History of Olmsted County, Minnesota, Part 11

Author: Joseph A. Leonard
Publication date: 1910
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 736

USA > Minnesota > Olmsted County > History of Olmsted County, Minnesota > Part 11

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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a new element entered into the politics of the State and county. The railroads, which the settlers had been so anxious for that localities voted them large bonuses for the location of their lines, had become established, and, with the elevators, had control of the transporta- tion and the price of wheat, then the main product of the farms, and almost the sole dependence of the farmers for money. They were accused of monopolizing the handling of farm products and fixing prices to the great detriment of the farmers, and anti-monop- oly became the dominant issue-monopoly being a synonym for railroad. The dominant party was held responsible for the rail- roads and for the hard luck of the farmers, and men who had for years been Republicans turned anti-monopolists and voted with the Democrats.

Leonard B. Hodges, one of the founders of Oronoco village, and an unsuccessful farmer, stumped the county, in the fall of 1870, as the Democratic and anti-monopoly candidate for the senate, and was elected over Col. Ozro P. Stearns, the regular Republican nom- inee. by less than three hundred majority. Richard A. Jones, of Rochester, who up to that time had been a Republican, also stumped the county as an anti-railroad candidate, and was elected representa- tive; while Thomas W. Phelps, of Marion township, and William Somerville, of Eyota township, straight Republicans, were also elected representatives. These gentlemen served in the legislative session of 1871.

· Leonard B. Hodges was born in the State of New York. At the age of fourteen he went to New Haven, Connecticut, working a year in a book store, then back to New York, where he worked two years in a hardware store, then he went to Saratoga county, New York, and worked on a farm and studied and taught school in the winter. In 1845 he opened a farm on government land near Rockford, Illinois. In 1846 he worked in the lead mines near Galena. In 1848 he was lumbering in the Wisconsin pineries. After getting out a fleet of lumber and running it down the Mississippi and sell- ing it, he had only $5 left after paying expenses. This he sent to his mother and went to work in some old diggings and got a "grub stake" and bought an outfit of an ox. frying pan, coffee pot, bake pan, a sack of flour, bacon, coffee, salt and a pair of blankets. With these he went to northeastern Iowa and again located a farm. He was appointed deputy United States surveyor and surveyed gov- ernment land in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. He laid out a part of his farm in town lots and named it Hardin, in honor of Captain Hardin, of Mexican war fame. In the course of his sur- veys he discovered the site of Oronoco and, in company with John B. Clark and Ebenezer S. Collins, preempted the village site. He settled on a farm adjoining the village. He served the township several years as chairman of supervisors, and was also a county

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commissioner. After his senatorial term he was employed by the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Company as superintendent of tree planting for the protection of their track through the exposed prairies. His was one of the first cases where the railroads of the state have shown their business sagacity by taking into their em- ployment those who showed force of character in opposing them. He removed to St. Paul in 1872, was made superintendent of tree planting on the Northern Pacific railroad and had trees planted along the line of that road from the Big Woods of Minnesota to the Yellowstone river. He was secretary of the Minnesota State Forestry Association. He died in St. Paul in 1883. He was a man of unusual general information and very positive convictions, and was highly regarded by the people of the county.

Richard A. Jones was a native of Indiana, born in 1831. At the age of seven years he went to Wisconsin with his father's fam- ily. He was educated at the Milton Academy and became a lawyer. He went to California by team in 1853. He practiced law there till 1859, when he located at Chatfield. He came to Rochester in 1864. After his senatorship he became identified with the Democratic party and was its candidate for representative in congress against William Windom and made a strong canvass, but was defeated.

He was reelected State representative for 1872 and again for 1879. He was deputy grand master of the Free Masons of Min- nesota. He was appointed by President Cleveland in 1887 chief justice of Washington Territory, and died there in 1888, after at- taining a high reputation as an able and impartial jurist. He was a lawyer of extraordinary readiness and resource, a strong speaker, and of social qualities that made him a host of friends.

Thomas W. Phips was one of the earliest settlers in Marion township, coming there from Indiana with his father's family in 1854. He was a farmer, had an academic education, was prominent in the affairs of the town and county, and was a representative man of the community, with a large and favorable acquaintance through- out the county. He died in June, 1899, in California, where he had gone for his health.

