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 95

Author: H.H. Hill and Company. 4n
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill & Co.
Number of Pages: 1176

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 95

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and worked in a butcher-shop three years ; for past nine years has kept a barber-shop - last two with a partner. February 22, 1865, he was united in marriage with Miss Caroline Culver, who was born in Walnut, Illinois. They have one adopted daughter, Bertie, born July 16, 1880. Mr. McMillin is district G.D.M.W. in the A.O.U.W. He is chief of the Lake City Hook and Ladder Company, and has had many narrow escapes in the pursuit of his duty.

LOUIS FREIHEIT, farmer, was born in Worsetz, Prussia, Decem- ber 1, 1835. He remained there on a farm till twenty-five years old, when he came to America, and engaged in farm labor in Green Lake county, Wisconsin. He came to Chester in 1866, and bought one-fourth of section 11, which he has handsomely improved. It was unbroken when it fell into his hands, but is now under the plow, and graced with large and handsome buildings. At one time Mr. Freiheit was three thousand dollars in debt, but is now independent. He was a charter member of St. John's Lutheran church, and is now treasurer of that body. Politically, has always been a republican. He was married in June, 1871, to Angell Stemmenn, who was born in Hanover, Germany. Their children were born and christened as follows : June 16, 1874, Henry ; May 9, 1876, Emma; June 5, 1883, Lena.

FERDINAND FREIHEIT, farmer, is a brother of the last subject, and was born in the same place in April, 1845. In 1865 he emigrated to Wisconsin, and came thence to Chester four years later. He was engaged in farm labor till 1873, when he bought one-fourth of section 2. This was wild at that time, and he proceeded to subdue it. He has built a comfortable house and large barn at a cost of fourteen hundred dollars, and a granary that cost three hundred dol- lars more. Jannary 1, 1877, he married Minnie Knaap, whose birthplace is within two miles of his own. He is a republican, and all his family has been baptized in the Lutheran church. There are four children, given as below: Clara, May 14, 1879; William, Angust 5, 1880 ; Theodore, July 5, 1881; Emily, April 12, 1883.

CAPT. J. H. MULLEN, attorney-at law, admitted to practice at the spring term of the district court, held in Wabasha, in 1883. Capt. Mullen, as he is universally called, came to this county in 1866, the year after the war closed, and in which he had seen over four years of active service, having enlisted June 5, 1861, and being mustered out in August, 1865, as captain of Co. C, 12th regt. Conn.

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Vol. Inf. The captain saw service with Gen. McClellan on the peninsula ; was with Butler's forces at New Orleans, with Bank's command at Port Hudson, and on the Red River campaign; with Grant at Petersburg, and the battles around Richmond; then with Sheridan in the Shenandoah valley, returning with him to Peters- burg, and participating in the closing struggle of the war at Five Forks; was with the army in the grand review at Washington, and being ordered to Savannah, Georgia, did not go immediately north, but was in the service until Angust, when they returned home and · were mustered out at Hartford, Angust, 1865. The following year, 1866, located in Wabasha, and has since been engaged in trade, merchandising and farming. His farming operations are carried on along the line of the Hastings & Dakota railway, where he has a tract of about thirteen hundred acres seventy miles west of St. Paul. April 15, 1874, Capt. Mullen married Miss M. B. Downer, daughter of John B. Downer, one of the old pioneers of Wabasha county. Mrs. Mullen has a decided talent for painting, which has been to some extent cultivated, and work on canvass and silk is really artistic, and would do no discredit to a collection of genuine merit. Some of her decorative work on panels, in water colors, is exquisite in color and naturalness. Two children have been born to the captain and his wife : Carrie, born October 10, 1875; Downer, born May 20, 1880.

JOHN SPRINGER was the son of a German farmer and butcher, and was born in Cassel, Germany, May 11, 1844. He spent the usual time acquiring a rudimentary education in the common school of the Fatherland, and then learned the trade of blacksmithing, after which he entered the army to serve the allotted time, but at the close of the second year of his military life, he deserted, and took passage at Bremen for America. In the month of December, 1866, he landed at Castle Garden, and at once hastened west to Oakwood township, Wabasha county, Minnesota, where a brother was engaged in agricultural pursuits. He proceeded to erect a shop in Bremen, and worked at the forge here for four years, then worked in Winona . for a few years, after which he again resumed his trade in the little shop at Bremen for another period of four years. The spring of 1876 he disposed of his Bremen property, and came to Plainview, where he opened a shop. Five years later he opened warerooms, and began to handle farming implements. He was married in 1870, to Angusta Beyer, daughter of Frederick Beyer, a pioneer farmer of

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Zumbro township. Five children are the fruit of this union, viz Frank, Willie, Mary, Johny, Bertha. Mr. Springer was pos master at Bremen under President Grant's administration. Is a re- publican in polities, a member of the Plainview Lodge of Odd- Fellows.

