USA > Minnesota > Waseca County > Child's history of Waseca County, Minnesota : from its first settlement in 1854 to the close of the year 1904, a record of fifty years : the story of the pioneers > Part 4
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 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78
The whole ticket was voted straight, as there was no opposition. So you see we started out harmoniously. It was, in fact, the only election the writer ever attended that was entirely harmonious and unanimous. While the fires of sectional and partisan strife were raging in the eastern states, our then territory was com- paratively free from such excitement.
CHAPTER XIII, 1855.
PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER-HAULING PROVISIONS FROM IOWA. TRIP MADE TO AUBURN, IOWA, BY THE AUTHOR-DECEMBER 19, 1855 ON THE PRAIRIE ALL NIGHT-ONE MAN FROZEN TO DEATH-A COLD CHRISTMAS.
While a few of the earliest settlers in 1855 had raised enough vegetables for their winter supply of food, not one of them had produeed a supply of wheat, and every family was compelled to haul flour and other supplies from distant points, the nearest flour mill being over one hundred miles distant. Most of the flour was obtained from Auburn, Iowa, a small town on Turkey river.
Among those who were wise enough to prepare for winter before winter commeneed were the Krassins. Having completed their home preparations for winter, they started with several teams and wagons for Iowa. Justina, afterwards Mrs. Child, accompanied her brothers as cook. They went by way of Owa- tonna and Austin, and thence southeast to Auburn, where they found an abundant supply of flour and other artieles. They re- turned after an absence of three weeks heavily loaded with pro- visions. As they made the trip in October-the golden month of the year-when Minnesota is clothed in the beauteous garments of Indian summer, they enjoyed a pleasant and profitable journey. Their return furnished the settlement with valuable information as to the road to take to reach Auburn, the prices to be paid for flour, pork, groceries, etc.
But most of the settlers had stables to build, cabins to finish up and other fall work to do, so that it was winter before they could get started on the trip to "Egypt for corn."
47
CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
A journey of one hundred or one thousand miles to-day, in railroad passenger coaches, is a very easy undertaking, but a journey of one hundred miles or more across a country where the streams are unbridged and the sloughs ungraded, where cabins are few and far between, through storms of rain or sleet or' snow-blizzards, camping out on the bleak prairie at night, with nothing to charm either the ear or the eye save the howling blasts of winter or the more demoniac howling of prairie wolves as, eoward-like, they reconnoiter your position and condition- sueh a journey may be somewhat romantic to read about, but it is not so very enchanting to those who have made a trial of it. The experiences of all those who made the journey that winter were very similar, no doubt, and the writer gives his own and those of the few others he has been able to get as samples.
JAMES E. CHILD'S STORY.
During the first days of December, 1855, having engaged two pair of oxen and a wagon of the brothers John and David J. Jenkins, I made preparations for a journey into Iowa. John Jen- kins furnished the money (about $150.00) ; I was to put in my labor and skill, get a load of provisions and groceries, bring them into the settlement and sell them; each of us was to share equally in the profits, if any.
I started from the settlement December 5th, and proceeded to Owatonna, where I remained two days to get the oxen shod. Unele Jo. Wilson, the rough, kind-hearted blacksmith, of that place, did the job. On the 8th I took the wagon track leading to Austin. There were two or three cabins some five or six miles south of Owatonna, a quarter of a mile from the road, and, after passing them, there were no other habitations to be seen until the Vaughn settlement, near the place now called Lansing, was reached. Before reaching this settlement, night came on, and the darkness, if it could not be felt like that of Egypt in the days of Pharaoh, was near enough to it to prevent a prudent man from trying to travel in a strange country. Camping for the night was the next best thing and I put up in a thicket of red oaks.
I built a rousing big fire, warmed up the baked pork and beans, toasted the frozen bread, thawed out the doughnuts, made a cup of tea, ate a hearty supper and smoked the pipe of peace with all the then visible world. I had on the wagon about a quarter of
48
CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
a ton of hay (it was necessary in those days to carry along food for both man and beast), so that the cattle had plenty to eat and the driver had plenty to sleep on under the wagon. In such a place, on such a night, under such circumstances, even a young man naturally becomes philosophical and looks upon his own life as one of the greatest mysteries of a mysterious and, as vet, in- comprehensible universe, the beginning and ending of which is called God, the Father of all.
