Star Tribune
Civil War officer brought formerly enslaved family to Minnesota
Brad Edgerton takes particular pride in one simple gesture amid his great-great-grandfather’s many accomplishments: After commanding a regiment of Black soldiers during the Civil War, Alonzo Edgerton invited a family born into slavery to join him when he returned home to Minnesota.
“To me, that’s the unique part of his story,” said Brad Edgerton, 66, a retired orthopedic surgeon from Duluth. “Everyone knows the North was sympathetic to Black people, but Alonzo walked the walk and followed up the talk with philanthropy for a family he loved.”
Born in New York in 1827, Alonzo Edgerton moved to Mantorville with his wife Sarah in 1855, three years before Minnesota statehood. He’d go on to become one of the young state’s “very able lawyers … an influential Republican politician, and a leading man at all times,” according to an 1877 biographical sketch.
Alonzo became the state’s first railroad commissioner in 1872, served in the state Senate and did a stint in the U.S. Senate in 1881. He was a University of Minnesota regent, served as chief justice of the Dakota Territory Supreme Court in Yankton, and went on to become a federal judge in South Dakota. The southwestern Minnesota town of Edgerton, famous for its state basketball championship upset in 1960, was named for him.
When Brad was a resident at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester in the late 1980s, he visited the Dodge County Historical Society in Mantorville and asked if they had any information about Alonzo Edgerton. The docent pointed to a large portrait of the bearded pioneer hanging on the wall.
“It was kind of cool,” Brad said. “He bore a striking resemblance to my father.”
Alonzo’s actions during the Civil War, and immediately afterward, eclipse all his impressive honors and titles, Brad said.
When the Civil War erupted, Alonzo Edgerton rode an old white horse across Dodge County recruiting soldiers for Company B of the 10th Minnesota Infantry Regiment. He quickly rose through the ranks from private to colonel and brevet brigadier general — and would be known as “the General” until he died at 69 in 1896 of kidney failure.
After battles in Missouri and Louisiana, Edgerton took command in 1864 of the 67th U.S. Colored Infantry, which included 316 Black soldiers from Missouri who’d been enslaved.
That’s where he first crossed paths with Simon Boggs, who was born into slavery in Missouri around 1825. Boggs, who had been separated from his first wife and children during slavery, met Flora at the end of the war and married her.
“The sympathy between them that naturally grew out of their common experiences as slaves, ripened into a warmer attachment, until they joined their right hands in a marital pledge that proved more binding and inviolable than many,” according to a article in the Mantorville Express that ran after Flora died.
Simon, Flora and her two sons from a previous marriage, Henry and Lewis, accompanied Alonzo when he returned to Mantorville to practice law in 1867. Simon, a laborer according to census records, and Flora remained there for more than 30 years.
“They were quite curiosities at that time, but they certainly did well, for out of slavery, they became useful members of the community,” wrote Margaret Edgerton Holman, one of the General’s 10 children, in a family memoir in 1919.
Another of Alonzo Edgerton’s daughters recalled her childhood friendship with Henry and Lewis Boggs as kids in Mantorville.
“People weren’t like the way some of them are now. We never thought about the Boggs family as being different,” Sarah Emma Edgerton told Minneapolis Tribune writer Barbara Flanagan in 1964 when the General’s eldest daughter turned 100.
Simon Boggs eventually was reunited with a daughter he’d lost track of during slavery. She came up from St. Louis and spent a few weeks with her father, according to the Mantorville newspaper.
Flora Boggs was ironing clothes in her house on the west side of Mantorville when she suffered a sudden heart attack and died in 1903. By then, her son Henry was living in St. Paul and his brother Lewis had moved to Blooming Prairie.
“The deceased will always be kindly remembered by those who have known her as industrious and honest, and of a sunny disposition and a kindly heart,” the Mantorville Express published.
Simon Boggs died two years later in 1905 when his rheumatism led to heart failure. His name is etched in the African American Civil War Memorial in Washington, D.C. He and Flora are buried in Mantorville’s Evergreen Cemetery, as are Alonzo and Sarah Edgerton.
“My dad told me Alonzo was a benevolent guy who took this family freed from slavery and provided financial support to set them up in a home not far from his in Mantorville,” said Brad Edgerton with pride.
Curt Brown’s tales about Minnesota’s history appear every other Sunday. Readers can send him ideas and suggestions at mnhistory@startribune.com. His latest book looks at 1918 Minnesota, when flu, war and fires converged: strib.mn/MN1918.
