Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 30

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 30

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The voting place was elevated and reached by steps. About 2 o'eloek a number of Republicans. some of them armed with clubs, pulled away these steps and warned the "slaveocrats," that no more of them would be allowed to vote. When a Repub- lican approached the voting place he was lifted up to the window and handed in his ticket. The Demo- crats were chased summarily away. Of course there were many fisticuffs and other personal encounters. the Democrats uniformly getting the worst of it, and some of them were beaten and bruised with elubs. The election returns of St. Anthony showed a major- ity for Ramsey of 122. The Republicans also elected the entire Legislative ticket from the St. Anthony district (then the 23d) the delegation consisting of

Jonathan Chase, Senator, and Wmn. H. Townsend and L. C. Walker, Representatives.

Discussing the disgraceful affair at the St. Anthony polling place the Pioneer and Demoerat of October 31, following the election, commented :

* * In St. Anthony, it is notorious that a gang of armed bullies in the pay of Republican lead- ers took possession of the polls in the Upper Precinct and prevented Demoerats from voting. Not less than 150[ ?] Democrats were disfranchised by the sup- pression of this armed mob. In the afternoon the steps leading up to the voting room were torn down. Republicans coming to vote were lifted up to the window by their associates and voted, but Demoerats were driven away. This villainy was perpetrated directly under the eyes of Priest Ames, Nourse, and Secomb, and of course they think there is no evil in it. It benefited Republicanism and that removed the sin and washed away the erime, as Parson Ames argued when he cheated and lied the Democratic Delegates to the Constitutional Convention out of their certificates of election.

"So rascally was the conduct of the Republican leaders in St. Anthony that some of their prominent partisans, disgusted by the mob-like conduct, have dissolved their connection with the black party. We have the names of some who declare that they will never hereafter vote with their former party asso- ciates. "'

Referring again to what is ealled "the Republican election frauds," the Pioneer and Demoerat of No- vember 18, in reviewing a series of them, said :

** At the election in the upper precinct of St. Anthony a gang of 50 men-urged on, we are told. by Geo. A. Nourse, Republican candidate for Attor- ney General,-took possession of the polls and pre- vented a single Demoerat from voting after 2 o'eloek in the afternoon. No one was allowed to approach the window where the judges of eleetion received votes unless he exhibited a green or a blue tieket, the color selected by the Black Republican candidates. At the least calculation 150 Democrats were disfran- chised by the action of this mob. Many were knocked down and beaten with clubs for attempting to vote. and others were driven away."

The Democrats also charged that the Republicans had committed gross frauds in Washington, Chisago, Goodhue, Steele, and other counties. They said that hundreds of unnaturalized Scandinavians had been permitted to vote the Republican ticket, etc. On the other hand the Republicans charged that the Demo- erats had committed frauds in Pembina, at St. Paul, in Cass County, and at Cedar Lake, MeLeod County.

There were no charges of fraud by either party against the vote of Hennepin, save that some Demo- crats claimed that a number of Republicans voted in Minneapolis and then erossed over to St. Anthony and voted again. The county went Republican by over 400 majority, electing the full tieket including the Legislative delegation which was composed of Erastus N. Bates and Delano T. Smith, Senators, and

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

Reuben B. Gibson, Geo. H. Keith, and Wm. S. Chowen, Representatives.

Not until December 10, did the Territorial Return- ing Board designated by the Constitution complete the canvass of votes. The Board was composed of Gov. Saml. Medary and Joseph R. Brown, Democrats, and Thos. J. Galbraith, Republican. In the begin- ning of the canvass Galbraith offered a resolution : "That the duly canvassed returns from the several counties be adopted as the basis of calculation by this Board of Canvassers." Galbraith and Medary voted for this resolution and it was adopted. Brown had offered a resolution to canvass by precincts ; but Med- ary said that it would "take six months to do that." Some persons have claimed that Brown's plan would have elected Ramsey.

The adoption of the resolution offered by Mr. Gal- braith, staunch Republican though he was, defeated Ramsey and elected Sibley by a majority of 240, the vote standing, Sibley, 17,790; Ramsey, 17,550. The rest of the Democratic candidates were elected by majorities averaging nearly 1,500. The H. M. Rice influence was still against Sibley and he ran far behind the rest of his ticket. Under the Galbraith resolution the Board threw out 2,128 votes which had been apparently cast for Ramsey and 1,930 intended to be counted for Sibley.

