History of Houston County, Minnesota, Part 104

Author: Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge
Publication date: 1919
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1343

USA > Minnesota > Houston County > History of Houston County, Minnesota > Part 104

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

La Crescent has now no newspaper but was the home of two pioneer journals.

The La Crescent Banner. When the village of La Crescent was enjoy- ing the highest tide of prosperity, a newspaper was started called the "La Crescent Banner," the publisher of which was A. P. Swineford. The paper, a six-column folio, was issued from a small press in a not very well furnished office in the old double store of the Kentucky Company. It flourished but for a short time, however, the whole concern being soon removed to La Crosse.

Robert F. Howard, in the La Crosse Tribune and Leader Press of Jan. 5, 1919, says of this paper:

"In Louisville, Ky., there was founded a company called the Kentucky Company to found a city in Minnesota. As a part of their plan a newspaper was started to boom the prospective metropolis, bearing title of the La Crescent Banner, with the magnificent motto in bold capitals underneath. "Democracy Our Policy, the Stars and Stripes Our Banner." The editor, and for the purpose of the Kentucky Company, the proprietor, was A. P. Swineford, who when Grover Cleveland was elected president, became governor of the territory of Alaska. Mr. Swineford was an ambitious man;

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a native of Indiana, who had exalted ideas of the possibilities of the press. He didn't have much ready money, but he had a tremendous amount of energy and sufficient self-assurance to combine the two and fill in the void left by the lack of capital. After abandoning the field at La Crescent, he startled the primitive population of La Crosse one morning in the autumn of 1859 with a circular announcing that he was coming among them to establish a morning paper to be known as the La Crosse Daily Union."

The La Crescent Plaindealer. The next candidate for favor in the journalistic line was the "La Crescent Plaindealer," which was started by E. H. Purdy, of Minneapolis, in 1860. It was a seven-column folio, well edited, and strongly Democratic in principle. In about two years it was sold to J. T. Ferguson, and was finally closed out in September, 1862, the editor having enlisted. It was in the office of the "Plaindealer" that George B. Winship, afterward the able editor of the "Grand Forks Herald," learned the printing business.

BROWNSVILLE

Brownsville, situated under the shelter of Wild Cat Bluff, is one of the old river towns of Minnesota, and was once the gateway to the rich regions of southeastern Minnesota. Here landed the people bound for preemption land further west, here came the provisions upon which those pioneers must survive, here was the land office where the settlers must secure their patents to their land.

The early history of this village has been related at length elsewhere. Its decline came with the building of the railroad which damaged its magnifi- cent landing, and with the diminishing in importance of the steamboat traffic.

The village has a bank, the Brownsville State Bank, a newspaper, the Brownsville News, a hotel, a lumber yard, a sawmill, a village hall and usual business houses. It has Episcopal, German Evangelical, Lutheran and Catholic churches.

The farmers' co-operative movement is represented by the Farmers' Co-operative Co., which operates a general store.

Brownsville is on the La Crescent-Dubuque division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, and ships farm products. Fishing is an important industry in the vicinity.

Brownsville was the location of several early newspapers.

The Southern Minnesota Herald, No. 1, volume 1, was dated June 23, 1855, at Brownsville. William Frazier Ross was the editor. The paper was owned by a joint stock company, which was organized the previous April. J. H. Mckinney and J. R. Bennett, the land officers, Job Browb, Charles Brown and E. A. Goodell were the members. Mr. Ross, the editor, went to Cincinnati and procured the outfit. In politics the paper was to have been neutral, but at the fall election in 1855, H. M. Rice was running for Congress, and the land officers being the principal stockholders, and personal friends of Mr. Rice, the paper not unnaturally supported him, but toward the close of the canvass, the editor having been a Whig, turned around in

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favor of the other candidate. At the end of the first volume the name of Mark Percival was associated as one of the editors; and with the issue of the seventh number, Charles Brown assumed the editorial chair. The paper was published until June, 1859, when it suspended.

