consideration for others, generosity and sympathy towards the less
fortunate neighbor as did the trying pioneer days? If not, where lies
the blame? What is the cure?
Judge Loren W. Collins--1852.
In 1853 my father visited Eden Prairie. On arriving they found a lynch
court in session. A man named Gorman who had squatted upon a very
desirable piece of land had gotten into an altercation with a squatter
by the name of Samuel Mitchell. These men were Irishmen, Gorman a
Catholic and Mitchell a Protestant. Gorman had filled Mitchell's left
arm full of shot, and the court gave its judgment that Gorman must get
out of the country with his family, within twenty-four hours. He had
staked out the claim, had built a log house and had ready for crop about
two acres of land. My father had $100.00 in gold with him, probably more
money than any other man in the community possessed at that time.
Gorman sold out to him for the $100.00 and father took possession.
There were then a dozen or fifteen settlers in that vicinity, among them
the Goulds, the Mitchells, Mr. Abbott and Mr. Gates. There came about
that time, Mr. Staring, who lived immediately east of us.
During that summer some fifteen acres were broken up and the two acres
which had been previously made ready for seed by Mr. Gorman, were
planted to corn and potatoes. Father hired a yoke of oxen to use during
the summer and kept one cow.
Father returned to Massachusetts and in the winter we came to Buffalo by
rail. In early May we embarked on the steamer "Nominee," which was then
the fastest boat on the river. At the head of the flagstaff was a new
broom which indicated that the boat had beaten every other vessel then
running on the river north of Galena. The Captain was Russell Blakeley
who for many years commanded the best boats belonging to the Packet
Company.
We reached St. Paul about ten o'clock on May seventh and I remember very
well that the thing which attracted my attention more than any other was
the newly trimmed cupola of the Territorial Capitol building. There were
at least fifteen steamboats at the lower levee when we arrived there,
all busy in unloading. They were packed with passengers and freight
coming up the river, but going down they carried very little, for there
was nothing to ship. The first shipments of any consequence were
potatoes in the spring of 1855. For two or three years after that nearly
all the flour and grain used in the territory was brought from Galena.
Father took a pair of oxen and his wagon from the boat and we made our
way up a very steep hill from Jackson Street to Third. From there we
went up Third to the corner of Wabasha, where father bought some flour
and feed and we drove back to the boat. About five o'clock in the
afternoon the Nominee steamed up the river as far as Fort Snelling,
taking at least one-fifth of its passengers and freight. We tied up at
the ferry boat landing, at the foot of the hill under the old fort, and
began to take off our cattle and freight. The hill was very steep
leading up to the fort and father, aided by the boys, began to take our
goods in small wagon loads to the top of the hill, so that we could
properly load them. Uncle William, my mother, Aunt Isabel and the small
children had been transferred at St. Paul to a small steamboat called
the "Iola," which was to take them up the Minnesota river to Hennepin
Landing, a mile or two from our claim at Eden Prairie.
One of the wagons was left at the top of the hill while father went back
for more of the goods. I was told to take care of the cattle. Among the
cattle was a white heifer, a very wild animal. Father put a rope around
her horns and gave me the rope to hold, while he went down the hill. I
put the rope around one hind wheel of the wagon thinking I could hold
the animal that way. While I was standing there in the twilight, six or
seven soldiers came out of the fort for guard duty and when they passed
me the heifer became frightened, gave a jerk upon the rope and
necessarily upon the wheel. The wagon had not been properly coupled, and
when the animal at one end of the rope and myself at the other brought
pressure upon the wheel, the hind wheels separated from the front, and
the wheels, the heifer and the boy, went very hastily to the foot of the
hill. Part of the time the wheels were off the ground, some of the time
it was the heifer, but it seemed to me it was the boy who filled air
space the greater portion of the period consumed in the descent. This
mishap created great consternation not only among the representatives of
Uncle Sam, but among the people who had just left the boat. It was my
first encounter with the United States Army and I was badly scared.
About ten o'clock after we landed, we started three wagons with a pair
of oxen for each and about ten head of cows and young stock. It was a
beautiful night, with full moon and after traveling a mile to what was
known as Bloomington Creek, we stopped to graze the cattle and to rest.
