USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > The biographical dictionary and portrait gallery of representative men of Chicago, Minnesota cities and the World's Columbian exposition : with illustrations on steel. V. 2 > Part 33
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an unfriendly act. No employment requires fuller knowledge, better judgment and more inflexible firmness for its successful exercise than that of the banker.
Mr. Sidle married, October 30, 1853, Miss Cath- erine S. Kurtz, of York, Pennsylvania, who is a descendant of Rev. Benjamin Kurtz, a distin- guished minister of the German Reformed Church of Baltimore. Their three surviving chil- dren are the two sons above spoken of as associate officers of the First National Bank, and Mrs. E. R. Barber. Mr. and Mrs. Sidle have not been exempt from sore bereavement in the loss of
promising and greatly beloved children. They are members and prominent supporters of West- minster Presbyterian Church, and liberal contrib- utors to all worthy benevolences.
Their pleasant home on Seventh street is one of the unpretentious, but attractive private resi- dences of the city. A cottage on the banks of Lake Minnetonka furnishes a pleasant retreat dur- ing the heat of summer, where the breezes of the lake breathe into the frame wearied with care, and exhausted with never-ending and always beginning detail of the banker's life, new strength and vigor.
HON. JOHN S. PRINCE,
ST. PAUL, MINN.
T HE subject of this sketch is well known in the business circles of the northwest as an able financier. A resident of St. Paul for nearly forty years, he has been identified with a multi- tude of enterprises that have conduced to the growth of this commercial metropolis of the northwest.
John Stoughtenburg Prince is a native of Ohio. He was born in Cincinnati, May 7, 1821. His father, Joseph Prince, and his mother, Charlotte S., née Osborn, both came from New England. The progenitor of this branch of the Prince family was the Rev. John Prince, who was, in the early part of the seventeenth century, rector of East Sheffield, Berkshire, England, and our subject is the eighth John Prince in regular succession from that clerical gentleman. The second John Prince came to America about the year 1632, settling first at Watertown, and afterwards at Nantucket (now Hull), Massachusetts, in 1636.
Joseph Prince was born in Boston in 1788, and died in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1833. Soon after the birth of his son John, he lost a great portion of a handsome fortune in a trading venture to New Orleans. At the age of ten years, our sub- ject went to Mendon, Massachusetts, and spent a year or more with his grandparents, and upon his return entered the employ of a commission firm. In time he acquired a thorough knowledge of trade and business methods, and by devoting his spare hours to study acquired an excellent edu-
cation. After a while he made some small in- vestments on his own account, his first venture being in a stock of furs which he sold at a good profit.
His widowed mother remarried; her second husband being Gabriel Franchere, a gentleman of scholarship and culture, with large experience in and a superior knowledge of the fur trade. He was a Canadian by birth, and one of the founders of Astoria, Washington ; one of the party sent out by John Jacob Astor in 1810, in the ship Tonquin. He published an account of his experiences in French, of which there are several translations in English. In 1842 he became connected with the American Fur Company, afterwards with Pierre Chouteau and Company, and at the time of his death was senior partner of the house of G. Franchere and Company, of New York city. Mr. Franchere, besides being a gentleman of culture and fine education, had many superior qualities. His kindness of heart endeared him to his step- children, and to all who knew him ; he was a man of strict integrity and of religious feeling. Though he lived a life of adventure for the most part, it was one of rectitude, morality and good deeds. He died at the residence of his step-son, our sub- ject, in St. Paul, in 1862.
In 1840 Mr. Prince entered the employ of the American Fur Company, and remained with it two years, or until it suspended operations by reason of the transfer of its interests to Pierre
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Chouteau, Jr., and Company, of St. Louis. While with this company Mr. Prince was stationed at Evansville, Indiana, although his duties required frequent absence from that point. Entering the service of the Chouteau Company he became its purchasing agent for Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and what was then the territory of Wisconsin, traveling extensively throughout his district, and in 1854 he visited St. Paul in the in- terest of his company, and has ever since remained a resident of that city. Soon afterwards he built a steam saw-mill on the river, in what was then the lower part of the city, and operated it success- fully a number of years. He also engaged in real- estate transactions, which proved very profitable. Among the important enterprises of the city with which he has been prominently connected are the St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company and the St. Paul and Sioux City Railroad Com- pany, of which he was one of the incorporators. Of the latter company he was from the first, until its transfer, one of its directors, and was always recog- nized as one of its most efficient promoters. When the Savings Bank of St. Paul was organized he became its cashier, and has been its president since 1876. In 1857 he was chosen a member of the Constitutional Convention of Minnesota, and assisted materially in framing the organic law of the state. When Governor Sibley was elected in 1858, he appointed Mr. Prince on his military staff, with the rank of colonel. In this capacity Colonel Prince commanded the state forces in the " Wright county war" of August, 1869. At the head of three companies of militia he pro- ceeded to the seat of war at Monticello, and re- inforced the civil authorities, and by good man- agement arrested a dozen or more of the lynchers, vindicated the supremacy of the law and returned without having shed a drop of blood.
