USA > Iowa > Howard County > Lime Springs > History of the Welsh in Minnesota, Foreston and Lime Springs, Ia. gathered by the old settlers > Part 3
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31
After traveling for some distance they found a fairly good trail, which, fortunately, proved to be the one leading between Faribault and St. Paul. Night came, but they dared not rest, for as yet they knew not whence their next meal would come. So they pressed on all night. The woods on their left seemed alive with wolves, whose loud and dismal howls often sounded startlingly near and reminded our travelers that they too might be looking for their supper.
Across the path lay numerous. creeks whose cold and un . known waters they had to ford in the dark, and many of them proved to be quite deep. After traveling all night and until 1 or 2 o'clock in the afternoon of the next day, to their great joy they came to the house of a Frenchman, where they obtained some food and learned that St. Paul was but seven miles distant.
Our Welshmen now determined to remove from their settle- ment near St. Paul to the country they had seen near Traverse de Sioux. Accordingly after a few days rest and preparation on May 31, 1853, five of them, namely, John C. Evans, Edward S. Evans, Elizabeth Evans ( their sister ), John Roberts and Griffith Jones started with three wagons drawn by four yokes of oxen for the new country. They went from St. Paul to where the present city of Faribault stands, and where then' a few In- dians and half-breeds, dwelt together with one white man who had just arrived, thence they passed through the Big Woods to where now stands the village of Kasota.
Their wagons were the first to pass through most of this
17
THE WELSH IN MINNESOT.1.
country and slow and tedious was the journey -- cutting their way through the dense tangled forest. crossing bottomless sloughs, going up and down steep ravines and fording creeks and rivers. Many were the accidents and thrilling adventures of each day.
After a few days spent in exploration of the country they finally chose Le Sueur prairie as the site of their new home, and there accordingly located their claims.
This was the origin of the present Welsh Settlement of Le Sucur or "Big Woods" as it is commonly called. The govern- ment had not yet surveyed the land, so our settlers built their cabins and plowed the prairie to suit themselves with no boun- daries to interfere. In the following August Griffith Jones left for Wisconsin, never to return, and in October John Roberts died suddenly after a short illness, and was buried on a corner of his claim, Rev. Adams, of Traverse de Sioux officiating at the funeral. Roberts was an honest, religious young man and a member of the Wesleyan Methodist church. To compensate for this loss to the settlement of two-fifths of its population, the next day after Mr. Roberts' death. Mr. and Mrs. Edward Evans, parents of John C., Edward S. and Elizabeth Evans, arrived with their other two daughters, Maria and Liza. In the following May, Thos. Davis and family arrived from Pomeroy, O., and lo- cated in the same neighborhood. During 1855 came David Jones, Evan Jones and Wm. Humphreys, with their families, and set- tled on the opposite side of the river. in Sibley county.
Let us now leave this embryo settlement of Le Sueur county and trace the beginning of its much larger sister settlement in Blue Earth county.
BLUE EARTH COUNTY.
About this time there lived in La Crosse, Wisconsin, two Welshmen: D. C. Evans, Esq., and Rev. Richard Davies.
Mr. Evans was born in Meivod, Montgomeryshire, April 28, 1820; emigrated to Palmyra, O., in 1836: thence, in 1843, to Dodgeville, Wis .; and thence to La Crosse, in 1850. In his men- tal make-up he was more of an American than a Welshman- and a western American at that -- thoroughly imbued with that sanguine enthusiasm which is the virtuous fault of our typical westerner; which makes him see millions in everything, build the city of a century in a day, and transform in an hour a sav- age wilderness into a smiling civilization.
Rev. Richard Davies was a native of the same shire in
1
18
THE WELSH1 IN MINNESOTA.
Wales, born in Llanwaddelen, January, 1805; emigrated to Jackson county, Ohio, in 1837 ; began preaching there with the C. M. church in 1840 ; moved, in 1852, to Racine, Wis., and ten years later to La Crosse, where he labored as a missionary with the Congregationalists.
These two men were of the opinion that they could better their fortunes more readily by moving farther west, and they were also desirous of bettering the fortunes of their countrymen, by founding a new Welsh settlement. Heretofore, nearly all of the Welsh colonies had been made in poor, barren agricultura! districts, and our two Welshmen were very anxious that one settlement, at least, should be planted in some of the rich farmi- ing lands of the West.
