Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 111

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 111

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Mr. Poehler was born at Henderson, Minnesota, on Janu- ary 15, 1864, the first of the three sons of Henry and Eliza- beth (Frankenfield) Poehler, and obtained his education in the elementary and high schools of his native town and the Shattuck Military School at Faribault, being graduated from the last named institution in 1883 as the valedictorian, or honor student, of his class. He began his active career in the banking and elevator business in October, 1883. For two years he was teller in a bank at Gaylord, this state, and afterward was associated with his father in general mer- chandising and the grain trade at Henderson.

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

In 1885 he came to Minneapolis to live and at that time became connected with the grain trade on an extensive scale in this city. Four years later, when his father moved the family to Minneapolis, he made this his permanent home, and he has ever since been connected in a leading way with the business his father then founded here. When his father died in July, 1912, the son succeeded to the presidency of the H. Poehler company, incorporated, and to various other business relations enjoyed by the father. The company of which he is the head has a branch house in Duluth and its trade is very extensive and active. But Mr. Poehler manages it with enterprise and skill, and the company keeps on steadily gaining ground, as it did under the man- agement of its organizer. Mr. Poehler is also vice presi- dent of the Pacific Elevator company, organized by his father; a member of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, of which he was one of the directors for eight years; a member of the Duluth Board of Trade and the Milwaukee and Chicago Boards of Trade.

Mr. Poehler has been close and constant in attention to his business enterprises, and has made them profitable on an enlarging scale. But he has also been zealously attentive to the welfare of his home city and earnest and active in his efforts to promote it. No undertaking of value for the improvement of Minneapolis or the greater comfort and increased conveniences of its residents has gone without his energetic aid in counsel and material assistance. He is as far-seeing and broad-minded with reference to public af- fairs as he is in business, and his support of any project for the advancement of the community is always sure to be guided by intelligence and good judgment as well as im- pelled by an energetic force of character and determination to make whatever is in hand entirely successful.

. In the social life of his locality Mr. Poehler is a strong potency for good and the widest usefulness. He is a charter member of the Commercial club and also belongs to the Min- neapolis and Minikahda clubs. He was one of the organizers, and first President of the Interlachen Country club. His interest in all these organizations is strong and his member- ship in them is very helpful to their activities in many ways. He is a devotee of outdoor sports and recreations, and adds to the enjoyment of his fellow clubmen by his enthusiasm over these forms of relief from the burdens and exactions of business. His specialties in sports are hunting, fishing, golf and curling, and he takes advantage of every opportunity · to enjoy them. Fraternally he is a Frecmason of the Knights Templar degree in the York Rite and of elevated rank in the Scottish Rite; in political relations he is a Democrat of positive convictions and energetic service to his party, and in religious affiliation he is an Episcopalian.

While ardent in his devotion to his political party, Mr. Pochler has never held or desired a political office either by appointment or election. But he has a taste for military life, acquired while he was at the Shattuck Military School, where he was captain of Company B in the military organi- zation of the students, and he indulges his taste in this re- spect by membership on the staff of Governor Eberhart, with the rank of colonel, the same as he held on the staff of the late Governor Johnson. He is also one of the trustees of his Alma Mater, the Shattuck School. On February 19, 1896, he was married in Minneapolis to Miss Eugenia L. Cole, a daughter of the late Emerson Cole, for many years one of

the highly esteemed residents of this city, who died in 1907, at the age of 70 years.

Mr. Poehler is a gentleman of robust health and fine physique. He is very enterprising and energetic, and with the high order of business capacity he possesses he gives promise of many years of usefulness to his community and of reaching a still greater altitude in its commercial life. At the same time his genial and obliging disposition, engaging manners, comprehensive intelligence and high character are sure to preserve for him the extensive and cordial popularity he now enjoys. Among the business men of Minneapolis none stands higher than he does in public esteem and none is more deserving of a high place in the regard of the people.

DUNCAN D. McDONELL.

