charles 
 L. ; Frank, Albert and Ferdinand, all farmers in 
 Pickerel Lake Township; and Nora, wife of Ernest 
 Klucow, of Pickerel Lake Township. 
 
 Charles L. Fink, like his brothers, lived on the old 
 homestead as a boy, was educated in the common 
 schools of Freeborn County, but his schooling was 
 ended by the time he was fourteen years of age and 
 he has since depended upon his own exertions for a 
 practical training in business and to advance himself 
 in the world. The first twenty-two years of his life 
 were spent on his father’s farm, and for the fol- 
 lowing three years he was an independent farmer. In 
 1893 Mr. Fink began working in a hardware store 
 at Albert Lea, in 1894 bought an interest in the estab- 
 lishment, and continued merchandising there until 
 1902. He then moved his stock to the small com- 
 munity of Bricelyn in Faribault County, began his 
 career with a somewhat limited stock of hardware. 
 During the past two years his business has extended 
 in all directions and he is now the proprietor of a 
 group of stores, including hardware, furniture, 
 groceries, dry goods and shoe store, all located on 
 Main Street. Mr. Fink owns and occupies three store 
 buildings, with a total frontage of seventy-five feet, 
 and uses another building with a 25-foot frontage' 
 for business purposes. Mr. Fink is a stockholder in 
 the Mutual Investment Company of St. Paul. 
 
 As a Republican he takes considerable interest in 
 local affairs and has served as president of the Brice- 
 lyn council several terms. He is a member of the 
 German Lutheran Church and was formerly affiliated 
 with the Modern Woodmen of America and the 
 Modern Brotherhood of America. In 1890 in Free- 
 born County occurred his marriage to Miss Catherine 
 Yost. Her father, Christ Yost, is a farmer in Pick- 
 erel Lake Township. Mr. and Mrs. Fink have two 
 children : Pearl, a graduate of the Winnebago Com- 
 
1784 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 mercial College, now bookkeeper for her father ; and 
 Orvil, a student in the Bricelyn public schools. 
 
 Frederick Douglas Underwood. Some of the citi- 
 zens of whom Minnesota is most proud and whose 
 achievements have added most to the progress of the 
 state as a whole have been the group associated at 
 different times and in varying capacities with the 
 splendid railway system of Minnesota and the 
 Northwest. There is a fine flavor of individual 
 character and self-attainment about these men, and 
 practically all were graduates of the school of prac- 
 tical experience. Among those who performed most 
 of their undergraduate work in Minnesota and who 
 can properly be claimed as credit to the citizenship 
 of the state is Frederick Douglas Underwood, one 
 of America’s greatest railway men and president of 
 the Erie Railroad System. He was long a resident of 
 Minnesota and was an important factor in the first 
 period of the Soo lines. 
 
 Frederick Douglas Underwood, son of Enoch 
 Downs and Harriet Flint Underwood, was born at 
 Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. As a boy he had some 
 advantages above those of the common schools, hav- 
 ing two years in Wayland Academy, Beaver Dam, 
 Wisconsin. Leaving there he began in railway serv- 
 ice as a clerk and later on as a brakeman on the 
 Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. He rose 
 in its service from brakeman to become one of its 
 principal superintendents. With the origin of the 
 now called Soo Line he came as general superin- 
 tendent, later he was made general manager in 
 charge of all departments. From 1899 to 1901 he 
 was second vice president and general manager of 
 the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad during its remodel- 
 ing, and is now president of the Erie Railroad and 
 its allied companies. 
 
 His principal achievement in Minnesota was dur- 
 ing the construction and later the management of 
 the Soo Line before and after its affiliation with the 
 Canadian Pacific. Those who observed his success 
 in that work were not surprised that he accomplished 
 great things in the broader eastern field to which he 
 was called. One of the railway officials who was 
 associated with Mr. Underwood while the latter was 
 general manager of the Soo Line furnishes some par- 
 ticulars which strengthen the estimation of Mr. 
 Underwood’s services as a railroad man of the 
 Northwest. While he was with the road there was 
 built 1,035 rniles of track. He created the first gen- 
 eral organization of the Soo Railroad. The offices 
 were located at the corner of Washington Avenue 
 and First Street, and later moved to the Guaranty 
 Loan Building. 
 
 For a number of years Mr. Underwood has had 
 his home and business headquarters in New York 
 City, his offices being at 50 Church Street, and his 
 home address at 277 West End Avenue. He is widely 
 known in railway circles, and has an extended 
 social relationship. He is a member of the following 
 clubs: Atlantic Yacht (New York), Baltimore Yacht 
 (Baltimore), Bankers Club of America (New 
 York), Buffalo Club (Buffalo), Chicago Club (Chi- 
 cago), Columbia Yacht (New York), Ellicott Club 
 {Buffalo) ; India House, Lotos Club, Metropolitan 
 (New York) ; Milwaukee Club (Milwaukee) ; New 
 York Athletic, New York Yacht, Railroad, Recess, 
 Seawanhaka, Corinthian Yacht and Tuxedo Clubs 
 (New York) ; Governor Automobile Club of Amer- 
 ica (New York): also member Traffic clubs of Chi- 
 
 cago and New York; Chamber of Commerce (New 
 York) ; Chamber of Commerce (Milwaukee) ; Japan 
 Society of New York and Minnesota Society of New 
 York. 
 
 Joseph L. Kuechenmeister. Owner and editor 
 of the Minnesota Lake Tribune, Joseph L. Kuechen- 
 meister is one of the successful younger newspaper 
 men of Minnesota. Several other members of his 
 family are printers and workers in the newspaper 
 field, and a number of years ago he gave up another 
 mechanical trade to learn the art of printing, and 
 now owns one of the best papers in Faribault County. 
 
 His relations with Minnesota are those of a native 
 son, whose family has been a factor in this state 
 since the earliest pioneer period. Joseph L. Kuechen- 
 meister was born in Jordan, Scott County, Minne- 
 sota, August 5, 1881. His father is John Kuechen- 
 meister, who was born in Germany in 1848, and at 
 the age of three years came to the United States. 
 Grandfather John Kuechenmeister, a native of Ger- 
 many, was the founder of the family in this coun- 
 try, and more than sixty years ago established a pio- 
 neer home in Henderson, Minnesota. He was a 
 farmer in that vicinity, and lived there until his 
 death. John Kuechenmeister, the father, grew up at 
 Henderson, and in 1879 moved to Minnesota Lake, 
 soon afterwards established a home at Jordan, in 
 
 1892 moved to Montgomery, and is now a resident of 
 Wells. His trade and regular business throughout 
 his active life has been that of cooper and stone 
 mason. Few living Minnesotans have seen more of 
 the real pioneer conditions of the state, and as a boy 
 he saw active service in the Indian wars. John 
 Kuechenmeister married Elizabeth Neubauer, who 
 was born in Michigan. Their children are: Augusta, 
 whose husband, G. H. Augst, is proprietor of a 
 garage at LeSueuer Center, Minnesota; Edward, a 
 printer living at Wells; Joseph L. ; Mary, who died 
 it the age of twenty years ; Agnes, a teacher at 
 Albert Lea; Alphonse, a printer at St. Paul; and 
 Valentine, a printer living at Wells. 
 
 Joseph L. Kuechenmeister received his education 
 in parochial and public schools, finishing with the 
 high school at Montgomery, but began training for 
 practical life at the age of about fifteen. He worked 
 at the cooper’s trade, and for three years made flour 
 barrels in Montgomery, and then followed the same 
 trade at Wells for three years. Giving up this occu- 
 pation, Mr. Kuechenmeister went to Minneapolis, and 
 spent two years with a large printing house in that 
 city, learning the printer’s trade in all its details. 
 Returning to Wells, he was employed by the Forum 
 Advocate three years, spent a short time at St. James, 
 Minnesota, with the Journal-Gazette and in 1911 
 came to Minnesota Lake and bought the Tribune 
 from Ed. B. Howe. The Tribune was established in 
 
 1893 under the name The Kodak, but in 1894 assumed 
 its present title. Mr. Kuechenmeister has improved 
 the mechanical and editorial features of the Tribune 
 in many ways, and its circulation now covers all the 
 eastern half of Faribault County. It is conducted 
 as a democratic paper, but its influence is chiefly 
 marked in the cause of local enterprise and good 
 government irrespective of politics. Mr. Kuechen- 
 meister is a democrat, a member of the Catholic 
 Church, and affiliates with the Knights of Columbus, 
 the Modern Brotherhood of America and the Inde- 
 pendent Order of Foresters. In 1908 at Montgomery 
 he married Miss Alta Omundson. daughter of the 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1785 
 
 late John Omundson, of Wells. They have four 
 children : Cecilia, Leonard, Helen and Edward, all 
 at home. 
 
 Wardwell Ames. For twenty-three years Ward- 
 well Ames was a resident of Duluth. His memory 
 is recalled not only as that of a successful business 
 man, but as a citizen whose public spirited activities 
 were well and vigorously directed, as a neighbor 
 and friend who having experienced both fortune and 
 misfortune knew how to bring succor to those who 
 needed it, and as a loyal and effective worker in 
 church, philanthropy and many of the movements 
 which have meant most in the life of that city. 
 
 Wardwell Ames, who always wrote his name 
 Ward, and was so called by his friends, was born 
 at Oswego, New York, December 6, 1846, and died 
 at his home in Duluth March 21, 1910. He was well 
 educated, having attended the famous old school, 
 Phillips Academy of Andover, Massachusetts, and 
 on returning home from that school engaged in the 
 elevator and milling business. At that time Oswego 
 was one of the important centers of the milling trade 
 of the United States. When the grain business 
 shifted its centers toward the West, Mr. Ames fol- 
 lowed, and in 1881 engaged in business at Fargo, 
 North Dakota. He lived there five years, and in t886 
 came to Duluth and engaged in business for himself. 
 In 1890 the firm of Ames-Brooks Company was or- 
 ganized, with Mr. Ames as president, an office he 
 held until the date of his death. During all his resi- 
 dence of twenty-three years in Duluth Mr. Ames 
 was known as a progressive business man, a civic 
 leader and a worker in church and philanthropy. 
 He was one of the early members of the board of 
 trade, and his sound business judgment and methods, 
 acquired by a long experience in the grain business, 
 made him an influential member of that organization 
 and enabled him to contribute materially towards the 
 realization of its aims and purposes. At various 
 times he served on the public affairs committee of 
 the Commercial Club of Duluth, and was a member 
 of the board of directors and chairman of the 
 finance committee of the Y. M. C. A. He was 
 also on the St. Louis County Poor Board, was a 
 director of the Bethel Society, and also contributed 
 toward the establishment and maintenance of ade- 
 quate hospital facilities in Duluth. To church and 
 philanthropy he brought the same sound judgment 
 which enabled him to succeed in business, and for 
 that reason he was one of the most useful members 
 in the various organizations above named, and par- 
 ticularly the Pilgrim Congregational Church, in 
 which he served as chairman of the finance com- 
 mittee. 
 
 His church and religion meant more to him than 
 to most successful business men. His grandfather 
 had been a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, but it is said that his parents, owing to the 
 strictness with which they were reared in early life, 
 allowed their membership to lapse, and Wardwell 
 Ames therefore came to his majority without any 
 definite church connections. Some time after his 
 marriage he and Mrs. Ames united with the Con- 
 gregational Church at Oswego in 1875. He was soon 
 made church treasurer. An incident told in this con- 
 nection illustrates Mr. Ames’ thorough business prin- 
 ciples, He accepted the church treasuryship on one 
 condition, that the minister's salary should be paid 
 on the first of every month in advance. His resig- 
 nation was ready when that could not be done. The 
 times were hard after the financial panic of 1873 and 
 
 the church in debt, but under his leadership the 
 church expenses were met promptly and the debt 
 paid. At Fargo Mr. Ames and wife became charter 
 members of the First Congregational Church, and 
 though a poor man he subscribed $100 toward a new 
 church, and was called to account by his firm for 
 the extravagance of his gift. Of his long connection 
 with the Pilgrim Congregational Church at Duluth, 
 it will be appropriate to quote briefly from resolu- 
 tions passed at the time of his death : “For nearly 
 
 twenty-three years he was a member of this church, 
 to which he gave the most faithful and loving serv- 
 ice, unsparing alike of his time and of his means, 
 and in the general religious and philanthropic work 
 of the city he was the leader upon whom his fellow 
 workers had learned to rely for counsel and en- 
 couragement. 
 
