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

Minneapolis Journal 1897

EDWARD DANFORTH KEYES. Dr. Edward D. Keyes is a practicing physician of Winona, Minnesota. He is a native of this city, but comes of old New England stock. His grandfather, Danforth Keyes, was born in Connecticut. He lived at Ashford, Windom County, and there, on June 20, 1818, John Keyes, the father of Edward, was born. In 1837 John Keyes moved to Clinton, Michigan. While living there, he was married, on November 1, 1846, to Miss Angelina E. Pease, who was born in Wilson, Niagara County, New York, September 25, 1829. When the great excitement in California broke out in 1850 Mr. Keyes joined the gold seekers and went to seek his fortune on the Pacific coast. He returned in 1853 and shortly afterward moved with his family to Winona, in the then new state of Minnesota. Mr. Keyes was a lawyer, and he at once became prominent in his new home. During the twenty-three years in which he lived at Winona, he was identified with the public affairs of the city, and especially took an active part in the establishment and development of the public school system of Winona, and of the state normal school, located at that place. He died on December 2, 1876, at his home in Winona. Mrs. Keyes still lives with her family at Winona. Dr. Keyes was educated in the excellent public schools at Winona.

While attending school, and when only eighteen years old his father died and he was thrown on his own resources. In order to obtain means to pursue his studies he worked in the flour and lumber mills, at the same time devoting his spare hours to his books. He began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. Franklin Staples, at Winona, in 1881. Afterwards he attended three courses of lectures in the Rush Medical College, in Chicago, and was graduated in the class of 1885. Upon graduation he received a prize for examination in ophthalmology. Dr. Keyes, later, took a post-graduate course at Chicago Polyclinic during the autumn of 1890. He began the practice of medicine and surgery in his native city in 1885, and has since continued there. By hard work, good judgment and steady perseverance he has built up a large practice and established a high reputation. Since 1890 Dr. Keyes has been district surgeon for the Chicago & Northwestern railway. He has had a large experience in general and railway surgery, modern, abdominal surgery, and in gynecological operations. He was elected to membership in the board of education in Winona for the term 1893-1897. On May 20, 1896, Dr. Keyes was married to Miss Margaret Hull McNie, who is also a native of Winona. He is a member of the Congregational church.

WILLIAM MITCHELL, associate justice of the Supreme Court of Minnesota, resides at Winona, where he settled in the spring of 1857. He is the son of John and Mary (Henderson) Mitchell and is of Scotch ancestry, both parents having been born in Scotland. He was born November 19, 1832, at Stamford, Ontario. He prepared for college at a private school in his native country and entered Jefferson College, at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1848, where he graduated in 1853. He taught two years in an academy ai Morgantown, West Virginia, after which he read law with Edgar C. Wilson (father of the late Eugene Wilson of Minneapolis) of the same place, and was there admitted to the bar in the spring of 1857.

Almost immediately thereafter he left Virginia for the West and settled in Winona, where he began the practice of law. He was in constant and successful practice until he was elected judge of the third judicial district of this state, and took his seat in January, 1874. He had held other offices, however, prior to that date, having been elected to the legislature for the sessions of 1859 and 1860, and subsequently was county attorney for one term. He was re-elected to the district bench in 1880 but resigned to accept a seat on the supreme bench to which he was appointed by Governor Pillsbury in 1881, when the number of justices was increased from three to five. He has thrice been elected to the supreme court without opposition, and has discharged the duties of that honorable and responsible position with such ability and integrity as to add each year to the esteem and respect in which he is held by the people of the state. He is a gentleman of thorough literary culture, as well as profound legal learning, a man of broad common sense and high character, possessing in a remarkable degree the qualities of mind which are essential to judicial eminence. His judicial opinions cover a wide range of subjects, and are studied with respect and approval in many of the courts and law schools of the country. It is said of Judge Mitchell, that no attorney appears before him without feeling that his arguments are being listened to with most patient attention to the end.

Judge Mitchell has been interested in local enterprises in Winona County and contributed much to the growth and prosperity of that city. He has held the position of president of the Winona and Southwestern Railway, and also president of the Winona Savings Bank. He was originally Republican, but becoming dissatisfied with some of the reconstruction measures of the party during the administration of President Johnson he has since acted chiefly, though not in a partisan sense, with the Democratic party. He has been married twice. In September, 1857, to E. Jane Hanway of Morgantown, Virginia. She died ten years later. In July 1872 he married Mrs. Francis N. Smith, of Chicago. He has had six children. He was reared in the Presbyterian church and is an attendant of that church though not a member.

