USA > Minnesota > Freeborn County > History of Freeborn County, including explorers and pioneers of Minnesota, and outline history of the state of Minnesota > Part 48
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In the early discovery of these lignites, some exploration and experimentation within the limits of the State, were justifiable, but after the tests that have already been made it can pretty confi- dently be stated that these lignites are at
269
GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE.
present of no economical value. This, not in ignorance of the fact that they will burn, or that they contain, in some proportion, all the valuable ingredients that characterize coal and carbonace- ous shales, but in the light of the competing prices of other fuels, the cost of mining them, and the comparative inferiority of the lignites them- selves. If they were situated in Greenland they would probably be pretty thoroughly explored, and extensively mined, and even then they would havea powerful competitor in the oil in use there.
THE DRIFT.
This deposit covers the entire county and con- ceals the rock from sight. It consists of the usual ingredients, but varies with the general character of the surface. In rolling tracts it is very stony and has much more gravel. In flat tracts it is clayey. It everywhere contains a great many boulders, and these are shown abundantly along the beaches of the numerons lakes of the county. The frequency of limestone boulders, and their significancy, have already been men- tioned. Thousands of bushels of lime have been made from such loose boulder masses, mainly gathered about the shores of the lakes. In gen- eral the drift of Freeborn county consists of a glacier hard-pan, or unmodified drift. Yet, in some places, the upper portion is of gravel and sand that show all the effects of running water in violent currents. The beds here are oblique, and subject to sudden transitions from one material to another. At Albert Lea the following section was
observed. It occurs just west of the center of the town. It covers eight feet perpendicular, and eight feet east and west.
1. Earth and soil gravelly, below twenty inches.
2. Gravel, unstratified, with considerable lime- stone, six inches.
3. Stratified gravel, eighteen inches.
4. Regular strata of coarse gravel, two feet.
5. Unstratified.
6. Fine sand seen two feet.
In a gravel bank at Albert Lea, according to Mr. Wiliam Morin, the jaw bone of a Mastodon was found a number of years ago. It was sent to St. Paul and is supposed to be preserved.
The average thickness of the drift in Freeborn county would not vary much, probably, from one hundred feet. In the survey of the county, con- siderable attention was paid to the phenomena of common wells, with a view to learn the nature and thickness of this deposit, and the following list is the result of notes made.
WELLS OF FREEBORN COUNTY .- Good water is generally found throughout the county, iu the drift, at depths less than eighty feet; but some deep wells that occur within the Cretaceous belt, in the western part of the county, are spoiled by carburetted hydrogen. This must rise from car- bonaceous shales in the Cretaceous, and indicates the extent of that formation. Much of the infor- mation contained in the following tabulated list of wells was obtained of W. A. Higgins, well borer, of Albert Lea:
OWNER'S NAME.
Location.
Depth
Feet.
Kind of Water
Remarks.
W. P. Sargent.
Sec. 29 Albert Lea.
28 Good
One-half bushel of coal at 26 feet
Geo. Stevens
Freeborn
47 Carburetted . .
Pieces of coal in the blue clay, 44 ft. of water. [26ft water.
Ezra Sterns.
12m w. of Freeborn
30 Good
Found pieces of coal. 66 66
Ezra Sterns
"
42|
James Hanson
1m nw. of Freeborn
50 Carburetted .
F. D. Drake.
Sec. 13, Freeborn
90
Water stands 5 feet from the top.
O. U. Wescott
Byron, Waseca
94 Soft
[and gravel.
L. C. Taylor ..
6ms nw. Freeborn
96 Good
Artesian : at first bringing stones
Geo. Snyder, Jr.
2ms nw. Freeborn
61 Carburetted
A. M. Trigg
Alden "
37
Found pieces of coal in clay.
H. M. Foot.
50 Good ..
66
Jolın Melender
50
66
66
L. C. Taylor
6ms nw. Freeborn
96 Carburetted .. 48
Wm. Comstock.
3ms ne Alden
Chas. Ayers
Nw. cor. Freeborn
125
John Ayers
Trenton
142
lost tools.
T. A. Southwick
Freeborn
35 Carburetted . .
Blue clay - water in sand&gravel
J. F. Jones.
Geneva
20 Good
Water in quicksand.
Nelson Kengsley
12 Soft
Artesian. Nearly artesian. Bore for coal.
T. A. Southwick
46 Soft
270
HISTORY OF FREEBORN COUNTY.
OWNER'S NAME.
Location.
Depth
feet.
Kind of Water
Remarks.
Jolın Farrell
12
Soft Water in quicksand. 66
D. G. Parker.
Albert Lea
72 Good
Struck gravel below the blue clay In gravel.
