Chapter VIII: Part 8

The first winter in our new home was a severe one. For three weeks the cold was very intense, and what was known as three "dog moons" at night and three "dog suns" during the day heralded the cold weather, the moon and sun being circled with these halos for the entire three weeks. Provisions began to run low. The prices were very high and Mr. Jones went to St. Paul to lay in a stock of provisions. Among other things he brought home sixty barrels of flour and eight barrels of salt. The superfine flour was $16 a barrel and the second grade $13. The provisions were brought by boat to Kasota, where they were stranded in the sand and were brought the rest of the way by team. There was also a barrel of sugar and one of apples. Sugar in those days sold at the rate of six pounds for $1.00.

The families used this flour until they raised their own wheat and after that they used graham flour. The Jones' planted five acres to wheat the following spring.

Mrs. Clark Keysor.

After my husband had enlisted and went to Fort Snelling, I was quite timid about staying alone and got a neighbor girl to stay with me. The third night I thought I might as well stay alone. That night a rap came at the door. A neighbor was there and wanted to know if Mr. Keysor had a gun. He said the Indians had broken out and they wanted to get all the guns they could. Of course we were paralyzed with fear. From that on the trouble began.

As soon as the rumor reached Fort Snelling my husband's company was sent back. On the day they arrived I got a good dinner for them. I knew they would be tired and when he arrived he looked worn and haggard, having marched all the way from Fort Snelling to Mankato. We could not eat much dinner, we were so excited. He left right away for the frontier. The last thing he told me before he went away was, "Fight 'til you die, never be taken prisoner."

The bluest day of all was one Sunday. Everyone who could get away was packing up. Women and children were walking the streets and crying. They expected the Sioux to start from Fort Ridgely to kill all the whites, but when they got to Birch Coolie where the Winnebagoes were to join them, the Indians found a barrel of whiskey there. They became intoxicated and had a big fight, so they did not come to Mankato. That was one time when whiskey served a good purpose.

One night not very long after the Indians broke out, there were four of our neighbors' families came into our house, as they felt safer together. There were twelve children in the house. About midnight we heard the town bell begin to ring and one of the women got up and went to the door to see what the trouble was. When she opened the door, she saw a fire, which was Seward's Mill, but she cried out, "The Indians have come, the town is all on fire." The children began screaming and we were all nearly frightened to death but it proved it wasn't Indians at all. Someone had set the mill on fire.

A few of the men who were left thought that we had better pack a few of our best things and go to Leeche's old stone building for protection. What few men there were could protect us better there than at different homes. This old building was three stories high. Some women were sick, some screaming. It was a scene of trouble and distress. It was the worst bedlam I ever got into.

Mr. Hoatling was then our best friend and helped me get my things over to this store building. We stayed one night. The cries of women in pain and fright were unbearable, so the next day I went back home thinking I would risk my chances there.

Judge Lorin Cray--1859.

While at St. Peter and in the early part of December, 1862 a few of us learned, by grapevine telegraph, late one afternoon, that an effort was to be made the following evening, by the citizens of Mankato, New Ulm and vicinity, to kill the Indian prisoners, three hundred and more then in camp at Mankato near the present site of Sibley Park. As no admission fee was to be charged the select few determined to be present at the entertainment. The headquarters of the blood-thirsty citizens was the old Mankato House located where the National Citizens Bank now stands, where liquid refreshments were being served liberally, without money and without price.

I have never seen a correct history of this fiasco in print. A very large crowd congregated there, and there seemed to be no great haste to march on the Indian camp. Several times starts were made by a squad of fifty or one hundred persons, who would proceed for a few hundred feet, and then halt and return for more refreshments.

Finally at nearly midnight the supply of refreshments must have been exhausted for the army moved. Several hundred citizens started south along Front Street for the Indian camp, straggling for a distance of several blocks. When the head of the column reached West Mankato it halted until the rear came up, and while a rambling discussion was going on as to what they should do and how they should do it, Capt. (since governor) Austin with his company of cavalry, surrounded the whole squad and ordered them to move on towards Colonel (since governor) Miller's headquarters, right at the Indian camp. They seemed reluctant to go, and refused to move. Capt. Austin ordered his men to close in, which they did--crowding the citizens and yet they refused to move. Finally Capt. Austin gave the command to "draw sabers" and when a hundred sabers came out in one movement, the army again moved on Colonel Miller's headquarters at the Indian camp.

The scene here was supremely ridiculous. Colonel Miller came out from his tent and spoke kindly to the citizens and asked why they were congregated in such large numbers. He finally ordered their release and suggested that they go home which they hastened to do.

