Fifty Years In The Northwest / With An Introduction And Appendix Containing Reminiscences, Incidents And Notes

by William H. C. Folsom

Cushman K. Davis.—In the quaint little Quaker village of Henderson, New York, in a small house built partly of logs, and mossy and venerable with age, on June 16, 1838, Cushman Kellogg Davis, late governor and present senator from Minnesota, was born. His father, Horatio N. Davis, removed to Wisconsin in August or September of the same year, and settled on the present site of Waukesha. His father was quite prominent; had served during the Civil War, and retired from the service with the brevet rank of major; had held various municipal offices, and had been a member of the Wisconsin senate. Cushman, his oldest son, received as good an education as the times afforded, at the common schools, at Carroll College, a Waukesha institution, and at Ann Arbor, Michigan, where he graduated in 1857. He read law with Gov. Randall, was admitted to the bar in 1859, and practiced at Waukesha until 1862, when he enlisted in the Twenty-eighth Wisconsin Infantry, going in as first lieutenant of Company B, but was adjutant general under Gen. Gorman most of the time. At the end of two years, with broken health, he resigned his commission and settled in St. Paul in partnership with Gen. Gorman. In 1867 he was elected a representative in the state legislature, and served one term. He was United States district attorney from 1868 until 1873, when he was elected governor. He served two years, and was the youngest man who has been elected to that office. After leaving the governor's chair he resumed his law practice until the senatorial election of 1887, when he was chosen to succeed Senator McMillan in the United States Senate.

Senator Davis has devoted some time to general literature. His lecture on "Feudalism" was delivered in 1870, and this lecture probably secured him the nomination for governor in 1873. He has also lectured on "Hamlet" and "Madam Roland," and in 1884 delivered a lecture before the Army of the Tennessee and in 1886 a lecture to the graduating class at Michigan University. He also published a book entitled "The Law in Shakespeare," which attracted considerable attention. He was married to Miss Anna M. Agnew, of St. Paul, in 1880.

S. J. R. McMillan was born in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, in 1826. He spent part of his early days in Pittsburgh; received a collegiate education; studied law; was admitted to practice in 1849, and came to Stillwater in 1852, where he established a law office. In 1858 he was elected judge of the First district and served until 1864, when he was appointed to the supreme bench. He was elected to the position in the fall of the same year and served until 1875, when he was elected to the United States senate. He was re-elected in 1881, and was succeeded in 1887 by Cushman K. Davis. He removed to St. Paul in 1865.

Senator McMillan has had an honorable career and is greatly respected as an upright, conscientious, active and thoroughly practical man. He was married at Pittsburgh in 1852, to Harriet E. Butler. They have three sons and three daughters.

Willis Arnold Gorman, second territorial governor of Minnesota, was born in Fleming county, Kentucky, Jan. 12, 1816. He received a good literary education, and his parents having moved to Bloomington, Indiana, he graduated at the law school connected with the State University at that place. He commenced practice at Bloomington and was quite popular as a lawyer, but even more so as a party leader, and was elected to the legislature six times in succession. At the breaking out of the Mexican War, in 1846, he enlisted as a private in the Third Indiana Volunteers, but was appointed major. He won the reputation of a gallant, dashing officer, and was promoted to be colonel of the Fourth Indiana, which he helped recruit. He served till the close of the war. On his return to Indiana, in 1848, he was elected to Congress, and re-elected in 1850. In May, 1853, he was appointed by President Pierce governor of Minnesota Territory. In 1857, at the close of his term of office as governor, he was elected a member of the constitutional convention, and was also an unsuccessful candidate for the United States senatorship. In the spring of 1861, at the breaking out of the Civil War, he was appointed colonel of the First Minnesota Infantry. For bravery at the first battle of Bull Run he was commissioned brigadier general. He was mustered out in 1864. Returning to Minnesota he formed a law partnership with Cushman K. Davis. In 1869 he was elected city attorney and held that office till his death, which occurred at St. Paul, May 20, 1876. He was twice married, first to Miss Martha Stone, of Bloomington, Indiana, in 1836. She died in March, 1864, leaving five children. In April, 1865, he was married to Miss Emily Newington, of St. Paul.

John D. Ludden was born in Massachusetts, April 5, 1819; was educated at Williston Seminary, and came West to the lead mines of Wisconsin in 1842. In 1845 he came to St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, remained at this point and at Taylor's Falls until 1849, when he made his residence at Marine Mills, Minnesota. In 1857 he changed his residence to Stillwater, and in 1861 became a citizen of St. Paul, where he still resides. He was a member of the second, third and fourth territorial legislatures. From 1854 to the present time he has been engaged chiefly in lumbering. He is a man of pleasing address, of good business talent and thoroughly reliable.

Elias F. Drake is a native of Ohio, in which state he lived until 1861, when he came to St. Paul. His boyhood days were spent on a farm; later he engaged in mercantile pursuits, and still later studied law under the instruction of Justice Swayne of the United States supreme court, and was admitted to practice in all the courts of Ohio and in the United States court. After a short and successful term of practice, he became cashier of the State Bank of Ohio, and in that capacity spent ten years of his life. During that time he served three terms in the legislature, being speaker one session, during which the late Gov. Swift was clerk of the house.

In politics Mr. Drake was a Whig, and afterward a Republican. During his residence in Ohio he was active in promoting the improvements of the country, successfully building several leading turnpike roads and a few railroads.

In 1861 he came to Minnesota, and, put in operation the first railroad in the State, a road between St. Paul and St. Anthony Falls. In 1863 he was president of the Winona & St. Peter railroad during the construction of the first ten miles. Soon after, he, with some associates, took hold of the Minnesota Valley railroad, and completed it to Sioux City, Iowa, in 1872. He is president and land commissioner of this company. Mr. Drake represented Ramsey county in the state senate in 1874-75.

Norman W. Kittson was born at Sorel, Lower Canada, March 5, 1814. In May, 1830, he engaged as an employe of the American Fur Company, and in that capacity came to the Northwest. From the summer of 1830 to that of 1832 he occupied the trading post between the Fox river and the Wisconsin. The following year he operated on the headwaters of the Minnesota, after which he spent a year on Red Cedar river, in Iowa. In 1834 he came to Fort Snelling, where he was sutler's clerk till 1838. The winter of 1838-39 he spent with his friends in Canada. On his return in the spring he began business on his own account in the fur trade, at Cold Springs in the vicinity of Fort Snelling, which he continued till 1843, when he entered the American Fur Company as special partner, having charge of all the business on the headwaters of the Minnesota, and along the line of the British possessions, and operating in that field till 1854. During that summer he entered into partnership with Maj. Wm. H. Forbes, in the general Indian trade, at St. Paul, and went there to reside in the fall of that year. The partnership continued till 1858, and Mr. Kittson continued his northern business till 1860, when he closed out. In 1863 he accepted the position of agent for the Hudson Bay Company at St. Paul, and went into the steamboat and transportation business on the Red River of the North. From 1851 to 1855 Mr. Kittson was a member of the territorial council, and was mayor of the city of St. Paul in 1858. He was the oldest of the pioneers of Minnesota, except Joseph Dajenais, a French Canadian, now residing at Faribault. Mr. Kittson died July 10, 1888, on a railroad train near Chicago. His body was brought to St. Paul for burial.