 “As a citizen and man of affairs he commanded 
 universal respect and honor. He was diligent in 
 business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord, and in 
 him the highest ideals of Christian citizenship found 
 abundant expression. His favorite salutation of 
 ‘neighbor’ may truly furnish the key to those quali- 
 ties of mind and heart which endeared him to an un- 
 usually wide circle of friends, many of whom have 
 personally felt his helpfulness.” 
 
 Mr. Ames was married in Oswego, New York, and 
 Mrs. Ames and two children, Ward Ames, Jr. and 
 Mrs. R. H. Draper, survive. Mr. Ames was buried 
 in his old home at Oswego. Personally he was a 
 man of extremely interesting and genial character- 
 istics. He was fond of music, had an unusual gift 
 as a teller of anecdotes and experiences, and was 
 fond of the outdoor sports of hunting and fishing. 
 While in the West he showed his excellent marks- 
 manship and ability as a hunter by killing some of 
 the Rocky Mountain sheep. Grain men all over the 
 Northwest knew and esteemed this late citizen of 
 Duluth. 
 
 Eli Boudrye. As early settlers and pioneer farm- 
 ers, as merchants and commercial leaders, and also 
 through important public service in various official 
 re’ations, the Boudrye family has through three gen- 
 erations contributed to the development and welfare 
 of Martin County. The family located there nearly 
 fifty years ago and Eli Boudrye, who represents the 
 third generation, is a successful young business man 
 of Granada, where he is a merchant and is manager 
 of Coleman’s Lumber Company. 
 
 Eli Boudrye was born in Fairmont, Minnesota, 
 January 2, 1877. His father is Charles L. Boudrye, 
 who was born in Columbus, Ohio, December 19, 
 1854. Going back still another generation, the grand- 
 father was Eli L. Boudrye, who was born in Ver- 
 mont in 1819. Grandfather Boudrye was a son of 
 John Boudrye, who emigrated from France and set- 
 tled at Highgate Falls in Vermont and was a farmer 
 and lumber man in that state. Grandfather Eli L. 
 Boudrye moved from Vermont to Ohio in 1845, and 
 in 18^6 moved to the Northwestern frontier, locating 
 in Winona County, Minnesota, and in 1865 becoming 
 an early settler in Martin County. He was a cabinet 
 maker "by trade, but in Minnesota followed farming. 
 Eli L. Boudrye was married to Mary Bevington, who 
 was born in Stark County, Ohio, in 1833, and died 
 at Dalton, Georgia, in 1900. Grandfather Boudrye 
 died at Dalton Georgia, in 1898. 
 
 Charles L. Boudrye, who for many years has been 
 identified with Granada, his activities as a merchant 
 and official giving him the foremost position as a man 
 
1786 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 of affairs in that village, was about two years of age 
 when the family came to Minnesota, and he grew 
 up on his father’s farm until 1876. He attended the 
 rural schools and the Winnebago city schools and 
 the Fairmont schools. His career was spent as a 
 farmer in Martin County until 1891, and in that year 
 he moved to Granada and established a hardware 
 store, as one of the early enterprises of the village. 
 In 1894 he sold out and then entered the produce 
 business and still looks after a trade along those 
 lines. Charles L. Boudrye is a stockholder in the 
 Guckeen State Bank and owns stock in the Twin 
 City Insurance Company. His official service has 
 made him prominent in Granada for many years. As 
 a republican he was appointed postmaster in 1897 and 
 served fully seventeen years, leaving the office on 
 November 1, 1914, at which time Bert S. Colton 
 became his successor. During his seventeen years 
 as postmaster he conducted the office for the benefit 
 of the patrons and in a manner to reflect the highest 
 credit upon his efficiency and public spirit. .At the 
 present time he is serving as county commissioner 
 from the First District, and has served on the vil- 
 lage council of Granada for twelve years and on the 
 school board for five years. He is a member of the 
 Congregational Church and affiliates with Granada 
 Camp No. 4038 of the Modern Woodmen of America. 
 
 Charles L. Boudrye was married in the Township 
 of Fairmont October 28, 1875, to Miss Flora M. 
 Houston. Her father, the late Samuel Houston, was 
 a blacksmith by trade. To their marriage have been 
 born the following children : Eli ; Izola, a stenog- 
 
 rapher living in Minneapolis ; Louis R., who has a 
 position in the postoffice at Duluth; Imogene, a stu- 
 dent in the St. Cloud Normal School; Ada, a trained 
 nurse at Minneapolis ; and Samuel a civil engineer 
 in Montana. 
 
 Eli Boudrye as a boy was educated in School 
 District No. 8 at Rose Lake and in the Mankato 
 Business College, being a student there during 1898. 
 His first regular employment was as a carpenter, a 
 trade he followed three years. For the past fifteen 
 years Mr. Boudrye has been manager of Coleman’s 
 lumber yard at Granada, and is also the leading 
 hardware merchant of that town. He has followed 
 the methods which bring success in mercantile lines, 
 and is one of the most progressive and public-spirited 
 citizens. In politics he is republican and is affiliated 
 with Granada Camp No. 4038 of the Modern Wood- 
 men of America. Mr. Boudrye was married in 
 1901 at Granada to Miss Mary Hodgman, daughter 
 of A. J. Hodgman, a farmer at Pleasant Prairie. Mr. 
 Boudrye and wife have one child, Minnie, who is 
 now a student in the public schools at Granada. 
 
 Joseph H. Coates. In the past fifty years proba- 
 bly no one citizen of Benton County has taken a 
 more active part in the development of the primary 
 resources of this section, its lands and agriculture, in 
 the upbuilding and business advancement of Sauk 
 Rapids, and in public affairs generally than Joseph H. 
 Coates, one of the pioneers, who has lived in Sauk 
 Rapids since the early ’60s. 
 
 Joseph H. Coates is a native of England, born in 
 Lincolnshire, November 30, 1847. His father was a 
 magistrate in England, and in 1850 started to bring 
 his family to America, but died on the ocean trip. 
 The family landed at Mobile, Alabama, and first 
 made permanent settlement at Pleasant Valley near 
 Davenport, Iowa. In 1854 the family moved to the 
 Northwestern frontier, locating in Fillmore County, 
 
 Minnesota, and in April, 1861, arrived at Sauk Rap- 
 ids, then a frontier village. 
 
 Joseph H. Coates acquired his education in the 
 public schools and private select schools, and his 
 boyhood was spent nearly altogether in frontier com- 
 munities. He was about fourteen years of age when 
 the family moved to Sauk Rapids, grew up there, and 
 early began taking an active part in public affairs. 
 In 1870, when only twenty-three years of age, he was 
 elected sheriff of Benton County, and filled that office 
 with efficiency for two years. In business he has 
 been chiefly identified with farming and with exten- 
 sive real estate operations. At the present time he 
 owns and operates a place of 200 acres adjoining 
 the City of Sauk Rapids. From 1883 to 1887 he was 
 associated with others in the operation of sawmills, 
 and at different times has had large holdings in the 
 agricultural and timber districts of the Northwest. 
 In 1879 he and Mr. John Cooper bought 10,000 acres 
 in this state. For many years his real estate opera- 
 tions have been confined to handling his own prop- 
 erties. In 1873 Mr. Coates was admitted to the bar 
 by order of the District Court, but most of his prac- 
 tice has been with his own affairs as the basis of 
 his clientage. For a number of years he was presi- 
 dent of the Sauk Rapids Manufacturing and General 
 Store Company. 
 
 His public record is a long one, beginning with his 
 election to the office of sheriff as already noted. 
 After leaving that office he served as judge of pro- 
 bate four years, was again elected sheriff for two 
 years, following which came another term of two 
 years as probate judge. During 1890-1901 he was a 
 member of the legislature and in 1912 was again sent 
 from Benton County to represent this district in 
 the lower house. For four years he held the office 
 of clerk of courts, and for seven years was village 
 justice. Judge Coates has been very active in the 
 republican party, but his chief activity has been 
 directed to good local government and to everything 
 that would advance the interests of Benton County 
 and Sauk Rapids. He has served as president of 
 the Commercial Club, and has been affiliated with the 
 Masonic fraternity since since 1870. 
 
 Judge Coates first married Mary E. Cross, who 
 was born in Illinois. Their four children were: 
 Henry E., a farmer at Sauk Rapids; Ada Jane, wife 
 of Jacob A. Jochem of Milk River, Canada; Fred, 
 who also lives at Milk River ; and Mrs. Emma 
 Mansfield of Havre, Montana. The present Mrs. 
 Coates before her marriage was Julia A. Russell. 
 Her parents, Jeremiah and Sophia Russell, were pio- 
 neer Minnesotans, and her father represented his 
 district in the territorial legislature. 
 
 Carl L. Hacger. The distinctive professional 
 ability of Mr. Hagger as a civil engineer is well rec- 
 ognized and is indicated by the fact that he is serv- 
 ing not only as county surveyor of Faribault County 
 but also as city surveyor of Blue Earth, the county 
 seat. He is one of the representative young men 
 and popular citizens of this section of his native 
 state and is well entitled to recognition in this his- 
 tory, which in a contemporary way offers records 
 that will be of perpetual value in the future. 
 
 Mr. Hagger was born in the City of Minneapolis, 
 Minnesota, on the 9th of October. 1887, and is a 
 scion of the fine Scandinavian element which has 
 been a most potent and benignant force in connection 
 with the development and upbuilding of the state, 
 along both civic and industrial lines. He is a son of 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1787 
 
 Ole L. and Carethe (Sannan) Hagger, both of whom 
 were born in Norway, the father having been a 
 native of Sogne, where he was born in the year 
 1851, and his death having occurred in the autumn 
 of 1913, his widow still maintaining her residence on 
 the old homestead farm, in Blue Earth County. Of 
 the children Carl L. is the eldest and is the only 
 son; Eda is the wife of Julius Halverson, a farmer 
 of Delevan Township, Faribault County; and Olga 
 remains with her widowed mother on the old home- 
 stead. Ole L. Hagger was only fourteen years of age 
 when he came to the United States, and he first set- 
 tled at Madison, the capital city of Wisconsin, from 
 which state he removed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, 
 in 1878. He continued his residence in the metropo- 
 lis of the state until 1889, when he removed with his 
 family to Blue Earth County, his only son having 
 been at the time about two years of age. He became 
 one of the industrious and progressive farmers of 
 the county and through his well directed endeavors 
 achieved definite prosperity, the while his sterling 
 attributes of character caused him to retain the 
 respect and confidence of all who knew him. He 
 was a republican in his political proclivities and was 
 a zealous communicant of the Lutheran Church, as 
 are also his widow and children. 
 
 Carl L. Hagger passed the period of his boyhood 
 and youth on the home farm and he recalls with 
 satisfaction that he was enabled to lend definite 
 assistance to his father in connection with its work 
 and management, the while he made good use of 
 the advantages afforded him in the public schools of 
 Blue Earth County. At the age of nineteen years 
 he was matriculated in Luther College, at Albert 
 Lea, and in this institution he completed a thorough 
 one year’s course in civil engineering, after which 
 he gave the major part of his time and attention to 
 the practical work of his profession in the capacity 
 of assistant to the county surveyor of Faribault 
 County, an experience that admirably fortified him 
 for the positions of which he is now the able and 
 valued incumbent. In 1912 Mr. Hagger was elected 
 county surveyor of this county, and he has since 
 done a large amount of important work for the 
 county in this office, besides which he has served 
 also as city surveyor of Blue Earth since May, 1914, 
 his official headquarters being in the courthouse. In 
 the autumn of 1914 he was re-elected county sur- 
 veyor for a second term of four years, and this indi- 
 cates conclusively the high estimate placed upon his 
 services by the people of the county. Mr. Hagger 
 has not deviated from the line of direct allegiance to 
 the republican party and he takes a lively interest 
 in all that touches the prosperity and progress of his 
 home city and county. 
 
 Was married to Miss Esther Willmert of Blue 
 Earth City on October 8, 1914. 
 
 Judge William St. Clair McClenahan. One of 
 the oldest and most distinguished members of the 
 bar of Central Minnesota is Judge William S. 
 McClenahan, for the past fifteen years judge of the 
 fifteenth judicial circuit. Judge McClenahan began 
 practice at Brainerd more than thirty years ago, has 
 been honored on a number of occasions with posi- 
 tions of responsibility and trust, and in the judicial 
 office has acquired special distinction. 
 
