Gilfillan, Charles D.

Born: 1831-07-04 New Hartford, New York

Died: 1902-12-18 Saint Paul, Minnesota

Charles D. Gilfillan was a teacher, lawyer, local government official, and state legislator. Gilfillan became an orphan at age eleven, but otherwise had a typical childhood for a youth living in rural New York, working on farms in the summers and attending Homer Academy in his hometown of New Hartford in the winter. He enrolled in Hamilton College in 1849 but did not complete his undergraduate course. The following year, he struck out west and first settled in Potosi, Missouri, where he taught school for a year before again migrating - this time to the Minnesota Territory. He settled in Stillwater, where he continued to teach and read law in his spare time. Gilfillan earned admission to the bar in 1853 and began practicing. He won election as Stillwater’s town recorder in 1854 but soon resigned to relocate to St. Paul. Gilfillan supported the Whig Party until its demise, and then became a Republican. Gilfillan helped found the Minnesota Republican Party in 1855 and remained an active party member for the rest of his life. In 1857, he entered a law partnership with his brother and future Minnesota Supreme Court chief justice, James. In 1859, he married Emma G. Waage, who died four years later. Charles and Emma had one child, who died in infancy. He married his second wife, Emma’s sister Fannie S., in 1865. Charles and Fannie had four children. In 1860, Gilfillan was living in St. Paul’s First Ward and owned real property valued at $8,000 and had a personal estate of $5,000. Gilfillan unsuccessfully ran for mayor of St. Paul in 1860 but won election to the Minnesota Legislature in 1865. Gilfillan served as a paymaster for the U.S. War Department during the Civil War.

Merrill E. Jarchow, “Charles D. Gilfillan: Builder Behind the Scenes,” Minnesota History 40 (Spring 1967): 221-32; Memorial Record of Southwestern Minnesota (Chicago: Lewis, 1897), 9-10; Register of Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1863 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1864), 188; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Ward 1, St. Paul, Ramsey County, MN, 32.