Solitary and alone with the patient oxen, I threw myself upon a pile of hay, wrapped in an Indian blanket, and must have gone to sleep early in the evening. In the night I awoke to find that a drizzling rain storm had set in from the northeast. I put some more wood on the fire and again went to sleep. About an hour before daylight, I was aroused by a prairie wolf concert that was being held in the immediate vicinity and probably for my benefit. Appreciating the compliment of the serenade, I stirred the embers of the camp-fire, put on more wood and soon had a cheerful blaze, notwithstanding the dampness. Those wolves, like some people, seemed to prefer darkness to light, for they left at once.
As soon as it was light enough to see the road, travel was again resumed. As the day advanced, the storm increased, and, by three o'clock p. m., rain and sleet were falling fast. I passed through the village of Austin about noon that day, where I took dinner. Austin then boasted one store, one tavern, one blacksmith shop and several pioneer cabins. After leaving Austin it was found very difficult to keep the right track, owing to the numerous wood roads leading in various directions. Unhappily for me, I selected the wrong track, and, about four o'clock in the after- noon, found myself a mile off the road, but at a comfortable log house, where I stayed over night. About the time I reached here, the rain changed to snow. The next morning the ground was covered with three or four inches of snow, and more was still falling.
On the morning of the 10th, I was rather late in starting, as I had only twelve miles to make during the day. I had traveled a mile or so, when a large drove of elks crossed the road some twenty rods ahead of me, in single file. There must have been fifty or sixty of them. They were quite numerous that winter along the two Cedar rivers, but I never heard of any in this
JULIET MARCIA ASHLEY
GEO.E.CHILD
MRS ORRILLA J.GOODSPEED
CAPT. WALTER CHILD
MAS J.E.CHILD
MRS ORRILLA CHILD
MRS DORA.M.ASHLEY
S.M.CHILD
MRS ANNIE E.WOOD
49
CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
section after that winter. Twelve miles brought me to the west- ern edge of a prairie eighteen miles across, and without a resident person npon it. On the western and southwestern edge of this extensive prairie, there was quite a settlement of Scandinavian Americans, who had located there in 1854-5. I stayed over night with a hospitable Norwegian family. They were young people, with one child. The man could speak only a few words of English, but his comely wife could converse quite fluently in that lan- guage. The man, anxious to learn English, made a school teacher of me during the evening, and refused pay the next morning for my entertainment, except for what corn 1 fed the cattle.
Early on the 11th I started across that beautiful prairie which lies spread out between the two Cedars on the south line of our state. This was a pleasant day, but the soft snow which had fal- len made traveling slow and tiresome, and it was already dark when I reached the Brink house, on the east branch of the Cedar.
On the 12th the weather became rolder. I passed a tavern and store called Pettibone's, and traveled over a prairie, some ten or twelve miles across, where there were no settlers. That night. I put up with a Hoosier family that had come from Indiana the simmer before. Ilere were several other travelers, among them a man living near the Brink house that had been lost on the prairie most of the previous night and had frozen his face, feet, and hands quite severely. During that night the weather moderated and more snow fell.
December 13th, about 10 o'clock in the forenoon, I arrived at Green's creek, a stream then about thirty feet wide, with water three feet deep, which had to be forded. The ice was not strong enough to hold up a team, but yet thick enough to require cutting in pieces before the cattle could be driven through. After much labor in cutting ice and driving the oxen through the stream, everything passed over safely. All along the road that day there were numerous pioneer cabins to he seen, and, in several places, there were indications of several years of settlement. I spent that night with a regular Yankee. He had lived in Iowa for ten years-three years on the farm where I passed the night. I was then only seven miles from Auburn.
On the 14th I drove into Auburn and bought my load, consisting
4
50
CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
of flour, pork, butter and groceries. I returned to the Yankee's to stay over night and to buy some seed corn.
The 15th was so stormy and cold that I delayed a day. On the 16th I again started. Everything went well enough until after- noon, when the forward bolster of the wagon broke and I was compelled to put up with a farmer, unload the wagon and make a new bolster. Fortunately I struck the right house-the home of a carpenter. Although the father was not at home, he had some grown up boys from whom I obtained the use of tools to make the necessary repairs. It took all the next day to get ready for another start, and most of the day it snowed.
