USA > Minnesota > Olmsted County > History of Olmsted County, Minnesota > Part 27
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com Wright, wagon maker; Samuel E. Keeler, harness maker, and L. N. Smith and Arthur Brush, liverymen.
The village was incorporated by the legislature, and the first village election was held March 9, 1875, and the following officers were elected: Council, George W. Barto, O. H. Jackson, E. D. Dyar; recorder, C. S. Andrews; treasurer, C. P. Russell; justice, S. E. Keeler; assessor, Edwin Dunn; constable, H. B. Herrick. The vote for councilman between Milo Matteson and Charles Ells- bury was a tie and at a second election Matteson won. There were 108 votes polled.
The Everett House, a large frame hotel, was built in 1866, and kept several years by George W. Barto.
A Presbyterian church was organized in June, 1866, and the next year built a good sized and pretty church building. The United Brethren church was afterwards started by Rev. M. L. Tibbetts, who came from Iowa. He was a very energetic and popular preacher and was a resident of Eyota and the vicinity a number of years, but a few years ago moved to California, where he is now living. In 1872 the Presbyterian church was discontinued and their church building was sold to the United Brethren, who still occupy it. Rev. William C. Bacon came to the United Brethren church in 1877. After remaining three years, he left for another locality, but came back to Eyota in 1890 and has ever since lived there and preached in the vicinity. He has now retired from active service. He is a native of the state of New York, born in 1834. Rev. William W. Vine is the present pastor of the United Brethren church. He is a son of William Vine, an early settler of Viola township. The Methodists started a church and built a pretty edifice soon after the Presbyterian. Rev. C. H. Miller is their present pastor. Rev. Stephen Maddock, the priest at Chatfield, organized the Church of the Holy Redeemer about 1891, and built a neat place of worship. He officiates at both places.
The village had a rapid growth and became an important grain market while wheat growing was the fashion. The principal buyers were Jackson & Russell, C. R. Blair and Needham & Wheeler. It was estimated that 300,000 bushels were taken at the elevators in the year ending July 1, 1865. The receipts for September, 1867, were stated as 46,619 bushels and for October 135,000 bushels. Two thousand bushels were said to be bought in one day of Sep- tember, 1872, and the four elevators are said to have taken in 800.000 bushels a year in 1868, 1869 and 1870.
Charles H. Alden came in 1868 and was engaged several years in grain buying. He is still a resident of the village. He was born in New Hampshire in 1832 and was engaged in the grain business in Winona before coming to Eyota, where he bought the first wheat
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shipped out of Minnesota, for V. Simpson and S. C. White, in 1858.
The Eyota Advertiser was first published in April, 1869, by T. G. Bolton, a druggist. It was a good advertising sheet and was kept alive while Mr. Bolton remained in Eyota. It was published more for the benefit of the village than for the profit of the publisher. It was sold to Dyar & Ingham, who published it five years. A. De Lacy Wood started the Eyota Enquirer in 1873, and ran it about a year. E. A. Rising started the Eyota Eagle in 1878 and ran it a few months. There is now no newspaper published there.
In 1875 a handsome, large two-story public school house, of cream colored brick, was built. It is the most conspicuous public building of the town. The schools comprise a high school, with two teachers, and eight graded schools with three teachers.
A novelty in municipal reform was effected in the spring of 1893. No license having carried at the election it was claimed that the village board would be unable to have the streets lighted for lack of the money derived from saloon licenses, whereupon a tem- perance organization of young women raised the money by sub- scription, bought the lamps and oil and, with the consent of the board, assigned each lamp to one of the ladies who kept it burning regularly, till the village again, at the next election, voted for license.
Edson G. Hill, came from St. Charles to Eyota in 1893, was elected justice of the peace the next year and has served in that capacity thirteen years.
The Western Telephone Company was established about 1895, and a local company called the Viola Telephone Company was after- wards established. It has sixty miles of lines. The Tri-State com- pany has a long distance station.
The Eyota Creamery Company, a farmers' co-operation com- pany, was organized in May, 1898. It has done a large business, increasing from $8,000 the first year to $40,000 in the year 1907. It is supplied by 1.200 cows.
The Eyota Hospital, established by Dr. R. C. Dugan, in October, 1900, has been very successful and is a benefactor to the surround- ing country. It is a pretty frame building with a capacity of eight beds and devoted principally to surgical cases. Dr. Dugan has a high reputation as a skilful operator. In 1907 the number of major operations performed was sixty-three; minor operations forty-one and medical cases, eleven.
Dr. Rollo C. Dugan is a son of Elisha S. Dugan, deceased, an early settler of Eyota township. He was born on the farm in 1865, graduated in medicine at the Minnesota University in 1890, has since practiced at Eyota and is the only physician there. He is a member of the leading surgical and medical associations.
