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 60
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supporters. He helped to build the church edifice with his own hands. He also took a leading part in the erection of the school house in his district, No. 10, about the same time. Six of his children survive him, three sons and three daughters. Anna, John, Taaraand and Gunhild were born in Wisconsin, and Louis and Segurd S., in Minnesota. Louis is said to have been the second child born in the township of Iosco.
He brought with him, from Wisconsin, one span of mules, one yoke of oxen, and twenty-four head of other cattle. He also brought with him a new wagon and necessary farm implements, and money enough to pay for his land. He was one of our best and most reliable citizens, and was a leading and influential man in his community. He exemplified the piety, the patience, the endurance, the industry, the frugality, the honesty, and the sound judgment so characteristic of the successful Scandinavians that came to this country in the early days.
MR. HIRAM A. MOSHER.
Company F of the Tenth regiment was almost entirely made up of men from Waseca county, and among them was Hiram A. Mosher, who was mustered in August 18, 1862.
Hiram was born in the state of Ohio in 1834 and came to Wisconsin with his parents in 1845. They settled in Chester, four miles south of Waupun.
Hiram came to Minnesota in 1856 and pre-empted a claim on section one in Otisco. He returned to Wisconsin that fall where he remained until 1860, when he married Miss Frances Robbins, and returned to Min- nesota settling in Woodville. He engaged in farming until August, 1862, when he enlisted in Company F, of the Tenth Minnesota infantry, com- manded hy Capt. George T. White, of this county. His company was stationed at the Winnebago agency, Blue Earth county, during the winter of 1862-3, did duty at Mankato at the hanging of the Sioux murderers, and "chased the Indians o'er the plains," as mounted infantry, under the command of General Sibley.
After the Indian expedition, he went South with his regiment and par- ticipated in all its gallant history there. He was at the battle of Tupelo, helped to chase Forrest for some days, drove Price out of Missouri, and fought the good fight at Nashville where he lost his left arm and was wounded in the side and abdomen. At the battle his regiment lost some twenty-five killed and seventy-five wounded. It was at this battle that Captain George T. White gave up his life for his country, shot through the howels. Privates Theodore Hacker, Hanson Oleson, Chandler Flem- ing and J. D. Ferguson, were killed. Lieutenant Isaac Hamlin, sergeants H. A. Mosher and George H. Woodbury, and private Edward Brossard, of this county, were wounded, more or less severely. Corporal David Snyder was also wounded at the battle of Nashville.
After his return from the service, with his armless sleeve, he was elect- ed register of deeds in November, 1865, In this county, and reelected for
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
seven consecutive terms-fourteen years. He then gave way for Mr. Charles SanGalli, hut was again elected to that position in 1883. He died Nov. 13, 1884, very suddenly, of heart disease. He was one of God's noblemen in every sense of the word, and came about as near perfection as any human being gets.
MR. AUGUST MINSKE,
of Iosco, was born in Belgen, Prussia, near the city of Berlin, August 14, 1837. He came with his parents across the ocean and landed at New York, Sept. 11, 1855, after a voyage of seven weeks. They came on to Dodge county, Wisconsin, where they spent the winter and made preparation to come to Minnesota. They started from Dodge county, in March, 1856, with two covered wagons and four pair of oxen. The company that came together consisted of John Minske, father of August and F. W., and family; Gottfried Kanne, who died in 1886, and his sons, F. Kanne, August Kanne, Gottlieb Kanne, and his only daughter, Mrs. Wm. Marzahn and her husband. There were five covered wagons and nine pair of oxen in all.
They were little used to the ways of the country or that mode of travel- ing, and were six weeks on the road, reaching Tosco, the 25th day of May, 1856. The country, as is generally the case in early spring, was wet and the sloughs soft, and some days the company would not make more than two miles. At nearly every soft place they had to double teams, and in some places they had to put all the teams to one wagon, otten breaking chains and having a rough time generally.
Mr. Minske says: "As soon after our arrival as we could select our claims we commenced breaking with four yoke of oxen and broke about sixty acres-twenty acres on each of our claims. The season was a busy one, breaking and building.
"The next spring we bought seed wheat, Scotch fife, near Morristown, for which we paid $2 a bushel. The crop was a light one. We got only forty bushels, having harvested it with a cradle and threshed it on the frozen ground with flails. This we saved mostly for seed the next year. The next year's wheat crop, that of 1858, was almost a total failure. Our corn crop that year was middling good, and we had a good crop of vege- tables, so we had to fall back on corn for bread.
"As we were not well informed then on prairie fires, we came near lesing everything that fall by fire."
