Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 119

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 119

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The skill and ability of this master of his craft have been duly recognized and appreciated wherever he has put them

in service. While living in the East he conducted some of the largest state and military funerals in that part of the country, and he has also had charge of many large funerals since coming to Minneapolis. He has been a student and a teacher of his work for years, taking a prominent part in state and national funeral directors' associations, and making addresses in their meetings which have been highly appre- ciated and widely published.

Mr. Roberts is an experienced embalmer and thoroughly understands all the sanitary requirements for the protection of the public in extreme cases. Although independent in politics he has always shown an eager, practical desire for good government, and done what he could to aid in securing it. Fraternal interests have also engaged his attention in a serious and helpful way. He is a Freemason of high degree in both the York and the Scottish rites, and a Noble of the Mystie Shrine, and is also a valued member of the Minne- apolis Lodge of Elks. His religious affiliation is with Geth- semane Protestant Episcopal church.

CHARLES H. ROBINSON.

Charles H. Robinson is not only a native of Minneapolis but one of its most loyal and patriotic sons and supporters. In the city's affairs he is a leading business man and a worthy representative of the best elements of citizenship among its people.

Mr. Robinson was born in Minneapolis, May 20, 1866, the son of Jabez M. and Martha B. (Day) Robinson, natives of Maine, who came to St. Anthony in 1856. They were married here in 1857, and here they reared a family and died after long years of usefulness to the community. The father died September 8, 1905, and the mother, October. 1, 1908. The latter was a niece of the late Leonard Day, of Minneapolis, her mother having been a sister of his wife. Her father was also Mr. Day's cousin. She came to St. Anthony with her parents.

While on a business trip. Jabez Robinson met Thomas B. Walker, and his description of the promise of Minneapolis so impressed Mr. Walker that he soon afterward became a resident and started the carcer here that has made him famous. After his arrival at St. Anthony, the elder Mr. Robinson worked for a time for the lumber firm of Hurlburt & Day, of which Leonard Day was a member. When he was prepared to go into business for himself he formed a partner- ship with William Ankeny and Curtis Pettit, and under the firm name of Ankeny, Pettit & Robinson they continued to manufacture lumber until 1886 or 1887.

Mr. Robinson was an expert and gave his personal atten- tion to the operation of the mills controlled by the firm. He also engaged in the manufacture of flour in association with Mr. Pettit under the firm name of Pettit & Robinson. He and his wife were the parents of three children, Adeline R., Charles H., and Irene B. Adeline is the wife of Charles Morse, of Minneapolis, and Irene is unmarried. Their mother was one of the most energetic and valued workers of the Church of the Redcemer during her life.

Charles H. Robinson has so far passed his life in Minne- apolis. He received a high school education here, and in his first business venture was associated with his father in leasing iron ore lands. Subsequently he engaged in the

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

leasing of cut-over pine lands on the Mesaba Range, which contains a considerable amount of productive land. Mr. Robinson is still interested in the leasing business, but he has other lines which engage him extensively, and is one of the directors of the Belt Line Brick Manufacturing Com- pany of Minneapolis. It manufactures 10,000,000 brick an- nually as a regular output, and often far execeds that amount. Its plant is at New Brighton, in Ramsey County, where the raw material for the product is found in great abundance and of the finest quality, and it is one of the largest and most completely equipped brick factories in this part of the country. He is interested in Arizona copper mines and is president of the Calumet & Copper Creek Mining Company of that state.

Mr. Robinson from his youth has taken an earnest and helpful interest in the advancement and improvement of Minneapolis. All undertakings designed to increase the city's industrial and commercial greatness, all'agencies for moral, educational, and social betterment, and all lines of public improvement have had his hearty approval and his influential assistance. He belongs to the Commercial, the Minneapolis, Interlachen, Lafayette, Athletic, Auto, and Dead Lake Clubs, the last named being an organization in the interest of hunt- ing and fishing, to which diversions Mr. Robinson is and long has been an ardent devotee.

January 2, 1889, Mr. Robinson married Miss Jessie P. Smith, a daughter of Thomas J. Smith of Minneapolis, who is well known as a post office official of the city for many years. Mrs. Robinson was born in Charlotte, Eaton County, Michigan, but completed her education in a Minneapolis high school. They have four children; Charles J., the oldest, is a student in the Scientific School of Yale University, and belongs to the class of 1914. Elizabeth Irene is a student at Graham Hall, and the other two children are Martha B. and Jane S. Mrs. Robinson is a working member of Plymouth Congregational Church and also active in social work. She belongs to the Travelers' and Study clubs. She and her hus- band have visited most points of interest in the United States.

