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 49
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under General Gorman no inconsiderable part of the time. At the end of two years Lieutenant Davis was so broken down in health as to be obliged to leave the service.
In August, 1864, he settled in St. Paul, Minne- sota, resumed the practice of the law and has since followed his profession. At first he was in partnership with General Gorman. The firm is now composed of Mr. Davis, Frank B. Kellogg, and Cordimo A. Severance, under the firm name of Davis, Kellogg and Severance. In 1867 Mr. Davis was elected to the lower branch of the Minnesota legislature, and served one term, and was placed on the judiciary and other committees. His active and powerful mind was of great ser-
vice, both in the committee rooms and on the floor. He was United States district attorney from 1868 until nominated for governor in 1873, when he resigned. He was in the executive chair from January, 1874, to January, 1876, and was the youngest man who has been governor of the state. He performed the duties of that high office with marked ability. He declined a renom- ination. In 1877 he was elected United States senator from Minnesota, and now ably represents this state in the councils of the nation. His star is still in the ascendant.
Mr. Davis was married in 188o to Miss Anna M. Agnew, who was born in St. Paul in 1857.
RICHARD JUNIUS MENDENHALL.
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.
T HERE is a tradition in the Mendenhall fam- ily that they are descended from a Russian nobleman of one of the ancient races in that great northern empire. At a later date they appear in Suffolk county, England, under the name of De Mendenhalle. Their American ancestor was John Mendenhall, a Quaker, who immigrated to Penn- sylvania with William Penn. From him the line of descent comes down through his son Aaron, his grandson James, and his great-grandson George to Richard Mendenhall, the father of our subject. Richard was married, according to the Quaker custom, to Mary Pegg, a descendant of an old Welsh family, which settled in Maryland at an early date. Richard Mendenhall was a tanner, and carried on an extensive business at James- town, North Carolina.
The subject of this sketch was born at James- town, North Carolina, on Thursday, November 25. 1828. His early years were divided between the local schools of his native village and his fath- er's tan-yard and farm. In his father's garden were laid the foundations of his present success as the leading florist of Minneapolis.
At the age of fourteen young Mendenhall went to Greensboro, the county seat, and found em- ployment with Dr. I. J. M. Lindsey, who was the postmaster of the village, besides being an emi- nent and highly-respected physician. He soon
returned to his home and went to work in the variety store of his uncle, George C. Mendenhall. From 1848 until December, 1850, he was a pupil at a Quaker boarding-school in New Garden, which he left to enter the celebrated school of the Friends at Providence, Rhode Island. Soon after this he visited Jamaica, Long Island, to see Richard Fox, an Englishman, who had formerly worked a copper mine near Jamestown, North Carolina. He was now engaged in railroad build- ing in Ohio, and at once sent Mr. Mendenhall to Steubenville, and thence to Claysville, Pennsylva- nia, to take charge of the books, time and sup- plies of a large force of men engaged in building a long tunnel. After a short trip over the eastern portion of the United States, including visits to Cleveland, Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Rochester and Boston, Mr. Mendenhall returned to his native state and went to work with his brother, Nereus, engineering on the North Carolina Railroad. Subsequently he returned north, and after jour- neying through New England and portions of Canada, he reached New York. At West Fal- mouth, Massachusetts, two old friends, Beede and Dillingham, were in partnership manufactur- ing oilcloths. Mr. Mendenhall had no money, and, of course, could not join them. But they wanted him, and in order to have him connected with the business, a store was rented in New
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York and he was put in charge of it. Here he remained during the winter, but did not find the measuring of oilcloth a congenial occupation. In the spring he became acquainted with Major Ser- rell, and was informed that if he would go out to Muscatine, Iowa, he could there get work from John Houston, an engineer. as his friends could find a substitute to take his place in their store, Mr. Mendenhall started for Musca- tine, and upon reaching there presented to Mr. Houston a letter of introduction from Major Ser- rell. He was given immediate employment car- rying a chain, and at the end of two months was promoted to head engineer of the party of four- teen surveyors. Mr. Mendenhall left the party at Des Moines, where he passed the winter of 1855-56 in the office of Dewey & Tubby, civil engineers. In the spring of 1856 he took a steamer for St. Paul, Minnesota, whence he went by stage to St. Anthony and Minneapolis.