On the 18th I started quite early. The weather was clear but cold, and the road hard to travel. I got as far as the Brink house that day, and as the snow was about a foot deep, and hauling a wagon and breaking the roads were laborious, I accepted a fair offer for a portion of the load that night.
It was rather late on the morning of the 19th of December, my twenty-seeond birthday, when I started from the Brink house to cross that eighteen miles of uninhabited prairie. In climbing the hill on the west side of the Cedar, the wagon slid out of the track and the off hind wheel caught in a small tree, which . had to be eut down. The oxen had become discouraged and I was unable to get them to haul the load to the top of the hill. I was in for a tug. I had to unload and carry ten hundred pounds of that flour about two rods to the top of the hill on my shoulders. It was noon by the time I had reached the top of the hill and had reloaded, and it was eighteen miles to the house of my Norwegian friends on the west side of the prairie. Not a track had been made since the last fall of snow, aeross the prairie, and it was a question whether to proceed that day or wait till morning. I finally eoneluded to proceed. The snow was drifted in many places and progress was decidedly slow. To add to the diseom- fort of the situation, a storm of wind and fine, hard snow set in from the northwest about the middle of the afternoon; when darkness settled down on the prairie, I was only a little more than half way across it, with little prospect of proceeding much further that night.
Very soon after sundown, I could not distinguish the road; the oxen refused to face the storm and turned south; it soon
51
CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
became evident that driver and team must put up on the open prairie for that night.
So the oxen were taken from the wagon tongue; one pair hitched to the wagon at the front end; the other pair to the hind end; both on the leeward side. I was somewhat tired, having tugged the flour up the hill in the morning, and walked beside the cattle all day through the deep snow, and that, too, withont dinner or supper, or even a drink of water. Of course, I could eat snow! The cattle had no hay, but there was some corn on the load and this I fed them, reserving and chewing and swallow- ing some of it myself. There was also some raw, fresh pork aboard, and I cut off a small piece with an ax and managed to eat a mouthful or two, after a fashion.
The wind increased to a gale in the evening and the air was so filled with snow that no object could be seen fifty feet away. I drew off my boots-overshoes I had none-put on a dry pair of socks, and then put on my boots again. Having heard it said that a man might wind himself in a blanket and lie down in the snow and sleep without freezing, I concluded to try the experi- ment. Accordingly I put my body inside a blanket, and then wound myself with about thirty yards of new cotton cloth, and laid me down to slumber. Morpheus came not to my relief, but the Frost King pierced me at every pore of my body. I stuck to my position, however, until I was completely buried in snow, and yet the cold crept through and made such fierce attacks upon me that I was forced to dig out of the snow and protect myself in some other way as best I might. After gathering up the cotton cloth and putting it back in the wagon I took the ax which I carried along, cleared away the snow on a patch of ground, and went to pounding it with the ax the same as though I were chopping wood. In a short time I got comfortably warm by this exercise. I was very much fatigued by my exertions through the day, and began to feel the need of husbanding my strength for the morrow. I leaned againt one of the oxen, the animal heat of which helped to keep me warm. In this position I soon fell into a sleep, when my knees gave out and I partly fell. That awoke me. I tried it again, and again I slept and fell. Then I began to feel chilly and again resorted to the ax for exercise. Then I leaned against the patient old ox once more,
52
CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
slept again, and then took a round with the ax. These perform- ances I continued, with a little variation during one of the cold- est nights of that cold winter, and until the dark shadows of night passed into the gray light of a cloudy, stormy morning.
Upon examination in the morning, I found that I had strayed nearly eighty rods from the road. The oxen were soon hitched to the wagon, and the load was finally started with that peculiar sereeching noise always made by wagon wheels in snow on a cold morning. About 10 o'clock in the forenoon, I arrived at the house of my Norwegian friends with whom I had stayed on my way down. They comprehended at a glance what had been my expe- rience and proceeded to prepare breakfast. In a short time the good woman placed before me warm biscuits, hot coffee, potatoes, meat, ete., and it seems to me yet that no other person in the world ever furnished a better meal.
