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 59
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There was a man in company with me named James Hennessy. He took the southwest one half of section 6. We left the claims with the intention of not coming back, if we found land that suited us better; not finding any, we returned about the middle of April. At that time a young man by the name of James Foard came with us and we worked together building shanties by cutting small logs and carrying them to the build- ing place. Neither one of us had a team, and a yoke of oxen at that time would cost about $200.
I had $200 when I came to Minnesota but I bought a lot in Hastings and paid $100 for it which left me short of funds.
There was claim jumping in those times, so Mr. Hennessy remained to watch the claims and I went to Hastings to bring his wife and mine and our household goods out here.
We got on a steamboat and went to St. Paul and thence by steamboat to St. Peter on the Minnesota river. The Minnesota river was very crook- ed and we were three days on the journey.
I made every effort in St. Peter to hire a team to take us out to the claims but was unsuccessful, and we started to walk the twenty-five miles. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when we started and we intended to stop over night at some house on the way; we were told the country was settled for a short distance.
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
We kept on traveling until we got beyond the settlement, and night coming on we found ourselves in the dense woods. Not wishing to go hack we traveled on and soon came to a claim shanty. It was unoccupied hut we stayed there all night. I built a fire in one corner and we warmed up, for the nights were cool, heing the second week in May, 1856. I found some potatoes in a hole under the floor and we cooked them in the fire and had roast potatoes for supper. We had some quilts and the women slept on a hunk in one corner, while I kept fire all night.
Next morning we started, on empty stomachs, for our destination. Nothing could he seen hut large timher.
Ahout the middle of the forenoon we hegan to meet Indians hy the hundreds. They were all shapes, all sizes, and all ages. We were told there were three hundred of them but there seemed to us to be nearer three thousand. After traveling ten or twelve miles we came to a house where Greenland is now. George Jaqua lived there (he now lives in Ely- sian); it was then long after noon but we got some dinner which we ate with a relish.
After dinner we came through in good shape. Mr. Hennessy met us on the bank of Lake Elysian and there was joy all around.
We boarded with a Mr. Johnson until our cabins were fixed so we could occupy them. We peeled the bark off the elm trees and roofed our cabins with it as there was no lumber nearer than Faribault twenty miles dis- tant.
There were five families living in the town when I came to Iosco. There is but one of them here now, Mr. David Wood's, on section two."
Mr. and Mrs. Lee have heen the parents of eight children: Mary Ann, Catnarine. Ellen J., John, Maggie, Susan. James and Emma.
Mr. Lee served as county commissioner from 1871 to 1873 inclusive, and has been elected to various town offices for many successive years. He has also held important positions in his church parish and in his school district. He owns a good farm and is in a position to enjoy the fruits of a well-spent life.
MR. EBENEZER B. STEARNS.
This well-known gentleman and early pioneer, in September, 1897, fur- nished the following hrief facts regarding his life and works:
He was born in Readsborough, Bennington county, Vermont, Oct, 1, 1812. When he was four years of age, his parents removed from Ver- mont to near Syracuse, Onondaga county, N. Y.
In that locality he learned the carpenter and joiner trade which he followed tor a number of years, at times working as a millwright. Fifty years ago he huilt a mill at Bellville, Canada West.
In 1853, he married Miss Emily Garrett, a native of Onondaga county, N. Y., and late the same year they came west, living first at Greenhush, Sheboygan county, Wisconsin. There he bought eighty acres of land, built a house and barn, and made other improvements. After three years of hard work In Wisconsin, he concluded to try his fortune In Minnesota.
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
Early in the spring of 1856, in company with Mr. Zachariah Holbrook, he visited the new settlement along the LeSueur river in this county. After a pretty thorough examination, he concluded to cast his lot in Waseca county.