August Minske was married to Miss Karoline Schultz, February 27, 1860. Mrs. Minske was born in Prussia, April 12, 1838, and came to Amer- ica in the same ship with Minske. They have had twelve children, ten boys and two girls. Three of the boys are dead. Robert died of croup at the age of two years, six months; Emil was so badly burned in a prairie fire that he died within twelve hours thereafter. The third death was that of an infant, twenty days old, on Sept. 25, 1879. .
John Minske, the father of August, died in 1862, after a long illness,
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brought on, no doubt, hy hardship and exposure to which he had not been accustomed in earlier days. Mr. Minske says:
"When we first commenced to cut grain I had to cut it with my 'arm- strong' reaper, my wife following, raking and binding. Then, after thresh- ing, we had to haul it to Red Wing or Hastings with ox teams and got from forty-five to fifty cents a bushel. It took a round week of travel and camping out before we saw home again. On one trip, our trusty engines, the oxen, in the night, left for better quarters, and it took nearly all the next day to hunt them up. Another time, in the fall, I camped on the yellow prairie, ten miles out from Hastings. It was a cold night. I wrapped myself in an Indian blanket, lay down under the wagon, and awoke in the night to find myself covered with about three inches of snow, with a keen wind from the northwest. While I was getting ready to bid my landlord and his white feather-bed good-bye, I was surprised to miss my watch, the only time piece we had. After a half hour's search I found it in the snowy bed. At another time, Wm. Priebe, now deceased, and myself made the round trip to Hastings, with ox teams, in three days and nights, but we drove day and night-and the last night I fell asleep in the wagon' about midnight and did not awake until I found my- self at home the next morning.
"On the 9th of March, 1865, I enlisted in the First Minnesota battalion, Company C., and proceeded to the front at Petersburg. The next day after my arrival, the company had to fall into line of battle and march upon the enemy. My first lesson in war was in a hail-storm of bullets from 9 a. m., till dark at night, but after three days of hard fighting, Petersburg was ours. Then followed days and nights of marching and fighting while following Gen. Lee. At High Bridge many a soldier saw daylight for the last time till the day of resurrection. After Lee's sur- render we marched back to Burk's Station, and on this march the men suffered very much for want of provisions, as the army wagons could not be brought along, owing to the swampy roads. We were without provis- ions for nearly three days. While in camp there, H. P. Chamberlain, Wm. Allen, Isaac Ballard, and Isaac Billings came to us from Washington, to rejoin the company. After camping there for about four weeks, we marched to Washington, thence we were shipped to Louisville, Ky., where I was taken with dysentery and ague and became so weak that I could not care for myself. Here our company lost fifteen strong men by disease. Shortly after, we started by boat for Fort Snelling. After camping a week, near Minnehaha, we received our discharge, and reached home July 26, 1865."
MR. GEORGE W. SOULE
is one of those, who at an early day, followed Horace Greeley's advice by coming West when a very young man. He came with elder brothers and a widowed mother, in 1849, from Coeymans, Albany county, N. Y., and settled first at Watertown, Wis. Coming thence to Minnesota, the
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
family settled just over the county line, in Morristown, arriving at their new home August 10, 1855, when George was only eleven years of age.
Mrs. Soule, nee Nancy Canfield, daughter of the late Judge Canfield, of this county, was born in the town of Chester, Dodge county, Wis., July 27, 1846, and came with her parents to this county, arriving here, June 9, 1856.
George W. Soule enlisted in the Third regiment, Minnesota volunteers, Feh. 15, 1864, and served until the close of the war. Soon after his dis- charge, he bought eighty acres of land on section 4, Blooming Grove, where he settled down to farming. He was elected assessor in 1877, to which office he was re-elected for five consecutive years. He was then elected county commissioner and served one term.
In reply to inquiry as to pioneer experience, he says:
"Hardships were many and lucky hits few. Some of my older brothers were here a year previous to our coming, and had a potato and a buck- wheat patch, and a little sod corn. They had the body of a log house raised and covered with bark. That was a lucky hit as we learned before the next spring, for the winter following was one of Minnesota's coldest.
"We had to go to Hastings to get that buckwheat and corn ground. We had only the ground for a floor, the first winter, and other comforts in the household line to correspond.
"The first school house was on the site now occupied by the Remund school house. In that old log building, I finished my education.
Among the earliest settlers were B. K. and W. R. Soule with their younger brothers. Of these the following have died: L. E. Soule, Dec. 2, 1859; F. N. Soule, Sept. 28, 1864, at Pine Bluff, Arkansas, member of Co. H, Third Minnesota volunteers; H. S. Soule, June 9, 1880, at Baker City, Oregon, (he also was in the service during the war); S. G. Soule, June 30, 1882, at Morristown; Jane Soule, mother of the Soule boys, July 12, 1877, at the old homestead in Rice county.
