Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 58

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 58

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He entered the service of the bank in the humble capacity of messenger as a youth of seventeen. He is now its vice president and has an influential voice in the management of its affairs. The distance between the two station's was covered by him with faithful and devoted service and the strict performance of his duty in every way, and at every stage of his progress from one to the other he showed unusual capacity for the banking business, the warmest and most helpful interest in the affairs of the bank, and a sweep of vision and grasp of affairs that made him ready for any duty that might fall to his lot at any time. In consequence of these attributes and his unwavering integrity and high character, his promotion was rapid, and there was always a landing above him to aspire to until he reached the altitude in the work of the institution which he now occupies. On the way up he filled the position of cashier for a number of years with great acceptability to the authorities and patrons of the bank.

Mr. Chapman was not satisfied, however, to be merely a banker. He took a broader view of life and determined to prepare himself for a more comprehensive mastery of business in a general way. With this object in view he attended the night school of the law department of the Uni- versity until he completed the course and was graduated in 1897. He had a special object in this enterprise, too, and that was to make his knowledge of law useful as a means of mental training and serviceable in his regular business.

Mr. Chapman has always been deeply interested and intelli- gently helpful in the further development and improve- ment of Minneapolis and Hennepin county, and has allowed no worthy undertaking to go without his active and practical aid when the general welfare of the community has been involved in it. Whether the project has been social, indus- trial, commercial or educational, it has always been able to command his earnest support, and in connection with all he has at all times borne his full share of the burden of work and material assistance required. He is a member of the Phi Delta Phi college fraternity, and the Minneapolis, Mini- kahda and Six O'clock clubs, and was president of the last-named in 1906-7. He is also a valued member of the Agricultural, Development and Educational Committee of the

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

State Bankers' Association and its president; one of the executive committee of the American Bankers' Association, and chairman of its committee on agricultural development; a member of the Minnesota Bankers' Association, which he served from 1899 to 1906 as secretary, and of which he was president in 1908-9. He is also a member of the American Institute of Bank Clerks, and was the organizer and Presi- dent of its first Chapter.

In none of these organizations is Mr. Chapman merely one of the silent units. He is a clear, inspiring and forceful speaker, and is in frequent demand for talks in public on topics of finance and business, as well as one of the spokesmen for any association of men to which he belongs, and a guide and always warmly welcome speaker in the discussions which take place in them all. He is always master of his theme, and never talks on any subject without illuminating it and making it interesting. For he is always earnest in his purpose and has some useful end in view, and never talks simply for the purpose of hearing himself.

Was chairman of the Citizens Pure Water Commission which established the present filtration plant.

On December 26, 1896, Mr. Chapman was married at Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to Miss Elizabeth G. Mahew. They have two children, their daughters Katherine and Elizabeth. All the members of the family attend the Hennepin Avenue Methodist Episcopal church, and the father is also a member of the Masonic Order, in which he has climbed the mystic ladder to the thirty-second degree in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. He takes an earnest and serviceable interest in the affairs of his church, and in those of all branches of his fraternity through which he has ascended to his present exalted place in it. He hearkens readily and responds cheerfully to every claim of citizenship, is ever obedient to the call of duty in helping to promote the best interests of his community. The residents of Minneapolis of all classes and conditions esteem him highly, and from every point of view is altogether worthy of the high place he holds in public regard.

HON. EDWIN SMITH JONES.

"Here was a rich man whom the struggle of making his own fortune did not harden, and the possession of wealth did not injure. Here was a man of the people who lived the common life and knew it all, with its anxieties, sorrows, pains, toils and tears, and remained a plain man with his heart close to the common heart to the end. Here was a successful man, to whom no one grudged his success. Here was a fortune for which no one clutched. He delighted to make all about him happy, while his own personal tastes and habits remained the simplest. So long as we have rich men like the late Edwin S. Jones, class will not be widely separated from class, and anarchism is not much to be feared."

