Bio of BACKUS, Edward Wellington (b.1860), Hennepin Co., MN
=========================================================================
USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information
on the Internet, material may be freely used by non-commercial entities,
as long as this message remains on all copied material, AND permission is
obtained from the contributor of the file.
These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or
presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to
use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written
consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative of the submitter,
and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent.

If you have found this file through a source other than the MNArchives 
Table Of Contents you can find other Minnesota related Archives at:
http://www.usgwarchives.net/mn/mnfiles.htm
Please note the county and type of file at the top of this page to find 
the submitter information or other files for this county.
FileFormat by Terri--MNArchives

Made available to The USGenWeb Archives by: Laura Pruden
Submitted: June 2003
=========================================================================
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
========================================================
EXTRACTED FROM: History of Minneapolis, Gateway to the Northwest; 
Chicago-Minneapolis, The S J Clarke Publishing Co, 1923; Edited by: Rev. 
Marion Daniel Shutter, D.D., LL.D.; Volume I - Shutter (Historical); 
volume II - Biographical; volume III - Biographical
========================================================

EDWARD WELLINGTON BACKUS - Vol III, pg 298-306
An outstanding figure in the paper and lumber industries of the middle
North­west, if not in the entire country, Edward Wellington Backus has been
continuously identified with the lumber trade for more than four decades, and
with the paper trade for nearly two decades, always as a manufacturer and
distributor of the product.
Prom a small beginning in 1882, the now successor, Backus-Brooks Company, with
its two dozen or more subsidiary and allied concerns, of which he has always
been the active head, owes its growth and success chiefly to his initiative,
guidance and force. Yet Mr. Backus gives full credit to Mr. Brooks, his son,
Seymour, and other close associates for their share in the success which has
followed their efforts. It might be interesting to note here that Mr. Backus now
enjoys the distinc­tion of being the pioneer active lumber manufacturer of this
state.
He was born in Jamestown, New York, on December 1, 1860, his parents being Abel
and Anna (Anderson) Backus. The father, who was of English origin, was in the
service of Queen Victoria of England as first assistant to her chief landscape
gardener when a young man of under twenty years and at the same time four of his
brothers were in the English navy. The mother, Anna Anderson Backus, is of
Scandinavian origin, both her father and grandfather being skilled mechanics of
a high order. The parents removed from the Empire state to Red Wing, Goodhue
county, Minnesota, when their son Edward was less than three years of age, where
the father worked at his trade of stone mason. About four years later they
removed to a farm on Featherstone Prairie, nine miles from Red Wing, which the
father cultivated and, when time would permit, worked at his trade. In later
years he came to Minneapolis, where he lived the remainder of his life, passing
away in 1912 at the age of seventy-seven. His widow, who makes her home in
Minne­apolis, has reached the age of eighty-six and still enjoys excellent
health.
In the acquirement of an education Edward W. Backus, the farmer boy, at­tended
the little country school at "Burley's Corner" on Featherstone Prairie, and in
1878, when seventeen years of age, entered the class of '84 at the University of
Minnesota, which he attended, off and on during the four years following, when
his financial condition would permit, and completed his college course up to the
junior year. Even at that age he was sufficiently self-reliant to decline any
aid from his father, not even to the extent of one dollar, and worked his way
while attending the University. Sometimes he worked off days on the University
farm, then located in Southeast Minneapolis, sometimes on the Eustis brothers
farm nearby, sometimes he carried newspapers. One year during his University
course he cultivated a farm on shares and at the same time taught school during
the winter months, in Vasa township, four miles from his home. In the early fall
of 1881, after marketing the crop which he had harvested on the rented farm, he
said a final farewell to his old home and the farming community in which he had
passed his boyhood days and developed his wonderfully robust constitution. He
felt he had graduated as a real dirt farmer and returned to Minneapolis with the
money he had made teaching school and farming, amounting to nearly one thousand
dollars, which in those days was a large sum, with the intention of com­pleting
his college course. During that year he not only kept up with the studies of his
college class, but made up for the time he had been absent in previous years.