The next morning these Indians were removed, under guard of all the troops in the city, to log barracks, which had been built for them on Front Street diagonally across the street from where the Saulpaugh now stands. The Indians remained in these barracks only about two weeks. They had been there but a short time when the officer of the day, making his morning inspection, which was very formal, thought that he saw a hatchet or knife under the blanket of one of the Indians. Without a change of countenance or a suspicious movement he proceeded with the inspection until it was completed, and retired from the barracks, and at once caused to be mustered around the barracks every soldier in the city with loaded guns and fixed bayonets. Then with a squad of soldiers he entered the barracks and searching every Indian, he secured a large number of hatchets, knives, clubs and other weapons. These weapons, it was learned had been gotten at the Winnebago agency about twelve miles away by several squaws, who prepared food for these Indians and who were allowed to go to the woods to gather wood for their fires. Immediately after this discovery the Indians who were under sentence of death were removed to a stone building near by where they were kept under heavy guard. A few days after this incident, Dec. 26, 1862, my company came from St. Peter to act as guard on one side of the scaffold at the execution of the thirty-eight Indians who were then hanged on what is now the southerly end of the grounds of the Chicago and Northwestern freight depot, in Mankato. A granite monument now marks the place.

Captain Clark Keysor.

I served as first Lieutenant, Co. E, 9th Minnesota of the frontier extending from Fort Ridgely through the settlement at Hutchinson, Long Lake and Pipe Lake. At the latter place we built a sod fort and I was in charge. Mounted couriers, usually three in number, traveling together, reported daily at these forts. I was stationed along the frontier for more than a year and we had many encounters with the Indians, and I soon learned that a white man with the best rifle to be bought in those days had a poor chance for his life when he had to contend with an Indian with a double barrel shot gun.

The Indian, with one lightning like movement throws a hand full of mixed powder and shot into his gun, loading both barrels at once and takes a shot at his enemy before the white man can turn around, and when the Indian is running to escape, he jumps first to this side and then to that, never in a straight line, and it is an expert marksman, indeed, who can hit him.

I worked on the Winnebago agency as carpenter and millwright and learned to know the habits of the Indians very well. I learned to follow a trail and later during the Indian trouble that knowledge came in very handy.

It is very easy for a white man to fall into the habits of the Indian, but almost impossible to raise the Indian to the standard of the white man. The head chief of the Winnebagoes was well known to me, and we became fast friends. He was a friendly man to all the settlers, but I knew the characteristics of the Indian well enough to trust none of them. He never overcomes the cunning and trickery in his nature and I learned to know that when he seemed most amiable and ingratiating was the time to look out for some deviltry. The Indians were great gamblers, the squaws especially. They would gamble away everything they owned, stopping only at the short cotton skirt they wore.

"Crazy Jane" was an educated squaw and could talk as good English as any of us. She was very peculiar and one of the funny things she did was to ride her Indian pony, muffled up in a heavy wool blanket carrying a parasol over her head. She had the habit of dropping in to visit the wives of the settlers and would frequently; on these visits, wash her stockings and put them on again without drying. One day when we were living at the agency I came home and found my wife in a great fright. Our little three year old girl was missing. She had looked everywhere but could not find her. I ran to the agency buildings nearby, but no one had seen her. They were digging a deep well near our house and I had not dared to look there before, but now I must and after peering down into the depths of the muddy water and not finding her, I looked up and saw Crazy Jane coming towards me with a strange looking papoose on her back. When she came nearer I found it was my child. I snatched the little girl away from her. She said she was passing by and saw the child playing outside the door and had carried her away on her back to her tepee, where she had kept her for several hours but had meant no harm.

We were ordered to New Ulm after the outbreak. We found the place deserted. The doors had been left unlocked and everyone had fled for their lives. The desk and stamps from the postoffice were in the street and all the stores were open. I put out scouting parties from there and we stood guard all night. After two or three days a few came back to claim their property. They had to prove their claim before I would allow them to take charge again. Uncle "Tommy" Ireland came to us a few days after we arrived there. He was the most distressed looking man I ever saw in my life. He had been hiding in the swamps for seven days and nights. He had lain in water in the deep grass. When we examined him, we found seventeen bullet holes where he had been shot by the Indians. He told me about falling in with Mrs. Eastlake and her three children.

They had all come from Lake Shetek. The settlement there comprised about forty-five people. They had been attacked by the Indians under Lean Bear and eight of his band, and the bands of White Lodge and Sleepy Eye, although Sleepy Eye himself died before the massacre.