The late Duncan D. McDonell, who passed fifty-two of the eighty-one years of his useful life in Minneapolis, and died here January 26, 1910, after making an admirable record in business and attaining to prominence and influence in citi- zenship, was a Scotchman by ancestry and a Canadian by nativity. But before he lived long in this country and State he became a thorough American in his political theories and sympathies, and a devoted, loyal citizen of Minnesota. He was thoroughly American in his business ideals, methods, enterprise, and large and self-reliant resourcefulness.

Mr. McDonell was born in County Glengarry, Province of Ontario, Canada, in 1829, and was there reared and educated. There also he began his business career, remaining in the Dominion until he reached the age of 28. In 1857 he came to Minnesota, and his business ability was so manifest and his personality so strong, that he deeply impressed the lead- ing lumbermen of the State at that time and became closely associated with them. After a residence of four years in this State he returned to his old Canadian home, where he remained one year. In 1862 he came back to this State to remain, and at once renewed his close relations with the magnates of the lumber trade.

After his return to Minneapolis Mr. McDonell spent some time in the employ of other men who were already in the lumber business and conducting it on claborate scales. They sought his aid in large operations 'of a confidential nature and found him always ready for the limit of service in amount and high quality. He continued to work in this way to his own advantage and the satisfaction of his employers for a number of years, and then decided to go into business for himself.

With this end in view he formed a partnership with Levi Leighton, under the firm style of McDonell & Leighton, and together they carried on a steadily expanding lumber trade which in time grew to great magnitude and became very profitable. After Mr. Leighton retired from the firm. Mr. McDonell gave greater attention to dealing in timber lands and stumpage than to making and selling lumber. He also made investments from time to time in city real estate. and acquired several properties that proved to be very valuable. These are still owned by Mrs. McDonell, and one of them is a block on Eighth Strect, between Nicollet and Hennepin Avenues.

Mr. McDonell was of a retiring disposition and never sought or desired a public position of any kind. although

.... .... ...

D. D. IDonell

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

he was well qualified to fill almost any office with credit to himself and benefit to the public. He had a strong Scotch proclivity for attending to his own business, and he indulged it to the fullest extent. Yet he was by no means indifferent to the public welfare, and never withheld any effort he could make to aid in promoting it. He was an earnest, in- telligent and energetic supporter of every undertaking de- signed to advance the interests of the city, and the people among whom he lived and carried on his business.

By birth and religious training Mr. McDonell was a Roman Catholic. But his mind was active, comprehensive, and in- quiring, in religious matters as in all others, and during the greater part of his residence in Minneapolis he attended the Universalist Church of the Redeemer. When, however, he realized that he was approaching the end of his earthly racc. the spirit of his teachings in youth reawakened within him. and he ended his days as he had begun them, closely enfolded in the embrace of the Mother Church.

September 18, 1884, Mr McDonell married Miss Linda Lord, a native of Skowhegan, Maine, whose family, running back in clear and unbroken lines to Colonial days, has pro- duced many men of action and renown. The first member of this family that settled in Maine was a major in the Colonial Army during the Revolutionary War, and his wife was a daughter of the celebrated Colonel Goff, of Goffstown, New Hampshire. The spirit of resolution and independence of this couple descended to their posterity, and has been niani- fest in every generation of the family since their day, al- though shown in many different walks of life and lines of work.

Mrs. McDonell became a resident of Minneapolis in 1880. No children were born of her marriage with Mr McDonell, but she has had so far an active, fruitful, and very useful life. Many agencies for the improvement of her home com- munity have had the benefit of her zealous and effective aid, for, whatever her hand has found to do that would be help- ful to others she has done with industry and energy guided by intelligence. She united with Mrs. T. B. Walker and another lady in keeping the old Northwestern Hospital in service for many years, and she has been potential in the support of many other institutions and organizations of great public utility.

