USA > Minnesota > Wabasha County > History of Wabasha County : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc. : gathered from matter furnished by interviews with old settlers, county, township, and other records, and extracts from files of papers, pamphlets, and such other sources > Part 78
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ERNEST STEARNS, son of R. E. Stearns, was born in Wabasha August 26, 1860, and has spent his life in his native town, growing up in the schools and business of the town where he was born. In 1877 he began learning the business of photography, and in 1878 commenced for himself. In a short time he had the business of the city and vicinity all to himself. This was a consequence of good work and accommodating methods always practiced by Mr. Stearns.
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In 1883 he opened and has now in operation one of the most complete photographing establishments in the state. His apparatus, scenery and accessories are of the latest and most improved kind. The establishment is located in the second story of the Hirschy building, a cut of which appears in this work.
JOHN N. MURDOCH, attorney-at-law, office in the editorial rooms of the Wabasha "Herald"; practice established in this city in 1857. John N. Murdoch was born at Winchendon, Massachusetts, September 23, 1831. Graduated from Brown University, Provi- dence, Rhode Island, in the class of 1852, and took his parchments two years later from the Albany Law School, Albany, New York. He cast his first ballot in 1852, voting for John P. Hale, free-soil candidate for president, and three years later was a member ot the convention which met at St. Anthony, Minnesota, in March, 1855, to organize the republican party in the territory of Minnesota, and has voted the republican ticket ever since. Having completed his law studies Mr. Murdoch came west, and was in St. Paul one year, then removed to Red Wing, and two years later, 1857, located in this city. From 1865 to 1867 he was absent from the county, trav- eling in the south, and from 1873 to 1876 was with his family in Kansas. With the exception of these years, Wabasha has been his home since his location here in 1857. For the last twelve years Mr. Murdoch has been more or less connected with the press of the city, having had charge of the editorial columns of the "Herald " from 1871 to 1873, when that paper was owned by Sharpe & Palmer, and again from April, 1881, to date, August, 1883, at which time he appears to be solidly seated in the editorial chair. Mr. Murdoch was the first city attorney for the city of Wabasha ; he headed the electoral ticket of the state in 1864 (as elector at large) for Lincoln and Johnson, and was the city postmaster from 1869 to 1873. September 17, 1855, Mr. Murdoch married Miss Cynthia A. Baldwin, of Auburn, New York. They have four children : Mary E., born December 20, 1856 ; Wm. L., born in this city Angust 12, 1858, now and for the past eight years with the Samuel Cupple's Woodenware Co., of St. Louis. Emily T., born April 1, 1861, and who gradnated A. B. from Wellesley College, Massachusetts, class of '83. The first native of Wabasha county, so far as known, to take a full collegiate course and receive a degree. John W., born June 22, 1869, and now in school in this city.
INGRAM, KENNEDY & GILL, lumbermen and manufacturers of
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sash, doors, blinds and carpenters' material. Business of selling lumber was established here in 1861, and the planing-mill (a small affair at that time) was built in the summer of 1865. In the spring of 1867 additional machinery was put in and the manufacture of sash, doors and blinds begun. The manufactory has been practi- cally rebuilt since its establishment, through additions and improvements. As it now stands, on the corner of Second and Arch streets, it is a substantial two-story frame, 76 × 48 feet, with a brick engine and boiler honse 32 × 36 feet. It is well supplied with all necessary machinery for a manufactory of the kind. Its business is principally filling orders, little stock work being done, the demand for work leaving no opportunity for stock- ing up. The planing-mill turns out about fifty thousand feet of dressed lumber every week, and the manufactory works up the same amount every twelve months. The engine has a capacity of about fifty-horsepower. The lumber yards occupy ten lots on blocks 13 and 18 of the original town site of Wabasha ; there is closed shed- room for one hundred and fifty thousand feet of dressed lumber, and the annual sales are from four million five hundred thousand feet, stocked from the mills of the Empire Lumber Company, of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, who are largely the principals of the business. The office of the company is on the corner of Second and Walnut streets. Lumber is floated down the Chippewa and Mississippi rivers to the yards of the company at this point, and shipments are made by rail over the lines of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad and branches, upon tracks from the lines of that road running into the yards, and affording excellent opportunities for shipment. The force of the establishment here is one superintendent, one book- keeper, six hands in the manufactory, fifteen in the yards, and three teams.
