USA > Minnesota > Meeker County > A random historical sketch of Meeker County, Minnesota : from its first settlement to July 4th, 1876 > Part 1
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A RANDOM HISTORICAL SKETCH, OF MEEKER COUNTY, Minnesota.
FROM ITS FIRST SETTLEMENT TO JULY 4th, 1876.
BY A. C. SMITH, PRESIDENT OF THE BAR AND OLD SETTLER'S ASSOCIATIONS FOR SAID COUNTY.
WITH AN ACCURATE MAP BY HENRY L. SMITH.
LITCHFIELD, MINN. BELFOY & JOUBERT, PUBLISHERS. 1877.
PREFACE.
or manuscript, be filed in the office of the Librarian of Congress, to the intent that a complete record may thus be obtained of the progress of our institu- tions during the first century of their existence.
And whereas, It is deemed proper that such rec- commendation be brought to the notice and knowl- edge of the people of the United States-
Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States, do hereby declare and make known the same, in the hope that the object of the resolution may meet the approval of the people of the United States, and that proper steps may be taken to carry the same into effect.
Given under my hand at the city of Washington this 25th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1876, and of the Independence of the United States, the 100th.
U. S. GRANT.
By the President, HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State.
CHAPTER I.
The region known as the " Big Prairie " west of the " Big Woods" has been known to white set- tlers but 21 years, and yet the twilight of uncer- tainty has already thrown its shadows, and the night of forgetfulness seems about to descend and forever obscure many little incidents which, al- though in detail seem of little consequence, yet all go to make up a readable history of any commu- nity.
The Centennial year of our great Republic seems to open up an opportunity, which the Pres- ident of the United States recommended to our people to improve and place in permanent shape for preservation, the historical data of the various counties and towns of the Republic.
HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
In a little while the venerable gentlemen who composed our first settlers will all be gathered to their fathers -- "their children engrossed by the emp- "ty pleasures or insignificant transactions of the "present age (or in the greedy pursuit of the "almighty dollar,) will neglect to treasure up the "recollections of the past and posterity will search "in vain for memorials of the days of the Patri- "archs" (Knickerbocker's History of New York. ) Our history will be but a shadow, and the names of Ripley, Hall, Whitney, DeCoster, Campbell, Fitzgerald, Weymer, Salisbury, Dougherty, Atkin- son, VanNess, Mitchell, Dorman, Taylor, Evans, Skinner, Jewett, Kennedy, Stevens, Harvey, Pi- per, Caswell, Angier, Willis, Dart, Whitcomb, King, Greenleaf, Branham. Fitch, Ball, Hoyt, Gris- wold, Grayson, Stanton, Robson, Richards, Gorton, Wakefield, Heath, Warren, Willie, Kruger, Ralston, Schultz and a score of others will soon be enveloped in doubt and fiction, like those of " Romulus and Remus of Charlemagne."
Prior to 1855 the country now embraced within the boundaries of Meeker and Kandiyohi counties, in the State of Minnesota, was occupied by those denizens of the forest known as the Sioux Indians. This is their old stamping ground. The Mississippi River was the dividing line between the Sioux and
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HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
Chippewas, and for centuries they are said to have nursed a deadly feud. The former heroes of this territory, the Sioux, were and still are, perhaps among the most powerful of the Indian tribes in the northwest. These, like all other tribes are gradually losing their prestige and compelled to leave their reservations granted at some prior pe- riod, in apparent good faith. Their fate is inevita- ble. The only practical law of what we call civilization is, that the inferior in prowess, yield to the superior race. The doctrine is cruel and inhu- man, not to say " savage, " but unavoidable and in- perative. Crowd the Indian to the wall-wait a time for further decimation, then drive them into still narrower limits and so on, till the Indian canoe with its solitary occupant, disappears toward the setting sun, and is finally lost to sight and sense, and the life of one race, whose glory was to hunt and fish, gives place to another more powerful, but with as little regard to moral and intellectual attainment except so far as it is enforced by law falsely denominated the law of civilization. Sta- tistics of the Indian war in Meeker county alone will justify what we say. The course and policy of the United States toward the Indian tribes, has ever resulted in peculation to the operators and death to the Indian, with no more prospect of civil-
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HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
ization or christianization to-day, than one hundred years ago. Government might quite as well en- force the practice of the "Oneida Institute" on the American people, as to drive christianity or civilization into the Indian in the manner it has sought to do for more than a century past.