Some curious things were discovered in the can- vass. Pembina County was finally counted, 316 for Sibley and none for Ramsey, but 62 votes for Sibley and 16 for Ramsey from that county were thrown out. The vote of the First Ward of St. Paul, giving Sib- ley 150 majority, was thrown out. In Goodhue County a census taken after the election showed that there were but 1,652 voters in the county, yet at the election it cast 1,928 votes and gave Ramsey 522 ma- jority. Red Wing, with but 518 voters, polled 679 votes; Kenyon, with 33 voters, cast 74 votes; Zum- brota, with 37 voters, gave 91 votes at the election. Yet the entire vote returned from Goodhue was counted as returned.

Galbraith, a radical Republican though he was, voted with his Democratic colleagues in every in- stance where returns were rejected. His Republican advisers had assured him that his resolution, if adopted, would elect Ramsey, but it did not.

THE PANIC OF 1857.

August 24, 1857, the suspension of the Ohio Life and Trust Company, of Cincinnati, precipitated a general and most disastrous financial panic through- out the country. The New York City banks sus- pended specie payments October 14, and did not re- sume until December 11. The Illinois Central, the Michigan Central, the Erie, and other railroads made assignments. There were great losses and general distress for a long period.

The effects of the panic did not reach Minnesota until in October. St. Paul was then the money cen- ter of the country, and October 20, its leading bank- ing house, that of Borup & Oakes, made an assignment. Soon other banks and many mercantile firms made

assignments or suspended, until there were but two solvent banking institutions in the town, those of Willius Brothers and Mackubin & Edgerton. The entire Territory suffered from a lack of real money; the currency commonly in circulation consisted of the notes of worthless or practically insolvent banks, for those were days of the old free banking system, when every bank issued its own engraved bills and foisted them upon the people.

In Minneapolis there was a great fall in the price of real estate. Stevens says (p. 301) that lots which would bring $3,000 in Minneapolis in May could not be sold for $300, standard money, in October. In- terest on specie or paper currency at par rose to five per cent a month; and even money borrowed at that rate failed in many instances to save property which had been purchased partially on credit. The two towns at the Falls were on the frontier, and great loads of the worthless bills of other States found lodgment here, to the great injury of the people. The Chicago Tribune of December 16, 1857, said :

"St. Anthony and Minneapolis appear to be the headquarters of the uncurrent money in Minnesota. Large quantities of the broken Farmers' Bank of North Carolina, quoted in Chicago at 75 per cent discount, circulate at par up there! Bills of the Citi- zens' Bank of North Carolina, which is busted; of Tekama, Nebraska, which is a swindle, and of Flor- ence, Nebraska, together with the Fontenelle, which are only a little better, constitute about all the cur- rency in circulation north of St. Paul. The same vil- lainous trash has spread over many of the Western counties and driven out every dollar of current money."

The financial distress continued over 1858. In that year Minnesota set up its State Government, and as soon as might be the Legislature tried to help out by the enactment of a banking law, but this law afforded only temporary relief. During the winter of 1857- 58 the stringency continued to injure Minneapolis. State orders were worth but twenty cents on the dol- lar in gold, but town orders were worth from 30 to 35 cents. The newspapers were filled with notices of foreclosures of mortgages and executions. The City Board and the Hennepin County Board were advised to issue "denominational scrip" to be used as cur- rency. This scheme was put into operation in several counties and the scrip circulated until after the Civil War was in progress.

In the spring of 1859, when the country was finan- cially prostrated, another panic came and did more injury to Minneapolis. Several banks in Minnesota closed and their circulation was redeemed by the State Auditor at from 14 to 40 cents on the dollar. The depreciated bills of other States still flooded the coun- try. This currency had three designations in the form of epithets. "Wild Cat" bills were those of banks located in wildernesses where wild cats abounded and which had insufficient capital; "stump tail" money was so-called because a great deal of its original par value had dropped off, resembling the tail of an animal from which a great part has been

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY. MINNESOTA

removed ; "shinplasters" were bills of broken or fraudulent banks, of no value whatever except per- haps to wrap about bruised and abraded shin bones.

The panics of 1857 and 1859 were greater set-backs to the progress and prosperity of Minneapolis than were the four years of the Civil War. But for thesc adverse influences the town might have had 10.000 population in 1860, and the value of its property would have been several millions. Trade was de- pressed, business paralyzed, real estate became of little value and much of it could not be sold at any price, and immigration ceased.

