Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 114

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 114

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511

Andrew B Rollins

451

HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA .

obliged to march for hours without water in a temperature of 110 degrees. When this expedition was over, Mr. Robbins went with another to escort Col. Fisk's party of Montana emigrants to safety, acting as commissary sergeant. Trials and hardships of more than ordinary severity were encoun- tered on this expedition also. His regiment next went South and became a part of General Schofield's 23d Army Corps. It took part in the second battle of Murfreesboro (some- times called "the Cedars") and contributed to the Union victory at Franklin, Tenn. Later it was marched to King- ston and Raleigh, North Carolina, and formed a junction with Sherman's army. It was continued in active service until the flag of the Southern Confederacy went down in everlasting defeat at Appomattox. At the close of the war Mr. Robbins was mustered out, having shown himself to be one of the best as well as one of the youngest of soldiers.

On his return to his former home, Mr. Robbins accepted the first employment he could find, which was night work in a sawmill. But he soon became first ticket agent in the first depot of the St. Paul & Pacific Railway (now the Great Northern), in old St. Anthony, on the river bank, just above the Falls. When the depot was moved to the west side of the river he was ticket agent, chief accountant, and tele- graph operator. When the railroad was extended to Willmar, Mr. Robbins was appointed terminal and general agent, and took the first train to his new field of duty.

He became active in all the industrial and mercantile in- terests of Willmar, and soon engaged for himself in the lumber, the farm machinery, and the grain trade. His busi- ness increased so rapidly that he decided to quit the service of the railroad company and devote himself wholly to his personal affairs. In 1879 he founded the Bank of Willmar, which, under his management, soon became one of the strong- est financial institutions of its rank in the Northwest. He was also one of the founders of the First Presbyterian Church of Willmar, and for many years its Sunday school superin- tendent. To this school the children, by whom he was greatly beloved, came from many miles around.

When he was only thirty years old he was elected to the State Senate from the district composed of Kandiyohi and other counties. He was the youngest member of the Senate, but was made chairman of several important committees. During his term the grasshopper scourge visited this state, and he drew up the first seed-grain law to supply seed wheat to the destitute farmers, and canvassed the Senate to secure its enactment. He also invented the sheet iron "hop- per-doser", to kill grasshoppers. It was very successful, and is still used to a limited extent. After the scourge had devastated his Senatorial District, he and Thomas B. Walker took quantities of seed of rapidly growing crops throughout the country, and distributed it free to the farmers. Many of those farmers came to him in after years and told him that his interest in their welfare and the help he gave them had saved them and their families from destitution if not starva- tion.

While at Willmar Mr. Robbins became more and more in- terested in the elevator and grain trade. He established a receiving store there, and often watched the long line of ox teams waiting their turn to be relieved of their loads. The line often stretched out toward the west as far as he could see, and sometimes the men with the teams had to camp until their turn for unloading came. All the while his grain and elevator business was increasing, and by 1882 it had grown

so great that he required more help to handle it. He then moved to Merriam Park, where he organized and took the management of the Northwestern Elevator Company, which he conducted for fourteen years. During this period he was a leading member of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, and for four years afterward was general manager of the Minnesota & Dakota Elevator company, which also carried on a very extensive business.

In 1890 he purchased a large tract of land north of Minne- apolis, removed thereto, and expended a considerable amount of time and money in the development of the town now called Robbinsdale. He platted many blocks and beautified them by planting a great number of trees on them. Upon the shore of Twin Lake he built a beautiful country home, with extensive grounds comprising more than 20 acres. From the road he planted, leading to the house an elm drive which is now considered the finest in the State. He took great delight in planting almost every variety of tree and shrub suited to the Minnesota climate. He also built the street railway to the town, made other extensive improvements in his country seat, which he made his home for the remainder of his life. While living here he served as State Surveyor General of Logs and Lumber, and was again elected to the Legislature as a Representative from Hennepin County. In his last years Mr. Robbins was actively engaged in the reai estate business and the promotion of street railway building.