During this year he also assisted his brother, then a senior, to the extent of
some three hundred dollars, so that he could complete his college course that
year, which he did. After the completion of that college year and after all
bills were paid, Edward found himself the possessor of just one five-dollar
bill, and he then set about to get a job. He decided to learn either the flour
business or the lumber business, then practically the only industries of
importance in Minneapolis. He hoped his earnings the following year would enable
him to return to the University in 1883 and by again doing double duty he could
graduate with the class of 1884. In this he was disappointed, as in those days
good positions in commercial business were few and far between and wages were
low. When he finally succeeded in getting a position at small pay, he did not
dare to let go of it for fear the opportunity to make real progress, as he saw
it, might not soon come again, if ever. Therefore, one of the greatest
disappointments of his life is that he did not graduate at the University of
Minnesota.
In the summer of 1882, at the age of twenty-one years, we find Edward Wellington
Backus entering the lumber business as an employe of the firm of Lee & McCulloch
of Minneapolis, at the modest salary of nine dollars a week. This was a new,
small firm in the trade in this city, that had just completed the construction
of a small, "one-circular" sawmill on the river, at Eleventh avenue Northeast
Minneapolis, and had started sawing operations. Their invested capital was six
thousand ($6000.00) dollars. Their cut of lumber the first year was slightly
over one million feet. Mr. Backus opened the original set of books, also sold
the first bill of lumber. He knew nothing about the business and realized that
he must learn it by close application and so he set about the task with a
determination to succeed. The assistance and instructions he received from Mr.
Alexander S. McCulloch, the resident partner, were issued from the latter's
bedside, where he was confined by serious illness. This condition continued and
the following summer (1883) while still confined to his bed he offered his
interest in the firm to Mr. Backus for three thousand ($3,000.00) dollars in
cash. Mr. Backus had no money, but he had courage-and better still, found that
even that early in his career his banker had confidence in him. The outcome was
that Mr. H. P. Brown, cashier of the Commercial Bank of East Minneapolis, loaned
him the full amount-three thousand dollars, at ten per cent interest-with which
to take over Mr. McCulloch's interest in the firm, and shortly thereafter the
firm name was changed to Lee & Backus. Judson W. Lee, the senior, non-resident
partner, who had employed young Backus on one of his brief trips to Minneapolis,
started him to work and then left the city to look after his other interests,
having unbounded confidence in him from the outset. After taking him to the mill
and lumberyard he handed him the keys and combination to the safe with the
remark, "I feel sure you can learn this business and will be able to run it-I
have other matters to look after. Now work out your own salvation." On his next
visit a month or so later, lasting about an hour, he issued written authority,
empowering young Backus to sign checks and power of attorney to sign notes. From
that time until he sold out his interest to Mr. Backus in 1886 he was absent
from Minneapolis, in California and elsewhere almost continuously-ten full hours
in the office and about the works would more than cover the time he gave to that
business. In the spring of 1886 he came back from California and said he wanted
to close out his interests in Minnesota and go to the Pacific coast to live
permanently. He asked for a balance sheet. It was given him and showed that his
interest was worth forty thousand dollars. He said: "1 will take all of the real
estate except the sawmill, which you must keep, at sixteen thousand dollars,
four thousand cash and your notes for five thousand dollars each, due in one,
two, three and four years at ten percent interest." The trade was made and the
firm name changed to E. W. Backus & Company, although Mr. Backus was then the
sole partner. It is, therefore, obvious that from the day Mr. Backus entered the
service of Lee & McCulloch in the late summer of 1882, fate put upon his
shoulders the responsibility of learning the lumber business, unaided, by his
own efforts, taking a small, six thousand dollar sawmill, assembled from
second­hand machinery throughout, and developing the business into its present
organization-the Backus-Brooks Company, with its two dozen or more subsidiary
and affiliated corporations owning property valued at tens of millions. From the
very beginning the growth was rapid and constant; starting with the small cut of
slightly over one million feet in 1882, it increased from year to year till in
1892; the lumber manufactured was over seventy-one million feet. Two years later
it reached about one hundred million feet and remained there for several years.
