USA > Minnesota > Polk County > Compendium of history and biography of Polk County, Minnesota > Part 67
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For awhile our adventurers lived under a tree and began at onee to break their land. They got fifteen acres broken the first year, and then had a long fight with the blackbirds in getting their seed covered, and they also planted a few potatoes. Mr. Fleming used his yoke teams for some years, then traded them for horses, which he found more satisfactory. In winter he took a load of lumber to Grand Forks, a distance of seven miles in a straight line, but eighteen traveling on the iee on the Red Lake river. In March the ice broke under his team and he lost both of his horses, during the deepening gloom of a dark night, and
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within eighty rods of his home. The Sioux and Chip- pewa Indians were frequent visitors at his home, and they would dig potatoes and do other work for food. IIe built a log house as soon as he was able, and his neighbors did the same, caeh putting up one for him- self. Upon one occasion three bears were shot within a few rods of the log house.
In the course of a few years Mr. Fleming became the owner of 423 aeres of land, through which he gave the railroad company a right of way. He raised grain and live stoek, good horses and Shorthorn eattle, and was the first man in his locality to own an im- ported stallion.
By his first marriage Mr. Fleming beeame the father of ten children, one of whom died in infaney. His son John died of fever January 26, 1894, aged twenty- two, and his son Robert of the same illness two days earlier at the age of twenty. The children who are living are: William, who is a farmer in California; Mary, who is the wife of John Sileox and lives in
Saskatchewan, Canada; David, who is a member of the police force in Crookston; Margaret, who mar- ried Thomas Cameron and is also a resident of Sas- katchewan; Isabel, who is Mrs. John Chaplin, of Sas- katehewan; Thomas, who is living on the old family homestead, and Frank, who is a mechanic and a resi- dent of East Grand Forks.
In 1898 Mr. Fleming revisited Scotland, and on his return he built the fine dwelling house now on his farm. He has also put up good barns and other struc- tures needed on the farm at a cost of $6,000. He has taken a very active and helpful part in the affairs of the Bethel Presbyterian church, which he helped to build, on the bank of the Marias river, and which all the members of his family living near enough attend regularly.
Mrs. Fleming died in California October 23, 1903, and in November, 1911, he sold the place and moved to his present residence in East Grand Forks.
ASA ALVERN MERRILL.
Owning 480 acres of well-drained, highly improved and very produetive land in seetious 33, 34 and 35, in Nesbit township, and knowing how to farm it to the best advantage, the late Asa A. Merrill was one of the substantial and prosperous farmers of Polk county, and he was what he was because he had the ability, pluck and self-reliance to make himself so. HIe was born in the state of New York May 14, 1861, and was something more than a year older than his brother, C. A. Merrill, a sketch of whom, containing the family history, is published in this volume.
Mr. Merrill eame to Minnesota with his parents after a residenee of some time in Boone county, Illi- nois. He remained at home until February 16, 1887, when he was united in marriage with Miss Mary Speiser, a native of Germany, who came to this eoun- try alone when she was twenty years of age. She lived with her brothers in Minneapolis and visited Polk county, and she thus beeame acquainted with
Mr. Merrill, to whom she was a helpmate in the best and most serviceable significance of the term.
After his marriage Mr. Merrill formed a partner- ship with his brother, A. C., and together they pur- chased their father's farm, on which A. C. afterward lived. The partnership was dissolved at the end of two years, and then Asa A. Merrill moved to the farm on which he lived until his death. His father gave him this 160 acres unimproved and without buildings of any kind, the son having ereeted the buildings now standing on the farm in 1889 at a cost of over $4,000.
Mr. Merrill, after living some years on his first 160 aeres, bought 160 acres more in seetion 35 and another in section 34, making 480 acres in all. He also owned a traet of timber land on the Red Lake river.
For the prairie land he owned Mr. Merrill paid $20 an acre. He raised grain on a large scale and farmed in the most enterprising and progressive manner after he got his land drained and in a condition to work
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with some degree of eertainty. A picture still extant showing him and his force engaged in harvesting one season exhibits a long line of reapers with plenty of men to handle their operations. His plan was to har- vest, thresh his grain, stack his straw and do his plow- ing all at one time and with the same motive power, and he employed thirty hands in this work.