His first arrival was April 7, 1856. He then returned to Wisconsin, settled his matters there, and returned by prairie schooner, arriving on the Le Sueur about the first of August. His first introduction was to the claim jumping struggle going on at Wilton. He was the innocent cause of the claim changes which took place between Tom Kerr, "Uncle" Fisk, Tarrant Putnam and Col. Ide, as related elsewhere in this history in the statement of Thomas J. Kerr. He soon cut loose from all entangling al- liances at Wilton and moved up the river to Otisco, where, on the 5th of August, 1856, he made his claim. Here he broke the native sod, built a house and stables, and made large improvements. He sold his first claim after a few years, and then obtained the fine farm where he now resides. +
He was early called upon to take an active part in piloting our new county through the financial disasters and business depressions of 1857 and following years. At the October election of 1857, Mr. Stearns was elected county commissioner-his associates being Mr. John Bailey, (late of Medford, Steele county,) then of St. Mary, and Mr. L. C. Wood, of Woodville, who died a soldier of the Union. He was re-elected for three successive years, and was one of the ablest and most conscientious of- ficers that ever served the county.
After three years of faithful and poorly-paid services for the county, he declined further honors as an officer, and devoted himself wholly to his own affairs. He did some building for other parties in an early day, erecting the first frame school house in the Brisbane district. Farming, however, was his principal business. He now owns a farm of two hun- dred fifty-two and one-half acres, all improved. His family were three boys and three girls. The boys, William H., George, and Charles, are all married and living in the vicinity. The eldest girl married Frank Weed and died several years ago. Mary married M. R. Baldridge, a clergyman ; Cora became the wife of Mr. Wm. Root, of Wilton.
At this writing (1897) Mr. Stearns is almost eighty-five years of age and yet he retains to a remarkable degree his physical and mental vigor. He and his wife are general favorites, socially, with old and young.
In addition to rearing their own six children, they have had the care and education of two grandchildren left by their daughter, Mrs. Weed.
Ah, if the world were only filled with such people, what a paradise it would be! Courts and lawyers and constables and a horde of office-holders who now "eat our substance" could be dispensed with and put to work.
Since the foregoing was written, Mr. Stearns passed peacefully away on the 15th day of May, 1899, honored by the whole community. The son, William H., also died Jan. 10, 1905.
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
MR. SIMON HENRY DRUM
contributed the following to the Waseca County Herald, Feb. 25, 1898.
"I came to Waseca county, May 3, 1859. After visiting with Mr. Austin Vinton's family and others in the neighborhood for several weeks, I be- came a clerk in Dr. D. S. Harsha's drug store in Owatonna, where I re- mained until August of the same year.
My first visit to Clear Lake was in that month, when I accompanied Mr. Vinton, who was going after lumber at Forrest's saw mill, which was situated in the hollow just east of where Wm. Deverell now lives, near the lake shore. This trip will always remain very distinct in my memory. We had two yoke of oxen. On our arrival, Mr. Vinton requested me to unhitch the cattle and let them run in the yoke to "bait", while he went to hunt up Mr. Forrest. I was decidedly green at that business. Whether it was my greenness that he objected to, or a natural viciousness that he possessed, I am unable to say, but certain it is, one of the steers, when I went between them to take them off the wagon tongue, began to kick and paw and finally ran off leaving me sprawling in a fashion that Mr. Vinton seemed to think very amusing, though I failed to see the fun of it. But I was only a "tender-foot" then. However, when he "saw that I was unable to rise, he helped me up and apologized for his levity, for he was one of the kindest of men. I must have been a sight as I was scratched considerably and my clothes were pretty badly torn, especially my pantaloons. But my worst hurt was my left leg, the small bone of which was broken between the knee and the ankle. I didn't realize that it was fractured at the time, so it was never properly set.
Among the settlers I found here when I came were Austin Vinton, of Woodville, T. J. Stevens, M. T. C. Flower, Geo. Hatch, Howard Hatch, Anton Schuldt, Wm. Schuldt, and C. H. Wilker, of Meriden. Of these, Mr. Vinton has gone to his long home, Mr. Stevens is living in Massachu- setts, Mr. Flower is in St. Paul, Mr. Geo. Hatch has a farm in Byron town- ship in this county, but lives in New Richland. Howard Hatch is dead. Anton and William Schuldt are still living in green old age on their pre- emption farms, and are very prosperous. Mr. Wilker and wife are living near San Diego, California. Their children are respected and well to do; most of them are still living in Meriden. [Mr. Wilker died in the spring of 1905 .- Ed.]
The year '58-9 was what is known as the 'Johnny-cake year' among the old settlers, when the best-to-do had mush and milk for breakfast, Johnny- cake for dinner, mush and milk for supper, with fried mush next morning for breakfast. Lucky the family that had fifty pounds of white flour for the year. It was treasured and only used when distinguished guests ar- rived. I well remember one of the matrons censuring a hostess for ex- travagance in making a pan of biscuits when only her neighbors were present."
