Medor Ewing Louisell (1869-1938), Meader Bly Pinkham (1837-1914)

Portrait from the Manual of the Constitutional Convention of Michigan, 1907.

  Benzie County, Michigan attorney Medor Ewing Louisell had fleeting involvement in Bay State politics with his service as a delegate to the Michigan Constitutional Convention of 1907-08. Born of French descent, Louisell possesses a rare first name, the first such instance of which I've found. Born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin on May 5, 1869, Medor Ewing Louisell was the son of Joseph and Julia (Balthazar) Louisell. During childhood, Louisell removed with his family to the Dakota territory, and, after several years of residence in that area resettled in Manistee County, Michigan.

  Louisell would obtain his early education in the common schools during the winter months and during the summer months took employment in a local shingle mill. Resolving to better himself, he enrolled at the University of Notre Dame for a three year period and, while working for tuition and board, finished out his studies in 1891 when he graduated from the Manistee High School. Deciding to pursue a career in law, Louisell attended the University of Michigan from 1891-95 and during this period dabbled in journalism for a time, even serving as city editor for the newspaper that evolved into the Manistee Daily News.

  Following his graduation from the university's law and literary departments in 1896, Louisell was offered a teaching position (as a French language tutor) at his alma mater but declined, wanting to focus on law. By 1903 Louisell had established a practice in Calumet, Michigan, and married that year to Calumet native Mary J. Tallon (1875-1957) and later had seven children: Catherine Medora (1904-1991), Paul Jerome (1907-1986), John Henry (1909-1953), James Michael (1909-1975), Wilfred Francis (died in infancy in 1913), David William (1913-1977), and Charles Tallon (1917-1994). 

  During his residency in Calumet, Louisell was named an assistant prosecuting attorney for Houghton County, and after removing to Benzie County, won election as its prosecuting attorney, holding that post from at least 1905-06. In 1906 he was elected as the 27th district's delegate to the Michigan Constitutional Convention that was to be held in Lansing in 1907-08, and during the proceedings was named to the following committees: Arrangement and Phraseology, Education, and Liquor Traffic.

  Shortly after his service at the constitutional convention Medor Louisell removed with his family to Duluth, Minnesota, where he continued to practice law. In 1915 he returned to politics when he announced his candidacy for judge of the municipal court of Duluth, but was defeated. In the next year, Louisell was elected vice president of the French Naturalization Club of Duluth and continued residence in that city until his death at age 69 on August 5, 1938. He was survived by his wife and children and was interred at Duluth's Calvary Cemetery.

From the Duluth Labor World, April 3, 1915.

From the 1893 Maine legislative composite portrait.

  A one-term member of the Maine House of Representatives from Lincoln, Meader Bly Pinkham held the additional post of selectman for that city, and also operated a general store. Born in Lincoln on October 9, 1837, Meader Bly Pinkham was the son of James and Mollie (Bly) Pinkham. A student in schools local to the area of his birth, he entered into the mercantile trade at age 21, operating a general store in Lincoln for many years.

  In June 1857 Pinkham married in Lincoln to Lucy A. Brock (1838-1873), to who he was wed until her death. The couple's brief union produced two daughters, Cora (1859-1948) and Etta Eliza (1867-1963). Pinkham entered local politics with election to the Lincoln board of selectmen and was later appointed as U.S. Postmaster at Lincoln, where he served for nine years. In 1892 he was elected to the Maine House of Representatives, and during the 1893-95 session was a member of the committee on State Lands and State Roads.

  Prior to removing to Bangor from Lincoln, Pinkham served as a trustee for the Mattanawcook Acadamy in Lincoln, serving as board secretary. In his final years, he resided with his daughter in Bangor, where he died on May 3, 1914, aged 77. He was survived by his daughters and was interred alongside his wife at the West Broadway Cemetery in Lincoln.

From the Bangor Daily News, May 4, 1914.

Orsemor Sumner Holden (1843-1914)

From the Centennial Celebration, Together with a Historical Sketch of Reading, 1874.

   A lifetime resident of Vermont, Orsemor Sumner Holden was for over five decades one of Windsor County's foremost citizens, being active in both local business and politics. A two-term member of the Vermont State House of Representatives from the town of Reading, Holden also gained additional repute for being a popular "singer of sentimental songs" as well as a multi-instrumentalist, two pastimes as far removed from politics as one can imagine!

   One of two sons born to Felchville, Vermont hotel operator Joel Holden (1804-1850) and his wife Priscilla (1806-1883), Orsemor S. Holden was born in Reading on July 20, 1843, and received his education in schools local to his place of birth. Holden is described by the "Men of Vermont" as inheriting a gift for music, and was a multi-instrumentalist, becoming a proficient player of the organ, banjo, and guitar. Possessing a "cultivated baritone voice", Holden is also mentioned as being a singer of then-popular sentimental songs, eventually joining up with a traveling minstrel troupe, Whitmore and Clark's Minstrels, in 1864. His time with this group extended for a period of five years, and during the Civil War enlisted for service on three occasions, but "could not pass the physical examination."

