Fifty Years In The Northwest
and "Recollections of Eminent Men." Maj. Newson is a man of varied and
miscellaneous gifts. He is a ready writer, a fluent and eloquent
speaker, a journalist, a historian and the oldest editor in Minnesota.
He is corresponding secretary of the National Editorial Association,
and the first and only honorary member of the State Fire Association;
he is a geologist, mineralogist and assayer, a member of the G. A. R.,
of the Masonic and Odd Fellows lodges, and of the Junior Pioneers. He
is broad-gauged and popular in his views and positive in the
expression of his opinions. He was married to Miss Harriet D. Brower,
in Albany, New York, in 1857, and has a family of five girls and one
boy, May, Hattie, Nellie, Jessie, Grace, and T. M. Newson, Jr.
COL. ALVAREN ALLEN was born in New York in 1822; came to Wisconsin in
1837, and to St. Anthony Falls in 1857, where he engaged in the
livery, staging and express business. In 1859 he followed railroading;
in 1873 he bought Col. Shaw's interest in the Merchants Hotel of St.
Paul, for $40,000, and Col. Potter's interest for $275,000, property
now held at $500,000. In 1887 he rented the property to Mr. Welz. Col.
Allen is a genial man, and has friends all over the continent. He was
the second mayor of St. Anthony Falls, and has held various public
positions in St. Paul.
HARLAN P. HALL.--The writer has been unable to obtain any sketch of
the history of Mr. Hall. We have to say that he has been an
enterprising journalist in St. Paul. He was the founder of the _Daily_
and _Weekly_ St. Paul _Dispatch_; also of the St. Paul _Daily_ and
_Weekly Globe_. He is a fluent, versatile writer, and a genial
associate.
STEPHEN MILLER, a native of Perry county, Pennsylvania, was born Jan.
7, 1816. Being in straitened circumstances he early commenced a life
of toil, supported himself and to a great extent educated himself. In
1858 he removed to St. Cloud, Minnesota, and engaged in mercantile
pursuits. In 1860 he served as delegate to the Republican convention
at Chicago that nominated Lincoln for the presidency. In 1861 he
enlisted as a private soldier, but rose rapidly from the ranks, being
commissioned as a lieutenant colonel of the First Minnesota Infantry,
then as colonel of the Seventh Minnesota Infantry. He was in command
of this regiment at the execution of the thirty-eight condemned Indian
murderers at Mankato. In 1863 he was commissioned as brigadier general
but resigned to accept the position of governor of Minnesota. In 1871
he removed from St. Paul to Windom. In 1873 he was in the Minnesota
house of representatives. In 1876 he was presidential elector. In 1839
he was married to Margaret Funk, of Dauphin county, Pennsylvania. They
have had three sons. One son was killed at the battle of Gettysburg.
Gov. Miller died in 1878, at Windom, Minnesota.
CHAPTER XXII.
DAKOTA COUNTY.
This county, a rich farming district, lies on the west bank of the
Mississippi between Ramsey and Goodhue counties. It was originally
well diversified with timber and prairie lands, and is well watered by
the tributaries of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. Vermillion
river, which flows through this county, has near its junction with the
Mississippi a picturesque waterfall, now somewhat marred by the
erection of mills and manufactories.
HASTINGS,
Lying near the mouth of the Vermillion river, is a wide-awake,
thriving city, beautifully located on the banks of the Mississippi. It
has a fine court house, good hotels, manufactories and business
blocks. The Hastings & Dakota railroad has its eastern terminus here.
The St. Paul & Milwaukee, Burlington & Northern railroads pass through
the city. The river is bridged at this place.
FARMINGTON,
Near the centre of the county, on the Chicago, St. Paul & Minneapolis
railroad, is a thriving business village. West St. Paul has encroached
largely upon the north part of the county.
BIOGRAPHICAL.
IGNATIUS DONNELLY.--The parents of Ignatius Donnelly came from the
Green Isle in 1817, settling in Philadelphia, where Ignatius was born,
Nov. 3, 1831. He was educated in the graded and high schools of his
native city, graduating at the latter in 1849, and taking his degree
of master of arts three years later. He read law with Benjamin Harris
Brewster, and was admitted to the bar in Philadelphia in 1852, and
practiced there until 1856, when he came to Minnesota and located at
Ninninger, and purchasing from time to time nearly 1,000 acres of
land, devoted himself to farming, not so busily, however, as to
prevent him from taking a prominent part in public affairs. A
captivating and fluent speaker, and besides a man of far more than
ordinary native ability and acquirements, he was not suffered to
remain on his Dakota farm. In 1859 he was elected lieutenant governor
of the newly admitted state, and was re-elected in 1861, serving four
years. He served his district in the thirty-seventh, thirty-eighth and
thirty-ninth congresses. During his congressional term he advocated
many important measures, taking an advanced position in regard to
popular education, and the cultivation and preservation of timber on
the public lands. For his advocacy of the last named measure he was
much ridiculed at the time, but has lived to see his views generally
understood, and his measures to a great extent adopted in many of the
Western States. He advocated amending the law relating to railroad
land grants, so as to require their sale, within a reasonable period,
at low prices.
