Trails-to-the-Past-Minnesota-St.Louis-Biographies-Progressive-Men

Minneapolis Journal 1897

ANDREW H. BURKE The subject of this sketch is in the truest sense of the word a self-made man. Born in New York City, May 15, 1850, of humble parentage, he was left by the death of both father and mother at the age of four years a homeless and friendless child in a great city. That beneficent institution which has done so much for unfortunate childhood, the Children’s Aid Society, took him in charge, and at the age of eight years he was sent West, where a home had been found for him with a farmer who lived near Noblesville, in Indiana. Here he lived and developed into a promising lad of exemplary habits until he reached the age of twelve years. In 1862 he ran away to enlist in the service of his country as a drummer boy in the Seventy-fifth Indiana volunteers. After serving in the war he returned home to take advantage of such educational facilities as he was able to procure, with the money he had saved from his pay as drummer, he was enrolled as a student at Asbury, now De Pauw University, at Greencastle, Indiana. From lack of means, however, he was unable to pursue his studies there as long as he desired, and was obliged, therefore, to lay aside his books and seek employment in business channels. Among his important business engagements was that of business manager of the Evansville, Indiana, Courier. Subsequently he removed to Cleveland, where he was employed in the service of a commercial agency.

In 1877 he came to Minneapolis and was for two years employed as a bookkeeper by N. B. Harwood & Co., wholesale dry goods merchants. He was a fellow employee with S. E. Olson, now one of the prominent department store merchants of Minneapolis, and formed a close personal friendship with that gentleman which has continued ever since. Later he was employed by a lumber firm at New York Mills. In 1880 he removed to Casselton, North Dakota, where he was for a time engaged in commercial business, and subsequently became cashier of the First National Bank at that point. While holding this position he was elected treasurer of Cass County, and was twice re-elected and resided at Fargo, the county seat, during his six years incumbency of said office. In 1890 he was nominated by the Republicans for governor of North Dakota and elected, being the second officer of that rank in the new state. His administration was a very successful one, highly creditable to himself and advantageous to the state.

Upon the expiration of his term as governor he removed to Duluth, where he now resides, and is engaged in the grain commission business. In this he has been highly successful, his honorable record both public and private in North Dakota having served to bring him business in his chosen line in larger volume than he would otherwise have enjoyed. Governor Burke, as he is still known, is a gentleman of high character, genial manners, and creditable literary attainments, and is held in great esteem by the people of North Dakota and Minnesota, who admire him for his sterling qualities and his native ability, and the distinguished success which he has achieved in spite of the adverse circumstances of his youth. He was married in Minneapolis in 1880 to Miss Carrie Cleveland, who was then a teacher in the public schools of that city. He has two daughters, who are twins, born in October, 1885. Governor Burke is a thirty-third degree Mason, and, although not a member, is a liberal supporter of the Episcopal church, to which his wife and daughters belong.

JOSEPH B. COTTON One of the best known and most prominent of the younger lawyers of Minnesota is Joseph B. Cotton, of Duluth. Mr. Cotton is a native of Indiana. His father, Dr. John Cotton, was a graduate of Rush Medical College, of Chicago, and was a relative of the distinguished Rev. Dr. Phillips Brooks. His mother’s maiden name was Elizabeth J. Riddle and, like Dr. Cotton, she was a native of Ohio.

Mr. Cotton was born on a farm near Albion, Noble County, Indiana, on January 6, 1865. He worked on the farm until he was sixteen years of age and since then has made his own way in the world. His early education was obtained in the schools of the district in which he was brought up. A high school course at Albion followed and afterwards a four years’ collegiate course in the Michigan Agricultural and Mechanical College at Lansing. He graduated from college in 1886 with the degree of B. S. For the next two years he was tutor in mathematics at his alma mater, at the same time studying law under Hon. Edwin Willits, then president of the institution, and formerly a member of congress from Michigan.