Many of the settlers knew the Indians quite well and had treated them with great kindness. Mr. Ireland and his family were with the rest of the settlers when they were overtaken by the Indians. Mrs. Ireland, Mr. Eastlake and two of his children, were among the killed. Mrs. Eastlake was severely wounded, and wandered for three days and nights on the prairie searching for her two children, hoping they might have escaped from the slough where the others met their death. Finally on the way to New Ulm she overtook her old neighbor, Mr. Ireland, whom she supposed killed, as she had last seen him in the slough pierced with bullets, but he had revived and managed to crawl thus far, though in a sorry plight. From him she received the first tidings from her two missing children. Later on when she found her children, they were so worn by their suffering she could hardly recognize them. The eldest boy, eleven years old had carried his little brother, fifteen months old on his back for fifty miles. All the baby had to eat was a little piece of cheese which the older boy happened to have in his pocket. When within thirty miles from New Ulm they found the deserted cabin of J. F. Brown in Brown County, where Mrs. Eastlake and children, a Mrs. Hurd and her two children, and Mr. Ireland lived for two weeks on raw corn, the only food they could find. They dared not make a fire for fear the Indians would see the smoke. Mr. Ireland had been so badly injured that he had not been able to leave the cabin to get help, but finally was forced by the extreme need of the women and children to start for New Ulm. He fell in with a priest on the way, and together they came to our headquarters and told their story. We started at four o'clock next morning, with a company of soldiers and a wagon with a bed for the injured women. When we reached the cabin the women were terribly frightened and thought it was the Indians after them again. On our return to New Ulm we took a different turn in the road. It was just as near and much safer. One of our men, Joe Gilfillan had not had his horse saddled when the rest started and when he came to the fork in the road, he took the one he had come by and was killed by the Indians. Undoubtedly we would have met the same fate had we taken that road as the Indians were on our trail and were in ambush waiting for our return. However, we got safely back to New Ulm and later Mrs. Eastlake and her children and Mr. Ireland came to Mankato where they were cared for with the other refugees. The sufferings and hardships endured by the older Eastlake boy soon carried him to an untimely grave.

COLONIAL CHAPTER

Minneapolis

CARRIE SECOMBE CHATFIELD

(Mrs. E. C. Chatfield)

RUTH HALL VAN SANT

(Mrs. S. R. Van Sant)

Miss Carrie Stratton--1852.

My father was Levi W. Stratton who was born in Bradford, N. H., who came to St. Croix valley in 1838, taking up a claim where Marine now stands.

He helped to build the old mill there, the ruins of which are still to be found there. After two or three years he removed to Alton, Ill., where he remained for ten or twelve years marrying my mother there in 1842.

In 1852 he returned to Minnesota, coming up the river in the old "War Eagle." His family consisted of my mother, myself and my four brothers and sisters, the youngest an infant of six months.

We arrived at St. Paul on June 8. Being a child of but seven years, my memory of the appearance of the town at that time, is very indistinct. In fact the only clear remembrance of anything there, is of a large sign upon a building directly across the street from the little inn or tavern where we stopped for the night. It was "Minnesota Outfitting Company." On account of our large family of little children, I had been put into school when I was between two and three years of age and so was able to read, write and spell, and I have a very vivid recollection of the three long words of that sign.

We came from St. Paul to St. Anthony in the stage of the Willoughby Company, which was the first stage line in Minnesota. The driver stopped to water his horses at the famous old Des Noyer "Half Way House."

We stopped at the old St. Charles Hotel while the house my father had engaged was made ready for us. It was the Calvin Tuttle home, which was on the river bank at the foot of the University hill.

My father's previous residence in Minnesota had taught him to understand and speak the Indian language and so the Indians were frequent visitors at our house on one errand or another, generally, however to get something to eat. The first time they came, my father was absent, and my mother, never having seen any Indians before, was very much frightened. Not being able to understand what they wanted, she imagined with a mother's solicitude, that they wanted the baby, and being actually too terrified to stand any longer, she took the baby and went into her room and laid down upon the bed. After a while, either from intuition, or from the motions the Indians made, it occurred to her to give them something to eat, which was what they wanted and they then went peaceably away. The rest of the children, like myself, did not appear to be at all frightened, but instead, were very much entertained by the novel sight of the Indians in their gay blankets and feathered head dress. After that they were frequent visitors but always peaceable ones, never committing any misdemeanor.

One of the earliest diversions I can remember was going up University hill to the old Cheever tower and climbing to the top, in accordance to the mandate at the bottom, to "Pay your Dime and Climb," to get the magnificent view of the surrounding country, which included that of the great falls in their pristine glory. I can remember too, like all the others here who were children at that time, the stupendous roar of the falls, which was constantly in our ears especially if we were awake at night, when every other noise was stilled.

In the fall of that first year, I entered school, which was an academy in a building on University Avenue opposite the present East High School. This school was the nucleus of the State University and was presided over by Mr. E. W. Merrill, who was afterward a Congregational minister and home missionary.

