USA > Iowa > Howard County > Lime Springs > History of the Welsh in Minnesota, Foreston and Lime Springs, Ia. gathered by the old settlers > Part 6
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THE WELSH IN MINNESOTA.
ing December 25, 1894, are as follows: Blue Earth County Welsh (Cottonwood ;, $1,339.37 ; Judson and Vicinity, $2,070.28; First Welsh (South Bend ), $2,204.79; Ottawa Welsh (Big Woods), $2,300.00. If to these amounts were added the contri- butions of the Minneapolis Welsh Bible society, $326.46, and of Bristol Grove, Foreston and Lime Springs, $2,222.87, it makes a total of $10, 463.77 given to the Bible cause by the various Welsh settlements. .
To return, however, to the year 1856. Among the events of this year not already mentioned were: The locating of a postoffice in Judson with John Goodwin as postmaster ; April 8th, the establishing of school district No. 4, (now No. 6). in 'Judson; October 6th, the establishing of two school districts in the Cottonwood neighborhood, Nos. 6 ( now 11 ) and 7 (now 10); and December 10th, the laying out of Judson village by John Goodwin and Robert Patterson.
The winter of 1856 7 was the coldest ever known in the his- tory of the state. For more than sixty consecutive days the mercury remained below zero, often getting down to thirty and forty degrees below. The snow, also, was very deep and badly drifted. Poorly housed, poorly clad, and poorly fed, the suffer- ing of both man and beast was great. The mud-plastered cabin of the settler afforded but slight protection against the wintry blast, and the small old-fashioned cook-stove gave but little heat to the shivering family huddled close around it. Often on a stormy morning would the pioneer awaken to find an inch or two of snow upon his bed and cabin floor. But few of our set- tlers had clothing adapted for a Northern winter. The furs, flannels and felts of today, necessity had not yet furnished. Seldom, if ever, was an overcoat seen in those days; and the thin low cut shoes of southern Ohio were ill-designed for the cold and deep snow of Minnesota.
The story is told of one ingenious pioneer-how one Sun- day morning to avoid getting his shoes and stockings full of snow he removed them and, placing them under his arm, ran to church bare-footed through the snow, a distance of about a mile. Suffice it to say that he never tried that experiment again, but the next Sabbath making two ropes of hay he wound one about each foot and leg up to the waist, and thus, like ancient knight in greaves, he sallied forth defying frost and snow.
During this winter a number of the settlers had to go with ox-teams to St. Paul, a distance of a hundred miles, after flour and provisions, spending three or four weeks upon the journey,
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suffering untold hardships, and reaching home at last to find that the last morsel of food had been eaten the day before.
On the night of the fifth of January, 1857, one Wm. Hughes and his son-in-law, -- Thomas, when returning from the vil- lage of New Ulm, were frozen to death, and their bodies found next day where the old Fort Ridgely road crossed Bennett creek, on the present farm of Jas. D. Price, Esq., in the town of Cam- bria. These are the only cases of death by freezing in the his- tory of the Blue Earth and LeSueur county settlements.
The uuwonted rigor of this memorable winter gave Minne- sota a bad reputation abroad, which clings to it even to this day, and this, with the financial crisis of that period, checked the tide of immigration for a time.
January 6, 1857, the election precinct of Butternut Valley was organized, and the following officers appointed: Judges of Election, Geo. Gilley, Rev. J. Jenkins and David J. Davis ; Jus- tices of the Peace, Rev. J. Jenkins and David P. Davis : Con- stables, David J. Williams and D. A. Davis: Road Supervisor, W. E. Davis, At the meeting preliminary to the organization a strong effort was made to have the precinct called "Davis- town," because its first settler had been John E. Davis, and more than one-half of its inhabitants in those days happened also to bear the name Davis. This name would likely have prevailed, had not one Col. Shaw, suggested the name "Butternut Valley," supporting the same by a long and forcible speech. He showed how much of the precinct lay in the valleys of the Minnesota and Cottonwood, and how abundantly the but- ternuts grew therein. Ile waxed eloquent over the proverbial fertility of valleys-how the very name at once carried to the mind the ideas of richness of soil, shelter from storms and quiet repose. Then what valuable timber the butternut was, and how the union of two such suggestive names would attract the attention of emigrants from the four corners of the globe. The Colonel's oratory prevailed and the precinct was called "Butter- nut Valley." Years later another reason for the Colonel's preference was discovered, not given in his oration: his native place in New York was designated by a similar name. "What's in a name," however? Ten years later our pio- neers, fearing lest the newcomers settling upon the prairie should outnumber and rule over them, separated themselves from them and on the Sth of May, 1867, organized the triangu- lar fraction, lying along the Minnesota river, north of the town- ship survey line into a new town called "Cambria," leaving the
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old name to the full township still left to the south upon the open prairie. Some curious antiquarian in the ages yet to come, will wonder to find a butternut valley far out on the open plain, where there is neither a valley nor a butternut within many a mile. The same antiquarian, perchance, will wonder still more to discover Horeb, Scion, Jerusalem, and the rest of ancient Palestine scat- tered promiscuously over this western land, and he will puzzle his scholarly brain over the strange anomaly of a person liv- ing upon the top of a high hill being called, Evans-y- pant, or an inhabitant of Minnesota, "Jones Can- ada."
