Claude Atkinson
Source: Little Sketches of Big Folks in Minnesota. (Publ. 1907) Transcribed by Marilyn Clore

ATKINSON Claude M, Hibbing. Res 311 Lincoln st, office 108 3d av. Publisher. Born Nov 14, 1862 in Appleton Wis, son of James F and Anna (Waterbury) Atkinson. Married Nov 24, 1886 to Ida M Lott. Attended common schools of Appleton Wis and learned printing trade in Escanaba Mich. Remained in Escanaba until 1879. Moved to Florence Wis and was engaged as printer in newspaper office. Moved to Crystal Falls Wis 1897 and established “Diamond Drill;” continued this publication until 1894; then went West and was employed on various newspapers. Finally located in Hibbing and bought the Missabe Ore a weekly paper. Appointed postmaster Hibbing 1906; terms expires in 1910. Member library board.

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David Tristram Collins
Little Sketches of Big Folks in Minnesota (Publ. 1907) Transcribed by Liz Dellinger

COLLINS David Tristram. East Grand Forks. Lawyer. Born Jan 6, 1879 in Menasha Wis, son of Josiah Norris and Frances Jane (Kent) Collins. Educated in public schools Kaukauna, Wis and Gladstone Mich, graduating from Gladstone High School 1897. Took law and academic courses U of M. Read law in offices of Frank M Nye and Keith, Evans, Thompson & Fairchild; admitted to bar 1903; member of law firm Bronson & Collins 1903 to date. Stockholder First State Bank East Grand Forks.

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George Becker Edgerton
Progressive men of Minnesota. Published by The Minneapolis Journal, 1897 – transcribed by AJ

George Becker Edgerton is the assistant attorney general of Minnesota, and resides in St. Paul. His father, A. J. Edgerton, was the United States district judge of the district of South Dakota. Judge Edgerton was appointed chief justice of the Territory of Dakota by President Arthur, in 1881, at which time he was a resident of Dodge County, Minnesota, having lived there since 1855. When Hon. William Windom left the senate to take a position in the cabinet of President Garfield, Governor Pillsbury appointed Judge Edgerton to fill Mr. Windom's unexpired term. Judge Edgerton's wife was Sarah C. Curtis. Three of his ancestors served in the Revolutionary War, two as privates by the name of Palmer, and one by the name of White, who held the rank of captain, and was taken prisoner and conveyed to Canada. The subject of this sketch was born at Mantorville, Dodge County, Minnesota, June 11, 1857. He attended private and public schools in his native town, and attended Lawrence University, Appleton, Wisconsin, from 1872 till 1875. In the fall of 1877 he entered his father's law office and studied with him two years. He then attended lectures in 1879 and 1880 at the Columbia Law School, of New York City. In June of 1880 he was admitted to the bar in the Fifth judicial district of Minnesota, and formed a partnership with his father. In 1884 he was elected county attorney of Dodge County, serving one term. He continued the practice of his profession in Dodge County until April 1, 1890, when he was appointed assistant United States district attorney and removed to St. Paul. In January, 1893, he resigned that position to accept the office of assistant attorney general, tendered him by Hon. H. W. Childs, which office he still holds. In these several public positions Mr. Edgerton has been engaged in a number of very important cases. His private practice has also been prosperous and successful. He is at present a member of the law firm of Edgerton & Wickwire, of St. Paul. Mr. Edgerton has always been a Republican, and has taken an active part in different campaigns. He was a delegate to the Republican national convention in 1888 from the First Congressional district of this state, and in that campaign took an active part on the stump. He is a member of the Church Club, of the Diocese of Minnesota, an Episcopal organization; also a member of the Commercial Club, of St. Paul, and the Masonic Order. He was married July 11, 1883, to Josie A. Godwin of Appleton, Wisconsin. They have had five children, Margaret Godwin, Lillian Clark, Katharine Godwin, Josephine Godwin and George Godwin, all of whom are living, except Katharine. Mr. Edgerton as a boy learned the value of self-reliance, and has to a great degree been the architect of his own fortunes.