In religious faith Mrs. McDonell, having experienced the benefits of Christian Science in her own restoration to com- plete health (after years of suffering) through the applica- tion of its tenents and teachings, became a convert to them, and is now numbered among the most devout, sincere. con- sistent, and influential followers of Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy in Minneapolis,and holds her membership in the Second Church of Christ

Mrs. McDonell has also been an important factor and an effective worker in literary, musical and social circles, and has been instrumental in founding several organizations de- voted to the culture such circles foster. She is a lady of cultivated taste and wide attainments herself, always in quest of knowledge and doing a great deal of traveling to get it. Nothing gives her greater enjoyment than visiting strange or new localities, which are out of the ordinary in features, customs and suggestions. During a recent visit to Honolulu she toured the island in an auto she took with her, and found great delight in the beauties of nature there displayed in forest, field, and ocean. Later she found equal delight in the more bold, bleak, and rugged scenery of

Alaska But while Nature lies close to her heart and speaks to her always with a persuasive voice, the works of Man, God's highest creation, afford her gratification to the same extent. In all the manifestations of Omnipotent power she sces proof that "the hand that made them is divine."

GEORGE WRIGHT PEAVEY.

Although ardently and sincerely devoted to his native land and its civil, educational, social and religious institu- tions, the late George W. Peavey, of Minneapolis, was never- theless a great traveler, and an industrious and fascinating writer on the natural beauties, material wealth, industrial activities and governmental theories of the lands he visited, and the manners, customs, employments, conditions and ten- dencies of their inhabitants. His articles of travel were published numerously in magazines of general literature and special works particularly devoted to this kind of writing, and they won for him a high place in the current literature of this country.

Mr. Peavey, whose very useful and interesting life ended on June 8, 1913, when he was but little over thirty-six years of age, was born in Sioux City, Iowa, on May 20, 1877. He was the only son of the late Frank H. and Mary D. (Wright) Peavey, a sketch of whom will be found in this volume. In that sketch the brilliant career of the father is shown somewhat in detail. The son came to this city with his parents in 1884, and here he had his home from that time until the close of his life.

After obtaining an excellent education Mr. Peavey was associated with his father in the grain business until the death of the parent on December 20, 1901, and after that event his remaining years were passed in company with his brothers-in-law, Frank T. Heffelfinger and Frederick D. Wells, also Charles F. Deaver, in the management of tlie great business interests started and built up by the father, which comprised the most extensive grain trade ever known in the world.

But. while Mr. Peavey never neglected his business, or any other work that came to him with the command of duty, he was enamored of travel and indulged his taste for it exten- sively. He did not travel, however, solely for his own en- joyment, and not even for his own improvement alone. He was keenly alive to the refining, harmonizing and expanding influences of general society-of intercourse with minds which have profited by a large comparison of nations, climates and customs- of the inspiration given by the grand, the wild, the picturesque beauties of nature, and well knew the value of comprehensive and accurate knowledge of the world in which he lived. But he believed that all he acquired through these channels of development he held in trust for the benefit of his fellow men, and that it was as much his duty to dispense the knowledge he gained for the good of others as it was to use his opportunities for his own pleas- ure and improvement.

Firmly fixed in this conviction, Mr. Peavey was, as lias been indicated a diligent, free and glad dispenser of what he learned among persons less favored, and many of them re- joiced in his advantages because they shared most help- fully and pleasingly in the results of his work. The world of Science and Letters also recognized his value and accorded

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him the rank to which it entitled him. He was chosen a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society of England, and his membership in many other organizations devoted to liberal studies was cordially welcomed and warmly appre- ciated. In his own city he belonged to the Minneapolis, Minikahda and several other clubs, and to a number of benevolent organizations and societies of different kinds and took a serviceable interest in them all.

Mr. Peavey was married in Cincinnati, Ohio, on October 25, 1899, to Miss Katharine Semple Jordan, a daughter of Hon. Nathan Edmund and Sarah (Semple) Jordan. The mother is a sister of F. B. Semple, one of the esteemed residents of Minneapolis. Both parents were persons of strong intellectuality and culture, and Mrs. Peavey is a lady of the same gifts and attaimments. She is esteemed univer- sally as an ornament to the womanhood of the city in which she lives.

JOHN G. ROBB.

After a good record as a promoter of industrial and manu- facturing enterprises and as a salesman of their products, John G. Robb, Alderman from the Fifth Ward, and the oldest mnem- ber, in years, of the board, retired, intending to pass his re- maining days in leisure; but in 1912 he was again elected and accepted the position. He finds thuis public service congenial, and gives it close and conscientious attention. In the council, he is a member of the committees on bonds and aecounts of city officials, and taxes, street car extensions, and health con- ditions. He is also chairman of the committee on licenses.

