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 3
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OSCAR G. LINDBERG has been a resident of Duluth and environs for over a third of a century, and for many years has been active in business affairs at Hibbing, where he is now a member of the real estate and insurance firm of Dyer & Lindberg.
He was born in Sweden July 18, 1875, and was eleven years of age when in 1886 the family came to the United States. The parents were Abraham and Maria Lindberg, who located at Duluth. The father died in 1918 and the mother in 1907. Three of their five children are still living. Oscar G. Lindberg attended school in his native country, also at Duluth, but at the age of fourteen went to work and for five years was in the service of Dr. Charles Slaughter of Duluth. Incidental to his other work he took up the study of medicine in the doctor's office, but abandoned the intention of becoming a physician. For three years he clerked in a drug store, later went on the road as a traveling salesman, and in 1911 came to Hibbing and was president of the wholesale liquor house of the Mesaba Wholesale Liquor Company until the liquor business was abol- ished. For two years he was in the automobile business, but since April, 1918, has given his time to the firm of Dyer & Lindberg. This firm has handled many of the real estate deals at Hibbing, South Hibbing and the farming district of St. Louis County. They sold about four hundred and fifty lots in South Hibbing.
Mr. Lindberg was elected a member of the Village Council in 1917 and served one year. He is a Republican, affiliated with the Improved Order of Red Men and the Elks, is a director of the Commercial Club and attends the Catholic Church. On November 18, 1903, he married Minnie Lana, of Duluth.
JOHN RUNQUIST has been building railroads in the northwestern coun- try for over thirty years. He is one of the principal railroad contractors whose home and headquarters are at Duluth, and altogether he has been a factor in the good citizenship of this community for thirty-three years.
Mr. Runquist was born in Sweden in 1862, and was reared and edu- cated in his native country. In 1885 he came alone to America and em-
JOHN RUNQUIST
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ployed his modest capital and experience as a farmer at Hastings, Minne- sota. He left the farm to become a foreman for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad while a branch of that line was being constructed in northern Dakota. He left the Burlington to take a similar post with the Great Northern Railroad, and for three years was a foreman at different points along that system. In 1887 Mr. Runquist came to Duluth, and for the following twelve years was foreman of construction on the Duluth and Iron Range. Since 1898 he has maintained an independent organization for railroad building and contracting, and handled some important contracts at the beginning for the Duluth and Iron Range and later for the Duluth and Mesaba Railway. He has also constructed and improved streets, made sewers, and handled other municipal contracts in the Morgan Park district of Duluth. He built the Duluth and Mesaba street car line, has done much contracting for the Great Northern Rail- way, and a large part of his facilities are now employed in road building in a number of the northern counties of Minnesota.
Mr. Runquist is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, also an Elk and a Republican in politics.
WILLIAM H. DAY. No community can be sounder than the men who control its commercial life, for upon their energy and integrity rests the stability of existing institutions. To. have lived for years in one locality, and during that period conducted a concern with high-minded purpose, supplying the demand, and expanding with the growing needs of the populace, indicates an ability which is deserving of commendation. Wil- liam H. Day, the oldest established merchant now in business at Hibbing, is a man who has every reason to be proud of his long and successful career, and his fellow citizens accord to him a respect his honorable policies have won.
William H. Day was born at Plattsburg, Clinton County, New York, August 8, 1864. His parents, Cyrus and Mary ( Robinson) Day, were farmers, and for generations both families have resided in the United States. Both parents are now deceased, but their influence still lives. in the upright actions of their son. Mr. Day was reared on the home farm in his native county, and as a boy attended the district schools and helped with the work of conducting the homestead. In 1890 he came west, look- ing for broader opportunities, and arriving at Duluth, Minnesota, decided to remain there, and for two years was employed in a furniture factory of that city. In June, 1893, he left Duluth and came to Hibbing, and asso- ciating himself with the mercantile firm of O'Leary & Bowser of New Duluth he established a branch house at Hibbing under the name of O'Leary, Bowser & Day, with quarters on Pine street. While he was not the first merchant in the new village, he was among the first. The store he opened was on the site of the present Merchants & Miners State Bank, at the corner of Pine street and Third avenue. The firm occupied half of the store building owned by James Gandsey, the latter occupying the other half with a stock of groceries. O'Leary, Bowser & Day car- ried a stock of men's furnishings and some dry goods. In 1895 the firni bought the lot at what is now 208 Pine street and erected the present building, which they occupied. In about 1896 O'Leary and Bowser sold their interests to Frank Halvert, and the firm became Day & Halvert, which association was maintained for two or three years, when Mr. Day bought out his partner and has since continued alone, having been at his present location for twenty-five years.
