Charlotte Winchell’s ‘Cottage’

This site started with a simple question, namely where was the Winchell home located? However, it turned out that the house was much more than a simple dwelling. Its roots reached back to a time before Minnesota had even become a territory, much less a state. And its legacy was much more than a simple home. The Winchell family only lived in the home for thirty-three years, from 1875 to 1908. Charlotte Winchell though, had originally planned to use the structure as a boarding house to help women attend the University of Minnesota. Although she had to initially compromise on her plan, using the house as her family’s home, she boarded women students for many years. When the university expanded and took over the house and land, Charlotte’s reputation was such that the house became the second cooperative cottage for women at the university and would lead to a tradition of cooperative living that continued for over a half century, enabling hundreds of women to attend the University of Minnesota, many of whom might not otherwise have been able to.

Although largely Charlotte’s story, the tale should start with the man who originally built the structure that later become Charlotte Winchell’s ‘Cottage.’ If you lack the patience for long tales though, you can skip to the cottage’s later history using this link.

Regardless of its timing, after his arrival Cheever purchased a ‘squatter’ land claim from Pascal and Sauverre St. Martin, French Canadian brothers. Cheever’s land was south of Franklin Steele’s claim on the east bank of Owámniyomni (Saint Anthony Falls) and the two men competed with one another to found a city on the east bank as the falls offered an unparalleled source of waterpower for milling. Both men claimed the fall’s European name for their proposed cities, so Steele’s community became known as Saint Anthony while Cheever’s was Saint Anthony City. 

In his choice of location, Cheever was gambling that navigation would ultimately trump hydropower. He claimed one hundred and eighty-two acres of land above a point bar on the eastern bank, now known as East River Flats Park, south of Memorial Union. That low river point bar, then named Cheever’s Landing, formed from sand deposition along the riverbend’s inner curve. Its low topography and gentle slope marked the upstream limit of steamboat navigation on the Mississippi River at a time before railroads reached the region. Hence, Cheever believed his land claim could be the start of a city that would control river traffic between downstream communities and the mills at the cataract. Initially, Cheever’s gamble appeared to be successful as his community grew to three hundred people. However, the falls’ mills provided many more jobs and without public transport, mill workers naturally wished to live close to the mills. Hence, Steele’s Saint Anthony flourished while Cheever’s Saint Anthony City began to languish. It remained a largely undeveloped, dispersed community, known colloquially as Cheever’s Town.

When he arrived in 1847, Cheever not only started a farm and built a warehouse at his landing but also ran a ‘Lower Ferry’ from his landing across the river to government land on another point bar that would later become known as Bohemian Flats. The ferry’s route is shown in his 1848 land plat map which was surveyed by Benjamin W. Brunson in October of that year. Along with his platted city, the text in the map’s margin extolled the falls’ vast potential and the undoubted promise of Cheever’s proposed city. In 1853, Cheever sold his ferry to Edward Murphy, which proved good timing as the need for a ferry, always limited, vanished after the first bridge was built between Minneapolis and Saint Anthony in 1855. 

However, only three years later the city’s rapid growth already constrained that site, making it far too small for the university’s purposes. Consequently Cheever now sold twenty-three acres of land to the regents of the University of Minnesota for $6,000 to relocate the institution from its initial site. This was the start of our present campus. Much of the rest of Cheever’s original land would be later purchased by the state for $800,000 to further expand the university campus but Cheever would never see that windfall despite nearly all the East Bank campus being part of his original land claim.

Upslope of Cheever’s Landing, Cheever built a hotel and observation tower, the latter becoming the region’s first tourist attraction. Located on the territorial road and stage route from Saint Paul, the wooden tower was built in 1853 and soared at least ninety feet, providing a remarkable view of the falls and surrounding region. For many newcomers, Cheever’s tower provided their first sight of the cities of Saint Anthony and Minneapolis. 

