Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 60

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 60

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N. T. Welles

MRS H.T. WELLES

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

the presidency of the town council, and before the end of the same year to the presidency of the school board.

There was at this time strong competition between the par- tisans of the upper and the lower towns on the west side of the river. In 1858 a hotel was built on the corner of Wash- ington avenue and Cataract street in the lower town, which it was thought would boost that part of the city and give it the advantage over upper town. But Mr. Welles and Mr. Steele had already, with unusual enterprise, procured the building of the suspension bridge to Nicollet avenue, where their interests chiefly lay, and they now set apart a fine lot at the corner of Nicollet and Washington avenues for a hotel in their section, and, with a bonus raised by themselves and others, they brought about the erection of the Nicollet House. At its opening in 1858 a banquet and celebration were held, at which Mr. Welles made one of the speeches. With graphic clearness he sketched the bright prospects and anticipated the magnifi- 'cent future of the infant city.

In 1859, while Mr. Welles was president of the school board, the salaries of the public school teachers were in arrears and all of them resigned. The president of the board, with the aid of others, procured funds to pay the back salaries, and the schools were reopened. This was only one instance of many in which this public-spirited gentleman held the welfare of his city and its residents in his hands and gladly gave up his own substance to promote it. But in such instances he strictly obeyed the injunction of the Scriptures by not letting his left hand know what his right did.

The two towns on the banks of the Mississippi, at its pic- turesque Falls, were growing apace, and both looking forward with the usual optimism of municipal bantlings to metropoli- tan magnitude and importance, and each was visibly jealous of the other. A serious effort was made in 1860 to unite them in one city corporation, and Mr. Welles was appointed on a committee to draw up a charter. But the hour for this move was not ripe. Public sentiment was not yet sufficiently ad- vanced in education to look over local pride and littleness, and the effort failed for the time, as neither burg was willing to give up its name or inerge its individuality, and the great advantages that would accrue to both by the merger were but slightly considered by the thoughtless multitude. Happily a better state of feeling and broader intelligence have since obtained and brought magnificent results.

Mr. Welles was never an aspirant for public office and de- clined it whenever it was practicable for him to do so. But in 1863 the Democratic nomination for governor was thrust upon him, and, although the election of any candidate of that party was hopeless, he made the race from a sense of duty. Of course he was defeated, but he reduced the majority of his opponent, Governor Stephen A. Miller, to an extent that showed and emphasized his own popularity and influence in the state. He had been a Whig from his youth, but in 1856, when his party lost its identity in the newly-organized Republican party, he became a Democrat because he looked upon the new party as sectional and revolutionary.

Probably the activity in the busy life here briefly chronicled which contributed in the greatest degree to the prosperity, ' progress and improvement of Minneapolis wa's the conception of and co-operation in building the Minneapolis & Duluth and Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroads. In the land grant act the railroad system provided for the Minnesota valley had two terminal lines, one to end at St. Paul and the other at St. Anthony, their divergence being at a point near Shakopee.

The public lands granted for the system were equally applic- able to both branches, but the control of the road fell into the hands of the St. Paul & Sioux City Railroad company, the controlling owners of which were residents of St. Paul. The line from St. Paul was built and the St. Anthony branch neglected, although lands equitably belonging to it were appropriated for the other.

Mr. Welles deliberately determined that with or without public lands the road should be built. He called on the presi- dent of the St. Paul & Sioux City road and was informed by that gentleman that his company had no intention of building the St. Anthony branch and would not do so. Mr. Welles told him that under such circumstances the people of Minneapolis would build the road themselves, and if not allowed a co- operating road would provide a competing one. President Drake received this statement with a derisive smile which showed how futile he regarded the attempt.

But President Drake reckoned without his host. The Min- neapolis & St. Louis Railroad company was organized. Mr. Welles was one of its directors and its first president. The construction of the line was begun and it was soon opened from White Bear lake to St. Anthony, aud from Minneapolis to the junction with the St. Paul & Sioux City road. Then crossing that line, it was extended south into Iowa and west into Dakota. In course of time the line to St. Paul from the point of junction was abandoned for through traffic, and the derided St. Anthony branch became the main line of the St. Paul road. The extensions involved in this construction work are now parts of the Minneapolis & St. Louis and the Minne- apolis & Duluth Railroads. By the magnificent enterprise which spoke them into being the prestige of Minneapolis was preserved, and her lumber and milling industries were facili- tated; and instead of sinking to a subordinate position she soon outstripped her rival city in population and business.