But he did not reach this leading position among the farmers of the county without many disasters and misfortunes. For years hail storms destroyed his crops. At other times the heat in dry seasons burned them up, and at still others the land was so wet that it would not produce much. One year the whole crop on 400 acres was lost. But in time the ditch was dug, and after that conditions were far better and prosper-
ity came rapidly and kept coming with steadily in- creasing volume.
Mr. Merrill served as treasurer of Nesbit township three years, and as school director of his district many more. Fraternally he was a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and in religious matters was friendly to all churches but favored none in par- tieular. He died July 20, 1914, and, as he was a reso- lute and energetie man, was his own manager to the time of his death. He and his wife were the parents of four children. Myrtie was drowned in the Red Lake river at the age of thirteen. Ira is operating the farm. Floy is the wife of E. F. Hollands, an engineer, and lives in Winnipeg, and Arthur is still living with his mother, who continues to live on the farmn.
GEORGE COULTER.
This gentleman, who built up and developed the Forest Home stock farm of 800 aeres in Huntsville township, this county, and gave it a national reputa- tion, turned his attention to a new enterprise, that of clearing, improving and transforming into a good farm 320 acres of brush land in Beltrami county, ten miles south of Bemidji. He built his dwelling near a fine spring on the farm and at once began eleaning up the land. In the two years of effort which he has devoted to this work he has cleared seventy-five aeres and built two miles and a half of good road, being still very enterprising, although well advanced in age. He paid $20 an acre for his land and it is now worth $35 and steadily increasing in value.
Mr. Coulter was born in County Lanark, Ontario, January 31, 1856, and became a resident of Polk County about 1875. He took a homestead at what is now the village of Mallory on the Great Northern rail- road, and on this he lived about ten years, several of them as a bachelor and doing his own housework, often having other young men visiting him. His next home was the renowned Forest Home stoek farm, which is now occupied by his son George. He bought a small part of this at first and kept on increasing it until he
now owns 800 aeres in one body in this farm. He con- ducted its cultivation and live stock industry until 1912, when he turned it over to his son.
On this farm Mr. Coulter, the elder, bred Aberdeen- Angus cattle for beef and exhibition, and showed specimens at local and state fairs in Minnesota, win- ning many first prizes, keeping up the industry until he left the farm and sometimes raising 100 head of beef cattle in a year, but selling most of his produet for breeding purposes. He also bred and exhibited Scotch collie dogs, being an enthusiast in these as well as in Aberdeen-Angus eattle.
The Forest Home stock farm is composed in part of railroad and school land and the residence on it is on the bank of Red Lake river in a fine location. A good house which Mr. Coulter had previously built was destroyed by fire in 1906. Grain was his principal agricultural prodnet while he managed the farm, and of this he was one of the most extensive producers in Polk county, but he was also a leader in the live stock industry, and takes no backward place in any line of endeavor in which he engages.
On May 1, 1882, when there was a foot of snow on the ground, Mr. Coulter was married in Grand Forks
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to Miss Agnes Brown, a daughter of Aaron Brown of East Grand Forks, a sketch of whom appears in this work. She was not yet seventeen at the time of her marriage, but she at once took charge of the house- keeping at the old homestead, and there one daughter was born in the family. She and five of the subse- quent children are living, one having died in infancy. Margaret is the wife of Jesse Coulter, at The Point on Red River, and has four children, Clara, William, Kenneth and Myra. George L., who has charge of the stock farm, married Miss Mary Cole and has two
children, Lorna and Robert. Harrict, a graduate of the Agricultural college at Crookston, is the wife of Irving Bjerke, of Bemidji. Florence, who completed her education at the University of North Dakota, is the wife of Benjamin Dietz and lives on her father's old homestead. She has two children, her daughters, Agnes and Jean. Alvin and Elsie are living with their parents, the latter being a student at the high school in East Grand Forks. All the members of the family have been reared in and hold to the Presby- terian church.
OLOF ERICKSON.
Almost single handed and alone this hardy adven- turer dared the dangers and defied the hardships and privations of the frontier when he located on 160 aeres of the farm he now ocenpies in Section 34, Fisher township, this county, which he took as a homestead in 1874. He was then the resident dwelling farthest south in this region, but Andrew and Nels Malmberg, who came with him, were perhaps not very far away. They had all worked on the Northern Pacific railroad, and the Malmbergs had helped to build it into Crooks- ton. On February 21st and 22d Mr. Eriekson walked from Glyndon to Crookston alone, a distance of 68 miles. In April, 1874, he dug a eellar and put up a log house. No trains went to Crookston that winter.
