USA > Minnesota > Douglas County > History of Douglas and Grant counties, Minnesota : their people, industries, and institutions, Volume I > Part 13
USA > Minnesota > Grant County > History of Douglas and Grant counties, Minnesota : their people, industries, and institutions, Volume I > Part 13
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Adams; probate judge, P. L. Gregory. This organization was maintained until the time of the Indian outbreak, when it, as well as all other local matters, was abandoned and all records that had been made were lost. Noth- ing further was done in the matter of local government until 1866, by which time definite settlement again was being re-established, when the county was organized on a permanent and continuing basis, the details of which, as well as the general history of the county government, are set out elsewhere in this volume in the chapters relating to the organization of Douglas county and to the officials of the same.
While the settlement at Alexandria was beginning to take form, it being the first settlement in the county, other portions of the county also were beginning to be recognized as exceedingly desirable points for settlement and during the years of 1859 and 1860 several small settlements sprang up. At the point where the thriving village of Brandon now stands Henry Gagar settled and it was not long until others had joined him at that desirable point, quite a little settlement presently being formed there, to which the name of Chippewa was given, the large lake in that vicinity also being given the name of Chippewa lake, the headwater of the Chippewa river which drains the western part of the county and empties into the Minnesota river at Montevideo, in Chippewa county, this state. Afterward the village of Chippewa was rechristened Brandon, in honor of the birthplace in Ver- mont of Stephen A. Douglas, after whom the county was named. In the southeastern part of the county there also was noted the beginning of a settlement in 1859, John Potter having taken a claim where the village of Osakis now stands, and within a year afterward Joshua Fairfield, Robert Wyman, Benjamin Pease, William Husted and others took claims nearby or farther up in the eastern part of the county. About the same time Nels Olson took a claim on Maple lake, in what afterward became Hudson town- ship, and during the year 1860 the western part of the county also began to take on something of the aspect of settlement. The year before, in 1859, Burbank & Company having established their stage line through this part of the country, a station was established at the point now known as Evans- ville and Evans, the first mail carrier, after whom the town was named, had put up a little shanty there. In 1860 Mr. Rogers settled there and kept the station and it was not long until others had settled in that part of the county, among those resident in the Evans neighborhood at the time of the Indian outbreak having been the Canfields, the Does, Samuel Thompson, the Per- fountaines, the LaBrands, Miner VanLoon, H. Blackwell, Thomas Cowing, T. W. Barr, Robert Ridley, George Bancroft, George Kinkaid and James
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Shotwells. By this time roads were beginning to be opened up in addition to the stage line and the old military trail and the Red River trail and there was on all sides an appearance of activity presaging early and populous set- tlement. Numerous farms were beginning to be developed and the fair lake region comprised in what is now Douglas county gave promise of becoming at once one of the most desirable points of settlement in the western part of the state. More and more frequent were the inquiries at the land office regarding locations in this section and all seemed well with Douglas county, the future apparently being full of promise, when the dread event occurred that proved a set back for all of western Minnesota and on down the fair valley of the Minnesota river, a set back from which Douglas county did not recover for several years, during which the county was practically depopu- lated, the courageous and hopeful settlers who had come here in the period following 1859 and up to the summer of 1862 having fled in the face of a savage uprising which for a time threatened to sweep before it the force and the authority of the white man in the new state.
