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.

Judge Thomas S. Buckham—1856.

In 1856 three or four hundred Indians on their way to the annual payment, camped in the woods between town and Cannon City. One evening we went, in a body, to visit them and were entertained by dancing. However, too much "fire water" caused some fear among the guests.

We had several courses of lectures during those early years. One year we had as lecturers, Wendell Phillips, Douglas, Beecher, Tilton and Emerson; following them came the Peake family, bell ringers and last of all, a sleight of hand performer from Mankato, Mr. Wheeler, who astonished his audience by swallowing a blunt sword twenty-two inches long.

At another time we had a home-made "lecture course" in which Mr. Cole, Mr. Batchelder, Judge Lowell, myself and others took part.

One of our first celebrations of the Fourth of July ended rather disastrously. We had planned a burlesque procession in which everybody was to take part. It started out fairly well. Dr. Jewett delivered an oration and Frank Nutting sang a song called "The Unfortunate Man," but the enthusiasm was shortly quenched by torrents of rain which in the end literally drove most of the participants to drink.

After the panic of 1857-8, I was sitting idly one day in front of my office on Main Street, as there was absolutely no law business. No other man was in sight, and there hadn't been a dollar seen in the town in months, except the "shin-plaster" issued by banks, which must be cashed on the instant lest the bank in question should fail over night. Suddenly I saw a stranger walking down the street, and as very few strangers had come to town of late, I watched him idly. As he came up he asked, "Young man, do you know of a good piece of land which can be bought?" I spoke of a farm south of town of which I had charge, which was for sale for $2100.00 or $12.50 an acre. He said, "I'll go and see it." Two or three hours later as I still sat dreaming, as there was no other business of any kind for any one to do, the man returned and after asking about the title of the land which its owner had pre-empted, said that he would think about it and went into the bank. Having made some inquiries as to my responsibility, he shortly reappeared with a bundle of greenbacks of small denominations and counted out the $2100.00. They were the first government bank notes I had ever seen and such a sum of money as had not been seen in Faribault in many months. My client then said, "Now young man, you'll see that land worth $25.00 an acre some day." Today it is part of the Weston farm and is valued at $150.00 an acre and is the nicest farm in the county.

The first political machine in the State was organized in Faribault the year Minnesota became a State. Five or six of us young men decided to put a little new life into politics and we prepared a slate. It was five or six against a hundred unorganized voters and we carried the caucus and were all sent as delegates to the Convention. Here also our modern method produced a revolution, but such a fight resulted that the Convention split and some of them went over to vote the Democratic ticket. However, we elected a fair proportion of our candidates and defeated those who had been holding the offices by force of habit.

Mrs. Rodney A. Mott—1857.

We came to Faribault, I think, the nicest and easiest way. We drove from Illinois in a covered immigrant wagon. At first we tried to find lodgings at night, but the poor accommodations and the unwillingness to take us in, led us at last to sleep in the wagon, and we came to prefer that way. After we got away from the really settled country, everyone welcomed us with open arms and gladly shared with us everything they had.

We came up through Medford. I begged to stay there, but Mr. Mott insisted on going to Faribault as they had planned. Our first house was a little cabin on the site of the present cathedral and later we lived in a house where the hay market now stands, but this was lost on a mortgage during the hard times in 1857.

Mrs. Kate Davis Batchelder—1858.

As Kate Davis, a girl of ten, I came with my brother, a lad of eighteen and a sister fourteen, from New York to Wisconsin. Our father was in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, where his business as a millwright had called him, and it was thought best to have us go out to be with him. We came in a wagon drawn by a team of spirited horses. We came over the thousand miles between New York and Wisconsin, fording unfamiliar rivers, stopping in strange cities, through prairie and forest, with only rough wild roads at best, never doubting our ability to find our father at our journey's end and perhaps because of that unquestioning faith, we did find him. What a journey to remember. We camped in Chicago when it was no larger than Faribault is now, on the spot near the Lake front where the Congress Hotel now houses the most exclusive of Chicago's mob of humanity. Milwaukee as we passed through it was a tiny hamlet.

When I went to visit my brother who had taken the farm on the east shore of Cannon Lake, I made the trip to Hastings in a boat, and from there in a wagon. As we were driving along, I saw coming towards us, three figures which instinct told me were Indians. On coming nearer, I saw each of them had scalps dripping with blood, hanging to his belt. They reassured me by telling me they were only Indian scalps.

Mr. Berry, afterward a Judge on the Supreme Bench, started out on foot from Janesville, Wisconsin with Mr. Batchelder and after prospecting around and visiting St. Paul, Shakopee, Mankato, Cannon Falls and Zumbrota, they finally walked in here. Fifty years afterwards Mr. Batchelder went out to Cannon Lake and walked into town over the same road that he had come over as a young man, and he said that while, of course, the buildings had changed things somewhat, on the whole it looked surprisingly as it had the first time he passed over it. Mr. Berry and Mr. Batchelder opened a law office in a little one story frame building in the back of which they slept. While coming into town, they had met O. F. Perkins, who had opened a law office, and business not being very brisk, he had turned a rather unskillful hand to raising potatoes. At $2.50 a bushel he managed to do well enough and eked out his scanty income from the law. It was while he was carrying the potatoes to plant that he met Mr. Berry and Mr. Batchelder and having become friends, they all, together with Mr. Randall and Mr. Perkins' brother, started bachelor's hall back of Mr. Perkins' office, where they took turns cooking and washing dishes. I have heard Mr. Batchelder say that "hasty pudding" or what we call corn meal mush, was his specialty and I believe, partly in recollection of those old days when lack of materials as well as unskillful cooks compelled the frequent appearance of this questionable dainty, partly perhaps, because he had learned to like it, "hasty pudding" was served Monday on his table for all the later years of his life.

During one winter I attended several dances in a rude hall whose walls were lined with benches of rough boards with the result that my black satin dress was so full of slivers that it took all my time to pick the slivers out.

We always wore hoops and mine were of black whalebone, covered with white cloth. One day, when at my brother's house, my hoop skirt had been washed and was hanging to dry behind the stove and I was in the little bedroom in the loft. My sister called to me that some young men were coming to call and I was forced to come down the ladder from the loft, to my great mortification without my hoops. There they hung in plain sight all during that call.

At Cannon Lake, near my brother's cabin was a place where the Indians had their war dances. One night after we had gone to bed in the little loft over the one down stairs room, I was awakened by my brother's voice in altercation with some Indians. It seemed the latch-string, the primitive lock of the log cabin had been left out and these Indians came in. They wanted my brother to hide them as they had quarreled with the other Indians. This he refused to do and drove them out. The next morning the tribe came by dragging the bodies of those two Indians. They had been caught just after leaving the house. The bodies were tied over poles with the heads, arms and legs trailing in the dust.

Mrs. John C. Turner.

The Nutting Hotel was the scene of many a dance when settlers came from miles around to take part in quadrilles and reels to the music of violin. We used to bring an extra gown so that after midnight we might change to a fresh one, for these dances lasted till daylight.

When sliding down the hill where St. James School now stands, it was rather exciting to be upset by barricades erected near the foot by mischievous Indian boys, who greeted the accident with hoots of joy.



