Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 95

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 95

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Mr. Janney has also taken an active and serviceable part in the civic and social life of the city. His aid in fostering and developing the city's interests in every way is generally recognized. For he has been connected with nearly all the movements and institutions which have aided in extending the stability and renown of Minneapolis, and has long been and still is active in all semi-public and philanthropie corpo- rations, organizations and agencies for good of every kind. He was one of the men who founded and conducted the old Minneapolis Exposition twenty-five years ago, and has for years been one of the directors of the Northwestern National Bank. He is also president of the Farmers and Mechanics Savings Bank, and a director of the Equitable Loan Associa- tion, which was started as a means of combating loan sharks. It is largely due to his pertinacity in its behalf that this institution was made the gratifying success it is.

Mr. Janney has also long been interested in the work of many civic organizations and has done his full part toward making them as useful and productive of good as possible, and has always given cordial support to the interests of the Presbyterian Church. He is a director of the Minneapolis Civic and Commerce Association and belongs to the Minne-

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

apolis, Commercial, Minikahda and Lafayette clubs. In 1869 he was married to Miss Mary E. Wheaton of Minneapolis. They have two children, their daughters Frances, who is still living at home, and Helen, who is now the wife of Charles M. Case of this city. The delightful home of the family, "Red Oaks," is beautifully located on one of the inviting shores of Lake Minnetonka.

CHARLES J. JOHNSON.

Mr. Jolinson is a prominent and well known lumberman, but has reached his position from very humble beginnings and through his own persistent and honorable efforts. There is really no more worthy career than his. He was born on his father's little farm in the parish of Hufmantorp, Sweden, September 12, 1849. His primary education was obtained in the parish school, but he early began to help his father on the farm and worked at farming in Sweden until he was 19.

In 1869 lic came to the United States and at first located at Stillwater, Minn. In 1870 he changed his residence to Minneapolis. Feeling that his education was incomplete, he attended a publie school on the East Side, and afterward attended one of the city high schools, while working for H. M. Carpenter for his board. After the high school he was for another year at the State University, and also pursued a course of special training at a business college at night, earning his living by clerking in stores, and working in sawmills and lumber yards.

When he left school finally Mr. Johnson was given employ- ment by Messrs. Camp & Walker in the lumber business, and he remained in their employ for about five years. In 1879 he became connected with C. A. Smith in lumber yards at Evansville, Minn., where he remained until 1884, when he returned to Minneapolis, and here he has been engaged in the lumber trade ever since. He is now vice president of the C. A. Smith Lumber Company and the Northwestern Compo- Board Company. He was one of the directors of the Swedish- American National Bank from its origin until it was eonsoli- dated with the Northwestern National, and has been connected with several other business and financial institutions.

Mr. Johnson is an active member of the Odin Club of Minne- apolis, and is also liberal in his support of other social organi- zations and improving agencies. He is a loyal member of the Republican party, and is quietly active in public affairs; but he is more zealous and ardent in behalf of the general welfare of his home community and its residents than he is in his services to any club, political party or other organization among men. The duties of citizenship come first with him, and other claims receive attention afterward.

Mr. Johnson was married May 23, 1881, to Miss Mary S. Craft. They have three sons, Victor, Guy and Ansel. The family residence is at 2325 Fremont Avenue South. From the time when he first came to Minneapolis the father has been a member of Augustana Swedish Lutheran Church, and for many years was one of its trustees. Mr. Johnson has practi- eally retired from all active pursuits and is passing his time in rest from long-continued and arduous labors, relief from business burdens and cares. He is an enthusiastic bowler, and has a private bowling alley on his premises in which he spends an hour or two every morning. He is one of the most generally esteemed men in Minneapolis, and the public

estimate of limu is based on his elevated manhood and genuine wortlı.

FREDERICK C. BARROWS.

