Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 49

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 49

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Dr. Bracken's home is in Minneapolis. He was married February 13, 1884, to Miss Emily Robinson, of Orange, New Jersey.

MARTIN B. KOON.

Martin B. Koon died at his home in Minneapolis, on August 20th, 1912, in his seventy-second year.

He had been a member of the Minnesota bar since 1878. In that year he removed from Southern Michigan, took up his residence in Minnesota and began the active practice of his profession here. He was then thirty-seven years of age. He had practiced law in Michigan for about eleven years before he moved to Minnesota. He had been admitted to the Michi- gan bar in the year 1867, when he was twenty-six years of age.

Although born in Schuyler county, New York, he had lived, boy and man in southern Michigan since his early childhood. He was the son of a Michigan pioneer farmer, who was a man of Scottish ancestry, and in moral and mental fibre of the

mould of an old Scottish covenanter. The son had apparently inherited from his father some of the same qualities.

He was early trained in the occupation of his father and disciplined in the heavy work of clearing and opening a farm in Southern Michigan, in the fourth and fifth decades of the last century. His early schooling was only such as the dis- trict school of that region and day afforded. Later he at- tended Hillsdale College, situated at the county seat of the 'county in which he lived. He there sustained himself largely by teaching and other work, while he carried on his studies.

Impaired health in the year 1863 induced him to go to Cali- fornia, where he remained two years, and was principally occupied in teaching school. At the end of that period he re- turned to Michigan, studied law in the law office of his brother in Hillsdale, and was there admitted to the bar and practiced his profession until he removed to Minnesota.

Judge Koon was married November 18, 1873, to Josephine 0. VanderMark. To them two daughters were born, Kate Estelle (Mrs. Chas. C. Bovey) and M. Louise (Mrs. Chas. D. Velie).

There is nothing new or unusual in the facts of Judge Koon's early life, above sketched. Other lawyers have earned honorable positions at the bar, in spite of early disadvantages and lack of opportunity. But the lawyers at the bar are few, who have that broad knowledge of the law and legal acumen, and at the same time that keen business sense and practical business judgment that Judge Koon possessed. All of these qualities in an unusual degree belonged to him, and they formed the basis of his great success as a lawyer, and of his influence and power among men of affairs and in the business world. In addition to these qualities he was a good judge of human nature; he had keen perception, quick wit, great power of direct thought and terse expression, good command of strong, idiomatic English, depth of feeling, considerable imag- ination, and a persuasive and winning manner-all part of the equipment of the successful advocate at the bar. His ability to state a legal proposition clearly, tersely and in plain, sim- ple language was very great. He could state a legal proposi- tion or any question clearly because he thought clearly. He possessed, in a marked degree, what is called a legal mind, that is, a mind that, without great effort and almost unconsciously, analyzes any legal question presented by distinguishing at once the material from the immaterial matters, and that al- most intuitively goes by direct course to the kernel of the question and sees the real point involved. He had great power of mental concentration and intense application, and a brain that worked with great rapidity and almost always at high pressure. He was thus able to perform a large amount of work within a short time. Indeed, his working hours in his office were usually short and he seldom burned the midnight oil. He used to say-but in no boastful spirit, for he was in no sense a vainglorious man-that it was his belief that he could accomplish more effective law work in his office, in a given length of time, than any lawyer he had ever known. And this also was the experience and belief of his associates and those who worked with him.

In the later years of his life he was not a very diligent student of law books or careful reader of the reported deci- sions of the courts, and yet, such was his ability to think. discriminate and reason closely upon questions of law that, without any considerable investigation or study of the deci- sions, he was able to reach conclusions and opinions upon questions presented to him, the accuracy of which was usually