 Judge William St. Clair McClenahan was born in 
 Baltimore, Maryland, June 19, 1854, a son of Hugh 
 Bell and Maria Louise (McComas) McClenahan. 
 His grandfather emigrated from Ireland early in the 
 last century, settled in Nova Scotia, Canada, and the 
 
 family came to the State of Maryland in the early 
 ’40s ; Hugh Bell McClenahan was a teacher, and 
 during Lincoln’s first term was employed in the Post- 
 office Department at Washington. 
 
 Judge McClenahan was liberally educated, attend- 
 ing private schools, and in 1875 graduated LL.B. 
 from Dickinson College at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. 
 He later took the course in the law department of 
 the University of Maryland and finished there in 
 1880, when he was awarded the prize offered for the 
 best thesis written by a member of the graduating 
 class, the judges being the justices of the Maryland 
 Court of Appeals. Judge McClenahan practiced law 
 at Baltimore until 1882 and in that year moved to 
 Brainerd, Minnesota, engaged in general practice, 
 and for a long time was associated with the late 
 Judge George W. Holland, until the latter’s elevation 
 to the district bench of the state. As a lawyer Judge 
 McClenahan was noted for his broad learning, his 
 aggressive ability in the prosecution of interests 
 intrusted to his charge, and a clarity of judgment 
 that well fitted him for judicial honors. For twelve 
 years he served as city attorney of Brainerd, and in 
 1900 was elected judge of the Fifteenth Judicial Dis- 
 trict, and has now held that office fourteen years. 
 For the first three years Judge McClenahan was the 
 only judge presiding over the different courts in the 
 district, but the duties of this large district have 
 since been divided among several judges. While he 
 has sat on the bench many important cases have come 
 before him for decision, and one that deserves 
 special mention because of its prominence was the 
 Hart disbarment case of 1908 (104 Minn. 88). Judge 
 McClenahan was one of the five judges selected by 
 the governor of Minnesota to preside in these pro- 
 ceedings, and the other four were Hon. Frank C. 
 Brooks, Hascal R. Brill, Myron D. Taylor and 
 Nathan Kingsley. 
 
 Judge McClenahan is a member of the American 
 Bar Association and has taken thirty-two degrees of 
 Scottish Rite Masonry and is a Knight Templar 
 affiliated with the Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He 
 also is a member of the Brainerd Chamber of Com- 
 merce, and is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias 
 and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. 
 At Brainerd on September 4, 1911, he married Rosalie 
 Agatha Poppenberg. They have one son, William 
 St. Clair, Jr., born September 24, 1912. Judge 
 McClenahan is a republican in politics. 
 
 Walter Dwight. Eligibly situated at a point two 
 miles north of the thriving little City of Blue Earth, 
 Faribault County, is the fine farm homestead of Mr. 
 Dwight, who has proved himself one of the progres- 
 sive and substantial representatives of the agricul- 
 tural industry in his native state and whose energy 
 and ambition have been on a parity with those of his 
 honored father, who settled in this section of Min- 
 nesota more than half a century ago and who long 
 held precedence as one of the successful farmers and 
 influential citizens of Blue Earth County, of which 
 the most of Faribault County was originally a part. 
 
 Walter Dwight was born at Vernon Center, Blue 
 Earth County, Minnesota, on the 29th of October, 
 1869, and is a son of Leonard and Cornelia (Mason) 
 Dwight, the former of whom was born in Cat- 
 taraugus County, New York, in 1835, and the latter 
 of whom was born in Wisconsin in 1838, a repre- 
 sentative of one of the early pioneer families of the 
 state, where she was reared and educated and where 
 her marriage was solemnized. Leonard Dwight was 
 reared to maturity in the old Empire State, and 
 
1788 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 within a few years after attaining to his legal 
 majority he joined the strong tide of immigration 
 to the West, with the result that he became one 
 of the pioneer settlers in Blue Earth County, Min- 
 nesota, where he established his home about i860. 
 He became a pioneer farmer near Vernon Center, 
 in Vernon Township, where he remained until 1876, 
 when he removed to the fine old homestead on which 
 he maintained his residence for many years, the 
 same being now one of the splendid farms of 
 Verona Township, that county. He passed the clos- 
 ing years of his long and useful life in well earned 
 retirement, and his death occurred in the Village of 
 Elmore, Faribault County, in 1903. His cherished 
 and devoted wife, who had shared with him the 
 labors and vicissitudes of pioneer life, survived him 
 by a decade and was summoned to eternal rest on 
 the 15th of October, 1913, her memory being re- 
 vered by all who came within the compass of her 
 gentle influence and both she and her husband hav- 
 ing been earnest members of the Methodist Epis- 
 copal Church. Concerning their children brief data 
 are here given: Jennie M., is the wife of Robert 
 
 W. Johnson and they reside on the old homestead 
 of her parents, in Verona Township; Walter, of this 
 review, was the next in order of birth; and Cora 
 is the wife of William R. Barmore, who is serving 
 as city clerk of Winnebago, Faribault County, at the 
 time this article is written. 
 
 Reared to maturity under the benignant influences 
 and discipline of the home farm, Walter Dwight 
 gained that varied and practical experience which 
 has proved a most potent factor in insuring his suc- 
 cess as an independent representative of the great 
 basic industries of agriculture and stock-growing. 
 After duly profiting by the advantages afforded in 
 the public schools he further fortified himself by 
 completing a course in the Parker Business College, 
 at Winnebago. He continued to be associated in the 
 work and management of the home farm until the 
 death of his mother and had virtually assumed the 
 entire supervision during the decade following the 
 death of his father. In 1910 he purchased the old 
 homestead, and with additional land which he had 
 acquired he thus became the owner of a valuable 
 farm of 240 acres. In 1913 he sold the property in 
 an advantageous way and purchased his present 
 farm, situated in Blue Earth Township, on the Blue 
 Earth and Winnebago turnpike road and only two 
 miles distant from Blue Earth, the judicial center 
 of Faribault County. This is one of the model 
 landed estates of this section of the state, the farm 
 comprising 280 acres and being equipped with the 
 best of modern farm buildings, including a substan- 
 tial and commodious brick residence, large and sub- 
 stantial barns and minor buildings. In 1914 Mr. 
 Dwight added to the improvements on the farm by 
 the construction of an excellently arranged cement 
 well-house, with accommodations for the gasoline 
 engine by which water is pumped for domestic and 
 general farm purposes. In the agricultural depart- 
 ment of his extensive farm enterprise he gives his 
 attention principally to the raising of corn, clover 
 and oats, and in the department of animal industry 
 to the raising of high-grade shorthorn cattle and 
 Duroc Jersey swine. 
 
 Mr. Dwight not only holds prestige as one of the 
 most progressive and scientific farmers and stock- 
 growers of this section but is also recognized as a 
 citizen of much liberality and public spirit. In 
 politics he maintains an independent attitude and 
 gives his support to the men and measures meeting 
 
 the approval of his judgment. While still residing 
 on the old homestead, in Verona Township, he 
 served twelve years as a member of the school board 
 and one year as township assessor. In a fraternal 
 way he is affiliated with the Blue Earth Lodge of the 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Both he and 
 his wife have a host of friends and they enjoy 
 extending to them the hospitality of their beautiful 
 home. 
 
 In 1901, at Bricelyn, Faribault County, was 
 solemnized the marriage of Mr. Dwight to Miss 
 Pauline Paulson, daughter of the late Peter Paul- 
 son, who was one of the sterling citizens and sub- 
 stantial farmers of that locality. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Dwight became the parents of six children, all of 
 whom are living except one, so that the family 
 circle is one of the most gracious order. Dora 
 Eleanor, the second in order of birth, died in 1911, 
 at the age of six years, and the names of the other 
 children are here noted in respective order of na- 
 tivity: Floyd Leonard, Walter Chester, Harold 
 
 Paulson, Ralph Bryan and Ward. It may be stated 
 in conclusion that the genealogy of the Dwight 
 family is traced back to staunch English origin and 
 that representatives of the name were numbered 
 among the early settlers of the State of New York. 
 
 Walter W. Hulce. The cashier of the Farmers 
 National Bank at Minnesota Lake, Walter W. Hulce 
 is one of the progressive young business men of 
 Faribault County, and while widely known through 
 his present position, is perhaps even better known 
 over the county as a teacher, having been identified 
 with the public schools for a number of years prior 
 to taking up the business of banking. 
 
 Walter W. Hulce was born in Columbia County, 
 Wisconsin, April 3, 1885, a son of H. W. and Anna 
 (Friday) Hulce. The Hulce family was English in 
 its origin, was established in Massachusetts in 
 Colonial times, and the great-grandfather of Walter 
 W. moved to Buffalo, New York, in 1816. There 
 were members of the family who served in the 
 Revolutionary war. H. W. Hulce was born in 
 Columbia County, Wisconsin, in i860, came to Blue 
 Earth, Minnesota, in 1889, moved to Welcome, and 
 thence to Elmore, where he is now living, being- 
 connected with the Elmore Cement Company. The 
 mother was likewise a native of Columbia County, 
 Wisconsin. Their children are: Walter W. ; Ada, 
 
 who died at the age of twenty-three; Maude, who 
 lives with her parents ; and Mamie, who teaches 
 school at Oldham, South Dakota. 
 
 Walter W. Hulce acquired his early education 
 in the public schools at Elmore, attended Parker 
 College at Winnebago, Minnesota, and at the age of 
 twenty left school to take up teaching. That work 
 kept him employed at Easton and other places in 
 Faribault County for eight years. 
 
 In 1913 Mr. Hulce accepted the post of cashier 
 with the Farmers National Bank at Minnesota Lake. 
 This bank was established in 1903. It has a capital 
 stock of $25,000, with a surplus of $1,250. The 
 president is W. H. Schroeder. 
 
 Mr. Hulce is independent in politics and is affili- 
 ated with the Modern Woodmen of America. In 
 1910 he married Miss Elvira E. Herring. Her father 
 is J. L. Herring, county auditor of Faribault 
 County, with residence at Blue Earth. 
 
 Charles William Seddon. When Charles Wil- 
 liam Seddon entered upon his active career his 
 capital consisted of a public school education and 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1789 
 
 a knowledge of the machinist’s trade gained through 
 a long and arduous apprenticeship. These, with the 
 opportunities which the era of railroad construction 
 in the Northwest offered, with the skill which his 
 energetic nature supplied, and a training gained in 
 the field supplemented by diligent study, have enabled 
 him to achieve, when still in the prime of life, a 
 substantial position among the railroad men of 
 Proctor, Minnesota, where he is superintendent of 
 motive power and cars for the Duluth, Mesaba & 
 Northern Railroad. 
 
 Mr. Seddon was born at Lima, Ohio, February 
 4, 1865, and is a son of Mark and Flora (Good) 
 Seddon. The son of a blacksmith, he inherited a 
 predilection for and ability in mechanics, and when 
 he had completed his education in the public schools, 
 was apprenticed to the trade of machinist, which he 
 learned thoroughly. The following twenty-one years 
 were spent as a journeyman, and from 1879 to 1900 
 he traveled to cities in various parts of the country, 
 including St. Paul, Minnesota, Plattsmouth, Ne- 
 braska, and Sioux City, Iowa. In 1900 Mr. Seddon’s 
 railroad career began when he accepted a position 
 at Minneapolis with the Minneapolis & St. Louis 
 Railroad, as machinist. Subsequently he entered the 
 service of the Great Northern Railroad, at Crooks- 
 ton, Minnesota, and from machinist rapidly rose 
 to the position of shop superintendent of the same 
 road, being transferred to Barnesville, Minnesota, 
 also holding that position for a time at Superior, 
 Wisconsin. On December 1, 1906, Mr. Seddon came 
 to Proctor, to accept the position of superintendent 
 of motive power and cars for the Duluth, Mesaba 
 & Northern Railroad, and has continued in this 
 capacity to this date. Mr. Seddon has risen to his 
 present position solely through his own efforts, for 
 at the outset of his career he has no pecuniary as- 
 sistance or the influence of friends to help him. 
 Sturdy energy, a doing well of whatever he has 
 found to do, and an unwavering fidelity to duty 
 have combined to form the medium through which 
 he has won success, and he is worthily entitled to 
 the esteem and respect that is commanded by self- 
 made manhood. While he has given his chief at- 
 tention to the railroad business, he has been in- 
 terested also in enterprises connected with com- 
 mercial and financial activities, and is a director of 
 the Proctor State Bank, director of the Iron Moun- 
 tain Mining Company, near Crosby, Minnesota, and 
 a director of the Idaho Improved Farm Association. 
 He is interested in sports of all kinds, and is presi- 
 dent of the Proctor Athletic Association and a_ mem- 
 ber of the Kitchi Gammi Club, of Duluth. His fra- 
 ternal connection is with the Sioux City Lodge of 
 the Masonic order. While he has taken a good 
 citizen’s interest in affairs of a public character, Mr. 
 Seddon has never found the time to seek preferment 
 in the political arena. 
 