Mr. Day has taken a constructive part in the wonderful development of Hibbing, participating in all of the movements from its birth to the present time. When he came here it was but a little settlement of but a
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few inhabitants. There were no sidewalks, no light or water plants, in fact nothing in the way of improvements except those made by the per- sons buying land and putting up small buildings. He has witnessed the changes of more than a quarter of a century, and during that period the meager beginnings have been transformed into the Hibbing of today. Mr. Day has been an integral factor in effecting these remarkable changes. In the early days of Hibbing he served as town clerk, and subsequently has been on the School Board. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and was a charter member and one of the organizers of Forest City Lodge No. 143, K. of P.
In 1908 Mr. Day was united in marriage with Amanda Shellman, of Fergus Falls. Minnesota, and they had one daughter, Elizabeth Inger. Mrs. Day died July 11, 1911, and was deeply mourned not only by her family but a wide circle of friends. Mr. Day is a man who has always understood the fundamentals of commercial life, and possessed the will and resourcefulness necessary to develop to the utmost his opportunities. He is not only a prosperous man, but he has always given bountifully of his means and time to the advancement of his community and has en- deavored to support those ideals and standards which go to make the real American citizen.
JOHN SHAMBEAU. Success in the highly specialized field of life insur- ance is perhaps the best tribute that can be paid to one's commercial qualifications, since it involves necessarily the highest personal integrity and intelligent enterprise. A striking success in this line has been achieved by John Shambeau, who came to Duluth a dozen years ago and is now general agent for northern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin representing the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company.
Mr. Shambeau was born at Two Rivers, Wisconsin, October 20, 1876. He came to Duluth June 10, 1908, to engage in the life insurance business as general agent for the above named company. Up to that time the Massachusetts Life Insurance Company had practically no insurance in force in St. Louis County. It was a virgin field so far as this old com- pany was concerned. Mr. Shambeau and a partner under the firm name of McNally & Shambeau went to work and in a few years had demon- strated the quality of their enterprise and their untiring vigor in writing insurance, and their agency came to be considered the largest and most active life insurance agency in the city in point of volume of insurance written and maintained. In 1920 the partnership arrangement was dis- solved, and since then Mr. Shambeau has assumed sole charge of the Duluth agency, which covers the territory of all of northern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin. At the same time he has associated with him several very active insurance men, and they are assisting him in main- taining the very creditable record established by the agency in the past.
Mr. Shambeau since coming to Duluth has identified himself with the best interests of the city and the citizens, was a member of several patri- otic organizations during the World war, and was one of the organizers of the New Lion Club, a civic organization composed of some of the finest types of Duluth American citizenship. He is also a member of several other clubs and commercial and fraternal organizations.
JAMES A. STARKWEATHER made a definite choice of a career as an educator when a young man. For all the financial sacrifice that such a choice imposes he has compensating satisfaction and honors during the nearly twenty years he has devoted to his work in the schoolroom and in administrative offices. Mr. Starkweather has been connected with the
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school system of Duluth for the past four years and is assistant super- intendent of schools.
He was born at Divernon, Illinois, December 30, 1876, son of Daniel H. and Sarah (Utt) Starkweather, the former a native of Illinois and the latter of Kentucky. Old records show that the first American Stark- weathers were established in Boston as early at 1640. Professor Stark- weather's grandparents drove an ox team and rode in a covered wagon all the way from Vermont to Jersey County, Illinois, where they were pioneer settlers. His maternal grandparents were Kentucky pioneers.