JOSIAH EDSON CHAPTER

Northfield

EMILY SARGENT BIERMAN

(Mrs. C. A. Bierman)

Mr. C. H. Watson—1855.

One hundred and fifty soldiers were sent out from Fort Ridgely in 1862 to bury those in the country around who had been massacred by the Indians. I was acting as picket out of Fort Ridgely and was first to hear the firing sixteen miles distant at Birch Coolie. It was the Indians attacking the burial party. I notified those at the fort and a party was sent out for relief. As they neared Birch Coolie they found they were outnumbered by the savages and Lieut. Sheehan returned to Fort Ridgely for the rest of the regiment. Then I accompanied them. They finally came to the small band of soldiers, who had been attacked by the Indians, to find twenty-three dead, and forty-five wounded out of the one hundred and fifty-three men. The soldiers horses had been tied close together to a rope to feed. There many of them had been shot, and being so close together many were still standing, or had fallen down on their knees—dead, but they served as a breast-work for the men. The twenty-three soldiers were buried on the spot and the wounded taken to Fort Ridgely.

I was also at Camp Release, under command of Gen. Sibley, where a great many Indians were taken prisoners. These Indians had killed many whites, and had some sixty women and children, prisoners. The soldiers managed to secure the Indians' guns and then released the women and children, finally taking the Indians prisoners, placing them in a log house, where they were carefully guarded. These, together with others secured at Yellow Medicine were chained together and taken to Mankato, where, in December, thirty-eight were hanged.

The Old Trail afterward Stage Coach road, known as the Hastings-Faribault Trail, passed through Northfield along what is now Division Street. Going north it followed the Stanton road. At the entrance of Mr. Olin's farm it passed along in front of the house—and along through his pasture—east of the pond—on down onto Mr. Alexander's land—following between two rows of trees, still standing, and crossed the Cannon river just above where the Waterford dam now stands. Thence along what is still known as the Hastings road. Through Mr. Olin's pasture there is still about fifteen or twenty rods of the Old Trail and road left.

Mrs. Augusta Prehn Bierman.

In the spring of '55 several of us German families, consisting of the Prehn's, Bierman's, Drentlaws and Sumner's, came to Minnesota from a settlement fifteen miles west of Chicago. We settled on claims near the present city of Northfield. We were on the way eleven and one-half weeks. We came by way of Joliet, forded the river at La Crosse and came up here by way of Rochester and Kenyon. We carried enough provisions with us to last most of the trip. We had some sixteen yoke of oxen, many cows, calves, and six colts. We slept in the wagons and we baked bread in iron kettles by burying them in hot ashes.

Our first home and the Prehn's was built in this way: We dug down in the earth four feet, very much as we would today for a cellar, but into a side hill. Above these four feet, logs were built up, plastered together with mud. For a roof, logs and branches of trees were placed across the side walls and then plastered together with mud.

Coming up through Kenyon we saw many Indians camping along the road. The colts and oxen were deathly afraid of them and would turn way out of the road when passing, keeping just as far away as possible.

Among the earliest marriages recorded in Rice county is that of William Bierman and Augusta Prehn 1857.

Mrs. Ann Alexander.

My husband with his father and a brother, Jonas, came in '54 and took up claims adjoining the present site of Northfield. They drove two ox teams and brought cattle, a couple of sheep and some pigs.

My husband's parents kept boarders and had some sixteen or eighteen all of the time and each day brought many extra from the stage coaches plying between here and Hastings and here and St. Paul.

Every mouthful of food consumed that first year was brought from Hastings, twenty-eight miles away, and it kept one man and an ox team on the road all the time.

Pork was purchased by the barrel and it would seldom last a week.

By the following spring, '55, when I was married and came to Minnesota some of the land had been broken, so small gardens were planted and potatoes and other vegetables raised. I believe it was about the time of the civil war that butter sold as low as 5c a pound and eggs 3c a dozen.

In these early days the Indians received annuities at Red Wing and on their yearly pilgrimages they would often camp in this vicinity as long as five or six weeks. The chiefs spent their time in hunting and fishing. The west side of the river was then not settled at all and there they had their camps. The squaws would come to the settler's homes, set their papooses up against the side of the house and walk into the house to beg. I have seen the large living room of mother's boarding house lined with Indians, smoking one pipe—each man taking a few puffs and then passing the pipe along. In those days the mosquitoes were very thick and if anyone was out doors they would literally be eaten alive. Mother's boarding house would be filled and people would be begging to be allowed to come and sleep under the tables—anything to get in away from the pests.

Mr. J. W. Huckins.

I enlisted from Minneapolis in Captain Strout's company which was sent to guard the frontier at the time of the Indian outbreak. We went up the Mississippi, then west to Litchfield, then to Glencoe and Hutchinson and were finally at Acton, where the first blow fell. The place was thirty-five miles northwest of the Lower Sioux agency, in Meeker county.

We soldiers found that our cartridges were not the right calibre. Some of the men had personal rifles, and one was found who had a pair of bullet molds of the right size. We took the bullets from the cartridges and busied ourselves, making them over the right size, using the powder and balls separately. During the engagement near Acton, the Indians managed to completely surround the soldiers. The captain ordered his men to dash through the Indian lines. The men ran for their lives, and those on horseback were ordered, at point of guns, to wait for men on foot. This sudden action took the Indians unawares and they were so surprised they forgot to keep up the fire. Most of us effected an escape. Out of sixty men but three were killed, though some twenty were wounded. We fell back to Hutchinson where there was a stockade. The Indians were getting quite fearless and would come in closer and closer to the stockade. One man had a very rare, long range gun and killed an Indian at the distance of a mile, after which the Indians kept a better distance.

Mrs. C. W. Gress—1855.

We landed in St. Paul in April '55, making the trip in about three weeks. We started on the boat, Minnesota Belle, but because of low water our household effects had to be transferred at Davenport, Iowa, to a small boat. There was a siege of cholera on the first boat, and two bodies were taken ashore and buried in the sand.

During the time of transferring the baggage, I had to carry the money for safe keeping. I made a wide belt with pockets of different lengths suspended from it. Here, and in the pockets of my skirt was gold of all denominations and some silver, of such weight that for three days I was ill from carrying it. After spending a few days in St. Paul we moved to Minnetonka Mills where we bought a relinquishment for $600 and paid $200 to prove up—making $800 for one hundred and sixty acres or $5 an acre; that land fifty years later was well worth $100 an acre. For three years we were eaten out by grasshoppers.

While here at Minnetonka Mills I often had Indians come to my house. On one occasion I stood churning when an Indian stepped in and took the dasher from me indicating that he wanted some of it. I was not afraid of him and took the dasher from him and pushed him aside with my elbow. I had just finished baking and so gave him a large slice of bread, spreading it generously with butter. He dug the center out of the piece crowding it into his mouth, throwing the crust on the hearth. This angered me as my crust was soft and tender and I picked up a broom and started toward him yelling "puck-a-chee" (get out) and he rushed for the door and disappeared.