 While a resident of Sioux City, Iowa, Mr. Seddon 
 was married to Miss Catherine R. Heddinger, of 
 that place. 
 
 Werner Hemstead, M. D. Up to about fifteen 
 years ago Doctor Hemstead was one of the most 
 active practitioners of medicine at Brainerd and 
 vicinity, but since that time his energies have been 
 largely devoted to his varied business affairs. Doctor 
 Hemstead in the early days acquired interests in the 
 Range, still owns a large amount of land in the 
 mineral section, and was one of the first to develop 
 the Cuyuna country. 
 
 Dr. Werner Hemstead was born in Dubuque 
 County, Iowa, April 19, i860, a son of Carl and 
 Rosamond (Grobe) Hemstead. His father was a 
 farmer and the son grew up in the country, was 
 educated in the public schools, and was liberally and 
 thoroughly prepared for his life work. He attended 
 the Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, Iowa, 
 and took his course in medicine in the Missouri 
 Medical College and in the University of Nebraska, 
 graduating M. D. in 1882. His first experience in 
 practice was at Omaha, but in September, 1882, he 
 came to Brainerd, Minnesota, and took up the work 
 of a regular practitioner, which he continued with 
 very gratifying success until 1900. In the meantime 
 Doctor Hemstead had acquired interests in other 
 directions, and after giving up his practice became 
 identified with merchandising. For three terms he 
 served as mayor of Brainerd, was a member of the 
 board of education for some time, and was also an 
 alderman in the city government, and for two terms 
 a member of the legislature. 
 
 Doctor Hemstead has retired from active business 
 affairs and during the summer months lives at Arbor 
 Lodge, a beautiful country estate on the shores of 
 Nokay and Eagle lakes, and here he is building up 
 a fruit farm without destroying too much of the 
 primeval forest. 
 
 On September 26, 1894, Doctor Hemstead mar- 
 ried Marguerite Johnson of La Crosse, Wisconsin. 
 Their two children are Charles W., now a book- 
 keeper, and Rosemary, a student. Doctor Hemstead 
 is independent in his political activities. 
 
 James W. Stevenson. One of the many fine 
 landed estates of Southern Minnesota is that which 
 has been owned since the spring of 1908, by Mr. 
 Stevenson, this admirably improved farm, which 
 comprises 234 acres, being situated in Verona Town- 
 ship, Faribault County, at a point on Blue Earth and 
 Winnebago turnpike road, two and one-half miles 
 south of the City of Winnebago. Mr. Stevenson is 
 not only essentially progressive and ambitious in his 
 chosen sphere of enterprise but also brings to bear 
 an excellent scientific and practical knowledge of the 
 great basic industries of agriculture and stock-grow- 
 ing, with the result that he stands forth as one of the 
 prominent exponents of the same in this section of 
 the state. His status as a citizen and as a prom- 
 inent and honored representative of important in- 
 dustrial interests well entitles him to definite recog- 
 nition in this history of the state of his adoption. 
 
 A scion of a sterling pioneer family of the Badger 
 State, Mr. Stevenson was born on the homestead 
 farm of his father in Columbia County, Wisconsin, 
 and the date of his nativity was January 1, 1871. He 
 is a son of William and Agnes (Wilson) Stevenson, 
 the latter of whom was born in Columbia County, 
 Wisconsin, in 1848 — a member of one of the repre- 
 sentative pioneer families of that section of the 
 state. William Stevenson was reared to the age 
 of sixteen years in his native land, where he received 
 excellent educational advantages, and he then ac- 
 companied his parents on their immigration to the 
 United States, the family home having first been 
 established in Illinois, whence removal was made a 
 few years later to Columbia County, Wisconsin, 
 where his parents passed the remainder of their 
 lives. With all of diligence and energy he applied 
 himself to the vocation of farming throughout his 
 entire active career and he became one of the sub- 
 stantial agriculturists and honored and influential 
 
1790 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 citizens of his community, Columbia County, having 
 continued to be his place of residence until his 
 death, which occurred in May 22, 1914, his devoted 
 wife, who likewise was a representative of one of 
 the fine old clans of Scotland, having been summoned 
 to eternal rest in 1911, her entire life having been 
 passed in Columbia County, where several of their 
 eleven children still remain. John is a representa- 
 tive agriculturist of that county; James W., of this 
 review, was the next in order of birth ; Mary re- 
 mains in the old home county; Clark, who was a 
 successful farmer in that county, died in 1914, a 
 bachelor; Thomas is a farmer in that county, as 
 was also William, who died in 1906; Alexander there 
 follows the same vocation; Margaret is the wife of 
 Tempest Currie, who is engaged in the banking 
 business at Big Springs, Texas; and Kenneth, An- 
 drew and David are engaged in farming in their 
 native county, with whose annals the family name 
 has been long and worthily identified. 
 
 Reared under the invigorating discipline of the 
 home farm, James W. Stevenson thus acquired his 
 initial knowledge of agriculture at first hand, and 
 after duly availing himself of the advantages of the 
 public schools of his native county, he completed a 
 course in the Northwestern Business College, at 
 Madison, the capital of Wisconsin. In the same 
 city he later completed, during two winter terms, 
 special and well ordered course in the college of 
 agriculture of the great University of Wisconsin, 
 this department of the university being one of the 
 foremost of its kind in the entire Union. Thereafter 
 Mr. Stevenson acted as an associate instructor in 
 the college of agriculture for two winters, and in 
 the meanwhile he spared no effort in widening his 
 own knowledge of scientific agriculture and stock- 
 growing. In his independent operations as an agri- 
 culturist he was engaged in farming in Barron 
 County, Wisconsin, for a period of ten years, at the 
 expiration of which he sold his property and, in 
 March, 1908, came to Faribault County, Minnesota, 
 where he purchased his present fine farm, which is 
 equipped with excellent buildings and upon which 
 he himself has made many modern improvements, 
 the entire demesne giving every evidence of thrift 
 and prosperity. The principal agricultural products 
 of the farm are corn, oats, barley and clover, for 
 each of which this section is admirably adapted, and 
 Mr. Stevenson stands also well to the front in the 
 department of animal industry, as a grower and 
 breeder of high-grade shorthorn cattle, with an av- 
 erage herd of seventy head, and the most approved 
 breeds of swine, including the Poland-China and 
 Duroc-Jersey types. 
 
 The democratic party receives the enthusiastic al- 
 legiance of Mr. Stevenson, though in local affairs, 
 where no generic issues are involved, he is not 
 constrained by strict partisan lines. 
 
 In Columbia County, Wisconsin, the year of 1900 
 gave record of the marriage of Mr. Stevenson to 
 Miss Agnes J. Mair, daughter of Charles Mair, 
 who was one of the prominent farmers of_ that 
 county, where he is now living retired, in the Village 
 of Poynette. Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson have two 
 children: Ina Margaret and Vera Agnes. 
 
 William Henry Fletcher. This well known 
 citizen and prominent business man of Sauk Rapids 
 is one of Minnesota’s pioneers, and has been identi- 
 fied with the territory and state for the past sixty 
 years. Mr. Fletcher has spent most of his active 
 career in Benton County, has been in the insurance 
 
 and real estate business at Sauk Rapids since 1878, 
 has been identified with a number of enterprises 
 which are directly associated with the local better- 
 ment and improvement, and has filled with honor 
 and credit several county and local offices. 
 
 William Henry Fletcher was born in Muskingum 
 County, Ohio, February 27, 1842. His parents were 
 William and Emma (Ellis) Fletcher. His father 
 was a miller by trade, moved out to Minnesota, in 
 1855, first locating at St. Anthony Falls, and in 1858 
 constructed the first flour mill at Little Falls, Min- 
 nesota. 
 
 William H. Fletcher acquired his early education 
 in the public schools at Beloit, Wisconsin, where 
 his family lived before coming to Minnesota. While 
 growing up he acquired an expert knowledge of the 
 milling business under his father, and was after- 
 wards located at St. Cloud and in the wagon manu- 
 facturing business there and at Sauk Rapids for 
 about twenty years. 
 
 Mr. Fletcher served in the office of county treas- 
 urer from 1874 to 1878, was county auditor of Ben- 
 ton County from 1894 to 1896 and since 1900 has 
 been a member of the board of county commission- 
 ers, and with the exception of two years has been 
 president of the board. He was the first village re- 
 corder of Sauk Rapids, held the office a number of 
 times and for many years was on the village board. 
 For ten years he served as clerk of the district 
 school board. Mr. Fletcher has taken an active part 
 in republican party affairs, and has been frequently 
 honored with the office of chairman of the Republican 
 County Committee. He is a director of the Benton 
 County Cemetery Association, of which he was one 
 of the organizers. These various positions together 
 with his business as a real estate and insurance man 
 has kept him busily employed for many years and 
 though past the age of three score and ten has not 
 yet retired from the active list. 
 
 Mr. Fletcher was married April 27, 1879, to Alda 
 M. Everest, who was born in Ohio. Mr. Fletcher 
 has for half a century been affiliated with the Ma- 
 sonic order, having taken his first degree in 1865, 
 and is now a member of North Star Lodge No. 23, 
 A. F. & A. M. 
 
 Malcolm J. Farrish, M. D., C. M. As physician 
 and surgeon no firm in Martin County has a higher 
 professional standing, better professional connec- 
 tions, than Farrish & Farrish, who have offices both 
 in Sherburn and Ceylon. This firm consists of Dr. 
 Malcolm J. and Dr. Robert C. Farrish, two brothers, 
 the older of whom has practiced at Sherburn for 
 more than twenty years. 
 
 Dr. Malcolm j. Farrish was born at Rockwood, 
 Ontario, Canada, June 7, 1864. His father, William 
 Farrish, who was born in Scotland in 1834 and died 
 at Minneapolis in 1906, came to Canada about 1850, 
 and for many years lived at Rockwood, where he 
 was prominent as the proprietor and operator of a 
 flour mill, oat mill, and grain elevator. William 
 Farrish married Agnes McFarlane, who was born in 
 Halton County, Ontario, in 1834, and died at St. 
 Paul in 1894. Their children were : Mary, who 
 
 died young; Annie, who died young; John F., who 
 is vice president of the William McMurray & Com- 
 pany, tea and spice wholesale merchants, in St. Paul ; 
 Dr. Malcolm J.; Dr. Robert C. ; and Agnes, wife 
 of Louis G. Foley, who is state inspector of hos- 
 pitals and prisons in Minnesota with residence at 
 St. Paul. 
 
 Dr. Malcolm J. Farrish grew up in his native town 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1791 
 
 of Rockwood, attended the public schools there, and 
 in 1882 was graduated from the noted Rockwood 
 Academy, a school which is known both in Canada 
 and the United States, and has graduated many 
 prominent men. While Doctor Farrish was a student 
 there, its principal was Alexander McMillan. From 
 the academy he entered Toronto University in 1882, 
 spent two years in that institution, and pursued his 
 medical studies in Trinity University at Toronto, 
 where he was graduated with the class of 1891 and 
 the degrees M. D. and C. M. Some years after get- 
 ting well established in his profession, Doctor Far- 
 rish took post-graduate work in the New York 
 hospitals in 1906. 
 
 Doctor Farrish immediately after graduation came 
 to Minnesota, spent the winter of 1891-92 as house 
 surgeon in the Minneapolis Hospital, and for a short 
 time was employed as physician and surgeon by one 
 of the large corporations operating on the Mesaba 
 Range. In July 1892 he opened an office at Sher- 
 burn, and about nine years later was joined by his 
 brother, and they have since alternated in practice 
 both at Sherburn and Ceylon. 
 
 Doctor Farrish besides his long and useful record 
 as a physician, has also been identified with public 
 affairs. For twenty years or more he has served on 
 the health board, and for one term was mayor of 
 Sherburn. He was also coroner of Martin County 
 from 1898 to 1900. Doctor Farrish is a member of 
 the Martin County Medical Society, is a democrat in 
 politics and was brought up in the faith of the Pres- 
 byterian Church. A believer in fraternal organiza- 
 tions he has membership in Magnolia Lodge, A. F. 
 & A. M. ; Fairmont Chapter No. 50, R. A. M. ; Fair- 
 mont Commandery No. 27, K. T. ; Mankato Lodge 
 No. 225, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; 
 and Sherburn Lodge of the Independent Order of 
 Odd Fellows. At Sherburn in 1902, Doctor Farrish 
 married Miss Laura Bettenhausen, who was of 
 German family and a native of Illinois. They are 
 the parents of three children : Charlotte A., Mar- 
 
 ian L„ and Robert M., all of whom are attending 
 the public schools of Sherburn. 
 
