Individual Stories

Peter Gustafson

Occupation: 
Carpenter

1903 Payroll and 1905 City Directory. Peter Gustafson was born in Sweden in 1884 and emigrated with his wife and newborn daughter in 1898. He was paid as a carpenter in 1903 though he said he was working as a laborer for Butler Bros. in the 1905 City Directory.

William F. Haessig

Occupation: 
Stone cutter
Stone sawyer
Laborer

1905 Payroll and City Directory. (In 1900 Central was called Martin west of the Capitol area.) William Haessig was born in Iowa in 1885 and he moved with his family to St. Paul in 1898. At the age of 14 he first went to work in the stone cutting shed at the Capitol and is found in the Payroll of 1905 working as a laborer at 17 1/2 cents an hour. Haessig eventually became a stone cutter and was elected President of the Twin Cities Local in January of 1920. He raised a family in St. Paul and died here in 1938.

Michael Haggerty

Occupation: 
Engineer

Michael Haggerty's address, 136 13th St., would have been about here. Born in 1867 in Pennsylvania of Irish parents, Haggerty was a hoisting engineer at the Capitol. He moved to Minneapolis and continued in that trade for many years there.

William H. Hamilton

Occupation: 
Stone worker
Stone cutter

Itinerant stone cutter William Hamilton was accepted into the St. Paul Union Local in May of 1898 on a card from South Bend, Indiana. He served as president of the Stone Cutters' Local as well as the Building Trades Council while he lived here and worked on the Capitol. In April of 1899 the St. Paul Globe reported that he had moved to Helena, Montana to work as a foreman on the Montana state Capitol building.
Peter Diamond and James King also lived at this address

George H. Hancock

Occupation: 
Laborer

1902 Beam painting payroll. George H. Hancock worked as a painter at the Capitol in 1902, though in the 1901 City Directory he is listed as a laborer working for Butler-Ryan. He was born in Illinois in 1856 and moved to St.Paul in about 1900. By 1910 he and his wife had moved on to Seattle and he was working as a painter there.

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