The Glensheen Mansion: More than the Congdon Family Murders

By Lisa Kroulik © March 6, 2011

The city of Duluth, Minnesota, and the Glensheen Mansion seem to have formed a permanent association. Tell someone you just got back from spending a few days in Duluth, and after the requisite chatter about Lake Superior, the next thing you will be asked is “Did you go to Glensheen?”

As a matter of fact, we did visit the Glensheen Mansion on our last trip to Duluth in June 2010. Our interest in turn-of-the-century mansions had been borne out of our previous visit to the James J. Hill House in St. Paul. We were also morbidly curious about the 1977 murders of Elisabeth Congdon, heir to the vast fortune of her late father, Duluth businessman Chester Congdon, and Elisabeth's night nurse, Velma Pietila. These were just two of the factors that put the Glensheen Mansion on our vacation to-do list.

Surely I am not the only person who wondered why a wealthy family with the surname of Congdon referred to their mansion as Glensheen. Though I didn't think to ask that on our tour, I was able to learn the answer the same way most people discover information in the 21^st century. I Googled it. Turns out the “glen” part of Glensheen refers to a narrow and secluded valley and the “sheen” part refers to a village in England where the family had roots.

The Glensheen mansion was completed in 1908, after nearly three year of construction and a financial output of $854,000. It is magnificent in scale, with 39 rooms and 27,000 square feet of living space built along the shores of Lake Superior. It was the second home in the area to have electricity and running water. The mansion itself would cost close to $20 million today. I wonder how much more could be added to that selling price for the “lakeside view” of one our nation's Great Lakes? I'm thinking more than just pocket change.

Chester and Clara Congdon were also practical millionaires. They wanted their home to be self-sustaining, so a landscape architect was hired to create a vegetable garden, greenhouse, an orchard, cow barn and water reservoir. The gardens are still kept up today, and are gorgeous to behold.

Chester Congdon and Clara Bannister Congdon, born in 1853 and 1854, respectively, moved to the city of Duluth in 1892. That same year, Chester Congdon met an investor named Henry Oliver, who was involved financially in the beginnings of the steel industry. Congdon became involved as well, and this is where he made his millions. He was also involved in iron mining, banking, law and politics, having served in the United State House of Representatives from 1909 to 1913.

The Congdon's were biological parents to seven children: Walter, Edward, Marjorie, Helen, John (died in infancy), Elisabeth and Robert. They also adopted Clara's nephew, Alfred, when he was six years old.

Unfortunately, Chester Congdon only got to live at the Glensheen Mansion for eight years, as he died of a heart attack in 1916. Clara outlived her husband by 34 years, passing away in 1950 at the age of 96. Her youngest daughter, Elisabeth, remained unmarried and lived at the mansion with her mother until Clara's passing.

Elisabeth Congdon was the last member of the family to live at the estate, until her own untimely death in 1977. Although she never married, Elisabeth did adopt two children, Marjorie and Jennifer, and raised them at the Glensheen Mansion. Marjorie Congdon (Elisabeth's daughter, not to be confused with her sister by the same name) was a troubled woman, who was diagnosed as a sociopath early in her life. Ultimately, Marjorie's troubled life would lead to events at the mansion that people still associate with it to this day.

On June 27, 1977, Elisabeth Congdon, by then 83 years old, and her night nurse, Velma Pietila, were found dead at the Glensheen Mansion. Pietila had been beaten to death with a candlestick and Elisabeth Congdon had been smothered with a pillowcase. The crime shocked the people of Duluth and all of Minnesota, and remains part of the fabric of the state. Even more horrifying than the actual crime was who had committed it – Roger Caldwell, the son-in-law of Elisabeth Congdon and husband of Marjorie Congdon Caldwell.

The motive for the murders was greed, as the Caldwell's were in deep financial crisis and wanted to speed along Marjorie's inheritance by killing her mother. Roger Caldwell was eventually charged with two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison. Marjorie Caldwell was acquitted

Surviving members of the Congdon family willed the Glensheen Mansion to the University of Minnesota Duluth, and UMD opened it for tours to the public in 1979. It has remained a popular tourist attraction for the past 32 years. Many people are drawn to the tour in the hopes of learning more about the murders, but out of respect for the Congdon family, the murders are not even mentioned. That dark time in Duluth history has not been forgotten; rather, it has not been allowed to overshadow the gift of history that Gleensheen has endowed to our state.