Thursday Night Hikes: Irvine/Cherokee Park Hike Architecture Notes, Part 2
Lawrence A. Martin
Source of Street and Other Names. The following presents available information on the source for various street names walked during the course of the hike:
Ann: platted in 1851 by James M. Winslow (1825-1885), who was the proprietor, with his wife Sarah Winslow, of the Winslow House in Saint Anthony, Minnesota. It was probably named for Ann Blair, who was the wife of capitalist, politician, and railroad promoter John Blair. The Winslow House was a six-story limestone structure, was built in 1856 for an estimated cost of $100,000, and was located at Prince Street between Bank Street and Central Avenue. It was a luxury hotel built to serve visitors to scenic St. Anthony Falls and was especially popular with southern tourists. The building dominated the St. Anthony sky line. By 1859, the Winslow House was in poor financial condition. In 1860, a Mississippi slave owner, Colonel Christmas, vacationing at the Winslow House, brought along a slave woman named Eliza Winston, who had apparently been promised her freedom, and, once on free soil, gained the support of a local abolitionist and petitioned the Minnesota court for release from bondage. Because the Minnesota Supreme Court prohibited slavery in the state, the court sided with Ms. Winston and granted her request with no challenge from her master. Anti-abolitionist sentiment, however, was aroused by her removal from Colonel Christmas' custody and a mob proposed to send Winston back to her master and to tar-and-feather the abolitionist who aided her. The Undergrounded Railroad whisked Winston to Canada and the legal matter ended. With the onset of the Civil War and as a result of the Winston incident, the hotel lost much of its clientele and had to close. It stood vacant until 1872 when Macalaster College and the Minnesota College Hospital moved into the structure. It was torn down in 1886 for the construction of the Exposition Building and is now the site of a parking lot.
Archer: named for Captain William Archer (1833-1862), who was a bookkeeper. He served as State Adjutant General during 1861-1862. He was killed at the Battle of Shiloh. The street was named by Archer's brother-in-law, Edmund Rice (1819-1889), who was a developer, a candidate for Governor of Minnesota, a mayor of St. Paul, a member of the United States House of Representatives from the Fourth District of Minnesota, and the brother of Henry Mower Rice (1816-1894).
Banfil: named for John Banfil (1811-1887), an 1846 transplant from Louisiana. He was born in Topsham, Vermont. After living in New Hampshire and in Boston, he became a mason, in New Orleans. He also served in the indian wars in Florida, and at the conclusion of that war, he retired as a Colonel. After marriage to Nancy Foster (1812- ), of New York City, in Albany, New York, in 1838, he moved to Prairie du Chien and kept the Grant House, an inn, and then another inn, the Prairie House. After moving first to St. Paul, he staked a claim at Rice Creek in Fridley, at that time known as Manomin, and built the Banfill Sawmill. Banfil's house was used as a post office and Banfil became the first Postmaster at Manomin in 1849 or 1850. Banfil built a store and a tavern in Manimin, known as Banfill's Tavern, which he sold to Isaac Kimball in 1853. He was in the first Legislature and was the first State Auditor. By 1851, in partnership with Henry Rice, he had built a three-story brick building on Third Street, and it was in that building that the Second Territorial Legislature met in 1851. That building burned in 1856 or 1857. In 1857, he was elected from Manomin County to the State Legislature. In 1861, he moved to Bayfield, Wisconsin, and died there. The street reportedly was platted by John Banfil in 1851.
Cherokee: named for Cherokee Heights, a portion of the Riverview section of St. Paul. Riverview, formerly called West St. Paul or simply the West Side, being the part of the city on the western (here the southern) side of the Mississippi River, received this name in 1918, by action of the city council. Its high river bluffs, in part known as Cherokee Heights, give very extensive and grand views of this valley. Cherokee Heights, west or south of the river, is a part of the prolonged series of river bluffs that bound the valley on each side, rising from its bottomlands to the general level of the adjoining country.
Chestnut: named in 1849, following the pattern of naming streets after trees that began in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The street originally was bordered by Rice's Brook in 1850, which had its source in two lakes located in the Midway section of St. Paul that have since been totally drained.
