[Illustration: WHITE BEAR LAKE.]
THE
SEAT OF EMPIRE.
BY
CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN,
"CARLETON."
"I now believe that the ultimate last seat of government on this
great continent will be found somewhere within a circle or radius
not very far from the spot on which I stand, at the head of
navigation on the Mississippi River."
W. H. SEWARD, _Speech at St. Paul, 1860_.
[Illustration]
BOSTON:
FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.
1870.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by
CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of
Massachusetts.
UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & CO.,
CAMBRIDGE.
TO
JOHN GREGORY SMITH,
_GOVERNOR OF VERMONT DURING THE REBELLION_,
WHOM I FIRST SAW TENDERLY CARING FOR THE SICK AND
WOUNDED IN THE HOSPITALS OF FREDERICKSBURG, AND
THROUGH WHOSE ENERGY AND PERSEVERANCE
ONE OF THE GREATEST ENTERPRISES OF
THE PRESENT CENTURY HAS BEEN
SUCCESSFULLY INAUGURATED,
~This Volume~
IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
FROM CHICAGO TO MINNEAPOLIS.
PAGE
Cutting loose from Care.--Map of the Northwest.--Leaving
Chicago.--Fourth of July.--At La Crosse.--Dance on a
Steamboat.--Up the Mississippi.--The Boundaries of
Minnesota.--Winona.--St. Paul.--Minneapolis.--The Father
of Waters in Harness 1
CHAPTER II.
ST. CLOUD AND BEYOND.
St. Cloud.--Our Party.--First Night in Camp.--A Midnight
Thunder-Storm.--Sunday in Camp.--Up the Sauk Valley.--
White Bear Lake.--Catching a Turtle.--Lightning Lake.--
Second Sabbath in Camp.--The River Systems of the Northwest
--Elevations across the Continent.--The Future 25
CHAPTER III.
THE RED RIVER COUNTRY.
Down the Valley of the Red River.--Breckenridge.--Fort
Abercrombie.--Climate.--Winters at Winnipeg.--Burlington.
--The Emigrant.--Father Genin.--Mackenzie.--Harman.--Sir
John Richardson.--Captain Palliser.--Father De Smet.--
Winters on the Saskatchawan.--Snow-Fall 51
CHAPTER IV.
THE EMPIRE OF THE NORTHWEST.
Winnipeggers.--Ride over the Prairie.--Dakota City.--
Georgetown.--Hudson Bay Company Teams.--Parting with
our Friends.--The 43d Parallel.--Dakota.--Wyoming.--
Montana.--Idaho.--Oregon.--Washington.--British Columbia.
--Distances.--Fisheries of the Pacific.--Mr. Seward's
Speech 77
CHAPTER V.
THE FRONTIER.
Bottineau.--The Leaf Hills.--A Ride over the Plain.--The
Park Region.--Settlers.--How they kept the Fourth of
July.--Chippewa Indians.--Rush Lake.--A Serenade on the
Prairie.--German Pioneers.--Otter-Tail Lake 109
CHAPTER VI.
ROUND THE CAMP-FIRE.
Noon Lunch.--Toasting Pork.--A Montana Dutchman.--Emigrant
Trains.--Camping at Night--Wheat of Minnesota.--The State
in 1849.--A Word to Young Men.--Boys once more.--Our Last
Camp-Fire 123
CHAPTER VII.
IN THE FOREST.
Down-Easters.--The Eden of Lumbermen.--Country East of
the Mississippi.--The Climate of the Forest Region.--White
Bear Lake.--Travellers from Duluth.--A Maine Farmer in
Minnesota.--Chengwatona.--Pitching of the Mud-Wagon.--
Grindstone.--Kettle River.--Superior 137
CHAPTER VIII.
DULUTH.
Duluth.--Minnesota Point.--The Projected Breakwater.--
Comparison with the Suez Canal.--The Town.--Period of
Navigation.--The Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad.