CHARLES ANSON MOREY of Winona was born at Vershire, Orange County, Vermont, August 9, 1851. His father, Royal Morey, a farmer in Vermont, came to Chester, Wabasha County, Minnesota, in 1861. His wife, Jennette Ellen Felton (Morey), was a native of Strafford, Vermont. Her brother, Charles C. Felton, for whom the subject of this sketch was named, went overland to the Pacific Coast in 1848. He was a trader and steamboat man on the Columbia and Willamette rivers and one of the organizers of the Oregon Steam and Navigation Company. Mr. Morey is of Scotch-English descent, both on his father’s side and on his mother’s. His great grandmother on his mother’s side was Sarah Putnam, a niece of General Israel Putnam.

Charles Anson attended the country school in Vermont, but was only a lad of about nine years when his family moved to Illinois. They spent one summer there, but on account of a malarial climate sought a more healthful location, and moved overland in a covered wagon to Wabasha County, Minnesota, in 1861. He attended the public schools of Chester, Wabasha County, the high school at Lake City, the Normal School at Winona, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston. He graduated from the Normal School at Winona in 1872, and the special course at the Institute of Technology was taken preparatory to assuming a position as teacher of sciences in the normal school, to which place he was elected in 1874. On the resignation of Professor Phelps, in 1876, having been a student of law for several years, he was admitted to the bar in 1879 and resigned his position to begin the practice at Winona as a member of the firm of Berry & Morey.

Mr. Morey has occupied a prominent and influential position in Winona. He has been president of the Winona Savings Bank since the death of William Windom, has for fifteen years been secretary of the Winona Building and Loan Association, was a member of the city council for four years and of the board of education for six years. He is a trustee of the public library, is the Resident Director and Treasurer of the Winona Normal School and has been a member of the State Normal Board since 1883. Mr. Morey has been a United States Commissioner for many years, and was selected by the government authorities to hear the famous Minneapolis census cases. Mr. Morey has always been a Republican, has taken an active interest in the affairs of the party, and is usually in county and state conventions. His church connection is with the Episcopal denomination.

On November 28, 1877, he was married to Miss Kate Louise Berry, daughter of Judge C. H. Berry, of Winona. They have four children. Jeanette, Charles Berry, Frances and Bertha Louise. While Mr. Morey has been eminently successful, and has won for himself an enviable position in the community in which he resides, he has not done so without having experienced the hardships and privations of frontier life and straightened circumstances hi his early years. He learned to work on the farm, served his apprenticeship as a country school teacher, learned the trade of carpenter and millwright and used his skill in that direction to provide means with which to acquire an education. It is not surprising that a young man trained in such a school of adversity should have learned self-reliance and obtained success.

IRWIN SHEPARD, is president of the State Normal School at Winona. Prof. Shepard is a native of New York, having been born in the town of Skaneateles, Onondaga County. July 5, 1843. His father, Luman Shepard, was a farmer in New York and later in Michigan. He was prominent in agricultural societies, and made a scientific study of his business. He was for one session a member of the House of Representatives in the Michigan legislature.

Irwin Shepard’s mother was Betsy I. Pangburn (Shepard.) His descent on his father’s side is English, the family having come from England in 1640. His mother’s ancestors came from Holland in 1700. He attended the rural schools in New York until thirteen years of age, when his parents removed to Chelsea, Washtenaw County, Michigan. He there attended the village school until 1851, when he entered the State Normal School at Ypsilanti.

In 1862 a company of soldiers for the War of the Rebellion was formed in that school and Mr. Shepard enlisted. He served through the war and was mustered out in 1865. Upon his return from the war he entered Olivet College, in Michigan, and graduated in 1871, receiving the degree of A. B.. In 1874 he received the degree of A. M. from the same institution, and in 1892 the degree of Ph. D. After his graduation in 1871 he was appointed superintendent of the public schools at Charles City, Iowa and served until 1875. In the latter year he came to Minnesota having secured the position of principal of the high school of Winona. Three years later he was made city superintendent of schools and in 1879 was appointed to the presidency of the State Normal School at Winona, a position which he now holds. Mr. Shepard has been a member of the National Educational Association since 1883 and was president of the normal department of that association in 1889. He has been elected vice president and state director several times and in 1892 was elected general secretary of the association, and holds that office at the present time.