The influence of the earlier phases of the Civil War had been little felt this far west, the absence of railroads and telegraph leaving the settlers in practical ignorance of the disastrous struggle then being waged between the states, so much so that the extent of the war had hardly been realized out this way, though several of the settlers had responded to the call to arms and had enlisted in the service of their country against the rebellion of a section. But when the news came in August, 1862, that the Indians had arisen and had declared war on the whites in Minnesota, the dreams of peaceful and undisturbed habitation out here were rudely dashed and the history of Douglas county was set back for three or four years, or until the eventual re-establishment of secure conditions in the wilderness made tenable the return of the settlers who had scattered and fled to more populous points upon the wild cry of alarm that followed the Sioux uprising of 1862. And thus closed the first period of the history of Douglas county, the pioneer period, the period of the first settlement, when the foundations were laid for the noble structure of social, civic, religious and commercial develop- ment that later was to be erected here. Of the tragic incidents connected with the Sioux uprising, in its relation to this part of the state, details are set out elsewhere in a chapter devoted to that outbreak; of the resumption of settlement after the uprising had been effectually put down, details also are set out elsewhere in the chapters relating to the organizations of townships and villages, and there is therefore no need to dwell here upon that tragic incident which interrupted the course of empire in Douglas county by driv-
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ing the pioneers into retreat or to include in this chapter on the early settle- ment of the county the details of the establishment of a permanent govern- ment hereabout or of the real settlement which came about in due course when the white man came into undisputed possession of this fair region and no longer stood in terror of the relentless fury of the savages. Suffice it to say that there had been established here before the Sioux uprising an out- post of civilization and that on the foundation then laid there has arisen one of the finest and most substantial social structures in all the great state of Minnesota.
ECHOES OF PIONEER DAYS.
From a series of letters relating to pioneer days, written by V. D. Nichols, a pioneer of Douglas county, now residing at San Jose, California, and published in the Brandon Echo during the summer of 1906, it is pointed out that Douglas county was first settled at Alexandria and at Holmes City in 1858. The country then was a perfect wilderness, the undisputed hunt- ing ground of the Indians, who found much wild game roaming everywhere through the heavy timbers and over the grassy prairie land. One of the early Holmes City settlers killed more than ninety deer in one winter. The chief source of livelihood for those early pioneers was hunting, trapping and fishing. The settlers did not begin to come out here in any very large num- bers for some time after the desirability of this region as a place of residence had been demonstrated, the Indian massacre keeping the first stream of immigration out this way from penetrating too far into the wilderness. But with the close of the Civil War and the establishment of a sense of security against Indian depredations, numbers began to prospect for new homes in this section and considerable settlements began to form. In addition to the settlement at Alexandria, already referred to, in 1866, a considerable number of settlers had arrived in the neighborhood of old Chippewa, which had first been settled by Henry Gager in 1861 and which later took its present name of Brandon.
Among the first of these colonists were Hans P. Hanson, Ole Thomp- son, Haagen Holing and John Thorkelson, who came over from Goodhue county by ox-team, with covered wagons and a few head of cattle. They had heard of the excellent land in this region that could be secured cheaply. Some bought their farms for $1.25 an acre and others, who bought from speculators, paid from $2.50 to $3.50 the acre. Traveling was extremely slow and difficult, as there were practically no roads and a bridge was almost wholly unknown. If they came to a stream, the only way was to plunge
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in and get across as best they could. The drivers had to lead their oxen and were therefore compelled to wade along, sometimes waist deep. It might happen that the heavy load, consisting of wife and children and the most essential household goods, would get stuck in mid-stream. Then the only way was to carry the load across to the opposite bank of the river and get the wagon out as best they could. In addition to these difficulties, the mosquitoes were so thick that the travelers could hardly breathe without choking on them and the pests worked a great hardship on cattle.
The parties above mentioned located on the farms on which they estab- lished their permanent homes, with the exception of H. P. Hanson, who bought the eighty north of the John A. Olson place, where he at once began to erect a sod hut. Meanwhile, they did their cooking and housekeeping in the covered wagons. Three days after their arrival, Thorston Hanson was born, thus having the distinction of having been the first white child born in the township of Brandon. The hardships and privations these people had to undergo were distressing. The swarms of mosquitoes and flies drove the people and the cattle almost frantic. It had rained almost continuously all summer, so every low place was full of water, an ideal breeding spot for the mosquitoes. The cattle, tormented by the pestilential insects, would stray off through the thick underbrush in the wild woods and in the marshes. The grass was so high as almost to conceal them and to follow them was a most difficult task, to say nothing of. the disagreeable work of hunting for them through the tall, stiff and sharp slough grass and thick timber, tormented continually by clouds of mosquitoes.
