History of Olmsted County, Minnesota, Part 19

Author: Joseph A. Leonard
Publication date: 1910
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 736

USA > Minnesota > Olmsted County > History of Olmsted County, Minnesota > Part 19

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The first bridge across the Zumbro was built in 1855 by L. Wayne Bucklen and James Lovington. It was a rough and ready structure, located within a few rods of the present College street bridge.

The first Fourth of July celebration was held by the McReady family. Mr. and Mrs. McReady and two children, and Mr. Cum- mings. who constituted the entire population. It was a picnic spent in fishing, strolling on the bluffs, and celebrated by the firing of shotguns.

The next year there was a double celebration. McReady pro- claimed that the day would be observed at his place by the barbecue of a steer, and Head, not to be outdone, roasted a sheep. McReady's celebration was held in the morning and Head's in the afternoon. At Head's, John Enke and Solomon Grimes went into the woods and cut a couple of poles, and James Aries, who was then a black- smith, spliced them with an iron band, and Mrs. Head made a flag.

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A procession of seven men was formed, and John Enke was appointed captain because he carried the only revolver in the crowd. An address was delivered by Jay Parker, the pioneer lawyer, and was cut short by the orator leaning against a scythe and slightly wounding his arm, and the noise, so essential to the proper observ- ance of the Fourth, was made by all the guns in the settlement.

Since then Rochester has held a big celebration about every third year, and celebrations are held at different places in the county the other years.

John Enke and his brother Fred came in the winter of 1854. They were Germans. Fred settled on a farm and died a few years ago. and John was a mason and builder in Rochester. He moved in 1878 to Verdi, in this State, where he is still living. James Aries became a prosperous owner of city property in Rochester. and died in December, 1884. Solomon Grimes was from Virginia, speculated in town lots for a few years, and returned East. Jake Fox and Anton Fisher were squatters living in cabins not far from Head's.

It is not believed that the Head home was intended as a hotel, but the emergencies of the frontier necessitated the frequent enter- tainment of settlers and prospectors, and the proprietor became and continued for a couple of years to be an involuntary landlord, with a crowded hostelry. In the spring of 1856 he sold out to Asa Lesuer, from the State of New York, who built a frame front on the log cabin, named it the York State House, and was for years a flourishing landlord.

Head had "land hunger" and tried to get the ownership of three or four quarter sections, though the law allowed the claiming of only one. While living on the quarter section that he claimed as a townsite. he tried also to hold the quarter adjoining it on the west as a farm, but made no settlement.

In the season of 1855 James Crabb, father of John C. Crabb, recently clerk of court, came along with his family, and finding the claim unoccupied, put up a tent and proceeded to build a log house, and went to living on the claim. On going to the land office to pre- empt, he found that Head had filed on the claim. He contested Head's claim, and a lively contention followed. Head, with a party of his boarders, comprising, among others, James W. Smith, Dr. McLain, Jake Fox, Solomon Grimes and Jonathan Head, went to Crabb's to put him off the claim, but Crabb's neighbors, among them James Bucklen, John Barncard, Fred Prodger, Ezra Cooper and Theodore Owen, rallied to his defense. Both parties had arms, and a heated quarrel took place, but no blood was spilled, and Crabb held his claim, and the next season Head bought him out for $1.500. Crabb's log house was clapboarded and is still standing

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on the lot at the southeast corner of Dakota and High streets, in the southwest part of the city.

Head was also involved in a contest over his original claim on the river, and settled by selling 120 acres to Charles H. Morton and forty acres to Lorenzo L. Lewis, who became the pre-emptors.

In the year 1855 the new settlement became well known as a town. Strangers came to investigate its prospects, and a few of them to settle; but the houses built were few because of uncer- tainty as to titles, and it was not till the next year that the town really began to grow.

It was in the summer of 1855 that the different claims now in- cluded in the city were preempted at the United States Land Office, and then not all of them in the names of the original locators. The preemptors were Jonathan Head, John Head, James Aries, Lorenzo L. Lewis. Charles H. Morton, George Head, James W. Smith, Frederick Prodger, Samuel R. Woodbury, Thomas C. Cummings and Henry Woodward.

