Ellen T. Windom

Ellen Towne (Hatch) Windom (1831-1914), the daughter of a Congregationalist minister, was born in New Hampshire, and raised in Warwick, Massachusetts. She was a teacher at Miss Sloan's Academy in Mt. Vernon, Ohio, when she met William Windom (1827-1891) at church. Windom was a lawyer with political aspirations who was a strong anti-slavery abolitionist and with many in Mt. Vernon opposed to his views had, in 1855, resettled in Winona, Minnesota. Ellen and William were married in 1856 in Warwick and started life in the burgeoning town of Winona. Minnesota was granted statehood in May of 1859 and Windom was elected to the U.S House of Representatives in the first elections in the new state later that year. He served as a U.S. Representative from Minnesota from 1859 to 1869, was a U.S. Senator during most of the period from 1870 until 1883, and served as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury briefly in 1881 and then from 1889 until his death in 1891. The William Windom home in Washington, D.C., was at 1723 de Sales Place, two to three blocks from the Leland Stanford residence at 1701 K Street.