Trails to the Past

Minnesota

Hennepin County

Biographies

 

 

 

 

Progressive Men Index

 

CHARLES SUMNER CAIRNS is a lawyer practicing his profession at Minneapolis. His ancestors on both sides of the family came to America from Great Britain before the Revolutionary war. His father’s name was Robert Cairns and his mother’s maiden name was Mary A. Haynes, one of whose paternal ancestors was Samuel Haynes, one of the nine founders of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  He came from England in 1635 in the ship “Angel Gabriel.”

Charles Sumner Cairns was born July 4, 1856, on a farm near Duncan Falls, Muskingum County, Ohio. His early education was obtained in the common schools of that county, after which he entered Muskingum College, at New Concord, Ohio, where he graduated in a classical course in 1876. He took a law course in the University of Michigan, graduating in 1882, and for some time thereafter he continued to read law in the office of Roby, Outten & Vail, at Decatur, Illinois. In 1883 he came to Minneapolis and opened a law office with D. S.  Frackelton. After the dissolution of that partnership he continued business by himself until 1895, when he entered the firm of Fletcher, Cairns & Rockwood.

Mr. Cairns is a Republican and takes an active interest in local and state politics. He was elected to the lower house of the state legislature and served in the session of 1893. He also has served the Republicans as a member of campaign committees and has taken a leading part in the management of public affairs in his own city. When the state census of 1895 was taken Mr. Cairns was made chairman of the citizens’ committee, appointed to look after the interests of the city in that connection, and performed the duties imposed upon him with such success as to meet with the hearty approval and commendation of his fellow citizens. Mr. Cairns is a man of high character and his appointment at the head of that committee was a guarantee that the work would be done fairly and honestly. At the same time it was prosecuted with vigor and intelligence, and it is due to his efforts that the census of 1895 was regarded as the most reliable ever taken in the city. He is a member and first vice president of the Union League, a member of the Board of Trade and also of the Commercial Club. His church membership is with Westminster Presbyterian church, of which society he is one of the deacons. His wife is a daughter of Isaac Shellabarger, of Decatur, Illinois, to whom he was married October 30, 1884. Her maiden name was Frances V. Shellabarger.

JOHN FRANK CALDERWOOD As city comptroller, auditor of the Twin City Rapid Transit Company, president of the Commercial Club, and a leader of the younger businessmen of the city, J. F. Calderwood has become, during the past eight or ten years, one of the best known men in Minneapolis.

Mr. Calderwood was born in the town of Redford, near Detroit, Michigan, on May 27, 1859. His father, H. N. Calderwood, is a native of Scotland and was born and spent his boyhood days at Calderwoods Glen, forty miles from Edinburgh. He came to this country when fourteen years of age, and lived with his parents until his marriage, when he moved to Michigan. His wife was Miss Ellen Van Vaulkenburg, a native of Herkimer County, New York. They were married on March 18, 1855. Mrs. Calderwood died on February 20, 1896. Mr. Calderwood followed farming in Michigan until his son John, was ten years of age, when he moved to Fenton, Genesee County, Michigan, where he still resides.

John was the only child. He received his education at the public and high schools of Fenton, graduating from the latter institution on June 25, 1877. He was admitted to the University of Michigan but did not enter. For two years he taught a district school in northern Michigan, in the locality where nerve rather than education was the first element of success. Subsequently he taught in the normal schools of Indiana for one year. But teaching did not suit Mr. Calderwood, as his natural bent was for business, and he went to Bay City to find some employment along the lines of his ambition. His first position was that of office boy with the lumber firm of T. H. McGraw & Co. With this house the young man had a chance to develop his abilities, and was so successful that before he was twenty-one years old he had become head bookkeeper for the firm, but with characteristic enthusiasm he overworked, and failing health led him to come to Minnesota. 

Upon his arrival in Minneapolis in October, 1881, he secured a position as head bookkeeper and credit man with the carpet house of Folds & Griffith. Seven years of continuous service with this firm were only ended by Mr. Calderwood’s election in November, 1888, to the office of City Comptroller of Minneapolis. Mr. Calderwood brought to this position a thorough business experience and a mind admirably adapted to finance. It was something of a novelty for anyone but an active politician to seek such an office.  But though the young man, previous to his nomination, was comparatively unknown, Mr. Calderwood’s canvass was so energetic and his qualities were so generally recognized, that he received a larger majority than any other candidate on the Republican ticket. In this campaign he displayed an excellent executive ability, which did much to aid in his election. Upon taking the duties of his office Mr. Calderwood at once made himself felt as a positive and aggressive factor in the city government. Under his administration the office of Comptroller became, not that of a bookkeeper, but rather that of financial adviser and director of the municipality. This sort of thing met with scant favor from politicians who were in office for emoluments only, but it made Mr. Calderwood immensely popular in the city. He was renominated in 1890 without opposition, but the municipal elections being complicated with the national and state elections held at the same time, all Republican candidates for city offices were defeated in the general Democratic “land slide” of that fall.

Shortly after the close of his official term, Mr. Calderwood was offered the position of auditor of the Minneapolis Street Railway Company. In this position he has been remarkably successful. Its duties have been of the most engrossing nature, and, with his customary self-forget fulness, Mr. Calderwood has frequently devoted double the usual business hours to the interests of the corporation. At the same time he has taken an active interest in the affairs of the city. He was one of the organizers of the Minneapolis Commercial Club, and for three years past has been its president. To his energy, influence and wise direction must be attributed the larger part of its success. Mr. Calderwood, with his wife and daughter, reside at the West Hotel in Minneapolis.

JOHN FRANKLIN CALHOUN a prominent broker of Minneapolis, comes of a very ancient Scotch family The name of the original family in Scotland was spelled Colquhoun. The ancient family home was on the shores of Loch Lomond. The family possessions in Scotland date back to the time of Alexander II. of Scotland, in the Twelfth century, but the family is of much more ancient origin. Mr. Calhoun’s great grandfather, David Calhoun, occupied a homestead of four hundred and twenty acres, which was a part of Braddock’s battlefield, near Pittsburgh, and is now a part of Homestead, Pennsylvania. David Calhoun served in the war of the Revolution. He was a member of Captain James Rogers’ militia company, and of Colonel Timothy Greene’s Hanover rifle battalion.  During the Revolution he participated in many notable engagements, including the battle of Brandywine, the battle of Camden and the battle of Guilford Court House. He saw Lord Cornwallis deliver up his sword at Yorktown.  When the war of 1812 broke out Mr. Calhoun, though then fifty-five years of age, enlisted with the Pennsylvania Volunteers under General Richard Crooks. On his mother’s side, Mr.  Calhoun also comes of Revolutionary stock.  His mother’s mother, Orpha Bingham, was the only daughter of Chester Bingham, who served in the Revolutionary war. Mr. Bingham was a descendant of Deacon Thomas Bingham, of Norwich, Connecticut, who married Mary Rudd on December 12, 1666. The wedding ceremony was performed by Governor John Winthrop, on the banks of a little rivulet, on the boundary line between Massachusetts and Connecticut, which was afterwards called Bride’s Brook. The story of Bride’s Brook became a matter of history, and it is said, in legal authority, has established the boundary line between the two states. The Bingham family is traced back for twenty generations, and is supposed to have been of Saxon origin. 

