Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 31

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 31

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All the vigor and patriotism of the pioncers gave immediate response to the call. In St. Anthony, in Minneapolis, as in all the towns, public meetings were held, participated in by men of all political beliefs. all warm with the fervor of patriotism. St. Anthony gave a company, later designated as Company D, and headed by Captain Henry R. Putnam; Minneapolis raised Company E. commanded by Captain George N. Morgan. For a week they drilled, and on April 29 they marched to Fort Snelling, there to complete that day the mustering of the regiment.

It was a regiment far from military in a technical sense ; there was no uniformity of arms or even simi- larity of clothing, except that the State supplied black slouch hats and black trousers and red flannel shirts. Within sixty days the regiment, drilled by its colonel, former Governor Willis A. Gorman, a Mexi- can war veteran, was ready for orders to the front: indeed, it had been ready in spirit for a long time be- fore orders came. So eager were the men for service that when the two Minneapolis and St. Anthony com- panies were assigned to duty on the northern border to relieve regular army troops ordered southward. they were bitterly disappointed, and setting ont for their northern posts, they responded to orders counter- manding the assignment by marching all day and all night, lest they be late and be left behind when the First Minnesota set out for Washington.

The regiment arrived at the National Capital June

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VIEW TAKEN FROM THE WINSLOW HOUSE SHOWING THE WEST SIDE OF THE RIVER IN 1870

.......

VIEW OF THE MILLING DISTRICT ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE FALLS TAKEN FROM THE WINSLOW HOUSE IN 1870

HARDWARE

LOOKING EAST ON HENNEPIN FROM WASHINGTON AVE. IN 1865

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

26, 1861. Thereafter its history merges with that of the Union Army, standing forth frequently when is recounted some deed of valor, and rising to the top- most pinnacle of martial glory in its immortal charge at Gettysburg, termed by historians unsurpassed in records of desperate daring. In this charge of 262 men, Companies D and E, the companies from the Falls, were participants, and gave, as did the others, to the awful toll of death. They were Minneapolis men, O'Brien and Irvine, who bore the regimental colors in the charge. To the end of the war men of the old First served in the armies in the East, and fought their way with the best of the soldiery that won the way to Appomattox.

But though the First Minnesota won the greatest measure of fame in the war, it had no monopoly on brave deeds in battle. In the achievements of the armies in the West and in the Atlanta Campaign, as well as in the armies of the East, Minnesota and Minneapolis soldiers were in the fore front of battle. Besides men in other regiments, there were entire companies or parts of companies from Hennepin County as follows: Third regiment, Companies A and I; Sixth, B and D; Ninth. Companies A and B: Tenth, Company K: and there were portions of com- panies in several of the semi-independent organiza- tions, such as Hatch's Battalion. The flower of the Union army was made up of such men as Minneapolis and St. Anthony sent to the front.

DURING THE SIOUX OUTBREAK OF 1862.

The Civil War had been waged for a year, and the State had organized the Second, Third. Fourth, and Fifth Regiments of volunteers. It had begun to steel itself to the horrors of war news and the waiting in anxiety and in sorrow, when new horror appeared at home. The Sioux Indians rose in August, 1862, and within a few days Minneapolis was receiving into its homes and giving shelter to scores and hundreds of fugitive settlers, whose alarm at the red menace was little greater than was that of some of the citizens of the two cities by the Falls. It was on August 17 when the first outrage was committed by the Sioux, in the murders at Acton, Meeker County, and two days later news of the uprising reached Minneapolis. Simultaneously, in the valley of the Minnesota, the Indians assailed the whites from Big Stone Lake to New Ulin. Ere the massacre ended. they had swept from Acton, 65 miles west of Minneapolis, southward to the Iowa line; and laid hundreds of homes waste, and murdered hundreds of settlers .*

The Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Regiments were just then organizing for service in the South; and several companies of the Fifth Regiment were on duty at frontier posts. So when word reached Minne- apolis and St. Paul of the massacres, every available man of these regiments was recalled from furlough preceding final muster, and every man already at the rendezvous was ordered out to the defense of the

countryside. To the southwest at once marched men under Flandrau, Buell, and others, to the relief of New Ulm; to the westward went the men from Hen- nepin County, one expedition to help relieve Fort Ridgely, another to the defense of the people of Hutchinson and Glencoe. not far from the scene of the Acton massacre. And it was on State initiative. coupled with the volunteer aid of citizens not yet en- listed, that the forces of soldiery and home guards set forth. Minneapolis and St. Anthony were aquiver with alarm over the rumored approach of the In- dians. for the logic of the situation as developed by the whites coincided with that of the red men. They seemed determined to sweep the settlers from the State, beginning at the westward and carrying their red wave of murder from the frontier forts, like Fort Ridgely, through the settlements to and past the cities by and below the Falls.

