USA > Minnesota > Freeborn County > History of Freeborn County, including explorers and pioneers of Minnesota, and outline history of the state of Minnesota > Part 54
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If I attempted to say to you all I would like to say on this occasion, I know I should tax your patience. I apprehend that my old pioneer friends wanted to see me more than they wanted to hear me talk, and I am certain that I desired to see them once more before joining that memor- able caravan that has gone before ; and I want to hear some of them talk too. I see about me some faces that were familiar twenty years ago ; but alas, I miss from among you many who shared with us the trials and hardships, the hopes and the fears of that early period in the history of Freeborn county. They have passed away to the silent and mysterious future; some died battling in their country's cause, others surrounded by their families in the homes they had builded for themselves in the wilderness, which they and you have made to bloom as a garden and blossom as the rose. Of my old friend and partner I have heard nothing since the war, in which he was a soldier, either from choice or compulsion, on the Confederate side. I miss from among you my old and valued friend, Armstrong, who died in the meridian of a noble manhood; William Andrews. the good Dr. Blackmer, and others I might name, friends of my younger vears, are not here to ex- fend, as I know they would, if living, a friendly, cordial greeting. It may be that my old friend and partner still lives; I know not; but it is more than proable that he lies buried in an unknown grave, the unwilling victim of a cruel war. If indeed he be dead, sing, oh ye sirens, your saddest strains, and chant ye winds and birds a requiem over his tomb! Does he rest under a cairn of pebbles in the shadow of some grand old south- ern sierra, may some grieving Oread come by I night to drop a tear of pity and place a garland
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on his barren sepulchre. Nor do I know where the others sleep. Wherever it be, may the eve- ning dews fall, oh so gently, and the flowers spread sweet perfume around ; may the tall trees make mournful music, and the forest songsters chant their evening hymns over the places where they rest. And whether they lie in the vast ocean, or somewhere in the broad bosom of this fair land of ours, may the crimson morning dawn softly, and the first rays of God's golden sun- shine rest long and lovingly over the places where they sleep."
Mr. Botsford presented the obituaries, and some touching remarks were made by Father Lowry in relation to those who had passed away during the year. The song "No Night There" was sung. Forty-four joined the association this year. A letter from Rev. C. L Clausen was read and or- dered on file. Messrs. Jones, Goward, Swineford, Botsford and others related stories of the olden time. Mr. Parker read some town histories. The assembly was dismissed with the bene diction by Rev. Father McReynolds.
The Fifth annual reunion. This unusually inter- esting affair took place on Tuesday, the 10th of June, 1879, at the Court House. At half past ten the procession formed, with the right in front of the building, and it is said that there were six hundred teams and not less than three thousand five hundred people present. Headed by the Al- bert Lea Cornet Band it marched to the pic-nic grounds where ample provision had been made for the exercises. After music by the band, Pres- ident Stacy made a few remarks expressing his satisfaction at seeing so many familiar faces, and feelingly alluded to those who had gone upon the last journey of this life, and called upon the chaplain to invoke the divine presence in prayer. Mr. Lowry eame forward and asked the audience to join in singing, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." He then offered a fervent prayer, which was followed by the song "Wake the Song of Jubilee," by the Purdie family. Judge Stacy then introduced Lieut Governor Wakefield, who gave a most admirable address, paying a high tribute of respect to the early public men with whom he was associated in the early legislation of the Territory and State, and especial commen- dations were presented to the memory of Augus- tus Armstrong. The address was received with great applause. Then came the lunches and
langliter, with jest and joke, conversation, cakes, cookies, and confectionery.
It was the largest basket pic-nic, perhaps, ever held in the State, certainly in southern Minnesota. At half past one o'clock the assembly was called to order by the president, who announced that the proudest duty which had devolved upon him since his connection with the association, was the intro- ducing of Colonel Albert Miller Lea, who. forty- four years ago, conducted a military expedition across the territory which now constitutes Free- born county, and who, without doubt, passed within one hundred feet of the spot where he now stands. The venerable and distinguished man now came forward, and was greeted with most hearty applause, and when it had subsided he made a most admirable address, which is preserv- ed in the archives of the association.
