USA > Minnesota > Hennepin County > Minneapolis > Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota > Part 100
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In 1879 Mr. Lucas was united in marriage with Mrs. Louise A. (Putnam) Oburn, a Wisconsin lady, who died three years later.
LESLIE C. LANE, M. D.
Dr. Lane was born on September 19, 1855, at North Perry, Maine, and in 1862 came to Minneapolis with his parents to reside. They were Charles W. and Almira B. (Coulter) Lane, also natives of Maine. The father was a farmer and practiced veterinary surgery in his native state, and after his removal to Minneapolis was proprietor of the Wilbur hotel on First street north for a number of years, and also operated a carriage factory. He was interested in the Flathead Lake Lumber Company, but kept his residence in this city, where he died on February 10, 1913, aged eighty-five years, surviving by only four months his wife, who passed away here in October, 1912, at the age of eighty-eight.
The father was a Freemason, holding his membership in Ark Lodge at the time of his death, but formerly belonging to old Cataract Lodge. He was buried by the Lodge with full Masonic ceremonials, and his remains were attended to their last resting place by many of his fellow members and large numbers of other persons, all of whom respected him highly. In his political relations he was always a Republican, but at the last national election decided to vote for the Democratic candidate, Hon. Woodrow Wilson. He could not carry his intention into effect, however, owing to liis inability to get to the voting place. He enjoyed hunting and fishing in his years of activity, and was to the close of his long life a man of strong friendships and social inelinations. His family consisted of three sons and one daughter: Freeman, who is a lawyer in active practice; Leslie C., the immediate subject of this review; Frank S., now a deputy sheriff, and Cora, who died in childhood.
Dr. Lane obtained a good high school education and was graduated in medieine from Rush Medieal College, Chicago, in 1877. He practiced his profession at Benson in this state two years and at Ortonville twelve. In 1890 he returned to Min- neapolis, where he built up a good general practice and was rapidly rising to the first rank in the profession. The death of his wife three years after their marriage changed his line of action, and he became interested in life insurance work in the employ of the Fidelity Life Insurance company of Phila- delphia, with which he was associated two years as a solicitor. At the end of that period he was made manager of the com- pany for the Northwest, his territory including Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin and one-half of Iowa.
In 1893, when it was necessary to have a receiver to elose up the business of the Children's Endowment Society of Min- neapolis, the doctor was appointed to the position by Judge Russell. It took three years to complete the work, and he so managed it that the society paid fifty cents on the dollar, a
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much larger percentage than many persons expected, some declaring that it could not possibly pay over ten cents on the dollar. In discharging him from the receivership at the end of his work the judge complimented him for his excellent management of the trust and the fine result he had accom- plished thereby.
In 1901 Dr. Lane was elected president of the Surety Fund Life company of Minneapolis, which was organized in 1898, and in 1901 had about $390,000 insurance in force and was at a standstill. This company now has some $13,000,000 insurance out in live policies and operates in six of the states and also largely in Canada. Its last annual report, published on Decem- ber 31, 1912, and brought down to that date, showed its total assets to be $225,323.50, and to include $112,100 invested in first mortgage farm loans, $36,400 in municipal bonds, $60,410.64 cash in banks, and various other funds and property, the gain in gross net assets for the year being $70,251.31, and the income in excess of disbursements $60,089.35.
In January, 1913, the doctor was re-elected president of the company for another term of three years. He was married in 1881 to Miss Matilda Emmett, a daughter of Hon. Lafay- ette Emmett, the first chief justice of the state of Minne- sota, formerly a resident of Faribault. Mrs. Lane died after three years of married life, leaving one son, L. Emmett Lane, who is now in the employ of the city. In his second marriage the doctor was united with Miss Adla M. Carlson of Minneapolis. They have three daughters, Bonnie, Eleanor and Charlotte, all living and all still members of the parental family circle.
In church relations the doctor is a Presbyterian and chairman of the board of trustees of Stewart Memorial church. He was elected to this office for a second term although he was not, at the time of the election, an actual member of the church. Fraternally he is a Freemason and belongs to Ark Lodge in the order. He is also a Knight Templar and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine in this great fraternity. In politics he is a Regenerated Republican, and cast his vote for Woodrow Wilson for President at the election of 1912. But the only political or semi-political office he has ever held was that of United States Pension Examiner, which he filled for two years while he was living at Benson.
