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 8
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HARD TIMES.
The year 1858, in more ways than one, was the most disastrous that has ever been experienced since the settlement of the coun-
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ty. It will long be remembered by all who then inhabited this section. Nearly or quite one-half of the people of the county had settled upon the bottom lands along the Le Sueur river. Many of the farmers had no crops except upon these lands adjoining the river. During the early part of the season, the crops grew magnificently, and promised an abundant harvest; but in the latter part of July heavy and oft-repeated storms swept with fury over the whole country. During the first week in August, it seemed as though the windows of heaven were again opened as in the days of Noah. Storm succeeded storm until the whole country was inundated. The waters of the rivers and streams were increased to such an extent that all their banks were over- flowed. The bottom lands looked like great inland seas. Trees were washed out by the roots. Fences were torn down and carried away. Hay and grain stacks were raised bodily, torn in pieces by the raging, whirling floods and carried down stream. Wheat, oat, potato, corn and garden crops were destroyed in a day.
Whole families stood by in helpless astonishment, despair de- pieted in every feature, and watched the relentless destruction of their only means of subsistence for the coming year. It was in- deed a sad time with our people. Most of the settlers had spent their generally very limited means in purchasing their lands and improving them, and were entirely dependent upon their growing erops for a supply of food. All the crops on the bottom lands, nearly or quite one-half of the whole in the county, were almost a total loss, while those on the higher lands were also injured.
Many settlers gave up in despair and, with what they had re- maining, pulled up and left the country for good. A general depression like a dark shadow rested upon the whole country, and the succeeding year was really a season of hard times. A whole chapter of incidents might be written of the losses sustained by that flood, and the only thing that could really be said in its favor was that it drowned most of the striped, gray, and pocket gophers that it caught upon the bottom lands. For several years afterwards the bottom lands were free from these pests.
This county has never since seen as much deprivation, according to the number of people, as that which our people suffered in con- sequence of the flood of 1858. Such experience as that tried the
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souls of both men and women, and those who lived here at that time seldom complain very much of more recent hard times.
The real suffering consequent upon the loss of the crops of 1858 came in 1859, of which more anon.
I have never been able to get a full list of the first grand and petit jurors for the fall term of eourt held in October, 1857, but the following were certainly present at that term, and drew pay, viz: W. W. Robinson, J. B. Jackson, James E. Child, Robert McFate, A. J. Woodbury, S. W. Long, H. G. Mosher, S. J. Willis, P. H. Thomas, John Bailey, Caleb Northup, James Chadwick, P. H. Young, Buel Welsh, Joseph Clayton, M. V. B. Morse, E. G. Wood, John Forrest, H. P. Norton, Francis Green, John Jenkins, Philo Woodruff, Geo. H. Bishop, S. F. Wyman, E. K. Carlton, J. K. Myers, Z. Holbrook, S. W. Franklin, Noah Lincoln, H. P. Chamberlain, and James Roberts.
The first complete lists of jurors on record were made by the county board at the November session of 1858. They were com- posed as follows :
GRAND JURORS.
H. G. Mosher, Geo. W. Watkins, W. W. Robinson, J. B. Hill, W. M. Green, G. W. Turner, J. K. Myers, B. F. Haynes. Montra- ville Sias, L. C. Wood, L. S. Daggett, W. H. Young, T. R. Chapman, J. S. Riee, J. D. Andrews, O. Powell, James E. Child, B. G. Northup, B. M. Morrill, S. W. Franklin, J. W. Clark, W. H. Wy- man, N. P. Fitzgerald, John C. Ide, Geo. P. Johnson, G. W. Avers, S. L. Haines, John Bailey, C. N. Hale, Lewis MeLelland, George T. White (afterwards Capt. White), J. J. Stewart, David Smith, Lewis MeKune, N. E. Strong, Elias Conner, H. D. Baldwin, John Bradish, Elias Goodrich, James Isaacs, William Rockwell, Patrick Healy, John S. MeKune, M. S. Green, J. C. York, A. V. Osdale, George L. Leonard, W. N. Buckhout, L. B. Osgood, John R. Wood.
PETIT JURORS.