--Transportation.--Elevators.--St. Louis River.--Minnesota
Slate Quarry.--An Indian Chief and his Followers.--
Railroad Lands.--Manufacturing Industry.--Terms of the
Railroad Company 164
CHAPTER IX.
THE MINING REGION.
The Apostle Islands.--Bayfield.--The Harbor.--Breakfast
with Captain Vaughn.--Ashland.--Big Trout.--Ontonagon.--
Approach to Marquette.--The Harbor.--The Town.--Discovery
of Iron Ore.--Mining Companies.--Varieties of Ore.--The
Miners.--The Coming Years 169
CHAPTER X.
A FAMILIAR TALK.
A Talk about the Northwest.--Mr. Blotter.--He wants a
Farm.--Government Lands.--Homestead Law of Minnesota.--
Exemption Laws.--The St. Paul and Pacific Railroad.--
Liberal Terms of Payment.--Stock-Raising.--Robbing
Mother Earth.--Native Grasses.--Fruit.--Small Grains.--
Productions of the State, 1869.--Schools.--When to
Emigrate.--Prospective Development.--The Tide of
Emigration 186
CHAPTER XI.
NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD.
How Communities grow.--Humboldt.--What I saw in 1846.--
The Pacific Coast.--River-Systems.--Lewis and Clark.--
Jeff Davis.--Charter of the Company.--The Projectors.--
The Line.--From Lake Superior to the Mississippi.--To
the Rocky Mountains.--Deer Lodge Pass.--The Western
Slope.--Mr. Roberts's Report.--Snow Blockades.--
Elevations.--Power of Locomotives.--Bureau of
Emigration.--Portable Houses.--Help to Emigrants.--
The Future 207
THE SEAT OF EMPIRE.
CHAPTER I.
FROM CHICAGO TO MINNEAPOLIS.
Last summer I cut loose from all care, and enjoyed a few weeks of
freedom and recreation with a party of gentlemen on the frontier
between Lake Superior and the Missouri River. I was charmed by the
beauty of the country, amazed at its resources, and favorably impressed
by its probable future. Its attractions were set forth in a series of
letters contributed to the Boston Journal.
People from every Eastern State, as well as from New York and the
British Provinces, have called upon me since my return, for the purpose
of "having a talk about the Northwest," while others have applied
by letter for additional or specific information, and others still
have requested a republication of the letters. In response to these
calls this small volume has been prepared, setting forth the physical
features of the vast reach of country lying between the Lakes and the
Pacific, not only in the United States, but in British America as well.
The most trustworthy accounts of persons who have lived there, as well
as of engineers who have been sent out by the United States, British,
and Canadian governments, have been collated, that those seeking a home
in Minnesota or Dakota may know what sort of a country lies beyond, and
what will be its probable future.
The map accompanying the volume has been prepared for the most part by
the Bureau of the United States Topographical Engineers. It gives me
pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to Major-General Humphreys, in
charge of the Bureau, and to Colonel Woodruffe, in charge of the map
department, for permission to use the same.
Through their courtesy I am enabled to place before the public the
most complete map ever published of the country between the 36th
and 55th parallel, extending across the continent, and showing not
only the entire railway system of the Eastern and Middle States, but
also the Union Pacific Railroad and the Northern Pacific, now under
construction. The figures followed by the letter T have reference to
the elevation of the locality above tide-water, thus enabling the
reader to obtain at a glance a comprehensive idea of the topographical
as well as the geographical features of the country.
"All aboard for the Northwest!"
So shouted the stalwart porter of the Sherman House, Chicago, on the
morning of the 5th of July, 1869.
Giving heed to the call, we descended the steps of the hotel and
entered an omnibus waiting at the door, that quickly whirled us to the
depot of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad.
There were about a dozen gentlemen in the party, all bound for the
Northwest, to explore a portion of the vast reach of country lying
between Lake Superior and the great northern bend of the Missouri River.