William Somerville was born in Pennsylvania and moved in his youth to Indiana. He was reared on a farm. He was active as a speaker in the Republican party in that state. He settled in Viola in 1860 and became prominent in local affairs. He was for three years chairman of the supervisors. He was very enterprising as a farmer, and especially successful as a fruit raiser, having one of the best apple orchards in the State. He was for several years a lecturer in farmers' institutes. He spent the last four years of his life in Rochester, where he died in 1906. He was an exemplary and public-spirited citizen.

The census of the county for 1870 showed a population of 20,321, an increase of 10,977 over the census of 1860, which was

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9,524. The population of Rochester in 1860 was 1,424, and in 1870 it was 4,544. These are official figures, but we know of noth- ing less reliable than statistics of a new country.

At the January session of the county commissioners in 1870, William D. Hurlbut, the chairman, resigned, and Charles H. Chad- bourn was appointed to the vacancy. He was elected chairman.

Charles H. Chadbourn was born in Maine in 1832. He went to California in 1851 and engaged in mining two years. He then settled in Wisconsin, where he stayed till 1860, when he came to Rochester and, with Rodney Whitney, of Massachusetts, established a private bank, doing a large business in money loaning. In 1875 the bank was changed to the Rochester National Bank and is still doing business under the management of Henry M. Nowell. Mr. Whitney died in January, 1868, aged thirty-seven years, and Mr. Chadbourn continued the business till 1886, when he moved to Min- neapolis. He was very successful in Rochester in banking and real estate transactions and, in partnership with George W. Van Dusen, did an extensive wheat-buying business along the line of the Chicago & North-Western railroad. He became prominent in the banking and real estate business in Minneapolis. He died in May, 1900.

The legislature of 1870 passed a law submitting to the vote of the people the question whether the 500,000 acres of internal improve- ment lands belonging to the State should be applied to the payment of the repudiated State bonds issued for the building of railroads under the $5,000,000 loan act of the territorial legislature. The question was voted on in May, 1870. The vote in Olmsted county was 844 for and 409 against the proposition. The townships of Cascade, Haverhill, Marion, New Haven, Quincy, Rochester and the village of High Forest voted against it, all the rest of the county in favor.

The result in the State was a majority for the measure of 5.843 out of a total vote of 30,671.

As late as December, 1874, Michael Pierce brought to Rochester a deer which he had shot near Oronoco.

The County Commissioners for 1871 were Frederick T. Olds, of Rochester; George W. Wirt, of Oronoco; E. H. Dewey, of Dover; A. Burnap, of Orion, and Eugene S. Wooldridge, of High Forest. Mr. Olds was elected chairman of the board.

Frederick T. Olds was a son of Judge Olds, the proprietor of the stone mill in Rochester, and after the death of his father was with Thomas L. Fishback, one of the owners of the mill. He was a native of Kentucky and came to Rochester from Iowa in 1857. He was mayor and was afterwards alderman of Rochester and served a term as a member of the legislature in 1874. He removed in 1878 to Dakota and later to Tacoma, where he died in 1900. He was a thorough business man of faultless character and greatly respected.

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Emery H. Dewey was a farmer of Dover township. He was a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1835. He moved to Illinois in 1855, located in Dover in 1856 and died there in May, 1908. He was a well-to-do farmer, held several township offices, was of excel- lent character and deservedly popular.

Alvares Burnap was a native of New Hampshire, born in 1831. He located a farm in Orion in 1854 and was a leading citizen of the township. He was chairman of supervisors from the first organization of the township. He served two terms as commis- sioner and was a representative in the legislature in 1876 and again in 1878. He was an excellent farmer, and was one of the first to enter into the raising of thoroughbred stock and did much to develop that branch of industry. He was very charitable and held the highest esteem of the community. He died in October, 1902.

In 1871 Andrew C. Smith, of Rochester, was appointed collector of internal revenue for the First District and held the office a num- ber of years. He was born in New York State and removed from there to Illinois and then to St. Paul, where he and two brothers built the first saw mill in Minneapolis. He afterwards lived at Winona and at Stockton. He was a member of the legislature from Winona county in 1867. He came to Rochester in 1866 and was secretary of the Farmers' Insurance Company. In 1872 he formed a partnership in the insurance business with Marion G. Den- ton. He was succeeded in the collectorship by A. C. Wedge, of Albert Lea, and afterwards removed to Tacoma, where he died in April, 1905. He had a very extensive acquaintance and was very popular and influential in Republican politics.

