This week in state history

Historic Minnesota events that took place July 12-18.

July 12

1829 Lieutenant Colonel Zachary Taylor ends his command at Fort Snelling, which had begun May 24, 1828. He would later lead the U.S. Army in the war against Mexico, and “Old Rough and Ready” would ride that fame to the White House. Taylor is the only president to have spent a significant amount of time in Minnesota.

July 13

1787 Congress passes the Northwest Ordinance. Authored by Thomas Jefferson, it set up the rules of government for the Northwest Territory of the United States, which included present-day Minnesota east of the Mississippi River. Slavery was outlawed, the land was to be surveyed into townships, and each township was to set aside land for a school. In addition, the ordinance stated that “the utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians, their land and property.”

1977 The city of Kinney, in St. Louis County, secedes from the United States. The city council, frustrated by unsuccessful attempts to obtain a grant from the federal government for a water project, decides to secede and apply for foreign aid because “there is less paperwork.” Passports are issued by sympathizers in New Haven, Conn. The United States did not recognize Kinney as a foreign country.

July 15

1929 African American lawyer William T. Francis, appointed U.S. minister to Liberia by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927, dies of yellow fever in Monrovia. Born in Indianapolis in 1869, Francis moved to Minnesota in 1888 and later took over Frederick McGhee’s law practice. As a well-known St. Paul attorney, Francis participated in many racially charged trials, including the 1920 appeal of the Duluth lynchings trial, in which he represented the defendants.

This column comes courtesy of MNopedia, an online encyclopedia project that has a “This Day in Minnesota History” feature on its website, mn opedia.org. Developed by the Minnesota Historical Society and its partners, it is a free, curated, and authoritative resource about state history. The information here is culled from “The Minnesota Book of Days,” published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.