Susan Hvistendahl, Northfield historian and author, gave a presentation on “Judge Buckham’s Legacy: Faribault’s Library,” for the Faribault Rotary Club via Zoom on June 9. It was based on a column she wrote for the Entertainment Guide of Southern Minnesota in July of 2013. She spoke of the background of Thomas Scott Buckham who came from Vermont to Minnesota in 1856 and established himself as an attorney in Faribault, becoming Faribault’s second mayor, a senator in the state legislature and judge of the fifth district, among other positions. He had an unusual marriage to Anna Mallory Buckham of Brooklyn, N.Y., who returned often to the East coast and they spent their last 20 years apart before his death in 1928. She inherited his wealth of more than three million dollars and stayed on, planning the Modern/Art Deco Thomas Scott Buckham Memorial Library which was presented to the city on July 20, 1930, at a cost of $239,000. Hvistendahl also gave information about the architect (Buckham’s nephew Charles Buckham), the stained glass window of renowned Boston artist Charles Connick and four Grecian murals painted by Carleton art professor Alfred Hyslop. |
