John Swanson
Occupation:
John Swanson was born in Sweden in 1869 and emigrated in 1885. The 1900 Census has him living with his wife and two children at 106 Viola with fellow stone cutter, Jacob Zadow and his family.
Individual Stories
Nels Sylvander
Occupation:
1905 Payroll and St. Paul City Directory. Nels Sylvander was born in Sweden in 1856 and emigrated in 1887. He joined Carpenters Local 87 in 1900 on the same day as Nels Lindbloom, another Capitol carpenter.
Paul Szeremeta
Occupation:
1905 Payroll and Census, 1904 City Directory. Paul Szeremeta was born in Poland in 1872, came to St. Paul in 1903 along with his wife, Francis, and went to work on the Capitol as a "marble polisher." They spent the rest of their lives in the city raising a large family and continued to work as a marble polisher for local companies at least until 1930. He died here in 1956.
Urban Szeremeta
Occupation:
1904 City Directory. Urban Szeremeta worked as alaborer on the Capitol. Tinder Wlodyslow also lived here.
Henry Taggert
Occupation:
Henry Taggert, an African-American worker, born in Illinois in c.1874, worked on the capitol site as a laborer in 1899. By 1900, census data listed his occupation as "waiter."
Most of the workers who constructed the Minnesota Capitol belonged to unions. However, it is not clear whether St. Paul laborers were organized during the period when the Capitol was built nor how many laborers or which jobs were represented by a union between 1896 and 1907. So Taggert's union status is currently unknown.
Augusta Tate
Occupation:
Capitol Staff Payroll February 1906. Augusta Tate was born in New York in 1878. Her father, Joseph Wiltner, who worked on the Capitol and got hired as a janitor there also lived at this house. Augusta was a "scrub woman" on the Capitol staff. The Wiltner family had lived in Stillwater, MN when Augusta was young, but Augusta married Charles Tate in 1899, and they moved around - North Dakota, back to Wisconsin - until Charles died in 1905 and she and her children moved in with her parents in St. Paul. She lived the rest of her life in St. Paul and died here in 1962.
John Thiel
Occupation:
1904-1905 Butler Bros. Payroll. John Thiel (or Theil or Thill) gave his occupation as "stonecutter" in the 1902 City Directory, though he worked for Butler Bros. as a laborer in 1904-5.
Henry Thieleke
Occupation:
Henry Thieleke was born in Germany in 1872 and emigrated in 1878.
Frank Thiery
Occupation:
1900 St. Paul City Directory and Census. Carpenter Frank Thiery was born in France in 1875 and emigrated in 1879. His leg was broken in the accident that killed Alfred Swanson at the Capitol on April 27, 1900. After the accident he moved to Pittsburgh but was back in Minneapolis by 1905.