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 66
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In 1884 Mr. Menage organized the Northwest- ern Guaranty Loan company and became presi- dent of the company upon its incorporation. Its plan of business is unique and in some respects original, suggested by the rare financial genius of its president. Its assets now amount to nearly four million dollars, and it is the largest financial institution in point of capital in the northwest. Its office building is the largest, as it is also the most elegant in decoration and the most complete in arrangement of any similar structure west of Chicago. The building, including its central and commanding site, represents an investment of two million dollars. For this wonderful structure the city of Minneapolis is indebted to the sagacity and enterprise of Mr. Menage.
With genius for organizing finance, singularly favored by fortune, Mr. Menage is by no means sordid or avaricious. There is ample evidence that he accepts and practices the theory of stew- ardship ; but his benefactions do not always take traditional channels. His taste is scientific ; museums and collections have always a peculiar attraction. Hence, when in 1890, the Minnesota Academy of Natural Science at Minneapolis de- sired to send out an expedition to the Philippine Islands for scientific study, and to gather speci- mens in natural history in that strangely prolific quarter of the Pacific Ocean, its members were not less delighted than surprised when Mr. Men- age offered to defray all the expenses of the expe- dition for two years. Accordingly, Messrs. D. C.
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Worcester and T. S. Bourne, two young men who had made one similar expedition in company with Prof. J. B. Steere, of the University of Michigan, were fitted out with supplies needed for the un- dertaking, and in July, 1890, departed for their field. The results of the expedition are to be the property of the Academy, with the sole condition that all specimens shall be accessible for study by the students of the schools and colleges of the state.
On September 13, 1876, Mr. Menage married Miss Amanda A., daughter of Benjamin S. Bull,
of Minneapolis. They have one child, a daughter, of the age of fourteen.
Physically Mr. Menage is spare, of medium stature, and not of a robust appearance. He is modest and retiring in disposition, and reticent in speech. He has the faculty of inspiring confi- dence, and seems to possess the rare combination of boldness in conception and caution and pru- dence in action. His career is remarkable. He has, without adventitious aid, achieved eminent success, and his career has earned for himself the admiration of all, and he is universally esteemed.
GEORGE AUGUSTUS BRACKETT,
MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.
I
N the busy hive of workers who have con-
verted Minneapolis from a struggling settle- ment to a compact city there are few who have wrought more industriously or to better purpose than George A. Brackett. The period of his minority had been passed in the villages of Maine, where, at Calais, he was born on the 16th day of September, 1836, and at Orono, to which his fam- ily removed in the year 1847. 1
His father, Henry H. Brackett, a mechanic in humble circumstances, descended from English ancestry, who had emigrated to America in col- onial times. George was the second son. The common school of Orono gave him fragmentary instruction in the rudiments of learning, the long- est period of attendance being nine weeks. His
chief education was in the school of adversity. From making and vending candy whilst a lad he turned his attention to a variety of labor, as opportunity offered, chief of which was among the loggers and lumber mills of Penobscot, devot- ing his meager earnings to the support of a large family. Here he acquired that practical knowl- edge of affairs which fitted him for the exigencies of a new and growing community.
As the period of his maturity approached he realized the scant opportunity which his native state afforded for the larger work which his ambi- tion craved, and stimulated by the reports of the early emigrants from Maine to the region of the upper Mississippi, who sent home the allurements of that new region, he determined to remove to
St. Anthony. With a ticket purchased on credit and a four-pound Canadian bank note in his pocket he set out, and arrived on the same train with one of his schoolboy acquaintances, W. D. Washburn, who taught school in the neighborhood where Mr. Brackett resided.
Arriving here April 30, 1857, he accepted em- ployment as a butcher boy through the summer, and during the winter worked on the dam of the Minneapolis Mill Company. In the following spring he opened a meat market on First street between Nicollet avenue and Minnetonka street, dressing his own beeves and standing over the block, and pursued that business with moderate success until the civil war broke out in the spring of 1861. During the winter of 1858-9, in connec- tion with J. M. Eustis, he cut ice in Lake Pepin, and in the spring built and loaded eight flatboats for a southern market. In passing the rapids at Rock Island three of the boats were wrecked, and their contents restored to the river. The remain- der was floated on to Memphis and Helena, Ar- kansas, where so much of the cargoes as had not become liquefied under the smiles of the southern sun was disposed of. The enterprise did not yield sufficient profit to induce its repetition.