 Dr. Robert C. Farrish, junior member of the firm 
 of Farrish & Farrish, physicians and surgeons of 
 Sherburn and Ceylon, was born at Rockwood, On- 
 tario, September 16, 1867. He acquired his educa- 
 tion in the public schools there, later came to Min- 
 nesota, and was graduated in medicine from the 
 University of Minnesota in 1901. He at once be- 
 came associated with his brother in practice at 
 Sherburn and Ceylon. Dr. Robert Farrish, who is 
 unmarried, is prominent in Masonry, having taken 
 thirty-two degrees in the Scottish Rite and is mem- 
 ber of the Mystic Shrine, and also belongs to the 
 Elks Lodge in St. Paul. Before beginning active 
 practice at Sherburn with his brother he spent six 
 months as surgical assistant with the famous Charles 
 H. Mayo of Rochester, Minnesota. 
 
 Sherman H. Taylor. Many of the most impor- 
 tant banking, commercial and industrial interests of 
 Elmore are concentrated in the Taylor family, which 
 has been continuously identified with Faribault 
 County for more than half a century. Sherman H. 
 Taylor is vice president of the First National Bank 
 of Elmore while his father is president, and together 
 they are the active heads of several manufacturing 
 and general business concerns and also been promi- 
 nent in civic affairs of the locality. 
 
 Sherman H. Taylor was born in Elmore, Min- 
 nesota, June 12, 1862. His father is George A. Tay- 
 
 lor, who was born in Painesville, Ohio, June 11, 
 1836. The grandfather was Hiram Taylor, born in 
 1891, and of an old established family in America. 
 Hiram Taylor moved out to Wisconsin in 1839, lo- 
 cating at Spring Prairie, establishing a home in the 
 wilderness, and his death occurred in Columbia 
 County, Wisconsin, in 1866. Hiram Taylor mar- 
 ried Lovia Kibby, a native of New York State, 
 who also died in Columbia County. 
 
 George A. Taylor was reared among the pioneer 
 surroundings of early Wisconsin, attended the com- 
 mon schools, and when about twenty years of age 
 began farming for himself in Adams County, Wis- 
 consin. In 1861 he moved out to Faribault County, 
 Minnesota, was one of the early settlers there, and 
 continued life as a farmer until 1874. In that year 
 he extended his operation by buying grain and 
 selling lumber in Blue Earth, and was a resident of 
 that city for five years, and since 1880 has been 
 identified with Elmore. At Elmore, George A. Tay- 
 lor built an elevator and warehouse, and did a large 
 business in the buying of grain and the selling of 
 lumber until 1888. In that year he was one of the 
 principal men who established the private bank 
 known as the Exchange Bank, with Z. Roberts as 
 president and George A. Taylor as director. In 
 1890, after the resignation of Mr. Roberts, George 
 A. Taylor was appointed president, and has been 
 at the head of this substantial institution for nearly 
 a quarter of a century. In 1900 a national charter 
 was taken out, and a new building erected on Main 
 Street opposite the postoffice. The capital stock 
 of the First National is $25,000, and its healthy con- 
 dition is indicated by its surplus of $18,000. George 
 A. Taylor is an active republican, has served on the 
 town board, is a trustee of the Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, for many years has been clerk of King 
 David Lodge No. 79, A. F. & A. M., and is also 
 affiliated with the Ancient Order of United Work- 
 men of Elmore. Outside of banking his interests 
 are of a varied nature. He is a stockholder in the 
 Elmore Cement and Tile Company, a stockholder in 
 the Elmore Milling Company, aad a stockholder in 
 the Elmore Creamery Company. George A. Taylor 
 was married in 1857 at Portage, Wisconsin, to Miss 
 Eliza Jane Vining. She was born in the State of 
 Maine and died at Elmore in 1894. 
 
 Sherman H. Taylor, their only child, acquired his 
 education in the public schools of Elmore, spent 
 five years in the schools at Blue Earth, and at the 
 age of eighteen left the high school and his first 
 regular occupation was learning telegraphy in the 
 railroad station at Elmore during 1881-83. In 1883 
 Mr. Taylor began selling lumber with Mr. Z. Rob- 
 erts, and continued in that line for five years. Since 
 1888 he has been continuously identified with bank- 
 ing, in the institution of which his father was one 
 of the founders, and is now cashier and vice presi- 
 dent of the First National Bank. Mr. Taylor is 
 president of the Elmore Milling Company, and sec- 
 retary of the Elmore Cement and Tile Company. 
 
 In public affairs his work has long been of benefit 
 especially to his home town and county. He has 
 served for a number of years on the Republican 
 County Central Committee, also for a long time 
 as secretary of the school board, and for seventeen 
 years as town clerk of the township. For two years 
 he was president of the village council. Mr. Sher- 
 man is a trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 and his fraternal affiliations are with King David 
 Lodge No. 79, A. F. & A. M. ; Mount Horeb Chap- 
 ter No. 21, R. A. M. ; is a past noble grand of 
 
1792 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 Elmore Lodge No. 51, I. O. O. F., and also affiliates 
 with Lodge No. 87, A. O. U. W. of Elmore. 
 
 Mr. Taylor was married in 1884 in Blue Earth 
 to Miss Matilda Bay, who was born in Wisconsin 
 and died in 1896. There are two daughters : Leila, 
 who graduated from the Albert Lea College for 
 Girls, from the Mankato Business College,, and Is 
 now bookkeeper and stenographer in Guthrie, Ok- 
 lahoma; Effie May is the wife of Fred Rist, a trav- 
 eling salesman with home in Guthrie, Oklahoma. 
 In 1898 Mr. Taylor married Miss Ella M. Gunder- 
 son, a native of Wisconsin and daughter of Thomas 
 Gunderson, a retired farmer of Kingston, where 
 they were married. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor have the 
 following children : Eleanor J., a student in the 
 
 Elmore High School; George T. and Leslie Elwood, 
 both in the grade school. 
 
 Lafayette H. Haeger. Cashier of the First Na- 
 tional Bank at Kiester, Lafayette H. Haeger is a 
 young banker who has had successful relations with 
 a number of banks in Southern Minnesota during 
 the past ten years, and the success of the Kiester 
 Bank is largely due to his thorough experience and 
 undoubted ability in the management of financial 
 affairs. 
 
 Lafayette H. Haeger was born at Eagle Grove, 
 Iowa, March 10, 1885. His grandfather came from 
 Germany, and was ninety years of age at the time 
 of his death. Henry J. Haeger, the father, was 
 born at Detroit, Michigan, in 1862, moved out to 
 Boone, Iowa, lived there and in other places in 
 Iowa and for a number of years was a resident 
 of Eagle Grove. He was an engineer of the North- 
 western Railway, and in 1905 died while in Chicago 
 from the results of a surgical operation. Henry J. 
 Haeger married Rose Coyle, a native of Tama, Iowa, 
 and now living in Chicago. Their children are : 
 Lafayette H.; Vivian, wife of A. H. Lowenthal, in 
 the advertising business in Chicago; Beatrice, wife 
 of Ralph Frank, a clothing merchant at Webster 
 City, Iowa; Donald, who is a bookkeeper in Chi- 
 cago; Helen, Henry and Naomi at home with their 
 mother. 
 
 Lafayette H. Haeger was educated in the public 
 schools at Eagle Grove, Iowa, graduating from the 
 high school in 1903, and in 1904 from a commercial 
 course in the Capitol City Commercial College at 
 Des Moines. Practically his entire active career 
 has been connected with banking. His first employ- 
 ment was as assistant cashier of the First National 
 Bank at Elmore, Minnesota, where he remained un- 
 til 1908 and then took the post of cashier in the 
 State Bank of Elmore for two years. In 1910 Mr. 
 Haeger moved to South Dakota and was cashier of 
 the State Bank of Lemmon a year and a half, fol- 
 lowing which he was cashier of the Securities Bank 
 at Alden, Minnesota, until January, 1914. Since then 
 his home has been at Kiester, where he is cashier 
 of the First National Bank. This bank was origin- 
 ally operated under a state charter, and was nation- 
 alized in 1914, with a capital stock of $30,000. 
 
 Mr. Haeger is a republican in politics. His frater- 
 nal affiliations are with King David Lodge, A. F. & 
 A. M., at Elmore; Mount Zion Chapter, R. A. M., 
 at Blue Earth; Fairmont Commandery No. 27, K. 
 T. ; Osman Temple of the Mystic Shrine; and also 
 with the Albert Lea Lodge No. 813 of the Ben- 
 evolent and Protective Order of Elks. In August, 
 1907 at Elmore, Mr. Haeger married Miss Florence 
 Williams, daughter of C. D. Williams, who for 
 twenty years was an Elmore banker, but now lives 
 
 retired at Wichita, Kansas. Mr. and Mrs. Haeger 
 have one child, Harlan W. 
 
 George S. Smith. One of the young bankers of 
 Southern Minnesota, George S. Smith is cashier and 
 active executive of the First National Bank of 
 Bricelyn. Mr. Smith began his business career be- 
 fore he reached his majority, has an accurate knowl- 
 edge and capable skill in commercial lines, developed 
 through service as bookkeeper and other positions, 
 and also in the county offices of Faribault County, 
 and for the past eight years has been identified with 
 banking. 
 
 George S. Smith was born at Blue Earth, Minne- 
 sota, December 5, 1875, and is of German descent 
 on his father’s side. His father, William Smith, 
 was born at Fort Berry in Canada in 1835, moved 
 to the United States in 1865, locating in Blue Earth, 
 Minnesota, where he died- in 1900. He was a car- 
 penter, contractor and builder, and still well re- 
 membered at Blue Earth and vicinity. William 
 Smith married Catherine Lacey, who was born in 
 Ireland, came as a girl in America, and first lived 
 in Rochester, New York, and is still living with 
 her home in Blue Earth. Her children are: C. 
 
 E. A., a harness maker at Minneapolis; Ella, wife 
 of William Dreblow, living on their farm near 
 Fairmont; Emma, widow of Fred H. Kenney, and 
 living at Waverly, Iowa; Catherine, wife of M. J. 
 Haase, now county treasurer of Faribault County, 
 with home at Blue Earth ; and George S. 
 
 Mr. Smith spent his boyhood in Blue Earth, and 
 was graduated from the high school in 1891. After 
 a business course at LaCrosse, Wisconsin, he re- 
 turned home and was employed about six years as 
 bookkeeper for an agricultural implement house in 
 Blue Earth. For another six years he served as 
 deputy register of deeds. His career as a banker 
 began in 1906 as assistant cashier of the First Na- 
 tional Bank of Blue Earth, and from that position 
 in October, 1910, he became cashier of the First 
 National Bank of Bricelyn, and while his official title 
 is still cashier, he is president of the institution in 
 all but name. The First National Bank of Bricelyn 
 is eligibly located on Main Street, and it was 
 founded in 1899 as a state bank, and took out a 
 national charter in 1902. The capital stock is 
 $25,000, with a surplus of $4,000. 
 
 Mr. Smith for a number of years held the office 
 of city clerk in Blue Earth. He is a republican, at- 
 tends the Baptist Church, and is affiliated with Truth 
 Lodge No. 260, A. F. & A. M. His wife before 
 her marriage was Miss Sue More, a daughter of 
 A. R. More of Blue Earth. They were married in 
 1902 and have two children. Ward, a student in .the 
 public schools at Bricelyn, and Robert. 
 
 John W. Wolford. Possessing those business 
 qualifications which make a man of exceptional serv- 
 ice in any community, John W. Wolford at the 
 age of thirtv-five has a secure position in the busi- 
 ness affairs of the town of Welcome, Martin County, 
 and besides his post as cashier and manager of. the 
 Welcome National Bank is officially and financially 
 interested in several other local enterprises and is 
 easily one of the leading citizens of Martin County. 
 
