Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 104

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 1190

USA > Minnesota > Hennepin County > Minneapolis > Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota > Part 104

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Dr. Northrop was born in Ridgefield, Fairfield county, Con- necticut, on September 30, 1834, and is a son of Cyrus and Polly B. (Fancher) Northrop. He attended the common school in his native town until he was eleven years old. During the next five years he was a day student at a board-

ing school taught in Ridgefield by H. S. Banks, a graduate of Yale College. In 1851 he was entered as a student at Willis- ton Seminary, Earthampton, Massachusetts, where he passed one year, and after leaving that institution entered Yale College in 1852. At the end of his second term, however, he was obliged to leave the college on account of illness. In the spring of 1853, having recovered his health in large measure, he re-entered Yale, and from that great seat of learning he was graduated in 1857. The next two years were passed by him as a student of law in Yale, and during this period he supported himself by teaching in a boarding school kept by Hon. A. N. Skinner in New Haven, which is even now well remembered by the older residents of that famous old city.

By the end of the period last mentioned the political agita- tion that resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency of the United States and the great Civil war was in full activity, and engaged the attention of all thinking men, North and South. Dr. Northrop took an active part in the campaign for Lincoln, making many speeches in behalf of the candidacy of the great emancipator in Connecticut and New York. After the election, which resulted in the choice of a legislature favorable to his views, he was assistant clerk of the Connecticut house of representatives in 1860, and clerk of the same body in 1861. The next year he served as clerk of the state senate, and at the close of the session be- came editor in chief of the New Haven Daily Palladium, one of the most influential newspapers in Connecticut at that time.

But the newspaper field of endeavor was not the one best suited to his temperament and abilities. His Alma Mater recognized his special fitness for her service and in 1863 elected him professor of rhetoric and English literature, a position which he held for a continuous period of twenty-one years, or until he was chosen president of the University of Minnesota in 1884. He voluntarily retired from the presi- dency of the University on April 1, 1911, after an honorable record extending over twenty-seven years and a half. While occupying the chair of rhetoric and English literature at Yale College he delivered hundreds of addresses on political, edu- cational and religious subjects in the Eastern and Middle states, and after coming to Minnesota he was in very fre- quent requisition for the same purpose throughout the whole period of his connection with the University, and the same demand for his services in this respect continues to the present time.

Dr. Northrop has always been devoted in his loyalty to the Congregational church, of which he has been a member from his boyhood. In 1889 he was moderator of its national council, which assembled at Worcester, Massachusetts, and in 1891 assistant moderator of its international council, which held its sessions in London, England. He has been president of the Congregational Home Missionary Society, and was for several years president of the American Mis- sionary Association. He is vice president of the Congrega- tional Sunday School and Publishing Society and of the American Bible Society. He is also a corporate member of the A. B. C. F. M .- the Congregational Foreign Missionary Society. He is president of the Minnesota Peace Society and is deeply interested in the world movement for peace.

The doctor has always been a warmly welcomed orator at college commencements and other college celebrations. He delivered one of the principal addresses at the Yale Bicen- tennial celebration in 1901, and, although he is not a clergy- man, he has filled pulpits of almost all the church

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

denominations on important occasions. His life in Minnesota has brought him into association with most of the leading citizens of the state, and for those of his eminent intimate friends who have passed away-Governor John S. Pillsbury, Senator W. D. Washburn, Judge Martin B. Koon, Governor A. R. McGill, and many others, he cherishes a very tender memory. His work in this state has been mainly that, of building up the University of Minnesota. But he indulges the hope, and with good reason, that the by-products of his industry have also been of some valuc. He is one of our state's most esteemed eitizens.

S. E. FOREST.

Vice president and cashier of the National City Bank of Minneapolis and the founder and president of the Commercial National Bank of this city, during its existenee has had a very ereditable business career, covering several different lo- calities and lines of effort, in all of which he has been pro- gressive and suceessful.

Mr. Forest was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1867, and graduated from the Brooklyn Collegiate Polytechnic Insti- tute in 1884. Went to St. Paul, Minnesota, 1886; left St. Paul in 1889 and associated himself with Charles Hamilton under the firm name of Hamilton and Forest, lumber and coal, with a line of yards on the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway.