After two or three years we moved into the home of the Rev. Mr. Seth Barnes above Central Avenue, and between Main and Second streets. Here my father cultivated a fine garden which included, besides corn, beans and other usual vegetables, some fine sweet potatoes, which were quite a novelty in the town at that time.

Mr. Irving A. Dunsmoor--1853.

In 1852 on account of poor health, my father resolved to come to Minnesota and become a farmer, and in the fall of that year, he set out with his family, consisting of my mother, myself and my three brothers.

We arrived at Galena, Ill., only to find that the last boat of the season had gone up the river the day before. So my father left us there for the winter and came up by the stage.

The end of his journey found him in the little town of Harmony, which was afterwards changed to Richfield, and is now within the city limits of Minneapolis.

Here he was able to buy for $100 a claim of two hundred and sixty acres, with a house upon it, which was only partly finished, being, however entirely enclosed. This particular claim attracted his attention on account of the house, as his family was so soon to follow. It began at what is now Fiftieth street and Lyndale Avenue and continued out Lyndale three quarters of a mile. The house (with some addition) is still standing on Lyndale Avenue between Fifty Third and Fifty Fourth streets. Minnehaha creek ran through the farm and the land on the north side of the creek (part of which is now in Washburn Park) was fine wooded land.

When the first boat came up the river in the spring it brought my mother and us boys. My father had sent us word to come up to Fort Snelling on the boat, but we had not received the message and so got off at St. Paul and came up to St. Anthony by stage and got a team to take us to our new home. We found it empty, as my father and an uncle who was also here, had gone to the fort to meet us. As we went into one of the back rooms, a very strange sight met our eyes. My father and uncle had set a fish trap in the creek the night before and had poured the results of their catch in a heap on the floor and there was such a quantity of fish that it looked like a small haycock. This was done for a surprise for us, and as such, was a great success, as we were only accustomed to the very small fish that lived in the creek that ran through our home town in Maine, and these long pickerel and large suckers were certainly a novelty.

We salted them down and packed them in barrels and for a long time had plenty of fish to eat, to sell and to give away.

Our house soon took on the character of a public building, as my father was made Postmaster, Town Treasurer and Justice of the Peace, and all the town meetings were held there, as well as church and Sunday school. My father gave five acres down at the creek to a company who erected a grist mill and the settlers from fifty or sixty miles away would come to have grain ground and would all stop at our house to board and sleep while there. Then the house would be so full that we boys would have to sleep on the floor, or out in the barn or anywhere else we could find a place.

During our first winter, a party of about fifty Sioux Indians came and camped in our woods just west of where the Washburn Park water tower now stands. They put up about twenty tepees, made partly of skins and partly of canvas. We boys would often go in the evening to visit them and watch them make moccasins, which we would buy of them. They would often come to our house to beg for food, but in all the time they remained there (nearly the whole winter) they committed no depredations, except that they cut down a great deal of our fine timber, and killed a great quantity of game, so that when they wanted to come back the next winter, father would not allow it.

Once after they had gone away, they came back through the farm and went off somewhere north of us, where they had a battle with the Chippewas. When they returned, they brought two scalps and held a "pow-wow" on the side of our hill.

We had a great deal of small game in our woods, and great quantities of fish in the creek. We used to spear the fish and sometimes would get two upon our spears at once.

My mother was very fond of dandelion greens, and missed them very much, as she could find none growing about our place. So she sent back to Maine for seed and planted them. But I hardly think that the great quantities we have now are the result of that one importation.

After a few years we had a school at Wood Lake, which is down Lyndale avenue two or three miles.

Mrs. Mary Pribble--1854.

My father, Hiram Smith arrived in Minnesota Apr. 21, 1854 settling first in Brooklyn, Hennepin County. My mother followed in July of the same year, with the family of three children, myself, aged seven, and two brothers aged two and five years. We arrived in St. Paul July ninth and my mother, with her usual forethought and thrift, (realizing that before long navigation would close for the winter and shut off all source of supplies) laid in a supply of provisions while we were in St. Paul. Among other things she bought a bag of rice flour which was all the flour in our colony until April of the next year.

We came by stage to Anoka and were to cross the Mississippi river in a canoe, to the trading post of Mr. Miles, which was on a high point of land in what is now Champlin. It was where Elm creek empties into the Mississippi. But the canoe was too small to carry us all at once and so I was left on the east shore sitting upon our baggage, to wait for a return trip. When I finally arrived across the river, there were Indians gathered at the landing and they touched me on the cheek and called me "heap pale face."

There was great joy in our little colony when that same autumn my father discovered a fine cranberry marsh. Much picnicking and picking followed. My parents secured seven bushel and alloted very much on the winter supplies that these cranberries would buy when they could send them to St. Paul, our only market.