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

confirmed when his associates came to examine the law. He used to say to some one of the young men in his office: "This question has been presented to me, and here is my opinion as to what the law should be in regard to it. Look up the ques- tion carefully and tell me what the law is as you find it in the books." But ability to form closely accurate conclusions upon legal questions, without immediate investigation and study of the law involved, is not altogether a natural gift. It is the result of hard study and labor at some period in the lawyer's life. A so-called strong, legal mind is a mind, nat- urally logical and strong, that has been moulded into what it is by hard study of the law and severe discipline in its prac- tice before the courts. Judge Koon was a hard and tireless student of the law during his student life and the early years of his professional life. For eleven years before coming to Minnesota he had been in active, general practice in Michigan, where he had been disciplined at the bar under the old system of common law and chancery pleadings and practice, which there prevailed, a discipline not acquired or known by the young lawyer of today, who learns only modern code plead- ings and practice. These years of general practice at the Michigan bar, in the criminal as well as the civil courts-for he not only appeared frequently for the defense in criminal cases-but he was for four years the prosecuting attorney of his county-appear to have been really the most important years of his professional life. They were the years when an unusually acute, active, discriminating, logical and strong mind, under the stern discipline of hard close study of the law and of the preparation and trial of common law and chancery cases, and of hard fought trials in the criminal courts, was being fashioned and moulded into the strong, legal mind which Judge Koon exhibited when he first care to the Minnesota bar, and which together with his keen business sense and exccutive ability, enabled him to dispatch business during the two years and more, from January, 1884, to May, 1886, that he sat as a Judge upon the bench of the Fourth Judicial District, with an apparent ease and a rapidity not before known to the practitioners before that Court. His de- cisions were indeed sometimes reversed by the Supreme Court, but lawyers and suitors were pleased with his businesslike methods upon the bench, and the promptness with which he decided the cases submitted to him. The late Judge John M. Shaw, in speaking at one time of Judge Koon's alibity as a lawyer, facetiously remarked that he would be a great lawyer if he were not so good a business man. While Judge Koon enjoyed his work upon the bench, yet after a time he began to feel that the bench was too retired and quiet a place for one of his temperament. His great business and executive ability made him restless there, and in May, 1886, after he had been elected to fill a seven years' term as Judge of the District Court, he resigned and came back to the bar, where he was engaged in more or less active practice until about a year before his death.

There was, however, not a little wisdom in the remark of Judge Shaw. Unlike many, perhaps unlike the great majority of lawyers, Judge Koon was a strong business man. He had unusually keen business sense and practical business judgment, and he possessed, above all, strong common sense. It was these qualities which, taken in connection with his legal abil- ity, made him a strong practical Judge on the bench and law- yer at the bar. He was pre-eminently a business man's law- yer. Men of affairs and business 'consulted him because he could not only advise them well about the law, but because

he could put himself in their places and look at their affairs and counsel them from a practical business standpoint. He had large business interests of his own. He was for more than thirty years a director and for many years vice-president of the Northwestern National Bank. He was a director of the Minnesota Loan & Trust Company from its beginning, and an officer for many years. He was for a number of years a director of the Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie Rail- way Company and its general counsel. He was for twenty- seven years a director of the Minneapolis Street Railway Company, and for a period its treasurer. He was a director of the Twin City Rapid Transit Company. He was for muany years a director of the Minneapolis General Electric Company, and also its president. He was interested in and director of several of the large grain and milling companies engaged in business in Minneapolis and in other cities in the Northwest. He was an early member of the Minneapolis Chamber of Com- merce. He was interested in other business enterprises, but from the foregoing it is plain to be seen that he was a man of affairs and of large business interests, as well as a practicing lawyer.

He was a man of public spirit. He had great faith in the stability and future growth and was greatly interested in the welfare of Minneapolis and of Minnesota and of the North- west. During the later years of his life he freely gave his time and his best efforts to inaugurating and advancing busi- ness and philanthropic projects and undertakings, which he believed were of public necessity or would be helpful and ele- vating to the people of his city and state. Judge Koon took a very active part in the organization of the Civic and Com- merce Association.