At the organization of the park commission Mr. Welles was appointed on the board, but after the a'ct had been submitted to and ratified by the people, and the work of park construc- tion was safely started on its beneficent way, he resigned. He was also for a number of years president of the North- western National Bank, and during his tenure of that office guided the institution safely through a great difficulty, and it is now the strongest bank in the Northwest. He resigned the presidency after a service of twelve and a half years, but remained one of the bank's directors until failing health obliged him to give up that position also.

Mr. Welles was married on May 3, 1853, in his native town to Miss Jerushe H. Lord, a native of Tolland county, Connecti- cut, and daughter of Joseph and Chloe (Moulton) Lord, and six of the children born of the union lived to maturity. Hen- rietta died a maiden lady. Catherine is living with her mother. Harriet became the wife of Dr. A. M. Eastman, and died in middle life. The others are Henry, Caroline and Frances, the last named still living at home and Henry being the third of the children who attained their majority and the only son of the household in the number. The wife and mother is still living and maintains the old home on Hennepin avenue.

DANA L. CASE.

Is a native of Greene, Butler county, Iowa, where he was born on Dec. 3, 1874. He is a son of Edgar S. and Matilda

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

E. (Hazlett) Case, who were born and reared in Ohio. The father was for a number of years engaged in the banking business at Wadena, Minnesota. During the Civil war hic served in the Union army in an Illinois regiment. IIc died in California in 1910.

llis son, Dana L. Case, was brought to Minnesota by his parents in his childhood, and has been a resident of Minne- apolis for twenty years. He obtained his education in the school at Wadena, this state, and began his business career as clerk in a bank at Verndale, Minnesota, with which he was connected during 1888 and 1889. In 1902 he opened a bank at Motley, this state, which was first called the Bank of Motley, and was a private institution, but which has since become the First National Bank of Motley. He worked in that bank as cashier until 1907, when he came to Minne- apolis, secking better opportunities and larger returns for his energies. But he still retains an interest in the bank at Motley and is its vice president.

On May 1, 1907, when Howard Dykman resigned the cashiership of the East Side Bank, Mr. Case was appointed to succeed him in the position. By his enterprise and busi- ness capacity he built the trade of the bank up to a large volume, and he also largely increased its popularity through his own. In 1913 he resigned as cashier to accept a respon- sible position with the Minneapolis Trust company.

Mr. Case takes a warm interest in the social life of the community and shows it by active and serviceable membership in the Commercial and Interlachen clubs. Fraternally he is connected with the Masonic order, and in this also he is deeply and helpfully interested. The public affairs of Min- neapolis claim his attention too, and have the benefit of his aid in the direction of securing good government and pro- moting desirable improvements of every kind, and also with a view to enlarging the comfort and conveniences of the residents of the city and making it a still more desirable place to live in than it is at present. On May 23, 1894, he was united in marriage with Miss Grace Holden, who was born in Connecticut. She also is earnestly interested in the progress and welfare of the city of her home, and warmly seconds all her husband's efforts to advance it, and does what she can in this behalf on her own account besides. She shares with him the high and general regard and good will the people have for him.

CALEB D. DORR.

If the venerable and highly esteemed patriarch whose life story is briefly told in these paragraphs had no other title to honorable mention in a compendium of history and biography for Minneapolis and Hennepin county, the fact that he was one of this locality's earliest pioneers; that he stood by the cradle of its civilization and assisted its growth into lusty boy- hood; that he helped to speak its great activities into being and direct them into fruitful channels for the service of man- kind and that he is one of the few remaining links which con- nect its present high development and advanced progress with its birth as a civic, social and industrial entity, would entitle him to an honorable place among its makers and builders in any narrative of their aspirations and achievements.

