Trails-to-the-Past-Minnesota-Douglas-Biographies-Progressive-Men

Minneapolis Journal 1897

KNUTE NELSON Senator of Minnesota, is a native of Norway. He was born at Voss near Bergen, Norway, on February 2, 1843. For generations his ancestors had lived in that vicinity as farmers. When three years old Knute lost his father, and when six, he came to this country with his mother. When they arrived in Chicago in July, 1840. the cholera epidemic was raging in that city. The young boy contracted the disease, but his rugged constitution successfully resisted its attacks. During the succeeding year his mother moved to Walworth County, Wisconsin, and soon after to Dane County, where young Nelson grew up. His common school education was obtained with difficulty, but after encountering many obstacles he was able, in 1858, to enter Albion Academy, but three years of his course there had expired when the war broke out, and Nelson entered the army in May, 1861, with a group of his fellow students. They became members of the Fourth Wisconsin Infantry. The young soldier served with his regiment until the fall of 1864. He participated in the capture of New Orleans, in the first siege of Vicksburg, the battle of Baton Rouge and Camp Bisland, and was at the siege of Port Hudson. In the great charge at this siege, on June 14, 1863, he was wounded and captured, and remained a prisoner until the fort was surrendered on July 9.

At the close of the war Mr. Nelson returned to Albion, finished his course, and after graduation became a law student in the office of Senator William F. Vilas, at Madison. He was admitted to the bar in the spring of 1867, and immediately commenced practice. In the fall of the same year he was elected to the state assembly, and was reelected in the following year. Soon after the close of his second term he moved to Alexandria, Douglas County, Minnesota, where he has since made his home. In Douglas County Mr. Nelson found many people from his native country and from Sweden. In fact, those nationalities predominate in Northwestern Minnesota. As a strong man, and one whose characteristics fitted him to become a leader, he naturally took a prominent place from his first settlement in the region, lie entered a United States homestead and opened a farm near Alexandria, and commenced farming and practicing law. In 1872, 1873 and 1874 he was county attorney of Douglas County. In 1875, 1876, 1877 and 1878 he served the Thirty-ninth Legislative District as state senator. By this time he had attained great prominence and influence in the northern portion of the state, and his name was placed on the Garfield electoral ticket in 1880. Two years later he secured the Republican nomination for congress, for the then fifth District of Minnesota. The campaign was an extremely bitter one, but he was elected by a plurality of four thousand five hundred votes. Re-election followed in 1884 by over ten thousand plurality, and in 1886 he received for his third term forty three thousand nine hundred and thirty-seven votes to one thousand two hundred and thirty-nine cast for a Prohibitionist, his only opponent. Mr. Nelson’s record in congress was that of a hard worker, and an independent and fearless voter. He favored tariff reform, and even went so far as to vote for the Mills bill, as well as introducing a measure looking to the entire abolition of the tariff on several articles. He was instrumental in securing the passage of bills opening the Indian reservations and making permanent disposition of the red men of Minnesota.

With no material opposition to him he nevertheless declined a renomination in 1888, and the following spring resumed his law business and farming at Alexandria, but in 1892 he was unanimously nominated as the party candidate for governor, and was elected by a plurality of fourteen thousand six hundred and twenty votes. A renomination and election by sixty thousand plurality followed in 1894. He had hardly entered upon his second term, however, when he was elected to the United States senate and resigned as governor to accept the higher office, which he now fills with great ability. Mr. Nelson’s career has been of the kind that romances are made of, and his success stands as a living refutation of the complaint that there is no longer any chance for the poor boy in this country. Mr. Nelson was certainly poor enough and sufficiently dependent on his merits and his own efforts which have advanced him from the station which he occupied as a lad in 1840, with all its discouraging conditions, to the honorable office which he now fills with credit to himself and to the profit of the state.

FRANCIS BENNETT VAN HOESEN Minnesota has comparatively few people of the old Dutch stock, but wherever they are found they are valuable citizens and men of affairs. One of these, of almost unmixed Holland blood, is the Hon. F. B. Van Hoesen, of Alexandria, banker, legislator, lawyer and capitalist.