We then concluded, after such bad luck with our crops, we would move back to St. Paul, where Mr. Gress could work at his trade, that of a shoemaker.

Mr. Gress would bring home work at night when I would assist him. We made a very high, cloth, buttoned shoe, called a snow shoe. I would close the seams, front and back, all by hand, as we had no machine; open seams and back, stitch down flat, and would bind the tops and laps and make fifteen or twenty buttonholes, for 50c a pair. The soles would then be put on in the shop. For slippers I received 15c for closing and binding the same way. During the war I made shirts and haver-sacks for the soldiers. The shirts were dark blue wool and were well made and finished. I broke the record one day when I made six of these garments and took care of four small children.

Mr. Alvin M. Olin—1855.

We came to Minnesota in 1855. We brought with us four yoke of oxen, thirty-five head of cattle and three hogs. We, with a family of three sons and a daughter, were four weeks on the way. We crossed the river on a ferry at Prairie du Chien and came up through Rochester and Cannon Falls and camped at Stanton while I went to a claim near Kenyon, that I had taken up the fall before, to find it had been jumped so I came on to Northfield and took up a claim on the Cannon River. We had with us two covered wagons—known as prairie schooners. In these we had our provisions, composed of flour, smoked meats and a barrel of crackers. We also had our furniture, chairs and chests and two rocking chairs for the mother and daughter. Here all of their leisure time, while on the move, was spent industriously applying their knitting needles, meanwhile singing to themselves to the accompaniment of the thud, thud of the oxen.

Each day was opened with the family prayer, after which we had the morning meal and then the boys took turns starting on ahead with the pigs, this extra time being needed because of the pigs' obstinacy. One morning the boys found they had started back in the same direction from which they had come and had traveled six miles before they found it out. We purchased a barrel of crackers in Milwaukee and our noonday meal consisted of crackers and milk, and as milk soured, we fed it to the hogs. Butter was made on the way, and bread and biscuits were baked in a kettle.

When we staked out our claim, we laid a floor and placed a tent over it where we lived till logs could be procured. These we got on the west side of the river, then government land. For shingles we drove to Trim Mill ten or twelve miles the other side of Prescott, Wis. At one time that summer two hundred Indians were camped near our farm for two days on their way to St. Paul.

Mrs. Pauline Hagen.

I was four years old when my parents settled in Hastings. Mother was obliged to return to Wisconsin to see about our goods which were delayed in coming, and father wintered here and took care of us three small children. Our house had no floor and very little furniture, and this hand-made, save for a small sheet iron stove through the cracks of which the fire could be plainly seen.

At bed time father placed us in sacks, firmly tied around our little bodies, and put us on straw beds on the ground and then covered us with straw for warmth. We had no other covering. Our food that first winter consisted mostly of corn meal, made up, in a variety of ways. But mother on her arrival in the spring with our lost household goods, found her family fat and rugged and none the worse for the severe winter of '55-'56.

Mrs. Catherine Meade.

We were at Fort Ridgely at the time of the outbreak. At the fort were gathered all the women and children of the settlers for protection. We could hear the Indian war whoops in the distance. The confusion was terrible and twelve of the women were prematurely confined during the first twenty-four hours. I helped Dr. Miller, post surgeon, and for forty-eight hours I had no sleep and hardly time to eat. Finally, completely exhausted I fell asleep on the floor, with my little daughter by my side. When aroused by my husband, saying "The Indians are near at hand," I declared I might as well die one place as another. I could not go on and remained where I was. The alarm was a false one and we were all saved.

One woman by the name of Jones told me she took part of her children into the stockade and returned for the rest. She found herself confronted by two stalwart Indians. She rushed into a small closet, and bracing herself between the wall and the door kept it closed in this way until help came. She was nearly exhausted and gave birth to a child before morning.

Another woman told me that instead of going into the stockade she fled with her two children into a corn field, pursued by an Indian. He lost track of her and as one child started to scream she almost smothered it in her effort to conceal their hiding place. The Indian after half an hour gave up the search.

The stockade at Fort Ridgely had four entrances—one at each corner, at which a cannon was placed. There was but one man who could load the cannon, Sargeant Frantzkey, and as he had only unskilled help he was kept very busy running back and forth between the four guns. Ammunition was scarce and we had to use everything; nails, screws, sharp pieces of iron and steel were saved and the cannons loaded with this mixture called Sharp Nails. This was considered much more deadly than cannon balls, for when fired, it would scatter and fly in all directions.

The block house—where the ammunition was stored—was located outside the garrison and stockade, as a protection from fire. The only way to replenish the supply was to make a trip to the block house. So a guard was stationed at each end, and one man ran as fast as he could, secured a supply and ran back, of course at the risk of his life. The women also helped secure this ammunition, filling their aprons, while men filled gunny sacks.

After the first fight, when the excitement had calmed down, the women busied themselves making bullets and were obliged to remain until help came from St. Paul—nearly two weeks.



GREYSOLON DU LHUT CHAPTER

Duluth

MARIE ROBERTSON KEITH

(Mrs. Chas. Keith)

Mr. Glass—1848.

I came to Minnesota in 1848 and was later purveyor to the Indians. An Indian trail extended from Fond du Lac to St. Paul. It ran from Fond du Lac by trail to Knife Falls, Knife Falls by canoe on St. Louis river to Cloquet, from there to Hoodwood, from there to Sandy Lake, portage from there to Grand Rapids, from Grand Rapids by way of the Mississippi river to St. Paul.

Mr. John W. Goulding of Princeton.

My first knowledge of Indians was when I was about ten years of age. We lived on Rum river about three miles above St. Francis, where a canoe load of Indians landed and camped near us. Mo-zo-man-e who was then a chief, was said to be sick and his squaw came to our house asking by signs for pills, of which my sister gave her a box. She was afterward afraid that the Indian would take the entire box at one dose and we would be killed in consequence. The taking of the whole box at one dose was probably the fact, as the empty box was at once returned and the patient reported to be cured, but no evil results came to us.

In 1856 my father, who had been engaged with McAboy in the construction of the Territorial road through Princeton to Mille Lacs Lake, thought it best that the family remove to Princeton and we came with a six ox team. Princeton at that time with the outlying settlements of Estes Brook, Germany and Battle Brook, had perhaps one hundred and fifty people. Indians in blankets and paint were a daily, almost hourly sight.

They outnumbered us many times, but gave us no trouble. In the summer of '57 two Sioux warriors came in by the way of Little Falls to the falls in Rum river just above the mouth of Bradbury brook, where they shot and scalped "Same Day" brother of Kay-gway-do-say and returned home to the Sioux country south of the Mississippi. Soon after this occurrence one hundred and twenty-five Chippewas came down Rum river on foot armed and painted for war. They stayed with us in Princeton over night and had a war dance where Jay Herdliska's house now stands, which was witnessed by the entire population then here.

Among the Indians were Mo-zo-man-e, Noon-Day, Kay-gway-do-say, Benjamin, Keg-wit-a-see and others. The next morning they killed Dexter Paynes' cow for beef and took their departure down the east side of the river. In about twenty days they came back in a hurry somewhat scattered and badly licked. They had found the Sioux at Shakopee and had been defeated, it was said with the aid of the whites living near there, which was probably so, as we should have aided the Chippewas under similar circumstances.