Rev. Sylvester N. Phelps was elected chaplain of the house of representatives at the session of 1871; the same session in which his brother, Thomas Phelps, was a representative. He was one of the first settlers of Marion township, coming there with his father's family in 1855. He was a native of Pennsylvania and a Methodist preacher. He enlisted in the Sixth Minnesota Regiment and after his service preached in various parts of the State till about ten years ago, since which he has resided at Windom, Minnesota, where he is still living.

In November, 1871, James A. Ellison, of Salem, was elected sheriff; O. O. Baldwin, of Rochester, court commissioner; Alfred Blanchard, of Rochester, coroner, and Peter Hoganson, of Rock Dell, county commissioner. All Republicans.

Sheriff Ellison served three terms and Commissioner Hoganson three years.

James A. Ellison was born in Indiana. He had the misfortune while a child of losing his forearm by the explosion of a powder flask. He came to Salem in 1855 and located on a farm. He held the local offices of supervisor, justice of the peace and constable.

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Inilo Rohit

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At the close of his service as sheriff he returned to his farm and in 1891 moved to Indiana.

Oscar O. Baldwin was a native of Ohio. He graduated at Ober- lin College and taught school at Cleveland. He came to Rochester in 1861 and taught the public school in the old court house, and afterwards opened a law and insurance office and was court com- missioner for several years, county attorney and alderman of Roch- ester. He was an intelligent and estimable gentleman. He died in May, 1889.

Peter Hoganson was born in Norway in 1834 and came to this country in 1854, settling in Illinois. He went to California and came to Rock Dell in 1864, where he became a leading farmer and was kept continuously in township offices by his neighbors. He died in January, 1904. His son, Tobias Hoganson, is cashier of the First National Bank of Stewartville.

In the apportionment of legislators made in 1871 Olmsted county was allowed two senators and four representatives, and in the ses- sion of 1872 Milo White, of Chatfield, and O. S. Porter, of Roch- ester, both Republicans, were senators, and Arthur H. Gaskill, of High Forest township, and Thomas B. Lindsay, of Oronoco, Re- publicans, and Peter Finton, of Viola, and Richard A. Jones, of Rochester, Democrats, were representatives.

Milo White is a native of Vermont. He was a farmer boy and when eighteen years old became a clerk in a store. After such em- ployment for five years in Vermont towns he went to the city of New York, following the same occupation. In 1855 he came to Chatfield and in 1856 opened a store in that place, which has been in continuous business longer than any other in Fillmore county. Chatfield is divided by the county line, and while Mr. White's resi- dence is in Olmsted county, his place of business is in Fillmore county. He has done a large and successful business both at Chat- field and at times in Eyota and St. Charles. He was first chairman of the township supervisors, has been village president and has been treasurer of the school district fifteen years and of the village sev- eral years. He was reelected senator at the end of his first term and again in 1880. He was representative in congress two terms, from 1883 to 1887, and being the only member of the committee on agriculture having a personal knowledge of the creamery business, he was one of the three who perfected the oleomargarine bill, which passed in 1886 and became the first national law regulating that business. Though not now in active business he is, at the age of seventy-seven, a leader in the community and has the respect of the people of a large district in southern Minnesota.

Orson Gage Porter was born in the State of New York in 1829. He was a sailor for six years of his early manhood and circum- navigated the globe. He then returned to Canandaigua, New York, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1861. He came to

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business in Eyota. He was Sergeant at Arms of the Senate four years and for fifteen years one of the board of trustees of the State penitentiary, and much of the term president of the board. He was several terms president of the village of Eyota. He was commander of Custer Post and junior and senior vice commander of the Minne- sota Department of the Grand Army of the Republic. He was socially and politically popular and had a large acquaintance throughout the state. He died at Eyota in July, 1908.

J. W. Cunningham was a native of Ohio. He went to St. Paul in 1863 and engaged in the stationery business in Rochester a few years later. He again removed to St. Paul.