Of the press used by this paper, Robert F. Howard, in the La Crosse Tribune and Leader-Press of Jan. 5, 1919, says :

"In slavery days, when the 'Underground Railroad' was established for the purpose of aiding runaway slaves to escape from the South to Canada, the main point of entrance of the runaways to the Northern States was at Cairo, Ill., across the river from Louisville, Ky. Here it was that Owen Lovejoy published his abolition paper, under the very shadow of the 'divine institution of slavery.' Here it was that the Kentucky mob was in the habit of making its periodical visits, under the cover of night, to the Illinois town, destroying the forms and mixed up the type in Lovejoy's little printing office; and here it was that on one occasion the journey was made in larger force than usual. The abolition editor was murdered, his type and presses thrown into the river.

"The old Washington hand press upon which Owen Lovejoy was wont to print his paper was not allowed to sleep in the bed of the Ohio River, however; it was fished out, taken to Brownsville, and was there used for a few months in the publication of a clientless newspaper. Later it was sold to Dr. A. P. Blakeslee and others of La Crosse, and was the press on which the National Democrat of that city was printed, which later furnished the mechanism through which the famous Mark M. (Brick) Pomeroy made his vigorous assaults upon the administration of Abraham Lincoln, whom he denounced as the 'widow maker,' and declared the war for the preserva- tion of the union to be a failure.

"But this is not all of this strange circumstance. The man who did the press work for Owen Lovejoy on that old Washington hand press in Cairo, followed its fortunes to Brownsville and to La Crosse, and was the fore- man of Pomeroy's office, and of Blakeslee's office before him, in those old days of conflict between the anti-slavery and the pro-slavery parties. And that foreman and pressman was a colored man named Joseph Taylor. He was in Lovejoy's printing office when the Kentucky mob made its assault, but made his escape, watched the proceeding from a safe vantage, and it was he that pointed out the place where the old press sank beneath the waters of the river, and assisted in its recovery.

"A tall, well proportioned man was Joseph Taylor. Painstaking and faithful, he was accounted one of the best pressmen and printers that made the pilgrimage between Dubuque, Ia., and St. Paul, Minn., in the early sixties. His appearance at the door of any of the printing offices in the intervening hamlets was the signal for the 'regular' to take a rest and give 'Old Black Joe' an opportunity to work. His favorite place of business, however, was in the office of the La Crosse Democrat, 'twisting the Devil's tail' on the old Lovejoy press which had been initiated into usefulness down in Cairo in advocacy of the freedom and rights of his race. He lived to see the cause for which Lovejoy died come to its full fruition, and he had the privilege accorded him of casting his first vote, as a gray haired old

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darkey, for Abraham Lincoln's re-election. He did not live long to enjoy the right of suffrage. He entered the army during the closing hours of the war and contracted a disease which cut short his career when long looked for peace came.

"The old Washington hand press that figured so prominently in the un- derground railway management, and later in the interests of the slave- holders' rebellion, stood for years in the office of the La Crosse Democrat. It was at one time owned by Governor George W. Peck of Milwaukee, when he was the publisher of the La Crosse Liberal Democrat, but it has long since gone to the junk pile and had its identity obliterated.

"Originally it was highly ornamented with brass trimmings, but these were lost beyond recovery when it was thrown into the river at Cairo, Illinois."

The Free Press. On December 15, 1865, Charles Brown started the Free Press alone, and ran it with credit to himself and honor to the town up to May 21, 1869, volume 4, No. 21, when its subscription list was trans- ferred to the Western Progress.

The Western Progress. This was a newspaper with a decided literary turn, published by Mrs. Bella French and Richard O. Thomas. It was a neat, well printed sheet that worked hard in the interest of Brownsville and Southern Minnesota. In April, 1870, Mr. Thomas withdrew and went to La Crosse, and the next month, a more promising field having opened in Spring Valley, Fillmore county, the whole establishment was removed there. Mrs. French afterwards published a magazine, "The Busy West," in St. Paul, and subsequently did some excellent historical work in Wiscon- sin. She later became a resident of Austin, Tex., and the editor of the "American Sketch book," a pioneer magazine of the "Lone Star" State.

HOKAH

Hokah, a thriving village on the line of the Southern Minnesota, oc- cupies a commanding position near the mouth of the Root River valley, and has some of the most picturesque surroundings of any village in this part of the State, and its future possibilities are many.