I spent the rest of the day there and enjoyed a night of very refreshing sleep. That afternoon, I learned from my hostess of a sad affair of the night before-the night that I camped upon the prairie. She said that two of their neighbors had visited Austin on the 19th, and in coming home that night one of them had perished with cold and was found dead, while the other had been found with his hands and feet very badly frozen. The body of the dead man was found within forty rods of his own door, where a patient, loving wife, with three children, watched all night for his coming. The other, who was so badly frozen, was found about eighty rods from the dead man, unable either to walk or to talk when first found. Empty whisky bottles were found upon them, and there was no doubt as to the real cause of the death of the one and the maiming of the other. No wonder Shakespeare said, speaking of intoxicating liquors,
"Let us call thee Devil."
On the night of the 20th, more snow fell. On the 21st, I reached Austin. The snow had become so deep that I could not well proceed further on wheels, and so I purchased an ox-sled at that place. The 22d was spent in taking the wagon apart, loading it and its contents upon the sleigh and driving as far as Mr. Vaughn's. That was an intensely eold, stormy night. The Frost Fiend was abroad in all his howling majesty, and many were the expressions of hope that no one was out on the prairie that night
53
CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
to face the merciless blasts that swept the country. The storm abated the next morning about ten o'clock, and I made about seven miles on the 23d through the snow drifts, stopping with a kind hearted English family, the last residents on the road home between Vaughn's and Owatonna.
The next morning, I started before sunrise, the weather being clear and very cold. The roads had not been traveled since the snow storm and the going was heavy. Three times that day I had to shovel through drifts of snow and pry up the sled in order to get through. About two o'clock p. m. I met two teams of horses and three or four men going into Iowa for flour. After this, traveling was much easier for the oxen. In the afternoon the weather grew colder, and before night I began to think my feet would freeze in spite of my efforts to keep warm. I finally pulled off my frozen boots and traveled with nothing but socks on my feet. At first my feet got very warm, but finally the frost began to work through the socks and I thought I should surely freeze. Suddenly I came upon the remains of a campfire in a thicket of jack oaks, some ten or twelve miles south of Owa- tonna. I at once piled on some more wood and renewed the blaze. Here I fed the oxen some corn, overhauled my bundle of clothing and found some dry socks and a pair of new boots, which I put on; I also ate some doughnuts which my hostess of the night before had put into my overcoat pockets, and again started the weary oxen towards Owatonna. Five miles south of Owatonna I struck a pretty fair road, several teams having passed over it since the snow storm. The night was bitterly cold and it was a difficult matter to keep from freezing. I finally arrived at Sanford's tavern in Owatonna, about two o'clock Christmas morning. I remained in Owatonna over Christmas and sold a portion of my load at good prices. On the 26th I started for Wilton. Here again the road was unbroken. The cattle were already weakened by their long journey, and, just as night came on, in pulling through a deep snow drift, the sled tongue was torn out. This made it necessary to leave the load there for the night. This accident happened a little north of what is known as the Vinton farm. There was no help for it; I was compelled to unhitch the teams and take my course homeward, guided only by the stars. I had along with me a large, white cat that I had
t e it
,
54
CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
bought in Iowa, and that I carried confined in a grain sack on the load. It would not do to leave him there for he might perish if anything should happen to prevent my return for a day or two; so I took him out of the sack and called him to follow me. He did so in the most approved manner, keeping close to me all the way. I arrived at the John Jenkins' cabin about 11 o'clock that night, where I found Uncle John sitting by his fireplace eating parched corn. He arose in a half dazed way and wondered how I got there such a night as that without any road. IIe said he had about given up all hopes of my return and thought I must have frozen to death on the prairie.
The next morning Uncle John accompanied me and we brought in the load safe and sound.
Very few of the settlers that made trips to Iowa or Wisconsin that winter for supplies fared as well as I. Many were badly frosted; some lost their teams; others were obliged to sell their loads on the road at a sacrifice; all suffered more or less severely.
We realized enough out of our load to pay expenses. The ex- perience and fifty cents a day was all that I got out of the en- terprise. But then, I was pretty well satisfied-thankful that I was again at my own bachelor fireside, hale and hearty.
CHAPTER XIV, 1855-6.
