Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 42

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 42

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it is located. The men at the head of it, who have con- trol of its affairs, are among the leaders in business on the East Side, and they give to its direction the same careful and judicious attention they bestow on their private affairs, and seek to imbue it with the safe enterprise they use for the furtherance of their own welfare.

BIOGRAPHICAL DEPARTMENT

Thomas Lowry

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

THOMAS LOWRY.

Back of every considerable enterprise there will invariably be found one man who has builded out of himself the structure which stands as the tangible and obvious result of his life's work ---- one dominant personality, gifted with vision of the future, faith in accomplishment, power to endure and intelli- gence to achieve. Behind the Twin City Rapid Transit com- pany of St. Paul and Minneapolis loom ever and will ever loom, in colossal proportions, the form and features of the late Thomas Lowry, the builder and maker of the great enter- prise, and through all its history to the present time run the golden threads of his clear foresight, indomitable energy, limit- less resourcefulness, keen business acumen and abiding faith.

Mr. Lowry was born in Logan county, Illinois, on February 27, 1843, and died in Minneapolis on February 4, 1909. Into the forty-five years of his manhood he crowded much more of event and achievement than many men of wide renown for large affairs bring forth in much longer periods. And yet he never boasted of what he did or plumed himself over the great results of his work, but ever bore himself modestly as one who merely did what he could to make the most of the opportunities he found or hewed out. He was a man of rollick- ing, irrepressible and unquenchable wit, and this must have come from his ancestry, as doubtless did his energy and per- sistency, for his father was born in Ireland and his mother in Pennsylvania, so that he combined in himself the versatility and readiness of the Irish race and the sturdiness, firm balance and indomitable industry of the German people. His parents located in Central Illinois in 1834, and were pioneers there.

The early experiences of Mr. Lowry were those common to the sons of farmers on the frontier, in moderate circumstances, plain-living and hard-working founders of new empires. He began his education in the primitive country school of his boyhood, which he attended until he was old enough and sufficiently prepared to enter Lombard University at Gales- burg, Illinois. In that institution, at the age of seventeen, he began his more extended studies, which he continued until he completed the university course. Then, after a short trip through the West, he became a student of law in the office of Judge Bagby, in Rushville, Illinois, where he remained until his admission to the bar in 1867.

' In that year he became a resident of Minneapolis, arriving in the city in July, and opened an office as a lawyer. Two years later he formed a partnership for the practice of law with A. H. Young, which lasted until Mr. Young was elected judge of the Hennepin County Court of Common Pleas. Mr. Lowry continued to practice law until 1875, when his con- nection with the street railway interests of the city began. For several years previous to that time he had dealt in Minne- apolis real estate, and through his activity in this line of busi- ness had become interested in a considerable amount of out- lying property. Probably the value of a connecting line to this class of realty turned his attention to what was then a very feeble, doubtful and insignificant project and kindled his ardor in its promotion.

The panic of 1873 had left Minneapolis, in common with all other new Western towns, in a collapsed and discouraged condition. Times were bitterly hard and money was diffi- cult to obtain. Mr. Lowry was poor in purse, but rich in hope and ambition. He saw even then a dim but constantly brightening vision of the city that was to be, and believed that the arduous work of its pioneers must ultimately · be

crowned with magnificent success. The street railway service of that time offered a means to the end he aimed at, and with the courage that always characterized him he embraced the opportunity it presented and became vice president of the puny company controlling the infant, awkward and unpromising utility.

Three years later he became president of the company, which was still a struggling and well-nigh bankrupt corporation, meeting its little payrolls with difficulty and having no sur- plus for extending or improving its equipment and opera- tions. It was then, at the darkest hour in the history of this enterprise, that he resolutely set aside all other employment and opportunity for advancement and determined to give hostages to fortune and hazard all his future on the success- ful development of the undertaking that had won his faith. From that time to his death he devoted himself almost exclusively to the street railway business.