We all got more or less sleep and it was eight in the morning before we
were able to start the cavalcade. We arrived in sight of our future
home, under most auspicious circumstances. The weather was mild and the
sun shining brightly when we came to a place from where father pointed
out the log house in the edge of the woods, with a stovepipe through the
roof and the smoke coming out. My uncle Sherbuel had remained an
occupant of this house all winter, that he might hold this claim of my
father's and the one next to it, which had been selected for my Uncle
William. Uncle Sherbuel was something of a hunter and trapper, and had
made good use of his time during the winter and had a good assortment of
furs, otter, wolf, mink, fox and those of smaller animals. He had killed
several deer and was tanning the hides at the time we arrived. He had
also caught and salted several hundred pounds of bass, pike and
pickerel.
Father had little money left and we were without seed, except potatoes,
for about three acres of our land. Potatoes were of very little value
and it was doubtful if it would pay to plant them, but as we had nothing
else to put into the ground father concluded that he would seed the
three acres with potatoes, of which he had plenty of the kind known as
Irish Reds, a round potato of exceedingly fine variety. He sowed a few
acres of wheat, two or three acres of oats and planted two or three
acres of corn and of course, we had a garden. We had to build a yard for
the cattle at night, some sort of shelter for them, and we also had to
build pig-pens. Lumber was almost unobtainable so these structures were
largely of logs. They had to be very well built, strong as well as high,
in order to keep cattle and hogs out of the fields. I remember that we
had one hog that would climb anything in sight and what she could not
climb she would dig under. Many a time in the summer of '54 and '55 did
I chase that animal and her offspring back into the pig-pen.
I had a most tremendous appetite. Our food consisted mostly of potatoes,
bread, wheat or corn, beans and plenty of game. Ducks, chickens or fish
could be had by going a few hundred feet in almost any direction. We had
no well and all the water we used was hauled from the lake, nearly a
half mile distant. Father rigged up a crotch of a tree upon which was
placed a water barrel and this was dragged back and forth by a yoke of
cattle. Starting from the lake with a full barrel we had good luck if we
reached the house with half of it.
In the summer when the corn began to get into the milk stage, we had a
great fight with the blackbirds. They would swarm down upon the fields
and picking open the heads of the ears, would practically spoil every
ear they touched. Scare-crows were of no service in keeping the birds
off, and finally the boys were put into the fields, upon little
elevations made of fence rails, with guns loaded with powder and shot.
We killed hundreds of birds in order to save the corn and had good crops
of wheat and oats and we also had a most remarkable yield of potatoes;
so large in fact, that we had to build a root-cellar in the hillside out
of logs. We dug potatoes and picked them up that fall until I was nearly
worn out, but in the spring the demand for potatoes was so great that
father sold bushels at $1.05 a bushel. This gave him a large amount of
ready money and he bought a pair of horses.
There were plenty of Sioux Indians living in the vicinity of Shakopee. A
reddish colored stone, about two feet high stood a half mile west of our
place on the Indian trail leading from Minnetonka to Shakopee. Around
this stone the Indians used to gather, engaged apparently in some
religious exercise and in smoking kinni kinic.
My cousin William and I raised that summer a quantity of nice
watermelons, the seeds having been brought from Springfield. In the fall
we loaded up two wagons with them and with oxen as the motive power
started one afternoon for St. Anthony. We had to make our way down
towards Fort Snelling until we came within two miles of the fort. Then
we turned towards our destination. It was a long and tedious trip. We
camped out over night and did not reach the west bank of the Mississippi
River opposite St. Anthony until three o'clock the next afternoon. We
fed our cattle in a grove not far from where the Nicollet House now
stands, then started for the ferry, which swung across the Mississippi
River about where the stone arch bridge now is. The island was heavily
timbered and the road ran across at an angle, coming out at a bridge on
First Street South. We got up onto the street just about the time the
men were coming out of the mills, sold our watermelons and went home
with $10.00 each, the proceeds of our first farming. It was a three days
trip and a very tiresome one for the boys as well as for the cattle.