When the first volunteers were rendezvoused at Fort Snelling he was employed by J. M. Eustis in dispensing rations to the soldiers gathered there until the First Regiment left the fort for Wash- ington, and thence to Poolsville, where Colonel Gorman's regiment was in camp. The contract
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to supply General Stone's division with beef was awarded to him, and he commenced buying cattle and dressing his beef in the woods, and at the same time opened a mess, which was patronized by the leading officers of the division. Among these officers was Captain R. N. Batchellor, then quartermaster of Stone's division. Captain Batch- ellor hailed from New Hampshire, and, although at that time a volunteer officer, his promotion was rapid, and he is now quartermaster general of the United States army.
He returned to Minnesota in the spring of 1862. During the summer the Sioux war broke out. The settlements were being devastated by the savages, and the settlers fleeing from their burn- ing homes. Mr. Brackett joined the expedition fitted out by the government under the command of General Henry H. Sibley, and was given the contract to supply the command with beef. While on the plains, near where the prosperous village of North Dakota is now, on the 24th day of July, 1863, a thrilling episode occurred, from the peril of which he barely escaped with his life. With Lieutenant Freeman of the command he went out for a hunt, and, while ardently pursuing ante- lope, they were confronted by fifteen native sav- ages, who advanced upon them with yells. At the first discharge Lieutenant Freeman was pierced through the body with an arrow, and fell from his horse dead. Mr. Brackett dismounted, and giving his attention to his stricken compan- ion found that life was extinct. While the Indi- ans were pursuing the horses he crawled into some tall rushes and lay concealed until the ene- my departed. Without hat or clothing, except shirt and pantaloons, with no water or provisions, he set out for Camp Atchinson, one hundred miles away. After five days of walking he returned to the spot where the attack was made, but the body of his companion had disappeared. Taking new bearings he again set out for Camp Atchinson. On the seventh day from the attack he succeeded in reaching that place, with rheumatic limbs, swol- len feet and famished body, more dead than alive, having walked two hundred and twenty-five miles. He rejoined General Sibley's command on its re- turn, and reached home on the first of September with a keener appreciation of the perils of Indian warfare and the helplessness of isolated man.
Again the summer of 1864 was spent on the
plains, transporting and supplying the troops under General Sulley and the garrison at Fort Wordsworth with provisions.
The Indian and civil wars being over, Mr. Brack- ett formed a copartnership with the enterprising firm of Eastman and Gibson, who bought and operated the Cataract Flouring Mill and the North Star Woolen Factory. After two years the firm dissolved, and Mr. Brackett, in association with W. S. Judd, bought the Cataract mill and leased the Washburn " A" mill, which, under the style of Judd and Brackett, they operated for two years.
In the summer of 1869 Mr. Brackett was en- gaged by Governor J. Gregory Smith, president of the Northern Pacific Railway Company, to accompany a party of directors and others in a reconnaisance of the route of the road across the then uninhabited plains. To him was assigned the duty of providing camp supplies and trans- portation, while Pierre Bottineau was guide. The party proceeded as far as the big bend of the Mis- souri, where Fort Stevenson is now located, and returned after a most successful and enjoyable trip.
The building of the road having been resolved upon, Mr. Brackett was appointed, in the spring of 1870, purchasing agent of the road, and he dis- tributed the necessary supplies and material from the Dells of the St. Louis to Georgetown on Red river. When the surveys had been completed a contract was let to build the first section of the road from the St. Louis river to Fargo, two hun- dred and forty miles. Mr. Brackett's knowledge of the country and of the requirements of the work, united with the technical aid of his associ- ates, enabled him to put in a successful bid for the work. Associated with himself were D. Mor- rison, John L. Merriam, W. S. King, W. W. East- man, W. D. Washburn, D. C. Shepard, - Balch, John Ross, Donald Robinson, H. R. Payson and F. E. Conda, who completed the contract in two years.