J. F. Calhoun is the son of David and Caroline Calhoun. He was born in Licking County, Ohio, on April 28, 1854. While he was still a small child his parents removed to Illinois, and the only schooling which he ever received was obtained at a little schoolhouse in Mercer County of that state. At the age of thirteen he left his home and went to the neighboring village of Keithsburgh, to which he walked barefooted with a straw hat on his head and not a cent in his pocket. After repeated applications for work he at last obtained employment as a printer’s “devil” in the office of Theodore Glancey, publisher of the Keithsburgh Observer. This situation, which furnished him an income of three and one-half dollars a week, was broken up after a very few days, when the paper went into the hands of the sheriff. Young Calhoun next got employment in a carpenter shop, where he was employed in turning a grind stone, and remained in this position for eight months. He then went into a clothing store, and after a while obtained a better position in a large dry goods house, where he worked for eight years. When he left this position it was to engage in the mercantile business on his own account.

In 1881 Mr. Calhoun moved to Minneapolis and engaged in loaning money on real estate. During the past fifteen years he has done a large business, both in buying and selling Minneapolis and Northwestern property and placing loans for Eastern clients. He has been identified with many of the enterprises of the city, and has taken a prominent place among the businessmen in his line. Mr.  Calhoun was a member of the first Chamber of Commerce of Minneapolis. Since 1885 he has been a member of the Minneapolis Club and he has been a member of the Commercial Club since its organization. In the Masonic body he has been prominent, taking all of the degrees, including the Thirty-third, and last degree.

He was married on January 20, 1879 at Galesburg, Illinois, to Miss Clara Zenora Edwards, daughter of the Hon. John Edwards, who was a member of the first Indiana legislature. They have three children, John Edwards, Frederic David and Beatrice Zenora.

THOMAS CANTY is associate justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota, and a notable example of a self-made man. Thomas Canty is of Irish ancestry. His parents were Jeremiah Canty and Anna Stanton (Canty). They were both born in the county of Kerry, Ireland, but met and married in London. Thomas Canty, father of Jeremiah, was a well-to-do farmer fifty years ago, but somewhat extravagant, and during the famine of 1848 he became impoverished. The family scattered and Jeremiah left for London in search of his fortune. Thomas, the subject of this sketch, was born in London, April 24, 1854, and came to America with his parents when but two years of age. His father was a laborer and settled first at Detroit, Michigan, then removed to Lodi, Wisconsin, to Clayton County, Iowa, and finally purchased a farm near Monona, Iowa, where he died when Thomas, his eldest son, was twenty years of age, leaving a widow and seven children. 

Thomas attended school regularly until he was nine years of age, and was a very apt pupil. After that he was only able to attend school a few months each winter. The teachers were generally incompetent, but Thomas was ambitious and pursued his studies with great success, and with a preference for mathematics. In the spring of 1869, at the age of fifteen, he passed the examination and received a first grade certificate to teach school in Clayton County, Iowa. When he was but thirteen a dispute arose with regard to the rent his father should pay for the farm he occupied and it was agreed that the farm should be surveyed. Thomas found an error in the surveyor’s figures, walked fourteen miles through a snow storm to the house of the surveyor, had the error corrected, saved his father sixty dollars, and prevented a law suit. His mother wanted him to be a blacksmith and insisted that he learn some trade. He was determined to be a lawyer. In 1872 he went South determined to find a suitable position as teacher and landed penniless and friendless at Carbondale, Illinois, where he worked sixteen hours a day driving a mule used in pulling buckets out of a coal shaft. In this way he earned money enough to take him to Texas. There he taught school for four years, in the meantime applying himself diligently to his studies, and although unable to take a college course, he thus acquired substantially the same advancement which a college training would have given him. In the meantime his physical strength had been exhausted, his father had died and he went back to the Iowa farm to regain his health and help his mother take care of the family. He remained on the farm two years devoting all his spare time to the study of law. Owing to crop failures debts had accumulated which he assumed. He defeated a graduate of Harvard and another of the University of Wisconsin for a position as principal of a high school, took his earnings and paid a thousand dollars of his debt and got an extension of time on the balance.

In the spring of 1880 he went to Grand Forks, Dakota, to practice law, but, not satisfied with the outlook, he returned October 1, of the same year, to Minneapolis, and entered the law office of Seagrave Smith and was admitted to the bar the following February. He was so poor that he was obliged to board himself, but his indomitable will carried him through. His first case was a contest over the title to a tract of land near Lake Minnetonka which had been lost by two prominent attorneys, but he took up a new line of defense and won his case.  Another notable series of cases was that of the employees of the contractors engaged in opening Sixth avenue North. In this case he had arrayed against him fourteen able lawyers, but Mr. Canty won every case. He defended the appeals to the district court and again in the supreme court, but he was successful in every instance. At the time of the street car strike in 1889 he won distinction and popular applause by his successful resistance of the action of the municipal court in sentencing men to the work house whom he claimed were in no way connected with the strike. He took the men under sentence out of jail on writs of habeas corpus, carried their cases to the district court, argued them before Judge Smith and secured their release. 

Judge Canty was a Republican until recent years and aggressive in his defense of Republican principles, but the developments during Grant’s second term cooled his enthusiasm considerably.  His first vote was cast for the Hayes electors, but he never approved of the decision of the electoral commission, doubted Hayes’ election and was particularly displeased with the action of the commission in refusing to go thoroughly into the evidence. He continued to vote the Republican ticket, however, on state and national matters until the passage of the McKinley bill. In local politics he was always independent.  In the fall of 1890 Mr. Canty was nominated by the Democratic party for judge of the district court in Hennepin County. Up to that time he had never been a candidate for or held any public office. He was elected and held that office for three years. On July 14, 1892, he was nominated for associate justice of the Supreme Court by the People’s Party of Minnesota, and was also nominated for the same office by the democratic party on the next third day of August, and was elected. He entered upon the discharge of his duties in that enviable and honorable position the first of January, 1894.  His record on the district bench was that of a careful, painstaking, able jurist, and since his elevation to the higher office of the supreme bench he has sustained himself in that regard and justified the highest expectations of his friends. Judge Canty is a member of the Order of Odd Fellows, is a thirty-second degree Mason and a Shriner. He has never married.

FRANK HENRY CARLETON is a lawyer in Minneapolis, a member of the firm of Cross, Hicks, Carleton & Cross. He was born October 8, 1849, at Newport, N. H. His ancestry on his father’s side was English, and the family line is traced back to Sir Guy Carleton. On his mother’s side his descent is also from English stock, going back to Joseph French, a leading citizen of Salisbury, Mass., of a generation prior to the War of the Revolution.

Frank Henry is the son of Henry G. Carleton, now and for many years president of the Savings Bank at Newport, N. H. For forty years he was one of the editors of the New Hampshire Argus and Spectator. He was for many years one of the leading Democratic editors of New Hampshire, and a personal friend of John P. Hale and Franklin Pierce. He has now retired from active business and is in good financial circumstances. He has served as a member of the legislature of the State of New Hampshire, has been register of probate, and has filled other important public positions.

The subject of this sketch was educated in the common schools of Newport, and prepared for college at Kimball Union Academy, at Meriden, New Hampshire, where he graduated in June, 1868. He then entered Dartmouth College and completed the course there with the class of 1872. He took the first prize for English composition during the senior year and wrote the class ode for Commencement Day. During his academic and college days he was obliged to absent himself at different times while he was engaged as a teacher, and in 1870 he was for a time principal of an academy for white pupils in Mississippi.  Mr. Carleton also varied his experience by assuming the duties of city editor of the Manchester Daily Union, after his graduation from college, which position he held for several months.