Although later illustrations of the tower show it with straight flights of steps, an 1872 description claimed the tower boasted a spiral staircase to its top. A telescope on the upper floor meant that on clear days visitors could see as far as Oheyawahi (Pilot Knob) above the downstream junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. The base of the tower was twenty-four feet square, and its entrance bore a sign that had the name ‘Harvard’ on one side and ‘Pay your dime and climb’ on the other side. 

In the July 22, 1854, Saint Anthony Express Cheever advertised that ‘Cheever is Open! Call at his Tower and get an Ice Cream and a glass of Sparkling Soda, and Pay Your Dime and Climb. And see all the country and some of Texas, at a single view. No stranger should leave the country without one view which would take days to obtain in any other way. Ladies’ Saloon first story and strictly temperance. Second—Gent’s Saloon; Hard Cider and two live coons on exhibition FREE.’ 

Despite the city’s still rustic nature, Cheever apparently considered raccoons a drawing card. He also seemed fond of poor rhymes. Besides his ‘dime and climb’ slogan Cheever also hung another sign above the ‘Gent’s Saloon’ that read: ‘Good Ale and good beer, At the tower I keep here.’

John H. Stevens later recalled that Cheever’s Tower was ‘the most conspicuous object for a great distance in every direction. The bend of the river brings this tower directly opposite the face of the falls, about half a mile distant, giving an unsurpassed view of the rapids and cataract and an immense extent of country in every direction forming one of the most varied, charming and extensive landscapes in Minnesota.’

Frank G. O’Brien came to Saint Anthony in September of 1855. In the June 9, 1895, edition of the Star Tribune, a reporter attempted to record O’Brien’s memories in his own words. 

“Two hours ride [from Saint Paul] brought us to a halt at Cheevertown, near where the State University now stands, and while the horses were slacking their thirst at he [sic] old dugout watering trough, we climbed up the winding stairs of ‘Cheever’s tower.’ The sign read: ‘Pay your dime and climb.’

The view was magnificent. From this elevation could be seen the lively and long drawn out ‘City of St. Anthony,’ the East Side saw mills and falls, the West Side prairie, with a few scattering houses; the West Side falls, which had not then become fashionable enough to don an apron; Nicollet and Hennepin islands, a steamboat at Dorman’s landing, at the head of Nicollet Island; a steamboat just landing at Meekin’s landing, a short distance below the University; Fort Snelling and the lakes in the distance. Oh, what a paradise to drink in! My youthful reservoir capacity was not sufficient to take in all the beauties that were spread out before us. Mr. Cheever and Mr. McAlpin saw us safely all aboard, and as we started down the long, steep, rocky hill to Main street, we looked back, and all that could be seen of ‘Cheever tower’ was the weather vane, with ‘M. T.’ on either end. This had no allusion to Cheever or McAlpin, as they were never known to be empty. It stood for Minnesota Territory.”

O’Brien also drew a sketch of Cheever’s Tower from memory that has since been reproduced many times although its authenticity was based solely on three-decade-old memories. Its scale was definitely inaccurate as the base of the tower is scarcely larger than its door and is less than an ox’s length. In 1949, a Star Tribune artist recreated the tower based on O’Brien’s sketch but moved its location over a mile north to the edge of the falls, compounding the sketch’s inaccuracies with geographical ones as well.

In 1857, Benjamin Franklin Upton took one of the two verified photographs of the tower and hotel from the top of the Winslow House in downtown Saint Anthony from over a mile away. On the horizon, just below the two vertical arrows shown on the image are dim outlines of the tower and hotel (more visible in the blowup image). 