Cliff: was originally named Bluff Street. The name was changed in 1883 and the name relates to the adjoining steep cliff to the river.
Douglas: named in 1849 for Stephen A. Douglas (1813-1861). Douglas was a U. S. Senator from Illinois who had advocated the creation of the Territory of Minnesota in 1848.
Dousman: named in 1851 for Colonel Hercules Louis Dousman (1800-1868), who was a Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, trader and land speculator, was Wisconsin's first millionaire, was a partner of John Jacob Astor in the fur trade at Prairie du Chien and a rival of Alexander McGregor in the Mississippi River ferry business, and was involved in the development of St. Paul and the projected reduction of the Fort Snelling military reservation. He is credited as the first person to suggest the name "Minnesota" for the territory. Hercules L. Dousman was born at Mackinac, Michigan, the son of Michael Dousman and Catherine Dousman, was educated at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, clerked in New York City before joining the American Fur Company, and was sent to Prairie du Chien in 1826. John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company filed for bankruptcy in 1842 and sold its interest in the old Western Department to Pierre Chouteau, Jr., and Company of St. Louis. Chouteau's partners were Hercules L. Dousman and Henry H. Sibley, and the new organization was called the Upper Mississippi Outfit. In 1846, Dousman withdrew from the partnership. Dousman initially married Genevieve/Jane Fisher (1804-1882,) the daughter of Henry Munro Fisher/Fischer (1780-1827) and Magdelene Gautier-de-Verville (1779-1809,) and subsequently married Margaret Campbell, the daughter of Archibald John Campbell. Genevieve/Jane Fisher previously had been married (1819) to Joseph Rolette, Sr., (1781-1842.) Joseph Rolette, Jr., (1820-1871,) a resident of Pembina, North Dakota, a fur trader, and a frontier politician in Minnesota. Hercules Louis Dousman, Jr., (1848- ) was the only child of the first marriage and George Dousman and Emma Dousman were the children of the second marriage. Dousman was also involved in the development of St. Anthony falls in the 1860's and the disasterous attempt to tunnel under the falls in 1869. Dousman's home at Prairie du Chien, Villa Louis, built in 1870, is now a National Park Service historic site. The site includes a stone house, built in 1837 by Joseph Rolette, as part of a separation agreement with his wife, Jane Fisher Rolette. When Jane Fisher Rolette married Hercules L. Dousman, she gave the house to her cousin, B. W. Brisbois, and the Brisbois family lived in the house until 1899.
Duke: named in 1856 by Thomas Daly, a well-to-do Canadian. The street was likely named for Charles Lennox (1764-1819), the Fourth Duke of Richmond, a Governor-General of British North America who died from complications of a fox bite suffered at Sorel, Quebec.
Elm: named for the type of tree. Of Midwest cities, 80 percent have an "Elm Street."
Emma: named in 1879. The source of the name is unknown. Emma Street was once part of Steward Avenue.
Erie: originally named First Street. In 1872, the name was changed as part of a series of names honoring the Great Lakes.
Exchange: named in 1849 for a grain exchange.
