Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 35

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 1190

USA > Minnesota > Hennepin County > Minneapolis > Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota > Part 35

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Just at the beginning of the year 1914 an index to the state of progress of Minneapolis as a whole was supplied in the form of remarkable munificence at the hands of a man who, dying, left mostly to the people the millions he had made chiefly in the industry around which the city has been built up. Thus it is possible to indicate the city's acquired power to ap- preciate, by chronicling the gifts by William H. Dun- woody, miller, of $1,000,000 to the stocking of the art museum ; of $1,000,000 to $3,000,000 to establish an industrial school or institute for the youth; and of smaller sums to educational and cultural institutions. These gifts were provided by Mr. Dunwoody, in his will, for the people of a city which sprang in 1847, and the years following, from a wilderness; but which because it was peopled in the beginning by men and women of culture, of refinement, of moral strength, and of high ideals, became a municipality with a city sense, a community with a common purpose, a unit of society with appreciation of its duty toward the com- mon good.

CHAPTER XVII.

PERSONAL AND HISTORICAL REMINISCENCES BY PROMINENT CITIZENS.

R. P. UPTON'S NOTES ON EARLY DAYS IN ST. ANTHONY-CHAS. M. LORING'S "VISTA OF FIFTY YEARS"-THOS. B. WALKER'S REMINISCENCES, HISTORICAL SKETCHIES, AND NOTES ON LUMBER MANUFACTURING AT ST. AN- TIIONY'S FALLS-GEO. H. CHRISTIAN'S NOTES ON EARLY ROLLER MILLING IN MINNEAPOLIS AND HOW CERTAIN RAILROADS OPPRESSED THE MILLERS-GEORGE H. WARREN'S NOTES AN EXCERPT FROM "THE PIONEER WOODSMAN AS HE IS RELATED TO LUMBERING IN THIE NORTHWEST. "

The artieles on Minneapolis history here given are both interesting and valuable. They have been pre- pared by citizens who had the opportunity to make mueh of the city's early and important history and were gifted with the ability and capacity to write about it. What they have said, therefore, may be re- garded as fairly authoritative. Of the history they have set down it may be said that all of it they saw and a great part of it they were.

There may be a few errors of statement but they cannot be many or serious. The writers have told their stories well and generations for many years to come will profit by and enjoy reading them. They were written with the idea that other articles might be prepared and derived from them, but, with only one exception, it was considered best to present them in their original form. Upon the whole it was be- lieved to be unnecessary, if not impossible, to try to better them.

R. P. UPTON'S NOTES OF EARLY ST. ANTHONY.

Rufus P. Upton, who was among the earliest pio- neers of St. Anthony, wrote, some years ago, a few notes of certain incidents connected with the early history of St. Anthony and Minneapolis. These notes have been kindly furnished for use in this history by Mr. E. K. Upton, a son of the pioneer, and the sue- ceeding paragraphs have been derived from them.

"I arrived in St. Anthony in the month of June, A. D. 1850," writes Mr. Upton, "from the good old State of Maine. I spent the first summer and fall in teaching school in the little old school house but re- eently seen on University Avenue." Of his succeed- ing experiences the old pioneer writes :

"The following spring found me on the first steam- boat on my way to Davenport, Iowa, where I made an arrangement with a nurseryman for a quantity of fruit and ornamental trees, shrubbery, and flowers, and also purchased a variety of poultry. The nur- sery was planted and the poultry vard located on the lower part of Nicollet Island, where is now the long stone building of the Island Power Company. They were hauled to the Island from the east side, fording the river. This was the first nursery in the State. The most of the fruit trees died and the remainder,

after a few years, was removed and was the beginning of Ford's Nursery, half way between this eity and St. Paul.

"The same year-in June, I think -- I succeeded J. M. and Wm. R. Marshall in the grocery business, which was carried on in a little store near Captain John Rollins's old house, on Main Street, E. D .; I lived in the rear end of the building. I remained in this building between one and two years, when I re- moved to King's building, near the site of the Pills- bury 'A' Mill, and branched out into a general store of dry goods, clothing, boots and shoes, iron, steel, nails, glass, and blacksmith's tools.

