DAKOTA COUNTY.
This county, a rich farming district, lies on the west bank of the
Mississippi between Ramsey and Goodhue counties. It was originally
well diversified with timber and prairie lands, and is well watered by
the tributaries of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. Vermillion
river, which flows through this county, has near its junction with the
Mississippi a picturesque waterfall, now somewhat marred by the
erection of mills and manufactories.
HASTINGS,
Lying near the mouth of the Vermillion river, is a wide-awake,
thriving city, beautifully located on the banks of the Mississippi. It
has a fine court house, good hotels, manufactories and business
blocks. The Hastings & Dakota railroad has its eastern terminus here.
The St. Paul & Milwaukee, Burlington & Northern railroads pass through
the city. The river is bridged at this place.
FARMINGTON,
Near the centre of the county, on the Chicago, St. Paul & Minneapolis
railroad, is a thriving business village. West St. Paul has encroached
largely upon the north part of the county.
BIOGRAPHICAL.
IGNATIUS DONNELLY.--The parents of Ignatius Donnelly came from the
Green Isle in 1817, settling in Philadelphia, where Ignatius was born,
Nov. 3, 1831. He was educated in the graded and high schools of his
native city, graduating at the latter in 1849, and taking his degree
of master of arts three years later. He read law with Benjamin Harris
Brewster, and was admitted to the bar in Philadelphia in 1852, and
practiced there until 1856, when he came to Minnesota and located at
Ninninger, and purchasing from time to time nearly 1,000 acres of
land, devoted himself to farming, not so busily, however, as to
prevent him from taking a prominent part in public affairs. A
captivating and fluent speaker, and besides a man of far more than
ordinary native ability and acquirements, he was not suffered to
remain on his Dakota farm. In 1859 he was elected lieutenant governor
of the newly admitted state, and was re-elected in 1861, serving four
years. He served his district in the thirty-seventh, thirty-eighth and
thirty-ninth congresses. During his congressional term he advocated
many important measures, taking an advanced position in regard to
popular education, and the cultivation and preservation of timber on
the public lands. For his advocacy of the last named measure he was
much ridiculed at the time, but has lived to see his views generally
understood, and his measures to a great extent adopted in many of the
Western States. He advocated amending the law relating to railroad
land grants, so as to require their sale, within a reasonable period,
at low prices.
When he entered Congress, he gave up his law practice, and since his
last term he has devoted himself chiefly to farming, journalism and
general literature. In July, 1874, he became editor and proprietor of
the _Anti-Monopolist_, which he conducted several years. Within the
last decade he has published several works that have given him both
national and transatlantic fame. His works on the fabled "Atlantis"
and "Ragnarok" prove him to be not only a thinker and scientist, but a
writer, the charms of whose style are equal to the profundity of his
thought. His last work on the authorship of the Shakespearean plays
has attracted universal attention, not only for the boldness of his
speculations, but for the consummate ingenuity he has shown in
detecting the alleged cipher by which he assumes to prove Lord Bacon
to be the author of the plays in question. The book has excited much
controversy, and, as was to be expected, much adverse criticism. Mr.
Donnelly was married in Philadelphia, Sept. 10, 1855, to Miss
Catherine McCaffrey of that city. They have three children living.
FRANCIS M. CROSBY.--The ancestors of Mr. Crosby were of Revolutionary
fame. He was born in Wilmington, Windham county, Vermont, Nov. 13,