It was a pleasant, sunny, joyful morning. The anniversary of the
nation's independence having fallen on the Sabbath, the celebration
was observed on Monday, and the streets resounded with the explosion
of fire-crackers. Americans, Germans, Norwegians, Irish, people of
all nationalities, were celebrating the birthday of their adopted
country. Not only in Chicago, but throughout the cosmopolitan State of
Wisconsin, as we sped over its fertile prairies and through its towns
and villages during the day, there was a repetition of the scene.
Settlers from New England and the Middle States were having
Sabbath-School, temperance, or civic celebrations; Irish societies were
marching in procession, bearing green banners emblazoned with the
shamrock, thistle, and harp of Erin; Germans were drinking lager beer,
singing songs, and smoking their meerschaums. All work was laid aside,
and all hands--farmers with their wives and daughters, young men with
their sweethearts, children in crowds--were observing in their various
ways the return of the holiday.
Our route was by way of La Crosse, which we reached late in the
evening. We were to go up the Mississippi on a steamer that lay moored
to the bank. Its cabin was aglow with lights. Entering it, we found a
party of ladies and gentlemen formed for a quadrille. They were the
officers of the boat and their friends from the town. A negro with a
bass-viol, and two Germans with violins, were tuning their instruments
and rosining their bows.
We were met upon the threshold by a rosy-cheeked damsel, who gleefully
exclaimed,--
"O, yeau have arrived at the right moment! We are having a right good
time, and we only want one more gentleman to make it go real good.
Yeau'll dance neaw, won't ye? I want a partner. O, ye will neaw. I know
ye will, and ye'll call off the changes tew, won't ye? Neaw dew."
Not having a "light fantastic toe" on either foot, we were forced to
say no to this lively La Crosse maiden; besides, we were tired and
covered with dust, and in sad plight for the ball-room. A member of
Congress was next appealed to, then a grave and dignified Doctor of
Divinity.
A more ungallant party than ours never stood on a Western steamboat.
Governor, judge, parson, members of Congress, all shook their heads and
resisted the enthusiastic lady. In vain she urged them, and the poor
girl, with downcast countenance, turned from the obdurate Yankees, and
sailed in gloriously with a youth who fortunately entered the cabin at
the moment.
It was a rare sight to see, for they danced with a will. They made the
steamer shake from stem to stern. The glass lamps tinkled in their
brass settings, and the doors of staterooms rattled on their hinges,
especially when the largest gentleman of the party came to a shuffle.
He is the Daniel Lambert of the Mississippi,--immense and gigantic, and
having great development round the equator.
Quadrille, cotillon, and waltz, and genuine western break-downs
followed one after the other. There was plenty to eat and drink in
the pantry. The first thing we heard in the evening was the tuning of
the instruments; the last thing, as we dropped off to sleep, was the
scraping of the violins and the shuffling of feet.
We are awake in the morning in season to take a look at the place
before the boat casts off from its mooring for a trip to Winona.
A company of Norwegian emigrants that came with us on the train from
Chicago are cooking their breakfast in and around the station. They
sailed from Christiania for Quebec, and have been six weeks on the way.
All ages are represented. It is a party made up of families. There are
many light-haired maidens among them with deep blue eyes and blonde
complexions; and robust young men with honest faces, who have bidden
farewell forever to their old homes upon the fiords of Norway, and who
henceforth are to be citizens of the United States.
They will find immediate employment on the railroads of Minnesota, in
the construction of new lines. They are not hired by the day, but small
sections are let out to individuals, who receive a specified sum for
every square yard of earth thrown up.
There is no discussion of the eight-hour question among them. They work
sixteen hours of their own accord, instead of haggling over eight.