But enough of Welsh names to my history. In February, 1857, the sec- ond quarterly meeting of the Calvinistic Methodist church was held in the Big Woods, being the first meeting of the kind held in that settlement. Be- sides those before named Thomas W. Jones, John E. Jones and William L. Jones had located in this neighborhood in the year 1856. These were fol- lowed in 1857 by Owen Davis, David Thomas and John Hughes.
In March, Rev. John Roberts from Ixonia, Wis., settled in the Big Woods, in charge of Saron church. With him came from La Crosse Lewis D. Lewis and William E. Jenkins, who located on Prairie Bach in Butternut Valley. James Edwards and family soon followed Lewis and Jenkins from La Crosse and settled near them. Thes. Thomas, ( Lake, ) and family from Philadelphia,
Little Prairie (Preri Bach), Cambria, Minn. (VIEW FROM LLOYD'S HILL. )
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David Thomas and Joshua Wigley from Wisconsin, Robert and Wm. Roberts from New York, and many others came the same year.
THE INKPADOOTA WAAR.
Early in March, 1857, about forty Sioux Indians of the Wah- paykootay band, under the leadership of an outlawed chief. named Inkpadoota, (Scarlet End ), went to hunt on the Des Moines near Spirit Lake, Iowa. One of these shot a settler's dog that had bitten him, and for this act the entire band were unwisely, if not unjustly, disarmed by the settlers. This neces- sarily caused hard feelings on the part of the Indians. They soon re-supplied themselves with fire-arms, and going to a house where eleven men were wintering together, having in charge some cattle, they begged one of the beeves for food. Under- standing, as they claimed, that their request had been granted. they shot one of the cattle. The enraged owner rushed to the defense of his property and knocked one of the Indians down. and for this insult was immediately killed by the other Indians.
The savages now attacked the other white men and having set fire to the shanty shot all of them, as, one by one they ran out of the burning building.
They next fell upon the unsuspecting settlers and massacred twenty more men, women and children. and took four women captives. This occurred on the Sth and 12th of March. After spending two or three weeks feasting on the booty they had ac- quired in this settlement, a part of the Indian band, under the leadership of a son of Inkpadoota, went north to Heron Lake and thence to the small isolated settlement of Springfield, Minn., (now the village of Jackson), about 16 miles north of Spirit Lake. Here Wm .. Wood, from Mankato, had laid out a townsite and started a store, and a few settlers had located near by on claims along the Des Moines in the summer of 1856. The In- dians camped on the east side of the river from the townsite. and Wm. Wood and his brother went across to trade with them and were killed. The Indians next murdered a Mr. Stewart, his wife and two children. They also killed a twelve year old son of James Thomas and wounded Mr. Thomas in the arm. The remaining few settlers then rallied and drove the Indians away. This was on the 26th and 27th of March.
The news of these outrages, known in history as the Ink- padoota war, reached Blue Earth county early in April and spread like fire through all the settlements, creating a general
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panic. The special hunting grounds of these hostiles had been the valleys of the Blue Earth and Minnesota, where dwelt our Welsh people, whose fears were therefore augmented.
There were grave apprehensions that the entire Sioux na- tion would join in the outbreak. as they had many grievances against the whites and the unwonted length and severity of this winter, and the consequent scarcity of game had rendered them desperate.