ALFRED HADLEY LINDLEY, M. D.
The late Dr. Alfred H. Lindley was for forty years one of the leading physicians and surgeons of Minneapolis.
Dr. Lindley was a native of Chatham county, North Caro- lina, where his life began in May, 1821. He died in Minne- apolis on February 16th, 1905, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. He grew to manhood and was educated in his native state, completing his academic courses at the Friends' School at New Garden, which is now 'called Guilford College, in which he taught four years and his professional instruc- tion at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, from which he was graduated with the degree of M. D. in 1827.
After completing his medical course the doctor returned to his native county and there practiced medicine until 1861. Having been reared a Friend, or Quaker, in the sect to which all his family connections belonged, he was strongly opposed to the Civil war, and as soon as North Carolina seceded from the Union he decided to remove to the North.
R. J. Mendenhall, one of his old friends and intimates, was living in Minneapolis at the time, and that fact induced him to select this city as his future home. His brother-in- law, Dr. M. B. Hill, whose sister Eliza was his wife, came with him, and after their arrival they practiced medicine together here until the death of Dr. Hill in 1875, after which Dr. Lindley practiced alone until he retired, except that for a number of years one of his sons was associated with him.
He yielded to the genius of the place in another line of business also, and did what everybody else was doing- dealt in real estate and put up buildings. In 1883 he erected what is now known as the Lindley block, an office building fronting 821/2 feet on Nicollet avenue, and others of value later. He also served as health officer for the city for some years, and bought the land on which the first pest house was built. This has since been converted into a public park.
True to the religious sect in which he was reared, the doctor was through life a warm and helpful friend of its edu- cational institutions. He contributed liberally to the support and advancement of Guilford College in North Carolina, his own Alma Mater, and also to Earlham College, at Richmond, Indiana, where Lindley Hall has been erected in honor of him and as a memorial of his serviceable interest in the institution. Penn College, in Oskaloosa, Iowa, also enlisted his aid and his donations to it were frequent, generous and cheerfully made. The Society of Friends, his home and his profession were the objects of his warmest devotion, and he was true to them all in every particular and at all times.
Dr. Lindley's wife was a zealous worker in Quaker circles, giving a great deal of time and energy to the service of her church as long as she was able. She was also zealous in be- half of the Women's Boarding Home, and for many years served as the president of its board of trustees or directors.
Her death occurred on February 18, 1913, after she had reached the age of eighty-seven. She and the doctor were the parents of four sons and one daughter. One of the son's died when he was but three years old and another when he was thirteen. The daughter lived to the age of thirty. The two sons who grew to manhood were Samuel and Clark- son. Samuel was a graduate of the Jefferson Medical Col- lege in Philadelphia, and was associated with his father in the practice of his profession until his death in 1887, at the age of thirty-five. He was a valued member of the Hennepin County Medical Society.
Clarkson Lindley, the last survivor of his father's family, and the only one now living, was graduated from the Minne- apolis high schools in 1874 and completed his academic education at Amherst College in Massachusetts. He was engaged in the real estate business seven or eight years in association with Corser & Company, and was secretary of the Minneapolis Trust company eight years. In 1896 he became connected with his father in the real estate trade, and in addition to what he handled for the firm while his father lived, he owned extensive and valuable properties hin- self.
Like all the other members of his family for several generations, Mr. Lindley belongs to the Society of Friends, and he has for some years been one of the trustees of the organization in Minneapolis. On Dec. 11, 1895, he was united in marriage with Miss Anna Gale, a daughter of Samuel C. Gale, of this city. They have three daughters and one son. Ella, their oldest daughter, is a student at Bryn Mawr
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College, in Philadelphia, and Alice G., Charlotte and Alfred are living at home with their parents and attending school in this eity.
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GEORGE P. DOUGLAS.
Prominent in professional life as a capable, energetic, re- sonreeful and successful lawyer, and, during the last twelve or thirteen years, standing high as a real estate investor, George P. Douglas of Minneapolis has fully justified the confidence the community has iu him.