 John W. Wolford was born at Sherburn, Min- 
 nesota, December 31, 1879, a son of Mathias Wol- 
 ford, who was born in Coshocton, Ohio, in 1841. 
 Mr. Wolford’s great-grandfather, Godfrey Wolford, 
 was a Pennsylvania farmer and of Pennsylvania Ger- 
 man stock. Mathias Wolford died at St. James, Minne- 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1793 
 
 sota, in 1901, having come out to Fillmore in this 
 state as an early settler. He married Hannah Bur- 
 sell, who was born in Montreal, Canada, in 1838, 
 and died at Triumph, Minnesota, in 1911. These 
 parents had a large family of children, all of whom 
 have found a work to perform and places to fill with 
 credit and usefulness. The children are mentioned 
 briefly as follows : Addie is the wife of August 
 
 Stienka, a farmer at Carlos, Minnesota; Susie is 
 the wife of Ezra Cooper, a grain buyer at Dunnell, 
 Minnesota; George is a contractor, living at Ceylon, 
 Minnesota; William is a section foreman for the 
 Northwestern Railway, with home at Welcome; 
 Benjamin is a merchant in Yaniax, Oregon; Dora 
 is the wife of Eagle Britson, a hardware merchant 
 at Redstone, Montana; Hattie is the wife of Ed 
 Wester, a blacksmith at Triumph; Viola married 
 M. A. Shipman, and they live on a farm in Ambrose, 
 North Dakota; John W. is the ninth of the family; 
 Maude married Mr. White who is a merchant at 
 Whitetail, Montana. 
 
 John W. Wolford grew up in Minnesota, attended 
 the local schools and the high school at Sherburn 
 and as preparation for a business career in 1901 took 
 a business course in the Toland Business University 
 at Farimont. In no small degree the secret of Mr. 
 Wolford’s progressive rise has been due to a con- 
 centration of effort. In 1902 he entered the Wel- 
 come National Bank as assistant cashier, was pro- 
 moted to cashier in 1907, and is still identified with 
 that institution as cashier, and has to a large degree 
 the responsibilities of practical management of the 
 bank. The Welcome National Bank was established in 
 1877 as a state bank, and took out a national charter 
 in 1903. It is the second largest bank in Martin 
 County, having a capital stock of $50,000 and sur- 
 plus of $10,000. The bank is well situated for the 
 convenience of its patrons on Dugan Street in Wel- 
 come, and has the confidence of depositors in the 
 safe and conservative management. Mr. Wolford is 
 also secetary of the Welcome Telephone Company, 
 is a stockholder in the South Minnesota Investment 
 & Loan Company and a stockholder in the Lynd 
 State Bank. 
 
 Mr. Wolford is an independent democrat in poli- 
 tics, is secretary of the Welcome school board, and 
 is affiliated with the Modern Woodmen of America 
 at Welcome and with the Knights of Pythias at 
 Sherburn. 
 
 Fred W. Boesch. One of the representative 
 young business men of his native county, Mr. Boesch 
 is the efficient and popular cashier of the First 
 National Bank of Amboy, Blue Earth County, and 
 is a member of one of the well known and highly 
 esteemed families of this section of the Gopher 
 State. He was born on a farm six miles west of 
 Amboy, on July 6, 1889, and is a son of Fred and 
 Emma (Bussman) Boesch, the former of whom was 
 born in Switzerland, in 1861, and the latter of whom 
 was born near the City of St. Peter, Nicollet County, 
 Minnesota, in 1866, a representative of a sterling 
 pioneer family of that county. As a youth, Fred 
 Boesch came to America and he has been a resident 
 of Minnesota about thirty years, his original place 
 of residence having been near St. Peter, whence he 
 later removed to Blue Earth County and purchased 
 160 acres of land, for which he paid only $12 an 
 acre and which he developed into one of the fruit- 
 ful and valuable farms of the county. He is now 
 the owner of a fine landed estate in this county and 
 
 both he and his wife have secure place in the con- 
 fidence and esteem of all who know them. Of 
 their four children, Fred W., of this review, is the 
 eldest, and the others are Francis, Irma and Blanche. 
 I he maternal grandmother of Fred W. Boesch is 
 still living and resides at Truman, Martin County, 
 Minnesota, in which county she is the owner of a 
 valuable landed estate of 240 acres. The paternal 
 grandparents never came to America but continued 
 to be identified with agricultural pursuits in the 
 fair little Republic of Switzerland until their death. 
 
 Reared to the sturdy discipline of the home farm 
 and acquiring his rudimentary education in the dis- 
 trict schools, Fred W. Boesch supplemented this 
 discipline by a course in the Amboy High School, 
 in which he was graduated. In 1906 he became iden- 
 tified with the banking business and by effective 
 service he has won advancement to his present re- 
 sponsible position, that of cashier of the First Na- 
 tional Bank of Amboy, which is one of the sub- 
 stantial and well ordered financial institutions of 
 Blue Earth County. Like his father, he is a repub- 
 lican in politics, and both are affiliated with the 
 Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Modern 
 Woodmen of America, in which latter he is treas- 
 urer of the camp of Amboy. Mr. Boesch is essen- 
 tially one of the progressive and public-spirited 
 young men of Amboy, where he is serving as village 
 treasurer and as manager of the opera house, and 
 both he and his wife hold membership in the Metho- 
 dist Episcopal Church, as do also his parents. 
 
 Joseph Danly Budd, M. D. In the City of Two 
 Harbors Doctor Budd is frequently spoken of as one 
 of the most useful men in the upbuilding and prog- 
 ress of that community. This is due not only to his 
 long service as physician, but to his many activities 
 outside of his profession, and his name is known 
 and esteemed among physicians, bankers, business 
 men and citizens in general in many localities of the 
 state. 
 
 Born in Lancaster, Wisconsin, May 5, 1848, Joseph 
 Danly Budd is a son of Daniel Henry and Eliza 
 M. (Richl Budd. His parents were natives of New 
 York State, and his father during the greater part 
 of his career was a carriage manufacturer. 
 
 Doctor Budd did not take up the medical profes- 
 sion until about thirty years, of age, his early career 
 having been one of experience in business lines. 
 Though only a boy when war broke out, his patriot- 
 ism could not be altogether restrained, and in March, 
 1865, he enlisted in Company H of the Fiftieth Wis- 
 consin Volunteer Infantry, and was in service until 
 July, 1866, when mustered out at Madison. He is 
 now a member of Culver Post of the Grand Army 
 of the Republic, and has served as chief surgeon 
 of the Minnesota Department of the Grand Army. 
 He is one of the youngest men in the country who 
 can claim distinction as a veteran of the great 
 Civil war. 
 
 Doctor Budd acquired his early education in the 
 Lancaster Institute, and in 1872 graduated from 
 Lawrence University at Appleton, Wisconsin. His 
 professional studies were carried on under the di- 
 rection of private physicians, but in 1887 he was 
 graduated M. D. from the St. Paul Medical College. 
 His early practice was at Fayette and Nahma, 
 Michigan, and since 1889 his home and center of 
 practice has been at Two Harbors. Doctor Budd 
 came to Two Harbors as chief surgeon for the 
 Duluth & Iron Range Railroad, and has been 
 
1794 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 acting in that capacity ever since. To afford facil- 
 ities for his large practice Doctor Budd maintains a 
 well equipped hospital at Two Harbors, with a ca- 
 pacity for seventy-five patients. It occupies a well 
 chosen location, the grounds being 150 feet front 
 and the building extending back 60 feet. This hos- 
 pital is now ranked as one of the important in- 
 stitutions of Two Harbors, but its founding and 
 his individual service do not measure all of Doctor 
 Budd’s activities along professional lines. He 
 served as health officer at Two Harbors twenty- 
 three years, and has been county physician twenty- 
 five years. He is a member of the National Tuber- 
 culosis Association, and of the St. Louis County 
 and Minnesota State Medical societies and the 
 American Medical Association. 
 
 Outside of his profession his work both at home 
 and over that state at large has been valuable. 
 Doctor Budd was president of the Two Harbors 
 Public Library, and while in that office raised the 
 money for both the building and the grounds, and 
 is credited with the successful carrying out of the 
 plans for the library. In 1903 he served in the 
 State Legislature. His varied interests are indi- 
 cated by the fact he is president of the Lake County 
 Agricultural Fair Association, president of the Au- 
 tomobile Club, of the Rod and Gun Club, and the 
 Lake County Poultry Association. Of the last 
 named he is not only active president but honorary 
 president for life. This position reveals one of 
 Doctor Budd’s interesting avocations. For a num- 
 ber of years he has given time and money to the 
 breeding of prize chickens, his birds have been 
 awarded the highest score in the local shows for 
 several seasons, and he is the man generally given 
 credit for the success of the poultry association, 
 which has now held nine annual exhibits at Two 
 Harbors. The influence of the association has had 
 a practical relation with improvement of a general 
 status of poultry raising in this section of the state. 
 
 Doctor Budd is a director in the Commercial 
 State Bank of Two Harbors, and is vice president 
 of the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing As- 
 sociation. Long prominent in Masonry, he is a 
 Knight Templar, a member of Duluth Consistory 
 of the Scottish Rite, knight commander of the 
 Court of Honor, and also belongs to the Mystic 
 Shrine.. With all the versatile interests indicated by 
 these relations, Doctor Budd’s real hobby is reading 
 and study. He possesses one of the best professional 
 and private libraries in the state, and has long 
 been both a reader and collector of books, has spent 
 a great deal of money in the collection of authentic 
 rare editions and any book lover would be delighted 
 to own his splendid collection of de luxe editions. 
 
 In 1882 Doctor Budd married Margaret Carance 
 of Fayette, Michigan. Mrs. Budd died October 28, 
 1913. There is one daughter living, Leila Mar- 
 guerite Budd, who has spent one year in study in 
 Switzerland, two years at National Park, Wash- 
 ington, D. C., and is now at Radcliff College in 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
 
 Frederick Weyerhaeuser. To some men the 
 means and methods through which they secure 
 wealth and achieve prominence bear but a small 
 part in their scheme of life, their motto being that 
 the end justifies the means, but such was not the 
 case with the late Frederick Weyerhaeuser, who was 
 known all over the world through his vast lumber 
 interests, in which he was a financial power. With 
 unlimited opportunities for advancement, it is possi- 
 
 ble for almost any well balanced individual to attain 
 a degree of prominence in the affairs of his com- 
 munity or country, but the facts of history demon- 
 strate that in the stern contest for life’s prizes, deter- 
 mination, unflagging industry, courage and patience 
 are the qualities that prove of prime importance. 
 Otherwise the life history of Frederick Weyerhaeu- 
 ser might have been different and far less interest- 
 ing and instructive. 
 
 In the little village of Niedersaulheim, Germany, 
 just south of Mainz, in the Valley of the Rhine, 
 Frederick Weyerhaeuser was born, November 21, 
 1834. In that neighborhood many of the name had 
 lived and died through generations before Freder- 
 ick Weyerhaeuser came upon the scene of life, one 
 of a family of eleven children born to John Weyer- 
 haeuser and wife, and the only son to reach matur- 
 ity. The only record of school attendance relates 
 to two years of childhood, for he was but eight 
 years old when his help was required in the tilling 
 of the home farm. As early as 1849 some members 
 of the family had emigrated to the United States, 
 and from their favorable reports of Western Penn- 
 sylvania other members followed in 1852, Frederick 
 Weyerhaeuser being a member of the second body 
 of colonists. An uncle, who was in the brewing 
 business at Northeast, a village fifteen miles from 
 Erie, Pennsylvania, offered employment to his young 
 kinsman and the latter remained at work in the 
 brewery for two years, and then engaged with a 
 farmer for a year, accepting gladly wages of $10 a 
 month. Honest industry marked everything he did, 
 but personal satisfaction did not follow, because 
 as he grew older he began to develop that clear 
 visioned, keen -business ability that demanded an 
 opportunity and that later made him such a power 
 and brought such unparalleled business success. 
 
 When he reached manhood he came into posses- 
 sion of a little capital, his share from the sale of 
 the old German home farm, and with this, in 1856, 
 he left Pennsylvania and went to Rock Island, Illi- 
 nois, where a construction company was then en- 
 gaged in building the Rock Island-Peoria, now the 
 Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad. For a 
 short time he worked for this company and then 
 secured what was more congenial employment, in 
 a sawmill which was owned and operated at Rock 
 Island by Mead, Smith & Marsh. Here he loaded 
 lumber, and other duties were soon given him and 
 he was required to keep account, as tallyman, of 
 the daily output from the one rotary and the one 
 mulay saw of the establishment. So accurate were 
 his reports and so faithful his service that the firm 
 took notice of his efficiency and in the course of 
 time Mr. Marsh gave him added responsibility by 
 placing him in charge of the lumber yard and local 
 sales field. In December, 1857, when Mead, Smith & 
 Marsh opened a lumber yard at Coal Valley, Illinois, 
 to which point the railroad had been completed, the 
 young German had so won the confidence of his 
 employers that they appointed him manager of the 
 new enterprise, and this, perhaps, might be called 
 the great opportune period of Mr. Weyerhaeuser’s 
 career. 
 
