USA > Minnesota > St Louis County > Duluth > Duluth and St. Louis County, Minnesota; their story and people; an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, educational, civic and social development, Volume III > Part 23
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Mr. Bickford was born at Stanwood, Michigan, on the 23d day of August, 1876, and is a son of Edward E. and Mary (Collins) Bickford, the former of whom was born at Augusta, Maine, August 4, 1856, and the latter was born at St. Louis, Ohio, in 1856. The father was for many years actively identified with the lumbering industry in Michigan, and he is now deceased, his widow being a loved member of the home circle of her son Albert E. of this sketch. With the exception of three years passed in the public schools of Minneapolis Albert E. Bickford has gained his education entirely through self-discipline and active association with the practical affairs of life. He was long connected with newspaper work, and this association has been consistently termed the equivalent of a lib- eral education. When but five years old he was a vociferous and inde- pendent newsboy and bootblack in the city of Minneapolis, and at the age of thirteen years he assumed the dignified office of printer's devil in the office of the Gogebic Iron Record at Ironwood, Michigan, he having there gained his knowledge of the printing business and his association with this paper having continued until he came to Virginia. Mr. Bickford is one of the best-known and most popular citizens of the Virginia community.
RICHARD HODGE as a boy in Cornwall began mining work in the famous tin mines of southwestern England, but for more than a third of a century has been a practical and expert mine worker in the mining district of Michigan and northern Minnesota, and for many years past has been connected with the Shenango Furnace Company's Mines at Chisholm. He is now a superintendent of the Shenango Mine there.
He was born in Cornwall, England, September 18, 1865. His father, Charles Hodge, had come to this country in 1862, and for two years was employed as a miner in Ogden County, Minnesota. He determined fully to realize his ambition to become an American citizen and returned to England for the purpose of bringing his wife to America. He was unable to persuade her to leave her native country, and eventually he gave up his cherished hope of coming to America and lived in England
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and followed the mining business until his death in 1895, at the age of sixty-five. He had married Ellen Hicks, also of Cornwall, in 1856.
Richard Hodge was the sixth in a family of nine children, and six of them are still living. Nearly all his education was acquired in the school of practical experience. He was ten and a half years of age when he first went to work in a tin mine "on the floors." A few months later he was "broken in" to practical mining operations as his father's partner, working two thousand feet under ground. He went through that working apprenticeship for two years, then served in a similar capacity with another man, and by the time he was fifteen he was a fully qualified miner and for the next five years had his own partner.
In 1886, when about twenty years of age, Mr. Hodge took passage on the steamship Oregon and on the 13th of February of that year landed at New York Harbor. Ths first mining place to attract him was Ishpem- ing, Michigan, where for three years he was employed as a miner at the old Lake Angeline Mine. Leaving there, he and four companions made a trip as far west as Butte, Montana, and put in much of their time study- ing the varying methods of mining, and information he acquired during that investigation has always been of great value to him. After an absence of six months he returned to the Lake Angeline Mine. and remained there until he had completed a veteran's service of about twelve years.
He left there at the direction and as a result of the personal selection by Captain Walters, then general manager for the Jones-Laughlin Mining Company, as the concern was known in Michigan, though in Minnesota it is the Interstate Mining Company. Captain Walters employed Mr. Hodge to come to the Mesaba Range, where for three years he was shift boss. Capt. Henry Tallen, mining captain of the Shenango Mine, then induced him to enter the service of that company, and the first three years he was shift boss, was then promoted to captain in 1908, and the follow- ing year was made general mining captain, an office and title he held for about three years. Since September, 1911, he has been general superin- tendent of this mine, one of the largest and most important in the Chisholm district.
Mr. Hodge acquired American citizenship as soon as practicable after coming to this country and as a voter has been identified with the Repub- lican party. He is affiliated with the Masonic Order in Hematite Lodge No. 274, is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and belongs to Sir Humphrey Davey Lodge No. 244 of the Sons of St. George.
July 11. 1891, he married Miss Gertrude Hamburg. She was born in Norway July 12, 1871, and was a child when brought to this country. To their marriage were born the following children: Ellen Johanna, Freda Charlotta. Frederick Charles, two daughters each named Lillian Elsie, the first having died at the age of eighteen months, and Richard.
