Chester Congdon

Chester Adgate Congdon (June 12, 1853 – November 21, 1916), lawyer and capitalist, was born in Rochester, New York, on June 12, 1853, his parents being Sylvester Laurentius and Laura Jane (Adgate) Congdon. The Congdon name is indelibly linked with the Glensheen Historic Estate in Duluth, Minnesota.

On his paternal side he is sixth in descent from James Congdon, a Quaker from England who settled in Rhode Island in the first half of the seventeenth century. On his paternal side all ancestors were of English origin. On his mother's side his ancestry was English and Dutch. All of his ancestry had been in North America since the early colonial period. In the public schools of Elmira, and Corning, New York, Chester A. Congdon acquired his preliminary education, which was supplemented by study in the East Genesee Conference Seminary at Ovid, New York. His collegiate work was done at Syracuse University, from which he was graduated in 1875 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He studied law under the preceptership of Hiscock, Gifford & Doheny at Syracuse, New York, and in 1877 was admitted to the bar of that state. After admission to the bar in New York state, Mr. Congdon taught school for about a year in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, before he went to Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1879, where he was admitted to the bar of that state and there established himself in the practice of law. On the 29 of September, 1881, at Syracuse, New York, Mr. Congdon was married to Clara Hesperia, a daughter of the Rev. Edward Bannister, a clergyman of San Francisco, California, and to them were born seven children: Walter Bannister Congdon, Edward Chester Congdon, Marjorie, Helen, John, Robert, and Elisabeth Congdon. Chester and Clara would later bring Clara's nephew Alfred Bannister to live with them after being orphaned at 6 years old.

In 1892 he moved from St. Paul to Duluth, becoming a member of the law firm of Billson & Congdon as the partner of William W. Billson. In 1893 they were joined by judge Daniel A. Dickinson and the firm style of Billson, Congdon & Dickinson was adopted. On the death of the judge in 1902 the surviving partners resumed their original title and thus continued until 1904, when both retired from active practice. In the meantime Mr. Congdon had extended his efforts to various lines of commercial, industrial and financial enterprise in his adopted city. He became a prominent figure in connection with the development of the iron and copper mining resources of the Lake Superior country and at the same time his advice and assistance were sought by many business and financial institutions on the directorate of which his name never appeared. He was general counsel of the Oliver Mining Company before its consolidation with other companies, now forming the United States Steel Corporation. He was also the president of the Chemung Iron Company and the Canisteo Mining Company, the vice-president of the American Exchange National Bank of Duluth and a director in the Calumet & Arizona Mining Company, the Hedley Gold Mining Company, the Greene Cananea Copper Company, the Marshall-Wells Hardware Company, the Gowan-Lenning-Brown Company and various other banking, mining and jobbing enterprises which claimed his attention and profited by his cooperation and direction. He also became interested in agricultural pursuits, making extensive investments in farm lands in the northwest.

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