Mr. Robb was born at McConnellsville. Ohio, February 14, 1843, and at the age of thirteen with his parents removed to Crawford County, Wisconsin, to aid two of his older brothers in improving a new 240 acre grub-land farm. He passed five years here at work on the farm, and during the time attended two terms of winter school.

September 18, 1861, he enlisted in the Twelfth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, helping to raise half of his company: He was appointed third sergeant and soon promoted to first sergeant. The regiment was ordered to Camp Randall, at Madison, and entered the service October 31. In January, 1862, it was ordered to Western Missouri and received its baptism of fire and blood in the battle of Pea Ridge, Ark., March 6, following.

The regiment returned, via Fort Riley, and Lawrence, to Leavenworth, Kansas, winning the last day's march over the Thirteenth Wisconsin by accomplishing 45 miles in 13 hours, a most extraordinary military feat. The regiment was next sent via Columbus Ry., to Humboldt, Tennessee, where it was placed on guard duty. Later it was assigned to General Hurlburt's division and took part in the battle of Hatchie . River against the Confederates under General Price and Van Dorn, where 5,000 Union troops defeated 18,000 Confederates. It took part in the Mississippi campaign in the fall of 1862. passed the following winter at Memphis, and in the Spring of 1863 joined General Grant's army at Vicksburg, taking part in the long siege of that eity and being present at its sur- render. Mr. Robb then seeured a furlough and returned home. his trip, by steamboat being enlivened by a rebel attack on the boat as it passed the mouth of the Arkansas river. His health was so shattered that he was unable to return to active

service and he was mustered out at the close of his term. After his discharge Mr. Robb conducted a general store at Seneca, Wisconsin, where he was nominated for County Register of Deeds, but was defeated at the election. The County Treasurer then made him a partner in his hardware store, at Prairie du Chien, where he was in charge for five years and was a traveling salesman for five years more. As a "drum- mer" he sold goods to the leading old-time houses of Minne- apolis. In 1876 he formed a partnership in a soap factory at Prairie du Chien with an old friend, J. D. Humphreys. now of St. Paul, and their partnership still continues. With Humphreys as the manufacturer and Robb as salesman, the firm made a profit of $1,000 a month during the first three and one-half years of its existence. This result induced Mr. Beach of Dubuque, Iowa, to urge them to join him in the same line of trade in St. Paul. But as he had then an ex- tensive trade in stoves as well as soap, he declined.

In 1873 the Minnesota Soap Company was organized, and in 1881 its management being taken to St. Paul. Mr. Robb acted as salesman. They operating the plant in Minneapolis until 1890. Mr. Humphreys had bought a factory in Omaha and consolidation was formed with the Newton Brothers of Sioux City, and in 1911 the Minnesota Soap company joined as Hoskins Bros. & Company, with a capital of $400,000, with plants in operation in St. Paul, Sioux City and Omaha.

Mr. Robb continued in charge of sales until January, 1912, being then sixty-nine years of age and a salesman for thirty- eight years. He was for six years president of the People's Bank of Minneapolis, which closed it doors during the depres- sion of 1893. Mr. Robb was then one of the directors and being chosen president, had the bank opened and doing busi- ness again in thirty days. It has since been merged into the Scandinavian- American Bank.

In the organization of the Minneapolis Retail Grocers' Asso- ciation, Mr. Robb also took a leading part; he is still being an honorary member. Fraternally he is an active and prom- inent member of the Grand Army of the Republic.

June 22, 1868, he was married at Mt. Sterling, to Miss Harriet Gay. They have had ninc children, eight of whom are living. Emma is the widow of Dr. M. P. Van der Horck, late of Minneapolis. Charlotte is the wife of Alfred Mc- Laughlin, lumberman. Laura is the wife of Dr. S. Baxter, of the Abbott Hospital. Alice died in childhood. Edward is a farmer in North Dakota. Ray is a fuel merchant. Walter is an insurance man. James conducts a thriving grain com- mission business in Calgary, Alberta, and Donald is a student at Yale University.