At the end of that period he removed to Britton, South Dakota, having accepted a position with the Dakota Lumber Company. While a resident of South Dakota he served onc term as treasurer of Marshall county. He then organized the Citizens' Bank of Britton, which later became the First National Bank. In 1911 he went to Portland, Oregon, return- ing in the fall of that year, and organized the Commercial National Bank, over which he presided, until it was merged into The National City Bank. Under his enterprising, pro- gressive and judicious management the bank flourished and grew rapidly, steadily increasing its business and strengtb- ening its hold.

Mr. Forest was married in the state of New York on June 24, 1900, to Miss Frances C. Hall. They have one child, their daughter, Margaret E. Her father is a son of Samuel A. and Lydia E. (Mortimer) Forest, natives of Brooklyn, New York. They had four sons and three daughters. Three of the seven children are living. The father was a pioneer in Winona, having been a merehant and manufae- turer there and elsewhere. He died in St. Paul in 1906 at the age of 76. In fraternal relations, S. E. Forest is a Freemason, and has risen in the order to the rank of a Noble of the Mystic Shrine. He also belongs to the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and in church affiliation he is a Presbyterian.

Mr. Forest is highly respected as a progressive and pub- lic-spirited citizen, with a warm and practical interest in the welfare and improvement of his home city. In all projects for its advaneement he can be depended on to do his part to help the cause along, and his views in this connection are always guided by wisdom and good judgment, and his ef- forts are always duly proportioned to the importance of the matter in hand. Minneapolis has no better eitizen, and none who is more highly esteemed.

HON. WALLACE G. NYE.

Mayor Nye was born at Hortonville, Wisconsin, on October 7, 1859, a son of Freeman James and Hannah (Pickett) Nye. He traces his descent from Benjamin Nye, who came to America from England in 1635 on the ship "Abigail" and settled at Sandwich, Massachusetts. Benjamin and his de- scendants shared with other colonists the hardships and privations of pioneer life and the stress and storm of the Colonial wars, the War for Independence, the War of 1812 and the Mexican war. And when armed resistance threat- ened the dismemberment of the Union, the mayor's father showed the same patriotic spirit by promptly enlisting in the Federal volunteer army, remaining in the service to the elose of our memorable sectional conflict.

Wallace G. Nye passed his boyhood on his father's farm and obtained his elementary education in a district school. When he was sixteen years old he took up the battle of life for himself as a school teacher, and with the proceeds of his first industry in this oceupation began a more systematic course of academie training at the normal school in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He completed the course at the normal school, teaching at intervals to get more funds, and for a time after leaving the institution.

He learned the retail drug business in Chieago, and in September, 1881, came to Minneapolis and opened a drug store in the Northern part of the city. This store he con- tinued to carry on until 1893, when other duties required all his attention. He was, from his youth. an active Repub- lican in political faith and allegiance, and in 1888 served as a member of the campaign committee of his party. His services in this capacity showed him possessed of such superior ability for administrative duties that in 1892 he was elected city comptroller, an office he held through three successive terms.

In 1898 he served as chairman of the Republican city campaign committee, and managed the campaign with ad- mirable vigor and skill. Previous to this time, however, he was chosen seeretary of the park board, beginning his service in that position in 1889 and continuing it for four years. In 1894 he was elected a member of the board to fill a vacancy, serving three years, and in 1904 was chosen to membership on the City Hall and Court House commission. He was also for some time chairman of the public affairs committee of the Commercial club, and in that position ren- dered the city notably effective service in the promotion of its commercial and substantial interests. being elected mayor of Minneapolis Nov. 5, 1912.

Mayor Nye has been active in the fraternal life of the eity as a Freemason of the thirty-second degree and a member of the Order of Odd Fellows, the Ancient Order of United Work- men and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. His principal activity in these connections has been in the Order of Odd Fellows. He was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the state in 1890, Grand Patriarch of the Grand Encamp- ment in 1893 and a representative to the Sovereign Grand Lodge of the Order for ten years. He is not a member of any church organization but is interested intelligently and practically in all good agencies for the advancement and improvement of the community. In 1881' he was married at New London, Wisconsin, to Miss Etta Rudd. They have two sons, Marshall A. and George M., both of whom are in business in this city.