He had a strong sense of what was just and right and of what was unjust and wrong. He reasoned honestly. In his thinking he was always honest, both with himself and with others. When he had reached a conclusion he stood squarely upon it, and never allowed himself or others to be deceived in regard to it. He was fearless in making expression of his views to friend or enemy on any question, when he regarded it necessary, and often such expression came from him with a directness and force that was startling and almost cruel. There would be no indirect approach to the matter in hand, no circumlocution, no waste of words by him. And yet, or- dinarily he was kind, gentle, gracious and pleasing in his words and conduct to others.

Lastly, Judge Koon possessed what really is of greatest value to man or woman-the confidence, esteem and respect of his friends, of his neighbors, of the citizens of his city and state, and of all persons who knew him personally or by reputation, and he possessed also the warm affection of all those who knew him well.

To sum up: He was a sound and capable Judge, and able and distinguished lawyer, a wise counsellor, a strong and sagacious business man, a good citizen, a man generous and of public spirit, a man who commanded the respect and won the affection of all who knew him, a kind and generous husband and father, an industrious, hard-working, honest man of power and influence for good in his day and in the community in which he lived-such was Martin B. Koon. What further or better words of remembrance or eulogy can be spoken of any man? Hc had passed his three score years and ten, and had filled the full measure of a useful and a noble life.

"God's finger touched him, and he slept."

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IIISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

EDGAR C. BISBEE.

Among the men and women who took part in the early history of Minnesota and helped to redeem part of it from the wilderness, or at least to further its carly progress and de- velopment, were the parents of Edgar C. Bisbee of Minneapolis, Jolın and Ardelia (Francis) Bisbce, who saw stirring times in the first few years of their residence in the State. The father was a native of Maine and a merchant by occupation. He came to Minnesota in 1864, and was making his way by wagon to Madelia when the Indian uprising was in progress. Every hour of his trip was fraught with peril and required the utmost care and circumspection on his part. But he reached his destination in safety.

His son, Edgar C. Bisbec, was born at Madelia, Minnesota, on March 15, 1871, and reared in that town. He was grad- uated from the high school there, and afterward entered the scientific department of the State University, from which he received his degree in 1894. During his attendance at the University he was a member of its football team in 1891, 1892 and 1893, and the team won every game and the cham- pionship in each of those three years in contests with the best teams of the west, including Michigan and Wisconsin.

After leaving the University Mr. Bisbee engaged in the insurance, real estate and loan business for a few months, but before the end of the year became connected with the Dubuque Linseed Oil company. He at once saw great oppor- tunities and possibilities in the business and determined to master it in every detail. With this end in view he studied every department of the business night and day, and also acquired extensive and expert knowledge of the machinery used in the manufacture of linseed oil. By this means he became one of the best posted men in the business, and made himself so valuable also to the company that in less than three years he rose from a minor position to that of superin- tendent and manager.

From the Dubuque Linseed Oil company, at the end of three years after entering its employ, Mr. Bisbee went over to the St. Paul Linseed Oil company as manager and, at the same time, took the management of the Northwestern Shot and Lead Works. In 1900, in connection with E. C. Warner and WV. D. Douglas, he organized the Midland Linseed Oil com- pany. This has since been changed to the Midland Linseed Products company, and Mr. Bisbee is now its vice president. He is putting his extensive knowledge of the business in which the company is engaged to good use in its behalf, and its operations are large and profitable. He is also financially interested and a director in several other prosperous institutions.

Mr. Bisbee's business capacity and reputation are such that his counsel is much sought and highly valued in business circles generally. He is an active and prominent member of the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce and the Minneapolis club, Commercial club, and St. Anthony Commercial club, and also president of the Twin City Paint club. He is active in behalf of all public improvements, and zealous in his aid in promoting the welfare of the community and its residents in every line of usefulness.

On May 19, 1897, Mr. Bisbce was united in marriage with Miss Mattie May Arnold of Hornellsville, New York. They have two children, their daughter Helen Francis, aged eleven, and their son, Edgar Arnold, aged seven. The father was one of the trustees of Andrew Presbyterian church for three

years and president of the board, but he and his wife now attend Westminster church of the same denomination. In political faith and allegiance he is a loyal Republican, but he is not an active partisan and has never desired a political office of any kind, either by election or appointment, prefer- ring to serve his city, state and country from the honorable and independent post of private citizenship.