He was a member of the Masonic order (in which he had attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish rite), and of Butler Post, Grand Army of the Republic, of which he was a Past Commander. In 1903 he was chairman of the Memo- rial Day Committee of his post. In religious affiliation in later life he was a member of Westminster Presbyterian . Church, in Minneapolis. He was a director of the old Minne- apolis Business Men's Union. He was fond of outdoor life and gave expression to his love of nature by planting trees extensively wherever he lived. In all the organizations to which he belonged he was prominent and active, and his membership was highly valued because of its usefulness.

In 1869 Mr. Robbins was married in Minneapolis to Miss Adelaide J. Walker, a sister of Thomas Barlow Walker, the great lumberman, and a niece of Judge Barlow, of Ohio. Mrs. Robbins is still living, as are five of the seven children born of their union; their only son and a daughter, Helen, died a number of years ago. The living children are: Edith, the wife of Lester Daniel; Amy, the wife of John Roland Ware; Adelaide, the widow of Ralph P. Gillette; Ruth, who became the widow of Sterling Loomis and is now the wife of Dr. Fred C. Rodda; and Esther, who is the wife of William Wright Scott. All the daughters are graduates of the University of Minnesota, and they all live at Robbinsdale, except Mrs. Gillette, whose home is in Minneapolis, and Mrs. Scott, who resides with her husband in North Dakota.

Mr. Robbins' death was not unexpected when it came, but the event shrouded the whole of this community and many others in gloom, and his funeral obsequies were very impressive by reason of the high tributes paid to his worth. During the funeral services business houses were all closed in Robbinsdale, and every flag hrung at half mast. Such was the esteem felt for the departed friend of the town and all its residents, that not a team nor an automobile passed in either direction, the long funeral procession in its progress from the home of the deceased to the city limits, all drivers waiting respectfully until it had passed.

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

Mr. Robbins lived in service to his God and his fellow men, and he died at peace with both. He felt throughout his life that he and his fellows were going the same way and had better go hand in hand. He loved the best in musie and literature. He was passionately devoted to his family and his home, and was happiest at his own fireside. The beauties of nature brought him great enjoyment and peace, and he constantly looked up through them to their Creator, on whom his faith was always firmly fixed.

FRANK PECK.

For a continuous period of fifty-seven years this gentleman has been a resident of Minnesota, and during the last eigh- teen has had his home in Minneapolis and been engaged in the real estate business.

Mr: Peek was born October 1, 1854, near Galena, Illinois, and when he was but two years old his parents, Julius and Caroline (Child) Peek, moved to Goodhue county, this state, and located on a farm of 200 aeres on the Zumbrota river, two miles and a half northwest of the town of Zumbrota. Frank was reared on that farm, and educated in the distriet sehool in the neighborhood. He assisted his father in eulti- vating it as soon as he was able, and he continued his man- agement of it until 1895, when he moved to Minneapolis, where he has ever since had his home.

Julius Peek was a native of Vermont, where his life began in 1807. When he was eight years old his parents moved to Genesee eounty, New York, and in 1831, when he was twenty-four, he eame farther West and located in Pontiae, Michigan. In November, 1838, he was married in Detroit to Miss Caroline Child. In 1847 they changed their residenee to Jo Daviess county, Illinois, and in 1856 they settled on the Goodhue eounty, Minnesota, farm already mentioned. The first school taught in that neighborhood, which was a subseription school and eondueted by Charles Loeke, was kept in Mr. Peek's primitive shanty which he eheerfully gave up for the purpose. He also suported the sehool in other ways. On this farm he died in 1889, in the eighty-third year of his age, just eight months after his wife passed away, end- ing a married life of over fifty years which they had enjoyed together.

In 1856, when the elder Mr. Peck eame to this state from Illinois he brought with him the first span of horses and owned the first reaper used in his township. When he and his wife died they were among the oldest eitizens of the township. They were the parents of six children: William, Elijah, Charles, Louisa, Frank and Asa.