So spoke an admiring and judicious friend of Edwin Smith Jones, for thirty-six years a resident, and during a large portion of that time one of the leading citizens of Minne- apolis, at the time of his death, on January 26, 1890, at the age of nearly sixty-two years. The justness of the tribute was fully acknowledged at the period when it was uttered, and the cordial and general regard in which the memory of

the subject of it is still held in all parts of the community he did so much to build up and improve, and in other sec- tions of the country in which he was well known, show that it has stood the test of time and is still considered right and true.

Edwin Smith Jones was born in Chaplin, Windom county, Connecticut, on June 3, 1828, the son of David and Percy (Russ) Joncs. The father owned and cultivated a farm among the hills of Eastern Connecticut, and on that farm the son grew to manhood, obtaining his academic education at the neighboring country school and at Munson Academy. His opportunities for mental development and training in the schools were meager, but they were well improved, and at the age of sixteen he was a school teacher himself in the vicinity of his home. It was necessary for him to make the most of every opportunity and means he found for advance- ment, for when he was but seven years of age his mother died, and three years later his father also passed away, leaving him and an older brother to carry on the farm and provide for their own maintenance.

When Mr. Jones was twenty he made a trip to Indiana in the interest of a publishing house, and had a number of other young men under his supervision in the business. Before the dawn of his manhood he decided to study law, and as soon as he was able he entered upon the work of preparing for his profession. He was first married in 1854, and that year came to Minneapolis to live, bringing his young bride with him. Before leaving Connecticut he had commeneed reading law in the office of Hon. J. H. Carpenter, at Willimantic. After his arrival in this city he continued his legal studies in the office of Judge Isaac Atwater, and in April, 1855, he was admitted to the bar, being the first law student to whom that distinction was accorded in Hennepin county.

In 1857 he was elected probate judge of the county, and in 1858 he was re-elected, serving three years in all in the office, and receiving from it the title of judge, which he after- ward carried through life. From the beginning of his resi- dence in this city he was in touch with all the public move- ments of his time, in both business and moral circles, and soon became a leader in philanthropic work. During the progress of the Civil war he was commissioned commissary of subsistence with the rank of captain, and was assigned to duty in the Department of the Gulf. His services were so efficient in the army that he was brevetted major.

Before the war Judge Jones gave great attention to the organization of the Atheneum Library association, and was one of its incorporators and its first president. And while in the South with the army, even amid the brutality and in- humanity of a great war, his sympathetic heart overflowed with sorrow over the impoverished and suffering condition of the people of that section of the country. His sympathy for them found expression in later years by his establishing and conducting at his own expense a school for young ladie's known as the "Jones Seminary," at All Healing Springs, near King's Mountain in North Carolina. The purpose of this school was to give cducation to the white girls of the moun- tains in the usual text books and also in the practical and serviceable domain of sewing, cooking and domestic economy. In addition to this he contributed liberally in both money and counsel to a free kindergarten for colored children in Atlanta. Georgia, and in consequence of his liberality to it this institution was named in his honor "The Jones Kinder- garten."

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

After the war the judge returned to Minneapolis, and in 1866 was elected one of the supervisors of the town and president of the board, and in 1873, after the organization of the city government, he was elected alderman from the Eighth ward. In 1870, in connection with other gentlemen, he organized the Hennepin County Savings Bank, and was chosen its president, with J. E. Bell as cashier. He remained at the head of this institution until his death and gave it a large part of his time and attention. It has been one of the most successful banking institutions in the city, and was during his tenure of its presidency.

The foundation of Judge Jones' fortune was land which he acquired in and near Minneapolis in the early years of his residence in the city. The continued increase in the value of this land gave him large profits, and he also engaged in loaning money on his own account and as the agent of in- vestors in the East. He was a good business man, industrious and careful in all his undertakings, and frugal in his style of living. He acquired a considerable amount of wealth for his day, but he left only a moderate estate. For the glory and excellence of his character was his benevolence.