On the TIth of February, 1858, Mr. Mendenhall married Miss Abby G. Swift, daughter of Captain Silas Swift, of West Falmouth, Massachusetts. The marriage ceremony was in accordance with the custom of the Society of Friends. There was no minister, but the parties themselves separately repeated the marriage vows in the presence of a large assembly of people. After a visit of two weeks with the parents of the bride, they went to North Carolina and remained with Mr. Menden- hall's mother (his father having died in the year 1851) a few weeks, after which they went directly to Minneapolis, where they have since resided.
Mr. Mendenhall began floriculture as a pastime, but as the business rapidly increased, he saw its
immense possibilities, and devoted to it much of his time and attention, with the result that he is now the leading florist of Minneapolis, with large and finely equipped conservatories, and a busi- ness second to none in the northwest.
His chief business for many years was banking, which he successfully carried on from 1857 until the fall of 1873. From 1862 to 1866 he was president of the old State Bank of Minnesota, afterwards merged into the State National Bank of Minneapolis, of which he was president until January, 1870. Connected with this bank was a savings bank, which Mr. Mendenhall managed till in 1870, when the two institutions were sepa- rated. During the panic of 1873 there was a run on the savings bank, and it was forced to suspend, as the funds were largely invested in real-estate securities which could not be readily converted into cash. The bank was solvent, and, with a little time and proper management, the assets could have been made to pay all claims, and leave something for the stockholders. To this end Mr. Mendenhall labored hard, but a few re- lentless creditors frustrated all his efforts, and finally forced the institution into bankruptcy. In the meantime (for this trouble covered a period of ten years), Mr. Mendenhall had pushed his floral business to a point where it became highly profitable, and from this source he has since liquidated the indebtedness of the bank. In studying the character and career of Richard J. Mendenhall, we are first led to note his active and comprehensive mind. His record is clean, and re- markable for its simplicity, its usefulness, its suc- cess.
CHARLES WILSON BUNN,
ST. PAUL, MINN.
O NE of the most scholarly and able lawyers practicing at the St. Paul bar is the gentle- man whose name heads this article. He possesses great power of analysis and condensation, and he is a clear, logical, forcible speaker. His judg- ment is superb, and as a counselor he is in the first rank. He is an excellent trial lawyer. He is very thorough in his preparation of briefs for the law courts.
Mr. Bunn is a native of Wisconsin, and was born May 21, 1855, in Trempeleau county, and is the son of Hon. Romanzo Bunn, judge of the United States district court . for the western district of Wisconsin. Charles entered the Wis- consin State University at Madison, and was graduated therefrom in 1874, and from the law department of that institution in 1875. He read law in the office of J. H. Carpenter at Madison,
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and was admitted to the Wisconsin bar. He went to La Crosse, Wisconsin, in 1875, and began practice in the office of Messrs. Cameron and Lasey, and in 1876 he was admitted as a partner in the firm, under the name of Cameron, Lasey and Bunn, and continued there until 1885. On August Ist of that year he removed to St. Paul, and formed a partnership with James W. Lusk, under the firm-name of Lusk and Bunn. In 1890 Mr. Emerson Hadley was taken into the firm, and
the firm-name is now (1892) Lusk, Bunn and Hadley. This is one of the strongest legal firms in the northwest and is rapidly extending its busi- ness.
Personally Mr. Bunn is a genial, social gentle- man, generous and friendly, and he is highly es- teemed for his integrity and uprightness. He married, in 1877, Miss Mary Anderson, a lady of refinement and many accomplishments. They have three children.
HON. E. C. BABB, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.
C APTAIN E. C. BABB, whose portrait ap- pears opposite, was born in the thrifty manufacturing village of Saccarappa, in the town of Westbrook, adjoining the city of Portland, Maine, on the Ist of February, 1834. His ances- tors were descendants of old New England fami- lies ; his mother, Mary Winslow, tracing her descent from Governor Winslow, of Massachusetts, who came from England in the Mayflower, landing on Plymouth Rock on the 22d of December, 1620, with no white person, aside from his own com- pany, nearer than Jamestown, Virginia.