The son Frederick is an ex-service man, having enlisted at Duluth March 4, 1917. at the age of twenty. He was sent to Corpus Christi, Texas, for training with the Fifth Engineers, and accompanied that organization overseas to France in August, 1917, landing at Brest, and was gradually moved to front line operations. He was on active duty for sixty-six days. After the armistice was signed he returned to the United States on board the vessel George Washington at the same time as the Presidential party of Mr. Wilson.
ARCHIBALD W. GRAHAM, M. D. Medical science in the twentieth century has reached great heights, and the natural question may arise,
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why is this true? A comprehensive enough answer, however, would require much space in the telling, and, after all, it may be sufficiently summed up in the statement that twentieth century physicians are largely responsible. To gain eminence in the medical profession today a physi- cian must be an inexhaustive student, a daring experimenter and an assured scientist. Not every earnest student of medicine finds time or opportunity for such profound studies, but his trend is in that direction, and it is usually found that the best informed man in any community on every subject will be the general medical practitioner. Attention may thus be called to Dr. Archibald W. Graham, who is prominent professionally and a foremost citizen of Chisholm, Minnesota, with a practice that extends to other points.
Doctor Graham was born October 10, 1879, at Fayetteville, North Carolina, and is a son of Alexander and Kate (Sloan) Graham. Both parents were born in North Carolina and both are of Scotch-Irish extrac- tion. They were married in 1877, and Doctor Graham is the second of their family of nine children. His father is still active as a lawyer although in his seventy-sixth year, the family home still continuing to be in Columbus County. Archibald W. Graham attended school at Charlotte and was graduated from the high school in 1897. He secured his medical education in the University of North Carolina and the University of Maryland, being graduated from the former institution in 1901, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and from the latter in 1905, with the degree of Doctor of Medicine. During his senior year in the medical school of the University of Maryland he was demonstrator of anatomy.
During 1906 Doctor Graham did post graduate work in pathology in Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, and spent the three succeeding years as an interne in the New York Post Graduate, the Lying-in, the Willard Parker and Columbus Hospitals. In 1909 he came to Chisholm and was associated here with Rood Hospital until 1916, since when he has carried on a general practice, spending two months of each year in post graduate work, specializing in the New York hospitals in the eye, ear, nose and throat, his patients in Chisholm being benefited by his observa- tion and experience.
Doctor Graham is an enthusiast on out-door sports and gives a measure of credit for his athletic build and uniform sound health to the good for- tune that in boyhood and youth he was a ball player, in which he made a somewhat notable reputation. While attending medical college he played on the baseball and football teams, and during the summers of 1905 and 1906 played professional baseball, being outfielder on the New York National League team. After coming to St. Louis County he served one year as health officer at Chisholm.
Doctor Graham was married September 29, 1915, to Miss Alicia Madden, who was born at Rochester, Minnesota, and is of Scotch-Irish ancestry. Dr. and Mrs. Graham are members of the Presbyterian Church. In his political attitude he is a Democrat, and fraternally is a Mason, belonging to Hematite Lodge No. 274, Free and Accepted Masons, at Chisholm.
EDWARD P. TOWNE. No member of the Duluth bar occupies a higher position in the estimation of the people than does Edward P. Towne, attorney. During his years of practice here he has built up a large clientele and is regarded as an exceedingly safe counselor in all matters pertaining to legal questions. It speaks well for any man who may have the confidence of the people to such an extent that he is regarded as specially adapted to the settlement of estates and matters of equity. His
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services are likewise in large demand where the drawing of intricate papers is involved, especially incorporation affairs, and he enjoys not only the respect and confidence of his professional brethren, but the good will of all with whom he has had dealings.
