USA > Minnesota > Freeborn County > History of Freeborn County, including explorers and pioneers of Minnesota, and outline history of the state of Minnesota > Part 49
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In the early spring of 1855, Mr. William Rice came straggling along and seeured a place in seetion eight in the same township, near where Joseph Landis now resides. In June Mr. Rice was followed by his family and his wife's relatives with families, and they placed their claims where Shell Roek City now is, and during that summer settlements were made in various parts of the county.
Ly Brand and Thompson located within the township of Albert Lea and laid out as a town site the village of St Nicholas, which was the first of this brood that was soon hatehed out in such rapid snecession. Here the first store was opened with a large stock of goods, a hotel, a saw-mill, a blacksmith shop, and other improvements rapidly followed, and the impression went ont that this was be the great metropolis of this section, the energy of its founders, with the wealth of Mr. Ly Brand, encouraging this idea. But to-day not a vestige of its greatness remains, not a relie can be picked up as a remainder of its improvement. Oblivion has marked.it for its own, and it remains only as a recollection.
In the fall of 1855, Lorenzo Merry and George S. Ruble located and founded Albert Lea, the shire town of the county. Geneva was also settled this year, and also Freeborn Lake and Moscow.
In September Mrs. Fanny Andrews, the wife of William Andrews, a prominent old settler, died, and this must have been the first death in the
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county, which was after a brief two months' resi- dence.
In November Willie Andrews, son of Oliver and Mary Andrews, was ushered into the light of this world, in the township of Hayward, his parents having come the July previous. This was the first son born, and the second child.
We have thus rapidly sketched the earliest set- tlements in the county, and a continuation of when the various locations were peopled, will be found in the several town histories.
Hon. A. H. Bartlett, in his old settlers' address, thus speaks of events at this period :
"The Territory of Minnesota had been organ- ized, and its delegate to the National congress, Hon. H. H. Sibley, had been admitted to a seat in the National lialls of legislation, and Freeborn county had been organized into a voting precinct, for the election of Territorial officers, and on the 3d day of November, A. D. 1856, the first elec- tion in the county was held at the house of Oliver Andrews, situated on the town line, between the townships of Hayward and Shell Rock. Said spot being the established voting place in this precinct. At this election the entire voting pop- ulation of the county turned out, and a total of forty-four votes were polled. Post-offices were now established in various parts of the county, mail facilities being supplied by private enter- prise from Mitchell, in Mitchell county, Iowa. On the 3d day of December, A. D. 1856, William Rice (the second settler in Freeborn county ), while carrying the mail across the broad and bleak prairie, lying between the Cedar and Shell Rock rivers, was caught in a severe snow storm and lost his way. He wandered around over the trackless prairie, without shelter or protection from the storm, until he froze to that extent that he died of his injuries some three or four days afterwards. This calamity was followed in quick succession, on the 20th day of the same month, by Byron Packard and Charles Walker ( a part of the company who laid out and founded Shell Rock City ) being caught in a terrific storm on the same broad prairie, while hauling a steam boiler to its destination at Shell Rock, and both perished from the severity of the storm and the extreme cold. Their bodies, frozen stiff and cold in death, were found four days afterwards, lying upon the frozen crust of the deep snow. Their bodies were carried to Shell Rock, and there bur-
ied upon the town site they had so lately helped to lay out and form. No relatives were there to at- tend their funeral obsequeis and mourn their sad fate, yet sorrowing and bereaved friends and brother pioneers, composing the then entire com- munity, assisted in performing the last duty to the untimely departed. No preacher of the Gos- pel could be found in the county to speak words of consolation to sorrowing and bereaved friends and associates, and our friend Jacob Hostetter, one of Freeborn county's earliest pioneers, feel- ingly and eloquently addressed the early pioneers there gathered, upon the sadness and suddenness of their bereavement, upon the mysterious and inscrutable ways of an overshadowing providence, in which no one could tell why, in the prime of vigorous manhood, when hope, the ministry of life is most buoyant, and future expectations in the coming life of usefulness is most prominent, that a mysterious providence should step in with its dread mandates, and the brightest and most promising life should be consigned to oblivion and the grave. These sad bereavments and others which happened in the county about that time, caused by the unparalleled severity of the memorable winter of A. D. 1856, cast a sad and sorrowing gloom over the young settlement of Freeborn county. Some few of the settlers be- came disheartened and discouraged, and early the following spring returned to their former eastern homes."