I remember nothing more worth repeating until 1862, the year of the Sioux massacre. We, at Princeton, had heard of that outbreak, that the Chippewas had been urged to join, that "Hole-in-the-day" had been sending runners to Mille Lacs asking that band to join with him in extermination of the whites, and we were all getting nervous. Finally all the people in the outlying settlements came into Princeton and camped in and about the old log hotel near the big elm (which still stands, the largest and most beautiful tree in the city). Captain Benedict Hippler, an old soldier who had seen service in Germany, took command, and men and boys armed with all sorts of guns were drilled continually by the Captain, who was a martinet and at one time threatened to shoot me and a companion for sleeping on our post. It was found that Stevens the Indian trader at Mille Lacs had a large stock of powder, and H. A. Pemberton was sent to haul it away, which he did with Stevens mules, bringing it to Princeton where it was stored in my brother's cellar. About this time it was determined to build a stockade fort. I hauled the poplar logs from which it was built with my father's oxen from just across the East Branch, and I made many loads in a day. We moved a small house within the enclosure for the women and children and had the fort, such as it was, about completed when one day as Captain Hippler was putting us through one of his drills an Indian face appeared at a port hole and Kay-gway-do-say said, "What you do here, this no good, pooh!" He then told us that Hole-in-the-day had sent his runners to Mille Lacs urging war and that the Mille Lacs band had held a council and that "some young men" had urged war but the older heads led by Mun-o-min-e-kay-shein (Ricemaker) and others had counseled against it and that there would be no trouble.

This eased our minds somewhat and the settlers gradually returned to their homes. Soon we were reinforced by Co. F. of the Eighth Minn., who stayed with us two winters in "The old quarters" across the river, but, save their effect in overawing the Indians, their mission was peaceful. That same fall, '62, the Government concluded to make a display of force at a delayed payment to be made to the Chippewas at Mille Lacs and an Iowa regiment was sent with several cannon to accompany the paymaster to Mille Lacs.

Stevens, the trader at Mille Lacs had a large stock of Indian goods at Princeton and just before the payment my father sent me, then sixteen years of age, with four oxen and a wagon to haul these goods to Mille Lacs some fifty miles over what was then and for twenty years afterwards, was one of the worst roads in the state. After several days on the road I was reaching the trading post at night and as I neared there, was puzzled by the great number of lights to be seen. Finally as I approached the post I passed through a line of torches on each side, held by Indians who had heard that oxen were coming for beef and were ready to make beef of my team, had not the trader Stevens explained to them that their share would come later.

The next morning I set out on my return. Night found me at the upper crossing of Rum river where I drew my wagon a few rods out of the road, tied my oxen and tried to sleep, but was disturbed all night by drunken Indians "going to payment." The next day I met the paymaster and an escort, who, after inquiring if I were not afraid passed along up river. That evening I met the troops at the lower crossing of Rum river encamped on the east bank.

The quartermaster at once told me that in the morning I must turn about and help draw his supplies to Mille Lacs and upon my refusal I was placed in a tent under guard. The next morning after we had again discussed the matter, I partially assented and gained permission to drive my oxen unyoked to the river for water, which, as soon as they had drank, they waded and struck out for Princeton and no one could head them. The quartermaster then used my yokes and wagon for four of his beef oxen and went his way allowing me to come home. After some days, with much labor the troops reached Mille Lacs, where, it was said, the discharge of the cannon into the lake made a great scattering among the Indians, it being the first cannon they had ever seen. Upon the return of the troops to Princeton the quartermaster returned my yokes and wagon and paid for the use of them.

I have spoken several times in this story of Kay-gway-do-say, who was always a great friend of mine and of the whites in general. During the Sioux war he served with others, as a scout, was always a great friend of Captain Jonathan Chase, whom he always spoke of as "Me and Jock." He visited in my father's family many times and one of my sisters tried to teach him to read. It was not a success but he was much amused at his own mistakes. A few years before he died he visited me, inquired for my sisters, hunted them out and visited them, and on his return said to me "Be-she-ke-o-ge-ma," my Indian name, "you and your sisters seem just like my own folks." Poor old "Kaig," like about all his associates has gone to the "Happy Hunting Ground." Peace to his ashes.

Mrs. Colbrath.

My father, Roswell P. Russell came to the region of Mendota as a boy and was employed by Gen. Sibley. At one time, Mrs. Sibley sent him on an errand to St. Paul and he ventured to make the trip on the ice, with a horse and cutter. Coming suddenly upon a crack in the ice, he lashed the horse, thinking he might spring over it, but the poor animal was caught and swept under the ice, while he and the cutter remained on the ice and were saved. This narrow escape made a great impression, naturally and the story was handed down to his children.

My father married a Miss Patch of an old family of pioneers and they were the first couple married at the Falls of St. Anthony.



CAPTAIN RICHARD SOMERS CHAPTER

St. Peter

MISS EMILY BROWN

Mrs. Mary B. Aiton.

When the treaty was made at Mendota in 1851, the Indians who ceded the land gave up their settlement at Kaposia, (South St. Paul), leaving behind them their dead, buried on the hill, and the land endeared to them by association. With them, when they moved westward to Yellow Medicine, went their faithful missionary and teacher, Doctor Thomas Williamson. That same year his sister, familiarly know as "Aunt Jane," made a visit to her old home town in Ohio, where I lived, and her interesting accounts of her experiences so filled me with missionary zeal that I went west, with her, as a teacher to the Indians.

With "Aunt Jane," I landed at Kaposia, and after a short rest, we began the overland journey to Yellow Medicine. The last night of our journey, two of our horses strayed away, and in the morning the ox-teams with the freight, and us women went on, leaving Dr. Williamson to search for the runaways. When we rode down into the valley, we saw ahead of us, the missing horses. We two women volunteered to go back to tell Dr. Williamson, and the rest of the party went on. We found the doctor, and to save us fatigue, he suggested that we take a short-cut across country to the agency, while he followed the road to rejoin the travelers.

Somehow we failed to follow directions and traveled all the rest of the day, coming at night to a river. Here on the bank we decided to rest. In the distance we could see a prairie fire, gradually eating its way towards the river; but we felt safe near the water and lay down to sleep. Just after we fell asleep, I was awakened by a loud call, and I realized the joy of knowing that we were found. The men who had been sent in search of us were calling, in hopes that we would answer and we continued our journey without further incident.

One morning in the spring of 1851, our little mission house at Kaposia was full of bustle and confusion, for we were busy preparing for an Indian wedding. The prospective bride was a pretty Sioux maiden, and her fiance was a white trader. Everything was in readiness for the ceremony, but no groom appeared. The hours wore on; the bride wept; but no news of the groom came until late in the afternoon a rumor reached us that he was celebrating the occasion by a drunken revel, and was not in condition to take his part in the ceremony. A white mother would have wept over daughter's grief, but not this Indian mother. When told that the ceremony must be postponed, she replied with stoical Indian patience: "It is well; I like his white skin; but I hate his drunken ways."

Dr. A. C. Daniels.

