Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1893 — THEY STRUCK IT RICH. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THEY STRUCK IT RICH.

Six Men Who in Five Year# Have Made •180,000,000. Napoleon Bonaparte, Lucien, Leonidas, Alfred, Lewis, Cassius, Andrus. These historic names denote individually and respectively the seven sons of old Lewis H. Merritt, who, iD 1850, left his home in Onondaga County, N. Y., and moving out to the head of Lake Superior with his family settled in a little village then known as Oneota, but now forming a part of Duluth. The old man and the boys worked together on a farm and between them ran a little saw mill in spriDg before farm work had commenced. In the winter the boys went to school. Leonidas at 16 put a pack on his back

and walked to Minneapolis, where he went to work in a shingle mill. After the war he worked in a saw mill and as a sailor on the lakes. Alfred Merritt was driving a team in the lumber woods when 15 years old. In 1865 he shipped as a sailor, which work he kept at until he went in with his brother “Lon” to explore the lumber regions. He worked at whatever he could find to do untiljie saved enough money for a trip Into the woods. These two brothers are to-day Vice President and President of the Duluth, Mesaba and Northern Railroad, besides owning the major part of the stock of most of the big iron mines on the range. Cassius C. Merritt, Treasurer of the railroad, taught school for a while, ran a lumber scow, clerked in a grocery store, cut cordwooi in Pokegema Bay, Wis., worked on a farm and “cruised” for pine timber until 1882, when be went Into the pinclands business for himself. The early lives of these brothers are a sample of those of the others, all but one of whom are in the same line of business—pine and iron lands. The one exception, Lucien F., is pastor of a Methodist Church at Duluth. TJje Merritt boyg&ept their eyes open for iron ore. They 7 spent years looking for it, and they found it. Then they pre-empted or bought the land where it was. Their confidence begot faith in men who had money, and they organized mining companies to get out the ore. The railway was built This was only five years ago, and at that time the Merritt boys were in debt. To-day they are worth $180,000,000. They are just completing enormous docks at Duluth, and arc engaged building a terminal track which will render them practically independent of other railways in the shipment of their ore.

ALFRED, CASSIUS, AND LEONIDAS MERRITT.