IIe began as follows : "Mr. President and okdl settlers of Freebom county, your worthy president has told you who I am and why I am here. As I am expected to give you personal reminiscences, 1 must necessarily mingle them with seme egotism and so I shall talk with you as familiarly as with old friends. There is not a face in all this large assembly I ever saw before last Saturday, and yet, I venture to flatter myself that there is not a heart among you that does not throb kindly toward the old man whom you have so generously welcomed. After many solicitations, repeated from year to year, and after disappointments not a few, at length, last Thursday morning, still feeble from recent illness, I took a train at my home in Cen- tral Taxes, to meet you here to-day in this genial reunion. Traveling continuously over a thous- and miles, across eleven degrees of latitude, in sixty-two hours I passed through five States; from green corn and melons to the early ripening berries; from the land of cotton to the land of wheat. The glorious visions of fertility and pros- perity have dispelled from my system all traces of disease; and your cordial greetings extended through your committee even beyond the limits of your State, have made my heart, at three seore and eleven, beat as warmly as when, in my younger days, it was stirred by the lovely scenes of the fair country which you have since come to possess and enjoy, and still more to beantify and adorn."
Most of the historical part of his address ap- pears in the early history of the county. His
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description of the incident connected with the giving of his name to the lake is worth transcrib- ing here. "I was brought in contact with J. N. Nicollet, then engaged in mapping the surveys made by him in the northern basin of the Mississippi. He had made free use of my map in filling up his own, and invited me one morning to breakfast with him and
to inspect his work. During a pleasant sitting I described the scene of that beautiful lake. He drank in the description enthusiastical- ly, and exclaimed 'Ah zat is magnifique! what you call him?' I replied 'Lake Chapeau' 'Ah, zat is not ze name, it is Lake Albert Lea,' and he thus wrote it on the map. And thus originated the name of the lake, that of the township, and of this beautiful city."
At the conclusion of this address, letters were read from Henry M. Rice, George S. Ruble, then at Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, and from Horace Greene. Thirty three new members join- ed the association this year. John L. Melder made a proposition looking toward the establish- ment of an old settlers' home which was referred to the President, Secretary, and Treasurer.
The officers elected for the year were: Presi- dent, A. C. Wedge; Secretary, Augustus Peterson; Treasurer, Samuel Batchelder; and a Vice-Presi- devt for each town; Financial Committee, H. D. Brown, Henry Thurston, with the three executive officers.
Committee on obituaries: H. Thurston. This meeting was acknowledged to be a very success- full one.
The sixth annual reunion was on the 8th of July, 1880. The longest procession ever seen in this city started from in front of the Court House at the appointed time. Two brass bands furnish- ed the music, and the concourse proceeded to the grove north of Fountain Lake, where a varied programme was carried out. Twenty-six joined the association this year. Hon. M. S. Wilkinson was the orator of the occasion, and quite a long historical letter was read from George S. Ruble, the substance of which appears in our sketch of the early history of the county.
The following gentlemen were chosen as officers for the year: President, A. C. Wedge; Secretary Augustus Peterson: Treasurer, Samuel Batchel- der; and Obituarian, H. Thurston.
Notices of the honored dead were then read.
The occasion was one of enjoyment, as they have ever been from the inception of the society.
The seventh annual reunion was held in Albert Lea on the 14th of June, 1881, and its features were not unlike those of previous years. The Fireman's Band furnished the music, and the ex- ercises were on the pic-nic grounds north of Foun- tain Lake. The Hon. David Blakely, of Minne- apolis, delivered the annual address, the locally historic part of which is here given.
The officers for the year were: President, Francis Hall; Secretary, Isaac Botsford; Trcas- urer, D. G. Parker; Committee on Obituaries, H. Thurston, J. Goward, A. H. Bartlett, J. F. Jones, and S. N. Frisbie.
There was singing by the Glee Club, and short speeches by Judge Stacy and Hon. Mr. Purdie.
No apology is deemed necessary that so much space is given to the Old Settlers' Association, and to the addresses that were made from time to time, because it is from just such sources as this that the present and the future historian must gather his material, and where we have found facts to record in the transactions of the associa- tion we have used them without hesitation.
