USA > Minnesota > Olmsted County > History of Olmsted County, Minnesota > Part 10
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In 1899 the gap between Rochester and Simpson, which had been left by the Winona & Southwestern Company, was fitted by the building of a road between the two points. In the meanwhile the road had changed its name to Winona & Western. The building of this little spur gave Rochester an outlet to the south as far as Osage, Iowa.
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After all the efforts to obtain another road, one came of its own volition. In 1902 the Chicago Great Western Company built a line paralleling the Chicago & North-Western's short line from Roch- ester to Zumbrota. Contrary to all former custom, this company built the road without soliciting bonuses and paid generally full value for the property wanted for its right of way, and in most cases without resorting to condemnation proceedings. By way of Zumbrota and Red Wing it gives a round-about connection between Rochester and St. Paul. A direct line from St. Paul through Rochester to Chicago is still needed.
The latest railroad project and one not yet fully developed is that of the Minneapolis, St. Paul, Rochester & Dubuque Electric Traction Company. It is the outcome of a number of years' agita- tion of an electric line from Decorah and Preston through Rochester to St. Paul and Minneapolis. The present company was organized in 1907, and after much prospecting and promoting M. W. Savage, of Minneapolis, became interested and active in its promotion, as- sumed the presidency of the company and gave the line an unofficial title of the Dan Patch Air Line, in honor of a famous racing horse of which he is the owner, and it is oftener called by that than by its real name. The road is surveyed to run from Minneapolis through Northfield and Owatonna to Rochester, and is partly built from Minneapolis and a contract let for its construction as far as North- field. The right of way has been secured to the city of Rochester through Salem and Rochester townships, a franchise for its use of streets in that city has been granted, and the building of it to that point is hoped for. The route from Rochester southward has not yet been determined.
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EVENTS OF 1867 TO 1869.
I N the legislative session of 1867 B. F. Perry, of Kalmar; J. K. Randall, of Eyota, and Caleb Sawyer, of Viola, were repre- sentatives.
Rev. Caleb Sawyer was a native of New Hampshire. He was ordained as a Baptist minister, but his occupation in Viola, where he settled in 1856, was that of a farmer. He served two terms as representative. He was of the highest character and uni- versally esteemed. He died in 1881.
In November, 1867, William Brown, of Rochester, was elected sheriff; Charles M. Start, of Rochester, county attorney; L. O. Benjamin, of Rochester, coroner ; Edwin A. Doty, of Viola, Henry J. Grant, of Rochester, and George W. Wirt, of Oronoco county, commissioners. All were Republicans.
County Attorney Start held the office eight years, and Commis- sioner Wirt three terms.
Coroner Benjamin had been appointed coroner to fill a vacancy caused by the moving away of Dr. H. Galloway, and the appoint- ment was confirmed by his election to the office.
Charles M. Start is a native of Vermont, born in 1839. He enlisted in the Union army from that state, but was obliged to leave the service from disability. He read law in Vermont, came to Rochester in 1863 and was successful in his profession. In 1865 he was appointed city attorney of Rochester. In 1879 he was elected attorney general of the State, and after serving about a year was appointed by Governor Pillsbury judge of the Third Dis- trict, to fill the vacancy made by the promotion of Judge Mitchell, of Winona, to the Supreme Court. He was twice reelected without opposition. In 1895 he became chief justice of the Supreme Court and is now filling his third term, to which he was elected without opposition.
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The occasion of his retirement from the district bench to become chief justice was marked by a highly complimentary demonstration of the esteem of the Olmsted county bar and citizens. At the close of his last term as district judge, in December, 1894, a meeting of the bar was held in his honor, at which complimentary addresses were made by Attorneys Henry C. Butler, Charles C. Willson, Burt W. Eaton and Thomas Spillane, and Mayor Horace H. Witherstine, on behalf of the bar and citizens generally, presented him with a library of sixty-three volumes, comprising the American Statesman, in twenty-six volumes; the American Men of Letters,
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in thirteen volumes; Modern History, in eighteen volumes, and French History, in six volumes. Their receipt was very gratefully acknowledged by the chief justice.