If approved, that approach would drop the district’s fund balance to 6% of general fund expenditures. The current board policy is to maintain a fund balance of at least 10% of general fund expenditures.
Anoka-Hennepin’s current operating referendum brings in about $1,154 per student, but the state-allowed cap is about $2,200 per student. If increased to the cap amount, a referendum would bring in another $40 million, McIntyre said.
According to community feedback collected through surveys and community meetings over the last month, nearly 90% of respondents said they supported a referendum. Parents and families also expressed concern about growing class sizes as a result of cuts.
The two options have already been revised based on board members’ requests to reduce cuts that would mean fewer teachers at schools, McIntyre said.
At one point in the discussion, the district floated changes to middle and high school class schedules to save money, but that was removed after board member feedback. At the board’s meeting last month, several board members thanked district staff for transparency about potential cuts and responsiveness to board and community feedback.
“I would encourage people to keep asking questions,” Board Member Michelle Langenfeld said at the September board meeting, “because as we unfold more information, the opportunity becomes greater for us to make the most informed decision under these very, very difficult circumstances.”
On Monday morning, contract workers began snipping razor wire and removing it from fencing that was propped atop concrete barriers along the perimeter of the former Third Precinct police station, which was set ablaze during the uprising over George Floyd’s police killing.
Finally, the concrete barricades will come down, after 4.5 years. As private security guards looked on, contractors began removing the security measures put in place to secure the building at 3000 Minnehaha Av. after it became a focal point of protests.
For the past three years, Third Precinct police officers have been based out of a city building in downtown Minneapolis, with plans to eventually bring them back to a south Minneapolis Community Safety Center just down the street at 2633 Minnehaha Av.
What to do with the former police station – home to what has been called a “playground” for renegade cops – has been the subject of heated debate, with the Minneapolis City Council and Mayor Jacob Frey at odds.
While the city debated its future, some conservatives jumped at the chance to use the charred building as a backdrop to hold press conferences and news reports in which they blasted the city and its leaders. Most recently, vice presidential nominee JD Vance made a campaign stop in front of the building earlier this month to blast his opponent, Gov. Tim Walz, for his handling of the 2020 riots and portray Minneapolis as a city overrun with crime.
GOP vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance speaks outside the former Minneapolis Police 3rd Precinct building in Minneapolis on Oct. 14. (Leila Navidi)
After that, several council members expressed frustration at the city’s failure to clean up the site. Despite signs saying “cleanup efforts are underway,” concrete barriers, fencing and razor wire remained all summer.
Council Member Aurin Chowdhury said earlier this month that the blight makes people feel uncared for and gives opportunists a backdrop to manipulate the scene for political gain.
Council Member Linea Palmisano blamed some of her council colleagues for the delays, accusing some members of being “desperate for any objection” to Frey’s proposal. The council passed a resolution saying that the building should not be used for any law enforcement functions again. Palmisano called it disgraceful that the building remains, scarred and secured, over four years later.
Star Tribune
Northern Minnesota woman faces felonies after signing late mom’s name to absentee ballots
A northern Minnesota woman who signed her late mother’s signature on two absentee ballots faces three felony charges for illegal voting in Itasca County, according to court documents.
Danielle Christine Miller, 50, told authorities that her mother, who had died in August, was an “avid Donald Trump supporter” who wanted to vote for him in the 2024 Presidential Election — but she died before she received her ballot in the mail. Miller, of Nashwauk, Minn., faces two charges of submitting intentionally false certificates and another for casting an illegal vote or aiding another.
Her first appearance is via Zoom Dec. 4 in Itasca County Court, which is based in Grand Rapids.
According to the complaint, the ballots were still sealed when they were flagged by the Itasca County Auditor because one envelope had the signature of Rose Marie Javorina, who had died. An officer from the sheriff’s department who reviewed the ballots found that Javorina’s name was signed on the witness section for Miller’s ballot; Miller was listed as the witness for Javorina. The signatures, according to the lieutenant who reviewed them, were similar and done in the same ink.
Miller admitted that she had filled out her mother’s ballot and signed her name on the signature envelope, in addition to signing her mother’s name as a witness to her own ballot.
Absentee ballots were mailed to residents of Itasca County on Sept. 20. Javorina died August 31, according to court documents.
