William Drew Washburn

William Drew Washburn, the youngest son, knew a different childhood than that of his brothers. The family was smaller; the finances less strained. Before he was nine the four oldest brothers had launched their careers, two in New England and two in the West. Soon Charles and Samuel left, and only William and Caroline, two years his junior, remained at home with their parents. The prime topics of conversation in the family were the activities and achievements of the absent brothers. The accounts of their progress lighted up the home, and no influence was as strong in determining William’s career as their example.

In 1857, three years after his graduation from Bowdoin he set out for the West with his wife Elizabeth Muzzy, locating in Minnesota, where he helped carry forward the industrial empire that his brother Cadwallader had begun. They built the dam at the great falls of St. Anthony; they built saw mills and flour mills. They built the railroads that would take the flour to the markets of the world – the Minneapolis and St. Louis to the South; the Minneapolis, Sault Sainte Marie to the East. William started a flour company which later merged with Pillsbury’s. Together their achievements comprised a notable chapter in the expansion of the Northwest. With his large family, he lived in a magnificent stone mansion, Fairoaks, in Minneapolis.

In addition to his industrial pursuits, William Drew had a long career in politics – eight years in the Minnesota legislature, six years in the United States House of Representatives, and six years in the Senate. Three of his brothers had preceded him in Congress, and William’s election to the House of Representatives established a record still unbroken. The Washburns were the only family ever to send four sons to Congress, and each one represented a different state.

In the famous “brass kettle” campaign of 1878, William Drew was the Republican candidate for congressman in the Third District. He defeated the Democratic candidate, Ignatius Donnelly, with whom both he and Elihu had had previous altercations. Donnelly contested the election and the ensuing investigation was complicated by a mysterious letter to the congressional committee chairman offering $5,000.00 if Washburn could keep his seat. After extensive hearings, it was concluded that the bribe had been authored by one of Donnelly’s own counsel. William Drew did keep his seat, and was twice re-elected. In Congress he fought tenaciously for appropriations to arrest the spring flooding of the Mississippi, obtaining $2,000000.00 to build reservoirs at the headwaters to control the river’s flow. As a Senator, his one major act was to cast the deciding vote against Henry Cabot Lodge’s Force Bill. His term in the Senate closed his twenty-year-long political career.

To his brothers, who were dotingly proud of his career, William Drew Washburn, the millionaire industrialist and politician, remained “Young Rapid,” the energetic, irrepressible younger brother. The passing of William Drew in 1912 brought to a close the story of the Washburn brothers, seven brothers who through the stresses of life were intensely devoted and fiercely loyal to one another. Truly “they loved and strengthened each other up.”