Soon one of the neighbors prepared to set out on a trip by ox-team to St. Paul. The only road at that time was by the Indian trail, which for several miles was where the county road now leads from Robbinsdale to Champlin. Then to the ferry at St. Anthony Falls, and so on down the east side of the river to St. Paul.

My mother had made out a careful list of the real necessities to be purchased, putting them in the order of the need for them, in case he would not be able to buy them all.

She knew very well that there would be no possible way to purchase any new clothing all winter and so the first items on the list were: new cloth for patches and thread to sew them with. This latter came in "hanks" then, instead of on spools.

After that came the list of provisions, as seven bushels of cranberries were expected to buy a great many supplies. How well I remember the joy upon my mother's face, when those precious cranberries were loaded on the neighbor's already full wagon and the oxen slowly disappeared down the old trail! It was a long tedious journey to be made in that way, and they had many days to wait before they would receive the fruits of that wonderful wagon load.

Finally the neighbor was back, and came to my mother and said: "Thee will be disappointed when I tell thee that the last boat left for St. Louis the day before I arrived in St. Paul. There is not a yard of cloth or a hank of thread in the town, and I could only get thee three brooms for thy fine cranberries."

The next spring my father made maple sugar and was able to buy a cow and six hens from a man who came overland from southern Illinois, driving several cows and bringing a box of hens, and so we began to live more comfortably.

In 1856 many people came, and by that time we had school, church and Sunday school and a lyceum, the pleasures of which I can never forget. We also had a portable sawmill.

I think it was in the winter of 1855 that an agent, a real live agent, appeared in our midst to tell us of the remarkable qualities of a new oil called kerosene. He said if he could be sure of the sale of a barrel, it would be brought to St. Paul and delivered to any address on or before Aug. 15. I have the lamp now, in which part of that first barrel was burned.

Mrs. Edmund Kimball--1855.

My father, Freeman James, left his home in New York state and came to Hasson, Minn., in 1854. The next year he decided to go after his family and so wrote my mother to be ready to start in August. My mother got everything in readiness to start, but for some reason my father was delayed in getting back home, and my mother, thinking that she had misunderstood his plans in some way, decided to start anyway, and so she loaded our belongings on the wagon and we started alone. I was only eleven years old, and well I remember how great an undertaking it seemed to me to leave our pleasant home and all my playmates and start without father on such a long trip. But when we arrived at Dunkirk, where we took boat to cross Lake Erie, we found father, and so made our journey without mishap. We arrived by boat in St. Paul in August '55 and started at once for Hasson, stopping that first night at the home of Mr. Longfellow, at a place called Long Prairie. We were most cordially received and found other settlers stopping there for the night too, which made the house so crowded that they were obliged to make beds on the sitting room floor for all the children. After we were put in bed, still another traveler arrived, a man who was expecting his family and had come part way to meet them. Just for fun the family told him that his family had arrived and pointed to us children on the floor. He was overjoyed, and came and turned the covers down to see us. Only for a moment was he fooled but shook his head and said we were none of his.

I shall never forget the shock I felt at the first view I had of our new home. It was so different from what we had left behind, that to a child of my age, it seemed that it was more than I could possibly endure. It was growing dark and the little log cabin stood in the deep woods, and the grass was so long in the front yard, it seemed the most lonely place in the world. And dark as it was, and as long as I knew the way back to be, I was strongly tempted and half inclined to start right off to my dear old home. This was all going through my mind while I stopped outside to look around after the rest had gone in. When they had lighted one or two candles and I followed them in, the homesick feeling was increased by the new prospect. My father had evidently left in a great hurry for every dish in the house was piled dirty upon the table, and they were all heavy yellow ware, the like of which I had never seen before. The house had been closed so long that it was full of mice, and they ran scurrying over everything.

But there was much work to do before we could get the place in order to go to bed, and it fell to my lot to wash all those dishes, no small task for an eleven year old girl.

In the morning, when the house was in order and the sun was shining in, and we could see what father had done to make us comfortable, the place took on a very different aspect and soon became another dear home.

He had made every piece of the furniture himself. The bed was made of poles, with strips of bark in place of bedcords, the mattress was of husks and the pillows of cat-tail down. There were three straight chairs and a rocking chair with splint bottoms. The splints were made by peeling small ash poles and then pounding them for some time with some heavy instrument, when the wood would come off in thin layers. The floor was of split logs. Father had made some good cupboards for the kitchen things.

That first year mother was not well and young as I was, I was obliged to do a great deal of housework. I did the washing and made salt-rising bread. And one time I surprised the doctor who came to see mother by making him a very good mustard poultice.