The objects of his public bounty were many and all de- signed for large and general usefulness. Among them were the Western Minnesota Academy, now Windom Institute, at Montevideo, of which he was a trustee; Carleton College at Northfield, to which he bore the same relation; The Chicago Theological Seminary, of which he was also a trustee, and the American Board of Foreign Missions, of which he was a corporate (voting) member. These were all under the patron- age of the Congregational church, of which he was long a devout and consistent member, attending service at Plymouth church.

Judge Jones also gave the site for the Jones-Harrison Home for Aged Women on the shores of Cedar Lake in the suburbs of Minneapolis, a beautiful tract of eighty acres, and was most liberal in general benefactions and church activities. The aggregate of his benevolent and charitable gifts was never known to any one but himself, and it is doubtful if he could have given more than a guess at it, as he kept no account of such expenditures. He was generous too with the knowledge he acquired by diligent reading and frequent and extensive journeys, both in his own country and in Europe, but he was never obtrusive with any form of his benefactions.

The judge was married three times, and by these unions became the father of nine children. Only two of these are living, Mrs. Frank H. Carleton and Hon. David Percy Jones, for several years mayor of Minneapolis, a sketch of whom will be found in this volume. Mrs. Susan C. Jones, the last wife and companion of her husband's declining years, is still a resident of this city. She is the daughter of Captain Charles C. Stinson of Goffstown, New Hampshire, and was married to Judge Jones in May, 1877.

FREDERICK W. CURRIER.

Frederick W. Currier, manager of the northwestern terri- tory of the Pittsburg Plate Glass company, was born at Dorchester, near Boston, Mass. He came to Minneapolis as a lad with his father, Frank J. Currier, who was employed as manager of the cotton textile mills until their destruction

at the time of the historic mill explosion. Frederick W. Currier as a boy entered the employ of Brown & Haywood, which was succeeded by the Pittsburg Plate Glass company. He was advanced from one position to another, becoming thoroughly familiar with all the details of the business. During this time he found opportunity to gratify his ambition for a more complete equipment and became a student in the night classes of the state university, where he completed the law course. The business with which he has been identi- fied throughout his career was established in 1883 by Captain Charles W. Brown and Wm. Haywood and sold by them in 1900 to the Pittsburg Plate Glass company, becoming one of the twenty-eight warehouse points for this company. Captain Brown is a native of Newburyport, Massachusetts, and as a youth went to sea with his father who was captain of an East Indian trading vessel. Here he won rapid advancement and at twenty-one became the master of a merchant marine trading between New York and Australia. He continued in this position until his marriage when he left the sea and came to Minneapolis, where he formed a partnership with Mr. Haywood, who was a native of England and an artist and designer of stained glass for windows and decorative purposes. They established their enterprise in a single room on the third floor of the building occupied by the Bishop Paper company, with a capital of about $4,000. After several years of prosperous trade they disposed of the business to the Pittsburg company and Captain Brown was retained as manager. At the end of two years he went to Pittsburg to accept the office of secretary of the company, and later became vice president and the most influential factor in the Pittsburg Plate Glass company, known among the world's great busi- ness organizations as the largest corporation in the glass industry. Something of the remarkable growth of this im- mense enterprise may be glimpsed, in the comparison of its business of twenty years ago with that of today, where the transactions of a year are more than doubled in one month. During the time of his residency in Minneapolis, Captain Brown won the esteem and good will of his fellow citizens, which he has continued to hold, with his own interest in the city, through the years when his successful career has widened the scene of his activities. When his successor to the posi- tion of manager of the Minneapolis offices was sought, the choice fell naturally on the man who through training and natural ability was fitted for positions of trust and respon- sibility and Mr. Currier received the position in which he has given his able services for the past twelve years. The firm occupies the Morrison building on Fifth avenue and Third street and employ a force of 180 workmen, sixty of whom are engaged in the manufacture of mirrors and art glass. The local trade requires the services of eight sales- men and thirteen men cover the northwest territory to the coast.