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Moses Dibble Kenyon
Source: Progressive men of Minnesota. Published by The Minneapolis Journal (1897) submitted by Diana Heser Morse

Moses Dibble Kenyon is public examiner and superintendent of banks in Minnesota. Mr. Kenyon was born August 13, 1843, a Granville, Washington County, New York, a son of Almon Kenyon, who subsequently became a prosperous farmer in central Wisconsin. His wife, mother of the subject of this sketch, was Lura Dibble. His early education began in the district schools of Wisconsin, and he finished the sophomore year in the Lawrence University at Appleton, Wisconsin. In October, 1866, Mr. Kenyon came to Minnesota and located at Rochester. In January, 1873, he was appointed clerk in the state land office and was advanced subsequently to the position of deputy auditor, March 1, 1875. He held this office until March 1, 1888, when he resigned to accept the appointment by Governor McGill as public examiner and superintendent of banks. In January, 1890, Mr. Kenyon was re-appointed by Governor Merriam, and again, in January, 1893, re-appointed by Governor Nelson, and in January, 1895, received his present appointment by Governor Clough. Mr. Kenyon holds a very important position in the public service, and has made a useful and efficient officer. His public career includes his service as deputy state auditor for thirteen years, and previous to that he held a position in the state land office. While clerk in the land office he called the attention of the auditor to the attempt of the St. Paul & Chicago Railway Company to secure twice the amount of swamp land granted by the state. The railroad project was finally defeated in the courts, a report of which is contained in 24 Minnesota, 517. As a result four hundred and sixty-two thousand three hundred and thirty-six acres of land were saved to the state. Mr. Kenyon was the author of the law relating to banks of discounts and deposits, passed without a dissenting vote by the legislature of 1895, which in general contains provisions in regard to supervision of state banks, similar to those contained in the national bank law as applied to national banks. He has achieved a high reputation as a public officer, and is regarded as peculiarly qualified for the duties which his position imposes. He was admitted to the bar in 1893, having taken the course prescribed by the University of Minnesota. Mr. Kenyon issued a pamphlet on national finance in December, 1895, which attracted wide attention. He was married January 22, 1868, to Ida Vincent. They have one daughter, Alice L. Mr. Kenyon resides in St. Paul.