Mr. Douglas exemplifies in his energy and ingenuity the salient characteristics of the section of country and race of people from which he eame. He was born in Vermont in 1866, and is a typical New Englander in every commendable feature. He is a son of Christopher F. and Louisa (Perkins) Douglas, with whom he came to Minneapolis in 1873, when he was but seven years old. The father was a dry goods merchant in the firm of Camp, Douglas & Gold, and also operated a flour mill on Minnehaha creek. He was active and enterprising in business until about 1885, when he retired. He died in 1910, aged seventy-nine, having survived his wife by a number of years.
Their son, George P. Douglas, was prepared for college at the East Side Academy, Minneapolis, and in 1885 entered Yale University, from the academic department of which he was graduated in 1889. He then became a student in the law department of the University of Minnesota, obtaining his degree of LL. B. in 1890. During the next ten years he practiced his profession. But more promising fields of en- deavor opened before him, and he entered them without hesi- tation, and has cultivated them with great enterprise and suecess for himself, and with decided advantage to the community.
The new fields were in the real estate business, and in this Mr. Douglas has been engaged with profit and a steadily rising and widening reputation ever since he, in a measure, gave it precedence over the law. He has mastered his busi- ness in this line, and made himself so well informed with reference to it that he has become an authority on every phase of it, and his opinion and judgment have great weight in connection with everything belonging to it ..
Mr. Douglas is also earnest and enthusiastic in his support of the social agencies at work in the community for the enjoyment and betterment of its residents. He is president of the Minneapolis New Athletic Chib, which has now (July, 1914) 2,300 members, and also belongs to the Minneapolis, Minikalıda, Lafayette and St. Paul University Clubs.
In his political relations Mr. Douglas is an ardent Demo- erat and a very hard, faithful and eflieient worker for his party. He has served for some years as chairman of its local campaign committee, and as such has rendered it very loyal and valuable service. During the campaigns of the late Hon. James C. Haynes for the mayoralty he was particu- larly active, and his activity and the intelligence which guided it gave inspiration to the other members of the com- mittee and kept up the courage and determination of the most faint-hearted and sustained the faith of those most inclined to be doubtful of triumphant results. In another publie service he has worked arduously as a member of the eity charter commission.
Mr. Douglas was married on Oct. 19, 1899, to Miss Bessie Pettit, the only child of Hon. Curtis H. Pettit, a sketch of whom will be found on other pages of this work. Mr. and Mrs. Douglas are the parents of three children, their daugh- ters Deborah L., Elizabeth P. and Eleanor G. The mother is a member of Westminster Presbyterian church. She and her husband are very fond of the enjoyments of social life as furnished by a select circle of congenial friends, and their home at 2424 Park avenue is an attractive and much fre- quented resort for such circles. The general welfare of their home city and its residents also has their earnest and dis- eriminating attention, and they are zealous in their support of every commendable undertaking for its promotion and general advancement along all wholesome lines of progress, moral, mental, social and material. The city of Minneapolis is well pleased to number them among its most useful, agree- able and representative eitizens and forces for good.
WILLIAM H. LANDIS.
Mr. Landis is a native of Pennsylvania, that great hive of industry in which almost every form of productive human endeavor is in fruitful activity. He was born near the Bloss- burg coal mine, in Tioga county, that state, on May 28, 1844. His father, Joseph Landis, was a farmer, and the son was reared on the farm and acquired habits of useful labor in assisting in cultivating the land. Near the close of the Civil war the father, a farmer, was drafted for service in the Union army. The son volunteered to go to the front as a substitute for his father, and was enrolled for a period of nine months. A regiment was formed of the conscripted men and Mr. Landis was made its adjutant. The regiment was never called to the field, however, as the war closed soon after it was organized.
Mr. Landis was less than twenty years of age when he began his military service, and never had any opportunity for advanced education. What he could get in the common district schools of his native neighborhood was all the mental training he received from regularly appointed teachers. But his mind was strong, active and inquiring, and he acquired a considerable fund of general information by reading and observation, and also learned by doing things how best to employ his faculties to his own advantage and in the service of his fellow men.