Mr. Starkweather's father is still living and is one of the oldest resi- dents of Sangamon County, Illinois, in which is located the state capital, Springfield. His life has been expressed in substantial industry and posi- tive and earnest convictions and influences that tend to elevate the stan- dard of living in American communities. For twenty-one years he served as justice of the peace in his township and for twenty-four years on the district school board. His business has been that of farming. He cast his first presidential vote for Abraham Lincoln and has never deviated from Republican principles. Perhaps his greatest interest has been his religious life and for many years he has been a leader in the Baptist Church of his community and has helped establish three other Baptist Churches in the county. Mr. Starkweather of Duluth says: "My earliest recollection of father is that of his early rising Sunday morning when we all prepared to drive five miles, often through mud hub deep, to the Sunday School."
Next to the youngest in a family of four children, all of whom are still living, James A. Starkweather had the environment of a southern Illinois farm during his boyhood and attended country schools. At the age of eighteen he entered the Academy of Shurtleff College at Alton, and in six years he completed the equivalent of four years' high school and four years' college work, graduating valedictorian of his class in 1901 and with the A. B. degree. From Shurtleff College he entered directly into his chosen vocation, taught at Albion, Illinois, and in September, 1902, removed to Kalamazoo, Michigan, and was identified with the school life of that city fifteen years. He was a teacher in high school, then grade school principal, and finally junior high principal. While at Kalamazoo he continued his studies through vacation periods, and in June, 1917, was awarded the Master degree at Columbia University, New York.
Mr. Starkweather was called to Duluth as principal of the Lincoln Junior High School in September, 1917. About a year later, in Novem- ber, 1918, he was chosen for special work for the United States govern- ment in the Department for Rehabilitation of Soldiers, and continued in that work during the months immediately following the war. In August, 1919, Mr. Starkweather assumed his present duties as assistant superin- tendent of schools.
He is a member of Ionic Lodge of Masons at Duluth, the Curling Club, the Commercial Club, the Ridgewood Golf Club, and in politics is a Republican.
FRED B. JAMES is a pioneer of Ely. His name and activities have been closely associated with every constructive phase in that community's progress. He has done his share as an independent business man and also as a public official. He is the present city assessor of Ely. He entered that office in 1916, and the responsibilities of his office have greatly in- creased during his administration, the best index of which is the fact that the assessed valuation of property in Ely has increased during that time from $1,939,000 to $4,984,000.
Vol. III-2
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Mr. James was born in Cornwall, England, September 30, 1866, son of Charles F. and Amelia (Harvey) James, the former a native of Corn- wall and the latter of London. His father was in the jewelry business at Truro, Cornwall. When Fred B. James was a child the family came to America and settled at Evansville, Indiana, later at New Harmony, Indi- ana, and from there removed to Decatur, Illinois, where Charles James died in 1888, at the age of seventy-three. After his death most of the family removed to Chicago.
Fred B. James acquired his early education at New Harmony, Indiana. At the age of fifteen he began an apprenticeship to learn the painter's trade with his uncle, S. C. James, at Evansville. As a journeyman or contractor Mr. James was in the painting business altogether for a quar- ter of a century. His business experience had a wide range, including work and residence at St. Louis, in the Dakotas and at Chicago, and he first 'came to the Ranges of northern Minnesota with his uncle, H. R. Harvey. H. R. Harvey was a distinguished character in the mining dis- trict, having had charge of the exploration work on the Ranges during 1873-1889 and also performed preliminary services before the opening of the Zenith and Pioneer Mines at Ely.
Fred B. James first came to the Ranges in 1886, and lived here until 1892. The following eight years he spent in North Dakota and four years in Chicago, and in 1904 returned to Ely, where he resumed his business as a painter and contractor. Mr. James helped survey the townsite of Ely, also to build the first house, and signed the petition for the incorpora- tion of the village. He was for three terms a member of the City Council. A public service to which he was greatly devoted was the five years he spent as state game warden. In the discharge of his duties he traveled all over the Lake district. Mr. James is regarded as a competent authority on all the historical events that have transpired in this section of the Range country. He is a Republican, and his family are Catholics.