Isaac Hamlin, D. J. Jenkins, A. J. Woodbury, David Whipple, Caleb Northup, A. Shaffer, E. S. Woodruff, Moses Camp, E. G. Wood, Charles Graves, L. S. Wood, John Sias, John Forrest, Geo. Clark, E. K. Carlton, A. S. Nelson, Jacob Oorey, John West, Andrew Lynch, John Eldredge, Dow Locke, C. Morrill, Duey
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MeKinster, Peter Lindsay, O. Salisbury, C. O. Norton, B. F. Clark, James Barrie, J. R. West, Robert Lanning, Stephen Bailey, Gould Grover, F. A. Glover, T. J. Kerr, O. K. Woodward, Francis Libbey, Thomas Northup, Alvin Wilson, S. S. Goodrich, John Pratt, William Byron, Richard Ayares, L. P. Stowell, R. H. Lowell, J. A. Wheeler, S. S. Griggs, William Putnam, Samuel Gleason, C. F. Cooper, C. E. Williamson, Richard Dreever, Michael MeKenney, Sigur Johnson, J. M. Bliven, J. V. IIallock, Jeremiah Sullivan, John Cunningham, S. T. Isaacs, James Babcock, John McCue, Thomas Cahill, John Wheeler, Ole Knutson, John Doug- las, Simeon Smith, A. J. Walton, Danel Riegles, James Chadwick, Joseph Churchill, H. J. Allen, I. C. McArthur, J. W. La Paul.
It is suggested that the jury lists of to-day are not very much better than this list of 1858.
CHAPTER XXV, 1859.
STARVATION PRICES IN 1859-SKETCH BY HON. WILLIAM BRIS- BANE-CASES OF POISONING.
The year 1859 opened gloomy enough for the people of Waseca county, as a rule. Of course there were exceptions. A few men were fortunate enough to have saved a good crop of corn in 1858, and before the next spring good corn sold at $1 a bushel. A very few men had a little money, and those few gathered in cattle and horses at very low prices, or loaned their money at from forty to seventy-two per cent per annum. As is invariably the rule when financial disaster sweeps over the country, the rich became richer and the poor poorer. The losses of 1858 made the winter of 1858-9 one of anxiety, and to many a winter of distress. Every family had to exercise the greatest economy. Many farm- ers lived for weeks and months upon corn bread, milk, and but- ter. Some lived during the spring months on wild roots, fish, and wild fowls. All suffered more or less from deprivations of one kind or another.
The haying season of 1858 had been so rainy that there was a scarcity of hay with many and during the early spring time some cattle died of starvation, while the entire lack of grain made both horses and horned cattle look like the lean kine in Joseph's vision.
Hon. William Brisbane, who settled in this county in the spring of 1859, though in comfortable circumstances himself, saw the hardships of the carlier settlers, and contributed the following to the "Album" history of the county in 1887 :
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"Speaking of graham bread," said he, "I can assure you that twenty- eight years ago (1859) a loaf of graham bread or a corn dodger, with a very thin sprinkling of molasses, would have been thankfully received and no questions asked. Those were the days that tried men's stomachs as well as their souls, but we lived and hoped for better days, for we had faith in the natural resources of Waseca county. Thanks to those resources and the industrious energies of the people, our expectations have been fully realized. As the good book says: 'The rain is over and gone, and the time of the singing of birds has come.' Yet I never saw nor knew of a tragedy acted but there was always some comical or ludicrous scenes interlarded with it. * * * The following is said to be a fact, although it smacks of the improbable: A family out in the 'Big Woods' beyond Janesville were sorely pressed, for gaunt Famine was wagging his bony finger in their faces. Almost in despair they went into the woods and tried to find some roots, whereby they might satisfy the cravings of hunger. They were successful in unearthing the sought- for roots, but were afraid that they might be poisonous. Something must be done; they would try an experiment. As luck would have it, there was a crazy sort of fellow in the family; so they thought they would try it on him. If he should die it would be no great loss, and if he lived why couldn't they? You see they were excellent logicians. Well, the crazy fellow lived, but you can bet that he never fared so well again as he did on the day the life or death experiment was tried on him."
Several persons died that spring from eating poisonous herbs and roots. Mr. S. A. Farrington furnishes the following state- ment :
"A sad affliction befell Mr. Quiggle's family in the spring of 1859. The children went out to gather cowslips. Two of the girls ate what they supposed to be that herb. Both were soon taken very sick. One of them, who ate more than the other, vom- ited and afterwards recovered. The other died in a short time in great agony. What they supposed to be cowslip, the doctors called vegetable dog button, a poisonous herb resembling the cowslip. The deceased, who was twelve years old, was buried in a homemade coffin, as there were no undertakers in this see- tion of country at that time."
