Mr. Oakes was married to his second wife, Julia Beaulieu, of Sault Ste. Marie, July 29, 1831. She has had five children, but one of them now living, Julia Jane, widow of the late Gen. Isaac Van Etten. One of her sons, George Henry, was in the Civil War, and died two years after of disease contracted in the service.
Charles William Wulff Borup was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, Dec. 20, 1806. He received a thorough classical and medical education. In 1828 he emigrated to America, and, having abandoned his original intention of becoming a physician, entered into business, at first in the employ of John Jacob Astor. He became chief agent of the fur company on Lake Superior, with residence at La Pointe. In 1848 he removed to St. Paul and entered into a partnership with Pierre Chouteau. In 1854 the banking house of Borup & Oakes, of which he was senior partner, was established. Dr. Borup died of heart disease, July 6, 1859, but the banking business was continued under the firm name many years later. He was married July 17, 1832, to Elizabeth Beaulieu, a daughter of Basil Beaulieu, a French trader of Mackinaw. His widow died in St. Paul several years ago. Of a family of eleven children, nine survive.
Capt. Russell Blakeley, one of the best known of the early steamboat men, was born in North Adams, Massachusetts, April 19, 1815. He spent a part of his early life in Genesee county, New York, where he received a common school education; emigrated to Peoria, Illinois, in 1836, where he engaged in the real estate business; in 1839 he removed to Galena, where he engaged in mining and smelting; in 1844 to Southwest Virginia, returning to Galena in 1847, where he became one of a steamboat transportation company. He was clerk upon the first boat on the line, the Argo. This boat sank and he was transferred to the Dr. Franklin, of which he became captain. He was captain of the Nominee in 1853, and of the Galena in 1854. This last named boat was burned at Red Wing, July 1, 1858. In 1855 he was appointed agent at Dunleith of the Packet Company, and soon afterward bought a leading interest in the Northwestern Express Company. The next year he removed to St. Paul. In 1867 he retired from the company. Of late years he has interested himself in railroad enterprises, and has contributed greatly to the prosperity of the city and State.
Rensselaer R. Nelson, United States district judge since Minnesota became a state, was born in Cooperstown, Otsego county, New York, May 12, 1826. His paternal great-grandfather came from Ireland in 1764. His grandfather was born in Ireland, but came to this country in his childhood. His father, Samuel Nelson, was associate justice of the United States supreme court. His father served as a soldier in the war of 1812, and the son located the land warrant given for his services in Minnesota. The mother of Rensselaer was Catharine Ann (Russell), a descendant of Rev. John Russell, of Hadley, Massachusetts, in whose house the regicides Goffe and Whalley were concealed for years, and where they finally died.
Rensselaer R. Nelson graduated at Yale in 1846. In 1849 he was admitted to practice law. He came to St. Paul in 1850. In 1857 President Buchanan appointed him territorial judge, and in 1858, United States district judge, which office he still holds. He was married to Mrs. Emma F. Wright, a daughter of Washington Beebe, of New York State, Nov. 3, 1858.
George Loomis Becker was born Feb. 14, 1829, in Locke, Cayuga county, New York. His father, Hiram Becker, was a descendant of the early Dutch settlers of the Mohawk valley. In 1841 his father removed to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where the son entered the State University as a freshman, and graduated in 1846. He studied law with George Sedgewick until 1849, when he emigrated to St. Paul, arriving late in October. Here he commenced the practice of law, being associated with Edmund Rice and E. J. Whitall. Subsequently, on the withdrawal of Mr. Whitall, Wm. Hollinshead became a member of the firm. The partnership continued until 1856, when Mr. Becker withdrew to engage in other pursuits, since which time he has been engaged in forwarding the railroad interests of the State and serving in various positions of honor and trust. He served as a member of the constitutional convention in 1857. In 1862 he was chosen land commissioner of the St. Paul & Pacific railroad, and in 1864 was elected president of that corporation. In 1872 he was the unsuccessful candidate of his party for Congress.
He is a member of the Old Settlers Association, of which he was president in 1873, and of the Minnesota Historical Society, over which he presided as president in 1874. He was one of the original members of the Presbyterian church in St. Paul in 1850. He has served in the council of St. Paul, and as mayor. He has figured most creditably in the business, political, social and religious life of his adopted city, and is an admirable type of a public spirited citizen. Since 1885 he has served as railroad commissioner. In 1885, at Keesville, New York, he was married to Susannah M. Ismon, an estimable lady, who has made his home attractive. Their family consists of four sons.