James Barker.
52
Small bed of gravel in blue clay In gravel.
H. Rowell.
72
In gravel below the blue elay.
W. W. Cargill
85 Not good
St'k bl'k clay, no stieks nor grit.
Chas. Ostron
66
30 Good
In very fine blue sandy clay.
Lewis Gaul 6.
28
"Yellow clay" all the way.
H. Rowell
.6
Yellow and blue clay, then grave 1
Col. S. A. Hatch
Sec. 4, Albert Lea
49
.6
Ole Knutson
Albert Lea
34
64
66
[sand [rock.
Geo. Topon
Sec. 29,
65 No water
Gravelly clay, fine sandy clay, on Water in green sand.
Dr. A. C. Wedge
Sec. 8
W. C. Lincoln.
Albert Lea
32
Gravel in sand, then quicksand.
Frank Hall
65
Town well.
Alden
44
64
In gravel.
A. W. Johnson
Albert Lea.
80 Not Good.
. . . Drift elay, water in gravel.
Rev. G. W. Prescott
80
"Tastes like kerosene."
Town well
Twin Lakes
75
Clay only.
Alden
40
A. P'almer, Jr
Sec. 29, Albert Lea
30
Lump of coal at 27 feet.
In some wells at Albert Lea a muck is struck, and such wells afford a water that is unfit for use. This muck is reported to contain sticks, and is about thirty-eight or forty feet below the surface. It may indicate a former bed of the river, or an interglacial marsh, as Mr. James Geikie has ex- plained in Scotland. (See "The Great Ice-Age.") It is by some called slush, and seems not to nni- formly hold sticks and leaves, but to be rather a fine sand of a dark color. The well-diggers call it quicksand. This indicates that it is either a bed of Cretaceous black clay, arenaceous, or Creta- ceons debris. Dr. Wedge, of Albert Lea, thinks the site of the city was once covered by a lake, and that this slush was its sediment; and that the overlying gravel, which is about thirty-eight feet thick, has since been thrown onto it by a later force, perhaps by currents. There is no doubt that the overlying gravel was thus deposited, those currents being derived from the ice of a re- tiring glacier.
Wells at Geneva are generally not over twenty feet in depth. They also pass through a gravel that overlies a quicksand. This village is situated with reference to Geneva Lake as Albert Lea is with Albert Lea Lake, both being at the northern extremities of those lakes. The phenomena of wells at the two places are noticeably similar, and
in the same way different from the usual phenom- ena of wells throughout the county,
At Albert Lea, gravel, about thirty feet, quiek- sand with water, sometimes black and mucky.
At Geneva, gravel, twelve to fifteen feet, quick- sand and water.
It would seem that the history of the drift at Albert Lea was repeated at Geneva. These villa- ges being both situated at the northern end of lake basins, are probably located where pre-glac- ial lakes existed. On all sides, both about Albert Lea and Geneva, the usual drift clay, hard and blue, is met in wells and has a thickness of about one hundred feet.
MATERIAL RESOURCES.
In addition to the soil, Freeborn county has very little to depend on as a source of material prosperity. As already stated, there is not a sin- gle exposure of the bed-roek in the county. All building stone and quieklime have to be im- ported. The former comes by the South- ern Minnesota railroad from Lanesboro and Fountain in Fillmore county, though it is very likely that the Shakopee stone from Mankato will also be introduced. The latter comes from Towa largely ( Mason City and Mitchell), and from kilns at Mankato and Shakopee. Some building stone
A. Chamberlain
Geneva .6
12
Dr. C. W. Ballard.
66
38
Gravel and sand, water in quick- 66
W. W. Cargill
Sec. 28, Albert Lea
28
Water in gravel.
And. Palmer 66
28 Good.
28
66
..
C. W. Levens
6.
271
MATERIAL RESOURCES.
is also introduced into the eastern part of the county from the Cretaceous quarries at Austin.
LIME .- At Twin Lakes three or four thousand bushels of lime have been burned by Mr. Carter from boulders picked up around the lake shores. This lime sold for seventy-five cents per bushel. It was a very fine lime, purely white. The construc- tion of railroads put a stop to his profits, as the Shakopee lime could then be introduced and sold cheaper. The boulders burned were almost en- tirely of the same kind as those that are so nu- merous in McLeod county. They are fine, close grained, nearly white, on old weathered surfaces, and of a dirty cream color on the fractured sur- faces. They very rarely show a little granular or rougher texture, like a maguesian limestone, though this grain is intermixed with the closer grain. They hold but few fossils. There are a few impressions of shells, and by some effort a globular mass of a course Favositoid coral was obtained.