He then decided to carry out an early plan to seek a location in the West and accordingly came to Minneapolis where he was engaged as a reporter for the Minneapolis News, then edited by George K. Shaw. This position he held for several months at the same time serving as Minneapolis correspondent for the St.  Paul Press. Subsequently he was appointed city editor of the St. Paul Daily Press under Mr.  Wheelock. After a year’s service on the St. Paul Press, Mr. Carleton determined to carry out his original plan of preparing for the practice of law and accordingly commenced his study for that purpose in the office of Cushman K. Davis and C. D. O’Brien. While pursuing his studies he served as clerk of the municipal court of St.  Paul, and after holding this position for five years he resigned owing to ill-health and took a six months’ trip to Europe. On his return from Europe he was appointed secretary of Governor John S. Pillsbury, and rendered important services in connection with the settlement of the repudiated Minnesota railroad bonds. For several years he was the Minnesota correspondent of the Chicago Inter-Ocean and the New York Times.

In 1882 he removed to Minneapolis and formed a legal partnership with Judge Henry G.  Hicks and Capt. Judson N. Cross. These legal relations still exist, the only change being the addition of Norton M. Cross, the son of Capt. Cross.  From 1883 to 1887 Mr. Carleton was assistant city attorney of Minneapolis. These were important times in the history of the city, bringing into active operation the principle of the “patrol limits,” and witnessing the inauguration of important litigation in the interests of the city.  Mr. Carleton and the firm with which he is connected has a large and varied practice in real estate law, probate law and financial adjustments in which it has had much experience.  In politics he is a Republican, although not an active participator in party affairs, preferring to devote his leisure time to scientific research and literary pursuits.

Mr. Carleton is a Mason and a member and one of the trustees of the Park Avenue Congregational Church, and is one of the directors of the Minnesota Home Mission Society. In 1881 he was married to Ellen Jones, the only daughter of the late Judge Edwin S.  Jones, of Minneapolis. They have had five children, Edwin Jones, Henry Guy, George Pillsbury, Charles Pillsbury, who died in infancy, and Frank H. Mr. Carleton is a lover of nature, a great cultivator of flowers, an enthusiastic angler, and much given to the pursuit of this fascinating sport in the picturesque regions of this generally celebrated fishing ground of northern Minnesota.

WILLIAM WYCKOFF CLARK comes of a line of patriots who have a most honorable record in the service of their country, one generation being represented in the Army of the Revolution, another in the War of 1812, a third in the War of the Rebellion. Mr. Clark is a resident of St. Anthony Park, but has his office in Minneapolis, and is engaged in the practice of law in that city.

His father was a physician and practiced his profession in Mankato from 1857 until his death in 1878. He came to Minnesota from Ohio, and during the war was a surgeon of the Tenth Minnesota regiment. Dr. Clark’s wife was Adaline Babbett (Clark), a direct descendant of Edward Winslow, one of the Mayflower Puritans.  The Clark family in America was descended from James Clark, who was born in Ireland and emigrated from there in 1750 and settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. One of his sons, John Clark, was a colonel in the American Army of the Revolution, and his commission, signed by Washington, is still preserved by one of the family.  It was his son who was a soldier in the War of 1812 and who was the grandfather of the subject of this sketch William Wyckoff was born at Mankato, March 10, 1862.

He graduated from the high school in that city in 1879, and entered the state university the same year, where he accomplished four years’ work in three, graduating in the class of 1882. He received one of the class honors, that of class tree orator, received the first prizes in the oratorical contests in his junior and senior years, and in the latter year represented Minnesota in the inter-state oratorical contest at Indianapolis, taking third place in the contest. While in college he was a member of the Theta Phi fraternity, a local fraternity now succeeded by Psi Upsilon. The first dollar Mr. Clark ever earned was received for shoveling dirt at the building of the waterworks in Mankato, but he soon obtained better employment in the construction of a mill then being erected there. Later he was employed with the firm of Brackett, Chute & Co., on the construction of the Canadian Pacific road, and subsequently held the position of assistant bookkeeper for the hardware firm of Miller Bros. He also had some experience as a teacher, filling the unexpired term of a principal of a public school at Sleepy Eye.

He then settled in Minneapolis for the study of law, and was admitted to the bar in 1885. He is a member of the law firm of Clark & Wingate, with offices in the Minnesota Loan & Trust Building, and at the present time is giving his attention chiefly to the law business of the Scottish American Mortgage Company, Limited, a company having three or four millions of dollars invested in this State.  Mr. Clark has always been a Republican, and although he has never asked for any office he has spent several campaigns on the stump in this state. He is a member of the Commercial Club, the Royal Arcanum, and the Fraternal Mystic Circle.

He was married in 1885 to Josephine Henry, daughter of an old resident and hardware merchant in East Minneapolis. They have two children, Wyckoff C. and Kenneth. In 1889 he removed to St. Anthony Park, a suburb of Minneapolis, where he has a pleasant home.

DAVID MARSTON CLOUGH governor of Minnesota, furnishes a conspicuous example of the self-made man. Born of humble parentage and spending his youth in comparative poverty, contending with the obstacles of life on the frontier, and without the aid of influential friends, he has achieved the position of highest honor in the state of his adoption.

He was the son of Elbridge G. and Sarah Brown (Clough), of Lyme, Grafton County, New Hampshire. He was the fourth in a family of fourteen children, ten of whom grew to maturity. He was born December 27, 1846, at Lyme, New Hampshire, and when he was nine years old his family moved to Waupaca, Wisconsin, arriving there on the fourth of July, 1857: Within the next year they removed to Spencer Brook, Isanti County, Minnesota, a little settlement on the extreme frontier in the lumbering region of Rum River. His father took a claim, a cabin was built, a clearing made in the timber and the farm started. In addition to work done on the farm, father and sons engaged in the lumbering business in the employ of companies then operating in that region. There was no school to attend and the educational facilities of which David was able to avail himself were of the most limited kind. At sixteen he drove an ox team in the woods, and at seventeen went on the logging drive and earned a man’s wages.  Subsequently he was employed at the sawmills in Minneapolis in the summer and continued to work either for his father, or for wages for his father’s benefit until he was twenty.

At this age it was his father’s custom to give his boys their time, having no other endowment to bestow.  David then engaged himself by the month with H. F. Brown, a lumberman, and continued for four years in his employment, doing all kinds of work involved in the lumber business. After leaving Mr. Brown he and his brother Gilbert engaged in the lumbering business for themselves.  They lived at Spencer Brook and took contracts for cutting and hauling logs in the adjacent pineries. This they continued for two years, when, in 1862, they removed to this city.  They continued in the logging business for several years and then commenced the manufacture of lumber, first hiring their logs sawed and later building a mill of their own. Clough Brothers eventually became one of the substantial lumber firms of Minneapolis, owning their own timber, manufacturing it and cutting it, their annual output in later years averaging fifteen million feet.  Gilbert Clough died six years ago, since which time David has continued the business alone.