GENERAL CHARLES McC. REEVE.

A resident of Minneapolis for more than forty years, Gen- cral Reeve has been conspicuously concerned with the de- velopment and upbuikling of the city along both civic and material lines, in which he has attained to distinction in vari- ons positions of trust. He is one of the essentially representa- tive citizens of Minneapolis, and in his home state it may consistently be said that his circle of friends is limited only by that of his acquaintances.

General Charle's MeCormick Reeve was boru at Dansville, Livingston county, New York, on the 7th of August, 1847, and is a son of General Isaac V. D. Reeve. a distinguished

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

officer of the United States Army. In the great struggle for national independence were found enrolled inany representa- tives of the Reeve family, including Colonel Isaac Reeve, and many maternal ancestors likewise were valiant soldiers in the Revolution.

General Isaac V. D. Reeve graduated from the United States Military Academy, in the class of 1835, and continued in active service until 1870, when he retired, upon his own application. He served in the Seminole Indian war, in Florida, and was a gallant officer in both the Mexican and Civil wars. In the war with Mexico he received three brevets for gallant and meritorious service at Contrera's and Cherubusco and after taking part in the brilliant battle of Molino del Ray he received the brevet rank of lieutenant colonel. At the close of the Civil War lie was promoted to the rank of brigadier general, and his entire military career was such as to reflect honor upon himself and upon the arms of his native land. During a considerable period of the Civil War he served as mustering and disbursing officer, and in 1862-3 he was the incumbent of this dual position in New York city, where he had charge of providing for all soldiers passing through the metropolis and where he retained a clerical force of more than seventy persons. His preference was for service in the field, but the Secretary of War was insistent in assigning West Point men to the important details of executive and official service, to which General Reeve was thus called. He was in charge of the government military disbursing office in New York city at the time of his retirement from active serviee, in 1870. In 1871 he joined his son, General Charles McC. Reeve, in Minneapolis, and this city was his home thereafter until his death, which occurred in 1890. General Reeve was a man of impregnable integrity, of distinct and positive individuality and of most winning personality, so that his name is held in enduring veneration in the city and state in which he passed the closing period of a noble and illustrious life. In Minneapolis he was one of the prominent and influential members of Plymouth Congregational church. When the Minneapolis park system was initiated and a boulevard laid out around Lake Harriet, the court commis- sioners awarded to General Reeve the sum of $32,500 for the strip of land which had been taken from him and which bordered on the lake. With characteristie liberality, he pro- posed to donate this land to the city in case the same was utilized in the perfecting of the fine boulevard and park sys- tem, about nineteen hundred feet of lake frontage, of the original Reeve farın, of two hundred and fifty acres, on the south shore of Lake Harriet, the beautiful old homestead being situated on an eminence overlooking that lovely body of water.

General Charles McCormick Reeve passed the period of his childhood and youth in the various military posts in which his father was stationed, and as a boy he accompanied his parents on a wagon trip of seven hundred and fifty miles from the Texas Coast to Fort Bliss, of which post his father as- sumed 'command, the same having been on the site of the present city of El Paso. The last western command held by his father was at Fort Buchanan built by him in New Mex- ico. It is worthy of note that at this frontier post General Isaae V. D. Reeve had as his principal aide Captain Ewell, who later served as lieutenant general in the Confederate army under General Lee. General Longstreet, another of the distinguished officers of the Confederacy, likewise served under him prior to the Civil War.

General C. McC. Reeve graduated at Yale University in the class of 1870, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In 1873 liis alma mater conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts. He was admitted to the bar in 1871. He made his first trip to Minneapolis, for the purpose of visiting friends, his expectation at the time having been to establish his resi- dence in California. In Minneapolis he found an opportunity to purchase the Thornton farm of two hundred and fifty acres, on Lake Harriet, and he had the foresight to realize the ultimate appreciation in the value of the property. His father consented to join him in Minneapolis, and they pur- chased the land mentioned,-the same constituting the fine old homestead which has long been associated with the family name. The brick portion of the old residence was built in 1860, by Frances Thornton, and the house is one of the land- marks of this beautiful seetion of the city.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 111

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