Forbes: named in 1849 for William Henry Forbes (1815-1875), who was a clerk for the American Fur Company. He was born in Montreal, Quebec, was a son of a Hudson's Bay Company employee, apprenticed to a hardware business and subsequently became a junior partner, moved to Mendota in 1837 to work for the American Fur Company, and became a St. Paul resident in 1847, when he took charge of the St. Paul fur post (known as "the St. Paul Outfit,") as a partner with Norman Kittson, the firm being known as "Forbes & Kittson." Forbes was a participant in the initial laying out of the city of St. Paul, was elected as a member of the first Minnesota Territorial Council, representing St. Paul (3rd District 1849-1851 and 2nd District 1852-1853,) and was President of the Territorial Council for the 1852 session, served in the Dakota Uprising and acted on General Henry H. Sibley's staff as Provost Marshall in Mankato at the military trial of the 300 Dakota who were condemned to death, was commissioned by President Lincoln as Commissary of Subsistance in the Volunteer Service with the rank of Captain, served from 1864 to 1866 in Northern Missouri closing up the unsettled affairs of General Fremont's department, and was the U. S. Indian Agent in 1871 at Devil's Lake, Dakota Territory. Forbes was married twice, first to Agnes Faribault (1829- ) in 1846, and secondly to Amanda B. Cory (1833- ,) of Cooperstown, New York, in 1854, and fathered four children, including May Forbes (1846- ,) Thomas R. Forbes (1859-1941,) and Malcolm Henry Forbes (1849-1850.) Thomas R. Forbes was a student at St. Mary's College, Montreal, Canada, from 1874 to 1876. Amanda B. Cory was the daughter of Holder Cory (1801-1863) and Edna Maria Grace Cory (1804-1880.) Holder Cory and Edna Maria Grace Cory had nine other children, Nancy Hake Cory Blum (married Louis Blum,) Julia Marie Cory Bailly (1828-1907; married Alexis Bailly in 1857, following the death of Bailly's first wife, Lucy Anne Faribault), Phoebe Frances Cory (1830- ,) Mary Cory (1836- ,) Philip Ellery Cory, Ellen Louisa Cory (1841- ,) Caroline Cory Burch Cochran (1843- ; married Charles R. Burch in 1863 and married Theodore Cochran in 1865,) Henry William Cory (1845- ,) and Edna Grace Cory (1847- .) Alexis Bailly (1798-1861) and Julia Marie Cory Bailly had two children, Charles Prince Bailly (1859-1920; married Mary Etta Little in 1886) and Franck Cory Bailly (1860-1915; married Margaret Cashman in 1885.) Alexis Bailly (1789-1861) was born at St. Joseph, Canada, on the shores of Lake Huron, of mixed French and Ottawa Indian parents, was educated in Montreal, engaged in the fur trade, traveled from St. Anthony, Minnesota, to the Red River Valley in 1821, settled in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, in 1828, moved to Mendota, Minnesota, in 1838, moved to Wabasha, Minnesota, in 1841, was a member of the first Territorial Legislature, and married Lucy Anne Faribault, the daughter of J. B. Faribault.
Goodhue: originally platted as Grove Street in 1849. The street was renamed in 1872 and was named for James Madison Goodhue (1810-1852). Goodhue was born in Hebron, New Hampshire, the sixth of nine children of Stephen Goodhue and Betsey Page Goodhue, graduated close to the bottom of his class at Amherst College in Massachusetts in 1833, practiced law in Platteville, Wisconsin, in 1841, and contracted small pox, married Henrietta Kneeland, a teacher, in 1843, came to St. Paul in 1849 transporting a 300 pound printing press, was the publisher of the The Minnesota Pioneer, was the official government printer for the Territory of Minnesota, and was a booster of the City of St. Paul. He died after a lengthy illness, due to the lingering effects of infections in two Bowie knife wounds he suffered in a brawl with Joseph Cooper that occurred during the previous year, after he accused his assailant's brother, Judge David Cooper, in print of being a habitual drunkard and gambler. Goodhue County, Minnesota, was also named for James Madison Goodhue.
Goodrich: named in 1849 for Aaron Goodrich (1807-1887), Chief Justice, Minnesota Territorial Supreme Court, in 1850. He was born in the town of Sempronius, Cayuga County, New York. He studied law in Buffalo, New York, and Dover, Tennessee, was admitted to the bar, and began practice of law in Stewart County, Tennessee, was a member of the Tennessee state House of Representatives in 1847-1848, was appointed by President Taylor in 1849 as chief justice of the recently organized territory of Minnesota, and was appointed by the Minnesota Legislature as one member of a commission to revise the laws and prepare a system of pleading and practice. Goodrich was a Unionist and an anti-abolitionist. He was a biblical and literary scholar, was also a founder of the Republican Party in Minnesota, and was a delegate to Republican National Convention from Minnesota in 1860, where he supported William H. Seward. In 1861, at Mr. Seward's suggestion, he was appointed by President Lincoln secretary of legation at Brussels, Belgium, which office he held eight years. He was the author of A History of the Character and Achievements of the so-called Christopher Columbus (New York, 1874). Goodrich's second wife was Alice Paris Goodrich and the couple had two daughters. Aaron Goodrich was removed from the Minnesota Supreme Court in 1852 when several prominent Minnesota attorneys charged Goodrich with "incompetency, unfitness and improprieties committed on and off the bench." He died in St. Paul and was buried in Genesee County, Michigan.
