USA > New Hampshire > Merrimack County > Sutton > The history of Sutton, New Hampshire: consisting of the historical collections of Erastus Wadleigh, esq., and A. H. Worthen, part 2 > Part 23
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Some four or five years have elapsed since the above was written, and Mr. Pillsbury is still active and vigorous, showing no sign what- ever of diminished capacity or executive ability. In 1885 he was chairman of the committee to build the Minneapolis Chamber of Com- merce Building, one of the finest buildings of its kind in the North- west.
In 1886 he was chairman of the committee to build the Baptist. church in Minneapolis, the largest and most costly church building west of Chicago, and but few finer ones in the country. Mr. and Mrs. Pillsbury and their two sons, Charles A. and Fred C., at their own expense, placed in this church the largest and best organ in the city,. at a cost of eight thousand five hundred dollars.
Mr. Pillsbury has always been a friend and supporter of the cause of education, and while a resident of New Hampshire he contributed lib- erally for that cause. He was a member of the board of education of Concord for several years. He contributed liberally towards the en- dowment fund for Colby Academy at New London. Since he became. a resident of Minnesota he has taken the same interest in the cause of education. He has served on several committees appointed to build school-houses, and has been elected member of the board of education. He has also been much interested in an academy located at Owatonna,. Minn. He has built at his own expense a ladies' boarding hall con- nected with the academy at a cost of $30,000, besides other liberal contributions for the benefit of the same institution, the name of which. was two years ago changed by the legislature of Minnesota from the " Minnesota Academy" to "Pillsbury Academy," in honor of Mr. Pillsbury. An extract from the catalogue for 1889-'90 will give more- fully the details of the work he has done for it. It is under the head
.
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of " Buildings." " Pillsbury Hall is 128 feet long, and has three stories above the basement. It is heated with steam, and contains parlors, dormitory, boarding department, bath-rooms, and gymnasium, and furnishes to young ladies the comforts of a well appointed Christian home. This building was erected in 1886, and is the gift of Hon. George A. Pillsbury, whose name it bears. The new academy build- ing, erected in 1889, at a cost of $40,000, is 122 feet long and is three stories high above the basement, with tower 140 feet high. It contains recitation-rooms, library, and reading-room, offices, chemical laboratory, gymnasium, bath-room, study-room, chapel, and a spacious auditorium. It is lighted with gas, and is a most commodious school-building. This building is also the gift of the academy's chief benefactor, Hon. George A. Pillsbury."
At the annual meeting of the American Baptist Missionary Union, held in Minneapolis in 1888, Mr. Pillsbury was elected its president, a highly honorable position. This organization has its head-quarters in Boston, Mass. It has in charge all the foreign missionary work of all the Northern and some of the Southern states, distributing annually nearly half a million dollars for mission work in foreign fields by this denomination.
Borrowing again from the History of Merrimack County, we will add the closing paragraphs of Mr. Robinson's sketch of Mr. Pillsbury : " George A. Pillsbury is a gentleman of great personal magnetism, genial and affable in manner, and possessed of entertaining and attrac- tive conversational powers. Warm-hearted and generous, he was ever ready to respond to calls of distress, not only with good counsels but with more substantial aids, as many an unpublished charity in Con- cord will attest. All who approached him were sure of a kindly greet- ing, and any petition for favors received a patient consideration and courteous reply. With the young he is very companionable, and with his conservative and liberal views of life he is able to impart much valuable advice and information. His mind is well disciplined and balanced, and his habits are very systematic. He is possessed of sound practical judgment, and great executive ability. Quick to grasp a point he seldom errs in action, and by a faculty of reading character he seems always ready to meet any emergency that may arise. In early life he received a thorough business training, and in his deal- ings with men he is straightforward and liberal. In his enterprises he looks beyond the present, and results seldom disappoint him. In public life his administration of affairs has always been most satisfac- tory and able, and has won for him the esteem of all with whom he comes in contact."