Mr. Erickson was born in Sweden April 12, 1843, and remained in that country until he reached the age of twenty-six years. In 1869 he came to the United States, stopping at Red Wing, Minnesota, for a short time, then going to Sioux City, Iowa, to work on a railroad in course of construction from Lemars cast through Cherokee to Storm Lake, which is now a part of the Illinois Central system. The only railroad into Sioux City at that time was the Missouri Valley from Council Bluffs.
In 1871 Mr. Erickson joined the force on the North- ern Pacific and helped to build that road to Moorhead. He saved $300 of his earnings at railroad work, but felt that this was insufficient for his venture in the
wilderness. Therefore, after he filed on his homestead he went to Winnipeg and for a year he worked in a brickyard in that city, thereby laying up more money, and a few years afterward he bought eighty acres of railroad land at $9 an acre, with the usual rebate con- ditions included in the contract. This tract contained forty acres of timber, which the owner has found to be enough for all his needs.
Mr. Erickson built the dwelling honse which he now oeeupies in 1900 and made the other improvements on the place at different times. His principal industry has been raising grain, mostly wheat, but he has also raised a large number of heavy draft horses for sale in the neighborhood and elsewhere. He has served as road overseer, and in that capacity has helped to im- prove roads in his township. Ile and his neighbors built the first bridges on the crecks and the river at Fisher. He farmed with oxen six years and was the first one to cross Fisher bridge with an ox team.
In all the early activities of this part of the North- west Mr. Eriekson had a busy hand. He helped to load the first car filled with wheat that ran out of Crookston in the fall of 1875, he and five or six of his neighbors having sold 400 bushels for the purpose at 90 cents a bushel. But he did not forget the "girl he left behind him" in the old country. After he had been in the United States three years and got a good start here he sent back to Sweden for her to come
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over. She came and they were married in Duluth, and when they took possession of their Polk county home they had one ehild.
This first child, a son named Alex, died at the age of fourteen. Six others were born in the family, and they are all living. Abel is a well digger. Axel is living at home. Lena is the wife of R. Oms, of North Dakota. Mary is the wife of Christ Engen, of Lari-
more, and Julia, Ilulda and Lottie are milliners at Larimore, North Dakota. Mr. Eriekson has been something of a hunter and fisherman in his time, and in the early days his wife often shot prairie chickens. She died in 1896, and her remains and those of the deceased son are buried on the farm. For many years Mr. Erickson rendered good service to the community.
JOIIN G. VRAA.
This gentleman is one of the prosperous, progressive and sueeessful farmers of Polk county and also one of the leading citizens of Vineland township, on See- tion 33 of which his fine farm of over 200 aeres is located. It is two miles southeast of Climax, and is improved with a very good dwelling house, and he is now (1916) completing a large and substantial barn on it. He was born in Norway January 7, 1865, and eame to this country in 1872 with his parents, Ger- mand Nereson and Leve (Olafsen) Vraa, who located in Faribault county, Minnesota. The mother died in Norway in 1868, and in 1876 the father brought his five children to Polk county and took a homestead in Vineland township eighty acres of which are ineluded in the farm now owned and oeeupied by his son John G.
The father, who died in 1897, also owned eighty aeres of railroad land and had all of both traets under cultivation. Ile devoted his whole attention to his farmu and the rearing of his children, who are: Ole, a resident of the village of Climax; Michael, who lives on the farm adjoining the home plaee; Gunder, who has part of the family homestead; Hage, who was the wife of Ole Bramseth (and the youngest of the ehil-
dren), and who lived also on a farm adjoining the homestead, she died in 1902, and John G., who ear- ried on the home place in partnership with one of his brothers for six years before their father died.
On the death of his father John G. Vraa got 125 aeres of the old farm, and to this he has added eighty acres half a mile distant but cultivated as a part of his farm. Raising grain has been his main depend- enee and industry on the farm, and his erop in 1915 aggregated 1,800 bushels of wheat, 1,200 of oats and 600 of barley. But he also keeps eight to ten eows and does some trading in dairy products. This is, how- ever, only ineidental, as his general farming activities engage nearly all of his attention, as they always have from the time when he entered upon them.