Aaron Goodrich. – Hon. Aaron Goodrich, first chief justice of the supreme court of Minnesota Territory, was born in Sempronius, Cayuga county, New York, July 6, 1807. His parents were Levi H. and Eunice (Spinner) Goodrich. He traces his ancestry back through the Connecticut branch of the Goodrich family to a period in English history prior to the advent of William the Conqueror. His mother was a sister of Dr. John Skinner, who married a daughter of Roger Sherman. In 1815 his father removed to Western New York, where the son was raised on a farm and educated chiefly by his father, who was a fine scholar and teacher. He then studied law and commenced practice in Stewart county, Tennessee. In 1847 to 1848 he was a member of the Tennessee legislature.
In 1849 he was appointed to the supreme bench of Minnesota Territory. He filled the position for three years. In 1858, at the state organization, he was appointed a member of a commission to revise the laws and prepare a system of pleading for state courts. In 1860 he was made chairman of a similar commission. In March, 1861, President Lincoln appointed him secretary of the legation at Brussels, where he served eight years. While abroad, by his habits of study and opportunities for research, he laid the foundation of his critical and somewhat sensational work, "A History of the Character and Achievements of the So-called Christopher Columbus."
In politics Judge Goodrich was originally a Whig, and was a presidential elector in 1848. He was next a Republican, and served as delegate to the convention of 1860. In 1872 he was a delegate to the Liberal Republican convention which nominated Horace Greeley for president. In later years he voted with the Democratic party.
Mr. Goodrich was Deputy Past Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons in the State, was one of the corporate members of the State Historical Society and of the Old Settlers Association, of which he was for many years the secretary. In 1870 he was married to Miss Alice Paris, of Bogota, New Grenada, a descendant of the old Castilian family de Paris, an accomplished lady, who, with a daughter, survives him. Judge Goodrich died in St. Paul in 1886.
Nathan Myrick was born in Westford, Essex county, New York, July 7, 1822. He came to La Crosse, Wisconsin, in 1840. The writer first met him at Prairie du Chien in 1841. He was one of the principal founders of the city of La Crosse, managing a trading house in company with Scoots Miller. He also engaged in lumbering on Black river. He came to St. Paul in 1848, and has since made that city his home. He has been an enterprising and successful trader with the Indians, principally with the Sioux. Much of his trading stock was destroyed by the Sioux Indians in the insurrection of 1862, but he has been recompensed in part by the government. In 1843 he was married to Rebecca Ismon. They have three children.
John Melvin Gilman, son of John and Ruth (Curtis) Gilman, was born in Calais, Vermont, Sept. 7, 1824. His father died in 1825. The son received a good common school and academic education, graduating from the Montpelier Academy in 1843. He read law with Heaton & Reed, of Montpelier, and was admitted to the bar in 1844. During the same year he removed to New Lisbon, Ohio, where he practiced law eleven years and served one term (1849-50) in the state legislature.
In 1857 Mr. Gilman came to St. Paul, and formed a partnership with Hon. James Smith, Jr., and later became one of the firm of Gilman, Clough & Lane. Mr. Gilman served four terms as a representative in the state legislature. His affiliations have been with the Democratic party, for which he has been twice a candidate for Congress and chairman of the state central committee. He was married to Miss Anna Cornwall, of New Lisbon, Ohio, June 25, 1857.
Charles Eugene Flandrau, son of Thomas Hunt and Elisabeth (Macomb) Flandrau, was born July 15, 1828, in New York City. On his father's side he is descended from Huguenots driven into exile by the revocation of the edict of Nantes; on his mother's side from the Macombs of Ireland. One of his uncles was Gen. Alexander Macomb, commander-in-chief of the United States Army immediately preceding Gen. Winfield Scott. He was educated until thirteen years of age in the private schools at Georgetown and Washington, after which he spent about three years before the mast; was at New York City about three years, when he went to Whitesboro, Oneida county, New York, where he read law and afterward entered into partnership with his father, being admitted to practice in 1851. In 1853 he came to St. Paul with Horace R. Bigelow and commenced practice in the firm of Bigelow & Flandrau. In 1854 he removed to St. Peter and practiced law for several years. This year (1854) he was appointed a notary public by Gen. Gorman.
In 1855 he was elected a member of the territorial council, and in 1856 was appointed by President Pierce United States agent for the Sioux Indians. In 1857 he served as a member of the Democratic wing of the constitutional convention, and in July of the same year was appointed by President Buchanan associate justice of the supreme court of Minnesota Territory. He was elected to the same office, on the admission of Minnesota as a state, for a term of seven years. During Gov. Sibley's administration, he acted as judge advocate general of the State.
Judge Flandrau took an active part in suppressing the Sioux outbreak, serving as captain, and later as a colonel, of volunteers. In 1864 Judge Flandrau resigned his place on the supreme bench and went to Nevada Territory for a year; spent some time in Kentucky and St. Louis, Missouri, and returned to Minnesota in 1867, locating at Minneapolis, where he opened a law office with Judge Isaac Atwater. He was elected city attorney and was president of the first Board of Trade.