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

DR. CHARLES HENRY NORRED.

A Virginian with some of the best blood of the south in his veins Dr. Charles Henry Norred has proved through his long and honorahle career in Minneapolis, his right to his proud inheritance. Dr. Norred is a man of fine enthusiasm and high principles. Taken together with his splendid integrity and fearless in all matter pertaining to his profession these characteristics have won for him the enviahle place in the esteem of his fellow citizens. His name is lastingly identified with the sanitary interests of the city.

His father was William Norred and his mother was Eliza- heth Ellen (Dowdell) Norred and the son Charles Henry was born in Loudon county, Virginia, January 19, 1842. While he was still a young boy his father moved with his family to Springfield, Illinois, where he acquired large tracts of land, a flour mill and a lumber yard. It was during his boyhood and carly manhood that he acquired a scientific knowledge of farming and stock raising and also a practical working knowl- edge of lumbering, engineering and milling, and he went into the business of buying and selling stock quite extensively.

It was in the public schools of Springfield that Dr. Norred received his carly education, attending first the graded schools and later attending the Illinois State University. He was not yet twenty when he hegan his medical studies with Dr. R. S. Lord of Springfield. Later he went to Pope's Medical College, in St. Louis, Missouri, finishing with the class of 1865, and also to the School of Anatomy and Surgery in Pennsylvania. It was from the last named institution that he was graduated. He received the degree of Doctor of Medicine from the Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia in 1886.

Added to all his other honors, Dr. Norred was also a soldier having served his country through the civil war. In 1862 he enlisted as a private in the 114th Regiment Illinois Volun- tary Infantry and organized the first regimental hospital for the soldiers at Camp Butler. After passing an examina- tion as senior assistant surgeon before the Illinois State Military Examining Board he received a commission as Cap- tain of Cavalry. Throughout the war he served in the various hospitals in charge of the medical department, saving many lives and alleviating much suffering, having charge of the surgery on board of the floating hospital "Nashville" which was a receiving hoat at the siege of Vickshurg. Later he was placed in charge of the medical department of the 7th Illinois Cavalry, in which service he remained until the close of the war.

Before coming to Minneapolis he had practiced in Dawson, Sangamon county, Illinois, and in Middletown, Illinois, and also in Lincoln, Illinois. He came to Minneapolis in 1885. It was five years after that the smallpox epidemic swept over the city and it seemed for a time that the physicians would be unable to cope with the situation. Dr. Norred was appointed special quarantine officer and in a short time pre- sented the city with a clean bill of health. It was at his suggestion that three large quarantine hospitals were con- structed and people of Minneapolis raising about thirty thou- sand dollars for the purpose. It was as special quarantine officer that he first came into prominence in Minneapolis, winning in this capacity the respect and approbation of the entire community. In 1892 Dr. Norred was made consulting surgeon and in 1902 surgeon in chief of Soldiers' Home.

Many of the improvements for the Minnesota State Sol-

diers' Home in the matter of sanitation and management were due to Dr. Norred's skill and judgment while he was con- sulting surgeon there. Under his direction many changes were made that resulted in the betterment of the inmates there. He left the institution in splendid sanitary condition, after devoting a number of years of his active career to that end.

He held the office of United States Examining Surgeon under President Harrison and was at one time medical director of the Department of Minnesota Grand Army of the Republic and he also acted on the board of United States Examining Surgeons, being president of Board No. 1 at the present time. For a time he was consulting surgeon of the Minneapolis City Hospital.

He is prominent in G. A. R. circles, heing a member of the John A. Rawlins Post, Number 126, and the military order of Loyal Legion of the United States .. He is also a Scottish Rite Mason, a Knight Templar and a Shriner and a member of the Wesley M. E. Church.

When Dr. Norred hecomes reminiscent he likes to tell how his father at one time consulted Abraham Lincoln on legal matters and how the great man took notice of the young man who went with him. Charles was taken in office of the lawyer who was then comparatively unknown and who after- ward hecame so great. This created a wonderful impression upon him and had a permanent and determining influence upon his ambition during his future life, especially after Lincoln had become so great. He advised him as to his future life and conduct.