Its people are progressive and intelligent, believers in education and in business progress, and the appearance of the village reflects their spirit.

The story of the early days of this interesting village has already been told. In the days of the railroad shops it bid fair to become a large city. Then the shops moved away. Later, with the building of extensive dams, and the construction of mills, prophecies were made that the place would become a great milling center. But floods which washed out the dams, and litigation which embroiled the owners, together with the diminishing of the wheat crop in this vicinity, and the growth of the great mills at the head of Mississippi navigation ruined this hope likewise.

But through it all, the people have held on, undaunted, and in recent years there has come a new impetus of business and progress, founded upon the solid rock of the increasing wealth and importance of the farming region for which the village furnished the shipping point.

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The village has two papers, the Houston County Chief and the Hokah Tribune; two strong banks, the Farmers' State Bank and the Hokah State Bank; a grain elevator, a sawmill, a hotel and a creamery, as well as a telephone exchange. The creamery is owned by the Hokah Creamery Co., the elevator by the Hokah Grain and Stock Company, and the Hokah Shipping Association is equipped with excellent stock yards. The Hokah Telephone Exchange has local, rural and long-distance service. The Bea- trice Creamery Co. has a shipping station here. The Hoffman Flour Mill is operated by water power and two miles southwest is the Bernsdorf Feed Mill.

The village owns a hose house and has a volunteer fire department of 30 men. There are two hose carts, with 1,000 feet of good 21/2 inch hose. A bell is provided for a fire alarm.

The waterworks system consists of a reservoir of 150,000 capacity lo- cated on a hill 100 feet above Main Street. The water is pumped by a gasoline engine, giving a gravity pressure of 50 pounds. The village has one mile of 6-inch and 8-inch mains, and nine double hydrants.

The I. O. O. F. Hall provides a public hall.

There are four churches, St. Patrick's Catholic Church, the Presby- terian Church, Zion's Lutheran Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church.

The Hokah Chief as originally established was started in 1856 or 1857, but the exact date is not known, as the early files were not preserved. After a time it was suspended, but on April 26, 1859, it was revived by H. Ostrander, a practical printer from New York State, who, in early life was associated with Thurlow Weed, one of the leading journalistic support- ers of Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams. Mr. Ostrander was an indomitable worker, and a man who knew no compromise of principle, but who attacked every wrong he saw regardless of its connections or associa- tions. His paper was Republican, and in those trying days just before the Civil War, when party passions were at fever heat, he battled nobly for the Union and became a terror to its enemies. He saw the triumph of the cause for which he fought, but on May 23, 1865, scarcely more than a month after the end of the war, the paper was discontinued for want of support and patronage.

Other former papers are the Hokah Herald and the Hokah Blade.

UNINCORPORATED VILLAGES

Money Creek is a hamlet in Money Creek valley which dates back to the earliest days, having been selected by John Campbell as a mill site in 1853. He platted the village and a store and tavern were erected. The village has a good school building and two churches, the Baptist and the Methodist, the latter of which is the prettiest rural church in southeastern Minnesota. There is a good store and a blacksmith shop. A mill does gristing, and not far away is a good creamery. The place attains some importance as being on the main thoroughfare from Winona to La Crescent.

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Eitzen is a flourishing village near the Iowa county line in Winnebago township. Situated on the road between New Albin, Ia., and Spring Grove and Caledonia, routes that in the early days were much traveled, it early 'attained considerable importance. The village started about 1865, when Conrad Laufer began keeping travelers at his tavern. In 1867 Charles Gilbert put in a small stock of goods, and the same year C. Bunge, Jr., opened a store in an old log cabin. The hamlet attained considerable im- portance which diminished with the building of the railroad. But in recent years it has taken on new life. It now has a postoffice in charge of Bertha Bunge, the Eitzen State Bank, a good school, German Evangelical and German Lutheran churches, the Crystal Co-operative Creamery, a feed mill and several business places. A daily stage brings passengers and mail from New Albin, Iowa.