Edward P. Towne was born June 16, 1867, at Canandaigua, New York, and is the youngest of the four children born to the union of Edward P. and Eliza H. (Eddy) Towne. On the paternal side the ances- tral line runs back to Scottish origin. Mr. Towne's father was a lawyer by profession, following that vocation in Chicago, Illinois, from the time of being admitted to the bar until his death in 1867, at the early age of thirty-three years. Edward P. Towne received his elementary education in the public schools of Troy, New York, later attending the Mohegan Lake Military Academy at Peekskill, New York, and Union College at Schenectady, New York, where he was graduated in 1888, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts ; his alma mater conferred on him the degree of Master of Arts in 1891. He graduated from the Albany Law School in 1890, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, and immediately there- after went to Chicago, where for about two years he was managing clerk for John P. Wilson. In 1892 Mr. Towne came to Duluth and engaged in the practice of law, in which he has been engaged here continuously since, his practice consisting principally of real estate, probate and cor- poration law. As a lawyer, he evinces a familiarity with legal principles and a ready perception of facts, together with the ability to apply the one to the other, which has won him the reputation of a sound and safe prac- titioner, and by a straightforward, honorable course he has built up a large and lucrative legal business, being financially successful beyond the average of his calling.
Politically Mr. Towne gives his support to the Republican party. From 1898 to 1902 he rendered effective service as a member of the Health Board of the city of Duluth. From 1900 to 1902 he was on the staff of Governor Van Sant, with the rank of colonel, and subsequently he became a first lieutenant and adjutant, captain and major of the Third Battalion of the Minnesota Home Guards. In religious faith he is a Presbyterian. On November 7, 1900, Mr. Towne was married to Rachel Moon, and they are the parents of three children, one son and two daughters. Because of his professional success and his splendid personal character Mr. Towne is held in the highest esteem throughout his community.
THORWALD B. HAMRE. Northern Minnesota offers some of the most unsurpassed opportunities to the alert and capable business men to be found in the country, and because of this men of superior caliber have been attracted to this region. Coming here thoroughly imbued with a determination to wrest a fortune from the forces of nature, they have been rewarded for their efforts way beyond their original expectations, although to some of them success has come along other lines than those first entered. Thorwald B. Hamre is one of the men of Hibbing who has found prosperity in the Mesaba Range country, and is now conducting one of the leading mercantile establishments of this region, and is con- nected with a number of other important enterprises.
Mr. Hamre came into the world in a far-away land, for he was born in Norway, December 30, 1879. He is a son of T. T. Hamre, who was a farmer. Losing his wife when Thorwald B. Hamre was very small, T. T. Hamre, with his four children, emigrated to the United States in 1883, having been induced to make the long and venturesome journey by his brother, then living in the southern part of Minnesota. Upon his
THORWALD B. HAMRE
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arrival in the state T. T. Hamre bought 160 acres of land in Lyon County and began to farm. On this farm he spent the remainder of his life, dying in 1901, five years after he had taken out his naturalization papers.
It was on the farm in Lyon County, Minnesota, that T. B. Hamre was reared, and he attended the neighboring schools. After the death of his father he remained on this farm, conducting it on his own responsibility for a time, but left it for Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he worked in a bakery for some months, a part of his duties being the delivery of bread. The winter he was twenty-one he went into the woods near Sandstone, Wisconsin, where he started to work as a lumberjack, but his experience at this was very brief. Mr. Hamre then spent a few months in a lumber camp at Ramsey, Michigan. Following this experience he returned to Minneapolis and resumed work delivering bread. As the summer season advanced he went to Cottonwood, Minnesota, and worked as a harvest hand, and from there went on to Duluth. In 1902, after a short period spent in a lumber camp, he came to the Mesaba Range and was employed for a short period by the Bailey Lumbering Company near Virginia. Subsequently he looked after an engine on the Great Northern Railroad, and from there he traveled to Buhl and there cut wood for a time, until he secured a job piling timber at the Grant Mine. His next position was firing a boiler for a stationary engine, and later he operated a hoisting engine for the Interstate Mining Company.