Mr. Frank G. O'Brien--1856.

The Reason I did not Graduate.

In the winter of 1856-57 I worked for my board at the home of "Bill" Stevens, whose wife was a milliner--the shop, or store, was located a short distance below where the Pillsbury mill stands, on Main Street.

My duty while there this particular winter, was to take care of the house and chaperone Lola Stevens, the young daughter to the private school which was called the "Academy"--the same being the stepping stone to our great State University.

There were two departments up stairs and two below--hallway in the center and stairs leading from this hallway to the upper rooms. I do not recall who were the teachers in the primary department on the lower floor, but I do remember those on the floor above. Miss Stanton (later on the wife of D. S. B. Johnston) taught the girls in the east room and "Daddy" Roe the boys.

I was a pupil of Mr. Roe and Lola of Miss Stanton and were it not that I was wrongfully accused of making charcoal sketches on the wall of the hall, I might have been numbered among the charter members of the first graduating class of the Academy--the forerunner of the State University.

"Daddy" Roe informed the boys at recess time that he was going to flog the perpetrator of the act--yet, if they would own up, and take a basin of water and scrub same from the walls, he would spare the rod. The guilty one, no doubt, held his hand up and gained the attention of Mr. Roe, and stated that Frank O'Brien did it. I denied it, but it did not go--yet I being innocent, was determined I would not take the basin from the teacher's hand; but he forced same upon me and said if it was not washed off within half an hour, he would give me a severe flogging.

The threat did not prove effective, because I was so worked up over the affair that when I closed the door to enter the hall, I gave the basin and its contents a fling down stairs, the sound of which aroused all four of the departments, while I double quicked it for home--leaving Lola to reach home as best she could.

I explained matters to Mr. Stevens and had it not been for Mrs. Stevens and her sister, Miss Jackman, he would have proceeded at once to the school room and meted out the punishment on "Daddy" Roe which he intended for me.

Something to Crowe Over.

The little village of St. Anthony had good reason to become elated when the news spread up and down Main street and was heralded to St. Paul, that three "Crowes" had perched on the banner of our village during the early morning of June 26th, 1859, when Mrs. Isaac Crowe gave birth to three white Crowes, two girls and one boy. The father of these three birds--wingless, though fairest of the fair, was a prominent attorney of St. Anthony and one of its aldermen.

Bridge of Size (900 feet long.)

It was while our family resided on the picturesque spot overlooking St. Anthony's Falls in the year 1857, the "Howe Truss" passenger bridge was completed from the east to the west side of the Mississippi river, a short distance down the hill from the State University at a cost of $52,000.

All went well as a means of traffic and many a dollar was taken in for toll, but an evil time came to disturb conditions, owing to an over abundance of rain which came in torrents, which caused the river to rise to that extent that the logs which followed in the wake of the flood, acted as a battering ram and proved too much for the structure and great was the fall thereof. I among others of our family were witnesses of this event, which took place at eight o'clock on the morning of June first, 1859.

Mr. Michael Teeter--1857.

Tom and Bill were the first horses which came into Lyle township. They were fine powerful fellows and created much comment throughout that section of the country.

Some of my neighbors envied me my prize while others thought that a fool and his money had easily parted, for I had paid three hundred and forty dollars for them, and the best yoke of oxen in the country side could be bought for seventy. But I was well satisfied, for I was able to do my work and get about quickly. When haste was necessary, Bill and Tom were pressed into service.

I recall very well one dark rainy night when I was taking a neighbor to nurse a settler who lived at some distance to the west. So thick was the darkness that we could never have kept the trail had it not been for the flashes of vivid lightning. The horses showed so much intelligence through it all that I finally gave them the lines and they brought us safely to our destination.

New Year's day, '58 we took the ladies of Otranto village for a sleigh-ride--not on the snow, for the ground was bare--but on the Red Cedar river, which was frozen clear and smooth as glass. We fairly flew over the ice and the home-made sleigh swerved from side to side, as Bill and Tom took it upon themselves to show off their speed to friends who were in the habit of riding behind deliberate and stubborn oxen. Suddenly, without warning, the sleigh tipped and we found ourselves in a heap, and although there was much shouting and crying, no damage was done, and the little shaking up tended to make the day memorable.