At night the settlers would gather together for mutual pro- tection-half a dozen families or more at a house, but during the day would again separate to their respective homes. Those provided with firearms carried them with them wherever they went, to work or worship. A company of citizens. of which John C. Jones, of Cambria, was a member, under John F. Meagher, as captain, went out to the Watonwan river in quest of the Indians. On Sunday morning, April 27th, they discov- ered nine lodges of Siouxs encamped in the timber between two of the lakes, about two miles northeast of Madelia. The sea- son was so backward that year that the company could cross the lake on the ice. This they did and immediately engaged the hostiles. The battle lasted about an hour with brisk firing from behind trees on both sides, but it is not known that any one was hurt. The whites then withdrew to get ammunition and reinforcements, but when they returned the Indians had left.
In South Bend village the people built a palisade around the house of John Williams for a fort. The Judson and Eureka settlers built a fort. also, on the Nicollet side of the Minnesota, with logs, which one McNutt had hauled together to build a mill. It was feared that Inkpadoota and his followers would return and that Red Iron's band would join in the war, and guards were kept stationed by the whites on both sides of the river. One night, when H. Caywood was on guard, he thought he saw a blanketed Indian sneaking through the brush near him and he flred at him. The shooting created a panic at the fort for it was supposed the savages were upon them. After awhile it was discovered, however, that the Indian Caywood had shot was his own white horse, which had strayed from its stable.
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Next morning a company from this Eureka fort went to Swan Lake to confer with Chief Red Iron. David Dackins and Gustav Tidland, who could speak some Sioux, were sent to the village to interview the Indians, while the rest of the company
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halted at the edge of the timber. Red Iron gave the messengers full assurance of peace and friendship, and the company re- turned with their confidence in the redmen somewhat restored.
The Butternut Valley people, also, had their experience. A large band of Indians, who had been away some weeks, returned to this town about the 10th or 12th of April, causing the terri- fied settlers no little anxiety. They did not tarry among the Welsh, however, but passed up the Little Cottonwood about two miles west of the Blue Earth county line. About thirty Welshmen formed themselves into a company and on the 14th of April met a like company of Germans at the house of one Lipp, and together, under the leadership of Rev. Peter S. Davies, as colonel, they marched against the Indians.
Near the Sioux encampment was a cabin of a German bach- elor named Brandt. The cabin bore evidence of having been plundered, but no trace that day could be found of Brandt.
The Germans were very much excited and wanted to attack the Indians at once, though the most of them were only armed with pitchforks and scythes lashed to long poles, while the In- dians were well armed with the best rifles and outnumbered the whites two to one. Wiser counsel at last prevailed and a com- mittee consisting of John S. Davis, S. D. Shaw and a German were sent forward to confer with the Indians, while the rest of the company kept themselves concealed behind a long wood pile. The Indians disavowed any hostile intention and promised to leave the country at once. In his excitement, the German acci- dentally discharged his gun, which the company lying concealed at a distance mistook for a signal of attack, and rising from behind the wood pile they swept across the prairie toward the astonished savages like a cyclone, shouting and brandishing their pitchforks, scythes, guns, etc. The dusky braves were panic-stricken, and the heels of many moccasins were fast dis- appearing in the direction of the brush, before the peace com- mittee could pacify the tumult and explain. The Indians, how- ever, soon folded their wigwams and departed. The body of Mr. Brandt was found in a day or two in the brush back of his cabin with two bullet holes in his head. The Indians, it seems, had an old grudge against him.
The government sent a company of soldiers from Ft. Ridgely after Inkpadoota and his murderous band. but they escaped to the James river valley, taking their four women captives with them. Two of these, Mrs. Thatcher and Mrs. Noble were bru- tally murdered by their fiendish captors, the other two, Mrs.
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Marble and Miss Gardner, after suffering every hardship and outrage for months, were finally ransomed by some Christian Indians from the mission stations of Dr. Williamson and Dr. Riggs. A son of Inkpadoota, named Makpeahoteman ( Roaring Cloud ), who had murdered Mrs. Noble, was discovered, during the summer, by some friendly Christian Indians in one of the villages on the Yellow Medicine and killed and his squaw taken prisoner.
The government insisted on the annuity Sioux punishing Inkpadoota, and finally, Little Crow organized a band of 106 Wapeton and Sisseton warriors, at Yellow Medicine, and on the 22d of July went in pursuit of the outlaw murderers and killed three of them, wounded one and captured two women and a child.