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The village showed its enterprise by voting for a system of water- works for protection against fire by seventy-eight votes in favor to only eighteen against the proposition, and the system was estab- lished in 1906. A well connected with a tank holding 19,000 gal- lons of water under air pressure is pumped by a gasoline engine and the water forced through mains extending along twelve blocks in the business and residence districts. A neat stone building en- closes the machinery and there are two hose carts and a volunteer fire department of thirty-two men, under the direction of Herman E. Smith, the village marshal. It is a very complete and efficient system.
The Masonic Lodge is a large and flourishing organization. There are also of secret and fraternal organizations, lodges of the United Workman, Odd Fellows, Woodmen, Good Templars, High- land Nobles, Beavers and the Equitable Fraternal Union. The Ma- sons, Odd Fellows and Good Templars own their halls.
The state census of 1905 stated the population of the village as 400.
The first National Bank of Eyota was organized in June, 1900, with F. H. Russell as cashier. Farmers' Institutes have been held here. Recently a Red Cross Society was organized here with Mrs. Armstrong as president. In 1900 Brittenfelt brothers raised 500 acres of potatoes. Interesting stock shows have been held in this township. An old settlers' association was organized here in 1878, but did not survive long.
FARMINGTON TOWNSHIP (Township 108 North. Range 13 West) .- This township was not settled till 1855, when Z. Tum- bleson, Junia Lathrop, Mr. Ball, Andrew Parsons, Conrad Schacht and Robert Moody made claims in the southeastern part of the town. The following winter Mr. Parsons died, his being the first death in the township.
In 1856 claims were made in the south part of the township by Henry Dresser, Thomas Brooks, Orrin Oakes, John Walker, Wil- liam Searles, Chris Neimier and others. The same year claims were made in the northwest of the township by Archibald Baker, S. H. Baker, A. M. Baker, Adelbert Baker, Philip Hope and Christopher Hope.
In 1857 Asa Kidder, J. F. Hodge, Ethan Kimball, Robert Little, John V. Little, A. M. Hall, P. Russell, Osborn Earl, J. R. Hag- gerty, Dan McArthur, and others settled in the same neighborhood and the village of Farm Hill was started with a church and a school. The Baptist church is still living, but a Methodist church, which was built in 1868, was torn down in 1880 as the result of dissension of the congregation. A store and the postoffice was kept by Ethan Kimball and afterwards by Asa Kidder, but the village
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failed to develop and there is now only the church and a school house.
In 1856 Haven Schacht, Fred Kohn, Martin Guhrt, William Kutzky and Peter Yonk, all Germans, settled in the northeast of the town. They were followed by others of German birth or descent, and many of the best farmers of the township have been of that origin.
The township was organized in 1858 and the following officers elected : Supervisors, Ethan Kimball, chairman; E. Evans, P. Rus- sell ; clerk, T. H. Rose.
Two miles west of Potsdam is the Emanuel German Methodist church, and Zion German Evangelical church, two miles south of Potsdam. They were built about forty years ago.
The population of the township by the state census of 1905 was 741.
Stephen Greenwood, a native of Pennsylvania, came from Wis- consin in 1859 and became one of the most prosperous farmers of the township. The beautiful prairie, which includes nearly all of the township, was given his name and is known as Greenwood Prairie.
Near the south line of the township is the Ringe creamery, started about 1893 by Hans Hendrickson. It was made a co-opera- tion company about five years ago and is doing a large business. The odd name Ringe was given when a postoffice, since discontinued, was located there and was named from the estate in Norway, on which Mr. Hendrickson was born.
On an afternoon in September, 1878, Herbert Barnhart, a young man, while hunting rabbits, near the residence of Amos Parks, dis- covered the dead body of a man in a grove, with the skull fractured, apparently by a blunt instrument. At an inquest the remains were identified as those of John Schroeder, a harvest hand from Daven- port, Iowa, who had been working for Carl Schultz and had left there a few days before with another harvest hand, a German named Fred Hittman. They had spent Sunday together at Pots- dam and spent the night of the murder in the grove. Schroeder had $28 when they left Schultz', when the body was found the money was gone and Schroeder's pockets were turned inside out. Hittman had come to Rochester, eaten his dinner at the Union Hotel and gone east by railroad. Within a week he was found at Davenport and on information from the sheriff of that county, Sheriff White went there and brought him to Rochester. He was indicted for murder and tried at the December term of court, being prosecuted by County Attorney Eckholdt and C. M. Start and de- fended by R. A. Jones. He pleaded guilty and was sent to the peni- tentiary for life. The death penalty was not in force at that time.