In 1860 Mr. Prince was elected mayor of St. Paul. He served by re-election during the years 1860, 1861, 1862, 1865 and 1866. During 1861-2, the first two years of the war, Mr. Prince rose to the occasion with a patriotism that was sublime, and altogether manly and heroic, and perhaps his greatest distinction in life was attained as the war- mayor of St. Paul. He presided over the first war meetings held after Sumter was fired upon; aided in every possible way in recruiting volun- teers, and providing for their families; and from
first to last, used all of his official and personal in- fluence in aid of the cause of the Union. His conduct during the Sioux Indian war of 1862 is worthy of all praise. Upon the news of the upris- ing of the savages he speedily convened the council, and employed all his authority towards the sup- pression of the outbreak and the rescue of those in peril. At one time he was selected by Gover- nor Ramsey as the bearer of special dispatches to General Sibley, and he rode night and day until he had fulfilled his mission. When the poor refugees came crowding into the little city, he labored incessantly in caring for them until all were provided for.
He was mayor in 1865, and it was his privilege to again convene the city council in special ses- sion, and to direct that body to provide for the proper celebration of the final victory of the Union armies, the consummation of the work in which he had engaged four years previously. Throughout several terms, at the head of the mu- nicipal department, his influence in directing legis- lation and in shaping the municipal regulations of the city was of marked and lasting benefit, and he discharged his full duty at all times and under all circumstances without fear or favor. Mr. Prince has done much other service for his adopted city. He was president of the Assess- ment Commission one year and of the Board of Public Works three years. He has been at the head of certain civic demonstrations on several occasions, officiating at the reception of notable visitors, and always acquitted himself creditably. He has been instrumental in the erection of a number of valuable buildings, and in various other ways has assisted in developing and improving the material interests of the city. He is a gener- ous supporter of public and private · benevolent causes, and the deserving poor of every class have no better friend than he.
In politics Mr. Prince is a Democrat of the Jeffersonian school, yet he is not so strong a parti- san that he will vote for a person he deems unfit for office to which he has been nominated, and he does not hesitate to erase from his ticket the name of any candidate that he believes to be dishonest or in- competent. He is liberal and tolerant in his views; cannot be considered a politician and was never an office-seeker. He and his family are ear- nest members of the Catholic church.
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Mr. Prince married Miss Emma S. Linck, of Evansville, Indiana, May 2, 1844. To their union, which has been one of marked congeniality and rare domestic felicity, there have been born twelve children, viz., Maria, Francis, John Fred- crick, Charlotte, Antoinette, Mary, Frances, Joseph, Emma, Laura, Grace and John Sibley. Of these, Maria, Francis, Joseph, John Frederick and Laura are dead: Charlotte is now Sister Mary Evangelista, of the Convent of the Visitation, St. Louis ; Antoinette is the wife of Brevet Briga-
dier General M. R. Morgan, U. S. A; Mary is the wife of Dr. J. C. Markoe, of St. Paul ; Emma is the wife of Frank M. Brigham, Esq., son of Brevet Brigadier General J. D. Brigham, U. S. A; Frances and Grace are with their parents, and John Sibley is with the Savings Bank of St. Paul.
The family residence, a commodious and well- appointed mansion, on East Eighth street, erected by its honored head soon after his first arrival in the city, is the abode of comfort, taste, refine- ment and generous hospitality.
HON. ROBERT BRUCE LANGDON,
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.
R OBERT BRUCE LANGDON came of that old, sturdy New England stock, that gave to this country honor, intelligence and industry. He was born on the 24th of November, 1826, in New Haven, Addison county, Vermont, son of Seth and Laura (Squier) Langdon.