The story of the decade that followed reads like an indus- trial romance. Triumphing over almost insurmountable diffi- culties, involved in a mountain of debt incurred by his cor- poration, for which he did not hesitate to make himself personally liable, this modern Hercules cast all fear to the winds, and with an optimism that was heroic stubbornly fought his way toward the end which he had in view-the completion of the system, its establishment on a firm and enduring basis, and a public service that should be unsurpassed by anything in the country.

His confidence in the future greatness of Minneapolis never faltered for a moment. He did not simply believe, he knew that it was to be a great city, and in that greatness he felt assured the success of his undertaking would lie. So he worked on courageously, not alone for himself, but for his city and its residents as well. There was no movement for the up-building of the place that he did not aid; no project for its enlarge- ment or beautification that he did not encourage by his praise and his purse; no laudable private or public charity to the appcal of which he turned a deaf ear, or gave slight or indifferent attention.

As Mr. Lowry hoped so he laborcd, with indomitable, uncon- querable will. No discouragement could quench his gaiety, no obstacle darken the transcendent optimism of his nature. The great task of financing his enterprise, which might have daunted a less courageous soul, only served to inspire him with intensified zeal and vigor. He had both faith in the future and patience in the present. To build, equip and operate a transportation system; to accommodate the shifting and growing necessities of a rapidly widening area; to abandon one motive power after another as

the improvements demanded; to construct in advance of the population and wait for the traffic to slowly follow-these were elements in the problem he had to solve, and they required the supply of a constantly increasing stream of money and the resources to withstand long intervals of unremunerative operation.

In 1886, Mr. Lowry's foresight, already justified by actual results, led him to conceive and execute the brilliant plan of bringing the street railways of Minneapolis and St. Paul under one control and management. This resulted in the formation of the Twin City Rapid Transit company. The advantages which have accrued to the residents of both cities by reason of this consolidation are today so obvious that it is unneces- sary to recount them, and it is doubtful if that could be done in absolute fulness.

On January 11, 1892, the citizens of Minneapolis and St.

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

Paul united in a fine tribute to the man whose courage and foresight had given them a systemu of electric transporta- tion as nearly perfect as it was possible to devisc. The tes- timonial took the form of a reception and banquet, and was given at the West Hotel, Minneapolis, a hostelry in the pro- duction of which he was a very potential factor. On this occasion the Governor of the state presided, and Mr. Lowry's fellow citizens and friends bore ample testimony in sincere and eloquent words to the regard in which they held him and the value of the service he had rendered to the two communities. He had done his part for them with admirable success. They showed hiru that they appreciated it by a demonstration as fervent and commendatory as they were able to make it.

While Mr. Lowry lived to see his confidence in the future of his city fully justified, and the establishment of his enter- prise practically completed, it was not given him to remain long in the satisfaction which the fulfilment of his hopeful projects brought him. To thie very end his was to be a life of struggle, and when the great difficulties already referred to had been overcome, he found himself confronted with another battle, which was to be his last on earth. This was an unequal contest with a long standing ailment, which had persistently attended lim during the greater part of his life, but which he had held in abeyance by sheer force of will through the years of his great and long continued activity.

The heroic battler met this final enemy with his customary courage and fortitude. Conditions which might well have overwhelmed a less gallant soul, did not terrify him. He manfully summoned every energy to combat disease, bore his sufferings patiently, and when, after a most extraordinary and prolonged defense, he finally surrendered to the inevitable, he died as he had lived, calmly, bravely and hopefully. The news of his death was received with sincere sorrow; not only throughout the city in which he had lived so long and to which he was so loyally attached, but in other cities East and West, and wherever he was well known. There was sorrow not alone in the homes of the rich, but in humble habitations, the dwellings of the poor, where Mr. Lowry's unostentatious and unfailing generosity liad shown him to be a man who was good to the needy and the oppressed.

Thomas Lowry was a real man. Rising above limitations imposed on him by his early and obscure environment, by poverty and by physical ailment, he lived fully up to his opportunities in life and made the most of them. He made a record, too, for great kindness, tolerance and benevolenee. He had no words of condemnation for the unfortunate. Even for the vicious he favored pity and pardon rather than punishment. He walked humbly himself, and his charity for others was unlimited. Above all he was an optimist, always firm in his faith and ready to believe the best of both men and things, and he lived, not for himself alone, but for others as well.

