CHAPTER XXII.
DAKOTA COUNTY.
This county, a rich farming district, lies on the west bank of the
Mississippi between Ramsey and Goodhue counties. It was originally
well diversified with timber and prairie lands, and is well watered by
the tributaries of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. Vermillion
river, which flows through this county, has near its junction with the
Mississippi a picturesque waterfall, now somewhat marred by the
erection of mills and manufactories.
HASTINGS,
Lying near the mouth of the Vermillion river, is a wide-awake,
thriving city, beautifully located on the banks of the Mississippi. It
has a fine court house, good hotels, manufactories and business
blocks. The Hastings & Dakota railroad has its eastern terminus here.
The St. Paul & Milwaukee, Burlington & Northern railroads pass through
the city. The river is bridged at this place.
FARMINGTON,
Near the centre of the county, on the Chicago, St. Paul & Minneapolis
railroad, is a thriving business village. West St. Paul has encroached
largely upon the north part of the county.
BIOGRAPHICAL.
IGNATIUS DONNELLY.--The parents of Ignatius Donnelly came from the
Green Isle in 1817, settling in Philadelphia, where Ignatius was born,
Nov. 3, 1831. He was educated in the graded and high schools of his
native city, graduating at the latter in 1849, and taking his degree
of master of arts three years later. He read law with Benjamin Harris
Brewster, and was admitted to the bar in Philadelphia in 1852, and
practiced there until 1856, when he came to Minnesota and located at
Ninninger, and purchasing from time to time nearly 1,000 acres of
land, devoted himself to farming, not so busily, however, as to
prevent him from taking a prominent part in public affairs. A
captivating and fluent speaker, and besides a man of far more than
ordinary native ability and acquirements, he was not suffered to
remain on his Dakota farm. In 1859 he was elected lieutenant governor
of the newly admitted state, and was re-elected in 1861, serving four
years. He served his district in the thirty-seventh, thirty-eighth and
thirty-ninth congresses. During his congressional term he advocated
many important measures, taking an advanced position in regard to
popular education, and the cultivation and preservation of timber on
the public lands. For his advocacy of the last named measure he was
much ridiculed at the time, but has lived to see his views generally
understood, and his measures to a great extent adopted in many of the
Western States. He advocated amending the law relating to railroad
land grants, so as to require their sale, within a reasonable period,
at low prices.
When he entered Congress, he gave up his law practice, and since his
last term he has devoted himself chiefly to farming, journalism and
general literature. In July, 1874, he became editor and proprietor of
the _Anti-Monopolist_, which he conducted several years. Within the
last decade he has published several works that have given him both
national and transatlantic fame. His works on the fabled "Atlantis"
and "Ragnarok" prove him to be not only a thinker and scientist, but a
writer, the charms of whose style are equal to the profundity of his
thought. His last work on the authorship of the Shakespearean plays
has attracted universal attention, not only for the boldness of his
speculations, but for the consummate ingenuity he has shown in
detecting the alleged cipher by which he assumes to prove Lord Bacon
to be the author of the plays in question. The book has excited much
controversy, and, as was to be expected, much adverse criticism. Mr.
Donnelly was married in Philadelphia, Sept. 10, 1855, to Miss
Catherine McCaffrey of that city. They have three children living.
FRANCIS M. CROSBY.--The ancestors of Mr. Crosby were of Revolutionary
fame. He was born in Wilmington, Windham county, Vermont, Nov. 13,
1830. He received a common and high school education and spent one
year at Mount Cæsar Seminary, at Swansea, New Hampshire. He studied
law and was admitted to practice at Bennington, Vermont, in 1855. He
served in the Vermont house of representatives in 1855-56. He
continued the practice of law until 1858, when he came to Hastings and
engaged in the practice of law. He served as judge of probate court in
1860-61, acted as school commissioner several years in Dakota county,
and was elected, in 1871, judge of the First Judicial district
comprising the counties of Goodhue, Dakota, Washington, Chisago, Pine,
and Kanabec. He held the first courts in Pine and Kanabec counties.
Judge Crosby is held in high esteem, not only by the bar, but by the
people at large. He is gentlemanly in his manners, yet prompt and
decisive in action.
He was married to Helen A. Sprague, in New York, May 13, 1866. Mrs.