Seth Langdon was the leading farmer of Addi- son county, and one of its most prominent and influential citizens. His father, when only a young boy, went to the war of the revolution with the grandfather, who was a captain in the army.
Robert was brought up on his father's farm till twenty years of age. During his boyhood he attended school in the winter and worked on the farm during the summer, and later he attended the academy and obtained a good academic edu- cation. He spent the summer and fall of his twentieth year with the engineers of the Rutland and Burlington Railroad, who were building their road through New Haven and through his father's farm. In the following spring he was employed by Selah Chamberlain as foreman of a grading outfit, and the business confidence and relations that were begun between this gentleman at that carly day have been carried from the far east to the great northwest, and have continued through- out all these years. Mr. Langdon became super- intendent of works and left with Mr. Chamberlain for Ohio, to complete contracts there. They went to Wisconsin, and completed work on the Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien Railroad.
Their next work was on the Illinois Central,
and Mr. Langdon superintended the building of that road from Kankakee to Urbana, which was completed in 1853. There was a lull in railroad construction at that time, and Mr. Langdon, in company with President Nash, of the National Exchange Bank of Milwaukee, started a stock farm. They soon gave it up, however, and Mr. Langdon took his first contract from the Chicago and Northwestern, and fenced that road from Fond du Lac to Minnesota Junction. His next contract was with the Milwaukee and La Crosse Railroad for fencing that road from Horicon to Portage City, was completed just as that road failed in 1857, and after paying most of his debts contracted in this work, Mr. Langdon was left without a dollar. But he was not disheartened. He went to work in the saw mills at Horicon, Wisconsin, as superintendent, and at the end of the sawing season he was able to pay off all that remained of his indebtness.
He set out for St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1858, and arrived there just after the state had passed the famous land grant. He took sub-contracts for grading, masonry and bridge work on the Great Northern Railroad from St. Paul to Elk river. This work was successful and before its completion he returned to his native home, and married Miss Sarah Smith, a daughter of Dr. Smith, one of the oldest and most respected practitioners of New Haven. Returning he com- pleted the contract and then went to Indiana, where he spent one season in the construction of roadway for the Logansport, Peoria and Oquawka
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Railroad Company. His next contract was in the south, just before the civil war, and the incidents attending his work there would fur- nish interesting reading in these days of safety and peace.
His contract on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad during the early part of 1861 was attended by considerable personal danger. Mr. Langdon was advised by prominent southerners to send his wife away from the scenes of warfare as a matter of safety, and Mrs. Langdon left at once for her .home in Vermont. Many of the contractors on the Mobile and Ohio construction abandoned their contracts and left the country ; but Mr. Langdon completed his work, as well as much of that belonging to deserting contractors, and thus did all the bridge work and much of the grading and track laying. His work was completed in May, 1861, and before he left in June the war was well under way. The condition of the coun- try and lack of money necessitated Mr. Langdon's acceptance of railroad bonds in payment of his contract and he immediately started for the north, arriving at Cairo, Illinois, late in June. Here he met his partner and divided the pro- ceeds of their Mobile contract, which gave them about eight hundred dollars each in cash. Mr. Langdon returned to Vermont and passed the summer, but early in the fall he set out with his wife for Horicon, Wisconsin. There he estab- lished a general commission business, and becom- ing identified with the Milwaukee and La Crosse Railroad he was given charge of a construction train, and three months later was made road- master of a division of that road. He resigned this position later to accept the position of fuel agent with the Chicago, Alton and St. Louis Railroad Company, which at that time had in its employ a group of men who have since become prominent throughout the country. Marvin Hewett was train dispatcher; C. C. Wheeler was general freight agent ; Mr. McMullen was general passenger agent ; and H. C. Wicker, C. H. Allen and Mr. Langdon were prominent and trusted employés. Mr. Langdon remained with this company some eighteen months, and then re- moved to Mendota, Minnesota, where he resided in the old homestead of General Sibley. His first work there was the trestle and bridge work on the bridge spanning the Minnesota river at
that point. He also completed grading contracts abandoned by others, and remaining there till 1866 when he removed to Minneapolis.
The history of Mr. Langdon in Minneapolis is a part of the phenomenal growth and prosperity of the young metropolis at the headwaters of the Mississippi. Railroad building had ceased at this time, and Mr. Langdon built the canal on the river at this point, which required about a year's time for its completion. He also built the first Washburn mill; the First National Bank Build- ing, which was then the finest structure in Minneapolis. He also built the Masonic Block and extensive flouring mills at Cold Springs, Minnesota. In 1867 he began the McGregor & Western, now the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad, which he built to the Missouri river at Chamberlain. Since the war Mr. Lang- don has been one of the most prominent railroad builders in the northwest. His business has grown from small proportions to an immense industry, employing thousands of men when in operation, and controlling a capital reaching into the millions.