Of these six Frank is the only one now living. William and Elijah served in the Union army in the Civil war. Wil- liam was in the First Minnesota regiment. He was wounded in its furious and heroie eontest at Gettysburg, and died in a hospital July 27, 1863, at the age of twenty-three. Elijah was in the Seventh Minnesota, and took part in suppressing the Indian 'outbreak of 1862. He was on guard the night before the thirty-eight Indian leaders of the insurrection were executed, and died at New Ulm, December 27, 1862, only eighteen years old. Charles moved to Minneapolis in 1893 from a farm in Sibley county, and during his residenee in this eity aeqnired the ownership of several pieces of valuable property, among them the site of the new Lake Harriet Bank.

He died near Lake Harriet, in January, 1911. His widow is now living at Hudson, Wisconsin. Louisa married Latimer Doxey and died young. Frank and Asa were partners in own- ing and eultivating the old family homestead in Goodhue county, until Asa died in 1894.

The next year after the death of his brother Asa, Frank was married to Asa's widow, who was Miss Carrie Rogers before her first marriage and a native of the state of New York. By her marriage with Asa Peck she became the mother of three children, Mary L., Charles Scott and William R., all of whom are living at home. No children have been born of her second marriage. Mr. Peck has dealt in real estate in a quiet way, and has had his home located at 4410 Upton avenue south, in the Lake Harriet distriet. He is a Republiean in polities but not an active partisan.

HON. FRANK L. PALMER.

This esteemed eitizen, member of State Legislature and promoter of city extension and improvements has been a resi- dent for twenty-five years, and during that period has been tireless in expending his energies in making Northeast Minne- apolis a desirable and populous seetion, for both residenee and business purposes.

Mr. Palmer was born in Brooklyn, Jackson county, Michi- gan, June 24, 1860. When twelve years old his father died, his mother also dying three years later, so that he was thrown on his own resourees at an early age. He was able, however, to seeure a good education, being graduated from the high school at Napoleon in his native county. At nine- teen he entered the store of his brother in Kalamazoo, later seeuring a position in the postoffice, through the influence of Hon. J. C. Burrows, then in Congress.

When the estate of his father was settled in 1882, Mr. Palmer was married to Miss Mary A. Hogle, and the next spring took up a homsetead in Kidder county, North Dakota, on which they remained until title was seeured. Repeated poor erops and severe winters made it unsatisfactory, and in 1888 he moved to Minneapolis. He seeured employment in the office of John D. Blake, an extensive real estate dealer. and spent a year at St. Louis Park, in the interest of Haywood & Boshert.

In 1896, Mr. Palmer opened a real estate office in Northeast Minneapolis, then New Boston, but which was withont trans- portation facilities and sparsely settled. This has sinee be- eome well connected with the eity, has fine street railway facilities, is a desirable residenee seetion, has business inter- ests of considerable magnitude, and schools, churches, paving. sewerage and other improvements which make it compare favorably with other new parts of Minneapolis.

Mr. Palmer has been a potential factor in promoting every sneh advanee. He has served as president of the St. Anthony Commereial elnb, is one of its directors, and is a member of its publie improvements committee. In the fall of 1910 he was elected from the 39th district to the State House of Representatives, and re-elected in 1912. In his first term he was chairman of the committee on temperance, and a member of the committees on towns and counties and elections. He was instrumental in seeuring the enaetment of the law reg- ulating the sale of malt, and was deeply interested in legisla- tion on insurance, forestry interests, elections and labor.

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

In the latter session he was chairman of the committee on cities, which consists of seventeen members, and which passed upon all legislation relative to cities, and a member of the committees on insurance, legislative expenses, towns and counties, and labor and elections. He has made earnest efforts to secure greater economy and efficiency in the management of the legislature, and is the author of the law allowing rail- road and commercial men, and others whose duties keep them away from their homes a great deal of the time, to cast their votes for presidential electors and state officials at any poll- ing place where they happen to be on election days, and safe- guarding the transmission and counting of the votes they cast. The initiative, referendum and recall have also earnestly en- gaged his attention and been carefully studied by him.