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
MR. GEORGE R. BUCKMAN.
Died, April 17, 1899, at 11 o'clock p. m., of neuralgia of the heart, George R. Buckman, of Waseca, Minnesota, aged sixty-six years, three months and twenty-four days.
Mr. Buckman was born December 23, 1832, at Crown Point, New York, and in his boyhood days played many a time under the old oak tree to which Gen. Putnam was bound by the Indians when taken prisoner dur- ing the French and Indian war, prior to the Revolution. The tree was still standing there when he visited the place during the War of the Re- bellion.
At the age of twenty he went to New Hampshire and spent somewhat over two years with an uncle in the hardware business. Prior to this he had learned the carpenter and joiner trade.
In 1855 he came West, arriving at Winona on the 29th of April. At that time Winona was a decidedly small village. Ahout the 1st of May fol- lowing, he, in company with another young man, went to Rochester. This place then contained only one or two houses, one of which, of course, was an inn. There was no bridge across the Zumbro, and the water was high. They went down the river some distance and finally waded the stream, putting up at Head's tavern. He staid a few days, selecting a claim in the mean time. After taking the claim he needed an ax, but not an ax could he purchase in Rochester. As Mr. Head was going to Winona with a team, Mr. Buckman concluded to return with him.
Shortly after his return, he fell in with a Scotchman, by the name of Brownlee, and the two soon commenced to burn lime. The bluffs just west of the village contained excellent limestone and he and his partner did a thriving business, lime then being worth a dollar a barrel at the kiln. After working hard through the summer they both took the ague in the fall. Not being used to that disease, he thought he would surely die. They left the shanty by the lime-kiln and went over to town. After consider- able shaking and taking medicine, he got better and taught the Winona school that winter-the second terin taught in the place.
The ague still hung about him, and all the next summer he was unable to work much. The next October he came as far west as Waseca county, looked the country over pretty thoroughly, and entirely recovered his health. He returned to Winona and settled up his affairs, coming again to this county in January, 1857. His entry this time was in a hard storm or blizzard. He and George Tremper, with a horse team, left Owatonna about noon and did not reach Wilton until 9 o'clock in the evening. The next day he went to St. Mary and stayed with a Mr. Crossman who had opened a boarding house. Everything in and about St. Mary was then new, and the carpenter business offered inducements which Mr. Buck- man accepted.
He taught the St. Mary village school during the winter of 1860-1.
In the spring of 1861, as the report of the rebel guns fired on Fort
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
Sumter reverberated over the continent, G. R. Buckman was among the first to respond to the call for volunteers, and enlisted in Company G, First Minnesota regiment. His comrades from the village of St. Mary. were Norman B. Barron and Charles C. Davis, and though they passed through all the hard-fought battles of three years' service, they came out without a wound. His company when it entered the service was com. manded by Capt. Lewis McKune, who was shot dead at the first battle of Bull Run.
He and his company participated in the siege of Yorktown, the Penin- sular campaign, the battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, Fair Oaks, West Point on York River, Gettysburg, and numerous other battles. His com- pany participated in a sharp fight at Bristow station, where Sergeant Niedam captured twenty prisoners in a most daring and reckless manner.
At the close of his term of enlistment he was mustered out of the ser- vice, May 5, 1864. Shortly after, he opened a country store in St. Mary, as modestly as though he had never taken part in the most terrific battles of civilized times.
He was nominated for county treasurer in 1865, without solicitation on his part, and elected. He held that office for four successive terms, with honor to himself and to the satisfaction of the public.
He was married to Miss Isadora A. Wood, of Woodville, March 12, 1867. Just prior to the close of his term of office, as treasurer, he opened a real estate and loan office in Waseca, and made that his main business until December, 1880, when he became one of the founders of the Peo- ples bank, serving the first year as president, and afterwards as cashier until June 29, 1897, when, his health having become somewhat impaired, he resigned the position.
