Charlemagne Tower

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Charlemagne Tower, (1848 – February 24, 1923). Married Amelia Malvina Bartle in June 14, 1847 eventually settling in Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Original interment at West Laurel Hill Cemetery, Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania; reinterment at Waterville Cemetery, Waterville, New York

[edit] History

Tower was a lawyer (Mr. Charlemagne Tower, Esq.) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Millionaire Alfred Munson of Utica, New York, employed Tower in 1844 to manage coal land purchases. Tower began to invest in coal mining companies and by the early 1870’s had became a millionaire himself.

[edit] Personal Acquisitions

Tower was a large stockholder in the Northern Pacific Railroad and received large areas of land in Minnesota, North Dakota and Washington as part of the settlement of the railroad’s financial difficulties. Tower employed George Ellsbury to sell the land to farmers. Ellsbury established the town of Tower, Minnesota in 1879 in the midst of Tower’s land; naming it in honor of Charlemagne Tower.

In 1865 iron ore was discovered in the arrowhead region of Minnesota on land owed by Tower. By June of 1882, pitting began in the Soudan Mine. In December 1882 the Minnesota Iron Mining Company was formed and Tower became President, with George C. Stone as general manager; Edward Breitung was Vice President; Charlemagne Tower, Jr. as Treasurer; and Thomas L. Blood as Secretary (Stone's son-in-law). Jack Armstrong was hired as the mine manager.

[edit] Politics

U.S. Minister to Austria-Hungary, 1897-99; U.S. Ambassador to Russia, 1899-1902; Germany, 1902-08.