The firm of Barrows Bros. was for many years among the most extensive operators in the lumber trade in Minneapolis. Its members are practical inen, who master cvery line of effort they undertake and give close and critical attention to every detail of their business, whatever may be its nature and requirements. It is, therefore, only a logical sequence of their ability and industry that they have been, successful in all of the several business engagements with which they have been connected and in every avenue of usefulness which has had their attention.

Colonel Fred C. Barrows was born in Orono, Maine, on 29th of March, 1830, and is the son of Micah and Judith (Smart) Barrows. He came to St. Anthony in 1855, whither he was soon followed by his brother, William M. Barrows. They soon began operations in the lumber industry, and made themselves thoroughly familiar with it in every stage and detail by actual personal participation in its work through every step of progress from the standing tree to the last turn of the factory on the finished product; and this they also attended into the retail yards and the possession of the con- sumer, when it was sold at retail.

In 1869 these enterprising gentlemen founded the Barrows Bros. company with a large mill in active operation. The growth of the business was so rapid and continuous that ten years later greater capital and more help in management were required, and then O. C. Merriman and J. S. and L. M. Lane became members of the company. In 1909 the business was incorporated under the name of The Merriman Barrows company. This company invested largely in pine lands, logged off its own timber, banked it and drove it to the mill. A large box factory was added to the plant, and as long as its timber supply lasted the company was one of the largest manufacturing institutions in the Northwest. When the supply was exhausted the mill was dismantled, and attention was then given to an advantageous disposal of the property, which included not only the large traets of land that had been cut over but several aeres in the mill sites and yards.

The energies and business ability of the members of the company were turned into real estate channels, and all the property was in time disposed of at good prices. This com- pany was very prosperous in its operations, but it also met with some serious losses. Two immense mills were destroyed by fire and other disasters were suffered. But there was sufficient force and enterprise in the men at the head of the business to overcome all difficulties and keep the tides of prosperity at flood most of the time.

Colonel Fred Barrows platted Barrows' Addition to Min- neapolis around the intersection of Lyndale avenue and Forty-third street. The company has since erected several business and residence structures in the wholesale district of the city and has put some of the land in use under long leases, thus necessitating the continuance of the incorporation, under the influence and control of which the improvements will go on with steady progress and to great proportions, and of which he is still president.

Each of the Barrows brothers has been influential in shaping

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

the destiny of Minneapolis and raising the standards of its industrial, commercial and civic life and activities. William M. served as a member of the city board of aldermen from 1880 to 1885. His brother, Fred C., then succeeded to the office, and he has helped to settle many important municipal problems. One for which he is doubtless entitled to more credit than any other one man was limiting Minneapolis to a single street railway company.

In order that he might act intelligently on this question Colonel Barrows visited cities with competing lines and cities with but one company. He studied the matter thoroughly and found the argument in favor of one company so overwhelming that he stood valiantly for the one line system here, and finally, after considerable effort and a large amount of adverse criticism, won the day for his views, thus sparing Minneapolis the inevitable conflicts which involve competing companies, an immense amount of unnecessary trackage and various other costly and discomforting features in its street railway system. Colonel Barrows, however, demanded strict regulation of the one company allowed, and from his positive stand in this respect have resulted the unsurpassed street railway facilities the residents of Minneapolis and the adjacent territory enjoy.

With his strong desire to benefit his home community by every means available Colonel Barrows became one of the original stockholders of the Soo Railroad. He realized its value to Minneapolis, and was eager to aid all he could in its construction, although he knew from the beginning that the road could not possibly pay any dividends to its stock- holders for many years. He has largely increased his holdings in the stock of this road in recent times, and he is now enjoying some measure of the legitimate fruits of his fore- sight and enterprise in connection with it.

Governor David Clough, in 1898, appointed Colonel Barrows state inspector of oils. The colonel conducted the affairs of this office with an eye single to the public good and won general and cordial commendation by his wise and vigorous administration of its extensive and complicated duties. He served two terms on the State Board of Equalization, was also a member of Governor Clough's staff.