The experience of this gentleman in the army quickened into determination his inherent desire to see more of the world than the hills and vales amid which he was born and reared, and when he quit the military service in 1865 he came west to La Crosse, Wisconsin, and was in that eity when President Lincoln was assassinated. From La Crosse he journeyed by boat to St. Paul, and from that eity went to Le Sneur, where , le taught school one term and studied telegraphy while he was doing it. At the end of his engagement as a teacher he became a telegraph operator for the St. Paul and Pacific Rail- road. He worked faithfully as an operator for this company for a year and a half at Anoka, Minn., and in 1867 came to Minneapolis and opened an office for it as operator and bill clerk.
Six months later he was sent to the Big Woods region as a claim agent, and sometime afterward became interested in the publication of a newspaper, the one now known as the Delano Eagle, which he founded. In 1881 he was appointed auditor on the Great Northern Railroad, and he served the
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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA
road in that capacity ten years. At the end of that period he was made superintendent of the business of the Northwestern Elevator company between Minneapolis and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and later purchased a one-half interest in an under- taking establishment in 1891, which was then conducted under the firm name of Johnson & Landis, his connection with it lasting from 1891 to 1905, as member of the firmu. In that year he acquired a large ownership in the business and the name was changed to the Landis Undertaking company. This company is interested in developing a forty-acre tract of land, in Cuba, ten acres of which are well wooded. The tract is located in a very desirable country and the climate of the region is as good as can be found in America. The company is also interested in building mausoleums and is erecting three this summer (1913). Mr. Landis is its secretary and treasurer with offices in the Lumber Exchange building.
Mr. Landis is of Pennsylvania Dutch extraction. and a fine type of the American manhood that has come from that source. He is a Republican in his political belief and adherence, but, while deeply interested in the success of his party at all times, and zealous in its service in his quiet way, he has never aspired to public office. On April 26, 1867, he was united in marriage with Miss Mary A. Cuttler, the daughter of a prominent lum- berman. They have two sons living: Raymond F. and Willis E., connected with their father's business in Minneapolis. The father belongs to the Masonic order, the Knights of Pythias, the Royal Arcanum and the Grand Army of the Republic.
LEVI LONGFELLOW.
With a creditable record of forty-three years in the same line, during which time he has built up an extensive trade by square dealing and progressive enterprise, Levi Longfellow, head of the Longfellow Brothers Company, wholesale produce dealers, is justly regarded as one of the leading muen in busi- nes's, civic and social activities.
Mr. Longfellow was born at Machias, Maine, May 10, 1842, being a son of Jacob and Martha J. (Getchell) Longfellow, also natives of Maine. Machias Bay on which the city is located was the scene of a thrilling and unusual event during the Revolution. The British frigate "Margaretta" with four 4-pounders and 16 small cannon, entered the harbor and her commander, Capt. Moore, demanded that the Liberty Pole be taken down. The next day upon leaving he fired upon the town. The Colonists, led by Capt. O'Brien, on the "Unity," a much smaller vessel, followed the "Margaretta" which became wind-bound. They grappled with and boarded her, and after a severe hand to hand fight captured her, Capt. Moore being mortally wounded in the battle.
Mr. Longfellow's paternal great-grandfather Nathan Long- fellow, was a First Lieutenant in the Revolutionary War and served on General Washington's staff. Mr. Longfellow's ma- ternal great-grandfather took part in the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Jacob Longfellow was a lumber manufacturer operating two large saw mills. In 1851 the family came to St. Anthony Falls to join the mother's parents, Washington and Mary (Berry) Getchell, who had located here in 1848. Mr. Getchell erected the second frame residence built in the village. He took up land in Brooklyn Center and his sons,
Winslow D., Washington, Jr., and Henry, became citizens of that town. In 1857 they removed to California, making that their permanent home.
Jacob Longfellow pre-empted land at Brooklyn Center where he lived until after the Civil War. He then removed to Minneapolis where he died in 1884, surviving his wife four years. Mrs. Longfellow, the mother of Levi, was a mem- ber of Hobart Chapel, Methodist Episcopal Church. Of nine children but five are living. Elizabeth is the widow of S. D. Morrison, Levi and Daniel W. are the members of the Long- fellow Bros. Company. Charles is in the West, and Ansel is a contractor in Seattle.