It will be observed that the foregoing notices of Mr. Pillsbury are copied from books or periodicals already in print. The compiler here
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claims the right to add a final paragraph. And the first thought that suggests itself is, that he is a man concerning whom it would be easier, though far less pleasant, to select the materials for an obituary than for a biographical note while he is living. There is so much in his career that merits attention, his attainments and achievements, as well as his benefactions, have been so great and so important, that even the small moiety of them that can be mentioned in this brief sketch seem almost like an exaggeration.
When a man is dead, taste and common custom no longer forbid the free and full expression of the public estimate of his superior qualities, however high that estimate may be, or however appreciative the recog- nition of his merits. But to discuss his qualities while he is yet their living possessor, and their outgrowth into deed and character, seems to have in it a degree of impertinence, and the higher his character, the finer his qualities, the greater seems the impertinence.
Still, there exists no good reason why justice, at least, should not be done to the living as well as to the dead. In the case of Mr. Pillsbury, there is no need to credit him with the possession of qualities or facul- ties well adapted to the accomplishment of great good to himself and the world at large, his capacities having already passed triumphantly through the test of successful achievement.
In his many generous gifts he has gone far beyond the limits of ordinary benevolence, and in his furtherance of great schemes for the support of religion and education, those mighty conservators of the peace and well-being of society, he has attained to the height of philan- thropy. And yet, with all his great successes, no poor man whom he ever meets will say that he ever received from Mr. Pillsbury a haughty or a cruel word, to remind him painfully of the great difference in the bestowment of the gifts of fortune.
It is a great thing that a man should be able by his own good deeds, as Mr. Pillsbury has done, to place himself above all praise, and above all need of it; but it is perhaps a greater thing, because rarer, that one should have grace given him so to comport himself that he should escape so almost entirely as he seems to have done the "envy, hatred, and malice, and all uncharitableness " which usually start into most intense and stinging activity against every one who becomes exception- ally fortunate.
But perhaps the secret of his popularity lies not so much in a care- ful policy, or even the possession of qualities which, wherever he has been a resident, have always brought him easily and conspicuously to the front, as in his following out of the precept of the wise man (Prov. 4, 23), " Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life."
Simply because he has not, like so many rich men, allowed prosperity
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to harden his heart, its life issues flow out wide and clear, a constant gratification to himself, and a help and a blessing to many others whose earnest hope and desire is that he may long be spared, with his present active participation in all that concerns the good of humanity, and his own keen enjoyment in the many sources of interest and hap- piness with which his life abounds.
Most of the foregoing extracts and comments were arranged some two years ago. With much pleasure and pride the compiler now un- folds the manuscript to add thereto the record of three more generous gifts of Mr. Pillsbury, by which he makes the year 1890 a memorable year for three different localities in New Hampshire, in each of which he has at some time had his home. That so much good is to be done is sufficient cause for joy and thankfulness, and Sutton people may well take pride in the thought that the man who does it all is a native born son of their town. In the course of his lifetime a man may have as many places of residence as his choice and convenience may deter- mine. In the case of Mr. Pillsbury, four or five different places divide between them the honor of having been for a longer or shorter period his place of residence. But since, live long as he may, a man can never have more than one birthplace, and since Sutton and none other was the mother of the distinguished Pillsbury brothers, so widely known, east and west, for their many and noble charities, she does not intend to allow the fact of her maternity to be forgotten.
To Concord, George A. Pillsbury gives, at a cost of $60,000, a free hospital ; to Warner, a free public library; to Sutton, a soldiers' mon- ument. Not content with giving the money to pay for all these, he, with characteristic business sagacity, makes sure that his plans and wishes concerning them are fully carried out by personally attending to the erection and construction of the same. All these gifts seem to be most wisely planned. The need and the importance of a free hospital to a city like Concord is apparent, without any argument. A free public library would be most thankfully accepted by any town not so provided. As for the soldiers' monument, it is safe to say that, if Mr. Pillsbury had not given it, there would never have been one in Sutton, deeply as all the people have felt that common justice to the soldiers who suffered in the war demanded such an appreciative and enduring recognition of their services and sacrifices. All that the gov- ernment does in the way of requital, by occasionally pensioning their heirs, will not many years prevent the names and the memories of the dead soldiers themselves from slowly sinking into oblivion, such as now buries up the memory of most of the soldiers of the Revolution. To rescue from this oblivion the memory of the dead soldiers of Sut- ton is the design of the generous and patriotic donor of this monument, and every loyal heart will forever feel grateful to Mr. Pillsbury for
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doing for Sutton, not what she would not, but what she could not, on account of its great cost, do for herself. To the surviving relatives, and to the descendants to the remotest generation of those whose names are inscribed on this monument, it will be a source of pride and grati- fication to see them thus forever honored.