"In the fall of 1853 I leased from Col. J. H. Stevens a store located near where the Pauly House now stands, and stocked it with goods. Thomas Chambers had been clerking for me for some time and I gave him an interest in and full charge of this store, thus constituting the firm of Upton & Chambers. This was the first store in Minneapolis, on the west side. The next spring (1854) the store building burned, and I sold the stock of goods remaining after the fire to Mr. Chambers 'on time.' Soon after he formed a partnership with Edwin Hedderly and the business became a success. Isaae I. Lewis had the seeond (or third) store on the west side, near the site of Harlow Gale's City Market ; I sold him his stock of goods amounting to $2,000.

"In the spring of 1854 Capt. John Rollins, Judge Isaac Atwater, Franklin Steele, and I went to Dr. Kingsley's house, on Hennepin Island. The doctor claimed the entire Island because he had jumped Mr. Steele's claim to it, and there was a controversy be- tween them over the property which we went to settle. We succeeded in effecting a compromise between the parties. Dr. Kingsley took the southwest part of the Island, commencing near the Falls, where is now the East Side City Water Works, and Mr. Steele took the remainder of the Island. At the same time Capt. Rollins, John W. Eastman, M. P. Upton, and myself obtained from Mr. Steele a lease for a flouring mill site and water to run a mill on the east side of the Island. The rate of rent agreed upon for the first twenty years (I think) was $200 per year.

"The lessees at once proceeded to build a flouring miill. W. W. Eastman came soon after, took half of

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

his brother's interest, and acted as agent at a salary of $800 a year ; M. P. Upton and I acted as treasurers without salary. The establishment was called the Minnesota Mills. It was 40 by 50 feet in size, and was of wood on a stone foundation. The millstones were three French buhrs, four and one-half feet in diam- eter, and two of them were for grinding wheat and the other for corn and feed. This was the first mer- chant mill in the State. At first all the wheat ground in it was brought up the river from Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. At that date it was not thought practi- cable to raise wheat with complete success in Minne- sota ; attempts at Fort Snelling and elsewhere had been largely total failures. The largest stock we ever had on hand for a winter's run was 20,000 bushels. The market for all our products was readily found at home. Our wheat and our goods all had to be hauled from St. Paul by teams, at an expense of from $2 to $3 a ton, and besides the warehouse charges in St. Paul were not small items. These and other con- siderations had often set the business men of the young city to discussing the practicability of navigat- ing the Mississippi to the Falls by steamboats during the periods of very high water.

"In July, 1850, the steamer Dr. Franklin No. 2, Capt. D. S. Harris, came up to where the Tenth Avenue Iron Bridge now is, and turned in the swift current and went. back to St. Paul. But the boat was handicapped; the captain was said to be 'pretty full,' the boat carried a head of steam of 120 pounds, and the river was the highest I ever saw it. The Anthony Wayne, Capt. Dan Able, had preceded the Franklin to near the Falls, and the Lamartine fol- lowed the Franklin in a few days. After 1850 a long time elapsed before we saw another steamboat at Minneapolis.

"In the spring of 1855 I purchased in Pittsburg 100 tons of iron, steel, nails, etc., and ordered the stock shipped to Minneapolis. The bill of lading was to 'St. Paul or St. Anthony' and the rate of freight 90 cents to St. Paul and $1 to St. Anthony. Knowing that without help the goods would not get above St. Paul, I drove down there to meet them. Before leav- ing home I met Judge Meeker, who knew my business, and he handed me a $100 check to hand to the pilot of the steamboat as a 'persuader'-to induce him to agree to steer his boat up the dangerous channel to Minneapolis. The steamer did not arrive until the evening of my second trip to St. Paul.

"I immediately went on board and was followed by numerous citizens of St. Paul, who knew my busi- ness, and they put more obstructions and dangers in the river than belonged there. They told the captain that he would surely lose his boat if he attempted to make the trip. (They wanted the job of hauling the goods with teams.) Finally the captain put the re- sponsibility upon the pilot and left it to him to de- cide whether the boat should go or not. I then showed the pilot the $100 'persuader,' and he decided to make the trip! But the captain said it was late, and that he would not be ready to start until morn- ing; so I returned home and the next morning hur- ried back to St. Paul. When I arrived I found that

some of our friends at 'the head of navigation' had got the pilot senselessly drunk and laid him away ! Then I negotiated with the second pilot, gave him the check, went into the pilot house with him, and he took the wheel, and we came up to St. Anthony with- out difficulty. Before noon we landed on the flat just below the University, the place being known as Cheever's Landing.