When I was agency physician at Lac qui Parle, I often saw the humorous side of Indian life. One day when the Indians had received their government allowance, a party of them too freely indulged their appetites for liquor; and one, a big brave, who had adopted the patriotic name of George Washington, led a band of Indians to the home of the Catholic sisters, and demanded food. The sisters saw the Indians' condition, barred the door, and told the braves to go away. George, however, was insistent in his demands, and finally put his giant strength against the door, and splintered the upper part. He had put his head into the opening, and was about to crawl through it, when one of the sisters seized a rolling pin, and rained sturdy blows upon his head and shoulders. He raised a yell that brought me to the spot just in time to see a funny sight. Just as George was about to beat a retreat, his squaw came running up and began to belabor him from the rear, while the nun continued the assault. There he was with part of his body in the house and part of it out, crying out in a manner most unseemly for an Indian brave. When the women desisted, he was both sober and repentant.

In early days, the Indian agent at Lac qui Parle hoisted the American flag each morning over the agency. During a serious drought, the Indians conceived the idea that the Great Spirit was displeased at the sight of the flag, and begged the agent to take it down. The patriotic agent tried to reason with them but to no avail, so one afternoon he took the flag down for a time. In a little while, a black cloud appeared and then a heavy downpour of rain followed. The Indians, as you know were very superstitious, and they were firmly convinced that the flag was a true barometer, so the agent had to be cautious in his display of the flag.

Mr. Z. S. Gault.

One morning as I rode a horse down to the Minnesota River to water it, I noticed a stolid looking Indian, with a gun by his side, sitting on a boulder by the river bank. Just as my horse began to drink, the Indian raised his gun and fired; the horse kicked up his heels, and I promptly became a Baptist by immersion. I can still show you the boulder, but you will have to imagine the Indian.

When I was a small boy, a party of Sioux Indians returned to Traverse from an attack upon the Chippewas at Shakopee, and proceeded to celebrate the event with a scalp dance. This dance and the whoops of the Indians attracted spectators from Traverse and St. Peter; and with boyish curiosity, I was as near as possible to the dancers. Suddenly I spied one brave, dancing about, with a skunk skin tied to his heel and trailing on the ground behind him. Obeying a mischievous impulse, I jumped upon the trailing skin, and stopped the wild dancer. The savage wheeled, quickly raised his tomahawk, and was ready to strike; but when he saw a white boy, he merely kicked me out of the ring, and kept on with the dance.

Mr. J. C. Bryant.

When Governor McGill, came to St. Peter as a young man, he was obliged to practice strict economy to make both ends meet. The revenue he derived from teaching was so very meager, that he had to do without some of what we regard as actual necessities. Late in the fall he was passing Jack Lamberton's store, when the warm-hearted proprietor noticed that the school-master wore no overcoat. He guessed the reason; but he asked Mr. McGill why he wore no overcoat. "Well, I haven't one, and I am not able to buy one yet," he replied with sturdy honesty. "Just come right in, and help yourself to one, and pay for it when you can," said Mr. Lamberton with characteristic generosity. This kindness was a bond that made the two men friends for life, although later they were often arrayed against each other politically.

When certain men in the state were trying to steal the Capital from St. Peter for St. Paul, Captain Dodd is said to have traveled on foot from St. Peter to St. Paul between sunrise and sunset in the interests of St. Peter. This feat would seem to me a physical impossibility, but it was a story current when I was a boy in St. Peter. It is a matter of history, too, that all the attempts to save the Capital were futile, and the indomitable Captain Dodd had his long walk in vain.

Captain Dodd was considerable of a mimic and an actor. During a political campaign, he took the platform against a certain Tom Corwin of Ohio, who was considered a great political orator. On one occasion Corwin was the first speaker, and to emphasize his speech, he danced about on the stage, gesticulated freely, and made a great impression. When Mr. Dodd's turn to speak came, he arose, and without a word, gravely gave a pantomimic reproduction of the orator's acts and gestures. Then he sat down amid roars of laughter, that completely spoiled the effect of his opponent's speech.

Mrs. Nancy Kiethley Bean.

When Edward Eggleston, the author of the "Hoosier Schoolmaster," was obliged to come west for his health, he was, for a number of years, a resident of Traverse, and St. Peter. Here on week days he engaged in the humble occupation of soap-making, and on Sundays he went out to the country communities to preach the gospel. His church was often the one room of some farmer's log cabin, and he missed the pulpit upon which to pound, to emphasize the points in his sermon in the good orthodox style of the exhorter. One Sunday early in his ministry, he came to our home near Cleveland, to preach, and that day he strongly felt the need of a pulpit. "Why can't you make me a pulpit?" he asked my father after the service. "I can and I will before you come again," father replied. Father went to work, and from the trunk of a tree, he hewed out a rough pulpit! The young preacher exhorted with such fervor from his new pulpit that I was the first convert of the man who afterwards became famous.

In the fall of that same year, the annual Methodist conference was held at Winona, and Mr. Eggleston prepared to go. Before he went my father met him, and asked him whether he was going to the conference. "Yes," was the reply, "I am going." Now father knew that money was scarce and that Mr. Eggleston's preaching and soap-making yielded him little revenue, so he went to one of the brethren, a certain Mr. Arter, who had recently come from the east, bringing with him gold coin, and told of Mr. Eggleston's desire to go to Winona. Mr. Arter was interested and offered Mr. Eggleston five dollars to help defray the expense of his trip, but was met with a polite but none the less firm refusal.

"I shall not need money," said Mr. Eggleston. "I can walk part of the way, some one will give me a lift now and then and the brethren will give me food and lodging when I require it."

However, Mr. Arter insisted that he should take the gold, and he finally prevailed, but Mr. Eggleston started on foot for the conference. Upon his return, he gave the gold to its original owner, for with sturdy pioneer independence, he had traveled the distance to Winona on foot, except for an occasional lift from some traveler, driving a slow ox team.

Mrs. Mary Davis Fenton.

One summer morning in 1852, a man on horseback rode rapidly up to the door of our farm house, shouted the news of the uprising of the Indians, and then rode on to warn others of the danger. We hastily gathered together a few necessary articles, and fled to St. Peter. When we returned home after the danger was over, we found that our house had been looted, and father discovered that his pet razor had disappeared.

"I will never shave again," he declared, "until the man who stole my razor, brings it back."

Naturally the thief failed to return, and to the day of his death in 1911, father wore his patriarchial beard, and kept his vow never to shave again.



NATHAN HALE CHAPTER

St. Paul

GRACE RANDALL LYMAN

(Mrs. G. C. Lyman)

GERTRUDE KAERCHER

(Mrs. A. B. Kaercher)

Mrs. Frederick Penny.

We lived about four miles from Shakopee, at what was called Eden Prairie. My father was William O. Collins. The Sioux Indians' old camping ground and home was on the river bottoms at Shakopee. Three miles below our place was Hennepin Landing where the boats landed coming from St. Paul. The trail of the Sioux led directly past our house, so we saw a great deal of the Indians.