When in the real estate office of Col. T. B. Stoddard, at La Crosse, in the spring of 1853, Mr. Evans had his attention first called to the great bend of the St. Peter, or Minnesota, river as a natural point of importance. This Col. Stoddard used to study the maps of the northwest in those days, with a view to discover the natural points, where, in his opinion, great cities must arise ; and foremost among these points was the big bend at the mouth of the Blue Earth.
About this time wonderful accounts began to circulate of the magnificent country in the valley of the Minnesota, which, by treaties with the Wapeton and Sisseton bands, of Dakotas, at Traverse de Sioux, July 23, 1851, and with the Medawakon and Wapekuta bands at Mendota, August 5, 1851. had all been ceded to the Government. These treaties, on the 14th of February, 1853, were ratified by Congress, and this vast territory was thrown open for settlement.
All these things coming to the ears of our Welsh friends at La Crosse, fanned the western flame within them all the more, and at last, on the 26th of July, 1853, Mr. Evans started from La Crosse to spy the promised land. On the way he fell in with one Gen. Matthews, who was also drifting westward. They spent a day at St. Paul, then a village of a dozen shanties, and went to see the great falls of St. Anthony, and visited the only white inhabitant then in that region, a Col. Stevens, (in those days no American came West unless he was a General, a Col- onel, or at least a Captain ). This Col. Stevens had just built a squatter's shanty on the land adjoining the falls, but lived in daily apprehension of being driven off, as a trespasser, by the militaryat Fort Snelling ; for St. Anthony Falls, with its adjoining country, then belonged to the Indians. Standing be-
19
THE WELSH IN MINNESOTA.
side this magnificent water power in its primitive greatness and grandeur, Mr. Evans remarked, "Here some day will be the Lo- well of the West." How well this prediction has been verified let the city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, which sup- plies the markets of the world with flour and lumber attest.
At St. Paul, Evans and Matthews met Samuel Humbertson, captain of the "Clarion," a small boat plying on the Minnesota river. Two or three weeks before, this man had gone ashore. about a mile above the mouth of the Blue Earth, where a nar- row valley, the ancient bed of that stream, comes down to the Minnesota, between two prairie plateaus of the second bench. Finding at this spot a fine place for a boat landing and levee, Capt. Humbertson decided to found a city in this valley and on the adjoining plateaus, which should rival Mankato and become, eventually, the city of the great bend. Accordingly, he left Thomas Lamereaux, his nephew, with a pile of boards, to hold possession, while he should get up a townsite company at St. Paul. Meeting Evans and Matthews he quickly induced them to join him in the enterprise. The water in the river that year being low, the "Clarion" failed to ascend further than Babcock's Landing, a little above the present city of St. Peter. From there, on the 1st of August, 1853, Humbertson, his clerk Alden Bryant, his engineer John Mann, with Evans and Matthews, walked to the present site of South Bend. There they found Thomas Lamereaux and a bottle of whiskey lying under the pile of boards. There they also found J. S. Lyon and family, who had arrived from Iowa a day or two before, in a prairie schooner (a wagon with a tented cover of sheeting ). Lyon was taken into the townsite company, making the sixth member, each having an equal share.
At the suggestion of Mr. Evans the village was called "South Bend," from its position at the great bend of the Minne- sota.
On Saturday, August 6, 1853, was built for Mr. Lyon, on the tableland east of the present village, the first log cabin.
It is to be noted that Mr. Lyon brought the first cow west of the Blue Earth, and on this day was done the first churning. This item has still more interest since the recent wonderful de- velopment of the dairy industry in this region. On this same 6th of August the first Board of County Commissioners met at Mankato and organized the county of Blue Earth and estab- lished the voting precincts of Mankato and Kasota. On the 7th of August Mi. Evans started back to La Crosse, to arrange his
20
THE WELSH IN MINNESOT.1.
affairs there in reference to his new home, and to report the good country he had found. When just ready to return to South Bend on the 17th, intelligence reached him that his father, at Palmyra, O., was seriously ill. So Mr. Evans hired a Welsh- man named Owen Herbert to go to South Bend to look after his interests, while he went to attend his father in what proved to be his last sickness. October 11th was held the first election in Blue Earth county, which comprised the election precinct of Mankato only. There were eighteen votes cast, eleven of which were republican and seven democratic. By the 15th of Novem- ber Mr. Evans had returned to South Bend and on the 22d went after I). T. Turpin, a surveyor at St. Paul, to survey the new townsite, which survey was completed on the 2d of December. The weather had been exceedingly fine during all of this fall. and on the last day of the survey there was no frost in the ground, while even on Christmas day, when a party of Mankato people came up to visit South Bend, the ice on the Blue Earth was not strong enough for them to cross upon it. By the first of January, 1854, however, there was a change in the weather program, and a very cold spell was experienced, lasting six weeks.