On June 13, 1888, Mr. Cotton was admitted to the bar before the supreme court of Michigan. He almost immediately came to Duluth and commenced practice. He at once plunged into political life, taking active part in the Harrison campaign which was then on. Four years later he was nominated by acclamation by the Republicans of St. Louis, Lake and Cook counties for the office of representative in the state legislature, and in the succeeding election received the largest vote cast for any candidate for representative from the district. In the house he introduced and was mainly instrumental in passing a bill for a third judge for the Eleventh Judicial district. This measure was one of the reasons for his entering the legislature. He took an active part in the fight for a new capitol, and helped secure the passage of the bill. He was also very active in the proposed terminal elevator legislation and was largely instrumental in the defeat of the bill. His committee service was on the judiciary, grain and warehouse, municipal corporation, and tax laws committees. As an ardent supporter of Senator C. K. Davis he made an eloquent speech nominating the Senator for re-election, which added much to his local reputation as an orator. In college Mr. Cotton was orator of his class in both junior and senior years, and was one of the eight commencement orators chosen by the faculty from the graduating class for high rank and scholarship.

Since 1891 Mr. Cotton has been a member of the law firm of Cotton & Dibell, recently changed to Cotton, Dibell & Reynolds. Since leaving the legislature he has been the attorney for the Duluth, Missabe & Northern Railway Company and the Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mine, and in addition to these positions is now the vice president and managing owner of the Bessemer Steamship Company and vice president of several mining companies operating on the Missabe Range. For something over three years he has devoted himself exclusively to corporation law. Mr. Cotton was one of the counsel for the defendant in the McKinley suit in the United States Circuit Court against the Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines, involving the McKinley mine on the Missabe range,, and was one of the counsel for the defense in the famous Merritt vs. Rockefeller litigation, now pending in the United States courts and growing out of mining transactions on the Missabe and Gogebic ranges, immediately preceding and during the panic of 1893. He has been of counsel during the last two years in other important litigation in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

CHARLES d'AUTREMONT, JR. The story of the origin of Charles d’Autremont, Jr., of Duluth, has all such elements of romance and tragedy as are expected in the lives of descendants of participants in the affairs of Prance at the time of the revolution. Duluth is indebted to the Reign of Terror for one of her most prominent citizens. Mr. d’Autremont’s great grandmother was Mme. Marie Jeane d’Ohet d’Autremont. She was the widow of Hubert d’Autremont, and with her three sons, Louis Paul, Alexander Hubert and Auguste Francois Cecile, escaped from France in 1702, and settled on a tract of land previously acquired on the Chenango River, in the state of New York. They had been there but a short time when they removed to a colony called Asylum, established by French Royalists in Pennsylvania, on the Susquehanna river, near the present town of Towanda. A few years later the oldest son, Louis, returned to France with Talleyrand in the capacity of secretary to that great statesman, he afterwards visited England and Portugal as a representative of the French government. When Napoleon in 1800 granted amnesty to the emigrants who left France during the “Reign of Terror.” the colony of Asylum was abandoned, nearly all its inhabitants returning to France. But Mme. d’Autremont with her two remaining sons, went back to the Chenango, where they remained until 1806, when, having purchased a tract of land on the Genesee river, they moved to Angelica, New York, where many of their descendants have since lived.

The subject of this sketch was descended from Alexander d’Autremont, whose son Charles retired from business at an early age and continued to reside at Angelica until his death in 1891. Mr. d’Autremont’s mother was a daughter of Judge John Collins, of Angelica. Judge Collins was a native of Connecticut. His wife was Ann Gregory, an English woman. He was a lieutenant in the army in the war of 1812. After the close of the war he, with others, purchased a large tract of land in Allegheny County and moved there, to practice his profession, and dispose of his land. Charles d’Autremont, Jr., was born at Angelica, on June 2, 1851.