HENRY GAGER'S STAGE STATION.
The first piece of land taken up in the township of Brandon was the place taken by Henry Gager, shortly after or about the time the stage route was opened between St. Cloud and Ft. Abercrombie, on the Red river, near the present city of Breckenridge, this state; Burbank & Waite, who held the mail contract, having induced Gager to enter a tract of land there, open up a farm and keep a stage station for them, other stations established in this section having been those at Osakis, Alexandria, Evansville and Pomme de Terre. Gager opened a farm at Chippewa lake and kept the station until the Indian outbreak in 1862, when he was driven out. There was another settler named Austin, whose house stood where later the school house in dis- trict No. 76 was erected. He and some others came back after cattle and Austin was killed by Indians near where the village of Evansville now is
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situated. A few weeks later the government had the government mail route open again. Stockades were put up at Alexandria, Chippewa and Pomme de Terre and soldiers were stationed there for defense, and most of the scattered settlers came back.
In 1865 George Freundrich bought the Gager place and in 1866 settlers began coming in, the first settlers in that part of the county making Chippewa City their headquarters. In 1867 came the flood, when the roads, bad enough before, for awhile became impassible. As the nearest place at which the settlers could get flour or other provisions was at St. Cloud, one hundred and four miles away, starvation stared them in the face. Luckily, an ox- train loaded with supplies for one of the frontier forts was wending its way through the county at the time and as it could not proceed, these supplies were sold to the settlers in the vicinity of Chippewa. In 1868 settlers came in briskly and the township was organized under the name of Chippewa Lake. George Cowing put up a store across the road from Richard Peffer's house. Metz & Cotois put up the Peffer building for a store. Joseph Med- bery put up a blacksmith shop. A townsite was laid out, the postoffice of Chippewa Lake was established and there became the center of civilization for many miles about. Later the name of the postoffice was changed to Brandon, in further honor to Stephen A. Douglas, in whose honor the county was named, Brandon, Vermont, having been "the Little Giant's" birthplace. Other centers of settlement sprang up and at last, in 1878, came the railroad and New Brandon. Old Brandon went back to a quiet, well-tilled farm. Meantime, Freundrich sold it out to Peffer, Hoplin and others, Peffer getting the old farm. But none of the old timers ever forgot the "great old times" at Chippewa lake or the many hunting and fishing stories told there.
MOSQUITOES IN PIONEER DAYS.
The present generation cannot realize all the hardships the early settlers endured in opening up the land. Of these hardships, the mosquitoes were probably the most difficult to endure. Bad roads, the lack of every conven- ience of living and such things were expected beforehand and so could be endured, but the little insect pests were almost unendurable. V. D. Nichols recalls that on more than one night no one could get a "wink" of sleep. "The early settlers did not have houses from which the pests could be entirely excluded and I have known them to so swarm in the houses that they would put out the light in a few minutes time, their dead bodies clogging the wick. Out of doors, toward evening, it was almost impossible to breathe on account
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of them. A man's clothing would become so covered that he simply would look gray with them. The poor cattle would rush madly through the bushes trying to brush them off and often stray a long way off. I have known grown men to give up and cry from the pain of their bites and the hopelessness of getting any rest from them."
BRANDON TOWNSHIP'S FIRST HOMESTEAD.
The first homestead entered in the township of Brandon (old Chippewa Lake), taken up after the Indian outbreak of 1862, was on an entry made by John C. Nichols, while on the same day his cousin, John J. Nichols, entered a neighboring place. Someone had filed on the place in 1862 and had broken about five acres on it, but never returned after the outbreak. The Nichols boys arrived from Wolcottville, Indiana, early in 1866 and were the very first settlers to come into the township after it again began to settle up, the party above referred to as having come from Goodhue county, having come a few months later. After selecting land, it was necessary to go to St. Cloud, one hundred and four miles distant, to locate, as the land office was there at that time, it being some years later that it was moved to Alexandria. St. Cloud also was the point from which all supplies were drawn. John C. Nichols was a member of the first board of supervisors of Brandon township and was supervisor from the time the township was organized in 1868 to 1878, most of the time chairman of the board. He sold out in 1879 and moved to Dakota.