Extracts from the Address of Hon. David Blakely :
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Old Set- tlers and Old Friends :- Twenty-four years ago this coming fall there might have been seen cours- ing over the prairie a few miles north of this spot, a solitary prairie schooner, inhabited by a brace of gentlemen of whom many of you have heard, bnt few have ever seen. One of these gentlemen, you will already have anticipated me in guessing, was the pushing and energetic business agent of the town of Bancroft. The other was a young, unsophisticated, contiding companion of his, who, after a somewhat checkered career, of which this was the anticipated golden beginning, to-day, once more stands before you. I say once more, because there are many old settlers of Freeborn county within the sound of my voice, who will recall that twenty-three years, not far from this very spot, they suffered at my hands an affliction akin to that with which they are again to-day threatened. The occasion was the fourth of Jnly, and I was then, as I chance to be now, the honored orator of the day. I say they suffered ou that occasion; and say it advisedly, because many of them were good, sound Democrats then, as they are good, sound Democrats now; and I was a red
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hot Republican then, and, if my good old friends will pardon me for saying it, I still obstinately con- tinne to be. Well, those times were times that tried men's souls, at least in a political sense. They were the times of the Kansas Nebraska struggle, and antedated but a too brief period, the raid of ohl John Brown into Virginia, and the doom of the infamous institution of slavery con- sequent upon the mad assault upon Sumter.
But to resume: As the solitary prairie schooner of which I made mention, neared the flourishing town of Baneroft. the unsophisticated but contid- ing traveller aforesaid, might have been obsery- ed by the wayfarers along the road, if there had been any wayfarers along the road, or if indeed there had been any discernable road, earnestly and perseveringly peering into the airy labyrinths for a sight of the town. I say the town, because, having been prevailed upon by the seductive en- ticements of the energetic and enterprising busi- ness agent atoresaid, to join him and publish a newspaper there, and having, by virtue of an exceedingly deficient education in western town sites, taken it for granted that where a big news- paper was to be published, there must necessarily be a big town; he kept straining his eyes through the hazy October atmosphere for a sight of the town. Never did a poor Christian gaze with more intense longing for the sight of the golden gates and the beautiful temples of the everlasting city which was to be the end of his pilgrimage, than I through the curtains of that old prairie schooner for the lofty spires, the imposing edifices, and the smoke of a thousand mannfactories that i proudly expected to see ascend to heaven from the noisy and populous mart which I was soon to gratify and surprise by the publication of my new, and as a matter of course, my "able" newspaper.
I have often reflected upon the peculiar vealy character of the verdancy which distinguished this peculiar episode in my career. The limit of my western pioneering had been the city of Chicago, where, fresh from my eastern home and just forsaken text books, I was looking for a very small opening for a large young man. It was at this critical juneture that my friend, the energetic Inisiness agent of Bancroft, discovered me. We had been old friends in early years, for he was a Vermonter too, and well knew that i had been educated a printer before I entered the Univer- sity.
Naturally enough, he convinced me that I was just the talented youth for the opening that a beneficent providence had placed at his disposal. He was, he said, in Chicago to purchase a news- paper outfit for a Minnesota town in which he had settled; and the landed interests of whose pro- prietors he happened to be agent. Then-follow- ed a list of these landed proprietors and a titled list it was.
It contained the names of the Governor of the territory, of the Chief of Justice, of Generals and Colonels, and bankers and capitalists, until my imagination peopled its streets with dignitaries, and its squares with sky reaching edifices; and so much a matter of course did I take this condition of things to be. that it never entered my head to inquire into the actual facts. It is not strange then, that on the memorable day referred to I was still gazing anxiously into the distance for a sight of the spires of my anticipated Arcadia, when the schooner brought up by the side of a freshly built board shanty, and my friend, the agent, announced with a gravity that would have become one of Rip Van Winkle's ghostly moun- tain boblins, that we had arrived. Shades of Chuzz Crvit! I exelaimed, am I too the victim of a town site demon. and is this the Eden of the con- spiracy ?
·Oh, no,' replied he with a calmness which would have done honor to the referee of a cock- fight. this is no Eden, although if Eden equalled it in loveliness, you will admit it was a sad day for our luckless ancestors when they were expelled from it. No, this not Eden, but Bancroft"
Bancroft! ejaculated I with mingled seorn and indignation, then where is the town?