H. B. CRAMER.

Harry B. Cramer, business man and member of the Minne- apolis Board of Park Commissioners, was born in Troy, New York, July 28, 1851. As a youth he apprenticed himself to the trade of house decorator and painter and after becoming a proficient workman he, in company with three other young men of his native city, spent some time in journeying. work-

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

ing for a time in Buffalo and Guelph, Ontario. Then he and a companion, Mr. Diek Wager, went to Chicago, and in the fall of 1871 they reached St. Paul. Here they found no demand for workmen of their trade and employed themselves in various occupations. The following spring they came to Minneapolis, where they found employment and where they remained until in 1876, when they spent some months in Philadelphia and assisted in decorating and painting the buildings of the Centennial Exposition. In Minneapolis they were first employed by various firms; their earliest employers were Charles Metzger and John Horton, and then, in partner- ship with George and William Blewitt, they established an independent business. A few months later Mr. Cramer formed a partnership with Daniel O'Rourke, on Third street; and, some time afterwards his former companion and partner of many years, Dick Wager, returned to the East. During Mr. Cramer's early struggles, he married Miss Marie Jones and their home was established at first, in three cheap rooms with extremely modest furnishings. He soon was in a posi- tion to embark independently and opened a store on the present site of Browning, King & Company, on Sixth street, where he remained until his removal to 215 South Sixth, where he was located for about 18 years, and then moved to his present attractive quarters, in the Leighton hlock, on Tenth street. Mr. Leighton gave him much valuable assist- ance and necessary backing in the days of his early opera- tions. His first large contract, the Guaranty Loan building, now the Metropolitan Life building, proved a financial loss to him. but with the aid of Mr. Leighton he was able to successfully withstand this disaster and rapidly attained a prosperous business. He decorated several structures of the World's Fair of 1893 at Chicago, including the Minnesota and the North Dakota State buildings, the Mechanical and Mining huilding, and the White House Inn. He also finished the Park hotel and Hotel Eastman at Hot Springs, Arkansas. Mr. Cramer is a Republican and although he has never held a purely political office, he has given his fellow citizens valu- able service for ten years as a member of the Board of Park Commissioners. He has devoted particular attention and effort to the development of the child life of the city, the establishment and maintenance of playgrounds, etc.

Mr. Cramer is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, and the Elks. He has always taken an interest in sports and outdoor recreation, and is an enthusiastie fisherman and horseman. Mrs. Cramer is popular in the social circles of Minneapolis and the family home on Park avenue is well known for its hospitality and attractiveness. Mr. and Mrs. Cramer have one daughter, Madge, the wife of Mr. H. D. Lyon.

HERBERT O. COLLINS, M. D.

Dr. Herbert O. Collins, Superintendent of the City Hospital who has attained a reputation as a promoter and builder of hospital improvements and in the application of the most modern and approved methods in all hospital work.

Aware of the defects in this department of human endeavor he is fertile in resources in suggesting and securing remedies and betterments.

Dr. Collins was born in Trumbull county, Ohio, in 1865, and completed his academic education in the Dayton high

school. He received his professional instruction at the Uni- versity Medical College in New York City, graduating in 1888, and coming to Minneapolis in 1908 to become Superin- tendent of the City Hospital, his extensive previous experience giving him special fitness for such responsibility.

He keeps in touch with the living, flowing currents of knowledge and inspiration in the profession through member- ship in its organization, such as The Hennepin County Medical, The Minnesota Pathological, The Minnesota State Medical Societies, The American Hospital, and The American Medical Associations.

Dr. Collins' chief worth has been in connection with hos- pitals especially in securing enlarged accommodations and improved facilities. The balance of the block where the city hospital is located has recently been purchased for the hos- pital. The service building has been remodeled. The New Hospital for Contagious diseases is well under way and Lymanhurst for children has recently been acquired, through the generosity of the Lyman Brothers, who contributed their old homestead comprising half a block. The west wing of the City Hospital and the West Wing of the Nurses House with greatly increased facilities have heen completed. About 250 employes are now required, the increased facilities de- manding about 100 more, then about 900 patients may receive accommodation.