The first survey of town lots was made in October, 1855, but did not become of record till June 7, 1856, at which date the original plat of the town of Rochester was filed in the office of the register of deeds of Olmsted county, J. A. McLain being the register. The land owners making the plat were William D. Lowry, Richard Smith and Charles H. Morton. Lowry had bought the claim of Woodbury. The area included in this plat was the southwest quar- ter of section 35, north of Zumbro street, in Cascade township, and the northeast quarter of section 2 in Rochester township, and was on the preemptions of Morton. Lewis and Woodbury. A number of additions to the original plat have since been made, much en- larging the size of the city.

Charles H. Morton is a native of the State of New York, born in 1828. He learned the trade of tinner and had a shop in Fre- donia. He came to Rochester in February, 1855. He ran a shop about three years, after which he operated in real estate. He was engaged several years in buying grain at Faribault and Minneapolis. In 1896 he returned to Rochester, which has since been his resi- dence. He is the only survivor of the original town site pro- prietors. He has a large circle of friends throughout the State.

The first public building of the town was a log cabin. It was commenced in the fall of 1855, when the school district was estab- lished by the county commissioners. S. G. Whiting stated that the logs were rolled up and the building started on the west side of the river, when it was thought that east of the river would be a better location, and the logs were moved to the lot on the corner of Wash- ington and Line streets, now occupied by the residence of Mrs. Bonham. There it was finished in the spring of 1856 and used as a school house. meeting house and public hall. It was probably built by contributions of labor by the settlers and of logs appropriated

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from the public domain. Everybody helped himself then to his Uncle Sam's timber and picked the best of it. The log house was used by the public till the building of the old court house, now the Broadway hotel, which was finished in 1858, provided the village with a school room in the basement, and that summer the log house was bought of the city by Zalmon J. Cowles and converted into a residence. He lived there till the fall of 1859, after which the building was torn down.

In the spring of 1855 J. D. Jenkins. from Decorah, Iowa, built a log store on the northwest corner of Broad and College streets, where the Leader department store now is, and sold it to Hugh Mair, who kept store and lived there for several years after. Mair was a queer old Scotchman, and his store in later years, at least, was like him. He had all sorts of odd things and would sell noth- ing for less than he considered it worth in the high-priced times when he got it. The result was that Mair's store became an old curiosity shop with but few customers. At first the old man sold whisky to the pioneers, and the story became current that he re- plenished the whisky barrel from the Zumbro, and to such an ex- tent that some of "the boys" who helped themselves to a barrel of it on a winter night, without his permission or knowledge. found that the exhilarant was half ice and refused his claim for pay, tell- ing him they were not paying for ice water in the middle of the win- ter. It was a common joke that Mair sold whisky by the pound. He died in September, 1872, aged seventy-eight years.

Dr. J. N. McLain, the first register of deeds, built a little office, which was the first frame building on Broadway. It was on the west side of Broadway, between Third and Zumbro streets, where the grocery store of George W. Root, now Holland & Campbell's, is.

David Lesuer, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, built another frame store in the same block on Broadway, where the Palace Block now is, in 1856, and continued in the business of selling goods for a number of years. Lesuer hall was a little room in the low second story. He died in 1891. He was one of the most highly respected members of the community.

A peculiarity of the town site was that section 36, which was a school section, belonging to the state, was not brought into mar- ket till 1862, and while the rest of the town was filling up that rich square, extending from the river to the west line of what are now the State Hospital grounds and from Zumbro street to the north line of the city, lay unimproved for eight years, and even after the lots became private property its settlement was very slow, but it is now one of the prettiest and pleasantest residence sections.

In 1855 P. H. Durfee, from Indiana, succeeded Robert McReady as postmaster and moved the office to the little building of Proud- foot on Broadway.

The earliest of the village protectors was Jacob D., better known

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as "Jake" Ault, a Pennsylvania Dutchman, who was several years night watchman. He magnified his office, fully realizing its im- portance and filling it with great dignity. Though innocent of both education and business capacity. he had a letter written to President Buchanan on his accession, asking to be appointed post- master because he came from Lancaster, the President's home, and fully believed the boys when they told him he was sure to get it; but, like many another embryo politician, he was doomed to disap- pointment. He died in June, 1865, while city marshal.