MRS. ELIZABETH GILL, widow of W. Gill, is the principal resident partner. Wm. V. Gill, under whom the yards were originally established, a little over twenty-two years since, was a native of Pennsylvania. He came to Wabasha county in 1856, and worked for a time there in a sawmill belonging to Knapp, Stout & Co., of which he had charge the following season, 1857. In 1858 he ran a sawmill in this place for Jarvas Williams, and in the season of 1859 was at Eau Claire in the service of Daniel Shaw, with whom he remained two or three summers, spending his winters in this place, usually clerking. Mr. Gill married Miss Elizabeth Hoggard, of
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this city, in 1860, and with her removed to Eau Claire. During the summer of 1861, while in the employ of Daniel Shaw & Co., Ium- bermen, in charge of their large saw, he made a contract with Ingram & Kennedy, lumbermen of Eau Claire, to open a lumber yard in this city, they to supply the lumber, he to manage their business. Accordingly, in the early fall of 1861 Mr. Gill returned to Wabasha, opened the yard, afterward built the planing-mill and factory, and conducted business here until his death, which occurred March 13, 1876, at San Diego, California, to which place he had gone to recuperate his health. He was a man of most methodical business habits, universally respected, and his loss was severely felt by the business circles of the city. He left behind him a family of two sons, one daughter and his widow, all of whom are still residents of this city.
S. L. CAMPBELL, attorney-at-law ; office corner of Main and Alle- ghaney streets, Post-office building. Mr. Campbell established business in this city in the spring of 1856, and is the oldest practic- ing attorney in the county. He is a native of Chenango county, New York, was brought up on the old home farm, and followed farming until his removal to this state (then territory), in 1855. During his intervals of leisure from farm labor he pursued his legal studies, making himself familiar with the principles of law, leaving a knowledge of its practice to be acquired in the courts. He was admitted to practice at Red Wing, in this state, by the then chief justice of the territory (Welch), in the fall of 1855. When Wabasha county became organized for judicial purposes in the following spring, Mr. Campbell was appointed clerk of the United States dis- trict court for the first district, and held that office until the state was admitted to the union in 1858. From the date of the establish- ment of his law-office here, more than twenty-seven years since, Mr. Campbell has continued steadily in the practice of his profession. During these years his only law partner was E. M. Birdsey, Esq., with whom he was associated in business from 1867 to 1872, when Mr. Birdsey's health compelled him to relinquish practice, and he soon afterward died. Mr. Campbell has served the bar of the county as clerk of court and county attorney, the city as mayor, the repre- sentative district as representative in 1862, and again from 1875 to 1879.
MERCHANTS HOTEL, West Wabasha, near central depot, L. M. Gregg, proprietor. This hotel stands on the corner of Campbell
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and Seventh streets, in what is known as Wellman's survey of the city of Wabasha. the hotel property embraces four lots (7, 8, 9, 10) in block 125, facing two hundred feet on Seventh street, and having a depth of one hundred and fifty feet along Campbell. The hotel building fronts ninety feet on Seventh, sixty-eight feet on Campbell, is two stories in height, contains thirty-five rooms, twenty of them guests' rooms, and is thoroughly fitted throughout for the comfort and convenience of the traveling public. The hotel fronts southward toward the main line of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railroad, from the depot of which it is distant about one and a half blocks. A double piazza runs along both fronts, and from the south one are entrances into the office, hall, ladies' recep- tion-room and bar. The ladies' reception-room and parlors on the east form a pleasant suite of three rooms, ten feet by eighteen feet, twenty-four feet by eighteen feet, and seventeen feet by seventeen feet, respectively, equivalent to a single room twenty-five by thirty- six feet, and infinitely more pleasant. The dining-room in the rear of the office and bar is eighteen by thirty-five feet, and the adjoining kitchens are respectively eighteen by twenty feet and thirteen by twenty-four feet. A hall at the rear of the reception-room and offices communicates with the main hall and the dining-room, so that guests have access to all parts of the house, independent of the more public rooms. Double hallways, above and below, afford free cir- culation of air, all rooms being open to the sunlight, leaving noth- ing in this direction to be desired. No sample rooms for commer- cial travelers are found in the hotel, which stands too remote from the business center of town to make them necessary, but two com- modious rooms for this purpose are provided in a central location in the city, to which the proprietor runs a free carriage, for the accom- modation of his guests. The present staff of servants is nine, three men and six women. The hotel is new, having been built during the late summer, the proprietor taking possession August 15, 1883.