When Minneapolis decided to secure a better water supply, Mr. Palmer was one of a sub-committee of five selected from a committee of twenty-three, to visit a number of different cities to collect information on the subject, the recommenda- tions made by this sub-committee being adopted by the city. Mr. Palmer's knowledge of real estate values has been fre- quently called into requisition in appraising property con- demned for park, boulevard or other public use. He was one of the appraisers of the property designed for the Gateway Park, the Mall, the Lake of the Isles Boulevard, the Minnehaha Falls Park and the East River Drive. He has also served on the executive committee of the Real Estate Board, and as one of tlie directors of the New Boston Commercial club, which he helped to organize.

In fraternal relations, Mr. Palmer is a thirty-second degree Mason, and his interests in the fraternity made him diligent in working for the erection of a Masonic building for Arcana Lodge, No. 187. His religious affiliation is with Trinity Methodist Episcopal church, serving on its official board for twenty-five years. His family consists of two daughters, Merle B., at home and Floy M., wife of D. G. Campbell, who is associated with him in his real estate business.

CLINTON MORRISON.

Mr. Morrison died on March 11, 1913, aged seventy-one years, one month and twenty days, and for fifty-eight years resided in Minneapolis. He was born at Livermore, Maine, on January 21, 1842, moved to Bangor in 1844, and lived there until he was thirteen, laying the foundation of his education in the famous Abbott school. His parents, Dorilus and Har- riet Putnam (Whitmore) Morrison, were of the same nativity as himself, and possessed, in large measure and controlling force, the New England characteristics. The father was the first mayor of Minneapolis, and gave the municipal bantling an excellent business administration of its affairs, starting it on a firm basis of governmental wisdom, broad-viewed pro- gressiveness and financial strength.

In 1855, when the son, Clinton, was less than thirteen years old, the family moved to Minnesota and located on the banks of the Mississippi at St. Anthony Falls. For a few years he attended the old Union school, which stood on the site now occupied by the present city hall and court house, later he attended school at Racine, Wis., and there completed his edu- cation so far as schooling and text books were concerned.

Accordingly, he left school at an early age and began doing business under the guidance of his father. He was an apt

pupil of an excellent teacher, and soon showed an admirable grasp of business conditions and requirements. At the age of twenty-one he united with his brother, George H. Morrison, in an enterprise for outfitting lumbermen, and, as an out- growth of this business, they became interested in the pur- chase of pine lands, mills and lumber. They operated a water power sawmill on the platform at the Falls and con- ducted a lumber yard in the lower part of the city. They did an extensive and profitable business until the death of George H. Morrison in 1882, after which Clinton turned his attention to the extensive business interests of his father and assisted the latter in managing them.

At this time the Minneapolis Harvester Works, which the father had assisted in organizing, and which had been run as a stock company, began to show signs of failure. He and his father took over most of the capital stock of the com- pany, assumed charge of the business and started the resur- rection of the institution.

Under the advice of the younger Mr. Morrison the company adopted the twine binder invented by Mr. Appleby, who was connected with the Harvester Works, and this invention proved to be very profitable. The whole industry was sold in 1892 to the Walter A. Wood Harvester company, organized in St. Paul, and for years afterward continued to be a big pro- ducer of business.

Mr. Morrison was also a potential factor in building up the Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank of Minneapolis. He was elected president of this bank in 1876, and several times while he was at its head it was brought face to face with great financial panics and severely tried as to its soundness and strength. But it withstood every storm with Gibraltar like resistance, and came forth from each with millions to the good, proving itself to be one of the strongest financial institutions in the Northwest. Two or three times, also, it has withstood "runs" generated by mischievous tongues, but always with increased vigor, credit and popular approval. During Mr. Morrison's administration of its affairs as trustee and president the bank erected its handsome build- ing on Fourth street near First avenue south. He was also extensively interested, in connection with his father, in the construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad.

For some years before his death Mr. Morrison was occu- pied mainly with the management of his extensive private interests. But he continued to serve as president of the Great Western Elevator company, the Northwestern Knitting company and the North American Telegraph company, and vice president of the North Star Woolen Mill company. His political affiliation was with the Republican party. In re- ligiou's belief he was a Universalist, and his local connection in the sect was with the Church of the Redeemer, of which he was a regular attendant for many years. In social rela- tions he was long a valued member of the Minneapolis club.