He commenced his education at Angelica Academy, and in 1868 entered the freshman class at Cornell University. On account of ill health he left college at the end of his junior year and went to Lausanne, Switzerland, and entered the Academy there. Upon his return to America in 1872 he commenced the study of law in the office of his uncle. Judge John G. Collins, at Angelica. After reading with Judge Collins for a year Mr. d’Autremont Avent to New York and entered Columbia Law School, from which he graduated in the spring of 1875. After a summer in Europe he entered the law office of Hart & McGuire, at Elmira, New York. Two years later he opened an office of his own. In 1879 he again visited Europe. The fall of 1882 found Mr. d’Autremont a resident of Duluth. It came about by chance. On his way east from a hunting trip on the Little Missouri, Mr. d’Autremont happened to miss the steamer at Duluth, and was compelled to wait over several days. This delay afforded an opportunity of meeting the people of the town, and he was so pleased with them, and so favorably impressed with the place that, immediately upon reaching home, he packed up his belongings and returned with his family to Duluth.

In politics Mr. d’Autremont has been steadfastly and consistently a Democrat. While at Elmira he was a member of the Board of Supervisors of Chemung County. In 1881 he was elected county attorney of St. Louis County, Minnesota. Four years after he was the Democratic nominee for attorney general of Minnesota, but was defeated with the rest of the ticket. He was elected mayor of Duluth in 1892, and in 1896 was a democratic presidential elector for Minnesota. He participated actively in the Greeley campaign of 1872, the Tilden campaign of 1876 and the Hancock campaign of 1880, and was president of Tilden and Hancock clubs at Elmira. In the Hancock campaign he spoke in both New York and Pennsylvania, and since coming to Minnesota has been in demand as a political speaker.

On April 21, 1880, Mr. d’Autremont and Miss Hattie H. Hart were married at Elmira, where Mrs. d’Autremont’s father, E. P. Hart, was a long distinguished member of the bar. They have five children, Antoinette, Louis Paul, Charles Maurice, Hubert Hart and Marie Genevieve. Mr. d’Autremont is a charter member of the Kitchi Gammi Club, of Duluth, and belongs to St. Omar’s Commandery at Elmira, and a member of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity.

CHARLES HINMAN GRAVES The subject of this sketch is a resident of Duluth, where he has figured very prominently in the development of that growing city for over a quarter of a century. His father, H. A. Graves, was a Baptist clergyman, editor of the Christian Watchman and Reflector, of Boston. His mother’s maiden name was Mary Hinman, a daughter of Scoville Hinman of New Haven, Connecticut. On both sides of the family he is descended from old New England stock; the Graves ancestors came over from England in 1645, and Royal Hinman was an early governor of Connecticut.

Charles Hinman Graves was born at Springfield, Massachusetts, August 14, 1839. He attended the common schools of Springfield and Litchfield Academy. In July, 1861, he enlisted in the Union Army and was engaged in all the battles of the Army of the Potomac and Army of the James, including the first battle of Bull Run, Williamsburg, Fair Oaks, Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Brandy Station, .Mine Run, Second Bull Run, Chantilly, Gettysburg (where he was severely wounded,) Deep Bottom, Petersburg. Fort Fisher (where he was promoted to the rank of major and assistant adjutant general United States Volunteers for gallantry in the assault) and Wilmington. Colonel Graves enlisted as a private soldier. became corporal, sergeant, second lieutenant, first lieutenant and captain of the Fortieth New York Volunteers; captain and assistant adjutant general, and major and assistant adjutant general United States Volunteers; brevet major, lieutenant colonel and colonel of Volunteers; first lieutenant and captain United States Regular Infantry; brevet major and lieutenant colonel United States Army, and by detail, inspector general of the Department of Dakota, and judge advocate of the Department of Dakota. In 1870 he resigned his position in the army and engaged in the real estate and insurance business in Duluth. Subsequently he went into the wholesale salt and lime business. He then engaged in the grain business as an operator of elevators and built all the large elevators now in Duluth.

