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

Minneapolis Journal 1897

JOEL PRESCOTT HEATWOLE is the Representative in Congress of the Third Congressional District. He is of German descent, his great-grandfather, on his father’s side, Mathias Heatwole, having come to this country September 15, 1748. He settled in Pennsylvania. His son, David Heatwole, grandfather of Joel, emigrated to Virginia, where Henry Heatwole, Joel’s father, was born, the youngest of eleven children. In 1835 Henry Heatwole moved to Ohio, where he married Barbara Kolb. Henry Heatwole was born in 1813. He studied medicine and built up a successful practice. He became active in politics, and was a captain in the state militia. Subsequently he joined a religious denomination called the New Mennonites, closely allied to the orthodox Quakers. He then renounced politics, conscientiously obeying the teachings of the church. He died in 1888. Barbara Kolb was descended from George Kloebber, born in Germany. He came to this country when a boy, and his daughter, Elizabeth, married Henry Kolb, grandfather of the subject of this sketch. The Kloebbers and Kolbs were enlisted on the Colonial side in the Revolutionary War.

Mr. Heatwole’s mother is still living at Goshen, Indiana. Joel Prescott was born at Waterford, Elkhart County, Indiana, August 22, 1856. His education was received in public and private schools. Before the age of seventeen he became a teacher in the district schools of Northern Indiana, and in 1876 was elected principal of the graded schools at Millersburg. He had already learned the printer’s trade, and in August, 1876, began publishing his first newspaper, the Millersburg Enterprise, and for two years he conducted the Millersburg graded schools and at the same time published the Enterprise as a weekly newspaper. He then decided to discontinue his work as teacher, and moved to Middlebury, where he established a printing office and began the publication of a weekly paper called the Record. This paper was conducted successfully for three years, when in 1881 he sold it and removed to Goshen, Indiana. There he became a part owner of the Times, and was engaged in newspaper work until 1882.

He then sold out, and in August, of the same year, came to Minnesota, settling first at Glencoe, where he purchased a half interest in the Enterprise, which he edited until the next July. He then sold his interest and went to Duluth and was employed on the Lake Superior News. In November, 1883, he returned to Glencoe and resumed charge of the Enterprise until April, 1884, when he bought the Northfield News, with which he also consolidated the Northfield Journal. He has built up this paper to one of the finest weekly newspaper properties in the state. He is prominent among the editors of Minnesota, having been elected first vice-president of the State Editorial Association in 1886, and president in 1887, 1888 and 1889.

He has always been a Republican and has taken an active part in politics. He was made a member of the Republican State Central Committee, and secretary of that body in 1886, which position he held until 1800. In 1888 Mr. Heatwole was unanimously elected a delegate-at-large to the Republican National Convention. In 1890 he was elected chairman of the State Central Committee and conducted the second campaign in which Mr. Merriam was a candidate for re-election as governor. Mr. Heatwole was made regent of the State University in December, 1891. He was nominated for Congress from the Third District in 1892, and, although defeated, succeeded in reducing his opponent’s plurality nearly forty-three hundred. He then ran for mayor of Northfield and was elected by a vote of nearly three to one. In 1894 he was renominated for Congress and was elected by a plurality of 5,268, and upon the organization of Congress was given a place on the Foreign Affairs committee of the House. Mr. Heatwole is a member of the Minnesota Club, of St. Paul, and a gentleman of genial manners and dignified bearing. He was married December 4, 1890, to Mrs. Gertrude L. Archibald, of Northfield, Minn.

WILLIAM WIRT PENDERGAST, superintendent of public instruction of the state of Minnesota, comes from a long line of New England ancestry, the first of whom, Stephen Pendergast, the great great grandfather of the subject of this sketch, came from Wexford, Ireland, in 1713, and settled at Durham, New Hampshire. He built a garrison house at Packer’s Falls, where his son Edmond, his grandson Edmond, his great grandson Solomon and the subject of this sketch were all born. Stephen Pendergast’s wife was Jane Cotton, a relative of John Cotton. Edmond Pendergast, grandfather of William Wirt Pendergast, served in the Revolutionary War and was at the capture of Burgoyne.

Mr. Pendergast was born January 31, 1833, the son of Solomon Pendergast and Lydia (Wiggin) Pendergast. His father was a farmer who had a large family and was in rather straightened circumstances. He was, however, a man of education, having fitted for Dartmouth College at Hampton Academy.

