Bio of GILLETTE, Lewis S. (b.1854), Hennepin Co., MN
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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

LEWIS S. GILLETTE - Vol II, pg 162-167
When the little sailing ship "Mary and John" made the voyage across the Atlantic
to New England, it brought as one of its passengers Jonathan Gillette, who
settled at Dorchester, Massachusetts, and became the founder of the family in
America of which Lewis S. Gillette is a representative. Among the direct
ancestors of the latter was also Commodore Bainbridge of the United States navy,
who quelled the piracy of the Barbary States on the Mediterranean coast of
Africa in 1803 and afterward won further distinction in connection with naval
service. After several generations of residence in New England representatives
of the name removed to western New York, and the grandfather and the father of
Lewis S. Gillette left the Empire state to become residents of Michigan. The
latter was Mahlon Bain-bridge Gillette, who in 1844 established his home on a
farm at Niles, on the St. Joseph river, after traveling by team from Detroit-a
distance of two hundred miles. He wedded Nancy Mary Reese and as pioneer
settlers they contributed in substantial and beneficial measure to the early
development and upbuilding of Michigan.
It was on the old homestead farm there that Lewis S. Gillette was born May 9,
1854, and at the usual age he began his education in the district school, while
later he attended high school at Niles and thus prepared for college. In the
summer of 1872 he passed the entrance examination for the University of
Michigan, but illness prevented him from taking up the course and he journeyed
westward, hoping to be benefited by a change of climate. He reached Minneapolis
in September, 1872, and was here persuaded to become a student in the University
of Minnesota, of which his father's cousin, Dr. W. W. Folwell, was then
president. He expected at the end of a year's study to return to Michigan but
within that period had become deeply interested in Minneapolis as well as in the
school work and continued until he had completed his four years' university
course. In fact, he carried a double course throughout the period and thus won
the degrees of Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Engineering in 1876. A few
years later, in recognition of his excellent work in the engineering field, his
Alma Mater conferred upon him the C. E. degree. His first work was done during
his college days under the supervision of Colonel Farquahar and Lathrop
Gillespie, who were the engineers in charge of the government work on the Upper
Mississippi and the Falls of St. Anthony.
When he had completed his university course in 1876, Mr. Gillette returned to
Michigan and purchased a farm adjoining the old family homestead. He was married
the following year, on the 18th of December, 1877, to Miss Louesa E. Perkins of
Minneapolis, and thereafter for a time devoted his attention to farming and the
raising of live stock. While thus engaged he also acquired an interest in the
Niles Chilled Plow Works, of which he became treasurer, and with the destruction
of his farm residence by fire he removed to Niles and became the active manager
of the plant. In 1880 Michigan made him the representative of the state at the
Atlanta Cotton Exposition and he there introduced his plow with such success
that it soon became necessary either to double the capacity of the plant or
remove to another locality with greater facilities.
In 1881 Mr. Gillette transferred his interests to Minneapolis by accepting the
position of assistant right of way agent for the Great Northern, then the St.
Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway, offered him by James J. Hill. For four
years he occupied that position, during which time he purchased much of the
right of way for the road, including the line westward from the Mississippi, the
old Union depot grounds, the present terminal, the Minnesota Transfer and the
main line, which then extended to Grand Forks. When in 1882 the Hill interests
acquired by purchase the St. Anthony Falls water power, Mr. Gillette was
appointed engineer and agent of the Water Power Company and continued to act in
that connection and as right of way agent of the Great Northern until May, 1884.
It was also largely through his efforts that East Minneapolis secured the
location of the Exposition building, for he was chairman of the committee that
made the purchase of the site, while the city named him a trustee of its
properties on Central avenue. He was authorized to sell or exchange these
properties and purchase the whole water front between the exposition and the
east channel of the Mississippi.
In May, 1884, there occurred another change in the business activity, marking
the broadening scope of Mr. Gillette's business connections. At that date he
purchased a half interest in the Herzog Manufacturing Company, then a small
concern, but from the date of his connection therewith its growth was rapid. He
acquired the interest of Mr. Herzog in the business in 1889 and continued the
operation of the iron plant under the name of the Gillette-Herzog Manufacturing
Company. Here his knowledge of engineering proved of great value to him and the
company pioneered in skeleton steel construction for mining and manufacturing
building throughout the west and became the recognized authority on that
subject. The work of the company is found in every leading city and principal
mining camp from Panama to Alaska, and between the years 1884 and 1900 there was
scarcely an enterprise between Chicago and the Pacific coast requiring steel
construction that did not confer with the Gillette company. Such was the
reputation of the concern that in 1885 Alien Marwel, president of the Atchison,
Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, offered Mr. Gillette the position of assistant
general manager of the railway system to succeed H. C. Ives, deceased.
It was ten years after this, or in 1895, that Mr. Gillette and his associates
organized the Minnesota Malleable Iron Company and conducted its operations in
North St. Paul. He was also one of the principal organizers of the American
Bridge Company. Two years were required to procure the options on the thirty-one
properties that were absorbed by this company and to effect their sale to Mr.