He also became president of the Bank of Minneapolis.  Although his father died years ago, Mr. Clough has retained the homestead in Isanti County, and added to it until it now embraces six hundred and forty acres of land, on which Mr. Clough has a fine herd of thoroughbred Short Horn Cattle, and his interest in agriculture and stock raising was recognized in 1892 by his election to the office of president of the State Agricultural Society.  To him belongs the credit at the close of his administration of turning over the society to his successor free of debt, the first time in its history.  Mr. Clough has been active in local and state politics, having served the Second ward of Minneapolis as a member of the council from 1885 to 1888. In the second year of his service he was made president of the council. At this time he was also elected to represent East Minneapolis, Isanti and Anoka counties in the state senate, his term of office of four years expir ing in 1890. What is known as “the patrol limits system,” a rule which confines the saloons to the business center of the city, received Mr.  Clough’s support in the legislature and in the council, and to him credit is given for having defeated an attempt in the legislature to grant to the council the power of discontinuing or altering this system. Mr. Clough was a member of the state Republican central committee for four years, and in 1892 was nominated by the Republicans for lieutenant governor and was elected.  He was re-nominated in 1894 and re-elected, and upon the election of Knute Nelson to the United States senate in 1895 he succeeded him in the office of governor. He was nominated by the Republicans in 1896 to succeed himself and was elected. When the court house and city hall commission was organized in Minneapolis, Mr. Clough was made a member of that commission, and for a time was its president. 

His family are identified with the First Congregational Church of Minneapolis, of which society Mr. Clough was for many years trustee. He belongs to the Masonic order, in which he has taken thirty-two degrees. Mr. Clough was married April 4, 1867, to Addie Barton, at Spencer Brook, Minnesota. He has one daughter, Nina, the wife of R. H. Hartley, of Minneapolis.

J. FRANK CONKLIN has been prominently identified with the dramatic stage in Minneapolis for a number of years, his chief connection with that profession having been as manager of the Grand Opera House during nearly the entire time of its existence as a play house.

Mr. Conklin was born August 14, 1852, at Newburgh, New York.  His father James O. Conklin, was a well-to-do farmer of Orange County. His mother’s maiden name was Rebecca Purdy. His ancestry on his father’s side were well-to-do farmers, and the line is traced to prominent characters in the war of 1812. On his mother’s side he is descended from a family of merchants in New York City. 

Mr. Conklin was educated in the common schools of Orange County, and at Sigler’s Newburgh Institute. In 1880 he came West, locating in Minneapolis, where he became assistant manager of the old Academy of Music. On the completion of the Syndicate Block, of which the Grand Opera was a part, Mr. Conklin was appointed manager of the whole property, a position which he still holds, although recently the Grand Opera House has been closed as an amusement house.

Mr. Conklin’s superior business qualifications have placed him in charge of a large amount of property in Minneapolis and St. Paul, including besides the Syndicate Block, the Guaranty Loan building, Temple Court and other important buildings in Minneapolis, and the Lowry Arcade and Globe Building in St. Paul. Mr. Conklin began his business career at the age of twenty. His first year, for which he received the munificent sum of fifty dollars and board, was spent in the produce business in New York City. Later he opened a store in New York on his own account, and also one in Jacksonville, Florida. He had disposed of his business prior to his removal to the West.

In politics Mr. Conklin is a Republican, although he has never sought any office or taken a very active part in political affairs. He is a member of the Minneapolis Club. On September 11, 1878, he was married to Miss Lizzie Merritt of Marlborough, New York. They have four children, Margaretta B., Clara llsamine, J. Frank, Jr., and Edwin Herrick.

EDWARD JAMES CONROY The chairman of the board of county commissioners of Hennepin County, Minnesota, is Edward James Conroy, who is a resident of Minneapolis.  Mr. Conroy was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, November 15, 1864, the son of Thomas and Margaret Conroy, both of whom were born in Dublin, Ireland. They emigrated to this country in 1854, settling at Oshkosh, Wisconsin.  Thomas Conroy was a carpenter by trade, and he followed this occupation in Oshkosh, becoming fairly prosperous.

Edward received but a common school education in the public schools of Oshkosh, which was supplemented by a three months’ course in a commercial college. From the time he was able to work  young Conroy tried to be of assistance to his family. He earned his first dollar as a lather, at which he became an expert, and which line of work he followed during his school vacations. When only seventeen years of age he left home and removed to Minnesota, locating in Minneapolis. Here he learned the plasterer’s trade, at which trade he worked for the next two years, acquiring a general knowledge of the business of a master mason and contractor.  In 1883 he commenced in business on his own account as a contractor of mason work, which he has followed ever since. From the first he was successful in obtaining remunerative contracts, and many down town blocks and homes in Minneapolis attest to his skill and enterprise.

Mr. Conroy has always affiliated with the Democratic party, and has been an active participator in the affairs of his city for the past ten years. In 1888 the Democrats of the Second ward nominated him for the office of alderman, but he was defeated. In 1891 he was chosen as assistant sergeant-at-arms in the upper house of the state legislature. The following year he was a nominee on the Democratic ticket for county commissioner in the First District of Hennepin County, and elected for a term of four years. In his short period of service as a county commissioner, Mr. Conroy has earned for himself an enviable reputation as a man of sterling honesty, integrity and uprightness in handling public business.

He was so well liked by his associates on the board that, notwithstanding a Republican majority, he was elected to the chairmanship, which he maintained during the four years of his term with dignity and impartiality. He was reelected to the same office in 1896 by a large majority.  In the campaign of 1894 he was chairman of the Democratic county committee, also of the Democratic campaign committee. Mr. Conroy has also served on the board of tax levy for four years, being one of the most efficient members of that board. Aside from the duties of his public office, Mr. Conroy has been identified to a considerable extent with the real estate and building interests of Minneapolis, and his success thus far in life gives promise of still better results in the future.

CLAYTON R. COULEY Mr. Cooley’s father, Warren Cooley, was by trade a mechanic, and worked at this occupation during his life-time, attaining a moderate competence, his native state was Massachusetts: he was born at Palma, in 1820, and died in Minneapolis, in 1887. His wife, the mother of the subject of this sketch, survives him. Her maiden name was Eleanor F. Morris she was born in Alton, Illinois, in 1833.

Their son Clayton was born in Houston County, Minnesota, October 16, 1859, and shortly after his birth they migrated from this state to Iowa, first locating at Dubuque, afterwards at Calls and Eldora, in the same state, the boy receiving his education in the public schools of the latter town. The first dollar Clayton ever earned was as a lad, working in Burt’s novelty factory in East Dubuque. The first permanent business engagement he secured after leaving school was in a drug store at Eldora.  He quit this business, however, after a short time and took a position in an abstract and loan office in the same city. He held this position until February, 1884 at which time he located in Minneapolis. He first secured employment with Geo. W. Chowan & Co., but subsequently entered the office of Merrill & Albee, an abstract firm.  In September, 1886, Mr. Cooley acquired Mr.  Merrills interest in the firm, and the business has since that time been conducted under the name of Albee & Cooley. In politics Mr. Cooley is a Republican, his first vote having been cast for James A. Garfield. He took an active part in local politics, and was rewarded for his services in 1892 by being nominated for the office of county auditor of Hennepin County, and was elected. He was re-elected to the same office in 1894 his term expiring January 1, 1897. Mr.  Cooley has been one of the most capable men that has ever occupied this office, and he is held in high esteem by all who know him.