In 1893 he returned to his original business of real estate and insurance. He is president of the Graves-Manley Insurance Agency, wrote the first fire insurance policy written in Duluth, and has been actively identified with the development of that city. He has been a director of the St. Paul & Duluth Railroad; stockholder and officer in the Duluth Iron Company, which made the first pig iron that was made in Duluth or in the State of Minnesota; was the first subscriber to and a director of St. Luke’s Hospital, Duluth. He has also been honored by many public offices. Was elected mayor of Duluth for two terms by the Republicans of that city: has been state senator for four years; representative and speaker of the Minnesota house for one term; was leader in the reform of the state treasury management in 1876. He was active in framing and passing the first law establishing a railroad commission in Minnesota, and as a member of the legislature represented the district which at that time comprised all the northeastern portion of the state, consisting of nine counties, a district three hundred miles long by one hundred miles wide.

Mr. Graves was delegate-at-large to the National Republican Convention of 1888, has been a delegate to many state and district conventions in Minnesota, and has been prominent in the Republican Party of the state since 1875. He has represented Duluth in various commercial conventions, and has taken an active part in the movements for the establishment of deep waterways from Duluth to the sea coast which have resulted in great benefit in the northwest. Mr. Graves is past commander of the Willis A. Gorman Post, G. A. R., of Duluth; past senior vice commander of Minnesota Commandery Loyal Legion of the United States; is a member of the Army and Navy Club of Washington, D. C.; of the Minnesota Club of St. Paul, and ex-president of the Kitchi Gammi Club of Duluth. He was married in 1873 to Miss E. Grace Totten, daughter of the late Major General J. G. Totten, chief of engineers of the United States Army. They have no children.

ANAK ALEXANDER HARRIS of Duluth, comes of an old southern family which traces its line back to the Revolutionary War. Mr. Harris’ great grandfather came from England and settled in North Carolina long before the colonies declared war. He was in the Revolutionary army, and was with Washington at Yorktown, when the surrender of Lord Cornwallis terminated that conflict. His son, Mr. Harris’ grandfather, was a soldier in the War of 1812. Henry Washington Harris, Mr. Harris’ father, was born in Kentucky in 1812. He was always a farmer, and although of limited education, was a man of much common sense and always a leader in the community where he lived. He died in Texas at the age of seventy-seven. His wife was Miss Maria Dawson, the daughter of a distinguished Democratic politician of Kentucky of the early times. He was a soldier in the Mexican war, and achieved distinction. Mr. and Mrs. Harris were married in 1836. Their son was born on January 16, 1838, and Mrs. Harris died when he was two years old.

The education obtained by the young scion of this old family was obtained from the old-fashioned common schools of Simpson, Franklin County, Kentucky, where he was “born and raised,” to use the phrase of the people. As he grew to manhood he determined to be a lawyer and entered a law office in Kentucky. But before he was ready to practice the War of the Rebellion broke out, and young Harris enlisted as a Confederate soldier early in 1861. He was in the first battle of Bull Run and many other notable engagements, and in one battle was seriously wounded. As has been the experience of many other ex-Confederates he has found, since the close of the war, that many of his best friends were Union soldiers.

In 1865 Mr. Harris commenced the practice of his profession. In 1871 he moved to Fort Scott, Kansas, and on July 22, 1893 he became a citizen of Duluth. This move was made because after mature consideration he came to the conclusion that Duluth was the most promising young city in the United States. Upon establishing himself in Duluth Mr. Harris at once secured a large practice. Nearly thirty years of law practice had given him a wide experience. He had been connected with many important cases, both civil and criminal. He was retained, and was leading counsel, in the great case of Merritt vs. Rockefeller, growing out of the transactions of the parties to the suit in mining and railroad properties. Mr. Harris was for the plaintiff’, whom in June, 1895, obtained a judgment against the defendant for nine hundred and forty thousand dollars. The argument made by Mr. Harris in this case was, perhaps, the best work of this kind which he has done. He has received much praise and congratulation on the success of the snit and the excellence of his conduct of the case and his argument. Mr. Harris has been, from early manhood, a Democrat, but has never held office.

He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and of the Methodist church. On May 29, 1866, he was married at Lebanon, Tennessee, to Miss Isabella S. Evans. They have two children, Henry Evans Harris, who is now his father’s law partner, and Laurenz R. Harris, an electrician.