Messrs. Langdon and Company have built rail- roads in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North and South Dakota, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, Iowa, Ohio, Alabama, Michigan, Manitoba and some of the territories. They built seven hundred and sixty miles of road for the Canadian Pacific ; sixteen hundred miles for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul ; one thousand miles for the Great Northern ; seven hundred miles for the Soo road ; five hundred miles for the Chicago and Northwestern; two hundred and fifty miles for the Northern Pacific; besides various amounts for the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad Company, the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railroad Com- pany, the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Company, the Chicago and Indiana Coal Company, and the Cleveland and Tuscarawas Railroad Company. They built bridges across the Mississippi at Hastings, at St. Paul and at St. Cloud. They bridged the Minnesota at Mendota and Chaske, The firm consists of Mr. Langdon and Mr. Linton, who was chief clerk for the Minnesota Central before he joined Mr. Langdon. He has been a valuable member of the firm since 1870.
Mr. Langdon has been identified with all enter- prises tending toward the material prosperity of
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Minneapolis. As a citizen he has been an honored leader in all matters of public importance, and was a valuable member of the state senate for many years. He was a promoter of the Syndicate Block and is a large stockholder in that fine building. He was one of the founders and is president of the Masonic Temple ; president of the Minneapolis Terminal Elevator Company ; president of the Belt Line Railroad and was vice- president of the Minneapolis and St. Louis Rail- road Company, and is vice-president of the Min- neapolis, St. Paul and S. Ste. Marie Railway Company. He is a director of the City Bank, the Syndicate Insurance Company, president of the Syndicate Building Company, the Minneapolis Loan and Trust Company, and a member of the Geo. R. Newell Grocery Company, which is the largest wholesale grocery in the state. He is president of the Minneapolis Club and chairman of the building committee; also president of the Vermont Association.
Mr. Langdon is a Republican, and served thir- teen years in the Minnesota state senate, where he commanded the respect and admiration of all parties. Mr. Langdon is not a "high tariff " Re- publican, and displays that broad liberality in politics that has brought him so much honor and respect in all the other walks of life. He was a
delegate to the National Republican Conventions in 1876, 1884 and 1888, and helped to nominate Messrs. Hayes, Blaine and Harrison. He is a gentleman of commanding figure. He is one of three brothers, who were all over six feet in height and two hundred pounds in weight. Mr. Langdon's kindly manners and splendid qualities make him a remarkable figure in any assembly. All his relations have been marked by strict integrity, honesty and proper regard for the rights of others; and we can recall his early struggles in Wisconsin to pay off an unjust debt. He has never permitted a mortgage to hang over his property, and the wealth he now enjoys is the fruit of his own industry and brains.
In religion Mr. Langdon is an attendant at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, in which Mrs. Langdon is prominent in church work. Their family con- sists of two daughters and one son. The latter is one of the most promising young men in the northwest, and now takes full charge of his father's business.
In closing this brief sketch we would add the words of one of his eminent fellow-citizens, who says: "No man in the west enjoys the respect and confidence of the people more perfectly than R. B. Langdon, and no man has more faithfully and justly earned it."
GENERAL JOHN . B. SANBORN,
ST. PAUL, MINN.
W HETHER as a lawyer, orator, soldier or statesman, General John B. Sanborn is an honor to the state of his adoption, and a worthy son of the old Granite State that gave him birth. He was born in the town of Epsom, in the county of Merrimac, December 5, 1826, on the old homestead that has been in possession of the family for seven generations, and is still owned by its members. The town of Sanbornton was named for certain members of this family. The chronicles state that over two centuries ago two brothers, by the name of Sanborn, settled in Hampton, New Hampshire, from whom all the Sanborns descended. Eliphalet Sanborn, his grandfather, was a soldier in the patriot army during our struggle for independence, as
was also his maternal grandfather, Benjamin Sargent, who entered the service as a drummer- boy, and served throughout the war, closing his term of service as a soldier in the ranks. His paternal grandfather, the Hon. Josiah San- born, was a prosperous lumberman and farmer, and for seventeen consecutive years, was a member of the New Hampshire legislature. His father, Frederick Sanborn, a man of exalted char- acter, resided on the old home farm for nearly a century, or until his death. His wife, the mother of our subject, was Miss Lucy L. Sargent, a native of Pittsfield, New Hampshire, and a woman of exceptional personal worth and superior traits of character.