But Caleb D. Dorr has enough in his own struggles and good work; his manly battle with difficulties and his mastery

over them; his contributions to the growth of all that is now among us and around us, and above all, in his high character and sterling manhood, to make any account of the city and county named incomplete without at least some brief narrative of his useful carcer among this people, which is all that the space available here will permit, insufficient and unsatisfactory as it must necessarily be.

Mr. Dorr was born at East Great Works, now Bradley, Penobscot county, Maine, on July 9, 1824, and is a son of Charles M. and Ann (Morse) Dorr, the former a native of Massachusetts and the latter of Western Maine. The father was a farmer on a small farm, thrifty and industrious in cultivating his land and managing his affairs, but the circum- stances of the family were moderate, and the life of its members under the parental rooftree involved little of incident or adventure out of the ordinary experiences of that day and locality. Both parents died in Maine after long lives of useful labor and upright living, and their remains were laid to rest in the soil hallowed by their toil. Three sons and two daughters were born in the household, all of whom are now deceased except Caleb and one of his brothers.

Caleb D. Dorr grew to manhood on his father's farm, and during his boyhood and early youth attended the village school during the winter months. At an early age he began to shift in part for himself by working in the lumber mills in his neighborhood and rafting logs. The work was hard and the life of which it was a part was monotonous and primitive. But even as it was, some account of the great possibilities of the great West enlivened it and filled the adventurous spirits engaged in it with desire to see something of the world outside of it and become a part of larger activities.

In 1847, when Mr. Dorr was about twenty-three years of age, he yielded to this longing and came West. He reached Buffalo by one of the first railroads then available, from Albany, and journeyed from the former city over the Great Lakes to Milwaukee. From there to Galena, Illinois, lie traveled overland, and from Galena to St. Paul on the old Argo, a river boat. He was now near his long journey's end, but what was he to find in the region of hope and promise when he reached it? From St. Paul to the Falls of St. Anthony was but a short distance, but was a journey into the wilds.

When Mr. Dorr arrived at the Falls he found but a single log house and a mess shanty here, but he saw the great possibilities of the locality for carrying on the business to which he had been trained, and lie at once laid plans to engage in it. In 1848 the St. Anthony Waterfalls company built a small mill, and he became one of the employes of that company. But he did not linger long in the service of others. Before the end of the year he started an enterprise by organizing the Mississippi, and Rum River Boom company which built the first boom across the Mississippi at head of the Island, bringing the timbers for the purpose from Crow Wing, and putting up the first works of construction of this kind cver erected in this locality. He then engaged in cutting and rafting timber on the Rum and Mississippi rivers, and continued his operations for a period of eight or ten years continuously, and in 1866 he became the active manager of the Boom Company. In this position he served the company faithfully and wisely until 1888, and he is still connected with it officially. He also began the manufacture of lumber in the fifties and continued to be actively occupied in this industry for many years, in company with others, helping

Caleb D. Dorr

BABice

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

to start it here and, in fact, being its pioneer in this region as well as one of its most active early promoters.

In the meantime a village of great enterprise and promise had grown up at the Falls and been named St. Anthony. In 1855, on April 13, the first city council of this village held its first meeting with Henry T. Welles as mayor and Mr. Dorr as one of the six aldermen. During the rest of his years of activity Mr. Dorr took an active part in the business and civic affairs of the community, and rendered it great service in many ways. He was always broad-minded and progressive, and his judgment was largely deferred to by the men who were engaged with him in promoting the advancement of the town whose birth he had witnessed and which he had helped to baptize.

On March 4, 1849, Mr. Dorr was united in marriage with Miss Clestia A. Ricker of Dover, Maine, who died in March, 1909. They had no children. Mrs. Dorr was a zealous and devout member of the Universalist church, to which Mr. Dorr has also belonged for a long time, and in whose welfare he has taken a very cordial and serviceable interest at all times.

BENJAMIN SETH BULL.

Among the early settlers of Minneapolis was Benjamin S. Bull, born October 19, 1832, in Essex County, New York. His ancestors were of English Quaker origin, settling in Vermont. His father, Henry Bull, was a man of moderate means, so the son's education was necessarily confined to the district schools of his neighborhood.