About this time the provisions at South Bend gave out and none were to be had nearer than St. Paul-ninety miles away. Mr. Evans had bought a span of horses of Capt. Humbertson, which, by the way, were the first, and, for two years, the only horses west of the Blue Earth, It, therefore, devolved upon Mr. Evans to take his horses and sleigh after provisions.
With deep snow upon the ground-drifted in places to mountain heaps-with the mercury down to the twenties, and the danger of being caught in a blizzard without a road or a human habitation, the journey was anything but desira- ble. It took Mr. Evans eleven days to make the trip, and the hardships attending it were the severest he ex- perienced in all his life. On the evening of the 24th of January he was overtaken by a terrible storm, far away from any house, and gave himself up to perish. Un- hitching his team, he made the best shelter possible for them with the sleigh, and put before them all the fodder he had. Kindling a fire, he sat down beside it, not expecting to see the morrow. He fell into a sort of a doze from which he awoke to find his fur cap lying upon a few embers before him, apparently intact, but upon the touch of his hand it fell to ashes. This aroused him from his stupor, and the storm fortunately having
SOUTH BEND. The building in the foreground is the Congregational Church. .
22
THE WELSH IN MINNESOTA.
.
abated, he took courage, and with head tied up in some flannel shirts he had bought at St. Paul, he eventually managed to reach Shakopee, where he and his team were hospitably cared for at the hostelry of the old pioneer, Jos. Reynolds. "Uncle Joe," as he was called, confidentially told Mr. Evans of all the wonderful advantages possessed by Shakopee, and how some day, not far distant, it was bound to be the London of America. He thought St. Paul might be- come a fair sized town had it not unfortunately been located too near Shakopee. Mr. Evans listened with a compassionate smile as he thought that Mr. Reynolds had never seen the great South Bend, and while ignorance was bliss, it would be folly, thought Evans, to disturb his dreams by reveal, ing the glorious future of the mighty city at the wonderful bend. so he left him and heroically pushed forward through the snow- drifts, until he finally reached his prospective city and its hungry inhabitants, who were prayerfully looking for him and his load.
Toward the last of February the weather grew very warm. and a thunder storm on the 1st of March took away all the snow and broke up all the ice in the river. After this so mild was the temperature that Mr. Evans had no more need to shelter his horses, but left them out pasturing day and night. By the 4th of April the snakes and mosquitos were out.
During the winter Mr. Evans had the logs hauled for his two-story house, which was built during the summer; but, while Mr. Evans and his employee, Owen Herbert, were busy raising the walls of the would-be metropolis (South Bend ), our old friend, Rev. Richard Davies, at La Crosse, was equally busy, by the public press and by private letters, making known its greatness and glory throughout the Welsh world. So well, indeed, did he advertise the new settlement that in a year no Welshman in the land but had heard of the fame of South Bend, and the golden acres in the valley of the Minnesota.
The first Welshmen induced to visit the new settlement were John Jones and his son-in-law, Griffith Jones, from near Oshkosh, Wis., who came to view the land on the 24th of July, 1854; and on the 17th of August following arrived with their families and settled on claims near Rush Lake, three miles southwest of South Bend village. They brought with them all their stock and farm implements. On the 6th of July, 1854, the election precinct of South Bend was created, comprising all the country west of the Blue Earth. D. C. Evans, L. Matthews and N. G. Bangs were appointed election judges. Evans, however,
.
23
THE WELSHI IN MINNESOTA.
did not serve, being a candidate for County Commissioner that fall. The election occurred on the 10th of October, and South Bend cast five votes and Mankato forty-five, and Mr. Evans was elected with a good majority.
During the summer of 1854 was laid out the first military road by Capt. Reno, from Mendota, through Mankato and South Bend in a southwesterly course, to the mouth of the Big Sioux river. During this summer, also, J. S. Lyon built, on Minne- opa creek, the first saw mill, which he began operating on the Sth of August. This Lyon was a queer character with all the crude notions and ways of a typical backwoodsman. He dressed in a buck-skin suit of a semi-barbarous style, and the least re- straint of civilization galled him, and caused him half the time to be at loggerheads with those whom he came in contact.