In 1870 he removed to St. Paul and engaged in law practice with Bigelow & Clark.
In 1867 Judge Flandrau was the Democratic nominee for governor of the State, and in 1869 for the position of chief justice. In 1868 he was chairman of the state central committee, and a member of the national convention that nominated Horatio Seymour for the presidency of the United States.
Judge Flandrau was married Aug. 14, 1859, to Isabella Dinsmore, of Kentucky, deceased in 1866. His second wife was Mrs. Rebecca B. Riddle, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Feb. 28, 1871. His family consists of two daughters by his first wife and two sons by his second.
Gen. John B. Sanborn was born Dec. 5, 1826, in Merrimac county, New Hampshire, on the farm which had been in the possession of his ancestors for four generations. After a common school education he entered the law office of Judge Fowler, of Concord, New Hampshire, where he remained for three years, when he was admitted to practice by the superior court of New Hampshire, in 1854. In the following December he came to Minnesota, where he has remained, a citizen of St. Paul, and in the practice of his profession, except what time he has been absent in the public service.
His public career began in 1859-60, in the house of representatives. The following year he was sent to the senate, and that had adjourned but a little over a month when he was appointed adjutant general and acting quartermaster general of the State, and entered upon the arduous duties of organizing the first regiment of volunteers in the State for the war of the Rebellion.
In the following December he was commissioned colonel of the Fourth Minnesota, and, with headquarters at Fort Snelling, garrisoned all the posts and commanded all the troops along the Minnesota frontier during the winter. Early in the spring of 1862 he left with his entire command for Pittsburgh Landing, and was assigned to the command of a demi-brigade, which he commanded till the evacuation of those works, and was thereupon assigned to the command of the First Brigade, Seventh Division, Army of the Mississippi, afterward the Seventeenth Army Corps.
On the nineteenth of September following, with this brigade he fought the battle of Iuka and won the victory for which he was promoted by the president to brigadier general of Volunteers.
He participated in the battles of Port Gibson, Raymond, Jackson, Champion Hills, and the assault on Vicksburg – a portion of which time he was in command of a division. After the surrender of Vicksburg he was assigned to the command of the Southwest District of Missouri, where, after the campaign against Price, he was promoted to brevet major general.
After the close of the war, by a few months' campaign on the Upper Arkansas and along the Smoky Hill river, he opened to travel the long lines across the plains to Colorado and New Mexico, which had been closed for nearly two years, and restored peace to that frontier. Upon a mission to the Indian Territory, to establish the relations which should exist between the slaves of the Indians and their former masters, he solved the questions and determined the relations, and established them upon a firm foundation in the short space of ninety days.
In 1866 he was appointed, with Gens. Sherman, Harney, Terry, and Senator Henderson, a special peace commissioner to the Indians, and for eighteen months served upon that board. This commission visited and made treaties with the Camanche, Cheyenne, Arrapahoe, Apache, Navajo, Shoshone, Northern Cheyenne, Northern Arrapahoe, and Crow tribes; and with the Ogalalla, Brule, Minneconjon, Sausauche, Black Feet, Umkapapa, Santee, and Yankton bands of the Sioux nation. They settled upon and recommended to Congress a fixed policy to be pursued toward the Indians, which, while followed, resulted in comparative safety to the frontier, and greater economy in the service. Since these services the general has devoted himself entirely to his profession, and with more than ordinary success.
John R. Irvine was born in Dansville, Livingston county, New York, Nov. 3, 1812, and was brought up there till seventeen years of age. His education when a boy was obtained at the common schools, and was quite limited. From seventeen to twenty years of age he lived in Carlisle and other places in Pennsylvania, during which he learned the trade of plastering, and was married in Carlisle in 1831, to Miss Nancy Galbreath. Soon after his marriage he returned to Dansville. The following spring he went to Buffalo, New York; in the spring of 1837 emigrated to Green Bay, Wisconsin, and in the spring of 1840 removed to Prairie du Chien.
While in Prairie du Chien Mr. Irvine kept a grocery. During that time he made two trips to St. Paul – the last one with a team loaded with provisions, on the ice the most of the way – and on the third of August, 1843, arrived in St. Paul with his family. On his arrival he bought of Joseph Rondeau a claim of 240 acres of land, afterward converted into Rice & Irvine's addition, Irvine's enlargement and Irvine's addition to the city of St. Paul, including most of the present city from St. Peter street to Leech's addition, for about $300. Mr. Irvine entered it in 1848. The east 80 acres of a quarter included in this claim Mr. Irvine sold to Henry M. Rice in 1848, and in the winter they laid off Rice & Irvine's addition, and commenced selling lots and making improvements on the property.