L. M. GREGG, proprietor of Merchants Hotel, is a native of New York, and has been a resident of this county since May 22, 1856. He was five years a resident of this city, and then removed to his farm on Greenwood prairie, on Sec. 24, T. 109, R. 12, where he purchased a tract of two hundred and sixty acres, since increased to four hundred, and on which he now has forty head of cattle, one hundred hogs and fifty head of Cotswold sheep, it being his intention to convert his farm into a stock ranch. Before remov-
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ing to his farm in 1861 Mr. Gregg was elected county treasurer and held that office during 1857-8-9. While a resident of the farm he served as county commissioner for the second district from 1867 to 1876. The following year, 1877, he was elected sheriff, and on assuming office returned to this city, which was his residence until the expiration of his second term, December 31, 1881, when he removed to Lake City and opened a hotel there, which he still man- ages. On the completion of his hotel here he returned to Wabasha, which is likely to become his permanent residence. January 14, 1865, Mr. Gregg married Miss W. Holtzer ; they have four children : Bertha L., born July 21, 1866 ; Maud A., born February 14, 1869 ; Margaret, born March 10, 1873 ; James L., August 10, 1876.
WM. S. JACKSON (deceased), one of the pioneer business men of Wabasha, was born near Brownville, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, June 13, 1832, and when he was thirteen years of age removed with his father's family to Millington, Illinois, and spent the next five years of his life upon the farm there, assuming charge of the same at fifteen years of age. At abont eighteen years of age he com- menced clerking in Millington, and followed that business some four or five years, several of his winters while on the farm and in the store having been spent at a school near Richmond, Indiana. He completed his education, so far as attending school was concerned, by a course at Jones' Business College, St. Louis, which he finished in the spring of 1856. The same season he came to Minnesota ; was for a few months in Red Wing ; then located, late in the fall, in this city, which was his home until his decease, February 8, 1882. He immediately entered the mercantile house of Campbell, Gambice & Pendletons as clerk, and continued with them until the house went down in the financial crash of 1857, when he was appointed one of the assignees of the suspended firm, and in that capacity settled up the business. The following year, 1858, he entered into partnership with S. S. Kepler, in general merchandise business, and was asso- ciated with that gentleman until he removed to Ean Claire in 1876. During the twenty-six years of Mr. Jackson's residence he acquired a considerable estate in city property and farming lands. He was one of the organizers of the Congregational church of this city - a warm supporter of all church institutions, and the efficient clerk of the church from the date of its organization to the time of his death. He was a man of warm, generous impulses, greatly beloved in the community, by whom, as well as by the church, his loss was deeply
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felt. He left one child, Fred. Jackson, born in this city August 16, 1861. Young Jackson entered the preparatory department of Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, in 1877 ; the classical course in 1879, and would have graduated in the class of 1883, B.S., had not his studies been intermitted by ill health. Mr. Jackson is now completing his course there under special arrangement with the faculty of that institute.
W. J. ARNOLD, coroner of Wabasha county since 1868 ; office with the county attorney, over Schwirtz' drygoods house on Main street. Mr. Arnold was born at Smithfield, Rhode Island, August 14, 1810 ; was educated at the academy in his native town, and came west as far as Steuben county, New York, in 1835, clerking and teaching school there until 1839. He then started a grocery and provision store in Corning, New York ; was burned out twice, and passed through the usual experiences of a young business man under two misfortunes of that kind before coming to the Mississippi in 1856, just after his second misfortune of that kind. He visited Wabasha in August, 1856, and immediately engaged to take charge of the general merchandising business of H. S. Allen & Co., of Chippewa Falls, which they had established here. He remained in their employ until they were wiped out in the financial crash of 1858. In 1859-60 he was member of the state legislature for this represen- tative district, and upon the election of Mr. Lincoln to the presi- dency was appointed postmaster here, holding office during the two terms for which Mr. Lincoln was elected, and on the termination of his services with the postal department was elected county coroner, which office he continues to hold. He was justice of the peace from 1872 to 1876, also from 1879 to 1883. October 26, 1841, Mr. Arnold married Miss Harriet N. Kress, of Covington, Tioga county, Pennsylvania. They have three sons, John K., born July 20, 1842 ; Ralph E., born December 1, 1844 ; William F., born April 21, 1850.