About the first judicial proceedings in the county were in January, 1857, in which Henry Boulton was plaintiff, and C. T. Knapp, defendant, and the case came before William Andrews, who must have been the first Justice of the Peace. Mr. Bartlett was counsel for both parties, who were beaten by the decision of the court.
At Shell Rock City the first schoolhouse in the county was built and finished in the style of civil- ization, on the 18tli of August, 1857, and immedi- ately thereafter a common school therein was put in full blast, with Miss Emily Streeter as teacher, being the first school put in operation in the county. Great interest was taken by the early settlers in everything pertaining to a civilized life. Churches were organized and religious services held in the schoolhouses and private dwellings of the inhabitants. Thus the nucleus was formed from which our present proud position in the arts and sciences, moral and religious intelligence, and
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HISTORY OF FREEBORN COUNTY.
in short everything that pertains to a civilized and intelligent people, lias emanated.
The first permanent bridge !. built in the county was at Shell Rock, by subscription, the document bearing date on the 9th of June, 1857. The sums given were from two to twenty-five dollars, each designating as to whether it was to be paid in money, work, or material. The men who signed the paper were: Edward P. Skinner, A. M. Burn- ham, A. H. Bartlett, F. L. Cutler, G. Cottrell, .J. W. Smith, C. W. Phillips, Lars Severson, David L. Phillips, Almon M. Cottrell, C. T. Knapp, James Laff, I. S. Horning. George Gardner, Wil- liam Andrews, Robert Budlong, Thomas Budlong, C. Tarbell, E. S. Anderson, William C. Ellsworth, Elijah Young, James Andrews, George P. Holmes, J. M. Sannes, R. I. Frank, . - - Swarthont. J. Hostetter, Jacob LyBrand, and S. M. Thompson.
Bids were received until June 15th, when it was begun and built by Dr. Burnham in nine days. The whole sum subscribed was $277. There ean be no question as to these men being old settlers. Some of them are still living in the county, and some are in other counties or States, and many of them are well situated. In relation to the name of the founder of St. Nicholas, while it is said that he subsequently wrote it differently, his sig- ature here is "Jacob LyBrand."
At an early day there was considerable trouble to have legal documents executed. Magistrates were often scores of miles apart, and getting mar- ried involved difficulties we can hardly compre- hend in these days. The first trouble arose from the scareity of marriagable women, but having secured that indespensible pre-requisite, the trou- ble of finding a minister or a justice to legalize the union was often most exasperating to the vie- tims of "loves young dream."
Mr. MeReynolds had not been ordained, and therefore was not vested by the prospective State of Minnesota with authority to pronounce single ladies and gentlemen, husbands and wives, with the admonition that no man should put them asunder. But he was not unfrequently ealled upon to perform this service, and on one occasion he was hailed as he passed a log house, on the way to fill an appointment, and requested to step as he came back and "join two hearts that beat as one." Several men were then just starting out to shoot some dueks for the wedding feast. This was near Bear Lake, and Mr. McReynolds on his re-
turn brought a Justice, and the happy pair were duly and legally started in the journey of life hand in hand; and so the society papers the next week might have read, "Marriage in high life-On the 7th inst., at the home of the bride's parents, by Frederick McCall, Esquire, assisted by Rev. Isaae W. MeReynolds, Mr. J. H. Bluberson to Miss Mary Jane Clark, no cards.
A great many strories are told about seeuring timber by borrowing it when the owner was away , and while the stories that are told are for the most part fabrications, a large number of instances might be related that will never see the light. Dr. Burnham says that he owned thirteen aeres of land near Albert Lea, and eut a lot of logs and hauled them out on the flat, and every one mys- terionsly disappeared. His idea was that the business men of Albert Lea thought it would be a good joke, after beating him for the county seat, to compel him involuntarily to furnish timber for the county buildings.
