Bio of PILLSBURY, Hon. John Sargent (b.1827 d.1901), 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
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Vol II, pg 6-11
HON. JOHN SARGENT PILLSBURY
One of the most distinguished names in the annals of Minneapolis and the
commonwealth is that of Hon. John Sargent Pillsbury, who for three consecutive
terms served Minnesota as governor and who for nearly a half century occupied a
commanding position as one of the leading business men and civic forces of the
city. The clearness of his purposes, the soundness of his judgment, his ample
sweep of vision, his tireless activity, his indomitable will, his great
achievements, his unbending uprightness, and withal his large and unostentatious
benevolence, have all impressed "the very age and body of the time," making his
life a force that cannot die, and continuing it in widening waves of benefaction
even though he passed away more than two decades ago. He attained the ripe age
of seventy-four years, his birth having occurred at Sutton, Merrimack County,
New Hampshire, July 29, 1827, his parents being John and Susanna (Wadleigh)
Pillsbury, descendants of early Puritan stock in New England. The progenitor of
the American branch of the family on the father's side was William Pillsbury,
who came from England to this country in 1640 and settled on a grant of land
near Newburyport, Massachusetts, a portion of which is still held by some of his
descendants. More details concerning the ancestral record are given on another
page of this work in connection with the sketch of George A. Pillsbury, brother
of John S. Pillsbury.
John Sargent Pillsbury had no special advantages in youth. He received a limited
education at the village school, which was primitive in character and narrow in
range. Early in life he entered a printing establishment to learn the trade, but
soon afterward found his taste much more inclined to mercantile life and became
a clerk in the store of his older brother, George A. Pillsbury. The dawning
ambition within him for a business and career of his own soon broadened,
however, into a commanding force, and he left his brother's store and formed a
business partnership with Walter Harriman, who later became governor of New
Hampshire. After the dissolution of this partnership he removed to Concord, the
capital of New Hampshire, and there engaged in a business which he conducted for
two years. By the end of that period his imagination had been quickened and his
appetite for adventure and large exploits had been intensified by suggestions of
the many opportunities for business in the great Northwest, and in 1853 he
started on a prospecting tour to and through the region which had sung to his
fancy in a voice so melodious and persuasive. The facilities for travel west of
the Alleghanies were at that time limited and primitive, and embodied
considerable hardship and privation. The young adventurer reached St. Anthony,
now Minneapolis, in June, 1855, and at once was impressed with its great
possibilities for business. He determined to make it his future home, and, in
company with George F. Cross and Woodbury Fisk, opened a hardware store. The
business prospered for a time, but the failure of many "wild cat" banks in the
panic of 1857 and a fire loss of forty-eight thousand dollars the same year, not
only wiped out all his accumulations, but left him with a heavy burden of debt
on his shoulders. He was, however, of heroic mold in spirit and reorganized the
business. He also paid the firm's debts and continued his retail hardware
operations until 1875, when the business was sold to Mr. T. B. Janney and others
who founded the wholesale hardware establishment, which still exists and is the
largest in the Northwest. From that date to his death he gave his attention also
to the flour milling industry and other lines of trade, in each of which he was
the controlling and moving spirit. He began milling in association with his
nephew, Charles A. Pillsbury, under the firm name of C. A. Pillsbury & Company,
which in time became the greatest flour manufacturing enterprise in the world.
The lumber industry in this section early arrested the attention of Mr.
Pillsbury and he soon began dealing extensively in pine lands and lumber. Under
his vigorous and progressive management the lumber manufacturing business which
he started developed in a few years into one of the leaders in the line and
opened the way to the great success of many other men of ability in this
industry, among them Charles A. Smith. Later he became interested in the
railroads of this state and a director of the Minneapolis & St. Louis and "Soo"
roads, and assisted greatly in their development and progress. He was also a
director of several banks and interested in many other business enterprises and
for all of these, too, he was an inspiration for advancement and an impregnable
bulwark of defense.
This is in brief the record of Governor Pillsbury's business achievements, and
the record of a remarkable mercantile and industrial career. But great as was
that career it shrinks into much smaller proportions, in an estimate of his
life, in comparison with other great things he did, some of which he began even
before he was fixed on a firm business basis. He began at a very early period
during his residence in this state to take a most earnest and helpful interest
in the University of Minnesota. This institution was no more than a name at the
time of his arrival here. In 1856 a building was begun, but the plans were
injudicious and the panic of 1857 stopped the work of construction. The
University was endowed by a congressional land grant, but had no other
resources, and this grant was in great danger of being lost through the
foreclosure of a mortgage of one hundred thousand dollars on the campus and
unfinished building. In this emergency the great man's greatness became manifest
and the saving power of the situation. In 1863 he was appointed a regent of the
University, and soon afterward was elected a member of the state senate. While
in that body he had a law passed placing the affairs of the institution in
charge of a board of three regents with full power to adjust its affairs
according to their best judgment and as if the University were their own. Such
unlimited authority has seldom, if ever, elsewhere been given to a public board.