Mr. Shepard has a very honorable war record. He enlisted with his fellow students at Ypsilanti in August, 1862. They were mustered in as Company “E” of the Seventeenth Regiment Michigan Infantry Volunteers, a regiment which for gallantry in their first battle on South Mountain, was called the “Stonewall Regiment” of Michigan. He served first as a private, then corporal, a member of the color guard, sergeant and orderly sergeant until 1865, when he was discharged on account of wounds received at the Battle of the Wilderness, on May 6, 1864. His promotion from the color guard to the rank of sergeant was made for meritorious service in leading one division a special detail through the enemy’s lines in front of Fort Sanders, at Knoxville, Tennessee, on the night of November 25, 1863, and burning the house and barns of Judge Reese, from which sharp-shooters were annoying the gunners of Fort Sanders. He was engaged in the following battles: South Mountain, Antietam, Brandy Station, Fredericksburg, Virginia ; Green River, Kentucky; Vicksburg and Jackson, Mississippi; Blue Springs, Loudan, Campbell’s Station, Siege of Knoxville, Strawberry Plains and Blain’s Cross Roads, Tennessee, and the Wilderness. While Mr. Shepard was in the hospital at Detroit under treatment for wounds received in the service, he served as clerk to the Assistant Adjutant General of the Department of Michigan, later as chief clerk of the same department, and, subsequently, was appointed as mustering out officer at Jackson, Michigan.

He is a member of the John Ball Post No. 45, G. A. R., Department of Minnesota, and has served as aide on the staff of the department commander and the National commander in-chief. Mr. Shepard has been a member of the Congregational Church since 1859, and for sixteen years, prior to January 1, 1892, was superintendent of the Sabbath school of the First Congregational Church at Winona, Minnesota.

He was married in August, 1871, to Miss Mary B. Elmer, a graduate of Olivet College, and a daughter of Rev. Hiram Elmer, pastor of the Congregational Church of that place. They have two sons, Irwin Elmer, aged seventeen years, and Ernest Edward, aged thirteen years.

DANIEL SINCLAIR The subject of this sketch has been engaged in journalism in Minnesota since 1856, and during all that time has been the editor of the same paper, the Winona Republican. Daniel Sinclair is a native of Scotland, and was born at Thurso, Carthnessshire, January 2, 1833. His father, George Sinclair, was a merchant and a revenue officer under the British government. He died when Daniel was but five years old. The family line is traced directly to the brothers St. Clair, who went over to England from Normandy with William the Conqueror. From them was descended General Arthur St. Clair, a famous soldier of the American Revolutionary War.

Daniel’s education was limited to the common and grammar schools of his native town in Scotland, and to a few months in a common school in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, after he came to this country, at the close of which term he was elected teacher of the school for six months. Mr. Sinclair came to America in 1849 at the age of sixteen. He located at Meadville, Pennsylvania, where he learned the printer’s trade, and at the age of twenty was made editor of the Courier at Conneautville, Pennsylvania, which paper he conducted for about fifteen months.

He then resigned his position there and started for the West to find a more promising opening. He arrived in Minnesota June 1, 1856, and took up his residence at Winona. Shortly after settling there he purchased a half interest in the Republican, then a weekly paper, and has been its editor ever since that time. Mr. Sinclair has been affiliated with the Republican party ever since its organization, and through his paper has been an active promoter of the interests of that party. He was appointed postmaster of Winona by President Grant in 1869, and held the office continuously for over sixteen years. He was reappointed by President Harrison in 1889, and held office for four years and two months, thus holding the office for twenty years and four months altogether. He was chairman of the Minnesota delegation to the national convention at Chicago in 1880 and supported Windom until his name was withdrawn, and then changed his vote to General Grant.

Mr. Sinclair has never been an aspirant for political honors, and has regarded his position on his paper as a superior political office, so to speak, than any which the state could offer him. He is a member of no society organizations, except a social club, the Arlington, of Winona. He is an active member of the Winona Board of Trade, and an active promoter of the interests of that city. He is not connected by membership with any church, but is an attendant of the Congregational. He was married August 26, 1855, to Miss Melissa J. Briggs. They have three children living—Mrs. William E. Smith, and Misses Jessie and Fanny Sinclair. Mr. Sinclair publishes a paper of large influence in its field and its editorial columns are conducted with recognized ability.