ALFRED MERRITT The name of Merritt is identified in the public mind with that development of the iron ore deposits of the state on the Mesaba range, which have caused it to become one of the leading industries of the Northwest. It was Alfred Merritt who had the courage to make the first practical demonstration of the extent of the immense body of ore which lies along what is known as the Mesaba range, and to bring Minnesota into the front rank of the iron producing states of the Union.

Alfred Merritt was the fifth son of Lewis H. and Hepsibath Merritt, born in Chautauqua County, New York, May 16, 1847. The family moved to Oneota, now a part of Duluth, in 1856, where Alfred has since lived and worked. His ancestry on his father’s side is traceable to the Huguenots, Hepsibath Jewett, the mother of the subject of this sketch, was born in Massachusetts, of Puritan stock, and emigrated with her parents while she was a young girl, to Western New York. When the Merritt family landed on the north shore of St. Louis bay in 1856 they were the pioneers in that section, and erected their log cabin amidst the tall pines. There the mother of the family still lives, in her eighty-third year. There Alfred was educated in the first common schools established in Northern Minnesota.

At the age of sixteen Alfred became a sailor. He was rapidly promoted, and before his majority he became master of his own vessel. For many years he followed navigation on the lakes, and was afterwards engaged in the business of a lumberman in company with his brothers and nephews, and in this occupation he was able to gratify his early bent for the adventurous life of an explorer, and one of the results of his untiring and well directed energies was the discovery and development of the Mesaba iron range. It is due to the late Cassius C. Merritt, however, to say that the first discovery of Bessemer ore on the range was made by him who had so long, so bravely and so hopefully dared the dangers and hardships of the trackless wilderness. Although at times embarrassed and in danger of losing their large interests in the iron mines, it must be conceded that it was the genius and pluck of the Merritts which developed the iron industries of the state and placed Minnesota in the front rank as an iron producer. It was their skill and courage that conceived and constructed the Duluth, Missabe & Northern railroad, and it was their capital and brains that constructed the greatest ore docks in the world at Duluth, and assured to that city the transshipment of its cargoes, against the most determined, bitter and powerful opposition. Their work prospered, and in an almost incredibly short space of time the road was so far completed that the products of the mines were distributed over their lines to the waiting furnaces in all parts of the country.

In 1876 Mr. Merritt was married to Miss Elizabeth Sandelands, to whom were born three children, Lewis H. now a student at Hamline college; Thomas since deceased, and Elizabeth, the youngest, whose mother died shortly after her birth, in July, 1882. In 1885 Mr. Merritt was married to Miss Jane A. Gillis, whose four children are Jessie, Alta H., Ernest A. and Glen J. The Merritts have a picturesque home on the hillside overlooking the broad bay and far reaching river surrounded by every comfort and convenience. In politics Mr. Merritt is a Republican, and in religion a Methodist. He is a helpful and sympathizing neighbor, and a loyal counselor and friend.

CHARLES ARNETTE TOWNE Mr. Towne is the representative in Congress of the Sixth District of Minnesota. Until the adoption of the money plank of the platform at St. Louis, June 18, 1896, he was an ardent Republican, cherishing as one of the proudest events in his family history that his father cast his first ballot in 1856 for Fremont and Dayton, the first standard bearers of the Republican party.

Mr. Towne was born November 21, 1858, on a farm in Oakland County, Michigan, the son of Charles Judson Towne and Laura Ann Fargo (Towne) His father was a farmer, whose life was uneventful and devoted to the rearing of his family and the faithful performance of his duties as a citizen. The American line of the Towne family is traced to John William and Joanna Blessing Towne, who landed at Salem, Massachusetts, in 1636. Among their numerous descendants have been Salem Towne, the author of school text books in general use a generation or two ago, and Henry M. and A. N. Towne, both of whom became prominent in the present generation as railroad men. On the mother’s side the ancestry embraced branches of the Mason and Lawrence families, prominent in the Colonial history of this country.

