m
m:
Jim
COLLECTIONS
MINNESOTA
HISTOEICAL SOCIETY
VOLUME I. PART I.
ST. PAUL, MINN.:
PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY. FEBRUARY, 1905.
Printed by
Great Western Printing Company Minneapolis, Minn.
OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY.
HON. GREENLEAF CLARK (died Dec. 7, 1904), - - President. NATHANIEL P. LANGFORD (President, 1905), - V ice-President. GEN. HENRY W. CHILDS, - - - - Second V ice-President.
HENRY P. UPHAM, ---------- Treasurer.
WARREN UPHAM, ------ Secretary and Librarian.
DAVID L. KINGSBURY and JOSIAH B. CHANEY,
Assistant Librarians.
COMMITTEE ON PUBLICATIONS.
NATHANIEL P. LANGFORD. REV. EDWARD C. MITCHELL,
GEN. JAMES H. BAKER, JOSIAH B. CHANEY.
COMMITTEE ON OBITUARIES.
HON. JOHN D. LUDDEN. JOHN A. STEES.
GEN. HENRY W. CHILDS. GEN. JAMES H. BAKER.
The Secretary of the Society is ex-ofUcio a member of these Committees.
PREFACE.
This volume, comprising papers and addresses presented be- fore this Society during the past five years, is so large that it has been found necessary to bind it in two parts, which are con- secutively 'paged. At the beginning of each part, a table of its contents is given.
Part II has an index of the whole volume. It also contains an index of the authors and principal subjects in the series ot these Volumes I to X, and a personal index of Volumes I to IX, both of which were compiled from the indexes of the several volumes. These general indexes will be very convenient for references to subjects and persons noticed in the entire series.
The papers published in these Historical Collections relate to the history of Minnesota and the Northwest. Several other papers of much value, but not dealing with our local history, have been presented within the past ten years in the meetings of this Society ; and it seems desirable to record here the titles of these papers, with their dates and authors, as follows :
Observations in Japan, Corea, and China, during the Corean War in 1894, read December 14, 1896, by Lieut. John H. Beacom.
Causes, Objects, and Results of the Wars of the North American Col- onies, read February 8, 1897, by Col. Philip Reade.w
The Cartagena Expedition of Admiral Vernon in 1741, read May 10,
1897, by Capt. Charles W. Hall.
An Excursion in 1857 from Milwaukee to the Red River of the North, read October u, 1897, from manuscripts of the late Dr. Increase A. Lap- ham.
The Hessian Auxiliaries in the North American War of Independence, a translation from the German of Colonel von Werthern, read March 14,
1898, by Captain William Gerlach.
Three Stages in the History of our Country, — Dependence, Independ- ence, Interdependence, read April 18, 1898, by Dr. James K. Hosmer; pub- lished in the Atlantic Monthly, July, 1898.
Exhibits from Minnesota in the Crystal Palace Exposition at New York in 1853, read October 10, 1898, by Gen. William G. Le Due.
yi PREFACE.
The Southern Boundary of the Grant to the Hudson Bay Company, 1670-1811, read November 14, 1898, after the death of the author, Alfred J.
Two Years in Alaska, read May 14, 1900, by Lieut. Edwin Bell.
How Napoleon sold Louisiana, and fought a Great Battle about it which History has neglected, read September 10, 1900, by Dr. James K. Hosmer; published in 1902, as Chapter V, etc., of The History of the Louisiana Purchase.
Sites of Old Roman Camps in Germany recently identified, and the Battleground where Hermann defeated Yarns in the Year 9 A. D., read November 12, 1900, by Hartwig Deppe.
History of the Mining Development of North Alaska and the Starva- tion Year 1897-98, read December 10, 1900, by Colonel P. Henry Ray.
The United States a Nation from the Declaration of Independence, read September 8, 1902, by Hon. James O. Pierce.
The address by Prof. David L. Kiehle, here forming pages 353-398, has been expanded and published under the title, "Edu- cation in Minnesota," as a book in two parts, the first historical, and the second treating of the school laws and sources of school support in this State.
Since the printing of the bibliography of publications relat- ing to Groseilliers and Radisson, in pages 568-594, another work has appeared which should be added to the list. This is entitled "Pathfinders of the West," by Agnes C. Laut, published by the Macmillan Company, November, 1904. Chapters III and IV, forming pages 68-131, narrate the Third and Fourth Voyages, in which these explorers reached the area of Minnesota. The third voyage or expedition is assigned to the years 1658-1660, and the fourth to 1661-1663. In each of these expeditions, Gro- seilliers and Radisson are thought by this author, as in her article previously published in Leslie's Magazine, to have traveled far beyond Minnesota, going through the Dakotas, and perhaps into Montana, during the first expedition, and in the second going past the region of the Lake of the Woods to the Sioux in North Dakota.
In many other respects this work differs widely from the views stated in Part II of the present volume. With the many and discordant opinions cited in the Bibliography, it indicates the need of careful studies of Radisson's own writings, by which probably historians will some day come to a better agreement concerning the routes and dates of these explorations.
CONTENTS OF PART I.
HISTORY OF WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY, BY HON.
GEORGE N. LAMPHERE 1-33
Description of the Red River valley I
Wheat raising in the Selkirk settlement 2
Early flouring mills ; grasshoppers 7
First mail route 9
Steamboats on the Red river 10
First wheat raising near the Pembina river n
Pioneer farmers near Moorhead and Fargo 12
Early wheat raising near Fort Abercrom'bie 19
Development by railroads 20
The Dalrymple farm 21
The Grandin farm . ., 22
Increase of population and wealth 23
Causes of occasional failures 23
Better and more diversified cultivation needed 25
Railroad freight rates and legislation 25
Old and new methods of wheat farming 28
Wheat production and its value, 1898 29
Letter from Hon. Charles Cavalier 32
Greatness of the resources of Minnesota 32
HISTORY OF FLOUR MANUFACTURE IN MINNESOTA,, by COL. GEORGE
D. ROGERS 35-55
Progress in methods of milling 35
The government mill of 1823 , 37
The first custom mills 38
Earliest merchant mill and export 39
The first mill corporation 39
Milling at Northfidd 40
The fame of Archibald 41
The Gardner mill at Hastings 41
"Honest John" Kearcher 42
Rise and fall of Minnef onka Mills 43
(Statistics of 1859-60 43
Milling in 1870 44
Birth of the "new process" 45
Effect upon wheat and flour production , 47
Viii CONTENTS.
Page.
The La Croixs of Faribault 47
Gradual reduction by rolls 49
The mill explosion of 1878 5*
Minnesota flour export trade 52
Minnesota mills in 1900 54
THE EARLY GOVERNMENT LAND SURVEYS IN MINNESOTA WEST OF
THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, by HON. THOMAS SIMPSON 57-6?
System of government surveys 57
Convergency of meridians 59
Guide meridians and standard parallels 60
Surveys in southeastern Minnesota, 1853-55 • • • 61
Castle rock and the Zumbro river 64
The Winnebago Indians 65
Personal reminiscences 66
SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY OF HUTCHINSON, by HON. WILLIAM W.
PENDERGAST 69-89
Founding of the town by the Hutchinson singers 69
Adoption of a constitution 73
Pioneer reminiscences 74
The Fourth of July, 1856 77
Cost of living in the winter of 1857-58 77
First town meeting 77
Steamboat navigation 78
Scarcity of food 78
Mail carriers 78
The Sioux outbreak 78
The attack at Hutchinson 80
Retreat and council of the Sioux 84
Murder of German settlers west of Hutchinson , . . 85
Service of the Hutchinson guards 87
The killing of Little Crow 88
EARLY STEAMBOATING ON THE MINNESOTA AND RED RIVERS, by CAP- TAIN EDWIN BELL 91-100
St. Paul and its vicinity in 1850 91
Steamboating on the Minnesota river p2
Recollections of the Red River of the North 93
Scenes at Fort Garry in 1859 97
The return by ox train to St. Paul 98
Incidents of the Sioux outbreak 99
THE TREATY OF TRAVERSE DES Sioux IN 1851, UNDER GOVERNOR ALEXANDER RAMSEY, WITH NOTES OF THE FORMER TREATY THERE, IN 1841, UNDER GOVERNOR JAMES D. DOTY, OF WISCONSIN, by THOMAS HUGHES 101-129
CONTENTS. IX
. Page.
The treaty of Governor Doty, 1841 101
Motives leading to the treaty of 1851 102
Preliminaries of the treaty 103
Goodhue, the journalist, and Mayer, the artist 107
The treaty council 108
Signing the treaty no
The traders' paper in
Speeches and presents in
White men present in
Duplicate treaty at Mendota 112
The lands ceded 112
Payments and reservations for the Sioux 112
Amendment of the treaty by the senate 113
Disbursement of the first payment 114
The claims of the traders 114
Investigation by order of the senate 115
Later negotiations concerning the reservations 115
The Sioux massacre, 1862 116
Results of the treaty 116
The purposes of the earlier treaty in 1841 119
Newspaper comments on the Doty treaty 119
Governor Doty and Le Sueur's copper mine on the Blue Earth
river 126
Place of the treaty 126
HISTORY OF STEAMBOATING ON THE MINNESOTA RIVER, by THOMAS
HUGHES 131-163
Earliest navigation by white men 132
Earliest steamboats 133
Excursions in the year 1850 134
The treaty of 1851, and ensuing immigration 137
Steamboat traffic, 1852 to 1871 138
The last steamboats, 1872 to 1897 157
Lists of steamboats, 1850 to 1897 158
MISSIONARY WORK AT RED WING, 1849 TO 1852, by REV. JOSEPH W.
HANCOCK 165-178
Farewell to the old home, and the journey west 166
Arrival at Red Wing 166
Earlier missionaries to the Dakotas 167
iSchool for the Indian children 168
Removal to Long Prairie 169
A government Indian school 170
The voyage of return to Red Wing 171
Life at the Indian village 173
Evil effects of whiskey 174
X CONTENTS.
Page.
The Dakota dictionary 176
The treaty of 1851, from the Indian standpoint 177
HISTORY OF FORT RIPLEY, 1849 TO 1859, BASED ON THE DIARY OF REV. SOLON W. MANNEY, D. D., CHAPLAIN OF THIS POST FROM
1851 TO 1859, by REV. GEORGE C. TANNER 179-202
Journey from Milwaukee to Fort Ripley 179
Early life of Dr. Manney 180
Location and building of Fort Ripley 181
The vicinity northward to Gull lake 183
Early life of Enmegahbowh 184
Commandants of Fort Ripley 185
The chaplain and his diary 185
Weather records 187
The mission of St. Columba, at Gull lake 188
Life at the fort 190
Journeys to Leech and Otter Tail lakes 190
Attempted journey to Lake Superior 192
Temporary withdrawal of the garrison 193
Ensuing troubles with the Ojibways 193
The reserve and fort offered for sale 196
The diocese of Minnesota organized 196
Founding of schools at Faribault 196
Disturbances at Crow Wing and Little Falls 197
Founding of Fort Abercrombie 199
The last year of the chaplaincy 199
Dr. Manney's work in the Faribault schools 200
Ordination of Enmegahbowh in Faribault . 20T
EARLY EPISCOPAL CHURCHES. AND MISSIONS IN MINNESOTA, by
REV. GEORGE C. TANNER 203-231
The first Sunday school 203
Rev. E. G. Gear, chaplain of Fort Snelling •. . . . 203
Rev. E. A. Greenleaf in the St. Croix valley 208
Earliest Episcopal services in St. Paul 210
Founding the Associate Mission 210
The later work of Father Gear 212
St. Paul selected as a center for mission work 214
The first Episcopal church at St. Anthony 221
Beginning of services for Scandinavians 222
Building of Ascension Church, in Stillwater 223
Visitation by Bishop Kemper in St. Paul 223
Rev. James Lloyd Breck in the Ojibway mission 225
Rev. Timothy Wilcoxson, rector of Christ Church 225
Subsequent itinerant work 228
CONTENTS. XI
Page. THE CHAPEL OF ST. PAUL, AND THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CATHOLIC
CHURCH IN MINNESOTA, by REV. AMBROSE McNuurv 233-245
Visit by Bishop Loras in 1839 234
Galtier, the first priest 235
The first chapel 237
Father Ravoux 240
Pictures of the chapel 241
Bishop Cretin 242
Later cathedrals 242
The first sisters 243
The first hospital 244
Relics of the old chapel 244
MINNESOTA JOURNALISM IN THE TERRITORIAL PERIOD, by DANIEL S. B. JOHNSTON 247-351
FIRST PAPER, 1849 TO 1854 247-276
The first newspaper and its editor 247
The Minnesota Chronicle 253
The Minnesota Register 253
Nathaniel M'Lean 254
John P. Owens 255
The Dakota Friend 256
The Minnesota Democrat 256
The Pioneer and Democrat 257
Colonel D. A. Robertson 258
David Olmsted 258
The Watab Reveille 259
The St. Anthony Express 260
Hon. Isaac Atwater 261
George D. Bowman 261
D. S. B. Johnston 262
The Minnesotian 263
Dr. Thomas Foster 264
J. Fletcher Williams 265
The Northwestern Democrat 266
W. Augustus Hotchkiss 266
Joseph R. Brown 267
Earle S. Goodrich 268
James Mills 268
Louis E. Fisher 269
The boom of 1854 269
The Minnesota Times 270
Thomas M. Newson 270
The Minnesota Republican 271
Rev. Charles G. Ames 271
ii CONTENTS.
Page.
The St. Paul Financial and Real Estate Advertiser 272
Joseph A. Whcelock 272
The St. Croix Union 272
The Winona Argus
William Ashley Jones 273
Captain Sam Whiting 274
Summary, 1849 to 1854 274
SECOND PAPER, 1855 276-290
St. Peter's Courier 277
John C. Stoever 27§
Andrew J. Morgan 27&
Sank Rapids Frontierman 279
Jeremiah Russell 279
Henry P. Pratt 279
Red Wing Sentinel, No. I 280
William Colvill, Jr 280
Southern Minnesota Herald 281
Charles Brown 282
The Winona Weekly Express 283
The St. Paul Free Press 283
A. C. Smith 284
Shakopee Independent 284
Martin Phillips 285
The Winona Republican 285
Daniel Sinclair 286
Minnesota Deutsche Zeitung 286
Albert Wolff 289
Immigration 289
THIRD PAPER, 1856 290-309
The Fillmore County Pioneer 291
Charles J. Henniss 291
The Henderson Democrat 292
H. H. Young 292
A Territorial roll of honor 293
Dakota Weekly Journal 294
James C. Dow 295
Martin Williams 295
The Minnesota Gazette 295
A pioneer poll list 296
Wabasha Journal, No. i 297
The Preston Journal 297
Owatonna Watchman and Register , 298
Cannon Falls Gazette 298
Stillwater Messenger, No. I 299
Andrew J. Van Vorhes 300
CONTENTS. Xlll
Page.
Republican Advocate 301
Chatfield Democrat, No. I 301
The Rice County Herald 302
The Chatfield Republican -. . . . 302
;Hon. Henry W. Holley 303
Orville Brown 303
The Northern Herald 304
Parker H. French 305
An independent editor 305
The Faribault Herald 306
R. A. Mott 306
The Monticello Journal 307
The Oronoco Courier 307
The Carimona Telegraph 308
Summary, 1856 308
FOURTH PAPER, JANUARY IST TO AUGUST 25™, 1857 309-329
Cured of townsite fever 309
Lake City Tribune 311
The Minnesota Advertiser 312
George F. Brott 312
Hyrorum Rapids 313
The Olmsted County Journal 313
The Waumadee Herald 314
The Western Transcript 315
The Monticello Times 315
The Minnesota Free Press 317
The Minnesota Thalboten 317
Minnesota National Demokrat 318
The Mankato Independent 318
The Emigrant Aid Journal 319
The Hokah Chief 319
The Southern Minnesota Star 320
The Mantorville Express 321
John Earle Bancroft 322
The Wasioja Gazette 322
Squire L. Pierce 323
Red Wing Sentinel, No. 2 323
William W. Phelps 325
The Rochester Democrat 325
The Cannon Falls Bulletin 325
The Hastings Independent 326
Columbus Stebbins 326
The Glencoe Register, No. I 327
Colonel John H. Stevens 328
Summary to August 25th, 1857 3^9
xiv CONTENTS.
Page.
FIFTH PAPER, AUGUST 25™, 1857, TO MAY IITH, 1858 329-351
The Financial crash of 1857 331
The Red Wing Republican 33*
Lucius F. Hubbard 332
The Wabasha County Herald 333
The Falls Evening News 336
William A. Croffut 337
Chatfield Democrat, No. 2 339
The Traverse Des Sioux Reporter 34O
James J. Green 34O
The Bancroft Pioneer 341
David Blakeley 34*
The Belle Plaine Inquirer 342
Folkets Rost ( People's Voice) 343
The New Ulm Pioneer 343
The St. Cloud Visitor 344
Jane Grey Swisshelm 34^
The Winona Times 347
The Minneapolis Gazette 347
The Rochester Free Press 34&
The Shakopee Reporter 349
The Northfield Journal 349
The Hastings Daily Ledger 349
The final result 349
HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN MINNESOTA, by PROF. DAVID L. KIEHLE,
LL. D 353-398
The Territorial period 354
Denominational schools 355
The public school system 356
The administration of school funds 358
State aid to education 359
Special rural and semi-graded schools 360
Libraries 361
State supervision of education 361
County supervision 364
Improvement of teachers 365
Normal schools 366
Qualifications of teachers 367
Higher education 353
Financial history of the state university 369
John ;S. Pillsbury, regent of the university 372
The beginnings of university life. .' 372
The presidency of William W. Folwell 373
The presidency of Cyrus Northrop 374
The support of the university ~c
CONTENTS. XV
Page.
Buildings of the university 376
Industrial education 376
The agricultural college 376
The new experimental farm 379
The school of agriculture 380
Professional departments 381
Department of pedagogy 381
Secondary education 383
State high schools 384
Graded schools 386
Semi-graded and rural schools 386
Schools for defectives 387
School for dependent and neglected children 390
Conclusion 391
Tables and statistics 393
Bibliography 398
HISTORY OF THE ST. PAUL & Sioux CITY RAILROAD, 1864-1881, by
GKN. JUDSON W. BISHOP 399-415
Minnesota Valley railroad company 399
St. Paul and <Sioux City railroad company 401
Importance of the Minnesota river 401
Other railroads and land grants 402
The route from Mankato to Sioux City 403
The grasshopper scourge 407
Extension of this railway system 411
Organization of the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha
railway company 413
Retrospect 414
SKETCHES OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF REAL ESTATE IN ST. PAUL,
by HENRY S. FAIRCHILD 417-443
Early real estate sales 418
Increase in values 420
First legal titles in St. Paul proper 423
The grand old pioneers 427
A vision of the future 429
The platting of additions 431
Real estate agents 433
Rivalry between the upper and the lower town 434
Land disputes settled 'by unique methods 436
Some of St. Paul's loyal eulogists 43$
The present and past builders of the city 44*
THE FIRST RAILROAD IN MINNESOTA, by COL. WILLIAM CROOKS 445-448
ILLUSTRATIONS OF PART I.
Page.
I 'LATE I. Portrait of lion. George N. Lamphere I
II. Portrait of Hon. Thomas Simpson 57
III. Portrait of Hon. William W. Pendergast 69
IV. Portrait of Captain Edwin Bell 91
V. Portrait of Rev. Joseph W. Hancock 165
VI. Portrait of Rev. Solon W. Manney 179
VII. Portrait of Rev. George C. Tanner 203
YIN. Portrait of Father Galtier, and the Chapel of St. Paul. . 233
IX. Portrait of Daniel S. B. Johnston 247
X. Portrait of Prof. David L. Kiehle 353
XL Portrait of Gen. Judson W. Bishop 399
XII. Portrait of Henry S. Fairchild 417
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIBTV VOL. X. PLATE I.
HISTORY OF WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER
VALLEY.*
BY HON. GEORGE N. LAMPHERE.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RED RIVER VALLEY.
I have not deemed it entirely relevant to my subject to discuss the topography, the geology, or the aboriginal inhabitants of the Red River valley. And for another reason than its relevancy, I have omitted any discussion thereof because they have hereto- fore been treated by the honored secretary of this Society, War- ren Upham, in a paper read at its annual meeting in 1895 (Min- nesota Historical Society Collections, vol. VIII, pages 11-24).
The Red River valley, as this term is commonly used, is a broad and 'flat prairie plain reaching ten to twenty miles on each side of the Red river of the North, having thus about half of its expanse in Minnesota and the other half in North Dakota. It extends three hundred miles from south to north, continuing in Manitoba to lake Winnipeg. Inclosed by the higher land on each side, and pent in at the north by the barrier of the receding ice- sheet at the end of the Glacial period, this valley plain was cov- ered in that geologic epoch by a vast lake, which, with the com- plete disappearance of the ice-sheet, was drained away to Hudson bay. To this glacial lake Mr. Upham has given the name of Lake Agassiz; and its survey and description are the subject of a vol- ume prepared by him and published by the United States Geolog- ical Survey. The closing chapters of that work should be con- sulted by any who seek information concerning the general ag-
*An Address at the Annual Meeting of the Minnesota Historical Society, January 8, 1900.
2 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
ricultural capabilities of this very fertile district, or concerning its water supply and its hundreds of artesian wells.
WHEAT RAISING IN THE SELKIRK SETTLEMENT.