FRANKLIN STAPLES No man is capable of rendering more valuable services to the people of the community in which he lives, or making a larger and warmer place for himself in the hearts of the people, than a capable, careful and trustworthy family physician.

The subject of this sketch sustains such a relation to many of the people of Winona. Franklin Staples, M. D., is a native of Raymond, (now Casco), Cumberland County, Maine, where he was born November 9, 1833. He was the son of Peter and Sarah Maxwell Staples, and grandson of Peter Staples, Sr., an early settler in that county. The Staples family is of English descent, the first members of the family in this country having originally settled in Kittery, Maine.

During his early boyhood Dr. Franklin Staples’ family resided in Buxton, York County, Maine. He was educated in the common schools and at Limerick, Parsonfield and Auburn academies, Maine. He taught in the district schools and in Portland, beginning the study of medicine in the office of Dr. C. S. D. Fessenden, of Portland, in 1855. The following year he was a student in the medical department of Bowdoin college, was one of the first students in the Portland school for medical instruction, and in 1861 entered the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York city, from which he was graduated in March, 1862.

Dr. Staples was then demonstrator of anatom y in the Maine medical school, but soon after decided to remove to the west and locate in Minnesota, where he began the practice of his profession at Winona. There he has lived and worked until the present time. Mr. Staples has witnessed the growth and development of the North Star state from its earliest beginnings, and has contributed in no small degree to the results attained. In 1871 he was elected president of the Minnesota State Medical Society; in 1874 he was appointed a member of the State Board of Health, which position he still holds. He has been president of the Board of Health since 1889. He is a member of the American Public Health Association and the American Medical Association, and of the local societies of his immediate neighborhood. From 1883 to 1887 Dr. Staples held the chair of the practice of medicine in the medical department of the University of Minnesota. He has been noted especially for his scientific attainments and his practical work as a surgeon, and has had a part in the progress which has been witnessed in this department of scientific work, especially in the last quarter of a century. His contributions to current literature relating to medical science have been numerous. Of late years his attention has been given largely to sanitary science and to practical work in that direction.

Dr. Staples was married June 4, 1863 to Helen M. Harford, daughter of the late Ezra Harford, of Portland, Maine. Of the four daughters born to them two are living. Gertrude, (Mrs. Seward D. Allen, of Duluth.) and Helen F., who resides with her parents at Winona.

DARWIN ADELBERT STEWART is a well-known physician of Winona, Minnesota. He is the son of Gardner Stewart, who was of Scotch descent and a native of Concord, New Hampshire, where he was born in the year 1800; his mother was Susan Bancroft, a cousin of George Bancroft, the historian. Mr. Stewart remembered well the visit of Lafayette to this country in 1824, and saw that distinguished general and his son at Boston. He died at Winona on March 17, 1896, aged ninety-five years and five months. His wife was Miss Sarah Powers, who is a second cousin of Powers, the famous sculptor. She is a descendant of the Leland family, of England.

Their son, D. A. Stewart, was born at Croydon, New Hampshire, on April 5, 1842. He attended the Morrisville and Barre academies and graduated from the Kimball Union Academy at Meriden, New Hampshire. Later he attended the medical department of Columbia College, New York city, and graduated in 1869. He received an appointment on the medical staff of the New York Hospital. Coming West during the same year, he established himself in Winona and commenced practice on January 1, 1870 in partnership with W. H. H. Richardson. He has continued the practice in Winona continuously since that time. During his long term of practice he has been called upon to serve the public in various capacities. For five years he has been city physician. He was coroner of Winona County for twelve years. He served upon the school board for two years, and was president one-half of that time.

He is surgeon at Winona for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad, and also the Green Bay, Winona & St. Paul. Dr. Stewart is a member of the National Association of Railroad Surgeons, and of a number of medical societies. He was instrumental in the organization of the Winona Humane Society in 1889, and has been its president from the beginning, and has taken great interest in this work. He has become identified with the state and national societies, being vice president of the State Humane Society and a member of the American Humane Society. Among his varied interests is the ownership of the village of Stewart, McLeod County, Minnesota, which he laid out in 1878. In 1875 Dr. Stewart was married to Miss Minnie A. Hall, of Whitehall, New York. They have three children : Henrietta L., Dugald A., and Donald.