 When the lumber firm, in 1858, found itself in 
 financial straits, Mr. Weyerhaeuser took over the 
 mill then standing idle at Rock Island, for a small 
 venture of his. own, buying a raft of logs at Daven- 
 port which he subsequently was able to deliver at 
 Coal Valley with profit, while by 1859 he had be- 
 come interested profitably also in lumber, handling 
 of grain and in building construction. When the 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1795 
 
 affairs of Mead, Smith & Marsh were wound up 
 and the mill was for sale, Mr. Weyerhaeuser and 
 his brother-in-law, F. C. A. Denkmann, as partners, 
 invested in the mill property, paying $500 in cash 
 on its price of $3,000. in two years this indebted- 
 ness was entirely cleared and the capacity was largely 
 increased. In 1871 a second mill was bought, at 
 Rock Island, Mr. Denkmann in the meanwhile being 
 in charge of the mills, while Mr. Weyerhaeuser, 
 from the very first, looked largely after the log sup- 
 ply, gradually gaining an intimate knowledge of 
 standing timber, of titles, of timber estimating and 
 of logging, in fact becoming proficient in the lumber 
 business from end to end, from stump to consumer. 
 As was the case with the most of the manufactur- 
 ers along the Mississippi River in the early years 
 of mill operation, this firm secured their raw mate- 
 rial from the river loggers, but as the number of 
 mills and their capacity increased, operators began 
 to consider the value of the white pine forests of 
 the North and the desirability and wisdom of sup- 
 plying their own logs, and among these far sighted 
 men was Frederick Weyerhaeuser. In 1868 the firm 
 began to invest in pine timberlands on the Chippewa 
 River and its tributaries, and this action was soon 
 imitated by other concerns, and the floating of the 
 logs and the establishing of their ownership on the 
 broad rivers became a very serious and complex 
 question for the manufacturers. Conferences were 
 called at frequent intervals, but no definite method 
 of relief was adopted until December 28, 1870, when, 
 at a meeting in Chicago, attended by Mr. Weyer- 
 haeuser and other manufacturers, the suggestion was 
 made that united action be taken to purchase pine 
 logs ’on the Chippewa and to drive them into Beef 
 Slough, near the mouth of the river, where they 
 could be sorted and thence rafted to the parties in- 
 terested. The result of this important meeting was 
 the forming of the Mississippi River Logging Com- 
 pany. The business carried on by this company at 
 first, for want of proper management, did not prove 
 entirely satisfactory and a reorganization was con- 
 sequently effected, and on September 5, 1872, Mr. 
 Weyerhaeuser was elected president, and in 1873 
 the company assumed control of the Beef Slough 
 boom. In 1881 it absorbed the Chippewa Lumber & 
 Boom Company at Chippewa Falls, and in the same 
 year was organized the Chippewa Logging Com- 
 pany. The operations of these companies were vast 
 in volume and the time came when many delicate 
 questions came to the front to be solved involving 
 absolute integrity and faithfulness as well as hard 
 work. A committee was appointed and the work 
 was mainly done by Mr. Weyerhaeuser, chosen be- 
 cause of the implicit confidence placed in him by 
 other millmen as to his ability and absolute fair- 
 ness, and this was the estimate, throughout a long 
 life in association with other men of capital and 
 importance, that was placed on his every endeavor. 
 
 In the meantime the Weyerhaeuser & Denkmann 
 interests at Rock Island and other points had been 
 growing and, on account of being so ably handled, 
 proved uniformly successful. An important venture 
 was the organization of the Rock Island Lumber & 
 Manufacturing Company, with a branch at St. Louis. 
 The employing of labor in both cities in connection 
 with these enterprises provides for the maintenance 
 of thousands of people. 
 
 So vast were the many interests in which Mr. Wey- 
 erhaeuser was concerned and of which he was at 
 least partial owner, that their aggregate value may 
 not be accounted in a paper of this kind, more or 
 
 less limited as to space. In the lumber industry, 
 in particular, his close connection with everything 
 of large importance is acknowledged, while to the 
 world at large his supremacy in this line will always 
 be remembered. The first great extension of the 
 Weyerhaeuser institutions was in Wisconsin and 
 Minnesota, having plants at Chippewa Falls, Hay- 
 ward, Lake Nebagamon, Rice Lake, Shell Lake and 
 other points in Wisconsin, and at Cloquet, Little 
 Falls and Minneapolis, and in late years at Virginia, 
 Minnesota, where Mr. Weyerhaeuser was identified 
 with the Virginia & Rainy Lake Company. His 
 southern investments were never heavy as compared 
 to those in other sections, although he and associ- 
 ates secured large tracts of yellow pine timber in 
 Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi, and in the 
 wake of their purchases came the founding of manu- 
 facturing plants which benefited the section. The 
 Northland Pine Company, now operating a mill in 
 Minneapolis, was organized in 1899 ; later came the 
 organization of the Humbird Lumber Company, at 
 Sandpoint, Idaho, and later the Potlatch Lumber 
 Company. About that time the Northern Pacific 
 Railway Company had brought to Mr. Weyerhaeu- 
 ser’s attention the large acreage of standing timber 
 that it had for sale, and after he had investigated 
 the situation he became interested, seeing its great 
 probable future value. In 1900 the Weyerhaeuser 
 Timber Company, the greatest of all the corpora- 
 tions in which he was ever interested, was organ- 
 ized and acquired 900,000 acres of the Northern 
 Pacific holdings in Western Washington. Mr. 
 Weyerhaeuser had constant faith in the value of 
 standing timber and to the above large holdings 
 continued to add both in Washington and Oregon, 
 its estimated amount in Washington being $1,500,- 
 000, and in Oregon 450,000 acres. His investments 
 aside from lumber were small in comparison, 
 although heavy for the average capitalist, his finan- 
 cial interests connecting him with the Merchants 
 National Bank of St. Paul, the Continental and 
 Commercial Bank of Chicago, the Third National 
 Bank of St. Louis, the First National Bank of 
 Duluth, and he was on the directing board of the 
 Great Northern and the Chicago & Great Western 
 railway companies. His activity of mind and resist- 
 less energy constantly urged him to effort and, pos- 
 sessing, as he did, the caution and sagacity of a wise 
 business man, he made no mistakes. He by no means 
 demanded to be a leader in the countless enterprises 
 in which at one time or another he was concerned, 
 but was one naturally and was so accepted by his 
 associates whose trust in his integrity was never 
 disturbed nor their confidence in him disabused. In 
 1871 Mr. Weyerhaeuser moved to Rock Island, but 
 with the extension of his northern and western 
 operations some years later, in April, 1891, he re- 
 moved to St. Paul, which continued to be his sum- 
 mer home, while Pasadena, California, for many 
 seasons, was his winter place of residence, and it 
 was there, on April 4, 1914, that he passed out of 
 life. 
 
 Mr. Weyerhaeuser was married October 11, j S57, 
 to Miss Sarah Elizabeth Bloedel, who was born in 
 the same village as himself but who had come to the 
 United States with her parents when a child. They 
 were permitted many years of happy association, 
 during which Mr. Weyerhaeuser had the loving sup- 
 port of a true helpmate, one frugal in his poverty 
 and equal to every social demand in his affluence, 
 and the two years he survived the bereavement of 
 her death told sadly on his health and spirits. Their 
 
1796 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 seven children, all born at Rock Island, survive : 
 John P., who is a resident of St. Paul, has large 
 lumber interests ; Charles A., who is also a lumber 
 capitalist, is especially concerned with the Idaho 
 properties ; Rudolph M., who has charge of the 
 Northern Lumber Company, at Cloquet, Minnesota; 
 Frederick E., who, for the past ten years, was his 
 father’s active representative in business ; Elise, who 
 is the wife of Dr. William Bancroft Hill, a mem- 
 ber of the faculty of Vassar College; Margaret, 
 who is the wife of J. R. Jewett, professor of Semitic 
 languages at the University of Chicago; and Apol- 
 lonia, who is the wife of S. S. Davis, who is con- 
 nected with the Weyerhaeuser interests at Rock Isl- 
 and. It is worthy of mention and illustrative of the 
 sturdy principles of Mr. Weyerhaeuser that while 
 his children were liberally educated, he insisted that 
 his daughters should be trained in household duties 
 and that his sons should serve an apprenticeship in 
 actual lumber work to make them practical and effi- 
 cient. Thus these children of the multi-millionaire 
 can each provide for himself the necessities of life 
 in the most practical way. 
 
 Mr. Weyerhaeuser’s remarkable business success 
 was but the natural outcome of his indefatigable 
 industry combined with his character of absolute 
 justice and his comprehension and practice of the 
 Christian virtues with which he had been impressed 
 in childhood by a good mother. He was confirmed 
 in the German Reformed Church at the age of 
 fourteen years and throughout life unostentatiously 
 practiced its creed. There are many who remem- 
 ber, as a rare privilege, a sight of the old German 
 Bible that lay convenient to his hand when an hour 
 of leisure in his busy life gave opportunity to read 
 its sacred pages. Those who knew him in his home 
 and social circle loved him for his kindness and 
 simplicity and this kindness, mixed with fitmness, 
 he carried into all business relations and brought 
 him the regard and esteem that he valued at all 
 times and the personal affection to which he readily 
 responded. Among those who lamented his death 
 as a personal loss were men of the highest station 
 in life as well as the humblest of his employes and 
 their loving testimony was the same. He was 
 always interested in the success of young men and 
 gave generous encouragement to all. Mr. Weyer- 
 haeuser will always be recalled when the story of 
 American development is told, for the thousand in- 
 fluences that radiated from his personality gave in- 
 spiration to others, and the cleavage of his path 
 through the forests of the great Northwest marks 
 an epoch in industrial annals. 
 
 Henry Anson Castle is the son of a New England 
 family, but a native of Illinois, born at Columbus, 
 Adams County, August 22, 1841. His parents, Tim- 
 othy Hunt Castle and Julia (Boyd) Castle, were 
 born in Vermont. His four great-grandfathers, 
 Timothy Castle, Abram Boyd, Jonathan Hastings 
 and Ozias Dix, as well as one of the preceding 
 generation, Zephaniah Hatch, were Revolutionary 
 soldiers. His elementary education was supplemented 
 by a course at McKendree College, from which he 
 graduated in 1862, the honorary degree of A. M. 
 being subsequently conferred upon him. Close upon 
 his graduation, the Civil war being in progress, he 
 enlisted as a private in the Seventy-third Illinois 
 Infantry Regiment. Four months later he was pro- 
 moted to the post of sergeant major. With his 
 regiment, which belonged to Sheridan’s division of 
 the Army of the Cumberland, he participated in 
 
 some stirring service, which included the Perryville 
 campaign, the advance on Bowling Green and Nash- 
 ville and the battle of Stone River (Murfreesboro). 
 In the latter encounter he was so seriously wounded 
 as to necessitate his discharge from service. Upon 
 his recovery, however, he proceeded to raise a com- 
 pany for the One Hundred and Thirty-seventh Illi- 
 nois. He was unanimously elected captain of this 
 company, which he commanded throughout its 
 service. 
 
 As a congenial field of professional activity Cap- 
 tain Castle adopted the law. He was admitted to 
 the bar by the Supreme Court of Illinois and began 
 to practice at Quincy. He was at later dates ad- 
 mitted to practice by the Supreme Court of Minne- 
 sota, and by the Supreme Court of the District of 
 Columbia. In connection with his legal studies and 
 practice he also, at intervals from 1864 to 1866, 
 wrote editorially for the .Quincy Daily Whig. But 
 his army experience had undermined his health, 
 and the appearance of the serious symptom of lung 
 hemorrhage determined him to give up his profes- 
 sional work and seek the bracing air of Minnesota. 
 In July, 1866, he arrived at St. Paul, where he 
 resolved eventually to make his home and engage in 
 business. His period of recuperation, however, he 
 spent in Anoka and St. Cloud, during most of which 
 time he was connected as an editorial writer with 
 the Anoka Union. 
 