ABNER LACOCK BAUSMAN, D. D. S.

One of the residents of Minneapolis who was entitled to- recognition and esteem as a pioneer, was the late Dr. Abner Lacock Bausman, the first dentist in Minneapolis proper, who opened an office for the practice of his profession in 1857, on Second avenue south, then Helen street. He won particular regard, too, by his elevation of character, earnest interest in the welfare and progress of the community and positive, patriotic and useful citizenship.

Dr. Bausman was born in Ebensburg, Cambria county, Pennsylvania, on March 25, 1834, of German ancestry. He was sent to school in Pittsburg for his academic education, and passed his boyhood and youth to the age of fifteen on his father's farm. In 1854 he became a dental student in an office in Pittsburg, and in 1856, having acquired a mastery of his profession and being in search of a suitable locality for his future operations, he came to Minnesota and took up a tract of government land on the Minnesota river near Man- kato, on which he started improvements and the work of cultivation.

Professional life was more inviting to him than farming, even in the fruitful section in which his land lay, and in May, 1857, he moved to Minneapolis and opened an office for the practice of dentistry, sharing it with Dr. G. H. Keith. He was in active practice in this city for a continuous period of about forty-three years, but retired in 1900 because of failing eyesight.

Dr. Bausman took a great and helpful interest in every- thing pertaining to his profession and contributing to its advancement. He was a charter member of the Minnesota Dental Association and one of the most active supporters .. The science of medicine generally eulisted his attention also to the extent of inducing him to aid in the organization of the Homeopathic Medical College, of which he was president for a number of years after 1870, when it was founded. In 1888 this college conferred on him the honorary degree of M. D., and he is now said to have been the only dentist who. received this degree of learning as an honor in recognition of general scientific attainments and professional skill. But he was an authority on many questions of medical theory and practice, and was frequently consulted by physicians. For a number of years his office was in fact a kind of mucdical headquarters, and many important meetings of doctors were held in it.

The doctor was also a charter member of the Young Men's Library Association, which afterward became the Athenaeum, and was one of the organizers of the present Public Libraries. of the city. He was one of the directors and the secretary of this organization for fifteen years. A Baptist in religious- faith, he was a devout and zealous member of the First Baptist church of Minneapolis, and at his death its oldest communicant in both the number of his years of life and the-

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

length of his membership. He served it as a trustee for a long time, and took a leading part in organizing the Baptist Union, of which he was one of the directors from the beginning of its history.

In politics the doctor adopted the principles of the Repub- lican party at its organization, and throughout his life he adhered to them. He was an active partisan, but never sought a political office of any kind. He was well known all over the city and was a great favorite with its older physi- eians and all classes of the earlier residents, and toward all men he was genial, obliging and companionable at all times, and practically serviceable when he could be.

The declining years of his life Dr. Bausman spent very quietly at his home. To him his home life meant more than anything else. He was a student of the Bible and very fond of all reading. His health failing the later years of his life, Dr. Bausman died in Minneapolis August 29, 1911. At the time of his death he was one of the few Territorial Pioneers remaining in Minneapolis. His friends were almost all among the old residents of the city.

Dr. Bausman was a man of great moral courage, kind, generous, always ready to see the good in everyone and to overlook their weaknesses, a man greatly loved and respected by his friends and acquaintances for his integrity and high sense of honor.