At one corner of my father's land was a big boulder called Red Rock, held sacred by the Indians. Whenever the Sioux were going into battle against the Chippewas, they came to this rock and if they were successful, they brought their trophies of war and placed them on the rock. There was room for one Indian to lie down close to the rock. The others would dance around or sit in council. As soon as they had gone, the white settlers would take everything of value.

One thing we were taught was never to show fear of Indians. They knew very quickly and loved to scare anyone who showed they were afraid. Chaska and five of his men had been out duck hunting and stopped at our house for supper the night before the outbreak in 1862. The Indians were always friendly with all members of my father's family, and never asked for a meal unless they were willing to pay with ducks or in some way. Next morning after Chaska had supper with us, a man came riding from St. Peter telling everyone to flee. Twenty families (ours among the others) remained.

My oldest brother had enlisted and the very day after Chaska was at our house, he was ordered back from Fort Snelling to go to Fort Ridgely.

The most disgraceful thing to an Indian is to be struck with a whip or a stick. One day I was holding the baby in my arms when an Indian put his head in through the window close to my face before I knew anyone was near. I was so frightened I ran to my mother. The Indians thought we were afraid so started for the garden to destroy the melons, squash and pumpkins growing there. My mother put on father's coat, took a big cane and went after them saying, "Get out, these are to feed papoose" over and over. There were forty in the party but they went without further trouble.

One day on my way to school, I heard the children calling to me to run, but the grass was so high I could see no one and did not know an Indian was near. When I saw him, I was not afraid. I went on to the school house door, but the teacher was so frightened she had locked the door and I could not get in. I stood waiting, and the Indian patted me on the head and said, "Heap brave papoose" and went on down the trail.

One family by the name of Dorr and another by the name of Horner were both very well to do. When a man rode to their places at the time of the outbreak telling them the Indians were coming, they took what they could in wagons and started for Eden Prairie where the Dorr family stayed with the Neals. Mrs. Dorr was a Neal girl. The Horners stayed with us until the trouble was over. The Dorr house and barns were burned to the ground, but the soldiers stopped the Indians before they reached the Horner place. Both families went back and rebuilt what had been destroyed, living there for many years.

Mr. James Clark of St. Peter.

I came to St. Peter in March 1856. I was in the livery business, so was among the Indians more or less until the outbreak in 1862. I made the first trip from the Agency to Faribault with Bishop Whipple. Also the last when we took a number of Indian girls from Faribault to the Sioux Agency in August 1862.

I had enlisted and was with my company in line at Fort Snelling, being sworn in when a man came riding in to tell us the Indians were on the war path. We were ordered to St. Peter at once and found the families all sheltered in stone houses and the men barricading the town with cord wood and digging rifle pits in the bluffs. But none of the families was molested within a radius of about seven miles. Everyone who was left in town had to help. All the lead pipes were taken out of the wells and slugs were cut from pieces of iron.

Jim Powell, a young man left in charge of the cattle at the Agency, waiting for the Indians to receive their pay, said to me when I came up on my last trip, "Jim, I am afraid there will be trouble. The Indians are getting ugly. They shot an ox and skinned it and we can't say a word." When the outbreak came Jim Powell was sitting on a mule at the Agency. Five Indians shot at him. He tried to make his mule go down to the ferry. He would not go, so Jim slipped off and ran for the ferry. The boat had started across to Fort Ridgely, but he swam out and climbed on. He went across, then the twelve miles to the fort and enlisted. Before this the Indians were driven to beg for food, their rations had been so slow in coming from the government.

I often think there is many a man that should have a monument to commemorate his brave deeds. There was Duncan Kennedy of St. Peter, one of the bravest men I ever knew. During the outbreak he carried messages back and forth from St. Peter to Fort Ridgely, alone. When asked why he did not take someone with him, he said it was safer alone for if he saw an Indian he would know what to do; he would lie down and be quiet. If some one was with him, he would have to tell them to be quiet.

Mrs. John Crippen[4] was an early settler in the country, coming here by way of the Morris trail. There were two trails, one by way of Hutchinson, and the other following along the Minnesota River, the latter being the trail used during the Sibley Expedition.

[Footnote 4: Mrs. Kaercher's work begins with Mrs. Crippen.]

Mr. and Mrs. Crippen, with a baby about a year old, came to their homestead, not far from Big Stone lake where they endured many privations the first few years. The first year the grasshoppers took all the garden and grain. After the first year new settlers began to come in and Mr. Crippen assisted them in locating claims, and in that way managed to live until another crop was raised. In relating some of the experiences Mrs. Crippen states that they had a house 10x12 and the first shingled roof in this country at that time. At one time, two gentlemen from Minneapolis, Messrs. Hyde and Curtiss, had occasion to stay over night with them so they gave these parties their only bed, making one on the floor for themselves, hanging a curtain between. While preparing breakfast she heard one of the gentlemen say—"Hello, little fellow, what are you doing with my toe?" Her baby had awakened and gone over to their bed. It was over a year before they had any chickens or cow; she used to hunt plover's eggs and several times was without flour, having to grind wheat and corn in a coffee mill. The nearest railroad town was Morris forty miles northeast.

The first 4th of July celebration was held near the lake at a place now called "Point Comfort." The flag staff is still where they placed it. A Mrs. Tyler roasted a small pig, which they used as a center piece at the picnic dinner, minus the apple in its mouth.

One of the young gentlemen, whose father was a minister in Minneapolis, had him send him sermons which he read on the Sabbath in the schoolhouse.

C. K. Orton, the founder of Ortonville took a homestead adjoining Big Stone Lake. In the spring he returned for his family consisting then of his wife and child, Clara, together with several neighbors. They started in the month of July, following the old trail via New Ulm, thence to Montevideo. When they reached Montevideo they discovered the bridges had washed away, so they were obliged to ford the Chippewa river which was very deep and rapid. Mr. and Mrs. Orton rode side by side, he carrying a sack of flour which he lost while endeavoring to hold her, but which he afterward recovered. It took the party several days to get their belongings, which consisted of cattle, horses, oxen, etc., on the west side of the river.

They were badly frightened a few months later, which was after they had settled in their new home, by a Mr. Movius, of Big Stone City, who came to them with a report that the Indians, five hundred in number, from the Sisseton reservation were on the war path and were headed their way. Mrs. Orton and another woman, being alone with the children, say that they had a flat bottomed boat which they had planned to get in and get out into the middle of the lake and that if overtaken by the Indians, rather than be tortured as they had seen other people near New Ulm and other towns, would drown themselves and children, but luckily it was a false report.

Mr. Orton was the first postmaster of this place, the mail being brought once a week from Appleton, twenty-five miles east, by Mr. Lathrop, who had a wagon train hauled by oxen by which he carried flour and provisions to the settlers along the lake shore.

There is a log cabin still standing in Big Stone City, which was built in the year 1857.

A. B. Kaercher has in his possession the Government Patent given in 1855 and signed by Franklin Pierce to his father, John Kaercher, for 160 acres of land in Fillmore County, Minnesota, where John Kaercher founded the Village of Preston, and erected the second flouring mill in the Territory of Minnesota.

Lyman R. Jones of Ortonville has a stove door taken from the ruins of the Presbyterian mission, built in 1838 and which was destroyed by fire March 3, 1854.