The early days of our subject were spent on
Eng & by H.5 Hills Sms Ne. Br.
John B. Janbom.
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the farm and at the public schools, and at work as a lumberman in the woods and in a saw-mill. He pursued a preparatory course of study, and, upon the advice of several of his friends, including Hon. Franklin Pierce, he decided to study law. Accordingly in 1851, he entered the law office of Judge Asa Fowler, a distinguished jurist of Con- cord, and was admitted to the bar in July, 1854. He commenced practice in Concord, but removed to St. Paul in December of that year. He formed a partnership with Theodore French, under the firm name of Sanborn and French. In January, 1857, Mr. Charles C. Lund was admitted to the firm, and the firm name became Sanborn, French and Lund, and so continued until the death of Mr. French in 1860. Mr. Sanborn continued in partnership with Mr. Lund until he entered the military service, early in 1862. The " History of St. Paul " says of him :
" General Sanborn was from the first successful as a lawyer; both as a safe and reliable counselor, and as a lucid, logical advocate, he gained a high reputation, and was soon widely known, and his large practice extended into both state and federal courts. In 1859 he was elected to the house of representatives and served as chair- man of the judiciary committee. In this position he performed much valuable service in shaping legislation, notably in formulating and aiding in the enactment of a system of laws which restored and in part inaugurated a sound and healthy con- dition of the finances of the state. In 1860 he was elected to the state senate, and was made chairman of the committee on military affairs."
General Sanborn's services in aid of the cause of the Union during the war of the rebellion were very conspicuous and valuable, and his record, if fully and fairly set out, would fill a volume. In 1861 he was appointed by Governor Ramsey ad- jutant general and acting quarter master general of the state, with the rank of brigadier general, and charged with the organization and equip- ment of Minnesota volunteers. Though he was in the enjoyment of a profitable practice, with better prospects before him, he immediately ac- cepted the appointment and entered upon its duties. At this time the state was without a military chest-a commissariat-and its armament was practically worthless. But aided by his patriotic fellow-citizens, General Sanborn soon
had Minnesota's contingent in the field ready for duty, although he was compelled to make a trip to Washington in order to have the first regiment properly uniformed. He equipped for the field the second and third regiments, and thoroughly systematized and put in good working order the machinery of his office. Then he offered him- self as a soldier, and upon the organization of the Fourth Regiment of Infantry, in December, 1861, he was commissioned its colonel. The head- quarters of the regiment were at Fort Snelling during the winter of 1861-2, and General Sanborn had command of all the troops along the frontier of the state, including the several garrisons. In the early spring of 1862 he was ordered with his regiment to the south. In due course he reached General Halleck's army, then in front of Corinth, Mississippi, and was assigned to General Pope's command, then called the Army of the Mississippi. In the siege of Corinth he was given command of a demi-brigade consisting of three regiments of infantry and a battery of artillery. After the evacuation by the Confederates, May 29th, and the pursuit to Brownville, Mississippi, his com- mand returned to the vicinity of Cornith, and went into camp on Clear Creek. Here there was a reorganization of the troops of the department and though holding but the rank of colonel, he was given command of the first brigade, third division of the Army of the Mississippi. The division was commanded by General C. S. Hamil- ton, of Wisconsin, the Army of the Mississippi by General Rosecrans. In August Hamilton's divis- ion was sent to Jacinto, Mississippi, a point about eighteen miles east of Corinth, and here it remained until the middle of September, when it marched toward Iuka, which had been captured by the Confederates, under General Sterling Price, a few days before. In the battle of Iuka, September 19, 1862, one of the hardest fought engagements of the war, and, for the numbers en- gaged, one of the bloodiest, General Sanborn es- pecially distinguished himself. He led his brig- ade, consisting of the Fifth and Sixteenth Iowa, Twenty-sixth Missouri, Fourth Minnesota and Forty-eighth Indiana regiments, and the Eleventh Ohio battery, numbering in all about two thou- sand two hundred men, into action, and through- out, sustained the brunt of the fight. He was op- posed by Maury's division of Confederates nearly
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