The beginning of wheat raising in the Red River valley was in the Selkirk settlement north of the boundary line, near Fort Garry, now Winnipeg.
In 1811 the Earl of Selkirk purchased from the Hudson Bay Company a vast tract, of land in Manitoba, including the land afterward occupied by the Selkirk settlement. The purchase was subject to the Indian claim to its title. About the time of this purchase there was a compulsory exodus of the inhabi- tants of the county of Sutherland, Scotland, from the estates of the Duchess of Sutherland ; and Lord Selkirk took a large number of these evicted persons under his protection and forwarded them to settle on the land he had purchased on the Red river. They ar- rived on the bay in the fall of the year, and spent the winter at Churchill, on the western shore of the bay. In the following spring they advanced inland, crossed lake Winnipeg, and ascend- ed the Red river of the North. They intended to make their home at the confluence of the Assiniboine and Red rivers, but on arriving there found that the X. Y. and the Northwest Com- panies of Canada, which were opponents of the Hudson Bay Com- pany, regarded them as invaders and also as proteges of the latter. The Indians also objected to the cultivation of their hunting grounds, and were instigated to hostile proceedings against the new comers by the representations of the Canadian companies.
The year 1812 passed without any satisfactory progress being made toward settlement, and the immigrants spent the following winter in great distress at Pembina, whither they were driven by the Indians. By some means, however, they were able to mollify their opponents, and were permitted to return in the spring. They built log houses and began the cultivation of the land on the bank of the river. Within a year they were attacked by the partisans of the companies, who burnt their houses and killed some of their number. Afterward, being reinforced by a company of additional immigrants from Scotland, the settlers returned to the places from which they had been driven, and recommenced their labors. The
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. 3
hostility of the companies toward these poor immigrants was continued, their property was destroyed and men were captured and killed. At length, on June 19, 1816, the adherents of the two parties met at Seven Oaks, in the center of the settlement, under such circumstances that a small battle occurred, in which about twenty men, among whom was Governor Semple, were killed.
In 1817 Lork Selkirk came over and visited the settlement. Besides having a desire to see how the settlers were prospering, he desired to negotiate for the extinguishment of the Indian title to the land he had purchased. After much difficulty he negoti- ated a treaty with the Chippewas and Crees, which treaty was signed July 18, 1817. The consideration was the annual payment of 200 pounds of tobacco, half to the Chippewas and half to the Crees. The conditions in the territ®ry at this time were so wretched that the Canadian government interfered and appointed a commissioner to make investigation, who recommended an am- icable settlement and a union of interests by the companies, which had been reduced to the verge of bankruptcy. It was a long time, however, before action was taken. Lord Selkirk died in 1821, and the Right Hon. Edward Ellice succeeded to his rights. He was one of the principal stockholders of the Northwest Company, and the Canadian government consulted with him and under its auspices he instituted negotiations, which, after many difficulties, resulted in a harmonious union between the Hudson Bay Com- pany and the Northwest Company, the latter having before com- bined with the X. Y. Company. This agreement went into effect in 1821, and from this date the opposition to the settlers was with- drawn.
Lord Selkirk, on his arrival in 1817, had provided the set- tlers with agricultural implements, seed grain, and other ne- cessaries, but the season was so far advanced that little produce was grown in 1817 and a famine ensued. The people again re- turned to Pembina, where they passed the winter, subsisting as best they could on the produce of the chase. The next spring they went back to their lands, ploughed and seeded them, and entertained high hopes for a bountiful harvest, but were to be sorely disappointed, as an army of locusts made its appearance and in one night destroyed every vestige of verdure in the fields. The locusts left their eggs and in 1819 were more numerous than
4 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
in the preceding year, making agriculture impossible. The set- tlers again took refuge at Pembina, and Lord Selkirk imported 250 bushels of seed grain from the United States at an expense of £1,000, and this, which was sown in the spring of 1820, produced a plentiful crop in the autumn of that year. Thus it may be said that the first wheat that was ever successfully grown and harvested in the Red River valley was in the season of 1820 by the Selkirkers. I am principally indebted for the facts as above set forth to the book entitled "Red River," by J. J. Hargrave, printed by John Lovell, Montreal.
The methods of cultivation in the Selkirk settlement were rude and primitive. Their plow was English or Scotch, made all of iron from the tip of the beam to the end of the handles, and was ten or twelve feet long. Its share was shaped like a mason's trowel. With this drawn by one horse, enough ground was scratched every spring to raise sufficient wheat to feed all the blackbirds and pigeons in the Red River valley, and leave a sur- plus large enough to meet the wants of the people of the settle- ment ; also to sell to the Hudson Bay Company all they needed for their outposts in the British Northwest possessions, and still leave a surplus sufficient for food and seed for two years, which was stored up to be used in case of emergency or failure of crop in the coming seasons. The grain was cut with sickles, the bundles tied with willow withes and stacked in the barnyard, to be flailed out during the winter and cleaned by the winds, men, and women and children all giving a helping hand in this work.
In August, 1851, Charles Cavalier arrived at Pembina. At that date the Red River valley, except the Selkirk settlement, was a howling waste throughout its whole length and breadth. Then there were only four white men in that section, namely, Norman W. Kittson, Joseph Rolette, George Morrison, and Charles Cav- alier. There were 1,800 to 2,000 half-breeds, and Mr. Cavalier says that, as he was born among the Wyandotte Indians in Ohio and brought up near them, the Indians at Pembina were not much of a curiosity to him, but the half-breed was a new phase of the genus. "To this day," says he, "I have not fully made up my mind whether the cross between the white man and the red man was much of an improvement, as with but few exceptions the Indian blood predominates."
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. D
In those early days bread was a rarity, and pemmican, dried buffalo meat, fish and a few potatoes constituted the food supply. Charles Cavalier and Commodore N. W. Kittson planned a trip to the Selkirk settlement, where they were told they would find bread in abundance. They set out in the same year (1851) and in a day and a half's sail down the river in a canoe reached Fort Garry and St. Boniface, where they received a hospitable welcome from Vereck Marion, Mr. Kittson's father-in-law. They visited the Roman Catholic bishops and clergy and found them pleasant and agreeable gentlemen. They also visited the Sisters of Charity at the hospital, who gave them a warm welcome and showed them through the whole establishment. Kittson having returned to Pembina, Mr. Cavalier, in company with Mr. Marion, visited the office of the Hudson Bay Company, where they met also Major Campbell, who was in command of a company of British troops stationed near Fort Garry. With Marion, who was an old set- tler and acquainted with every one, Cavalier went on a tour of inspection and gathered all the information possible in his limited time in order to tell his friends on his return about this isolated, almost unheard-of community, and how they made life endurable in their frigid northern climate.
From Fort Garry to the Lower Fort the two men called at almost every house, and found a happy, prosperous, English- speaking people, mostly of Scotch descent from the immigrants sent over by Lord Selkirk. A few of other nationalities were also there. They were very kindly and hospitable people. The two men called upon Bishop Anderson of the English church, and found him to be "a fine old English gentleman all of the olden time." With him they visited the colleges, one for males and the other for females, where the youth received a classical education, and which institutions are still in existence. Here Mr. Cavalier first met Donald Murray, one of the original Selkirk settlers, who had once settled at South Pembina and had remained there until it was determined to be south of the international boundary line, and whose daughter is now Mr. Cavalier's wife. Mr. Cavalier somewhat enthusiastically says that his impression at that time was that he had never seen a more prosperous community in the States than was the Selkirk settlement. There was not a family that was not well off as to all the wants of life. The latch string
6 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
of every door hung on the outside, and all who called were wel- come to the best the larder contained, and when leaving were asked to come again. Sectarianism was unknown among them, there being only one church, the Episcopal. Though the Scotch were mostly Presbyterians, yet when Dalton Black settled among them and an Episcopal church was built for them, there was no ill feeling shown on either side. Their houses were all built of logs and built for comfort, convenience, and warmth. Many of them are yet occupied, but the changes caused by Canadian im- migration have had a large influence in changing their manner of life. However, they are today the same good people and live up to their religion.
The half-breeds of the Selkirk settlement, speaking English, are not nomads like those of French extraction, but take to the ways of their fathers and are workers and tillers of the soil. Nearly all have homes and lands of their own, educate their chil- dren, and have something laid by for a rainy day; while the French half-breeds, who are mostly of the Roman Catholic faith, believe that "sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
As the harvest of that season (1851) was nearly finished and the barnyards were filled with large and bountiful stacks of wheat and barley, and a stack or two of oats and peas, it was a rich sight, and there was no fear of starvation for two or more years, even should the crops fail. The land system, which gave a strip of land six chains wide fronting the Red River and extending back two miles, gave the settlement the appearance of a long, straggling village along the road from Fort Garry to the Lower Fort ; and as the dwellings, barns and stock were in close view all the way, the picture was a most beautiful and interesting one, such as is no- where seen in the States and rarely even in old Europe.
The Selkirkers generally had large families and old and young worked together on the homesteads . While like other farm- ers they suffered from drouth, grasshoppers, and frosts, yet they usually secured good crops, and saved a reserve for two or three years, an amount for seed, and sold the surplus to the Hudson Bay Company. Occasionally they would have poor crops and perhaps be compelled to use their reserve, or even to borrow from the Hudson Bay Company for seed and food. The company, whose interest it was to be liberal, as they depended upon these
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. 7
farmers for their supplies of wheat for their support, loaned wil- lingly, but required the payment from the succeeding crop. A government never existed, in the opinion of Mr. Cavalier, that got on better with settlers than the much abused Hudson Bay Company.
EARLY FLOURING MILLS; GRASSHOPPERS.
At that time, as before noted, all grain was cut with sickles and bound with willow withes by the women and children. Wheat, barley, and oats, were threshed on a barn floor with a flail during the winter season, and were winnowed with a large wind scoop resting on the breast; and it was remarkable how fast, with a good wind, the grain could be cleaned. The wheat was ground in large windmills, bolted fine and clean, and made excellent bread. The flour was not like the flour of these days, and modern cooks would probably turn up their noses at it, but it was to the taste as good as our best.
Mr. Cavalier in his rambles on that trip counted fifteen wind- mills, all grinding out flour at a lively rate, which at that time sold for eight or ten shillings per hundred weight.
The old settlers told of a grasshopper scourge at a date for- gotten by them, that made a clean sweep of every growing thing, and that grasshoppers were piled up by the winds and waves four feet deep on the shores of lake Manitoba and Shoal lake. They stated that after the grasshoppers had done all the damage they could, as every thing was eaten, the Catholic clergy got up a pro- cession and said prayers, and on the next day the hoppers quit hopping, took to their wings, and flew away to the northward and were seen no more.
Mr. Cavalier says the first time he saw grasshoppers was in 1854. He was in camp one night on White Bear lake, now lake Whipple, and took an early start toward St. Cloud. It had rained during the night and all were wet, so at nine o'clock they turned out on the bank of Long lake and spread their clothes and other things to dry. They made a fire to cook breakfast. Mr. Cavalier, on looking around for his blankets, etc., saw nothing but a squirm- ing mass of grasshoppers, all as busy as if they had struck a bonanza. They were not able to get out of that mass of grass-
8 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
hoppers until they had traveled about twenty miles. On the re- turn they struck them at St. Cloud, and they had cleaned the country quite thoroughly on their flight east. On crossing the Red river and between that and the Wild Rice river they struck the forerunners of another cloud of grasshoppers, and did not get clear of them until they arrived home at St. Joseph, now Walhalla. For gluttony the hopper takes the cake, Mr. Cavalier says, and re- lates that they ate the seat of his saddle and the tops of his boots. He threw a plug of tobacco to them, and within an hour they had eaten that.
In 1870 another visitation of grasshoppers appeared, and in that year and the year following their ravages were disastrous. In 1874 they came again and stayed three years, eating everything in the Red River valley, and the settlers were obliged to haul their flour from St. Cloud. Minneapolis and St. Paul sent relief to carry the poor through, which saved many from actual starva- tion.
Thus the Selkirkers, with the simplest and rudest of agricul- tural implements, were always prosperous, and want was un- known among them. Through them we learned that the Dakota lands were not the barren wastes and howling desert of dry, drift- ing sand that our school books had taught us, and that the Red River valley contained a mine of wealth greater than any dis- covered mine of silver and gold. This we were slow to realize, but have at length made the Red River valley the most bountiful gran- ary of the world. The windmills of that famous pioneer settlement have done their last grinding ; most of the old hand labor imple- ments have been laid aside ; and the new and improved forms of farm machinery, so efficient and so exact as to give almost the appearance of having human intelligence, have taken their place. These are run or propelled by horse and steam power, and the labor of one man has become as that of many. Mr. Cavalier reminiscently says : "I was here for years living by the proceeds of the chase, never dreaming that this mode of livelihood would ever cease, or that the millions of buffaloes that roamed the prai- ries, would ever be exhausted, and that we old settlers would soon be seeking other means of support."
The settlers south of the line had to depend upon the Selkirk settlement for their bread and butter. Old Father Belcourt, of
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. 9
St. Joseph, near the Pembina mountain, a Catholic priest, and a rustler in all things for himself first and for his people next, built a bull mill at his mission at St. Joseph and ran it a few years with oxen, and ground what little wheat the half-breeds raised. With no bolt to take the bran out of the flour, it had to be run through sieves or eaten husks and all. The half-breeds did not furnish wheat enough to make the mill pay, and they could not be induced to greater industry, so that the good old man had to give the mill up. The result was that the half-breeds returned to the coffee-mill or ate the grain raw or roasted. That mill was the first. George Emerling and John Mayn built the next, and that mill is now one of the paying concern* of Pembina county at Wal- halla, having all the new improvements in merchant mills.
FIRST MAIL ROUTE.
The first public business tending to civilization was the es- tablishing of a monthly mail between Pembina and Fort Aber- crombie. It was a kind of go-as-you-please, sometimes on foot, with the mail bag on the man's back, sometimes by horse and cart, and by courier, any way so that the mail was carried, and in those clays it was never behind time. At least the contractor never was docked or fined. From Pembina the mail was taken to Fort Garry, and that office had to use Uncle Sam's stamps. From Fort Garry the route was to Fort Abercrombie and run by dog trains, horse and cart, and one year by ox cart, as all the horses from St. Cloud to Fort Garry died or were rendered useless by an ep- idemic. Sometime in the sixties, Capt. Blakeley and Carpenter secured the contract to carry the mail from St. Cloud to George- town on the Red river, and afterward had it extended to Fort Garry, Selkirk settlement.
The following is a list of the stations. Beginning at Pembina and going up or south, the first station was Frank La Rose's, at Twelve Mile Point ; next were Bowesmont and Long Point, near Drayton, Hugh Biggiotoff; and Kelly Point, now Acton. Kelly was an old driver and gave it up. Gerard was station agent as long after as the route was in existence. Beyond were Turtle River, Jo Caloskey; Grand Forks, John Stewart first, and several others afterward; Buffalo Coulie, unknown; Frog Point, un-
10 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
known ; Goose Prairie, A. Sargent ; Elm River, Johnson ; George- town, Hudson Bay Company; Oak Point, unknown; Twenty- four Mile Point, McCauleyville, and Breckenridge. At none of the above stations was a handful of grain raised. The contractors hauled all their oats from St. Cloud. The above named points were all the settled points, and there was not a settler elsewhere on the river from Breckenridge to Pembina.
STEAMBOATS ON THE RED RIVER.
In 1858, Anson Northup got the steamboat Pioneer in suc- cessful operation. Mr. Cavalier says he was then living at St. Boniface, Selkirk settlement, and with his wife made a trip on her to Lower Fort Garry, and he says that the settlers on the bank of the river were as much surprised as were the Indians in their vil- lages on the Minnesota river at the first boat when she steamed up to Mankato. It was a perfect circus all the way down.
The International made her appearance within three or four years afterward as a freight boat for the Hudson Bay Company, ostensibly owned by Commodore N. W. Kittson, and was used as long as there was need of a boat on the river. She was all the time under the command of Capt. Frank Aymond, a St. Louis Frenchman from Ville Roche, and he was an excellent captain. Since leaving the river he has been living on his farm some four miles above Neche on the Pembina river, where he expects to pass the remainder of his days to a happy old age.
The Selkirk came next. She was built by James J. Hill ; and other boats were built to supply the increased demand. Then fol- lowed the combination known as the Red River Transportation Company, which did business under that head until the railroads successfully shut off river navigation.
The amount of business that these boats accomplished was astonishing, and yet they did but little, perceptibly, toward set- tling the country, as there were only three or four points on the river that showed a beginning of what was to come. From Fargo and Moorhead to Grand Forks there were only a few settlers ; and from Grand Forks to Drayton a few had settled to stay. Bowesmont was a steamboat landing, but never has amount- ed to much. Then Joliette commenced to grow and is now quite a
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. 11
prosperous community, and, last but not least, Pembina. Back from the river there was no settlement and without the aid of rail- roads it would have taken an age to build up the country to what it now is.
Prior to 1878 there had been a few shipments of wheat, which had been picked up along the river by the boats. Frank C. Myrick, who was in the commission business from 1864, made the largest shipment on one of the boats ever made from Pembina. It amounted to 500 bushels of wheat, which he had collected from the back country on the Pembina and Tongue rivers. From Grand Forks to Pembina settlers came dropping in by families one at a time, and all came with the idea that wheat was the only staple to be cultivated in the Red River valley, all of which they had learned from the remarkable crops raised in the Selkirk settlement with primitive tools for cultivation, yielding from twenty to fifty bushels per acre. In one instance by garden cultivation as an ex- periment on the ground of Deacon James McKay, the yield was seventy-five bushels to the acre. If such crops are raised in Sel- kirk with the imperfect cultivation, why may we not, they rea- soned, do the same or better with improved machinery farther south in the valley? For a few years they did so, and they con- tinued to do well as long as they confined themselves to the ex- tent of land they could properly cultivate. But greed was their worst enemy. If 160 acres panned out so well, why would not a section do better? And there they made a mistake, as will be explained later.
FIRST WHEAT RAISING NEAR THE PEMBINA RIVER.
During the period thus far traced, no wheat was raised south of the international boundary line. The settlers there lived on fish, flesh, and fowl. They raised all the garden vegetables needed, and bought flour from the Selkirk settlement. For fresh meat they depended upon the plains, and were seldom out of a supply. Barley was raised for horse feed, and some oats were raised, but the blackbirds devoured most of the oat fields. Having no mills to grind wheat, the settlers on the south side of the line raised none, but did raise squaw corn for roasting ears. The few cattle were kept on hay in winter, and the Indian ponies dug theirs
12 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
out of the snow, save in a period of unusually cold weather and deep snows, when they were fed hay.
In 1871 or 1872, Charles Bottineau, who had tilled ten acres to garden, seeded it to wheat, and claims to have raised fifty bushels of No. i hard wheat to the acre upon it. His place was four miles above Neche on the north side of Pembina river. Two years later Charles Grant, two miles west of Pembina, raised a small field of wheat, and claims to have averaged forty bushels to the acre, ail of which they hauled to the Selkirk settlement to have it ground. A man named Vere Ether came to Pembina at the be- ginning of Kiel's rebellion (1869), and was stopped at the boun- dary line by Riel's scouts. They sent him back to wait for a more convenient time. He was persuaded to take a preemption on the Pembina river a few miles east of Neche. He opened up his farm and was the first settler there who made wheat-rais- ing his chief employment. He always had good crops, in good seasons forty bushels per acre and never less than fifteen bushels.
PIONEER FARMERS NEAR MOORHEAD AND FARGO.
One of the oldest settlers and farmers in the Red River valley, south of the international line, is Hon. R. M. Probstfield, now living on his farm three and a half miles north of Moorhead. He came to the valley in 1859, and located at the mouth of the Sheyenne river, about five miles south of Georgetown. In Octo- ber, 1860, he went to Europe, and returned in the spring of 1861, but, owing to the flooded condition of the valley that spring, he was unable to reach his location until June loth. At that time parties by the name of Roundsville and Hanna were on the land where Mr. Probstfield now lives, and that spring they sowed a lit- tle wheat and planted potatoes. Roundsville and Hanna were called away and they made arrangements with Mr. Probstfield to harvest the wheat and dig the potatoes, but the Chippewa Indians threatened to drive them away and kill their stock. The wheat was destroyed by hail. Mr. Probstfield dug the potatoes. He had brought some cattle from St. Paul, and that fall he cut some hay on the place now occupied by Jacob Wambach. The Indians never molested them, as, after the troops at Fort Abercrombie had given them a whipping, they went north into the British possess-
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. J.«j
ions. In the fall of 1861 he went to the post at Georgetown, and lived there until March, 1863, when General Sibley ordered all whites to go to Abercrombie. This was owing to the Indian up- rising. He remained at Abercrombie until June, 1863, when he was ordered by General Sibley to remove to St. Cloud, where he remained until May, 1864, when he returned to Georgetown. The Indians had burned his buildings on the Wambach place, on the Buffalo river near Georgetown. He then opened a boarding house in one of the Hudson Bay Company's buildings at Georgetown, and was appointed postmaster. There were twenty-five men there at work building barges, who lived in the military quarters and boarded with him.