Another incident that stands out vividly in my mind after all these years, has no amusing aspect. Late in the fall of '57 I found it necessary to make a trip to Decorah, Iowa, for supplies of various kinds. My absence from home was to be shorter than usual on such trips, for Bill and Tom had endurance as well as speed. All went well during the journey, and on my return I halted for supper at Little Cedar and hoped to reach home that evening. When I was ready to start, the tavern keeper told me that I had better stay the night, for a prairie fire was sweeping from the northwest. This was unwelcome news--but sure enough, the red light was very bright and growing more so all the time. I calculated the distance and decided to hasten on across the path of the fire before it reached the road, so I started. I had miscomputed both time and distance, so before I was aware of it, I found myself on a small knoll, with the fire directly in front and coming on at a great rate through the tall dry weeds and grasses. The horses snorted and shook their heads, but I urged them on. They plunged forward and in a very short time (although it seemed hours) we found ourselves out of the flames. We paused but a moment to rest, for the ground was very hot. The horses shook with, fright and their bodies were badly singed. We reached home in safety, and I think Bill and Tom were no less thankful than was I, to be out of the danger and discomfort of the situation.

In 1857 I moved from Decorah, Iowa, to Otranto on the state line. There I found a number of families living in rude houses which were a poor protection against the hard winters we had those early years. There was plenty of good timber along the Red Cedar river, but the settlers were farmers who had little or no experience in cutting and dressing logs and for that reason handled their few small tools to poor advantage. They were anxious, too, to be "breaking" the prairie so that a crop could be harvested that first year. So after all, these first houses were rather poor specimens of the joiner's craft. I was a carpenter and put up a rather more substantial house than the others, but none too comfortable during the winters that were to follow. The unbroken stretch of prairie to the north and west of Otranto gave those old "northwesters" a splendid sweep before they struck our frail little homes.

Fortunately there was plenty of fine wood, but the cracks were so numerous and large in our houses that we veritably warmed the outdoors in keeping ourselves warm. We chopped and sawed wood every spare moment in winter and summer in order to keep the booming fires which were necessary all winter long. We used to talk and think much of the settlers who were on the prairie who were so unsheltered and far from standing timber.

This "yarn" about one of them went the rounds and was enjoyed by all, for the "victim" was a merry fellow and always ready for a joke, no matter how great the privations and anxieties. The story runs thus: Jim sat before a fine fire washing his feet. Soothed by the warmth of the room and the water, he fell asleep to awaken suddenly toward morning with his feet nearly to his knees embedded in a solid cake of ice! We laughed at our hardships, for there was no escaping them, and we learned to turn them, as well as everything else we possessed, to some useful purpose.

Robes, buffalo coats, all available garments, were used during those first winters for bed-clothing. There was one flock of chickens in Otranto, but not until much later were flocks of ducks and geese raised so that feather pillows and beds could be used. Floor covering at first was uncommon, but finally rag carpets added to the comfort of the home during the winter.

Had food been abundant, or even sufficient, we would have felt less anxious, but with the winter hanging on far into the spring months, we had good reason to watch our stores carefully. Buckwheat ground in a coffee mill kept one family for two months in the winter of '57. Another neighbor's family subsisted upon musty corn meal, ground by revolving a cannon ball in the scooped out trunk of a tree. So long drawn out was the winter, that the amount of meal for each member of the family was carefully measured out each day. One family living near the river could get plenty of fish through the ice, but having no fat in which to fry them, were obliged to use them boiled. When their salt was exhausted, they ate the fish unflavored.

I possessed a good team of horses and made trips to Decorah for supplies. I went only when it was really necessary, for the journey was beset with many dangers and discomforts. Flour and salt pork were the foods purchased, which I sold to the other settlers in small quantities. Prairie chickens were abundant, and some of the pioneers tried drying the breasts and found that one way to provide meat for the winter.

In the winter of '56, there was a thick coating of ice over the snow, sufficiently strong to hold a man's weight, but the deers' legs cut through the crust. My neighbors told of how easily they were able to get plenty of venison without venturing far from home. Never did a settler dare to go far away to hunt during those first winters, for the dangers of being lost and frozen were very great. I have often heard the wish expressed that fresh meat could be had every winter, with as few risks as in that year before I moved to Otranto.

We all felt the lack of fruit, for all of us had come from districts where fruit was grown, so on festive days such as Thanksgiving and Christmas, we had dried wild crab-apples boiled up in soda water, then sweetened with molasses. We were all used to better than this, but we never complained and felt that better times were coming.

Mrs. W. L. Niemann.

My mother was Sophia Oakes. She was born in Sault Ste. Marie in 1823. She was the daughter of Charles Oakes who had charge of a trading post for the American Fur Company. Her mother died when she was a very small child and her father removed with his two children, my mother and her sister two years younger, to La Pointe, where he had charge of another post of the same company.

The winters there were very long and severely cold and many times they would be shut in by the depth of the snow for weeks at a time. One time in particular the snow was so deep and the cold so intense that they had been snowbound so long that their supplies were almost exhausted, and my grandfather sent the men off to get a fresh supply. They were gone much longer than usual and the little family began to suffer for want of food and were obliged to go out and scrape away the snow to find acorns. They also ate the bark of trees.