There is a silent yet glorious eloquence in the fact that a brave mother, away back in 1855, came to this unsettled country with her young sons and endured all the hardships and privations of frontier life that they they might make for themselves free homes and acquire a competency for themselves and their children. It requires no small amount of cour- age, devotion, and heroism for a mother thus to face the dangers of the frontier, and endure the privations incident to early pioneer life.
Mr. George Soule, at this writing, 1904, resides in Oregon.
MR. DANIEL RIEGLE.
Among the first settlers of Blooming Grove, the name of Daniel Riegle must not be forgotten. He was born in Erie county, N. Y., Oct. 23, 1829. His forefathers, away back, came from Germany, and retained their mother tongue; and Daniel can converse fluently in that language. He left his native state, when twenty-two years of age, and came West- stopped one month at Chicago, and then went to Stevenson county, Ill.,
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
where he remained one year. He next moved to Clayton county, Iowa, and thence to Delaware county, the same state, where he ran a saw mill about two years. While living at the latter place he married Miss M. C. Bliven, daughter of J. M. Bliven, one of the earliest settlers in Bloom- ing Grove. She died in 1870. J. M. Bliven came here early in the season of 1855, and in the month of December of that year, Bliven having re- turned to Iowa for supplies, Riegle came up with him and another man, ariving ox teams. Between Fort Atkinson and Cottrell's grove, in Iowa, they met a blizzard which detained them three days and nights. They wandered off the road, got some of the oxen down in a creek, and came near losing one pair. They finally found a Bohemian family, who had just moved in that fall. The house was small, and contained a family of children, and a sow with a brood of young pigs in one corner. There was no room to lie down, but then they had plenty to eat, could keep from freezing, and could sleep some while sitting.
After much hard work and many exposures, they reached Blooming Grove-then Swavesey. After looking the ground over, Mr. Riegle, ac- companieu by Wm. M. Gray and Simeon Smith, returned to Fayette county, lowa. This was during the last days of December. Messrs. Gray and Smith went to West Union, Iowa, for provisions.
Mr. Riegle returned with his family in the spring of 1856, and made a claim on section 31 which he afterwards bought of the government, and on which he resided until 1874. The first death in the settlement was in the family of Mr. Riegle, being that of his son Mahlon who died in the winter of 1857. Mr. Riegle enlisted August 18, 1862, for three years, in Company F, Tenth regiment Minnesota infantry, and served until July, 1865.
For his second wife he married Miss Melvina Gray, in 1871. She was born in Illinois, Oct. 11, 1847, being a daughter of Wm. M. Gray. Mr. Riegle remained on his farm until 1874, when he sold out. He lived for a time in Morristown, then went to Waterville, and from there he moved to Renville county where he bought a farm. There he remained until 1883, when he moved to the farm where he now resides, in Kittson county.
MR. ALFRED C. SMITH.
The first claim taken in the town of Woodville was that of Mr. Alfred C. Smith, who came to the county in 1855. Under date of Jan. 10, 1891, he wrote as follows:
"In answer to your request I will say that I came to Minnesota and settled in the town of Woodville, June 20, 1855. I came in company with my father, Simeon Smith, and William Gray and. John Bliven. We all settled in what they called then the Swavesey district. Our nearest neigh- bor, except the Indlans, was old Mr. Morris, of Morristown, ten miles away.
I was born in Chautauqua county, N. Y., In 1830. My wife, Armanda C.
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Smith, was born in Cataraugus county, New York, in 1833. We brought with us, when we came West, one yoke of oxen, a wagon, a cow, a calf, and a five franc piece. My wife and I are the only settlers left in the neighborhood of those who settled here in 1855. Mrs. Simeon Smith died in 1871, and Simeon died in 1872. Mr. Gray died in 1871, and Mrs. Gray died some time afterwards.
The first year we were here we had to go to Iowa for provisions. I re- member that I worked for one dollar a day, and paid seven dollars a hun- dred for flour, four dollars and a half a hundred for corn meal, and twenty- five and thirty-five cents a pound for pork. The first school house was built of logs. Ours was the first district organized in the county, and we used the building also for religious meetings. The first birth in the neighborhood was that of my daughter Lovica, and the first death was that of Mrs. Josiah Smith. E. G. Wood, L. C. Wood, Henry Watkins, Jacob Myers, O. Powell, E. K. Carlton, Patrick Murphy, Joshua Smith, Samuel Smith, Daniel Riegle, Joseph Churchill, Henry Smith, William Dunn, and perhaps others settled here in 1856. Our circumstances were such that we were compelled to go barefoot during the summer. We built our houses of logs with puncheon floors and elm bark for roofing. I remember that I gave an acre of breaking for a pair of boots that had been worn a year. Of course we had to haul our wheat for many years to Hastings, camping by the roadside, and getting from fifty to sixty cents a bushel."