It was a warfare beyond the capabilities of the Sioux-yet it was conceived with all the warlike strat- egy of the Indian. Even within Hennepin County the alarm gripped the settlers. Excelsior. on Lake Minne- tonka, was almost depopulated one night, the inhab- itants of the countryside joining them either in flight to Minneapolis or by boat to Big Island. in the lake.

MINNEAPOLIS TAKES ACTIVE PARTS.

The story of the quelling of the uprising is in part the story of Minneapolis at the period, for it was Hennepin County men who did much to put down the Sioux. Public meetings in the cities by the Falls developed plans of offense and defense; and muster of available enlisted men was followed by volunteer- ing of men not yet in the Union service.

The Acton murders, as stated, occurred on Sunday, August 17; by the following Saturday armed forces under Captain Anson Northrup were on the way toward Fort Ridgely, by way of Shakopee and St. Peter. By the next Tuesday, August 26, more soldiers and home guards, under command of Captain Rich- ard Strout, of Minneapolis. and including half the men of his Company B of the Ninth Minnesota, were on their way toward Hutchinson and Acton. By Wednesday, August 27, the Northrup forces had reached the fort ; fortunately without conflict with the Indians. Within another week the Strout expedition was engaged with the Indians, who attacked them at Kelly's Bluff, near the Acton woods. From the Bluff to Hutchinson they fought a running fight, losing three men killed and having 18 wounded. Next day the men joined in defense of Hutchinson. and beat off an Indian attack lasting two days.

MINNEAPOLIS MEN SERVED UNTIL THE END.

Gathering under the leadership of General H. H. Sibley, the men of Minnesota, campaigning over a great expanse of territory, from the Minnesota Valley to the Canadian border and the Missouri River, passed the next year in putting down the Sioux. Most of the members of Minneapolis companies, as did those of other companies, of the Fifth and later regiments up

* The whole number of whites killed in the outbreak of 1862, was 737. See Heard's History of the Sioux War, p. 243; in 1863, about 25 more were killed. R. I. H.

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

to and including the Tenth, did garrison and outpost anty on the Indian frontier during the winter of 1862-3, and some of them continued such service nntil fall. After that, there were military organizations of volunteers from Hennepin and nearby counties. such as the Mounted Rangers and the men of Hatch's Cavalry Battalion, who saw service as late as 1865 against the Indians, and indeed spent all their terms of enlistment in such campaigning, never going South to join the Union armies against the Confederates.

The history of Indian fighting is a record which bears the names of many a Minneapolis family later prominent in commercial and civic life. Such men were Anson Northrup, S. P. Snyder, J. W. Hale, James Marshall, O. C. Merriman, George A. Camp, and others. That the massacre was no more terrible, no more far-reaching in its effects, was due to the fact that such men as these and their fellow citizens rose promptly and bravely to the occasion, and placed their lives in jeopardy to defend the settlers. In that their deeds were built upon their characters, the achievements of Minneapolis and St. Anthony men in the Indian campaigns were elements in the strengthen- ing of the communities ; however at the time the mas- sacre was a setback to progress in Minnesota and in its principal towns.

THE FIRST RAILROADS ARE SECURED.

The outbreak of the Civil War had come just at a crucial time for the cities by the Falls. The far- reaching fiasco of railroad building in 1859 had left the people of Minnesota without anything tangible in return for their efforts toward railroad construc- tion. That which had seemed for the moment the brightest possible prospect of commercial growth through railway connection with the outside markets the year 'round, instead of only through the river season, had been wiped away with the disaster to credit which marked the panic of 1857. And now War, it seemed. could but delay expansion indefinitely.