He had in him the stuff of which true greatness is made, and showed it repeatedly in the intrepidity of his ventures, the loftiness and loyalty of his faith, and the gallantry with which he led many a forlorn hope to ultimate victory. He showed it also in the utter absence of ruthlessness by which his career was marked. He never built upon the ruin of others, nor did he seek to gain selfish advantage from the mistakes of those who failed. On the contrary, he was always willing to help the tottering, if it was within his power and proper under the circumstances to do so.

Mr. Lowry was married on December 14, 1870, to Miss Beatrice M. Goodrich, the daughter of Dr. C. G. Goodrich, at that time a leading Minneapolis physician. Two daughters and one son were born of the union. Horace Lowry, the son, has taken his father's place, in large measure, in the busi- ness the latter had in hand when he died, and is endeavor- ing to conduct every enterprise he is connected with accord- ing to his parent's lofty standards.

JOSEPH ALLEN.

Joseph Allen, agent for the Holmes & Halloway Coal eom- pany and a member of the board of city park commissioners, is a native of Ireland, born in the county Armagh, May 19, 1866. As a lad he was employed in a bakery and confec- tionery shop in the city of Belfast. After spending seven years there, at the age of eighteen he came to the United States, arriving in New York city with his financial re- sources limited to ten cents. Having read of the opportunities offered by the prosperous farming districts of Iowa he set out for that place, compelled to defray the expenses of the trip by working enroute. At the end of fifteen days he reached Howard county, Iowa, and secured a position with an importer and shipper of fine stock as manager of his large stock farm. He spent several profitable years here, investing in stock and accumulating a neat capital and then returned to the old country for a short time. He came back to Erie, Pennsylvania, where he was employed in the Erie City Iron works for two years. His first position was as a common workman, but his services were soon recognized by promotion and at the end of a few months he was made foreman of the foundry department. At the end of two years he was offered the superintendency of the Port Townsend Nail Manufactur- ing company whose machinery was made in the iron works where he was employed. He accepted the position and pur- chased transportation for Port Townsend, Washington. Mr. Allen had always retained an interest in Minneapolis sinee his youth when he had become familiar with the name through the use of Minneapolis flour in the Belfast bakery, and he took the opportunity on his way to Washington to visit the city with the result that he resigned his position with the western company and became a citizen of Minneapolis. In 1891 he was a street car conductor on the Fourth avenue line, receiving for his services eighteen cents an hour. At the end of two years he purchased a team which he used for a time on grading and sodding contracts. He then realized the materialization of his plans, making an independent venture into the commercial world as a coal dealer and continued in this successful enterprise for several years when at the organization of the Holmes-Holloway company he accepted his present position as agent and manager of the yards which are located at 2916 Nicollet avenue. He has been a member of the park board since January, 1913, and is a member of the finance committee and of the committees on privilege and purchases. In the administration of the board he advocates the policy of improving the present property rather than extending the purchases. Mr. Allen assumed the duties and privileges of citizenship in this country while residing at Erie, Pennsylvania, and as a member of the Republican party has been actively associated with political affairs, serv- ing as chairman of the Eighth ward Republican association

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

for twelve years. He is chairman of the county committee of the Progressive party and takes a keen interest in the political questions of the day. He has been notably asso- ciated with the interests of the commercial organizations of the city, participating in their organization and their efforts for the public good. He was one of the leading promoters of the West Side Commercial club, securing its first member- ship and through his energetic service as chairman of the building committee the club secured its present attractive quarters on Lake street. In January, 1913, his assistance was solicited in the organization of the Calhoun Commercial club. and he was tendered the office of chairman. Although in existence but a few months this club has already ren- dered marked service in securing new and improved service on Lake street and a twenty foot boulevard on Thirty-first street between Pleasant and Hennepin avenues. Mr. Allen is a prominent member of the Masonic order in the Hennepin lodge, Ark chapter, is a Knight Templar and a member of the Mounted Commandery. He was married in 1894 to Miss Sophia Berg of Minneapolis. Three children have been born to this union, Crawford, Lockart and Sophia.