They have no time to engage in rows, nor do they find occasion. They
have had a bare existence in their old home; life there was ever a
struggle, the mere keeping together of soul and body, but here Hope
leads them on. They are poor now, but a few years hence they will
be well off in the world. They will have farms, nice houses, money
in banks, government bonds, and railway stocks. They will obtain
land at government price, will raise wheat, wool, or stock, and will
soon find their land quadrupled in value. They will make excellent
citizens. Their hearts are on the right side,--not physiologically, but
morally, politically, and religiously speaking. They are ardent lovers
of liberty; they cannot be trammelled by any shackles, political or
ecclesiastical. They are frugal, industrious, and honest. Already there
are several daily papers published in the Scandinavian language.
The steamer is ploughing the Mississippi against the current northward.
Wisconsin is on our right, Minnesota on our left; and while we are
moving on toward the region of country which we are to visit, we may
while away the time by thinking over the general characteristics of the
State of Minnesota, in which our explorations are to commence.
The southern boundary strikes the river twenty-two miles below La
Crosse. If I were to go down there and turn my steps due west, I might
walk two hundred and sixty-four miles along the Iowa line before
reaching the southwestern corner of the State. The western side is the
longest, and if I were to start from the southwestern corner and travel
due north, I should have a journey of three hundred and sixty miles to
accomplish before reaching the northern boundary,--the line between
the United States and British America.
Starting from Pembina, at the northwest corner of the State, on the
Red River of the North, and travelling due east eighty miles, I should
reach the Lake of the Woods; sailing across it sixty miles, then
entering the river leading to Rainy Lake, I might pass through the
wonderful water-way of lakes and rivers reaching to Lake Superior,--a
distance of about four hundred miles.
The eastern boundary formed by the Mississippi, St. Croix, and Lake
Superior is more irregular. Its general outline, as we look at it
upon the map, is that of a crescent, cutting into Minnesota, the
horns turned eastward. The area within the boundaries thus described
is estimated at 84,000 square miles, or 54,760,000 acres. It is a
territory larger than Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, and Connecticut combined.
Here, upon the Mississippi, I gaze upon bluffs of gray limestone
wrought into fantastic shape by the winds and storms of centuries and
by the slow wearing of the river; but were I to climb them, and gain
the general level of the country, I should behold rolling prairies
dotted with lakes and ponds of pure water, and groves of oak and
hickory. All of Minnesota east of the Mississippi is a timbered region.
Here and there are openings; but, speaking in general terms, the
entire country east of the river is a forest, which through the coming
years will resound with the axe of the lumberman.
When we go up the Mississippi eighty miles above St. Paul to St.
Cloud, we shall find the Sauk River coming in from the west; and there
the Mississippi is no longer the boundary of the timbered lands, but
the forest reaches across the stream westward to Otter-Tail River, a
distance of more than one hundred miles. The Sauk River is its southern
boundary.
All the region north of the Sauk, at the head-waters of the Mississippi
and north of Lake Superior, is well supplied with timber. A belt of
woods forty miles wide, starting from the Crow-Wing River, extends
south nearly to the Iowa boundary. It is broken here and there by
prairie openings and fertile meadows. The tract is known throughout the
Northwest as the region of the "Big Woods."
There are fringes of timber along the streams, so that the settler,
wherever he may wish to make a home, will generally find material for
building purposes within easy reach. In this respect Minnesota is one
of the most favored States of the Union.
The formations of the bluffs now and then remind us of old castles
upon the Rhine. They are, upon an average, three hundred and fifty
feet above the summer level of the river. We are far from the Gulf of
Mexico, yet the river at St. Paul is only six hundred and seventy-six
feet above tide-water.
Northward of Minneapolis the bluffs disappear, and the surface of the
river is but a few feet below the general level of the country, which
is about one thousand feet above the sea.
It is one of the remarkable topographical features of the continent,
that from St. Paul to the Peace River, which empties into the
Athabasca, the elevation is about the same, though the distance is more
than one thousand miles. Throughout this great extent of territory,
especially in Minnesota, are innumerable lakes and ponds of pure fresh
water, some of them having no visible outlet or inlet, with pebbly
shores and beaches of white sand, bordered by groves and parks of oak,
ash, and maple, lending an indescribable charm to the beauty of the
landscape.