In fraternal and social life Dr. Collins is a member of the Knights of Pythias, the New Athletic club and Civie and Commerce club. He was married in 1891 to Miss Jessie Oram. They have three children, Helen Louise, Herbert O., Jr., and Richard Louis. The family attend Westminster Presbyterian church.

ROBERT BRUCE LANGDON.

"He was one of the noblest of God's creation-an honest man in every sense. His word was always as good as his bond, whether in husiness, friendship or politics. He was a man who delighted in serving his friends, who never lost an opportunity to reciprocate the slightest favors or courtesies, and his loyalty to friendships and business associates was a matter of universal comment among all who knew him."

So spoke a close personal and political friend of many years standing of the late Robert Bruce Langdon. This is high praise, but Mr. Langdon's firm place in the regard of many persons in many states during his life and the cordiality and warmth with which he is remembered and his name and achievements since his death are revered show that he must have deserved it all, and that the estimate of his character and personality embodied in the description was based on genuine merit and a truly lofty, pleasing and serviceable manhood.

Mr. Langdon was horn on a farm near New Haven, Ver- inont, on November 24, 1826. His ancestry on hoth sides of the house was English, but the progenitors of the American branch of the family were carly arrivals in this country, for his great-grandfather was captain of a Massachusetts regiment during the Revolutionary war. At the close of that mo- mentous contest for independence and freedom the captain located in Connecticut, hut later moved to Vermont, becoming one of the pioneers of that state, or at least of the portion of it in which he settled. which was the neighborhood of the

Robert BLanyuan

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

town of New Haven, in Addison county, where his grandson, Seth Langdon, the father of Robert Bruce, was born and reared. The mother was a Miss Squires, and a descendant also of families long resident in this country.

Mr. Langdon's father was a farmer and he was himself reared on the farm and at an early age began to take part in the work of cultivating it. He began his academic education in the district schools and completed it by a short course in a good academy. He was of a constructive nature, however, and eager from his youth to be doing something tangible and material. On this account his school days were limited, except what followed in the rugged but thorough school of experience.

In 1848 he yielded to his great ambition and began his business career as foreman of a construction company engaged in building the Rutland & Burlington Railroad in Vermont. A short time afterward he left his native state and came West in the employ of Selah Chamberlain, a railroad contractor, for whom he worked a number of years in Ohio and Wisconsin. In the course of time, however, he felt strong enough in the business to take a contract on his own account, and secured one to fence the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. to Minnesota Junction.

Mr. Langdon was successful in this undertaking, carrying out his contract in every particular and doing well through it. He was now fairly launched on the broad sea of railroad con- struction work, and followed his first contract with others as rapidly as he could. In 1853 he had charge of the construction of a section of seventy-five miles of the Illinois Central road extending from Kankakee, Illinois, to Urbana, Ohio, and later was engaged on contracts for the Milwaukee & La Crosse and the Milwaukee & Prairie du Chien roads in the order named.

His work was bringing him to his destined permanent home. In 1858 the first ground broken for a railroad in Minnesota was turned up under his direction. Soon after this perforin- ance he went South to build the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, a piece of work he was obliged to abandon, after spending two years on it, because of the outbreak of the Civil war. But this did not stay his hand in this department of productive labor or abate his energy. He at once returned to the North and began new lines wherever the time was ripe for them. During his active career as a railroad contractor he was asso- ciated at different times with D. M. Carpenter, D. C. Shepard, A. H. Linton and other gentlemen, and in association with them . built more than 7,000 miles of railroad in the states of Vermont, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Ten- nessee, Mississippi, Iowa, the Dakotas, Montana, and the Northwest Territory in Canada.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 58

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