The expansion in capital was entirely from the profits of the business. During
these years Mr. Backus sold the little "circular" sawmill and purchased two
larger ones, one situated at the easterly end of the Plymouth Avenue bridge, the
other on the river at the foot of Tenth avenue Northeast. Both of these he
enlarged and rebuilt, putting them into the most modern condition with a yearly
capacity of one hundred and twenty million feet. In 1893 Mr. Backus met his
first serious setback. His was the greatest loss in the conflagration of August
13, 1893, which destroyed all the property on nearly fifty city blocks in
Northeast Minneapolis, including three sawmills, two shingle mills, sash and
door factories, planing mills, with all equip­ment, residences and nearly sixty
million feet of lumber. That conflagration still stands as probably Minneapolis'
greatest fire. In it Mr. Backus' loss included two sawmills with all equipment
and nearly fifty million feet of lumber, all valued at over one million one
hundred thousand dollars, with insurance of less than one-half that amount. With
his manufacturing facilities swept away, Mr. Backus found it necessary to employ
custom mills for the remainder of that year, with which to manufacture his logs
into lumber. Simultaneously he began casting about to buy another sawmill plant.
This opened up negotiations with Messrs. C. A. Pillsbury & Company which, after
some months, resulted in the purchase from them early in 1894, of the sawmill
plant and property located on the river at the foot of Thirty-second avenue
North Minneapolis, which had formerly been owned by the defunct Northern Mill
Company. This purchase, moreover, was only a small part of the transaction which
Mr. Backus conceived and carried through, after his tremendous fire loss, in
order to reestablish himself on a firm footing for the future. The work he did
and the plans he laid during the months that intervened between the date of the
fire in August, 1893, which virtually wiped out his business, and March, 1894,
practically determined his future business career. His scheme was to secure
control of the large holdings of pine timber, which he personally knew amounted
to several billion feet, between Brainerd, Minnesota, and the international
boundary, two hundred miles to the north, and then to build a main line railroad
between these two points to insure profitable operating conditions. After he
finally decided upon this plan of action he opened up negotiations with C. A.
Pillsbury & Company and with Mr. T. B. Walker, who were by far the largest
individual holders of pine timber in that section, their holding amounting to
upwards of two billion feet; while the former company also held the legal title
to the sawmill plant in Minneapolis. After negotiations had gone on for several
months Mr. Backus received assurance from both of these interests that the
property could be purchased on a certain basis, the details to be worked out
promptly if convinced that he could finance? the project. Thereupon, in January,
1894, Mr. Backus invited a few of his Minne­apolis' competitors, together with
one or two outside individuals, to join him in his proposed enterprise, with the
result that the purchase was made by the syndicate which he organized, and as
finally constituted, was composed of five lumber companies-E. W. Backus Lumber
Company, Nelson, Tenney & Company, J. W. Day & Company, Carpenter-Lamb Company
and Brainerd Lumber Company. In this syndicate the interest of Mr. Backus'
company was thirty per cent. To this syndicate is due the credit for the
construction and existence of what is now the Minnesota & International Railway
(then Brainerd & Northern Railway) operating two hun­dred miles of main line
between Brainerd, Minnesota, on the Northern Pacific Railway, and International
Falls, Minnesota, on the Rainy River and international boundary.
Immediately after closing the timber and sawmill purchase in March, 1894, Mr.
Backus, representing the syndicate, sent surveyors into the field to locate the
railroad and about two months later a contract was made with Foley Brothers &
Guthrie to build the first division of the main line numbering about sixty
miles. This division was rushed through to completion and put into operation
before October 1st of that year and during the following ten months it
transported to Brainerd nearly one hundred and fifty million feet of saw logs
for the syndicate, in addition to conducting the ordinary business of common
carrier which immediately sprang up along the line as soon as operations
started. Thereafter extensions were made from time to time as lumbering
operations required until 1906, twelve years after the first division was built,
when Mr. Backus located and contracted with Dempsey & Dougherty for building the
last thirty-four miles of main line into International Falls, Minnesota-the
boundary terminal. Meantime in 1899, after the line had reached Bemidji, about
ninety miles out of Brainerd, the Northern Pacific Railway Company had taken
over the entire interest in the company formerly held by all the other syndicate
members who joined Mr. Backus in the enterprise in 1894. After that change in
ownership the Road was and still is operated by the Northern Pacific Railway,
the same as if it was a part of that system, but Mr. Backus has always been on
its board of directors. In 1906 he became impatient at the indiffer­ence shown
by Northern Pacific interest in building the last thirty-four-mile gap to the
international boundary, and organized the big Fork & International Falls
Rail­way Company, with which to complete the line, but before it was completed
the Northern Pacific interest repented and took it over.