But the situation was critical and called for unusual and heroic measures. Great
as was Governor Pillsbury's reputation for resourcefulness and business
capacity, everybody predicted his failure here.
But his hand was skillful, his will was iron and his persistency considered no
defeat. He began his adjustment of the claims against the property. The lands he
had to offer were inaccessible, but he sold them. With the cash thus received he
compromised claims on the best terms he could. He hunted up creditors and
purchasers and lands to sell to them. He traveled to the east for aid, and the
burden of his correspondence in this connection was enormous. But he
accomplished the work he had undertaken, and at the end of four years was able
to announce that the University was free from debt, with its campus and building
intact and thirty-two thousand acres of its endowment of forty-six thousand
still in its possession without incumbrance on any part of the property.
Following this great achievement the University was reorganized, the neglected
building was completed, a faculty was engaged, and the real work for which the
institution was founded was begun. Mr. Pillsbury continued to serve as one of
its regents until his death on October 18, 1901, his service in this capacity
covering thirty-eight years, and throughout this long period he was the
financial guide and guardian of the institution. In his service of thirteen
years in the state senate he was able to accomplish much in securing
appropriations, and he was also the man who brought about the consolidation of
the land grants made directly to the University and that given for the purpose
of agricultural education and experiment work. Notwithstanding his successful
work for the institution there was often a plentiful lack of dollars for current
expenses and other needs. But by this time Mr. Pillsbury had become a man of
wealth, and his means were always at the disposal of this child of his fond
parentage and devoted affection. When the experimental farm was needed in
connection with the University and there was no money for the purchase of one he
advanced the eighty-five hundred dollars required. The land then bought was
afterward sold for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars and the proceeds were
used in securing the present University farm. Then, in 1889, "the Father of the
University," as he has been called since his connection with the institution
began, quietly handed the board of regents one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars for the erection of a much needed science hall, which was called
Pillsbury Hall. In addition to all this he gave to the affairs of the
institution his own time, strength and capacity freely and continuously. A very
conservative estimate made by his friends is that he devoted one-fourth of his
time during the thirty-eight years of his service as regent to the University.
This means that ten years of actual time were taken from his business and other
pursuits in caring for the educational institution which he saved from ruin and
built up to greatness. His lifelong services to it were recognized in 1900 by
the erection of a life-size statue of him on the campus.
A man of such intense patriotism and devotion to his country as was Mr.
Pills-bury could scarcely be kept out of the political activities around him. In
his earlier years, and, indeed, until late in life, when his activities began to
abate in business and in everything else except the University of Minnesota, the
Governor was in almost constant political service. He gave lifelong allegiance
to the republican party but he was neither narrow nor partisan. In 1858, before
the end of the year in which he arrived at St. Anthony, he was elected to the
city council for six years. The cloud of the Civil war was then deepening over
the country, and long before the end of his term the storm broke and he turned
aside from every other engagement, as far as necessary, to assist in organizing
the First, Second and Third Minnesota regiments for service in defense of the
Union. A year later, when the outbreak of the Indians in this state brought
about such a terrible condition of affairs for our people, he aided in raising a
mounted company for service against them.
The door for his progress in civil and political affairs by. this time was open
wide, and at the end of his term in the city council of St. Anthony he was
elected to the state senate, and in that forum he continued to be one of the
leading and most forceful agencies in promoting the welfare of the people of the
whole state for an almost unbroken period of thirteen years. During his tenure
of the office of senator so amply did he demonstrate his broad, comprehensive
and accurate knowledge of public affairs and his ability for administering them
for the best interests of the commonwealth, that in 1875 he was nominated and
elected governor of the state, without any of the usual accompaniments of
candidacy and canvass. He was reelected in 1877 and again in 1879, and could
have been in 1881 had he not positively refused to serve again.