Returning to his old home, he spent two years in farming and operat- ing a pool hall, but then returned to Buhl and resumed work with the Interstate Mining Company. For the next few months Mr. Hamre was engaged at various kinds of work, having toward the last charge of a night shift operating the electrical department. He then came to Carson Lake, Minnesota, and helped to install the electric plant of the Leetonia Mine, and upon its completion became foreman of its operation. While he was thus engaged he with Earl Bracegirdle started a small store at Carson Lake. Some two years later Mr. Bracegirdle was made post- master, and the postoffice was kept in the store, and this attracted addi- tional trade, and the business flourished. Having decided to study medi- cine, Mr. Bracegirdle wanted to attend medical college, and so sold his interest to Mr. Hamre, who also assumed the duties of postmaster. He added to the original building, greatly increased his stock, added all kinds of merchandise and a meat market, and prospered greatly, but did not continue to be postmaster after President Wilson was elected. Mr. Hamre is still engaged in operating this large establishment, and his trade shows a healthy increase with each year. He is also a director of the Security State Bank of Hibbing and the Hibbing State Bank at South Hibbing, is a stockholder in the Chisholm State Bank, the Buhl State Bank, the Mountain Iron State Bank and the Keewatin State Bank.
One June 23, 1917, Mr. Hamre was married to Geraldine Guthrie, of Blooming Prairie, and they have one daughter, Mary Helene. Mr. Hamre is a Republican, but not very active in politics. He is a thirty- second degree and Shriner Mason. He also belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Algonquin Club of Hibbing. Mr. Hamre had one idea in view during the many years he worked for others and that was to secure a business of his own. With that object in view he worked and saved. His beginning was a modest one, and good man- agement was required at first to keep things going, but it was not long before the way was clear, and after that he had no trouble in expanding. It is his firm belief that if a man is willing to work and save almost any- thing is possible, especially in this glorious Mesaba Range country. To
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him it is the finest location in the world and he is vitally interested in its further development, and has the utmost faith in an expansion of all interests upon a much larger scale than has heretofore been made.
ALFRED MERRITT. (Autobiography. Duluth, Minnesota, January 1, 1917.) My father came to the Head of the Lakes on the sidewheel steamer North Star on the 3rd day of July, 1855, this being her first trip through the locks at Sault Ste. Marie. She came through what is now known as the Superior Entry, between Minnesota Point and Boland's Point, the lat- ter now being called Wisconsin Point. He came to erect a saw mill to be built on Conner's Point for Newell S. Ryder.
The Indian Treaty had been made in the fall of 1854 at La Point, ceding practically all of the northeastern part of Minnesota to the Govern- ment. My father took a squatter right on a piece of land, which after the survey was made proved to be a part of what is now West Duluth. The survey was made during the winter of 1856. After making the squatter claim he had to have his family come up the lake to hold the land. Mother was living at Austinburg, Ashtabula County, Ohio, at which place there was an Institute where my four older brothers had attended school. Mother packed the household goods and shipped them to Superior. Wisconsin, care of the Hanna, Garrison Company, by way of Cleveland, Ohio. She took us five younger boys and started for the Head of Lake Superior. Brother Lucien, one of the three older brothers, started before us to drive our old black cow to Cleveland so that we could take her up on the boat with us.
When we got to Cleveland we found that we had missed the boat, and we then had to wait eight days for the Propeller Manhattan. Capt. Lyman Spaulding was master, the first mate, I do not remember his name, and the second mate they called Big Mouth Charley. My brother Lucien walked back to Austinburg to school before we left on the boat.
We five boys kept mother pretty busy, I guess, looking after us. Leondias and I being the oldest, walked over the whole city of Cleveland and Ohio City, the latter being really a part of Cleveland, but separated in 1856. I well remember Perry's monument and the parks. The city was small then.
It must have been about the 18th of October that we took the boat for that far off land, away up in Minnesota. I remember mother's friends saying to her, "What are you going away up to Lake Superior for? Why you will freeze to death up there." We had a fine trip all the way through Lake Erie, through the St. Clair river, past Detroit, and on through Lake Huron. Well do I remember how beautiful it was all the way up the St. Mary's river. I recall that we took on a lot of wood at Rosebury Island, and then more at Whiskey Bay, above the canal. The Indians were camped all along the St. Mary's river, and at the falls they were spearing whitefish, which for us was a wonderful sight. After we left Whitefish Point we boys wanted to see a storm. In about four hours we had all that we wanted, but the storm did not stop, and all of us were very sick, with the exception of mother. I recall that we made port at Grand Island, Marquette, Copper Harbor, Eagle Harbor, Ontonagon and La Point. Bayfield and Ashland were not in existence at that time.