No more fitting or graceful compliment could any husband ever pay a most excellent wife than Mr. Pillsbury has done in bestowing upon the new hospital the name of Margaret Pillsbury. Bearing her name, and fostered as it doubtless will be by her interest, it can hardly fail to be a successful and useful institution. She is a lady possessed of much kindness of heart, a sincere friend, generously responsive to every appeal for sympathy or help, and yet with such strict conscien- tiousness, and keen penetrative comprehension of character and mo- tive, and ability to grasp and rightly appreciate all the points in any case brought before her, as has caused her judgment to be much valued, her counsel sought, and her influence strongly felt in all matters of church; or society wherever she has lived. The following, taken from the Concord Evening Monitor of July 25, 1890, shows the spirit in which the people of that city accept Mr. Pillsbury's great gift :
"MR. AND MRS. PILLSBURY.
" The earth's best product is noble manhood and womanhood. Hon. George A. Pillsbury is a noble man. There is no mission higher than the alleviation of human suffering. His generous gift to our people of a general hospital is a splendid beneficence that touches every indi- vidual heart here with profound gratitude. It is an institution that comes home alike to the needs of the educated and the uneducated, the rich and the poor, the high and the low. He could have done nothing better for us. Everybody in this community is glad and thankful that such excellent provision is to be made for the care of our sick and in- jured, and everybody here is deeply grateful to the very considerate and kindly gentleman, our former fellow-citizen, for the great general good that he is doing.
"As to the institution, our people will take early and appropriate opportunity to express formally and unanimously their earnest appre- ciation. As to the public-spirited and noble-souled benefactor himself, and his estimable wife, Margaret, for whom the elegant and commo- dious new hospital is to be named, there is only one sentiment,-Heaven bless Mr. and Mrs. Pillsbury !
"Mr. Pillsbury, with comparative ease, might have written his per- sonal check for $60,000, and turned it over to a citizens' committee, to found and endow a capacious modern hospital ; but this modest, sturdy man with the great warm heart, and his lovely Christian wife, left
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their sumptuous home in Minneapolis, that they might come among their old friends and neighbors in this state, and have the pleasure of doing, as it were, with their own hands, the grand public work that they are accomplishing. He brought his own architect; he selected and purchased the lot of his choice for the building; and he will per- sonally superintend its construction. A man of superior practical judgment and experience, nobody could do it better. His is not only the generosity to give, but the self-sacrifice to make the gift the practi- cal success that he desires it to be. Within the past few days he has been elected president of a great Western bank, with hundreds of thousands of dollars of surplus to invest, but he telegraphed back that his work here will require his personal attention for the present. Posi- tions of honor and trust have been thrust upon him, but in noiseless charities he finds his greatest pleasure, his chief pursuit. Office and fame have no allurements for him. He is one of the few capitalists who is perfectly satisfied with his wealth. He enjoyed its honorable accumulation ; he will now take equal pleasure in its generous and discriminate expenditure. Nobody covets his riches ; everybody wishes that he had a still larger fortune to give away in public bequests. He and his wife are here now, with no possible object except to do good and to renew old friendships and associations, and to pay respects to the people who delight to respect and honor them.
" We only seldom have ·such visitors. Think of it,-a happy, hand- some married couple, so advanced in years, and yet so remarkably well preserved ; so wealthy and yet so unostentatious ; so distinguished and yet so humbly affable and generous; so blest with this world's favors, . yet possessed of such excellent native sense ; so public-spirited and beneficent, so charitable, kind, and tolerant towards all,-they present indeed a rare and touching sight, one to be cherished in our recollec- tions, beloved and welcome sojourners in our peaceful and beautiful city.
