Their Annual Jaunt. Minnesota Editors and Publishers Will Leave To-Day. The excursion to Washington of the Minnesota Editors and Publishers’ association leaves the Union depot at 10 a. m. this morning over the Omaha for Mankato. The route will be by way of Shakopee and not Minneapolis. The names of those who compose the excursion are as follows: …F. J. Duffy, George A. Batchelder, Courier, East Grand Forks… (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, Saturday Morning, June 7, 1890, Volume XII, Number 158, Page 8).
T. J. Foley, of the Clarendon, will go to Watertown, Wis., this evening, to attend the funeral of Mrs. Duffy, the wife of Frank Duffy, of the Grand Forks Herald (means East Grand Forks Courier). Mrs. Duffy died suddenly yesterday, and her body was sent eastward last evening. (The Saint Paul Daily Globe, Thursday Morning, August 6, 1891, Volume XIII, Number 218, Page 2)
Death of Mrs. Duffy. Sudden Death of Mrs. Frank J. Duffy, of East Grand Forks. The old Roman poet truly sang, “Death with impartial tread knocks alike at the gate of the peasant’s hut and the prince’s palace,” youth, beauty, talent, virtue, even wealth, which can ameliorate almost everything else, are not a straw in its pathway. His appearance is almost always a surprise but where his heralds of disease are known to the public the shock is not so great. This preparation was not accorded the people of this city or of East Grand Forks in the sudden death of Mrs. Frank Duffy, which occurred yesterday morning at 9 o’clock, and the announcement of her death caused profound sorrow. The news of her illness was scarcely known even to her most intimate friends. The cause of her death was heart trouble. About three years ago Mary Frances McCabe, who was then residing with parents at Watertown, Wisconsin, married Frank J. Duffy, and immediately came to this city locating in East Grand Forks, her husband being the editor and proprietor of the East Grand Forks Courier. Two children were born to them, the younger an infant of only six weeks. Mrs. Duffy was a charming lady, a woman of many virtues and many talents, highly educated, possessing beauty of person, grace of manners, endowed with tender sensibilities and warmly attached to her many friends and family. To die so young, so pleasantly situated and so happy, as a wife and mother – beloved by all who knew her, is hard but it is a reminder to us and a sharp realization of the uncertain ties of human life, removed from those she loved almost without warning, in the bud of her young motherhood, her life’s work had hardly begun. Words of condolence to a sorrowing and stricken husband, left as he now is with two little motherless children are useless in this his sad hour of bereavement. The HERALD extends heartfelt sympathies to the bereaved and stricken husband, who left last evening by the 6 p. m. Northern Pacific train with the remains of his beloved dead for her childhood’s home at Watertown, Wis., where the last sad funeral rites will be observed and where kind and loving hands will lay her away until the resurrection morn. (Grand Forks Daily Herald, Thursday Morning, August 6, 1891, Volume XX, Number 227, Page 5)
Frank J. Duffy Indicted and Arrested at Grand Forks. Special to The Globe. Grand Forks, N. D., Dec. 24. – Frank J. Duffy has been arrested on a charge of perjury. An indictment against him was found by the grand jury at its late sessions. The offense is alleged to have been committed in the giving of testimony in a civil suit between Duffy and Jacob Demster (probably means Dobmeier), which has been before the courts several years. Mr. Duffy was at one time owner of the East Grand Forks Courier and controlled a large amount of property. He gave bail for his appearance. (The Saint Paul Globe, Thursday Morning, December 25, 1902, Volume XXV, Number 359, Page 1)
SUIT FOR AN ACCOUNTING. Frank J. Duffy Must Pay a Judgment of $9,500. GRAND FORKS, N. D. – Judge Fisk has handed down a decision against Frank J. Duffy, awarding the plaintiff judgment of $9,500. Mr. Duffy was acting agent for Dobmeier, who before prohibition conducted a brewery in this city, collecting rentals and looking after other businesses. Five years ago the men failed to come to a settlement, and the suit for an accounting resulted. (The Minneapolis Journal, Monday Evening, May 9, 1904, Page 13)
FRANCIS J. DUFFY, the editor and proprietor of the East Grand Forks Courier, is a native of Wisconsin, born in Watertown, on the 14th of February, 1855, and is the son of Patrick and Frances (Williamson) Duffy, natives of Ireland.
Mr. Duffy, of whom this sketch treats, remained at home, attending school, until he was twenty years of age. In the summers, and while he was out of school, he clerked in his father’s general merchandise store until he was seventeen years of age. He then entered a printing office, and for three years worked at that trade. At the age of twenty years he removed to the city of New York, and secured a position on the New York World. He remained in that office, setting type, until the spring of 1881. He then took a trip to the Old World, and remained in London, England, for about one month, and then went to Ireland, where he remained until the following September. In September, 1881, he returned to the United States, and in October, 1882, settled at East Grand Forks, Polk county, Minnesota. In the following August he purchased his present paper, and has since been the sole editor and proprietor of the East Grand Forks Courier. He is one of the ablest editors in the Red River Valley, and the paper has a large and increasing circulation. It is a bright, newsy paper, seven columns, and independent in politics.
Mr. Duffy was united in marriage on the 11th of July, 1888, to Miss Mary McCabe, daughter of Thomas and Catharine (Duggin) McCabe, natives of Ireland. Mr. Duffy is a popular man in his residence city and vicinity, and is well and favorably known throughout the Red River Valley. He has a fine and commodious residence in the city. Mr. Duffy now holds the office of city recorder, and has held the offices of town clerk and secretary of the chamber of commerce. In political matters he is a staunch democrat. Mr. Duffy is also the manager of the East Grand Forks Loan Agency. (Illustrated Album of Biography of the Famous Valley of the Red River of the North and the Park Regions, Alden, Ogle & Company, Chicago, 1889, Page 179)