The other verified known image of Cheever's Tower is a 1857 photograph taken of the Old Government Flour Mill and Saw Mill on the west bank of Saint Anthony Falls. That photograph looks downstream and handwritten labels below its lower margin highlight the locations of Spirit Island, Cheever Tower (again on the distant horizon), the Old Government Flour Mill and Old Government Saw Mill. In the Minnesota Historical Society’s collections there is also a stereopticon view of a similar looking tower labeled ‘Cheever’s Tower.’ Taken in 1858, that image’s tower looks similar to the distant view seen in Upton’s image. If it is Cheever’s Tower though, the trees or hill must be obscuring Cheever’s hotel as the hotel is not discernable in the image, yet it outlasted Cheever Tower by several years. A storm in the late 1860’s damaged the tower and its ruins were dismantled. While some have questioned whether the stereopticon view is really of Cheever Tower, if its 1858 date is correct, the tower was undoubtedly Cheever’s as there were no other large wooden towers in Minnesota at the time. 

The 1859 Minneapolis and Saint Anthony Directory listed Cheever’s Tower and Cheever House as being at 6^th and Prospect Streets in Saint Anthony City. In September of 1919, fifty years after he first assumed the presidency of the university, William Watts Folwell set about to track down the original location of Cheever’s Tower. Judge J. B. Gilfillan, who arrived in Saint Anthony Falls in 1855, Folwell’s daughter Mary, who had climbed the tower at a very young age, and Augusta A. Connor, who came to Saint Anthony in 1857, joined him in that quest, which was detailed and illustrated in the September 21 Star Tribune. The party eventually determined the tower had been located at the rear end of lot 1, block 7, of the original plat of Saint Anthony City, which matches the location of a structure noted on an 1861 map of the area, just north of Cheever House. The tower’s location was just north of present Arlington Street at the driveway leading to Wulling Hall. However, the tower originally stood on a small knoll that was later flattened by university construction, so its base was higher than the present land surface and the additional height would enhance the view. The 1919 article on Folwell’s quest incidentally mentioned that Winchell Cottage, originally the barn or stables of the Cheever House, was being dismantled at the time. 

Just south of his tower, Cheever built a large hotel in 1851 that was located where the northern edge of Fraser Hall now stands. Called Cheever House, William originally planned his hotel to be a brick-faced structure that had a hundred and twenty-seven rooms along with an immense ballroom. Like many of Cheever’s plans, the actual structure ended up being more modest, but it was still a substantial wooden structure with over sixty rooms. The hotel’s trim was crimson to reflect Harvard’s colors, Cheever’s claimed alma mater. A hydraulic ram or ‘chain well’ furnished water for the hotel and travelers along the territorial road. In back of the hotel, there was also a large wooden barn or stable, which may have begun as Cheever’s original farmhouse. That structure was later moved and became the Winchell family’s home for many years before entering a second career as a cooperative home for women at the university. 

The Minnesota Historical Society has a registrar from the Cheever House for the years 1857 to 1859, but the relatively low number of guests, only fifty-seven, suggests the hotel was beginning to struggle. The registrar ended on April 6, 1859, and later that year Cheever sold his hotel to Ovid Pinney, the original publisher of The St. Anthony Falls Democrat.

On March 10, 1865, The Weekly Pioneer and Democrat reported the newly incorporated Minnesota Health Institution at St. Anthony Falls (incorporation filed Feb. 15, 1865) had opened a health institute in the (late) Cheever House with the intention of ‘pleasing our patrons’ whether they are seeking health or pleasure. Invalids would receive special care and find a ‘home’ with the institute. The ad promised pure air, pure water, splendid scenery and ‘healthful’ food along with excellent physicians, baths, parlor gymnastics, music, good teams, and carriages. The institution’s president was B. W. Plummer of Maine, but Plummer’s health center was destined for an early death. 

On September 23, 1865, The Winona Daily Republican reported the Cheever House at St. Anthony had burned on September 20. The house was owned by David Pinny of St. Anthony, Ovid’s son, but was leased to Dr. Plummer for a water cure establishment. The article said the building, valued at six thousand dollars, was a total loss as it was uninsured although there had been insurance on the building’s furniture.