Though he took a course in the law department of the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1893 it was not with the intention of devoting himself to the practice of law but rather as an aid to him in his private business, to which he is now devoting all his time, having been released from public duties by expiration of his second term as auditor. He is a prominent Mason, a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Roval Arcanum, and the Ancient Order of United Workmen, also of the Minneapolis Commercial Club.

EGBERT COWLES banker, cashier of the Flour City National Bank, is the son of Lucius S.  Cowles, a wholesale dry goods merchant of Galena and Freeport, Illinois. Lucius Cowles was born in Farmington, Connecticut. The Cowles family were of English origin, and settled in Farmington in 1647. They were land owners and farmers, raisers of fine stock, and in the present century engaged in journalism and other professions.  Judge Alfred Cowles, a member of this family, was one of the early settlers of Illinois, having taken up his residence at Kaskaskia as early as 1823. He afterwards, at the age of sixty-six years, made a trip across the plains and mountains, arriving in San Francisco, California, in 1852. In 1864 he went to San Diego, where he remained until the time of his death, in 1887.  He lived to the advanced age of one hundred years, four months and ten days. His cousin, Alfred Cowles. was one of the owners and managers of the Chicago Tribune for many years before his death, and Edwin Cowles was principal owner of the Cleveland Leader for upwards of twenty years. Mr. Cowles’ ancestry on his mother’s side were New England people, prominent in the legal profession and in national politics. Her name was Louise S. Whitman, and she was a native of Farmington, where she was married.

Egbert Cowles was born in Galena, Illinois, January 1, 1858, and removed with his father’s family to Freeport in 1860. He attended the Freeport public schools, and was graduated by the high schools of that city, but never entered college.  He earned his first dollar by unloading a car of crockery at Freeport when sixteen years of age, and took a great deal of satisfaction in the accomplishment.  In 1872 he went to Chicago, where he secured a position as messenger for the Commercial National Bank. He continued with that institution until 1880, when he traveled for two years in the Southern states on account of his health. In 1882 he obtained the position of discount clerk with the Merchants’ Loan and Trust Company, of Chicago, and he continued in that position until 1884. He then came to Minneapolis, where he assisted in the organization of the Scandia Bank that year, and remained with that institution until May, 1886, when he was appointed assignee of the Bank of North Minneapolis.  He settled up the affairs of that bank, paying in full in four months, and was appointed cashier of the German-American Bank of Minneapolis in December, 1886, and remained in that position until August, 1894. At that time he was engaged as manager of the Flour City National Bank of Minneapolis, and in January, 1895, was elected its cashier.

Mr. Cowles is a member of the Minneapolis Club and an attendant at the First Unitarian church. He is not married. Politically he claims no party affiliations, preferring to work and vote for the best man and the best cause, regardless of party lines.

LEO MEVILLE CRAFTS Among the pioneers of Minnesota was the late Major Amasa Crafts, who settled in Minneapolis in 1853. Major Crafts was an officer in the Maine troops during the Mexican War, but was never called into active service. At the outbreak of the Rebellion his health had become so impaired that he was incapacitated for active service in the cause of the Union, although it was his strong desire to offer himself in his country’s service at that time. Major Crafts’ family is traceable on his mother’s side to the early settlement of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Simon Stone located on the banks of the Charles River in 1635. The land occupied by him is now incorporated in beautiful Mount Auburn Cemetery; but it remained as the family estate for over two hundred years. It was known as “Sweet Auburn,” and the broad sweep of lawn overlooking the river was surmounted by a spacious colonial mansion. One of Simon Stone’s sons was among the earliest graduates of Harvard, and various members of the family have occupied prominent positions in Massachusetts. The Crafts family is also one of the oldest in New England, having settled in Boston in 1630, the year of the founding of the city. A branch of this family still lives on the ancestral estate. When Major Amasa Crafts, one of the founders and builders of the city of Minneapolis, located in Minnesota, he engaged in the lumbering business and in wholesale pork packing, and also acquired large real estate interests, which, with the development of the city, became very valuable. The family residence.  erected in 1857 and the first brick house in the city, once stood on the present site of the Century building, corner of Fourth street and First avenue south, and at the time of its construction was regarded as quite a pretentious establishment.  Major Crafts’ wife was Mary Jane Henry (Crafts), who was also a native of Maine. Her male ancestors were chiefly seafaring men at the time when this country had a merchant marine of importance. 

The subject of this sketch was born in Minneapolis, October 3, 1863. He attended the public schools and entered the University of Minnesota.  from which he was graduated in 1886. He represented his class in the home oratorical contest in his senior year. During the last two years he was leader of his class in college work, and in recognition of his standing was appointed one of the commencement orators. He gave considerable attention to gymnasium exercises and took the championship in general athletics. Mr. Crafts was urged to enter the ministry by President Northrop, of the University of Minnesota, and also by the president of Dartmouth College, but having chosen medicine for his profession he adhered to his original purpose, and prepared himself at Harvard, taking the four year course, then optional, leading his class on the final examinations, and winning the degree of A. M. by the work attained.

Subsequently, he received successive hospital appointments at the Boston City Hospital, and, being entitled by his competitive examinations to first choice, was afforded the best opportunities for the study of nervous diseases. In 1891 he was elected a member of the Hospital Club, and was received into fellowship in the Massachusetts Medical Society. During the summer of 1891 he took charge of the practice of one of the leading physicians of Boston, in his temporary absence, but in September returned to Minnesota, and has been engaged in practice in Minneapolis ever since.

Dr. Crafts has contributed quite extensively to medical publications, chiefly in the line of his specialty. He holds the chair of nervous diseases in the medical department of Hamline University, and has been visiting neurologist to the Minneapolis City Hospital since 1894; also to the Good Samaritan Free Dispensary. He is a member of the board of directors of the Good Samaritan Hospital and Dispensary Association and secretary of the visiting staff; is treasurer of the Hennepin County Medical Society: treasurer of the Minneapolis Branch of the Western Society for the Suppression of Mice, a member of the American Medical Association; of the American Academy of Political and Social Science; a fellow of the Massachusetts Medical Society; a member of the Minnesota State Medical Society; a member of the Hennepin County Medical Society; a member of the Harvard Medical Alumni Association; a member of the Boston City Hospital Club, the Minnesota Congregational Club and of the Minneapolis Board of Trade. Dr. Crafts has always taken an active interest in Sunday school work, and in 1892 was elected a member of the central committee of the State Sunday School Association. In 1893 he was chosen president, and re-elected in 1894 and 1895, and is now member of the board of directors. He is president of the Minneapolis Sunday School Officers’ Association, and in 1893 started, and for a year edited, the Minnesota Sunday School Herald, organ of the state association, but now merged into the International Evangel, published at St. Louis.  Dr. Crafts is a Republican in politics, but has never taken a very active part in political affairs.  His church membership is with the First Congregational Church of Minneapolis. He is not married.

PETER BELA CRANE, of Minneapolis, was born in Wisconsin, March 6, 1847. His father, V. G. Crane, had shortly before that removed from New York to Wisconsin. He was a mechanic and a farmer in reduced circumstances, his lack of means being due to prolonged illness.  E. F. Crane, a brother of the father of the subject of this sketch, is a Baptist minister, now over ninety years of age, who is said to have baptized over three thousand people.