The war-like Sioux-driven to the Rocky Moun- tains, are compelled to make their last fight (and no insignificant one at that.) for tribal existence .- In just one hundred years after the Declaration of our National Independence, the Government is engaged in the expensive, perplexing and perilous effort to drive the last nail in the coffin of Ameri- can Pagan existence. It will ultimately succeed but at what cost time alone can determine.
We are beginning to realize the enormous con- tract we are pledged to fill. The strength, as well as the bravery of the Sioux, has been greatly mis- represented. They can certainly bring into the field 20,000 warriors, and twice as many troops will be required to thoroughly and quickly subdue them. With homes in the wilderness of the moun- tains and forests, strange to say they are better mounted "for this country and purpose than the United States' Army backed with 500 millions of annual revenue and 40 millions of people. They are equally well armed and superior shots. Finally.
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HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
from the very nature of their individual style of fighting, they are magnificent skirmishers-the best in the world; and necessarily the deployed line must be most frequently used in Indian warfare.
The fall of the chivalric CUSTER and his brave command, will be but a drop in the bucket of the sacrifice of human life and treasure.
To understand the extent of the Indian war the Government has upon its hands, it is necessary to have a correct knowledge of the position and pow- er of the hostile Sioux and their allies. In one of the late reports of the Commissioner of Indian af- fairs the location of the different agencies is giv- en, with the number and condition of the Indians on each reservation. The entire Indian population of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, is esti- mated at 295.084. In Dakota, Montana and Wyo- ming, there are nearly 70,000, divided as follows:
DAKOTA AGENCIES.
Men. Women.
Total.
Sisseton Agency (Sioux)
682
582
1,264
Devil's Lake (Sioux) :
: 434
586
1,020
Grand River ( Sioux)
6,269
Cheyenne River (Sioux) :
6,000
Upper Missouri (Sioux)
1,600
1,395
2,995
Fort Berthold (Gros Ventres,
Mandan and Arickarees )
901
1,202
2,103
Yankton (Sioux) :
1,947
Ponca :
: :
383
355
738
Whetstone (Sioux) :
: 2,350
2,650
5,000
:
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HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTX.
Flandreau special (Sioux) : : : MONTANA.
100
Blackfeet Agency (Blackfeet, Bloods and
Piegans ) : : : : :
: : : 7,500
Milk River Agency (Sioux) : : : 10,625
At other agencies and wandering : : : : 14,000
WYOMING.
Red Cloud Agency (Sioux and Cheyennes) 9,177
Total number in hostile country : : 68,638
According to the estimates given in the same report, about sixty per cent. are women; this gives 27,000 warriors within the Indian Territory, which, considering the number of bands that have never settled at any of the reservations, is a low estimate of their strength. According to the same calcula- tion the Sioux and Cheyennes, now openly at war would be able to bring nearly 22,000 men into the field. From all accounts received from the seat of war, one fact seems clear, and it is that the estimate made as to the number of Indians actually on the war path and operating against the troops is below the real number.
Had the Indians been compelled, at an early day to adopt agriculture and stock raising for the chase -individualization of their property -- submission to territorial government as wards of the nation- the sale of intoxicating drinks visited with the
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HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
penitentiary,-had they at the same time been furnish with schools and honest missionaries, the result might have been vastly different.
Strange that a philosophy so false should have been pursued for a hundred years by the most en- lightened nation on earth, until annihilation be- comes absolutely necessary to close the scene.
When we were a boy, we caught a young gray fox before his eyes were opened. We tamed him to the playfulness of a kitten,-but as he grew up a "gray fox, " he, one morning, took our fingers with the meat, and the result was-annihilation to the fox. Such is Indian history. Moral suasion is useless-there are hardly exceptions enough to es- tablish the rule.
CHAPTER II.
On the old Government map of 1842 accompa- nying the official report of J. N. Nicollet and J. C. Fremont, of astronomical and barometrical obser- vations and surveys of the hydrographical basin of the Mississippi during the year 1836, to and in- cluding 1840, and long before the territory now composing Minnesota was christened, and before St. Paul was dubbed "Pigs Eye," this territory was appropriated to and known and divided up as reservations for different sub-Indian bands.
The portion south of Fort Snelling and east of
S
HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
" Mankasa " (Mankato) was known as War-pe- ku-te country. All west of Mankato River, and southwest of the Upper " Minnesotah," was known as the War-pe-ton and Sisseton country. The whole classed as Undine (or Spiritual) region : while the entire country west of St. Anthony, and north of the " Minnesotah" was known as the M-de-wa-kan-ton country, a little west of the cen- ter of which, in latitude 45, and longitude 95, Nie- ollet retained as the most beautiful lakes in Min- nesota, the romantic Indian name of Kan-di-yo-hi.