Lemuel O. Benjamin was born in Vermont in 1830, and in 1854 moved to Indiana, and came to Rochester in 1856 and invested in city lots. He returned in 1857 and located on a farm in Rochester township, but removed to the city in 1862. He was deputy sheriff eight years under Sheriffs Brown and Ellison and was city marshal two years. He was elected city justice of Rochester in 1882 and filled the office twelve years. He was an officer of unusual ability and is now a highly respected citizen.
Edwin A. Doty was born in the State of New York and was a farmer. He settled in Viola in 1858. His wife taught the first school in the township. There being no school building, Mrs. Doty gathered the neighboring children in her own home daily for two years, when the school house was built. When the Rochester and Plainview railroad was built across the township in 1879 it ran across Mr. Doty's farm and he established a grain elevator and warehouse, calling it Doty Station and handling the grain of the neighborhood. He was town treasurer a number of years. He died in January, 1905. He was one of the best citizens-honest. frank and reliable, and thoroughly worthy the great respect in which he was held by all who knew him.
Henry J. Grant was a farmer in Cascade township and after- wards moved to Rochester, where he was alderman one term. He removed to Lac qui Parle, where he was appointed county auditor, and is now a resident of California.
George W. Wirt was born in 1828, in Ohio, where his father was a miller, and the son learned the trade and received a high-school education. He removed with his father to Waupon, Wisconsin, in 1847, and was engaged in milling with his father and A. D. Allis. He came to Oronoco in 1863 and became a partner with Mr. Allis in the Oronoco mill. After the mill was destroyed by fire he turned to farming. He was chairman of the town supervisors in 1867 and 1876. He was one of the most prominent and influential members of the community. He died in September, 1900.
There never has been much pauperism in the county, but in 1868 the county commissioners found it necessary to provide a home for the indigent on their hands, and established a poor farm by the pur- chase, from Silas N. Howard, who moved to Missouri, of a farm in Marion township, pre-empted by him in 1855. It consisted of 240 acres, seventy-five under cultivation, with a good two-story house and outbuildings. The county paid $3,600 for it. It proved to be literally a poor farm, and in 1874 the county traded it with Dr. T. M. Westfall for a farm in Rochester township, pre-empted by David Whitney in 1854. This also proved to be true to the
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name-poor farm-and in 1896 the county bought the farm of Mark Olin, about a mile south of the city, in Rochester township, and built on it a large and commodious building with household conveniences, making it one of the best county houses in the State. The care of the unfortunates has generally been kind and consider- ate. The first superintendent was John Williams, a war veteran. He was followed by Thomas Bonham, and he by John A. Howard. Those following them have had long tenures of office. . Henry Moulton, a veteran, was superintendent thirteen years; A. L. Morey, nine years; H. Reymon, three years, and Frederick Fair- banks, who has recently resigned and been succeeded by August Anderson, seven years. As a boarding place for the poor, the present farm has been as satisfactory as could be expected, but as a farm, though a fine piece of land, it has been an incumbrance. The extra hundred or so acres that have to be carried along have kept the county, in that respect, land poor. There are now twenty inmates in the institution.
In the legislative session of 1868 the representatives were Charles Stewart, S. W. Eaton and Caleb Sawyer-all Republicans. Repre- sentative Stewart was re-elected to the session of 1870.
Charles Stewart, a native of western New York, born in 1816, came to High Forest township in 1857 and improved a water- power on the Rock river by building a flour mill, which became the nucleus of Stewartville. He developed a large business. He was a man of good education and unusual business sagacity, and stood high in the community. He died in 1886.
Samuel William Eaton was born in Erie county, New York. His boyhood was spent on a farm. He attended one term of an academy. He spent a year and a half as a printer in the office of the Cattaraugus Freeman, but gave up the business on account of fail- ing health, and became a farmer. He removed to Michigan and from there to Rock county, Wisconsin. In Wisconsin he was ordained as a Universalist minister. In 1861 he came to Olmsted county and followed farming a year, when he moved to Rochester. In 1862 he became a partner with William H. Mitchell in the edit- ing and publishing of the Rochester Republican, for two years. He then spent a year on the Rochester Post, which was owned at that time by David Blakely, after which he and U. B. Shaver bought the Republican and published it a year and a half, when it was. absorbed by the Rochester Post, and Mr. Eaton became associate editor of that paper, and sustained that relation till compelled by age and failing health to retire. He was an editor of unusual ability ; a finished and vigorous writer and an all-around newspaper man. He filled the pulpit of Grace church, Rochester, for a time, soon after its organization, but aside from that, only preached occa- sionally. He was judge of probate two terms and served as city
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recorder. alderman and city justice. He completed a well written History of Olmsted County, published in 1883. He died in 1890. Of irreproachable character and thoroughly sincere, he received uni- versal respect.