In 1873 Mr. Brackett, in connection with An- thony Kelly, built the stone block at the corner of First avenue and Second street, and during the winter engaged in packing pork, being pio- neers in that business which now occupies so large a place in the industries of Minneapolis at New Brighton. During the same year, in connec-
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tion with Messrs. Morrison, King, Payson and Conda, he took the contract to build that section of the Northern Pacific Railway extending from Fargo to Bismarck, two hundred miles, which un- dertaking was accomplished in two years. From that time until 1881 he was engaged in executing various railroad contracts in connection with Gen- eral Rosser and others, and in the latter year was individually intrusted with the task of building one hundred miles of the Canadian Pacific Rail- way west of Winnipeg. From the completion of that undertaking to the present time Mr. Brackett ·has given attention to his numerous private con- cerns, with no little time and energy devoted to public and charitable work. In 1884, when the idea of systematizing and economizing private charity led to organizing the Associated Charities, Mr. Brackett opened, largely on his own account, the " Friendly Inn," on upper Washington ave- nue, where meals and lodging, with baths, were furnished at cheap rates to those who were willing to work but unable to find it. A wood yard was opened, and the willing workers were furnished employment and given in return wholesome food and clean beds, with elevating and restraining in- fluences. This was continued for three years, with contributions from the community, but at a con- stant drain upon Mr. Brackett's purse to the amount of thousands of dollars.
Recognizing his zeal in this benevolent work, and his fitness and persistency in it, he was made president of the Associated Charities, and that work has become one of the most beneficent amongst the philanthropic institutions of Min- neapolis.
Governor Merriam appointed Mr. Brackett a member of the State Board of Corrections and Charities, on which he has served without com- pensation other than the consciousness of follow- ing a beneficient work for the poor and unfortu- nate. But the public and official charitable work in which he has been engaged have been the least of his benevolences. His sympathetic heart has prompted to unceasing deeds of helpfulness and charity. No person in distress or want, in pov- erty or misfortune, has ever appealed to him in vain. And when any public interest has had need of energetic leadership the appeal has been in- stinctively made to "George." Especially in rais- ing funds for public purposes, few occasions have
arisen when he has not been upon the finance committee, and generally the solicitor, and the opulent citizen always " comes down" at his per- sistent appeals.
At the present time Mr. Brackett is president of the Minneapolis Stock Yards and Packing Com- pany, a corporation using a capital of one million dollars and owning a large tract of land, liberally fitted up with stock yards, packing houses, ice houses, a fine brick hotel, and other accessories, at a suburb called New Brighton, six miles north- easterly of Minneapolis. To reach their estab- lishment the company has constructed a railroad line, diverging from the Northern Pacific at Frid- ley and ending at the Minnesota Transfer. Here cattle and sheep are received from the ranges of Montana, watered, fed and rested, and such as are not bought by the Stock Yards Company, or sold for local consumption, are shipped to eastern markets. The company do a large business in slaughtering and packing beef and pork-a busi- ness which is growing to gigantic proportions. Thus the experience gained by the butcher boy of the Penobscot is utilized in the management of one of the most extensive and locally impor- tant enterprises of the Mississippi valley.
Many years ago Mr. Brackett purchased the fine homestead of the late Colonel Cyrus Aldrich, which has been his home, and from which has been dispensed a generous hospitality. He also acquired that picturesque site upon the north shore of Lake Minnetonka, then known as “ Star- vation Point," and built upon it a neat cottage, which, under the name of " Orono," has become one of the most beautiful summer houses upon that charming water, surrounded with flowers, for which he has enthusiasm, with gardens yielding the most luscious grapes and summer fruits, and yachts which often take the cup in the numerous regattas; Starvation Point has become a veritable " Garden of the Lord."
The domestic life of Mr. Brackett has been shared by a helpful and devoted wife. His mar- riage took place on the 19th of August, 1858, to Anna M., daughter of William Hoit, who passed away from life in December, 1891. Seven sons and one daughter survive, and one son and two daughters have died in childhood.
So energetic and efficient a man has not escaped frequent calls to public service. In the roll of
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public officers of the town of Minneapolis we find him, in 1865, appointed overseer of highways, and the same year supervisor. In 1867, at the first city election, he was chosen alderman of the third ward, and again the following year. In 1869 he was made chief engineer of the fire department, which he was chiefly instrumental in organizing, and which he brought to a high degree of effici- ency, and continued in that position until 1872, when, from an accident on the Northern Pacific railroad, from which he providentially escaped with his life, he was incapacitated from the active labor of a fireman. A silver trumpet, presented on his retirement by the fire company to which he belonged, is a memento of the appreciation in which he was held by his comrades.