Charles Arnette began his education in the common schools of Michigan, and is a firm believer in the value of influences which that democratic institution exerts in the shaping of motives and sympathies and in the formation of character. He entered the University of Michigan in 1875, but was not able to pursue his studies continuously on account of poor health. He was graduated, however, in June, 1881, from the academic department with the degree of Ph. D. He belonged to no secret college societies. He was elected orator of his class in the senior year, and delivered in that capacity at graduation an address on civil service reform. He also lectured on that subject in the winter of 1880 and 1881 at the university, as part of the lecture course in which ex-Governor Austin Blair, Professor Moses Tyler, Judge T. M. Cooley and Hon. Sherman S. Rogers participated. After graduation Mr. Towne declined several offers of professorships, but accepted an appointment as chief clerk in the department of public instruction at Lansing, Michigan. In that capacity, and in a similar one in the state treasury department, he remained until the fall of 1885. In the meantime he had prosecuted the study of law, and, with a natural aptitude for public speaking, had participated in state and national campaigns, an experience which he began as early as the campaign of 1876. In 1884 he was talked of by the newspapers and politicians as a suitable candidate for congress from the Fifth District of Michigan. He made no effort to secure the nomination, however, regarding himself on account of his youth as not properly equipped for the office. He was then twenty-five.

In April 1885 he was admitted to the bar and began the practice of law at Marquette in March, 1868. In March, 1889, he moved to Chicago, where he continued the practice of law until June, 1890. He was then much impressed with the future of Duluth, and in August of that year located in that city, where he still resides. His professional career has not been long, but it has been a successful one, involving various important litigations. He is a member of the firm of Phelps, Towne & Harris, formed January i. 1895, and composed of H. H. Phelps, L. C. Harris and himself. Mr. Towne never held any office prior to his election to Congress, although at different times solicited to become a candidate. He was elected to Congress in 1894, and his career as a member of that body has been a brilliant one. Mr. Towne has been an ardent advocate of bimetallism, and no speech delivered in the House of Representatives on that side of the money question during the first session of the Fifty-fourth Congress attracted nearly as much attention as his, an effort which at once aroused interest in him as one of the most brilliant orators in the house and among the foremost advocates of the financial views which he holds. Mr. Towne is largely a self-made man, for, while his father, out of the scantiness of his limited resources, and out of his great genius for economy, furnished from the proceeds of his labor a large part of the money necessary to pay college expenses and while some assistance was received from Dr. C. P. Parkin, of Owosso, Michigan, whom Mr. Towne honors in memory as one of the grandest and noblest characters he ever knew, much of the money necessary for the prosecution of his studies was earned by himself as a school teacher and in other ways. Mr. Towne was married April 20, 1887, to Claude Irene Wiley at Lansing, Michigan. They have no children.

CASPER HENRY TRUELSEN Mayor of Duluth, was born October 20, 1844, in Schleswig, Germany. His father was a blacksmith by trade, and died at the age of thirty-seven from the results of a fall into a vat of boiling water. His mother was Magdelena Dienhofif, and for some years previous to her marriage was cook for the household of the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein. After the death of her husband she supported the family, consisting of four children and her father and mother-in-law, by cooking at large gatherings, weddings, balls and similar occasions. In this capacity she was famous all over the dukedom.

As a boy Mr. Truelsen went to the public schools of his native city, and was confirmed in the Lutheran church when fifteen years of age. He made his first money as waiter and shoe boy in a hotel at Schleswig when fourteen years of age. That year he worked mornings and evenings and went to school during the day, receiving twelve dollars a year and board for his services. The next year he was bound as an apprentice to a grocer to serve five years without any compensation except his board. This was a hard experience. He worked from six in the morning till ten at night, on his feet all the time, and with no fire in the store in winter. Little time was given for rest and recreation. After his hard term of apprenticeship was over he obtained a better situation, but in 1866 decided to emigrate. Upon coming to this country he went first to Eagle River, Michigan, where he became bookkeeper for John H. Hansen. Three years later he was attracted by the fame of the young town of Duluth, and thinking that it had a great future before it, he resigned his position, and with his wife and baby took up his residence in the Zenith City. He was married in 1866 to Miss Henriette Hansen at Eagle River.

