steam cars, taking them at Augusta. As I look back now, I see what a
comical train that was, but when I first saw those cars, I was
overpowered. To think any man had been smart enough to make a great big
thing like that, that could push itself along on the land. It seemed
impossible, but there we were, going jerkily along, much faster than any
horse could run. The rails were wood with an iron top and after we had
bumped more than usual, up came some of that iron through the floor. One
lady was so scared that she dropped her traveling basket and all the
most sacred things of the toilet rolled out. She just covered them
quickly with the edge of her big skirt and picked them up from under
that. The piece of iron was in the coach, but we threw it out.
We went by boat to Boston, then by rail to the Erie canal. We were ten
days on a good clean canal boat and paid five dollars for board and our
ticket. I don't remember how long we were on the lakes or what we paid.
I should say two weeks. We landed at Chicago. It was an awful mudhole.
The town did not look as big as Anoka. A man was sending two wagons and
teams to Galena, so I hired them, put boards across for seats and took
two loads of passengers over. We got pretty stiff before we got there. I
was glad to get that money as I was about strapped. It just about bought
my ticket up the river.
We bought tickets to St. Paul. Three of us took passage on the Yankee.
She was really more of a freight than a passenger boat. She only made
three trips to St. Paul that year. We bought wood along the way,
anywheres we could see a few sticks that some settler had cut. The
Indians always came down to see us wherever we stopped. I did not take
much of a fancy to them devils, even then. It was so cold the fifteenth
day of October that the Captain was afraid that his boat would freeze
in, so would go no further and dumped us in Stillwater. Cold! Well, I
should say it was pretty durned cold!
I had been a sailor, so knew little about other work. On the way up, I
kept wondering, am I painter, blacksmith, shoemaker, carpenter or
farmer? On voyages, the sailors always got together and discussed the
farm they were to have when they saw fit to retire. Said farm was to be
a lot with a vine-wreathed bungalow on some village street. Having
talked this question over so much with the boys, I felt quite
farmerfied, though I had never used shovel, hoe or any farm tool. I said
to myself, I must find out what I am at once for I only have four
shillings. My brother-in-law borrowed this, for it was agreed that he
should go on to St. Paul. As I walked along the one street in Stillwater
with its few houses, I saw a blacksmith shop with the smith settin' and
smokin' and stopped to look things over. There were three yoke of oxen
standing ready to be shod. They were used to haul square timbers. The
smith asked me if I could shoe an ox and then slung one up in the sling
'way off the ground. I did not see my way clear to shoe this ox, so saw
I was not a blacksmith. I could see that there were not houses enough
around to make the paintin' trade last long so gave that up too. In a
little leanto I saw a man fixing a pair of shoes. I watched him, but saw
nothing that looked possible to me so said to myself, "Surely I am no
shoemaker." Further I met a young man sauntering along the road and
asked him about farming. Said he, "You can't raise nothing in this here
country. It would all freeze up; besides the soil is too light." Well,
thinks I, it takes money to buy a hoe anyway, so I guess I'm no farmer.
I went up to the hotel and stayed all night. My brother-in-law had left
a tool chest with me. I was much afraid they would ask for board in
advance, but they did not. In the morning, the proprietor said, "I have
a job of work I want done--is that your chest?" I said, "Here is the
key." "Then", said he, "you are a carpenter." I had worked a little at
boat building so I let him say it. I worked sixteen days for him
building an addition out of green timber. At the end of that time he
asked what I wanted for the work. I did not know so he gave me $25.00 in
shin plasters. It was Grocers Bank, Bangor, Maine money. All of the
money here was then.
As soon as I got it, I hiked out for St. Anthony, where I took to
building in earnest. I helped build the Tuttle mill on the west side in
'50 and '51. Tuttle moved from the east side over to the government log
cabin while it was building and I boarded with them there. I also built
the mill at Elk River.
The first Fourth of July I was driving logs up above what is now East
Minneapolis. We had a mill with two sash saws, that is, saws set in a
sash. Settlers were waiting to grab the boards as they came from the
saw. How long it took those saws to get through a log! A mill of today
could do the same work in one-tenth the time. We could only saw five
thousand feet a day working both saws all the time.
