See http://www.randolphhistory.org/html/cas_history_1.html

History of Cascade (from the Randolph Historical Society, 1976)

"Cascade had its origins in the Granville mills, erected in the 1860's. In an old history there was mention of a mill operated by Bailey and Collins on the Cannon River in Stanton Township "in the early days". An industrial census of 1870 included a firm run by Whitson and Byrnes. It was a three-run mill with an investment of $35,000, generating forty-five horsepower, with an annual output of 13,000 barrels of flour. John Whitson, then forty-six, was a native of Scotland, as was his brother, William, eight years younger. John and Thomas Burns (Byrnes), age thirty-five and thirty, were natives of Ireland. The younger Whitson and Herman Metz, a Prussian immigrant age forty, were listed as coopers. They made barrels for the mill for 164 per barre1. Another Irishman, John Keyes, was a blacksmith. Two teams also belonged to John Whitson, who was evidently head of the mill." [continues . . .]

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See Find A Grave Memorial# 167969863 for more information

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By 1880, John and Jane had moved to Owatonna, Steele County, Minnesota, where he returned to the occupation of farming. In the spring of 1884, they moved again, setting in Aastad, Otter Tail County, six miles from Fergus Falls. Shorty after his arrival in that township, John Whitson was made foreman of the waterworks that was being built at that time. He was a skilled cabinet maker and also taught singing. He died in 1883 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery, Fergus Falls, Otter Tail Co., Minnesota. On the 1885 census, Jane is living with her sons John, William, and Russell in the city of Northfield, Rice County, Minnesota. She continued to live with Russell—renting a house on 105 E. 5th Street and then on Union Street--until her death in 1917, in North Dakota. She is buried with her husband in Oak Grove Cemetery.