After the saw-mill was in operation, Mr. Sheehan, who was a robust young man, was told by Mr. Ruble that he had a fine yoke of eattle, and if Sheehan would take them and haul in logs from where ever he could find them, they would go shares on the lumber after it was sawed out. So the young man went to work and did a good business, and when the settlement came in the spring, Sheehan was not quite satisfied with the lumber turned over to his share, and entered a mild protest at the inequality of the division; but Ruble politely invited him to take that or noth ing. Seeing no method of redress he accepted his allotment , which having secured, he got even by remarking "well Mr. Ruble you are not so far ahead as you may think, for I got every one of those logs off of your own land." This incident is related on account of its intrinsic merit, for both "George" and "Tim" declare that nothing of the kind ever happened.
George S. Ruble was one of the settlers of 1855. The first time he visited Freeborn county was in June, 1854, and slept under a tree near one of the little lakes in Albert Lea. At that time there was not a house in the county. The few people here lived in wagons, happy and contented, at least for a time.
At the sixth annual reunion of the old settlers, a letter was received from Mr. Ruble, who was then at Lookont Mountain, Tennessee, and as it
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relates to the early history, some portion of it will be printed here.
"When, for the first time, I saw the country, I loved it well enough to make it my future home, with a few others to denote the energies of my life, to redeem it from its wild state, and help to lay the stepping stones into the garden spot of the Northwest. As I look around upon the general improvements, in both city and country, I con- clude that I have never seen them equalled, and can scarcely realize that the days of my absence have witnessed it all. Those who have read "The Mysteries of Metropolisville " will understand my feelings in 1855, for I, of course, like hundreds of others, had sought the West to find a city des- tined in the future to be the "great business cen- ter." Yon certainly will remember the little towns that sprung up all around, and that in a few years, like Metropolisville, in Rice county, were compelled to yield to the force of circum- stances, for they could not all be County Seats, and in this vitality alone seemed centered. I had come with my head full of towns, and with this all absorbing idea began hunting immediately for desirable locations. With such material at hand, it took me but a short time to find just what I wanted. Having made all arrangements I left, and in the fall returned with my family and a gang of men, and began at once the erection of the old saw-mill, which was, by the way, when completed, the finest frame building ever erected in Minnesota. About this time St. Nicholas was founded, under the chief auspices of Jacob Ly Brand, as doubtless many will remember. One day I went and looked over the position, and came to the conclusion that the situation of St. Nicholas was in every way equal to Albert Lea, and the mill power was ever so much better than the one I was improving. I therefore made a propo- sition to LyBrand to unite town interests and in- fluences, build the mill, procure the County Seat, and make the future metropolis at St. Nicholas, instead of Albert Lea. My proposition was re- ceived with indignation by that confident individ- ual, who informed me that I might abandon my town if I chose to do so, at any rate he proposed to have both mill and County Seat at his place, and did not propose to have any partnership about it, either. So I left him and went my way. The intervening years tell the story with its re- sults. Some may remember the dances and very
good entertainments we enjoyed for a short time at this point, at the hotel, which, like the one at Itasca, the old settlers will all remember, has long since been removed. In relation to Itasca, it should be remembered that it was the strongest opponent in the County Seat contest, and it was at one time hard to tell what the result would be.
So the saw-mill progressed. I still have in my possession the old day book used in the transac- tion of this business, and I prize it as a choice relic. The first entry is as follows :
ALBERT LEA, Oct. 27, 1855.
Lewis Osgood, Dr.
To cash given him by Willford in advance
for work on mill. $30.00
Saxon C. Roberts, Dr.
To cash for work $6.00
One half pound tobacco 20
One box caps 1212
One comb. 1212
$6.45
These were the first book entries of business done here. Two years later this entry appears:
Oct. 28, 1857.
I. T. Adrianne, Dr.
To goods bought of A. B. Webber, as per bill ... $1.50
Webber was our first Attorney, and poor Adri- anne came to a sad end. Under the same date ยท was a charge to the printing office for seventeen and one half pounds of nails at 10 cents per pound, $1.75. The book runs up to May, 1859, and almost the last charge is:
Town of Albert Lea, Dr.