The subject of this sketch attended the district school, which in the early days of Wisconsin was comparatively a primitive affair. His attendance, however, was confined chiefly to the winter months, his services, as in the case of most farmers’ boys, being required on the farm in the summer. In the spring of 1869. Peter Bela Crane came to Minnesota in a covered wagon and settled on a farm near Montevideo. He has had quite a varied career, having been engaged in farming, in selling farm machinery, and as a fire and life insurance agent. In 1874 he was appointed the agent of the St. Paul Fire and Marine and the Minnesota Farmers’ Fire Insurance companies, which he managed with success. In 1880 he accepted the general agency for Dakota of the St. Paul Fire and Marine Company.

In 1885 he engaged in the life insurance business, and in 1887 he organized the Odd Fellows’ National Benevolent Association the membership of which was confined exclusively to the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. In January, 1892, the company was changed to a general insurance company of the natural premium plan. The name was also changed to the National Mutual Life Association. Mr. Crane is president of this company and is giving it his especial attention. His political affiliations are with the Republican party, although he does not take a very active part in politics. He is a member of the Montevideo Lodge, I. O. O. F., and of Sunset Lodge, A. F. & A. M. His church connections are with the Congregational body. On December 20, 1876, he was married to Miss Addie L. Lawrence, who died May 3, 1888. He has six children, Mary L., Mertle E., Alta R., Bela L., Harold C. and Gladys E.

AUGUSTUS LUTHER CROCKER is one of those active, enterprising businessmen who have done so much to make Minneapolis what it is, the commercial industrial and financial metropolis of the Northwest. He comes of old New England stock which originally emigrated to this country from England. On both sides the family records carry back the line of descent through a long line of honorable and useful men. His father, Thomas Crocker, was a man of considerable property, whose place of business was at Paris, Oxford County, Maine. His mother’s maiden name was Almira Davis, whose family was also prominent in the annals of New England.

Augustus Luther was born at Paris, Maine, May 4, 1850. He attended the public schools of his native town and also at Paris Hill academy, where he prepared for Bowdoin College.  He received the degree of A. M. from that institution in 1873, and also took a post-graduate course in mechanical engineering. After taking his engineering degree, he went to Europe in 1875 to pursue his engineering studies and for the advantages of travel. He traveled extensively on the Continent until 1877 when he returned to America and was for three years interested in the construction and management of open hearth and Bessemer steel works at Springfield, Illinois, and also at St. Louis.

In the fall of 1880 he came to Minnesota and located at Minneapolis, where he engaged in business in the manufacturing and machinery line. Subsequently he went into the real estate and investment business. Mr. Crocker possesses an active mind and is a man of great energy and industry. He takes an active interest in whatever makes for the benefit of the city at large, and has attained a leading position among the enterprising and public-spirited citizens of the city. It was at his suggestion and largely through his efforts that the Business Men’s Union was organized in 1890, of which organization he was the first secretary. In 1893 he took an active part in the reorganization of the Board of Trade and was elected as its president. In January, 1895, the Northwest Business Federation was organized and Mr. Crocker was elected president, representing the Minneapolis Board of Trade, Among other important matters of public interest to which he has given a great deal of attention is the development of deep Waterways and the project of connecting the great lakes with the Atlantic ocean by ship canal.

Mr. Crocker was sent to the Toronto convention as a representative of the Board of Trade in 1894, and was there chosen chairman of the executive committee.  He has made a special study of the subject of deep waterways and inland navigation, and prior to the Cleveland convention of 1895 carried on an active campaign among the representatives of the Northwestern and New England states in Congress, enlisting their interest in the project and pledging them to the support of legislation favorable to the construction and maintenance of deep waterways between the lakes and from the lakes to the Atlantic Coast. The success of the Cleveland convention in 1895 was largely due to his efforts in this respect and in recognition of his services he was continued in the responsible position of chairman of the executive committee. Mr.  Crocker has also taken a deep interest in the cause of good city government and represented the Board of Trade in the municipal reform convention al Philadelphia in 1894, which organized the National Municipal Reform League, and also represented the same body in the national municipal reform convention in Minneapolis in December of the same year. He is a member of the executive committee of the National Municipal League, and a life member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and is a member of the Minneapolis Library Board.

Mr. Crocker is a member of the Presbyterian Church, where the same activity which he manifests in business affairs is enlisted in the cause of religion and good morals. He was married January 3, 1883, to Clara Peabody. They have three children, Ruth, Catharine and Thomas.

JUDSON NEWELL CROSS was born January 16, 1838 at Pogueland, Jefferson County New York. on a farm bought by his grandfather Theodore Cross, in 1818, of Le Ray de Chaumont, the agent of Joseph Bonaparte, whose American estate was in that region. Judson was the son of Rev. Gorham Cross, who was called the father of Congregationalism in Northern New York and of Sophia Murdock (Cross). On his father’s side he is descended from a long line of sturdy New England men the family being readily traceable back to 1640 when the first member, by the name of Cross, settled on the Merrimac river, near Lawrence, Massachusetts. The old Cross homestead still belongs to, and is occupied by a member of the family. Among the members of the Cross family were several Revolutionary soldiers. Judson’s mother belonged to the Murdock family, of Townsend, Vermont. Her grand-fathers were Revolutionary soldiers and among her relatives were John Reed, of Boston, said to have been the greatest lawyer that America produced before the Revolutionary war, and Rev.  Hollis Reed, of Townsend, Vermont, who was the first missionary to India, first translated the bible into the Indian language, and who wrote “India and Its People,” “God in History,” etc. 

In 1855, January 16, the day he was seventeen years old, Judson left home for Oberlin, Ohio.  He remained at Oberlin College till the fall of that year, when, on account of limited means, he went to Boonville, New York, to work in a store for his uncle. In the fall of 1856 he taught school near Sandusky, Ohio, re-turning to Oberlin the following spring to continue his studies, and pursued this course of studying in the summer at Oberlin and teaching in the winter at various places until he enlisted as a soldier in April, 1861.

When the news of the fall of Fort Sumter came, Professor and State Senator Munroe went from Columbus to Oberlin to enlist a company. A large church was crowded Saturday night, April 20, 1861, and at the end of an inspiring speech. Prof. Munroe called for volunteers. Young Cross tried to get to the pulpit first, but the crowd in the aisle was so great that he was forced to be second on the roll. Company C of the Seventh Ohio Infantry was immediately filled, and Cross was made first lieutenant. The regiment went with McClellan into West Virginia and Cross served through the West Virginia campaign of 1861 under McClellan, Rosencranz, Cox and Tyler. At the battle of Cross Lanes August 26, 1861 he was severely wounded in the arm. He was taken prisoner, but was recaptured and sent home for surgical treatment. He was promoted to the rank of Captain of Company K. Seventh Ohio Infantry, November 25, 1861, served as a recruiting officer for a time, and rejoined his old regiment in January, 1863, but on account of his old wound was obliged to resign. He then began the study of law at Albany, where he remained until June 13. 1863, when he was again commissioner first lieutenant in the Fifth V. R. C.. promoted to the rank of captain October 28, 1863, and in April, 1864. was made adjutant general of the military district of Indiana. In July 1864, he was ordered to Washington and appointed assistant provost marshal. He served in the same capacity at Georgetown, was appointed one of the five captains to muster for pay eighteen thousand returned Andersonville prisoners at Annapolis, at which he was occupied until the end of the war.