Besides the above, which are distinguished as "white limestone," there are also a few bluish green limestone boulders. One of these, which now lies near Twin Lakes, is about seven feet long, by five or six feet broad, its thickness being at least two and one-half feet. It has been blasted into smaller pieces for making quicklime; but nearly all of it yet lies in its old bed, the frag- ments being too large to be moved. This stone is also very close-grained. It is heavier than the other and more evidently crystalline. It holds small particles of pyrites. It is not porous, nor apparently bedded. On its outer surface it looks like a withered diorite, and it would be taken, at a glance, for a boulder of that kind. It is said to make a very fine lime. Several hundred bushels of lime were formerly burned at Gereva.
The clay used, which is about five feet below the surface, is fine and of a yellowish ashy color. It is underlain by gravel. The clay itself locally passes into a sand that looks like "the bluff." At other places it is a common, fine clay-loam, with a few gravel-stones. There is but little delete- rious to the brick in the clay, although some of the brick are, on fractured surfaces, somewhat spotted with poor mixing, and with masses of what appear like concretions. The clay itself is apparently massive, but it is really indistinctly bedded, rarely showing a horizontal or oblique, thin layer of yellow sand. In other places the !
clay shows to better advantage, and is plainly bedded. It contains sticks, the largest observed being a little over half an inch in diameter. These sticks ore plainly endogenous in cellular structure, but have a bark. They are not oxydized so as to he brittle, but are flexible still, with small branches like rootlets hanging to them. It is uncertain whether they belong to the deposit, or are the roots of vegetation that grew on surface since the drift. There are no bonlders of any size in the drift: but a few granitoid gravel-stones.
Brick was formerly made at Geneva, and at a point two and one-half miles east of that place. At Geneva the clay was taken from the bank of Allen Creek, about eighteen inches below the sur- face. It was a drift clay, with small pebbles. That used two and one-half miles east of Geneva was of the same kind. In both places sand had to be mixed with the clay. About Geneva sand is abundant, taken from the gravel and sand knolls, and from the banks of the creek.
Peut .- In Freeborn county there is an abund- ance of peat. The most of the marshes, of which some are large, are peat-bearing. In this respect the county differs very remarkably from those in the western portion of the same tier of counties which were specially examined for peat in the season of 1873, and which, being entirely desti- tute of native trees, are most in need of peat for domestic fuel.
The peat of the county is generally formed en- tirely of herbaceous plants, though the marshes are often in the midst of oak-openings. The peat-moss constitutes by far the larger portion.
There is no observed difference in peat-produc- ing qualities between the marshes of the prairie districts and those of the more rolling woodland tracts of the county.
At Alden village, in the midst of the open prai- rie, the peat of a large marsh rose to the surface and floated, when, for certain purposes, the marsh was flooded. The water now stands ten feet deep below the floating peat, which is about three feet thick.
At Freeborn, peat has been taken out on John Scovill's land. Here it is eight feet thick, two rods from the edge, and it is probably much thicker toward the center of the marsh. That below the surface of the water now standing in the drain is too pulpy to shovel out; and after being dipped out and dried on boards, it is cut
.
272
HISTORY OF FREEBORN COUNTY.
into blocks and hauled to town. That above the water is more fibrous, and can be taken out with a spade and cut into convenient blocks. Yet the level of the water varies, and that datum is not constant. It appears as if there were here a stratum of more fibrous peat that separates from the low- er, about twenty inches thick, and floats above it at certain times In the peat at this place a sound Elk horn was taken out at the depth of six feet.
There is a large peat marsh in section eleven, Hayward, owned by non-residents.
COAL MINING.
As a kind of supplement to this account of the natural history and the geology of the county, an account of the "Freeborn Consolidated Coal and Mining Company " is added, for, notwith- standing the discouraging opinion of the State geologist, who, of course, deals with facts as he knows and stes them, with few conjectures as to what is not potent, there are men of discrimina- tion, intelligence, and means, who believe there is valuable mineral there, and propose to test the question.
In November, 1879, Mr. E. B. Clark com- menced prospecting for coal, and employed F. D. Drake to put down a four inch mining pipe. Mr. Drake had been prospecting more or less at Free- born for five years. At one time, in connection with L. T. Scott and E. D. Rogers, he had par- tially organized a coal company and taken leases of several hundred acres of land in that vicinity for coal purposes. This company bored in sev- eral places as far down as the second vein of water, about 100 feet, where they struck quick- sand, and not having any tubing could go no farther; consequently, when they bored the last time they knew no more about the existence of coal than when they bored at first.