In 1891, in North Dakota, Mr. James married Alice L. Cadieux, daughter of Louis Cadieux. Her mother was a McCluskey, a niece of the first American cardinal, Mccluskey. Louis Cadieux came from France, while his wife was born at Toronto, Canada. Mr. and Mrs. James have six children. Fred C. was with a Minnesota regiment on the Mexican border in 1916, and after helping train four outfits he went overseas to France with Battery A of the 125th Field Artillery with the rank of top sergeant. He was near the battle front when the armistice was signed. He is now in the electrical supply business at Escanaba, Michigan. The second child of Mr. James is Mercedes, wife of Albert Prisk, of Ely. John H. lives at Ely. Alice is the wife of H. C. Liffingwell, of Minne- apolis. Marjorie and Natalie, the youngest, are still in the home circle.
HON. HUGH FAWCETT, a representative from Duluth in the Legisla- ture, has been a resident of the city nearly forty years, and independently or working with others has been identified with a large and important plan of building construction, including many of the prominent features of the city's architecture both of the modern and pre-modern period.
Mr. Fawcett was born in England August 17, 1861. He is of English Puritan ancestry, and his father was also a leading contractor, living at Blackburn, where the family had resided for several generations. Hugh Fawcett came to America alone in 1881, and for six months was em- ployed as a carpenter, a trade he learned in England, at Toronto, Canda.
In 1882 he moved to Duluth, and has ever since been engaged in some phase of the building business. For two years he was foreman for John Waddell, and then became associated with the firm of Waterworth & Fee, contractors, during the construction of the Lincoln School and the Duluth
Hugh Fawcett
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Central High School. Following his work on these school buildings he was engaged as superintendent of construction by the Duluth Board of Education in 1890. Under his superintendency were erected the Adams, Monroe, Jefferson, Webster, Bryan and Fairmount Schools. He resigned as superintendent of construction to engage in the contracting business with Mr. H. Pearson, under the name Pearson & Fawcett. To this firm are credited the building of the Public Library and a number of large structures in the city. Since the dissolution of the partnership Mr. Faw- cett has continued business alone, and has developed a highly expert and adequate organization for handling the best class of building contracts. Much of his work has continued in school building construction, and the record includes the high school, county building and grade school at Two Harbors, the Courthouse at Hibbing, the Public Library at Buhl, the High School at Tower, and many of the modern structures on Superior street in Duluth. The present program on which his organiza- tion is engaged includes the erection of two school houses, the Franklin and the Liberty, at Duluth, and a grade school at Mckinley, Minnesota. For a number of years Mr. Fawcett's business headquarters have been in the Mesaba Block in Duluth.
An able business man, known as an organizer and executive, Mr. Faw- cett had every qualification for good work in the Legislature. He was elected and has served during the 1919-21 session in the House of Repre- sentatives from the 58th District. His attitude as a legislator is reflected in the deep interest in the Compensation Law, the Soldiers' Bonus and the law regulating cold storage as a factor in the high cost of living problem, the theory being that reducing the time for storage would prevent hoard- ing of products from the markets. He was opposed to the Tonnage Tax. Mr. Fawcett is affiliated with Palestine Lodge No. 79, A. F. and A. M.
On November 13, 1883, in the Baptist Church of Duluth, he married Miss Emily King, whose people came from England. She has been greatly devoted to her home and family through all her married life. Four children were born to their marriage, Emelia, William, Fred and Gilbert. Emelia is Mrs. William Killgore, living in the Bergman Flats. William died of typhoid fever. Fred is foreman of bricklayers in his father's organization. Gilbert is private secretary to a railway executive in California. All the children were given high school educations.
CHARLES ZALMON WILSON has been identified with the citizenship of Duluth and St. Louis County for only half a dozen years, but had long training and increasing responsibilities in the service of the United States Steel Corporation elsewhere, and his special qualifications as a mercantile manager were the reasons for his selection for an important post under that corporation in the Duluth district.