Mr. Vraa was married in Deeember, 1887, to Miss Maria Anderson and they have four children, Lena, Albert, Cecil and Minnie, all of whom are still at home with their parents. He has been supervisor of the township board for five years and elerk of the sehool distriet for twenty-five. He and his wife are mem- bers of the church congregation near his home whose meetings are held in the schoolhouse, and they take an active part in all its work.
JOHN LOGAN.
Living on an excellent farm of 300 aeres fronting on Red river and lying sixteen miles west of Crooks- ton, John Logan is very comfortably fixed in a worldly way, and he has the satisfaction of knowing that all
his possessions are the fruits of his own energy, thrift and good management. He was born in County Gal- way, Ireland, and came to the United States in 1865. Until 1878 he lived in New Jersey and worked at
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building railroads as a section hand. In the year last named he came to this county with his mother and a sister with a view to getting land on which he could establish a home and work out a prosperous and use- ful career in a line of endeavor that embodied some- thing beyond a daily recompense for migratory toil.
Mr. Logan had about $1,000 when he came here, and he at once bought a traet of railroad land at $5 an acre, with the usual rebate agreement in the contract. He procured a team of oxen and with this he broke up fifty aeres of his land the first year. He had a fairly good erop and has continued to raise grain as his chief product ever since. His first residence on the land was a log honse with a shingle roof, something very unusual in this locality at that time. The dwell- ing in which he now lives was built about 1895, and is a very substantial and comfortable one.
From time to time Mr. Logan bought additional land until he owned 500 acres and had nearly all of his acreage in seed, his annual erop averaging about 4,000 bushels. The most of his land in 1891 was in Section 1, Tynsid township, but the farm on which he now lives is in Section 3. It comprises 300 acres, the rest of his holdings having been sold. He paid $6
an acre for what he has, and, through his well-applied industry and the general improvement of the region, it is now worth at least $60 an acre.
In connection with his own place Mr. Logan for years cultivated one belonging to his mother, with whom his only living sister dwelt. The mother died when she was far advanced in years, and after that his sister made her home with him. He was married in 1885 to Miss Margaret Quirk, a daughter of Mat- thew Quirk, who died in Crookston in 1914. Mrs. Logan came to this county from Pennsylvania soon after her uncle, Michael Quirk, settled here. She was born and reared in Pennsylvania.
Mr. and Mrs. Logan are the parents of thirteen children, Martin, Nellie, Edward, Matthew, Thomas, William, Leo, Ambrose, Blanch, May, Leslie, Margaret and Louise. They and the parents belong to the Cath- olie church at Fisher. Mr. Logan has served as super- visor on the township board at different times. In state and national politieal affairs he is a firm adherent of the Democratie party but in local matters he holds himself aloof from party ties and acts independently according to his judgment.
CARL J. GILBERT.
After years of experience in several occupations in different places, and a successful career in each, ac- cording to the time he devoted to it, Carl J. Gilbert has found a field of operation well suited to his taste and capacity and profitable in its returns in well drill- ing over a large extent of country radiating in every direction from the village of Eldred, of which he is the present postmaster. He was born in Buffalo county, Wisconsin, June 10, 1870, and came to this county with his parents, John and Karen Gilbert, in 1878. The parents were born, reared and married in Nor- way and came to the United States just before the Civil war. The father was a farmer and improved a good farm in the wilds of Wisconsin, which he occu- pied nntil 1878. 28
On his arrival in Polk county in 1878 the elder Mr. Gilbert took up a tree claim and bought railroad land on the prairie, in Sections 3 and 4, Roome township, nine miles west of Crookston and several miles from any neighbor. He had about $500 in money when he came here and a wife and seven children to provide for. He became the owner and cultivator of 360 acres of land; reared his children in comfort; raised large erops of grain; held different offices in the township ; helped to found and maintain Bardo church, a mile distant from his home, and after the death of his wife sold his farm and retired to Pelican Rapids, in Otter- tail county, where he died in 1914 at the age of seventy-three years.
Carl J. Gilbert grew to manhood on his father's
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farm and obtained a limited education at a country school. At the age of twenty-two he was married to Miss Bertha Lunos, who was then twenty, the daugh- ter of Halvor Lunos, who located in Roome township in 1879. Hle and his wife later joined the Bella Coola colony in British Columbia, and their two sons went with them. The father died in that colony in 1913, and the mother is still living in it with her sons. The family was successful and prosperous in the colony.