Morgan after Messrs. Selligman and Harriman had failed to underwrite them. Mr.
Gillette remained in charge of all the properties west of Chicago at the request
of Charles Steele of J. P. Morgan & Company, and Percival Roberts, president of
the bridge company, continuing in that important connection until the company
was absorbed by the United States Steel Corporation. With his retirement from
that position Mr. Gillette went abroad with his family for needed rest.
Indolence and idleness, however, are utterly foreign to his nature and he had no
sooner returned to the new world than he entered into other business connections
of equal importance and scope. He aided in founding and building the Red Wing
malting plant and organized and built the Electric Steel Elevator, one of the
largest terminal elevators of America and a model of its kind. He it was who
made the plan of grouping other industries in connection with this plant with a
capacity of three million, two hundred and fifty thousand bushels of grain. It
was through his influence that the Russell Miller Mill, the Spencer-Kellogg
Linseed Oil Crusher and the Electric Malting Plant, as well as the
Archer-Daniels Linseed Oil Plant and the Delmar Elevator were grouped around the
Electric Steel Elevator, from which they receive over belts, at the rate of ten
thousand bushels per hour, the grain required for their uses and which is
purchased and delivered to them by the central company. The execution of this
plan required marked executive ability and splendid administrative power, and
that Mr. Gillette put over this project successfully constitutes a well known
chapter in the business history of Minneapolis.
In the course of his active life he has been identified with many business
enterprises of the greatest value in the upbuilding of the middle and north
west. For several years he was vice president of the Metropolitan Bank and
promoted its sale to the Northwestern National Bank, in which he became a large
stockholder and director. He was also one of the early directors and
stockholders of the Minnesota Loan & Trust Company and he was associated with
his brother, his sons and with J. L. Record, in organizing the Minneapolis Steel
and Machinery Company, one of the largest industrial institutions in the state.
He was also a prominent factor in purchasing the St. Paul Pioneer Press, with
its building and printing establishment, the company conducting the business
successfully for a number of years and then selling at a substantial profit to
the St. Paul Dispatch. Mr. Gillette is now connected as president with the L. S.
Gillette Company, the Plymouth Investment Company and the Chippewa Land and
Pasture Company of Wisconsin. The magnitude of his enterprises places him with
America's captains of industry and the value of his service as a factor in the
general promotion of trade and commerce can scarcely be overestimated.
On the 18th of December, 1877, Mr. Gillette wedded Miss Louesa E. Perkins of
Minneapolis, as previously stated. She is a daughter of George P. Perkins, who
took up his abode at St. Anthony in 1857. This marriage was blessed with two
sons and three daughters.
Mr. and Mrs. Gillette have membership in the Trinity Baptist church and he is
interested in many of the forces which make for higher ideals of citizenship and
for the uplift of the individual. He has labored most earnestly and effectively
in behalf of the State University, to which he has given generous financial
support on various occasions. Associated with P. W. Clifford, he was active in
making plans for the development and advancement of the school and secured the
cooperation of Cass Gilbert in establishing the type of buildings that should be
erected on the campus. He is a trustee of Carleton College and he was chosen a
trustee of Pillsbury Academy as the successor of the late Hon. George A.
Pillsbury and has been active in promoting the interests of that school. He is
also a member of the Board of Education of the Northern Baptist convention. He
has traveled extensively in all parts of the world and it is said that every
section of the United States is almost as familiar to him as his home state of
Minnesota. In his travels in Rio Janeiro and Buenos Aires he was imbued to do
something for Minneapolis similar to the wonderful reconstruction and adornment
of those cities, notable for their civic centers and beautiful water front. He
told the story of what had been accomplished to the late Judge Martin B. Koon
and General W. D. Washburn, at a dinner given by Hon. E. A. Merrill, and the
result of this conversation was the organization of the Minneapolis Civic
Commission, formed for planning the improvement of this city. He has ever been
mindful of his duties and obligations in regard to the public, feeling that
every citizen owes a debt to the community, the commonwealth and the country,
and this debt he has been ever ready to discharge. He was untiring in his work
as a member of the War Service Board during the World war. Mr. Gillette is
prominently known in club circles, belonging to the Engineers Club of New York,
the University Club of Chicago, the University and Minnesota Clubs of St. Paul
and the Lafayette, Minneapolis and Minikahda Clubs of his resident city. He is
also identified with the Lake Emily Gun Club, of which he has been president for
fifteen years. For ten years he was prominently connected as director and vice
president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, and is now chairman of its
building commission, having well under way the Chamber's new home in Washington,
costing two and one half millions of dollars. He has twice been sent from the
United States as delegate to Paris and Rome meetings of the International
Chamber of Commerce. His salient characteristics have been summed up in the
words of a contemporary biographer, written some time ago, as follows: "He has
for thirty years been one of the state's largest employers of labor, and has
held the confidence and loyal service of his men. He enjoys the enviable
reputation of having keen foresight and clear perception-is a good judge of
men-a tireless worker, resourceful and of unquestioned integrity. Men of affairs
join willingly in any enterprise that he will father. Many benevolences and
worthy poor enjoy his unostentatious aid."