Colonel Barrows has been married twice. His first union occurred in 1865 and was with Miss Sarah J. Swain, of Monticello, Mo. She died in 1873, and in March 9, 1877, he was married to Mrs. Sadie J. (Bussell) Jones, she has a son Earl W. C., an attorney at law, as his second wife. His children are: Nellie, now the wife of F. R. Salisbury, of Minneapolis; Fred J., who is at home; and Frank, a well known and very successful music teacher and conductor at Antioch, California. Another son, named Harry, was deputy state oil inspector for a number of years and secretary of the state senate for two terms. He became an osteopathic physician, but died while he was yet a young man, before he had time to make his mark in his profession, as he surely would have done if he had lived.

Colonel Barrows is an enthusiastic Freemason and one of the oldest members of the fraternity in Minneapolis, having been raised to the Sublime Degree of a Master Mason in Cataract Lodge in 1859. He holds membership in all the different branches in the Order, including the thirty-second degree in the Scottish Rite and the Mystic Shrine, being connected with Zurah Temple, Minneapolis, in the branch last named. He takes an active part in the meetings and proceed- ings of the different bodies in the fraternity and is a zealous promoter of the welfare of each. In business, in public office,

in social life and in the duties of citizenship generally, he has demonstrated his great ability and genuine worth, and he is esteemed in all parts of the city as one of its best, most useful and most representative men from every point of view.

ANDREW BLAKE JACKSON.

Mr. Jackson is one of the leading members of the Minne- apolis bar and enjoys a wide acquaintance and practice throughout the state.

By birth he belongs to the sturdy sons of the soil for his ancestors were a race of Connecticut farmers for several gen- erations. These forebears were Colonists and then soldiers in the War of the Revolution. By his training he became a scholar and a professional man, having spent his school days in Brooklyn, Freeport and Utica, New York, and graduating from Hobert College, Geneva, New York, in 1870, and from Columbia Law School, New York, in 1873. Part of his years of training were spent in a law office at Utica, N. Y. His years of endeavor brought him into the wealthy professional class of Minneapolis, and developed in him the highest char- acteristics for good citizenship, and he has been one of the most enthusiastic and efficient participants in all public enter- prises which have made for the up-building of the great city of Minneapolis.

After Mr. Jackson received his degree from the Columbia Law School he practiced his profession for five years in New York City. While there he became attorney for the Bond- holders' Committee of the Kansas City Railway and spent most of his time during 1878 in Kansas City. When the Kansas City Railway was absorbed by the Union Pacific in 1880 he came to Minneapolis to engage in private practice. For a number of years he was in partnership with Judge Pond under the firm name of Jackson and Pond and later the firm name became Jackson and Atwater when he formed à partnership with Judge Atwater.

He has never sought office and has only been interested in politics so far as it was his duty as a man and a citizen. He believes in the principles of the Republican party and is an earnest student of conditions and the political situation.

A year after he came to make Minneapolis his home he was married to Eugenia Cheney Adams. They have two children living. The son, Anson Blake Jackson, Jr., was graduated from Yale University with the class of 1907 and the daughter, Margaret E. Jackson, who was a member of the graduating class from Rosemary Hall, Greenwich, Con- necticut, in 1906.

The family is popular and prominent socially, Mr. Jackson being a member of a number of the principal clubs of the city.

DAVID PERCY JONES.

The men born and reared in a community who rise to emi- nence among its people and maintain their rank are usually the best representatives of the characteristics, attributes, aspirations and achievements of the residents of that com- munity, and present in their own records most frequently an

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

epitome of its history and the sources of its progress. Among the business and public men of Minneapolis none more clearly holds this relation to the city than David P. Jones, several times its mayor, and for many years one of its leading busi- ness men, public spirits, and social ornaments.

Mr. Jones was born in Minneapolis on July 6, 1860, and is a son of Judge Edwin S. and Harriet M. (James) Jones. He was educated in the public schools of the city, being graduated from the Minneapolis High School in 1878, after which he attended the University of Minnesota, and from it received the degree of A. B. in 1883. Young as he was at his gradua- tion he felt a call to business and an impelling ambition to take his place in the stirring activities and large excitement of the mart-"in among the throngs of men."