A man named A. Short, from La Crosse, Wis- consin, came to Freeborn and leased about 2,000 acres of land for prospecting purposes, worked a short time to make his leases bold good, and left. This was in 1875. After it became evident that he would do no more towards developing what coal or other substances might be there, Mr. E. B. Clark bought his interest in the leases, and in the fall of 1879, together with E. G. Perkins and W. W. Cargill of La Crosse, commenced pros- pecting, and hired Mr. Drake to put down the pipe. He not having had any experience in sink-
ing such wells did not start the bore plumb, and after expending a large amount of labor, first by Drake and then by Mr. P. Morse, of Wells, and Geo. Cross, of Freeborn, the work in that well had to be abandoned in consequence of trouble in the fall of 1880. In April, 1881, Mr. E. B. Clark, together with E. G. Perkins and W. W. Cargill, organized the Freeborn Consolidated Coal and Mining Company, and in July following held its first meeting for election of officers, since which time there has been developed a vein of gypsum, eight feet thick, which is considered by experts to be a sure indication of coal. The company will soon sink a shaft to the gypsum, and mine the same while they sink the shaft on down. The gypsum is 115 feet below the surface in the pres- ent well, as well as in the well put down in 1881; in the former well they went through a vein of mineral, supposed to be Galena, which lies about 130 feet below the surface. Experts who have been there generally concede that with the many indications found in the locality there must be large quantities of lead deposits underlaying the gypsum. The company held its annual meeting at Alden, where the general office is located, on the 31st of July, 1882, at which time the follow- ing officers were elected:
President, L. T. Walker; Secretary, E. B. Clark ; Treasurer, O. S. Gilmore; Superintendent, E. B. Clark.
Directors: L. T. Walker, J. Goward, O. S. Gil- more, N. P. Jacobson, E. B. Clark, A. R. Walker, C. K. Clark.
Great credit is due, and universally conceded to Mr. E. B. Clark, whose zeal and untiring energy and perseverance is the moving power through which all the present developments have been made, and in all future operations he will, in all probability, be prominently identified with what we hope will be the successful termination of fur- ther etforts.
When prospecting, blue clay is found about fifteen feet from the surface, interspersed with pieces of coal and soapstone, slate, sulphur balls, and gas in abundance, as well as oil. When a distance of forty-five to fifty feet from the surface is reached, a vein of water is found in all places except one, in which dry sand was found, and a vein of gas came in so strong that it raised the rods being used for boring several feet. The men at work supposed they had struck a flowing
273
EARLY SETTLEMENT.
vein of water by the noise down in the well, a roaring, gurgling sound being heard. Mr. E. D. Rogers, who smokes occasionally, remarked that he would take a smoke, and scratched a match up- on the bowl of his pipe; this ignited the gas which was the cause of all the noise, and it was thought by those present that a blaze the full size of the tube, which was six inches, shot up in the air about fifteen feet and gradually settled down to about six feet. It burned for an hour or two when it was smothered out by placing a sod over the hole. For several weeks afterward it was vis- ited by people from the surrounding country, who would remove the sod and apply a match to see it burn. This vein of gas was found at the same depth that a vein of water is usually found in other localities where boring has been done, and water thus found is strongly impregnated with gas; in some places so much so that it is not fit for use, A tin pail was lost in one well and taken out in a few days after covered with a black greasy substance that could not be removed until sub- jected to a hard scouring with soap and sand. Coal has been found in every bore put down far enough to reach the blue clay. Mr. L. T. Scott says he found in a well put down on his place a . piece of coal the length of a spade and handle, and about as large square as his spade blade was wide, which is the largest piece yet found. All those indications, with the gypsum found, are sup- posed to point to coal when a sufficient depth is reached.
CHAPTER XLVI.
EARLY EXPLORATIONS-COL. ALBERT LEA-EARLI- EST SETTLEMENT-EARLY INCIDENTS -- RUBLE'S LETTER FROM LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN -- GENERAL REMARKS.
In March, 1857, a letter was written to Samuel M. Thompson by Col. Albert M. Lea, in relation to the Black Hawk purchase, and so much of this autogram, as relates to the early history of Free- born connty, will be transcribed here:
KNOXVILLE, Tenn., March 6th, 1857.