I helped build the Governor Ramsey which plied above the Falls and up
the river. She was loaded with passengers each trip going to look over
sites for homes. I also helped build the H. M. Rice. After the railroad
was built, these boats were moved on land over the Falls and taken by
river to the south where they were used in the war.
I first boarded at the messhouse of the St. Anthony Water Power Company.
This messhouse was on a straight line with the front door of the
Exposition Building on the river bank. All butter and supplies of that
nature were brought a long distance and were not in the best of
condition when received, so this messhouse was called by the boarders,
"The Soap Grease Exchange," and this was the only appellation it was
known by in old St. Anthony.
The first sawmills put up in St. Anthony could saw from thirty to forty
logs apiece, a day.
As there were absolutely no places of amusement, the men became great
wags. One of the first things that was established by them was a police
court of regulations with Dr. Murphy as judge. As there were no
sidewalks, a stranger would be run in and have to pay a fine, such as
cigars for the crowd, if he was found spitting on the sidewalks. Lawyer
Whittle was fined two pecks of apples and cigars for wearing a stovepipe
hat and so the fun went on, day after day.
Mr. Welles ran for Mayor and, as there was no opposition, the before
mentioned wags decided to have some. A colored man, called Banks, had a
barbershop that stood up on blocks. The boys told him he must run for
Mayor in opposition. They told him he must have a speech, so taught him
one which said, "Down, Down, Down!" and he was to stand in the door and
deliver this. Just as he got to the last "Down" these wags put some
timbers under the little building and gently turned it over in the sand.
It took them half a day to get it up and get everything settled again,
but in a town where nothing exciting was going on, this was deemed worth
while.
If you had half a pint of whiskey in those days, and were willing to
trade with the Indians, you could get almost anything they had, but
money meant nothing to them.
I remember seeing tame buffalo hitched to the Red River carts. They
seemed to have much the same disposition as oxen, when they were tame.
The oxen on the Red River carts were much smaller than those of today
and dark colored. The most carts I remember having seen passing along at
one time, was about one hundred. These carts were not infrequently drawn
by cows. The drivers were very swarthy, generally dressed in buckskin
with a bright colored knit sash about the waist and a coonskin cap with
a tail hanging down behind or a broad brimmed hat.
In '51 I built a mill at Elk River. Lane was the only white man living
there. It was right among the Winnebagoes. They were harmless, but the
greatest thieves living. They came over to our camp daily and would
steal everything not nailed down. We used to feed them. We had a barrel
full of rounds of salt pork. By rounds of pork, I mean pork that had
been cut clear around the hog. It just fitted in a big barrel. Eli
Salter was cooking for us. One night he had just put supper on the
table. It was bread, tea and about twenty pounds of pork--about two
rounds. There were seven of us and just as we were sitting down, four
squaws came in. Nowadays they sing, "All Coons look Alike to me," but at
this time all squaws looked alike to us. We could never tell one from
the other. They ate and ate and ate. Eli said, "They seemed like rubber
women." The table was lighted with tallow dips, four of them. Just as
Salter was going to pick up that pork, each squaw like lightning wet her
fingers and put out the candles. When we got them lighted again, them
squaws and the pork was together, but not where we were. We just charged
it to profit and loss.
Among them Indians was Ed, the greatest thief of all. He had been for
years at a school in Chicago and had been their finest scholar. The
Indians were all making dugout canoes and found it hard with their
tools. I had a fine adz and Ed stole it. I could not make him bring it
back. I used to feed the chief well and one day I told him Ed had stolen
my adz. He said, "I make him bring it back." Sure enough, the next day
at dusk Ed sneaked up and thinking no one was looking, threw it in a
pile of snow about two feet deep. We saw him do it, so got it at once.
We never knew how the chief made him do it.
Once when I was building a mill up at Rum River we had to go to
Princeton to get some things, so I started. I had to pass a camp of
those dirty Winnebagoes. They had trees across for frames and probably
two hundred deer frozen and hanging there. I was sneaking by, but the
old chief saw me and insisted on my coming in to eat. I declined hard,
saying I had had my dinner, but I knew all the time they knew better. I
had on a buffalo overcoat and a leather shortcoat inside. In the tepee,
they had a great kettle of dog soup, as it was a feast. Each one had a
horn spoon and all ate out of the kettle. They gave me a spoon and I
started in to eat. I did not touch it but poured it inside my inside
coat for a couple of times. When I left the chief went and picked out
one of the thinnest, poorest pieces of venison there was and insisted on
my taking it. I was disgusted but did not dare refuse. A short distance
away, I threw it in the snow which was about two feet deep off the
trail. Shortly afterward I met the chief's son and was frightened, for I
thought he would notice the hole and find what I had done. I watched
him, but he was too drunk to notice and as it soon began to snow, I was
safe. I guess the dogs got it.