Crosby died in 1869. He married a second wife, Helen M. Bates, in New
York, in 1872. They have two sons and three daughters.
HON. G. W. LE DUC was born at Wilkesville, Gallia county, Ohio, March
29, 1823. His father, Henry Savary Duc, was the son of Henri Duc, an
officer of the French Army, who came over with D'Estaing to assist the
colonies in the Revolutionary struggle. The grandfather, after some
stirring adventures in Guadaloupe, where he came near being murdered
in a negro insurrection, escaped and came to Middletown, Connecticut,
in 1796, where he was married to Lucy, daughter of Col. John Sumner,
of Duryea's Brigade, Continental Troops, and a member of the Sumner
family which came to Massachusetts in 1637. The father was married to
Mary Stewell, of Braintree, New York, in 1803. The family name,
originally written Duc, was changed to Le Duc in 1845. The grandfather
removed to Ohio and founded the town of Wilkesville. G. W. Le Duc, the
grandson, spent his early life at this place, but was educated at
Lancaster Academy, a school that numbered amongst its scholars Gen. W.
T. and Senator John Sherman, the Ewing brothers, and others prominent
in the history of the country. He entered Kenyon College in 1844,
graduated in 1848, and was employed for awhile by the firms of H. W.
Derby & Co., of Cincinnati, and A. S. Barnes & Co., of New York.
Meanwhile he studied law, and in 1850 was admitted to practice in the
supreme court of Ohio. July 5, 1850, he came to St. Paul and engaged
in selling books, supplying the legislature and the government
officers at the Fort, but gradually turned his attention to practice
in land office courts. At the breaking out of the Rebellion he
enlisted, and was assigned to duty as captain A. Z. in the Army of the
Potomac. During his term of service he was promoted to the grades of
lieutenant colonel, colonel and brigadier general by brevet. Since the
war his most important official position has been that of commissioner
of agriculture through the administration of President Hayes. In 1856
he removed to Hastings, and has ever since been identified with the
progress and prosperity of that city, and is the owner of large
property interests there.
[Illustration: HON. G. W. LE DUC.]
GOODHUE COUNTY.
This county lies on the west bank of the Mississippi river, between
the counties of Dakota and Wabasha. It derived its name from James M.
Goodhue, pioneer editor and publisher in St. Paul. It is a rich and
populous county. The county seat is Red Wing, a thriving city of 7,000
inhabitants, located on the banks of the Mississippi a short distance
below the mouth of Cannon river, and at the outlet of several valleys
forming a larger valley, well adapted to become the site of a city.
The hills surrounding the city are high, bold and many of them
precipitous. Mount La Grange, commonly known as Barn Bluff, a large
isolated bluff, a half mile in length and three hundred and twenty
feet in height, stands between the lower part of the city and the
river. Part of the county lies upon the shore of Lake Pepin, and
includes the famous Point no Point, a bold promontory extending far
out into the lake, with a curve so gradual that the eye of the person
ascending or descending the lake is unable to define the Point, which
appears to recede before him as he approaches, till at last it
disappears, when looking backward he sees it in the part of the lake
already traversed. Cannon river, a considerable stream, passes through
the county from west to east.
Cannon Falls, on this river, once a picturesque and wild waterfall, is
now surrounded by the mills, manufactories and dwellings of a
flourishing village, named after the falls. Goodhue county was
organized under territorial law. In 1845 the principal point was Red
Wing. There we found a Swiss missionary named Galvin, an Indian farmer
name Bush and the noted Jack Frazer, a half-breed trader, all living
in log buildings. Mr. Galvin had a school of Indian children. Near by
was an Indian cemetery--burying ground it could not be called, as the
bodies of the dead were elevated upon the branches of trees and upon
stakes to be out of reach of animals. The bodies were wrapped in
blankets and exposed until the flesh had decayed, when the bones were
taken and buried. Red Wing's band of Sioux Indians had their
encampment here. It is said that Red Wing, the chief for whom the
village and city was afterward named, chose for his burial place the
summit of Barn Bluff, and that when he died he was buried there,
seated upon his horse, with his face turned to the Happy Hunting
Ground, the Indians heaping the earth around him till a huge mound was
formed. The legend may need confirmation, but a mound is there to this
day, on the highest part of the bluff, and the high spirited chief
could certainly have wished no nobler grave.