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Frank Romar (Kennahock)
Of all the great Indian fighters under whom I served, including Sheridan, Crook, Brooks, Howard, Custer, Gibbons and Miles, the best all-round man of them all was General Miles," says Frank Romar, an Oneida Indian, who at the age of nearly 80 years, blind and infirm, lives on the Oneida Indian reservation in Outagamie county, and is occasionally to be seen about the streets of Appleton, where he gathers with old army comrades, who remember him as in his prime one of the most daring and efficient scouts in the American army. Romar has from his boyhood lived a wild, romantic life, until the last fifteen years, when blindness, resulting from an old wound in the face, received in an unnamed border skirmish, compelled him to seek the people of his tribe on the Oneida reservation, and there live out the remainder of his long life in pottering about his little patch of his vigorous days. Romar was born on the Oneida reservation, but when a boy removed to Kansas with his parents and lived on the site now occupied by the National Soldiers' Home, near Leavenworth, Kan. When the civil war broke out, he enlisted with the Thirteenth Kansas infantry under the Indian name of Kennahock, but never served with that regiment as he was immediately detailed for scout duty, serving in that capacity in the volunteers and later in the regular army until in the middle '80s.
During the civil war Romar served much of the time under the immediate direction of "Bill" Tuff, the famous chief of scouts and one of his close companions. Romar describes "Wild Bill" as a quiet and peaceful man, even when in liquor, and declares that new never sought a quarrel and never shot any one except when a quarrel was forced upon him or in the line of his official duty when acting as marshal of Fort Hayes, Fort Reilly, Abilene and other tough frontier towns after the war.
Speaking of the famous officers under whom he has served, Romar says: "Miles was the best all-around man of them all. He was brave; he was wise; he was cunning, he was tireless; more than any big chief I ever knew, he looked out for the welfare of his enlisted men, and though he never spared them work when it was to be done, he always said "come" and never "go".
Romar was with Miles when the latter captured Chief Joseph after a long chase, which he considers one of the hardest pieces of service ever performed by a detachment of the United States army.
"General Crook was the fox of Indian fighters, and the Indian feared him more than any other "long knife" officer," says Romar. "Closer than any one else he could guess at Indian strategy. He seemed to think like an Injun and could always tell what they would do next. That is why the Indians feared him so. They thought him 'bad medicine' and called him 'the Gray Fox,' but Miles they feared, too, and hated as well, though they accepted his work as unhesitatingly as that of Crook. Crook was more the planner and strategist, Miles the fighter.
Of Custer, Romar thought less than of any of the officers known as Indian fighters. "He was brave as a wounded grizzly," says the old Indian, "but not wise. He was like the young brave, quicker to strike than to think, and making always his fight with joy before the time was ready, counting not at all the cost. So he died." Romar regards the Little Big Horn campaign as an unpardonable blunder, and expresses contempt for Reno, whom he likens to a "squaw man," and whose whole course in the campaign he dismisses with an angry grunt and refuses to discuss further than to declare it "All bad. Heap no good!"
Romar claims that he and a companion scout were among the first to arrive on the field of the Custer massacre at the Little Big Horn, where they found every man of the unfortunate command scalped, stripped and fearfully mutilated, with hideously obscene outrages.
Custer alone lay just as he fell, unscalped, unmutilated, unplundered. his saber lay across his breast, and his hat shielded his face from the sun - an Indian tribute to his personal bravery indicating that he made a desperate stand before he fell.
But Romar declares that among the men of the camp and trail there was little sadness over Custer's death. The sorrow was for the brave men he recklessly led to their death.
Romar has been in many general engagements and unnamed Indian skirmishes without number, and has been wounded many times. His first wound was in the battle of Prairie Grove in 1862, when an exploding shell wounded him in the face and thigh. At Honey Springs he was shot through the shoulder, and at various other times suffered slight wounds.
In Arizona in 1878, in an Indian rush, a wounded savage fired a revolver point blank into his face, and though the bullet missed him by a hair and only raised a red welt on his cheek, the powder injured his eyes to such an extent that he eventually became totally blind.
Romar tells of one desperate brush, in which he and a small party he was guiding across the plains were engaged with Indians near Sow Creek, Kan. soon after the war. There were only thirteen in the party, and two of them, mere boys, had been sent ahead to look for water. As they did not return, Romar started out to look for them, and had not gone far when he saw the head of an Indian over a little rise in the prairie and fired upon it. Immediately the whole party was fired upon by a large body of Indians lying in ambush. The party formed a corral with their wagons and fought desperately behind their barricade. In the first afternoon's fighting six of the defenders were killed, but still they kept up the fight. When relief came after two days of fighting, only two of the party, including Romar, were left alive. The two boys were found two days later, when they appeared at the fort thirty miles distant, alive, but nearly helpless from hunger and exhaustion. The Indians had captured them, but had not harmed them, merely stripping them naked and turning them loose.
The old Indian scout is a great hero among the Indians of the reservation, and they make much of him, and assist him in all ways. He has great influence with them, and being shrewd and of good judgment, his influence is always used for good. Old soldiers of the Twenty-second Wisconsin infantry, which was formed in the Fox River valley and included about a dozen Oneida Indians from the reservation in Outagamie and Brown counties, tell an amusing story of Romar's influence over the Indians in the service.
Romar was detailed for a time with a company of the 22nd Wisconsin, in which a dozen Oneida Indians served. He was immediately chosen as their chief, and as they understood English imperfectly, he often transmitted their orders to them. Soon they came to regard themselves as under no orders but his, and it took a great deal of persuasion to bring them to an understanding of military discipline.
Then came a time when the company was on outpost service and had pushed their post far into hostile country in Missouri. A volunteer was called for to perform an extremely hazardous piece of reconnoitering, and Romar was the first man to step forward.
As soon as he stepped out, the other twelve Indians followed, and silently took their places at his side. "You can't go," said the captain. "Only one man is needed. More would spoil the whole plan. Go back to your places."
Not an Indian stirred, and to all remonstrances the only answer returned was "He go, me go!" with a gesture toward Romar. It was a long time before Romar and the officers could persuade the Indians to remain in their places while he went on his hazardous errand. --
[Source: Appleton (Wis) Cor. Milwaukee Sentinel. --reprinted in "The Salt Lake Herald". (Salt Lake City, Utah), May 08, 1904 - Sub. by K.T.]