In February, 1873, Mr. Morrison was united in marriage with Miss Julia Kellogg Washburn, a daughter of Nehemiah and Martha (Parmelee) Washburn. She died in 1883, leaving two children, her son, Dr. Angus Washburn Morrison, and her daughter Ethel, who is now the wife of John R. Vander- lip, a Minneapolis lawyer. The father was always intensely interested in the advancement of his home city and bore a large part of the burden of building it up and improving it. His public benefactions were numerous and various, and his private contributions to worthy persons in need of help, although always entirely unostentatious and never mentioned

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

by him, were munificent. And when death closed his long and highly serviceable record, warm tributes to his gennine manhood and sterling worth, to his great liberality and public spirit, to his unobtrusive way of living and doing good, were poured out in voluminous measure from all classes of the people.

One incident that brought him into greatest prominence here and made him known in artistic circles abroad was his gift of the site for the new Minneapolis Art Museum, which is now in course of construction. With his usual modesty he esti- mated the value of the property he gave for this purpose at $200,000, when it was worth at least $50,000 more. It was his father's renowned residence known as "Villa Rosa," which has long been famous in local history and in which many notable men of the country have been entertained. The tract comprises ten acres and is admirably located for the new use to which it is to be devoted. Mr. Morrison con- veyed this property to the Minneapolis Society of Fine Arts, as he stated in his letter making the tender, "without cost. or incumbrance, to be a memorial to my late father, Dorilus Morrison, the first mayor of Minneapolis, with the simple condition that it become one of the parks of the city, to be used only for the erection and maintenance thereon of such a museum." It will be a fine memorial to the first mayor of the city, but it will be no less an enduring monument of the filial affection, large-hearted generosity and elevated pub- lic spirit of his son, suggesting always the high traits of char- acter of both and indicating in a substantial manner the value of their citizenshp.

EDWIN PAGE STACY.

The career of the late Edwin Page Stacy, who was, when he died, the head of the best known wholesale fruit and produce house in Minneapolis, was rounded out by consistent and steady advances from a humble and obscure beginning on a farm to prominence as the foremost merchant of his branch in this part of the country. His father, Isaac Stacy, was a tiller of the soil near De Kalb, St. Lawrence county, New York, and his mother, before her marriage, was Miss Orpha Page.

Edwin P. Stacy was the youngest son of his parents, and was born on May 31, 1831. Farming in St. Lawrence county, New York, was much as it was elsewhere at that time, although an unusual number of the state's and nation's fore- most men were native there. Mr. Stacy's father had been reduced in circumstances through illness, but the son managed to secure a fair education, and while getting it kept looking to the time when he might enter remunerative business. He attended the public schools in De Kalb and the Gouverneur Academy until he reached the age of eighteen years.

In 1850, deeming it time for him to get to work, young Stacy secured employment with Stacy, Golden & Company, in Utica. So apt was he that he was selected a year later to go to Lafayette, Indiana, to take charge of a branch house. This move was but one of a series, each bringing him nearer the city in which the fruit of his business carcer was to mature. In 1854, with an elder brother, he estab- lished himself in Dover, Illinois, where for seven years they operated a general merchandising, grain and lumber trade.

Edwin P. Stacy then passed four years at Stacyville, Iowa, and at the end of that period went to Mitchell, in that state, and entered upon a business which finally led to his becoming a resident of Minneapolis.

Mr. Stacy remained at Mitchell, however, for nearly twenty years engaged in general merchandising, and during this period was also active and prominent in the civic and political life of the community, serving four terms as mayor, and is remembered as Superintendent of the Congregational church for years. In 1879 his oldest son, Arthur P. Stacy, was taken into partnership with him, the firm becoming E. P. Stacy & Son. As the merchandising business and the produce com- mission lines were closely related, and they were doing a considerable amount of business in Minneapolis, they decided to establish a branch house here.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 114

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