The first practicing physician was Dr. Martin T. Perrine, who came in May, 1855, from Ohio, and moved away in 1860, on ac- count of his health. He died in Kansas in October, 1900, in his eighty-fourth year. Mrs. F. A. Poole, still a resident of Rochester, is his daughter.

William Oker is a native of Germany and a carpenter who came to Rochester in 1855. He built the Rommel Block and the Schuster Block on Broadway, the residences of Frederick C. Seikert, Dr. Edwin C. Cross and others. In 1877 he moved to a farm near Lake Benton, in this State, and lived there twenty years, when he returned to Rochester and is now living here. Mr. and Mrs. Oker, who was Miss Julie Schmitzer, celebrated their golden wed- ding December 9, 1907, having been married in Rochester fifty years previously by Esq. Lyman L. Eaton.

The new town grew rapidly. In the spring of 1856 the popula- tion did not number fifty : in the spring of 1857 it was estimated at 600, and in 1858 was claimed to be 1.500. The number of build- ings erected in 1856 was about 80 and in 1857 200.

As nearly as I can find out from reading and interviewing, there must be about half a dozen of the first frame residences built in Rochester. Samuel G. Whiting, a carpenter, came from Ohio and built a frame residence on the south side of Line street, in East Rochester, and completed it in December, 1855. I think this was the first framed residence. Mr. Whiting lived in it several years, and it was last the residence of Frank Weed. Mr. Whiting was for years a justice of the peace. He died in October, 1901. Frederick Prodger, an Englishman, sold half of his preemption, including his log cabin, to Lysander C. Jacoby, and in 1855 built a frame house on Broadway in North Rochester. This also is claimed to have been the first frame residence. Charles C. Crane, who is now a well-known resident of the city, built a log house in the spring of 1856 on the southwest corner of Third and Franklin streets. It was sold to Sheriff Baker, who clapboarded it, and is now the pleas- ant home of Pembroke S. Kelly.

In 1856 John R. Cook came here from Indiana, and Charles H. Morton erected for his use the Morton Block, a large two-story frame building still standing on the northwest corner of Third and Main streets, opposite the City Hall. In addition to the two

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large rooms on the first floor occupied by the store, the block had in the second story Morton hall, which was for years the finest public hall in the town and unusually fine for the times. Cook's store car- ried a large stock of everything and drew trade from twenty-five miles or more around. It was the largest mercantile establishment in all this region.

John R. Cook was born in Ohio in 1825 and became a merchant. At the age of twenty-four he went to Wolf Creek, Indiana, where he carried on business very successfully till 1856, when he came to Rochester. He was of the greatest business ability and highest char- acter and became the most prominent business man of the com- munity. He conducted an extensive and profitable mercantile busi- ness till 1864, when he disposed of it and devoted himself to bank- ing, organizing the First National bank, which is still doing a large business. In 1869 he built Cook's hotel, the largest and best hotel at that time in southern Minnesota. As the largest building, most handsomely finished and situated in the heart of the city, it may well stand as his monument. He died in September, 1880.

His son, John R. Cook, who is a native of Rochester, succeeded his father in the presidency of the bank and the management of his large estate, and has been a leading citizen, of superior business ability, very public spirited and generous. He has continued the policies of his father and taken a similar prominent position in the business life of the community.

The American house was built by Charles C. Cole in 1856, on the corner of Broadway and Fourth street, and managed by him. It was a big, plain, two-story frame building with a big barn adjoin- ing. and for years was the great caravansary of all this region, being the stage station and crowded with travelers. It was after- wards rented by Mr. Cole to E. A. Goodell and Nathaniel N. Ham- mond. It was burned down in 1871 and a skating rink built on its site, succeeded by a theater, and it is now the location of the hard- ware and agricultural machinery store of Henry H. Hymes.

Charley Cole was one of the most enterprising and best known of the men of those early days. He was a native of the State of New York and came to Rochester from Janesville, Wisconsin, in 1855. He was devoted to the development of the city. kind hearted, and became very popular. He was several times elected alderman and was very useful in that office. It was he who sug- gested the city snow plow by which the sidewalks have been made passable in the winter for so many years. He was provost marshal in 1865, and postmaster for two years in 1869 and 1870. He left Rochester and went south about 1875, and returning lived on farms in Wabasha county and in Pipestone county, and died at the latter place in August, 1889.

