2017 LNC Summit PP Presentation
Slide: American flag in turmoil
Good afternoon everyone. Today I want to paint you a picture of the United States.
I’m sure you will recognize it. It is a picture of a nation divided. Partisanship has
tumbled Washington into rancorous name calling and stalemate. A wave of nativism
has gripped the country and there are moves to limit immigration. Existing
immigrants are under attack and live in fear.
Women are marching in mass demonstrations. Minorities, especially black
minorities, are angry and suffering from centuries of oppression. The average man
lives modestly while a small class of men are accumulating vast fortunes.
Slide: Sign from 1855: No Irish, Dogs or blacks
The year is 1855.
The dangerous immigrants are Jews and Irish and German Catholics. In Kentucky,
on Bloody Monday, protestant mobs attacked Irish Catholics. In the Cincinnati Riots,
nativist mobs attacked Germans.
Slide: Sign: Fugitive Slave Act
The fugitive slave act of 1850 has stirred up a hornet’s nest of pro vs anti slavery
forces. Uncle Tom’s Cabin has just been published and the first national Women’s
Rights Convention is held. In Minnesota and the Dakota’s the Mendota Treaty has
opened vast Western areas for a rush of settlers, callously displacing the original
inhabitants.
Slide: Classic Manifest destiny painting
This partisanship has as a political backdrop the popular notion of manifest destiny.
This is the belief that it is America’s destiny to own and control and bring western
style civilization to all of what we now know as the United States. From sea to
shining sea. The question of what to do with the Native Americans prompts a mass
forced exodus.
Slide: Civil War
How, and whether, slavery fits into the expanding nation will boil over into civil war
within a few years. The first blood shed between the pro and anti slavery forces
occurred in the Kansas Warusa War in 1855.
In the newly acquired lands of Minnesota, in the four-year-old town of Winona, a
small lumber company is born.
Slide: Early Laird Norton logo in marble
Three Laird brothers from a frontier town of Pennsylvania seeking opportunity but
also the comradeship of other abolitionist brethren, make their way to the new town
of Winona MN. There they pool their resources and make a bet that the new rush of
western settlers will need lumber from the seemingly endless White Pine forests of
Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Slide: Early Winona LN mill photo
A year later two Norton cousins will join their enterprise. For most of the next half
century Wm Laird, and Mathew and James Norton will weather economic
downturns, devastating fires, personal tragedies and, yes, a civil war to grow their
company, the Laird Norton Co., into one of Winona’s strongest institutions. So
strong, it exists to this day. 162 years later, here you are.
Slide: Winona Foundation logo
My name is Scott Hagg. I am the current President of the Winona Foundation and I
want to thank you for giving me a moment of your time. I personally think it is
important to know the creation story of your business. Forgive me if I tell you things
you already know.
Slide: Early American shanty
First, you have to know that it wasn’t all pretty. The country as a whole was in a
political, economic and moral chaos. And westward expansion, the settling of the
untamed west, was a rough and tumble business. The beginnings of the Laird
holdings in Winona are shrouded in contradictory stories of land jumping, threats,
fisticuffs and outright theft.
Slide: Map of Indian relocation in 1850’s
And, as we know, the forced removal of the Native Americans was a national
disgrace.
Slide: Lumber mill on fire photo fire
Tragedy, too, was always a shadow to everyday life, whether from disease or
murder, suicide, fire or natural disaster.
Slide: Catherine Goddard photo
Your original ancestor in Winona, Catherine Fruit Goddard Smith, lost four of her
children to scarlet fever, two children and her husband, Abner, to Cholera, another
husband was murdered and her son, Charles, returned home from the Civil War and
died from an illness at age 23. Only one of her 8 children survived her.
Slide: Beautiful photo of White Pine trees
And of course there is the white man’s collective guilt concerning the decimation of
the vast and beautiful White pine forests.
Slide: River filled with logs
But, please, as a family we need to put this logging business in proper context. When
the Lairds and Norton’s first settled in Winona there were already crews harvesting
the forests and mills cutting lumber.
The western land rush was beginning and farmers settling the newly opened Great
Plains had no forests for the lumber they needed. Entrepreneurs flocked to meet the
demand. Railroads were quickly built and supply streams created.
Slide: Early Laird Norton logo
Your ancestors first business was not a sawmill but a lumber and wheat selling
concern. They got into lumber milling because it was a way to guarantee their cut
lumber stocks for sale. Likewise they got into lumbering to keep a steady supply to
their mills.
Slide: Multiple logos of lumber mills
Before Laird Norton there were already mills in Eau Clair, St. Paul, Stillwater and
LaCrosse. Even in Winona. Elsewhere on the Chippewa and St. Croix and Mississippi
rivers there were much larger mills.
So this is what you have to understand. Had the Lairds and Norton’s stuck to wheat
trading, or stayed in Pennsylvania, it would not have prevented a single tree from
being cut.
Slide: Winona First Congregational church
So we are left to judge this early family not so much by the nature of their business
enterprise necessarily, but by the integrity with which they lived their lives and
built their community and the morality they brought to the expanding United States.
What unique traits did they instill and pass down to their children and their
children’s children and how did the responsibility they demonstrated to Winona
manifest itself then and what are we supposed to make of that now?
Slide: Cluster of buildings: churches, schools, etc.
As you know, the original cousins were significant contributors to much of what
became the cultural heritage of Winona. They built the first public schools, the city
library, churches, city parks and universities. This is our fascination and our legacy.