"This incident incited other boats to follow and helped to awaken an interest in the subject of steam- boat navigation. Drawing.up a paper, I proceeded to get subscriptions to a fund to bring about in some way the running of boats to the Falls. By heading it with a liberal sum myself, I succeeded in getting a subscription of $5,000, about half of which was paid up. With this subscription paper I went down to Dubuque, where a line of boats running to St. Paul was owned. I went to J. P. Farley, who was then extensively engaged in trade, had stock in the steam- boat company, and controlled the steamer Lamartine. He took kindly to the proposition I made him, talked with his associates, and called a meeting of prominent business men to whom I made a proposition to form a transportation company which should be mutually beneficial. They fell in with the proposition, and we formed a new company with which the Minneapolis interest was merged. The Dubuque parties had two- thirds of the stock and the Minneapolis men had one- third.

"Mr. Farley and I then went to St. Louis and bought the steamer Hindoo, which I partly loaded with goods for St. Anthony. We both came up on her, but by this time the summer was well advanced and the river was very low. On the rocks and rapids below Cheever's Landing the boat stuck; she was a heavy side-wheeler and drew too much water for our trade. After several ineffectual attempts to reach Cheever's, the Hindoo was compelled to drop back and finally landed my goods at what came to be called Meeker's Landing. just above the castern end of the Short Line Bridge. The citizens turned out and. graded a road up the bank, which subsequently was quite useful. After this, during the proper season, the Lamartine and the Hindoo ran on the river below. R. W. Cummings was chief clerk of the Hindoo and represented our interests in both boats. The follow- ing winter (1855-56) they were sold; the river proved to be not suited to the navigation conditions which we needed. The company then dissolved with a small profit to its credit.

"In. the fall of 1856 the Minneapolis Board of Trade took hold of the matter of improving the river. About $5,000 was raised and a committee appointed to carry out the improvement. Edward Murphy and I were members of this committee; I do not remem- ber who the other members were. By the following spring (1857) we had removed all interfering rocks and buoyed out a channel 70 feet wide. Pursuant to an arrangement a line of boats ran that season from Fulton City, Ill., to Cheever's Landing, bringing up all our freight and many passengers. We also put a capstan on the lower end of the levee, and with a three- inch cable, more than half a mile long, helped the

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

weak boats over the rapids with a span of horses. At Cheever's Landing were erected several honses, one of which was quite large and roomy. Not a vestige of any of them now remains.

"Then came the destructive financial distresses of 1857-58, which 'knocked on the head' so many West- ern interests. We had scarcely recovered from this period of hard times when the War of the Rebellion came and for some time interfered with all our enter- prises. Not long after its close the railroads came and well nigh put the steamboats out of business."

Although Mr. Upton must be regarded as among the very highest anthorities on Minneapolis history, other authorities differ from him. As to early steam- boat history, Hudson (p. 463) says :

"At last, in 1854, the citizens of Minneapolis and St. Anthony organized a stock company, with $30,000 capital, and subsequently put a boat called the Falls City regularly in the Minneapolis and lower river trade. Capt. J. C. Reno, an Ohio River steamboat- man, came to Minneapolis in 1856, and in 1857 be- came interested in the development of river traffic here, and through his exertions four boats were put regularly in the trade. During 1857 there were 52 arrivals of steamboats at Minneapolis and 10,000 tons of freight were discharged on the landings below the present Washington Avenue Bridge."

Mr. Upton says the first local steamboat company was not organized until in 1855 and then with a cap- ital of but $5,000, instead of $30,000, and that the boat put in was the Hindoo. He does not mention the Falls City or Capt. Reno. There are other disagree- ments between the authorities.

REMINISCENCES, HISTORICAL SKETCHES, AND GENERAL REVIEW OF LUMBER MANUFACTURING IN MINNEAPOLIS-BY T. B. WALKER.

It was an unfortunate experience that when the settlement of Minneapolis began, the present site of the city on the west side of the river was a Govern- ment military reservation held for no particular pur- pose whatever, but preventing the settlement and building of what would probably have been the first settlement and first city and the most important on the Mississippi River above St. Louis.

The settlement in St. Paul began in 1838. Jack- son's store and trading house was established in what is now St. Paul in 1841. In 1842 and 1843 a number of other settlers came, and in 1844 Louis Robert estab- lished a store in St. Paul and trading posts among the Indians and continued trading with them for many years. The first deed recorded in St. Paul was a quitelaim made April 23, 1844.