DEAR SIR-Your favor of the 26th of January reached me a few days since, and I may as well confess that I was both surprised and gratified by it. You ask for information about " Lake Albert Lea." In the year 1835, being a Lieutenant in 18
the Twelfth Regiment, U. S. Dragoons, stationed at Fort Des Moines, now Montrose, on the Iowa side of the Mississippi, I accompanied an expedi- tion from that part of the Sioux country, com- posed of three companies of troops under Lieut. Col. Kearney, afterwards a General and killed at Chantilly, Sept. Ist, 1862. The detacliment marched up the tablelands laying east of the Des Moines River to the "neutral grounds," and then turning more eastwardly crossed the Iowa and Cedar Rivers and struck the Mississippi at Wa- basha's village, below Lake Pepin, and thence, taking a west course, touched some of the tribu- taries of the St. Peter's River, struck the Des Moines above the upper forks, and then followed the general course of the stream back to the fort.
Although during this long march I was the only officer attached to the command, I sketched the whole route topographically, taking the courses with a pocket compass, and computing the dis- tances by the time and rate of marching. On the return to quarters I made out a map of the country traversed, accompanied by a memoir which was sent by Col. Kearney to the Adjutant General, and the next year, having obtained additional material, I made a more full map, and wrote an extended description of the country, which was published by H. S. Tanner, of Philadelphia, in 18 mo. form, under the title of "Notes on the Iowa District of Wisconsin Territory." I have one copy of this work that I will send you.
On our march westward from Wahasha's villagt we passed through that beautiful region of lakes, open woods, and prairie, in which the head waters of the Blue Earth and Cedar Rivers intertwine, and having passed one breezy day across a deep creek, connecting, as we supposed, two of these lakes, we came out upon an elevated promontory descending rather abruptly to the edge of the most beautiful sheet of water that we had ever seen. We stopped for an hour on that exquisite spot, and took a sketch of the lake as I could from that point. In making out my map, the form I gave the lake, but which the lithographer did not preserve, suggested to me the idea of a military chapeau, and I gave it that name.
In 1841, when Nicollet was making out his map of the region between the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers, he filled in a large part of it by copying mine, and in acknowledgement to me for such material, gave my name to the pretty piece
1
274
HISTORY OF FREEBORN COUNTY.
of water I had ealled " Lake Chapeau" and which I bad described to him somewhat enthusiastically. Several years since a friend sent me a slip from a newspaper containing an extraet from a letter written by some one in Iowa,stating that the writer had heen all over where Lake Albert Lea onght to be, but found no sign of such water, and I con- cluded that either I had failed to give it the pro- per position on the map, or it had been so mis- placed in the transfer to Nieollet's map, that the original would never again be recognized. Hence my surprise and gratification on the receipt of your letter giving me the first information that my pet lake was not lost. * * *
Very respectfully your obedient servant, ALBERT MILLER LEA.
On referring to the map of Lieut. Lea. it is found that the Lake now ealled Albert Lea was originally Fox Lake, and is not the one originally called Albert Lea by Nicollet. The lake Lieut. Lea named Lake Chapeau, and changed by Nicol- let, is that beautiful sheet of water, a short dis- tance west of the village, known as White's Lake, near the residence of A. W. White.
The early settlers found, when they arrived at the camping spot of Lient. Lea and his command near White's Lake, an inscription out on a tree which was deciphered as "Lake Aullolin." By whom this was ent, is very uneertain, as it could hardly have been done by Lea, or any of his party, because he gave the name of Lake Chapean to this charming sheet of water, and the name Albert Lea was proposed some years afterwards by Nieollet, as already mentioned.
EARLY SETTLEMENT.
Up to the spring of 1853, as far as known, no white man had planted a home in this county, now go well filled with a thriving population. The ex- pansive prairies and beautiful groves bordering the plaeid lakes and beautiful streams, up to that time were in a state of repose, and only occupied by animal life and perhaps a few of the aborigin- al raee, which was in a condition of senility, ready to depart and give place to a superior race.
At the time above mentioned, Ole Gulbrandson, whose name reveals his nationality, with his family, entered in and took possession of a moder- ate portion of this goodly land in section thirty- three in the township of Shell Roek, and rolled up some logs in the form of a cabin, which still
stands on the farm of P. J. Miller, who is himself a well known old settler. Mr. Gulbrandson went to work, and when the next settler came along, two years afterwards, he had provided for him- self and family, and could also supply his ueigh- bors with the necessities of life. A passing notice should be made of the courage of this man, to thus plant himself so far beyond the confines of civilization. where, for anght he knew, they were liable to be devoured by wild beasts, and where the savages might have blotted him and his amily from the face of the earth, with no one to follow on the avenging trail. And some credit is also due the Indians themselves, that they did not molest him as they certainly were aware of his presenee. In the fall of 1854, a daughter was born in their little log house, which must have been the very first, whatever rival elaims may be put in.
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