Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 45

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 45

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Judge Ames established his residence in Minneapolis more than half a century ago and became one of the representative pioneer members of the bar of the state. He held various positions of distinctive public trust, and prior to coming to Minnesota had served as United States consul to Hamburg, Germany. His title of judge was gained through his effective service on the bench of the circuit court in Springfield, Ill., and he not only lent dignity and honor to the legal profession in Minnesota but also did well his part in the furtherance of civic and material enterprises and measures that conserved the development and upbuilding of his home city and state. He was summoned to eternal rest on the 12th of February, 1897, at the venerable age of seventy-six years.

A scion of the staunchest of New England stock, and a representative of a family that was founded in America in the colonial era of our national history, Judge Eli Bradford Ames claimed the fine old Green Mountain state as the place of his nativity. He was born at Colchester, Chittenden county, Vermont, and in his native state he gained his pre- liminary educational discipline, which was supplemented by attending various educational institutions in the city of Chicago, Illinois, to which state his parents removed when he was a youth. He gave close and ambitious attention to the study of law and was finally admitted to the bar of Illinois, in which state he attained to no little prominence

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

in his ehosen profession. He began praetiec at Hennepin, Illinois, later maintained his professional headquarters in Springfield, the capital of the state, and his praetice in time covered many parts of that commonwealth. At Springfield he served six years as private seeretary to Governor Mattison, and in that city he became a leading representative of his profession, as contemporary of many distinguished lawyers whose names later became eonspieuous in national affairs. Under the administration of President Pieree Judge Ames was appointed United States eonsul at Hamburg, Germany, where he remained two years and where he gave a most able and popular administration of the diplomatie affairs entrusted to his supervision. Ile always thereafter reverted with special satisfaction and pleasure to his experienee during this period of service, and his cherished and devoted wife likewise found their sojourn in Germany one attended with unqualified pleas- ure and gracious associations, so that she too reverts to the experience with marked satisfaction, after the lapse of many years. At the expiration of two years Judge Ames returned to Ameriea, primarily for the purpose of organizing and estab- lishing a line of steamships to play between New York and Hamburg, Bremen having previously been the principal German port of the trans-Atlantic service. He was sueeessful in the organization of the company in New York and beeame one of its stockholders and officials, as representative of the German eapital involved. Judge Ames beeame well known in the city of Washington and numbered among his personal friends many of the leading public men of the day.

Alfred Ames, M. D., a brother of the Judge, had established himself in the praetiee of his profession in Minneapolis in the pioneer days, and to this city the Judge himself came in the year 1857. He engaged in the practice of law, and beeame one of the leading members of the Minneapolis bar, but he soon found it expedient to give his attention largely to the insurance business, as representative of a number of the strongest of the eastern insurance corporations. In this field he built up a large and prosperous business and he con- tinued the enterprise for many years.

In polities Judge Ames ever aecorded stanneh allegianee to the Demoeratie party and he was an effective exponent of its principles and policies. He served with marked loyalty and distinetion as a member of the state legislature but never manifested special ambition for politieal preferment. He was a large stockholder and a director of the First National Bank of Minneapolis and encountered large financial loss in the involuntary liquidation of this institution. This bank was organized in 1864 and he was a member of its first board of directors. Judge Ames ever manifested a most lively interest in all that eoneerned the progress and prosperity of his home eity and he served as mayor of Minneapolis in 1870-71. The Judge was affiliated with the Masonie fraternity and his religious faith was that of the Protestant Episcopal ehureh, of which his widow likewise is a devout eommunieant, as a member of the parish of St. Mark's ehureh.

In 1857 was solemnized the marriage of Judge Ames to Miss Delia Payne, of Sacketts Harbor, New York, and their wedded life was one of ideal order, marked by mutual devotion and most gracious associations. Mrs. Ames still resides in Minneapolis, where she has a wide eirele of friends, and the fine eity is endeared to her by many hallowed memorics. Judge and Mrs. Ames became the parents of three children,- Mrs. Aliee D. Hasey, who remains with her venerable mother; Mrs. Adelaide Haven, who likewise resides in Minneapolis;

and Mrs. Agnes Pulsifer, who was a resident of the eity of Chieago at the time of her death.