Mr. Smith was an industrious, honorable man. He died Jan. 28, 1902.
MR. SIMON HENRY DRUM.
This early and worthy settler was born April 14, 1840, at Fort Gratiot, Michigan. His wife, Ella A. Sutliff, was born May 13, 1850, at New Haven, Conn., and came with her parents to Houston county, Minn., in 1856, coming from there to Waseca county in 1865. Mr. Drum arrived in Owa- tonna, May 4, 1859, and found employment in the drug store of Dr. Harsha, of that place, until the following August. He taught school eight succes- sive winters, spending his summers at farm work. He was elected clerk of joint school district No. 21-35 and held the position for upward of twenty years. He was town assessor in 1881-2, elected justice of the peace in 1883, and re-elected for many successive terms. The first school house in his neighborhood was built in Meriden in 1860. The school house in joint district No. 21, Steele county, and 35, Waseca county, was built in 1870.
Mr. Drum now has two hundred acres in his farm and devotes con- siderable attention to dairying. He is the father of ten children-four boys and six girls. Two of the sons and four of the daughters have been teachers in the county. One son and two daughters attended the State University in 1904-5.
MR. JESSE R. WEED
will be remembered by early residents of Byron as one of its oldest resi-
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
dents. He was born in the town of Angelica, county of Alleghany, state or New York, May 23, 1819. His wife was Miss Clarinda Maxson, born April 9, 1819, in the town of Deruyter, Madison county, New York.
Mr. and Mrs. Weed settled in the town of Byron, in this county, October 7, 1860, on sections twenty-seven and thirty-four, where they reside at the present writing, 1896. Mr. Weed brought with him two yoke of oxen, a wagon, three cows, two steers, and a calf. He has held the office of town clerk, supervisor, justice of the peace, and assessor. He has been school district clerk for more than half the time since since the dis- trict was organized. He is at this writing the oldest school district clerk in the county, being nearly seventy-two years of age.
His nearest flouring mill, for years, was at Okaman. It often took from three to four days to make the trip to mill. At one time, in February, 1862, he was four days going from Okaman to his home, a distance of thirty miles by the road. In many places the snow was up to the oxen's necks.
The first school house built in that neighborhood was in 1860, on the line between the counties of Freeborn and Waseca. The first child born was Maggie Davis, daughter of Jeremy and Keziah Davis. The first death in the neighborhood was an old lady by the name of Hodge, the mother of Mrs. Parvin.
MRS. ALMIRA WHEELER AND FAMILY.
Mrs. Wheeler, now residing in the town of Woodville, in January, 1891, gave the following short sketch of her family.
Mr. Lewis W. Wheeler, her husband's father, was born in the state of New York, in the year 1791, July 6, and lived there until the spring of 1844, when he moved to Janesville, Wisconsin. He came next to Fari- bault, Minn., in 1854, where he lived until 1857, when he moved to the then village of St. Mary. In 1866 he again moved, this time settling in Wilton, where he died in 1867, at the age of seventy-six years and six months.
Mrs. Almira Wheeler's late husband, Whitney L. Wheeler, son of Lewis W., was born in the state of New York, in the year 1822. In 1846, he was married to Miss Almira Kibby, who was born in the state of New York, April 2, 1821. They resided in their native state until 1856, when they came to Faribault, in this state, where they tarried until the spring of 1857, when they moved to St. Mary where Mr. Wheeler carried on a saw mill and worked his farm. They remained in St. Mary until the fall of 1866, when they settled in Wilton, where the family resided until after Mr. Wheeler's dearn, which occurred Nov. 4, 1870. Mrs. Wheeler has three children, two sons and a daughter.
Mr. Whitney L. Wheeler practiced as a veterinary surgeon. He was prominent as a very active republican during the days of James Buch- anan's administration.
After her husband's death, Mrs. Wheeler secured a farm in Woodville,
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
where she has since resided. She is not only one of the early settlers of Minnesota, but one of the oldest now living in the county.
MR. GEORGE DREEVER, OF JANESVILLE.