Despite the article’s claim, the building was not a total loss as seven years later the Cheever House burned down once again. In the aftermath of its second conflagration, a trio of university professors purchased the land and the sole remaining building, a barn, which they planned to renovate into a boarding house to help alleviate the lack of housing for women students close to the university. But before that vision came to be realized, two of them would first use it for their own home. 

But who was William Cheever and what happened to him?

Cheever’s matrimonial efforts were more successful a short time later, as in 1830 or 1831 he married Julia Ann George in Orrington, Maine. George was also born in Wrentham, so being married in Orrington seems a bit unusual. George, daughter of Timothy George and Betsey Capron, was born in 1813 so she was a few years younger than Cheever. Their first child was born in October of 1831, but they lost their next three children within less than a year of their birth. It was not until Emily Caroline’s was born on September 20, 1842, that another child would survive, followed by Anna Maria on July 20, 1846. However, Anna’s birth was followed by tragedy as Julia died four days later on July 24 in Wrentham. Cheever was a widower with three children, including a newborn. Julia’s death undoubtedly played a role in Cheever’s decision to leave his children with relatives the following summer and move to what would become Minnesota Territory. Anna and Emily would initially stay with Cheever’s sisters Caroline Fisher and Rosanna Cheever in Wrentham.

However, financial difficulties may have also played a secondary role in this decision. Cheever apparently went bankrupt in 1840 while living in Boston and again underwent bankruptcy proceedings in Orrington towards the end of 1843. After his wife’s death, the uncharted and recently ceded lands of Minnesota offered the possibility of a new start. 

Early on, that start’s potential appeared staggering. Several sources claim Cheever was part of the St. Anthony Waterpower Company and helped arrange for Caleb Cushing and other Massachusetts investors to purchase nine-tenths of the falls’ east bank waterpower from Franklin Steele. It appears more likely that Cheever’s brother Benjamin, who was Cushing’s agent, played the more prominent role, but Cheever may have initiated the proceedings with his brother. If Cheever held a share of the partnership though, and if Cheever had had the resources to hang onto that share, he might have ended up among the new territory’s wealthiest individuals. However, the Boston financiers failed to provide funds promptly and legal problems plagued the prospect. While the falls’ milling industry would eventually generate fortunes, it struggled in its early years. Even if the scheme had proved profitable more quickly, Cheever’s financial situation was probably too precarious to follow through to the stage of mill development. Shortly after the initial agreement was made, his brother left the territory and Cheever was again on his own, but not for long.

Cheever had come to Minnesota in the summer of 1847, arriving even before the territory became a territory. Two years later, besides setting up a farm, ferry, warehouse, and selling land plots, Cheever remarried. In 1849, he wedded Louisa Malvina Wilson of Hallowell, Maine. Born on the banks of the Kennebec River on December 13, 1823, Louisa was fifteen years younger than Cheever and only eight years older than his first child. 

Cheever had come to Minnesota in the summer of 1847, arriving even before the territory became a territory. Two years later, besides setting up a farm, ferry, warehouse, and selling land plots, Cheever remarried. In 1849, he wedded Louisa Malvina Wilson of Hallowell, Maine. Born on the banks of the Kennebec River on December 13, 1823, Louisa was fifteen years younger than Cheever and only eight years older than his first child. 

In the 1850 U. S. Census Cheever and Louisa were living in Saint Anthony City with two-month-old Albert Augustus who had been born on August 16. Cheever’s listed occupation was farming. By the 1857 Minnesota Territorial Census, Julia’s teenage daughters, Anna and Emily, had arrived and were living with Cheever and Louisa, along with Albert and three-year old Julia Louisa, born on May 9, 1853. By this time, Cheever House was built and Cheever gave his occupation as hotelkeeper. The household also included William Holmes of New York and John Murphy of Ireland as hired laborers along with Bridget Burnes and Margret Pollard of Ireland as domestic servants. This period was likely just after the height of Cheever’s commercial success. 