In May, 1868, Henry J. Grant resigned as county commissioner and Sylvanus Risker, of Rochester, was appointed by the board of commissioners to fill the vacancy.
Wheat growing being, by far, the most important branch of farming, and its harvesting on a large scale being exceedingly ex- pensive and precarious when dependent on the hiring of gangs of irresponsible harvest hands at wages ranging from $2.50 to $5 a day, besides board, the use of machinery for cutting the grain was becoming universal, but the invention of self-binders was more com- plicated and slower of achievement. Harvesters had been invented that would cut the grain and deliver it in bundles ready for binding, but the automatic or self-binder was no less necessary, and several machines, more or less perfect, were in the market. At this stage of the invention, John H. Whitney, of Rochester, evolved the idea of a wire binder (twine binders had not yet come in use) that should gather and tie the bundle on the harvester automatically, without human handling, and throw it on the ground, tied up, ready for the stack. He worked on the invention more than a year, and in the season of 1868 had so perfected it that he put it in the field in competition with other binders. It was awarded the first gold medal given by the State Agricultural Society. It was made to do good work, was simple in construction, and apparently a merchantable machine, and a number of harvesters were made and sold, but, for some reason, they never came into general use, and the enterprise failed.
Edward Chapman, a skilled machinist, also, soon afterward, in- vented a self-binder that was apparently an excellent machine, and Messrs. C. H. Chadbourn and Alan K. and J. M. Williams formed a company and established a factory for the machines, and turned out a number of them, but the manufacture was abandoned.
Mr. Chapman came to Rochester from near Elgin and lived here several years, removing later to Washington Territory.
N. F. Gilman, of Rochester, also invented a binder. but it never came into use.
L. H. Johnson, of Rochester, invented a reaper and binder in which the improvement was in the easier working of the sickle. It, too. never got into general use.
John H. Whitney was a son of David Whitney, a pioneer farmer in the vicinity of Rochester. He came with his father's family from Ohio in 1855. He received his education in the city of Roch- ester and spent most of his life there. He served in a cavalry regi- ment in the War of the Rebellion, and afterward became a skilful
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photographer. After the invention of his binder he devoted himself to the perfection of it and other inventions. He died in St. Louis in 1876, at the early age of thirty-five years. He had unusual inventive ability and prospects of great distinction.
Charles H., an older brother of John H., co-operated with him in his experiments. He was a furniture dealer in Rochester. He invented a binder, became an agricultural machinery expert. and was employed several years by the Marsh Harvester Company and afterward by the Deering Company as an expert in the improve- ment of their machines. He died at Winnetka, a suburb of Chi- cago, a few years ago. He was a man of popular manners. and universally liked.
In the fall of 1868 David S. Hibbard was elected county auditor. He was born in Chautauqua county, New York, in 1851. He re- ceived his early education in Ohio and took a course at a business college. He clerked for some years and went into mercantile busi- ness in Pennsylvania. In 1856 he made a claim in Salem and was a farmer till 1866, when he became deputy to County Auditor Harkins, and on the resignation of Captain Harkins in 1868 was appointed auditor. He was elected auditor for three successive terms. He then became a partner with A. D. Allis and A. Gooding in the Oronoco mill, which was destroyed by fire in 1879. In 1878 he was appointed judge of probate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of H. H. Richardson before entering upon the office. Mr. Hibbard held the office until the expiration of the term. In 1880 he was employed as a clerk by D. H. Moon, and afterward pur- chased his grocery business. He moved to California and died there in 1898. He was a good man and highly respected.
In the session of 1869 J. A. Leonard was state senator and R. D. Hathaway, of Pleasant Grove: Brown S. Larson, of Rock Dell, and John Lathrop, of Farmington, representatives-all Republicans.
