Mitchell Davison Rhame was born on October 12, 1846, in East Rockaway, New York, one of twelve children of Samuel Schatz Rhame and Charlotte Davison. Shortly after his birth, the family moved a few miles to Hempstead, New York where Rhame grew up.
After boarding school in Jamaica, New York, Rhame took a two-year preparatory course at Union College in Schenectady before attending Yale, graduating in 1869. Rhame then took a post-graduate course at Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School. In 1870, Rhame married Sarah Stebbins Chidsey of New Haven, Connecticut. Unusual for the time, Sarah was twelve years older than Rhame. The couple would have four children and despite their age difference, Sarah would outlive her husband by three years and three days.
Rhame was hired as a U. S. government surveyor and moved to Peoria, Illinois to work on a survey of the Illinois River along the Missouri border. While working in Peoria, Rhame met a relative of William Watts Folwell who wrote Folwell, recommending Rhame for a newly opened teaching position at the University of Minnesota. Folwell immediately hired Rhame who came to the university in 1872, the same year Newton Horace Winchell arrived. Rhame replaced Arthur Beardsley, a graduate of the Polytechnic School, of Troy, New York, who in 1869 had been hired as a tutor in mathematics and mechanical drawing. A year later, Beardsley was promoted to professor of the newly opened department of Civil Engineering and Industrial Mechanics. However, limited by the fledgling university’s scare funds, Beardsley resigned two years later.
Mitchell Davison Rhame in 1898 (courtesy of UMN Archives)
At the University of Minnesota
Rhame was initially hired as Instructor in civil engineering and industrial drawing, but the following year he was promoted to assistant professor, and in 1874 to professor. Although Rhame was technically the second engineering professor at the University of Minnesota, the university’s engineering program was largely established through his effort. Beardsley’s teaching had focused almost exclusively on mathematics and drawing, with the exception of one lone surveying course. So, Rhame was the first at the U to teach a suite of engineering courses. In addition to those courses, Rhame also taught higher mathematics in the college of education and languages in the regular university program.
His success in creating the university’s engineering program was all the more remarkable as Rhame arrived shortly before the Panic of 1873. That panic, the U. S. phase of which was triggered by the collapse of Jay Cooke’ Northern Pacific Railway, shut down nearly all railroad construction, which at the time was the country’s second largest employer after agriculture. With the railroad industry collapse, most other building projects were also curtailed and the nation’s demand for engineering students nearly vanished. Hence, Rhame’s accomplishment came during a very trying time for engineering departments. For three years, 1876 through 1878, Rhame also worked closely with Winchell, serving as the topographer for Winchell’s Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota.
That latter experience may have reminded Rhame of how much he loved working outdoors. When the financial panic finally ended in 1879, Rhame saw an opportunity. In 1880, Rhame left the University of Minnesota to work with the St. Paul, Minnesota & Manitoba Railroad as a land title examiner. He claimed university work was too confining, and that because of his health he preferred to work outdoors. Although he left the university, Rhame did not end his association with Winchell. The same year he left, Rhame became Winchell’s neighbor, building a new house at 201 State, less than a block south of Winchell’s home at 120 State.
After the 'U'
1874 Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad Map (Library of Congress). Rhame would play a pivotal role in extending the railway across the western plains to the Pacific coast.
Rhame quickly switched jobs to join the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad, often called the Milwaukee Road, where he spent the rest of his career. Rhame started as an assistant engineer in 1881, became a division engineer in 1903, and was appointed district engineer in 1910. Rhame oversaw the construction of the railroad’s Minneapolis station and many extensions of the railroad’s network, including a particularly challenging 200-mile stretch between the Missouri River and Montana state line known as the Puget Sound extension. Rhame, North Dakota, founded in 1908, and the surrounding township were named after him in recognition of Rhame’s work extending the railway through that state and platting the town. At 3,192 feet, Rhame is still the highest city in North Dakota.
Main street of Rhame, North Dakota.
Rhame's Obituary in the Star Tribune, December 10, 1913.
Rhame’s health, apparently an issue earlier, declined significantly towards the end of 1912, enough to be mentioned as a matter of concern in Union College alumni records. Rhame died on December 9, 1913, at his home on 201 State Street and was buried in Lakewood Cemetery. Neighbors in life, the Rhame and Winchell family plots are also close to one another on the west side of Lakewood cemetery.
Rhame gravestone in Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, MN.
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email: Kent Kirkby ([email protected])