Since living in St. Paul Mr. Irvine has been engaged in farming, milling, storekeeping, working at his trade, and managing his estate. He was one of the earliest settlers of St. Paul, whose life amidst its many changes has been contemporaneous with its history from the very beginning. Mr. Irvine has had eight children, seven of whom, namely, six daughters and one son, are living. Mr. Irvine died in 1878.
Horace Ransom Bigelow was born in Watervliet, New York, March 13, 1820. His father, Otis Bigelow, was a Revolutionary patriot and soldier. He received a good education at the schools of Sangerfield and the gymnasium at Utica. He spent part of his early life in farming and teaching. Later he studied law and was admitted to practice in 1847, in Utica, where he entered into partnership with E. S. Brayton until 1853, when he removed to St. Paul, Minnesota, in company with Charles E. Flandrau. He has since devoted himself almost exclusively to his law practice, which includes almost every branch except criminal law. In June, 1862, he was married to Cornelia Sherrill, of Hartford, New York. They have four children.
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.
Hascal Russell Brill was born in the county of Mississquoi, Canada, Aug. 10, 1846. He was educated partly at Hamline University, then located at Red Wing, and finished at Ann Arbor, Michigan. He studied law and was admitted to practice at St. Paul in December, 1869, and formed a partnership with Stanford Newel. Three years later he was elected probate judge and served two years. In 1875 he was appointed by Gov. Davis to fill the vacancy in the court of common pleas caused by the death of Judge W. S. Hall, and a few months later was elected by the people to fill the same position. In politics Judge Brill is Republican. He was married Aug. 11, 1873, to Cora A. Gray, of Suspension Bridge, Niagara county, New York.
Ward W. Folsom, brother of Simeon P. and W. H. C. Folsom, was born in Tamworth, New Hampshire, Oct. 13, 1824, but in early life removed with his parents to Skowhegan, Maine, and in 1846 came to Arcola, Minnesota. In 1848 he removed to St. Croix Falls and in 1851 to Taylor's Falls, where he kept the Chisago House and engaged in lumbering until 1857, when he removed to St. Paul, which city has since been his home. He was employed for three years during the Civil War in the quartermaster's department at St. Louis, Missouri. In 1865, with health greatly shattered, he returned to St. Paul. He was married to Sydney Puget, of St. Louis, in 1852. They have two adopted sons.
Gordon E. Cole was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, June 18, 1833; received his education at Sheffield Academy, Massachusetts, and at the Dane law school of Harvard University, from which school he graduated in 1854. He practiced law two years in his native town, came to Minnesota, and located in Faribault in 1847. In 1859 he was elected attorney general and served three consecutive terms. He served one year as state senator, and a year in compiling state statutes. He has been a railroad attorney and has filled many honorable positions. He was married in August, 1855, to Stella C. Whipple, of Shaftsbury, Vermont, who died in June, 1872, leaving three children. Feb. 14, 1874, he was married to Kate D. Turner, of Cleveland, Ohio.
James Smith, Jr., was born in Mount Vernon, Knox county, Ohio, Oct. 29, 1815. He obtained a good practical, common school education, and was besides largely self taught. He read law three years in Lancaster, Ohio, was admitted to the bar in 1839, and practiced law in his native town for seventeen years. In 1856 he came to St. Paul, where he has been associated in practice with Judge Lafayette Emmett, John M. Gilman and J. J. Egan. Since the building of the St. Paul & Duluth railroad he has been its attorney, general manager and president.
Mr. Smith was in the state senate in 1861-62-63 and 67, and proved a careful and able legislator. As a lawyer he stands deservedly high. He was married to Elisabeth Martin, Jan. 18, 1848. They have four children.
William Pitt Murray is of Irish descent. He was born in Hamilton, Butler county, Ohio, in 1827; came to Centreville, Indiana, in 1844; attended school there, graduated at the State Law School at Bloomington in 1849, and the same year came to St. Paul, where he has practiced law ever since. He has also taken an active part in the politics of the city and State. He has probably assisted in the passage of more laws than any other man in the State. He was a member of the territorial house of representatives in 1852-53 and 57, and of the territorial council of 1854-55, acting as president in the latter year. He was a member of the Democratic wing of the constitutional convention in 1857; was a representative in the state legislatures of 1863 and 1868, and a state senator in 1866-67, 1875-76, and has besides served sixteen years in the city council of St. Paul. He has been county and city attorney since 1876. He has been honored beyond most public servants and has a county named after him. He was married to Carolina S. Conwell, of Laurel, Indiana, April 7, 1853. They have three children living.