   For over fifty years Orsemore Holden made his living as a house, sign, and carriage painter, while also taking part in singing engagements and musical performances. He married in July 1873 to Andover, Vermont native Julia Ella Nutting, who later served Reading as its Superintendent of Schools during the 1880s. The couple were married for over forty years and remained childless through the course of their marriage.

    Beginning in middle age Holden began to take an active role in Reading political affairs, serving as a town selectman from 1883-1892. He became a justice of the peace in 1885 and town road commissioner, and in November 1885 was elected to his first term in the Vermont House of Representatives, taking his seat in January 1886. This term saw him sit on the house committee on claims, and he was returned to the house for a second term during the 1890 election year. 

  Following his service in the legislature, Orsemor Holden continued to serve Reading in various local offices, including that of "road commissioner, town agent, and auditor" in the mid-1890s, and maintained a membership in the Mt. Sinai Lodge #22 of the International Order of Odd Fellows. In 1901 Holden proved that even at nearly 60 years of age he could still carry a tune, and during Old Home Day in Reading on August 14th sang a "greeting song" to a large crowd assembled in town. 

  Orsemor Sumner Holden died at age 71 of pernicious anemia on June 28, 1914, and was survived by his wife Ella, who is listed in an ancestry.com death record as dying sometime in 1947. A burial location for both Holden and his wife remains unknown at this time.

Skapti Brynjolfur Brynjolfson (1860-1914)

From the Minneapolis Journal, May 21, 1904.

   The first Icelandic native to warrant a profile here on the site, Skapti Brynjolfur Brynjolfson also resided in Nova Scotia before his eventual removal to the United States in the mid-1880s, settling first in Minnesota and later in the town of Beaulieu in North Dakota. During his residency in the latter state Brynjolfson worked at farming for a short period of time, and in 1890 was elected to represent the county of Pembina in the North Dakota State Senate for one term.

   The fourth of seven children born to Brynjolfur and Thorun Alifsdotter Brynjolfson, Skapti B. Brynjolfson's birth occurred in Forsealudal, Valley of Shade, Iceland on October 29, 1860. He is recorded by the 1900 History and Biography of North Dakota as having received his education "under his father's guidance" and "in his own tongue." For the first 14 years of his life Brynjolfson resided in Iceland, and in 1874 joined with his family in a "colony of emigration" of 352 native Icelanders readying themselves to seek a new life in North America. This contingent of Icelanders left their homeland on the ship "St. Patrick" and arrived in Quebec, Canada in October 1874. Soon after their arrival, the Brynjolfson family relocated first to Kenmount (near Toronto) and later to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Brynjolfson resided on a farm with his family. During his time there he is mentioned as being a gold miner by a 1904 edition of the Minneapolis Journal. 

   In 1881 the Brynjolfson family left Nova Scotia and moved to Duluth, Minnesota, where Skapti found employment in "the elevators and flour mills" in that city. While residing here Brynjolfson is noted by the 1900 History and Biography of North Dakota as having:

"Applied himself to the study of the English language, gleaning his knowledge from books and papers and made remarkable progress in that direction, and as is the characteristic of the nationality, acquired a pure pronunciation and thorough understanding, with a good grammatical style, although paying little attention to the study of grammar."

   Skapti Brynjolfson later removed from Duluth to North Dakota in 1885, settling in the township of Beaulieu in Pembina County. He took over the daily operations of his father's farm in that town and during the succeeding years, both Skapti and his brother Magnus went on to distinguished careers in the state, with Magnus Brynjolfson serving as state attorney for Pembina County for a time. In 1889 Skapti Brynjolfson launched an unsuccessful candidacy for a seat in the North Dakota State House of Representatives but proved successful in the following year in his bid for the state senate.
  Brynjolfson's term in the senate extended from 1890-1894 and during the 1893 senate term served on the committees on Federal Relations, Immigration, Military, Ways and Means, Cities and Municipalities, and Agriculture. He served as chairman of the committee on Public Health and while an incumbent senator married on November 21, 1892, to Groa Johanneson (died 1940.)  The couple is recorded as being childless throughout their marriage.

                         A portrait from the Compendium History and Biography of North Dakota, 1900.

     Leaving the senate in 1894 after one term, Brynjolfson and his wife removed back to Canada in 1902, settling in Winnipeg in the province of Manitoba. His later years were spent engaged in religious work, with his obituary in the Winnipeg Free Press noting that he had been a devout Unitarian, as well as being an organizer of the Icelandic Unitarian Conference of Manitoba and the Northwest, later serving as the organization's first president. He served in this capacity until he died in Winnipeg on December 21, 1914. He was just 54 years old and had died shortly after having undergone an unspecified operation at a local hospital. Brynjolfson was survived by his wife Groa and both were interred at the Brookside Cemetery in Winnipeg. 