Dr. Bausman was first married in 1863 to Miss Fannie R. Abraham of Minneapolis. She died in 1876, leaving one son and one daughter. George A. Bausman, the son, is connected with the National Equipment company, of Springfield, Mass., of which Mr. Frank H. Page is the head. The daughter, Bertha Bausman, is the wife of Mr. Page. The doctor was married a second time, in 1879, to Miss Rebecca Fenby of St. Louis, Missouri, who is still living. Her father was a prominent grain and flour merchant in St. Louis, having gone to that city from Baltimore in 1858. The daughter's acquaint- ance with Dr. Bausman began in her childhood, when the family came to Lake Minnetonka to spend the summers. She and the doctor became the parents of two sons and one daughter. Richard Fenby, the older of the sons, is in the sales department of the Washburn-Crosby Company, in which eapacity he has made several foreign trips. Alonzo Linton, the second son, is superintendent of the National Equipment company and the inventor of a number of machines which it manufactures. The daughter, Marion Douglas Bausman, who is living at home with her mother, attends the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts. Mrs. Bausman has been prominent in church and social work. She is a most estimable lady, richly deserving of the high regard the people have for her.

FREDERICK BUTTERFIELD CHUTE.

Among those who have dignified and adorned the real estate business and kept it active and fruitful, Fred B. Chute, who operates principally on the East Side, is entitled to a high rank. His career in his dual activity as a practicing lawyer and dealer in real property is all the more gratifying to the city in which he operates from the fact that he is a product of it and has passed his life to the present time (1914) almost continuously within its limits.

Mr. Chute was born in Minneapolis on December 21, 1872.

He is a son of Dr. Samuel H. and Helen E. A. (Day) Chute, the former a native of Columbus, Ohio, and the latter of the province of Ontario, Canada. A complete record of the life of Dr. Samuel A. Chute will be found in this volume.

Fred B. Chute grew to manhood in Minneapolis, and here he obtained his preparatory education from tutors and in private schools. In 1885 he entered the preparatory depart- ment of Notre Dame University, Indiana, and from that insti- tution he was graduated in 1892 with the degree of Bachelor of Letters. He then passed one year in the law department of the same university, but deciding to continue his law studies at home, he returned to Minneapolis and entered the law department of the University of Minnesota. At the completion of his post-graduate work in 1896 he received the degree of LL. M. He had already begun practicing, however, and was making progress in his professional career. But a little later he was obliged to give more attention to the business of the Chute Realty Company, of which he was one of the incorpo- rators, his brother, Louis P. Chute, being another. Since that time, although he has practiced law independently to some extent, his energies have been occupied mainly in the real estate business, the several firms with which he is connected having been agents in the consummation of some of the largest transactions in realty which have taken place in the city within his experience in the business.

Mr. Chute at this time (1914) is vice president and secre- tary of the Chute Realty Company; vice president and secre- tary of the Chute Brothers Company, and a member of the firm of L. P. & F. B. Chute, and he is active in the manage- ment of the financial and commercial interests which these institutions represent.

Mr. Chute is favorably known in Minneapolis social circles as well as in the business world, being connected with the larger social organizations, among them the Minneapolis, Mini- kahda and Minnetonka Yaeht, clubs in the city proper, and the St. Anthony Commercial club on the East Side. He also belongs to the Sons of the American Revolution, the Knights of Columbus and the State Bar Association. In religious faith he is a Catholic. For some time he was connected with the Minnesota National Guard, and during two years of this period was the first lieutenant of one of the Minneapolis companies. His political allegiance is given to the Republican party, but he has never desired a public office. He did, how- ever, consent to serve for five years on the school board, and while a member of it showed his intelligent interest in the cause of public education by his activity in promoting some of the most desirable and approved improvements in the school system.

Both sides of the house are of English descent, the Chute family having been founded in this country by Lionel Chute, who emigrated from his native land to the colony of Massa- chusetts Bay in 1636. The mother's family was related to Aaron Burr, and several members of it were prominent on the American side in the Revolutionary war. Mr. Chute was married on May 26, 1909, to Miss Elizabeth McKennan Haw- ley, a native of Red Wing, this state, and a daughter of Dr. A. B. Hawley of that city. Two children have blessed and brightened the family 'circle, a daughter named Margaret M. and a son named Frederick H. He and his brother Louis are leaders in promoting the progress of the city on the eastern side of the river, but take a warm interest in all parts of it.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 49

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