JAMES ALBERTUS TAWNEY The representative in congress from the First Minnesota District is a self-made man in all that the term implies. James Albertus Tawney was born near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in Mount Pleasant township, January 3, 1855. Tawney here was a farmer and blacksmith, in very modest circumstances, and when fifteen years of age the son began to learn the blacksmith’s trade in his father’s shop. After graduating from the bellows and forge, young Tawney learned the trade of a machinist, and it was for the purpose of going to work at this trade that he came to Winona, Minnesota, August 1, 1877.

On January 1, 1881, he began to read law in the office of Bentley & Vance, in Winona, having read at his home for two long years prior to this time, a little while each morning before going to the shop, and in the evening after the day’s work was done. It thus happened that when he entered the office of Bentley & Vance and began to devote all of his time to the work he made rapid progress. In 1882, July 10, he was admitted to the bar. Then it was that he became a student in the law department of the University of Wisconsin. the only school he had attended since he was fourteen years old. After finishing the course, Mr. Tawney returned to Winona, which city has ever since been his home.

In 1890 he was sent to the state senate from Winona County. He was a delegate in the Republican state nominating convention of 1892, and made an eloquent speech nominating Knute Nelson for governor. He served with great honor in the legislature in 1891 and 1893, and was elected to congress as a Republican in November, 1892, before his term as state senator had expired. In 1894 he was returned to congress for a second term, and in 1896 for a third term. Mr. Tawney’s congressional record has been a bright one. He made his maiden speech in congress October 6, 1893, in opposition to the bill of H. St. G. Tucker, of Virginia, providing for the repeal of the federal election laws. This speech was regarded as one of the strongest that was made against the bill. January 19, 1894, he made the famous speech which gave him the sobriquet “Barley Jim.’” It was against the proposition to reduce the tariff on barley, and showed conclusively that if the tariff were reduced Canadian barley would come into the American market, and to a large extent drive out the home grain. The speech appealed with great force to every member of the house, any part of whose constituency was interested in raising this cereal. January 24, 1894, he made a speech in favor of the maintenance of the McKinley tariff on iron ore, and the day following spoke in opposition to the effort of Mr. Wilson and his friends on the floor to repeal the reciprocity clauses of the McKinley bill. All of these speeches added to his reputation as a forceful and logical debater. His congressional record in connection with pension legislation is good, and the old soldiers of the First District are his friends to a man. The main sections of his bill providing for the settlement of disputes between labor and capital in arbitration were incorporated in the Olney bill, which passed. Mr. Tawney was a member of the ways and means committee of the fifty-fourth and fifty-fifth congresses and took a leading part in constructing the tariff bill presented at the extra session in 1897.

As an attorney he stands in the front rank, and his practice has included some of the most important cases ever tried in the state. In 1883, December 19, Mr. Tawney was married to Miss Emma B. Newall, at Winona. They have five children.

SAMUEL R. VAN SANT The choice of the Republican members of the last legislature for speaker of the house of representatives was the man whose name stands at the head of this sketch. Samuel R. Van Sant was born at Rock Island, Illinois. May 11, 1844, the son of John W. Van Sant and Lydia Anderson (Van Sant). John W. Van Sant was born in New Jersey, in 1810. He and his father and his grandfather were ship builders. The grandfather, whose name was also John, was in the marine service during the Revolutionary War. He was born in 1726 in New Jersey, where he lived and died, and where most of his descendants live yet. If the cause of the colonies had failed he would have been hanged as a pirate, but their success made him a patriot. It was said of him that he could build a ship, rig her and sail her to any port in the world. The Van Sants (formerly spelled Van Zandt) are of Dutch descent, the family having come from Holland in the early years of settlement in this country. The grandfather of the subject of this sketch was a soldier in the war of 1812. He was also a clergyman in the Methodist church, and five of his sons followed him in that profession and in the same denomination.

John W. Van Sant, the father of Samuel R., is still living at Le Claire, Iowa, in his eighty-seventh year. He came West in 1837 and has been engaged in building and in repairing steamboats ever since. He is still in active business and retains his interest in the Van Sant & Musser Transportation Company and other business enterprises. Lydia Anderson (Van Sant) was a native of New Jersey, daughter of Elias Anderson, a private soldier in the Revolutionary War. Her family were all active supporters of the cause of the colonies. She is still living in her eighty-fifth year.