Nathan Nathaniel Hammond came to Rochester with Mr. Cole.

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He was a wagon maker for eight years and then a landlord, and after that a groceryman. He died in 1903.

The Rochester hotel also has a history reaching back to 1856. That year it was built by John Stevens as farm house, rather small for a hotel, and conducted by him about three years as the Stevens house, when he sold it to Jacob Fleck, who carried it on several years. Uncle Jacob and his wife, Aunt Kate, were a good old Pennsylvania German couple and kept a homelike house that was very popular and always full. It was generally known as the Fleck house. About 1865 Mr. and Mrs. Fleck moved to Austin and were succeeded by Job Pierce and his wife, Sarah Pierce, who conducted the house several years, generally under Mrs. Pierce's management, and she was a very popular landlady. She moved to Barnesville, Minnesota, but in a few years returned and again was the landlady. The hotel burned down in 1876 and she rebuilt and enlarged it, and named it the Pierce house. She retired from the business in a few years, and died in May, 1895. James Fitzpatrick became the next owner. He was succeeded as landlord by Capt. Charles E. Thurber, from Chatfield, who after seven years was succeeded in 1895 by W. H. Brown, also from Chatfield, who changed the name to the New Rochester hotel and kept it up five years. He was succeeded in 1891 by John M. Norton, the present proprietor, who changed the name back to the Rochester hotel and has twice enlarged and im- proved the building. It is now a large and handsome three-story brick building with sixty guest rooms. .

John Stevens was one of the original characters of the town. He was a native of the State of New York, born in 1816. After living in Illinois and Wisconsin he came to Rochester in 1855. ' After selling his hotel he worked at his trade of painter. He had the skill of a good sign painter and the high ambition of the great masters of art. His first great work was the band wagon that carried the Rochester Brass Band to the neighboring towns, a very brilliant production. After the Indian massacre of 1862 he conceived the idea of painting a panorama of those imaginary events and repro- duced from the illustrated papers a series of life-size pictures that by the liberal use of red paint fully displayed the blood-thirstiness of the savages. A panorama of the Modoc massacre and one of the Chicago fire followed. The panoramas were exhibited in many of the villages of this and the adjoining States. He settled on a farm in Dodge county and his latter days were spent in farming and por- trait painting. He died in 1879 and, unlike most great artists, left a fair estate as the product of his genius.

John M. Norton is a native of Rochester, having been born in the Norton house. of which his father, Patrick Norton, was the landlord. He grew up in the hotel business, and when the Norton house was sold to John W. O'Rourke he bought the New Rochester. He has been an alderman for two terms, ending in 1908.

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The pioneer druggist and for a few years the only one was John Clark, who came from Indiana in 1856 and kept his store on Broad- way, north of Fifth street. He was a native of Virginia, born in 1821. He was a quaint character, was mayor in 1861 and 1862, and the council meetings were held in his store and were very in- formal assemblages. He died in 1883. His daughter, Jennie Clark, is the very efficient telegraph operator of the Western Union Company.

During Mayor Clark's administration a cannon was secured by subscription at his suggestion and presented to the city. The single gun was known as Clark's battery and was used for firing salutes on the Fourth of July and on other public occasions. It was seldom used, rusted out and disappeared years ago. It was discovered in October, 1908, buried in a gutter beside Mayo park and exhumed, and will probably be kept in the park as a relic.

Asahel Smith, of the firm of Smith & Daniels, real estate deal- ers, was born in New York State in 1814. He was engaged in the lumbering business in partnership with J. V. Daniels. his brother- in-law. They came together to Rochester in 1856 and continued their partnership here. He was one of the best known business men in the city and of high character. He was five times elected alder- man for North Rochester. He died in March, 1904.

His sons, DeWitt D., Julian and Charles, are proprietors of the New Method laundry. Charles was for some years a prominent jeweler, and Julian a farmer.