While we are making these observations the steamer is nearing Winona, a
pleasant town, delightfully situated on a low prairie, elevated but a
few feet above the river. The bluffs at this point recede, giving ample
room for a town site with a ravine behind it.
Nature has done a great deal for the place,--scooping out the ravine
as if the sole purpose had been to make the construction of a railroad
an easy matter. The Winona and St. Peter's Railway strikes out from
the town over the prairie, winds through the ravine, and by easy grades
gains the rolling country beyond. The road is nearly completed to the
Minnesota River, one hundred and forty miles. It will eventually be
extended to the western boundary of the State, and onward into Dakota.
It is now owned by the Chicago and Northwestern Railway Company, and
runs through the centre of the second tier of counties in the State.
The Southern Minnesota Railroad starts from La Crosse, and runs west
through the first tier of counties. It is already constructed half-way
across the State, and will be pushed on, as civilization advances, to
the Missouri. That is the objective point of all the lines of railway
leading west from the Mississippi, and they will soon be there.
This city of Winona fifteen years ago had about one hundred
inhabitants. It was a place where steamers stopped to take wood and
discharge a few packages of freight, but to-day it has a population
of nine thousand. Looking out upon it from the promenade deck of the
steamer, we see new buildings going up, and can hear the hammers and
saws of the carpenters. It already contains thirteen churches and a
Normal School with three hundred scholars, who are preparing to teach
the children of the State, though the probabilities are that most of
them will soon teach their own offspring instead of their neighbors';
for in the West young men are plenty, maidens scarce. Out here--
"There is no goose so gray but soon or late
Will find some honest gander for her mate."
Not so in the East, for the young men there are pushing west, and women
are in the majority. It is a certainty that some of them will know more
of single blessedness than of married life. If they would only come out
here, the certainty would be the other way.
Not stopping at Winona, but hastening on board the train, we fly over
the prairie, up the ravine, and out through one of the most fertile
sections of the great grain-field of the Northwest.
The superintendent of the road, Mr. Stewart, accompanies our party,
and we receive pleasure and profit by having a gentleman with us who
is so thoroughly informed as he to point out the objects of interest
along the way. By a winding road, now running under a high bluff where
the limestone ledges overhang the track, now gliding over a high
trestle-bridge from the northern to the southern side of the deep
ravine, we gain at length the general table-land, and behold, reaching
as far as the eye can see, fields of wheat. Fences are visible here and
there, showing the division of farms; but there is scarcely a break in
the sea of grain, in flower now, rippling and waving in the passing
breeze. Farm-houses dot the landscape, and white cottages are embowered
in surrounding groves, and here and there we detect a small patch of
corn or an acre of potatoes,--small islands these in the great ocean of
wheat reaching westward, northward, and southward.
We are astonished when the train nears St. Charles, a town of two
thousand inhabitants, looking marvellously like a New England village,
to see a school-house just completed at a cost of $15,000! and still
wider open we our eyes at Rochester, with a population of six thousand,
where we behold a school-building that has cost $60,000! Upon inquiry
we ascertain that the bulk of the population of these towns is from New
England.
A ride of about ninety miles brings us to Owatona, a town of about
three thousand inhabitants.
We are in Steele County. The little rivulets here meandering through
the prairie and flowing southward reach the Mississippi only after
crossing the State of Iowa, while those running northward join the
Mississippi through the Minnesota River.
Here, as at Rochester, we behold charming landscapes, immense fields of
grain, groves of trees, snug cottages and farm-houses, and a thrifty
town. Owatona has a school-house that cost the citizens $20,000; yet
nine years ago the population of the entire county was only 2,862! The
census of 1870 will probably make it 15,000. So civilization advances,
not only here, but all through the Northwest, especially where there
are railroad facilities.