Young Babb was fortunate in securing a good English education in the common and select grammar school of his native town. He com- menced life for himself by teaching school, and soon afterward learned the trade of a marble cut- ter. From the age of twenty-one to twenty-eight he was engaged in lumbering in northern Ver- mont and New Hampshire. At the outbreak of the civil war he was among the first to respond to President Lincoln's call for troops. He enlisted in the Ninth Regiment New Hampshire Volun- teer Infantry in June, 1862, and on August 22d, having been made a sergeant, he left Concord with his regiment for the seat of war.
At this time a dark cloud hung like a pall over the nation, caused by the reverses suffered by General McClellan's army in the peninsular cam- paign. During the war his regiment lost eighteen hundred men in killed, wounded and missing, being one hundred and eighty per cent. more than its original number. Our subject partici- pated in the battles of Bull Run (second), South
Mountain, Antietam and Fredericksburg, in all of which battles his regiment behaved nobly, and in the battle of Fredericksburg he displayed such gallantry that he was promoted over six first ser- geants to the rank of second lieutenant. Up to that time (December 13, 1862) but four promo- tions had been made in the regiment. It was also during the battle of Fredericksburg that a warm friendship sprang up between him and Lieuten- ant-Colonel Geo. H. Chandler, a younger brother of the late Secretary of the Navy, W. E. Chand- ler. This friendship continued till the death of Colonel Chandler, which occurred in Baltimore in 1884.
After Burnside's failure at Fredericksburg our subject accompanied his regiment and the ninth corps to Kentucky, and from there to Vicksburg, where he participated in the siege of that south- ern stronghold. After the fall of Vicksburg he went to Jackson, Mississippi, with General Sher- man, and participated in the battle that resulted in the capture of that city and the retreat of Gen- eral Johnston and his forces into the interior of the state. He left Mississippi late in August and went to Kentucky, where his regiment, which had dwindled to two hundred men, of whom but seventy-five were reported for duty, was detailed to guard the Kentucky Central Railroad, with headquarters at Paris, the county seat of Bour- bon county. From there Lieutenant Babb was detailed and ordered to report at headquarters of the second division of his corps, which he accom- panied to East Tennessee, and served as a staff officer during the winter of 1863-4, in that mem-
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orable campaign which has been aptly called the " Valley Forge" of the war of the rebellion. It was here, on the Ist day of January, that his second commission from the governor reached him, making him a first lieutenant.
The spring of 1864 found him with his regi- ment at Annapolis, recruiting its ranks and pre- paring for the final campaign under General Grant. Joining the Army of the Potomac he was in the battles of the Wilderness and Spottsylvania, May 12 and 18. The regiment went into the battle of May 12 with four hundred men. It was on the extreme right of the ninth corps, and moved up to join the left of the second corps. They moved quickly, and became detached from the corps, and were completely surrounded. In cutting their way out the regiment lost in killed and wounded over half of its numbers. He was with his regiment in the battle of North Anna River, May 24 ; in a very severe engagement on the 27th, at Talapotany Creek ; at Cold Harbor, June 3 ; in the battle of Petersburg, June 16, and charged the line in front of the Shand's House at three o'clock on the following day, capturing the line of works, with a number of prisoners and a battery of artillery and the colors of the Fifty- third Tennessee Regiment. He was, with his regiment, continually under fire, directly in front of the fort, which was blown up July 30, and was engaged in all the battles before and around Petersburg until the final surrender. He was commissioned captain in January, 1865. At the time of General Lee's surrender Captain Babb and his command were doing guard duty, and had charge of the distinguished rebel prisoners, military and naval, taken at Five Forks. He was mustered out of the service at Concord, New Hampshire, June 10, 1865.
In 1868 he removed to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and for several years was engaged in lumbering. He afterwards became president of the Cedar Lake Ice Company. He has held the highest positions in the Grand Army of the Republic in the department encampment, and at the time of meeting of the national organization at Minne- apolis in 1884, when General Logan was present, Captain Babb was in command of the grand parade, which was the finest display ever made in Minnesota. He is an esteemed member of the Loyal Legion, and is also a Mason and Knight Templar. He was created a Mason in 1864, at Washington, D. C., in B. B. French Lodge. He became a Knight Templar in 1868, in Zion Com- mandery, No. 4, of Minneapolis.
He has always been highly esteemed by his fellow-citizens, and in 1885 and 1886 · repre- sented the eighth ward of Minneapolis in the common council. In 1888 he was elected mayor of the city. He pursued the course that was expected of him, and during his administration the laws framed to control the liquor traffic and to suppress gambling were rigidly enforced. One of the most important events during his adminis- tration was the celebrated strike of the street railway employés.