The death of his son, John Lyon, which occurred September 9, 1854, was the first in the settlement. The funeral services were held in the open air near the present South Bend Ceme- tery, and were conducted by Rev. James Thompson, a Presby- terian minister, who then and there preached the first sermon ever heard west of the Blue Earth, from the text found in 2d Cor., 5th chap. and 1st ver. John Lyon was 21 years old when he died, and for his amiable character was much esteemed by all.
September 22, 1854, the South Bend plat was recorded, when it appears the proprietary was divided. 4 share each, to D. C. Evans, Lyman Matthews and Samuel Humbertson, and 's each to Alden Bryant and A. Thompson. The first census, taken and preserved in his diary by D. C. Evans, shows South Bend to contain, on the Sth of August, 1854. 5 houses, 6 families com- prising 26 souls, 1 span of horses, 4 yoke of oxen, 6 cows, and 2 dogs. Had the water been higher in the river this year, so that Capt. Humbertson could ascend it in his boat, this population might have been many times doubled. In the spring he started from St. Paul with fifteen American families for South Bend, but failed to pass the rapids near Carver, and all turned back disgusted, except Mr. Thompson.
The pen of our old friend, Rev. Richard Davies, at La Crosse, proved mightier, however, than Capt. Humbertson's boat. The glowing descriptions of the valley of the Minnesota. which appeared in the Dysgedydd, Drych and Cyfaill fired the Welsh mind throughout the country with a desire to see these golden Hesperian fields.
About the first of February, 1855, three persons left Emmet, a Welsh settlement near Waukesha, Wis., for South Bend.
.
24
THE WELSH IN MINNESOTA.
Their names were John A. Jones, David J. Lewis and Evan J. Lewis. Crossing the Mississippi at La Crosse. and being pro- vided with blankets, a bag of provisions and a gun, they struck out afoot through the great wilderness. Now they would come upon a trail which sometimes led them aright and often astray. and now they would wander through the unbroken forest, where there was not the ghost of a path anywhere. Sometimes they would stumble upon a lonely cabin in the woods, and share over night the pioneer's generous hospitality. At other times they would travel all day without seeing a single soul, and would have to pass the night round a camp fire in the open air .-- and this, too, in mid-winter ; but it was a mild winter, without much snow. Finally, after many hardships and adventures, they reached South Bend-liked the country. located claims, built cabins -- and on the 2nd of March returned home to tell their neighbors what they had seen and to prepare for emigrating as soon as the weather became favorable.
About March 22, also, Mr. Evans, finding it not well, even in this western paradise, that man should be alone, departed for his old Palmyra home in quest of a fitting helpmate. About April 10th, of this same year ( 1855) eight Welshmen met at Galena, Ill., all going to the valley of the Minnesota. They were Wm. C. Williams, Wm. Jenkins and Ed. Pierce, from Big Rock, Ill .; Thos. Y. Davis and Humphrey Jones, from Pomeroy, O .; John Watkins and Wm. Jones, from Youngstown, O .; and Anthony Howells, from Palmyra, O. Thus thrown together they journeyed henceforth in company. Arriving at St. Paul they found no boat ready just then to take them further, on ac- count of low water, so they hired a man and team for $3.00 apiece to drive them to Mankato, where they arrived April 14th, and that same afternoon walked the balance of the way to South Bend. This famous metropolis they would have passed without knowing it had they not turned to inquire at a little rough board shanty, nearly covered with the skins of wild animals that hung about it to cure. What, however, was the astonish- ment of our friends to learn that they then stood in the midst of the great city itself, of which they had read so much from the gushing pen of our friend Davies ; yea, and that they stood at the principal entrance of the only firstclass hotel in town (the other entrances being where the boards had warped and shrunk, and were used mostly by the wind, rain and mosquitos ).
This company of Welshmen, after traveling about several days in quest of farms in the vicinity of South Bend, finally, on
25
THE WELSH IN MINNESOT.1.