Accordingly, he at once entered the business founded by his father in 1868, embracing real estate, mortgage loans, rentals and fire insurance. With this business he was connected under its original form and management until January 1, 1900, when it was incorporated as David P. Jones & Co., with himself as president, which he has been ever since. The business has grown and flourished from its inception, and has long held a leading place among the mercantile entities of the city, Mr. Jones being everywhere recognized as one of the best posted and most judicious men in his line, and as having excellent judgment in reference to business affairs in general.

Mr. Jones has shown this versatility and resourcefulness in his practical business operations, which embrace several enter- prises besides the one in which he began his career. He is presi- dent of the Jones Realty company and the Jones-Davis Agency, and vice president of the Hennepin County Savings Bank, and is connected in an influential way with other business under- takings of great value to the community. In every line of endeavor to which he has put his hand he has shown unusual capacity and been successful in carrying his operations to a high plane and also in making them profitable to himself and beneficial to the people around him.

This wise and progressive business man of superior talent has not confined his activities to mercantile life alone. With a good citizen's interest in the community in which he lives, he has for years taken an active part in public affairs, local and general, and has given Minneapolis excellent service in connection with the administration of its civil government in two important positions. He represented his ward in the board of Aldermen six years, and during four was president of the board. He was also acting mayor from July to Decem- ber 31, 1902, and was first elected mayor for the term begin- ning January 1, 1905. The wisdom, vigor and progressive- ness of his official administration brought him great credit and warm commendation from all classes of the residents of the city.

On May 13, 1891, Mr. Jones was married in Minneapolis to Miss Alice Gale, who was born and reared in Minneapolis. They are members of the Congregational church, and in its councils Mr. Jones is active, prominent and serviceable. He is president of the board of trustees of Carleton College at Northfield, Minnesota, and a member of the American Board of Foreign Missions. He is also a member of the executive committee of the National Municipal League. In each of these organizations he is zealous in his attention to the interests he has in charge and with reference to them all lie makes his force of character and intelligence felt.

In the fraternal and social life of the city of his home Mr. Jones has also taken a very lively and helpful interest. He is

a Freemason, a member of the Loyal Legion, and belongs to the Minneapolis, University, Six O'clock and Minikahda clubs. Ilis membership in each is highly valued and of benefit through his activity, his breadth of view and his strong and stimulating personality. There is no better citizen of Min- neapolis, and none who is more widely or favorably known for progressiveness, aggressiveness for what he believes to be right, purity of private life and genuine interest in the public welfare than the former mayor of the city, David P. Jones.

HERSCHELL V. JONES.

Mr. Jones is a native of Jefferson, Schoharie county, New York, where his life began on August 30, 1861. He is a son of William S. and Helen E. (Merchant) Jones, and obtained his education in the district schools and at Delaware Literary Institute, Franklin, New York. His trend was toward jour- nalism from early life, and in 1879, when he was but eighteen years of age he became the owner of the Jefferson (N. Y.) Courier. In 1885 he moved to Minneapolis, and here he began his journalistic work as a reporter on the Minneapolis Journal. With this paper he was connected in various capacities for seventeen years. Late in the eighties he founded his news- paper market service and became its commercial editor.

In 1901 Mr. Jones started "The Commercial West," a weekly publication which he conducted until September 1, 1908, when he became owner of the Minneapolis Journal.

Although Mr. Jones has never been an active partisan, and has never sought or desired a political office of any kind, he has been a firm believer in the principles of the Republican party from his youth, and wherever he has lived has been earnestly and serviceably interested in public affairs. He is a member of the Minneapolis, Minikahda, and Skylight clubs. On September 30, 1885, he was married to Lydia A. Wilcox, of Jefferson, New York.

SAMUEL S. THORPE.

