Back in the ‘20s, ‘30s and ‘40s the name Farnham was quite prominent in Camden. Businessman Cliff Farnham was well known. He had a service station at 4312 Lyndale Ave. N. and later, in 1930, a coal yard at 45th and Lyndale N. I was wondering what his connection was to the three Farnham men who, in the 1800s, were some of the earliest settlers in St. Anthony.
Let us go back to St. Anthony, then, and see what we can find. First was Rufus Farnham, Sr., son of Phineas and Betsy Stimson, born in Calais, Maine in 1794. He had been a surveyor of logs and lumber on the St. Croix River, which forms the boundary between Maine and New Brunswick. He worked at the lumber business until relocating to St. Anthony in October 1849, where he went into farming. There, he married a woman named Abigail who was from Maine, and they had 12 children, seven boys and five girls. After migrating to Camden in 1853, he built the famous shingle mill at Shingle Creek. The family owned a lot of land between Crystal Lake Cemetery and the Mississippi, and his house was built between Washington Ave. and the river, near 40th, where he had a farm.
Rufus Farnham's oldest son was named Sumner. He was born in Calais, Maine, April 2, 1820. At age 14 he worked with his father around the sawmills and four years later went into the pines to cut logs on his own. In 1840 he bought a sawmill and ran it for four years. In 1847 he left Maine, examined lumbering in Michigan, then arrived in Stillwater in 1848. From there he was a foreman of a logging camp at Rum River and spent the next two summers clearing driftwood in preparation for log driving.
On June 1, 1851, he was married to Eunice Estes of Maine, and they had six children, three boys and three girls. He opened the first bank in St. Anthony in 1854, then, in 1860, became a partner to James A. Lovejoy, forming a lumber company which was in business for 28 years. The business, at First Ave. N.E. and Sixth St. in St. Anthony, produced in excess of 300,000,000 ft. of lumber. Sumner was very prominent in St. Anthony, being one of the founders of the Library Association, serving as assessor and afterward as treasurer of St. Anthony. He lived there most of his life.
Another son of Rufus Farnham was Rufus, Jr. He was born in Calais, Maine, February 2, 1822, and was also in the lumber business until he went to St. Anthony, with his family in 1849. In February of that year he married Eliza J. Gillespie of Baring, Maine and they had 10 children, six boys and four girls. He stayed in the lumbering business until 1853. After that he was a farmer and also into real estate. His claim was between 38th and 40th Ave. N., the Mississippi and about Humboldt.
After learning about these three pioneers, we were still no closer to finding the relationship between them and the Farnhams of today. Finally a clue surfaced! Jim Farnham, son of Cliff Farnham, revealed the missing link. This involved a family with a totally different name, the family of Robert H. Hasty. This man was born in Maine in 1823, then came to Minnesota in 1849 and settled in Stillwater. He knew Sumner there, as they were both in the lumber business. After being in the service for three years, getting ill and being honorably discharged, he again engaged in the lumber business. In 1880 he started manufacturing brick in the area called Crystal Lake.
You are wondering how Hasty fits into this picture. It so happened he and his wife, Margaret, were childless and yearned to hear the patter of little feet. Margaret was Sumner and Rufus, Jr.'s sister, so brother Rufus Jr. gave them one of his and Eliza's children to raise. The child, named James R., was then brought up in the Hasty household and taught the trade of his new father, which was brick manufacturing.
The little boy, James R. Farnham, grew up to be Cliff Farnham's father. This made pioneer Rufus, Jr., Cliff's grandfather and Rufus, Sr., his great-grandfather. Advancing further down the line are Cliff's children, Jim, Eleanor and John. This prolific line from pioneer to today, has expanded the families of Farnhams in Camden, Minnesota and elsewhere. The Farnhams of today have finally been connected with the Farnhams of old!
Note: The entire research for this article was done by former Camden resident Judith Halvorson. A sad postscript to this is that Camden resident Jim Farnham, who lived at Queen Ave. N. passed away on April 29, 2008, as I was gathering material for this article. He is survived by wife, Betty Baier Farnham, three sons, six grandchildren and five greatgrandchildren.