Mrs. James McMullen--1849.
Mrs. McMullen says: When I first came to St. Anthony in 1849, there were
no sandburrs. They did not come until after a flock of sheep had been
driven through the town. We always thought they brought them. The sand
was deep and yielding. You would step into it and it would give and
give. It would seem as if you never could reach bottom. It would tire
you all out to walk a short distance. We soon had boards laid down for
walks. Lumber was hard to get, for the mills sawed little and much was
needed. The sidewalk would disappear in the night. No one who was
building a board house was safe from suspicion. They always thought he
had the sidewalk in his house.
When we first built our house I wanted a garden. My brother said, "You
might as well plant seeds on the seashore," but we did plant them and I
never had seen such green stuff. I measured one pumpkin vine and it was
thirty feet long.
Whenever the Red River carts came by, I used to tie the dog to the
doorlatch. I did not want any calls from such rough looking men as they
were. Those carts would go squawking by all day. Later they used to camp
where the Winslow house was built. There would be large numbers there, a
regular village. Once when I was driving with Mr. McMullen, one of them
stopped by us and I said, "Oh, see that ox is a cow!"
In '49 or '50 the old black schoolhouse was the site of an election. I
lived near enough to hear them yell, "To Hell mit Henry Siblee--Hurrah
for Louis Robert." If those inside did not like the way the vote was to
be cast, they would seize the voter and out the back window he would
come feet first, striking on the soft sand. This would continue until
the voter ceased to return or those inside got too drunk or tired to
throw him out. The town was always full of rough lumberjacks at these
early elections and for the day they run the town.
I used always to make twenty-one pies a week. One for every meal. I had
two boarders who were friends of ours. Not that I wanted boarders, but
these men had to stay somewhere and there was no somewhere for them to
stay. Each took her friends to help them out. I was not very strong and
cooking was hard on me. There was no one to hire to work. After a very
hot day's work, I was sick and did not come down to breakfast. One of
the boarders was not working. I came down late and got my breakfast. I
set half of a berry pie on the table and went to get the rest of the
things. When I came back, it was in the cupboard. The boarder sat
reading. I thought I had forgotten and had not put it on, so set it on
again and went for the tea. When I came back again, the pie was again in
the cupboard and the boarder still studying the almanac. I said, "What
are you doing to that pie?" He said, "Keeping it from being et! After
this you make seven pies instead of twenty-one and other things the same
and you won't be all wore out, we'll only have them for dinner," and so
it was. I suppose there were more pies on the breakfast tables of that
little village of St. Anthony than there would be now at that meal in
the great city of Minneapolis, for it was then a New England village.
Dr. Lysander P. Foster--1849.
I came to Minneapolis on the Ben Franklin. She was a wood burner and
every time that her captain would see a pile of wood that some new
settler had cut, he would run ashore, tie up and buy it. A passenger was
considered very haughty if he did not take hold and help.
My father built his house partly of lumber hauled from Stillwater, but
finished with lumber from here, as the first mill at the foot of First
Avenue Southeast was then completed. It had one saw only and so anxious
were the settlers for the lumber, that each board was grabbed and walked
off with as soon as it came from the saw.
The first school I went to as a boy of fourteen, was on Marshall Street
Northeast, between Fourth and Sixth Avenues. It was taught by Miss
Backus. There were two white boys and seven half breed Bottineaus. It
was taught much like kindergarten of today--object lessons, as the seven
half breeds spoke only French and Miss Backus only English. McGuffy's
Reader was the only text book.
The Indians were much like white people. The Sioux boys at their camp at
the mouth of Bassett's Creek were always my playfellows. I spent many
happy days hunting, fishing and playing games with them. They were
always fair in their play. The games they enjoyed most were "Shinny" and
a game played on the ice in the winter. A stick with a long handle and
heavy smooth curved end was thrown with all the strength possible. Some
could throw it over a block. The one throwing it farthest beat. I
suppose what I call "shinny" was really La Crosse.
