My Most Unforgettable Character
by Sara Trott
as told to
Jack Miller
One of the most frequent memories of my father, Herman Trott, is the picture of a full-bearded, smiling man, sitting in a big chair beside a crackling fire in our living room in St. Paul. The room was always filled with visitors who talked with father about the plans and progress of the Northern Pacific Railroad.
Father was one of the founders of the Road, in those days, the late 1860s, known as the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. I was only a young girl at the time and while I kept my mouth shut, I listened with my ears wide open as they discussed the wonderful railroad that was being built to reach the Pacific Northwest.
He arrived in Minnesota in 1856 from New York City and started a trading post in a small village called Chengwatona, near Lake Superior. He used to often comment that the only customers were Indians and men from the lumbering camps.
A fearless man and a firm believer in the Almighty, one of father's favorite stories was about the time he was saved by a lumberman who entered the store just as an Indian, crazed with drink, had his arm raised, ready to stab him in the back. "Weren't you afraid?" I asked him once. "God protected me," he answered.
Father was born in Hanover, Germany in 1830, the son of Captain C.C. Trott, a former officer of the British Army. Captain Trott had attained his rank by fighting with the British at Waterloo against Napoleon and after the war returned to Germany to open a private school for his fellow officer's sons. It was at this school that father had his early academic training.
He came to the United States when he was twenty, because, as he used to say, "In the new country one can make his life as he wants and do his best in this wonderful land of opportunity."
He and his brother, Charles, landed in New York after a stormy trip on a sailing vessel that took 42 days. In New York they stayed with their uncle, Dr. Theodore Tellkampf, who was in charge of Ward's Island Hospital. Horace Greeley was one of the roomers at their uncle's home.
Charles obtained a position with a banking firm and lather took any kind of a job that would give him more business knowledge of this new country, the United States.
The following year father's mother wanted the boys to return to Germany. Charles was unwilling to go, so father returned for a visit but did not stay. On his return he persuaded Charles to go back. The ship Charles sailed on, the S.S. Austria, burned at sea and he was one of the 500 lost.
Father was deeply affected by the death of his brother. Not wanting to stay among the remembrances of the happy times the two of them had, he decided to go farther west.
When he talked about this decision, father used to say, "Of course hearing Horace Greeley always say "Go west, young man' probably had something to do with it too."
His decision to go west was probably the turning point in his life. The trading post he established at Chengwatona in 1856 was a stopping point between Duluth and St. Paul. Minnesota had just become a state and father was chairman of the board of county commissioners who organized Pine Country in 1857. He sent for men from the New England states and Europe to assist in the surveying.
In 1863 he gave up his trading post and moved to St. Paul. Except for the slow mule trains, the only connection with the outside world was by river transportation. The St. Paul winters were long and cold -- many weeks at a time of 40 below zero weather that caused the rivers to freeze solid. It was then the idea came to him to build a railroad from St. Paul to Superior, Wisconsin.
The railroad, named from the St. Paul and Duluth Railroad, was the forerunner of what eventually became the Northern Pacific. Alter the work on the Road began, the problem of equipment and how to provide for spare parts came up. Father knew of a man, J.J. LaCava, who was employed in foundry in Holland. He sent for La Cava, a locomotive expert, and also ordered two locomotives. One was used on the Road and the other dismantled and every part studied in order that parts could be reproduced in St. Paul.
Father used to like to tell us about the day he received his final citizenship papers. It was at St. Paul on a cold December day in 1858. He waited until the candidates took their oaths, then he took his alone. Afterwards, the judge asked him why he had waited. Father answered, "The oath wasn't given with enough solemnity. It is a big step to give up the country of your birth and become a citizen of a new country."
It was in St. Paul that he met my mother, Ann Eliza Goettel. Mother had the distinction of being the first white child born in Toledo, Ohio. During the Sioux Indian War mother lived at Fort Snelling with her uncle, Col. Wm. Crooks. Father married mother in 1864.
After Lincoln s death, Grant became president and father went to Washington to get land grants tor the proposed railroad to the Pacific Coast.
He closely resembled President Grant. Full-bearded like Grant, their features were so similar that passers-by frequently took him for the President. Father told us about the time he was in Washington: he was walking down the street near the White House when a man stopped him. "Mr. President," the man addressed him, "I'd like to ask you...."Father cut him off. "I beg your pardon, sir. I am not President Grant." The resemblance was so great that even after father emphatically denied he was President Grant, the man still wouldn't believe him.
The many details of being land commissioner for the Northern Pacific Railroad took up much of father's time. Trips to Northern Europe to raise money to continue the Road and get settlers for the virgin country and frequent inspection trips along the line kept him busy. But he was never too busy to think of his family.
He inspection trips along the line kept him busy. But he was never too busy to think of his family.
He insisted that all of us ‹ I was one of ten children ‹ eat dinner together. "I want to see all of you at least once a day," he'd say.
Father loved his children as much as they loved him. All the children in the neighborhood looked forward to winter coming, because father would flood the large backyard of our home in St. Paul; and then mother would have to put up with the yelling and shouting of happy youngsters who considered our backyard their private skating rink.
Christmas at our house was always a big event too. It took father at least a week to make preparations for the holiday. He and Uncle John, an inventor, used to make all kinds of exciting toys and displays for the children. Once they made a fountain that was mounted on a table and actually flowed. This and the magnetized toys father and uncle made, had the neighborhood of children at our home morning, noon and night.
Modest and unassuming, father shied away from publicity. In 1901 the Minnesota Historical Society asked him to submit a biographical sketch for the book, Souvenir Two of the Minnesota Territorial Pioneers. Lather, when the family kidded him about writing such a brief mention of what he had done, he said, "What I was able to accomplish could only happen in this great country of ours. I have no right to shout about what God has helped me to do."
In the many legal squabbles of the Northern Pacific Railroad, father was eventually "eased" out. But one of the men who helped do this, a man who went on to world wide mention and who amassed a fortune of millions, in his later years said, "1 wish I could have been more like Herman Trott."
That was a wonderful tribute for father, a man who accomplished so much and yet was so modest.