Dr. Norred lives at the Rogers Hotel and has his office in the Andrus building.

Lincoln was a friend of the family and often visited at their home.

In 1900 Dr. Norred was selected special quarantine officer by the city to clean it of smallpox and after a few months of active work gave it a clean bill of health and also erected five modern quarantine hospitals at an expense of over $30,000 which was contributed by the citizens of Minneapolis.

ORLO MELVIN LARAWAY.

The late Orlo Melvin Laraway, who died in Minneapolis on April 18, 1909, after a residence within the present city limits of more than fifty years, was one of the founders of the municipality.

Mr. Laraway was born on September 7th, 1832, in Char- don, then Trumhull, hut now Geauga county, Ohio, and came to Minneapolis to live before the city, or even the village which has grown into the city, was founded. He was one of the earliest merchants in this locality, opening a general store in 1857. In 1864 he was a member of the board of township trustees, Cyrus Aldrich and George A. Brackett he- ing the other two, and as such helped to lay the foundations of the civil and educational institutions of the region. He also served as Treasurer of Minneapolis about that time.

Mr. Laraway was a builder from his advent in this section. In 1868, in association with C. K. Perrine, he established the Minneapolis Plow Works, an important industrial enterprise in its day, which did a large business and gave employment to a large number of men. He was also instrumental in found- ing and building up the Mechanics and Workingmen's Loan

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

and Building Association, which helped greatly in providing the newcomers into the locality with homes, or the means of building them. He was secretary of this association twenty-six or twenty-seven years, and there is ample proof of the wisdom and prudence of his management of its affairs in the fact that at the end of its long and useful activity it liquidated its business at one hundred cents on the dollar.

Mr. Laraway was also one of the directors of the old Bank of Commerce until it was consolidated with the present Northwestern National Bank, and because of his zeal, energy and intelligence in working for the good of the city, he was appointed its postmaster in 1882. He served in this office until 1886, and during the four years of his incumbency in it the foundation of the present postoffice building was laid. It was a period of rapid growth in the history of the city, the postoffice receipts being doubled during his four years' term of office.

The next year after he left the office of postmaster Mr. Laraway became the successor of John G. McFarlane in the oldest insurance company in Minneapolis, whose history dates back to 1857 or 1858. He continued to do business on a large scale and with great enterprise until the asthma, from which he suffered from early life, so weakened him that he was obliged to lay aside his activity and rest from his ardu- ous labors.

For more than a generation of human life, Mr. Laraway was an active and honored member of Hennepin Lodge, No. 19, Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons. He was married on November 8th, 1857, to Miss Abbie F. Clark, a native of Warren, Ohio. Born in 1837, who is still living. They became the parents of two children, both of whom are also living: Floyd, who now has charge of the father's former business, and Grace, who is the wife of Arthur Von Sehlegel, and has her home in Detroit, Michigan.

MATTHEW J. PEPPARD. 1

Mr. Peppard was born in the city of Fredericton, the cap- ital of the Canadian province of New Brunswick, on November 10, 1846, and when he was four years old was taken by his parents to the neighboring province of Nova Scotia. There he grew to manhood and obtained a common school educa- tion, leaving his books at an early age to begin learning his trade as a carpenter under the direction of his father. When he attained his majority he left his native land for the United States, and chose the state of Minnesota as his future home, locating first at Castle Rock, Dakota county. Here he became a contractor for building houses and con- tinued as such for a short time, until he could mature his plans and find a way to work them out.

In 1869 he entered the employ of George W. Sherwood, the railroad bridge contractor, as a workman on the bridge over the Cannon river at Hastings, this state, and within a few weeks afterward was given charge of all bridge construction work then in progress on the St. Paul Railroad in that division. His wages exceeded his expectations, and he was kept in Mr. Sherwood's employ for six years, during which he was always assigned to important duties, among them laying the foundations of the bridges now spanning the Mississippi at Hastings and La Crosse, and other large jobs of great public utility.

