Donors of General Museum's Ward Casts

John Sargent Pillsbury was born in Sutton, New Hampshire on July 29, 1827. He became governor of Minnesota around the time of his donation, but Pillsbury was also the driving force behind the University of Minnesota’s rebirth in the wake of the Civil War. Pillsbury served as a regent throughout the university’s early history. His donation of $150,000 funded the building of Science Hall in 1889. That building would soon be renamed Pillsbury Hall and would become the final home of Winchell’s General Museum. 

Pillsbury began as a store owner in New Hampshire but in 1855, while on a tour of the ‘West,’ he decided to make Saint Anthony his home. He married Mahala Fisk and undertook numerous ventures in hardware, real estate, and lumber before founding an immensely profitable milling concern, the Pillsbury Company. Pillsbury served in the Minnesota Senate for several years and was Minnesota’s eighth governor from January 1876 until January 1882. During his term, the Grasshopper Plague of 1877 would spark the biological and botanical efforts of Winchell’s Geological and Natural History Survey. Pillsbury’s daughter, Sarah Belle, married the son of Samuel Chester Gale, another cast donor) whose art collection helped build the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Pillsbury died on October 18, 1901, and was buried in Lakewood Cemetery.

Hannibal Hamlin Kimball was born on August 18, 1843, in Carmel, Maine and came to Minneapolis in 1867 after graduating from Bowdoin Medical College. He arrived with his friend and fellow cast donor, Thomas Lowry. The two met in Chicago and traveled by boat from Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, which at the time was the nearest railroad terminus to the city. Although Lowry was a lawyer rather than a doctor, the two shared lodging, an office, and even formal wear, both being fortunately the same size. Shortly after his donation for Winchell’s casts, Kimball married Grace Morrison, the daughter of Minneapolis’ first mayor and the two moved to Europe for two years. There, Kimball studied in European hospitals before returning to practice once again in Minneapolis. Kimball died on July 9, 1928, and was buried in Lakewood Cemetery. 

Eugene McLanahan Wilson was born on December 25, 1833, in Morgantown, Virginia, the son and grandson of U.S. representatives. After graduating from Jefferson College in 1852, he worked as a lawyer in Virginia until he moved to Minnesota in 1855. Wilson opened a legal practice in Winona but in 1857 he was chosen to be the United States Attorney for the District of Minnesota and moved to Minneapolis. During the Civil War, he was a captain in Company A of the 1^st Minnesota Volunteer Cavalry, primarily serving in the Dakota War of 1862. After the war, Wilson was elected to Congress and served until 1870. He then returned to Minneapolis and was elected mayor in 1872 and 1874. In 1873 though, Wilson participated in the abduction of Lord Gordon Gordon, an infamous conman, from Canada at the request of Jay Gould. Wilson, Gould, Loren Fletcher, and John Gilfillan were arrested but later released on bail after diplomatic pressure by Minnesota Governor Horace Austin. Wilson served in the Minnesota Senate in 1878 and 1879 and was an unsuccessful candidate for Governor in 1888. He died of malaria on April 10, 1890, while on a visit to regain his health in Nassau, British West Indies and was buried in Lakewood Cemetery.

Henry Titus Welles was born on April 3, 1821, in Glastonbury, Connecticut and attended Trinity College before becoming a lawyer. In 1850, Welles was elected to the Connecticut General Assembly. In 1853 Welles moved to Saint Paul and shortly afterward visited Saint Anthony Falls and became enamored of the falls. He relocated to Saint Anthony and went into the lumber business with the city’s founder, Franklin Steele. In 1855, Welles was elected the first mayor of Saint Anthony. That same year, Welles and Steele built the first bridge across the Mississippi River, a suspension bridge from Minneapolis to Nicollet Island. In 1863, Welles was a candidate for governor but lost to Stephen Miller who would start both the first and second State Geological Surveys whose turmoil led to the third state survey under Winchell being run by the University of Minnesota. Welles was a successful capitalist involved in many banks and railroads, with large real estate holdings that included partial ownership of Col. John H. Stevens’ claim to the future site of Minneapolis. At the time of his death, Welles was among the richest men in the city with an estimated fortune of ten million dollars. He died at his mansion on Hennepin and 17^th Avenue and was buried in Lakewood Cemetery.

Richard Fairchild Chute was born on September 23, 1820, in Cincinnati, Ohio and his brother Samuel Hewes Chute was born a decade later on December 6, 1830, in Columbus, Ohio. Both their parents died before Richard was fifteen, so he played a significant role in raising Samuel. In 1841, Richard began working as a clerk for the Indiana-based Ewing fur company and in 1844 was sent to Minnesota to build a fur trading post on the Minnesota River eight miles upstream of Fort Snelling. In 1845 he became a partner with the Ewings, and the firm became Ewing, Chute & Co. In 1854 Richard moved to St. Anthony, Minnesota, where he engaged in the real estate business and owned the St. Anthony Falls Water Power Company which controlled most of the waterpower on the east bank of the falls. Richard was a University of Minnesota regent from 1876 to 1882 and his son, Charles Chute, was one of the first students at the University, part of its inaugural scientific class. Samuel Chute followed Richard to Minneapolis, arriving in 1857 a few years after graduating from the Ohio Medical College in Cincinnati and working as a physician in Portland, Oregon. In 1865, the brothers formed a partnership, Chute Brothers, with dealings in real estate, mill sites, and waterpower. While Richard worked with the University, Samuel was one of the founders of the Minneapolis Public Schools. Richart died in Chicago on August 1, 1893, and Samuel in Milwaukee on October 12, 1913. Both were buried in Lakewood Cemetery.