TOWN SITE BOOMING-WILTON VILLAGE PLATTED BY CORNELL AND ABBOTT OF OWATONNA, AND JOHN AND D. J. JENKINS AND CHILD OF WASECA COUNTY-CLAIM-JUMPING-HOUSE BODY TORN DOWN-MANY SETTLERS ARRESTED AND TAKEN TO OWATONNA-LAND SUITS AT WINONA-WAR ON THE LE SUEUR-BUILDINGS TORN DOWN IN WILTON.
The first year's settlement did not pass without a town-site boom in this county. Speeulators were abroad then as now. In October, 1855, A. B. Cornell and John H. Abbott, then of Owa- tonna, came to the settlement and prevailed upon D. J. and John Jenkins and the writer to join with them in platting a town site. Mr. Abbott was a surveyor and the parties proceeded to survey and plat the village of Wilton, the first-born city of the county. It soon became evident to John Jenkins and me that A. B. Cornell, the moving genius of the firm, intended to get persons to come on from various places and take possession of all the land in the vicinity, and that, too, without regard to the rights of others. D. J. Jenkins sided with Cornell and Abbott, and it was quite evident that they proposed to jump claims if they could not get what they wanted in any other way. John Jenkins and I with- drew shortly after the survey was made, and men from Owatonna took our places.
D. J. Jenkins built, that fall, the first house on the new town plat, or, rather, adjoining it, and it was expected then that, like Jonah's gourd, it would grow to almost a city in a day. But, unfortunately, the prime movers of the enterprise so managed their affairs that the settlers of the surrounding country, even up
56
CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
to the boundary line of the village plat, refused to countenance the building of the new city. As evidence of the feeling that existed at the time, a few faets will be given, which, though not very creditable, perhaps, will show the extent to which men will sometimes proceed when thrown together promiscuously beyond the controlling influences of courts and law. In the latter part of January, 1856, the Owatonna proprietors of the Wilton plat hired some fellows to jump the claims of four settlers-Robert and Hugh MeDougall and George and Bill Robbins-who had settled along the river, just east of the village plat. The claim jumpers commenced the erection of houses on these lands, and set up counter claims to them on the ground, as they said, that those young men had claimed more than 160 acres each, that because they were foreign born and had not declared their inten- tions of becoming citizens prior to their settlement. The former of these charges was false, the latter true. The men had not deelared their intentions to become citizens simply because there was no eourt nearer than Mankato, and also because they expected to do so as soon as they could get to the land office at Winona.
As soon as it was noised about that elaim-jumping had eom- meneed, an impromptu meeting of the boys was held and they eoneluded to visit the claim-jumpers and inform them that claim- jumping would not be tolerated at all in the settlement. The agents of the "city speeulators" were at the time putting up a log house on the elaim since known as the O'Brien land. It adjoined the village plat, on the east, and lay immediately on the road leading to Owatonna. Nearly every man in the settle- ment was present at the meeting. They all proceeded to the place where the claim-jumpers were at work, and informed them what had been deeided upon. The claim-jumpers were acting under the legal advice of Mr. Cornell and condueted themselves accordingly. They evinced none of that blunt, out-spoken honesty so common to western pioneers, but observed a studied purpose to overreach the boys in legal points and vet preserve themselves from physical harm. They showed no fight, but quietly stepped aside when told to do so, by the original claimants. The latter then proceeded to tear down the building forthwith. Cornell's gang quietly withdrew from the premises after witnessing the tearing down process. As soon as possible thereafter warrants
57
CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
were sued out before an Owatonna justice (this was then a part of Steele county) for the arrest of five of the men; to-wit: John Jenkins, Hugh and Robert MeDougall, and George and William Robbins-all but Jenkins having an interest in the claims jumped. The charge was that of maliciously tearing down a building. Nearly all the other settlers on the upper Le Sueur were sub- poenaed as witnesses. After a trial, which lasted three or four days, three of the five were found guilty and the other two were discharged on motion of the prosecuting attorney. The whole trial was a good deal of a farce. If one of the party was guilty of a crime, all were guilty. We asked to be allowed to prove that the elaim jumpers were committing willful and malicious trespass upon lands belonging to the arrested parties, and that only neces- sary foree was used to expel the trespassers; the request was refused. Those found guilty appealed to the district court and were in due time discharged without eosts on account of error in the proceedings before the justice.
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.