Red Wing city bears few traces of its humble origin. It is a fine,
compactly built city, with handsome public and private buildings. It
was for some years the seat of Hamline University, now removed to St.
Paul.
BIOGRAPHICAL.
HANS MATTSON.--Col. Mattson is a native of Onestad, Sweden. He was
born Dec. 23, 1832. His parents were Matts and Ilgena (Larson)
Mattson, both now residents of Vasa, Minnesota. The son was educated
at a high classical school in Christianstad, and in his seventeenth
year entered the military service as a cadet and served one year.
Disliking its monotony, and having an adventurous spirit he embarked
for America, where he found himself abjectly poor, and worked as a
cabin boy on a coasting vessel, as a farm hand, and afterward with a
shovel on an Illinois railroad until 1853, when he secured a position
as an emigrant agent, whose business it was to select homes for
Swedish colonists. He, with others, came to Vasa, Goodhue county,
Minnesota, where he dealt in real estate, studying law meanwhile with
Warren Bristol. He was admitted to the bar in 1858. He was elected
county auditor the same year and served till 1860, when he entered the
army as captain of Company D, Third Minnesota Infantry. At the end of
four years he left the service with the rank of colonel. After his
return from the war he formed a law partnership with C. C. Webster,
and a year later he accepted the position of editor of a Swedish
newspaper in Chicago. In 1867 Gov. Marshall appointed him secretary of
the state board of immigration, which position he held several years,
doing the State excellent service. In 1869 he was elected secretary of
state, but before his term of office expired resigned to accept the
appointment of land agent of railway corporations, which enabled him
to spend four years abroad.
[Illustration: L. F. Hubbard]
Col. Mattson was for some time editor of the _Staats Tidning_, a
Swedish paper in Minneapolis, and a large owner and general manager of
the _Swedish Tribune_ published in Chicago. He was a presidential
elector in 1876. He was again elected secretary of state for 1887-88.
He is a versatile writer and a fluent speaker, a frank, outspoken and
honorable man. He was married Nov. 23, 1855, to Cherstin Peterson, a
native of Bullingslof, Sweden. They have five children living.
LUCIUS FREDERICK HUBBARD was born Jan. 26, 1836, at Troy, New York. He
was the oldest son of Charles F. and Margaret (Van Valkenburg)
Hubbard, his father being a descendant of the Hubbard family that
emigrated from the mother country and settled in New England in 1595;
his mother coming from the Holland Dutch stock that has occupied the
valley of the Hudson river since its earliest history.
The father dying early, the son found a home with an aunt at Chester,
Vermont, until he was twelve years old, when he was sent for three
years to the academy at Granville, New York. At the age of fifteen he
was apprenticed to a tinner at Poultney, Vermont, and completed his
trade at Salem, New York, in 1854, when he removed to Chicago for
three years. He then removed to Red Wing, Minnesota, and started the
Red Wing _Republican_. In 1858 he was elected register of deeds of
Goodhue county. In 1861 he sold out his interest in the _Republican_
and ran for the state senate, but was defeated by the small majority
of seven votes. In December, 1861, he enlisted in Company A, Fifth
Minnesota Volunteers, and was elected captain. In March, 1862, he
became lieutenant colonel; in August, colonel; and for conspicuous
gallantry at the battle of Nashville was promoted to the position of
brigadier general. He participated in the battles of Farmington; of
Corinth, where he was severely wounded; of Iuka, the second battle of
Corinth; of Jackson and Mississippi Springs; in the siege of
Vicksburg; in the battle of Richmond, Louisiana; of Greenfield,
Louisiana; of Nashville, where he was wounded and had two horses
killed under him, and at the siege of Spanish Fort. He was mustered
out in October, 1865, at Mobile, Alabama. He was engaged in
twenty-four battles and minor engagements and won an enviable record
for his intrepidity and coolness. He returned to Red Wing with broken
health, the result of fatigue and exposure.
In 1866 he engaged in the grain business at Red Wing, and soon
thereafter in milling operations on a large scale in Wabasha county.