At the age of twelve years it was necessary that Benjamin Bull support himself and as he grew towards manhood he developed such energy and capacity that he was soon operat- ing for himself in various enterprises.

At the age of twenty-one years he married Miss Mary Stickney of his native village and, following the example of others in the neighborhood, journeyed West to Illinois. Be- fore very long, the glowing accounts of Minnesota became alluring and yielding to the pioneer instinct he made the trip with his wife and infant daughter by team, as there were no railroads running to Minneapolis at that time. He arrived at Minneapolis in 1855 and soon identified himself with the active life of the town.

Three years after arriving in Minneapolis Mrs. Bull died and two years later Mr. Bull married Miss Beulah Newell, who was also a native of Essex County, New York.

He now entered the grocery business with a store near Bridge Square. The project prospered, business increased rap- idly and soon a partnership was formed with Mr. Hugh G. Harrison, a capitalist who had recently arrived in Minneapolis. This partnership resulted in the Harrison Block at the corner of Washington and Nicollet avenues, which building was in those days one of the prides of Minneapolis. After several years of success, the company sold out to Stevens & Morse, Mr. Bull and Mr. Harrison continuing their partnership in the lumber business with sawmills at the Falls of St. Anthony.

About this time there was great excitement over Montana mining and several leading citizens of Minneapolis, Mr. Bull being among them, made a journey of investigation. This trip resulted in a mining partnership being formed with Mr.

Isaac I. Lewis, the enterprise centering in the "Legal Tender" mine of the "Silver Bow" district. This was before the days of the Northern Pacific and Great Northern railroads, and it was necessary to make the trip via the Union Pacific to Salt Lake City, thence north by stage to Montana.

The "Legal Tender" was a mine of remarkably rich ore, but capricious, as is often the case, and finally, the flour milling business at Minneapolis attracting his attention, Mr. Bull dis- posed of the Montana mine and erected the "Humboldt Mill," the business being conducted under the name of Bull, Newton & Co. The original Humboldt Mill went down in the great mill explosion of 1878 but was immediately replaced by the present structure now operated by the Washburn-Crosby Co. Flour from the Humboldt Mill received gold medal and first prize at the World's Paris Exposition in 1878.

Discontinuing the milling business, Mr. Bull took up what was then known as bonanza farming. His farms were located in various parts of western Minnesota and North Dakota, the principal, however, being the "Hancock Farm," comprising some 14,000 acres in Stevens and Pope counties, Minnesota.

In the year 1869 Messrs. Bull, Gilson and others introduced the first street railway into Minneapolis, the concern being incorporated as the Minneapolis Horse Railway Co. Cars were run on a track laid along Second Street, connecting the Mil- waukee and Manitoba depots. The project was a little prema- ture ,as a street railway and the tracks were used mainly for the purpose of transferring cars between the two systems of roads. Soon Mr. Gilson died and it was decided to abandon the enterprise, thus ending the first street railway of Min- neapolis.

Mr. Bull was a quiet man, keeping mnuch with his family and working with unceasing energy and interest on the various business ventures of his life. He was a member of the First Baptist Church when that church occupied a loca- tion at the corner of Nicollet Avenue and Third Street.

Benjamin S. Bull died November 21, 1889, and there sur- vives him, his widow, two daughters and a son-Mrs. Louis F. Menage, Mrs. William G. Crocker and Benjamin S. Bull, · a sketch of whom is embraced in this book.

BENJAMIN S. BULL.

Mr. Bull has the adininistration of the advertising depart- ment of the Washburn-Crosby Co., and, directing the expendi- ture of hundreds of thousands of dollars for printing and advertising, he is particularly well known in periodical cir- cles. In this field he has earned a reputation for being a sagacious and discerning judge of publicity.

Born in Minneapolis on June 21, 1869, Mr. Bull received his education in the public schools of the city. His first business experience was with his father in the real estate business in 1887 and 1888. From 1889 to 1895 he was associated with the First National and other Minneapolis banks.

