THE MINNESOTA 
HORTICULTURIST. 
VOL. 28. MAY, 1900. No. 5. 
BIOGRAPHY OF MRS. ANNIE BONNIWELL. 
W. W. PENDERGAST, HUTCHINSON. 
[See frontispiece. ] 
Mrs. Annie Bonniwell, who died at Hutchinson, on the 16th of Novem- 
ber, 1898, was one of the most valued and respected members of our society. 
We had no more faithful, conscientious and earnest worker than she. 
Others may have had the advantage of better health, larger facilities and 
greater inclination to acquire honors, but no one has been more genuinely 
and deeply honored. In her quiet, rural home she led a somewhat sequest- 
ered life, giving a large share of her time to her garden, shrubs and flowers, 
in which she felt an abiding interest. These things had far greater charm 
for: her than the “broad fields of wheat and corn,’ which so many covet 
despite the drudgery they bring. 
Mrs. Bonniwell was a kind, sympathetic and thoroughly lovable woman, 
as all her neighbors will cheerfully testify. Yet she was not one of those 
who open their hearts to everybody at first sight. On the other hand, she 
had few intimate friends. With her “confidence was a plant of slow growth,” 
but her friendships once formed were never broken. 
Mrs. Annie Bonniwell (nee Coles), was born in Northampton, Northamp- 
tonshire, England, in 1829. Coming to America when she was twenty years 
old, she settled in Port Washington, Wis., where she practiced her trade of 
milliner and dressmaker till the following year, when she married Mr. Wal- 
ter Bonniwell, also of English birth. Their first home was on the shore 
of Green Bay, at the mouth of the Oconto river, where Mr. Bonniwell had 
been assigned the duty of guarding the government pier. While living 
here, Mrs. Bonniwell was the means of saving the lives of the entire crew of 
the Lady Elgin, which had been caught by the sudden and unexpected clos- 
ing in of winter at Copper Harbor. After a desperate attempt to extricate 
the vessel they finally abandoned it to its fate, and set out on foot for the 
nearest settlement, nearly one hundred miles away. After two or three 
days’ wandering in the unbroken forest, Mrs. Bonniwell found them, be- 
numbed with cold and famishing with hunger. She gave them all the care 
that her rude surroundings would permit, unselfishly dividing with them her 
slender store, and soon had them so far restored that they were able to 
start out anew for America and civilization. 
The Bonniwells lived here a year and a half, with the great solemn wil- 
derness of pines and firs stretching away for unknown miles to the north 
and west, in savage grandeur, and the nearest settlers so many miles to the 
south that they never penetrated the cheerless wilds of the Oconto. By no 
stretch of even a pioneer’s imagination could they be looked upon as neigh- 
bors. Month after month passed by, and nothing greeted the sight but wild 