the 28th of April, located upon claims ten miles farther west- in the present town of Judson. The eight claims, of 160 acres each, were on the upland prairie, and ranged in a row along the edge of the timber from the old Win. C. Williams place to that of Rev. John Roberts. After marking the claims the parties drew lots for them. April 30th they hired a son of Mr. Lyon to take them up in a wagon, with a second-hand stove and a few provisions, to the new settlement. The next two or three weeks were spent building a house upon each claim. It did not re- quire much labor or expense to build a residence in those days. A site was chosen in the brush where timber was most conven- ient ; some cut the logs, others carried them together and piled them upon each other in a rectangular shape, to the height of six or seven feet, one side being made higher than the other for a roof slope. The roof of poles and bark was then put on and the house completed, There was no glass, so windows were dispensed with ; there was no lumber, so terra firma an- swered for a floor, and a blanket, hung over the entrance, served the purpose of a door. At his leisure the pioneer would fill the cracks between the logs with chunks of wood, and plaster them over with mud. Such was the mansion primeval. After a year or two this gave place to a larger log cabin, plastered with clay, with one or two small square windows, with a two-sided roof covered with ax-split clap-boards, with a floor of wide, rough planks (sawed or hewn ), and with a stout door of the same ma- terial, fastened with a strong wooden latch. Sometimes a fire- place and chimney, huge enough for a pair of oxen to pass through, would be built first, and the house above described ap- pended to it as an addition. In the course of a few years this house would be superseded by a more tasty and commodious one of hewn logs, plastered with lime, roofed with shingles, floored with matched boards, partitioned off into rooms, and having an up-stairs and a paneled front door. In another decade, this house in turn had to give place to the present comfortable edi- fice of frame or brick. Such is the evolution of the modern farm house in the Minnesota valley. But to return to our stout hearted pioneers, whom we left fashioning the primordial germ of the house species. Having finished their shanties, all except Humphrey Jones, Thos. Y. Davis and Win. Jones left for their respective homes after their goods and families; and in a few days more Wi. Jones departed upon the same errand, leaving Thos. Y. Davis and Humphrey Jones alone in the new settle- ment. Let us also leave them for a time, while we see how
26
THE WELSH IN MINNESOT.1.
South Bend is progressing. About the middle of April, 1855, Evan D. Evans and family arrived from Blossburg, Pa., and on the 27th of the same month came Evan Evans ( Pant ) and Thos. Jones ( Maes Mater ) on a visit from Waukesha, Wis.
They all boarded with Joshua Barnard, and the bill of fare consisted only of salt meats and Indian corn, boiled together.
April 22d was held the first prayer meeting west of the Blue Earth, and the first Welsh prayer meeting, probably, west of the Mississippi. The place was the cabin of Mr. John Jones (Oshkosh ), on Rush Lake in South Bend township, and those present were Mr. Jones and family, Win. Jenkins, Win. C. Wil- liams, Humphrey Jones, Thos. Y. Davis and the others of their party before named. April 29th the first prayer meeting in South Bend village was held at D. C. Evans' house, then occu- pied by Evan D. Evans. The service was partly in Welsh and partly in English, both nationalities being present. Those taking part were Evan D. Evans, Owen Herbert, Joshua Bar- nard and Evan Evans ( Pant ).
A Bible class had been held for a few Sundays the preceed- ing February, when D. C. Evans, Joshua Barnard, Owen Her- bert, John A. Jones and David and Evan J. Lewis used to gather together on Sundays at Mr. Evans' house, and read a chapter of the Scriptures, each one commenting and questioning upon his own verse after the Welsh method. Mr. Barnard, who was a very religious man, and who since has become an efficient minister of the M. E. Church, usually began those Bible studies with prayer. There were none then among our pioneers much versed in music, so Mr. Barnard, who had learned to play the fiddle in his youth, would lead the singing by first humming the tune over on an old bass-viol, then all would join in with lusty voices.
On the 5th of May, Edward Thomas, Esq., arrived with his family from Pomeroy, O .; and on the second Sabbath of that month was started at D. C. Evans' house the first regular Sun- day school, with Edward Thomas as superintendent.
May 21st, Thos. M. Pugh and Thomas Phillips reached South Bend from Dodgeville, Wis. They traveled from Shako- pee on foot in company with two Germans. Failing to reach a house by night, they had to lodge under the twinkling stars. The four laid them down in a row on a blanket and, being tired, soon fell asleep. Toward midnight Pugh was awakened by the loud howlings of the wolves in the surrounding forest. After listening awhile to their dismal cries, at times sounding vic-
Hugh Edwards.
David J. Williams, (Bradford.)
Engrs ST. A
Evan Williams.
-
Evan Jones.
EvanCH. Evans.
Hugh W, Williams.
Lewis D. Lewis.
I
John I. Jones.
27
THE WELSH IN MINNESOTA.
iously near, he began to think his outside position not the most desirable. Next to him lay a sleek, fat Dutchman, and Mr. Pugh, getting up, crawled in on the other side of him, saying as he pushed the Teuton outward, "The Dutchman first, Mr. Wolf." Mr. Wolf, however, went for other game and left Dutchman and Welshman alone.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.