Many merchants issued currency of their own, con- sisting of small cards with printed promises to pay various sums of from five cents to a dollar. These checks, as they were called were denounced by the Republican and the News and defended by their authors, C. H. Pettit. O. M. Laraway, Alex. Moore, A. Clarke, Jackins & Wright. Beebe & Mendenhall. Sny- der, McFarlane & Cook. and other business men. The local checks seemed more popular than the bills of the Nebraska banks of Gosport, Tekama. and Browns- ville, which fairly clogged the financial circulation of the town. Not until the good crop years of 1859 and 1860, when wheat brought 50 cents a bushel in gold, and was first exported, did the clouds of finan- cial distress lift and the sun of prosperity shine out on Minneapolis.

"THE CASE OF ELIZA WINSTON, A SLAVE." *

In August, 1860, in the full tide of the Presidential campaign of that year, and when the Winslow House. Minneapolis, was well filled with guests-many of them from the South, accompanied by their black bond-servants-eertain of the radieal anti-slavery men of the town determined to make "a demonstra- tion in aid of the cause of freedom" and inform the slaves of their rights in Minnesota. The plan was originated by W. D. Babbitt, Wm. S. King, and F. R. E. Cornell. Mr. Babbitt was a pioneer citizen and an old-time abolitionist, King was the editor of the Min- nesota Atlas, a radical Republican Minneapolis paper, and Cornell, a lawyer, was a former prominent Dem- ocrat and a recent convert to Republicanism. All were noted, and noisy, anti-slavery men.

A slave woman, about 30 years of age, named Eliza Winston, was to be the subject of the "demonstra- tion." She was the widow of a free negro who had gone on a mission to Liberia and died there. He had owned a house and lot in Memphis, Tennessee, as was permitted to a free negro, and if his wife had been free at his death this property would have descended to her. But under the laws of Tennessee a slave could not own property in fee simple: his belongings were the property of his master.

Eliza had passed from her original owner, one Mc- Lemore, to a Mr. Gholson, of Memphis, who had mortgaged her to secure a loan from Col. R. Christ- mas, a wealthy planter and large slave owner of Issa-

quena County. Miss. Gholson defaulted in payment and his slave woman became the property of Col. Christmas under a foreclosure of the mortgage. She was made exclusively a house servant, a maid for her mistress and a nurse for a child, and physically her lot was not a hard one. She was much attached to her mistress, her master's wife, who was an invalid and had been brought to the cooling lakes and salu- brious air of Minneapolis to escape the malaria of a hot summer in the South. Her only expressed dis- content was that she could not colleet and appro- priate the rent from her former husband's property in Memphis, although she admitted that if she received it she might "spend it foolishly."

When in August. 1860, the Christmas family, with Eliza, had been sojourning in their summer cottage at Lake Harriet for some weeks, the bond-woman made complaint. She asked a negro barber's wife if there were not white men in Minneapolis that would assist in securing her freedom. The barber's wife consulted a white woman, and very soon Babbitt, King, and their associates were up in arms to "de- liver their fellow-creature from bondage." as King expressed it. A writ of habeas corpus was sworn out August 18, by Mr. Babbitt, and issued by Judge Vanderburgh, of the District Court, and given to one of Sheriff Richard Strout's deputies to serve at the Christmas summer home at Lake Harriet.

About 20 men made an ostentatious and ridiculous display of their zeal in "the cause of freedom" by arming themselves with shotguns and revolvers and riding with the deputy sheriff, as a self-appointed posse, when he went out to Lake Harriet to serve the warrant. At the time Col. Christmas was in Minne- apolis and the garrison of his cottage was composed of the invalid Mrs. Christmas, her little child, and her maid Eliza. Against this array the stont-hearted posse was not dismayed, but boldly went forward.

Col. Christmas had been warned that a movement was afoot to take his slave woman from him; but the only efforts he made to thwart the movement was to tell Eliza that the "abolitionists" were after her, and that when she saw suspicious characters coming toward the cottage, and desired to escape them. she must run to a patch of brush back of the house and secrete herself until they went away. Two or three times she had done this and she was running towards the thieket on this occasion when the deputy and his for- midable posse pursued, overtook, and apprehended her.