HERMAN AMERLAND, farmer ; lands lying in sections 3 and 4, range 10, township 110, and aggregate two hundred acres. Mr. Amerland has resided in Wabasha county on his present farm almost thirty years, having taken his claim of eighty acres as a homestead in 1854. This claim was proved np in 1858 ; forty acres were added by scrip title, and rest since acquired. The crop for 1583 was : Corn, 10 acres, yield per acre, - bushels ; oats, 14 acres, yield per acre, 40 bushels ; wheat, 12 acres, yield per acre, 18 bushels ; barley, 10 acres, yield per acre, 35 bushels ; grass, 30 acres, yield per acre,
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2 tons ; stock, 95 head. Mr. Amerland was born in Hanover, Ger- many, May 14, 1822 ; married Miss Catharine Budke, of his native place, January 2, 1852, and the following year, 1853, came to America. That winter was spent in St. Louis, and in the following June a settlement was made in the farm, which has now been the family home for over twenty-nine years. The children, all born in this county, are : Henry, born November 8, 1855, graduated from Wabasha High School in 1873, and now banking at Minto, Dakota ; Anna, born April 8, 1857 ; Lonisa, born June 23, 1859; Sophia, born March 23, 1864 ; Eduard, born January 9, 1870 ; John, born April 25, 1872; Clara, born February 18, 1875. Three of the children are in attendance at the Wabasha city school, the farm lying partly within the city limits.
W. S. PIERS, bookkeeper for the Knapp, Stout & Co. Company, is a native of Nova Scotia. He was educated in the Grammar School at Halifax, in that province, and at nineteen years of age came into Allamakee county, Iowa, his father's family settling there in 1851, on a farm eight miles back from the river. W. S. Piers' first visit was made to this county in 1854, and two years later he located on his farm, the N.W. } of Sec. 4, T. 111, R. 11 W. of the principal meridian, and was there until 1862, when he enlisted in the 1st regt. Minn. Rangers, for the Indian campaign on the frontiers, and was there until mustered ont in 1864, when he entered the service of Knapp, Stout & Co. April 19, 1857, Mr. Piers married Mary Shurtliff, of this county, whose family came here in 1856. They have seven children, five living at home. William T., born in Wabasha, January 4, 1860, and now bookkeeper for H. J. Oneil, of Winona ; L. E., born August 23, 1864, and now in the employ of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway at Wabasha ; Alice, born September 12, 1867; Albert J., born December 20, 1869 ; Walter B., born February 19, 1872 ; Blanche, born November 26, 1874 ; Jennie, born May 20, 1880.
CHARLES HORNBOGEN, furniture, hardware, farmers' tools, etc .; store on the south side of Water street, corner Main. His store fronts fifty feet on Water street, sixty-eighty on Main street, and is a two-story brick, erected in 1871. Mr. Hornberger established his furniture business in 1868 on Second street, and came to his present location in 1879. He is a native of Saxony, born in 1827, learned his trade there, and came to America in 1853. Was in New York State, Indiana and Kentucky until 1856, when he came to Read's
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Landing, and finding no work at his own trade as cabinetmaker, worked as carpenter and builder until 1868, when he opened a fur- niture store. He was married here in 1861, to Miss Gertrude Anding. There children are : Frank, born October 15, 1864 ; Alfred, born October 31, 1866 ; Clara, born November 15, 1868 ; Harry, born February 14, 1871.
LUDWIG TROUTMAN, Jr., druggist. Mr. Troutman pursued his studies in this city until he went to St. Louis to complete his course and perfect himself in a knowledge of the German language. Returning from St. Louis he entered the La Crosse Business College, from which he graduated in 1880. The same year he entered the drug-house of J. J. Stone, M.D., of Wabasha, with whom he remained until the drug-house was destroyed by fire, when he went into partnership with the doctor in the same line of trade in Argyle, Wisconsin, and was there until opening business here for himself in 1882. Before entering the drug-house of Dr. Stone, young Trout- man, who from his boyhood had evidenced a taste for the business of dispensing medicines, had been familiarizing himself with the nature of drugs, spending much of his time in the drug-house of Seeley & La Rue, of this place. It is now his intention to take a course in pharmacy at the St. Louis College, having completed the four years' preliminary service in a drug-house required in that institution.
LUDWIG TROUTMAN, lunch-house and bakery, on Water street, has been in business in this place a little over twenty-six years, and at the present location twenty-five. His business during the prosperous years of the city was quite extensive, and consisted mainly in sup- plying the stewards of the river craft. Of late years trade is more local. Mr. Troutman was born in Hesse-Darmstadt, October 10, 1831 ; learned his trade in Affolterbach, his native city, and came to America in 1851, landing in New York September 3 of that year. The next two years were spent in Pennsylvania; from 1853 to 1856 he was in St. Louis following his trade, and in the latter year came to Read's Landing, establishing himself in business here, May 1, 1857. The winter of 1856-7 was spent in St. Louis, at which time he married Miss Mary Hess, of that city. They have one child, Ludwig, Jr., born January 6, 1860, now in the drug business in this place.