EMRIC POLSON, farmer, was born in 1835, in Sweden. He is the eldest son of Paul and Julia Polson, of Sweden. He lived in Sweden, at home until twenty-two, when he came to America, and settled in Illinois. After three years he enlisted in the 8th Ill. Cav., and served one and one-half years under MeClellan and Burnside. He was discharged and came to Minnesota and enlisted in the 2d Minn. Cav., and served in Gen. Sulla's expedition to the Yellow- stone and Bad Lands. After this remarkably long saddle service, he returned to Minnesota in 1866, and settled on his present farm, a quarter-section of fine land, nearly all cultivated. He is working into stock-raising as fast as possible. He was a member of the Grange. He is a member of the Norwegian Methodist Episcopal church. He is justice of peace and supervisor at present. In polities he has always been republican, and is one of our influential and enterprising citizens. He was married in 1879, to Sophia John- son, a native of Sweden. They have eight children.

LAWRENCE WILLIAM APPEL, a Highland farmer, resides on a fine farm of two hundred and forty acres in West Indian Creek valley. He was born in Baden, Germany, September 17, 1842, his parents being. Adam and Catherine (Eekert) Appel. In 1845 Mr. Appel, Sr., died of yellow fever in Texas, and two years later the widowed mother emigrated with her family to Mercer county, Pennsylvania, where she engaged in agricultural pursuits. Lawrence working on her farm summers, and attending winter schools until he reached his twentieth year, when he went to Franklin county, Pennsylvania, and learned the blacksmith trade, which he followed in the oil regions and railroad shops for several years in Meadville, Pittsburgh, Sharon and Middlesex. He was in Pittsburgh at the time the raider Morgan menaced the peace of that city. While on a visit to his brother Stephen, in Highland, in August, 1866, he was induced to open a blacksmith-shop, near what was then known as Hampe's Mill. In 1869 he bought the farm where he now resides, from E. Lathrop. November 11 of the same year he was married to Mar- garet Arvilla, daughter of George and Elizabeth (Brawley) Harncame, natives of Pennsylvania, and Wabasha county pioneers. M. Appel

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is a member of the Catholic church. He was a member of the board of supervisors in 1880.

EVANDER SKILLMAN, miller, has been a resident of Wabasha county since the spring of 1856, at which time he came here with his parents. The latter were natives of Suffolk, Suffolk county, New York. The family is of Dutch descent. The great-grandfather of this subject, Thomas Skillman, had a son, Thomas, whose son, Francis M., married Jerusha Rogers, and dwelt thirty-two in the in the town of German, Chenango county, New York, where he tilled a farm and taught school during the winter. Here was born Evander Skillman, on May 12, 1838. He was given a common- school education, and a farmer's training. In October, 1861, he enlisted in the 3d Minn. Inf., and was made first lieutenant of Co. G. He was soon commissioned regimental quartermaster. At the battle of Murfreesboro, in July, 1862, he was made prisoner with the regiment, but soon paroled. Returning to this state, he went on an expedition against the Sioux, on Red river, and was in several skirmishes with them at Fort Abercrombie. After being exchanged, he returned to the south, and was detailed in the early spring of 1864, as quartermaster of the 113th U. S. regt. of colored soldiers. He participated in the capture of Vicksburg and Little Rock, and in the battle of Fitzhugh's woods, on the White river. After the close of the war of the rebellion, Mr. Skillman served on the Texas frontier, and was discharged on April 6, 1866. In the fall of that year he opened a general store at Mazeppa, which he sold out six years later. In 1873, in partnership with a brother, he built Trout Brook mill, on section 19, Chester, and has operated it ever since. He has thirty-four acres of land where the mill stands, and eighty acres near by, which he tills with the assistance of his sons. Wlien only twenty-one years old, he was elected town superintendent of schools ; while in Mazeppa, he was two years village justice ; has also been elected justice and town clerk in Chester several terms. His political preferences are republican, and religious ideas liberal. He is a member of the Masonic order. In 1865 Mr. Skillman was united in marriage to Edith, daughter of Elijah Lont, of Mazeppa. They have five sons, born as follows : Francis E., April 28, 1867 ; Murray E., February 10, 1871 ; Stephen P., June 22, 1873 ; Foster, May 10, 1879 ; Dwight, December 23, 1881.

