October 25, 1870: Culver and Sargent named wardens of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

On this day in Duluth in 1870, prominent Duluthians George Sargent and Joshua B. Culver were voted in as the first wardens of Duluth’s St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, which was established in May of 1869. It wasn’t the first church established in Duluth, but it would be the Zenith City’s first church to build a church building. In fact, the very month St. Paul’s was established, the Minnesotian announced that Sargent had been commissioned “by Episcopalians East” to build a “fair-sized church, for worship according to Episcopal forms.” “Episcopalians East” was a reference to Jay Cooke, who had sent Sargent to Duluth to establish a bank and ensure that Cooke’s business in Duluth was accomplished. The fact that Sargent and Culver were both elected as wardens reflects the connection Sargent, a newcomer, wanted to make with Duluth’s pioneers like Culver on behalf of Cooke. Culver had been an early settler of Duluth in the 1850s who left to serve in the Union Army during the Civil War and then returned to the Head of the Lakes where he became a civic leader and the fledgling city’s first mayor. The editor of the Minnesotian, staunch Republican Dr. Thomas Foster, was not pleased. He saw Culver, a Democrat, as the head of what he called “The Ring,” a group consisting of Duluth pioneers and Cooke’s Philadelphia agents who he claimed “ran Duluth.”

The 1869 St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. (Image: Duluth Public Library)