In 1867 Antoine Pelliser entered a tract of eighty acres right north of Baumbach lake and broke twenty acres of the same that same season, the next spring, in March, 1868, selling the farm to Fred von Baumbach, who took up an additional tract adjoining as a homestead and built his first log house where the Nootnagle house later was erected, and farmed the land until his election in 1872 to the office of county auditor, when he moved to Alexandria, where he is still living. In 1876 he sold his farm to Dr. Charles Nootnagle, who two years later gave the place to his sons, Herman and Fred. Mr. von Baumbach was quite a horticulturist and on his place were planted the first fruit trees in Brandon township; or rather there and on the V. D. Nichols place, the two getting one dozen small crab-apple trees and each planted six.
William Kappahahn was one of the first settlers of Millerville town- ship, having arrived there from Northfield on March 8, 1867. At that time there was about three or four feet of snow on the ground and he and another
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man who had come up here with government supplies, had to wade through the wet snow. It was beginning to melt and the streams had to be forded. At one place below Alexandria they had to wait two days before the water was low enough for them to undertake the ford. Mr. Kappahahn had been through this country a few years previously with General Sibley's force dur- ing the Indian outbreak. One of the worst difficulties he had to contend against after locating was the mosquitoes. The people much of the time during the summers could not work on account of the pests. About four o'clock in the afternoon they had to build smudge fires, to which the cattle would come bellowing. Often the cattle would be so thickly covered with mosquitoes that the settlers had to take a hoe and scrape the insects off.
THE FIRST SCHOOL HOUSES.
The district school houses of the pioneer period were not so well equipped with blackboards, desks, charts, mechanical appliances and the like as the schools of the present date. The seats were made from heavy boards, with wooden pegs driven into them for legs and the pupils had to make use of their knees in lieu of a desk; and not very many were troubled with curva- ture of the spine on that account, either.
PIONEER REMINISCENCES.
Conditions and modes of life in Douglas county today differ greatly from those of the pioneer days. To those who have lived here from the beginning, the changes have come about so gradually that to a large extent they have escaped notice; and to the younger generation some of the expe- riences of the early settlers seem like tales from a story book rather than actual occurrences.
For many years the only travel was on foot or with ox-teams and was necessarily slow and monotonous, except on the rare occasions when the "steers" would take it into their heads to run away, and then for a time it was neither slow nor monotonous.
Parts of the county were sparsely settled and even on some of the main roads through the big woods-especially was this true near Alexandria- one could travel for miles without seeing a human habitation or meeting a single person. But the scenery along the roads was magnificent, especially in the autumn, after the foliage had been touched by the early frosts, and the deep red of the high-bush cranberries and the dark blue of the wild
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, grapes, both of which were plentiful, mingled with the multi-colored leaves of the trees and shrubs.
Perhaps, because of the fact that houses were far apart and travel was slow, the people were sociable and hospitable to a degree, and a house near one of the roads was seldom without one or more guests over night, although the house was very small and the accommodations most scanty.
PRIMITIVE WAYS OF AGRICULTURE.
The day of farm machinery had not arrived and for many years, espe- cially on the farms in the timber, the numerous stumps were such serious obstacles to the use of machinery that the latter could not have been used, even if the owner had the means to buy it. The hay was cut with a scythe, cocked by the pitchfork and carried to the stack on poles. To those who are unfamiliar with this operation it may be stated that a cock was a round pile of hay, built quite high and in such a way that it would shed rain, and of such a size that twenty cocks would ordinarily make a ton. In stacking these cocks into large and permanent stacks, two men would provide them- selves with two strong poles about ten feet long and pointed at the ends. These poles would be run under the cock of hay about three feet apart, one man would take hold of the ends of these poles on one side of the cock and the other man would do the same on the other side, and the cock would then be lifted and carried to the stack. If the men were strong they would not be content to carry one cock, but would put one on top of another and carry both to the stack at one time.
