The Emerson Hadley House

The Emerson Hadley House is a formal, Georgian Colonial Revival design by Cass Gilbert. The house was built in 1895 at a cost of $8000 for Emerson and Mary Hadley. (Note: picture shown is circa 1897.)

Emerson, a prominent Saint Paul attorney, was born in Marion, MA on 27 December, 1857, graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover, MA in 1876 and from Harvard College in 1881. He attended Columbia Law school in 1882 and 1883. In 1887, Emerson married Mary M. Luce of Marion, MA. Emerson and Mary had one child, Louise, whose son, Carl B Drake, Jr., was CEO of the St. Paul Companies from 1977-1984. The Hadley family resided at the home until Emerson's death in November 1916.

Emerson was a member of the Minnesota Club, the Town and Country Club, the White Bear Yacht Club, and the University Club of Saint Paul.

In 1917, the home was sold to Mary Saunders Gribben and her husband Perry Dean Gribben. Mary was the daughter of Edward N. Saunders, who was president of the Northwestern Fuel Company. E. N. Saunders and James J. Hill were business partners in the coal business before Hill became a railroad magnate. Mary’s husband, P. Dean Gribben, was a 1900 graduate of Phillips Academy, Andover, MA and a 1903 graduate of Yale University. Gribben enlisted in the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps Reserve in 1917 as a First Lieutenant, was stationed at Fort Omaha, Nebraska, and, while on ten day detail in St. Paul on February 20, 1918, his automobile was hit by a trolley car when his chauffeur was unable to negotiate snow covered street car tracks. He was thrown from the car resulting in a skull fracture and he died in the hospital the next day without regaining consciousness. Mary later married Kenneth Bulkley. In 1936, Mary was listed as a member of The Assembly of St. Paul, a St. Paul society organization.