Finally my grandfather concluded that he, too, must start out to try and get some food. The windows of the cabin were covered in place of glass, with deerskins. In getting ready to leave the children, grandfather took down these skins and replaced them with blankets to keep out the cold and boiled the skins to provide a soup for the children to drink while he was gone. My mother was twelve and her sister was ten.

Grandfather had not gone far when his feet were both frozen and he lay disabled in the snow. Some men chanced along, and carried him to a house which was about a mile further along. When they reached the house he refused to be carried in, for he knew he would surely lose his feet if he went in where it was warm. He asked for an awl and punctured his feet full of holes and had the men pour them full of brandy. This, while it was excruciatingly painful, both at the time and afterwards, saved him his feet.

When he and his men returned to the cabin, he had been gone all day and all night and into the next afternoon, and they found the little girls locked in each other's arms fast asleep, having cried themselves to sleep the night before.

Soon after the little girls were sent to school back in New York and my mother stayed until her education was completed, graduating from a seminary in Fredonia.

On her return to her home, she was married to my father, Jeremiah Russell, who had come in 1837 to Fort Snelling on an exploring trip. He settled first at Edina Mills, but soon went to Marine, where with Franklin Steele and Levi Stratton he built a sawmill, (1838) the ruins of which can still be seen.

In '49 he went to take charge of a trading post for the American Fur Company which was located two miles above Sauk Rapids. After a few years he purchased the land where Sauk Rapids stands, laid out the town and moved down there, building a large hotel which was called the Hyperborean Hotel, which took a prominent part in the history of the town as it was the scene of many large gatherings. It served to shelter the townspeople when they were driven from home through fear of the Indian uprisings. Later it was remodeled by new owners and rechristened the Russell House in honor of my father.

One time, before I was born and while my parents still lived at the post, a band of warlike Indians, each armed with a gun came to the house and completely filled the kitchen. My brother, who was a very small child was attracted by the fire arms and went up to one of the Indians and put his hand on the gun. This angered the Indian and with a terrible scowl he put his finger on the trigger as if to shoot my brother. My father sprung up before him and with a very fierce voice (which was the only way to deal with them when they were unruly) ordered him to put down his gun. This he did but with bad grace. My father then spoke to the chief and told him to keep order, which he did, and they soon went away. But my father was sorry he did not keep them a little longer and give them up to the authorities, for he found, soon after, that they had killed and scalped three white men, just a short time before they came into our house.

At another time after we were living in Sauk Rapids, a Chippewa came and begged for shelter for the night. My father knew that there was a band of Sioux camped just across the river, in plain view of our house. So father surmised that this was a spy from the Chippewas. But he gave him permission to stay in the house, providing that he would not show himself outside, for it would enrage the Sioux against us if they knew we were harboring a Chippewa. The Indian promised, but very soon my sister who was playing outside, saw him raise the window and aim his gun across the river. She told my father, who went in and made him desist and nailed up the window. When we went to bed that night father did not take pains to lock the Indian in. After we were asleep he crept out and slipped away, and before morning, the Chippewas descended upon the sleeping Sioux and killed every one of them.

Christmas in those hard times did not mean to us little pioneer children what it does now. There was no spare money with which to buy presents. We always hung up our stockings, but got nothing in them but a little cheap candy, and perhaps a few raisins. But one year, father determined to give us and the other children of the village a little better Christmas than usual. So he went out to his woods and cut enough fire wood to exchange in St. Cloud for a barrel of apples. Then he divided off one end of our sitting room with a sheet and arranged a puppet show behind it. And with the village children in one end of the room eating apples, and father in the other managing the puppets, we celebrated the day in a very happy way.

Mrs. F. Hoefer of Mound was an old settler of Watertown, and gives some interesting information of the prices of food-stuffs after the war, as follows:

"Flour was $15 a barrel, wheat was $5 a bushel, potatoes were $2.50 a bushel and calico was thirty-five cents a yard. My husband's salary for that summer season was $5. During the winter months we had barley coffee and pancakes, no bed clothes and no clothes for the children. Our bed quilt was a bear skin. When my first child was six weeks old, I went out washing, walking twelve miles to my work, washing all day and then walking the twelve miles back home again."

Ex-Governor Samuel R. Van Sant--1857.

My father with his family moved to Illinois in 1837, coming on the "Adventure," on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Like most of the early pioneers he was poor and had to work. Tickets were sold at a less price if the passenger would help to wood the boat; my father took advantage of this proposition. On board as a passenger, was the old Indian Chief, Black Hawk. He was much interested in my little sister and gave her a very fine string of beads. The beads, or a part of them, are still in our family.