In 1872 he purchased an interest in the Forest mill, at Zumbrota,
Goodhue county, and in 1875, with others, bought the mills and water
power at Mazeppa, in Wabasha county, the mills soon after being
rebuilt and enlarged.
In 1868 he raised, through his personal influence, the money necessary
for the completion of the Midland railway, a line extending from
Wabasha to Zumbrota.
He subsequently projected and organized the Minnesota Central railway
(Cannon Valley), to run from Red Wing to Mankato. As president of the
company he secured the building of the road from Red Wing to
Waterville, about sixty-six miles.
In 1878 Gen. Hubbard was nominated for Congress in the Second district
of Minnesota, but declined. In 1872 he was elected to the state
senate, and again in 1874, declining a re-election in 1876. In the
senate he was regarded as one of the best informed, painstaking and
influential members. He was on the committee to investigate the state
treasurer's and state auditor's offices, and was largely instrumental
in recommending and shaping legislation that brought about the
substantial and much needed reform in the management of those offices.
He was also one of the three arbitrators selected to settle the
difficulties between the State and the prison contractors at
Stillwater. He was appointed commissioner, with John Nichols and Gen.
Tourtelotte, in 1866, to investigate the status of the state railroad
bond, levied in 1858, and finally settled in 1881.
On Sept. 28, 1881, Gen. Hubbard was nominated for governor of
Minnesota, and was elected by a majority of 27,857, the largest
majority ever received by any governor elected in the State. In 1883
he was renominated and re-elected by a very large majority.
Gov. Hubbard is an affable, genial, courteous gentleman, whose
integrity has never been questioned; a man of the people, and in
sympathy with them and the best interests and general prosperity of
the State.
Gov. Hubbard was married in May, 1868, at Red Wing, to Amelia,
daughter of Charles Thomas, a merchant of that place. He has three
children, two boys, aged seventeen and eleven respectively, and a
girl.
WILLIAM COLVILLE is of Scotch descent on his father's side. The
ancient homestead of the family at Ochiltree is mentioned by Sir
Walter Scott in his novel, "The Antiquary." On his mother's side he is
of Irish descent. His ancestors participated in the American
Revolution. He was born in Chautauqua county, New York, April 5, 1830;
was educated at the Fredonia Academy, taught school one winter, read
law in the office of Millard Fillmore and Solomon L. Haven, of
Buffalo, and was admitted to the bar in 1851. He practiced law at
Forestville three years, and then removed to Red Wing, Minnesota. His
first winter he spent in St. Paul as enrolling clerk of the
territorial council, and the winter following was secretary of the
council. In the spring of 1855 he established the Red Wing _Sentinel_,
a Democratic paper, and conducted it until the Civil War broke out. In
1861 he entered the service as captain of Company F, First Minnesota
Infantry, and served with that regiment three years, conducting
himself with such gallantry as to win promotion. He was wounded at the
first battle of Bull Run, at Nelson's Farm and at Gettysburg, the last
wounds received maiming him for life, and necessitating a close of his
military career. At the end of three years he left the service with
the rank of colonel, and edited the _Sentinel_ until January, 1865,
when he took his seat as representative in the legislature. At its
adjournment he was appointed colonel of the First Minnesota Heavy
Artillery which was stationed at Chattanooga till the close of the
war. Col. Colville was mustered out of the service with the brevet
rank of brigadier general. In the autumn of 1865 he was elected
attorney general of the State on the Union ticket and served two
years. In 1866 he ran for Congress in opposition to the Republican
nominee. In 1877 he was elected as a Democrat to the lower house of
the state legislature in the strongest Republican county in the State.
The same year he was appointed by President Cleveland register of the
land office at Duluth, to which place he has removed his residence. He
was married to Miss Jane E. Morgan, of Oneida, New York, in 1867, a
descendant of Elder Brewster, who came over in the Mayflower.
MARTIN S. CHANDLER, for twenty-two years sheriff of Goodhue county,
Minnesota, was born in Jamestown, New York, Feb. 14, 1827. He came to
Goodhue county in 1856 and engaged for awhile farming at Pine Island.