At the end of the period last mentioned he decided to undertake similar contracting and construction work for himself. He seeured contracts on the H. & D. division of the St. Paul Railroad, now the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, and built the bridges between Glencoe and Ortonville, making his home at Hutchinson, McLeod county. For a num- ber of years thereafter he was associated with Henry & Balch, the well known contracting firm, and during this period he began building docks on the Great Lakes, a line of work that is still in progress and has been growing in im- portance from the beginning of its history. One of his most important jobs in this department of enterprise, in magni- tude and usefulness, has just recently been completed at Ashland on Lake Superior.

Mr. Peppard remained with Henry & Balch from 1878 to 1897, and for three years after that was in partnership with Mr. Balch. Since 1900, however, he has been operating alone. He built the great railroad docks at Marquette, Michigan, Escanaba, Gladstone, Ashland, and other progressive and growing lake ports. In addition he has never hesitated to take a contract for building an entire line of railroad, and at times has had more than 2,000 men in his employ. Dur- ing the last twenty years he has done all the dock con- struetion work required by the Northwestern Railroad, and, in company with Bernard & Record, built some of the larg- est docks on the Great Lakes in addition to those named above.

His extensive work as a building contractor has kept Mr. Peppard busy, but he has still found time to give attention to other lines of business. He has loaned money to farmers, bought and sold pine lands, farm lands and other real estate, and built large business blocks and residence properties for renting purposes. The fine business block at First avenue and Tenth street, south, Minneapolis, was put up by him and in addition he owns several desirable lots and dwelling houses near his own home on Third avenue south, and is still extending his aequisitions of this kind.

While living at Hutchinson Mr. Peppard joined actively in the movement to secure railroads to that town, and largely through his efforts the Great Northern and Chicago, Milwau- kee & St. Paul were extended to it. In recognition of his services in this respect he was nominated by his party, the Democratic, for membership in the state house of repre- sentatives, and his nomination was cordially indorsed by the Republican nominating convention. But he declined the honor and did not make the race, preferring to devote him- self wholly to his business, which had by that time grown to large proportions and was steadily increasing.

While the greater part of his activity has been given to Minnesota enterprises since he became a resident of this state, he has acquired interests elsewhere also. He has a large addition to the city of St. Charles, Missouri, in which he is laying out streets and making extensive improvements, pushing the work forward with the energy and dispatch which he has always displayed in his undertakings, and with the confidence and self-reliance which have always characterized him in all things.

In the public affairs of every community in which he lias lived or with which he has been connected he has taken an intelligent and helpful interest, and to the progress and im- provement of Minneapolis in every way he has been es- pecially devoted and a liberal contributor. In its social life he has been useful as a member of the Auto, Commercial

My Peppard

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

and New Athletic clubs. He has also been very fond of fine horses, but has not found his liking for them profitable. In 1893 he was married at St. Charles, Missouri, to Miss Mamye Redmond. They have three sons living, Melville, George and Edwin. Another son, whose name was Royal, died in childhood.

HORACE NEWELL LEIGHTON.

Mr. Leighton was born on January 8, 1853, in the city of Machias, Washington county, Maine. There he grew to man- hood, and obtained his education in the common schools. The shop, the mill and the business office were his schools in his preparation for his business career, and they did their work well, as his career has been an eminently successful, credit- able and useful one.

In 1876, when he was twenty-three years old, he came to Minnesota and took up his residence in Minneapolis. He be- gan contracting and building, and to this line of effort he has adhered throughout the thirty years which have passed since he came to this locality. His progress in it has been steady and continuous, and he now stands in the front rank of his business in the Northwest. He is the head of the R. N. Leighton company, and among the notable structures which it has erected in this city are: The Metropolitan Life build- ing, the Palace Clothing house, the Catholic Pro-Cathedral, the old and new postoffices, the Northwestern and the Farmers and Mechanics bank buildings, the Pilgrim Congregational, Trinity Baptist, Westminster Presbyterian, Wesley Methodist and Lyndale Congregational churches, and the Great Northern, Advance, Newton & Emerson, Tibbs-Hutchins and Loose, Wiles & Company warehouses. Many other imposing and artistic structures stand to Mr. Leighton's credit in this community and elsewhere, and as enduring monuments to his skill and enterprise as a contractor and builder.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 104

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co. Number of Pages: 1190

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 1190