We passed through the Old Superior Entry into Superior Bay about 2 o'clock P. M. on the 28th day of October, 1856. I wish that you could have seen how beautiful the Head of the Lakes looked at that time. It was practically in a state of nature. The Indians were there with their wigwams scattered up and down Minnesota and Wisconsin Points, with the smoke curling from the top of the wigwams, and their canoes skim-
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ming along the waters of the bay or hauled upon the shore. Fish and game were in abundance. Tall pines and hard wood trees were growing on the hill sides and down to the water's edge, and with the leaves of the hard- wood trees turned as they were in the fall, what a beautiful sight it was. I have many times wished that I had a picture as it looked then, or a gift of language to describe the beauty of the Head of the Lakes as I saw it as a boy nine years old.
My brother Napoleon was at George R. Stuntz's dock at the end of Minnesota Point, and when we passed the dock he jumped in the old Mackinaw boat and rowed over to Old Quebec Pier at Superior. The steamer had to go up the bay nearly two miles before she could turn to come to the dock, that being the channel at that time, so my brother beat us to the dock. On landing we met father and Mr. Edwin F. Ely and the Rev. James Peet, and you can well imagine how glad we were to see father and my brother Napoleon. Mother and my three youngest brothers stayed that night at Mr. Peet's house and also Mr. Ely's house. They lived at that time at what was called Middle Town at Superior. We all got in the Mackinaw boat and rowed up to Mr. Ely's house and all landed there except a man by the name of McCoy, and my brothers, Napoleon and Leondias, and myself. We rowed on up to old Oneota, and I recall my legs were too short to reach the bottom of the boat. We landed on the shore between what is now Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth avenues, West, at the foot of the old saw mill log slide. I now own that particular ground.
On landing there the first man that I remember of seeing was Edwin H. Hall, the next were John G. Rakowsky and Andrew Reefer. Mr. Hall was dressed in a red shirt with a white bosom, a red sash, broad cloth pants and fine boots. He was a regular frontier dandy.
The house in which we lived was built on Block 29, Oneota. There was just a small clearing of perhaps one-half acre, and all the rest was covered with pine trees clear up and down the bay. There was only one place on the side hill where one could climb up to see over the trees and look into Wisconsin and up and down the river, and out over the four points, Rices, Conners, Minnesota and Wisconsin, into Lake Superior. Even at what is now known as the Point of Rocks one could not see out. Mr. Ely had cut a trail through the pine woods to a rock bluff that was called the Mountain Sight, where you could look right down Forty-sixth avenue. West. From this bluff one had a fine view of the whole country at the Head of the Lake. The view from there looking over the tops of the trees from this place at that time could never be forgotten. It is fixed in my memory and often I close my eyes and let the old scenes pass once more. The autumns especially were beautiful, with the turning of the leaves over on the South Range, which was covered with hardwoods and evergreens trees, no axe having marred nature at that time, there being hardly a tree cut from Minnesota Point to Fond-du-Lac.
As a boy I knew every man and woman on this side of the State Line. In Minnesota along the bay front, at the end of Minnesota Point, besides the lighthouse there were eleven houses and sheds in addition to Stuntz's Dock and Warehouse. R. H. Barrett was in charge of the lighthouse, and I remember that a man by the name of Fargo lived in one of the houses. Then as you went to the base of the point there was not a house until you got nearly to where the canal now is. There were fifteen build- ings, mostly small dwelling houses, and one old up and down saw mill which had been run a little and which had been built by George Nettleton. On the main shore at the foot of Minnesota Point, east and west, but almost to the east of the Point, there were twelve houses, including Sidney
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Luce's house and dock. As you went west there was one claim shanty owned by F. A. Buckingham on the west side of the creek by the same name. East of Chester creek there were only two houses, both of them claim shanties. At Tischer's, now Congdon's, there was one house. There was no road up or down the North shore of Lake Superior or St. Louis Bay or the river to Fond-du-Lac, nothing but Indian trails.
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