Duluth, when Mr. Truelsen first saw it, on May 8, 1869, was a mere hamlet. But the act authorizing the construction of the Lake Superior and Mississippi River Railroad had been passed and the future of the place was assured. There being no boarding house in the town Mr. Truelsen was obliged to stop in Superior until he could build on Minnesota Point a small cabin of two rooms. He had neither money, friends nor acquaintance in the place so he took the first job which offered—that of mixing mortar for a plastering firm. During the first summer he mixed mortar diligently. In the fall he went to work on the railroad grade and later in a stone quarry. As he came from a mining country it was supposed that he understood drilling and blasting, and he was given important work, while in fact he had never handled a quarryman’s tools before. He managed to do the work until a premature blast led him to think that some other employment would be safer. A short time after, in June, 1870, he went into partnership with Michael Pastoral and carried on the grocery, and later the general merchandise business for many years. This business was continued until 1885, when he sold out. Meanwhile, in 1880, he had acquired an interest in the Duluth Fish Company, and did a very large business until 1886, when he sold to A. Booth & Son.

Mr. Truelsen has been uniformly successful. About the time that Mr. Truelsen entered business he also entered politics. He was alderman for four terms, was elected sheriff of St. Louis County in 1886 and served as such for one term, was appointed member of the board of public works in 1891, and served as president until 1894. During the latter year the people of Duluth voted to buy the water works plant at what Mr. Truelsen considered an excessive price. He attacked the legality of the election and won in the supreme court. In 1896 he was elected as mayor on the issue of city ownership of water works by building, and triumphed over the Republican candidate by a majority of seven hundred and seventy nine votes, and after one of the hottest campaigns the city had ever seen. In this fight all the dailies in the city were arrayed against him. Mr. Truelsen’s wife died on May 26, 1895. They have had nine children, of whom five are living. These are Magdelena, Henry, Ida, August and Mary.

ALFRED EDGAR WALKER of Duluth, is the son of George Walker, a farmer of London, Ontario, a local magistrate for twenty years, and a leading citizen of his community. His wife’s maiden name was Sarah Anne Morden, whose grandparents were Loyalists, and who, after the Revolutionary War crossed over from Detroit and went up the river Thames settling near Chatham. George Walker was born in England, of Scottish parentage, a son of a west of England manufacturer. He came to Canada early in his teens, and with two elder brothers and two sisters located at what was then called “Muddy York,” now Toronto. His next older brother, Robert, established “The Golden Lion,” a dry goods store which became famous throughout the whole region, and out of which the founder produced an estate of over a million dollars. Robert Walker was also the first secretary and treasurer of the Methodist Society in Canada, and one of the founders of Methodism in the Dominion. A marble statue of him adorns the Carleton Street Methodist Church in Toronto.

Alfred Edgar Walker was born in London township, County of Middlesex, December 3, 1862. He received his education in the neighboring township school and passed from there into the collegiate institute at the age of sixteen. For three years he walked four miles to school, and at the age of nineteen passed his examination for a license as a teacher. He also attended a model training school for teachers, and in a class of thirty-six came out first in a final examination and secured a certificate good for three years. Dr. Walker taught school for four years, 1882 to 1886, in order to earn sufficient funds to enable him to take a course of medicine for which he had a preference. He entered the Western University medical department in 1886, at the age of twenty-three years, and spent three years in that institution, passing with honors each year.