The fall from apparent prosperity may have occurred quickly. Judge Isaac Atwater wrote of an incident when Cheever was arrested and brought before Judge Edward O. Hamlin for not obeying a subpoena to be a witness in a criminal trial. Atwater noted that Cheever was known for his sense of humor, but also his ‘hard drinking’ and when the sheriff brought Cheever into the courtroom, he was considerably inebriated. Despite his incapacitation, Cheever managed to charm the crowd and get himself acquitted. However, the darker side of the story was that Cheever’s defense was that just before the sheriff had arrived, he had spent his last dime on bread for his family. Hence, he did not have the nickel toll needed to cross the suspension bridge to the Minneapolis courtroom. Although Cheever tried to borrow the five cents from others, no one would lend it to him, and he was too old to swim the cold swift water. While the story is likely highly embellished if not apocryphal, it still suggests Cheever was in financial straits at the time. 

However, the tale of Cheever’s drunkenness and courtroom testimony should be viewed skeptically. Possibly because of his tower’s fame, Cheever became a favorite character in ‘old stories’ of the city, some of which were patently false. A May 14, 1909 story in The Minneapolis Journal related a tale in which Hamley H. Hayricker and a few friends as a Halloween prank ‘tipped over Cheever’s Tower, loaded it on two pairs of heavy wheels, hitched on six stout oxen, brought it across the first suspension bridge, at that time just completed, and hoisted it to the top of the Pence operahouse’ where the tower drew crowds for performances. After a week, ‘Old Man Cheever’ came uptown mad, to get his tower and to claim part of the receipts for the week, but May [the opera house press agent] put him off with “comps” for the Saturday mat.’ 

Cheever’s Tower was over ninety feet tall, so the idea of tipping it over, transporting it across the bridge and setting it up atop an  opera house is preposterous and the story might as well have included a blue ox named Babe. 

A Star Tribune article on July 18, 1872, also noted that Cheever was ‘singular in his habits, erratic in his notions’ and told of a storm playing havoc with his monument of folly [Cheever Tower] and soon after his hotel fell victim to fire. The article ended with death then laying its icy hand on the ‘strange old man.’ Considering that Cheever was only fifty-one at the time the described events occurred, ‘old’ seems premature as was his ‘death.’ Cheever was far from dead, as he and his family had simply left Saint Anthony in 1859. 

In 1876 and 1877, city newspapers carried a series of legal notices brought by Ovid Pinney against Cheever, for a judgement of $5,149.85 dating back to late 1859 tied to the purchase of Cheever’s hotel. That summons went unanswered as Cheever left Saint Anthony shortly after selling his hotel. By July of 1860, Cheever, his wife and two younger children were back on the East Coast, living in Winchester Massachusetts where Cheever worked as a blacksmith. By 1865, the family was in North Attleboro, Massachusetts. After a gap of seven years, William and Louisa were again adding to their family. Horace Andrew was born on June 16, 1861, and George Lyman followed on July 31, 1863. Their last child was William Plympton, born on April 5, 1866. 

In the 1870 U. S. Census, William was still working as a blacksmith but Albert and Julia, aged 19 and 17, were making jewelry – which became the family’s main craft. By 1880, the family had moved back to Cheever’s hometown of Wrentham. Julia had married and moved out but Horace was now working with Albert in a jewelry shop. Cheever, at age 71, no longer worked. 

Cheever died on July 6, 1887, in Wrentham, Massachusetts. His attending physician listed his death as due to ‘debility/old age’ and noted that he had been a jeweler. Cheever was buried in Massachusetts' Plainville Cemetery. Louisa would live with her son Albert for the remainder of her life and died on December 27, 1904, in North Attleboro, Massachusetts. 

A decade later, Cheever’s old barn started a new chapter as one of the first cooperative living residences for women at the University of Minnesota. A story that began in 1872 when fire finally claimed the last of Cheever’s old hotel.