"An institution is defined to be the lengthened shadow of one man ; George Alfred Pillsbury will have many worthy shadows, and long after he and his gracious wife have gone from us, perhaps forever, fevered lips of invalid sufferers will whisper prayers of thankfulness that will be encomiums on this good man and woman more eloquent and touching than any we could pronounce. Many who are now well and strong may fall victims to the afflictions of life, and have occasion from disease or accident to feel by personal experience the active good- ness of Mr. Pillsbury in presenting to this municipality the splendid city hospital that he is now building for our people."
(1) Charles A. Pillsbury m. Sept. 13, 1866, Mary Ann, dau. of Charles and Mary Ann (Poor) Stinson, of Goffstown, b. Aug. 1, 1841. Chil- dren,-
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George Alfred, b. Oct., 1871; d. Jan., 1872.
Margaret Carleton, b. July 18, 1876.
Charles Stinson, b. Dec. 6, 1878. John Sargent, b. Dec. 6, 1878.
1. Charles A. Pillsbury is the oldest son of George A. and Margaret S. Pillsbury. He was born in Warner Oct. 3, 1842. He entered Dartmouth college in 1859, at the age of sixteen years, and graduated in the class of 1863. Soon after his graduation he went to Montreal as a clerk for a wholesale firm, but in a short time became a partner in another wholesale establishment. He remained in Montreal some three years, and then went to Minneapolis, Minn., where he engaged in the manu- facture of flour, and has become the head of the largest flour manufac- turing firm in the world.
Mr. Pillsbury has confined himself almost exclusively to this branch of business. He has, however, against his wishes, been prevailed upon to accept some political offices. He has been elected to the state sen- ate several times, and in one or two instances there was not a vote cast against him. He has been urged by his party to become a candidate for representative to congress, and for other offices the highest within the gift of the people of the state, the nomination to which would be equivalent to an election, but has positively and unequivocally declined to accept such nomination and election.
While a member of the state senate he has nearly always been placed at the head of the most important committee,-that of finance. He is everybody's friend, and nearly every one is his friend. He is a very liberal giver to all objects of a religious and benevolent character. He has, without doubt, within the last twelve years contributed more of his means for these objects than any other person in Minneapolis. His charities, however, are not by any means confined to his own neighborhood or state, as the following letter will show. It was found copied in the Lynn, Mass., papers, immediately after the great fire in that city, and is here presented as affording a good illustration of the nature and disposition of the man who wrote it, and it is felt that it merits permanent preservation in a book as well as almost any document that ever was penned. The circumstances were these : Late in Novem- ber, 1889, occurred in Lynn a very destructive conflagration, which, by burning up their homes as well as the shoe factories in which they earned their living, in a few hours reduced thousands of people to abso- lute destitution. Charles A. Pillsbury was at the time on a visit to friends in New Hampshire, but such a thing as a personal appeal to a man who was not, and never had been, a resident in the city, nor even in the state in which the fire occurred, was not, of course, thought of. The cry of distress, however, soon reached his ears, and the letter to his agent was at once written.
Chas . a.
Tillbury-
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Goffstown, N. H., Nov. 28, 1889.
Breed & Co., Wholesale Flour Merchants :
Please supply the mayor at our expense with all the Pillsbury's Best. he may require to supply the immediate wants of the poor people burned out in the late fire.
Have telegraphed him to call upon you for it.
C. A. PILLSBURY.
No one can tell how timely was the gift, nor how thankfully it was received, any better than the writer of this, a resident in Lynn, and one who, in behalf of some of the sufferers, had occasion, more than once, to visit the Relief Committee's rooms. It was pitiful to see there the throng of respectable looking persons waiting, all numbered, in rows, till each one as his number was called passed eagerly up to the desk, to receive there the order for his weekly bag of flour or other provisions. But this was after some system in the distribution of the supplies of food was introduced. At first the Lynn authorities, entire- ly inexperienced in dealing with a calamity of such magnitude, and utterly confused and overpowered by the immense number of calls for immediate help, had failed to attend properly to the distribution of the flour, and, as a result, many persons had been allowed a whole bar- rel each, while many more had received none, thus defeating the pur- pose of the donor, to supply the immediate wants of as many persons as possible.