The robbery of the Peoples bank hy the Guarantee Loan swindlers, of Minneapolis, we doubt not, shortened his life at least ten years. It was a terrible blow to a man of his high sense of honor and to one with his sensitive feelings. Himself a man of the strictest integrity and of un- impeachable character, he became prostrated by the financial blow dealt by the Guarantee Loan assassins. A suspicion that he might be mis- judged or misunderstood by former friends and the people generally, dis- turbed him more than all the hardships and terrors of the battlefield.
But his life struggle is o'er. A brave, gentle, and noble spirit has been set free from the cares aud burdens of this transient and incomprehensi- ble life, to take its flight to that eternal state where, let us hope, the scales of justice are held with equal poise, and where duplicity, deception, double- dealing, and falsehood shall not prevail against honesty, sincerity, and true manhood.
MR. GEORGE W. WATKINS.
Few men, even in the West, have had more experience and less real manual labor than Geo. W. Watkins, Sen. He was born of wealthy par- ents, at Hamptonburg, Orange county, N. Y., May 27, 1820.
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
One would hardly believe, to look at him, that he is over eighty years of age. But such he declares is his record.
The first twenty-four years of his life were spent on his father's Orange county farm, and then he came west as far as Dupage county, III.
He spent about six months on horse back, exploring a great deal of country, in Wisconsin, Iowa, and portions of Missouri. That was in 1844 when Chicago and St. Louis were frontier villages. He rode his horse over two thousand five hundred miles and back to his home in the state of New York. A detailed account of his travels and experiences among the pioneer settlers of the west fifty-five years ago, would fill a large volume.
Returning to Orange county, N. Y., in 1844-5, he remained there until 1850, when he went to California, by way of the isthmus, and at once engaged in mining. How well he succeeded in his mining operations he has always kept to himself, simply remarking whenever approached on that subject, that he made enough to pay expenses.
He returned to his New York home within a year, and remained there until 1853, when he again came as far west as Chicago. He engaged in railroading on the Galena road for some time as a contractor, and finally came to Faribault, in this state, in November, 1855. There he remained for nearly a year and then returned to Chicago where he married Miss Annetta Ward, in 1856. They remained in Chicago about a year, and in the spring of 1857 came to Wilton, then the county seat of this county, where they made their future residence. They huilt a very pleasant home in that village, but his wife did not live many years to enjoy it. One son, George, was born to them, and shortly afterwards the mother passed to the Eternal Home in 1860.
A little over a year later he married Miss Anna F. Green, of Wilton, who bore him one daughter, who is now Mrs. Adams and resides with her husband, Prof. Adams, in Oregon. His second wite died in May, 1895.
For many years he was engaged with Hon. P. C. Bailey in the hard- ware business in Wilton and Waseca. He also had an interest in the firm of Dodge & Co., hardware merchants, of Janesville.
He has hosts of friends wherever he has lived, who are always glad to greet him.
MR. OBADIAH POWELL
was one of our worthiest pioneers. The following was taken in the form of an interview in 1897:
"Come, Obe," said a Herald reporter, "give us a little biography; open confession is good for the soul."
"Well, to begin with," said he, "I commenced life very young, so young, in fact, that I have always had to depend upon my parents to refresh my recollections regarding my first start in my biographical career. Accord- ing to that recollection, I entered upon the scene of action Feb. 1, 1828, in the town of Hartsville, Steuben county, N. Y. In due time, I worked west-
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
ward and arrived in the then territory of Minnesota, the last of October, 1855. I settled where I now live, May 9, 1856. It was then called Swa- vesey precinct, Steele county. I found in the southwest corner of what is now Blooming Grove, a small settlement made in the month of June, 1855. There was John M. Blivens, now in Missouri; Wm. M. Gray, who died about fifteen years ago; Simeon Smith, who also died some thirteen or fourteen years ago; Alfred C. Smith, who has the honor of being father to the first child born in the neighborhood, (Lovica, now Mrs. H. N. Carl- ton, born Oct. 15, 1855); and Ole Knuteson, now of Renville county."
" How about your property qualifications," queried the reporter.