Riceford, in northwestern Spring Grove township, near the Fillmore county line, was platted in the early days and once bade fair to become an important place. At one time it had several mills, to which the people came from miles around. But the coming of the railroad carried the busi- ness to other places, and the village now consists of a school, a church and a store, with several residences.

Newhouse, in Spring Grove township, was established on the Reno- Preston branch of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul as a convenient shipping point for the farmers in that vicinity. It has a railroad depot, grain elevators, a store and several residences.

Reno, formerly called Caledonia Junction, is important as the junction of the Reno-Preston branch with the La Crescent-Dubuque division of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul. It has a hotel, a store, and a school, in addition to the railroad equipment. In the early days there were sawmill activities across the slough, but all that now remains are the dilapidated buildings.

Freeburg had its beginning with the arrival of William Oxford from Boston in 1852. The village is located on his land. George Powlesland, who came the same year, was not far away. It is in section 30, Crooked Creek township, on the Reno-Preston branch of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul. It has a Roman Catholic church, a creamery, a bank, a feed mill, a postoffice, and several business houses.

Wilmington, located in the township of that name, has a store and a creamery, and a church is not far away.

Bee, formerly called Bergen Postoffice, is located in Wilmington town- ship, and has a mill and a store.

Winnebago Valley, once called Watertown, has a mill, two stores and a school.

Yucatan has a store, a creamery and a school.

Sheldon has a Presbyterian church, a school, a store and an empty mill.

Pine Creek Valley has a mill, a creamery and a blacksmith shop. It is in La Crescent township.

Mound Prairie Station has a postoffice, a station and a store.

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CHAPTER XIV

AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS

Houston county is distinctly an agricultural region. Even the villages are dependent on the farmers for their support and maintenance, and there are no industries that are not directly connected with the agricultural interests. In these villages in addition to the learned professions and the mercantile trade, the principal activities center in the creameries and elevators, the lumber and fuel yards, and in shipping stock and produce.

The first settlers came here with the purpose of securing farms, and their descendants and successors have followed the same occupation. But a vast amount of work has been necessary to bring the county to its present state of high improvement. While conditions here are ideal for agricultural endeavor, nevertheless there were many discouragements and misfor- tunes with which to contend, and many obstacles to overcome. The gophers, the blackbirds, the pigeons and the prairie chickens were deadly enemies to the crops from the earliest days. Then, too, the climate presented diffi- culties, for although the settlers for the most part had previously had considerable experience as farmers, they had farmed under different cli- matic conditions. Those who came from the eastern states were accus- tomed to a longer growing season, and the early frosts here were a condition to which they must become accustomed. Those who came from the various parts of Europe, likewise, had many readjustments of methods to make before becoming successful tillers of the soil in this new country.

The first settlers found in Houston county a rich, unbroken virgin soil, a land that had had none but nature's care from time immemorial. Century after century, year after year, the grasses grew in all their rich- ness, and the prairie and hill side flowers bloomed to waste their fragrance on the spring, summer and autumn air. No foot trod the hills and valleys and prairies save that of wild beast or bird, or the red nunter and warrior. No plowshare turned the green sod, nor was it torn by the iron tooth of the harrow, from the time that the soil was first laid down. The Winnebago squaws had here and there a small corn patch but as they had no permanent villages here, such instances were rare.

The county presented to the eye of the early comers a wide diversity of soil and surface. There were stretches of prairie, plateau and meadow land, ridges, bluffs, valleys and flat bottom lands, with sometimes a sandy and marshy stretch subject to spring overflow. The sun shaded sides of the ravines and tops of some of the bluffs or ridges between them, fairly well stocked with timber, largely of the full-grown kind, with groves of trees of smaller growths where the bluffs began merging into the swells of open prairie. There were several varieties of oak in the heavy timber acts, occasionally a hickory tree and a few other kinds, the white oak

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being the predominant variety. There was but little pine anywhere in the county, while the chestnut so common in the states from which many of the settlers had come was entirely lacking. The sides of the bluffs that were high and steep were usually bare of trees, though on the opposite sides of the ravines, scrub oaks, poplar and birch often occurred thickly.