After the war he resumed his law studies at Columbia law School, graduating at Albany in the spring of 1866.  He then located at Lyons, Iowa, where be practiced law for nearly ten years. In 1873 he came to Minneapolis and formed a law partnership with Judge Henry G. Hicks, to which firm Frank H. Carleton was afterwards admitted, and still later his son, Norton M. Cross. He has been connected with much important anticipation, both for private individuals and corporations. In 1879 he urged in the local press the construction of the “Soo” railroad, an idea which was afterwards carried out by General Washburn. While City Attorney of Minneapolis in 1884 he framed the patrol limits ordinance and defended the same before the supreme court. He also inaugurated the litigation which resulted in the lowering of the railroad tracks on fourth avenue North. Mr.  Cross has always been a Republican. He was elected mayor of Lyons, Iowa, in 1871, and in 1883 city attorney of Minneapolis, and held the office until 1887. He was a member of the first park commission of Minneapolis, and in 1891 was appointed United States Immigration Commissioner to Europe. Captain Cross is a member of the George N. Morgan Post, G. A. R., of the Loyal Legion, the Loyal League, Commercial Club and of Plymouth Congregational church.  He was married at Oberlin, Ohio, September 11, 1862, to Clara Steele Norton, of Pontiac, Michigan, a descendant of John Steele, first official of Connecticut. They have four children living, Kate Bird, wife of United States Engineer Francis C. Shenehon, at Sault Ste. Marie; Norton Murdock, Nellie Malura, wife of Theodore MacFarlane Knappen, and Clara Amelia.

ANSON BAILEY CUTTS General Ticket and Passenger Agent of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad, is a Southern man by birth, his father Addison. D. Cutts, being a physician by profession, a graduate of the University of Virginia, and Wake Forest college, North Carolina. He gave up the practice of medicine, however, soon after graduation, to engage in commercial pursuits. He was engaged chiefly in the manufacture of naval stores in North Carolina and Georgia. On the outbreak of the civil war he entered the Confederate Army and served three years, attaining the rank of senior captain. His wife was Deborah A. Bailey. The family is of Scotch-American stock.

The subject of this sketch was born at Lillington, N. C, October 23, 1866. His early education was under the direction of a competent governess whose unusual and peculiar capability for developing the mind and character of children left a deep impression upon her pupil.  Afterwards he attended the academy in Savannah, where he prepared for the Middle Georgia military college at Milledgeville. He left college, however, at the end of his sophomore year to accompany his family to Chicago, where business changes required his father to locate. Anson was a brilliant student and maintained a high standing in all his classes, and during his two years in college he held the first place.

His first business engagement was in the capacity of messenger in the large printing and publishing house of Rand, McNally & Co., in Chicago, where he was employed from June I to September 1, 1883. He then entered the service of the Chicago & Alton railroad as a clerk in the auditor’s office. He remained in that office in different positions until December 12, 1887, when an offer from the auditor of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railway, in St. Paul, induced him to remove to that city. He remained in the employ of that company until September 1, 1890, when a better position was offered him as chief rate clerk in the passenger department of the Great Northern Railway. He continued in that position until March 4, 1892, when he resigned to accept the offer of the chief clerkship in the general ticket and passenger department of the Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad in Minneapolis. January I, 1894, the general ticket and passenger agent of that road resigned, and Mr. Cutts was appointed to fill the vacancy with the title of acting general ticket and passenger agent, and has since been given the full title of his office. Mr. Cutts has been given responsibilities beyond what are usually imposed upon men of his years, but he has demonstrated the possession of unusual business capacity and has won the confidence of his employers and the respect of the business public for his abilities in an unusual degree.

His political opinions may be said to be inherited. Born in the South, and a son of a Confederate soldier, he regards himself as a Democrat, but has never taken any active part in politics. He always votes, as every good citizen should, and, also, as good citizens frequently do, casts his vote independently, with a preference rather for the man than the ticket.  He became a member of the Presbyterian church in 1886. June 5, 1895, he married Edna Browning Stokes, of Grand Forks, N. D.

COURTLAND NAY DICKEY clerk of the district court of the Fourth Judicial District, for Hennepin County, was born January 1, 1855, in Jefferson County, Indiana. His father and grandfather, who lived for many years in the Hoosier state, trace their ancestry back to an ancient family in the north of Ireland, a branch of which established itself in this country almost a hundred years ago.  These first Dickeys settled in New Jersey, and after some years went to North Carolina. Mr.  Dickey’s paternal grandfather married, in 1808, Miss Elizabeth Stark, a near relative of the hero of the battle of Bennington, and located with his wife in what was afterwards Scott Comity, Indiana, but then a wild frontier country. The elder Dickey assisted in the organization of Scott County, and here his son, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born. This son became a lawyer, but before he was twenty-four years of age was elected county auditor. Locating in Jefferson County, he served as postmaster for nine years, and then became successively deputy auditor and recorder. He was serving his second term in the latter office at the time of his death in 1874.

Mr.  Dickey was the fourth of a family of five children.  The first ten years of his life were passed on his father’s farm. When the family moved to the town of Madison, in Jefferson County, he began to go to school, and to cultivate what he was not long in finding out was a decided taste for music.  This musical talent helped him to earn his first dollar. In 1878, at the age of twenty-two, he went to California on account of ill health, remaining in that state until 1883, when he came to Minneapolis, which city has since been his home. Mr.  Dickey’s first employment after coming to Minneapolis was as a copyist in the office of the clerk of the district court, a position which he secured in competitive examination with eighty-four other applicants. During the terms of E. J. Davenport and Captain Terrell he was deputy clerk, and in 1882 he was elected clerk. In 1896 he was reelected.  In the year 1901, when his second term will end, Mr. Dickey will have been in the clerk’s office of Hennepin County in one capacity or other for eighteen years. He is one of the most efficient men who ever filled the office of clerk of the district Court in the state, All of his political honors have been received at the hands of the Republican party and to this party he has always belonged.  The earlier members of the family were Whigs or Republicans without an exception. He is a Royal Arch Mason, a member of the B. P.O. E., and of the Improved Order of Red Men. His family is identified with the Universalist church, but he belongs to no religious organization.

WILLIS EDWARD DODGE is of English descent, his ancestors having come over to this country from England in 1670. Three brothers came together, and their descendants took an active part in the Revolution, in which they were known as “the Manchester men.” Andrew Jackson Dodge, grandfather of Willis Edward, settled in Montpelier, Vermont, in 1812.

The subject of this sketch was born at Lowell, Vermont May 11, 1857, the son of William Baxter Dodge and Harriett Baldwin (Dodge). William B. Dodge was a farmer in ordinary circumstances. Willis Edward began his education in the public schools of Vermont, and continued it in St.  Johnsbury Academy, where he took the classical course preparatory for Dartmouth College. He did not, however, take a college course, but began the study of law with Hon. W. W. Grout, a member of congress from the Second Vermont district, and also read law with Hon. F. W. Baldwin, of Barton, Vermont, in 1879 and 1880. He was admitted to the Orleans County, Vermont bar in September, 1880.

In October of that year he came West in search of better opportunities for a young man of his ambitions and capacity, and settled at Fargo, North Dakota. Subsequently he removed to Jamestown, North Dakota, where he was appointed attorney for the Northern Pacific Railroad, and held that office until July, 1887.  He was then appointed attorney for the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway Company for Dakota, and returned to Fargo, where he lived until August, 1892.