He was elected county commissioner in 1856, and served until 1858,
removing meanwhile to Red Wing, which has since been his home. In 1859
he was elected sheriff of Goodhue county, and held the office for
eleven consecutive terms, until 1882, when he was elected to the state
senate. He was presidential elector in 1872. He was appointed surveyor
general in 1883, which office he held until 1887. He was married to
Fannie F. Caldwell, of Jamestown, New York, in 1848. His only
daughter, Florence C., is the wife of Ira S. Kellogg, of Red Wing, one
of the oldest druggists in the State.
CHARLES MCCLURE was born in Virginia in 1810; was graduated at
Lewisburg, Virginia, in 1827; studied law and was admitted to practice
in 1829. He came to Minnesota and located at Red Wing in 1856, where
he opened a law office. In 1857 he was a member of the constitutional
convention, presidential elector in 1861, state senator in 1862-63 and
in 1864, judge of the First district, filling the vacancy caused by
the retirement of Judge McMillan. At the fall election of the same
year he was elected judge of the First district and served seven
years. This district embraced Washington, Chisago, Goodhue and Dakota
counties. Judge McClure is a man of unquestionable ability and
integrity.
HORACE B. WILSON was born in Bingham; Somerset county, Maine, March
30, 1821. His grandfather settled in Maine twenty years prior to the
Revolution. He had a fair common school education until sixteen years
old, when he attended the Maine Wesleyan Seminary, graduating four
years later. He devoted himself chiefly to teaching, and studied law
meanwhile, but never practiced. He taught in Cincinnati, Ohio,
Lawrenceburg and New Albany, Indiana, until 1850, when he was elected
city civil engineer, which position he filled six years. In 1858 he
removed to Red Wing, Minnesota, and taught, as professor of
mathematics, natural science and civil engineering in Hamline
University four years. In 1862 he enlisted in Company F, Sixth
Minnesota Infantry, was elected captain, and mustered out at the close
of the war. His military service was quite arduous, including
campaigning against the Sioux until 1864, when the regiment was
ordered South and attached to the Sixteenth Army Corps.
In 1866 he was appointed superintendent of schools for Goodhue county.
In 1870 he was appointed state superintendent of schools, which
position he held five years. He was elected representative in the
state legislature in 1877, and subsequently he served four terms as
senator, and was president _pro tem._ of that body during the trial of
E. St. Julien Cox, and in the absence of the lieutenant governor
presided during the trial. For the past few years he has devoted
himself to civil engineering, and has had charge of the public
improvements of Red Wing. In 1844 he was married to Mary J. Chandler,
who died in 1887.
Among the prominent early settlers of Red Wing not mentioned in our
biographical notices were William Freeborn, for whom Freeborn county
was named, and who was a senator in the fifth, sixth, seventh and
eighth legislatures. Judges Welch and Wilder, W. C. Williston and
Warren Bristol, lawyers, both state senators from Goodhue, and the
latter a judge in Arizona. Rev. Chauncey Hobart, D.D., a Methodist
pioneer preacher, and author of a history of Methodism in Minnesota
and an autobiography; Rev. Peter Akers, D.D., an eminent educator;
Rev. M. Sorin, D.D., an eloquent preacher, and Rev. Samuel Spates and
J. W. Hancock, prominent as missionaries, the latter the first pastor
located in the village. Andrew S. Durant, first hotel keeper; Calvin
F. Potter, first merchant. W. W. Phelps and Christopher Graham were
appointed to the land office in 1855.
WABASHA COUNTY.
This county, named in honor of a Sioux chief, lies on the west shore
of the Mississippi river and Lake Pepin, between Goodhue and Winona
counties. It has a majestic frontage of bold bluffs on the lake and
river. From the summit of these bluffs stretch away broad undulating
prairie lands, with occasional depressions, or valleys, caused by the
streams tributary to the river.
Wabasha village is the county seat. The county is traversed by the St.
Paul & Milwaukee railway, and the Zumbrota Valley Narrow Gauge
railroad has its eastern terminus at Wabasha village. A railroad from
Minneiska to Eyota, in Olmsted county, through Plainview, also passes
through this county. Lake City is a thriving village on the lake
shore, beautifully situated. The Grand Encampment, located about two
miles below Wabasha village, was once a point of great interest. It
was from time immemorial a camping ground for Indians. It has an
abundance of ancient mounds. The only people in the county in 1845,
when the author first visited this section, were the Campbell, Cratt,
Bessian, and a few other French families. Bailey and sons, Dr. Francis
H. Milligan, B. S. Hurd, Samuel S. Campbell, a prominent lawyer, and
Wm. L. Lincoln came later to Wabasha. Reed's Landing, at the foot of
Lake Pepin, was early settled by Messrs. Reed, Fordyce, Richards, and
others. This point controls an immense trade for the Chippewa river,
which empties its waters into the Mississippi just opposite.