Mr. Wilson was born at Scottdale, Pennsylvania, November 25, 1876, being the youngest of a family of six children, four sons and two daugh- ters. His father, Perry B. Wilson, was a man of great strength of char- acter and benevolent disposition, was a cooper by trade in the days when the work of that craft was done exclusively by hand, and was regarded as a genius in that line. He was of Scotch parentage and was born February 20, 1834, and died September 8, 1913, when nearly eighty years of age. He had lived for forty-five years on Walnut Hill, a beau- tiful home a mile east of Scottdale. During the Civil war he served as a volunteer of the 85th Pennsylvania Volunteers, enlisting in Company K of that regiment under Captain H. Zalmon Ludington (for whom his son was named), and Colonel Joshua B. Howell, on November 6, 1861. Among the battles in which he participated were the siege of Yorktown ; Williamsburg, May 5, 1862; Bottom Bridge, May 20th; Fair Oaks, May .
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21st; seven days retreat, June 26th-July 1st; Fredericksburg, December 13th ; White Hall, December 17th; Blackwater and Savage Station. In one battle the small finger on his left hand was shot off, and he con- tracted rheumatism that disabled him for work the rest of his life. He was honorably discharged on a surgeon's certificate of disability February 17, 1863. November 15, 1892, the family was presented with his war record as an object lesson of patriotism. This record is an easel monu- ment now highly prized by his son, C. Z. Wilson.
Perry B. Wilson married Sarah Clark April 26, 1863. She was born in County Down, Ireland, June 24, 1843, coming to this country when nine years of age. She died February 20, 1907. Her memory is cherished as that of a good mother, industrious in the home, and she constantly derived pleasure for herself by helping others and through her interest in church duties. Of the six children of these parents a daughter, Elmeda B. Wilson, died at the family residence on Walnut Hill November 6, 1916, at the age of forty-three. A son, Harry C. Wilson, who was prom- inent in business and social affairs, died at Greensburg, Pennsylvania, July 30, 1917, survived by his wife and one grown daughter. The living members of the family are: Mrs. Elizabeth Heney, of Scottdale; Abram C., superintendent for the Pennsylvania Rallroad Company at Pitcairn, Pennsylvania, married Ida M. Flack and has a family of seven children ; Chester R., engaged in the hardware, automobile and insurance business at Avonmore, Pennsylvania ; and Charles Z.
Perry B. Wilson in politics was a Republican. Throughout western Pennsylvania he was well known for his loyalty to party and his broad knowledge of public affairs. He was never known to miss casting his ballot at all elections, and at times got out of a sick bed to be driven to the polls.
Charles Z. Wilson was deprived of the opportunities of a college edu- cation, but attended the little country school on Walnut Hill, where he gained knowledge of the fundamentals of reading, writing, spelling, gram- mar, arithmetic, geography, history and physiology. He had abundant opportunity to work, and industry, together with the courage to dare to do, have perhaps been the chief features of his success in life. During school vacations he worked in coal mines. On completing his common school education at the age of sixteen he received a county school super- intendent teacher's certificate, with a high percentage, though on account of his youth he was unable to qualify as a teacher. This led him to apply for work in a grocery store, and he began driving a delivery wagon, later was promoted to clerk in the same store at $20 a month, and before the year was out he joined A. Overholt & Company's general store at West Overton, Pennsylvania, the same locality, by the way, in which the late steel magnate, Henry Clay Frick, was born. While there Mr. Wilson gained a general knowledge of all lines of merchandising, and after the day's routine of duties he did book work for the firm at night. This was the sphere of his activity until he resigned to go to war, enlisting with the 10th Pennsylvania Infantry at the beginning of the Spanish-American war. He was rejected because he was under weight, and a month after leaving the store he entered business for himself, buying the shoe stock of Byrnes Brothers on Pittsburgh street, Scottdale. He handled this en- terprise very successfully for two years, then sold out to Charles Herbert, of Scottdale, and began what has proved a long and uninterrupted service with the United States Steel Corporation. He was first assigned to the general store at Hazlett, Pennsylvania, ten months later was commis- sioned with the duty of opening a store at Alverton in that state, and after getting the business properly stocked and organized and in a little less than a year was again transferred to a new store at Marguerite, Penn-
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