Brown S. Larson was born in Norway, coming to this country in his youth. He was an early settler in Rock Dell, where he was a farmer and taught school. He served two terms in the legislature. He removed to Byron and kept a store there. He read law in the office of Stearns & Start, but his health failing, he went to Norway in hope of improvement, and died there in 1873, of consumption, at the early age of thirty-three years. He was cut off at the com- mencement of a promising career.
It is an interesting fact that Mr. Larson was not a citizen of the United States at the time of serving in the legislature, he not taking out his papers of full naturalization till two years later. The State constitution. till amended in 1896, allowed foreigners who had declared their intention to become citizens of the United States to vote and hold State offices, and those of them who became full
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citizens, unless for the purpose of acquiring government land, were exceptional.
John Lathrop was the son of Junia Lathrop, who settled in Farm- ington township in 1855, coming from Indiana, where John was born, being a youth on his arrival in Minnesota. He was a farmer and was an intelligent and energetic young man. He was secretary of the Farmers' Alliance of the State. He removed to Gary, South Dakota, about 1878, and died there in 1892.
Samuel H. Nichols, of Salem, was elected assistant clerk by the house of representatives in the session of 1869.
The representatives in the legislative session of 1870 were: Charles Stewart, of Stewartville; S. W. Graham, of Eyota, and B. S. Larson, of Rock Dell-all Republicans.
S. W. Graham was a school teacher and lawyer at Eyota, a well educated gentleman of popular manners. He moved to Rochester for the practice of law, about 1872, and in 1874 removed to Blue Earth City, Minnesota.
The county officers elected in the fall of 1869 were: Treasurer. A. Gooding, of Rochester; sheriff, William Brown, of Rochester; register of deeds, Thomas Brooks, of Farmington; county attorney, C. M. Start, of Rochester; county surveyor, Robert J. Perry, of Cascade; clerk of court, C. L. Benedict, of Rochester; judge of probate, S. W. Eaton, of Rochester; court commissioner, W. S. Booth, of Rochester; coroner, Dr. W. W. Mayo, of Rochester; county commissioner, E. S. Wooldridge, of High Forest township -all Republicans.
Treasurer Gooding, Register Brooks and Judge Eaton served two terms.
Alphonso Gooding was born in 1829, in the State of New York. locating on a farm in Eyota township. He moved to Rochester in 1865 and engaged in the grocery business in partnership with C. H. Morrill. He then became interested in the mill at Oronoco, which was destroyed by fire, and he went into partnership with G. W. Van Dusen and C. H. Chadbourn in the business of buying grain, which they conducted on a very large scale. He had unusual business capacity and a reputation of thorough integrity. He retired from business several years before his death, which occurred in Octo- ber, 1906.
His two sons are prominent business men in Rochester; Arthur C., of the First National Bank, and Frank E., insurance agent.
Robert J. Perry was a son of Benjamin F. Perry, a prominent farmer of Cascade, and lived on a farm in the same neighborhood. He was a successful fruit grower at that early day, and a pro- gressive farmer. He removed to Kasson.
Christopher T. Benedict came to Rochester from Philadelphia in 1867 and became a partner with O. O. Baldwin in the practice
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of law. He was an educated gentleman. He moved to Milwaukee, where he is a patent lawyer.
Eugene S. Wooldridge was an early settler of High Forest town- ship, locating on a farm that is now adjoining the village of Stew- artville, a part of it being an addition to the village. He has always been prominent in local affairs, and was postmaster of Stewartville at his death, in January, 1901. He was an enterprising, energetic citizen, and very influential.
The bicycle, first called the velocipede, came into use here in 1868, and was then an awkward, high-wheeled machine. At first it was a vehicle of luxury, used for recreation. It has now come into every-day use by a few persons and is superseded as a luxury by the high-priced automobile.
In October, 1869, the following market prices were quoted in the Rochester Post: No. I spring wheat, 45 cents; No. 2, 40 cents; corn, 20 cents ; oats, 16 cents; pork, $4 to $4.25 per hundred.
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EVENTS OF 1870 TO 1873.