LAWRENCE POWERS, farmer, was born in County Waterford, Ire- land, in 1818. In 1846 he espoused Johanna Nash, and soon after

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emigrated to America. He first went to Michigan, where he resided for several years. In 1868 relatives in Highland township, in Wabasha county, induced Mr. Powers and his family to come to Minnesota. The same year he purchased from Edward Nash the farm on section 7, Highland, on which he now resides, and which. by hard labor and with the assistance of his sons, John and Patrick, he has greatly improved, one hundred and thirty-four acres of the quarter-section which comprises it being now in a high state of cul- tivation. The death of Mrs. Powers occurred here February 16, 1879. There were seven children born to this couple, three of whom, namely, John, Patrick and Margaret, reside with their father at home. Mr. Powers and his family are members of the Oakwood Catholic church. In politics father and sons are alike independent.

OLIVER GIBBS, JR., horticulturist, Lake City, whose name is familiar throughout southern Minnesota, and as well known in the office of the executive of State as in the humble cottage of his near- est neighbor, was born in the State of Vermont in 1832. He is a son of Oliver and Zilpha (Thomas) Gibbs, and on the paternal side a lineal descendant of Israel Putnam. Like his father, he was reared on a farm, where his time was divided between agricultural labor and attending the common country schools of the Green Mountain State. He learned the printer's trade in the office of the Rutland (Vermont) "Herald," and first started in business for him- self at Prescott, Wisconsin, in the publication of the "Transcript " in 1855, in company with Charles Young, now of Minneapolis. He also served Pierce as clerk for five years previous to the outbreak of the war, and in 1861 enlisted as battalion adjutant, 2d Wis. Cav., under Col. C. C. Washburn. After about one year's field service he was transferred to a confidential clerkship under Sec. Stanton, which he resigned in 1869 on account of failing health, contracted while in military service. The same year he removed to Minnesota and permanently located in Lake City, where he at once engaged in horticultural pursuits. He is now in his third year's service as sec- retary of the Minnesota State Horticultural Society, being elected at their last meeting, in January, 1884, by acclamation. He was the representative of this state at the nineteenth biennial session of the American Pomological Society at Philadelphia, in September, 1883, where he was awarded and returned to Minnesota the Wilder silver medal for the best collection of apples and grapes from any part of

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North America. In 1884 he was appointed United States commis- sioner to represent the State of Minnesota at the cotton centennial and world's exposition at New Orleans, Louisiana. The most im- portant part of Mr. Gibbs' official duty as secretary of the State Horticultural Society is the compiling and editing of their annual report, a bound volume of five hundred pages. This is at present the only society connected with agriculture in Minnesota which, under the auspices of the state, publishes an annual report. Mr. Gibbs was married June 2, 1856, to Miss Rose Martin, a native of Vermont. Their children's names, in the order of their birth, are : Zilphia M., wife of Ed. R. Converse, of Palatine, Illinois ; Lottie, now a clerk in the pension office at Washington ; Nettie May, now Mrs. Frank Jackson, of Lyon county, Minnesota, and Maggie and Oliver, Jr., at home.

HON. HENRY BAUMGARTEN is descended from German parents, and was born in Germany November 16, 1848. His education was obtained in the common schools of his native country, and the bal- ance of his youth was spent in the usual duties of farming. When about twenty years of age he came to this country and settled at first at Reedsburg, Wisconsin, in the summer of 1868. At this place he was engaged in farming. In 1874 he removed to Wabasha and worked one year for Lucas Kuehn, and started in the hotel business in 1878, having carried on the same until the present with good success. In 1883 he was elected representative from this dis- trict to the general assembly of the State of Minnesota by the democracy of Wabasha county, and was a member of the engross- ing committee. In 1874 he was married to Emma Scholtz. He is a member of the I.O.O.F. and Turn Verein.