The Van Hoesens came from Holland and settled in what is now Columbia County, New York about 1650. They bought a tract of several hundred acres of land, on a part of which the city of Hudson now stands. Mr. Van Hoesen’s great grandfather, Garrett Van Hoesen, emigrated to Cortland County, New York, in 1806 and purchased a tract of land in the Tioughinoga Valley, in the town of Preble. This tract, with certain additions which the thrifty settler acquired, came into the possession of his three sons, Garrett, Francis and Albert, who all married and reared large families. They and their descendants were respected citizens, filling offices of trust and acquiring large properties. Garrett, Mr. Van Hoesen’s great grandfather, was a soldier in the Revolution. His grandson, John Van Hoesen, father of the subject of this sketch, came west. He is now retired from business in moderate financial circumstances. His wife was also of direct Holland descent. She was Rhoda Bennett, daughter of Gershom Bennett, a farmer of Onondaga County, New York, whose ancestors came from Holland to Green County, New York, and later came to Onondaga County to the town of Tully, where Mrs. Van Hoesen was born in 1814.

Francis Van Hoesen was born at Tully on January 8, 1839. When he was fifteen years of age his parents came to Hastings, Minnesota, then but a frontier village. His early schooling was obtained at the common schools of New York and Minnesota. Later he went for two years to the Oneida Conference Seminary at Cazenovia, Madison County, New York, and to the Law School of the University of Michigan, from which he graduated in 1864. This education was not obtained without much hard work. Mr. Van Hoesen taught school and engaged in other employment as he could in order to obtain the funds to maintain himself at college. After being admitted to the bar by the supreme court of Michigan in 1864 he read law for a short time at Hastings and then commenced practice on his own account at Owatonna, Minnesota, with Julius B. Searles, brother of J. N. Searles, of Stillwater. Being offered an attractive partnership by T. B. Waheman, of McHenry County, Illinois, he went there in 1865, but his health failed after a few months and he was obliged to give up office work for a time.

He returned to Minnesota and spent the following year in the woods and on the prairies most of the time engaged in examining government lands for entry by private parties. On one of his visits to St. Cloud then the location of the United States land office, he became acquainted with T. C. McClure, one of the famous triumvirates of Clark, Wait & McClure, who for many years were dominant spirits in the business and politics of the northwestern part of the state. Mr. McClure offered young Von Hoesen a place in his bank. The offer was accepted and the position was held until 1867 when he went to Alexandria and branched out for himself. Mr. Van Hoesen attributes much of his success to the influence and training of Mr. McClure for whom he has always had the greatest regard and respect. At Alexandria, then but a scattered village, eighty five miles from a railroad, Mr. Van Hoesen recommenced the practice of his profession. He was almost immediately elected county attorney, but his services to the public consisted largely in keeping the county out of litigation rather than trying cases.

The country filled up rapidly after the war, and in 1869 Mr. Van Hoesen interested other parties and started the Bank of Alexandria. He was cashier and manager and so continued until 1883 when the bank was reorganized into the First National Bank of Alexandria, of which he became president. He has continued to hold that position. Though brought up a Democrat, Mr. Van Hoesen says that in the second year of the war he saw that the only political party which was trying to save the nation’s life was the Republican party. So he came to believe in its principles. Since locating in Alexandria he has taken an active part in political affairs, he has been county attorney, clerk of the district court, register of deeds, first president of the village council, member of school board and its treasurer for a dozen years, member of the legislature in the house of 1872 and 1881, and in the senate in 1883 and 1885. He has been a Mason since 1866, and has held prominent offices in the local lodge. In 1879 he was married to Miss Mary C. Gunderson, daughter of James Gunderson, a farmer, and sister of C. J. Gunderson, of Alexandria. They have no children.

FREDERICK VON BAUMBACH “The flower-loving auditor of Douglas County” is the title by which the Hon. Frederick von Baumbach is known among many of his friends in and about Alexandria. Mr. von Baumbach secured this appellation through the beauty of his home and grounds on the shores of Lake Agnes, in the outskirts of Alexandria. It is a model country home, and the grounds are made very beautiful by the profusion of flowers, shrubs and trees.