Samuel R. attended the Rock Island schools and was a pupil in the high school when the war broke out. He enlisted at the first call for troops, but, owing to his youth not yet being seventeen, was rejected. He enlisted several times but was each time rejected for the same cause. Finally in August, 1861, having received his father’s written permission, he was accepted as a member of Company A, Ninth Illinois cavalry. He served over three years, and during that time was never sick, never missed a fight and was never wounded. He belonged during most of his term of service to Grierson’s famous raiders, and was in constant service after going South.

When mustered out of service he entered Burnham’s American Business College, at Hudson, New York, where he graduated, but feeling the necessity for further school training, he entered Knox College, at Galesburg, Illinois. He entered the preparatory department and went through the freshman year at college, but was then obliged to leave for lack of funds. While at college he learned the trade of a calker, and subsequently was appointed superintendent of the boat yard where he learned his trade, and later with his father, bought the same boat building business, where they erected the first raft boat of large power, constructed especially for the lumbering business. Several other boats were built by the Van Sants, and since that time Samuel R. has been actively engaged in the business of rafting and lumbering on the Mississippi river. He located in the spring of 1883 at Winona, which has since been the headquarters of his business and his home. Mr. Van Sant has always been a Republican, has taken an active interest in public affairs. He served as alderman for two years from the Second ward in Winona, was twice elected to the legislature, first in 1892 and again in 1894, and on his second term was made speaker of the house. Was also a candidate before the last Republican state convention for the nomination for governor, but was defeated. Nevertheless he took an active part on the stump and spoke nightly for weeks for the success of his party and its candidates. He is an enthusiastic member of the Grand Army. In 1894 he was elected Senior Vice Commander and in 1895 Department Commander of Minnesota. And as a department officer he traveled more than twenty thousand miles attending campfires, encampments, reunions, etc., of his comrades. He has also held the office of commander of John Ball Post, of Winona, two terms. Mr. Van Sant esteems the honors he has received from the Grand Army as the greatest he has ever been favored with. He is also a member of the Masonic order, of the Knights of Pythias, the A. O. U. W., M. W. of A., the Elks, the Veteran Masons and the Sons of the American Revolution. Mr. Van Sant was married in 1868 to Miss Ruth Hall. They have had three children, only one of whom is living, Grant Van Sant, a law graduate of the University of Minnesota.

MARSHALL BAILEY WEBBER is senior partner of the law firm of Webber & Lees, at Winona, Minnesota. He was born in Raymond, Racine County, Wisconsin, August, 2, 1850. Samuel Webber the father of the subject of this sketch, is a farmer. The farm on which he resides is about ten miles from the city of Milwaukee, in Racine County. It was patented by the government to his father in 1837, but since that date no conveyance of the land has ever been made, and it is at present a most valuable piece of property. Samuel Webber came from Massachusetts, and is of Puritan stock. His wife’s maiden name was Sabra A. Bailey, who was born in New Hampshire. Both are still living.

Marshall’s early education was received in the district school. Subsequently he attended the high school at Racine, Wisconsin, and the Rochester Academy in Racine County, where he fitted himself for college. Young Webber, however, was compelled to earn the funds that would enable him to enter college. He was ambitious and plucky, and, confident of his ability to earn enough money to support him, he entered Hillsdale College, at Hillsdale, Michigan. During the winter months he taught school, keeping up with the studies of his class in the meantime. During his vacations in the summer he worked on the farm and at railroading, in this way getting together enough money to carry him through college the next year. He graduated from Hillsdale in the class of 1875. In his junior year he carried away the Melendy prize for oratory, and while at college was a member of the Alpha Kappa Phi Society.

In September, 1875, he came to Minnesota and located at Winona. He had decided to make the profession of law his vocation in life, and took up his law studies in the office of Hon. W. H. Yale. Two years later he was admitted to the bar and was taken into partnership by Governor Yale, under the firm name of Yale & Webber. This partnership continued with mutual profit for two years, when it was dissolved and Mr. Webber continued his practice alone. In September, 1895, his increasing business necessitating a partner, he associated with him Edward Lees. This firm is known as Webber & Lees. In his practice Mr. Webber has been very successful, and has succeeded in building up an extensive and lucrative practice. He represents the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul and the Chicago, Burlington & Northern railroads at Winona as their attorney.