.Why this is the town, or rather, the town site!" Oh, town SITE! town SITE! and sure enough it was a town "site", but in all the wide expanse of prairie and openings there was never a sight of a town.
A single board shanty, a sereaming steam saw- mill, and a grass covered prairie stretching away for miles, constituted the sad realization of my pictured spires, my sky-reaching edifices, and my great metropolitan squares peopled with Gover- nors, poets, brave men, and beautiful women !
But the enthusiasm of youth is not easily dampened. My printing establishment was on the way, it had already been loaded upon the me- andering ox-carl, which was then the distinguish-
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ing avenue of freight transportation between the river and these sequestered parts. My friend, the agent, had a pushing and active spirit; he assured me that out here in the far West, towns and villa- ges sprang up like mushrooms in the night; that the saw-mill which I saw whirring and whizzing before me, was already entting up and forming the material which was to enter into the construc- tion of my printing office, several stores, dwell- ings, and buildings of divers and sundry uses, purposes, and ends; and he whispered into my of quickly reassured year as a matter of sacred confi- dence, but with the air and manner of a man who knew whereof he spoke, that Bancroft was to be the future county seat of the county; that the insignificant collection of board tenements and tumble down mill, known as George Ruble's at Albert Lea, would soon be transformed into rook- eries for fowls, while the people would flock to the future metropolis, the procession headed by Mo- rin, the Register of Deeds of this county, and by Swineford, the flamboy and editor of the weekly concern which my able metropolitan journal would very speedily swallow up and supplant. Moreover, while the Governor, the Chief Justice, the Generals, the Colonels, the bankers, and the capitalists were not actual residents of Bancroft, and possibly never would be, they were in & posi- tion of influence which would insure for the town a mighty future. Indeed, it was not too sweet to anticipate that the dome of the State Capitol would some day glisten in the sun from the spot where we stood. To cap the climax I was pro- sented with a deed to twenty of the lots of the town, and thus, in the twinkling of an eye, trans- formed from a seedy stripling in search of an opening, to a bloated town proprietor already en- tered into the possession of his wealth. My friends, it was enough! From that hour I was a convert to the colossal possibilities of the future town and seat of the county, and the undoubted final Capital of the State. From that hour I was the zealous lieutenant and coadjutor of as san- guine a townsite devotee as ever builded from a rosy imagination a magnificent castle in Spain. From that hour the whirring and whizzing steam mill redoubled its efforts ; the lumber for my printing office, for the first store, for the biggest dwelling house in the county, to be occupied by the busi- ness agent, his family and guests, was soon on the ground, and by the time the meandering ox-carts
arrived from the river laden with my precious newspaper material, the roomiest office in the county awaited its reception. I set to work and put it in order. The election which was to trans- fer its county seat from Albert Lea to Bancroft was close at hand. At most I could issue but one copy of the new and "able" paper before the vot- ers would decide the argument. I put my whole heart and soul into the event. I wrote nights and put the heated fulmination of my goose-quill in type daytimes, I scarcely ate or slept. I had no experienced help, and feeling that the eyes of the people of the county, if not the whole world were upon me, and that the issue of the appeal was in my keeping, I endeavored to be equal to the crisis. But alas, the fates were against me. For one man to lay the cases, to put up the press, to write editorials, to perambulate the town and record the vast variety of local events, to receive and arrange the news and the commer- cial departments, and above all, to set up and classify the great crush of advertisements that crowded the columns of a newspaper published in a town of upwards of twenty thousand, or, I should rather say, upwards of twenty inhabitants, was too much! My first paper did not appear until the very dawn of election day, too late to reach the rural districts-too late to influence, to persuade, to electrify the people, too late to frustrate the damnable plot concocted by the Rubles, the Morins, the Wedges, the Armstrongs, of this city, and the wily Stacys, the sly Frisbies, and the fes- tive Bartletts of the county! Too late to secure the fondly anticipated transfer of the county seat from Albert Lea to Bancroft-too late to lay the foundation of a mighty emporium-too late to command the future location of the Capital of the State, and possibly of the nation-too late to es- tablish at the final hub of the Universe, a newspaper that should be read by the inhabitants of the globe.