O. E. BRECKE.

Mr. Breeke is a native of Iowa, and a produet of the educational systems of two states. He was born in Winnishick, Iowa, March 25, 1862, the son of Andrew and Anna Breeke, pioneers of Iowa who had come to that state in 1847 and had gone forward to leadership in one of the most prosperous communities of that great farming state. The boy Otto lived on the farm until he was thirteen years old, and was a pupi in the country school. His next step in sehooling was in Luther College, in Decorah, Iowa, from which he was graduated in 1881, winning the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and later took a post-graduate course in the University of Minnesota.

His university course completed, Mr. Breeke entered the business world, and shortly beeame attracted to the ocean transportation business. By the early nineties he had beeome agent of steamship lines, and was soon known widely as representative in the Northwest of the great White Star line. He continued in this position for ten years. Then, with the organization of the International Mercantile Marine Line, M :. Brecke was made Northwest agent of this great tranportation system, embraeing the White Star line, the Atlantic Transport line, the Red Star line, the Holland-American line, the Leyland line, and the Dominion line. The headquarters of this ageney were in Minneapolis, but its territory included Upper Wiseon- sin, Upper Michigan, Minnesota, the Dakotas, Montana, Idaho and Washington and Oregon. The volume of traffic originating in this great region and bound toward Europe is enormous, and it is all elosely related to the degree of development of the Northwest itself, so Mr. Breck may be said to have his finger on the pulse of Northwest prosperity.

JOHN DE LAITTRE.

In the United States, as in many other countries. "the eon- servative temperament," as it is ealled, has rendered consid- erable service in preserving and advancing liberty and pro- moting progress. But its movements have always been slow, its pathway has been carefully selected, its spirit has been one of endurance rather than effort, and its achievements have been more in the line of holding on than of going forward. Enthusiasm, enterprise, vehemence, experiment and adventure -- these have rendered serviees far greater and much more valuable, for they are the attributes which earry the standards of progress and human happiness through every difficulty, over every obstaele and into every field of endeavor.

Partieularly does the history of our country, especially in the great Northwest, show this to be true; and the men who laid the foundations of civilization, and those who have aided in ereeting the superstructure of present day conditions in the locality of St. Anthony Falls on the Mississippi river, have from the start been possessed of these attributes in a measure and with a foree that have erowded the growth and develop- ment which, under the other poteney counts far eenturies in its record, into less than two generations of human life and effort.

Jna De Laitte

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

Among the men of the earlier days in this region, and among those whose potency and usefulness in development and improvement continued to our time, the late John De Laittre was one of the most prominent, and his work for the advance of the region was among the most considerable done by indi- vidual promoters. He came to Minneapolis when the city was in its infancy, and he lived in it and contributed to its growth and advancement until it became a metropolis of over 300,000 inhabitants, an industrial and commercial center of commanding magnitude and a civic and municipal entity of great power and influence, holding tributary to its continuing growth not only all the surrounding country, many leagues in extent, but a large portion of the civilized world.

John De Laittre's American ancestors were French Hugue- nots who fled from religious persecution in their native land after the cdict of Nantes was revoked by Louis Le Grand in 1685, and settled on Frenchmen's bay on the southern coast of Maine while that part of America was still under French control. Mr. De Laittre's life began at Ellsworth, Maine, not far from this bay, on March.5, 1832. He was a son of Charles and Rosalie L. (Desisles) De Laittre, persons of fair pros- perity for that time and locality, and obtained his education, such as he had opportunity to acquire of a scholastic character, in the common school of his native town.

For the man born and reared almost within the sight and sound of the heaving ocean, the sea has always a winning smile, and its followers are oftenest the products of the shores which limit its untamed dominion. The subject of this brief review yielded to its charms and became a sailor after leaving school. He served for a time on a smack engaged in the cod fisheries, and then shipped on a trading brig voyaging back and forth between his section of the country and the West Indies. He remained on the brig two years, and this period carried him beyond the dawn of manhood and into the early excitement over the discovery of gold in California.

