Saturday, May 5, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: May 5

May 5, 1915 – James J. Hill, empire builder and financier, was falsely reported in the East to have died suddenly this morning at his home in St. Paul.


J.J. Hill House1

At noon today Mr. Hill attended a director’s meeting in the First National Bank. He ascended the steps as vigorously as he ever did.

Starting from an unknown source, the report regarding Hill’s sudden death spread throughout St. Paul and Minneapolis and was conveyed to many points in the Northwest. As a result, the Great Northern Railway office, his home and the First National Bank were deluged with telegrams and telephone calls asking for confirmation. Denial was sent broadcast.


James J. Hill2

Hill was at the breakfast table when inquiries started coming regarding his death. Later, following repeated denials by his bank associates, J. J. Toomey, Hill’s private secretary, gave out a statement. He said he could not see how such a report could have gained circulation. He said that Hill was at his office somewhat earlier than usual this morning.

The Minneapolis Morning Tribune; “Hill Reported Dead, But He’s Not Even Ill”; May 6, 1915; p. 4.

1Photo taken by Pamela J. Erickson. Released into the public domain May 5, 2018, as long as acknowledgement included.

2http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:James_J._Hill_at_35.jpg
               __________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including:
census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MNHS records. Both short searches and family history reports available.

                                                       


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com > click on Family History

Contact me at:
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Friday, May 4, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: May 4

May 4, 1958 – “After Minnesota's Democratic Farmer Labor Party (DFL) had endorsed Coya Knutson for a third term in Congress, her husband Andy Knutson released to the press an open letter ordering his wife not to run for office again. In covering the story, The Fargo Forum coined the phrase ‘Coya, Come Home.’ Picked up by the Associated Press, ‘Coya, Come Home’ found its way onto front pages across the country.”

She eventually divorced her husband in 1962.

http://articles.latimes.com/1990-08-05/books/bk-203_1_coya-knutson

https://mnnowblog.wordpress.com/2017/03/05/womens-history-month-minnesota-edition-coya-knutson/



Coya Knutson

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coya_Knutson.jpg
               __________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including:
census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MNHS records. Both short searches and family history reports available.

                                                        


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com > click on Family History

Contact me at:
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Thursday, May 3, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: May 3

May 3, 1930 Conservation Officer Norman D. Fairbanks was shot and killed as he and another officer attempted to arrest two men for illegal trapping at a cabin at Wolf Lake in Itasca County, near Hibbing, Minn. The two had failed to show up for a court appearance so the officers returned to the cabin to arrest them. As they entered, one of the men opened fire, mortally wounding Officer Fairbanks.

The other officer was not injured and was able to return fire. The suspects fled and two months later one was shot and killed and the other was arrested. The one who was arrested was acquitted after pleading insanity. Officer Fairbanks succumbed to his wounds two weeks after the shooting.

Officer Fairbanks was survived by his wife and six children. One of his sons was also a game warden and had gone to the scene of the shooting to transport his father to the hospital.


Norman D. Fairbanks


http://www.odmp.org/officer/4713-conservation-officer-norman-d-fairbanks
               __________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including:
census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MNHS records. Both short searches and family history reports available.

                                                       


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com > click on Family History

Contact me at:
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Wednesday, May 2, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History:May 2


May 2, 1903 – Naked, delirious, his system ridden with smallpox, James Judge was found at dawn on the rear porch of a residence in St. Louis Park, Minn. His condition and presence there were due to the inattention to their duties of attendants at the quarantine hospital, who slumbered peacefully while the man, whose condition indicated that he was close to death, wrapped an overcoat about his bare limbs and plunged out into a snowstorm. He wandered aimlessly until, with bleeding feet and body, blue with cold, he staggered into the storm shed of the house opposite the one where he was discovered.



Smallpox Victim1

The master of the latter domicile, upon finding the shivering form on his doorstep, reached the right conclusion immediately—that he had escaped from the quarantine hospital and telephoned that institution. A sleepy voice at the other end of the line, however, informed him that everything was as usual there and that no one had escaped from the establishment.

Meanwhile the quivering, bleeding, disease-wrecked victim was locked in a rear room of the residence. While the members of the household were planning what course to pursue, the ambulance from the quarantine hospital drove up and the driver announced the fact that those in charge of the hospital had, upon investigation, discovered the absence of a patient.

Judge’s chances of recovery are lessened almost to the absolute minimum in consequence of his experience, as his case was considered as one of the worst with which the Minnesota authorities have ever had to deal.

As a result of his escape, Health Commissioner P. M. Hall lost no time in dismissing Oscar Berger, who has been in charge of the hospital for the past year. Sanitary Inspector Albert J. Lunt was appointed his successor.

The Saint Paul Globe; “Escapes Naked with Smallpox. Delirious Inmate of Quarantine Hospital Runs Away.”; May 2, 1903; p. 7.