SUMNER C. ROBINSON.

For forty-six years Sumner C. Robinson, who died in 1903, was a resident of Minneapolis, and one of the leading business men and manufacturers during more than half of the period, being engaged in contracting and building through- out the first twenty years after his arrival in this locality. He was born in New Jersey in 1831, and there was married to Miss Mary H. Dare, who was also a native of that state. They came West in 1856 and, after passing one year in Kansas, moved to Minneapolis in 1857.

Mr. Robinson was a carpenter and soon became a leading contractor and builder. Nearly all the residences on the East Side, built previous to 1876, were erected by him. In that year, in company with Charles S. Bardwell, he began the manufacture of sash, doors and interior finishings. The firm of Bardwell & Robinson has been an important factor in the city's growth. About 1885 they bought at Second street and Twenty-second avenue north, building the plant now used at present operated by two sons of the founders of the busi- ness, which was incorporated in July, 1903.

Mr. Robinson and wife were among the original seventy- four persons who started the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Episcopal church. Mr. Robinson was a Sunday school worker, and a member of the official board of the church, from 1858 to the end of his life, rendering longer service of this char- acter than any other man in the city. He was also active in starting the Asbury Hospital, furnishing a room in his own name, and was a member of its board of directors until death.

Mrs. Robinson, now living at the Hampshire Arms, has ever been active in all church efforts and particularly so in connection with hospital work. She has been a member of the controlling board of Asbury Hospital from its founding as she was long a member of the official staff of the North- western Hospital before Asbury was established. She is also connected in a highly serviceable way with the Deaconess' Home and other institutions of a beneficent character.

She and her husband were the parents of two children. Charles N., president of the Bardwell & Robinson company, and Mary R., wife of William Wolford.

FREDERICK WEYERHAEUSER.

Frederick Weyerhaeuser, of St. Paul, died at Oak Knoll. his winter home in California, on Saturday, April 4, 1914, at the age of seventy-nine years, four months and thirteen days. This simple statement chronicles the passing away of one of the business men of our day. He was remarkable in the ex- tent and success of his business operations; remarkable in the cleanness and regularity of his private life, and remarkable in his reticence concerning both and his strong aversion to newspaper comments, biographical notices and all other pub- licity touching him and his affairs.

His life story has been distorted and falsely colored, his wealth greatly exaggerated and his motives and methods mis- represented. The truth remains, however, that he was a man of high integrity, lofty purposes and correct business methods in every particular. But he was in reality only a minority stockholder in most of the large corporations with which he was connected, and by no means so extensive a holder of eon- trolling interests as has been popularly believed. In addi- tion, he was liberal to approved agencies for good to an extent never made known and therefore vastly underestimated. And his refusal to talk for publication about himself was due to no ill-nature, unfriendliness to his fellow men or other censur- able motive, but to the genuine modesty of real merit. He had a strong sense of duty and he obeyed its commands. It inspired him to make the utmost of his opportunities and he did it. For the rest. he preferred always to let his work speak for itself wherever it had a right or reason to be heard.

Frederick Weyerhaeuser was born on November 21, 1834. in a small village on the Rhine near the city of Mainz, in Ger- many. He was the son of John and Katharine (Gabel) Weyerhaeuser, and the only son of their eleven children who survived to maturity. The father owned a farm of fifteen acres, and the son was needed in the cultivation of this patri- mony as soon as he was large and strong enough to work. His education in the schools was therefore cut short when lie reached the age of eleven years, but prior to this time he at- tended a Protestant school, in which he acquired the funda- mentals of learning and a considerable amount of informa- tion about the Bible and catechism. In 1848 he was confirmed

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

in the German Reformed church, and after coming to this country joined the Lutheran church, of which he was a mem . ber for a number of years. He then united with the Presby- terian House of Hope in St. Paul, with which he was con- neeted until his death.

Times became hard in Germany and the spirit of emigration to the New World received a quiekening impulse thereby. When Mr. Weyerhaeuser was eighteen, and an orphan through the death of his father, one of his sisters and an aunt came to the United States and located in Pennsylvania. They wrote back to the village on the Rhine glowing accounts of the new country, and the rest of the family packed up and came hither also. The family located at Northeast, Erie county, Pennsyl- vania, and there Frederick decided that he would become a brewer and went to work at $4 a month. The second year he got a raise to $9 a month, but he soon gave up brewing and turned his attention to farming, in which he received a salary of $13 a month. He came of the thriftiest kind of German stock, and from his earliest beginnings his financial progress was steady.