In 1838, Franklin Steele made the first land claim by permit of the Government. Ile built a claim shanty and hired a Frenchman to occupy it. Steele secured the claim interests of certain officers at Fort Snelling, and in 1848 secured a title from the United States. His claims covered the whole east side water power from above Nicollet Island to a point below the Falls. Soon after, there was undertaken the con- struetion of a sawmill on the east side water power.

Ard Godfrey was sent for from Maine to construct the mill, which was built and ready for operation in 1849. This was the beginning of the lumber business in Minneapolis. In connection with the building of the mill projected by Frank Steele, Caleb Dorr and Ard Godfrey, a millwright, both from Maine, were engaged to build the log dam across the east channel of the river at the head of Hennepin Island. This work was partially finished in 1848 and some sawing was done in the mill. This original mill had one old-fashioned sash saw that was run by water power of only ten or fifteen feet head. Calvin Tuttle was associated with Ard Godfrey in the building of the mill and R. P. Russell backed up the enterprise by furnishing supplies in the way of groceries, pro- visions, etc.

Caleb Dorr brought from Maine in 1850 a shingle mill which he intended to install on the Falls, but for some reason sold it to the Government and it was taken up to Fort Ripley and operated by mule power for making shingles to cover the roofs of the Fort buildings. The output of Mr. Steele's mill in 1849 was something less than three-quarters of a million feet of lumber of rather inferior grade and rather poorly sawed, being cut by an upright muley saw that ran about as fast as one could climb up and down stairs. In 1849 two additional mills were built next to Mr. Steele's mill, making three in all. In 1850, Sumner W. Farnum leased the power com- pany's three mills and operated them for about two years. In 1853 Henry T. Welles invested a consider- able sum of money in increasing the mills until the aggregate was eight, which he controlled for a couple of years and then, in 1857, sold them to Dorilus Morrison, who for that year operated all of the eight mills, each having one saw.

The Territorial Government was organized in 1849 and Judge Meeker held the first court in the old Gov- ernment Mill on the west side, Franklin Steele being foreman of the Grand Jury. During this year school was opened in a log cabin which later in the year was replaced by a frame schoolhouse, in which Rev. E. D. Neill, a Presbyterian minister of St. Paul, preached every alternate Sunday afternoon. The townsite of Minneapolis was laid out to the extent of one hun- dred acres, including what is now Bridge Square, by Col. John H. Stevens. He gave away many quarter- acre lots to people who would build homes and soon a little village was started. In 1858 the town was organized.

In the latter part of 1856, the Minneapolis Mill · Company was organized and bought the claims of Edwin Hedderly and Anson Northrup and began the construction of a dam for utilizing the water power on the west side. In 1857 W. D. Washburn, then a young man of 26, came from the old home of the nu- merous family of distinguished brothers in Maine, and arrived in Minneapolis on the first of May, and opened a law office. Soon after, Mr. Washburn was appointed secretary and agent of the mill company, and began the construction of the dam from the cen- ter of the river to the west bank; the work was car- ried on during the panicky days of 1857. The Com-

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

pany completed the dam and was ready for leasing sites and power during 1857, although burdened with debts and obligations which the panic made it im- practicable to pay.

The mills built on the west side of the river were leased to Eastman, Bovey & Co .; Leonard, Day & Sons; Ankeny, Robinson & Pettit, and Cole & Ham- mond. Mr. Eastman retired from the firm of East- man, Bovey & Co., and H. D. Eastman and H. M. DeLaittre became members of the firm. Later this firm purchased one of the mill-sites on the east side dam and built a mill and operated it until in 1887, when the cast side mills burned and the Bovey- DeLaittre Lumber Company, with John DeLaittre, president, H. M. DeLaittre, vice president, and C. A. Bovey, secretary and treasurer, purchased a site near the mouth of Shingle Creek and bought the Camp & Walker sawmill, which was located on the river bank at the foot of First Avenue North, and moved it to the new site, and remodeled and enlarged it.

The first mills on the west side marketed their lum- ber by rafting below the Falls, over which the lumber was carried in sluiceways down to the quiet waters, where the lumber was put in rafts containing one million or two million feet. The rafts were taken down the river sometimes by steam tugs and some- times being floated with the current and steered with very large rear oars that kept them in the channel. This piloting required very careful work and experi- enced men to avoid breaking the rafts on the curved banks of the river and on the bars and shallows.

