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Editorial Note: Part two of a two-part series
When Mary Nash moved to Minot in 1891, she brought two daughters along with her. The older daughter, Marea Stella, was a year-and-a-half old. The younger daughter, Angela Clara, had been born in 1890 and was, perhaps, only six or seven months old. A third daughter, Matilda Adelaide, was born in 1892 in Minot.
Mary's only son, Victor Nash, was born on Saturday, April 27, 1895. However, his life would be a short one. He contracted an illness and passed away on Monday, August 19, 1895. (Victor's birth was noted on page four of the Ward County Reporter and Minot Journal for Friday, May 3, 1895. His death was noted on page one of the Minot Mirror for Friday, August 23, 1895.)
Just two months later, in October 1895, Mary would lose her two youngest daughters. Angela passed away first, on Saturday, October 12. Angela had been weakened by one illness and succumbed after contracting a second illness; her exact age was given as four years, ten months, and fourteen days on page four of the Ward County Reporter and Minot Journal for Friday, October 18, 1895. Her younger sister Matilda Adelaide passed away from the same combination of illnesses just four days later on Wednesday, October 16. Matilda would only have been two or three years old at the time. The loss of three children in such a short span of time must have been a heavy burden for Mary and Phil Nash to bear.
Like her brother John Maloney, Mary Nash invested in real estate and engaged in business. She might well have moved to Minot because her brother was already in town. He might have advised her as to what town lots to buy. He also had experience as a builder, which would have been immediately useful to Mary.
Ernest Tompkins was well acquainted with John Maloney, whom he would come to know well later in life, and he devoted several paragraphs to John in his memoir. Despite the difference in their ages - Maloney was born in 1855 and Tompkins in 1886 - Maloney would make time for Tompkins and several other neighborhood children, once, as Tompkins fondly recalled, taking several of them on a hay ride "to see the construction crew building the road into Minot." This would have been a Soo Line road gang preparing a roadbed for railroad tracks, and perhaps laying tracks, east of Minot, working their way into town in 1893, when Tompkins was six years old.
Tompkins ended his recollection of Maloney by saying "he had a knack of making money." Such business acumen would have been beneficial to his sister Mary. (Tompkins's remarks are found on page seven of his memoir and the section devoted to John Maloney covers most of pages six and seven.)
Mary's first real estate investment was the purchase of a lot on the same block on the east side of North Main Street where John had bought a lot in 1888. It was Lot 31 on Block 19. John's was Lot 23. Mary purchased her lot for $225 on August 8, 1894. (See Deed Record, Book A, page 267.) Mary purchased the lot from Almond White, instead of from the Northwest Land Company, which had been selling Minot town lots ever since 1886.
In 1893, Solomon Comstock and Almond White, who jointly formed the Northwest Land Company, decided to divvy up their unsold town lots in Minot's original townsite, as well as in the First Addition to the City of Minot. They prepared lists of the lots each was to receive, and a copy of their decisions was recorded by the County Clerk in Deed Record, Book G.
Comstock's share of the lots was listed on pages 232 to 235 inclusive. White's share was listed on pages 246 to 248 inclusive. Page 246 comes directly after page 235. (Pages 236 to 245 are missing from Book G.)
Both Comstock's lots and White's lots were recorded on November 6, 1893. Comstock's two lots on the Main Street side of Block 19 are listed on page 233 of Book G. White's four lots on the Main Street side of Block 19 are found on pages 247 and 248 of Book G.
Later, Mary Nash bought a lot adjacent to Lot 31, that is, Lot 32, on January 11, 1899, for $350. (See Deed Record, Book D, page 47.) But this time, the seller of the lot was Solomon Comstock, not Almond White. When they divided up their unsold lots, it often happened that adjacent lots were split between the two men. On Block 19 on Northeast Main Street, for example, Comstock ended up with Lots 27 and 32, while White had Lots 24, 28, 30 and 31.
Mary built a hotel on Lot 31 and called it the Minot House. Just north of Minot House lived Iva Hoffman, and north of Iva Hoffman was the Klondike Hotel, owned by Angus McDonald.
On Friday, February 17, 1899, someone set fire to Iva Hoffman's residence (It was presumed to be arson). The Hoffman house burned down, and the fire set there spread to the Minot House, which was also destroyed. The Klondike Hotel was spared because of the fire-fighting efforts of John McJannett, John Ehr and several others. (See the front page of the Ward County Reporter for Friday, February 24, 1899.)
Mary filed a claim for her losses with her insurance company. She sought to recover $2,000 for her losses. At first, the insurance company offered her $1,600. After some back and forth bargaining, the two sides managed to reach a settlement both sides agreed to. (See page four of the Minot Optic for Thursday, March 9, 1899, and the front page of the Ward County Reporter for Friday, April 14, 1899, for Mary's insurance claim.)
Mary then decided to open another hotel at a different location. She called it the Commercial Hotel. It was located on First Street (now Central Avenue), just west of the Great Northern Bank building, which was on the northwest corner of First Street and Main Street. The Commercial Hotel was scheduled to open sometime in the middle of April, 1899, after Mary (and John?) had completed repairs and had refurnished the rooms there. (See the front page of the Minot Optic for Thursday, April 13, 1899.)
Some time in the fall of 1899, Mary had decided to sell the Commercial Hotel and to build a three-story brick hotel on the same lots where her Minot House had been on the east side of Main Street. Her brother had even "started to haul stone for the foundation to Mrs. Nash's proposed hotel on Main Street, also for a new foundation to the Commercial hotel. No work will be done until spring." (See the front pages of the Minot Optic for Thursday, November 9, 1899, and Friday, December 1, 1899.)
Mary had sold the Commercial Hotel to Neil McDermid by December 1899, along with all the furnishings she had provided for the rooms back in April. This hotel was on Lot 17 of Block 20. McDermid also bought that lot, plus the two adjoining lots, Lots 18 and 19, from Joseph and Eleanor Roach in November, 1899, for $1,500. (See page 128 of Book A of Quit Claims on file with the Ward County Recorder. The date given there is November 29, 1899.)
These three lots would today form the northeast corner (and then some) of Central Avenue and First Street Northwest. Although Mary did not follow through with her plans to build another hotel on northeast Main Street, Lots 31 and 32 on Block 19 remained her property, and she deeded them to her daughter Marea Stella in March 1932. (See Warranty Record, Book R, pages 107 and 137, where a date of March 22, 1932, is given.)