 It was in 1868, when he settled permanently at 
 St. Paul, with arrangements already consummated 
 for opening a wholesale stove depot for the firm of 
 Comstock, Castle and Company, of Quincy, of which 
 he had become a member. His connection with the 
 Anoka Union he retained for three or four years 
 after leaving St. Cloud, and for six years he suc- 
 cessfully conducted the stove enterprise. In 1874 
 he resumed his chosen profession of the law, with 
 his office at St. Paul. 
 
 In 1876 a stock company was organized which 
 effected a purchase of the St. Paul Dispatch from 
 H. P. Hall. The Dispatch was made a republican 
 organ, and Captain Castle, having become known 
 as an earnest exponent of that party, was made 
 president of the company and editor of the paper. 
 With the exception of a short time in 1880 he main- 
 tained this dual relation to the Dispatch until 1885; 
 indeed, during the last four years of that period 
 he was its sole proprietor as well as its editor-in- 
 chief. Meantime he had become much interested in 
 real estate, and in favor of this line of enterprise 
 he abandoned his journalistic career in 1886, turn- 
 ing his whole attention to his new interests, which 
 were chiefly in suburban property. 
 
 Captain Castle has held a large number of public 
 offices. Few men have come into touch with their 
 community through more numerous and varied ave- 
 nues. He was a member of the Minnesota State 
 Legislature in 1873, and figured prominently as the 
 champion of Hon. C. K. Davis, in the campaign 
 which resulted in his election as governer. Two 
 years later Governor Davis appointed Captain Castle 
 adjutant general of Minnesota. In 1883 he was 
 appointed oil inspector by Governor Hubbard. The 
 latter position he held for four years. 
 
 In February of 1892 President Harrison appointed 
 him postmaster of St. Paul, and such was the general 
 recognition of his party claims as a republican that 
 no other candidates opposed themselves to him. He 
 held this office until November 1, 1896, although this 
 date was eight months later than the expiration of 
 his four years’ term, and four-fifths of his service 
 
HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 1797 
 
 had been under a democratic administration. His 
 able and devoted service as postmaster paved the 
 way to his appointment by President McKinley, on 
 May 17, 1897, as auditor for the postoffice department 
 at Washington. He removed to the national capital, 
 where he remained in charge of this important bureau 
 for nearly seven years. He was the head of an 
 office with seven divisions and a force of 600 clerks. 
 Its functions embrace the accounting and settlement 
 of the financial transactions of the vast national and 
 international postal system — these transactions aggre- 
 gating three billions of dollars annually. 
 
 After holding this position longer than any of his . 
 predecessors, Auditor Castle resigned in October, 
 1903, but retained the office until the appointment of 
 his successor, Hon. J. J. McCardy, of St. Paul, 
 January 23, 1904. On his retirement the comptroller 
 of the treasury, who presides over the appellant 
 tribunal of the entire governmental accounting sys- 
 tem, sent the following official tribute to his 
 efficiency : 
 
 Treasury Department, 
 
 Office of Comptroller of the Treasury, 
 Washington, January 26, 1904. 
 Hon. Henry A. Castle, 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 
 My dear Mr. Castle : I am in receipt of your 
 
 esteemed favor of the 22nd instant, announcing your 
 retirement from the office of auditor for the post- 
 office department. I note your kindly expression 
 relative to the intercourse between us, both officially 
 and personally, during your long incumbency of the 
 office of auditor. 
 
 It was with the most profound regret that I 
 learned several months since that you had tendered 
 your resignation to take effect upon the appointment 
 and qualification of a successor. 
 
 If the President had known, as I know, the diffi- 
 culties with which you have been surrounded during 
 your term of office, and the fidelity and integrity 
 with which you have performed the many arduous 
 duties thereof, I feel confident that it would only 
 have been for a consideration of your health that he 
 would have consented to your resignation. Good 
 auditors for the postoffice department are not made 
 but must be born. Even though one could be made 
 the process would be long and in the making public 
 interests would necessarily suffer more or less. 
 
 I shall always recall with pleasure your intelligent 
 zeal for the institution and carrying out of real re- 
 forms in your office, and the cheerful assistance you 
 have always given me in any matter connected 
 therewith. There is no officer in the government 
 service who is possessed of more information as to 
 your true worth to the Government, nor one who 
 will realize the loss of its being deprived of your 
 services more keenly than myself. 
 
 I trust your successor in office, who is, I under- 
 stand, your personal friend, will possess the same 
 qualities of head and heart which have endeared you 
 to those with whom you have come in contact. 
 
 With my best wishes for a happy and successful 
 future which ought to be in store for you, I sub- 
 scribe myself. Your true friend, 
 
 R. J. Tracewell. 
 
 Thus, for a period of nearly twelve years, 'Captain 
 Castle occupied positions of great responsibility in 
 connection with the mail service, and was brought 
 into relations with all its numerous branches. He 
 thus acquired a theoretical and practical knowledge 
 
 of its operations, which has caused his services to be 
 in constant demand since his resignation from office, 
 both as an advocate and a writer. He has appeared 
 frequently before the department and before com- 
 mittees of Congress, since 1904, as the representative 
 of associations or individuals having matters to urge 
 for consideration. He has also written voluminously 
 on live postal subjects for all the leading magazines, 
 including The North American Review, Harpers’ 
 Weekly, The Independent, The Saturday Evening 
 Post, World’s Work, McClure’s Magazine and Col- 
 lier’s Weekly. 
 
 During the past six years Captain Castle has been 
 principally engaged in developing suburban property 
 at North St. Paul, of which he was one of the 
 founders, and where he maintains, on the shores of 
 Silver Lake, his summer home. 
 
 Apart from remunerative offices, Captain Castle 
 has been prominent in many public organizations, 
 and in all has done valuable gratuitous service. 
 He has officiated as president of the Library Asso- 
 ciation of St. Paul, of the Minnesota Editorial Asso- 
 ciation and of the Chamber of Commerce. He has 
 been commander of the Loyal Legion of Minnesota, 
 department commander of the G. A. R., secretary 
 of the State Home for Soldiers’ Orphans, and for 
 twelve years president of the board of trustees of 
 the Minnesota Soldiers’ Home. With the various 
 organizations over which he has presided he has 
 long been identified as member or director and 
 continues to be so identified with most of them. 
 He is, in 1912, a vice president of the Minnesota 
 Society, Sons of the American Revolution, and vice 
 president of the National Society of the Army of 
 the Tennessee. 
 
 In politics Captain Castle has long been a recog- 
 nized and respected force throughout the state. His 
 executive ability makes him a fine organizer, and 
 for nearly ten consecutive years he was the most 
 active agent of the Republican State Central Com- 
 mittee, on which he served as chairman in 1884, 
 during the memorable Blaine and Logan campaign. 
 His vigorous and aggressive work, both on the stump 
 and in the press has been a potent influence, deter- 
 mining for good or ill the fortunes of many men. 
 Among those to whom he rendered notable service 
 may be mentioned Senator Davis, Senator Wash- 
 burn, Senator Nelson and Governor Hubbard. 
 
 As an orator his services have been in demand 
 in every political campaign since 1866. His addresses 
 on Memorial Day, Independence Day, etc., as well 
 as on occasions of dedicating buildings and monu- 
 ments, editorial and educational conventions, have 
 been delivered in all parts of Minnesota and in many 
 other states. 
 
 He enjoys wide personal acquaintance with the 
 newspaper fraternity and it is not too much to say 
 that he is universally regarded by its members with 
 esteem and affection. Of the G. A. R. and Loyal 
 Legion, also, he is a cherished comrade. In 1897 
 Captain Castle published “The Army Mule and other 
 War Sketches” — a series of humorous papers which 
 he had written some time previously, and which had 
 been read at meetings of the Loyal Legion. This 
 book has been highly approved by literary critics 
 and has had a large circulation. 
 
 On April 18, 1865, at Quincy, Illinois, Captain 
 Castle was married to Miss Margaret W. Jaquess. 
 Seven children were born to this union. Of the three 
 sons, the eldest, Charles W. Castle, now captain in 
 the infantry, U. S. A., graduated in 1894 from the 
 West Point Military Academy and rendered efficient 
 
1798 
 
 HISTORY OF MINNESOTA 
 
 service as aide-de-camp to Major General Brooke 
 during his terms of duty as governor-general of 
 Porto Rico and Cuba. He also saw active service 
 in the Philippines, and for three years, ending 
 August, 1912, was on duty as paymaster at army 
 headquarters, St. Paul. The second son, Harry J. 
 Castle, died in 1901, and the third son, James T. 
 Castle, died in 1903. Mrs. Margaret Jaquess Castle 
 died in St. Paul, November 12, 1908. Of the daugh- 
 ters, Helen S. and Mary J. reside with their father 
 at St. Paul; Margaret married Capt. E. R. Stone, 
 U. S. A., present station Fort Lincoln, North Dakota; 
 Anne married Frederick C. Christy, of Phoenix, 
 Arizona. 
 
 When Captain Castle was appointed postmaster in 
 1892 the St. Paul Globe, the democratic organ, made 
 this editorial comment: 
 
 “There is no criticism to be passed on the Presi- 
 dent’s selection of Henry A. Castle for the St. Paul 
 postmastership, and he adds one more to the number 
 of very satisfactory incumbents of that important 
 office. Captain Castle in the old days used to be a 
 newspaper man, and he generously gave many of 
 the best years of his life to the education and 
 enlightenment of the public in the ranks of the 
 craft whose members labor not for their own profit, 
 but for the welfare of others. When he felt that 
 he had made all the sacrifices that could be reasonably 
 expected of him, and that his duty called him else- 
 where, he went into bigger things. Here again his 
 abilities have won him success and he is counted 
 among the first men of this community in character, 
 attainments, capacity and acquisitions. Added to this 
 he has many charms of manner and mind. He is an 
 agreeable companion, an effective and graceful 
 speaker, either on the rostrum or at the dinner 
 table, and at all times a courteous and interesting 
 gentleman. He will bring to his new position the 
 fruits of a long training and experience in just those 
 departments which will be of value to him now. 
 He has been closely identified with almost all the 
 movements for the past decade or two for the 
 advancement of St. Paul, and is in keen sympathy 
 with the spirit which has animated them. He is as 
 ambitious as is anyone to see the city among the 
 foremost, not only in material prosperity, but also 
 whatever makes for the comfort and convenience 
 
 of its people. An efficient mail service is one of these 
 things, and with his business skill and energy he 
 will secure it for us if anyone can. The Globe 
 congratulates Captain Castle on his promotion and 
 our citizens on the very wise choice which has been 
 made.” 
 
 The forty-ninth annual convention of the Minne- 
 sota Editorial Association was held February 20, 
 1915. Captain Castle, who is one of the four or five 
 survivors who organized the association in 1867, 
 was present as an honorary member. He was re- 
 ferred to in substance as follows in remarks at the 
 banquet in the Hotel St. Paul by Hon. Frank A. 
 Day, editor of the Fairmont Sentinel, former lieu- 
 tenant-governor, former secretary to Gov. John A. 
 Johnson, etc. : 
 
 “None of the conspicuous editorial workers of the 
 state has ever served it with more single-hearted 
 devotion, unswerving loyalty and instinctive good 
 judgment than did Capt. Henry A. Castle, whom we 
 rejoice to welcome here this evening. For nearly 
 nine years, as editor of the Dispatch, he wielded a 
 powerful influence on the politics of Minnesota. His 
 paper was vigorous, virile, fearless and aggressive. 
 It made and unmade Governors, Senators and Con- 
 gressmen. It courageously battled against social, 
 financial and political oppression. It was generally 
 right and it was always honest. Hence its unmatched 
 political influence at that period. 
 
 “Captain Castle, in the Dispatch, first recognized 
 the value of the ‘concentrated impact’ as he termed 
 it, of the editorial opinion of the country press. 
 He encouraged and aided in the concentration. In 
 several strenuous campaigns he showed by tabula- 
 tions, name by name, that ninety per cent of the 
 Republican state papers held the same view as the 
 Dispatch concerning a policy or a candidate— and 
 the effect was irresistable. He thus stimulated the 
 independence and the self-respect of the state editors, 
 consolidating a power which remains in their hands 
 to this day, and has led them to their present per- 
 sonal leadership in public affairs. We of the suc- 
 ceeding editorial generations are glad to acknowledge 
 our debt to him and proudly exalt our friend to the 
 position of perpetual, unofficial, paternal advisor to 
 the craft and Grand Old Man of Minnesota Jour- 
 nalism.’’ 
 

 
 
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