From 1864 to 1868, Mr. Probstfield was the Hudson Bay Company's agent at Georgetown. In 1862 the company seeded some wheat, but it was not harvested, owing to the abandonment of the post on account of the Indian scare. The company leased its boat, the International, to Harris, Gaeger, Mills & Bentley, until the post was again opened in 1864. Roundsville and Hanna having abandoned their farm, in Oakport, MV. Probstfield took it as his homestead and occupied it in May, 1869, where he has ever since lived. There were seventy-one acres in the place, and he afterwards purchased additional land at $1.25 per acre. In 1869 he broke land for a garden, and seeded oats and barley and planted potatoes. He also kept live stock. As there were no threshing machines or mills in the country, it would not pay to raise wheat. In 1874, the Hudson Bay Company brought a thresher, a horse power machine, and the company's agent at Georgetown, Walter J. S. Traill, offered to thresh any wheat that was grown. Mr. Probstfield accordingly broke up fifteen acres and seeded it to wheat, harvesting twenty-eight bushels per acre, which was sold at about $1.50 per bushel. I should have remarked that during the years 1870 to 1873, Mr. Probstfield cultivated ten acres to oats, barley, corn and garden. Moorhead and Fargo had begun to be established in 1871, and these places afforded an excellent market for all the produce grown.
- Nels Larson raised some wheat also in 1874, on land about two miles north of Moorhead, now known as Dr. Brendemuehrs farm. Ole Thompson, Hogan Anderson (Hicks), and Jens An- derson, raised wheat south of Moorhead the same year. This
14 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
wheat was sold to an elevator in Fargo that was built before Brims & Finkle had built their large elevator and mill in Moor- head.
In 1875, Mr. Probstfield again raised wheat, and the number who were engaged in the industry considerably increased that year. In the spring of that year a number of Norwegians from Houston county came up and looked at land on the Dakota side between Georgetown and Argusville. Finding the land very wet by overflow of the river, they returned to the Minnesota side, and Mr. Probstfield, meeting them, asked where they were going, and they replied, "Back to Houston county." He was cultivating potatoes, and he said to them that if they would put two young men to work in his place, he would go with them and show them good land that had been surveyed. They agreed, and he took them over to the Buffalo river about six or eight miles east, where they located. There were six or seven families, and among them were Ole Thortvedt, Ole Tauge, Torgerson Skree, Ole Anderson, and others. They were delighted with the location and land, and they or their descendants are still there and prosperous. A. G. Kassenborg, A. O. Kragnes, and B. Gunderson and others, came a little later, and located on the Buffalo river. Jacob Wambach came in 1874, with his father-in-law, Joseph Stochen. Contem- porary with Mr. Probstfield was E. R. Hutchinson, who settled where he still resides, about two miles south of Georgetown on the river. The boom began about 1878, when the immigration into the valley was very large. Wheat sold for $i and above until about 1882, and it fell until it reached the low price of 42 or 43 cents.
One of the oldest settlers in the valley on the Dakota side and one of the most successful farmers is James Holes. He came in July, 1871, and bought out the claim of Ole Hanson, who had a cabin on the west bank of the river about one mile north of the Northern Pacific surveyed line. Hanson had a small patch of corn and potatoes. No corn was secured that year, and Mr. Holes says he dug about half a barrel of potatoes. The Northern Pacific railroad had laid tracks in the fall of 1871 to the east side of the river, to a point where Moorhead now stands. There was no bridge as yet, and owing to want of timber the bridge was not
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. 15
built until the summer of 1872. The first engine crossed the river July 4 (or June 6), 1872. Mr. Holes states that the freight charges for wheat to Duluth at that time were prohibitory and this discouraged the growing of it. He interviewed the general manager and made such representations to him. The charge then was $99 for 20,000 pounds. This was exactly 30 cents per bushel. The company soon after (in 1873) made a considerable reduction. In 1872 Mr. Holes had the largest cultivated field in Cass county. It was cropped to oats, potatoes, and garden vegetables, and con- tained twenty-four acres. There were good markets, and Mr. Holes shipped his produce to Fort Buford, Bismarck, Winnipeg, and Glyndon. In 1873 he pursued the same employment. In 1874 he seeded fifteen acres of wheat, and harvested twenty bushels per acre. The season was dry, and, as the land had been gardened, it blew out badly, which caused a rather light yield for those early years. The wheat was the Scotch Fife variety, and he sold it for seed. In 1875 his acreage of wheat was about the same, but hav- ing in 1876 broken 150 acres, in the spring of 1877 he seeded 175 acres to wheat and secured an average of twenty-seven and one- half bushels per acre, which he sold at $i per bushel. As this wheat was raised on land worth $5 per acre, the profit was large.
From 1878 to 1893, Mr. Holes yearly increased his acreage of wheat until he had reached 1,600 acres, which has been about the extent of his yearly wheat cultivation since. His land is now worth $30 per acre. The poorest field he ever harvested was ten bushels per acre, and the best forty-four bushels. His average has always exceeded ten bushels, but never exceeded twenty-seven and one-half bushels. The price has ranged from $1.50 to 45 cents per bushel. Grasshoppers prevailed from 1871 to 1877, an<^ wreaked more or less damage every year. In May, 1876, the settlers burned the young grasshoppers in the prairie grass, which checked them; and in 1877 they all flew away, and this part of the valley has not been troubled with them since. Mr. Holes' crops have, in the twenty-eight years of his residence here, been injured by hail four seasons. The most disastrous hailstorm was last season, when he lost, as he figures it, about 16,000 bushels of wheat by hail. Mr. Holes states as his judgment, formed af- ter long experience, that wheat can be produced at a profit in the
16 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
valley when properly cultivated, excluding from the calculation the advance in price of land, and that the valley is one of the best in the United States for profitable farming.
Moorhead was the terminus of the Northern Pacific railroad for a period of two years, and a large amount of freight was transferred at that point for transportation down the Red river to Winnipeg and other places. At that time nine steamers were plying on the river, and a number of flatboats were used in con- nection. An eye witness has informed me that he has seen as many as eleven hundred Mennonite immigrants camped at Moor- head and bound for Manitoba and the Northwest Territory, who pitched their tents on the banks of the Red River, awaiting trans- portation by boat down.
In May, 1871, there were a few settlers at Glyndon, Musko- da, and Hawley, and a few along the Red river within the present limits of Clay county. The very earliest settlements were made at Georgetown by Adam Stein, R. M. Probstfield, and E. R. Hutchinson, who became husbandmen and tillers of the soil. We have the gratification of knowing that they are still liv- ing witnesses of the fertility of the Red River valley soil and the healthfulness of the climate, and moreover of the fecundity of mankind when under the influence of both these. Mr. Hutchin- son is the father of seventeen children, Mr. Probstfield of thir- teen, and Mr. Stein of eight.
It may be of interest to my hearers to learn the particulars as to how it happened that these three pioneers drifted into what is now one of the most famous agricultural regions in the world, but which was then a dreary waste uninhabited save by Indians and roamed by wild beasts. In March, 1859, a party of capital- ists, consisting in part of Messrs. Peter Poncin, Welch, and Bot- tineau, of Minneapolis, and Barneau, John Irvine, and Freuden- reich, of St. Paul, explored the Red river country; and their in- vestigations convinced them that a point at the mouth of the Shey- enne river, about fourteen miles north of the present site of Moor- head, was the head of navigation of the Red river, and they judged that it was the natural point for a townsite. They there- fore covered a plot of land at the point named on the Minnesota side of the Red river with scrip, and laid out a town which they named La Fayette, and they sold a great many shares in this
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. 17
townsite to parties east. On the site they built a large log house, which they intended for a tavern. At this time Mr. Probstfield was in business at St. Paul in partnership with George Emerling, and the townsite owners induced Mr. Probstfield to go up to La Fayette. He remained there for a year or more and soon after preempted a claim on the south side of Buffalo river, not far from Georgetown. In 1864 he went into the employ of the Hud- son Bay Company at Georgetown, where they had a warehouse and trading post,
Mr. Stein was induced in July, 1859, to g° to La Fayette, and he afterwards preempted a claim near Georgetown. His first work was in cutting prairie grass and making hay, which he sold to the Hudson Bay Company; and later he worked in erecting buildings at Georgetown for that company. In December, 1861, Mr. Stein enlisted as a soldier in the Fourth Minnesota regiment and served through the Civil war. After his return from the war, he settled on land near the Hudson Bay Company's build- ings at Georgetown, and has been a farmer there ever since.
The first steamboat on the Red river was built at La Fayette, the materials for which were transported across the country from Crow Wing on the Mississippi, where the steamer North Star was broken up for that purpose. The new boat was named the Anson Northup. With the party who came across the country with those materials was E. R. Hutchinson, who helped to build the boat, and for a number of years he was engaged in boating on the Red river and building boats thereon and also on the Sas- katchewan. Mr. Hutchinson afterward became a farmer and pre- empted land not far from the old site of La Fayette, where he now lives. I have related in another place how Mr. Probstfield became one of the first farmers in the valley. Besides these three men on the north of the line of the Northern Pacific railroad there were on the south Jens Anderson and his brother, about three miles south of Moorhead. Ole Thompson made settlement about the same time on the river about eleven miles south.
Early in the spring of 1871 Henry A. Bruns went from St. Cloud to Brainerd, which was then the western end of the Nor- thern Pacific railroad track. From Brainerd he rode to Oak Lake, at the engineers' headquarters of the road, where he met Gen. Thomas L. Rosser. The Northern Pacific had surveved its line
18 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
to the Red river at a point some twenty-eight miles below Moor- head. Mr. Bruns was prospecting, looking for business chances. He then returned to St. Paul, bought a load of provisions and ready-made clothing, and hauled them to the Red river. Where Mr. Probstfield's house now stands (about three and a half miles north of Moorhead), he found an encampment of tents, and here he met H. G. Finkle, J. B. Chapin, and John Haggert. This was about June, 1871. Mr. Bruns opened out his goods in a tent, and formed a partnership with Mr. Finkle. They remained at this point (Oakport) until September, when, the townsite of Moor- head having been staked out, all those at Oakport removed there- to. At Moorhead they did business in tents all winter. In March, 1872, Mr. Bruns went to M'cCauleyville and bought a lot of lumber, hired teams, and hauled it to Moorhead. Bruns & Finkle then erected a frame building, of 21 by 50 feet. They continued to do business in this building until 1877, when they built a large brick store.
We have given this somewhat lengthy introduction of Mr. Bruns into this history for the reason that he was a pioneer in promoting the industry of wheat raising in the Red River valley. In the winter of 1871-2, Mr. Bruns purchased 500 bushels of seed wheat, which he gathered along the Minnesota river and farther south and east, and transported it hundreds of miles by sleds, which wheat he distributed among the farmers of Clay and Nor- man counties, Minnesota, and Cass and Traill counties, Dakota. The facilities for raising wheat that year being poor and the grasshoppers very destructive, there was no surplus from the har- vest in excess of the amount required for seed the next year. Early in 1874, Mr. Bruns organized a stock company which erect- ed the first flouring mill and sawmill. This mill soon demonstrat- ed that the wheat of the valley was of superior quality for making strong flour and excellent bread. The flour was awarded the first premium at the Minneapolis and Minnesota State fairs two con- secutive seasons. The sawmill cut timber for the construction of the steamboats, the Minnesota and Manitoba, built at Moorhead in 1875, by the Merchants' Transportation Company, of which James Douglas, brother of John Douglas of St. Paul, was presi- dent. They were the best boats ever on Red river. This assist- ed in opening up Manitoba and the Northwest Territory markets.
WHEAT RAISING IN THE REP RIVER VALLEY. 19
Later the Upper Missouri and Black Hills countries were secured,, and later still the Yellowstone country, as markets for the flour of this mill. It created a market for the wheat produced within a wide radius, and for a number of years took all that was offered, rarely giving less than $i per bushel.
In 1878, Bruns and Finkle, seeing the necessity for more storage for the rapidly increasing production of wheat, erected a large steam elevator at Moorhead, with a capacity of 110,000 bushels. It was the first steam elevator built in the Red River valley. Mr. Bruns informs the writer that in the fall of 1873 he shipped the first carload of wheat from the Red river to lake Superior, which, by personal hard work in cleaning, was graded No. 2, though it certainly was No. i, none like it ever having been shipped in the history of the world before. Mr. Bruns, in a per- sonal letter, says: "In the fall of 1874 I commenced to grind about all the wheat then grown in the Red River valley, and in the fall of 1875 I gathered wheat and other grain, not as before by the thousand but by the tens of thousands of bushels, and with wheat and flour of my own grinding supplied the Canadian gov- ernment and Mennonites with seed and bread throughout Mani- toba."
Of the pioneer farmers who broke land extensively and op- ened farms in Clay county are John and Patrick H. Lamb, Frank- lin J. Schreiber, G. S. Barnes, Lyman Loring, George M. Rich- ardson, Capt. W. H. Newcomb, A. M. Burdick, W. J. Bodkin, and Charles Brendemuehl.
EARLY WHEAT RAISING NEAR FORT ABERCROMBIE.
Wheat was grown near Abercrombie, on the east or Minne- sota side of the river, in what is now Wilkin county, about as early as anywhere in the valley, except in the Selkirk settlement and in Pembina county, North Dakota, then the Territory of Dakota. Probably the first man to sow and harvest wheat in the upper or southern part of the valley was Hon. David McCauley. I append herewith his narrative just as he has given it to me.
"I came to Abercrombie July 17, 1861, to act as post sutler, postmaster, and agent for the Northwestern Transportation Com- pany. In the spring of 1862, I sowed a few acres of barley,
20 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
planted potatoes, and opened up a garden, which were destroyed by the Indians in August. In the spring of 1864, I crossed over on the Minnesota side of the river opposite to the fort and com- menced farming. In 1865 I sowed some seventy-five acres of oats and planted a few acres of potatoes, and continued to sow and plant the same crops until 1871. There was no market for wheat until that time, nor until the railroad reached M'oorhead or Breckenridge. In the spring of 1872 I put in a few acres of wheat, and have continued the same up to the present time. This season (1899) I raised 10,000 bushels of wheat. In the earlier years the yield of wheat was about the same as now. The land that I cultivated in 1865 has been cropped every year since ex- cept three, and the yield in 1899 was as good as I have known it. I know of no wheat being sown in the valley earlier than mine. The following are some of the men who sowed wheat soon after I did : Edward Connolly and Mitchell Robert, Breckenridge j Loure Bellman, J. R. Harris, and J. B. Welling, McCauleyville ; Frank Herrick and John Eggen, Abercrombie. In the early days the only market for oats and potatoes was Fort Abercrombie."
DEVELOPMENT BY RAILROADS.
Prior to 1878 there were no settlements away from the Red, Red Lake, and Pembina rivers, in the lower or northern portion of the valley, so that, in treating of the Minnesota side north of the Northern Pacific railroad, it is apparent that no wheat was grown on that side (except near Moorhead) until the completion of the St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba railroad (now the Great Nor- thern) to St. Vincent, when immigratiorf set in, bringing settlers to many stations, who at once began to break land and sow it to wheat. The district between the railroad and Red river was first settled.
It is a fact, which none will dispute, that the building of rail- roads into and through the valley has been the most important factor in settling the country and developing the resources of this fertile plain. Without these it would today be practically unpop- ulated and undeveloped, as it remained for fifty years after the Selkirk settlers had demonstrated its adaptability to cultivation.
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. 21
There might have been a fringe of settlements along the streams, but without more efficient means for transporting wheat and other agricultural products to market, there could not have been any great development and production.
THE DALRYMPLE FARM.
Another leading factor in settling the country has been the so called bonanza farms. Those demonstrated on a large scale the practicability of producing wheat at a profit on the flat lands of the valley. They advertised the results of great operations, and made known to the world the wonderful possibilities of the region.
The first of these was the Dalrymple farm, eighteen miles west of the Red river, opened up in 1875 and subsequent years. A brief description of this farm may be of interest. In the year 1875, a number of large holders of the bonds of the Northern Pacific railroad company, supposed to be the Grandin brothers, Messrs. Cass, Howe, and Cheney, who had taken the bonds at par and which were then worth only ten cents on the dollar, deter- mined to save as much as possible, and exchanged the bonds for a great block of the company's lands in the Red River valley. In March, 1875, Oliver Dalrymple, an experienced farmer of Minne- sota, examined the land and became convinced of its value for wheat growing. He therefore entered into a contract with the owners to test the merits of the soil, the terms of which contract are understood to be that they were to furnish the stock, imple- ments, and seed, with which to cultivate the land, and were to receive in return seven per cent, on the amount invested, Dal- rymple to have the option of paying back the principal and inter- est, at which time he was to be granted one third of the land. In that year he broke 1,280 acres, and his first harvest, in 1876, yield- ed 32,000 bushels of the choicest wheat, or an average of a little more than twenty-three bushels per acre.
As soon as the results of M'r. Dalrymple's experiment became known, capital began seeking the depreciated railroad bonds and exchanging them for land, and labor flocked from adjoining states to preempt government land. In May, June, and July,
22 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
1879, the sales of government land amounted to nearly 700,000 acres, and during the year, 1,500,000 acres were taken on home- stead preemption, and tree claims in Dakota.
The Dalrymple holdings comprised some 100,000 acres in all, and in 1878 the wheat acreage had been increased to 13,000 acres ; and it was increased from year to year until in 1895 there were some 65,000 acres under cultivation. The cultivated land was subdivided into tracts of 2,000 acres, each tract being managed by a superintendent and foreman, with its own set of books. Each estate had suitable and complete buildings, consisting of houses for superintendent and men, stables, granaries, tool-houses, and other buildings. As a matter of course, to carry on the Dalrymple farm required the services of a large number of men and horses, the use of many plows, harrows, seeders, harvesters, threshers and engines, wagons, and other implements and tools. A settlement was effected in 1896 and years following, Mr. Dalrymple tak- ing his share, and the great farm was divided and now comprises, besides the Dalrymple, the Howe and Cheney farms, and perhaps others.
THE GRANDIN FARM.
Another bonanza farm of large extent was the Grandin farm consisting of 38,000 acres, of which 14,000 acres in and around Grandin, and 6,000 acres near Mayville in Traill county, North Dakota, are now under cultivation. The first crop of wheat was grown and harvested on this farm in 1878. This farm was oper- ated in a similar manner as the Dalrymple farm, being divided into tracts of 1,500 acres, managed by a foreman. The two farms employ some 300 men and 300 horses, and use 100 plows, 50 seed- ers, 75 binders, 10 separators, and 10 engines, etc. The average yield of wheat on this farm has been 17 bushels per acre. In 1899 a severe hailstorm destroyed eight sections of wheat on this farm, which was ripe for the harvest. That was the only wide- spread damage that has occurred to the crops of the farm in the twenty-one years it has been operated.
There are a number of other bonanza farms on both sides of the river, as the Lockhart and Keystone farms, respectively in Norman and Polk counties, Minnesota, and the Dwight, Fairview,
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. 23
Cleveland, Downing, and Antelope farms in North Dakota. In fact, large farms have been opened in all the twelve counties, farms comprising three to five sections of land. They have served their purpose, and many of them have been reduced or divided and sold.
INCREASE OF POPULATION AND WEALTH.
it is interesting to note the rapid growth of population and wealth that has taken place in the Red River valley within thirty years. In that time many cities, villages, and hamlets, have been established and builded, some of which have grown until they may fairly be denominated as magnificent and metropolitan. It is hardly needed to name Fargo and Moorhead (one city in a commercial and social sense, although situated in different states) ; Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, similarly situated ; and like- wise Wahpeton and Breckenridge. Pembina and St. Vincent also are somewhat similarly situated, though more distant from each other. Besides there are Crookston, on the Red Lake river, Hal- lock, Warren, Ada, and Barnesville, in Minnesota, Grafton and Hillsboro, in North Dakota, and many others of less note in both states.
In 1870 the population of the twelve counties was about 1,000. In 1880 it was 56,000. In 1890 it was 166,000. In 1900 it is estimated to be 350,000. The valuation of property in the val- ley in 1870 was zero. At this date it is estimated at not less than $100,000,000; and I am speaking of assessed valuation, which is, as a matter of course, far short of actual valuation.
CAUSES OF OCCASIONAL FAILURES.
While there has been a somewhat remarkable development of the wheat growing industry in the Red River valley, and it is undisputed that its soil and climate are as favorable as any in the United States, and perhaps in the world, yet many industrious men have scored failures. In every employment, business, or industry, failures sometimes occur; and therefore, if they have occurred in raising wheat where the conditions are favorable, it is not surprising. It is also dear that such failures are chargeable to the mistakes of the men so engaged, rather than to the country.
24 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
From a long observation of the methods employed and of the equipment of those who have pursued the work, I am of the opin- ion that the chief cause of failure has been the fact that men have undertaken larger tasks than their means warranted. In the early years of the settlement of the valley men were infected as with a craze. Wheat was selling at a dollar and upwards per bushel, while land could be had by paying the government fees for mak- ing entry, or by purchase at $5 per acre. Stories of large yields and high prices were circulated, and many believed that they could make themselves rich in a few years by raising wheat. Many embarked in it on borrowed capital, secured at high rates of interest; and some capital is needed although no payment of money was made in advance on the land. It must be broken and seeded, the crop harvested, threshed, and marketed. To do this requires horses, implements, and hire of laborers. Many men, doubtless, who have commenced in this way have succeeded : but this result has been accomplished by superior skill, economy, good business management, and fortuitous circumstances. By far the greater number have failed in the end. They may have won some success for a year or more, but, when they found themselves ahead, greed got the better of their foresight and judgment, and they have contracted for more land and larger equipment. Then a year of light yield, of damage by flood, drouth or frost, and a fall of price in conjunction, have succeeded, which has greatly dimin- ished the value of their harvested crop ; while the labor bills, the payments for machinery, the interest on borrowed capital, have piled up, and so the failure comes.