What is now Elwell's Addition was a swamp. I have run a twelve foot pole
down in many parts of it without touching bottom.
Mr. Secomb, the father of Methodism in Minneapolis, was going to St.
Paul to preach. He took a dugout canoe from the old board landing. His
friend, Mr. Draper, was with him. It was below the Falls where the river
had rapids and rocks. They tipped over and were so soaked that St. Paul
had to get along that day without them. It was considered a great joke
to ask the dominie if he was converted to immersion, now that he
practiced it.
The peculiarity of the swamp land in St. Paul was that it was all on a
ledge and was only about two feet deep. You could touch rock bottom
anywhere there, but here a swamp was a swamp and could be any depth.
In 1848 half breeds had gardens and raised famous vegetables up in what
is now Northeast Minneapolis.
I once took my sister over on the logs to pick strawberries on the end
of what is now Eastman Island. They were large, very plentiful and
sweet. Almost every tree that grew anywhere in the new territory grew
there. Black walnut grew there and on Nicollet Island.
Mrs. Silas Farnham--1849.
Mrs. Silas Farnham says: I came to St. Anthony in 1849. My husband had a
little storehouse for supplies for the woods, across from our home on
the corner of Third Avenue and Second Street, Southeast. A school house
was much needed so they cleared this out and Miss Backus taught the
first school there. It was also used for Methodist preachin'. Our first
aid society was held there in '49.
I well remember the first Fourth of July celebration in 1849. The women
found there was no flag so knew one must be made. They procured the
materials from Fort Snelling and the flag was made in Mrs. Godfrey's
house. Those working on it were Mrs. Caleb Dorr, Mrs. Lucien Parker,
Misses Julia and Margaret Farnham, Mrs. Godfrey and myself. I cut all
the stars. Mr. William Marshall who had a small general store was orator
and no one could do better. That reminds me of that little store. I just
thought I'd laugh out loud the first time I went in there. There were
packs of furs, all kinds of Indian work, hats and caps, tallow dips and
more elegant candles, a beautiful piece of delaine for white women and
shoddy bright stuff for the squaws, a barrel of rounds of pork most used
up, but no flour, that was all gone. There was a man's shawl, too, kind
of draped up. You know men wore shawls in them days; some hulled corn
the Indians done, too, I saw. But to return to that first Fourth--it
seemed a good deal like a Farnham Fourth, for the music which was just
soul stirrin' was sung by them and the Gould boys. When the Farnhams all
got out, it made a pretty big crowd for them days. Perhaps their voices
wan't what you call trained, but they had melody. Seems to me nowadays
some of the trained high-falutin' voices has just got that left out.
Seems so to me--seems so. All the Farnhams just sung natural, just like
birds. Old Doctor Kingsley played the bass viol so it was soul stirrin'
too. Margaret Farnham, the president of our first aid society married a
Hildreth--Julia a Dickerson.
In '49 my husband paid a ten cent shin plaster for three little apples
no bigger than crabs. I tried to make these last a long time by just
taking a bite now and then, but of course, they couldn't hold out
forever.
The Indians was always around, but we never minded them--always lookin'
in the windows.
General William G. Le Duc--1850, Ninety-two years old.
I arrived at St. Paul on the steamboat Dr. Franklin. Among the travelers
on board the boat were Mr. and Mrs. Lyman Dayton and a brother of
Goodhue, the Editor of the Pioneer Weekly Newspaper. The principal, if
not the only hotel at that time, was the Central, a frame building about
twenty-four by sixty feet, two stories kept by Robert Kenedy. It was
used as a meeting place for the legislature, court, and public offices,
until something better could be built. Here I found quarters, as did Mr.
and Mrs. Dayton.