The voice of the siren, which proclaimed the almost fabu- lous wealth of treasure and opportunity on the shining slope of the Pacific, deadened his sense of the charms of the sea and completely captivated him. He gave up his berth on the trading vessel and all his hopes of success and prominence as a navigator, and journeyed to the gold fields by way of the Isthmus of Panama. While in California he was engaged in lumbering and mining, and as his success was satisfactory to him, he remained in that region from 1852 to 1865. He then returned to Maine, also by the Isthmus route, and went to his old home, where he found his mother ill.

In the same year, July 18, 1865, he was united in marriage with Miss Clara Eastman at Conway, New Hampshire. Two children were born to them, Karl and Corinne. But, having always had a taste for adventure, and having fed his appetite in this respect by his experience on the ocean and in the mines, accordingly he brought his young bride to the Northwest and took up his residence in the village, as it was then, of Min- neapolis, which seemed full of promise to his awakened vision, and throughout all his subsequent years proofs multiplied that he was not mistaken in his first judgment of the possi- bilities around him.

Mr. De Laittre and his wife made the journey to their new home by rail to La Crosse, Wisconsin, and thence by steamer to St. Paul and stage to St. Anthony Falls. They were there- fore prepared for the conditions they found and prepared to cope with them. For the latter stages of the journey at least indicated to them that they were moving into the wilds and

toward the verge of civilization. But they were made of the metal cast for privation, hardship and endurance, and accepted their new surroundings and unaccustomed deprivations with cheerfulness and entered upon the work of improving them with alacrity.

He died on September 19, 1912, but was an active figure in the financial district of Minneapolis until four days before his death, when he visited his office for the last time, al- though he passed his eightieth anniversary of birth before his death.

Before coming to this part of the country he made a trip to California in 1852 at the height of the gold excitement, as has been stated above, and was one of the party of eight white men who first saw what has been called the eighth wonder of the world Washingtonia

-the Giganteas-stately palms indigenous to the southern part of the Golden State and highly prized for ornaments in lawns.

During the first four years of his residence in the Mill City he was engaged in the manufacture of woolens and flour, but in 1869 he became a member of the Eastman, Bovey, De Laittre Lumber company, which was later incorporated as the Bovey-De Laittre Lumber company, of which he was president until his death. He was also president of the Nicollet National Bank from 1884 to 1888, when it was absorbed by a larger bank, and at the time of his death he was president of the Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank.

He gave his banking interests close and careful attention, but his lumber trade was his chief concern. His operations in this were very extensive and made him one of the most prom- inent lumbermen in Minnesota. He built a large steam saw- mill in North Minneapolis, at which his company cut the logs from their ample timber interests in the northern part of this state. In his later lumbering operations he was conspicuous and very serviceable in the development of Cloquet, Minnesota.

Although Mr. De Laittre's business was very extensive and exacting he did not allow it to wholly absorb him or render him indifferent to the enduring welfare and continued improvement of his home city. He was a pronounced Republican in his political faith and allegiance, and as such was elected mayor of Minneapolis in 1877, the opposing candidate being Dr. A. A. Ames, but at the end of his term he declined to be a candidate for re-election. He did, however, serve as prison inspector seven years, being first appointed to this position by Governor John S. Pillsbury in 1879, and being reappointed by him, and at the end of his second term being reappointed again by Gov- ernor Hubbard. He was also a member of the commission that built the new state capitol and of the commission that erected the present city hall and courthouse in Minneapolis.

About the time Mr. De Laittre severed his connection with the Nicollet National Bank he began extensive vacation trav- els. He made a trip to Egypt in 1889, and later visited the West Indies, Mexico and other Spanish-American countries. On his last trip to the Bermudas he met a number of Minneap- olis men and found great enjoyment in recalling his old sailing days when the ships he sailed on made the islands, and in the winter of 1911, on a trip to the Panama canal, he stopped over to search for and found the spot where the party of which he was a member landed in 1852 when journeying from Maine to California.

In religion this strong business man and eminent citizen was a devout Christian and for many years a regular attend- ant of Plymouth church. In all the relations of life he was a gentleman of high ideals and true at all times to his sense

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

of duty, which was strong within him. In life he enjoyed the respect and admiration of all who had knowledge of him for his elevation of character, the force of his personality, his great business capacity and the fruitful usefulness of his long life; and his memory is enshrined in the strong and unwaver- ing regard of the whole community which he served so long, so wisely and so faithfully.