In 1856 the family moved to Coal Valley, Rock Island county, Illinois, Frederick carrying with him his share of his father's estate, which had just been settled in Germany, and which he afterward described as "a very small amount of money," though he had his savings in addition to this.

Soon after his arrival at Rock Island Mr. Weyerhaeuser got a position as night fireman in the sawmill of Mead, Smith & Marsh, but he was not otherwise connected with the lumber industry until two months later, when there was an opening in the forec of the mill and he was given a place as tallyman. One day while eating his lunch in this capacity he made a shrewd sale of lumber to some farmers. This pleased his em- ployers, and they promoted him. But not long afterward the firm went into bankruptcy, the sawmill at Rock Island of which he had been made manager was shut down, and he lost his position.

In this emergency Mr. Weyerhaeuser and F. C. A. Denek- man, who afterwards became his brother-in-law, decided to go into business for themselves. They did not have much money but their reputations were clean and they were able to get credit. They leased the sileneed mill for a year, and by skill and energy in making sales they made some money. and then leased the mill for another year. Later they got to- gether enough capital to buy the mill outright. The enter- prise, prudence and economy with which they conducted their business involves too many details for enumeration. They saved every log and made the utmost of everything they handled. Their frugality was striking and their enterprise was on the same scale, and they prospered in full measure. It was a time of great activity along the Mississippi, the raw material for the lumber industry seemed practically inex- haustible, and every economy was used to their advantage.

About 1870 or 1871, to cut out losses caused by duplication of work and delays in delivery, and also to keep the logs of various owners within accurate means of identification, Mr. Weyerhaeuser organized the Mississippi River Logging com- pany, of which he was president for forty years. This was really the genesis of his business in the lumber trade. He saw the limits of the timber supply. He saw its frontier re- tiring rapidly. He saw also the inevitable result-increase in the price of timber-and the years that followed were em- ployed in the acquisition of timber lands.

Later on Mr. Weyerhaeuser and his associates purchased the

Chippewa Boom and Lumber company, of which he was made president, and operated at Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, what was then the largest sawmill in the northwest. His com- panies also owned interests in dams, factories, warehouses and planing mills. He was a director in many banks. He and his associates also owned boats, rafts, railways for han- dling lumber, machine shops, lands and other properties. One of the banks of which he was viee president for some years was the National German American of St. Paul, and in this bank's building, during the latter years of his life, he had his modest little office from which he transacted his business.

On October 11, 1857, Mr. Weyerhaeuser was united in mar- riage with Miss Elizabeth Bloedel, who had come from his native town in Germany and settled in Erie, Pennsylvania. She died in November, 1911, and many tributes have been paid to her genuine worth as a mother who wisely reared a family of seven children and conducted a home of refinement and simplicity as successfully as her husband did his business. The seven children of the household are all living. John P. is the oldest. Elise is the wife of Dr. William B. Hill of the faculty of Vassar College at Poughkeepsie, New York. Mar- garet is Mrs. J. R. Jewett. Her husband is a professor of Semitic languages at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Appollonia married S. S. Davis, who is head of the Rock Island Plow Co., Rock Island, Ill., and Moline Water Power Co. Charles A., Rudolph M. and Frederick E. have been associated with their father in business, as John P. also has, caeh be- ginning the connection at the dawn of his manhood if not before.

Frederick Weyerhaeuser moved to St. Paul in 1891, and dur- ing the twenty-three subsequent years of his life was a resi- dent of this city. He had a comfortable home at 226 Summit avenue here, and during the last few years another for winter occupancy at Pasadena, California. He was deeply and serv- iceably interested in the welfare of his home city and state, and a liberal contributor to the religious and beneficial insti- tutions in them and elsewhere. His religious connection was with the House of Hope Presbyterian ehureh, and his bene- factions to it were numerous and large. He also contributed liberally to the Yale Forestry school. But of his deeds of this character he seldom spoke, and no list of them has ever been compiled. He was a man of great mentality and force of character, and amassed a competenee. But he always main- tained his simplicity of life and unostentatiousness of man- ner, resting quietly on achievements and forbearing all show of any.

ANDREW A. D. RAHN.

Andrew A. D. Rahn, vice-president of the Rainy River Timber Company, was born in Valparaiso, Indiana, on Oct. 8, 1877, and is a son of Carl and Elizabeth (Snelling) Rahn, who moved to Minneapolis in 1880, where the father died in 1901 and the mother in 1913. Andrew was educated in the Garfield and Adams schools and in the South high school.