The period during which he was at the helm of the ship of state was a very
troublesome one, and Governor Pillsbury was called upon to deal with more
problems of importance and diverse bearings than have confronted and tried the
mettle of any other governor of this state. When he assumed the office the
"grasshopper plague" was in full force, and he had to deal with it vigorously
and immediately. With characteristic public spirit and self-sacrifice he went
personally to the scene of the calamity, investigated its extent and the
condition of the sufferers, and from his own means furnished relief in many
cases. He then returned to the state capital and urged remedial legislation with
such force as to secure prompt and effective means for the aid of the people
afflicted and the destruction of the pests. Then came the destruction of the
state capitol and the principal insane hospital of the state by fire; and just
before the end of his executive control of the state's interests he was called
upon to organize relief for the town of New Ulm, which was destroyed by a
tornado. While he was governor Mr. Pillsbury also recommended and secured the
passage of some of the best laws of the commonwealth. Among these were acts
providing for a public examiner, a state high school board and biennial sessions
of the legislature. In addition he had an unusual number of appointments to make
to important public offices. These included justices of the supreme and district
courts and many other officials on whom rested great responsibilities and whose
duties were of momentous character.
The crowning glory of his official career, however, was his triumph in removing
from the name of Minnesota the stain of repudiation. Unwise legislation in the
early '50s had led to the issue of over two million dollars' worth of bonds for
the encouragement of railroad building in the state. The panic of 1857 prevented
the completion of the railroads contemplated, and so exasperated were the people
by the status of affairs in this connection that they voted to refuse payment of
the debt and redemption of the bonds. Governor Pillsbury, in his first message
to the legislature, urged the discharge of these obligations; and, although he
met with indifference generally and with violent opposition in some quarters, he
continued to demand that the honor of the state be preserved. After overcoming
great obstacles in legislation and legal entanglements he had the enjoyment of
his greatest triumph in seeing the blot wholly and forever wiped out.
In the foregoing paragraphs the great work of Governor Pillsbury in helping to
build up the educational, industrial, commercial and general business interests
of this city and state, and his personal trials and triumphs in connection with
them, have been set forth with some fullness of detail. His services when the
integrity of the Union was threatened by armed resistance and when the savage
fury of the Indians became destructive, showing itself in massacre and flames,
have been mentioned. His long, brilliant and most useful official career has
been briefly outlined. But it is difficult to tell of his private benevolence,
for of that there is no record, and he never intended that much of it should be
known. Enough has come to light, however, to show that it must have been as
important in magnitude as it was unostentatious in bestowal. In this exercise of
his goodness he strictly obeyed the injunction of the Scriptures, not letting
his left hand know what his right hand did. His public benefactions are,
however, well known and worthy of mention, especially for their munificence and
the elevated and noble purposes for which they were intended. His gift of one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars to the University has already been mentioned.
In addition to this he gave to Minneapolis a large endowment for the Home for
Children and Aged Women. He gave to the Young Women's Christian Association of
Minneapolis a home for young women working for small salaries, which was named
in honor of his wife the "Mahala Fisk Pillsbury Home." In addition he started a
beautiful library building, especially intended for the use of the residents of
the East Side. This was not completed at the time of his death, but his heirs
carried his wishes into full effect with regard to it, and it is known as the
''Pillsbury Library," a part of the public library system of Minneapolis. These
are the most conspicuous of his bountiful donations in the city of his home, but
there are others of less note.
At Warner, New Hampshire, on the 3d of November, 1856, Governor Pillsbury was
united in marriage to Miss Mahala Fisk, a daughter of Captain John Fisk, who was
a descendant of Rev. John Fisk, the latter having emigrated from Suffolk,
England, to New England in 1637. Governor and Mrs. Pillsbury became the parents
of three children: Susan M., who was born June 23, 1863, and who, on the 23d of
September, 1885, became the wife of Fred B. Snyder of Minneapolis; Sarah Belle,
whose birth occurred June 30, 1866, and who is now the wife of Edward C. Gale of
Minneapolis; and Alfred Fisk, who was born October 20, 1869, and who has
succeeded to many of the interests and responsibilities of his father. Addie E.
Pillsbury, adopted daughter of Governor and Mrs. Pillsbury, and by act of the
legislature of Minnesota made heir-at-law equal with the other children of John
S. Pillsbury, was born October 4, 1860. She was married to Charles M. Webster in
October, 1884, and passed away on the 2d of April, 1885. Mrs. Susan (Pillsbury)
Snyder, of the above named children, died in 1891. Her mother, Mrs. Mahala
(Fisk) Pillsbury, was called to her final rest on the 23d of June, 1910.
Governor Pillsbury's death occurred on October 18, 1901. For many years he was a
regular attendant at the Congregational church and a liberal contributor to its
support. But his bounty to churches was not limited to this sect. He gave freely
to all. He was liberal as well to every public charity and aided in promoting
every worthy undertaking in his community in which the welfare of the people was
involved. "He leaves a patriot's name to after times, linked with a thousand
virtues."