A friend by the name of Shatto and I took up a claim but were hailed
out. When the storm ceased, I crawled out and looked around. My stove
was broken, everything was water soaked, except some provisions which I
had in a bucket which had a cover and my cattle had disappeared. I
considered matters for a few minutes and concluded that the only thing I
could do was to start for the hotel at Kenyon, some three miles away. I
was drenched. My boots, all wore boots in those days, were soaked with
water and very soon hurt my feet so I had to take them off. I made my
way into Kenyon and there saw the great destruction which had been done
by the hail. There was not a whole pane of glass in the little village
and the inhabitants were engaged in patching up their windows with
boards and blankets, as best they could. The crops were entirely
destroyed. Many people had suffered by being struck by hailstones, some
of which were as large as hens eggs.
I had in my pocket $1.50, and I told the landlord, Mr. Bullis, my
condition and that I wanted to stay all night.
When supper was ready I went to the table and much to my surprise met a
Hastings lawyer with whom I had some acquaintance, our Seagrave Smith.
Smith urged me to give up the idea of becoming a farmer and take up the
study of law. So it was this hail storm that made me a lawyer.
In the fall of 1858 I secured a school and was initiated as a country
school-master. The school house was a log building, about two and a half
miles up the river from Cannon Falls. The neighborhood was largely
Methodist and the pupils were all boys, about twenty-five in number.
There was not at that time in the district a single girl over six years
of age and under sixteen. Mr. Hurlbut had one boy Charles about fourteen
years of age. Very soon after my school commenced for a four months term
the Methodists concluded they would have a revival. They used the school
house every evening for that purpose and on Sunday it was occupied all
day. Nearly all of the pupils attended these meetings, began to profess
conversion and in three or four weeks had become probationists.
I had adopted the New England custom of having each pupil read a verse
from the New Testament at the opening of school in the morning, and in a
short time Deacon Morrill and Elder Curray came to me with the
suggestion that I open the school with prayer. I replied that it would
not be just the thing for me to be very active in this for I was not a
professor of religion but that I had considered the matter and if the
boys were willing I should be very glad to call upon them in
alphabetical order for a prayer each morning. I submitted this question
to the pupils and found that, without exception, they were anxious to
adopt the plan. I then said that if it was adopted it would have to be
followed to the end of school, no matter what their wishes might be.
I made out a roll, putting the names down in order and called upon one
boy each morning for prayer. This worked well for a few weeks, but one
evening Mr. Hurlbut said to me that Charlie had told him, while they
were feeding the cattle, that night, that he would refuse to pray next
time I called upon him. I had found it unnecessary to inflict corporal
punishment upon a single pupil up to that time, but had in my desk a
good stout switch. A few mornings afterwards when it was Charlie's turn
to open the school with prayer, I called upon him and met a point blank
refusal. I directed his attention to what had been said at the outset
about continuing this as a school exercise when once adopted, and he
still refused. It became necessary for me to stop the insurrection
without delay. I took the switch, seized Charlie by the coat collar, as
he was attempting to get out of his seat, switched him around the legs
pretty smartly and the rebellion was at an end. Charlie prayed briefly,
but fervently. After that there was no more trouble but many of the boys
had somewhat fallen from grace before school ended. Yet they kept up
their devotional exercises without any urging on my part. Mr. Hurlbut
was something of a scoffer at religion and my prompt action with his boy
made me extremely popular in the district.
I boarded around as was the custom in those days and built my own fires
in the schoolhouse. Some of the pupils are still residents of that
neighborhood and I rarely meet one who does not remind me of my whipping
Charlie Hurlbut until, as they say, he dropped on his knees in prayer.
For my four months teaching I received a school district order for
$60.00 and in the fall of '59 with this as my sole asset, I commenced
the study of law in Hastings, with the firm of Smith and Crosby. It is
hardly necessary for me to say that we were all poor in those days.
There was no money and no work except farming, but in this way we could
earn enough to live upon in a very humble manner.
I first saw the late Judge Flandrau at Lewiston, he was then Indian
agent and was making his way on horseback from Faribault to Hastings. He
had a party of twelve or fifteen men with him, all full blood or mixed
blood Indians, and they stopped for dinner. Judge Flandrau was very
tanned and clad in the garb of the Indian as were his associates; it was
with difficulty that I determined which one of the party was the white
man Flandrau.