In 1861 there was not a foot of railroad in Minne- sota, though there were a good many miles of rail- road grade, thrown up when the bond scheme was at its height. From St. Paul to Clear Lake, 62 miles, for instance, there was a grade all but ready for ties and rails. But there was no money to build, or would have been none had it not been for the energy of a few men "with the seeing eye."

They persevered, and in June, 1862, when the war had been in progress more than a year. they laid rails into St. Anthony and ran a train of the St. Paul & Pacific in from St. Paul. The terminus in the latter city was at the levee; the terminus in St. Anthony was east of the campus of the State Univer- sity. And that ten miles of railroad was the leader not only of Minneapolis's largest single aid in a trans- portation way for some years, but was the beginning of the great system since expanded by James J. Hill into the Great Northern Railway.

There is no doubt that credit for the first railroad connection of Minneapolis-or the communities by

the Falls-is due to the late Edmund Rice, of St. Paul. Hc carried the enterprise to the point of the bond forfeiture, and then had to relinquish control. Followed then the contractors, and then the Litch- fields of New York. But the main point is the fact that the road was built, connecting St. Anthony and St. Paul. This accomplished, another railroad crisis arose, affecting the Minneapolis of that time to no small degree. A project was formed to abandon all the several lines of railroad planned under the land grant and bond scheme, and to validate State bonds and apply them to a trunk line of railroad to con- neet Sauk Rapids and LaCrosse, by way of St. Anthony and St. Paul. The project was taken into the Legislature of 1862, and only strenuous efforts on the part of adherents of old Minneapolis saved the day and prevented the shifting of the bonds and grants.

Instead, then, of transferring to a new railroad system and abandoning the old plans, the Legislature set about establishing a trust of citizens who would carry out, or have carried ont, the construction of the roads as originally planned. It was in this con- nection that the first railroad building was done by Minneapolis men. The Minneapolis & Cedar Valley Railroad-laid out to connect the Falls cities with Iowa and thus with the wheat fields and the lumber consumers to the southward-was chartered. under the Legislature's trust plan, to citizens along the line, principal among whom were Franklin Steele, E. B. Ames. T. A. Harrison, and R. J. Baldwin, of Minne- apolis. They interested Alexander Mitchell, of Milwaukee, and Russell Sage, of New York, already heavily represented in the present Chicago. Milwau- kee & St. Paul Railway. They found a better way of crossing the Minnesota River than had been laid out, by building under the bluff at Fort Snelling and crossing the river on a low-level bridge instead of from the top of the bluff west of the fort. They exacted a bond from the Eastern men, and they secured the construction of the line to Faribault by 1865. The line was later extended into Iowa and became Minneapolis's first rail connection with the East.

Here. then, was Minneapolis. with a railroad to the southward; and here was St. Anthony, with a road to St. Paul and up-river toward St. Cloud. And here was the war. just ended by Lee's surrender at Appomattox. It is a picture before the mind's eye full of fancies ! Here was a pioneer community. torn for four years, like all other communities of North and South, by the heart-rendings, the disasters, the defeats, and the victories of war. Not a circle of friends. however small. but had suffered its losses of vigorous, valorous young city-builders, whose serv- ices. could they have lived, could hardly be over- estimated. But they were gone ; their families, their friends must carry the burdens they might have borne : and the problems of living were complicated as in almost no other period in that century.

With these conditions existing. the story of the ten or fifteen years after the Civil War is perhaps the. most astounding the world has ever written. And it

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

is to the exaltation, the re-action from four years of stress, that Minneapolis and Minnesota owe their marvelous progress in the succeeding years.

The railroad history (as well as the history of settlement) of Minnesota is inseparably the history of Minneapolis and St. Anthony as well. For the metropolis of the State could not have developed had not the State gained producers and attracted workers whose labor brought the wheat and the logs to the mills by the mighty waterpower of the Falls. To the new State came thousands of young men, soldiers only the day before, but homesteaders and workers now, their patriotic fervor turned into the channels of national development. With the leaders who had already come they clasped hands, and took up their work.