If these men had been satisfied to let well enough alone, if they had continued to cultivate what they might have done with- out hiring much help or buying additional machinery, they would have weathered the unfavorable years, as their obligations would have been small, and as to obtaining a living, there is no question but that they could have done that, though their entire crop was a failure. They could have found work with their horses among their neighbors ; they could have cut hay on the wide prairies and have hauled it to market, or found employment sufficient to keep themselves and families, in a score of ways.
It has been the undue haste to get rich, the reaching out and covering more land than they had means of doing, except on bor- rowed capital, that has been the ruin of so many. This inclination
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. 25
has also had another injurious effect. It has produced poor culti- vation, careless plowing and seeding, harvesting and threshing at unseasonable times, and general slighting of work, instead of thorough, timely and skillful cultivation, which always brings its reward, but the other kind never.
BETTER AND MORE DIVERSIFIED CULTIVATION NEEDED.
I am of the firm opinion that, whereas the average of wheat produced from an acre of land in the valley is about fifteen bush- els per acre, or in some years a little more, it could be raised to 28 or 30 bushels ; and that, while there are now produced crops ranging from 12 to 30 bushels per acre, there could be secured 30 lo 40 bushels almost invariably. I am confirmed in this opinion by numerous instances where small fields which have been espec- ially treated and cultivated, sown to wheat, have produced 35 to 40 bushels per acre. Thus we have seen pieces which had been cultivated to roots, potatoes, garden vegetables, etc., in previous years, the cultivation of which crops has required deep tillage, frequent stirring of the ground with plow or cultivator, and other pieces which had been seeded to timothy and pastured, being plowed and sown to wheat, produce 35 and as high as 42 bushels per acre in years when the adjoining large fields did not average more than 16 or 18 bushels per acre.
And so the conclusion is drawn that when the valley becomes more thickly settled, the value of land higher, compelling to bet- ter cultivation, and in less extensive tracts, no man undertaking to exceed 320 acres, the yield per acre will be increased. When this time comes, it will be accompanied also with more diversified farming. There will be flocks and herds, milk and butter, eggs and fowl, beef, pork and mutton, etc. ; and then the Red River valley will be, according to its extent, the most productive region in the whole country.
RAILROAD FREIGHT RATES AND LEGISLATION.
Along in 1883, or 1884, the price of wheat at Red river points having fallen to about 60 cents, there was little or no profit in its production and in many cases a considerable loss, which caused great uneasiness and dissatisfaction among the farmers. They
2G MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
looked about them for some relief, and, as the cost of transport- ing wheat to the terminal points was the same, namely, 25 cents per hundred pounds, or 15 cents per bushel, as when wheat sold for $1.00 or more per bushel, they were of opinion that the freight charge should be reduced. They thought that the railroad com- panies might fairly be called upon to share with them some of the loss that they sustained. Appeals to the companies for reduction were without effect. Therefore the farmers resolved to secure a reduction, and other reforms connected therewith, by political ac- tion, and they began holding meetings, where the whole matter was discussed and resolutions passed. A good deal of complaint was also made against the alleged close alliance that existed be- tween the railroad companies, the elevator companies, and the millers' association, by which every producer was compelled to pass his wheat through an elevator and pay its charges for hand- ling, which fixed its grade, and he generally had to sell it to the elevator at such a price as the company owning the elevator might give. The farmer wanted the right to load on cars and ship direct to a terminal market. This agitation had its birth in Clay county, and it extended throughout the wheat-raising districts of the state. It was the promoting cause for the organization of the Fanners' Alliance, which afterward became a political party, and evolved into the People's party. It had its effect, and the legislature, in its session of 1885, passed an act, approved March 5, 1885, which regulated railroads and provided for the board of railroad and warehouse commissioners.
Briefly stated, the law provided that the railroad companies should make annual reports to the board of commissioners, show- ing amount of stock subscribed, amount of assets and liabilities, amount of debt, estimated value of roadbed, of rolling stock, of stations and buildings, mileage of main tracks and of branches, tons of through and local freight carried, monthly earnings for carrying passengers and freight, expenses incurred in running passenger and freight trains, and all other expenses, rate of pas- senger fare, tariff of freights, and many other minor particulars and things ; and the commission was authorized to make and pro- pound any other interrogatories relating to the condition, operation and control of railroads in this state, as might be necessary, and they were empowered to make investigation, examine books, etc. ;
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. 27
and proper penalties were provided for in case of refusal of com- panies to furnish the information demanded. It also required ev- ery railroad company to permit any person or company to build and operate elevators at any of its way stations. It compelled railroads to furnish cars on application for transporting grain stored in any and all elevators or warehouses without discrimina- tion. It prohibited extortion and discrimination in rates, and also empowered the commission to notify any railroad company of any changes in rates, or in operation of roads, that in their judgment ought to be made for carry mg passengers or freight, and, in case of refusal of the company to make them, to institute suit to compel such changes or reductions.
At the same time the legislature passed an act to regulate elevators and warehouses, and for the inspection and weighing of grain. The main provisions of this act may be stated as follows : Declaring all elevators and warehouses at Duluth, Minneapolis, and St. Paul, public; requiring their proprietors to take out li- cense ; providing that such elevators and warehouses shall receive grain for storage without discrimination, to give receipts therefor, to deliver the grain or return the receipt ; requiring the owner or lessee to make and post weekly in a conspicuous place a statement of kind and grade of grain received, to send a report daily to the state registrar, and to publish rates for storage; prohibiting the mixing together of grain of different grades; providing for the appointment of a state weighmaster and assistants, who shall weigh grain at points where it is inspected ; providing for the ap- pointment of a chief inspector and of deputy inspectors, for the inspection and grading of grain under such rules as the commis- sion shall prescribe, for which inspection a fee shall be collected sufficient to meet the expenses of the service; and providing that the commission shall establish Minnesota grades and publish the same.
Under these laws and amendments thereto, it is well known and undisputed that there has been much more freedom in the shipment of wheat and other grain than before. Farmers have since been able to order cars to a side track and load them from their wheat fields, or otherwise, whence they are hauled to such market as they shall designate. The commissioners have, under the law, defined and established grades of wheat, and the mspec-
28 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
tion is made at the terminals in accordance therewith, and the wheat is also weighed.
The operation of this law seems to have been beneficial and satisfactory for the most part. The season of 1898 was an excep- tion, when it was charged that the grades were suddenly stiffened, by which the producer lost one or more grades, or from 4 to 7 cents in value per bushel of wheat, and that this stiffening was without just ground. These charges also originated, as the agita- tion for reduction of freight charges had done, in Clay county, and were made an issue in the state election that year; and it is believed that, as Hon. John Lind, the candidate for governor of the Democrats, Populists, and Silver Republicans, championed them, it gave him many votes. They were substantially verified by an investigation made by a joint committee of the legislature.
The freight on wheat, in cents per 100 pounds, since the set- tlement of the Red River valley, from different primary points to Minneapolis and Duluth, has been as follows :
To Minneapolis To Duluth.
Sept. Oct. July Sept. Oct. July
Various i, g, 21, T, 9, 21,
Dates 1891 1895 1898 1891 1895 1898
1873 Morris 280. 12 12 12 15 15
1872 Breckenridge 35 14 14 13 15 15
1880 Crookston 27 16^2 i6/<2 14 16^/2 i6y2 14
1880 St. Vincent 35 18 18 16 18 18 16
1881 Moorhead 25 i$y2 15^ 14^ 1^/2 15% 14
1881 Fargo 25 isJ/2 i5l/2 14% i$l/2 15^
1881 Glyndon 25 15^ 15^ 14 15^ 15^ 14
1881 Fergus Falls 23 14 14 13 14% 14^ 14
OLD AND NEW METHODS OF WHEAT FARMING.
Since the first wheat was grown in the Red River valley, a revolution has occurred in plowing, seeding, harvesting, and threshing. By the old method of plowing, with the best plow and horses, one man with a 14-inch walking plow and a pair of
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY. 29
good horses, might plow two and a half acres of land in a day. Now one man with a gang plow, turning 28 inches, and drawn by four horses, can plow four and a half acres. The area is not quite doubled for the reason that the speed is somewhat slackened by increased weight, the driver riding on the plow, thus render- ing the labor much easier to him.
By the old method of seeding by hand one man could sow sixteen acres in a day, and the land had to be harrowed and dragged, often with tree tops, to smooth it. Now with a drill, drawn by four horses, one man will put in twenty-five acres and no harrowing is necessary afterward, although many harrow the land previous to seeding.
By the old method of cutting grain with a cradle a good man could cut four acres, while it required another man to rake and bind it. Now with the best binder, drawn by three horses, he can cut sixteen acres, and the machine binds it, and carries along a number of bundles and drops them in rows.
In threshing there is even more disparity in the amount ac- complished by modern machinery over the old methods. In fact, the difference is so great that a comparison is not worth while. With the best and largest threshing machine, 3,500 bushels of wheat can be threshed in a day. Thus on land producing an aver- age of 20 bushels per acre, one day's work will thresh the wheat grown on 175 ecres. The area of land covered in a day will be more or less than this, according to the average yield per acre. To operate this machine, which is provided with a self-feeder and an automatic band-cutter, also a blower which stacks the straw, only four men are required. To haul the bundles to the machine requires eighteen men and twenty horses, or ten wagons with two horses to each. The number of men and horses and wagons re- quired to do the hauling of the threshed wheat from the machine to the granary, elevator, or cars, depends upon the distance to be traversed. It costs at the present time ten cents per bushel to thresh the wheat and load it into wagon tanks.
WHEAT PRODUCTION AND ITS VALUE, 1898.
I have gathered the statistics of wheat acreage and yield for 1898 from the most reliable sources obtainable, namely, from the county auditor's office of each county which lies partly or mainly
30 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
in the Red River valley south of the international boundary. Some pf the officers reported that the statistics on this head as furnished by the assessors were not full, owing to the failure of some of the assessors to make returns ; but in these cases, at my request, the auditors furnished me with estimates based upon other sourc- es of information. Therefore, although the figures in the follow- ing table cannot be claimed to be absolutely correct, they approach accuracy, and, it is believed, are in no case excessive.
Acreage and Production of Wheat in 1898 in the Counties of the Red River Valley.
Counties in Minnesota.
Acres. Bushels.
Wilkin 126,418 1,896,270
Clay 210,440 3,367.040
Norman 166.377 2,438,662
Polk 347.346 4,862,844
Marshall 186,716 2,614,024
Kittson 142,857 2,000,000
1.180,154 17,178,840
Counties in North Dakota.
Acres. Bushels.
Richland 226,720 3,057,714
Cass 495,499 7,916,896
Traill 271,907 5,371,129
Grand Forks 329.498 5.676,322
Walsh 257,500 3.960.175
Pembina 258,21 1 4,956,680
1.839,335 30,938,916
Total 3,019,489 48,117,756
Assuming that the average price of wheat for the year's crop at points of production was 60 cents per bushel, the value of the crop for 1898 to the producers was $28,870,653. This sum meas- ures the wealth-creating value of this one staple for the year named. But this is not the whole story. The wheat farmers of the twelve Red River valley counties produced a greater value. They added a much larger amount than nearly twenty-nine mil- lion dollars to the wealth of the country. I assume that this crop was transported either as wheat or flour to New York. As a matter of course, not all of it was actually carried direct to New
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY.
York, but a large part of it was carried to that port, either for do- mestic consumption or for export ; and it is fair to assume that it would cost, on the average, as much in local freights and handling charges to distribute the other portion to the consumers through- out the country as to carry it through to New York. The cost of carriage to New York by all rail is about 24 1-2 cents per bushel; partly by rail and partly by lake and canal it is about 20 cents. Basing the calculation on a rate of 21 cents (arbi- trarily found, for it is difficult to figure on an average rate for the year accurately, owing to the fluctuations in the lake and canal rate, or to ascertain the amount shipped by that route and the amount shipped by rail), the added value is $10,104,728. This increased value is properly assigned to the wheat, for the wheat pays the whole cost of marketing it. This large sum of ten mil- lion dollars was earned by the railroads, elevators, inspectors and weighers, boats, transferers, etc., which gave employment to large numbers of men. Thus the wheat produced in 1898, by the farmers of these twelve counties, which include the part of the Red River valley in the United States, added to the wealth of the country some thirty-nine millions of dollars; and in the year 1899, just past, it is probably nearly, as much.
An explanation is needed, however, as to the actual cash price received by the producers for their crop of wheat for the year 1898. I find upon a careful examination of the price paid at Moorhead that the average price for the year was about 57 cents per bushel ; that its average price for the four months of Septem- ber, October, November, and December, 1898, was 55 cents; and for the remaining eight months of the year, from January to August, 1899, the average price was 59 cents, making an average for the year of 57 cents per bushel. It is a fact which must be re- cognized that the producers in the section I am treating of sell the bulk of their crop in the four months prior to January I ; so that I will make the calculation of value of the crop produced in the twelve Red River valley counties on this basis of its average local price for that period, which shows as follows: 48,117,756 bushels at 55 cents is $26,464,765.80. This is the minimum amount of value, as, for such part of the crop as was sold by pro- ducers after January i, 1899, f°ur cents more per bushel on the average was realized. This explanation does not affect the fore- going argument so far as it relates to the increased value of the
32 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
wheat at points of consumption and export, all of which must be included in any calculation as to the wealth-creating value of the crop.
LETTER FROM HON. CHARLES CAVALIER.
I have mentioned Charles Cavalier, of Pembina, who has taken great interest in my labors in gathering materials for this paper, and who has given me much valuable assistance. In fur- ther acknowledgement thereof, and in compliment to him, I desire to embrace herein a portion of a recent letter of his to me as fol- lows :
"It would be a pleasant thing for me to be present with them [meaning this annual meeting of the society] and see some of the old faces of fifty years ago, but alas, the infirmities of eighty-one years forbid it. Present my respects to them, and tell them that though far away, I am with them in mind if not in body. I still keep up an occasional correspondence with my old friend, A. L. Larpenteur, and through him I hear from Bill Murray and others of the old timers, and I see occasionally the name of Ex-Governor Ramsey, for whom I have a high regard and a warm spot in my heart. He appointed me first territorial librarian, and has in many instances aided and befriended me. May he live until lie learns to enjoy the good things of this footstool of God, and then, after his life of usefulness and goodness, tranquilly fall asleep and awake in the kingdom prepared for him and all of us who have kept God's commandments or tried to do so. Such is the wish of this old settler whose mundane existence of close onto eighty-one years has been one of pleasure and enjoyment far exceeding its many ills and misery. My health is now tolerably fair."
GREATNESS OF THE RESOURCES OF MINNESOTA.
I have not found it practicable to treat wheat-growing as a state- wide industry, owing to its magnitude, and have confined myself strictly to the subject assigned to me, which has necessita- ted as much labor and research as I have been able, while editing a daily and weekly newspaper, to devote to it. With more abun- dant leisure I might properly have touched upon the expansive prairies of the state, both level and rolling, and told something
WHEAT RAISING IN THE RED RIVER VALLEY . 33
of their productions, not only of their wheat, which makes the best bread ever eaten by man, but of their rye, oats, barley, corn, flax-seed, and potatoes ; of their green meadows, which abound with luxuriant grass and furnish food for countless flocks and herds, and of the Minnesota cow, whose milk, after being treated in the creameries, makes the very best butter known to civiliza- tion; of the fruit orchards, gardens, flowers, shrubbery, etc., to- gether with the neat and cozy dwellings that dot them o'er and are the homes of a hardy, happy, and prosperous people.
I might have touched upon the great extent of forests, from which have been taken so many millions of feet of the best white pine and hardwood lumber, adding largely to the wealth of the state, and which are not yet exhausted.
I might have told of the iron mines, which, for richness and extent, have been one of the marvels of the closing part of the nineteenth century, and which are yet, maybe, to exceed the most sanguine expectations of enthusiasts ; of the mighty river having its rise in our state, whose commerce has been so great a factor in the making of the history of the North American continent, and advancing" its civilization ; and of the smaller rivers, which are interesting in other ways.
I might have dwelt at length upon the surpassing beauty of the state's landscape, whose ten thousand lakes are bordered by a superb growth of primeval forest timber, through whose foliage the pure air of a wholesome climate sings a ceaseless lullaby to exhausted humanity, which seeks quiet and rest upon their bosom. In these lakes the finny tribe leap and splash and entice the skill of the expert angler, as well as the efforts of the novice, affording the most exquisite enjoyment and the most health-giving and re- cuperative recreation that man is blessed with, and whose skill, good luck, or patience is rewarded by the catch of as good food fish as swim.
And, lastly, I might have said that this great, resourceful and fertile state of ours, at the age of fifty years, contains a population of nearly two millions of as intelligent, generous, brave, and at the same time as gentle, industrious, progressive and patriotic people, as can be found in any state in all this broad land.
HISTORY OF FLOUR MANUFACTURE IN MINNESOTA *
BY COL. GEORGE D. ROGERS.
PROGRESS IN METHODS OF MILLING.
It is recorded, and is probably true, although it does not come within the milling experience which it is my privilege to review here tonight, that the first mill operated in Minnesota was the hand mortar of the Indian aborigines. This make of mill seems to have been much on the plan of that described in the Bible, the mortar used by Moses in grinding corn and manna in the wilder- ness within sight of Canaan. Speaking of Moses and milling, you will pardon me, if in passing I call attention to the fact, that this great law-giver of Bible record, the first legislator of historic repute, exempted the mortar or mill of that day from being taken in pawn, because, said he, it would be like taking a man's life to take the mill from which proceeds life's staff. But the hand mor- tar of Moses and the red man is no longer used in the flouring industry of Minnesota, and its further history we will leave with our friends, the apothecaries, who long since secured the monopo- ly for the use of this kind of milling machine.
The next step in the evolution of milling in the Northwest was the introduction of the hand-mill by the , early territorial pio- neers. The hand-mill was the prevailing mill in use among the ancient Britons down to the time of the Roman conquest. It is
*An Address at the Annual Meeting of the Minnesota Historical So- ciety, January 21, 1901. The author was aided in the preparation of this paper by Mr. Frank N. Stacy, who also read it at this meeting.
36 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
still in use in Minnesota by the wives and daughters and by the retail grocers for grinding the family coffee. For a full account of the milling industry and process connected with the hand-mill, you are respectfully referred to the Daughters of the Revolution or to the Minnesota Retail Grocers Association.
The horse-mill followed the hand-mill. Fifty years ago it was not an uncommon sight, on the prairies of Illinois, Iowa and southern Minnesota, to see a farmer coming in a distance of ten to twenty miles with an ox team and camping around a bonfire sometimes two days and a night, dining meantime on parched corn, while he waited his turn to get a sack or two of corn ground at the one and only horse-mill in that section. For the horse-mill we are said to be indebted to the Romans. For an exhaustive ac- count of its modern use in Minnesota, you should apply to the farmers who grind feed for live stock.
From the horse-mill there was a broad progressive stride to the windmill as a source of power in flour manufacture. Wind grist-mills are of great antiquity, and are still operated in Europe. The crusaders of the thirteenth century introduced them into England, France, Germany, and Holland, borrowing the inven- tion from the Saracens. In the seventeenth century wind grist- mills decorated the hills of New England, just as the water mill afterward sung in the valleys. An early historian of Minnesota, J. W. McClung, speaks of the wind grist-mills at St. Peter and Mankato, that at the latter place, in 1868, grinding 160 bushels of wheat daily, which would be equivalent to perhaps thirty barrels of flour. In 1876, Mr. A. Simpson, of Owatonna, in a contribu- tion to the Northwestern Miller, in answer to an inquiry regard- ing wind grist-mills, said: "I have operated a Halliday power mill since 1867 with satisfactory results. The wind wheel is 60 feet in diameter and furnishes 45 horse power. It runs three run of buhrs with all necessary machinery in a common gale. The wheels are perfectly self -regulating and durable. I have ground in one month 3,540 bushels of wheat and over 1,200 bushels of feed. As good flour can be made with wind power as with any power and as much per bushel. The mill runs about three-fourths of the time during the year, part of the time running one run of feed. There are seven 6o-foot wind wheel flouring mills in this state, two in Wisconsin, one in Nebraska, and several more with smaller wheels, all doing a good business."
FLOUR MANUFACTURE IN MINNESOTA. 37
This description is doubtless news to most of the milling pro- fession of Minnesota, as well as to many of our pioneer citizens. The writer talked as though he might be an agent for the Halli- day mills, and before his words are accepted as verified history it might be well to have the subject of wind-grist mills investigat- ed by a joint committee of eloquent members of the legislature now in session.
Nature laid the foundation for the milling industry of Min- nesota when she filled the soil and atmosphere of this chief wheat belt on the globe with such a remarkable quality and quantity of food nutrition, and laid through the woods and across the prairies such a cordon of strong and reliable streams, carrying power to cheaply and efficiently convert the wheat of the Northwest into flour. After that, it was simply a matter of human energy and method; the ultimate result was assured. In 1899 Minnesota raised the largest wheat crop ever produced by this or any other state, and the largest mill-power ever got together in one state converted it, with half the crop of the Dakotas thrown in, into 25,000,000 barrels of flour, — enough to feed one-third of the peo- ple of the United States one year.
THE GOVERNMENT MILL OF 1823.