Wheat and other small grain was cut with a cradle, an implement con- sisting of a large and long scythe to which was affixed a frame consisting of four "fingers," or prongs, of wood nearly as long as the scythe blade and about eight inches apart. The contrivance bore a remote resemblance to the cradle in which babies were rocked to sleep-hence the name. By means of this cradle the grain would be cut and laid in even swathes that could easily be raked into bundles and bound up. Grain seeders were unknown and the grain was sown broadcast by hand. Corn and potatoes were cultivated entirely by the hand hoe. Wheat was threshed out on the house floor with sticks and flails and thrown across the room to separate the grain from the chaff, but threshing-machines were soon introduced. For many years the threshing-machines were operated by horse power, and usually five teams of horses were used to run a machine.
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EARLY DAYS OF THE RAILROAD.
The first railroad trains that operated in the county were quite different from the present ones. That was the day before steel rails were used and the soft iron rails soon became flattened out even though the locomotives and cars then in use were much lighter than those of the present day. For a number of years wood-burning engines were used and the wood for these engines was cut near the railroad in the winter time, hauled to the track and piled up in ranks generally six feet high. In places these ranks of cord- wood, often four or five in number, would extend almost continuously for miles. along the track. Then in the summer or fall a crew of five or six men would come along with a circular saw, operated by a steam engine, and saw the cordwood in two, the proper length for use in the engines. This was before the day of the traction steam engine and the saw-rig engine would be pushed by the men from place to place on planks.
When a train came along and wanted fuel it would simply stop any- where along the right-of-way where some of this sawed cordwood was to be found, the train crew would get off and throw on a sufficient supply of wood and then start on their way rejoicing. It can readily be seen that in those days it took more than four hours to run from Alexandria to St. Paul.
CONDITIONS IN THE PIONEER SCHOOLS.
Though the country was thinly settled and the pupils not always numer- ous, schools were very early established everywhere. The buildings were usually constructed of logs and were very small. The school house in dis- trict No. 22, where the writer obtained all of his schooling below the high school, was about eighteen feet long by sixteen feet wide, and at times there was an attendance of more than fifty pupils of almost all sizes and ages. Sometimes the teachers were very well educated and again their scholastic qualifications were more or less limited. The writer can very well remem- ber that one of the teachers of this school, in all seriousness, told the pupils that no one had been able to get near the south pole because of the extreme heat which prevailed there. And he inspired the youngsters with much admiration and considerable awe for the knowledge bound up in "Robin- son's Common-School Arithmetic" by solemnly stating that only two per- sons in all the world were far enough advanced in mathematical knowledge to know all that that book contained. One of these was the author of the book and the other the King of England. Presumably this teacher was
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even ignorant of the fact that the good Queen Victoria then reigned in England. In those days the attendance at school was mostly in the winter time and if a boy attended school as much as two or three months during the year, it was generally thought that he was preparing himself for the ministry.
MADE SHORT WORK OF FROSTBITES.
For many years money was scarce and the settlers had little of it to spend. Overcoats and overshoes were unknown, and frozen toes were very common. However, a home-made remedy consisting of a poultice made from unslacked lime and melted pork made short work of frostbites. In many families whitefish, caught in the nearby lakes in the fall of the year and salted down, was an almost daily article of food.
Although the people were sociable and hospitable, it seemed that quar- rels and fights were much more common then than now. And, as the British General Gage remarked about the boys of Boston, the pugnacious and belligerent spirit of their elders was reflected in the youngsters, and if a number of country boys went to Alexandria on a Fourth of July or other holiday, they would expect to have a fight with the city boys before they got back again.
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