LeDuc Historic Estate

About Us

This Civil War-era Gothic Revival home shares the history of the LeDuc family, including Gen. William LeDuc, his wife Mary, and their four children: Minnie, Florence, Willie and Alice. William came to St. Paul, Minnesota Territory in 1850 from Ohio to open a book store and law office. In 1854, he purchased a quarter share in the town of Hastings from Alexander Faribault.

In 1856, he moved with his wife Mary Bronson and their two eldest children downriver to Hastings, where they acquired two wheat farms and 160 acres of land with a small grist mill on the falls of the Vermillion River.

At the start of the Civil War, the family started to build their Gothic Revival house in Hastings. By the end of the war, William was Quartermaster General of the Union Army and the family moved into the unfinished house and lived their until it was completed in 1866.

In 191,5 the family was able to upgrade the house with plumbing, hot-water heat with radiators, provide a new room and dormers, as well as rebuild the front porch and added a bathroom. Maple floors were also installed in most rooms of the house.

By 1919, Alice and Florence bought a house in Minneapolis, returning to the Hastings home during the summer. In 1941, Carroll Simmons purchased the LeDuc house and operated an antique store out of it. In 1958, Simmons donated the house to the Minnesota Historical Society, which became sole property of MNHS in 1985. In 2005, the City of Hastings took ownership and partnered with the Dakota County Historical Society to operate the museum-aspect of the house.