In 1873 Mr. Brackett was elected mayor of the city of Minneapolis over a popular competitor, Judge E. B. Ames. He appointed as chief of police R. W. Hanson, and upon "the force" Michael Hoy, men whose fidelity and fitness he had learned by long acquaintance. The administra- tion of city affairs was a new departure. So ener- getic was it in its crusade against public vices and immoralities that the following year a mayor was elected who was supposed to be willing to hold a looser rein over social evils.
During the time that Mr. Brackett was at the head of the municipal government he, in his offi- cial capacity, was an active participant in the cele- brated bogus Lord Gordon affair. A short notice of this cause celebre, which interested the inhabi- tants of all English-speaking countries, will not only be interesting to the reader but also essential to the biography of our subject. The adventurer who caused all the trouble was a well educated and aristocratic appearing Englishman who, after a series of shady transactions in England, drifted to Minnesota, and representing himself as an Eng- lish peer, soon won the confidence of several of the most prominent of the citizens of the north- west. He was enabled, through the influence of those whom he had impressed with his seeming wealth and bogus title, to obtain an introduction to some of the leading citizens of New York. Horace Greeley was innocently imposed upon, and through his instrumentality the adventurer obtained an introduction to Jay Gould, from whom, by false pretenses and promises, he ob- tained a deposit of half a million dollars in money
and securities. Gould had the imposter arrested. He obtained bail, and without waiting for a trial fled to Manitoba. Mr. Roberts, who had, at the instigation of others, signed his bail bond, traced him to Minneapolis, and laying the matter before Mr. Brackett, urged him to send an officer into Manitoba to arrest the scoundrel. After consult- ing leading attorneys Mr. Brackett instructed his chief of police, Hoy, to arrest Gordon. Hoy was accompanied by Owen Kegan, with letters from prominent bankers of St. Paul, Messrs. Brackett and others, to Messrs. Fletcher (now representa- tive in Congress), Merriam, Burbank and Bentley, the first three residents of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They seized Gordon and proceeded with him toward the frontier. Some friends of Gor- don, learning the particulars, ordered the arrest of the Americans as kidnappers. Soon after Mr. Brackett arrived to assist his officers, and he was also arrested, but was soon released. There was intense feeling against the people of Manitoba by the residents of the northwest, and it would have taken but a little to have induced the citizens of the border states to have rushed into Manitoba . and seized their fellow-citizens. The affair as- sumed an international aspect, and Mr. Brackett's opinions were sought by the president and secre- tary of state. The latter urged him most strenu- ously to pacify the people and prevent their do- ing anything rash that would endanger the na- tional peace. Wise counsel prevailed, and thus an international affair, that might have involved two governments into great difficulties, was aver- ted. Some two years later " Lord " Gordon com- mitted suicide while an officer was waiting to es- cort him to jail.
After his retirement from the city government Governor Cushman K. Davis appointed Mr. Brackett surveyor general of logs and lumber for the second district, which important and respon- sible position he held by successive annual ap- pointments for eight years. Upon the organiza- tion of the Park Board of the city of Minneapo- lis Mr. Brackett was appointed one of the park commissioners. This office he held for six years. His selection was followed by early efforts to se- cure parks for the city, and by his taste and en- thusiasm in floral culture and rural embelishment. While a member of the town council, as early as 1865, he had presented a resolution providing for
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the acquisition of a public park, and in 1869 in- troduced into the council a resolution to buy certain tracts of land suitable for parks. Mr. Brackett's labors upon the park board were so efficient and generally appreciated that upon the organization of the State Park Board he was ap- pointed a member of that commission, and to his efforts at a critical time, in raising one hundred thousand dollars, the purchase money of the lands which had been selected for the state park at Minnehaha, and placing it in the state treasury, the success of that measure is due, and the city of Minneapolis instead of the State of Minnesota was enabled to secure that valuable tract, and to acquire for generations to come the beautiful " laughing water."