Mr. von Baumbach is of a distinguished German family. His father, Lewis von Baumbach, was a wealthy and distinguished member of the German parliament in 1848. He had been a soldier and officer in the Prussian army and president of the diet of Hesse-Cassel, of which province he was a citizen. Espousing the cause of German unity he was in 1848, obliged to fly from his native country, as were many other prominent people about that time. He came to Ohio and became a farmer. Later he moved to Milwaukee and was for years German consul, he died in 1884. His wife, who was Minna von Schenk, a daughter of one of the oldest families of Hesse-Cassel and which is still prominent there had died fourteen years previously.

Frederick was one of the youngest of a large family. His brothers and sisters all live in Milwaukee and are people of prominence. Born on the family estate August 30, 1838, Frederick was but ten years old when the family came to America. There was always a private tutor for the children but Frederick also attended the public schools of Elyria, Ohio, near his fathers farm. In Milwaukee he acted as clerk in a store and was for two years employed in the office of the city treasurer. In 1860 he went South and was employed in a store at San Antonio, Texas, when the war broke out. His northern sympathies led him to start for home at once, and he had some very exciting adventures before he reached the Union states. As soon as he reached Milwaukee he enlisted in Company C, Fifth Wisconsin infantry and served during the war, participating in the battles of Yorktown, Williamsburg, the Seven Days’ Battle at Richmond, second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Mobile and others. He was promoted successively to the rank of corporal, sergeant, sergeant-major, second lieutenant and first lieutenant of his company and in 1863 was made captain of Company B of the Thirty-fifth Wisconsin, and later major, he was not mustered out until April 16, 1866.

As soon as he was mustered out Major von Baumbach went to Chippewa, in Douglas County. Minnesota, and looked over the ground, he was delighted with the country but returned to Wisconsin, where he engaged in the drug business in Fond Du Lac. A fire, a year later, took everything he had and with less than a $100.00 in his pocket he returned to Douglas County and took up land. Since that time he has been closely identified with the affairs of the county. In 1877 he was elected county auditor and served until 1878 when he was elected secretary of state. After seven years of service for the state he returned to the auditor’s office and has continued to serve his home county ever since. For many years he has been a village alderman and school director.

Mr. von Baumbach was married in Milwaukee in 1863 to Miss Sarah J. Decker. They have had no children, but have raised two orphans. Jacob and Julia, whom they adopted, and are now caring for two younger children. Mr. von Baumbach is a Mason. Knight of Pythias and Odd Fellows, he has taken special interest in the latter order, and has filled all the chairs in the local lodge. He is also a member of the G. A. R. and Loyal Legion.

GERSHOM BENNETT WARD is cashier of the First National Bank of Alexandria, a position he has held since it was organized. Mr. Ward is the son of George Ward, a well-to-do farmer, and one of the first settlers of McHenry County, Illinois; also one of the proprietors of the Bank of Alexandria, Minnesota. Mr. Ward’s great grandfather, John Ward, served throughout the Revolutionary War in a Connecticut regiment. George Ward’s wife’s maiden name was Betsy Bennett, a native of Onondaga County, New York.

The subject of this sketch was born in McHenry County, Illinois, April 10, 1852. He attended the common schools of the village of Harvard. He then spent one year at Redding Seminary, Abingdon, Illinois, and afterwards three years at the Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois. In 1873 Mr. Ward took the Mann prize for oratory at the Northwestern University. In 1870 he came to Minnesota and was employed in teaching school during the winter of 1870-1871 near Alexandria, and received the first money of his own earning in that capacity. He then returned to college for three years, after which he again took up his residence at Alexandria.

He was employed in the Bank of Alexandria from 1876 to 1883, when the First National Bank of Alexandria was organized. Mr. Ward became its cashier, which position he now holds. He has always been a Republican, and is a member of the board of directors of the state normal school, president of the board of education of Alexandria, of which body he has been a member for twelve years, and president of the public library board, of which he has been a member for fifteen years. Mr. Ward is a member of the Masonic Order, Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. He is chairman of the board of trustees of the Congregational society. He was married in 1877 to Miss Mary W. Westerfield. They have three children, George W., Reba W. and Percy A. H. Mr. Ward was honored with appointment on the staff of Governor Nelson, with the rank of colonel, and holds the same position on Governor Clough’s staff.

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