Captain Babb married, August 15, 1862, Levee L. Chandler, at Berlin Falls, New Hampshire.
Such is the biography of one who stands out prominently as a commanding figure among the representative men of the northwest. The posi- tion he has reached he owes to his own exertions. He served his country faithfully and bravely dur- ing its hours of need, and now, while still in the prime of life, he has reached a position of honor and enjoys the confidence and respect of his fel- low-citizens.
MELVIN J. FORBES,
DULUTH, MINN.
T HROUGH both his father, Andrew J. Forbes, and his mother, Betsey (Fuller) Forbes, the subject of this biography traces his ancestry to Mayflower passengers. He was born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, December 31, 1848. His education was obtained in the public schools
and the academies of Bridgewater and Middle- borough. His earliest occupation was as an assistant to his father in his shoe shop, but his father dying when our subject was but fourteen, he was thrown upon his own resources, and worked in the machine shop of the Eagle Cotton
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Gin Company three winters, and for three sum- mers he worked on a farm, and thus was enabled to spend the spring and fall months in school.
In 1866 he entered the employ of the book publishing house of Messrs. J. E. Tilton and Company, of Boston. He traveled quite exten- sively for the firm during the next three years, at first soliciting advertisements for a horticultural magazine they published, and later, selling their publications to the trade. In 1869 he had already shown himself so capable and trustworthy that he was entrusted with opening a branch house in New York. The firm failing in 1870, compelled him to return to Boston, and when their affairs were settled took charge of the Boston house. He had read much regarding the natural advantages of Duluth, and was so favorably impressed with that city that he left Boston in July, 1870, and re- moved thither, and, in copartnership with Mr. Woodbridge, opened a book store under the firm name of Woodbridge and Forbes. In 1876 he withdrew from the firm and accepted a position as bookkeeper in the office of the Union Improve-
ment and Elevator Company, with which he remained until 1878. when he formed a copart- nership with Mr. George Spencer for the purpose of conducting a general grain commission busi- ness. The firm of George Spencer and Company was one of the most successful in the west, and conducted a great volume of business, surpassed by very few in the west.
Mr. Forbes had become largely interested in real estate and other matters, and withdrawing from the firm in 1889 he has since then devoted his attention to his private interests. On January 6, 1885, he married Miss Ida M. Raymond, of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mr. Forbes is a Mason of more than usual prominence, takes an active interest in the Order, to which he can, however, spare but little time. He has passed through the various degrees up to and including the thirtieth. He has held many positions in the Order, among them being past master (blue lodge); past high priest (chapter), and stations in most of the other bodies. In politics he is a liberal Republican. His sympathies are with the Republicans, but he is not bigoted nor bound by party lines.
HON. ALBERT SCHEFFER,
ST. PAUL, MINN.
T HE great State of Minnesota has within her borders many men who have had a distinguished and honorable career, but among them all there is not a single foreign-born man, and perhaps no son of its own soil, who is person- ally more estcemed than Albert Scheffer. His advancement has, all the way from his infancy, been against the current. He has won recogni- tion from the world by merit alone. He was born March 27, 1844, at Rheinberg, Prussia. He became an American by the immigration of his parents, who immigrated to Wisconsin in 1849.
He attended the common-schools of Wisconsin, and then took a three years' course at the German and English Academy of Milwaukee, where he finished a course in 1860, and soon after moved to St. Paul, and began his business career as bookkeeper in a wholesale and retail dry-goods house. His honesty and diligence secured for him a position as clerk in a banking house at
Stillwater, where he was promoted to the position of assistant cashier. In 1863 Mr. Scheffer left Stillwater and went to Milwaukee, where he en- listed as a private soldier, and was afterward com- missioned second lieutenant, and was promoted to first lieutenant, and served till the war ended, when he was mustered out in August, 1865. Again locating in St. Paul, he entered the First National Bank as teller in September, 1866, and was promoted to the position of assistant cashier, which position he filled till 1870, when he be- came a partner in the private banking house of Dawson, & Co., who were succeeded by Dawson, Smith & Scheffer, subsequently organized as the Bank of Minnesota, with Mr. Scheffer as cashier. In May, 1887, Mr. Scheffer, with others, organized the Commercial National Bank, and was chosen president, which position he has ever since held.