In 1862 Levi Longfellow enlisted in Company "B" Sixth Minnesota Regiment under Capt. O. C. Merriman, then mayor of St. Anthony-the regiment being under the command of Col. William Crooks. He became Principal Musician of the regiment and was discharged ' with the field staff at St. Paul on August 19, 1865. He then taught school in St. Paul for a year and clerked in Minneapolis until 1870, when he engaged in the wholesale Fruit and Produce business. Later his brothers, Daniel W. and Nathan, became associated with him in the business which has continued until the present time.
In 1906-07 Mr. Longfellow was Department Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic in Minnesota, and follow- ing that was made Department Patriotic Instructor. He held this office till 1912. when he was appointed National Patriotic Instructor. under Commander-in-Chief, Alfred B. Beers.
The Longfellow Brothers have been active in improve- ments. They platted and incorporated the village of West Minneapolis where the Minneapolis Threshing Machine Works are located, Levi having been treasurer of that in- stitution for nine years.
Levi Longfellow has always been deeply interested in the education of young men to full American citizenship. He is a pleasing speaker and is always heard with profit, From the founding of the Asbury Methodist Episcopal Hospital he has been one of its trustees and for many years has been the treasurer of the Board. He is the only survivor of the incorporators of the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church. For five years he has been the resident executive member of the Board of Trustees of the Minnesota Soldiers Home, and is at present its president. In politics he is a Republican but has never been induced to accept a public office. He is also a member of Hennepin Lodge No. 4 A. F. and A. M.
W. H. LAWRENCE.
W. H. Lawrence, Secretary and Treasurer of the Model Laundry company, was born in Minneapolis on July 5, 1877, and is a son of Wesley and Elvira (Potter) Lawrence, natives of Vermont who came to Minneapolis in 1876 and started the first steam laundry in the city. They are still living, but the father is now retired from all active pursuits and enjoying a well-earned leisure,
The son was reared in this city and educated in the public schools. He began business in association with his father, and remained in this relation to the parent for a number of years, helping to conduct the laundry, but not in charge of its affairs.
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In 1902, however, he was given the general management of the business as secretary and treasurer of the company, his father still retaining the presideney. He still fills this position and directs the business of the mechanical institution over which he presides in every partieular; and it is flourishing and thriving under his vigorons management.
On Aug. 18th, 1910, Mr. Lawrence was united in marriage with Miss Ettie S. Webster, of Minneapolis. He is a member of the Order of Elks and since early in 1911 has been president of the East Side Commercial club, of which he was one of the founders. The family is of English ancestry, and in his business operations Mr. Lawrence exhibits the sterling and sturdy traits which distinguish the race from whiel he sprang, and which always command the suceess due to persistent effort and good judgment. Throughout the city he is well known, and among all classes of its residents he is esteemed as an energetic and enterprising business man and an excellent citizen, earnestly interested in the substantial welfare of his community and anxious to promote by every mneans at his command the enduring good of its people and its own material advancement and improvement. But, while he is earnestly interested in public affairs locally, he is not an active political partisan, although a loyal member of the Republican party.
CHARLES G. GATES.
The sudden death of the late Charles G. Gates on Tues- day, October 28, 1913, in his private car, at Cody, Wyoming, ended the second generation of the most spectacular, striking and successful business enterprise in the same family the world has ever known. The career of the father, John W. Gates, and that of the son, Charles G. Gates, was each unique in its way, and distinct from the other, although there were many elements of similarity and many features that were common in the two. The father was a man of unbounded nerve in business, and by his unrivaled boldness and self- confidence of the commendable kind, won for himself the fa- miliar sobriquet of "Bet-You-a-Million Gates," and the son, through a liberality on all occasions that was almost unprece- dented in human history, if, not entirely so, became almost as familiarly spoken of as "Spend-a-Million Gates." These names were not, however, mere empty sounds, and much less were they terms of reproach. They were but the expression in the popular mind of general admiration of substantial and fruitful qualities in the two men on which their respective fortunes and careers were founded and built up to such impressive proportions.
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