CHAPTER XXVI, 1859.
NEW BOARD OF SUPERVISORS-COUNTY BONDS ISSUED AT NINE- TY CENTS ON THE DOLLAR-HIGH RATES OF INTEREST-JES- SE I. STEWART AND GEO. T. WHITE REPRESENTATIVES- ABUNDANT CROPS-HAULING WHEAT TO HASTINGS.
The last meeting of the county board of supervisors elected in 1858 was held at Wilton. E. B. Stearns and E. A. Rice were ap- pointed a committee to rent rooms for the use of the county officers for the ensuing year.
The board of supervisors elected in the spring of 1859, met for the first time May 24th. The following gentlemen constituted the board, viz: Philo Woodruff, of Blooming Grove; James Barrie, of St. Mary; Obadiah Powell, of Woodville: G. W. Ayares, of Byron; J. W. La Paul, of Janesville; John Thompson, of New Richland; H. G. Mosher, of Otisco; M. S. Gove, of Wilton; H. D. Baldwin, of Iosco; Ichabod West, of Vivian. The Democrats being in the majority, elected Dr. M. S. Gove chairman for the ensuing year. He made an able and efficient officer.
Messrs. H. G. Mosher, Philo Woodruff, and James Barrie were appointed a committee on accounts, to whom all bills were re- ferred. The first abatement and refunding of taxes ocenrred at this meeting. William Cuddigan (Sir) being unfortunate enough to have suffered from a double assessment, the state tax was ordered to be refunded to him in cash and the other tax in county orders.
This session did a good deal of routine business, but nothing of great importance was accomplished.
The next, or annual, meeting of the board was held September
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13th, 1859, at Wilton. The first business transacted was the pas- sage of an order instructing the proper officers to turn over to George C. Snyder, at ninety cents on the dollar, enough county bonds, bearing fifteen per cent interest, to pay the two notes held by said Snyder, including the interest thereon at five per cent per month from date of notes until payment in said bonds. The bill of Culver, Page & Hoyne, amounting to $487, for books and stationery, was also ordered paid in county bonds at ninety cents on the dollar, with interest thereon at fifteen per cent per annum.
Here are examples of the utter nonsense put forth by money loaners that where there is no law regulating interest, it will be regulated by the security offered. Here was a case where the security was most ample, and yet the money loaners wanted to obtain our county bonds at ninety cents on the dollar, -the bonds bearing fifteen per cent interest on their full face.
At the meeting of the board October 27, 1859, Dr. M. S. Gove, H. G. Mosher, and J. W. La Paul were appointed a committee to purchase the store building of Thomas L. Paige for a court house. The building was bought-Mr. Paige receiving therefor tax-sale certificates to the face value of $700. This structure served the county as a court house until it was destroyed by fire April 3, 1869, a period of nearly ten years. For the $700 in tax certificates, the county saved rent for ten years and then received $600 insurance money for the ashes. That $700 was well invested.
At the fall election of 1859, the Republicans elected their entire ticket. Capt. Geo. T. White and J. I. Stewart were elected to the lower house of the legislature; S. J. Willis was elected auditor; J. I. Stewart, treasurer; David L. Whipple, sheriff; J. A. Canfield, judge of probate; Hon. H. D. Baldwin, county attorney. J. I. Stewart having been elected to the legislature, J. S. Rice, then of New Richland, was appointed to and accepted the office of county treasurer, which he held for two years.
One of the amusing incidents placed on record is the report of Dr. M. S. Gove, who was appointed to "examine the treasurer's account of orders redeemed." His report is recorded as follows: "To the Honorable Board of Supervisors, Waseca county : Your committee, appointed to examine the treasurer's account of orders redeemed, having performed said duty, beg leave to report : Treasurer's register of orders redeemed, to-wit : $3,672.52.
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
The orders redeemed amount to $3,672.80, leaving a default un- accounted for 18 cents.
" (Signed)
M. S. GOVE, Committee."
Evidently the clerk of the board made a mistake in recording the report or else the good doctor made a default in his own figures amounting to ten cents.
The writer has never been able to find any record showing that this default was ever made good by the defaulting treasurer.
For some unexplained reason, no financial statement showing the exact financial standing of the county for the years 1858 and 1859 appears in the records of the county for those years. It was about 1859 that people clamored for a change in the court house officials on account of supposed irregularities. But if there were any such irregularities in fact, they were never brought to light, and probably did not exist.