Leaving school he was employed by the Hardwood Manu- facturing Company of this city for ten years when he opened an establishment of his own at Princeton, Minnesota, which he condneted for one year. He then became connected with the Shevlin-Carpenter Co., as manager of the Shoshone Lum- ber Company, a subsidiary corporation whose business was

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

dealing in timber on a large seale in Northern Idaho, and in which Company he is still interested. Mr. Rahn is also vice- president of the Lake of the Woods Cedar and Tie Company and of The Lakes Company, Limited of Fort Frances, Ontario.

In 1905 he was chosen by state officials to superintend the taking of the census of that year. Funds failing the Minne- apolis Commercial Club, through its committee on public af- fairs, raised the necessary amount and a thorough eensus was thus obtained.

Mr. Rahn is a Republican and in 1903 and 1904 was secre- tary of the county central committee in which position he showed such energy and capacity as an organizer as to win praise from the party leaders. He is a member of the new Minneapolis Athletic Club, and the Athletic and Boat Club of Minneapolis, and the Spokane Club of Spokane, Wash. He is a Scottish and York rite Mason including membership in the Mystic Shrine, and is also a member of B. P. O. E., No. 44 of Minneapolis and other fraternal organizations. In 1905 and 1906 he served on the Finance committee of the Ancient Order of United Workmen.

Mr. Rahn was married Oct. 27, 1897, to Miss Annie Sophia Anderson of Minneapolis. They have three children, Carl Anderson, Robert Loren and Andrew A. D., Jr. The family residence is at Lake Minnetonka.

JOHN H. RIHELDAFFER.

John H. Riheldaffer was born in St. Paul, in 1859, and is a son of Rev. John G. and Catherine C. Riheldaffer. The father was a leading and influential Presbyterian clergyman in the early days, and is highly commended by those who remember him. He located in St. Paul in 1850, and left an impress on the religious life in organizing the Central Presbyterian church there, and erecting its first church edifiee. He died at Redwood Falls, 1893.

John H. Riheldaffer was educated in the public schools of St. Panl and in the University, being a member of the class of 1882. After spending one year in the office of A. M. Rad- cliffe, an architect, he entered the service of the St. Paul Warehouse Company, for which he became superintendent of elevator "B". He was then associated with J. Q. Adams of Minneapolis in the grain business, and in 1893 became con- nected with Commons & Company.

In 1907 he organized the Sterling Elevator Company, of which he was vice president and general manager until 1910, when he established the J. H. Riheldaffer Grain Company. He has served on the board of appeals of the Chamber of Con- merce for eight years, and was a director of the Commercial Club for years.

Athletie sports have always had an attraction for him, and for years he has been a leading spirit in the Minneapolis Curling club. He is a Republican, but not an active partisan, although he has ever taken an earnest interest in public affairs. His devotion to American institutions is shown by his long, serviceable membership in the Sons of the American Revolution, the Minnesota branch of which he served as president for one year.

In 1883, he was united in marriage with Miss Susan Timer- man. They have six children. Helen is the wife of Carl E. Austin and Kathryn is the wife of L. II. Clough. All the family belong to the Grace Presbyterian church.

CHARLES W. RINGER.

Serving in his thirty-first year in the city fire department, and having risen by successive promotions based on meri- torious work to the position of chief, Charles W. Ringer has given long continuance of faithful and valuable service and made a record creditable alike to the city and to himself.

He was born in Wisconsin, January 1, 1861, the son of Rev. Adam Ringer, an itinerant circuit riding Methodist minister. In 1868, he located in Stillwater, preaching in and about that city till 1870 when he moved to Sunrise where the son obtained a limited country school education. His spirit was conrageous, however, and the lessons of expe- rience have richly supplied what no school could give, making him self-reliant, resourceful and ready for all emergencies.

In 1877, when be was sixteen years old, he came to Minne- apolis. He began as a teamster hauling between Minneapolis and St. Paul, and afterward worked in the lumber woods, being advanced from the more laborious positions to that of a scaler of logs. The work was hard, the life lonely, and filled with temporary privation and hardship. His fidelity and ability attracted attention and on April 26, 1884, he was given a place in the fire department as a pipeman on Engine No. 6, at Twelfth street and Third avenue south. In 1887 he secured his first promotion when Chief Stetson appointed him lieutenant, and in 1892, he was made captain of Engine Company, No. 17, directly under the chief. Ile was appointed fire marshal in 1902, and chief of the department, January 1, 1911, by Mayor Haynes.