In 1894 Mr. Backus organized the E. W. Backus Lumber Company under the laws of
Minnesota, of which he was made president, with a capital stock of six hun­dred
thousand dollars. This corporation took over the business of E. W. Backus &
Company and issued five hundred thousand dollars of its stock in payment
there­for. Shortly thereafter Mr. Augustus E. Horr and Renselaer C.
Leavift-father and uncle, respectively, of Mrs. E. W. Backus-joined the
organization, each taking fifty thousand dollars of the remaining one hundred
thousand dollars of treasury stock.
In 1898 Wm. F. Brooks withdrew from the firm of Nelson, Tenney & Company, one of
the syndicate members in the enterprise conceived by Mr. Backus in 1894, and on
January 1, 1899, joined the E. W. Backus Lumber Company. Meantime, Mr. Leavitt
had died and his interest had been taken over by Mr. Backus, who in turn sold an
interest in the company to Mr. Brooks, who from that time up to the present, has
worked very closely with Mr. Backus in all of their enterprises, and the
following year the corporation name was changed to Backus-Brooks Company. In
1902 the Backus-Brooks Company, a three million dollar corporation, was
organized under the laws of the state of Maine, with Mr. Backus as president.
This corporation took over the business and assets of Backus-Brooks Company, the
stock­holders receiving five shares in the new company for each share formerly
in the old company. This close corporation continues today the same as when
organized, the heirs of Augustus E. Horr, who died in 1908, having succeeded to
his interest.
In 1896 Mr. Backus departed slightly from the beaten path in the lumber
business, which he had followed exclusively up to that time, and made a small
investment in some mining claims in the Blue mountains near Sumpter, Oregon. He
immediately developed this property, constructed a mill for the treatment of the
ores and in 1897 organized the Columbia Gold Mining Company, of which he was
president, and this corporation operated the property without cessation and
successfully under his direction for twenty years, when he closed the mine on
account of the excessive depths to which the workings had been carried and which
then called for a complete change in mining methods.
In 1900 he gave way to his natural pioneering instincts and went to Nome,
Alaska, where he became interested in gold mining and then organized the
Northern Mining & Trading Company, of which he was made president. These
operations were under his personal supervision on the ground in 1900 and 1901.
Thereafter operations were conducted for several years under his direction
through a resident manager.
In the late '90s Mr. Backus began to make his plans for the development of
large industries on the international boundary, at the point which he had
planned would be the terminus of the railroad which he had conceived after the
big fire in 1893. He set about to secure the water power properties on both the
Canadian and Minnesota sides of the Rainy river. He also began to acquire the
necessary timber holdings in this section to justify the establishment of large
paper mills and sawmills. In this he was successful and during the years 1903 to
1906, inclusive, he organized the following corporations, of which he was made
president: First National Bank of International Falls, International Lumber
Company, Rainy River Improvement Company, Ontario & Minnesota Power Company,
Ltd., Keewatin Lumber Company, Ltd., and a number of smaller, subsidiary
organizations. He also joined the Shevlin-Carpenter interests in the
organization of the Rainy River Lumber Company, Ltd., of which he was made a
director, but in this company held less than a majority interest. During this
period he was also made a director of the Northwestern National Bank and has
served on that board continuously up to the present time, a period of about
twenty years. During these years large sawmill plants were erected and put into
operation at Keewatin and Rainy River, Ontario, by the corporations named, while
construction work was actively begun on the dam which extends from shore to
shore in the Rainy river on the international boundary at International Falls,
Minnesota, on the United States side and Fort Frances, Ontario, on the Canadian