The following were the new county officers elected in November, 1873: Register of Deeds, Lyman E. Cowdery, of Rochester, Demo- crat; Treasurer, J. Lyman Wright, of Cascade, anti-Monopolist; Judge of Probate, John W. Fulkerson, of Marion township, Demo- crat; Clerk of the Court, Harvey T. Hannon, of Rochester, anti- Monopolist; Coroner, Hector Galloway, of Rochester, Democrat; County Commissioners: Joseph Tait, of Pleasant Grove, anti- Monopolist, and Michael Kepner, of Quincy, Democrat.

Lyman E. Cowdery was born in the State of New York and lived in Ohio and Wisconsin, coming to Rochester in 1865. He was for several years a dealer in lumber and a grain buyer. He was elected Mayor of Rochester in 1879. He removed to Kasson, where he was proprietor of a grain elevator, and from there to Minneapolis, where he is now living. He was very popular in politics and enterprising in business.

J. Lyman Wright, a native of the State of New York, was a successful farmer in Cascade township, where he was a Justice of the Peace and held other local offices. After two terms as Treas- urer he became a resident of Rochester. He was Representative in the Legislature in the session of 1891. His health failing, he moved in 1904 to Missoula, Montana, where he died December 1, 1907.

Rev. John W. Fulkerson is a Virginian by birth. He was brought up on a farm and received an academic education, and at the age of nineteen became a preacher of the United Brethren denomination. He spent twelve years in preaching in Virginia and Maryland and came to the village of Marion in 1856 as a mis- sionary. For ten years he visited many parts of southern Minne- sota as a preacher, and in 1866 located on the farm in Marion, where he still lives. He served two terms as Judge of Probate. He has preached only occasionally of late years, enjoying a respected old age. He is now in his eighty-seventh year. County Treasurer John F. Fulkerson is his son.

Harvey T. Hannon was born in Ohio in 1848, and came to

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Oronoco township with his father's family in 1857, living on a farm. He attended the Rochester schools and the Michigan Uni- versity. He served two terms as Clerk of the Court. He after- wards removed to Seattle, and spent some time in Alaska, and is now living in Seattle.

Joseph Tait was born in England in 1836 and came to America with his father's family in 1852, locating in Illinois. They came to Minnesota in 1855, settling in Pleasant Grove township. He enlisted in the Third Minnesota Regiment, and served nearly four years. He was a farmer highly respected by his neighbors. He moved to Spring Valley and died there in February, 1901.

Michael Kepner settled on a farm in Quincy township in 1856, and became one of the leading men of the township, highly regarded for the excellence of his character. He died in 1888 aged seventy- nine years. His sons, John H., who at one time was in business in Rochester and is now living at Pipestone, and George, who was a farmer in Quincy, now living at Dover, have both been inventors and dealers in farm machinery.

The change in domestic fuel from wood to coal may be said to have begun here in the fall of 1873, when several car loads of the black fuel were brought to Rochester, and the hardware dealers laid in stocks of coal stoves. The price of coal that winter was $12 a ton. For nearly twenty years wood had been the only fuel, and as Nature, in providing for the future, had planted enough timber to supply the population but had not distributed it for the future con- venience of the prairie settlers, the cutting and hauling of the year's supply of firewood in the freezing winter weather was one of the meanest of their hardships, some of them having to haul it as far as fifteen miles. The increasing use of wood sawing machines and of the burning of coal are great rural blessings.

It was not till 1877 that the locomotives on the Winona and St. Peter railroad were changed from wood burners to coal burners.

In 1860, when wood was abundant, before Rochester had con- sumed the forests of New Haven and Kalmer, wood sold in that city for from $1.75 to $2 a cord. It sells now, in 1907, for from $6.50 to $7 a cord.

The financial panic that swept the country in 1873, following the failure of Jay Cooke and the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, was severely felt here and especially in knocking down the selling price of wheat below the cost of its production. It was one of the factors leading to the abandonment of wheat growing, which had been the main branch of farming.

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THE ROCHESTER STATE HOSPITAL.

T HE Rochester State Hospital is the outgrowth of an attempt to establish a state institution for the cure of drunkards. In 1873 a law was passed taxing all persons selling liquor $10 a year for the creation of a fund for the support of an inebriate asylum, on the theory that the liquor sellers were respon- sible for the creation of drunkards and should, therefore. contribute to their cure. The law did not tax any other class of drunkard makers.