This rafting was the only way of getting to market the surplus lumber aside from that required to sup- ply the demand in St. Anthony and later in Minne- apolis and in St. Paul, although at rather an . town of Minneapolis, he gave me quite a glowing ac- early date Prince's mill was built on the flats count of the prospects of the great city to be built by the great water power of St. Anthony Falls, to which was tributary a vast empire of the richest agricultural land, great forests of splendid white pine timber that would be brought to Minneapolis and manufactured and thence distributed over Illinois, Iowa, southern Minnesota, Kansas, and Nebraska. The Dakotas, to the west of us, were then regarded as arid regions unfit for cultivation or settlement, prac- tically valueless, though comprising millions of acres, or thousands of square miles of territory. at St. Paul, just east of where the Union Depot now stands, which supplied the local mar- kct in large part. This method of handling the lumber was to put it into rafts of from three-quarters to one million feet in a raft. On the top of this was sometimes quite large quantities of shingles, and often Major Bassett, who had a tub and pail factory at the West Side Falls, put large numbers of his tubs and pails on the top of the rafts from his lumber mill connected with the factory,, and in that way marketed a considerable part of his stock.

This method continued for several years, when the construction of railroads and the settlement of the nearby tributary lands made more of a home market. This market was opened in 1874 by the extension of the St. Paul & Pacific road from St. Paul through Minneapolis and out as far as Willmar. The St. Paul & Sioux City road was built from St. Paul through Sioux City and down to Omaha in the dec- ade of 1870. The Milwaukee road, which had been in operation for a number of years from Milwaukee to La Crosse, was extended through to St. Paul and Minneapolis in the '70s. The St. Cloud branch of the St. Paul & Pacific was built up to Elk River, and extended on through to St. Cloud and on out to Crook- ston in the '80s, and the Willmar main line was car- ried on through to Moorhead in the same decade.

The Chicago & Milwaukee, from Minneapolis through Northfield and on through Iowa, connecting with Chi- cago, and the Minneapolis & St. Louis, from Minne- apolis to Albert Lea, were also built in the '80s; the M. & St. L. was constructed by Minneapolis men. These, with their extensions and some other roads (in- cluding the St. Paul & Duluth, the Northwestern through Wisconsin to St. Paul and Minneapolis, and the Northern Pacific through Minnesota and on to the Pacific Coast, with its branch a little later from Min- neapolis and St. Paul, and the Sault Ste. Marie road), with their developments, furnished abundant outlet for all the lumber manufactured in Minne- apolis after their construction.

In these days of rafting, in 1862, the writer of this article was a traveling salesman. The time was dur- ing the discouraging years of the Civil War, when trade was stagnant and it was expected that the bot- tom would fall out of everything. I extended my travels out to McGregor, Iowa, on the west side of the Mississippi, opposite Prairie du Chien. After canvassing that very thrifty town, into which the farmers were coming from 75 to 100 miles distant to market their grain and purchase supplies, and while I was sitting in front of the little frame hotel, a Min- neapolis lumberman, Mr. J. M. Robinson, joined me. He was then a salesman member of the firm of An- keny, Robinson & Pettit, and volunteered an account of his occupation as salesman for lumber in rafts, which were coming down the river. He was waiting for the first raft to come in in order to market and deliver the lumber, of which certain portions were to be purchased by the people of McGregor. Being very friendly, as well as a loyal citizen of the little

General W. B. Hazen, of the U. S. army, located at Fort Buford. N. D., reported officially to the govern- ment, that the territory west of the valley of the Red River of the North was an arid alkali country, with- out rain or means of irrigation, and without drink- ing water, as the underground supply was alkali and unfit for use for either stock or people. In view of this report, Mr. George B. Wright, a prominent government surveyor, in talking with me about the country between the Red River of the North and the Missouri, said that he. would not survey this country if the whole tract were given to him for his work, which would amount to about two cents an acre. This sentiment prevailed to large extent until the time when James J. Hill undertook the extensions of the old St. Paul & Pacific road through as far west as settlements were extended, but presumably not far-

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HISTORY OF MINNEAPOLIS AND HENNEPIN COUNTY, MINNESOTA

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Compendium of history and biography of Minneapolis and Hennepin County, Minnesota, Part 35

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co. Number of Pages: 1190

Author: Holcombe, R. I. (Return Ira), 1845-1916; Bingham, William H
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago : H. Taylor & Co.
Number of Pages: 1190