In all public affairs, Mr. Ringer has ever been deeply interested and an energetic worker for progress and improve- ment. No worthy project has gone without his cordial and helpful support, his activities in this respect having been guided by breadth of view and intelligence. He is a member of the Athletic club, the Civic and Commerce Association. In fraternal relations, he is a Knight Templar and Shriner, an Elk, an Odd Fellow and a Knight of Pythias. March, 1886, Mr. Ringer was married to Miss Fannie Marden, a native of the city. They have one son, Waller M.

WILLIAM J. BURNETT.

Manager and proprietor of the Northwestern Hide and Fur Company, was born at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1842, while the family were enroute to Terre Haute, Indiana. In 1638, his ancestor, Thomas Burnett, said to be of the same family as the celebrated Bishop Burnett of England, settled at Salem, Massachusetts, removing in 1643 to South Hampton Madison, New Jersey, the last town of importance planted by the Puritans, was settled by two of his descendants, and here William J.'s father, Virgil Justice Burnett, a black- sinith by trade, was reared. The panie of 1837 created gen- eral disaster, and he being financially embarrassed, joined the immigration westward, finally reaching Terre Haute with his last dollar exhausted. He operated a black smith and car- riage-shop, and, being an expert workman, soon was in good circumstances. He had been well educated, and, being in- clined to literature, became widely known as the "learned blacksmith," quite similar to the famous scholar. Elihn Burritt. In 1856 he served in the State Legislature, being a colleague of such men as Henry S. Lane, and was instrumental

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

in securing for Indiana the free school system and the im- portant Indiana liquor law. Maine's famous restrictions had but recently been secured, Indiana being the second state to attempt drastic liquor legislation. He died in 1858, his widow, Harriet S., surviving to the age of ninety-four. As a boy, William J. Burnett learned, at Terre Haute, the details of the hide and fur business, to which he has been devoted for more than half a century. He operated at several other places before coming to Minneapolis in the fall of 1890. He then established at 417 Main St. South East, the Northwest- crn Hide and Fur Company. The growth of trade necessitat- ing greater facilities, he finally erected the store and ware- house at First Street and Second Avenue North. By wise and original advertising, much of which is exceedingly educa- tional, pertaining to the domestic and wild animals,-how to trap wild animals, how to properly take off and care for the hides and skins of all animals so they will bring highest market value-he built up a large and lucrative business. His illustrations are used in the agricultural schools to teach farm-students. As an advertiser he is a past master, having a national reputation. His large shipping business direct from the farmer and trapper is largely the result of this unique and instructive advertising. Appreciating the vast unex- plored and almost unknown region to the north, abounding in thousands of lakes, vast forests and rivers, Mr. Burnett, some twenty years ago, assumed the burden and responsibility of sending explorers into its wilds. Valuable information so acquired was then given the newspapers, also embodied by him in a "Hunters' and Trappers' Guide," which has done much to disclose an undreamed natural source of wealth. He derived financial returns in the North's increased yield of enlarged stocks of furs and pelts, and a higher satisfaction in the development now going on in agricultural resources, and its vast wealth in timber and minerals. By the information obtained thousands of homes now exist where, before his revelations, were but wild animals and boundless forests. His interest in that region has enhanced with the increase of population. He has taken active part in extension of educational privileges and particularly so in the establish- ment and maintenance of Sunday Schools. A Sunday School worker all his life, he is State Vice-President of the American Sunday School Union, has encouraged the missionaries in sparsely settled regions; he sees in the common schools. sup- plemented by Sunday Schools, the solution of serious social and political problems, especially as affecting thiuly settled communities. Realizing the value of past efforts, as he ap- proaches the end of a beneficial career, he has made in his will a liberal provision to the support of such work through- out the Northwest. Sarah E. Tremble of Mattoon, Illinois, was the first wife, dying some fifteen years after marriage, and leaving one son, Warner F. Burnett, now in San Fran- cisco. In June, 1888, he married Alleda Suits of Huron, South Dakota, and they have one daughter, Harrict Alleda, a student in La Salle Seminary, Auburndale, Massachusetts. With literary tastes, Mr. Burnett finds greatest enjoyment in the companionship of books, the master minds of the world,- being represented on the shelves of a well-chosen library. He is an official of Como Congregational Chureh; a member of the Congregational club and of the Civic and Commerce Association and active in all good work pertaining to the City, State and Society. Although now 71 years of age his average health is most excellent, and he feels that he is good for ten or twenty years more. He longs to see the day when

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 119

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