Daniel Smith Storey stood out in the cast donor list simply because he was of modest means. Rather than a wealthy capitalist or powerful politician, Storey sold lightning rods and fireproof paint. Yet in a 1909 Star Tribune article, Storey boasted he was ‘known by more people in Minneapolis than any other man living.’ Storey was born on September 10, 1823, in Lee, New York and attended Oneida Conference Seminary. After his family moved to Summit, Wisconsin in the 1840s, Storey married Susan Rose and they had five children. Their last child was born in 1862 shortly after they moved to Osage, Iowa where Storey was a land speculator. Susan died in 1867. Six years later, with most of his children on their own, Storey married Emmaline Victoria Johnson in Milwaukee, Wisconsin when she was twenty and he was fifty to begin a second family of five more children. Soon after their marriage, the couple moved to Minneapolis where Storey and a son from his first marriage made their living selling lightning rods and fireproof paint. The couple faced hurdles and divorced before 1900. Emmaline was committed to Saint Peter Hospital, the state’s mental hospital. She died there on January 29, 1908, and was buried in the hospital cemetery. It is not known how Storey came to be included in Winchell’s list of donors, but Storey claimed to have worked for four governors and to have installed lightning rods on every school in Minneapolis so he may have installed rods on Old Main. The balance that enabled Storey to work on roofs and spires undoubtedly was the reason he was known as an expert dancer even at the age of 86. Storey died on January 3, 1914. While most of Winchell’s donors were interred in Lakewood Cemetery, Storey died in Summit, Wisconsin and was buried there. 

Anthony Kelly was born on August 25, 1832, in Swinford, County Mayo, Ireland. When he was fifteen, his family moved to Canada, close to Montreal. Kelly later moved to Georgia and worked as a planter until coming to Minneapolis in 1858. Kelly followed his brother, Peter, who had arrived the previous year. The two brothers opened a retail grocery store on Washington Avenue, just south of Second Avenue South. They later moved their store to the west side of Hennepin Avenue. In 1863, Patrick left to open a wholesale grocery house in Saint Paul and Kelly took sole ownership of the Minneapolis store eventually turning it into a wholesale concern with a new stone headquarters building on Washington and Second Avenue North. Apart from Pillsbury’s hardware business, at the time of his death, Kelly’s store was the oldest in the city. While many of the other cast donors fought for the Union, Kelly was an ardent southern sympathizer due to his time as a Georgia planter. Kelly died on May 31, 1899, of heart disease and rheumatism. The lone Catholic among Winchell’s donors, Kelly was buried in Minneapolis’ Saint Mary’s Cemetery. In his will, Kelly left the archdiocese $10,000 to help build DeLaSalle High School on Nicollet Island. 

Thomas Lowry was born on February 27, 1843, in Logan County, Illinois and came to Minneapolis in 1867 after joining the bar. Beginning as a lawyer, Lowry soon shifted his focus to real estate and land speculation. In 1875, he joined the Minneapolis Street Railway Company and by 1877 held a controlling interest. Lowry pushed to expand Minneapolis’ streetcar lines out to surrounding undeveloped areas where he held extensive land tracts.

Lowry gained control of the Saint Paul City Railway and merged his companies together in 1891 to create the Twin City Rapid Transit Company, which became a driving force in the two cities’ development. Lowry was also the president of what became the Soo Line Railroad from 1889 to 1890 and from 1892 to 1909. His son, Horace, took over the Twin City Rapid Transit and ran it until his own death in 1931. Lowry died on February 4, 1909, at his home in Minneapolis and was buried at the Lowry mausoleum in Lakewood Cemetery. Lowry Memorial, Thomas Lowry Park, and Lowry Hill Tunnel are all named after him.

Paris Gibson was born on July 1, 1830, in Brownfield, Maine. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1851 and two years later was elected to the Maine legislature. In August of 1858, Gibson married Valeria G. Sweat and the couple moved to Saint Anthony Falls in 1859. Gibson was one of the founders of Cataract Mill, the first flourmill in Minneapolis, as well as the North Star Woolen Mill. He helped establish Minneapolis’ first public library and served on the University of Minnesota’s Board of Regents from 1871 through 1879. In 1879 Gibson moved to Montana as a sheep rancher. In 1883 Gibson was elected the first president of the Montana Wool Growers Association and continued in that office for 22 years through Montana’s ‘Sheep Wars’. In 1885 Gibson relocated to Great Falls, Montana. Impressed with the falls’ waterpower, he determined to replicate his earlier success at Saint Anthony Falls and founded the Great Falls Water Power and Townsite Company. Gibson purchased the town site, built a power company, hotel, and recruited settlers, building Great Falls, Montana. The town’s population grew from 100 in 1885 to over 4,000 in 1890. Gibson enticed a railroad line to the town in 1887 and became a director of its First National Bank. In 1888 Great Falls was incorporated as a city and Gibson was elected the first mayor. Gibson’s Great Falls Light and Power Co. built transmission lines throughout the region as well as a dam on the Missouri River at Black Eagle in 1890. That same year he co-founded the Boston and Montana Smelter Company in Great Falls, which became the major smelter for Butte copper. In 1912, his power company merged with others to form the Montana Power Company. In 1889 Gibson represented Cascade County at the State Constitutional Convention and served as a member of the Montana Senate. In 1901, at the age of 71, the state legislature elected him a U.S. Senator. He served until 1905. Gibson died on December 16, 1920, and as fitting for the founder of Great Falls, was buried there.