A S in all the West, the main crop of the early farmers was wheat. Its cultivation and especially its sale for cash in hand, seemed to make it the best money-raiser, and for about ten years after the first settlements it was not only the main crop, but the only one raised on a large scale, and the county was one great wheat field. And no country was more at- tractive than this when the ripening grain was spread out over mile beyond mile of the tilled fields. But little other grain was raised and scarcely any stock. Minnesota was the great wheat State, and it was the prevalent opinion that for all future time it was to be the granary of the world. But in 1866 a short crop gave the first warning of the successive shrinkage in the yield that followed for several years. The yield diminished from twenty to thirty bushels to the acre to ten to twenty bushels. This process of deterioration culminated in 1878 with a total failure of the crop.
The failure of wheat growing and the neglect of other kinds of farming had impoverished many of the farmers, though there were those who, by more fortunate management, succeeded in the busi- ness. Mortgages were numerous, scarcity of money and hard times prevalent. The whole community felt poor-perhaps poorer than it really was. Less wheat was raised from year to year, and other field crops, stock raising and dairying soon substituted till now scarcely any wheat is raised. Barley is the main cereal crop. Corn, which, it was at first thought, could not be relied on here, is, per- haps, as important as any, and stock raising and dairying are con- sidered the most profitable branches of farming.
The first development of dairying on a large scale was the estab- lishment of cheese factories. Chauncey and Rudolph Vroman, farmers from Oronoco township, started a cheese factory, about 1870, in a building still standing in East Rochester. The Star Cheese Factory, at Olmsted, in Kalmar township, was started in 1871. another near Byron, and one at Rock Dell in 1875. The fac- tories outside Rochester were co-operative, supported by the farm- ers of the neighborhood, were carried on successfully a number of years, and were profitable to their patrons, but the introduction of the hand separator, of recent years, has made it so much more con- venient and economical for the farmer to furnish cream to the creamery than milk to the factory, that cheese-making is becoming a lapsed industry in this region.
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Cheese-making was followed by factory butter-making. In 1881 the firm of Eaton & Walker, consisting of William J. Eaton and Charles Walker, came from Iowa to Rochester, engaged in the buy- ing and shipping of butter, and established a creamery in the Vro- man Building. The next spring they sold it to Charles E. Marvin and Edward N. Cammack, also from Iowa, who, as Marvin & Cammack, conducted the business about three years and removed it to West St. Paul, where it has since been carried on as the Crescent Creamery. It was followed by creameries throughout the county. There have generally been, and now are, two at Rochester. They are, at present, the Rochester Creamery, owned by W. J. Eaton, and the Queen City Creamery, owned by Clarence Van Hook and Edward J. Henry. By 1886 there were creameries at Byron and in High Forest township. In 1890 others were added at Viola and Pleasant Grove, and in 1892 the creameries in the county had in- creased to sixteen, there being new ones at Douglass, Haverhill, Oronoco, Genoa, Salem, Stewartville, Stone's Corners and Marion, and in 1894 one was started at Laird, and, later, others at Simpson and Predmore. A creamery was run for years in Viola township by H. D. Morse, of Winona, and one in High Forest township by C. E. Waller. They were both discontinued several years ago.
There are now creameries at Rochester, Eyota. Dover, Viola, Rine, in Farmington township; Oronoco, Byron, Douglas, Rock Dell, Simpson and Pridmore. The county is well supplied with facilities for dairving.
Most of these enterprises have been co-operative. Some failed after a few years of successful operation, but most of them were profitable to the farmers. In 1906 there were in the county in con- nection with the creameries, of which there were fourteen, 1, 176 patrons; 9,241 cows, furnishing 37,590,754 pounds of milk, from which 1.654,269 pounds of butter were made, and the farmers re- ceived for the milk and cream, $310,853.92.
At the same time that this change was taking place, other diversi- fication was going on in the way of raising and improving the breeds of stock of different kinds, not forgetting poultry, and the every- day circulation of money was greatly increased, the mortgages were paid or reduced, and prosperity succeeded stringency. The cow had redeemed the farm, and today the county is one of the most prosperous in the State, and dairying is one of its best industries.
During the territorial period, when the federal administration was Democratic, the local offices were controlled by the administra- tion, and were generally held by Democrats, but with the independ- ence of the State and the influx of new settlers during the succeed- ing years, the county became strongly Republican, and a Republican nomination was nearly equivalent to an election. Party spirit was strong and nearly all local officers were Republican; but about 1868
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