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Editorial Note: This column is continued from July 15.
Although Villard did not have a railroad come anywhere near it in the early 1880s, as discussed in the previous article, it had been named for Henry Villard, a German immigrant who was the Northern Pacific Railroad president from 1881 to 1884.
His given name was Heinrich Hilgard. His great-granddaughter, Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave, wrote that he changed his name just before he set foot in the United States in August, 1853, when he was eighteen years old, so as "to remain untraceable and therefore unmilitarized". The name he chose to adopt/adapt was that of a former schoolmate from Belgium whose name was Henri Villard. Thus, Henry Villard was born. (See page 28 of Villard: The Life and Times of an American Titan by Alexandra Villard de Borchgrave and John Cullen (New York, 2001).)
Later in life, after he had retired from his railroad career, he took a trip to Germany in 1890. While there, he spent two days visiting with Otto von Bismarck, the former German Chancellor who had been deposed from office by Kaiser Wilhelm II (or Emperor William II) earlier that year. At first, Bismarck asked Villard if he had had a hand in naming Bismarck, North Dakota, for him. Villard replied "The place had been founded and baptized before he had anything to do with the Northern Pacific."
Bismarck was filled with resentment toward those who had deposed him from office and dwelt at length on that subject. In his memoirs, Villard wrote, "Some of the sayings the visitor (Villard himself) heard and noted down at the time were so extraordinary that, if they were repeated, their reality would probably be doubted." Several years later, Villard repeated one of these extraordinary sayings to a lawyer named Charles Gregory, who subsequently made a notation of it in pencil in the margin beside the passage just cited from Villard's memoirs: "Mr Villard said that Bismarck pointed to one of the dogs given him by the young emperor (William II) & said 'He is mangy, like the one who gave him to me.' C. N. Gregory." Gregory's marginal note is on page 351 of the second volume of Villard's memoirs, titled Memoirs of Henry Villard: Journalist and Financier 1835-1900. Volume II. 1863-1900 (Cambridge, 1904).
Gregory had apparently met Villard in 1899, a year before Villard's death in November, 1900. Both men were guest speakers at the University of Oregon in Eugene, a college that Villard had given a sizable sum of money to. Gregory mentions their having been joint guest speakers in Eugene in another marginal note, in pencil, on page 375 of Volume II. This second pencilled note reads, "I was at this & spoke at it along with Mr. V. One of the Regents said that Mr. V.'s name was cherished in the heart of every 'Alma Mater.' Chas. N. Gregory."
The copy of Villard's memoirs that I used is in the Gordon Olson Library at Minot State University. Based on pencilled notes along the sides of page v in each volume, it seems Villard's memoirs were acquired by the college library in December, 1950. Their acquisition numbers are No. 47193 and No. 47194 respectively.
Had Charles Gregory been the original owner of our two-volume set? He had to have jotted down his remarks no earlier than 1904, when the memoirs were published, and no later than 1929, when Gregory himself passed on. Whenever it was, I would suggest that readers of library books, and used books in general, be on the lookout for notes written in the margins of the books they read.
These marginalia just might be informative - and surprising. Charles Gregory's two marginal notes were both!
To be continued…
M.L. Berg of Minot enjoys researching local history.