Manuscripts Collection
William Morin was born in 1827 in Maryborough, Ireland. Around the age of twenty he immigrated to America. Trained as a civil engineer, he found work with several New York railroad companies, including the Niagara Gorge Railroad, the Canadaigua and Niagara Falls Railroad, and the Lewiston Railroad.
In 1856 he moved to Minnesota, settling in Freeborn County. He quickly became one of the more influential citizens of Albert Lea. Morin served on the first city council and for a time was the County Auditor, the County Registrar of Deeds, and a County Commissioner. During the Civil War he was a United States Assessor and the United States Marshall.
In 1857, Morin established a real estate business and later acquired, along with George Mason, a 1600 acre farm near Alden, Minnesota. Morin sold farm produce, locally and nationally, as well as ran a sawmill and managed several warehouses.
In 1860, William Morin married Margaret Wedge and they had two children, William Albert and Margaret Belle, who later married Judge Milton D. Purdy. In his later years, Morin acquired a home in Los Angeles and at the time of his death in 1887 he was the largest landowner in Freeborn County.
William Albert Morin was born in Albert Lea on July 29, 1864. He attended Pillsbury Academy in Owatonna, graduating with the class of 1844. At the age of 22, after his father's death, he took over his father's real estate business and the running of the estate. Like his father, Morin held several county positions including County Commissioner and County Surveyor. He succeeded his father on the Albert Lea City Council.
The construction of the Illinois Central Railway into Albert Lea was due primarily to the efforts of William A. Morin. This in turn led to railway connections between Albert Lea and the Twin Cities. The construction and management of the Hotel Albert in southern Minnesota was done by William A. Morin. In addition to these concerns he was involved in many other local businesses including the Albert Lea Publishing Company, Consolidated Fire and Marine Insurance Company, his own Morin Brick and Tile Works, and several mining companies in Wisconsin and elsewhere. Morin belonged to the Republican Party and the Masonic Lodge. On August 6, 1893 he married Katherine Trusdell of Waverly, Iowa. They had two sons, William T., 1894-1967, and Richard W.
When William A. Morin died in May 1912 due to a heart condition Nate J. Whitney assumed management of the estate. Morin's widow, Katherine, married John F. Meighen in 1917.
Richard Morin was born in 1902 and served four years as American vice consul in Paris, practiced law in Albert Lea, ran for Congress in 1936, and eventually became librarian at Dartmouth College.
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the catalog of the
Minnesota Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related topics
should
This collection organized into the following series:
Accession number: 9995
Processing and cataloging of this collection was supported with a Basic Project
grant awarded by the National Historical Publications and Records Commission
Catalog ID number: 007527822
Contains information concerning the construction of Albert Lea municipal water system and correspondence between the Morins and the city clerks of Albert Lea and the Village of Alden concerning real estate, elections, and other events.
Documents the activities of the Morin & Mason ranch and business affairs with grain merchants and flour milling companies. There is a file on attempts to introduce sugar beets in southern Minnesota and on The Grange, or Patrons of Husbandry. Files on the American Short Horn Breeders Association, horses, miscellaneous agricultural topics, and the University of Minnesota College of Agriculture also appear.
Consists mostly of business correspondence between the Morins and the railroads often concerning rights of way, land transactions, and shipping of produce. Exceptions are the files regarding Albert Lea and Southern Railroad; the Duluth, Red Wing, and Southern Railroad; and the Owatonna & State Line Railroad, which contain director's minutes, stockholder information, and financial reports. Also included are three engineering and survey notebooks of the first William Morin from the 1850s concerning New York railroads.
Consists of tax deeds, tax sale certificates, and other documents filed under Freeborn County Auditor. Lennox Park Land Company files document a land development between Baltimore, Maryland and Washington, D.C. that involved Morin and other Albert Lea citizens. D. W. Dwyer was the president of the Lennox Park Land Company and his correspondence with Morin is included. Other real estate correspondence and documents including quit claim deeds and mortgage deeds can be found with the business and miscellaneous correspondence series. Also several volumes of property records, 1858-1927, can be found in other series.
Letter to the editor by William Morin regarding quit claim deeds.
Includes a minute book, ledger, and stock certificates of the Alberta Mining Company. Also included is correspondence between Morin and Frank Trego and J. W. Thompson concerning zinc mining in the Platteville, Wisconsin area. Files on mica mining and gold mining activities in Colorado are also available.
Contains correspondence with political figures, but topics of discussion are often of a more personal nature. Letters from Cyrus Aldrich, Alexander Ramsey, William Windom, and James A. Tawney are included. Also included are documents regarding Richard W. Morin's 1936 Democratic congressional campaign and a file concerning the Republican Party.
Includes documents on the International Automobile League and the Northland Rubber Company, Inc., a tire manufacturer located in Buffalo, New York. Also included is correspondence with Nordyke & Harmon, the automobile firm from which William A. Morin brought an automobile.
Included are files on the Alberta Publishing Company, Consolidated Fire and Marine Insurance Company, and the Morin Brick and Tile Works. Correspondents include David Conkling, J. C. Easton, Milton Purdy, Haldor Sneve, George Watson, and Asa G. and Albert Clark Wedge. Also included is the final report of the Commission on Naturalization, November 1905, of which Milton D. Purdy was the chairman.
Sets of chronologically arranged letterpress books and correspondence files spanning 1853-1932 are also included.
Financial records include cash books, day books, receipts and disbursements, trial balance accounts, ledgers, and journals. These focus on Morin's real estate, farm, and other businesses.
Contains information on the William A. Morin estate, certificates, and on the Masons and the Knights Templars. The Morins were members of the Masons.
A photocopy of this letter has been filed within the chronological series of correspondence and miscellaneous documents.
Signed form letter seeking scholarship funds to support students attending the Tuskegee Institute.