janeandbobandmore: GLENSHEEN, DULUTH, MINNESOTA

GLENSHEEN - A MANSION FROM THE GILDED AGE

Glensheen, a 39 room Jacobean mansion, is perched on a bluff overlooking Lake Superior outside Duluth Minnesota. With fountains, stately gardens, a brick carriage house, boathouse and gardener’s cottage, it is about the last thing one would imagine finding in this remote spot. The climate was challenging in its extremes - as seen in the thermometer marked with the categories: Blood Heat, Summer Heat, Temperate, and Freezing. But Chester and Clara Congdon loved this setting next to Tisher Creek as it rushed through a glen that sparkled in the sun and hence they named their property Glensheen. Or perhaps you like another theory that the name derived from the Congdon family's origin in the village of Sheen in Surrey. Choose the one you prefer!

Chester Congdon, the son of a Methodist minister in Rochester, NY, benefitted from a combination of good education, a law degree, fortunate timing, great luck and the almost unlimited opportunities available in late 19^thcentury America. After being admitted to the bar in NY, he went west to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. With a spirit of adventure, he moved to St Paul, MN and then was invited to join a law partnership in the remote town of Duluth MN.Shortly thereafter, the firm was hired to represent the Oliver Mining Company in negotiations over mining rights in the Mesabi Iron Range. Congdon, as the lead lawyer, became extraordinarily wealthy through his relationship with the mining company which was later purchased by US Steel. As demand for iron ore increased, in fact Duluth became home to more and more millionaires.

In 1901, Congdon hired the architect, Clarence Johnston to design a large family home on the shore of Lake Superior in Duluth. Chester and his wife, Clara, built their elegant English manor from 1905-08, using skilled craftsmen and the finest materials from around the world. Their home had 15 bedrooms, most with private baths. However, the women’s bathrooms were outfitted only with tubs; men had only stall showers often with 10-12 showerheads. Most closets had windows to keep clothing appropriately aired. Their horses were used not only for recreational riding, but often to pull the new and somewhat unreliable automobiles out of the mud.

Interestingly, each of the seven Congdon children came back to live at Glensheen in bedrooms personalized for each of them. Several were in their twenties and all unmarried at that time; the boys had studied at Yale (the college Chester had hoped to attend but could not afford) and the girls attended Vassar. Later Glensheen was the site of elaborate weddings for the Congdon offspring.

Sixty years later, with most of the mansion’s 39 rooms little-used, the Congdon descendants deeded the house and grounds to the University of Minnesota on the condition that Elisabeth Congdon — Chester’s last surviving single daughter — would be allowed to live out her years there.

After that came tragedy. On June 27, 1977. Elisabeth, the ailing 83 year-old heiress was smothered to death at Glensheen, along with her night nurse, Velma Pietila, 67. The mystery remains about who committed these heinous murders.