It was not until 1868 that the line of the St. Paul & Pacific was extended north of Central Avenue, in St. Anthony, and across the Mississippi River to Minneapolis. In these years also the road was con- structed past Lake Minnetonka and northwest to Breckinridge, and it was in the same years that the line to Sauk Rapids was pushed on into the Red River Valley. These years likewise saw the construc- tion of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul's connec- tion of St. Paul and La Crosse, and its extension to Minneapolis by way of the Fort Snelling line to Iowa. In these two companies' operations in the cities by the Falls began their enormous acquisition of ter- minal properties, the Milwaukee road near the west bank of the river. in the heart of the city, and the other system nearer the river on the west side, and farther north, eventually pressing westward. The same years witnessed the building of a railroad con- necting St. Paul and Duluth, but ignoring Minne- apolis and its efforts to have the line built to St. Anthony, so as to give the city direct communication with the Great Lakes. Construction of portions of the "Omaha" railroad was also under way, though not yet entering Minneapolis. So the year 1870 opened with two railroads serving the two communities by the Falls-one known to-day as the Great North- ern, the other known now as the Milwaukee, and both mighty transcontinental systems. But whatever their greatness to-day, neither is relatively so impor- tant to any city on their lines as they were in those years when Minneapolis and St. Anthony, on the verge of union, were beginning their marvelous development and finding through the first railroads the beginnings of their markets for flour and lumber.

FOUNDING THE PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM.

While the citizens were putting forth their best efforts to build up a city, just as elsewhere over the nation. the process of rehabilitation was character- izing the endeavor of the people in the years imme- diately after the close of the Civil War. the men and women of Minneapolis and St. Anthony had by no means lost sight of the finer things of life which had engaged their attention in earlier years. The com- munity was still a new one, despite its nearly two decades of history, counting from the founding of

St. Anthony. But its community spirit had estab- lished public schools at an early date, and though the war had been a damper on most manifestations of public spirit, its ending signalized an awakening that showed itself in movements on the East side of the river toward acquiring sites and building public schools. On the West side (the first, or Union, build- ing having burned in 1864, and buildings having been leased to serve the purpose of schoolhouses) the foundation of the new Union School was laid in 1865.

By 1867 the West side boasted two schoolhouses, and by 1868 the school system on the West side required the services of twenty-seven teachers, where in 1865 there had been but fifteen. In 1869 the num- ber was thirty-five, and in 1870 it was forty-five. The leading citizens of each community were in charge of the schools: on the East side, history lists as school trustees such men as the Chutes, Gilfillan. Wales, Merriman. Van Cleve, Young, Armstrong, and McNair ; on the West side, Stevens, Cornell, Harrison, Barber, Washburn. Wolverton, Atwater, Grimshaw, Mendenhall, Morrison, Sidle, and Gale. As for the active or executive heads of the two systems, there were many changes in the years that led up to the union of the two cities in 1872. The first strong hand at the helm was that of O. V. Tousley, who took charge in the year of the union of the citics. But the will for a good system of education had been back of the schools from the first, and early made Minne- apolis foremost in a State famous for its schools.

THE BLAKE SCHOOL.

Among the private schools of the city is one of a somewhat unique character. This is the Blake School, which is here briefly sketched.

In 1907 Mr. William McK. Blake, a graduate of De Pauw University, and a teacher of long experi- ence in the public schools of Indiana, opened a small boys' school in Minneapolis with about a dozen pupils. Mr. Blake's admirable personality and the need of such a school caused it to grow steadily until it reached. in the fall of 1910, an average attendance of about 65 boys. Its quarters at 200 Ridgewood Avenue were, by this time, badly overcrowded. and the School was transferred, January, 1911, to a large brick mansion at 1803 Hennepin Avenue.

The growth of the School proved a heavy tax on Mr. Blake, who was advanced in years, and whose teaching force was hardly adequate to the numbers and various ages of boys enrolled. Several parents of the pupils became deeply interested in the evident possibility of a well equipped, well manned school in Minneapolis, which might help relieve the congestion of the public schools, and which might, by setting up scholastic standards equal to those of similar Eastern institutions, make it possible to prepare boys for Eastern universities without a long period of board- ing-school life. Such a home institution. they felt. would be a benefit not only to their own sons, but to the sons of many other Minneapolis families.