From Owatona we turn north and pass through Rice County, containing
eighteen townships. It is one of the best-timbered counties west of the
Mississippi; there are large tracts of oak, maple, butternut, walnut,
poplar, elm, and boxwood. We glide through belts of timber where
choppers are felling the trees for railroad ties, past fields where the
industrious husbandman has turned the natural grasses of the prairie
into blooming clover.
At Faribault a company of Norwegians, recently arrived from their homes
beyond the sea, and not having reached their journey's end, are cooking
their supper near the station. To-morrow they will be pushing on
westward to the grounds already purchased by the agent who has brought
them out.
In 1850 this entire county had only one hundred inhabitants; the
census of next year will probably show a population of twenty-five
thousand,--one half Americans, one sixth Germans, one ninth Irish,
besides Norwegians, Swedes, and Canadians. Faribault has about four
thousand inhabitants, who have laid excellent foundations for future
growth. They have an Episcopal College, a High School for ladies, a
Theological Seminary, a Deaf and Dumb Asylum, two Congregational
churches, also one Baptist, one Methodist, and one Episcopal. They have
excellent water-power on the Cannon River. Five flouring-mills have
already been erected.
Fourteen miles beyond this place we find Northfield with three thousand
inhabitants, three fourths of them New-Englanders. Five churches and a
college, two flouring-mills capable of turning out one hundred thousand
barrels per annum, excellent schools, a go-ahead population, are the
characteristics of this thoroughly wide-awake town.
A mile or two beyond Northfield we enter Dakota County,--one of the
most fertile in the State. It was one of the first settled, and in
1860 contained 9,058 inhabitants. Its present population is estimated
at 20,000,--one third of them Irish, one third Americans, one quarter
Germans, and the remainder of all nationalities. The largest town
is Hastings, on the Mississippi, containing about four thousand
inhabitants. The Hastings and Dakota Railroad, extending west, crosses
the Milwaukie and St. Paul at Farmington, a pleasant little town
located on a green and fertile prairie. Thirty miles of this Hastings
and Dakota road are in operation, and it is pushing on westward, like
all the others, to reach the territory of Dakota and the Missouri River.
On over the prairies we fly, reaching the oldest town in the State,
Mendota, which was a trading-post of the American Fur Company as long
ago as 1828. It was livelier then than now, for in those years Indians
by the thousand made it their rendezvous, coming in their bark canoes
down the Minnesota from the borders of Dakota, down the St. Croix,
which joins the Mississippi opposite Hastings, down the Mississippi
from all the region above the Falls of St. Anthony; but now it is a
seedy place. The houses have a forlorn look, and the three hundred
Irish and Germans that make up the bulk of the population are not of
the class that lay the foundations of empires, or make the wilderness
bud and blossom with roses; they take life easy, and let to-day wait on
to-morrow.
Fort Snelling, admirably located, looms grandly above the high steep
bluff of the northern bank of the Minnesota River. It was one of the
strongest posts on the frontier, but it is as useless now as a last
year's swallow's-nest. The frontier is three hundred miles farther on.
Upon the early maps of Minnesota I find a magnificent city occupying
the surrounding ground. It was surveyed and plotted, but St. Paul and
Minneapolis got ahead, and the city of Snelling has no place in history.
We approach St. Paul from the south. Stepping from the cars we find
ourselves on the lowlands of the Mississippi, with a high bluff south
of us, and another on the north bank, both rising perpendicularly from
the river. We ride over a long wooden bridge, one end of which rests
on the low land by the railroad station, and the other on the high
northern bluff, so that the structure is inclined at an angle of about
twenty degrees, like the driveway to a New England barn where the floor
is nearly up to the high beams. We are in a city which in 1849, twenty
years ago, had a population of eight hundred and forty, but which now
has an estimated population of twenty-five thousand. Here that powerful
tribe of Northern Indians, the Dakotas, had their capital,--a cave
in the sandstone bluffs, which was the council-chamber of the tribe.