NATHANIEL STACY TEFFT is a native of Hamilton, Madison county, New
York, where he was born July 16, 1830. He was educated in the common
schools and academy; in 1848 commenced studying medicine and received
his diploma the same year at Cincinnati, after attending lectures at
the medical college in that city. In 1856 he came to Minnesota and
located in Minneiska, where he practiced medicine, served as
postmaster, justice of the peace, and member of the legislature. In
1861 he removed to Plainview, where he has taken rank as a leading
surgeon and physician in that part of the State. He has also served as
member of the state senate (in 1871-72). The writer had the pleasure
of meeting him in the legislature of 1858 and found him a strong
opponent of the $5,000,000 bill. Dr. Tefft was married to Hattie S.
Gibbs, of Plainview, Nov. 10, 1866.
JAMES WELLS.--In 1845 the writer found Mr. Wells living in a stone
trading house on the west shore of Lake Pepin, on the first high
ground on the shore above Lake City. Mr. Wells had a half-breed family
and was very reticent in his manner. He was a member of the first
territorial house of representatives. When the country became more
thickly settled he went West and was killed by the Sioux Indians in
the massacre of 1862.
WINONA COUNTY
Was named after the daughter of the Indian chief who, according to the
well known legend, precipitated herself from the famous rock on the
eastern shore of Lake Pepin, which has ever since been known as
"Maiden's Rock." The county lies on the west shore of the Mississippi,
below Wabasha county. The frontage of the bluffs on the river is
unsurpassed for grandeur and beauty, the bluffs here attaining an
altitude of six hundred feet above the river. The natural castles and
turrets crowning these bluffs remind the traveler of the towns on the
Rhine and Danube, and it is difficult to realize that they are the
handiwork of Nature and not of man. The most striking of these bluffs
occupies a position in the rear of the beautiful city of Winona,
overlooking the city and the valley, and affording from its summit
possibly the finest view on the river. The city of Winona lies on a
spacious plateau between the bluffs and the river. In 1845 a solitary
log cabin, the resting place of the mail carrier, marked the site, and
a large Indian village, belonging to the band of Chief Wapashaw,
occupied a portion of the present site of the city. All traces of this
village have long since disappeared, and given place to one of the
fairest and most flourishing cities on the river. The First State
Normal School is located here. The St. Paul & Milwaukee railroad
passes through, and the Winona & St. Peter railroad has its eastern
terminus in this city. It is also the western terminus of the Green
Bay & Mississippi. The Chicago, Burlington & Northern crosses the
river here, and has a depot in the city.
DANIEL S. NORTON, at the time of his death United States senator from
Minnesota, was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, in April, 1829. He was
educated at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio; enlisted in the Third Ohio
Volunteer Infantry in 1846 for service in the Mexican War; had his
health seriously impaired in the service; spent two years in
California, Mexico and Central America; returned to Ohio and read law
with his father-in-law, Judge R. C. Hurd, practiced in Mount Vernon,
Ohio, with Hon. William Windom and came with him to Minnesota in 1855,
locating at Winona. Mr. Norton served as senator in the first state
legislature, where the writer served with him on several committees,
among them the committee on the $5,000,000 bond bill, a bill which Mr.
Norton strongly and earnestly opposed, predicting clearly its
disastrous results. He also served as senator in the legislatures of
1861-64 and 65, when he was elected to the United States senate, which
position he held at the time of his death, in 1870. He was twice
married, first in 1856, to Miss Lizzie Sherman, of Mount Vernon, Ohio,
who died in 1862. The second time to Miss Laura Cantlan, of Baltimore,
in 1868.
WILLIAM WINDOM, a native of Ohio, came to Winona in 1855. He had been
admitted to practice in 1853, and formed a partnership with D. S.