This was all the punishment Inkpadoota ever received. The excitement continued for most of the summer of 1857, but finally died out and the Indians mingled among the settlers as formerly.
During the year 1857 preparations were made towards the admission of Minnesota as a state, and on the 1st of June an election of delegates to draft a proposed Constitution was held. Before its adoption this Constitution, under the auspices of the republican central committee, was translated into Welsh by Wm. R. Jones, who then lived at Rochester, Minn. The first election in Butternut Valley was that of the first of June, 1857. It was held at the house of David P. Davis and nineteen votes were cast, thirteen of them republican and six democratic. The first election in Judson had been held October 15, 1856, at the house of John Goodwin, when twenty-two votes were cast, of which one only was democratic. At the general election held October 13, 1857, upon the adoption of the new Constitution and the selection of a full corps of officers thereunder, South Bend cast 157 votes-105 republican and 52 democratic ; Judson 45 votes-30 republican and 15 democratic ; and Butternut Valley 38 votes-31 republican and 7 democratic.
These democratic votes in the Welsh towns were mostly cast by a few people of other nationalities dispersed among the Cymri. In later years with a population more exclusively Cym- ric, though the total vote had more than doubled, yet the dem- ocratic vote had materially decreased. At the general election of 1857 J. T. Williams, Esq., was elected Clerk of the District Court, being the only man on the republican ticket elected that year in Blue Earth county. At this same election two Welshmen
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ran for the office of County Commissioner, namely: W. E. Davis and David J. Davis. The former, one of the few Welsh demo- crats, was elected, but in a few weeks the office was legislated out of existence, and, instead. a county board was created, com- posed of the Chairmen of the Board of Supervisors of the several towns. So that Wm. E. Davis failed of an office after being elected to it, while Rev. David Davis. Chairman of the Super- visors of the town of Butternut Valley, acquired another office in addition to the one he already had. Such are the uncertain- ties of political favors.
On the 24th and 25th of June, 1857, the third quarterly meeting of the Calvinistic Methodists was held in Butternut Valley, in an oak grove near where stands the present residence of Jas. A. Thomas. This was the first quarterly meeting ever held in the Cottonwood settlement. About the time of this meeting Evan Jenkins from Holland Patent, New York, located in the Butternut Valley. An odd character was Jenkins, whom the old settlers will long remember. In his domestic economy, a bachelor, and in his choice of vocation a disciple of St. Cris- pin. Full of eccentricities and possessed by an absurd egotism, he verily believed himself the wisest man of the age and the greatest adornmient of the pulpit and rostrum. With a rich or- atorical voice, an abundance of flowery language and a fertile imagination, he was a conspicuous figure in all the literary and temperance societies, as well as in the "Big Meeting" of the Calvinistic Methodist church and all other public gatherings. During the four years of his sojourn in the settlement his con- ceit and rhetoric, furnished much entertainment and some in- struction to our Gomeric frontiersmen.
In July, 1857, a postoffice was established in Butternut Val- ley with Col. Shaw as postmaster. That he might have a post- office de facto as well as de jure the Colonel had to carry the mail on his back, for several months, from Judson, a distance of seven miles.
In February of the same year David P. Davis and John Walters had returned to Ohio on a business visit. While there Mr. Davis bought the machinery for a steam saw and grist mill, which, during the summer, he put up on his farm in the Cotton- wood valley. This mill, consisting of a diminutive engine at- tached to a small upright saw and one run of stone, furnished the settlers with their lumber and corn meal for many miles around, until February 13, 1862, when it was burnt. During the
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Carmel C. M. Church, Judson, Minn.
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first year or two an attempt was made to start a village at this mill under the name of Davistown, but it failed.
In the summer of 1857 the election precincts of Sharon and Cleveland were organized in the Big Woods, the name of Sharon being adopted at the suggestion of Evan T. Jones after Saron church therein situated. Among the first officers of Sharon were the following Welshmen: Lewis Hughes, Judge of Elec- tion ; John C. Jones, Justice of the Peace, and David Jones, Constable.
During the same summer in the town of Sharon was built the first Welsh house of worship in the state. It was a neat structure of hewn logs and until recently its protecting roof afforded shelter to the pious people of Sharon in all their public devotions.