Harrison: originally named Prairie Street. The name was changed in 1889 to avoid a duplication of names. The street was named in 1889 for Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901), U. S. President from 1889 to 1893. Harrison lost the popular vote to Grover Cleveland in 1888, but won the vote in the electoral college, but lost to Cleveland in 1892.
Hill: named in 1849 for the hill ascending between Eagle Street and Third Street (Kellogg Boulevard).
Irvine: named for John R. Irvine (1812-1878). He was born in Dansville, New York. He was initially a blacksmith and then became a grocer. He came to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, and then St. Paul in 1843 as a trader after spending time in Green Bay, Wisconsin. After coming to St. Paul, he purchased the balance of the old Edward Phelan claim from Joseph Rondo, which included a very good log dwelling located on the northwest corner of Third and Franklin Streets. The property extended about 300 acres back to the marsh on Lake Como Road.
Irvine Park: also named for John R. Irvine (1812-1878). It was designated by the St. Paul City Council in 1876.
Leech: named in 1849 for Samuel (Sam) Leech/Leeche. Leech was a developer who was the receiver/chief clerk at the U. S. Land Office at St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. "General" Samuel Leech and his wife, Nancy Leech, purchased 32.5 acres that became downtown Stillwater, Minnesota. Leech was a major land speculator in the St. Croix River valley. He was the Land Officer at Quincy, Illinois, until his death in 1861.
McBoal: named for James McClellan Boal (1805-1862,) generally known as "Jimmie McBoal", who was born in Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, served as a drummer boy and soldier at Fort Snelling under Colonel Leavenworth, and after discharge, settled in St. Paul in 1846 and was employed as a painter and artist, in partnership with Marshall Sherman in 1849-1850. Boal married Angelique Prevost and the couple had four children, Marguerite Ann Boal (1854- ,) John Quinn Boal (1856- ,) George Boal (1859-1907,) and Mary Georgina/Minnie/Mamie Boal ( -1885.) He was a member of the Minnesota Territorial Legislature in 1849 from District Number 4, Ramsey County, and was a member of the House of Representatives in 1852 from Dakota County. In 1849, James McBoal sold to John R. Irvine the undivided third of the northeast quarter of section 1, township 28, range 23, now a part of Dayton and Irvine's addition, for $500, or $10 per acre. He also served as State Adjutant General, appointed in 1850 by Governor Alexander Ramsey. Boal's successor as State Adjutant General was appointed in 1853 by Governor Willis Gorman. Boal was a conspicuous character in the early days of the Minnesota Territory, a good hearted and genial fellow, a friend to all he knew, generous, being sometimes even liberal to a fault and was known as "one of the best and laziest mortals that ever lived." His real estate holdings were valued at $5,000 in 1850. He moved to West St. Paul in 1851, where he went into partnership with Thomas Odell in the trading business. In 1855, he moved to Mendota, Dakota County, and died there after a long and severe illness. Angelique Prevost (1836-1892) was a daughter of Hypolite (Paul) Prevost (1803- ) and Marguerite Brunelle (1812- ,) was born in Mendota, Dakota County, and died in Minneapolis. Mary Georgina Boal married Nehemiah Lapping (1857-1921) and the couple had one child, Jasper Edward Lapping (1883-1965). Jasper Edward Lapping married Adelaide A. Mayer (1884-1962) and the couple had one child, Marjorie Lapping.
Michigan: named in 1851 for the Great Lake.
Nugent: named in 1882 for John Nugent, who was an employee of a nearby railroad.
Ramsey: named for Alexander Ramsey. He was born near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1815; studied at Lafayette College; was admitted to the practice of law in 1839; was a Whig member of Congress from Pennsylvania, 1843-1847; was appointed by Pres. Zachary Taylor in 1849 as governor of this territory; continued in this office to 1853. Governor Ramsey negotiated important treaties with the Dakota at Traverse des Sioux and Mendota in 1851 and in 1863 with the Ojibwe where the Pembina trail crossed the Red Lake River. He was the second mayor of St. Paul in 1855. After the admission of Minnesota as a state, he was elected its second governor and held this office from 1860, to 1863. Ramsey was U.S. senator from 1863 to 1875, and was secretary of war in the cabinet of President Rutherford B. Hayes from 1879 to 1881. He was president of the Minnesota Historical Society, from 1849 to 1863, and from 1891 until his death in St. Paul in 1903.