Norton in Mount Vernon, Ohio, who came with him to Winona, where they
continued their law partnership. Mr. Windom has been quite prominent
in the politics of the State and county, having served in the United
States senate two terms, from 1871 to 1883. He was also a
representative in Congress from 1859 to 1869. He served as secretary
of the treasury to fill a vacancy. During his congressional career he
was an ardent supporter of the Union, and won the respect of the
nation for his unswerving firmness in upholding his principles. He is
a man of great executive ability, and has used his talents and his
wealth, of which he has accumulated a considerable share, in the
interests of the public. He has been heavily interested in the
building of the Northern Pacific and other railroads, and in real
estate. His opportunities have been great, he has wisely employed
them, and richly deserves the success he has achieved.
CHARLES H. BERRY, the first attorney general of the state of
Minnesota, was born at Westerly, Rhode Island, Sept. 12, 1823. He
received an excellent school and academic education, graduating at
Canandaigua Academy in 1846. He afterward read law and was admitted to
practice at Rochester in 1848. He practiced his profession at Corning,
New York, until 1855, when he removed to Winona and opened the first
law office in that city. He was associated until 1871 with C. N.
Waterman. When Minnesota became a state, in 1858, he was elected
attorney general and served two years. He was state senator in 1874-75
and has been United States commissioner since 1873. He takes great
interest in local and state affairs, especially in educational
matters. He has been for many years connected with the city school
board and for eight years its president. He was also largely
instrumental in locating the State Normal School at Winona. Mr. Berry
is a Democrat in politics, is prominent in Masonic circles and a
leading member of the Episcopal church. He was married to Frances E.
Hubbell, of Corning, New York, Nov. 14, 1850. They have one daughter,
Kate Louise, married to Prof. C. A. Morey, principal of the State
Normal School.
THOMAS WILSON was born in Tyrone county, Ireland, May 16, 1827. He
received his education in this country, graduating at Meadville
College, Pennsylvania, in 1852. He studied law, was admitted to the
bar in 1855, and in the same year came to Winona and entered the law
firm of Sargent & Wilson, known a few years later as Sargent, Wilson &
Windom. He was a member of the Republican wing of the constitutional
convention in 1857. He was elected district judge of the Fourth
district, taking his seat in 1858, and serving six years. In 1864 Gov.
Miller appointed him to a vacancy on the supreme bench, caused by the
resignation of Judge Flandrau, and in the fall of the same year he was
elected chief justice for a term of seven years. In 1869 he resigned
this position to resume his law practice. In 1881 he was elected as a
representative, and from 1883 to 1886, inclusive, as a senator in the
state legislature. He was elected as a representative to Congress in
1887.
THOMAS SIMPSON is of Scotch parentage, but was born in Yorkshire,
England, May 31, 1836. He came to America with his parents when a
child, to Dubuque county, Iowa. His educational advantages were good,
and he learned, when not in school, to assist his father, who was a
miner, smelter and farmer. He studied engineering and surveying with
E. S. Norris, of Dubuque, and was engaged in government surveys from
1853 to 1856, when he settled in Winona, studied law, and was admitted
to the bar in 1858, when he formed a law partnership with Judge Abner
Lewis and Geo. P. Wilson. In addition to his law business he has been
a heavy dealer in real estate and money loaning. There are few public
enterprises in Winona which he has not actively promoted. He was a
delegate to the national convention that nominated Lincoln for the
presidency in 1864, also to the convention that nominated Grant in
1868. He served as state senator in 1866-67. He has been an
influential member of the Methodist church. He was married Oct. 30,
1860, to Maggie Holstein, of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. They have three
sons.
WM. H. YALE was born Nov. 12, 1831, at New Hartford, Connecticut; was
educated at Sheffield Institute; came to Winona in 1857, and practiced
law. He was state senator in 1867-68, 1876-77, and lieutenant governor
from 1870 to 1874.
Other prominent citizens of Winona are: Dr. James Monroe Cole, the
oldest physician in the city; Royal Day Cone, one of the first
merchants; Judge Wm. Mitchell; ---- Norton, a lumberman and county
treasurer several years; W. W. Phelps, first president of the State
Normal School; ---- Hough, builder of the first large hotel; Hodgins,
Yeomans & Laird, lumbermen.