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Early Farmington History
The first generation of Farmingtonians - the proper name for the community’s residents - were unsuccessful in having the village incorporated. The story of Farmington’s Village Charter, and the individuals involved in how it came to be, begins in 1869. Farmington was an unorganized village when it was pummeled by the City of Hastings for attempting to have the county seat moved from Hastings to Empire Township. Hastings, the first community in Dakota County to be incorporated, wasted no time flexing and using its political muscles on any community in the county that challenged its position of power and importance, and Farmington was no exception. Farmington was quick to learn that if it wanted to prosper materially and be a force in county politics like Hastings, it needed a strong municipal government. In February 1869, R. J. Chewning, a state representative from Farmington, and a member of the Military Affairs, Agriculture and Manufactures, and State Prison Committees, introduced a petition to the house signed by forty residents requesting that the legislature pass an act to incorporate the village. The act was approved by both branches of the legislature without a dissenting vote and sent to Governor William Marshall for his signature. Frank J. Mead, the outspoken publisher of Farmington’s first newspaper, the Telegraph, gave an account of what happened to the bill in the March 18, 1869 issue. “While the matter was yet pending in the Senate, a gentleman named Donaldson, who constitutes himself the peoples guardian for this section of Dakota County, went to St. Paul and requested one of our members to kill the measure. With the measure in his hands, and no remonstrance from any one except a verbal one from Donaldson, our member did not feel justified in doing so, and the bill passed into the hands of his excellency, Gov. Marshall.” The “gentleman named Donaldson” that Mead referred to was Major James Donaldson, a veteran of the Fourth Minnesota Regiment, and one of Farmington’s leading citizens. Donaldson was Farmington’s postmaster before he was elected to the state legislature in 1867. “Now, it so happens,” continued Mead, “ that Donaldson is a species of “Man Friday” to Gov. Marshall, being interested with him in an agricultural venture (not wheat seed) down in Mower County. So much is Gov. Marshall in love with Donaldson that the latter has become a “power behind the throne” a kind of deputy governor for Dakota County, and hence when he whispered in the attentive ear of the executive, that the bill of incorporation was liable to make him (Donaldson) pay a few more dollars in taxes to build sidewalks and grade streets in Farmington, the accommodating governor-in-chief quietly kills the bill by a pocket veto. “Of all the mean things done by the Radicals since they have been in power in Minnesota it was reserved to Gov. Marshall to perpetrate the meanest contemptible office of “court favorite,” and allowing one man, and he a man void of either principle of ability, to override the wishes of a whole community.” The “Radicals” Mead referred to were the Republicans. Gov. Marshall played a role in the founding of the Republican Party in Minnesota and defeated the popular Democrat Henry M. Rice for governor in 1865. Mead was no stranger to politics and was the publisher of the Northwestern Democrat, a weekly newspaper at Hastings for a brief time. He was described as a “bitter Democrat” and a “loud denouncer” of the Republican Party. “We do not propose to discuss the merits or demerits of the act of incorporation, “Mead continued. “Whether it was good or bad, just or unjust, it had a proviso attached submitting it to a vote of the people, and we have always been taught that the community at large was the best judge of what was for its own immediate interest, and neither Marshall or Donaldson had a shadow of right to steal from the people of this village the opportunity to vote on the question of incorporation; and such an act of favoritism on the part of the Governor, in the teeth of a large majority of the most respectable of our citizens, was nothing less than contemptible. “Thank God, we have only a little more than nine months longer to live under the administration of this man Marshall,” rejoiced Mead, “and unless we are sadly mistaken his chances of playing the tyrant another two years are waxing beautifully less with each cropping out of the bed rock of his natural and constitutional meanness.” The residents of Farmington were happy to read in the May 13, 1869 issue of the Telegraph that Gov. Marshall refused to be renominated for governor in 1870. History of Farmington contributed by David Schreier Wishing for the worst
So adamant were the ill feelings toward Marshall and Donaldson, Mead expressed the community’s feelings by writing “the worst punishment we could wish for Marshall, Governor-in chief, and Donaldson, deputy Governor, for vetoing our incorporation bill is that they may be compelled to wander through all eternity over such streets as we have in this village...” Built on a dry lake bed, Farmington and its streets were scraped out of fertile prairie soil. April’s spring thaw and any amount of rainfall made traveling on the village’s mired earthen streets an unendurable experience. Little did the community know that their wish to have Gov. Marshall eternally wandering through Farmington’s mucky streets almost became a reality. In 1869 Maj. Donaldson purchased Gov. Marshall’s residence in St. Paul, and Marshall bought Farmington’s most handsome commercial building, the Donaldson block, on the corner of Third and Oak Streets. Maj. Donaldson constructed the building in 1867 at a cost of $10,000. The building’s potentially high property taxes and Donaldson’s unwillingness to pay them were the reasons why he asked Marshall to veto the incorporation bill. “We hope Marshall has no intention of taking up his residence in Farmington,” wrote Mead. “Such an infliction would be worse than the wide-spread prevalence of the itch in the community.” To the bitter end
Farmington patiently waited for Gov. Marshall’s second term to end. Horace Austin, a judge from St. Peter, was elected governor in 1870 and proved to be friendlier to the community than his predecessor. To the great pleasure of the community, Gov. Marshall sold his property in Farmington, and, after serving as the state railroad commissioner, left Minnesota for California. He died at Pasadena in 1896. Maj. Donaldson also left Farmington, no longer having any interest in the community. He died at the state insane asylum at St. Peter in 1885. Frank J. Mead folded the Farmington Telegraph in 1870 and moved to Minneapolis to work as the city clerk for the Tribune. The Farmington Telegraph was described as “democratic in politics, and devoted to the interests of the town in which it was founded. Its career was short, however brilliant it may have been.” In 1879 Mead moved to the Dakota territory and became one of the original settlers of Mandan, North Dakota. He served as mayor, register of deeds and in 1881 was elected to the North Dakota legislature and served as the chief clerk of the house of representatives. In 1888 he returned to Minnesota where he did syndicate work for the Minneapolis Tribune. He also wrote for the New York Journal and the Boston Herald. He died at Minneapolis of heart disease in 1908. His body was returned to Farmington and interred at Corinthian Cemetery. Mead was described as “an ideal reporter, genial, suave, possessed of a large acquaintance with the leading men of the northwest, and was among the last of the old guard in the Twin Cities.” Gov. William Marshall, Maj. James Donaldson and Frank J. Mead played important roles in Farmington’s attempt to become incorporated in 1869. Three years later, state senator R.J. Chewning would introduce another petition from Farmington’s residents requesting that the legislature pass an act to incorporate the village. Another newspaper and newspaper man would take the place of the Telegraph and Mead.
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Photo: Minnesota Governor William Marshall, played an important role in Farmington's ill-fated attempt to become incorporated in 1868.