1http://www.amnh.org/explore/science-topics/disease-and-eradication/countdown-to-zero/smallpox


 
Photo taken by Pamela J. Erickson. Released into the public domain May 2, 2018, as long as acknowledgement included.  

 _________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including:
census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MNHS records. Both short searches and family history reports available.

                                                         


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com > click on Family History

Contact me at:
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Tuesday, May 1, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: May 1


May 1, 1912 – Miss Aurelia McMiller was the victim of a peculiar accident at Nicollet Baseball Park late this afternoon, when a bullet from the revolver of Detective William Mealey struck her in the left thigh, inflicting a slight flesh wound. The bullet then continued on its way and struck a small boy in the heel of his shoe, but did not wound him.

It was just after the game and the detective was scrambling over the seats toward the exit. His revolver fell out of his hip pocket and was discharged as it fell to the floor of the stand.

Great excitement was created when the shot rang out, as the cry of the woman followed. Detective Mealey hurried to her assistance and helped her into a waiting automobile, occupied by her mother. She was taken to her home and a physician summoned, who said the wound was trifling.

Detective Mealey is the son of the chief of police. All efforts to locate him this evening and get his version of the accident proved unproductive. At headquarters it was given out that no report of the shooting had been received there.

The Minneapolis Morning Tribune; “Woman Shot at Ball Park. Gun, Falling Out of Sleuth’s Pocket, Explodes—Girl and Boy Hit.”; May 2, 1912; p. 1.


http://stewthornley.net/nicollet_park.html

               __________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including:
census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MNHS records. Both short searches and family history reports available.

                                                         


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com > click on Family History

Contact me at:
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Monday, April 30, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: April 30

April 30, 1967 - A tornado outbreak affected portions of south central and southeast Minn. on this date. “The outbreak spawned a total of nine tornadoes resulting in 13 deaths and 80 injuries. Local area residents refer to the day as ‘Black Sunday.’”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Southern_Minnesota_tornado_outbreak


https://www.waseca.k12.mn.us/vhm/1961-1975/tornados.htm
               __________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including:
census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MNHS records. Both short searches and family history reports available.

                                                         


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com > click on Family History

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Sunday, April 29, 2018

On This Date in Minnesota History: April 29

April 29, 1904 – Chief Joseph, hereditary chief of the Nez Perce Indians, who once gave Uncle Sam a great deal of trouble, sat buried beneath a big sombrero at the St. Paul Union Depot today and gave no sign that he had, in his younger days, given Gen. Miles a reputation by his capture in the wilds of Montana.


Chief Joseph in his younger days (1877)1

“Chief Joseph and his band” rivaled in warlike deeds and cruel treatment of their captives any “red-skinned devil” who ever came out of a yellow-back terror, and when he was taken East a captive with several hundred of his followers in charge of United States troops, the mention of his name caused chills up and down the backs of St. Paul youths.

Joseph is now living quietly on the Yakima Reservation, some 30 miles south of Spokane, Wash., and he and 12 others of the tribe were in St. Paul today on their way to St. Louis to become part of an exhibit for a month at the World’s Fair. They were accompanied by Tom Eagle Blanket, an unusually wise Indian, being interpreter and envoy for the party.

A tiny little boy, with big wondering eyes and a very dirty face, was held tightly by his mother, a comely young Indian woman, and the boy’s father pulled silently at a big pipe. While Chief Joseph was no longer in beads and feathers, but wore instead a conventional suit of jeans. Several of his companions wore gay-colored blankets with beads and ornaments, giving every indication of having just come from the reservation.




Chief Joseph with Captain Pratt and his old nemesis General Howard2


The party, which arrived in St. Paul from Washington via the Northern Pacific Railroad, left this evening for St. Louis over the Rock Island Railroad.



Map of the Great Northern Railroad Routes
3




 Map of the Rock Island Railroad Routes4


 
Chief Joseph died September 21, 1904, on the Colville Indian Reservation, WA


The Saint Paul Globe
; “Chief Joseph Here. Indian Who Gave Uncle Sam Trouble Stops Over in City.”; April 30, 1904; p. 2.

1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Joseph

2http://amertribes.proboards.com/thread/858/chief-joseph-photos

3https://www.gnrhs.org/gn_history.htm

4
http://www.queenstyle.nl/rock-island-railroad-route-map.html

               __________________________________________________________

If you are interested in finding out more about your family history in Minnesota, I specialize in researching  genealogical and historical records in Minn. and western Wis., including:
census records,  birth records,  death certificates, obits, grave site photos, ship passenger lists, marriage records and declarations of intent/naturalization records.  I will visit locations to research local history and county records, as well as take photos. Quick turnaround on MNHS records. Both short searches and family history reports available.

                                                        


Discover your roots, and watch the branches of your family tree begin to grow.


Website:  TheMemoryQuilt.com > click on Family History

Contact me at:
pjefamilyresearch@gmail.com