REV. LORENZO B. ALLEN.

For many years a minister of the gospel, going into new communities and building churches, and at different periods of his life at the head of influential educational institutions; fluent and forcible as a preacher, platform orator and writer; a gentleman of extensive learning, excellent judgment, thorough knowledge of human nature and strong personality, and an indefatigable worker in behalf of whatever he had in charge, the late Rev. Lorenzo B. Allen, for some years pastor of the First Baptist church in Minneapolis, lived a very useful life, and when it was ended left an influence for good that is still felt and acknowledged in many places.

Mr. Allen was born in Jefferson, Lincoln county, Maine, in 1816, June 14th. He was a son of Rev. William Allen, of that city, and Dr. Peter Gray, father of the late Thomas K. Gray, a sketch of whom appears in this volume, was the family physician in the Allen household. Through this asso- ciation came the acquaintance, intimate intercourse and sub- sequent marriage of Mr. Gray with Miss Julia Allen, the daughter of the immediate subject of this review. She is still living in the old Gray home at the corner of Oak Grove and Spruce streets, which was built by Mr. Gray early in the history of the city.

Rev. Lorenzo B. Allen was graduated from a college at Waterville, Maine, which is now Colby University, and soon afterward became pastor of a Baptist church at Thomaston in his native state, having pursued the theological course of instruction in the institution named. Seven years later he was made pastor of a church of the same denomination at North Yarmouth, Maine, and there met Miss Nancy Pope Prince, the daughter of Hezekiah Prince the "village squire." to whom he was married about 1841. She was a lineal descendant, through both her father and her mother, of the renowned Elder William Brewster, who came to New England in the Mayflower when that historic vessel brought over the first of the Pilgrim Fathers, and her father numbered twenty- five other Puritans among his American ancestors.

Some years before the beginning of the Civil war Rev. Mr. Allen came west to Burlington, Iowa, to take the presidency of a Baptist college there. He threw his whole energy into his work in that institution, taught the department of ancient languages, looked after the business interests of the college, enlisted popular support for it, and practically rehabilitated it, building it into a strong and very progressive center of learning. But when the war broke out nearly all its male students enlisted in the Union army, forty of them being enrolled in one week, and the college was depopulated and abandoned because of its empty seats.

In 1865 Mr. Allen came to Minneapolis and took charge of the First Baptist church in this city. The structure in which the congregation worshiped at that time stood on the site of the present Nicollet hotel, and the services were held in its

basement until it was condemned as unsafe. The congregation then moved to a frame house at the corner of Fifth street and Hennepin avenue, which had been built for it through the influence of Mr. Allen. He served this congregation three years, and then became the head of an academy at Wasioja, Minnesota, where he died a few years later. In the manage- ment and teaching work of this academy he was assisted by his wife and two daughters, Mrs. Allen having charge of the classes in Latin for a time and doing other work of value to the institution and its pupils.

Mr. Allen did a great deal to advance the cause of education in this state. He was largely instrumental in interesting George A. Pillsbury in the founding of the Baptist academy at Owatonna, but he did not live to see that institution in operation. His Alma Mater conferred on him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity early in his life in recognition of his superior educational and ministerial work, and he was well known in many parts of the country as an educator of great ability. Many young men were prepared for the ministry by him, and they gave him high credit for his influence for good in molding their characters and broadening their vision as to their work. The state superintendent of schools of Iowa has given him a very complimentary notice in a book he published, and John E. Clough, a missionary in India, and still a diligent worker in that field, gives Dr. Allen credit for his own steadfastness to the church, declaring it is the result of the teaching of that eminent divine coupled with the influence of his impressive example.