JOHN W. ALLAN.

John W. Allan is a native of Massachusetts, born at Hyde Park,' a suburb of Boston, March 16, 1861. His uncle, Mr. Albert L. Russell, was a lumber manufacturer in Minneapolis and in 1876 Mr. Allan joined him there and a year later accompanied him in his removal to Chicago. He remained in that city for the next few years, attending school and assist- ing his uncle in the lumber business during the vacation periods. He spent the year of 1880 in Minneapolis and then became superintendent of a manufacturing plant engaged in the construction of fire apparatus in the east. He became an expert in this line and after four years, returned to Min- neapolis as superintendent of a similar factory and subse- quently operated another plant on the east side of the city. When the fire department repair shops were installed by the city he was placed in charge of the work and for ten years held this position, he gave the city the benefit of bis extensive knowledge of fire fighting machines. During this time he de- signed and built a great deal of new apparatus for the local department, including chemical engines, wagons and trucks and invented a number of engine improvements. In April, 1898, he became secretary of the Minnesota & Alaska De- velopment company. Mr. E. R. Beeman was president of this company which owned two steamboats that covered the route from Seattle and up the Yukon river. Mr. Allan spent two summers as engineer on the "Minneapolis" navigating the northern waters. He made the run from St. Michaels at tbe mouth of the Yukon to the head of the Kinakuk river, a trip that covers 2000 miles and ends in the arctic circle. He made other memorable trips as engineer of the "Luella", which sailed ninety miles above Arctic City on its first voyage and estab- lished the head of navigation. For several years after bis return, Mr. Allan engaged in general engineering work. In 1905 when the office of smoke inspector was created he was one of nine competitors in the examination for the position, and here his years of experience and well known efficiency easily marked him as the man for the place. At the end of his first term of office hie declined the reappointment and

spent the next two years as a salesman for mechanical sup- plies and also engaged in the construction of steam plants. In 1909 he accepted the appointment of smoke inspector which was again offered him and with an increased salary. He has been a valued member of the park board for nine years. Mr. Allan is a Knight Templar and a Shriner. His marriage to Miss Nellie A. Haughey of Bloomington, Minn., occurred in 1892.

HOWARD STRICKLAND ABBOTT.

Born, reared and educated in Minnesota, both in his youth and throughout his manhood to the present time Howard Strickland Abbott has dignified and adorned the citizenship of the state and creditably kept up the record of his distin- guished ancestry and near relations. His father, Rev. Abiel Howard Abbott, a Methodist clergyman of renown, was re- lated directly or by marriage to Oliver Ellsworth, the third Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court; former President Ulysses S. Grant; the distinguished authors, John S. C. and Jacob Abbott; the prominent lawyers Austin and Benjamin V. Abbott; Dr. Lyman Abbott, editor of The Out- look Magazine; Bishop Lawrence, Bishop of Massachusetts of the Protestant Episcopal church; Albert L. Lowell, at tbis time (1914) president of Harvard University, and Ezra Ab- bott, the noted biblical scholar, besides other persons prom- inent and widely renowned.

The paternal grandmother belonged to the famous Town- shend family, the elder branch of wbich remained in England and there produced such men as Charles Townsbend, prime minister, and the other Charles Townsbend, chancellor of the excbequer, during the years preceding the American Revolu- tion. On his mother's, the Strickland, side of the house Mr. Abbott can trace his ancestry directly back to Sir Thomas Strickland of Sizerg castle, Westmoreland county, England.

Howard Strickland Abbott was born on September 15, 1863, at Farmington, Minnesota, a son of Rev. Abiel Howard and Mary Ellen (Strickland) Abbott. His early life was passed in Minnesota, and at the Minneapolis Academy he was pre- pared for the State University, from which he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Literature in 1885. He showed a tendency to autborship in early life, and during his years at the University was managing editor of tbe Ariel and also of the Junior Annual for 1884, which were University publications, and bis work on them gave abundant promise of the elevation he has since reached and the reputation he has since won as an author.