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He became insane in the penitentiary and was transferred to the State Hospital at Rochester, and after spending two years there, was pardoned in 1901 on condition of being returned to Germany by his brother.
Potsdam .- In the northeast portion of the township the village of Potsdam grew up about 1860; a village of German Americans. Louis Quentin established a harness shop and Mr. Goodert a black- smith shop, and they were followed by John Ingleby, who built the first store and was for years the village merchant. He sold to Fred Patrick who sold to John Frahm, who was succeeded by Rufus R. Zander, and Herman Reiter Zander is still in the business. Ingleby moved to Rochester about 1885, and was an alderman two terms from 1892. He is now living in Montana. A hotel was kept by Theo. Tornow, who about 1878 sold to William Bemke and moved to Rochester, where he is now living.
The Emanuel German Evangelical Lutheran church was built in 1872 and is the most conspicuous building in the village. It has connected with it a parochial school. The village includes ten or fifteen families.
An ill fated mill was built at Potsdam in 1874. It was a large wind flour and feed mill with two runs of stone, was on a rise of ground, and was conspicuous for miles around. It was built by a contribution of $6,000 by the neighboring farmers, and for a time did a good business, but was fated with two horrible accidents. During a strong wind in April, 1875, the large wheel became un- manageable, and William A. McCarron, an athletic young black- smith of about twenty years, went with three others, to the top of the tower to stop it. He was knocked down and caught in the cogs of a large wheel and in spite of the efforts of the others to rescue him, was drawn in and literally ground up between the wheel and a timber, his body passing through a space of less than two inches, crushing it into a pulp. The most of the body was gathered up in a grain sack.
In December, 1876, Emil Seeman, the miller, a German, was on the top of the tower oiling the machinery before starting the mill, when a check rod that held the mill from running, broke and the mill revolved with great velocity ; a cast iron wheel of a ton and a half, burst and crushed the platform on which Mr. Seeman was stand- ing, hurling him down thirty feet against the timbers of the mill and crushing him horribly and he died within a couple of days.
The mill is now a feed mill, but the big wheel has disappeared and the mill is run by gasoline power, without such risk of human life.
HAVERHILL TOWNSHIP (Township 107 North, Range 13 West) .- This township was first settled in 1855 by Garrett Van Houghton, Gideon Fitch, Cyrus B. Dodge, James G. Whipple,
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Edward Cox and Cyrus Knight. Francis Cressy, Isaac C. Van Hook, William Searles and Daniel Murphy came in 1856.
The first birth and death in the township was of a son of Gideon Fitch, who was born in October, 1855, and lived only about two weeks. The first marriage was of a member of the Fitch family.
Mrs. Jane Andrews, from Rhode Island, taught the first school in 1857 at her home.
The township was organized in 1859, and the following officers were elected: Supervisors, O. A. Hadley, chairman ; C. H. Crane, Samuel R. Woodbury ; clerk, Charles Parker ; assessor, R. H. Tal- bot; collector, Baldwin Martin; justices, Francis Dresser, R. W. Palmer; constables, Baldwin Martin, John P. Simmonds; overseer of poor, Gideon Fitch; poundmaster, Garret Van Houghton.
The township was first named Zumbro, but a town in Wabasha county, having been so named, it was changed in 1864 to Grant, and in 1865 to Sherman, which in 1867 was changed to Haverhill, the present name.
The nearness to Rochester has prevented the development of any village within its limits, and it is an exclusively farming township. The settlers have been principally of Irish birth or descent.
The state census of 1905 gives the population of the township as 508.
An Anti-Horse Thief Society was organized about 1880, with the result that there has been no horse stealing within its juris- diction.
A German Lutheran church was built in the northeastern portion of the township in 1894.
The existence of a cave, the resort of wild cats and wolves on the farm of I. C. Van Hook, about three miles north of Rochester and near the Lake City road, had been known in the neighborhood, but it had not been explored till a Sunday in December, 1870, when five boys. from twelve to sixteen years old, sons of J. Van Smith, J. T. Van Hook, I. C. Van Hook and M. S. Higbee and a Danish boy entered it. They found at the bottom of a slope of fifteen feet a pit hole and beyond it a large irregular shaped chamber 260 feet long, forty wide and about thirty high, with rocky walls hung with stalactites, some of them a couple of feet long. The story of the boys was confirmed by the visits of several men, but we believe the cave has never become generally known.
CASCADE TOWNSHIP (Township 107 North, Range 14 West) .- Cascade creek, a beautiful little stream running across the southeast portion, has given this township its name.
The city of Rochester being in its southeast corner, the township has had but little history aside from that of the city.