When he entered Congress, he gave up his law practice, and since his
last term he has devoted himself chiefly to farming, journalism and
general literature. In July, 1874, he became editor and proprietor of
the _Anti-Monopolist_, which he conducted several years. Within the
last decade he has published several works that have given him both
national and transatlantic fame. His works on the fabled "Atlantis"
and "Ragnarok" prove him to be not only a thinker and scientist, but a
writer, the charms of whose style are equal to the profundity of his
thought. His last work on the authorship of the Shakespearean plays
has attracted universal attention, not only for the boldness of his
speculations, but for the consummate ingenuity he has shown in
detecting the alleged cipher by which he assumes to prove Lord Bacon
to be the author of the plays in question. The book has excited much
controversy, and, as was to be expected, much adverse criticism. Mr.
Donnelly was married in Philadelphia, Sept. 10, 1855, to Miss
Catherine McCaffrey of that city. They have three children living.
FRANCIS M. CROSBY.--The ancestors of Mr. Crosby were of Revolutionary
fame. He was born in Wilmington, Windham county, Vermont, Nov. 13,
1830. He received a common and high school education and spent one
year at Mount Cæsar Seminary, at Swansea, New Hampshire. He studied
law and was admitted to practice at Bennington, Vermont, in 1855. He
served in the Vermont house of representatives in 1855-56. He
continued the practice of law until 1858, when he came to Hastings and
engaged in the practice of law. He served as judge of probate court in
1860-61, acted as school commissioner several years in Dakota county,
and was elected, in 1871, judge of the First Judicial district
comprising the counties of Goodhue, Dakota, Washington, Chisago, Pine,
and Kanabec. He held the first courts in Pine and Kanabec counties.
Judge Crosby is held in high esteem, not only by the bar, but by the
people at large. He is gentlemanly in his manners, yet prompt and
decisive in action.
He was married to Helen A. Sprague, in New York, May 13, 1866. Mrs.
Crosby died in 1869. He married a second wife, Helen M. Bates, in New
York, in 1872. They have two sons and three daughters.
HON. G. W. LE DUC was born at Wilkesville, Gallia county, Ohio, March
29, 1823. His father, Henry Savary Duc, was the son of Henri Duc, an
officer of the French Army, who came over with D'Estaing to assist the
colonies in the Revolutionary struggle. The grandfather, after some
stirring adventures in Guadaloupe, where he came near being murdered
in a negro insurrection, escaped and came to Middletown, Connecticut,
in 1796, where he was married to Lucy, daughter of Col. John Sumner,
of Duryea's Brigade, Continental Troops, and a member of the Sumner
family which came to Massachusetts in 1637. The father was married to
Mary Stewell, of Braintree, New York, in 1803. The family name,
originally written Duc, was changed to Le Duc in 1845. The grandfather
removed to Ohio and founded the town of Wilkesville. G. W. Le Duc, the
grandson, spent his early life at this place, but was educated at
Lancaster Academy, a school that numbered amongst its scholars Gen. W.
T. and Senator John Sherman, the Ewing brothers, and others prominent
in the history of the country. He entered Kenyon College in 1844,
graduated in 1848, and was employed for awhile by the firms of H. W.
Derby & Co., of Cincinnati, and A. S. Barnes & Co., of New York.
Meanwhile he studied law, and in 1850 was admitted to practice in the
supreme court of Ohio. July 5, 1850, he came to St. Paul and engaged
in selling books, supplying the legislature and the government
officers at the Fort, but gradually turned his attention to practice
in land office courts. At the breaking out of the Rebellion he
enlisted, and was assigned to duty as captain A. Z. in the Army of the
Potomac. During his term of service he was promoted to the grades of
lieutenant colonel, colonel and brigadier general by brevet. Since the
war his most important official position has been that of commissioner
of agriculture through the administration of President Hayes. In 1856
he removed to Hastings, and has ever since been identified with the
progress and prosperity of that city, and is the owner of large
property interests there.
GOODHUE COUNTY.
This county lies on the west bank of the Mississippi river, between
the counties of Dakota and Wabasha. It derived its name from James M.
Goodhue, pioneer editor and publisher in St. Paul. It is a rich and
populous county. The county seat is Red Wing, a thriving city of 7,000
inhabitants, located on the banks of the Mississippi a short distance
below the mouth of Cannon river, and at the outlet of several valleys
forming a larger valley, well adapted to become the site of a city.
The hills surrounding the city are high, bold and many of them
precipitous. Mount La Grange, commonly known as Barn Bluff, a large
isolated bluff, a half mile in length and three hundred and twenty
feet in height, stands between the lower part of the city and the
river. Part of the county lies upon the shore of Lake Pepin, and
includes the famous Point no Point, a bold promontory extending far
out into the lake, with a curve so gradual that the eye of the person
ascending or descending the lake is unable to define the Point, which
appears to recede before him as he approaches, till at last it
disappears, when looking backward he sees it in the part of the lake
already traversed. Cannon river, a considerable stream, passes through
the county from west to east.
Cannon Falls, on this river, once a picturesque and wild waterfall, is
now surrounded by the mills, manufactories and dwellings of a
flourishing village, named after the falls. Goodhue county was
organized under territorial law. In 1845 the principal point was Red
Wing. There we found a Swiss missionary named Galvin, an Indian farmer
name Bush and the noted Jack Frazer, a half-breed trader, all living