It is interesting to note that the first flour mill built in Min- nesota was owned and run by the government, and that the first wheat raised was planted and harvested by the government. One of the first acts of Col. Snelling on taking possession of the fort named after him was to send a detachment of fifteen soldiers to St. Anthony falls to build a mill. Commissary Clark, father of Mrs. Charlotte O. Van Cleve, who is still a resident of Minneapo- lis, was the first to suggest the raising of wheat and flour to sup- port the soldiers. That was the beginning of Minnesota's wheat and flour industries.
At the annual meeting of the Minnesota Historical Society, twenty-one years ago this month, there was exhibited a letter, dated Washington, D. C, August 23, 1823, from General George Gibson, commissary general, as follows:
From a letter addressed by Col. Snelling to the quartermaster general, dated the 2nd of April, I learned that a large quantity of wheat would be raised this summer. The assistant commissary of subsistence at St Lou;s has been instructed to forward sickles and a pair of millstones to St. Peter's
38 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
If any flour is manufactured from the wheat raised, be pleased to let me know as early as practicable, that I may deduct the quantity manufactured at the post from the quantity advertised to be contracted for. In a second letter General Gibson said :
Below you will find the amount charged on the books against the gar- rison at Fort St. Anthony for certain articles, forwarded for the use of the troops at the post, which you will deduct from the payments to be made for flour raised, and turned over to your free issue :
One pair buhr stones $250.11
337 pounds plaster of Paris 20.22
Two dozen sickles 18.00
Total $288.33
Such was the infantile milling plant and harvesting outfit with which the grain and milling industries of Minnesota saw daylight and a cradle. That was seventy-eight years ago, back in the infancy of the oldest pioneer members of this society.
THE FIRST CUSTOM MILLS.
It was not until about a quarter of a century later, that the first grist mills were built for the accommodation of the general population. The wheat industry and the milling industry prop- erly may be said to cover a half century. The United States census of 1850 credits Minnesota with a wheat product of 1,401 bushels, and a flour product valued at just $500. In the fifty years history of our cereal industries, therefore, the wheat product has grown from 1,400 bushels to near 70,000,000, and the value of the flour output from $500 to about $100,000,000.
Excepting the government mill, the earliest flouring mill in Minnesota was built by Lemuel Bolles in Afton, Washington county, in the winter of 1845-6, as noted in Folsom's "Fifty Years in the Northwest." A grist mill had been built in Little Canada, Ramsey county, by Benjamin Gervais in 1844.
From 1850 to '55 small grist mills were planted on the streams of about a dozen counties of the territory. The river counties, Houston, Winona, Wabasha, Dakota, Washington, Chi- sago, Hennepin, Sherburne, and Stearns, were the first to build mills. Chatfield and Rochester had each a mill in 1855, an^ Northfield and Preston in 1856. E. P. Mills & Sons of Elk Riv- er, Sherburne county, place the date of construction of the little 3O-barrel mill by the famous pioneer, Ard Godfrey, at that place,
FLOUR MANUFACTURE IN MINNESOTA. 39
in 1851. It was in 1851, also, that the first grist and merchant mill was erected at St. Anthony Falls, in East Minneapolis. It was built by Richard Rogers, between First and Second avenues southeast, and began business on M'ay I, 1851, as a grist mill with an equipment of one run of stone, all told, to grind corn. In 1852, Franklin Steele became partner in the enterprise, and the growth in the firm and capital was celebrated by the addition of a second run of stone to grind wheat as a merchant mill. This pioneer mill survived until the fire of 1857.
EARLIEST MERCHANT MILL AND EXPORT.
Merchant milling in Minneapolis made its first substantial beginning in 1854, when Eastman, Rollins and Upton erected on the lower end of Hennepin island a five-run mill, 40 by 60 feet, at a cost of $16,000. That it was a profitable enterprise, is shown by the fact that the firm realized $24,000 profit the first year. This mill was famous for the title, "The Minnesota," and it well earned its name. There was not wheat enough tiibutary to Min- neapolis within the state in those days to supply the mill, and wheat was hauled by wagon 100 miles from Wisconsin, or was brought up the river by boat from Iowa.
"The Minnesota" was the first mill to ship Minnesota flour to eastern markets. This it did in 1858, paying $2.25 per barrel freight, which is over five times the present transportation rate and is three-fifths of the present value of the flour itself.
THE FIRST MILL CORPORATION.
New Ulm, the home of ex-Governor John Lind, lays claim to being the first town to incorporate a milling company under the laws and constitution of the state. Its articles of incorpor- ation read: "Recorded in Vol. i, pages i, 2 and 3 of Incorpor- ations." The firm name was the Globe Milling Company of New Ulm. The incorporators were the German Land Association. The purpose of the milling company was stated to be : "The bus- iness and object of this company is to manufacture lumber and flour. The capital stock of the company is $30,000; the number of shares, 1,500. The capital stock actually paid in is $265." The mill, which had a daily capacity of fifty barrels, was already con- structed and in operation when Minnesota entered the Union as a
40 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
state. It was operated until the Sioux outbreak in August, 1862. At that time New Ulm had three mills : The Eagle, erected as a sawmill in 1856; the Globe, erected in 1857-8; and the Windmill, with "one set of buhrs for flour, and one run of stones for flax- seed," in 1859. All were burned to the ground in the Sioux at- tack of August 23, 1862. The Indians began firing the town to windward early in the day, burning 190 houses, including the Globe and Eagle mills. The Windmill, which held a strategic position at the foot of the range of hills, was used by the white riflemen as an outpost, during several hours of the fight, but fin- ally succumbed to the flames.
The Eagle mill was rebuilt after the war and converted into a 4-run flour mill in 1867; again into a 225-barrel roller in 1881 ; and finally was enlarged by the present Eagle Roller Mill Com- pany into a i,2OO-barrel mill, being one of the best country mills in the state. As an outgrowth of the Globe Milling Company, the New Ulm Roller Mill Company, with Benjamin Stockman, president, and the veteran Charles L. Roos, secretary and treas- urer, operates two mills of an aggregate capacity of 700 barrels. New Ulm has retained its early precedence as a milling town, and today boasts an annual output of 400,000 barrels of high grade flour. Brown county today runs eight flouring mills, with a total daily capacity of 3,500 barrels.
MILLING AT NORTHFIELD.
Two years before the incorporation of the Globe Mill Com- pany at New Ulm, John W. North founded a mill and a town at Northfield. Jesse Ames & Sons bought the mill in 1864, building a new mill in 1869-70. The Ames mill was known as one of the most successful in southern Minnesota. Unlike the New Ulm mills, the Northfield mill did not have to contend with the Indians and fire ; but it did have to fight the Grangers and water.
So impressed were the Grangers of Rice county with the suc- cess of the Ames mill, that they organized a company of well-to- do farmers and built another just a mile down the stream, start- ing up their mill in the winter of 1873-4. Spring opened with war. The Grange mill backed its water upon the Ames dam, and the Ames mill employed its tail race as a weapon of war to no avail. The result was a battle of lawsuits and newspaper articles,
FLOUR MANUFACTURE IN MINNESOTA. 41
which led to flowery eloquence, but not to profits in flour. It was at that time that Capt. John T. Ames achieved great celebrity, not only as a miller, but as a brilliant writer of Philippic invective. He always maintained that the Ames mill made larger profits and paid less for wheat after the Grange mill came into the field, than before.
THE FAME OF ARCHIBALD.
On the Cannon river, only three miles from the Ames mill, was the mill of the famous Archibald, the Scotchman who made Cannon river celebrated in eastern markets long before Pillsbury added fame to the upper Mississippi. Long before the new mill- ing process was introduced in 1871, Minneapolis millers used to make trips to Dundas and peek into Archibald's mill, to see if they could fathom the secret of Archibald's flour beating Minneapolis flour $i or more per barrel in the New York and Boston markets. Charles A. Pillsbury had an idea that the difference in the flour was due to the quality of the wheat. So he managed one day to put in his pocket a handful of the Ames and Archibald wheat; but when he got home he found the Cannon valley wheat no better than that in his own hoppers.
The difference was, that Archibald was his own scientific and practical miller. He dressed his stones with greater care, did bet- ter bolting, and used less pressure, and more even, in grinding, so that a whiter and purer flour was produced. He was also pro- gressive, being among the first to use the new middlings purifier in 1871 and the roller process in 1880. A staff correspondent of the Northwestern Miller, March 24, 1876, then published at La Crosse, spoke of Archibald as "the man or firm who takes the leading place among the flour makers of this country or of the world."
THE GARDNER MILL AT HASTINGS.
As a boy, in 1859, I drove over from Janesville, Wisconsin, to St. Paul, and I still distinctly remember stopping at the famous Gardner mill at Hastings, on my trip both ways. This was not only one of the earliest, but one of the best mills of Minnesota. Scientific milling resulted in unusual prices and large profits for
42 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
the Hastings flour, because of its fame in eastern markets, at a time when Minneapolis flour yielded neither fame nor profit. The benefits of the middlings purifier process and high grinding with reduced speed and pressure, which were introduced in Minneap- olis in 1871, were in great measure anticipated in the Hastings pro- cess of years before. By reducing the pressure and increasing the number of grindings, the Hastings mill avoided the undue heat which injured both the color and quality of the flour; and by special pains with both stone-dressing and bolting, the Gardner mill turned out a product which sold in the east at one to two dol- lars per barrel higher than the Minneapolis, the Wisconsin, or the best Illinois flour.
It is said that the Gardner mill, by its exceptional quality of flour, in the earlier days realized a profit as high as $3 per bar- rel, which beats all other records for profitable milling in the Northwest. The average mill of today is well satisfied with a net profit of ten cents. Successful milling in Hastings is by no means at an end. Only the other day Hastings exported to Europe a cargo of fifty cars of flour to fill a single contract.
"HONEST JOHN" KEARCHER.
The ups and downs of milling are well illustrated in the his- tory of John Kearcher, the miller of Isinours on the Root river. The miller is a prey to more of the ills of business life, by fire, by flood, by drouth, by storm, by panic, and by patent sharks, than perhaps any other business man. John Kearcher's career is in point. Born in 1831, in Alsace, then a province of France, he lived successively in Canada, Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota. He came to Preston, Fillmore county, in 1855, and put up a mill which ran with success until the financial crash of 1857. He lost the mill, and afterward regained it, to lose it again. He then ran mills at Chatfield, Hampton, Fillmore, and Troy, and succumbed to fire, flood, and misfortune, until he landed on his back on the South branch of the Root river, with a debt of $30,000 and no as- sets except lost faith and confidence in every quarter. He then swore that he would live to pay up every dollar of debt and build one of the finest milling enterprises in the state. He managed to build a little mill with one four-foot stone and a two-foot pony and called it "Clear Grit." And "Clear Grit" won. Inside of ten years
FLOUR MANUFACTURE IN MINNESOTA. 43
it grew into a large modern structure of fourteen run of stone, one of the largest in southern Minnesota, and marketed 100 barrels or more daily of high-grade flour in the Chicago and Albany markets. "Honest John," as he was known to the trade, earned the unusual editorial tribute from a well-known milling journal, in 1877, of being "the maker of probably the best straight spring flour now manufactured in the United States, if not in the world."
RISE AND FALL OF MINNETONKA MILLS.
The ups and downs of milling are dramatically pictured in the tragic career of the once glorious, but now effete hamlet known as Minnetonka Mills, Hennepin county. As early as 1852, Simon Stevens, brother of Col. John H. Stevens, the founder of Min- neapolis, started up Minnehaha creek to find the famous inland sea described by the Indians. He followed the creek until he came to lake Minnetonka, the sea in question. On the way he noted the rapids at the present site of Minnetonka Mills, and the next year he located a claim and built a mill which lived three years. In 1860, T. H. Perkins erected on the same site a three- and-one-half story mill, which afterward fell to the present con- gressman from Minneapolis, Hon. Loren Fletcher, and his part- ner, C. M. Loring. On Oct. 20, 1874, they organized the Minne- tonka Mills Company. They doubled the size of the mill, put in four run of stone and nine double rolls, turned out 300 barrels of flour daily, which found a ready market in Boston, New York, and Europe, and then sold the plant to two Canadian capitalists for the round sum of $95,000.
The mill wheels at Minnetonka Mills never turned again. First, the new partners had their partnership tangle to settle. Then, the property owners at lake Minnetonka brought suits with- out end against the county for damage to property by reason of the dam raising the water level, and the county in turn laid violent hands upon the dam. Next came the owners of damaged property along Minnehaha creek. The result was fifteen years of lawsuits at a cost of $30,000 to Hennepin county taxpayers, and death and decay to the once blooming hamlet of Minnetonka Mills.
STATISTICS OF 1859-60.
The first report of the Minnesota commissioner of statistics,
44 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
Joseph A. Wheelock, on page 121, reviewing the flour industry of Minnesota for 1859-60, says :
Two years ago Minnesota imported flour to supply the deficiencies in her own product. She has now probably 140 grist mills, 122 being the sum of those actually reported to this office. Some of these mills are very large and fine, and the quality of flour produced rivals the best eastern brands.
This earliest estimate of the statistics of Minnesota milling was apparently too large; for in the following year's report de- tailed figures, quoted from the government census, are given, placing the number of flour mills at 85, instead of 140. Of the 85 mills, 63 were run by water, and 22 by steam. The wheat ground amounted to 1,273,509 bushels, and the flour produced reached 254,702 barrels. The value of the entire mill product was $1,310,- 431, as compared with $500 in 1850. The 1861 report estimated the daily output at Minneapolis to be 4,000 barrels, which is about one-third of the present output of the "Pillsbury A" mill.
The leading states in volume of flour production in 1860 were in order, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Virginia. The largest mill, 300,000 barrels per annum, was in Oswego, New York; the next two, 190,000 and 160,000, respectively, were in Richmond, Virginia; and the fourth, 140,000 barrels, in New York city. The value of the annual product of these mills was around $1,000,000 each. The so-called big mills of New York and Virginia in 1860 were about the same in capacity, but greatly inferior in mechanical perfection, to the mills of such Minnesota towns as St. Cloud, Mankato, New Ulm, Faribault, Northfield, Hastings, Red Wing, Wabasha, and Waseca, today.
MILLING IN 1870.
By the census of 1870, the 85 Minnesota mills of 1860 had multiplied to 216. requiring 281 water wheels and 38 steam engines, and representing 507 run of stone with a daily capacity of 61,314 barrels. The capital invested had grown from $587,000 in 1860 to $2,900,000 ; and the value of the milling product had in- creased from $1,300,000 to over $7,500,000. The output of the 216 mills represented about a million barrels of flour and half a million bushels of corn meal and feed. The milling industry had therefore more than trebled in the decade; although the aggre- gate flour output of 1870 is today very nearly equalled by one of
FLOUR MANUFACTURE IN MINNESOTA. 45
several Minnesota counties, even outside of Hennepin and St. Louis, while either one of two milling companies in Minneapolis ground last year five times more flour than the total amount cred- ited to the state by the census of 1870.
The leading milling counties of 1870 by number of mills were: Hennepin, fourteen; Winona, thirteen; Rice and Good- hue, with eight each ; and Houston, Le Sueur, and Stearns, with six mills apiece. In value of milling product, there were fourteen counties that made a showing of over $100,000: Hennepin, lead- ing with $1,125,000; Rice and Winona, following close with about $800,000 each ; Goodhue, the fourth, with $600,000 ; then Dakota, with close to $400,000; followed by Olmsted and Fillmore, with $200,000 to $250,000 each ; and then, in order, Stearns, Le Sueur, Mower, Scott, Blue Earth, M'eeker, and Houston, with a product of $100,000 to $160,000 each.
Flour manufacturing had not yet obtained a foothold in Du- luth or the Red River valley. St. Paul was holding her own with a total of two mills and a product valued at $51,748. And speak- ing of St. Paul, permit me to say that however sensitive or seem- ingly hostile that city may have been as regards her sister town up the river in the matter of population figures and real estate bargains, St. Paul has never refused to eat Minneapolis flour. The fact will go down the corridors of history and stand as a monu- ment of self-abnegation and sisterly affection, that for over twen- ty-five years the good and devout people of St. Paul, whenever they asked blessing upon the morning, noon, or evening meal, in- voked the blessing of Providence upon bread made from Min- neapolis flour.
BIRTH OF THE "NEW PROCESS."
The year 1870 stands as a landmark in the history of milling, because that was the year when Edmund N. La Croix of Faribault went to Minneapolis and introduced the middlings purifier into the "Washburn B" mill, thereby increasing the value of Minne- sota flour $i to $2 per barrel and the value of Minnesota spring wheat ten to forty cents per bushel.
For nearly three generations American millers had made lit- tle advance on the milling system invented by Oliver Evans. It was he who invented the American automatic mill. He made it possible, by the use of the elevator and conveyer and other appli-
46 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
ances, for a bushel of wheat to make the rounds of a two to seven story mill without the aid of a human hand from the time the grain was dumped by the farmer into the hopper at the platform until it reappeared as a barrel or sack of flour. The dusty miller might swap stories over the farm wagon, visit the neighboring inn, or go-a-fishing, and the old mill and babbling brook would pursue the even tenor of their way and grind the grist with bus- iness-like precision. From the inventions of Oliver Evans down to 1870, about the only improvements were the substitution of a French buhr stone for the granite, a silk bolting cloth for wool, with some advancement in cleaning the wheat and dressing the stones.
For a hundred years the ambition of American millers was to emulate the mills of the gods and grind "exceedingly fine," and likewise grind all the flour possible at one grinding. The mill-stones were set close together and run at as high speed as practicable, with the idea of reducing the grain into flour at one grinding. This was the fast reduction and low grinding process. Middlings, or meal from that part of the berry which lies beneath the bran covering and the starchy center, was a thing to be avoid- ed; for the old-fashioned miller did not know what to do with them.
It was the mission of the "new process" to make middlings the most valuable part of the product. The middlings purifier, with its horizontal shaking screen and air blast for cleaning and sep- arating the middlings, preserved for re-grinding that which for bread-making was by far the best portion of the wheat. Gluten, which not only gives bread its rising power or strength, but is the most nutritious quality in wheat for sustaining life, lies in the hard exterior of the kernel just beneath the bran covering, and therefore is contained in the middlings. Flour made from the purified middlings, according to the new process system, imme- diately commanded in the bread-making markets of the east from $i to $2 per barrel higher than other Minnesota flour.
The result was a revolution in flour manufacture. Instead of making as little middlings as possible, the aim became to make as much middlings as possible. To do that, instead of grinding as much flour as possible at the first grinding, the aim became to grind as little flour as possible at the first grinding. So, instead of running the stones at the rate of 250 to 300 revolutions per min-
FLOUR MANUFACTURE IN MINNESOTA. 47
ute, they were run at 100 to 150. Instead of being set low or close together, they were set high so as to simply crack the berry at the first grinding for the liberation of the bran covering. Instead ot reducing the kernel to flour at one grinding, the cracked chop was put through two or three grindings. Low and rapid grinding by the old process made of hard spring wheat dark and specky flour. Pressure and speed generated heat which made dark and pasty flour, damaged in both color and quality. The new process re- quired more time and labor, but the far higher price repaid the extra effort handsomely.
EFFECT UPON WHEAT AND FLOUR PRODUCTION.
The effect upon wheat and flour production in the United States was marked. The wheat product rose from 287,000,000 bushels by the census of 1870, or 7.5 bushels per capita, to 459,- 000,000, or 9.2 per capita, in the census of 1880. Specially not- able was the increase in yield in the Northwest, which produced hard spring wheat rich in gluten and middlings. Minnesota spring wheat, instead of standing low in the market, because of the large amount of dark middlings flour which it carried by the old process of milling, at once rose to the top of the market, be- cause of the large proportion of fancy middlings patent which it yielded. In the ten-year period of 1870-80, Minnesota's wheat crop rose from 18,000,000 bushels to 34,000,000, nearly doubling, and the mills multiplied from 216 to 436. The capital invested in Minnesota mills rose from less than $3,000,000 in 1870 to over $10,000,000 in 1880. The sum paid by the millers to Minnesota farmers for wheat increased from $6,000,000 to $37,000,000, mul- tiplying six fold, and the wages paid to mill employees grew from $293,000 to $1,371,000; while the value of flour produced rose from $7,500,000 to $41,000,000. The newly discovered wealth in the production of spring wheat on the prairies of the North- west brought to Minnesota and the Dakotas a vast pilgrimage, and the blossoming of farms, railways, towns, and cities.
THE LA CROIXS OF FARIBAULT.
In 1861, Alexander Faribault, founder of the Minnesota town named after him, sent to Montreal for Nicholas La Croix to build for him a mill. La Croix came, and with him his brother, Ed-
48 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
mund N., and his son Joseph. After building the mill for Fari- bault, the La Croixs, in 1866, built at Faribault a mill for them- selves. They were educated men, skilled millers and engineers, the two brothers being graduates of the "Ecole des Arts and Me- tiers" in France. Familiar with French milling and engineering works, as well as with French machines and processes, they began to experiment, and in 1868 made a draft of the middlings purifier patented in France by Perigault, August 16, 1860, and described in the French work by Benoit in 1863. They then constructed from this draft a machine with which they experimented at their Faribault mill during the next two years. But a freshet carried away their dam and they gave up their mill, Edmund N. La Croix moving to Minneapolis in 1870.