It was in the latter year that he took employment with the Washburn-Crosby Co. Expending large sums of money for advertising, the company found it necessary to create a department for its systematic and judicious handling, and Mr. Bull was made manager of it. His success in this posi- sion is attested by the fact of his being made one of the eight

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

new directors elceted by the company at its annual meeting on September 19, 1910.

Aside from the publieity department, Mr. Bull is in charge of the auditing and clerical forces of the company.

GIBSON ALLAN CHAFFEE.

The business carcer of Gibson A. Chaffee, manager of the Crane Company of Minneapolis since 1899, has been a con- tinuous succession of effort and achievement, of enterprise and progress, from the time when he left school at the age of nineteen years until the present day. His duties and respon- sibilities have steadily increased in volume and importanee as the years have passed, but every step of his advance has been wrought out by himself by faithful performance of the duties he has had in hand, and has been based on sub- stantial and well demonstrated merit.

Mr. Chaffee was born at Hastings, Minnesota, on January 31, 1866. He was educated in the public schools of Mansfield, Ohio, which he attended until 1883. In that year he took a position in the employ of Wilson & Rogers of St. Paul, and during the next fourteen years he was a traveling salesman for that firm, the Rogers-Willis company, the Rogers & Ord- way company and the Crane & Ordway company, all St. Paul business houses of high rank, and carrying on extensive operations throughout an extensive territory.

At the end of the period mentioned he became assistant manager for the Crane & Ordway company, a position which he filled with great ability and to the entire satisfaction of the company for four years. In 1899 he was made manager for the Crane company, of Minneapolis, and in this capacity he has served that company ever since. On his own account he has for some years been an extensive breeder of dairy stoek on his fine farm at Long Lake, Minnesota. He is a member of the Minneapolis Athletic club, the Rotary club, the Civie and Commerce association and several fraternal orders, and takes an active interest in everything involving the welfare of the people of the Twin Cities. His residence is at 1942 Carroll avenue, St. Paul.

WILLIAM SHELDON JUDD.

In a residence of thirty-seven years in Minneapolis and forty-four in Minnesota, the late William Sheldon Judd, a leading business man, demonstrated the admirable adapta- bility of Ameriean manhood to circumstances and require- ments. He was an Eastern man and a mountaineer, but he fitted in with Western surroundings and life on the Minne- sota prairies as if they had always been his portion. He passed his boyhood and youth in the hardest kind of farm labor; yet he took hold of industrial pursuits in manufactur- ing lines with readiness and easy control.

Mr. Judd was born at Elizabethtown, Essex county, New York, in the Adirondack mountains, Mareh 10, 1823. His father David Judd, like several generations of his forefathers, lived and died in that region. He owned a rough, stony farm which was hard to work. His son William often said he wore his fingers out pieking up stones in his boyhood and early youth, and he also wore out his fondness for farming such soil, if he ever had any. While he was yet a very young man

Mr. Judd engaged in the manufacture of iron as the head of a foundry in which he had scareely any but French workmen, who called him "Beel," their pronunciation of "Bill." He was successful and in a few years sought larger opportunities and more eongenial pursuits.

In 1858 he moved to Faribault, Minnesota, where he engaged in banking in partnership with William Dyke. They loaned money on farms and other security and carried on a general banking business. Prosperity attended them and Mr. Judd was well satisfied with his location and his prospects. But Mrs. Judd had visited Minneapolis, admired the attractions of the then thriving little eity and longed to make it her home. In 1865 she induced her husband to move here, and once more they found a new home among strangers.

Mr. Judd formed a partnership with William Eastman, and they became the managers of the Cataract flour mill, which Mr. Eastman had previously built. This was the first mill from which flour was shipped to the East from St. Anthony Falls. Mr. Judd was well acquainted with many leading families in St. Paul, and they were serviceable in helping to promote his business enterprises. He gave his attention earnestly and studiously to the affairs of the mill, but soon after becoming connected with it he bought the block bounded by Fifth and Sixth Streets and Fifth and Sixth Avenues South, and on it ereeted a large brick dwelling, which was one of the leading residences in the city at that period. Some years later he bought a home at 629 Eighth Street South, in which both he and his wife died.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 60

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