N. S. TEFFT, M.D., pioneer doctor, physician and surgeon of Plainview, was among the earliest settlers of the county of Wabasha
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in the spring of the year 1856. He transferred the field of his labors from Minneiska, July 3, 1861, to his present location. The opportu- nity was afforded him at the commencement of the settlement by J. Y. Blackwell, who offered, if he would come and pre-empt a quarter- section, to provide all the money, and give him half the property so obtained; but this he saw fit to decline. He was born in Hamilton, Madison county, New York, on July 16, 1830, and received an academic education at Fredonia, Mayville and Panama. His parents, Jeremiah and Sarah (Sweet) Tefft, were descendants of the early Rhode Island families, Commodore Perry (of revolutionary fame) and his father being classmates at Newport. Mr. Tefft commenced reading medicine in 1848 with Dr. James Fenner, of Sherman, Chautauqua county, New York, whence the family moved with the doctor in embryo, at about five years of age. He attended two full courses of lectures, 1851 and 1852, in Cincinnati, graduated, and after a four years' practice at Sherman, pushed westward across the Mis- sissippi, and located at Minneiska, Wabasha county, sixteen miles from his present home. Here he officiated in the triple capacity of doctor, postmaster, and justice of the peace. Dr. Tefft held the office of county physician of Wabasha county during 1882, and some time previous for three successive years. He became a member of the first state legislature of Minnesota by election in the fall of 1857, again in 1861, and in 1871 was returned to the senate. He is a member of the state medical association, and has a reputation for miles around as an operative surgeon, equaled by few and excelled by none. In politics the doctor was originally democratic, with a strong tincture of free-soilism, so that he naturally became a repub- lican when that party sprang into existence, and in this respect his sentiments remain unchanged. During his whole life he has been conspicuous as an enterprising and influential citizen. A genius of a mechanical turn, he invented the first automatic binder that made all the motions in binding grain by machinery, and his thoroughly practical idea of the application of permanent magnates as a motive power, he gives to others of more leisure and opportunities of devel- opment. As a member of the I.O.O.F., the doctor has passed all the chairs, and at the meeting of the grand lodge of the State of Minnesota, June 5, 1883, was unanimously elected deputy grand master of the state. As a gentleman of culture, though a man of extremes in his likes and dislikes, he is at once affable and unosten- tatious, and universally admired both in and out of his profession
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for his ability and genially courteous bearing. He is a strong be- liever in the doctrine of evolution, and, as a Freethinker, does not scruple on any and all occasions to express his disbelief in orthodoxy. One son, the only child born to Dr. Tefft by his wife, formerly Miss Hattie S. Gibbs, of Plainview, to whom he was married November 10, 1866, now sleeps in Plainview cemetery in a unique miniature vault, surmounted by a marble slab bearing the inscription: To Little Clyde, only son of N. S. and H. S. Tefft, died August 17, 1870. This loss to the doctor was a severe blow, and one difficult to overcome, for to the little one he was passionately devoted.
S. OAKEY SEYMOUR, second cousin of Horatio Seymour, ex- governor of the State of New York, and first cousin of A. Oakey Hall, ex-mayor of the city of New York, is numbered among the early settlers of Minnesota State. He was born December 22, 1823, in Otsego, and attended school for some time in company with A. Oakey Hall in Bleecker street, New York city. For four years after this he clerked in the first store opened at Huntley Station, Illinois, and subsequently from 1844 to 1852 he was engaged for himself in the wholesale and retail grocery business in New Orleans. In the fall of 1856 he settled in Minnciska, and in 1879, in company with his brother Daniel, bought of. one Eddy what is now known as Plainview Bank. Prior to this, in 1872, on May 25, he married Helen M. Watson, and has now four children, two girls and two boys. He was at one time reputed to be in very comfortable circum- stances, but Dame Fortune turned the tide, so that he is left now with only a farm of one hundred and twenty acres. In 1861 he enlisted at Fort Snelling in Co. I, 1st Minn. Vols. He served in twenty-two battles, among them First Bull Run, in which he was wounded, Ball's Bluff, Yorktown and others. He lives in the enjoyment of only a trivial pension for his services.
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