But the fire of youth is not to be burned out at a single conflagration, and Agent Oliver and I were not long in finding compensations for our sorry disaster. During the progress of the cam- paign the town had trebled in growth. That is, where at the outset had been but a single board shanty, there were now two or three quite respec- table buildings; and it must be admitted that any town whose buildings double and treble in a month, is an amazingly flourishing town. We
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soon rejoiced in the possession of the largest store and finest private mansion-that of Agent Oliver -in the county, and my newspaper-well. modes- ty forbids my dwelling on the merits of that his- torical sheet. * *
The musical critic of the paper had little to con- tribute, although the town was really distinguish- ed for its talent in this direction. Agent Oliver and wife were cultured New Englanders- he a superior pianist and organist, and she a soprano whose rare voice has since made her one of the finest concert singers in the country, and long a favored occupant of the first choir in New York. Then Mr. Charles Etheridge, at that time a skil- ful contracting carpenter, who erected the build- ings on the town site, but who afterwards became a St. Paul insurance agent, and acquired sudden wealth by decamping with the money of his com- panies, and who thus proved the only successful financier ever conndeted with Bancroft history --- was the base, and I the warbling tenor. The or- ganization constituted the only opera the town ever boasted.
The religious editor of the " Bancroft Pioneer " also found his occupation gone. This, I say, was a lamentable fact, because I am satisfied that if there had been religions services at Bancroft and Albert Lea in those days, and Morin and Ruble and Wedge and Stacy-let me never forget Stacy's finger in that unholy pie-and Colby and Ly- brand and Bartlett and Frisbie and many other wicked conspirators had attended divine service on the memorable Sabbath before the county seat election was held. instead of being scattered about the county plotting the overthrow of Ban- croft, there is not a peg on which to hang the shadow of a doubt that Bancroft would to-day have been the county seat of this beautiful county ; and the spot whereon we stand, by an in- stance of rare poetic justice, would have been the site of the handsomest and most productive poor farm that ever fructificd under the rays of a quick- ening June sun! I do not add, old settlers and old friends, I considerately and purposely do not add, that the wicked conspirators who plotted against Bancroft on that memorable " Sunday " above re- ferred to, would to-day have been tilling the soil on the county's farm on this spot; but there is no law against your drawing whatever inference the circumstances warrant. But, to resume; while the religious editor of the Bancroft Pioneer, owing
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to circumstances beyond his control, bad little to interfere with his main occupation, I will not say of playing poker, the interviewing fiend, who had then not become a regular adjunct of the weekly press, had quite as little. The truth is, the streets and otlices did not swarm with people to interview. The town was full of office-holders. however. If my memory is not at fault, erery regular citizen played that beautiful role. Agent Oliver was Postmaster, genial Mose Comfort, the clerk in the store, was his deputy, and I, by a rare instance of misplaced confidence, had become a school trustee. Shortly after, by a promotion, the suddenness of which almost turned my head, I was elected to the office of town Supervisor, and at the first meeting of the Board, demon- strated my utter incapacity for the place by vot- ing for Stacy for Chairman of the County Board. But this was a youthful indiscretion for which 1 ought not to be held to strict account. Bear in mind the letter by which a depraved son beguiled his father into following him to Minnesota, when he wrote that "mighty mean men get otlices out West." Offices were plenty in those days. There was a Su- pervisor to every town, and it often happened to youthful counties that there were more in the Board than outside of it. Don't wonder. then, that Stacy was honored, but rather accuse your- selves, for you subsequently promoted him to higher trusts, which, it seems, he never betrayed, a fact which, considering the past, he played in destroying the prospects of the town of Bancroft, is a cause of never ending amazement.
It was not long before overtures were made me to abandon the town of my first love and earliest adventures, and cast.my fortunes with those of the flushed adventurers who were already enjoy- ing the results of their successful conspiracy. I resisted these bland enticements, however, until resistance ceased longer to be a virtue; I stuck to the town of Bancroft as long as a single sub- scriber remained upon its site, of the three which it originally contained. But when the store was closed, and Comfort departed, and Agent Oliver struck his colors, and I watched the schooner which bore him and his away from the town, un- tit it disappeared among the oak openings in the distance, I felt
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