Accordingly, in the winter of 1911, steps were

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

taken, under the leadership of Mr. Charles C. Bovey, to bring together a group of public-spirited men, and after careful consideration it was decided to incorpo- rate the Blake School under a board of fifteen trustees.

The new corporation was legally created, under the laws of Minnesota, May 5, 1911. It was clearly stated in the articles of incorporation that there should be no capital stock in the corporation-the new Blake School was to be in the truest sense a public service institution, self-supporting (its founders hoped, in due time,) but never an organization for personal profit. The original trustees named in the articles of incorporation were Charles C. Bovey, president ; Edward C. Gale, vice president; Clive T. Jaffray, treasurer; James F. Bell, Elbert L. Carpenter, Charles M. Case, Frederick W. Clifford, George B. Clifford, Franklin M. Crosby, John Crosby, William H. Dunwoody, Charles S. Pillsbury, David D. Ten- ney, Charles D. Velie, and Frederick B. Wells. This body is self-perpetuating, electing three members each year as the time of office of three other members expires.

The newly-formed corporation at once took steps characteristic of the energy and forethought which have ever since characterized it. Arrangements were made to take over the school from Mr. Blake, and to give him a position of dignity in the new Blake School. A guaranty fund was raised, looking toward a future building; and a new principal, Mr. C. Ber- tram Newton, was chosen. Mr. Newton was of the Lawrenceville School, a man just reaching his prime. and so combining experience with energy unabated by time. He was instructed to spare no effort in securing men of ability as teachers, the trustees guar- anteeing the current expenses of the School for the first five years, so as to insure efficient instruction.

The incorporated Blake School opened September 21, 1911, at 1803 Hennepin Avenue, with a total enrollment of 85 pupils, 30 in the Junior Depart- ment. including the first four grades-the boys rang- ing in age from six to ten years-and 55 in the Senior Department. which included boys from ten to nine- teen, and covered the upper grammar grades and the high school classes, although following a somewhat new method of classification.

Interest and faith in the School grew, and the trustees determined to delay no further in taking steps toward securing a suitable site and building. After careful consideration. it was decided to adopt the "country day-school" idea, the success of which in several cities had been observed by Mr. Newton. This idea simply means the locating of the school in the outskirts of the city, and providing for the work and play of the pupils from morning till evening (about 8:30 A. M. to 6 P. M.), returning them to their homes for their evenings. Saturdays and Sun- days.

With the "country day-school" idea in mind, a careful canvass of possible locations near the city was made, convenient transportation and healthful sur- roundings being of course prime requisites. A suit- able site between the Interlachen Club and Hopkins,

on the Minnetonka trolley line, was secured, and early in the spring of 1912 work was commenced on the first section of a beautiful and well arranged building designed by Edwin H. Hewitt, of Hewitt & Brown, Minneapolis. The second year of the Blake School began September 25, 1912, in its beautiful new home. Through the untiring efforts of Mr. Charles C. Bovey, seconded by Mr. F. M. Crosby and the rest of the board of trustees, the School was now in a commodious, fire-proof building of its own, on a charming section of land forty acres in extent. The building, equipment, and grounds represented an ont- lay of about $90,000, all given outright by the trus- tees and by a number of patrons and friends of the School.

Nor was the "human equipment" of the school neglected in this material expansion of its possibili- ties. Its force of teachers was enlarged to a staff of ten men of ability and experience, and provisions were made for supervising and directing the boys' play and exercise.

The community responded cordially to this munifi- cent provision for its boys. The Senior Department in the new country day-school doubled its members, far surpassing the head master's estimates. It had an enrollment of 112, and the capacity of the build- ing was taxed from the day of opening. The Junior Department was continued at 1803 Hennepin Ave- nue, as it was felt that very small boys from six to nine should not spend the day away from home. This department had two excellent women teachers and 25 pupils.

Gratified by this practical expression of the city's appreciation of the new School, the trustees decided to add another section of the building as planmed, during the summer of 1913. Accordingly the central portion was constructed, and an extensive additional playing field, together with tennis courts, was graded. Five acres were added, as a protection, on the west. This involved a further expense, which brings the present outlay (January, 1914) to a grand total of between $130,000 and $140,000, nearly the entire sum being subscribed or pledged.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 31

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