In the fall of 1889 he went to Bellevue, New York, from which place he graduated in 1890, returned home by way of Toronto and passed examination there for member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. When he returned home his father had his location selected for him, but he had determined to come West, and after a two months’ visit at home he started for Duluth. It was while he was in New York that the geographical location of that city had attracted his attention, and he determined to make it his home if the condition of things there appeared altogether favorable. He was especially fortunate in obtaining sufficient professional work almost from the start to make his business profitable. He was able to earn his expenses by the third month and has built up a profitable and thrifty practice. He is more than satisfied with his choice of a location and has been exceedingly successful in his treatment of fevers during the rage of typhoid in that city. Dr. Walker is a member of the American Medical Association, the Minnesota Medical Society, and the St. Louis County Medical Society, and one of the charter members of the Interurban Academy of Medicine for Duluth and Superior; of the Duluth Boat Club, the I. O. O. F. and is a thirty-second degree Mason. He was married August 15, 1895 to Miss Adella Shores, of Ashland, Wisconsin, eldest daughter of E. A. Shores.

JED L. WASHBURN is an attorney of Duluth, Minnesota. His father, Christopher C. Washburn, a retired farmer of Blue Earth County, was one of the pioneers of Southern Minnesota. He was a native of Southern Ohio and settled in Minnesota in 1856. The following year he brought his family over-land from Indiana, the subject of this sketch then being but a few months old. Mr. Washburn’s wife was Miss Julian Showen, a native of Kentucky, and a woman of strong moral and religious convictions. She still lives with her husband at Lake Crystal, Minnesota.

Their son Jed was born in Montgomery County, Indiana, on December 26, 1856. His boyhood was passed amid the exciting scenes of the pioneer life in Minnesota four decades ago. He well remembers the Indian outbreak of 1862, and the final termination of the troubles by the hanging of the leaders of the Sioux at Mankato. He received an academic education, including a limited course in literature and languages, and a good course in mathematics. But his education has been mainly self-acquired. His reading has been as extended as a busy life would permit. After leaving school he taught for a number of years, and at one time, while engaged in studying law was teaching in the public schools of Mankato afterwards he served for a number of years on the Board of Education of that city, and for a considerable time he was its president.

Mr. Washburn studied law with Hon. Martin J. Severance, of Mankato, now Judge of the Sixth district, and was admitted to practice in the spring of 1880. For ten years he lived in Mankato and built up a large practice throughout southern Minnesota. In 1890 Mr. Washburn moved to Duluth, where he has been equally successful in his law practice. At first he practiced alone, but in September, 1895, formed a partnership with Judge Charles L. Lewis, who resigned from the bench to enter this connection. At the same time Lucius E. Judson, Jr., and Wm. D. Bailey who had, for a long time, been employed by Mr. Washburn, were also taken into the firm, the name being Washburn, Lewis & Judson. During Mr. Washburn’s practice he has been engaged in many important trials, and connected, in a professional way. with numerous heavy business and financial transactions. His practice has covered almost the entire field of litigation, but since his removal to Duluth he has endeavored to confine himself as much as possible to corporate and real estate law. He is counsel for many corporations, and his duties have taken him to all parts of the country. He is attorney at Duluth for several railway companies, including the Northern Pacific, Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Railway Company, and Duluth Transfer Railway Company. For the latter company he did the work of its organization and the difficult legal work of getting its lines established in the congested bay front of Duluth. Mr. Washburn has considerable property interest in Duluth and upon the iron ranges, and resides in the suburb of Hunter’s Park, where he has a beautiful home. In politics he has been classed as an independent Democrat, but has rarely taken an active part in the affairs of the party.

In May, 1882, Mr. Washburn was married to Miss Alma J. Pattee, who was a graduate of the State Normal School at Mankato, and who was a teacher for some time in that institution. Mrs. Washburn is a native of Wisconsin, though of New England descendent is a lady of much literary ability and a frequent contributor of papers on topics considered in the numerous associations to which she belongs. Mr. and Mrs. Washburn have five children, two boys and three girls, Claude, Genevieve, Abbott, Mildred and Hope. Mr. Washburn has two Brothers, Rev. Frances M. Washburn pastor of the First Congregational Church at Mankato, and Edward W. Washburn, merchant, at Lake Crystal. His only sister is Mrs. Jennie W. Webster, of Juniata, Nebraska.

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