"Property! Well, it was immense. It inventoried about as follows: An ax, iron wedge, two beetle rings, $90 in cash and my every day clothes, all of which I easily carried in a satchel strapped upon my back. Having neither family nor property, the settlers treated me rather coolly-did not rush around to show me the best claims-and some of them plainly told me they did not want single men to settle among them. So, not to crowd them too much, I left, but did not go far, making my claim on sections four and five, in Woodville. The part of my claim running down to Clear Lake was fractional, as I learned on going to Winona, the next October so that I got one hundred and forty-four and fifty-nine one-hundredths acres. I must say, however, in justice to my neighbors, that when they saw me strip my coat and go to splitting rails in hot weather, in order to get some breaking done, they softened, so to speak, and without excep- tion, treated me very kindly.
"Two weeks after my settlement, E. K. Carlton, now living with his son near me, came with his family to be my neighbor, and I broke bread with them nniil I was married July 5, 1857. My wife, Mary J., daughter of Wm. M. Gray, was born in Alleghany county, N. Y., March 22, 1837. As she was as poor as myself, we had about an even start, and suffered and en- joyed all the inconveniences incident to poverty and a new country."
"In the summer of '56 our settlement was increased in population by the coming of Daniel Riegle, now living in Kittson county; Patrick Murphy, still living here; Joshua R. Smith, now of Greenland, LeSueur county; Josiah Smith, when last heard from being in Nebraska; Henry Smith, now of Montana; Sam Smith, now of California; Jacob Oory, now in Kansas; Wm. H. Young, deceased; Jos. Churchill, who removed to Renville county and died there several years ago; Jacob Myers, who pre- empted the present site of the city of Waseca, sold it to I. C. Trowbridge, and soon after removed to California, where he now resides; E. G. Wood; Loren C. Wood, who died of disease contracted in the army; and some others."
"I think ours was the first school district organized in the county. At any rate it was originally No. 1. When the township district was adopted, under the law of 1861, we lost the number, and now it is No. 7. Our first school house was built in the spring of 1857. We had three months school that summer and paid the teacher six dollars per month."
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
"In June, 1857, Patrick Farrell and his father-in-law, Daniel Eagen, set- tled in our neighborhood. Mr. and Mrs. Eagen died years ago. Mr. Far- rell and wife, Patrick Murphy and wife, W. H. Gray, who came with his parents when he was about sixteen years of age, H. N. Carlton and wife, Uncle E. K. Carlton, A. C. Smith and wife, and your humble servant and wife are about all that remain in our neighborhood of the settlers prior to 1860. In the early days we were known as the 'Blivens settlement.'
Mr. Powell died April 3, 1901, honored and respected by all.
(See Year 1901.)
MR. SEGURD JOHNSON.
In January, 1897, in a chat with one of the sons of the late Mr. Segurd Johnson, of Iosco, I learned something of the life of that early settler. He was born at a place in Norway called Gjoslor Ovre Telemarkan, on the 29th day of May, 1821. It seems that he commenced lite as a cattle herder; afterwards learned and worked at the carpenter and joiner trade, and finally became a traveling merchant or peddler, traveling from town to town among the people of his own country. This variety of work and experience qualified him, in his younger days, for the duties of after life in Minnesota. He heard much, in his travels, of that great country, North America, and, in the year 1845, made up his mind to make his future home in the United States. Before leaving Norway, he married Miss Anna Livorson, who was his faithful and devoted helpmate all through life.
He and his young wife were among the first to emigrate from that part of Norway to this country. They took passage on a sailing ship and endured the hardships incident to a long and stormy voyage across the sea, with only the fickle winds as motive power. They finally reached their destination, Sun Prairie, in Wisconsin. They were twenty-three weeks on their journey. Wisconsin was then a new territory and Mr. Johnson was among the first settlers in that section of country. He en- dured many hardships and privations in Wisconsin. His first market place, in the Badger state, was Milwaukee, seventy miles distant from his Sun Prairie home. He lived there about eleven years and then, in 1856, sold his possessions and came to Minnesota.
It appears that he came to Iosco early in the spring of 1856, and settled on section 11 where he secured three hundred acres of fine land upon which he resided until the time of his death, which occurred Sept: 12, 1886. He came to Minnesota with considerable property, and was, to a great extent, exempt from that struggle with poverty which marked the early lives of very many of the first settlers of the county. He partici- pated, however, in all the arduous labors incident to pioneer life, and made many trips to Hastings with ox-team, camping by the way-side witn the otner early settlers.
He helped to organize the Norwegian Lutheran church of Iosco and Blooming Grove, in 1863, and became one of its directors and principal
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