Mr. Roberts, an old timer here, has the powder horn which Little Crow carried through the Sioux massacre.



DAUGHTERS OF LIBERTY CHAPTER

Duluth

FRANCES ANGELINE POOLE WOODBRIDGE (Mrs. W. S. Woodbridge)

Mrs. Nettleton.

My husband and I came to this region in 1854. At first we lived in Superior, Wis., but in September of that year we went down to Madeline Island to the Indian payment when the government bought the Duluth property from the Indians. My husband got title to the best of Minnesota Point. This was the same payment where they gave Chief Buffalo his four square miles of land in Duluth.

Minnesota Point is a narrow neck of land seven miles long and about a quarter of a mile wide projecting from the mainland in Duluth and separating Lake Superior from St. Louis Bay. One day we had a picnic party of Superior people over on Minnesota Point. Among them were Mrs. Post, Orator Hall and his wife, my husband and the Rev. Mr. Wilson from somewhere near Boston and a number of others. During the picnic various names for the new town started on Minnesota Point were proposed and Mr. Wilson at last proposed "Duluth." He named the city in honor of the first navigator and explorer who ever came up here. When the other proprietors came here and made preemptions and had obtained land they wanted to call it "Portland." My husband said "No that his property was in Duluth and it should stay in Duluth." I had never been in Duluth at that time unless it was for a picnic on Minnesota Point.

We moved across the bay to Duluth in 1858. My husband and his brother William had a contract for carrying the mail from Superior to St. Paul. Sometimes the mail was carried by team and sometimes the men packed it on their backs. In the spring and fall the roads were so bad that the use of the team was impossible. Letters were delivered once a week and papers once a month, perhaps. The military road had been commenced but not finished.

Mrs. W. S. Woodbridge.

While the experiences of the early days could be considered a hardship for the men it was ten times more annoying to women. The hardships of housekeeping, for instance and home making, keeping the home tidy and comfortable, not to say attractive, were much greater than any hardships the men were called upon to endure. The first year or two, there was no mirror at the head of the lakes. Those who were fortunate enough to have a new tin boiler, or new tin dishes could get along very well. One of the early settlers has told me that he had frequently seen the women combing and arranging their hair by their reflection in the wash boiler or dish pan. Ribbons, perfumes and fancy articles were wholly unknown. An old settler who came with his family told me "Our whole outfit comprised a feather bed and a lunch basket in which were a knife, fork and two small china dishes. I also bought a single mattress and a pair of blankets in Cleveland on my way to Duluth. We built our bedsteads out of green tamarack poles peeled, using the bark for ropes to hold it together and made a table of two boards which were found floating in the Bay. Bed clothing consisted of Indian blankets and moccasins answered for shoes, while curtains, carpets and upholstered furniture were unknown."

The postoffice was in a small building on First Street and First Avenue East. The postmaster, Mr. Richard Marvin was a member of the Fire Brigade. His friend, Mr. Melvin Forbes, who had just started in the paper and stationery business opposite, spent the night with him. The milkman was in the habit of bringing milk to the door in the morning. A lady who had come up by boat and was leaving by train in the early morning for St. Paul knocked on the door of the postoffice to inquire if any mail had been forwarded to her there. Mr. Forbes, supposing the milkman was at the door, leaped out of bed, caught Mr. Marvin's fireman's helmet and put it on his head, opened the door wide with a flourish and making a profound bow in his short white night shirt said, "Good morning." Not until he raised his head did he see the lady. I have often wondered what opinion she formed of Duluth in her short stay here.

I used to watch the Indians who were a common sight in those early days in Duluth, especially in the winter, when they would come into town with their dog teams, the sledges laden down with skins which they exchanged for provisions. The dog teams were very interesting with their intelligent well trained Indian dogs. There were usually three or four dogs driven tandem with a simple harness consisting of a collar and a strap around the body of each. The driver always ran or walked by the side of the sledge never sitting on it. We see pictures of dog teams in Alaska, for instance, with a dozen or more dogs, but that would have been impossible in a heavily wooded country as this was in those days.

The Indians did not know the use of a door bell, neither did they stand on ceremony, but if they found the door of a house unlocked they walked in without knocking. I remember that one New Year's Day we found on going into the sitting room after dinner, that six Indians had quietly taken possession, two men and four squaws. They advanced, offering to shake hands and saying, "'Appy New Year, ten cents." "'Appy New Year, ten cents." It was all the English they could speak but they knew well what it meant and did not leave until each one had received a gift. We were glad enough to see them go and to open the windows.

I well remember a funeral which occurred in the early days. The coffin was placed in a wagon which was drawn by one horse and the mourners followed on foot. I also remember how very muddy the roads were, consisting of sticky, tenacious red clay which clung to our rubbers and sucked them off our feet as we walked.

We bought water by the pailful which was carted up from the Lake and placed in a barrel in the kitchen and often on a cold winter morning, we were obliged to chop it out and melt it in the tea kettle. The windows in our house were always covered with half an inch of frost. I remember on one very cold night I was awakened by a fire bell. The windows were red with light from some burning dwelling near and I rushed from window to window trying in vain to see out and locate the fire.



ST. PAUL CHAPTER

MISS K. MAUDE CLUM

Mrs. Martin Jay Clum.

I accompanied my husband, Martin Jay Clum, a member of Company "D," Second Minnesota Volunteers to Fort Ridgely in 1862. There were left at the fort but few men to guard it, as the greater number of them had been ordered to the frontier to quell the Indian outbreaks.

My daughter, Victoria Maria, nine months old, was ill, getting her teeth and although the night was hot and sultry the windows of our quarters had to be kept closed on account of the mosquitoes. It was impossible to obtain any mosquito bar so I walked the floor nearly all night with her on my arm fanning her constantly as the heat was almost unbearable.

Toward morning, I paused for a few seconds to look out of the window and as I did so, fancied I saw tiny dark objects moving around a huge straw stack some distance away. You can scarcely imagine my horror as the dawn disclosed the truth of my fears.

I put down my dear baby—rushed outside—called to a herder to go at once and find out what those objects were, moving about the stack. Hastily mounting a mule he made a detour of the straw stack and reported. "If there's one Indian there, there's fifty with their ponies buried in and around the stack." He at once gave the alarm but before the guard reached the stack there was not an Indian to be seen. Interpreter Quinn soon sent his son, Tom, to warn me not to leave the garrison as I had been in the habit of taking walks with my baby in her carriage.

Later in the day, the pickets and scouts came in and reported a large camp of over four hundred Indians on the opposite bank of the river, waiting, no doubt, as Interpreter Quinn said, a chance to make a raid, capture and maybe massacre everyone of us. He also told me that while the Indians might not perhaps harm me they would be likely to take my baby and it would be as bad to be frightened to death as to be scalped.

Mr. August Larpenteur—1843, Ninety-three years old.

The first day I came, in 1843, I had dinner with Mrs. Jackson. It was a fine one—ducks, venison, and vegetables raised by the Selkirk refugees. Here I first tasted pemmican. It was most excellent. The bread was baked in a Dutch oven.