Batholomew Donahue, a native of Ireland, came from Wisconsin to Rochester in 1856 and opened a quarry of limestone just outside the city on the northwest. He with his sons, Patrick, John, Fred- erick, Bartley and James, have furnished most of the stone and for years have laid the basement walls of many of the buildings of the city. He died in 1903.

In the history of the West it has been unusual for any town to build itself up without internal rivalries, and Rochester was no ex- ception to the rule. The original town was not to grow without some opposition. In 1855 Charles H. Lindsley bought the pre- emptions of Prodger and Woodward and sold a three-fourths inter- est to Boston speculators, G. S. Harris, W. W. Cowles, Daniel Williams and Richard B. Smith. They were known here as the Boston Company. Their intuition and expectation was to build up the new town there, north of Head's location. They had the north- ern addition to Rochester surveyed by Thomas Hunter in October, 1856, and the plat filed in the office of the register of deeds March 5, 1857. The plat was made by Charles H. Lindsley and his wife, Silvia A. Lindsley; Lysander C., Jacoby and Richard B. Smith. Under the management of Lindsley the rival addition grew rapidly and for a while bid fair to become the bigger end of the town. A fine mill was built with a pretty reservoir for its water supply, a

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store, a blacksmith shop, a cabinet shop, carried on by James S. Niles, who afterwards became one of Eyota's best citizens, and a number of homes made quite a village, and a large hotel was projected. The excavation for its foundation is still conspicuous on North Broadway. But the financial panic of 1857 struck the Bos- ton Company, the contemplated improvements were not carried out, and all the business establishments except the mill ceased to be. It was merged in ownership with the Olds mill in the original town, and what we used to call Lower Town, but is now known by the more dignified title of North Rochester, is but one of the pleasant residence districts of the city.

A saw mill was built by Joseph Alexander and William Golds- worthy, a son-in-law of Judge Olds, in 1855. It consisted of a scaf- folding, six or eight feet high, to which logs were raised and sawed by a long saw worked by a man on the ground and one on the plat- form-a primitive plan in common use to this day in China. It did a large business and turned out as much as 500 feet a day. There was a ready demand for all that it could manufacture.

Joseph Alexander was born in England in 1826 and came to America in 1844. He lived ten years at Watertown, Wisconsin, and came to Rochester in 1855 and acquired a water power on Bear creek. He built a furniture factory in partnership with Mr. Golds- worthy, which was burned down in 1863, after which the power was used for a woolen mill conducted by W. G. Bartley and later and now for a feed mill. Mr. Alexander died in 1895.

His son, Walter Alexander, has been superintendent of the elec- tric light plant.

Mr. Goldsworthy was a native of England. He moved to Mis- souri about 1857 and died there a couple of years ago.

William G. Bartley came from Wisconsin and started a wool- carding machine in 1869. He developed a good business for a few years, but removed his establishment to the western part of the State. His departure was not only a business but a personal loss to the community.

In 1856 Frederick A. Olds, known as Judge Olds, bought the mill reservation and commenced building the Olds mill, which was completed the next year at a cost of $40,000. It is a large stone structure and has always been a prominent institution of the city. After the death of Judge Olds it was conducted by his son, Fred- erick T. Olds, and Thomas L. Fishback. It has been kept up with the changes and improvements in the milling industry and is a first- class mill, using a thousand bushels of wheat, employing sixteen people and turning out 200 barrels of flour daily. In 1883 the mill was sold to John A. Cole, who had succeeded his father as pro- prietor of the mill in North Rochester, and the two have been car- ried on in connection. They are now conducted by the John A. Cole Milling Company, with William H. Knapp as manager.

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first brick in the town and built the first brick residence, that of Addison Moe, in East Rochester. It was pulled down in 1902 to make way for the Chicago Great Western railroad. D. C. removed to Texas in 1874, where he is still living, and E. M. became a farm landlord. He died in March, 1904.

John W. Remine, probably a Kentuckian, was one of the earliest lawyers, coming to Rochester not later than 1856. He was a good lawyer and a good fellow. After staying here a few years he pushed west to the mining territories and died in Colorado in 1869.

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History of Olmsted County, Minnesota, Part 19

Author: Joseph A. Leonard Publication date: 1910 Publisher: Number of Pages: 736

Author: Joseph A. Leonard
Publication date: 1910
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 736