At the session of 1875 a bill introduced by Senator Davids was passed locating the asylum at Rochester, and a board of seven direc- tors was appointed by Governor Davis, of which J. A. Leonard was the local member.

The imposition of the tax was strongly opposed by those con- demned to pay it, and the question of its constitutionality, it being contended that it was class legislation, was carried to the Supreme Court, which sustained its constitutionality, but the opposition was so great that in 1878 the institution was changed to the Second Insane Hospital, of which there was need, the one at St. Peter being overcrowded.

In the meanwhile $35,000 of the tax had been collected and a site had been purchased. The farm of Jacob Rickert, of 160 acres, adjoining the city of Rochester on the east, was bought for $9.000.

The location was not worthy of a town so surrounded by sightly elevations as is Rochester, being originally flat and unattractive; a majority of the directors cared more to get a good farm than to secure a handsome site. But by cultivation and taste it has been made a beautiful park-like domain and a favorite drive for the city.

In 1877 the erection of the inebriate asylum was begun, and what is now the central building was under way when the change to the insane hospital was made. In 1878 the insane hospital was organ- ized by the appointment of Dr. J. E. Bowers, assistant superin- tendent at St. Peter, as superintendent, and Rev. A. H. Kerr, from the same institution, as steward. It was opened for the reception of patients January 1, 1879, with a hundred patients and the following staff of officers: Superintendent, Dr. J. E. Bowers; steward, A. H. Kerr; farmer, Horace Loomis; assistant farmer, F. A. James; engineer, William West; cook, H. H. Owens; laundress, Lou. Briggs; seamstress, Louise Loomis; watchman, S. M. Wattring; chambermaid, Mabel Matheson; attendants, Louise Clouse. James Debar. James McConnel. Q. P. Briggs.

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Dr. J. Eaton Bowers was born in Canada in 1871. He gradu- ated in the University of Toronto and received the degree of master of arts. He was teacher of French and German in the London Collegiate Institute. He graduated from the medical department of the Michigan University. He became first assistant in the insane hospital at St. Peter, and by the death of Dr. Schultz, the superin- tendent, he succeeded to the charge of the hospital, after which he spent nearly a year in Europe in the study of insanity, visiting about forty insane hospitals, and returned to the St. Peter Hospital and served more than ten years.

After his resignation from the Rochester Hospital he removed to St. Paul and afterwards to Duluth, where he is now living. There has never been at Rochester a gentleman more highly respected or more greatly esteemed by all who know him.

Rev. Aaron H. Kerr was a native of Pennsylvania, born in 1819 He became a Presbyterian minister and preached several years in Indiana and in Dubuque, coming in 1856 to St. Peter, where he built up a very prosperous church, of which he was the preacher for twenty-two years. He was also, for five years, superintendent of the public schools of Nicollet county.

He served three years in the War of the Rebellion as chaplain of the Ninth Minnesota Regiment, and was distinguished for his care for and kindness to the men needing any help. He was a trustee and afterwards secretary of the St. Peter Insane Hospital, and on the establishment of the Rochester Hospital was made its steward. He died in 1890.

A most unfortunate occurrence took place at the hospital on April 1, 1889. A negro named Taylor Combs had been sent as a patient from Stillwater penitentiary to the hospital in 1887. He was serving a thirty-year sentence for rape, and was a powerful, desperate and incorrigible brute. He had been troublesome at the hospital and was considered dangerous. On this occasion he was assisting in cleaning the ceiling of one of the wards and got into a quarrel with two of the attendants, August Beckman, from Oronoco township, a German of about twenty-five years, and Edward Peter- son, a Norwegian, of Rochester, of twenty-three years. In handling the patient the attendants were rough and injured him so that he died within a few hours. His breast bone and some ribs were broken. probably by Beckman either falling or jumping on his chest. The attendants agreed on a story that Combs had fallen from the platform and thus received the fatal injuries. Superintendent Bowers reported the case to Coroner Morse, who investigated it and, accepting the statements of the attendants as true, did not con- sider the holding of an inquest necessary. The body was shipped to the family of the patient at St. Paul.

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History of Olmsted County, Minnesota, Part 11

Author: Joseph A. Leonard Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Number of Pages: 736

Author: Joseph A. Leonard
Publication date: 1910
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 736