The following facts were gathered from Mr. Dreever in 1892:
This gentleman was born in the county of Kildare, Ireland, in 1837, and came to America in 1855, first living in Newark, N. J. He soon after came as far west as Illinois and settled in Stevenson county. There he remained until the spring of 1857 when he came to Minnesota. Soon. after he married Rosanna McQuade, who was also born in the Emerald Isle.
Like many another patriotic young man, he enlisted in the Union army, Co. F, Tenth Minnesota regiment, volunteer infantry, under Captain White. He served until 1864, when he was discharged for disability.
He first bought a quarter section of land in Janesville of a Mr. O'Rourke. He next bought the Haines farm and afterwards forty acres more of a Mr. McArthy, of Faribault. He was somewhat unfortunate in the purchase of some of his lands. The land warrant which had been laid on the McArthy land, turned out to be a forgery and Mr. Dreever was compelled some years afterwards to pay the price of the land to the government to protect the title. In regard to the Haines farm, one of the title sharks of the country discovered a flaw in the title, and Mr. Dreever was compelled to pay a large bonus in order to save it.
When Mr. Dreever came to Minnesota, he took steamboat from Galena, Ill., to Hastings, Minn., and then drove across the country to Janesville with four yoke of oxen, two wagons, and fourteen cows. His brother, Rich- ard Dreever, also came in 1857, and settled near him in Iosco. Richard died some years ago.
George has three children living. His son, George F. Dreever, is a graduate of the Watertown, Wis., college, of Notre Dame college, Indiana, and of the medical school of Ann Arbor, Mich.
MR. W. D. ABBOTT.
Mr. Abbott, now of Winona, one of the prominent and leading lawyers of the state, was born July 13, 1859, at Clinton Falls, Steele county, Minn. He is one of nine children born to Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Abbott, who settled at Clinton Falls, in the fall of 1857. Mr. and Mrs. A. J. Abbott were born in New Hampshire-Mr. Abbott, May 10, 1829; Mrs. Abbott, March 5, 1830.
. W. D. Abbott is a graduate of the law department of the Minnesota state university. He practiced for a time in Owatonna as a member of the firm of Sawyer, Abbott & Sawyer; in March 1885, he came to Waseca, where he practiced law until November, 1892, when he accepted a position in the law department of the C. & N. W. Ry. Co., and is, at this time, 1904, a member of the firm of Brown, Abbott & Somsen, of Winona.
Mr. Abbott was married Oct. 7, 1886, to Miss Mary Lorena Adams, of
-
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
Prairieville, Rice county, Minn. They have an adopted daughter, Helen D. Abbott, hut no children have been born to them.
Mr. Abbott is still a young man and his prospects for the future are promising indeed. He recently came prominently before the public as leading attorney in the defense of Dr. Koch, of New Ulm.
MR. OBADIAH MOSHER.
This man was a natural pioneer. He was born in June 1797, in Wash- ington county, N. Y. His wife was Miss Nancy Allen, of Vermont, who was born Jan. 29, 1797. She died at Minneapolis, June 1, 1890, being over ninety-three years of age. Obadiah went to Ohio in 1816, at the age of nineteen years, and remained there until 1845, when he removed with his family to Dodge county, Wisconsin. In 1859 he and his wife came to Min- nesota and lived on section 35, Woodville. He sold out here in 1866, and moved to Plainview, Minn., where he died in 1867, aged seventy years. Mr. and Mrs. Mosher were the parents of eight children, who grew to manhood and womanhood-five sons and three daughters-John, Robert, Asa, Hiram A., L. J. (Jim), Mrs. W. S. Baker, Mrs. J. A. Canfield, and Mrs. Esther Young.
L. J., better known as Jim, Mosher, son of Obadiah, came with his par- ents to this county in 1859. He was one of the first to enlist in the Union army and joined Company G, First Minnesota infantry under the first call in 1861. He participated in many battles and returned home with one leg and one arm crippled. Soon after the war he moved to Iowa, and afterwards lived in the state of Kansas.
THE REVEREND W. J. CLELAND.
who was born Feb. 14, 1814, in Butler county, Pa., was one of the pioneer clergymen of this section. He was a graduate of one of the Presbyterian colleges of the East, and preached to the people of Delaware county, N. Y., until 1863, when he came West and lived temporarily in Owatonna. In 1864, he bought a farm in Otisco, just east of the old village of Wilton, where he resided until the time of his death, which took place August 31, 1876. He was a devout man and preached the gospel wherever he could find a school house, hall, or church to preach in. Mrs. Cleland's maiden name was Judith A. Wilson. She was born in Albany, N. Y., in the month of August, 1819.
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