The terms St. Anthony, Fort Snelling, Manka- sa, Le Sueur, Lac qui Parle, St. Peter, Kandiyohi and Blue Earth, all find a location on Nicollet's old map. The Coteau du Greene Bois, ranging north-west and south-east through the centre of the State, constitutes the height of land from which streams flow in all directions. Small streams take their rise in Kandiyohi county and flow in all di- rections, the lakes being near the height of land. and are situate about 1,200 feet above the level of the sea.
Meeker and Kandiyohi counties unquestionably constitute the Garden of the State, and few will be the circling years, ere these counties will teem with the richest gifts of Ceres and be densely fill- ed with a thriving and enterprising people.
-
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HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
dwellings will adorn the hillsides and peep from the numerous groves surrounding sparkling lakes and en-trance the beholder as he gazes on the fairy scene outspread before him.
In 1875, Meeker county alone sent her offering to "those who hunger for bread" to the tune of six hundred thousand bushels of wheat. and in less than five years more, Meeker and Kandivohi counties will be fully able to feed the entire State.
In the summer of 1855, John W. Huy and Ben. Brown poled a canoe up the Crow or Hassan River in search of pine timber as far as the pres- ent site of Forest City, and made a hasty explora- tion of the country. D. M. Hanson, Thomas H. Skinner, Fred Schultz and Dr. Ripley arrived at the site of Forest City about the same time. via Glencoe.
The following spring the county of Meeker was organized on paper-County Commissioners, D. M. Hanson, Dr. Frederick Noah Ripley and J. W. Huy; Register of Deeds, Milton G. Moore: Sheriff, Abijah Bemis.
In March, 1856, Thomas H. Skinner and John W. Huy took possession of the town-site of Forest City, and subsequently had the same surveyed and platted.
The following are the names of the several
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HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
towns in this county, with their Congressional designations and derivations:
NAMES OF FIRST SETTLERS, ETC.
(118-29 means Township 118, north of the base line, and 29 west of the fifth principal meridian, according to the United States survey, and so of the other towns hereinafter mentioned ):
118-29-Collinwood; so named by the first settlers who came from Collinwood, Canada. For a few years prior to its actual settlement it was known as New Virginia. The first permanent settlements were made in May, 1866, by Oliver Rasnick, Jacob Hutchins, Thomas Hutchins, Henry Fuller and George Fuller. Town organ- ized May 8, 1866.
O. Rasnick was the first Justice of the Peace.
The first death in the town was a child of E. K. Counts.
First couple were married in 1867, John Taylor to Miss Elizabeth Hutchins, and about the same time, Alex. Ramsey to Miss Margaret Hutchins.
118-30-Ellsworth; named at the suggestion of Jesse V. Branham, jr., after the unfortunate Col. Ellsworth whose tragic end occurred at Alexandria during the war of the rebellion, first settled in 1856, by Dr. V. P. Kennedy, T. R. Webb and Dr.
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HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
Russel Whiteman. Kennedy came in June and Webb in July.
The first child born to Dr. Whiteman the fol- lowing year. The second were twins to Wmn. H. Greenleaf, June, 1860-both dead.
The second death was a man by the name of Halstead, in 1862. The village of Greenleaf is embraced in this township and was founded in 1858, by W. H. Greenleaf, Dana E. King and Bennet M. and Judson A. Brink.
First school house built in 1859; first teacher, Miss Lydia Angier. First and only lawyer, Mark Warren. Rev. J. C. Whitney preached the first sermon at Greenleaf, (Presbyterian). There is one Indian Mound in the Township which has not been opened. This town was originally attached to Rice City in IS5S .- organized as a separate township September 1, 1868. This township was not exempt from incidents of the Indian war in IS62.
Two weeks after the attack on Hutchinson, Caleb Sanborn having been killed at Cedar Lake the day before, a small party, consisting of Lewis Harrington, Frank Jewett, T. R. Webb, Dave Hern, Nath. Pierce, Daniel Cross and Silas Greene 'came out from Hutchinson for the remains of Sanborn. When north of Cedar Lake woods.
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HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
three guns were simultaneously fired by unknown hands, and Cross fell mortally wounded. Five of the party, less Webb,sprang into the double wagon and made their escape round the lake. Webb took to a small boat on the lake and paddled for Cedar Island where he was compelled to spend the night. The Indians lined the lake shore during Webb's retreat, but not till after he had reached at safe distance did he turn to the red skins and place his thumb to his nose-thus inviting them to come where he was if they wanted him.