To 60 feet of plank. $1.75
Now, as I fail to find any credit, I think that the town still owes me that bill, but I might be induced to sign a receipt.
On the fly leaf I find this memorandum : "Swineford and Gray arrived in Albert Lea on the 28th of March, 1857." Albert Lea was named not long after I arrived. Merry, Willford, myself, and others were sitting in a tent one evening, and then and there the present name was decided up- on, and the handsome little city with its peculiarly odd name has attained as wide-spread popularity as any place of its size in the country, and it is justly entitled to it. The principal object of the meeting in the tent was to make application for a Post-office, and the name for it was arrived at af- ter considerable discussion, when at my sugges-
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HISTORY OF FREEBORN COUNTY.
tion, Albert Lea was finally chosen, with Mr. Merry as Postmaster. How many of us will re- member our first dance in the old log house, with Charley Colby for our musician, and how we all enjoyed it. Calico was in demand then, and I venture to say that not a single lady complained of some awkward booby's treading on her train. It is true the old roughly hewn plank floor was not as smooth as the waxed affairs over which the dancers of the present day now glide, but it was the best the country afforded, and all participat- ing had the good sense to appreciate the situation and find hearty enjoyment in the affairs, as they then existed.
So also we remember the first fourth of July celebration, followed by the dance at the log house now standing on lot four, block twelve. In this same house old Uncle McReynolds, in his plain, earnest manner would expound to us the gospel, and always found an attentive and appre- ciative audience. In this house also was taught our first school, and I doubt not that many persons who have come to man's estate in these later years, have children as old as they them- selves were when they attended our first school with Lucy Parker for a teacher. So will many re- member the school that followed, taught in Clark's old log store room on Clark street. Certain I am, that the teacher of that school, if present, will re- member it. *
On the occasion of our first celebration, our first liberty pole was raised near where Brown's bank now is, and a view of it was obstructed in no direction by buildings at that time. During those times we had a few old-fashioned camp- meetings over on what is now known as Ballard's Point, and the number that attended satisfied the faithful that our country was fast peopling. *
Long years of plenty and prosperity could never obliterate from the minds of the old settlers of Freeborn county the days when hunger and want were daily in sight. No money to buy with and nothing to buy if money was plenty. Our only possessions were health and energy, with a determination to find in the end better days.
How we all looked forward to the completion of the saw-mill, with a longing intensified by in- adequate house accommodations and the excite- ment on the day of starting was intense. After that got in operation it was found necessary to have a grinding apparatus also, and the old
iron corn cracker was then added. How quick- ly the mill sprung into popularity. Grists from all parts of the country came pouring in, and what grists they were, ranging from four quarts to two bushels, and usually far from first quality, not unfrequently being half rotten. I well re- member one man who came on foot fifteen miles with a little less than a peek of eorn in his grist; to this, instead of taking toll, was added two quarts extra. On his return home some one re- marked about the smallness of his grist, whereupon they were informed that Ruble had stolen three- fourths of it while grinding. There is no doubt that the old corn eracker is entitled to member- ship in the old settiers' association.
Not a few will remember the big seine knitted by the old man Ward, and the mighty hauls, we made with it below the dam. I well remember one haul made by us that filled a common wagon box. Suckers were largely in the majority sand- wiched thinly with pickerel. Suckers and milk were the staples, with a seanty allowance of corn bread for desert. Hard fare it seems now, but providence gave us an appetite to enjoy even that, and I think I am safe in saying that those days witnessed some of the happiest ones in the history of Freeborn county.
The years '58 and '59 might be called the "gucker period." When I came, in July, 1855, there was no house in the county. Bill Rice, Cottrell, Gardner, and Hostetter were living in their wagons. While at Freeborn Lake I found Miller and Biekford camping out. When I star- ted for St. Paul, in the winter of 1856-57, to do some County Seat log rolling, which was not al- together useless, I found it necessary to go down to Merry's Ford in Iowa, on the Cedar River, then strike the Austin road. From Austin I went toChatfield, thence up to Red Wing, thence up the Mississippi River on the ice to St. Paul. The same circuitous route was followed in March, on my return. A few days later, with my wife and son C. N., then a lad of five years, I went to Geneva around by the Towa route, and brought in E. C. Stacy, S. N. Frisbie, and Wm. Andrews, the three Commissioners appointed by Governor Gorman to organize Freeborn county. They met in the old log house situated on what was known for years as the "Island" and performed the work for which they had been appointed, and the county was organized with your humble servant
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EARLY SETTLEMENT.
as the first sheriff and tax collector. The bill to organize the county was rolled through in oppos. ition to Morton S. Wilkinson, Ramsey, Emmett Smith, Brisbin, and others, and perhaps to its early passage Freeborn owes much of its advance- ment and prosperity.