La Croix visited the millers of Minneapolis, and told them of the wonderful results which could be obtained from Minne- sota spring wheat by his process. Some thought him visionary, and others feared he was insane. But George H. Christian, who was more of a student and had greater interest in scientific mat- ters than most business men, had faith enough in La Croix and his project to give him opportunity to put a machine into the "Big Mill," the "Washburn B," which Christian was then operating. La Croix worked on his machine for a good part of a year, and with some later modifications it was a success. The machine was built in Minneapolis at the Minnesota Iron Works, owned by C. M. Hardenburgh & Co. It cost only $300, but it increased the price of Minneapolis and Minnesota flour from $i to $3 per bar- rel. The success of the middlings purifier at the "Washburn B" soon spread; and Pillsbury, Archibald, Ames, and other enter- prising millers, rapidly got the new machines.
The fate of the La Croixs is that of many inventors. They realized nothing from their study and enterprise. After introduc- ing the new milling system into many Minnesota mills, Edmund went to Rochester, N. Y., and Nicholas to Milwaukee, where he suddenly died in 1874. Edmund followed his brother to the grave a week later. Nicholas left a widow, three daughters, and a son Joseph, in straitened circumstances. Joseph got together the various improvements inaugurated by himself, his father, and uncle, and secured patents, and then interested capital to manu- facture the La Croix machines. But meantime the greed of the
FLOUR MANUFACTURE IN MINNESOTA. 49
patent sharks had resulted in the formation of a gigantic combin- ation, which crushed La Croix and left him bankrupt, with three helpless women to provide for. A committee of three, of which Henry L. Little, manager of the Pillsbury-Washburn Company, and W. C. Edgar, editor and publisher of the Northzvestern Mil- ler, are members, is now pushing the cause of raising a subscrip- tion from the millers of America to pay the long-standing debt of the milling industry of the world to the La Croix family.
When the purifier combine, twenty years ago, attempted to levy upon the millers of America a royalty tribute that would have reached millions of dollars, and relied upon the La Croix patents in order to perfect a complete monopoly, the La Croix family stood by the millers in the fight and refused from the combine at one time a one-sixth interest in the proposed monopoly, and at another time a gratuity from the combine of $10,000. In the face of such loyalty and sacrifice, the millers of America should not now fail to stand by the La Croix family in an hour of need.
GRADUAL REDUCTION BY ROLLS.
After the middlings purifier, adopted from the French, came the iron and porcelain rolls, adopted from the Hungarians. In 1872, Minnesota millers, who for years had followed the English moling system handed down from colonial times, swore by every mill invention that was French, and in 1880 they vowed by every- thing that was Hungarian. The success of the middlings purifier in the Washburn mills caused Geo. H. Christian, the chief oper- ator, to look for further novelties. He sent for the latest French and German works on milling, and learned of the chilled iron rol- lers used in the big mills of Hungary, in lieu of millstones. In 1874 he had a number of sets of rollers made for the big "Wash- burn A" mill just built. The experiment succeeded, and when the big mill was rebuilt after the explosion of 1878 it was equipped with rolls after the Hungarian pattern. Charles A. Pillsburv meantime had visited Hungary, and W. D. Gray, representing E. P. Allis, had made inventions which he perfected after a study of Hungarian milling. American ideas were engrafted, and the best principles of French and Hungarian milling were Americanized and reconstructed on the Yankee plan of an automatic mill.
50 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
The revolution in milling was complete. In 1870, the Wash- burn "big mill," the "B," was only a 6oo-barrel mill with twelve run of stone. The "Washburn A" of 1878 came out with an equipment of 86 sets of rollers, — 48 corrugated iron, 26 smooth iron, and 12 porcelain, — through which the wheat, instead of be- ing ground at one operation as by the old process, passed six times, being gradually reduced by six different breaks. After each break the chop or meal passed through the purifiers, of which there were 78, and the bolting reels, of which there were 148. The grain- was prepared for the rolls by 58 cleaning machines, which successively removed the dust, the chaff, the oats, the cockle, polished the berry, removed the crease in the side and the beard at the end, and graded the kernels ac- cording to size. The "Washburn A" then had a capacity of 4,000 barrels daily, which was several times that of the biggest mills of the east. Then came the "Pillsbury A," larger still, the largest in the world, the first half only having an equipment of 94 sets of rollers, 100 middlings purifiers, and 170 reels, with a capacity of 4,500 barrels. The "Washburn A" today claims a capacity of 11,000 barrels, and the "Washburn C" over 8,000; while the "Pillsbury A" shows 13,000, and the "Pillsbury B" over 7,000, — the quartette of the largest hummers in the milling choir of the world.
It is interesting from the present point of view to look back to 1870, before the day of the first middlings purifier. George H. Christian states that, when Judd & Brackett retired in 1867 from the so-called "Washburn Big Mills," because unable to make them pay, men of experience in milling pronounced the 6oo-barrel mill, which was the jumbo of that day, as too large ever to be success- ful. Today the cities of St. Cloud, New Ulm, Mankato, and other towns that could be named, are operating mills of double that size. Duluth's big mill has many times that capacity. The smal- lest of the twenty-one mills now operating in Minneapolis is as large as the Washburn "big mill" of the old milling days; and sixteen range from three to twenty times the capacity of the mill which thirty years ago was pronounced too large for profitable running.
One reason for the increase in capacity is that the change from millstones to rolls has largely reduced the amount of power and mill-space required for a given output ; but a more important
FLOUR MANUFACTURE IN MINNESOTA. 51
reason is, that the new system, with its more intricate processes and maze of machinery, is more economically run on a large scale.
THE MILL EXPLOSION OF 1878.
The history of Minnesota milling would not be complete with- out reference to the great explosion of 1878, perhaps the greatest catastrophe in the history of milling. Cut in a stone tablet on the north side of the "Washburn A" mill are the following words :
THIS MILL WAS ERECTED IN THE YEAR 1879, ON THE SITE OF WASHBURN MILL "A/- WHICH WAS TOTALLY DESTROYED ON THE SECOND DAY OF MAY, 1878, BY FIRE AND A TERRIFIC EXPLOSION OCCASIONED BY THE RAPID COMBUSTION OF FLOUR DUST. NOT ONE STONE WAS LEFT UPON ANOTHER, AND EVERY PERSON ENGAGED IN THE MILL INSTANTLY LOST HIS LIFE. THE FOLLOWING ARE THE NAMES OF THE FAITHFUL AND WELL TRIED EMPLOYEES WHO FELL VICTIMS OF THAT AWFUL CALAMITY, VIZ.
E. W. BURBANK, CYRUS W. EWING, E. H. GRUNDMAN, HENRY HICKS. C H A S. H E N N I N G, PATRICK JUDD, C H A S. K I M B A L L. W M. L E S L I E, FRED A. MERRILL, EDWD. E. MERRILL, WALTER SAVAGE. OLE S H I E. AUGUST SMITH, CLARK W I L B U R.
"Labor, wide as earth, Has its summit in Heaven."
This inscription tells the story. It was the largest and best equipped mill at that time in America. It was 138 by no feet on the ground, six-and-one-half stories high, and was fitted out with 42 run of French buhr stone, 100 reels, and 80 purifiers. The walls were of solid masonry, and for the first story were six feet thick, and built down to the bedrock. The 80 purifiers had small far.s, but no dust collectors. The mill was full of dust, and the millers commonly wore sponges for the protection of mouth and nose. The walls were blown down to the foundation and fell outward.
W. D. Gray, a mill expert, who at one time was employed in the Washburn mills, speaks of previous experiences which the millers had with the explosion of mill-dust. At one time several of the men had a severe shock from a slight explosion, and at an- other time the roof was partially lifted by the explosion in a dust room.
In the great explosion of 1878, the fire is supposed to have
52 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
started in some of the machinery before its communication to the dust room. There were eighteen lives lost, as partly named above, and six mills were wholly destroyed, as follows : Washburn A, 42 run ; Diamond, 6 run ; Humboldt, 8 run ; Zenith, 6 run ; Galaxy, 12 run; and Pettit-Robinson, 15 run; total, 99 run of stone. They were all promptly rebuilt with purifiers and buhr stones, not wait- ing for rolls, which at that time were being experimentally intro- duced. Property was damaged by the explosion in cases nearly a mile away, and the total loss exceeded a million dollars.
Governor C. C. Washburn, at the time, was building a new mill near the others. On the morning after the explosion he paced off a distance beyond the foundation as planned, and, driving a stake at the point to which he paced, said to the architect : "Build your mill out to here ;" and it was done. The hastily added space, however, gave the new "Washburn C" more room than it could economically utilize until 1899.
MINNESOTA FLOUR EXPORT TRADE.
In 1858, the year Minnesota became a state, the people of this great wheat and flour producing commonwealth, according to the authority of both Joseph A.Wheelock and Ignatius Donnelly, were compelled to import a considerable portion of their flour. Horace Greeley, in a letter to J. W. McClung in 1858, confessed that his earliest impression of Minnesota was unfavorable, on the follow- ing ground : "I saw that your state imported not only loafers in great abundance, but the bread they ate as well as the whisky they drank; and I did not see how she could stand it (you must pardon my weakness) in the defection of home industry." The state statistician, Joseph A. Wheelock, found in 1859, however, that we were beginning to export flour. He discovered that we shipped out by way of La Crosse and Prairie du Chien, for example, 403 bales of buffalo robes, 100 bales of furs, 343 bushels of cranber- ries, 70,218 pounds of ginseng, and the grand total of 114 barrels of flour. Such was the first ripple of the tidal wave to follow.
From 1860 to 1870 Minnesota shipments of flour to' eastern markets gradually increased until they reached several hundred thousand barrels. Among the leaders in this eastward business were Archibald of Dundas and Gardner of Hastings, the "Vermil- lion flour" of the latter being a much celebrated brand. It was
FLOUR MANUFACTURE IN MINNESOTA. 53
not until 1878, however, that Minneapolis began to send direct exports abroad, independently of the New York and Boston mid- dlemen. The delay and cost incident to shipment through the hands of eastern agents at length could not be borne, and Gov. C. C. Washburn got the well-known milling and elevator man, W. H. Dunwoody, to spend several months abroad and secure direct relations with European buyers. There was great opposi- tion among New York middlemen for a time; but the enterprise was a complete success.
Direct exports from Minneapolis to foreign ports began in 1878 with 107,183 barrels. In five years the figure was multiplied ten times. For a period of years our direct export trade was stable, but comparatively stationary, and then after 1890 it again ad- vanced. In 1890 our direct exports were 2,000,000 barrels, and in 1891 3,000,000 was reached. In 1899 Minneapolis topped 4,000,- ooo barrels as the direct export to foreign markets; and in 1900 it was 4,702,485, being one-fourth of the total exports of flour from the United States. Next to Minneapolis as a direct exporter stands Duluth, which in 1898 reached close to 1,000,000 barrels.
The principal foreign consumer of Minneapolis flour is the United Kingdom. During the ten months ending with October last, there were exported from the United States to foreign mark- ets, all told, something over 15,000,000 barrels of flour; but over 8,000,000 barrels, or more than one-half, went to the United King- dom. Next after Great Britain, the best consumer of American flour is the West Indies ; and then follow, in order, Hong Kong, Brazil, and Germany. Oregon and other Pacific coast mills prin- cipally supply the Hong Kong and other Oriental trade, and the mills of our more southerly and easterly states have paid more attention than Minnesota to the West India and South American trade. Great Britain and the European continent are the principal foreign market for Minnesota flour. But geography and differences of language and customs are no obstacles to the Minnesota miller. He obliterates time, distance, and nationality, if there is a mouth on the globe that can eat bread ; and Minne- sota flour is the most cosmopolitan thing on the earth today. It is eaten by the German and the Jap, the Englishman and the Boer. It goes to the Arctic and the tropic zones, and conquers all com- petitors, colors, and climes.
Minnesota flour shipments are a large factor in the business
54 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
of the Soo canal ; and the traffic of that great inland channel marks in a way the progress of Minnesota flour sales in eastern and foreign markets. In 1871, when the new milling process was just beginning to see day in Minneapolis, the flour shipments of the Soo canal were only 26,000 barrels. In 1881 the Soo canal flour shipments had multiplied twenty-fold and were 600,000 bar- rels. By 1891 nearly 4,000,000 barrels were reached ; and for the year just closed the total will reach 8,000,000. Today over 90 per cent, of the flour ground in Minnesota is eaten by eastern states and foreign nations, and of the Minneapolis product over 97 per cent, is shipped away, the shipments of the year just closed reach- ing 14,800,000 barrels, of which one-third is eaten abroad and the balance in the eastern states.
MINNESOTA MILLS IN I9OO.
The census of 1890 gave Minnesota 307 flour and grist mills, employing 4,038 hands at $2,243,855 wages, and paying out $52,- 383,857 for grain, while turning out $60,158,088 worth of flour. There are in Minnesota in 1901 about 400 flour and grist mills. The capacity of twenty-one mills at Minneapolis exceeds 75,000 barrels daily, and they grind annually 70,000,000 bushels of wheat into 15,000,000 barrels of flour. The state gazetteer enumerates about 200 Minnesota mills, outside of Minneapolis and Duluth, with an aggregate daily capacity of over 42,000 barrels, and 180 others whose capacity is not given. Placing the capacity of this 1 80 conservatively at 20,000 barrels, we arrive at about 140,000 barrels daily as the milling capacity of the state. It is fair there- fore to state that Minnesota mills consume from 110,000,000 to 120,000,000 bushels of grain per annum, and turn out upwards of 25,000,000 barrels of flour a year, which is enough to sustain one-third of the nation.
The ten largest milling centers in America today, as meas- ured by their flour output in 1899, are as follows : Detroit, 594,- 700 barrels; Nashville, 630,803; Buffalo, 1,068,944; Kansas City, 1,094,846; Chicago, 1,125,745; Toledo, 1,150,000: St. Louis, i,- 1 66,439 jMilwaukee, i, 737,826; Duluth-Superior, 1,763,920; Min- neapolis, 14,291,780. It is gratifying that Minnesota contains within her boundaries the two largest milling centers in the Union,
FLOUR MANUFACTURE IN MINNESOTA. 55
and that one of them grinds more flour in a year than all the other nine put together and 4,000,000 barrels added. , In conclusion, permit me to say that at the World's Exposition at Paris during the past year, bread made from Minnesota flour carried off the prize medal for the best bread in the world, and that Minnesota flour likewise took the first premium in the con- test for the best flour in the world, showing that Minnesota holds the world's sweepstakes both for the quantity and quality of pro- duct.
&U~AA-*H+/
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, VOL. X. PLATE II.
THE EARLY GOVERNMENT LAND SURVEY IN MINNESOTA WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER*
BY HON. THOMAS SIMPSON.
SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT SURVEYS.
Well founded tradition gives to George Washington, the first President of the Republic, the credit of devising the plan for the survey of lands which for nearly a century has been applied to the survey of the public domain of the United States.
This plan or system ^f surveys has as its unit the square acre ; then the section, a mile square, 640 square acres ; then the town- ship, six miles square, containing 36 square sections. The town- ships lying between two consecutive meridians six miles apart constitute a range, and the ranges are numbered from principal meridians both east and west. In each range the townships are numbered both north and south from the principal east and west base line.
For obvious reasons the author of this plan or system of land surveys did not have the occasion for putting the same into prac- tical operation, since each of the thirteen colonies had adopted systems of surveys of the lands granted them by Great Britain, which could not readily be conformed to this system. It was in- augurated and carried out in the survey of lands which have come into the possession of the general government after the adoption of the constitution, known generally as Government Lands, some- times as Public Lands, or as the General Domain.
*Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, December 11, 1899.
58 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
This plan of surveys was to some extent inaugurated in 1803 by Col. Jared Mansfield, then surveyor general of the Northwest Territory; and was subsequently enacted as a law, in 1804, upon the recommendation of President Jefferson.
The more general feature of this plan of surveys of the public domain, thus devised and covered by the enactment of Congress, provides for the establishment of principal meridians, extended north and south from an east and west base line. These are num- bered from the east to the west, as the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth principal meridians ; and the lands in Minnesota lying west of the Mississippi river are all described as west of the fifth principal meridian.
These principal meridians were established in the beginning, in the successive "land districts," over each of which was appoint- ed a surveyor general, who controlled the surveys in his district, subject to such rules, regulations, and directions, as should be given him from time to time by the commissioner of the General Land Office at Washington. Hence the first principal meridian was the most easterly, in the first surveyor general's land district designated by the general government.
It is not, perhaps, strictly germane to the special subject to be presented in this paper, that I should enter into a more particular description of these principal meridians, and the points upon the east and west base lines from which they were respectively run and established. I have in this paper to deal mainly with the govern- ment survey of public lands in Minnesota lying west of the Miss- issippi river, which, as I have already stated, were and are de- scribed as west of the fifth principal meridian.
That a clearer understanding of these surveys may be given, it should be stated that the east and west base line fiom which the townships in Missouri, Iowa, and Minnesota west of the river, are numbered, passes nearly through the center of the State of Arkansas. The townships in the first tier on the north side of that line are designated as numbered one north, and each town- ship in the first tier south of that line is designated and described as township number one south, — counting north and south from this base line.
This will answer and explain the oft repeated inquiry, what this word north means in describing townships in Minnesota. When, in describing land, after giving the number of the section,
EARLY GOVERNMENT LAND SURVEYS. 59
we say, for instance, in township number 120 north, we mean it is that number north, counting from the east and west base line I have referred to.
We also say such or such a range number west, meaning west of the fifth principal meridian.
The number of townships from the base line in central Arkansas up through Missouri and Iowa to the south boundary line of Minnesota is 100 ; so that the north tier of townships in Iowa next to the state line is numbered 100, and the south tier of townships in Minnesota north of and next to the boundary line is numbered 101, the next 102, and so on.
The government surveys of public lands in Minnesota lying east of the Mississippi river have as their east and west base line the south boundary of the state of Wisconsin, or, to speak mort accurately, the boundary line between the states of Illinois and Wisconsin. Therefore the numbering of the townships of the public surveys of lands in Minnesota lying east of the Mississippi river is entirely different from the numbering of townships west of the river. Most of the government surveys of land in Min- nesota lying east of the Mississippi river were completed very early, and before the surveys of lands west of the river were made.
The two systems of surveys have no connection, except that in the northern part of our state there are lands, east of the river, which are described as being west of the fifth principal meridian.
CONVERGENCY OF MERIDIANS.
Very early in the history of the surveys of the public lands of this country, a difficulty arose because of what is now generally called "the convergency of meridians." It was found by actual measurement (which should have been known without) that these principal meridians, starting from points on an east and west base line and running therefrom on a true north course to their inter- section with the Great Lakes, were, at such northern intersection, nearer one another than at the points where they started from the base line. The effect of this convergency of the principal merid- ians was to fractionalize the sections and townships in northern Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, so that in those parts of these states the government surveys produced townships
60 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
six miles in length north and south, and less than two miles in width east and west, and sections a mile in length, north and south, by a few rods wide east and west, thus destroying the unit, the square acre, the section a mile square (640 acres), and the township six miles square, of thirty-six sections. It should be stated that this same serious effect is manifest in the surveys of the public lands in northern Iowa, the northern boundary of which is six hundred miles north of the base line in Arkansas.
An attempt to remedy this difficulty by running a series of east and west correction lines , parallel to the base lines, only cor- rected the difficulty to a limited extent.
In 1850 this whole matter was referred to a commission of intelligent scientific men, with Prof. Edward D. Mansfield of Cincinnati, Ohio, as chairman, who made a report to the com- missioner of the General Land Office, which report was approved and adopted by that department and made the basis of instruction to the surveyor generals in the survey of the public domain there- after.
GUIDE MERIDIANS AND STANDARD PARALLELS.
The change in the public surveys, as recommended by Mans- field and adopted by the government, was substantially as follows : That what should be known as "guide meridians" should be run north from an established east and west base line forty-two miles apart, offsetting a quarter of a mile at every twenty-four mile sta- tion on such guide meridian to provide against convergency. These guide meridians were to be intersected by what should be known as "standard parallels," east and west lines twenty-four miles apart, thus dividing the public lands into what were to be known and are known as cheques, measuring forty-two miles east and west by twenty- four miles north and south, with twenty-eight square townships in every cheque, except those made fractional and smaller by bordering on some great natural boundary, as, for instance, the Mississippi river.
The greatest care was to be observed in running the guide meridians and standard parallels. They could only be run with an astronomical instrument known as a solar compass, one of the most perfect and useful instruments ever invented for running
EARLY GOVERNMENT LAND SURVEYS. 61
lines. Having adjusted its latitude and declination arcs, a line as perfect as the movement of the sun can be run with it; and the exact variation of the magnetic needle at any place is readily de- termined by it, as well as exact time.
Two sets of assistants, compassmen, chainmen, axemen and markers, were to be employed at the same time in the running of these lines, so as to guard against possible error. The variation of the needle, as shown by the solar compass, was to be carefully noted every quarter of a mile, or oftener if necessary, as a guide to the surveyors who should come after to run the township and section lines.
This new system for conducting the surveys of the public lands by the government was first inaugurated in the State of California in the autumn of 1852, and next in Minnesota west of the Mississippi river, early in the spring of 1853.
SURVEYS IN SOUTHEASTERN MINNESOTA, 1853-55.
As I had, to some extent, personal supervision and charge of that work in Minnesota in 1853, I854, and 1855, I may be pardoned if hereafter in this paper it seems necessary to make some few references of a personal nature.