[Illustration: EARLY SOLDIERS AT FORT SNELLING.
(See pages 19 and 158.)
Presented by Mrs. P. V. Collins.]
CHARTER OAK CHAPTER
Faribault
MISS STELLA COLE
Mr. Elijah G. Nutting--1852.
My father's hotel, the Hotel de Bush, as we derisively called it, was
the first hotel in Faribault. It may perhaps be called a frame house by
courtesy, rather than technically, as it was made by placing boards
vertically side by side, battened together by a third board. On the
first floor were the family apartments, separated from the dining room
and the "office" by partitions of cotton cloth hung on wires. The
office, ten feet by twelve, boasted an improvised desk, a stool and a
candle. The second floor was called the "school section," a large
apartment filled with bedsteads rudely made of boards and supporting
straw, hay or coarse grass ticks. Here the fortunate early bird took his
rest, fully clothed, even to his boots, protected from the snow, which
blustered in at the unglazed windows by his horse blankets. Later comers
took possession of the straw ticks on the floor and made no complaint
next morning when, after a breakfast of salt pork, black tea with brown
sugar and butter so strong it could seldom be eaten, they were presented
with a bill of $2.00. In one corner of this "school section" was a tiny
enclosure, screened with a cotton cloth partition, containing a bed and
two soap boxes, one for a dressing table and the other for a chair. This
was called the "bridal chamber" and was to be had at a suitable price,
by those seeking greater privacy. We had bread and pork for breakfast,
pork and bread for dinner, and some of both for supper.
A large sheet iron stove down stairs was kept red hot in the winter and
a man was employed to prevent people, coming in from the icy
out-of-doors, from rushing too near its heat and thus suddenly thawing
out their frozen ears, cheeks or noses.
When in 1858 or '59 my father sold the hotel, its purchaser mortgaged
it, paying an interest rate of twenty-four per cent a year.
On July Fourth, 1856 the Barron House was formally opened on such a
scale of splendor that the days of the Faribault House were numbered.
The Scott brothers built the first saw mill in Faribault. It was located
on the spot where the new addition to the shoe factory now is. The
machinery was brought in from St. Louis and came up by boat to Hastings
at an enormous cost and it took twelve yoke of oxen to haul the boiler
from that point. They were a long time getting it from Cannon City, as
they had to cut a road through the dense woods. A party whom they met
after dusk, when he saw the huge cylinder, exclaimed, "Well that is the
largest saw log I ever saw."
Mr. J. Warren Richardson--1854.
I came with my father and mother from St. Anthony where we had lived for
a short time, to Faribault and settled in Walcott where we secured a log
house and a claim for $75.00. This was on Mud Creek. While at St.
Anthony my father had made us such furniture as we needed. From the saw
mill he got plank fourteen feet in length, which he cut into strips. He
then bored holes in the corners and inserted pieces of pine, taken out
of the river, for legs, and thus we were provided with stools. For
tables we used our trunks. We slept on ticks full of prairie hay on the
floor. These were piled in the corner daytimes and taken out at night.
Our house on the farm contained one room twenty feet square and as my
father used to say "A log and a half story high." We were ourselves a
family of five besides three boarders and a stray family of three
appearing among us with no home, my mother invited them also to share
our scanty shelter. At night she divided the house into apartments by
hanging up sheets and the two families prepared their meals on the same
cookstove. We made our coffee of potatoes by baking them till there was
nothing left in them but a hole, and then crushing them. It was
excellent. In winter my father cut timber for his fences. He loaded it
onto the bobs which I, a ten year old boy, would then drive back,
stringing the logs along the way where they would lie till spring when
father split them into rails and built the fence. I have often chased
the timber wolves with my whip as I drove along. They would follow the
team and then when I turned around to chase them they would turn and run
in front of the team.
Finding that the snow blew in through our covered shake roof, we cut sod
and covered the roof with it. The following summer, my father being
away, I planted some popcorn, which we had brought from the east, in
this sod roof. It grew about fourteen inches high and my father, upon
his return, was greatly puzzled by the strange crop which he found
growing on his roof.