Mr. Scheffer was several times elected a mem- ber of the Board of Education, and, as indicating
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his popularity, was unanimously nominated by the Republican party for state senator in 1885, and endorsed by the Democratic party for that posi- tion. His service in the legislature was marked by his usual prudence and fidelity. Mr. Scheffer was a candidate before the Republican state convention in 1888 for governor, and had the largest number of delegates, and was by far the most popular man for the place. As a banker and business man, no man in the northwest better deserves the confidence of the public, because of his sound discretion, strict integrity and conservative business methods. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and
the Chamber of Commerce, and has always been very deeply interested in all worthy public enterpriess.
Mr. Scheffer was married in 1869 to Mary M. Dreis, a lady much esteemed wherever known. In personal appearance Mr. Scheffer is above medium height and fair, and looks the self reliant, pleasing gentleman that he is. He represents the best type of the self-made man, successful yet always eschewing questionable methods, broad minded, so cordial in his greeting that it is great pleasure to come in contact with him. Surely the people of Minnesota are right in thinking they have nothing too good for Mr. Scheffer.
AUSTIN FRANKLIN KELLEY, MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.
T HE vigorous growth of the northwest has been mainly the result of the free indus- trial energy of individuals. As steady applica- tion to work is the healthiest training for indi- viduals, so it is the best discipline of a state. Honorable industry always travels the same road with enjoyment, and progress is impossible with- out it. Labor is the best test of the energies of men, and furnishes an admirable training for prac- tical wisdom. These truths find a happy illustra- tion in the career of Austin F. Kelly, who was born in an age when opportunities for advancement were few. He was early trained to habits of in- dustry, and his whole life has been characterized by honest, untiring enterprise that has carried him over many a seeming unsurmountable bar- rier to a well-deserved success. He was born in Wardsboro, Vermont, on September 3, 1847. His father, Benjamin Franklin Kelley, was a prosper- ous farmer of that vicinity, and as a citizen, was admired and respected by all who knew him. When our subject was three months old his father removed with his family to Newfane, Vermont, a few miles from Wardsboro. Austin attended the common schools of Newfane until he reached his seventeenth year, finding employment out of school hours on his father's farm. Fully realiz- ing that his success in life must depend solely upon his own efforts, and believing that a com- mercial life, rather than that of a profession, was
best suited to his taste and abilities, he left school at the age of seventeen, and found employment in the country store of Messrs. Baker and Hew- ett, at Putney, Vermont. During the next four years he served as a clerk in this store and de- voted his energies to the attainment of a knowl- edge of the details of the business. At the end of that time he bought the interest of Mr. Baker, and the business was continued under the firm- name of Hewett and Kelley. Mr. Kelley re- mained in this business until 1874, and during that time, by their tireless energy and uniform methods of fair dealing, the firm built up a large and successful business.
It was about this time that the magnificent resources of the northwest were becoming appa- rent and claimed the attention of those men pos- sessed of the courage and confidence so necessary in the development of a new country. Mr. Kel- ley was ambitious, and desiring a broader scope for his energies he determined to take a trip through the west and learn for himself something of its condition. The summer of 1874 was de- voted to traveling throughout the west, and finally reaching Minneapolis, then a city of twen- ty-five thousand inhabitants, he was immediately impressed with her prospects, and believing that she was destined to become the metropolis of the northwest, he determined to cast his lot with her enterprising people. Returning to Putney,
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his interests there were quickly disposed of, and in the fall of 1874 he became a resident of Min- neapolis. Under the firm-name of Lewis and Kelley, he immediately engaged in a mortgage- loan business, loaning both eastern and local capi- tal on real-estate security. In 1879 this partner- ship was dissolved, and associating with himself, his brother, Louis E. Kelley, the business was continued under the name of A. F. and L. E. Kelley, the present style of the firm (1892). Since its inception, the business has been confined strictly to the negotiation of loans on real-estate security, and the firm has had no dealings outside the State of Minnesota. During all these years an immense amount of eastern capital has been invested in Minnesota by the firm, and their busi- ness has grown from an exceedingly small begin- ning to its present high rank among the responsi- ble financial institutions of the northwest.
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