Mr. Thorpe was born on April 20, 1864, at Red Wing, Minnesota, a son of Samuel S. and Caroline E. (Emery) Thorpe, both of New England ancestry, but with the family on the father's side long domesticated in the state of New York, while that of the mother lived for generations in Maine. The father was a Methodist minister and for a number of years a member of the faculty of Hamline University in this state. The son's educational facilities in early life were meagre, and what he obtained was just sufficient to whet his appetite to keenness for more. But the circumstances of the family compelled him to earn bread by the sweat of his brow while he was yet very young, and he entered upon the task of doing it with all his powers and stuck to it as if held by the tug of gravitation.

After a few years of sedulous industry and great frugality he was able to attend Hamline University for a time. But he could not complete the course of study at that institution, and accepting the inevitable with cheerfulness, again went to work. That is, lie went into business and at once began showing the metal of which he was made. He accumulated about $70,000 in two years, then gave up all mencantile

Pareil 8. Thorpe

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA .

pursuits and passed two years at Princeton University, from which he was graduated in 1889.

Prior to this, after serving for awhile as a newsboy, he secured a position in a hat store in 1883. During the next two years he was employed in a bank, and from that he engaged in handling real cstate, in which his success was great from the start. After returning from Princeton well fortified with the knowledge he had craved he re-entered the real estate business in association with his brother, J. R. Thorpe, under the firm name of Thorpe Bros., the style under which the business is still conducted although it is now incorporated with Samuel S. Thorpe as president of the com- pany.

Thorpe Brothers and the corporation of the same name have built a large number of the jobbing houses in this part of the city and have handled and sold or built large numbers of the wholesale and retail buildings. The company is also agent for a great many of the leading business blocks in Minneapolis, including the Andrus Building, the Palace Build- ing, the Plymouth Building, the Dyckman Hotel, and many others of magnitude and importance.

Samuel S. Thorpe is president of Thorpe Bros., real estate, incorporated, as stated above; a trustee of Hamline University and secretary of the board, and vice president of the Asbury Hospital of Minneapolis; president of the University Club and served as president of the National Association of Real Estate Exchanges. He is eminently social in his disposition, and manifests it by active, helpful and valued membership in the Minneapolis, Athletic, Minikahda, University and Auto- mobile clubs. He is also in close touch with the genius of improvement awake and at work in his community, and one of the potential factors in all undertakings started and carried on by it. Every phase of his business, locally and generally, engages his close and deeply interested attention, and he is particularly active in connection with national real estate affairs. In 1911 he was president of the National Real Estate Association, which for some time previous to that year he served as vice president. At the conventions of this association he has been for years a regular attendant, and over the one that met in Denver, Colorado, in July, 1911, he presided with distinguished ability which won him high commendation.

Mr. Thorpe was married on October 3, 1899, to Miss Margaret P. Andrus, a daughter of Hon. John E. Andrus, of Yonkers, New York. They have four children, their sons Andrus, James R., Jule and Samuel S., Jr. Besides being one of the leading business men of Minneapolis the father is one of the city's most admired and esteemed citizens from every point of view.

HON. LOWELL E. JEPSON.

Lowell Ellsworth Jepson is a scion of one of the pioneer families and was born on the old homestead in Rice county, on the 19th of October, 1863. His parents were John and Lydia (Sherpy) Jepson, the former born in New York and the latter in Ohio, where they were married and from whence they came to Minnesota in the '50s. John Jepson reclaimed a fine farm and became a substantial agriculturist and well known and influential 'citizen. During the Civil war he was a member of the First Minnesota Heavy Artillery, and his patriotism was on a parity with his sterling character. He was influential in public affairs, contributing his full quota to the development

and upbuilding of the county. He also conducted for a num- ber of years a prosperous general merchandise business at Cannon City. He passed the closing years of a long and useful life in Minneapolis, where he died on January 21, 1913, at the age of seventy-eight. He was a stalwart in the Repub- lican party, and his religious faith was that of the Congre- gational 'church.

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 95

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