Minnesota at that time was included, with Iowa and Wis- consin, in a surveyor general's district. The office of the surveyor general was at Dubuque, Iowa. Hon. Warner Lewis was sur- veyor general. The boundary line between Iowa and Minnesota was run and established by Capt. Andrew Talcott of the Topo- graphical Bureau in 1852, the next year after the Indian title to lands in southern Minnesota was extinguished by treaty. It was currently reported that Captain Talcottt, in running this bound- ary line, had with him as assistants and other employees about three hundred men. The work was not done under contract. I traversed that line from the river west a hundred and fifty miles, early in 1853. The travel of Talcott's company over the line made it like a highway then, and there were strewed along it abundant evidences that at times, at least, great hilarity must have prevailed among the men under his command.
It is but just that I should state that the preliminary line of this boundary was run by Captain Marsh of Dubuque with a solar
62 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
compass; and it was not changed a particle by Captain Talcott and his assistants, but was verified by them after making the most thorough scientific tests thereof.
In January, 1853, tne surveyor general, Warner Lewis, gave a contract to Elisha S. Norris to run the first, second, and third guide meridians in Minnesota, west of the Mississippi river, and the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh standard parallels. The work was to be paid for by the government, ten dollars per mile for running and establishing the guide meridians, and eight dollars per mile for standard parallels. Mr. Norris had been state surveyor of Maine, and he stood high as an engineer and surveyor. He had for some years been a deputy surveyor of the surveyor general's office at Dubuque ; he had made a careful study of the new plan of prosecuting government surveys wThich had been devised and suggested by Mansfield ; and, because of this, had been selected to introduce this new system in the new Territory of Minnesota. Mr. Norris had been my preceptor, and I came with him into Minnesota as one of his assistants in this work.
In the beginning of this work, in the remote southeast corner of the then Territory, Mr. Norris had the misfortune to get his solar compass out of adjustment in passing through a dense thicket, slightly bending both the declination and latitude arcs. He did not discover it until the inspector of surveys, who was following closely on the line with a solar compass and chainmen, called his attention to it and at once reported the blunder to the surveyor general's office. Mr. Norris was recalled. A great clamor, born of envy and jealousy on the part of the other dep- uty surveyors of the office, compelled Gen. Lewis reluctantly to relieve him, and, because of his desire to make the matter as agree- able as possible to Mr. Norris, and because of the well known partiality of the surveyor general for myself, together with po- litical influence to a certain extent from friends (we were all simon-pure Democrats then), the supervision of these surveys was given to me, then in my seventeenth year, and I established these guide meridians and standard parallels in the years 1853 to 1855.
The first line established was not a guide meridian, strictly, but rather a line beginning on the state line, on the east side of range four, running north thereon till it intersected the Missis-
EARLY GOVERNMENT LANt> SURVEYS. nrf
sippi river at or near where the city of La Crescent is now sit- uated.
After completing this line, we returned and went west on the state line forty-two miles to a point between ranges ten and, eleven, and thence ran the first guide meridian north between these ranges, making the required offsets every twenty-four miles. This meridian intersects the Mississippi river at the foot of lake Pepin, just a lit- tle above Read's Landing. Returning on this guide meridian to the state line, we measured west thereon forty-two miles to a point between ranges seventeen and eighteen, from whence the second meridian was run north between these ranges, making the re- quired offsets, till it intersected the Mississippi river close abovt the city of Hastings. Returning again to the state line, we once more measured west thereon forty-two miles to a point between ranges 24 and 25, where the south point of the third guide merid- ian was established ; and thence we ran it north between these ranges to its intersection with the Mississippi river near Monti- cello. The third guide meridian passes through the "Big Woods," crosses the Minnesota river at Belle Plaine, goes about three miles west of lake Minnetonka, and thence crosses the Crow river and Pelican lake to its intersection with the Mississippi.
So careful was the government in the establishment of these base lines, that the instructions were modified as to running the third guide meridian, requiring that it should be run during the winter season, after the large number of lakes which were sup- posed to be thereon were frozen solid, so that the chainmen could actually measure the line over them, and not trust to mathemat- ical calculation from triangulation or other methods of deter- mining distances across impassable places. I was engaged in estab- lishing this meridian nearly five months, from some time in No- vember, 1853, to some time in April, 1854. I ran the standard parallels intersecting these guide meridians. Afterward I did some township and section work, and terminated my connection with the surveyor general's office at Dubuque, January i, 1856, at which time I came to Winona, where I have ever since resided.
The plan of the government surveys of the public domain devised by Mansfield has to a very great extent answered the purpose intended. The sections and townships in Minnesota, west of the Mississippi river, were not fractionalized by the convergency of meridians ; and I am also told that this is true of the survey of
64 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
public lands by the government in California and elsewhere in the Union, where from that time this plan has been followed in the survey of all public lands held by the government.
Perhaps it would not be out of place, in closing this paper, to make some reference to a few incidents of more or less his- toric interest which 1 met with at the time of making these early government surveys, and to refer to my acquaintance at that time with some of the earliest pioneers of Minnesota.
CASTLE ROCK AND THE ZUMBRO RIVER.
In running a line some distance southwest of Hastings one very bright summer day, we came upon a white sandstone pillar on the smooth open prairie. It was quite high and impressed us as peculiar, being in that locality without any other similar form- ation near it, glistening in the bright sunlight. Some of my com- pany clambered up this natural obelisk far enough to find cut in the sandstone the name of Nicollet and the date 1837. The gov- ernment had furnished me with copies of Nicollet's maps of th$ survey he had made in this country, and we examined them and found this pillar of white sandstone indicated thereon. That Nicol- let had carved his name there in 1837, I nave f°r good reasons doubted ; but that he visited and took note of what is now known as Castle Rock, there cannot be a shadow of a doubt.
I want to bear testimony to the wonderful fidelity and ac- curacy of this savant and explorer in marking the topography of this section of the country as shown in his maps. The main streams and water courses of southern Minnesota were most ac- curately indicated by him on his topographical maps, copies of which I had.
A somewhat curious and interesting etymological result grew out of the name given by the early French voyageurs, and thence by Nicollet, to the water courses, streams, and river, which drain the counties of Dodge, Olmsted, and Wabasha, now known as Zumbro river. The French name was Riviere attx (or des) Em- barras, referring to the difficulties (embarassments) of navigating it with canoes. This river, which flows east through Wabasha county was named "Des Embarras river" by Nicollet, and this was followed by me in the report of the survey of guide meridians and standard parallels which crossed this river and its tributaries.
EARLY GOVERNMENT LAND SURVEYS. 65
Hence Des Embarras was the name given to this river upon all the early maps of Minnesota. Its Sioux name was Wazi-oju, meaning "the pine place," for the white pine trees which occur sparingly on its bluffs. When English-speaking people settled the lands bordering on this stream, they adopted the French name, but found it difficult to give the French pronunciation. After many unsuccessful efforts, it finally resulted in the name Zumbro for this stream and its tributaries.
THE WINNEBAGO INDIANS.
Before starting out to run the third guide meridian, I was advised that if the line passed through or near the place where the Winnebago Indians were located, I and my men might have trouble, as these Indians were greatly dissatisfied about some- thing; and I was assured by the Department that a messenger should be sent from Fort Snelling to apprise me of the exact state of affairs with the Winnebago Indians, and if there was danger I should abandon the line. No messenger ever came, or, if he did come, he failed to find me ; so the alarm and fear of my men and myself, eighteen in all, can readily be imagined, when we reached a place on the line where the snow was all tramped down, unmistakable evidence of human beings in the vicinity. It was late in the afternoon and in a dense forest, and, if my recollection is right, it was on the Crow river. I set my compass, and my men came up and we stood for a few minutes in consultation, when out from behind a tree near us, came an Indian, gun in hand, white blanket on, and otherwise comfortably well dressed. He spoke to us, saying, "How do you do?" Soon other Indians came out from behind the trees, and then others, in such numbers that we were ready to believe, literally, that "the woods were full of them." They were wonderfully interested in my compass and surveying outfit, the chain, the tally pins, etc. They told us, as best they could, that, hearing the noise we made coming up through the woods, they took us for an attacking party of In- dians, but they were glad to know we were white men.
I asked who they were, and they said, "Winnebagoes," and that Winneshiek, their chief, was farther down. We camped, and, taking one of my men with me and after passing through a most awful cordon of yelping dogs, I called on Winneshiek that
G^ MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
evening. Whether this was a title or a name I knew not, but he received us kindly, speaking in fair English. He complained bit- terly of his treatment by the Indian commissioners and other gov- ernment officials, who, he said, had either deposed or wanted to depose him, and to get another chief to give away his lands. I assured him that I had nothing to do with such matters, and joined him heartily in his righteous indignation at the manner he was being outraged. He not only made us no trouble, but next morning, when we passed through on the line, three rods west of his tepee, he gave us a large quantity of fine venison for a reason- able compensation. I was led to believe that this was a large band of Winnebagoes hunting off their reservation.
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES.
In the autumn of 1854, I met at Mcndota Captain Tilton and Major Reno, who had just completed the survey of a military road from Sioux City to Fort Snelling. Major Reno was greatly interested in my solar compass, and asked me if he could bring around the next day, to see this instrument, Capt. George B. Mc- Clellan, who had just come from the west to consult Gov. Isaac I. Stevens in regard to the Northern Pacific Railroad surveys. They came the following day, and, of course, I "spread myself" in ex- plaining the use and merits of the solar compass to these distin- guished West Pointers. I recall that Reno said it was a shame that this instrument had not been introduced for use in the army engineering, and the only reason he could give was, that it had not been invented by an army officer.
While making these surveys, I met a few of the earlv pio- neers, notably General Sibley, who laid me under great obliga- tions for much kindness and consideration, and Joseph R. Brown, at whose hospitable home, at Henderson, I was entertained four weeks while waiting for instructions. I was greatly impressed with Joseph R. Brown in many ways. I recall now quite vividly the impression I had then, that he was the smartest man I had ever met.
I also made the acquaintance of Henry M. Rice, Alexander Faribault, and Alexis Bailly. I think I met Martin McLeod. I met Governor Gorman and many others, all of whom I remem- ber most kindly. They all did what they could for me. For some
EARLY GOVERNMENT LAND SURVEYS. 67
reason unknown, I had not the good fortune during this time to meet the most illustrious of all these, Governor Ramsey. Minne- sota was and is greatly indebted to its earliest pioneers. Many of them were men of culture and refinement, all of them strong men, brave, hospitable, courteous, and kind. What a welcome they gave all those who came to make a home in this beautiful land and glorious commonwealth !
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, VOL. X. PLATE III.
SKETCHES OF THE HISTORY OF HUTCHINSON *
BY HON. WILLIAM W. PENDERGAST.
FOUNDING OF THE TOWN BY THE HUTCHINSON SINGERS.
The gradual decadence of the gold excitement which drew so many thousands to California during the half dozen years suc- ceeding the discovery of gold there in 1848, turned the tide of migration toward the west borders of the Mississippi. Long trains of west-bound travelers headed for Chicago every morning and evening from New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Chicago was the great distributing point. There all stopped to catch their breath and take their bearings, and the thirty-year-old city at the head of lake Michigan seized the business which Chagres had snatched during the California boom. She took advantage of her opportunity, and also, I fear, of her innocent tenderfoot vic- tims. The immense tidal wave was there divided. One branch flowed southwest into "bleeding Kansas," following up Massa- chusetts' "thirty thousand moral rifles," the war cry being "Free- dom for Kansas." The other stream swept northwest to the region of the "sky-tinted waters."
In the spring of 1855, I was caught up in Massachusetts and swirled along in this mighty movement of restless humanity, but not to the land of gold. Chicago, "the Garden City," was to be my Ultima Thule, my firm abiding place, but
"The best laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft a-gley,"
*Read at the monthly meeting of the Executive Council, February 11, 1901.
70 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
Two months later I was plodding my weary pilgrim way through southern Minnesota, "spying out the land" and weighing its future. It seemed to be a beautiful land, just as it came from the hand of nature, and any farmer should have been satisfied with a hundred and sixty acres of it. But I was told that a hun- dred miles or more to the northwest, on the borders of the "Big Woods," the soil was still better and the outlook even more allur- ing. That promising, if not "promised," land I then and there resolved to see before many moons had waxed and waned. The trip I was then taking could not be prolonged, on account of work awaiting me in Milwaukee and Chicago.
In October I started out on my second Minnesota trip, upon which two weeks were spent in explorations to the north, east, and south of the Falls of St. Anthony. By that time it was £et-
J J O
ting too late for the survey of the Big Woods country, if the job was to be a thorough one.
Fired with zeal for the new land, I went back as far as Mil- waukee, and in a few days had the pleasure of hearing my old friends, the Hutchinson family, from Milford, N. H., — Judson, John, and Asa, — sing to a full house,
"We've come from the mountains of the old Granite State," and other inspiring songs, rendered as only they knew how. After the concert, at my invitation they all promised to call on me the next day, which they accordingly did. In our pleasant talk they unfolded to me their plans for the future. They had started out to sing their way through to Kansas, there to found a village, call it Hutchinson, make homes for themselves, build up the town, join the "Jayhawkers" and squelch the "Border Ruffians." Said I, "Why not skip all that blood and poetry, go to Minnesota, the most favored country on the earth, and found a city that you will always be proud of?" "Have you been there?" they asked. "Yes." Then question followed question, like shots from a Catling gun. The answers were satisfactory, and led to the settlement of the town of Hutchinson in McLeod county, Minnesota.
Hither many later immigrants have been attracted, and they are now faithfully working shoulder to shoulder with the old tim- ers, who have borne the burden and the heat of the day, to make this what it certainly bids fair to become, the most charming and
HISTORY OF HUTCHNISON. 71
delightful, the most cozy and truly homelike place in the North- west.
The result of the conference was an immediate change of plans on the part of the Hutchinsons, who had in so short a time become convinced that their horoscope had not been rightly inter- preted. It was agreed that my cousin, Roswell H. Pendergast, should go along with them, and that I should stay through the winter, dispose of my photographing business, and follow on the first boat that should go through from Galena to St. Paul in the spring of 1856. The objective point was some place in the charm- ing region west of the Big Woods, to which allusion has already been made. The exact spot was to be fixed upon by the Hutchin- sons, their advance agent, E. E. Johnson, and R. H. Pendergast, who went with them.
Having arrived at the little village on the west side of the Mississippi adjoining the Falls of St. Anthony, they were lucky enough to fall in with an educated and enterprising young civil engineer, by the name of Lewis Harrington, who readily entered into the spirit of their plans, and who without hesitation accepted an earnest invitation to become a member of the company. Before they left this little settlement, Col. John H. Stevens, its father, B. E. Messer, an accomplished musician and former singing master, John H. Chubb, a young bachelor from Whitehall, N. Y., Henry Chambers, an unnaturalized Canadian, Lucius N. Parker, and John Calef, were duly initiated into the fraternity.
November 16, 1855, the company, with two two-horse teams and a week's supplies, sallied forth like Don Quixote, "in quest of adventures." The general plan formulated at Milwaukee had been talked over and deliberated upon till it was made more spe- cific by fixing upon a favorable location on the Hassan river (now called the South branch of the Crow river) northwest of Glencoe as the most desirable place for the new settlement. There was a good road as far as to Shakopee, which was at that time larger than Minneapolis. There the first night was spent.
November 17. Without waiting for breakfast, so anxious were they all to get a glimpse of the town of which they were to be the fathers, they started out betimes in the morning, and, crossing the ferry five miles farther up the Minnesota, reached
72 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
Carver in season for breakfast. From Carver the road, if the straggling path made through the woods by the Glencoe settlers earlier in the season could be dignified by such a name, suddenly became much worse. Numerous stumps, deep ruts, and deeper chuck-holes, mud and fallen trees, opposed their passage.
Nightfall found them weary and way-worn, with the aspect of "the knight of the sorrowful countenance," their horses jaded, and with a bag of game consisting of a brace of ducks, three partridges, a solitary rabbit, and a squirrel, on the banks of a small stream two or three miles east of the present site of Young America, and eleven miles from Carver. By this stream they prepared to camp for the night. The game was soon skinned, dressed, roasted, and disposed of in the most hearty if not the most approved style ; and no dinner at the West Hotel, nor even at Delmonico's, was ever better enjoyed.
November 18. At daylight the camp was astir. After a "picked up" breakfast, the tent was struck and the pilgrims were moving toward their Mecca. A couple of partridges roasted be- fore an improvised fire, with a pound or two of hardtack, served for dinner. Buffalo creek was crossed before sunset, Chambers going ahead and breaking the ice with his feet. As the water was three feet deep and Glencoe five miles away, he unwillingly admit- ted that he got but little fun out of this operation.
Over a smoother way better time was now made, and twilight found our explorers on the outmost verge of civilization. They would have had to push their way 2,000 miles farther unless they changed their course, before reaching another town or meeting a white man.
Doty's Hotel, a one-story log building "with all the modern improvements," offered them a welcome, a shelter and first-class accommodations at first-class rates, and there they ensconced themselves for the night.
November 19. With A. J. Bell, a Glencoe surveyor, for a guide, the line of march was resumed. As the road they had been following ended at Glancoe, the scattered groves were the only landmarks. They struck the Hassan river at the bend near the spot where Philip Busson, the Frenchman, now lives. Here was a delightful grove, resplendent with the gorgeous hues of a Min- nesota Indian summer. The air was crisp and invigorating. The scene was charming, and the party would willingly have taber-
HISTORY OF HUTCHNISON. 73
nacled there. The sky, the earth, the air, the overarching trees, the shimmering stream, the fertile soil, were so many Circes woo- ing them to stay.
Thanks, however, to Mr. Bell, who assured them that there was a better place six miles farther up the river, the company, af- ter a few deep-drawn sighs, reluctantly moved on, some on foot, and some riding in the wagons, these being the first to reach the "promised land." While they were pitching their tents, at the edge of the grove west of the place now occupied by the Catholic parsonage, Parker went back with one of the teams to meet the rest of the party. When the last straggler was picked up and brought in and all were seated in Turkish fashion round the crackling camp-fire, they with one voice declared that spot the most beautiful and attractive they had ever seen. The charming woods, the winding sweep of the crystal river, the range of cir- cling bluffs beyond, the smooth lawnlike slope from forest to stream, the autumnal robings of shrubs and trees and creeping vines, the bewildering beauty of the whole view, all combined to awaken their enthusiasm, stir their blood, and set every nerve to tingling with delight, while Hope was busy with her brush and easel painting bright visions of the future.
Messer, the poet, the artist, the optimist, the dreamer par excellence of the company, which was divided about equally be- tween poets, artists, optimists, and dreamers, on the one side, and plain practical men on the other, seized his fiddle, which was never far from his person, and struck up "The Star Spangled Banner." The Hutchinsons, and all who could sing, "joined in." For the first time since "the morning stars sang together," grand strains of heavenly harmony echoed through the listening groves, and finally died away on the range of circling bluffs beyond the dis- tant river.
ADOPTION OF A CONSTITUTION.
November 20, a business meeting was held in the tent. Col. J. H. Stevens was chosen president ; B. E. Messer, secretary ; and A. J. Bell, Lewis Harrington, Asa B. Hutchinson, B. E. Messer, and J. H. Stevens, a committee to draft a constitution and by- laws. They then adjourned to meet at Glencoe the next morning. November 21, the company met according to adjournment, and
14 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
adopted articles of agreement, which were substantially as fol- lows:
1. There shall be two town sites, each containing 320 acres: Harmony, to be located on the south half of section 31, township 117, range 29; and Hutchinson, on the north half of section 6, township 1 1 6, range 29.
2. The two sites shall be divided into 100 shares.
3. The Hutchinsons shall each have ten shares. Each of the eleven men with them shall have five shares. The remain- ing fifteen shares shall be disposed of by the Hutchinsons as they think best.
4. The river shall continue to be called by its Indian name Hassan (Leaf).
5. L. Harrington, R. H. Pendergast, and Henry Chambers, were appointed to do the business of the company, and dispose of lots to actual settlers.
6. Special meetings shall be held at any time on the written request of three shareholders.
7. Any shareholder neglecting to pay authorized assess- ments shall forfeit his stock.
8. It was voted to employ L. Harrington to survey the two sites, his compensation being $380.
9. Five acres were set apart for "Humanity's Church."
10. Fifteen acres were set aside for a park (afterward* in- creased to twenty-two acres).
11. Eight lots were reserved for educational purposes.
12. It was solemnly decreed that "in the future of Hutchin- son, woman shall enjoy equal rights with man."
13. "No lot shall ever be occupied by any building used as a saloon, bowling alley, or billiard room, on penalty of lorfeiture of the lot."
The next morning the company set out on their return to Minneapolis.
During the winter Messrs. Harrington and Bell surveyed the town site, Harrington really doing all the business connected with the survey, though he and Bell took the contract together.
PIONEER REMINISCENCES.
Agreeably to my promise made the fall before, I left Milwau-
HISTORY OF HUTCHNISON. 75
kee on the nth of April, 1856, for Hutchinson. My father and brother (T. H.), a cousin (Solomon Pendergast) now at Sauk Center, T. B. Chesley, and six others, had come out from New Hampshire to go with me. We reached Read's Landing, at the foot of lake Pepin, on the I4th. There we waited two days for the ice to break up, when, tired of "hope deferred," we walked round the lake thirty miles over a muddy road to Wacouta, where we found the Time and Tide, one of Louis Robert's boats, with steam up ready to take us to St. Paul. This steaming up wre found was only a trick to make us buy tickets at once. It was played several times before the boat finally started.