Some men would perhaps have found in this failure to carry out his expressed design an excuse for withdrawing any further aid. Such, however, was not the case with Mr. Pillsbury. How much flour in all was given, the writer has not been informed. This, however, is known, that, when the immense quantity of 500 barrels had been given away the agent wrote to Mr. Pillsbury asking further instructions, and re- ceived the order to let the authorities have more flour, though at the same time recommending that equality in the division of it which they had by this time themselves learned the need of.
As a business man Charles A. Pillsbury is not excelled by any one in the country. Commencing with nothing, he has succeeded in build- ing up an immense business. The members of the firm of C. A. Pills- bury & Co. are George A. Pillsbury, his brother, John S. Pillsbury, and Charles A. and Fred C. Pillsbury, who are the sons of George A. Pillsbury. This firm stands at the head of all the flour manufacturing firms of the world. They own three mills, and the capacity of the three is 10,500 barrels of flour each twenty-four hours. It requires on an average more than 40,000 bushels of wheat per day to supply these mills, or more than 12,000,000 bushels per year, which is equivalent to the production of one million acres of land, or of thirty-two townships of land as large as the town of Sutton, and every acre sowed with
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wheat. It requires about 100 cars per day to supply these mills with wheat, and about the same number of cars in which to ship the flour and offal. If the whole product of these mills were to be sent to Bos- ton or New York, it would require five trains of cars each day, and fifteen hundred cars would be on the road continually. The amount of flour and offal sold each year is from $12,000,000 to $18,000,000, depending on the price for which the flour is sold.
The reputation of the Pillsbury flour is world-wide. It is sold in every state in the Union, and in most of the foreign markets. It is as well known in Great Britain and some other countries as it is in the United States. This firm uses only the celebrated Red River of the North wheat, which contains the largest proportion of gluten, and con- sequently contains more nutriment than any other wheat produced in the world. In order to secure a sufficient amount of this superior wheat to run the mills, and to use only the very best quality, they have built about one hundred and forty elevators and store-houses in the valley of the Red River of the North with a capacity of about 12,000,000 of bushels, thus enabling them at all times to secure the choicest quality of wheat, which gives them an advantage over all other mills. The cost of these elevators is about one million of dollars.
The firm of J. S. Pillsbury & Co., consisting of John S., George A., and Charles A. Pillsbury, own about 250,000 acres of pine land, located in the northern portion of the state. This territory is equal to eight townships of land as large as the town of Sutton. They commenced operating on these lands some two years ago. They have a saw-mill located on the line of the Northern Pacific Railroad, at Gull river. This mill will saw 125,000 feet of lumber in ten hours, besides a pro- portionate amount of shingles, laths, &c.
(3) Fred C. Pillsbury graduated at the Concord high school in 1870. He at once left for Minnesota, and became a clerk in the hardware store of his uncle, John S. Pillsbury. For about fourteen years he has been the junior member of the firm of Charles A. Pillsbury & Co. He has for a few years been president of the Minneapolis, Lyndale & Lake Minnetoka Railway. He is possessed of excellent judgment, and is a sound, conservative business man. He m. Oct. 19, 1876, Alice T. Cook. Children,-
George Alfred, d. Hattie Goodwin. Carleton Cook. Marian.
3. Dolly Wadleigh Pillsbury m. Enoch P. Cummings, Jan. 14, 1838. Children,-
(1) Alfred P., b. Sept, 23, 1838 ; d. Nov. 5, 1843.
(2) Charles E., b. Aug. 5, 1843.
Enga by H.B. Hall's Sons, New York
J.J. Pillsbury
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4. John S. Pillsbury received a common-school education. At the age of sixteen he went to Warner as a clerk for his brother, George A., who was engaged in mercantile business in that town. He afterwards, in the year 1848, entered into a business partnership with Hon. Walter Harriman, a native of the same town It is a singular fact, that each of these men became governor of the state in which he made his residence, Mr. Harriman of New Hampshire, and Mr. Pillsbury of Minnesota. After leaving Warner Mr. Pillsbury was for some time in trade in Andover, and also in Concord.
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