The subject of this sketch attended district school, Durham Academy, Phillips Exeter Academy, and entered Bowdoin College Brunswick, Maine, in 1850. He was a classmate of ex-Senator W. D Washburn. Within the last two years he has received the degree of A. M. from his alma mater. Mr. Pendergast was obliged to pay his own way through college, and during this time taught school more or less, at the same time carrying his studies and keeping up with his class. His salary for the first term of school was $15 a month. After leaving college he taught in graded schools in Amesbury and Essex, Massachusetts, and gained the reputation of being a very successful teacher.

In 1856 he came to Minnesota and took up a homestead at Hutchinson, Mc Leod County. The following year he taught the first public school opened at Hutchinson. For twenty years he was identified with the Hutchinson schools as principal, and was superintendent of schools for McLeod County for eight years. In 1862 he, with eight other men from Hutchinson, were at Fort Snelling to enlist in the army when news was received of the Sioux outbreak. They all returned immediately to defend their homes against the Indians. Mr. Pendergast was placed in command of a squad of home guards and constructed a fort which was just completed when an attack was made. About three hundred Indians surrounded the village, half of which, including Mr. Pendergast’s house and an academy building which he had just built, were burned. The three hundred Indians, however, were driven back by the eighty home guards, and the settlers were protected from their assaults. Mr. Pendergast sent his family to Essex, Massachusetts, and continued in the service as a member of the home guards. When discharged he followed his family to Massachusetts and remained three years, as superintendent of the Salisbury Mills High School.

Returning again to Hutchinson he resumed his work in the schools of Hutchinson and McLeod County. In 1881 he was appointed assistant superintendent of public instruction with Superintendent D. L. Kiehle. He held that position for seven years, when he was made principal of the school of agriculture at the experiment station, a department of the state university. He held this position until September 1, 1893, when he was appointed state superintendent of public instruction. His work in connection with the schools of Minnesota has been crowned with great success. He is a man of broad sympathies, of wide reading and sound judgment. He is thoroughly devoted to the interests of public education and profoundly interested in all that stands for the intellectual development of the masses from the little red school house to the State university.

Professor Pendergast is a Republican, and has been since the party was organized, but he has never been a partisan in politics as that would often be inconsistent with his school work to which he is thoroughly devoted. He is a member of the Masonic order and was the first W. M. of Temple No. 49 in Hutchinson, in 1866. August 9, 1857, he married Abbie L. Cogswell, of Essex, Massachusetts and has had nine children, seven of whom are living, Elizabeth C, Edmond K., Mary A., Perley P., Sophie M., Warren W. and Ellen M.

SAMUEL GEORGE PETERSON the proprietor and editor of the Glencoe Register, one of the oldest papers in the state of Minnesota. Mr. Peterson is a native of Denmark. His father was George Peterson, who for over twenty years was a builder and contractor in the city of Chicago. He died November 19, 1892.

His son, who was born on July 3, 1866, came to America with his grandfather, Soren Peterson, who settled in Renville County, Minnesota, in the spring of 1871. The boy was brought up on the farm with his grandparents and attended the country schools during the winter until he was fourteen years of age. He then attended the Hutchinson High School for several years, leaving school at the age of seventeen, he learned the printer’s trade. For three years he worked at the case, and while in the printing office acquired a fair knowledge of the business. When twenty years old he left the printing business for a time and engaged in the dry goods business, continuing in this line for six years. Like most men who have had a taste of newspaper work, Mr. Peterson found his way back to it after a time.

A few years ago he obtained control of the Hutchinson Independent. After a short term as manager of the Independent he founded the Lester Prairie Journal, and he now owns and edits the Glencoe Register. Mr. Peterson has always been an active Republican. Since engaging in the newspaper work he has taken a prominent part in the politics in his vicinity and has become an influential factor in the workings of his party. He is a member of the Masonic order, of the Knights of Pythias, of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of the encampment and of the E. A. U. He is an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Glencoe, and takes great interest in the affairs of the Sunday School and the Epworth League. On September 2, 1890, Mr. Peterson was married to Miss Christina S. Christensen, of Hutchinson. They have two children, Maude, aged four, and Harold, aged two years.

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