We landed at St. Paul on the i7th, and took passage on the Reveille for Carver. On the morning of the iSth we all left on foot for Young America, where we staid that night, sleeping four in a bed wedged in like smelts. The next day hard walking began to tell on the older members of the party ; and the three young Pendergasts, Chesley, Atherton, and Glass, soon left the others out of sight. At Glencoe they got a lunch and pushed on, follow- ing directions received from some men who thought they knew the way. At nightfall we camped by a lake six miles out and a mile or so east of the present Hutchinson and Glencoe road. We had no blankets, no tent, and no food, except a few pieces of hard- tack bought at Carver the day before.
Solomon, however, shot a goose near the shore of the lake, but, as bad luck would have it, she flew out to the middle of the lake before falling. Here was a ''pretty kettle of fish." I prepared half a dozen little sticks and tried to get the others to draw, in or- der to decide which one of us should swim out and get her. It was forty rods to where she lay. The ground was beginning to freeze around the edge of the lake, and little needles of ice were shooting out from the shore over the still water. There was nothing alluring to be seen, except the goose floating on the bosom of the lake at what seemed a long distance away. It was not a tempting bait under the circumstances. No one would draw a stick. Disgusted with what seemed to me their cowardice, I went around to the opposite side of the lake, as the goose looked near- er that shore, and plunged into the ice-cold water. On reaching the goose and looking around to take my bearings, the camp looked as near as the shore I had left ; so, taking the goose's neck- in my mouth, I paddled towards the fire, which had been kindled
76 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL- SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
under a big oak and looked very comfortable, but which at the time did me very little good. The water was lighted up more than it was warmed by the blaze. Nearly benumbed, I landed with the trophy, only to find that my thick woolen stockings had been burned in my absence by one of the boys who through kind- ness had undertaken to dry them before the fire. In three hours the goose was dressed and roasted. A half hour later every bone was picked as clean as a mounted skeleton. This done, we lay down on the bare ground, with some sticks and brush above and the stars twinkling through the impromptu lattice work. There and thus we slept the sleep of "Innocents Abroad."
At noon of the 2Oth we surprised Roswell and four compan- ions named Gray, Whitney, Failing, and Hook (from whom lake Hook got its name), who were holding possession of the J. E. Chesley hut, which stood a few rods from the southeast corner of the town site. Mr. Chesley, finding provisions running low, had gone to St. Paul to replenish his stock. That evening the rest of our company arrived, and, taking us all together, it must be admitted that as "famine breeders" we were a decided suc- cess. The visible supply of food, which consisted of about twenty pounds of flour, totally disappeared in two days. A bushel of po- tatoes, which had been procured for seed, lasted but little longer. A two-bushel sack of horse feed that stood in one corner of the room was not quite so quickly disposed of. It was ground coarse, the hulls were rough and plowed furrows broad and deep from one end of the oesophagus to the other. We made mush of this, and sweetened it with Hassan river water. After each meal we devoutly thanked the Lord for ground feed, and felt grateful that it "was as well with us as it was."
After a few days Mr. Chesley came back with scant sup- plies for so many, and then he and I started back to St. Paul im- mediately on foot, bought four yoke of oxen, a wagon, and a load of goods, including a big breaking plow. After two weeks of hard struggling over stumps, through mire-holes and mud lakes, we crossed the Hassan once more, plowed the first field, and harvested the first crop ever raised in the entire Hassan valley. The grasshoppers, however, which came in countless swarms about the first of July, left little harvesting for us to do.
HISTORY OF HUTCHNISON. 77
THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1856.
On July 4th, no other celebration having been planned, a bear hunt was improvised for the occasion, which resulted in killing a huge old bruin, weighing 400 pounds. From the departure of the hunters to the return with the laurels of victory, the watches measured little more than an hour, for the game was in a grove only half a mile away. This was the first Independence Day cel- ebration west of the Big Woods.
COST OF LIVING IN THE WINTER OF 1857-58.
Here is the record for the three months of my second winter in Hutchinson, taken from the expense book of seven who kept "old bachelors' hall" together in the village. It was the most high-toned place there during that winter.
Flour, 5^> barrels $66.00
Beef, 257 pounds 25.70
Potatoes, 7 bushels ... 7 . oo
Corn meal, 240 Ibs . . . . 9 . 60
Syrup, 8 gallons 8.00
Candles, 20 Ibs 5 . oo
Beans, 2 bushels 4 . oo
Rice, 12 Ibs . . 1 .56
Pepper, 6 papers .60
Suet, 6 Ibs i . oo
Butter, 3 Ibs 1 .05
Buckwheat, 15 Ibs. . .90
Salt, 14 Ibs .90
Soap, 3 Ibs .45
Cream of tarter, J/£ Ib. .35
Saleratus, 9 Ibs 1.35
Total $i33-46
Cost per man a week. . . $i .46
FIRST TOWN MEETING.
At the first town meeting, May n, 1858, forty-eight votes were cast. Four townships voted at Hutchinson, the north two casting 26 votes, and the south two 22 votes.
78 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
STEAMBOAT NAVIGATION.
In the spring and early summer of 1858, a steamboat, twenty by sixty feet in size, was built to run on the Hassan, Crow, and Mississippi rivers to Minneapolis. It made the down trip with- out much trouble, but never returned. The owners got a chance to sell it to ply on the Mississippi between Minneapolis and St. Cloud. The water of the Hassan river was so high that a steam- er could have run from Hutchinson to Minneapolis the first five years without much difficulty.
SCARCITY OF FOOD.
Provisions were very scarce in the spring of 1858. Some families had lived through the winter on potatoes and slippery elm bark. But the middle of May found the Hassan alive with buffalo fishes, and the marshes were yellow with the flowers of cowslips ; so for a while there was plenty and variety. Those who were too lazy to pick greens went fishing. The fish could be boiled, baked, stewed, or fried; but, whichever way was chosen, the flavoring was always the same, pure Hassan river water. It took a connoisseur to decide which style of cooking had been adopted. Most of the people got their living in a way that may well be pronounced "scaly."
MAIL CARRIERS.
The contract for carrying the mail between Minneapolis and Hutchinson once a week was let this spring to Messrs. Sumner and Parshall. Previous to this, the young men had taken turns in car- rying it on their shoulders. T. H. Pendergast's turn came round almost every week, as he was the most willing and the best walker.
THE SIOUX OUTBREAK.
On Saturday, the i6th day of August, 1862, nine men, in- cluding myself, set out for Fort Snelling to enlist. Their names were G. T. Belden, William Gosnell, W. H. Harrington, John Hartwig, J. T. Higgins, Andrew A. Hopper, Charles M. Horton, Charles Stahl, and W. W. Pendergast. The next Monday Capt.
HISTORY OF HUTCHNISON. 79
George C. Whitcomb arrived in town from Forest City, with the startling news that the Indians were "on the rampage," that Rob- inson Jones and Howard Baker and their families had been killed at Acton the day before, and that all the settlers west of us were likely to be massacred. Tuesday morning the captain was in St. Paul, laying the facts before Governor Ramsey and Adjutant General Malmros, both of whom went at once to Fort Snelling. The governor inquired of me about the danger of an Indian out- break, but I could not confirm the report from Acton, and in fact did not believe it. Soon, however, a cour°r from the upper Min- nesota river came in with the news that Capt. John S. Marsh and more than half his company had been killed while crossing the river. There was no longer room for doubt.
Our Hutchinson boys had not enlisted, so we all determined to go back and defend our own hearthstones. Captain Whitcomb came with us, having succeeded in getting seventy-five Springfield muskets and three boxes of cartridges, amounting to 3,000 rounds of ammunition. We reached Glencoe the second night, having, impressed three teams and two men at Shakopee to haul us ana the ammunition. It was seventeen" miles from Glencoe to Hutch- inson. I determined to walk home that night and Mr. Gosnell offered to come with me. The offer was gladly accepted.
Arriving at home at two o'clock in the morning, we found at our house twenty-six refugees who had escaped from the Upper Sioux Agency under the gufdance of John Other Day ; and we learned that other refugees were at Harrington's, Belden's, Putnam's, and one or two other places, the whole number being about fifty. All of them left that morning, on Frfday, August 22nd, for the more eastern settlements.
Captain Whitcomb, with the teams and military supplies, ar- rived the same day. A company of Home Guards was soon or- ganized, Lewis Harrington being the captain, Oliver Pierce and Andrew Hopper, lieutenants, and W. W. Pendergast, orderly sergeant. A stockade 100 feet square was constructed in twelve days. Then came the battle on the road from Acton to Hutch- ' inson, where Capt. Richard Strout's company was beset by 300 Sioux who had been lying in ambush for them. Captain Strout managed to get away and come to Hutchinson, with twenty-three men wounded, and leaving three dead on the field.
That night these Indians attempted to surprise us ; but they
80 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
were halted at the bridge by our sentinels. Instantly all was bus- tle and activity at the garrison. Officers and men were on the alert. In every direction shadowy forms might be seen moving about in the darkness, peering to catch, if possible, a glimpse of the approaching foe. After half an hour's bootless search, no further cause of alarm being discovered, the camp once more re- lapsed to silence, which was not again disturbed.
THE ATTACK AT HUTCHINSON'.
The fourth of September opened bright and beautiful No sign of Indians was anywhere visible, yet most of the men deter- mined not to leave the fort. A few Germans, however, thinking the enemy had gone off in some other direction, concluded to go out to their farms and try to save some of their wheat, which during these troublesome times had been sadly neglected. Six or seven of them started about seven o'clock for their homes in Acoma, and had just reached the point where the road turns to the right to as- cend the bluff near Peter Geoghegan's field. Old Mr. Heller was walking a few rods in advance of the team, when a volley was fired from the brow of the hill and Heller was severely wounded in the hip. The horses were quickly wheeled about, the wounded man was helped into the wagon, and the half mile that lay be- tween them and the fort was made in less time than ever before or since.
When the Germans were leaving for their farms, Howard McEwen volunteered to go to the house of W. W. Pendergast, on the bluff at the edge of the woods, east of Albert Langbecker's residence, to get some delicacies for the wounded soldiers of Strout's company. He had found the articles and started back, but in passing through one of the rooms he noticed a book on the mantel-piece, and stopped to look it through. While thus en- gaged, he was startled by the firing at Mr. Heller, and, in looking out of the window, saw the hill to the west covered with Indians. Though he knew that his safety depended on reaching the bridge in advance of the Indians, who were following the Germans up as fast as they could, still he did not forget his errand. Gathering up his jellies and preserves, he hastened down the hill and got in- to the town safely.
Soon the Indians were seen circling around the town in all
HISTORY OF HUTCHNISON. 81
directions, except to the south. From the point where they were first seen to Chesley's, at the southeast corner of the town, there was a continuous line of them, while through the woods at the west their dark forms were occasionally seen gliding from one tree or thicket to another.
At the commencement of the attack, about eight o'clock, Wil- liam H. Ensign mounted "old Selim," and, with hat in hand and hair streaming in the wind, dashed away toward Glencoe for re- inforcements.
Levi Chesley and a boy by the name of William Wright ( son of E. G. Wrright, who married Eliza Chesley) were at the farm taking care of the stock, having left us an hour before for that pur- pose. Warned of approaching danger by the sound of the guns, they looked out of the barn and saw retreat to the town was al- ready cut off, and that the Indians were close upon them. To bridle the best two horses and jump upon their backs was the work of a moment. In another moment they were scouring across the prairie at breakneck speed, with half a dozen Indians at their heels. Soon all but two who had the swiftest ponies were dis- tanced. These two followed nearly half way to Glencoe, when, finding themselves gradually losing ground, they suddenly faced about and returned to Hutchinson to join their companions.
Seeing the preparations that had been made for their recep- tion in the center of the town, the Indians amused themselves for a while by setting fire to the buildings on the outskirts. The torch was first applied to the house of Dr. Benjamin, as that stood farthest out of town to the northwest. The next one fired was that of W. W. Pendergast. Next was the academy, and while the flames were slowly creeping up the southwest corner of this building its bell was vigorously rung as an alarm. Then followed other houses on the bluff, Kittredge's, Welton's, Pierce's and Chesley's. On the south side Solomon Pendergast's, J. H. Chubb's, and several smaller ones, shared the same fate.
During this time the twenty-three wounded men of Captain Strout's company were carried from the hotel to a place of great- er safety, but less comfort, inside the fort.
It was interesting to note the altered behavior of the Indians when they came in sight of the stockade. As soon as the first volley was fired upon the German farmers, they set up a fearful
82 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
war cry, and came up over the bluff whooping and yelling as onfy wild Indians can ; but when their eyes caught sight of the fort, the trench around it, and armed men prepared to defend it, they stood for a moment dumbfounded. But relying upon their superior num- bers, and remembering how the whites had so far everywhere fled before them, they commenced to put their preconcerted plan into execution.
This was to make a vigorous attack from the north, at which all the inhabitants were expected to retreat toward St. Paul, just as they did at Yellow Medicine. To make their victory more com- plete, about a third of their number were placed in ambush along the border of the grove that skirts the road to Glencoe all the way from the town to the Hutchinson hill. It was thought that while the victorious Indians were pressing the fugitives from behind and driving them like a flock of frightened sheep, those in ambuscade would pour in a deadly fire upon them, soon make clean work of it, and carry off, with little trouble or danger to themselves, an abundant harvest of scalps.
But the people here, as the Indians soon found, had no notion of retreating, and were determined to give them ball for ball. The Hutchinson Guards, without consulting Captain Strout, took the places previously assigned to them, Captain Harrington and his fifteen men on the west of the fort, Lieutenant Hopper and his men on the east, Pierce at the south, and Pendergast at the north. We were thus advancing upon the Indians in four differ- ent directions for the purpose of protecting the buildings and sav- ing the cattle and horses, which were being stolen by dozens be- fore our eyes, when Captain Strout, seeing what was going on and fearing for the safety of the fort, assumed command of the Hutchinson company and the entire fort, and issued a peremptory order that all should return within the stockade, which most of the men obeyed.
A few refused to recognize Strout's authority, notably Cap- tain Harrington, Lieutenants Pierce and Hopper, Orderly Pen- dergast, Andrew Hopper, H. McEwen, W. Putnam, G. T. Belden, D. Sivright, William Cook, S. Dearborn, D. Cross, Amos James, H. Harrington, and perhaps one or two others ; and these fought through the day each on his own hook, as indeed all did after a short time.
Lieutenant Hopper got near enough to an Indian near the
HISTORY OF HUTCHNISON. 8d
sawmill to make him "bite the dust ;" and Cross was equally for- tunate east of the fort. He and one lone Indian had a regular duel, firing three shots apiece, until the last shot of Cross killed his antagonist. In each case the other Indians near at hand caught up the body and carried it off the field.
Andrew A. Hopper, H. Harrington, G. T. Belden, and H. McEwen, firing from the chamber of Sumner's Hotel (the Hart- man House), repelled the enemy from that direction.
Earlier in the day, S. Dearborn, Andrew Hopper, and W. W. Pendergast, went down nearly to the river, because many of the redskins were on the other bank, dividing their time between steal- ing horses and firing at the men on the south side. Taking their stations behind some logs that were scattered along the riverside, and behind ginseng frames that Sumner had piled up there, they popped away for half an hour. The effect was not known, as the grass was tall there, and as it was the custom of the Indians to fall whenever a shot was fired in their direction, whether hit or not. At any rate, they retired to a respectful distance, and the three sought other fields of usefulness.
Howard McEwen distinguished himself by going from the fort over to Sumner's barn, when the balls were flying thickest, and bringing back Sivright's double harness. When asked what he did that for, he said that the barn was likely to be burned, that they wanted Sivright's mules to take the women out with after the fight, and that this was the only harness he knew of that could be saved.
About noon when the fort was surrounded by a circle of fire from the smouldering buildings, the Sioux made a desperate ef- fort to -advance from the grove on the west to set fire to the build- ings that remained between them and the stockade. Sumner then offered a pair of boots to every man who would go to his store, on the west side of Main street, and bring over a back-load of goods. Several of the younger men volunteered, and a dozen loads were safely stored in the fort within as many minutes. No one was hurt, but a bullet hit the pack which C. M. Horton was carrying, and was picked out of one of the boots that composed his load.
There were several "close calls" during the day's fight, but no one in or about the fort actually received any injury. The shooting was mostly at long range. Amos James was wounded
84 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
by a spent ball, splintering the stock of the gun which he held in his hand. Bullets perforated the buildings inside the stockade, as well as those that were occupied and defended ; but on the part of the garrison it was a bloodless fight.
Some of the Indians who fought here were afterwards taken prisoners by General Sibley, and they acknowledged a loss of four killed and fifteen wounded at Hutchinson on that 4th of September.
RETREAT AND COUNCIL OF THE SIOUX.
About four o'clock in the afternoon the firing began to grow weaker, and it was soon noticed that the enemy were disappearing from the north, east, and south, and were retreating toward the west. Soon afterward a company of about forty soldiers were seen approaching from the direction of Glencoe. These were reinforcements that Ensign had succeeded in obtaining. He went first to Glencoe, but found so few men left there that none could be spared. He heard, however, that a small company of infantry and cavalry was stationed at lake Addie, twelve miles distant to the west. Proceeding at once to that place, he found the soldiers and prevailed on them to march to the relief of Hutchinson, and they were the men who arrived just after the close of the battle.
It is very probable that the Indians observed them long be- fore they were seen from the garrison, and that they withdrew for that reason. They had already sent back a dozen teams, more or less, loaded with household goods and other valuables plund- ered from the houses which they burned in the morning.
Many persons who had come into the fort left their wagons and harnesses at home, and their horses and cattle on the prairie. The Indians gathered all the oxen and horses they could lay their hands to, and hitched them to the wagons which they found, so that there was no lack of teams to transport their plunder. They shot other horses and cattle that came within range, to the number of about a hundred.
On reaching Otter lake, they stopped and held a council of war. Some were in favor of resting there a few hours, and then, under cover of the night, to come back and take the people by surprise. They argued that our men, thinking they had fled and that our victory was complete, would set no pickets, that the fort
HISTORY OF HUTCHNISON. 85
might be fired in a dozen places before the alarm would be sound- ed, and that amid the darkness and confusion they could make short work of massacring the entire garrison.
But wiser councils prevailed. The older men said that, as they failed to surprise us on the night before, so they would fail again ; that the preparations we had made to receive them, the painstaking and skill manifested in the fortifications, and the good judgment shown in their location, where they could not come up from any direction without exposing themselves to al- most certain death, all went to prove that the Hutchinson men were wary and cautious, and not to be easily caught napping. They thought the best way for them was to leave with the plunder they had obtained, and to try their luck somewhere else at sur- prises. So the proposed night attack was given up.
This matter of the consultation at Otter lake was learned from the Indian prisoners at Beaver Falls. In point of fact, there would have been no chance for a successful night attack. A double guard was kept up around the fort all night long; and, with the additional forty men and the extra ammunition they brought with them, the fort could have been held, and would have been held, against a thousand such assailants.
MURDER OF GERMAN SETTLERS WEST OF HUTCHINSON.
Two Germans, by the name of Bilke and Spaude, were at this time living on the farm where old Mr. Sitz now resides, a few miles up the river, in the town of Lynn. They refused to come into the fort, because, they said, they had always treated the Indians well, and the Indians were never forgetful of kind- ness shown them. They did not anticipate any injuries, and could not be made to see their danger.
But when, on the morning of the fight at Hutchinson, a few Indians came to their house while the families were at breakfast, and in a threatening manner demanded a meal, they began to think they would be safer in the fort. While their guests were causing their bread and meat and potatoes to disappear with marvelous rapidity, they hastened to yoke the oxen and hitch them to the wagon. This done, both families got aboard and started across the river on the way to the town. They had gone but a few rods, however, when the Indians came out of the house
86 MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY COLLECTIONS.
and fired, wounding Spaude in the leg. He whipped up his team and set them to running at the top of their speed, the Indians yelling and pursuing. In this way they dashed down the bank into the river, and there Spaude was shot again, and fell into the middle of the stream, where the body was found the next day.
Bilke and the women and children now leaped from the wagon, and took refuge in the tall grass on the north side of the river, at this place six or seven feet high. While the Indians who were following them stopped to scalp Spaude, the others managed to conceal themselves from view and were not discovered. It has always been a matter of wonder that they succeeded in escap- ing as they did ; but doubtless the Indians thought that they had guns with them, and that if any one should happen to stumble upon their hiding place it would be at the expense of his life. They could see the grass quiver where the Indians went along, but so far they were safe. Mrs. Spaude prevented her two-year- old baby from betraying with its cries their place of concealment by pressing her hand upon its mouth.
As soon as they found the coast in a measure clear, the two families separated. Mrs. Spaude recrossed the river with the baby and a five-year-old child, and, crouching and picking their way along in the tallest grass, they made their toilsome way around the south end of Otter lake, and along the edge of the woods, till they reached the corner of Mr. Hutchinson's field, in sight of the fort, a little after noon, when they were seen and killed by the attacking Indians. When picked up at evening, their faces were entirely shot away, the muzzles of the guns having been held but a few inches away when they were fired.
Mrs. Bilke, with three children, remained longer concealed in the grass, and at last made her way to a vacant log-house near the river on the north side, where they staid over night, and where they were found the next day and brought to the town. Mr. Bilke, clad only in a checked hickory shirt, after meeting innumer- able troubles and dangers, finally reached the town just after the Indians left. He had divested himself of one piece of clothing after another, so as to run faster; had been