MYRON AUGUSTINE BALDWIN (deceased). The demise of this highly-esteemed citizen was to Lake City what the death of President Garfield was to the nation. He was born in Sheldon, Wyoming county, New York, May 21, 1832, and died of cerebro-spinal fever in Lake City, February 23, 1881. His parents, Eleazer and Rachel (Martindale) Baldwin, removed with their family from Sheldon to Varysburg in 1843. The next year the father died and the family returned to their farm in Sheldon, and kept together till 1851. Mr. Baldwin, then in his nineteenth year, engaged as a clerk in the store of Hon. Wolcott J. Humphrey, and in 1854 went to Wallingford, Vermont, to serve in the employ of his uncles, Edwin and William Martindale, the former of whom he in time bought out, and thus

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commenced business for himself. His mercantile pursuits were con- tinned in Wallingford till 1868, when he sold out, and with a view to recuperating his failing health, removed to Minnesota, perma- nently locating in Lake City. Here he soon regained his health sufficiently to embark in active business pursuits, and from that time till overtaken by his last illness he was one of Lake City's most active and esteemed citizens. November 1, 1873, he was made a director in the Lake City Bank, and in 1876 transferred his interests to the First National. He was then made one of its directors, and before the close of the same year was made its president. In April, 1880, he was elected mayor of the city as the people's candidate. During his residence in this city his principal vocation was dealing in live- stock, and only those who were his intimate friends could form an adequate conception of the magnitude of the business transacted under his personal supervision. With this great strain of mind and body, and with a physical constitution insufficient to endure the labor which his extraordinary brain devised, it was evident to those who best knew him that his work was too great for him. Nevertheless he remained in the business harness till but a few hours before his death. Upon the announcement of his death the flag on the council chamber was placed at half-mast, and as a further mark of respect the business-men throughout the city closed their doors on the day of his burial, and formed one of the largest funeral processions ever witnessed in this city. The directors of the First National Bank met and passed the following resolutions :

WHEREAS, our immediate associate and friend, M. A. Baldwin, the president of this bank, was removed by death on the twenty-third of this month from our number ; therefore,

Resolved, that we recognize in this an agreeable companion and a valued and honored friend, and that we desire in this manner to testify to our high appreciation of his character and worth as a man, and to his ability and integrity in his official trust :

Resolved, that while deeply impressed in contemplating the shadow of gloom bis absence must bring to the home late so securely happy in his presence, that we hereby extend to the widow and son our most heartfelt sympathy and con- dolence in this their hour of sorrow.

The Ancient Order of United Workmen, and the Temple of Honor and Social Temple passed similar resolutions of respect and con- dolence, making them a matter of record, and at the same time pre- senting the widow with certified copies. Mr. Baldwin had been twice married ; first, in 1863, at Wallingford, Vermont, to Miss

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Marella Townsend, whom he lost by death abont a year thereafter, His second marriage was in 1866 to Mrs. Anna E. Sweet, a daughter of Smith Emery, Esq., of Newport, Vermont, who with their only child, Myron Alpheus, still resides in Lake City.

JAMES P. MARTIN, Lake City, is a native of St. Lawrence county, New York, and was born October 31, 1845. He is a son of James and Catharine (Gorman) Martin, who were also born in the State of New York, of Irish ancestry. Mr. Martin was reared on a farm, where his early youth was spent at school and agricultural pursuits. A few years of his early manhood was employed in driving stage. He was married to Miss Julia F. Hart, a native of St. Lawrence county, New York, in 1868, and in the spring of the same year came to Lake City, and the same year took a position as foreman in the large livery and sale stable of Mr. W. E. Perkins. He is still with Mr. Perkins, and is interested with him in introducing some very fine and valuable fast horse stock in this county, among them some of the best blood for trotting in the United States. In 1878 he pur- chased one hundred and sixty acres of land in Chester, which he rents. Mr. Martin has three children, Lizzie May and Willie J. (twins) and Frank, in attendance at the city schools.

JOHN C. ADAMS, M.D., Lake City, is a native of Ireland, and was born in Iniskillen, in 1831, and is a son of John Adams, who for many years was a prominent merchant of that city. Early in the spring of 1841, Mr. Adams with his family emigrated to the United States, and settled on a farm in Kentucky, and for a time engaged in agricultural pursuits. Being unacquainted with, and having a dislike for, the principles of slave labor, he failed to make it a success, sold his farm and removed to Clarksville, Tennessee, where he again embarked in mercantile pursuits. He died in 1850, and his wife, whose maiden name was Alice McCalon, is still living in Russellville, Kentucky. Dr. Adams received an academic edu- cation at Clarksville, Tennessee, pursued and completed the classics under a private tutor, and began his professional course with Dr. Williams, of Todd county, Kentucky. IIe attended lectures at the medical department of the university at Louisville, Kentucky, in its palmy days, when the eminent S. D. Gross and Austin Flint were its professors. After practicing in Kentucky, Texas and Louisiana, he finally graduated from the medical department of the Louisiana University. He then resumed the practice of medicine in Cado Parish, near Shrevesport, Louisiana, and continued the practice,