New Year's Day, Mr. Jackson, Luther Furnell and I took a yoke of oxen to make some New Years calls. We first went to Mr. Gervais' where we talked, took a drink, kissed the girls and then to Vital Guerin's. Next we went up to Mrs. Mortimer's where we made a sedate call. She lived where the police station now stands. Last, near present Seven Corners, we called on the Irvine's. By this time the OXEN were tired. We began to feel drowsy, so we returned and took a rest.

The Indians always called on us on Christmas, went through much handshaking and expected a present.



INDEX

Aiton, Mrs. Mary B., 307

Alexander, Mrs. Ann, 296

Anderson, Mrs. Robert, 91

Apgar, Mrs. Anna Simmons, 97

Balser, Mrs. Anna E., 89

Batchelder, Mrs. Kate Davis, 291

Berry, Mrs. Helen Godfrey, 222

Bean, Mrs. Nancy Kiethley, 311

Beatty, Mrs. J. R., 165

Bierman, Mrs. Augusta P., 295

Black, Mrs. Mahlon, 29

Bohanon, Mr. Charles, 67

Bradley, Mrs., 240

Buell, Major S. A., 122

Burdick, Mrs. C. A., 104

Buckham, Judge Thomas S., 289

Buck, Mr. H. L., 237

Brown, Mrs. John, 260

Bryant, Mr. J. C., 310

Brackett, Mr. George A., 139

Chute, Mrs. Richard, 65

Clark, Mr. Edwin, 136

Clarke, Mr. Edwin, 136

Clifford, Mrs. Elizabeth, 64

Clum, Mrs. Martin J., 323

Cooper, Peter, 105

Cobb, Mr. M. G., 262

Colbrath, Mrs., 306

Connolly, Colonel A. P., 212

Collins, Judge Loren W., 275

Curtis, Mr. Theodore, 110

Cray, Judge Lorin, 176, 263

Daniels, Dr. A. C., 308

Dibble, Marion L., 262

Dorr, Mr. Caleb, 27

Dowling, Mrs. Mary E., 90

Dow, Mr. D. E., 62

Dow, Mrs. William, 81

Dresser, Mrs. Samuel B., 48

Dunsmoor, Mr. Irving A., 184

Ellison, Mr. William W., 58

Faribault, Miss Sara, 232

Farnham, Mrs. Rufus, 50

Farnham, Mrs. Silas, 39

Farnsworth, Mr. Austin W., 70

Farnsworth, Mrs. Austin W., 110

Favel, Mr. Henry, 103

Fenton, Mrs. Mary Davis, 312

Fisher, Mrs. George E., 107

Foster, Doctor Lysander P., 38

Funk, Mrs. Margaret Rathbun 160

Gault, Mr. Zuriel S., 309

Gilpatrick, Mrs. Martha, 143

Gilman, Ex-Lieutenant Gov., 110

Gillespie, Miss Nancy, 75

Gillespie, Mr. James M., 75

Gleason, Mrs. Harriett., 239

Glass, Mr., 302

Goulding, John W., 302

Godfrey, Abner Crossman, 229

Godley, Mrs. Charles M., 111

Gress, Mrs. C. W., 297

Hagen, Mrs. Pauline., 300

Hanks, Captain Stephen., 24

Harrison, Mrs. Mary, 55

Heffelfinger, Major C. B., 142

Hern, Mrs. Margaret, 143

Hoefer, Mrs. F., 199

Hopkins, Miss Florinda, 101

Hopkins, Mr. Chester L., 101

Horton, Mrs. Helen, 132

Huckins, Mr. J. W., 297

Huston, Mrs. Anna Hennes, 103

Ingenhutt, Mrs. Mary, 152

Jones, Mr. Oliver K., 240

Jones, Mrs. Virginia, 116

Jones, Mr. John A., 173

Keysor, Captain Clark, 178

Keysor, Mrs. Clark, 175

Kennedy, Mrs. Duncan, 119

Kimball, Mrs. Edmund, 188

Layman, Mr. Isaac, 75

Ladd, Mrs. J. W., 102

Larpenteur, Mr. August, 324

Lapham, Mr. L. L., 159

Le Duc, General William, 40

Loring, Mr. Charles M., 153

Lowell, Mrs. Nancy, 80

Longfellow, Colonel Levi, 216

Massolt, Mrs. Mary, 134

Maxwell, Mrs. Delilah, 202

Magnus, Mrs. Conrad, 271

Meade, Mrs. Catherine, 300

Merrit, Mrs. Arabella, 243

Merrill, Mrs. E. A., 77

McMullen, Mr. James, 31

McMullen, Mrs. James, 36

McCormack, Captain L. L., 153

Mott, Mrs. Rodney A., 290

Moulton, Captain Isaac, 138

Neill, Miss Minnesota, 157

Niemann, Mrs. W. L., 196

Nettleton, Mrs., 319

Nutting, Mr. Elijah, 72, 284

O'Brien, Mr. Frank G., 190

Olin, Mr. Alvin M., 299

Paine, Mrs. J. M., 156

Partridge, Mrs. Mary E., 273

Pelton, Mr. I. A., 170

Penney, Mrs. Frederick, 313

Pettijohn, Mr. Eli, 9

Pettit, Mrs. C. H., 103

Pfeffer, Mrs. A. M., 169

Phillips, Mary Sherrard, 233

Pike, Mrs. Orin, 272

Pitcher, Mrs. Mary, 163

Plummer, Mrs. Rebecca, 104

Pond, Mrs. Gideon, 22, 250

Pond, Mrs. E. R., 258

Pratt, Mrs. James, 52

Pratt, Mrs. Missouri Rose, 16

Pribble, Mrs. Mary, 186

Prescott, Mrs. Henry C., 287

Rochette, Mr. Stephen, 106

Rochette, Mrs. Stephen, 106

Robinson, Mr. Reuben, 47

Randall, Major Benjamin, 230

Robinson, Mrs. Mary, 129

Rye, Mr. Charles, 73

Richardson, J. Warren, 285

Slocum, Mr. Frank, 114

Starkloff, Mrs. Paulina, 88

Sampson, Mrs. Leroy, 97

Sutherland, Mrs. Jane, 126

Snyder, Mrs. Margaret A., 130

Smith, Mrs. Mary Staring, 133

Smith, Mrs. C. A., 140

Stewart, Doctor, 155

Stratton, Miss Carrie, 182

Shaver, Mr. B. F., 206

Turner, Mrs. John C., 293

Todd, Mrs. Anna, 135

Thorne, Mrs. Martha, 78

Teeter, Mr. Michael, 192

Van der Horck, Captain John, 51

Van Sant, Ex-Governor Samuel R., 199

Van Schaick, Mr. M. R., 270

Wakefield, Mr. Warren, 94

Watson, Mr. C. H., 294

Woods, Mrs. Newman, 99

Weeks, Mrs. Mary, 76

White, Mrs. William J., 84

Wilder, Mrs., 93

Winter, Mrs. James A., 107

Walker, Mrs. T. B., 115

Way, Mrs. Georgiana M., 116

Woodbridge, Mrs. W. S., 320

THE END