In politics he is a Republican. Though he has been an active member of his party, he has never sought office, the only office he has ever held being that of prosecuting attorney for two years. At present he is a member of the Republican State Central Committee, and takes a prominent part in the councils of his party. He is a Knight of Pythias and is a member of a number of social clubs. On January 2, 1879, he was married to Agnes M. Robertson, of Hillsdale, Michigan. Mrs. Webber is a lady of refinement and vice president of the State Federation of Woman's Clubs.

WILLIAM WINDOM No other of Minnesota’s sons has been able to measure up to the stature of William Windom as a statesman. For ten years he sat in the house of representatives, for twelve years he was a distinguished member of the United States senate, and two presidents of the United States called upon him to discharge the important duties of secretary of the treasury. While a member of the cabinet of President Harrison, he died, January 29, 1891, and in him the whole nation felt that it had lost one of the ablest and most careful men who ever served it as head of the treasury department. Mr. Windom was a Quaker by descent, and his father and mother, Hezekiah and Mercy Windom traced their ancestry back to Quaker families that settled in Virginia early in the Eighteenth century. He was the youngest child of the family, and was born in Belmont County, Ohio, May 10, 1827, and there passed the first ten years of his life. His parents then went to Knox County, Ohio, which became the permanent family home, and here it was that the youngest son passed the remainder of his boyhood and youth and established the splendid character upon which he so successfully built his future. As a boy Mr. Windom was attracted to the profession of law, and notwithstanding the opposition of his parents, who as Quakers regarded the law with peculiar disfavor, and were anxious that their, son should learn an “honest trade,” took an academic course at Martinsburg, Ohio, which he followed by a thorough law course in the office of Judge R. C. Hurd of Mt. Vernon, Ohio. In 1850, at the age of twenty-three, he was admitted to the bar, and after five years of practice in his native state, came to Minnesota, locating in Winona.

In 1856, after he had been a resident of this state for one year, he was married, in Warwick, Massachusetts, to Ellen Towne, third daughter of the Rev, R. C. Hatch. It was in the fall of 1858, when he was thirty-one years of age, that he entered public life, and was elected as a republican to the Thirty-seventh congress. This was the commencement of a brilliant congressional career, which terminated in 1869, when he was appointed United States senator to fill the unexpired term of D. S. Norton, deceased. The legislature elected him to the senate in 1871, and re-elected him in 1877. Mr. Windom’s name was presented to the national Republican convention of 1880 as a candidate for nomination to the presidency, and the loyalty with which the delegates from Minnesota supported him during twenty-eight ballots furnishes one of the most interesting incidents in the political history of the state. President Garfield, who was the nominee of that convention, made Mr. Windom secretary of the treasury in his cabinet, and in this position he served until the death of Garfield and the accession of Mr. Arthur.

Shortly after his retirement from the cabinet the Minnesota legislature again elected him to the United States senate, where he served out another unexpired term, retiring from that body March 3, 1883. From this time until March, 1889, when he entered President Harrison’s cabinet to take the treasury portfolio, he devoted himself to his private business. As a national financier he had a high standing, and from 1889 to 1891, the war of his death, was regarded as one of the most brilliant members of the Harrison administration. He achieved a world-wide reputation in connection with his idea for refunding the public debt. It was in appreciation of his skill in finance and of his distinguished public services that the Board of Trade and Transportation of New York invited him to appear before it for an address. He was requested to fix the date himself, which he did for February 29, 1891. On that day he proceeded from Washington to New York, where he joined a brilliant company of New York business men at Delmonico’s. During the progress of the banquet he responded to the toast, “Our Country’s Prosperity Dependent Upon Its Instruments of Commerce.” He spoke for forty minutes, and the applause which greeted him at the close was a fitting tribute to what was perhaps the most brilliant oratorical effort of his life. He arose in his place to bow his thanks to the gentlemen whose guest he was and, sitting down, the festivities were about to proceed when it was discovered that he was dead. He had passed away from heart disease immediately upon taking his seat, certainly without warning, and probably without pain, for when attention was attracted to him his eyes were closed and he looked as if he had fallen asleep.