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though somewhat obstructed by failing health, till the outbreak of the late war, when he was appointed assistant surgeon of the 30th Miss. regt. This position he filled with credit and ability, and was finally transferred to the position of hospital surgeon, at Newnan, Georgia, and was on duty at Macon, Georgia, at the time of Gen. Lee's surrender. Overwork and ill health had so prostrated him, that in 1868 he determined to seek recuperation in the north, and that year came to Lake City, as rector of the Episcopal church. His theological studies had been pursued under Bishop Greene, in Jackson, Mississippi, during his physical inability to practice medi- cine, and had taken deacons' orders prior to 1861, and priests' orders in 1867. He remained in charge of the Episcopal church till 1872, when his health being unequal to the work, he resigned, and re- sumed the practice of medicine and surgery, in Lake City and sur- rounding country. As a surgeon, Dr. Adams has been eminently successful, having performed some very complicated, and, in fact, some of most noted operations known to the profession. He is a member of the Masonic fraternities of Lake City. His first mar- riage was in 1861, to Miss Hellen Doty, of eastern New York. She died in 1874. His second marriage was on July 1, 1875, to Mrs. Elizabeth O. McNairy, a native of Philadelphia. They have a family of four sons and four daughters.

ELISHA PERKINS, farmer, Zumbro, came to this county without capital in 1868, and secured sixty acres of land where he now resides, section 36-originally Mazeppa township. Besides this he now has forty acres in the adjoining town of Farm Hill, half as much in the Mazeppa timber and a quarter-section in Bigstone county. The same energy and business ability that carried him through several struggles in the past are still leading elements in his character, and he is known as an active and useful citizen. He is an earnest exponent of the principles of the republican party, and a leading member of the Wesleyan Methodist church at South Troy. Joel Perkins, the father of Elisha, was born in Luzerne, Warren county, New York, in 1813. His parents, Elkanah and Phoebe Perkins, were natives of the same state. Joel Perkins married Sarah Van Wormer, who gave birth to this subject at Stony Creek, Warren county, in 1835. The latter was reared on his father's farm, and received his education in the common schools. That he improved his opportunities is evident to all who meet him, and he is well-known as a contributor to the press of the day. October 10,

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1857, he married Eliza A. Gallup, born in the same county as him- self. This union was disrupted by the cruel hand of death in January, 1866, and Mr. Perkins was left with four small children to care for. Shortly after he suffered heavy losses in a lumbering con- tract, and resolved to try his fortunes in the west. On March 29, 1869, he espoused Frances J. Roberts, a native of Hamilton county, Ohio, who is the mother of six living children, viz: Amanda E., Florence A., Alma A., Ernest H., Maud A., and an infant daughter. Of the elder children : Ward B. dwells at Waneta, Dakota ; Ells- worth L. died when eight years old ; Eliza J. and Fanny M., twins, at home.

IIENRY R. GEAREY, son of Hamilton B. and Harriet (Macy) Gearey, was born in the city of Hudson, State of New York, on March 18, 1845. When six years old his parents removed to Pompey, in the same state. Here the subject of this sketch spent his youth and received a common-school education, which was supple- mented by a term or two in the Manlins Academy. He was married July 3, 1864, to Achsah J., daughter of Ephriam E. and Jerusha (Weston) Brown, a native of Pompey, then in her twentieth year. Four years later Mr. Gearey disposed of his property in Pompey, came to Higliland, and bought the place which he still owns, one hundred and sixty acres of section 17. He has been prominent in township and county affairs from the first. At present is one of the county commissioners for Wabasha county, being elected on the deniocratic ticket ; has been township clerk four terms, assessor two years, and a supervisor one year. In state and national politics is a democrat, in local affairs, independent ; is a member of the Masonic fraternity. Mr. Gearey is the father of four children, viz : George H., born July 4, 1866 ; James E., October 28, 1868; Susa A., December 3, 1870 ; Arthur B., November 12, 1872. Mr. Gearey is one of the most enterprising and prosperous farmers of Highland.

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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 95

Author: H.H. Hill and Company. 4n Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill & Co. Number of Pages: 1176

Author: H.H. Hill and Company. 4n
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill & Co.
Number of Pages: 1176