Upon the bluff now stands the capital of the State, and the sanguine
citizens believe that the city is to be the commercial metropolis of
the Northwest. A few months ago I was on the other side of the globe,
where civilization is at a stand-still; where communities exist, but
scarcely change; where decay is quite as probable as growth; where
advancement is the exception, and not the rule. To ride through the
streets of St. Paul; to behold its spacious warehouses, its elegant
edifices, stores piled with the goods of all lands, the products of all
climes,--furs from Hudson Bay, oranges from Messina, teas from China,
coffee from Brazil, silks from Paris, and all the products of industry
from our own land; to behold the streets alive with people, crowded
with farmers' wagons laden with wheat and flour; to read the signs,
"Young Men's Christian Association," "St. Paul Library Association"; to
see elegant school-edifices and churches, beautiful private residences
surrounded by lawns and adorned with works of art,--to see this in
contrast with what we have so lately witnessed, and to think that
this is the development of American civilization, going on now as
never before, and destined to continue till all this wide region is
to be thus dotted over with centres of influence and power, sends an
indescribable thrill through our veins. It is not merely that we are
Americans, but because in this land Christian civilization is attaining
the highest development of all time. The people of St. Paul may justly
take pride in what they have already accomplished, and they also have
reason to look forward with confidence to the future.
The county is quite small, containing only four and a half townships.
The soil is poor, a sandy loam, of not much account for farming
purposes, but being at the head of steamboat navigation a good start
was obtained; and now that railroads are superseding steamboats, St.
Paul reaches out her iron arms in every direction,--up the Mississippi
to St. Cloud, westward through Minneapolis to the Red River of the
North, southwest to touch the Missouri at Sioux City, due south over
the line by which we reached the city, down the river towards Chicago,
and northeast to Lake Superior. As a spider extends its threads, so
St. Paul, or perhaps, more properly speaking, St. Paul and Minneapolis
together, are throwing out their lines of communication, making
themselves the centre of the great Northwest systems of railways.
The interests of St. Paul are mercantile, those of Minneapolis
manufacturing. They are nearly five hundred miles distant from
Chicago,--far enough to be an independent commercial, manufacturing,
and distributing centre. That such is to be their destiny cannot be
doubted.
The outfit of our party had been prepared at Minneapolis; and a large
number of gentlemen from that city made their appearance at St. Paul,
to convey us to the town in their own private carriages.
It is a charming ride that we have along the eastern bank of the
Mississippi, which pours its mighty flood,--mighty even here, though
so far away from the sea,--rolling and thundering far below us in the
chasm which it has worn in the solid rock.
On our right hand are fields of waving grain, and white cottages half
hidden in groves of oak and maple. We see New England thrift and
enterprise, for the six States east of the Hudson have been sending
their wide-awake sons and daughters to this section for the last
twenty years. The gentleman with whom we are riding came here from
the woods of Maine, a lumberman from the Penobscot, and has been the
architect of his own fortune. He knows all about the Upper Mississippi,
its tributaries, and the chain of lakes lying northwest of Lake
Superior. He is Mayor of Minneapolis, a substantial citizen, his hand
ready for every good work,--for the building of schools and churches,
for charity and benevolence; but on the Upper Mississippi he wears a
red shirt, eats pork and beans, and sleeps on pine boughs. He directs
the labor of hundreds of wood-choppers and raftsmen.
How different this from what we see in other lands! I find my pen
runs on contrasts. How can one help it after seeing that gorgeous
and lumbering old carriage in which the Lord Mayor of London rides
from Guildhall to Westminster? The Lord Mayor himself appears in a
scarlet cloak not half so becoming as a red shirt. He wears a massive
gold chain, and a hat which would be most in place on the stage of a
theatre, and which would make him a guy in any American town. Not so
do the Lord Mayors of the Northwest appear in public. They understand
practical life. It is one of the characteristics of our democratic
government that it makes people practical in all things.