When kindling was needed, my father would raise the puncheons which made
our floor and hew some from these.
Our clothing consisted of Kentucky jeans and white shirts for best, with
overalls added for warmth in winter. We also wore as many coats as we
had left from our eastern outfit. These had to be patched many, many
times. The saying always was "Patch beside patch is neighborly; patch
upon patch is beggarly." I never had underwear or an overcoat until I
enlisted.
One day I was plowing with a double yoke of oxen. I was driving while
Mr. Whitney was guiding the plow. Mr. Whitney's brother was across the
river hunting for a lost horse. For a long time we heard him shouting,
but paid no attention until at last we saw him retreating slowly down
the opposite bank before a big bear. He called for help. We got over
there in short order. Mr. Whitney said that the bear had three small
cubs up a tree, but when we reached there she had disappeared with one
cub. He climbed the tree while his brother and I kept guard below. He
caught the two cubs by their thick fur and brought them down and kept
them.
In 1856, we came into town and I often played with the Indian boys,
shooting with bows and arrows in "Frogtown," which was lined with Indian
tepees. They always played fair.
Our log schoolhouse had rude desks facing the sidewall.
Mrs. Henry C. Prescott--1855.
My father, Dr. Nathan Bemis, came to Faribault where his father and
brother had already settled when I was eight years old. We went first to
the Nutting House, but as there was only the "bridal chamber" with its
one bed for the use of women, Mr. John Whipple, although his wife was
ill, invited my mother, with my baby sister, to stay at his house, which
was across the street. My sister, and a young lady who had come with us,
slept in the bed in the "bridal chamber." My father and brother laid
their straw ticks on the floor outside and I occupied a trundle bed in
Mrs. Nutting's room.
We soon moved out to the Smallidge House, east of town, where our family
consisted of our original seven and four men who boarded with us. There
was but one room, and only a small part of the floor was boarded over
and on this, at night, we spread our cotton ticks, filled with "prairie
feathers" or dried prairie grass, and the men went out of doors while
the women went to bed. In the morning the men rose first and withdrew.
The ticks were then piled in a corner and the furniture was lifted onto
the floor and the house was ready for daytime use. Gradually by standing
in line at the sawmill, each getting a board a day, if the supply held
out, our men got enough boards to cover the entire floor.
The next winter General Shields offered us his office for our home, if
we could stand the cold. He, himself, preferred to winter in the Nutting
Hotel. This winter was a horror to us all. We all froze our feet and the
bedclothes never thawed out all winter, freezing lower each night from
our breath. Before going to bed my brother used to take a run in the
snow in his bare feet and then jump into bed that the reaction might
warm them for a little while. All thermometers froze and burst at the
beginning of the winter so we never knew how cold it was. Someone had
always to hold my baby sister to keep her off the floor so that she
might not freeze. At night my mother hung a carpet across the room to
divide the bedroom from the living room. Dish towels hung to dry on the
oven door would freeze.
That winter my father's nephew shot himself by accident and it was
necessary to amputate his leg. My father had no instruments and there
were no anesthetics nearer than St. Paul, so my cousin was lashed to a
table while my father and Dr. Jewett took off the leg with a fine
carpenter's saw and a razor. He was obliged to stay in bed all winter
for fear the stump would freeze.
Later we lived, for a time, in a log house. The rain penetrated the
chinks, and I remember once when my sister was ill the men had to keep
moving the table around, as the wind shifted, to screen her from the
rain.
There was no butter, eggs, milk or chickens to be had; no canned things
or fresh vegetables. My mother once bought a half bushel of potatoes of
a man who came with a load from Iowa, paying $3.00 a bushel. When she
came to bake them, they turned perfectly black and had to be thrown
away. The man was gone. Again my father bought half a hog from a man who
brought in a load of pork, but my mother had learned her lesson and
cooked a piece before the man left town and, as it proved to be bad, my
father hunted him up and made him take back his hog and refund the
money.
The first Thanksgiving my mother said she was going to invite some young
lawyers to dinner who boarded with "Old Uncle Rundle". What she had I
can not remember, except "fried cakes" and rice pudding made without
milk or eggs, but the guests said they never had eaten anything so
delicious.