Slide: Lucas Hall, Winona State University
But let’s never forget the fact that subsequent generations of your family, not only
were able to keep the business healthy, but they continued as important civic
leaders and philanthropists for well over 150 years.
Slide: Beautiful wall of art glass
They continued to restore the magnificent organs and art glass windows. They
improved the schools. They added chapels to the churches and remained great
citizens of Winona even after their operations, and eventually the business
headquarters itself, moved to Seattle.
Slide: Plaque saying laird Norton on Winona Co. Historical Society
Wealth doesn’t always arrive to the deserving, but hopefully, those to whom it
arrives will rise to deserve it. The Winona Foundation, as well as the Laird Norton
Family Foundation, is simply a continuation of this family exhibiting the kind of
historic responsibility that has always made them great.
Slide: Bus on us
So let’s talk a minute about what your family, through the Winona foundation, has
done in the last year.
In 2016 we awarded 13 grants to Winona area non profits for a total of $57,550.00.
Once again we kept the Winona Foundation’s Bus on Us program able to transport
hundreds of kids to the MN Marine Art Museum
Slide: Old Bunnel House
We helped fund the preservation of the first home in Winona Co., the Bunnel House,
for the Winona Co Historical Society
Slide: art center
We also funded the restoration of the Winona Art Center, one of the oldest churches
in the area.
Image: John Latch Film cover art
We funded a film honoring a great Winona philanthropist, John Latch, who not
unlike James Norton, preserved thousands of acres of land in Winona County.
Slide: Indians in native dress on Dakota Friday
Again this year we funded the Friday education day during the Winona Dakota
Unity Alliance’s annual pow wow. We were able to do this and much more.
Slide: Book cover
I hope every family here received a copy of this book: Lairds Legacy, A History of the
Winona Public Library. It was a Winona Foundation grant that enabled its
publication and the Winona Foundation proudly gifts each family here with a copy.
The book chronicles the amazing gift of the Winona Public Library from William H.
Laird to the city of Winona in 1899 as well as Laird and Norton family continued
support though the years.
Although it’s a hard comparison to make, it is estimated that the value of this gift in
today’s dollars would be between 2 and 11 million dollars.
Slide: Book shelf detail in Library
Laird oversaw this project down to the tiniest of details, designing even the
bookshelves and the unique glass floor. Look at this amazing floor from 1899. No
one else was doing this back then.
Slide: Library glass floor
The family also gave much of the artwork and statuary that adorns the building.
Today the library is listed on the national historic register. It is the oldest public
library in Minnesota and is still functioning 118 year later. This is just another
reason, besides visiting your cousins Lorie and Lindy Lucas, to visit your Winona
birthplace.
Slide: Chart of 2017 giving:
This year the Board of the Winona Foundation has just awarded 10 new grants. The
continuing support from this family insures that the work your family has always
done in the area of Winona continues to this day.
Do we owe this much to the three men who built this company that still sustains us
all these years later? I would say yes. Yes we do.
Over the last 34 years the Winona Foundation has awarded over one million dollars
in grants. I eagerly anticipate the great good that will be achieved with the awarding
of the next million.
Slide: Old photo of Pennsylvania relatives
There is one other observation I want to share with you. It’s about this family thing
you all got going on.
Your devotion to family is not a new thing. The Lairds and the Norton’s and related
clans all initially gravitated to Lewisburg, Pennsylvania in the 17 & 1800’s.
Slide: Catherine Goddard -photo
Then, Catherine Goddard, half sister to Wm. Laird and cousin to the Norton bros, left
with her family for Wisconsin and eventually Minnesota. Whether to avoid the
consequences of the Slave Revolt Act, to extend the reach of the underground
railroad or to take advantage of opportunities from the surge of western bound
settlers, she became one of a very small handful of early Winona settlers in 1851.
She was, in fact, the third woman to live in Winona.
Image: Catherine and 2 more family -photo
Very soon many other family members left Pennsylvania and joined her there. Your
family settled Winona as a family.
Slide: Catherine and six more - photo
You stayed and you prospered as a family.
Slide: Catherine 12 more - photo
Within six years, the Laird Norton family was all over Winona. Here is my partial list
of family members here by 1858:
Slide: List of family members: 1858
So you see it is no accident you are all in this room together today. Your family has
always weathered the ups and downs together. You are just the latest iteration of a
family that values family above all things. Only 3% of family businesses survive four
generations. Congratulations to you in your seventh.
Slide: Statue of Winona
Thanks for allowing the Winona Foundation to continue your great traditions.
Thanks for your support all these years.
Tomorrow we will be having our annual Board meeting at 10:30 In Gallery 2 and
you are all welcome to come. We are on the lookout for new Directors and Officers.
Would the current Board members and Ads stand. If you have any questions about
Board membership just ask one of these remarkable people. Thank you.
Slide: Photo of 100’s of Laird Norton family - faded
But now, for a minute I, want you to look around this room . These are your people.
Your family. This is your business.
You need to know that you should be very proud of your Winona legacy. Proud of
the business you support that continues to support you. And proud of the family
that has stuck together all of these years.
Slide: Same photo as above with “The Company You Keep” & WF logo
You should be very proud of the company you keep.
From all of us on the Winona Foundation Board, past and present, to all of you,
Thank you.
Slide: The Company You Keep” & WF logo in reverse w/o family – black
background