In 1865 the town of Minneapolis contained only 4,607 inhabitants, but
the population by the census of the present year is 13,080.
The fall in the river at this point is sixty-four feet, furnishing
120,000 horse-power,--more than sufficient to drive every mill-wheel
and factory in New England, and, according to Wheelock's Report,
greater than the whole motive-power--steam and water--employed in
textile manufactures in England in 1850. Thirteen flouring-mills,
fourteen saw-mills, two woollen-mills, and two paper-mills, are already
erected. Six million dollars have been invested in manufacturing at
this point. The only difficulty to be encountered is the preservation
of the falls in their present position. Beneath the slate rock over
which the torrent pours is a strata of soft sandstone, which rapidly
wears away. Measures have been taken, however, to preserve the cataract
in its present condition, by constructing an apron to carry the water
some distance beyond the verge of the fall and thus prevent the
breaking away of the rock.
No one can behold the natural advantages at Minneapolis without coming
to the conclusion that it is to be one of the great manufacturing
cities of the world if the fall can be kept in its present position.
Cotton can be loaded upon steamers at Memphis, and discharged at St.
Paul. The climate here is exceedingly favorable for the manufacturing
of cotton goods. The lumber-mills by and by will give place to other
manufactures, and Minneapolis will rank with Lowell or Fall River.
Our ride brings us to St. Anthony on the east bank of the river, where
we behold the Mississippi roaring and tumbling over the slate-stone
ledges, and hear the buzzing and humming of the machinery in the
saw-mills.
St. Anthony was one of the earliest-settled towns in the State. Its
projectors were Southern men. Streets were laid out, stores erected,
a great hotel built, and extravagant prices asked for land, but
the owners of Minneapolis offered lots at cheaper rates, and found
purchasers. The war came on, and the proprietors of St. Anthony being
largely from the South, the place ceased to grow, while its rival on
the western shore moved steadily onward in a prosperous career. But
St. Anthony is again advancing, for many gentlemen doing business
in Minneapolis reside there. The interests of the two places are
identical, and will advance together.
How can one describe what is indescribable? I can only speak of this
city as situated on a beautiful plain, with the Mississippi thundering
over a cataract with a power sufficient to build up half a dozen
Lowells; with a country behind it where every acre of land as far as
the eye can see, and a hundred or a thousand times farther, is capable
of cultivation and of supporting a population as dense as that of
Belgium or China. Wide streets, costly school-houses, church spires,
a community in which the New England element largely predominates,--a
city where every other door does not open to a lager-beer saloon, as
in some Western towns; where the sound of the saw and the hammer, and
the click of the mason's trowel and sledge, are heard from morning
till night; where the streets are filled with wagons from the country,
bringing in grain and carrying back lumber, with the farmer, his wife
and buxom daughter, and tow-headed, bright-faced little boys perched on
top--such are the characteristics of Minneapolis.
There was a time when Pegasus was put in harness, and the ancients,
according to fable, tried to put Hercules to work. If those days of
classic story have gone by, better ones have come, for the people of
Minneapolis have got the Father of Waters in harness. He is cutting
out one hundred million feet of lumber per annum here. I can hear him
spinning his saws. He is turning a score of mill-stones, and setting
a million or two of spindles in motion, and pretty soon some of the
citizens intend to set him to weaving bags and cloth by the hundred
thousand yards! Only a tithe of his strength is yet laid out. These
men, reared in the East, and developed in the West, will make the
old Father work for them henceforth. He will not be allowed to idle
away his time by leaping and laughing year in and year out over yonder
cataract. He must work for the good of the human race. They will use
him for the building of a great mart of industry,--for the erection of
houses and homes, the abodes of comfort and happiness and of joyful and
peaceful life.