Richmond: also named in 1856 by Thomas Daly for Charles Lennox (1764-1819), the Fourth Duke of Richmond, a Governor-General of British North America who died from complications of a fox bite suffered at Sorel, Quebec.
Ryan: originally named Franklin Street. Its name was changed in 1940 to Ryan Avenue in order to avoid duplication. The street was named for three brothers, Henry, Richard, and Emmett Ryan, who were officers in the St. Paul Milk Company. The St. Paul Milk Company subsequently became Old Home Foods.
Seventh: named Seventh Street in downtown St. Paul and initially named Fort Street or Fort Road outside of downtown St. Paul. The road follows the original foot path between St. Paul and Fort Snelling.
Sherman: originally named Pine Street. It was renamed in 1872 for General William T. Sherman (1820-1891), a Civil War General and Union Pacific RailRoad executive, and Marshall Sherman (1822-1891), St. Paul's first Congressional Medal of Honor winner from the Civil War and a painter.
Smith: named for Robert Armstrong Smith (1827-1913), who was a long term St. Paul mayor during the late Nineteenth Century, who donated the current Mears Park (formerly Smith Park) to the city in 1888. He was born in 1827 in Booneville, Indiana. He was educated at the University of Indiana, studied law, and graduated in 1850. Smith first came to St. Paul in 1853 as a private secretary to his brother-in-law, the newly appointed territorial governor, Willis A. Gorman. He then held the position of territorial librarian until 1858, though he was also appointed treasurer of Ramsey County in 1856. Smith served on the Ramsey County board from 1856 to 1868, the St. Paul City Council from 1883 to 1887, and was mayor of St. Paul from 1887 to 1903. Smith was a prominent figure in the Democratic Party, and was also an active St. Paul lawyer, financier, and vice president of Bank of Minnesota. His elegant house at 225 West Seventh Street was razed to build the Smith building, which he financed. The building, built in 1888 in the Romanesque style, is now the location of Patrick McGovern's Pub. He also was a state legislator from 1900 to 1908. He married Mary Elizabeth Stone in 1850 in Indiana.
Spring: named in 1849 for a spring bubbling from the bluff.
Sturgis: named for Charles E. Sturgis, his wife, Louisa, and his son, William. He was a developer who platted the street in 1857, but never lived on the street.
Walnut: named in 1849 for a grove of walnut trees that grew on what became the site of the former St. Lukes Hospital.
Wilkin: named for Alexander Wilkin (1820-1864), who was born in Orange County, New York, and who was a lawyer, a real estate investor, the U. S. Marshal for the Minnesota Territory, Secretary of the Minnesota Territory from 1851 to 1853, a founder of the St. Paul Companies in 1853, and a colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War. He died serving with the Second Minnesota Volunteer Regiment at the battle of Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1864. As a Captain during the Mexican War, in 1848, at Carmargo, Mexico, Alexander Wilkin of the Tenth U.S. Infantry, then a regular army officer, apparently killed Captain Joshua W. Collett of Camden, New Jersey, in a duel. Along with Willard B. Bunnell, Isaac Van Etten, Charles W. Borup, Charles H. Oakes, Justus C. Ramsay (brother of the then Governor), and William L. Ames of St. Paul, and Timothy Burns, Lieutenant Governor of Wisconsin, Alexander Wilkin was a founder and proprietor of the former town of Minneowah (previously named Bunnell's Landing), Winona County, Minnesota.
Internet Sources
http://survey.ci.stpaul.mn.us/history.html
http://www.stpaul.gov/welcome/history/stpaul150.html
http://www.lareau.org/pep.html
http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/courses/1320-19s00/group_info/history.htm
http://www.mnhs.org/places/sites/hfs/history.html
http://www.geomyidae.com/index.html
Information from the University of Minnesota, Northwest Architectural Archives, was used in this webpage.
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This webpage was last updated on April 23, 2009.