The most important of all the affairs of 1859 was the abundant harvest of that year. It was really our first great wheat year in this connty-that being the first general introduction of the Scotch Fife wheat in this section. The average yield that year was about twenty bushels per acre, although several fields yielded as high as thirty bushels per acre of the very best quality of wheat. A large proportion of that crop weighed sixty-two pounds to the bushel. What was true of wheat was true of almost every other crop, although corn was considered a little below the aver- age. There were such magnificent erops of all kinds that every resident took hold of the work before him with renewed energy.
Of course prices were prostrated. Just as the gold syndicate and the trusts and combines, aided by the liquor traffic, in 1892. captured both parties and made cowards of the third, just as the giant monopolies of to-day sway legislatures, influence courts and corrupt the ballot box, even so had the deluded voters in 1859 been hugging the vile harlot of slavery until the political atmosphere was filled with poisonous gases of political corruption. The bank- ing system of the politicians of the slaveoeratie party was but an- other name for plundering and robbing the laboring and produc- ing masses. The prolonged poliey of upholding the great wrong of human bondage had brought upon us, as a nation, the inevitable punishment which necessarily follows such wickedness and folly. Strong mechanics were glad to get work then at from seventy-five
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cents to a dollar a day. Any number of farm hands and common laborers could be hired for fifty cents a day. Many suffered for want of even the necessities of life. We have not since reached such universal hard times as then prevailed throughout the coun- try although we had fewer tramps then than now.
That fall, for the first time, our farmers commenced hauling wheat to Hastings. There was no market here, and we were com- pelled to haul it either to Hastings or some other river town. It required a heavy, strong pair of oxen to take through to market forty bushels of wheat at a load, and make the trip from Wilton and return in six days. The price of wheat at Hastings averaged about sixty-two cents per bushel. Perhaps some of our young farmers can figure out the profits of raising wheat and spending six days on the road in marketing each load of forty bushels! Perhaps, too, some of the young wives of to-day can appreciate the situation of a young, married woman living on the prairie alone, for a week at a time, and being compelled to look after the farm chores, while roving Indians might call at any hour of the day or night! How little do those who have never experienced the labors and vicissitudes of pioneer life know of real hardship!
But the grand crops of 1859 had renewed our courage and in- spired our hopes for better times, and every one commenced the year 1860 with the expectation and hope of a "happy new year."
CHAPTER XXVII, 1860.
MILD WINTER-BUILDING OF FIRST JAIL AT WILTON-LIQUOR LICENSES ISSUED-SUPERVISOR SYSTEM ABOLISHED-W. T. KITTREDGE, GEO. H. BISHOP AND JOHN N. POWERS COUNTY COMMISSIONERS,SUCCEEDED BY HAMLIN, HEALY AND LOWELL -THE OUTLOOK-REBELLION, INDIANS, ETC .- ELECTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN-LEGISLATIVE ELECTION OF DR. WATSON, WM. F. PETTIT, JAMES E. CHILD-GOOD CROPS-JOHN BROWN RAID-CENSUS BY C. O. NORTON-TOTAL POPULATION 2,598.
This was not only the most eventful year in the history of this nation, but one of the most eventful in the history of this state. To begin with the winter of 1859-60 was something new in the his- tory of Minnesota. The four preceding winters had been of the snow-bound pattern, lined with ive, decorated with Pembina frosts and fanned by Manitoba blizzards. The four preceding winters had been so uniformly and intensely cold that no one expected anything milder than a 2:40 breeze from Manitoba with the mer- cury all the way from zero to forty degrees below, in Minnesota.
The people of the state were therefore somewhat surprised to have a winter with only one week of sleighing and the thermom- eter running from zero up to 30 and 40 degrees above. I remem- ber the winter very well, for I was interested with my brother, S. P. Child in furnishing five hundred cords of wood to the St. Mary Mill company. We were compelled to haul nearly all of it on wagons.
There seemed to be a general feeling that hard times had reached the bottom rung of the financial ladder, and that peo- ple must commenee to build anew upon the bed-rock of industry
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
and economy. Most of the property of the country had been mortgaged at exorbitant rates of interest and sooner or later fell into the hands of the money loaners who were forced to sell it for what they could get on credit and at a much lower rate of interest. The money loaners had killed the geese that had laid the golden eggs, and they were compelled to await the growth of a new brood of goslings before they could again gather in their harvest.