In 1891 it was suggested by some of the citizens of Minneapolis that an effort be made by the city to secure the Republican national convention, which was to be held in 1892. Mr. Brackett was a member of the committee that went to Wash- ington and secured the convention. He labored most strenuously to accomplish the object for which they came, and it is conceded by those who know the facts that it was very largely, if not entirely, to his foresight and sagacity that the city of Minneapolis was favored with the conven- tion. After the selection had been made Mr. Brackett's work really commenced. His acknowl- edged ability as an executive officer and organizer caused him to be selected as chairman of the local committee. Money had to be raised ; he, with others, personally saw that the required amount was subscribed. Food and lodging for thousands had to be improvised ; he personally saw that ample accommodations were prepared. In fact, every- thing necessary to make the guests of the city comfortable and to create a favorable impression for the city of Minneapolis was overseen by him. He was the local chairman of the convention and presided until the national organization took charge of the gathering. That the convention was successfully accommodated surprised many who did not realize what the city of Minneapolis really is. Mr. Brackett received most compli- mentary notices from many of the leading jour- nals of all sections of the country, who all pro- nounced the arrangements most successful, and attributed this success to the executive ability and self-sacrificing energy of Mr. Brackett.
Mr. Brackett has for many years taken an ac- tive part in the enforcement of the laws regulat- ing the liquor traffic, as well as in efforts for the reformation of the unfortunate victims of intem- perance. At the occasion of public meetings in Minneapolis upon the fourth anniversary of the reformation of the temperance evangelist, John G. Wooley, which were devoted to raising funds in aid of Rest Island, Mr. Brackett placed five thou- sand dollars in the bank for the benefit of Mrs. Wooley. The fact only became known when Miss Frances Willard, to whom the secret was im- parted, made it public.
In politics Mr. Brackett has always acted with the Republican party. He is a member of the Plymouth Congregational Church and of the Ma- sonic brotherhood.
Mr. Brackett has ever been foremost in doing honor to the brave men who risked their lives in defense of the Union. In 1864 he was one of a committee of residents of Minnesota who wel- comed the First Minnesota Regiment upon its return from the front, and tendered a banquet to it in Washington. He was associated then with Ignatius Donnelly, Major Baxter, William Win- dom and Messrs. Banning, Murray, Aldrich and Benjamin. On June 27, 1888, at his home at Orono Point, on Lake Minnetonka, the twenty- first annual reunion of this brave and historical regiment was held, and in commemoration of the event Mr. Brackett had an elegant pamphlet, which contained a full account of the proceedings at the banquet that had taken place twenty-one years before, prepared at his own expense. A brief sketch of this brave regiment should be in- serted in this work, and we know of no more appropriate place to put it than here. From the pen of William Lochren we quote the following : " At the time that President Lincoln made his first call for men Governor Alexander Ramsey, who was then in Washington, tendered the presi- dent one thousand men from Minnesota, the first troops offered to defend the Union. On Monday, April 29, 1861, two full companies of volunteers marched to Fort Snelling, and were mustered into the First Regiment Minnesota Volunteers. On the night of June 22d the regiment embarked on two steamers and reached Washington June 26th, 1861. The regiment participated nobly in twenty- one battles. Fourteen hundred and forty men
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had been enrolled during the war, and but three hundred and nine were mustered out of the ser- vice. At the battle of Gettysburg the First Minnesota performed an act of desperate valor beyond parallel in the history of warfare. On the second day of that battle, when Sickles' corps was defeated and driven back from an advanced position in disorder by the heavier forces of the enemy, eight companies of the regiment, number- ing two hundred and sixty-two men, were ordered by General Hancock in person to charge two Con- federate brigades, more than twenty times their number, who, unless stopped, would in a few moments penetrate the Union line. The charge was made instantly and through the concentrated fire of the two brigades and without pausing to fire a shot in return, breaking and repulsing the front line of the Confederate force by the mo- mentum and ferocity of the shock with the bayo- net. The charge was completely successful in accomplishing the object sought, and probably saved that battle-field. Of the two hundred and sixty-two men who made that eharge two hundred and fifteen lay dead or wounded upon the battle- field, forty-seven men were still in line and not a man was captured or missing."
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