The rescued woman was taken to town and into Judge Vanderburgh's court in great triumph and amid cheers and shoutings. Mr. Cornell appeared for the petitioners for the writ and the slave-woman, and a lawyer named Freeman, from Mississippi. repre- sented Colonel Christmas. There was a large and excited crowd in the court room; it was said that the calmest man in it was Colonel Christmas himself. In- deed Editor King said of him, in the Atlas, that he "behaved like a perfect gentleman all through the proceedings.'

Mr. Cornell. a very able and eloquent lawyer, was expected to make an effort of his life in behalf of the

* This is the title of the case on the Minneapolis Court Records

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

slave woman and her release ; but he contented himself with reading the law forbidding slavery in Minnesota and then sat down. Mr. Freeman, the attorney for Col. Christmas, argued that under the Dred Scott de- cision Eliza should be restored to her master, as she was but temporarily in free territory and therefore not entitled to her absolute freedom. Judge Vander- burgh decided the case very promptly. In a few sentences he told Eliza that under Minnesota law she was not a slave, but was free to go where and with whom she pleased.

There was much excitement among the bystanders when the decision was rendered. Col. Christmas spoke kindly to Eliza and asked her if she would not like to go back to the home at Lake Harriet and take care of her mistress until the latter got well, "and then you may go if you want to," said the Colonel. "You don't need to go if you don't want to," called out one of her rescuers. Then Eliza answered : "Yes. I'll go back, but not today; I'll come out tomorrow." The Colonel rejoined : "All right; come when you please, or don't come at all if you don't want to." He then handed her ten dollars and said that if she wanted more money she knew where she could get it. He then bade her good-bye and walked nonchalantly away. A Southern friend called out : "Well, Colonel, you have lost your nigger," and the philosophic Colonel replied : "Yes, I reckon so; but I have plenty more of them and it's all right." (St. Anthony Ex- press, Aug. 20, 1860).

The rescuers and their friends gathered about the embarrassed and flustrated Eliza and escorted her to a carriage in which she was driven to Mr. Babbitt's residence, as a temporary home. Meanwhile Bill King, the soi disant and bombastic apostle militant of freedom, and withal the editor of the Atlas, was pacing the courtroom, his florid face fairly aflame, denouncing in violent terms all who would aid or abet slaveholding in Minnesota, and brandishing a heavy cane as if he would like to knock out their brains with it. (Atwater's Hist., Vol. 1, p. 100.)

A number of citizens, many Republicans among them, opposed Mr. King and his comrades and depre- cated the entire proceedings. They argued that the woman Eliza was in comfort and well treated ; that the officious intermeddling of her would-be rescuers would engender bad feeling and drive away from and keep out of Minneapolis a large number of wealthy Southern tourists that spent a great deal of money in the place, and good gold money at that. The hotel- keepers made a specialty of Southern visitors, and to the abolitionists they could say of hotel-keeping as Demetrius, representing the Ephesian silversmiths, said of their calling to Paul and Silas: "Sirs, by this craft we have our wealth." They were especially in- dignant. Southern people would not come to Minne- apolis unless they could bring their slaves with them and take them away again without their being both- ered with abolitionists bent on coaxing them to run

away. Other tradesmen in the town who made gain from these Southern guests joined with the hotel- keepers in reprobating the proceedings of the ran- tankerous abolitionists.

The thing took a disgraceful turn. After night some young men and boys, a dozen or so, went to Mr. Babbitt's house and called out : "Nigger lovers! Nig- ger lovers! Let that nigger alone-she wants to go home," etc. The demonstration was confined to bad words, but Mr. Babbitt and those that were helping to "guard" Eliza were greatly alarmed. Fearing that "the mob," as they styled the young scapegraces, would forcibly take Eliza away from Babbitt's, the rescuers removed her late at night to another refuge. The poor African was beside herself with alarm, dis- tress, and confusion. She begged her "protectors"' to "tu'n me loose," that she might go back to her mistress; but she was assured that she would be mur- dered on the way by pro-slavery men.

The petitioners and their friends were overly- alarmed and preposterously excited. The anti-slavery men of the town outnumbered the pro-slavery five to one, and King and his associates were in no danger of any sort. Yet they declared and pretended to believe that the Atlas office was to be destroyed that night by a large and desperate mob (always a "mob") of pro- slaveryites! King and a formidable number of his friends, armed with shotguns and revolvers and what not, stood guard about the printing office all night, swearing to shed the last drop of blood in its defense. Meanwhile the "enemy," the incendiary "cohorts of slavery," were sleeping soundly in their beds-not one of them had contemplated arson or rapinc of any sort.