side; also on the hydro-electric power plants and pulp and paper mills. In 1907
the railroad from the south was completed to International Falls and put into
operation. Also during the years 1907 to 1910, inclusive, Mr. Backus and his
associates in Backus-Brooks Company organized the International Bridge &
Terminal Company, the Minnesota & Ontario Power Company, and the Minnesota,
Dakota & Western Railway Company, completed the power dam, hydro-electric
plants, pulp and paper mills, sawmills; built nearly forty miles of main line
railroad and terminals under the new Minnesota, Dakota & Western System, which
now has nearly two hundred miles of single line track, and put all of these
properties into operation. During the years 1911 to 1914, inclusive, he and his
associates organized the Fort Frances Pulp & Paper Co., Ltd., the International
Insulation Company, the Keewatin Fower Company, Ltd., of Kenora, Ontario, which
embraced the ownership of the famous Norman Dam, at the outlet of Lake of the
Woods; secured from the Ontario government timber concession tributary to this
water power and also acquired the entire assets of the Shevlin interests in the
sawmill plant and business located at Spooner, Minnesota, while at the same time
selling to the same interests the Backus-Brooks Company minority holding in the
Rainy River Lumber Company, Ltd. (at Rainy River, Ontario). During these years
the paper mill at Fort Frances was built and put into operation. The newly
acquired lumber business at Spooner, Minne­sota, was taken over and put into
operation and plans for the immediate development of the water powers at Kenora
with pulp and paper mills in connection therewith was put under way, but the
World war temporarily prevented proceeding with this development.
By this time the corporations which Mr. Backus' companies controlled had made
such strides in the manufacture of news print paper that figured from a
production standpoint, they stood second to only one other single plant in the
world.
In 1915 to 1917, inclusive, the Backus interest took over the sawmill and box
factory plants of the Rat Portage Lumber Company, located at Kenora and
consolidated same with the Keewatin Lumber Company, Ltd. They constructed at
International Falls a kraft pulp mill and a mill for the manufacture of
Universal Insulite, a patented by-product, which now bids fair to rival the
lumber business. Late in 1917 Mr. Backus met his first serious illness, which
lasted for nearly a year, although dur­ing this time he did not entirely
relinquish his attention to the growing business of his operating companies.
With his returning health in 1919 came his ambition for expansion and from 1919
to 1922, inclusive, he secured from the Ontario government large pulp wood and
timber concessions and water powers, purchased the Municipal Hydro-Electric
Power Plant from the Town of Kenora, which his company remodeled and enlarged;
constructed and put in operation a pulp mill and is now completing the first
paper mill unit in connection therewith. While it is true that the paper mills
now under Backus-Brooks control are already classed as being among the largest
in the world, yet Mr. Backus talks of them as being in their infancy. Under his
companies' control are water powers and woodlands sufficient to justify an
ex­pansion to double or even quadruple the present capacity, only waiting for
the hand of the builder. Therefore, the future may reasonably expect the big
work on which Mr. Backus has spent his life, to continue to expand.
Mr. Backus married Miss Elizabeth Horr of this city. She was born in Maine and
comes from a long line of prominent New England ancestors, among whom are
Governor John Winthrop, Governor Thomas Dudley and Rev. Robert Jordan. Her
mother, Mrs. Emily E. Horr, still lives on the old homestead in Southeast
Minneapolis and enjoys excellent health. Mr. and Mrs. Backus have one son,
Seymour W., aged twenty-seven, who is vice president and joint manager with his
father, of all the companies of which his father is at the head. Seymour W. and
his wife, Ruth Towle Backus, have two daughters, aged five and six years,
respectively. Another son, Edward Raymond, was the unfortunate victim of a sad
accident while hunting on Rainy lake, which cost him his life, immediately after
his graduation from Yale College, with high honors.
