A Book of the Saint Paul Police 1838 - 1912 — 4

Henry Calvin was the first man in later years to come under the old pension law. In the last few years of his life he was granted twenty dollars a month, but this was soon taken away from him by a decision of the court. It was not until very recently that a ‘practical pension association was established and is still maintained by the police department. July 9th, 1856, George R. McKenzie owner of a popular hotel, the Mansion House, disappeared and four days later his body was found in the river. Five weeks later Robert Johnson a laborer was found in the river near the wharf his body badly mutilated. Both men were evidently murdered but no clew was ever found to the men who did the crime. In 1856, the little wooden jail was torn down and in its place was erected a magnificent $6500 structure at the corner of 5th and Washington Streets on the site now occupied by the post office. The police had six cells on the first floor in what was generally known as the lockup. There was considerable hard times and money stringency in this year and as a result a great many unemployed people were in the little city. No one but the saloons did a good business and crime was rampant as a result. Never has such a series of theft occurred as late in the year 1856. The prisoners when captured resisted and many a police officer was given a severe drubbing before he landed his man. The only patrol wagon the police department had was a grocer’s wagon which a public spirited grocer left standing each evening between 7th and Wabasha streets. In 1857, John Paul Brisbon became the fourth mayor of St. Paul and his administration was characterized principally by the terrors of a river town land boom. Crime was rampant and the police department absolutely unable to cope with it. Money became very free after the stringency of 1855 and 1856 and gamblers thronged the town. Gamblers from all over the country flocked to St. Paul. The police did the best they could, but it was impossible to do anything with the strangers who flocked into the city, most of them recruited from the criminal ranks of the larger cities of the country.

In the latter part of 1857, Henry Schroeder a german tailor was murdered in his shop. Some blunt instrument was used, by whom no one was ever able to tell. Later Peter W. Protter was shot by Mike Smith who made a good getaway, never being apprehended. In September of that year the land boom broke and the town lost half of its population. Those who remained were broken down gamblers and criminals with whom the older residents who loved order and obedience to law had a hard time to get along. Mayor Brisbon organized a vigilance committee of forty men to serve with the 12 policemen and their chief and finally preserved order in the city.

In 1858, Norman W. Kittson was elected mayor of St. Paul. The old commodore was a unique character and very forcible in some of his expressions. He was a great friend of Henry H. Sibley the first Justice of Peace of this territory, and as soon as Kittson took his seat as mayor he had several conferences with Sibley as to the best way of handling the police department. Bill Miller, as Chief of Police or Marshall was called popularly, was removed, and J. W. Crosby appointed in his place at a salary of one thousand dollars per year. St. Paul had a population of about 7,000 and it was then determined that the city was large enough to give the marshall a real title so for the first time the head of the department was officially designated as “Chief of Police”. Mayor Kittson had considerable difficulty during the early part of his regime, but in May the State of Minnesota was created and the city was reincorporated as the City of St. Paul, and this went a long way towards establishing good order. The worst trouble that the Mayor had to contend with was that of factions among the various elements constituting the city’s population. A committee of the council complained to the Mayor that the German element in politics was being ignored, the city consisting principally of Irish, German and French and a few Americans. An investigation by a council committee sent a report to that body showing that the force consisted of three Americans, six Irishmen and two Frenchmen. There was a great deal of noise but the mayor finished his term without adding any Germans to the force. On May 3rd, 1859, Col. D. A. Robertson, at one time sheriff of Ramsey County, and an old time newspaper man of St. Paul was elected as the 6th Mayor of the City. Two extra men were immediately put on the police force, and the mayor ruled with a firm hand. The best police regime in the history up to that time was the result. There was but one blot on the escutcheon of the city’s record, and the police department did its share well in blotting out this one mark.

Andrew Belanski, who lived on a claim Northeast of Phalen Creek, half way between what is now Dayton’s Bluff and Arlington Hill was found dead in bed on March 11, 1859 in his little cabin. The police had an examination made of the remains of the dead man and it was clearly shown that arsenic had been used in his coffee given to the man by his wife, Annie. She was tried and convicted and hanged in the Court House Yard, March 28th, 1860. The condemned woman was the first and only woman ever to suffer the penalty of a legal execution in the State of Minnesota. The hanging was very quietly accomplished without a hitch in the proceedings.

The years 1860, 61 and 62, the city government was administrated to by Col. John Stoghtenbergh Prince, an old attache of the American Fur Company, who had also been a member of General Sibley’s staff and had wide interests in the pioneer days in lumber and fur trading, as well as among the early railroad men. He came into office in the oncoming gloom of the Civil War, heading a city whose official census showed 10,279 souls. Not only the Civil War but general business conditions cast a gloom over the whole community. Threequarters of the police force had deserted to enlist in the regular army for the war. The treasury of the city was depleting and one of the worst crisis in the history of the city was the result. The mayor suggested to the council that the entire police force be disbanded, though at first the council only agreed to dismiss seven of the fourteen men. The mayor then formed a vigilance committee of citizens to take the place of the Police Department. In 1861 H. H. Western was Chief of Police, and in 1862 he was succeeded by James Gooding. The force of vigilance volunteers was composed of some of the most promising young men in the city some 200 in number divided into four companies known as the first, second and third ward companies and the lower town guards. Wm. B. Langley was captain of the first ward, Harvey Officer still one of the best known lawyers of St. Paul was one of the first Lieutenants of the Third Ward Company and Ferdinand Willius, one of the most prominent Germans citizens of the city today and for many years a leading banker here, was captain of the lower town guard. These men did their duty valiantly and all honor is due them. Serving without compensation for three years during the most trying times of the city’s history and in many cases they came near to laying down their lives. On one occassion Capt. Willius and three of his men were assailed by twenty drunken citizens who were trying to rescue a prominent politician who had imbibed too freely. Although pounded and beaten unmercifully Capt. Willius and his men succeeded in getting the five ringleaders as well as the drunken citizen and put them all in jail where they were later tried and punished. The police department of St. Paul was one in name only until Mayor John Elias Warren was elected in 1863. The city had by this time recuperated its finances and a new force was immediately organized. Michael Cummings, one of the first two men who had ever served as a police officer in St. Paul was now named chief, and George Morton was named as captain. The chief was to receive fifty dollars per month and the captain $42.50. Ten patrolmen were appointed who received $40 per month each. Among these was Henry Calvin mentioned earlier in this monograph. Henry Calvin died about 1902, the last survivor of the first police roll call after the cloud of the civil War had passed and the force had been reorganized. Chief Cummings was the ablest police officer up to this time, and he made many suggestions and introduced, many innovations into the little force which brought them up to a high state of efficiency. The police could not handle prisoners as they do at present. They were dealing with rough and tumble characters and had to handle the prisoners with rough and tumble methods; methods which today would not be tolerated for a moment but which in those days were perfectly proper. Having no patrol wagon it was very hard to take men to the lockup, as all prisoners had to go to the jail, there being no substations or police headquarters.