Mr. Gilbert farmed rented ground for three years after his marriage and then bought his father-in- law's farm of 160 aeres. He made many improve- ments on this farm and condueted its operations nn- til 1901, then sold it at a good profit, having aceumu- lated $2,800 in nine years with nothing to start on. Ile invested in a new hardware store at Berthold, North Dakota, and also filed on land near the village. Ile was its first merchant, the first treasurer of the township in which it is located and a member of its first village council after he helped to organize it as a village. He also served on its school board, which, under his influenee, built a good schoolhouse at a cost of $7,000. The village had a population of 300 when he left it after residing in it and doing business there four years.
Mr. Gilbert's trade at Berthold grew large and his experience in it was very satisfactory. But in 1905 he sold the store and moved to Crookston, where he bought a $9,000 stock of hardware and an old stand.
Ile carried on this business three years, then sold it and moved to Eldred in 1908. Sinee then he has been engaged in well drilling on a large seale, running two rigs and drilling wells 200 to 300 feet deep. He has also been active in all movements for the improvement of the village and township, and is now serving his fourth year as president of the school board. He also helped to organize and has aided liberally in support- ing the Lutheran church at Eldred.
One of the achievements for which Mr. Gilbert is entitled to special eredit is the establishment of the consolidated school at Eldred, which was formed by consolidating four districts. Mr. Gilbert, T. E. John- son and H. P. Boukin were the principal backers of this enterprise, and they had to work hard to carry it to success, but now the consolidated district has a fine four-room school house, which is one of the best of the kind in Polk county. When he came to Eldred Mr. Gilbert found that the schools showed little im- provement from the time when he was a pupil in them himself, and he began to agitate for a better arrange- ment, with the result as stated above.
Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert have five daughters and one son. Cora, the oldest child, had a course of special training at the Crookston business college and is now a stenographer. Emma is a student in the high school, and Mary, Carroll, Helen and Andrea are at home and attending the union school.
OLE O. ESTENSON.
Ole O. Estenson and his parents, Ole and Ingre (Peterson) Estenson, were all born in Norway, where the son's life began October 28, 1848. In 1857 the family, consisting of the parents and seven children, the youngest born on the railroad train near Chicago, arrived in Green county, Wisconsin, and there found a new home near the village of Argyle, which is just over the line in Lafayette county. After the birth of her child on the train the mother was obliged to lie on the floor of a waiting room in the Chicago railroad sta-
tion because of the lack of other accommodations. The child died soon after the arrival of the family in Wis- consin.
Ole Estenson, the father, was a day laborer in Nor- way, and when he left that country he had only enough money to pay the the way of the family as far as Milwaukee, and was obliged to leave his trunks in bond in that eity for the fare to Argyle. ITe had to send $20 to Milwaukee to get his trunks, and this he earned ehopping wood and doing other work at thirty-
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seven and a half cents a day. In 1860 he moved to Pierce county, Wisconsin, and there for two years he worked at farm labor. In 1862 he changed his resi- dence to Freeborn county, Minnesota, where he bought and improved some land and then sold it to advantage, and after passing one winter in Ottertail county, he brought his wife and six children, of whom Ole O. was the oldest and then twenty-two, to Polk county in the spring of 1871, traveling in wagons and driving his cattle along. Peter O. Satermo and Ole Jevning, then unmarried, accompanied the family on this trip.
Before reaching this county, however, Ole O. left the party and returned to Freeborn county, finding his parents in their new location on July 4 the next year, they having reached it on June 10. The father took up a homestead in Section 14, Vineland township, on which E. O. Estenson, the youngest son of the family, now lives. The parents passed the remainder of their lives on this farm, the father dying on it at the age of seventy-six years and six months and the mother at the extreme age of ninety years and eight months. Their six children are all living except one. Peter O. lives on his homestead adjoining the home place. Ingeborg is the wife of Ole Jevning, a sketch of whom appears in this volume. Elizabeth married Peter O. Satermo and died in 1914. Esten O. owns and cultivates part of the old homestead, and Maret is the wife of Ole O. Stortroen and lives on another part of the old family farm.
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