In a few days Eliza was sent to Canada by way of La Crosse, Chicago, and Detroit. She remained at Windsor, Ontario, for about two months, when she returned to Detroit. Why all this fleeing to Canada and over the country when Judge Vanderburgh had set her free, cannot here be explained. From Detroit she sent a letter to Mr. Babbitt and other white friends in Minneapolis, saying she wanted her free papers sent her, together with money enough to take her back to Memphis, where, she said, she could get posses- sion of the house and lot left by her husband. and could also get a situation with white folks at $15 a month, or else go back to her old mistress and the Christmas family ! Her Minneapolis friends were dis- gusted at this letter. refused to send her money, and gave her up for lost! It was afterwards reported that just before the Civil War broke out she voluntarily returned to Mrs. Christmas and presumably to slavery.

There were quite a number of other slaves at Min- neapolis at the time of Eliza Winston's deliverance. but they loyally remained with their masters, and the- abolitionists had no heart to try to effect their free- dom. Eliza Winston sufficed them. (See Bench and. Bar of Minn., Vol. 1, p. 32 et seq.)

CHAPTER XV.

MISCELLANEOUS HISTORICAL INCIDENTS FROM 1861 TO THE CONSOLIDATION, IN 1872.

DURING THE WAR FOR THE UNION-MINNEAPOLIS AND ST. ANTHONY DID THEIR FULL PART FROM FIRST TO LAST- THE VICTORIES OF THE TIME OF PEACE-THE FIRST RAILROADS ARE SECURED-THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM IS SECURELY FOUNDED-A MODEL PRIVATE SCHOOL, THE BLAKE-THE REAL ESTABLISHING OF THE UNIVERSITY- TIIE PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDED-CREATION OF THE PARK SYSTEM.

THE TWO CITIES IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION.

As the two communities at the Falls passed through the year 1860 and entered upon 1861, every line of endeavor, every element in the life of the people con- verged inevitably upon the one great overshadowing fact-the menace to the Union by the threatened secession of certain Southern States. It was a mo- mentous period for the young cities. They were just emerging from the disastrous times of the late years of the decade of 1850, with every energy bent upon development, yet every mind distracted by the moral and political condition of the nation. And when the flame of civil war blazed up, nowhere were patriotic fires brighter than in the communities by the Falls. They were communities of young and earnest men, for they were pioneers, and as such included a larger proportion of single men than did the older popula- tions of Eastern States. They were men brave in their patriotism as in their pioneering, and it is doubtful if, all conditions considered, there existed anywhere in the North a community which gave so many of its youth to swell the armies of the Union.

First and last, in the dozen regiments which Min- nesota gave to the nation, more than two thousand went from St. Anthony, Minneapolis, and Hennepin County. Whole companies there were, enlisted at the Falls and assigned to this regiment or that; and in every other military organization from Minnesota. there were young men from the two communities. As every regiment included them, so on nearly every prominent battlefield of the great war there fell men from Minneapolis, and so in the most valorous of the charges there were men whose desperate bravery was the city's pride.

As the two communities answered the war call of the nation, so just as courageously did they respond to the necessity for protecting and preserving the frontier settlements, and the State itself. When the Sioux laid waste the prairies and sought to wipe out a great portion of the white settlement, to the de- fense of the settlers sprang not only those young soldiers already enlisted for the war in the South, but others. And the roster of Minnesota soldiery holds many a name of a Hennepin County man whose whole military service was given in defense against the In-

dians and in making certain the safety of the settle- ments against recurrence of the massacre.

HAD TWO COMPANIES IN THE FIRST MINNESOTA.

There is no more famous regiment in all the his- tory of the Civil War than the old First Minnesota. And it was the first in all the North to be offered in response to President Lincoln's first call for volun- teers. To this regiment each community at the Falls gave a full company ; and in other companies of the regiment there were men from Hennepin. It is well known of record how the regiment was raised; how Governor Ramsey, happening to be in Washington when Fort Sumter was fired upon, promptly offered a regiment to the President; and how, on the first re- ceipt of the news to this effect from Washington, Ignatius Donnelly, Lieutenant Governor, issued the call.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 30

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