A few days after my arrival, I was walking along the high bank of the
river in front of the Central House in conversation with a large robust
lumberman who had come out of the woods where he had been all winter
logging and was feeling very happy over his prospects. Suddenly he
stopped and looking down on the flowing waters of the Mississippi, he
exclaimed, "See those logs." A number of logs were coming down with the
current. "What mark is on them? My God, that is my mark!--the logs are
mine! My boom has broken! I am a ruined man." He went direct to the
hotel and died before sun down of cholera, the Doctor said. He was
hurriedly buried and there was a cholera panic in St. Paul. The next day
while walking in front of the hotel, Mrs. Dayton called from an open
window excitedly to me, "Come and help me quick. Mr. Baker has the
cholera!" (Mr. Baker was a boarder at the Central and a school teacher
at that time.) Mrs. Dayton was frightened and said she had given him all
the brandy she had and must have some more. I got more brandy and she
insisted on his taking it, altho' he was then drunk. He recovered next
day and I have never heard of a case of cholera in Minnesota since that
time.
I hired a little board shack about twelve by sixteen feet at the
Northeast corner of Third and Roberts Streets, St. Paul, and put out my
sign as Attorney and Counselor at Law, but soon discovered there was
little law business in St. Paul, not enough to sustain the lawyers
already there and more coming with every boat. My business did not pay
the monthly rent, $9.00, so I rented a large house on the southwest
corner and started a shop selling books and stationery, and in this
succeeded in making a living.
On the 22nd day of July '50, a number of citizens of St. Paul and some
travelers chartered a little stern wheel steamboat, the Yankee, and
intended to explore the St. Peter River, now the Minnesota, if possible
to its source, Big Stone Lake. We invited the ladies who wished to go,
promising them music and dancing. A merry time was anticipated and we
were eager to see the fertile valley, knowing it was to be purchased of
the Indians and opened for settlement to the frontier settlers. The
passengers were men mostly, but enough women went to form three or four
cotillion sets. The clergy was represented by Rev. Edward Duffield
Neill; the medical fraternity by Dr. Potts; statesmen by one who had
been an Aide to General Harrison and later Ambassador to Russia; another
was a graduate of Yale Law School and of West Point Military Academy;
another, one of the Renvilles, had been interpreter for Nicollet;
another was an Indian Trader, Joe La Framboise, who was returning to his
post at the mouth of Little Cottonwood. He was noted for his linguistic
ability and attainments and could acquire a talking acquaintance with an
Indian language if given a day or two opportunity; another was a noted
Winnebago half breed, Baptiste, whose Indian dress and habits attracted
much attention.
As we entered the sluggish current of the St. Peters at Mendota, the
stream was nearly bank full and it seemed like navigating a crooked
canal. The first stop was at an Indian village, fifteen or twenty miles
from the Mississippi, called Shakopee, or Little Six village. Our boat
attracted a crowd of all kinds and conditions of Indian village
population, not omitting Little Six who claimed toll for permission to
navigate his river. His noisy demand was settled by the trader by some
trifling presents, including some whiskey and we proceeded on our voyage
up the river. The next stop was at Traverse des Sioux. Here there was a
Missionary station in charge of Mr. Hopkins, from whom we bought the
rails of an old fence for fuel. Next we landed at a beautiful level
grassy meadow called Belle Prairie, where we tried to have a dance. The
next landing was at the mouth of the Blue Earth River, called Mankato,
where a tempting grove of young ash trees were cut for fuel. Here the
passengers wandered about the grove while the boat hands were cutting
and carrying the wood. Leaving the Blue Earth we slowly ascended the
stream, hoping to arrive at the Cottonwood where La Framboise promised
some fuel for the boat, but night overtook us and Captain Harris tied up
to the bank and announced the voyage ended for want of fuel and that
early in the morning he would return. Millions of mosquitoes invaded the
boat. Sleep was impossible. A smudge was kept up in the cabin which gave
little relief and in the morning all were anxious to return. I stationed
myself on the upper deck of the boat with watch and compass open before
me and tried to map the very irregular course of the river. It was
approximately correct and was turned over to a map publisher in New York
or Philadelphia and published in my Year Book.
Some time during this summer, I had occasion to visit the Falls of St.
Anthony, a village of a few houses on the east side of the Mississippi
River, ten miles Northwest of St. Paul. I crossed the river to the west
side in a birch bark canoe, navigated by Tapper, the ferryman for many
years after, until the suspension bridge was built. Examining the Falls,
I went down to an old saw mill built by and for the soldiers at Fort
Snelling and measured the retrocession of the fall by the fresh break of
the rock from the water race way and found it had gone back one hundred
and three feet which seemed very extraordinary until examination
disclosed the soft sandstone underlying the limestone top of the falls.