As stated in the preceding chapter, a change of county officials was made in the fall of 1859, and about the 1st of January, 1860, S. J. Willis became county auditor, J. S. Rice treasurer, and David L. Whipple, sheriff. On the 11th of January, 1860, the county board of supervisors commenced an important session, and among other matters, decided to build a county jail. As this was the first jail in the county, the proceedings of the board in relation there- to will be of interest. The following resolution was adopted by the board :
"Resolved by the board of supervisors of the county of Wa- seca and State of Minnesota, that the sheriff of said county (D .L. Whipple), be and is hereby empowered, authorized and required to proceed immediately to erect a suitable building for the con- finement of criminals or other persons who may be committed or confined therein according to law, and that said building shall be erected immediately in the rear and adjoining to the county building now occupied by the register of deeds, to be built of timber, hewn at least on three sides, (and to be) sixteen by cight- een feet square, one story high, faced on the inside by sheet iron securely nailed to timber. That the (said) building shall be in all respects, not herein named, constructed under the immediate su- pervision and control of said sheriff, in such a manner as he shall think best, in order to accomplish the object sought by this res- olution.
"And it is hereby ordered that the sum of three hundred dollars be and is hereby appropriated in tax certificates of lands sold and bid off by said county for the taxes for the year 1858, and that said sheriff is hereby authorized to give a receipt for and receive an assignment of said tax certificates equal to one-half the amount herein appropriated when he shall obtain from the commissioners (to be) hereafter elected for the county of Waseca
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a certificate that one-half of the above amount has been expend- ed by said sheriff in the construction of said building. He (the sheriff) is authorized to employ assistance or employ agents to perform the work herein named, in the same manner as he is by this resolution authorized to perform the same; said building to be built in an economical manner, and said sheriff shall not receive tax certificates to a greater amount than what the actual cost of said building amounts to."
"And be it further ordered that the county commissioners here- after to be elected shall and are hereby appointed a building eom- mittee to audit said sheriff's account and authorize the payment of the balance due said sheriff when said building shall have been finished. And said commissioners are authorized to accept said building when properly finished in behalf of the said county of Waseca, and make a full settlement with said sheriff for his ser- vices, said building not to cost a greater amount than hereinbefore named and as much less an amount as said sheriff can make the cost of the same. And said sheriff is hereby authorized to parti- tion off from the first story of the county building in the north end, and contiguous to the contemplated shutup,' ten feet for his office. And it is further ordered that the sheriff, in acting as agent for the county in the erection of said jail, shall keep a eor- rect account of all labor and material expended, and shall be re- quired to make a certificate of all amounts expended as afore- said."
At the same meeting, upon the request of B. S. Hall and George W. Johnson, known as Hall & Johnson, of Wilton, the said county board "being satisfied that they are of good moral character and of sufficient ability to keep a tavern and sell spirituous liquors," and upon receipt of $50 into the county treasury, issued a li- cense for the sale of spirituous and other intoxicating liquors to be drunk in the inn, or tavern, aforesaid.
On the 26th of April following, Geo. H. Woodbury, of the Wash- ington House in Wilton, was also licensed to sell intoxicating liquors for a fee of $50. These were the first legalized dram-shops in the county, although liquors had been sold the same as other merchandise ever since the first establishment of stores and groe- eries. At that time $50 was considered an enormously high
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CHILD'S HISTORY OF WASECA COUNTY.
tax to pay for the glorious privilege of making a brother man drunk.
By act of the legislature, approved February 28th, 1860, the supervisor system of county government was abolished and sub- stantially the present county commissioner system was adopt- ed. Under the provisions of that act, W. T. Kittredge, Geo. H. Bishop, and John N. Powers were chosen commissioners.
Their first meeting was held April 26th, 1860, and a large amount of business was done in a very orderly and systematic manner, showing clearly the lawyer-like hand of Maj. Kittredge, who was made chairman of the board. Among other orders made and adopted is this one which will make the eyes of modern office-holders green with envy, so magnificent was the salary! It reads as follows :
"Ordered, That, in pursuance of the statute, the sum of $330 is hereby fixed and declared to be the amount allowed to the coun- ty auditor as his salary for the eleven months beginning on the 1st day of April, 1860. * * and the said auditor is hereby authorized to draw from the county treasury at the end of each and every month the sum of thirty dollars in payment of the amount of his said salary due him for that month, depositing a receipt therefor."
This was the salary of Mr. Willis, the first county auditor of the county, for his first year. The second year it was raised to $466.66 to be drawn monthly.
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