The border prairie groves contained oaks of different varieties and size, but largely consisted of poplar and wild cherry. These last two named usually attained at those times only a thickness of three or four inches, when from some cause they died out and fell. These groves also contained wild plum trees, of about the size of small peaches. Wild crabapples are sometimes found along the borders of the groves. Patches of hazel brush usually extended long or short distances outward from the groves, and in these scrub oaks and single trees sometimes obtained a foothold.

The wild prairie grass grew a foot high or more, spangled with the prairie rose and such other flowering plants whose roots or seeds survived the prairie fires. Amid the grass the wild strawberries grew in abundance. The dandelion now so common was not in evidence, being brought into the county in unclean seed.

The first two problems which confronted the early settlers were sus- tenance and shelter. The wagon in which the family came, a tent, a log house or a bark cabin, provided shelter for the people while a straw barn protected the animals. The houses were of various descriptions depending on the taste, experience, and ability of the owner. Some were little more than dugouts, a crude construction of logs supplementing a hole excavated in the side of a hill. Others were more pretentious, wtih well hewed logs chinked with mortar, and whitewashed outside and plastered or papered inside. Occasionally there was a chimney made of stone, and sometimes even of brick brought across country with great effort, but more often the stove pipe was continued through the roof as the only means of carry- ing off the smoke. Some of the cabins were built almost without metal, wooden pegs serving the purpose of nails, and leather or ingeniously con- trived pieces of wood taking the place of metal hinges. Some were for- tunate in having glass for windows, others used oiled paper or cotton cloth. The floor was usually of trampled earth, the roof was sometimes of shakes, sometimes of brush thatch and sometimes of straw. The cabins for the most part consisted of one room in which the family lived, cooked, ate and slept, and entertained such wayfarers as happened along at nightfall. Sometimes a loft was provided, where the children slept, and through the chinks watched the starlight or shivered as the rain beat through or the snow drifted in.

In constructing the barns, crotched poles were placed eight or ten feet apart in three rows, the center row being the highest. Large poles were run in the tops of the crotches, and poles or fence rails were used for rafters. Leaning poles and fence rails were then set leaning all about the outside. Thus the frame was made for the stack of straw which was placed around it at threshing time, the stack usually being continued on one side or the rear for the cattle to forage in. Sometimes the stable had a fence of posts and poles built around it, within three feet of the sides and

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ends, and the straw was stamped into the spaces between, making a straw wall for the sides and ends. Before enough land was broken to raise enough grain to produce the straw, prairie grass hay was used in its place. Some of the settlers left the entrance open, with only a few rails to bar the entrance. Others had a door made of boards. The tops of these straw and hay barns or sheds were rounded up like the top of a rick of hay, so as to shed off the rain. In such sheds, horses, cattle and poultry were wintered. A few pioneers built log stables, but for the most part they were thatched with straw and hay as the others.

Before crops could be raised it was necessary to break the tough prairie sod which had never hitherto known the attention of the husband- man. To do this, a breaking plow, drawn by from four to six yoke of oxen was required, the neighbors often pooling their interests and helping each other. By this method something like two acres could be broken in a day.

After breaking a small tract, the settlers started raising such food- stuffs as were needed for their own tables. Usually the first crop consisted of rutabagas, potatoes or some other root crop. Wheat, however, was the great staple for several decades, though some years the price was so low as hardly to pay the cost of transportation to market. The wheat had to be sown by hand, dragged in by oxen, cut with cradles, and pounded out with flails. The waterpower being abundant, small grist mills and flour mills were early established. A few bought flour, but the general custom was for the farmers to take their grain to mill and have it made into flour, the miller taking out a stated portion for his services.

It has been a matter of wonderment to the later generations, that in a region where wheat was the principal crop, there were so few granaries. To supply this deficiency various makeshifts were resorted to. One method was to build bins of fence rails, line them inside with straw, and fill them up with the wheat as threshed. Another method was to build bins of scantling and pine boards, blocked up a foot or more above the ground, but in either case roofed with a round packing of straw.

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History of Houston County, Minnesota, Part 104

Author: Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Number of Pages: 1343

Author: Franklyn Curtiss-Wedge
Publication date: 1919
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 1343