On the 9th and 10th of September. 1857, at the Seion church, was held the fourth quarterly meeting of the Calvinistic Meth- odists, upon which occasion Rev. John Davis, from Picatonica, Wis., visited the settlements. This eminent divine was then in the noonday of his glory, and our pioneers, shut out from the world in the vast wilderness, had long been famishing for a pulpit feast such as they had enjoyed in the older states, or in dear old Gwalia. So when Davis, Picatonica, came, he was received like a king and scarce could the old fathers and mothers in Israel be kept from worshiping him. The people followed him from one corner of the settlement to the other, and daily he preached two or three times in the crowded cabins. On the 14th he organized a temperance society at South Bend village and another on the 19th in the Big Woods. On the 19th and 20th he, also, formally opened the new church building of Saron.
Early in March, 1858, the people of Seion began the erection of a house of worship, which was completed and the first service therein held on the 11th of July. It was a frame structure, built by one Richard Williams. During the same summer the people of Horeb, not to be outdone by the inhabitants of Seion, built them a frame temple, which ranked for many years the largest in size in the settlement, and which even today stands among the largest. The building was begun by a carpenter named John Davis, and completed by An- drew Friend, and cost about $800. To complete a frame build- in those days meant simply the completion of the outside shell. The art of plastering was then unknown. A rude box or counter fixed upon a rude platform answered for a pulpit, while a row of boards supported by blocks of wood did for pews. All
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of this furniture was of a rustic sort, unpainted, unvarnished, unplaned, for our frontier worshipers had no means to cultivate æsthetic tastes. The church of our forefathers offered but few attractions to fashionable ease, but God was found there as often as in the costly temples of modern date.
In a pioneer society the great and unpardonable sin is "Claim Jumping." He who murders a man may be forgiven and become a hero even ; but he who jumps a claim deserves to be hung and cannot be forgiven, either in the secular world or in the world religious. Strange, where land is so plenty as it is in a new country, that any difficulty of this sort should arise. IIerein, however, human nature strikingly resembles the nature of certain animals, who cannot enjoy anything unless they can push and scramble for it, and each covets the identical morsel its neighbor has, though other like morsels, and even richer ones, lie around in abundance untouched. From this mortal sin the race of Gomer in Minnesota did not escape and "countless woes" resulted therefrom. Lifelong friends became lifelong foes and bitter hatred, envy and spite, filled the land. Cliques and parties sprang up and both church and state were rent by fierce conflicts. Force and violence were everywhere abroad, and temporal courts and the courts ecclesiastical were kept busy continually.
Among others, the Congregational church organized by Rev. Jenkin Jenkins, in Judson, suffered grievously, by reason of these dissensions, and during the winter of 1857-8 the services were entirely suspended for a time. In the summer of 1858 the society reassembled at the house of John E. Davis, and Mr. Henry Hughes became their leader. In the meantime Rev. Jenkin Jenkins, with a few adherents, and Rev. William Wil- liams with a few Baptist brethren united in holding services near Judson village. In the summer of 1858, however, Mr. Jenkins became reconciled to the Congregational church and was reinstated as its pastor.
The removal of the Congregational church to John E. Davis' house left Judson without a religious organization. Accord- ingly, on the 11th of July, 1858, a Calvinistic Methodist society was organized there at the house of Owen Roberts, Esq., by Rev. David Davis, assisted by Evan Evans ( Pant). The first elders appointed for this church were: Owen Roberts and Wm. Bowen. This was the origin of the present Jerusalem church.
On the 15th and 16th of September, 1858, the first "Gy- manfa" or the Conference of the Calvinistic Methodists was held
Jerusalem Calvinistic Methodist Church, Judson, Minn.
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at the new Seion church of South Bend. In May, 1858, Rev. Meredith Evans, brother of D. C. Evans, Esq., vis- ited the settlement, and in November of the same vear came Rev. Thomas Phillips, (Baraboo, Wis. ), both of whom broke the bread of life, frequently, to the hungry souls of the the pioneers during their short stay. Besides preaching Mr. Evans held a great temperance rally on May 21st at South Bend village, in the large hotel then newly built. South Bend was then in the prime of its glory and rivaled Mankato in its impor- tance. Besides the hotel the village contains two mills, five stores and about fifty houses.
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