The next morning Webb returned to Hutchinson .. and as he approached town, met some fifty persons coming out to look up him and Cross.
This party recovered the remains of both San- born and Cross and took them to Hutchinson. It was afterward ascertained that there were thirteen Indians in the skirmish.
118-31-Greenleaf; named after Hon. Wm. H Greenleaf, who first commenced improvements by the erection of a mill dam on the site of the village of that name, and the subsequent erection of a flour and saw mill. The first settlers of this Congressional Township were three brothers Wm., Herman and Charles Kruger, in the spring of 1857, originally attached to the town of Ness- organized as town of Greenleaf, August 27, IS59,
13
HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
including 118-29, 30 and 31, except sections I to 6 inclusive.
When we first saw Wm. H. Greenleaf, he was standing up to his knees in the mud in the outlet of "Lake Willie," artistically laying up the sods with his hands, in a fruitless endeavor to prevent water from running down hill ! We are glad to say that he has had far better luck at other business since.
Lake Willie was named after U. S. Willie, Esq., a young lawyer who lived a year or two at Forest City, and died there.
Two gentlemen by the name of Orcutt and Pratt effected a settlement in this town in 1856, on land now owned by Vincent Coombs. They plowed about 3 acres, and while at dinner one day the Indians killed one of their oxen, which broke up their team, and becoming disheartened deserted their claims and went to Forest City where they remained till fall when they left the country. Branham and Whitcomb settled in IS57 and the McGannons in I858.
IIS-32-Danielson, originally part of Acton, was organized distinctively March 12th, 1872, and named after Nels Danielson, who settled in this
? town in 1861, where he continued to reside till his death in 1870. His family still reside there.
14
HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
Noah White, Esq., first settled in this town in 1857 but abandoned it in 1858, removing to Kandiyohi county where he has ever since resided and still resides. Noah, was the political " Moses " of Kandiyohi county for about 16 years. In long years gone by, when the Republican party wanted to concentrate public sentiment and obtain a full delegation from Kandiyohi county in State and District conventions, they had but to look up Noah White and the thing was fixed.
The native mosquitoes and fleas of Kandiyohi county will be long and pleasingly remembered by various politicians of Hennepin county during the past decade.
Having occasion to spend a beautiful moon- light Autumn night on one of these occasions, watching the Republican politicians, we enjoyed a nights rest on the soft side of a log with the bark on and an oak chip for a pillow, and as the silent watches of the night drove sleep from our eye lid, our position called to mind the words of a great philosopher:
"Life is an inconceivable beautiful thing, so soon as we reach that point whence we can look out upon it through a clear conscience and a character well buffeted by experience. The one diffuses a pure, heavenly light over all the strange
15
HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
and complex mass which meets the eye, the other tones down our enthusiasm without destroying the vigor."
119-29-Swan Lake, was named after a lake of that name in this township-originally part of Kingston. The first settlers were men by the name of Ayres and Richardson in 1856, from Mexico, N. Y. They were surveyors. They left in 1862 and the Indians soon burned their cabin.
After the Indian war, Isaac N. and A. W. Russel, were the first settlers in 1864 or 5, and were followed soon after by a colony from Kentucky.
The village of Dassel is embraced in this town, and was platted and settled in the spring or summer of 1869, on the completion of the St. Paul and Pacific Rail Road to that place. It was organized as a separate town September 4, 1866, and the name changed to " Dassel, " after a railroad gentleman of that name. The old farm or claim of Ayres and Richardson was sold and conveyed about 6 or 7 years ago to Mr. Harlow Ames.
118-30-Darwin, (organized April 5, 1858,) takes its name from a man of the 19th century who was so unfortunate as to own stock or bonds of the St. Paul & Pacific Railroad Co., and not from the originator of the Darwin-ian theory,
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HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
that "all the world and the rest of mankind " sprang originally from the monkey.
Until the railroad was built this town was known as "Rice City, " named by a party of surveyors from Dubuque, who made claims on paper, and who laid out and platted a townsite which they named " Rice City, " in honor of Hon Edmund Rice, of St. Paul. John Curran was one of the first settlers of this town.
119-31-Litchfield, is named after another unfortunate stockholder of the Railroad company. who, it appears, resides in the rural village of London, England. The Congressional township was originally called "Ripley " from the lake of that name in said town, and the lake was named from the fact that near its banks one Dr. Ripley was frozen to death in the winter of 1855-6, and his remains found and buried in the spring of 1856. (See chapter, Dr. Frederick N. Ripley.)