At that time he removed to Minneapolis, where he continued to act as attorney for the Great Northern Railway Company, formerly the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway Company. He is also at the present time attorney for the Minneapolis Trust Company, and other corporations. He has made a specialty of corporation law, and has obtained distinction in that department of legal practice.  Mr. Dodge has always been a Republican, and while a resident of Dakota was made a member of the state senate in 1886 and 1887. During his residence in Jamestown he served that city as its corporation counsel for eight years. He is a member of the Knights of the Red Cross and the Minneapolis Club. He claims no church membership.

On March 27, 1882. he married Hattie M. Crist of Vinton, Iowa. They have two children.  Dora Mae, age twelve, and William E., age ten.

 

FREDERICK A. DUNSMOOR is an eminent physician, surgeon and gynecologist practicing his profession at Minneapolis. Dr. Dunsmoor is a native of Minnesota, and was born May 28, 1853, at Richfield, in Hennepin County, the son of James A. and Almira Mosher Dunsmoor. His parents were natives of Maine, and came to Hennepin County, Minnesota, in 1852. Frederick Alanson received his education in the public schools of Richfield, Minneapolis and at the University of Minnesota.  His professional training began in the office of Doctors Goodrich and Kimball, of Minneapolis, and was continued in the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York city, where he received the degree of M. D. in March, 1875. He also received private instruction from Doctors Frank H. Hamilton, Alfred G. Loomis, Austin Flint, Sr., E. G.  Janeway and R. Ogden Doremus. He began his practice at Minneapolis in partnership with Dr.  H. H. Kimball, and was associated with him one year. Dr. Dunsmoor has been active in hospital work, having assisted in the establishment of the Minnesota College Hospital in 1881, and serving as vice president and dean of the medical college, professor of surgery and attending surgeon to the hospital and dispensary for eight years. In 1889 the Hospital College, in conjunction with other schools of medicine in St. Paul and Minneapolis, was reorganized in the medical department of the University of Minnesota.

Dr.  Dunsmoor served as professor of surgery in the St. Paul medical college in 1877 and till 1879, in the medical department of Hamline University 1879 to 1881, Minneapolis Hospital College from 1881 to 1888, and in the medical department of the University since its organization. He was county physician for Hennepin County during 1879. He was also active in organizing Asbury Methodist Hospital, which was opened September 1, 1892, and which became the chief clinical field for the medical department of the University and of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Minneapolis. Dr. Dunsmoor has also been in active service as surgeon to St. Mary’s Hospital since 1890, to St. Barnabas Hospital since 1879, gynecologist to the City Hospital since 1894, to the Asbury Hospital since 1892, to the State Free Dispensary since 1889, and to the Asbury Free Dispensary since 1889. He has devoted his attention to surgery and gynecology, operating every morning, and enjoys a wide reputation as a skillful and successful operator.  For many years his services have been in demand by the railway, milling, accident and insurance companies.

Dr. Dunsmoor is a member of a number of professional and scientific societies, among them the International Medical Congress, the North Dakota State Medical Society, The American Medical Association, the National Association of Railway Surgeons, the Minnesota Academy of Medicine, the Minnesota State Medical Association, the Hennepin County Medical Society and the Society of Physicians and Surgeons of Minneapolis. His membership in social and beneficiary societies includes the Nu Sigma Nu Society, the Masonic order, the Good Templars, the Druids, the Minneapolis Club and the Commercial and Athletic Club of the latter two he was a charter member. He is also an active member of the Hennepin Avenue Methodist church, where he has served for years in an official capacity. He is a diligent student of the science of medicine and surgery, and spends a portion of each winter in medical study in some of the great scientific centers, and enjoys the acquaintance of and professional association with the most famous surgeons in the country.

He is a contributor to different medical and surgical journals, and is recognized as authority in his particular branch of the practice. He is a man of genial manners and happy temperament, and an enthusiastic patron of music and the fine arts.  Dr. Dunsmoor was married September 5, 1876, to Miss Elizabeth Emma Billings, daughter of the late Surgeon George E. Turner, U. S. A.  They have three children living, Marjorie Allport, Elizabeth Turner and Frederick Laton.

WILLIAM HOOD DUNWOODY, who has long been identified with the flour milling interests of Minneapolis, is a native of Pennsylvania. He was born in Chester County, on March 14, 1841. His father was James Dunwoody, whose father, grandfather and great grandfather lived in the same vicinity in Chester County and were all engaged in agricultural pursuits. The family is of Scotch ancestry. Mr. Dunwoody’s mother was Hannah Hood, the daughter of William Hood, of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, whose ancestors came to this country when William Penn founded the colony which took his name.

Mr. Dunwoody’s early life was passed upon the farm where he was born. After a period of schooling in Philadelphia, he at the age of eighteen, entered his uncle’s store in Philadelphia, and commenced what proved to be the business of his life. His uncle was a grain and flour merchant. After a few years Mr. Dunwoody commenced business for himself as a senior member of the firm of Dunwoody & Robertson. After ten years of practical experience in Philadelphia flour markets, Mr. Dunwoody came to Minneapolis in 1869, and, for a time, represented several eastern houses as flour buyer. Milling at Minneapolis was then in a state of transition. It was the time when the old fashioned mill stones were giving place to the modern steel rollers and the middlings purifier. 

With keen perception Mr. Dunwoody saw that a great advance in the milling business was at hand, and in 1871 he embarked in milling as a member of the firm of Tiffany, Dunwoody & Co. He was also a member of the firm of H.  Darrow & Co., and the business of both concerns was under his personal management.  Early in his career as a Minneapolis miller Mr.  Dunwoody distinguished himself among his associates by devising and organizing the Minneapolis Millers” Association, which was for a long time a most important organization, its object being co-operation in the purchase of wheat throughout the northwest country. It had an important part in the building up of the Minneapolis milling business. Its work was discontinued when the general establishment of elevators and the development of the Minneapolis wheat market made it no longer necessary for the millers to work in co-operation in buying their wheat.

Another important work which Mr. Dunwoody early attempted was that of arranging for the direct exportation of flour. It had been the custom to sell through brokers and middle men of the Atlantic sea ports. In 1877 Mr. Dunwoody went to England and, though he met with a most determined opposition, succeeded in arranging for the direct export of flour from Minneapolis, a custom which has since continued without interruption.  Shortly after the great mill explosion of 1878 Governor C. C. Washburn induced Mr. Dunwoody to join him in a milling partnership with the late John Crosby, and Charles J. Martin.  The firm thus formed, Washburn, Crosby & Co., continued for many years and was succeeded by the Washburn, Crosby Co., a few years since. Since Mr. Dunwoody’s connection with the Washburn mills in 1871) he has been unintermittedly identified with the conduct of this famous group of mills. It was natural that Mr. Dunwoody, as a prominent miller, should take a large interest in the management of elevators.  He has invested largely in elevator properties, and was one of the organizers of the St. Anthony & Dakota Elevator Company, the St. Anthony Elevator Company, and the Duluth Elevator Company. In addition to these interests, Mr. Dunwoody holds other important interests, and is connected with a number of the strongest financial institutions of Minneapolis.  He is a director of the Northwestern National Bank and also of the Minneapolis Trust Company. Before coming to Minneapolis, Mr. Dunwoody married Miss Kate L. Patten, the daughter of John W. Patten, a prominent merchant of Philadelphia. Their home is a handsome dwelling on Tenth Street at the corner of Mary Place. Mr. Dunwoody’s refined tastes have been gratified in late years by extensive travel.

 

 

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