His daughter has also always been deeply interested in evangelical and educational work. She is a charter member of the Young Women's Christian Association, and was the provisional president of the Minneapolis branch at the time of its organization, and assisted in its incorporation. She has long served on its board of trustees or directors, as she was for five years on that of the Maternity Hospital, on which she has worked with Dr. Ripley and other enterprising and philanthropic persons. In addition, she takes a cordial and helpful interest in literary clubs and similar uplifting organizations. The Doctor was twice married, first in Thomas- ton, Maine, and again in 1858 at Burlington, Iowa, to Miss Adelaid Smith of that city. One son, Henry B. Allen, was a M. D. He died in Minneapolis in early life after practicing his profession some years. The wife and mother is still living, being the widow of Rev. Mr. Fish of Minneapolis.

ALEXANDER THOMPSON ANKENY.

One of the most enthusiastic and efficient participants in publie enterprises, and one of the most highly honored members of the Minneapolis Bar, is Alexander Thompson Ankeny. He is of Dutch colonial ancestry, his father being Isaac Ankeny and his mother Eleanor (Parker) Ankeny, of Somerset, Pen- sylvania, where he was born December 27, 1837, and there received a common school education. Later he attended the Disciples College, at Hiram, Ohio, where James A. Garfield was then a professor; also an Academy at Morgantown, West Virginia, completing his education in Jefferson College at Canonsburg, Pennsylvania. He read law in the oflice of Hon. Jeremiah S. Black, Attorney-General of the United States at Washington. In April, 1861, he was admitted to the bar at Somerset, Pennsylvania, and there began his practice. Edwin

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

M. Stanton, upon becoming Secretary of War, gave young Mr. Ankeny a position in the Quarter-master General's Department in Washington, in which he continued until near the close of the war, when he resumed practice at his old home.

Mr. Ankeny came to Minneapolis in 1872, and engaged in lumber manufacture with his brother Wm. P. Ankeny, the firm being Wm. P. Ankeny and Brother, and so continued for six years. He has since enjoyed a general practice, his definite knowledge of the law combined with marked forensic talents, having made him conspicuous as a leader of his profession. In 1890 he was defeated for District Judge by but a small majority, and in 1896 was the choice of the Democrats for Mayor.

Mr. Ankeny has ever been deeply interested in educational matters and for more than a decade served on the Board of Education, being for a number of years its President, thus also being a member, ex-officio, of the library board. He was President of the State Normal Board from 1899 to 1903, during which period, the fifth Normal School was established at Duluth. When the Masonic Temple Association was formed in 1885, he was one of the incorporators, succeeding R. B. Langdon as its president in 1894. In everything per- taining to the progress and development of the city, Mr. Ankeny has not only been interested, but has displayed a liberal and progressive spirit.

He is a member of the Portland Avenue Church of Christ, of which he is one of three trustees.

He is of quiet and studious habits finding chief pleasures in the companionship of books and in that of old friends. Not fully in accord with modern tendencies of thought or the spirit of commercialism, his reading has embraced the old classical authors, including such celebrated works as Montaigne's Essays and Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy. A student of Shakespeare, he finds, with Donnelly, abundant proof of the Baconian authorship. Socially he is genial and democratic and much endeared to many friends who are liberal in testify- ing to his many sterling qualities.

Mr. Ankeny was married in 1861, to Miss Martha V. Moore, of Wheeling, West Virginia, and whose death occurred May 27th, 1904. Four of his children are residents of Minneapolis. One daughter, Mrs. Chester McKusick, died in Duluth in 1900.

ELMER E. ATKINSON.

In the city of Waterloo, judicial center and metropolis of Blackhawk county, Iowa. Elmer E. Atkinson was born on the 28th of March, 1867, he is a son of Dr. Thomas and Anna M. (Holloway) Atkinson, both natives of Belmont county, Ohio, and representatives of sterling pioneer families of that section of the old Buckeye state. Isaac Holloway, maternal grand- father of the subject of this review, was an extensive land- holder and influential citizen of Belmont county, and he served as representative of his county in the Ohio legislature. The Atkinson family also held prominent status in Belmont eounty, where Dr. Thomas Atkinson was engaged in the practice of medicine for a number of years prior to his removal to Iowa, where he became one of the pioneer physicians and surgeons of Waterloo and attained to distinction as one of the influential and honored citizens of that part of the state. Both he and his wife continued to reside in Iowa until their death and of their children two sons and two daughters are living.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 45

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