This biographical sketch shows how closely the business career of Mr. Backus for
nearly twenty-five years was interwoven with the history of the lumber industry
in Minneapolis. Mr. Backus' active participation in the lumber manufacturing
business of Minneapolis came at a time-1882 to 1905-which embraced the period in
which that industry was at its zenith and this city reached the point where it
was the largest lumber manufacturing center in the world, a commanding position
which it held for several years. Today it exists only in memory, for not a log
is now being manufactured into lumber here. Strangely, too, that period and
im­mediately preceding it marked the passing of most of the "Old Guard" in the
in­dustry. Individuals, partnerships and corporations which had grown into
large, prosperous institutions chiefly due to the almost unlimited supply of
pine tributary to Mississippi waters which they had acquired cheaply preceding
this period, together with favorable labor and operating conditions, either
failed in business or retired to avoid sacrificing their valuable timber holding
when the new crops of operators entered the industry with their push and
up-to-date methods of manufacturing and marketing. The conspicuous newcomers in
this group included the H. C. Akeley Lumber Company and its successor, the
Itasca Lumber Company, E. W. Backus & Company, and its successors, E. W. Backus
Lumber Company and Backus-Brooks Company, C. A. Smith & Company and its
successors, the C. A. Smith Lumber Company, North Star Lumber Company and its
successor, the S. C. Hall Lumber Com­pany, Hall & Ducey Lumber Company, Hall &
Shevlin Lumber Company and the Shevlin-Carpenter Company, the Brooks-Scanlon
Lumber Company, Carpenter Brothers Company and its successor, the Carpenter-Lamb
Company. Of the old pioneer guard which numbered around twenty prosperous
concerns when Mr. Backus made his entry into the industry in 1882, the only ones
who remained until well on to the last was the Nelson, Tuthill Lumber Company,
successor to Nelson, Tenney & Com­pany, and the Bovey DeLaittre Lumber Company,
successor to Eastman, Bovey & Company.
In 1904, when the end of the supply of pine timber on the Mississippi river,
tributary to Minneapolis, was in sight, and the only holding of importance was
that of the Northland Pine Company-a Weyerhaeuser organization-that company
purchased the sawmill property of Backus-Brooks Company and operated it until
about 1920, when the old whistle which had called the workers to duty for
thirty-five years was sounded for the last time and the great lumber
manufacturing industry of Minneapolis was dead forever. During this period and
immediately preceding it, the principal obituaries recorded in the city's lumber
manufacturing industry were the. following: W. B. Judd, Dr. Butler, Fred Clarke,
Lamoreaux Brothers, C. D. Haven & Son, Jesse G. Jones, Fred J. Clark, Farnham &
Lovejoy, Merriman, Bar­rows & Company, N. P. Clarke & Company, successors to
Clarke & McClure, Northern Mill Company, Clough Brothers, McMullen & Company,
Beedy & Bray, Bray & Robinson. Those who retired for lack of profits and in most
cases under pressure were: Pettit, Robinson & Company, J. W. Day & Company,
successors to Leonard Day & Sons, Henry F. Brown, Tibbitts & Russell, J. B.
Bassett & Company, W. D. Washburn & Company and Washburn Mill Company, J. C.
Kimball, Goodnow & Hawley and its successor, W. C. Goodnow and Goodnow &
Lawther. Those who retired in good financial standing, but who were unwilling to
sacrifice their standing timber were: J. Dean & Company, Camp & Walker, Dorilus
Morrison and his successor, Morrison Brothers and Clinton Morrison, John Martin
Lumber Company, Minneapolis Mill Company.
Mr. Backus is a republican in politics and has always been an active worker in
the local ranks of the party, but the honors and emoluments of office have never
had any attraction for him. He was a presidential elector in 1904. His
appreciation of the social amenities of life is indicated by his membership in
the Minneapolis, Minikahda and Lafayette Clubs of this city and also in the
Congressional Country Club of Washington, D. C., and the New York Athletic Club.
When in the battle of life the city boy crosses swords with the country lad the
odds are against him. The early rising, the daily tasks, the economic habits of
the country boy prepare him for the struggle that must precede ascendency. The
early training of Mr. Backus was that of the farm and the habits of industry and
close application which he thus developed have constituted the foundation of his
present success. His is the record of a strenuous life-the record of a strong
individuality, sure of itself, stable in purpose, quick in perception, swift in
decision, energetic and persistent in action.