Two or three years later the name was changed to " Ness" in honor of Ole Halverson Ness, Esq. This name was taken from the name of the elec- tion or church district of Norway, whence came the first settlers of the town in July. 1856.
Ole Halverson, of Ness, now called Ole H. Ness, Henry Halverson, Ole Halverson, of Thon, now called Ole H. Thon, Nels C. Hanson
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HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
Gunder Olson and Amos Nelson, of Fosen, now called Amos N. Fosen, were the first settlers. three of them had families. They settled on their present farms in July, 1856. Amos N. Fosen, our present worthy County Treasurer, first moved into the town of Acton, but soon found that town would not hold him for scarcity of land, and he therefore finished his claim and settlement in the town of Ness-he worked the first winter for Ole H. Ness, at splitting rails, and was the first known rail splitter in the county. Henry Halverson built the first house -- Ole H. Ness built the first barn and lived in it till the next season.
Ole T. Halverson was the first child born in the town, to Henry Halverson.
Lutheran Church organized in IS58, but no building erected till Litchfield was founded in 1869.
The first school district was organized in 1861 and school house built. The first teacher was John Blackwell.
The Jones family (so called) were the first five persons massacred in the Indian war, and were buried in this town in one broad grave in the cem- etery of the Lutheran Church.
There are a number of small mounds similating Indian mounds in this town, mostly in the timber, and of evidently great age. None have ever been
IS
HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
explored. In 1869 the town of Litchfield was platted and settled, and the county seat was removed from Forest City to Litchfield by a vote of the people in the fall of 1869. As before remarked, the town and village of Litchfield took their present name in honor of a Mr. Litchfield, of England. Mrs. Litchfield is said to have given $2,000 to the erec- tion of the Episcopal church, parish school and parsonage at this point.
On the present town-site, Mr. Waller's shanty was the first structure erected, and the "Litchfield House " the first building of any size. These build- ings, however, were not on the original town-site.
The first building on the town-site proper, was that of Truls Nelson, on the opposite corner north of the Town Hall, and now occupied by John Pet- erson. B. F. Pixley's house was the second. Heard & Ward's store was the third. H. B. Johnson's and Joseph James' buildings next, and so on.
Mrs. Marietta, wife of C. O. Porter, was the first woman on the town-site to reside .- Mrs. M. L. Pix- ley was the second. These ladies arrived in Litch- field respectively August 26th and 27th, 1869.
There are now five church edifices here, to-wit: Presbyterian, Episcopal, Methodist, Christian or Campbellite and Swedish Methodist; also a union school house, costing three or four thousand
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HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTX.
dollars, and a Town and Masonic Hall, 26x72 feet, costing, when finished, about four thousand dollars. Present population, twelve hund- red.
LAWYERS.
A. C. Smith, F. Belfoy, Chas. H. Strobeck, S A. Plumley, E. A. Campbell, N. C. Martin and L. C. Spooner.
PHYSICIANS.
Drs. V. P. Kennedy, F. E. Bissell, and L. P. Foster.
CLERGY.
Rev. Messrs. T. G. Crump, Episcopal; J. S. Sherill, Presbyterian; I. H. Riddick, Methodist and F. A. Grant, Christian. (See Chapter on Churches.)
Litchfield boasts a steam flour mill of 7 run of buhrs, owned by R. S. Hershey & Co.
119-32-Acton was organized April, 1858, and originally embraced 118-32, and the south half of 120-32. Acton takes its name from Acton, Canada, where the Ritchie family came from when they first settled in Acton, in 1857. In 1857 Robinson Jones, Howard Baker and mother and Abram Kelley settled here. Capt. Robinson and John Blackwell came in about the same time. All except John Black well had formed an acquaint-
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HISTORY OF MEEKER COUNTY.
ance with each other in a lumber camp the previ- ous winter, on the upper Mississippi. Of the old settlers named. Abram Kelley alone remains.
The first child born in Acton was to Peter Ritch- ie. Jones, Howard Baker and his mother were three out of the five killed by the Indians, August 17th, 1862, at the house of Howard Baker.
120-29-Kingston : was named by Geo. A. Nourse, Esq., a lawyer, then of St, Anthony, now residing in Nevada. This town was organized April 5, 1858, aud embraced 119-29, 120-29 and 121-29.
Benjamin Dorman was the first nian to turn the sod in this town, while in the fall of 1857, Mr. A. P. Whitney, Henry Averill and S. B. Hutchins took possession of the town-site of Kingston, on Crow River and commenced the erection of the dam, where now stands the Kingston saw and flour mill. Whitney is now in California, Averill has gone to parts unknown, and Hutchins resides in Wright County.
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