From the Winnipeg Free Press, December 23, 1914.

Poindexter Dunn (1834-1914)

From the June 10, 1893 edition of the New York Tribune.

   While a name like "Poindexter" usually brings to mind a freckle-faced bespectacled nerd with a pocket protector, you'd probably never guess that there was a United States Representative with "Poindexter" as a first name! That man is Poindexter Dunn, a five-term congressman from Arkansas who also distinguished himself as a lawyer and cotton planter in his native state. One of a great many "faceless" politicians that I've located over the years, this funnily named congressman continually stymied me out of a portrait of himself for many a year, and I eventually gave up hope that I'd locate one. 

  Earlier this year I finally managed to locate a picture of Mr. Dunn, courtesy of the ever useful Chronicling America newspaper archive. I'm proud to relate that the above portrait of Poindexter Dunn is (to my knowledge) the first picture of him to be available online, and the rarity of said portrait is only strengthened by the fact that not even the famed Congressional Biographical Directory (bioguide.congress.gov) has a picture of him.

   The son of Grey and Lydia Baucum Dunn, Poindexter Dunn was born on November 3, 1834, near Raleigh, North Carolina. The Dunn family left North Carolina when their son was about six years of age and resettled in the county of Limestone, Alabama, and it was here that Poindexter attended local schools. He later enrolled at the Jackson College in Columbia, Tennessee, graduating from here in the class of 1854. 

   Shortly after completing his education, Dunn began pursuing a career in law and around this time moved to the county of St. Francis in Arkansas. Within a few years of his resettlement Dunn had built up a reputation as a successful cotton grower, and in 1858 was elected to a term in the Arkansas State House of Representatives. Early in his Arkansas residency, Dunn married Ellenora (also spelled Ellanora) Patton, about whom little is known. Dunn later remarried to another Arkansas resident, Anna Fussell (1845-1901), with whom he had two daughters, Anna Mae Estes Dunn (1883-1939) and Dorothea Dunn (died as an infant in 1888.) 

  At the dawn of the Civil War in 1861, Dunn joined the ranks of the Confederacy, being elected as a company Captain, but is remarked as never seeing armed combat. Following his military service Dunn returned to his earlier law studies and in 1867 was admitted to the bar. His career as an attorney was one of marked success, with the first volume of the Biographical and Pictorial History of Arkansas denoting that Dunn's "reputation as a gifted orator soon spread beyond local barriers, and pointed him out as the coming politician of his age."

   During the early 1870s, Dunn began to immerse himself in politics, being named as a Democratic Presidential elector for Arkansas in 1872 and 1876. In the 1878 election year he mounted a campaign for the U.S. House of Representatives, and in November won the election by a vote of 8,836, with no opposition. Dunn won his second term in the house in 1880, defeating Republican candidate John R. Johnson by a vote of 15,753 to 10,407. Judging by vote totals during the time that Dunn served in Congress, he seldom faced serious opposition during his reelection bids, and during his last run for Congress in 1886 was elected without any opposition whatsoever.

   Throughout his five terms in Congress Dunn is remarked as being a thorn in the side of the large railroad companies that existed during the late 19th century. The Political Reformation of 1884, Volume 28 acknowledges that during the 1882-83 congressional term:

 "Due credit must be given to the men who threw themselves into the breach to save the peoples lands. During the whole vacation of Congress, the Hons. W.S. Rosecrans, of California, and Poindexter Dunn, of Arkansas,  were in Washington, and never failed to interpose an objection at the Interior Department whenever the railroads tried to take an advantage." 

   The W.S. Rosecrans mentioned in the above passage is none other than former Union General William Stark Rosecrans (1819-1898), who was elected to Congress from California in 1880. During the latter period of his service, Dunn chaired the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries and was later named to a seat on the committee on Indian Depredation Claims.

From the May 10, 1893 edition of the Los Angeles Herald.

   Dunn refused to be a candidate for reelection in 1888, having served ten years as an Arkansas representative. In that same year, he moved from Arkansas to Los Angeles, California, establishing a law practice here until his relocation in 1893. Dunn was later appointed by U.S. Secretary of the Treasury John G. Carlisle to a special commission "on the prevention of frauds on the customs revue" in the New York Custom's House and Appraisers Stores. In 1895 Dunn relocated to Baton Rouge, Louisiana where he took an interest in railroad construction. He finally settled in Bowie County, Texas in 1905, and died shortly before his 80th birthday in Texarkana on October 12, 1914. He was shortly thereafter interred in the Rose Hill Cemetery in that city and was preceded in death by his second wife Ann, who had died thirteen years previously and was buried in Memphis, Tennessee.