Literature was, however, only a pastime with him, his more serious business being the legal profession, for which he was prepared by diligent and thoughtful study, and to which he was admitted by oral examination in the supreme court of Minnesota in April, 1887. He at once entered upon tbe practice of his profession, and before the end of his first year in it was appointed assistant general solicitor of the Minneapolis & St. Louis and the Soo Line Railroad companies, a position in which he served them well and wisely for three years, from 1887 to 1890.

Mr. Abbott was also secretary of the Wisconsin, Minnesota & Pacific Railroad from 1888 to 1890; attorney for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe from 1890 to 1897; special master in chancery in connection with the Union Pacific re-

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

eciverships from 1897 to 1901; master in chancery of the United States Court in Minnesota from 1897 to date; and has been lecturer on private and publie corporations and eivil law in the Law School of the University of Minnesota since 1898, filling all these positions with great eredit to himself and pronounced advantage to the institutions lie served and the interests he had in charge in connection with each of them.

It is easy to see that Mr. Abbott's professional career has been a very busy and fruitful one. But it has not included all his work. He has written a number of books and in them has realized his early promise as a writer, although his achievements in this line have been almost wholly within the boundaries of his profession. Among them are case books on public and private corporations; "Notes, Authorities and De- ductions on Corporations," which ran easily through two editions; "Public Corporations," one volume; "Abbott's Elliott on Private Corporations," one volume; "The Law of Publie Securities," one volume; "The Elements of the Law of Pri- vate Corporations," one volume, and "The Law of Municipal Corporations," three volumes.

The work last named, from its publication in 1906 has been considered the standard and leading text book on the subject it treats of. It is widely cited as an authority by courts in all parts of the country, and has received the highest enco- miums from eminent judges and lawyers for its style, analyti- eal argument, thorough grasp of the topics discussed, and its scholarly treatment of the subject matter. The books are all, however, exhaustive and comprehensive as to the subjects elucidated in them, elevated in tone and terse and vigorons in diction.

In his political affiliation Mr. Abbott is a Republican, but he has never been an active partisan, and never has he sought or desired a political office. His religious connection is with the Protestant Episcopalians, among whom he holds his mem- bership in St. Mark's church, Minneapolis, of which he has been a vestryman since 1900. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the diocese of Minnesota in his denom- ination. Socially he is a member of the Minneapolis and Minikahda clubs and the Delta Kappa Epsilon college frater- nity. In business relations outside of his profession he is one of the directors of the Minneapolis Trust company, and in his profession he is an active member of the American Bar Association and the Minnesota State Bar Association. From 1905 to 1911 he was the Minnesota commissioner on Uniform Legislation of the American Bar Association.

On June 29, 1898, Mr. Abbott was united in marriage with Miss Mary Louise Johnson of Racine, Wisconsin, who is a direct descendant, on her mother's side, of Thomas Welles, for many years Colonial governor of Connecticut and one of the courageous men who took part in the Charter Oak episode, which immortalized a tree, Captain Wadsworth, the chief factor in it, and everybody who was connected with it. Mr. and Mrs., Abbott have two children, their daughter Emily Louise, who was born on October 22, 1900, and their son Howard Johnson, whose life began on January 24, 1904.

HON. JOHN SARGENT PILLSBURY.

The strong, true men of a people are always publie bene- factors. Their usefulness in the immediate and specific labors

they perform can be defined by metes and bounds. The good they do through the forces they put in motion and through the inspiration of their presence and example is immeasurable by any finite gauge or standard of value. The death of any one of such men, even though he be, at the time of his final summons, full of years and of honors, is a public calamity, because by it the country loses not only his active energy, but the stimulus and fecundating power of his personal influ- ence. There is, however, some compensation for this loss in the value and memory of his services, the effect of his example and the continuing fruitfulness of the activities he quickened into life.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 42

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