Upon my arrival last month, as the train passed behind the woods into full view of our little city, I could scarcely realize, as I looked upon the church spires rising above the town, and the other many evidences of a healthy growth and prosperity, that this was the same place I had visited twenty-five years before, and found with- out even a wagon road to mark a degree in civil- ization. But though I did not then exactly lo- cate a railroad, shortly after, when our town had been located, with a Post-office and a hotel, I be- gan to feel the necessity of a railroad, and the idea settled into conviction, that at some future day not so far distant, we would have it, and I am go- ing to do myself the credit to say that in that position I was nearly alone, for when I consulted A. B. Webber, for whose opinions we entertained much respect, he laughed and said. "Why Ruble, you are crazy on the subject of Albert Lea, and are constantly imagining all sorts of impossible things about it; you will never live to see a railroad in Albert Lea. But you see Webber was mistaken, as well as the others who, becoming dissatisfied, sold their property at a sacrifice and left, or what was worse, went away at a period when they should have stayed, leaving property here to the tender manipulation of those left behind."
After some general reflections Mr. Ruble closed his admirable letter with the hope that the meet- ing of the old settlers might be a source of pleasure and a harbinger of many more equally enjoyable in the years to come.
GENERAL REMARKS.
To any one who has lived in an old community, there is something of surprise and admiration in the remarkable transition from an expause of wild- ness, solitude, and natural helplessness, to a living civilization; from barbarism to enlightenment, as presented in this region, which, within the remem- brance of the present generation has sprung from an unproductive domain into towns and cities equipped and enriched with all that makes life desirable. This wonderful change has been simply marvelous.
'The pioneers of this whole region were partic-
ularly fortunate in their contact with the Indians.
The scenes of the massacre, which began with the planting of the English colonies in Virginia and Massachusetts, and moved with the advancing civilization in a crimson line along the frontier with the most heart-rendering atrocities, seem to have stopped at the Mississippi, although the terrible Sioux were reputed second to no others in bloodthirstiness, leaving this section in peace and quietness, to crop out, however, in all its original fierceness to the west of us in 1862, at that terri- ble Sioux massacre so forcibly depicted in the preceeding pages of this work.
Although the tomahawk and scalping-knife were not a constant menace to the early comers, it must not be imagined that there was not toil, privation, cold, and hunger to undergo, for there was absolutely nothing in these wilds of Minne- sota, except the intrinsic merit of the location, to attract people from their more or less comfortable homes in the East, or on the other continent, from whence so many came. Those who first arrived were inspired with hope, which indeed "springs enternal in the human healt;" but they were re- garded by their friends, who were left behind, as adventurers, soldiers of fortune, who, if they got through alive would certainly never be able to re- turn, as they would surely be anxious to do, un- less they were particularly fortunate. They were a sturdy race, who realized the inequalities of the struggles in the old States or Countries, where humanity on the one hand, claiming "the inaleinable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" and on the other hand the accum- ulations of labor in vast aggregations, in sordidly avaricious clutches, hedged in with traditional precedents and barriers, with every facility for re- ceiving and gathering in, but with few and small outlets for distribution, and they resolved to es- tablish themselves where merit would not be dis- carded and supplanted by the antiquated, but still protent relics of feudalism.
The men who come here to establish homes for themselves, their families, and their posterity, were as a rule, hard-working, open-hearted, clear- headed, and sympathizing. They were good neighbors, and so good neighborhoods were created, and they made a practical illustration of the great doctrine of the brotherhood of man, by actual example rather than by quoting creeds, or conforming to outward observances, which may
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