WILLIAM HALL YALE Governor Yale, as he is familiarly known, has been a leading member of the bar of the North Star state for a period of forty years. His reputation as a lawyer is state-wide, while he has a national reputation as a champion of Republican principles. He is a lineal descendant of Thomas Yale, who came to America in 1637, and settled at New Haven. Connecticut. It was his son Elihu Yale, in whose honor Yale College was named. Elihu returned to England when a child: afterwards went to the East Indies, where he acquired a fortune; returned to London and became governor of the East Indian Company. His munificent gifts to the college at New Haven caused its name to be changed to “Yale.”

William Hall Yale is the son of Wooster and Lucy (Hall) Yale, and was born in New Haven, Connecticut, November 12, 1831. Wooster Yale settled on the farm originally opened by Captain Thomas Yale, a nephew of Elihu Yale. at Wallingford, Connecticut. He was at one time an extensive shoe manufacturer in his native town of Wallingford: later in life he had an exchange office at New Haven, of which county he was sheriff for several years, returning to Wallingford a short while before his demise.

From his sixth to eleventh year young William attended the public schools of Wallingford. One of his school mates of that period was Gen. Joseph R. Hawley, now a United States senator from Connecticut. For the next three years the boy worked on the farm, his only opportunities for education being such as the winter term of a district school afforded. Subsequently he spent three years at the Connecticut Literary Institute at Suffield. When but eighteen William commenced teaching school at Norwalk, in his native state. He followed that profession there for about five years, employing his leisure time in reading law in the office of G. R. Cowles, an attorney of that city. In 1854 he secured a position as bookkeeper of the Sharp’s Rifle Manufacturing Company, at Hartford, where he remained till the spring of 1857, when he came West and located at Winona, Minnesota. In the summer of that year he was admitted to the bar. He practiced alone for a while, then became a partner of Judge William Mitchell, which partnership continued until 1874. For three or four years he practiced alone, then took as partner one of his former law students, M. B. Webber, the firm being known as Yale & Webber. Mr. Yale s early associates at the bar were such men as Daniel S. Norton, later United states senator from Minnesota; the late Hon. William Windom ; Judge Thomas Wilson, afterwards member of congress: William Mitchell, now a member of the supreme bench, and C. H. Berry, afterwards attorney general of the state and United States district judge for the Territory of Idaho. Even with such men as contemporaries Governor Yale soon acquired eminence in the legal fraternity. His cases were prepared with great care, and he is regarded as one of the best pleaders that ever stood before the bar in Minnesota.

Since coming to the state, Mr. Yale has for more than two-thirds of the time held some civil or political office. Six months after locating at Winona he was elected city justice, holding that office for two years; before the expiration of the term he was elected judge of probate to fill an unexpired term : was subsequently prosecuting attorney for two terms; was a state senator in 1867 and 1868; lieutenant Governor from 1870 to 1874, and senator again in 1876 and 1877, also in 1895 and 1897. An evidence of Mr. Yale’s popularity is the fact that each time he was elected lieutenant governor he had the largest majority of any man on the Republican ticket, and the last time he was chosen senator he received five hundred majority running against a very popular candidate in a strong Democratic district. Governor Yale has been an active member of the Republican party since the campaign of 1856, and has been prominent in the counsels of his party in the state of Minnesota. In 1876 he was appointed a delegate to the Republican national convention at Cincinnati, Ohio owing to sickness in the family he was unable to attend. He attended the national convention held in Minneapolis in 1892 as a delegate. The state conventions of the Republican party in 1872, 1873 and 1880 were presided over by Mr. Yale: the latter year bringing him the honor without opposition. During the four years he presided over the senate, Mr. Yale won for himself golden opinions for the promptness and impartiality with which he discharged his official duties, and he acquired an enviable reputation as a parliamentarian. He is a fluent and eloquent speaker, and is recognized as a power on whatever side of the question he is found. In 1894 Governor Nelson appointed Mr. Yale as one of the regents of the state university, which honor he appreciated more highly than any office to which he had ever been chosen: but under a recent decision of the supreme court he could not serve until his term as state senator expires.

Mr. Yale is active in church and benevolent enterprises, and has been a prominent member of the Episcopal church in Southern Minnesota ever since coming to this state. He was married in 1851 to Sarah E. Ranks, of Norwalk, Connecticut, who died in 1871, leaving one child, Charles R. Yale, who is general claim agent for the Great Northern Railway. In October, 1872, he was married again to Mary Louisa Hoyt. also of Norwalk, who has one child, William Hoyt Yale, who is now a student at the state university.

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