The first settlements in the township were made in 1854 by
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Robert McReady, Thomas C. and Samuel G. Cummings, James Bucklin, John Hendricks, Henry and Jacob Schmelzer and a few others.
There was quite a number of settlers in 1855, among them Ephraim and Noble Cobb, George W. Huyler, Edward Proudfoot, I.yman I .. Eaton, Abel Moulton, Elvin Clason, Charles Horton, Barney Hackett, John Hendricks, Joseph Fogarty, and John Newell. Charles H. Crane came to Rochester in 1855 and settled in Cascade in 1856, living there several years and later returning to Rochester, where he is now living.
Robert Waldron, Rozell Freeman, Lucius S. Cutting, William R. Rice. George F. Seiler, Alanson Joslyn and John Klee came in 1856.
The first birth in the township was in the family of Joseph Hor- ton in 1855, and the first death the same year, that of Adelaide, a daughter of James Bucklin, aged about sixteen years.
The township was organized in 1859, the first officers being : Supervisors, James Bucklin, chairman; Alvah Southworth, Philo Boardman ; clerk, George Carpenter; treasurer, Sylvester Conklin; assessor, Hibbard Smith; constables, Joseph Chambers and Lewis Rice.
Miss Lucy Cobb, who came to the township in 1856, was one of the earliest teachers and taught several years in Cascade and ad- joining townships.
In 1858 the county commissioners declared that portion of the township of Cascade east of the Zumbro river a part of the town- ship of Haverhill. In 1870 a petition was presented from the people of Cascade asking that the strip be detached from Haverhill and reattached to Cascade. The matter was referred to County At- torney Start, who gave the opinion that the action in 1858 was illegal and void, and the commissioners passed a resolution declaring the territory a part of Cascade, and it has since been so considered.
Cascade postoffice was established in 1868 and E. Clason, an early settler, was appointed postmaster. The office has given way to the rural free delivery.
A very pretty little Methodist church was built at Five Corners in 1901. A frame structure on a sightly elevation, with stained win- dows and handsomely finished interior. Instead of following the old custom of naming it after a dead saint, it was called after a live preacher, being dedicated Doran Chapel, in recognition of the zeal of Rev. Frank Doran, then of Rochester, in building up the congregation.
The state census of 1905 gives the population of the township as 773.
Cascade postoffice was established in April 1868. E. Clason was the first postmaster.
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Olmsted station was established in 1870, on line between Cascade and Kalman on farm of J. V. Matthews, four and one-half miles west of Rochester.
Cascade census, 1860, 427; 1870, 812.
HIGH FOREST TOWNSHIP (Township 105 North, Range 14 West; and part of Township 104 North, Ranges 14 and 15 West). -The elevation of the site of the villages, on which the first set- tlements were made and the surrounding belt of large timber, gave the township the appropriate name of High Forest.
In the spring of 1854 John S. Robinson with his family, com- prising his wife, their daughter, Mary R., Lucretia Stafford and Charity Oleson, came to what was afterwards the site of High Forest village, accompanied by John S. Pierson, and Mr. Robinson made a claim there. The same summer claims were made in the township by George I. Covell, Nathan R. Lyon, John S. Pierson, Charles J. Johnson, Charles Grannis, Ira Smith, Frank Wilson, Henry White, Albert Munson, James Griffin and Timothy Twohey. In 1855 settlements were made by William R. Tubbs, Lawrence Burns, John C. Buckley, Michael Mccarthy, John G. Engel, David Munson, P. M. Tuttle, Lee Duncanson, L. Mahoney, James Thomas and William Wood. Among those who came in 1856 were Martin Holland, John Kelly, William Kelly, James Kelly, M. Hiser, Ed- ward Judge, John Stewart, Lawrence Fitzpatrick and Mathew Fugh.
It is narrated in a sketch of the township by Dr. A. Grant, pub- lished in Mitchell's History, that on the night of July 6, 1854, a terrific thunder storm came up with a rain that overflowed Robinson creek. The whole of the little community of first settlers were gathered in one log cabin, which was so crowded that a lady with two little children slept in a wagon box. The freshet flooded the cabin, driving out the lodgers, and swept the wagon box off the ground and the woman and children were barely rescued. A thou- sand dollars in gold was lost by the woman, but was found in the morning.
The first birth in the township was of Anna S. Lyon, daughter of Orson and Sarah A. Lyon, born February 1, 1855.
The first death was of Mary E. Robinson, one year and eight months old, child of John and Sarah C. Robinson, who died June I, 1855.
The first marriage was of E. G. Earle and Miss Reese, in 1855. The knot was tied by Thomas H. Armstrong, then a justice of the peace for Mower county.
In the spring of 1856, before townships were organized, the part of the township then in Mower county was set off into a precinct and the following officers were appointed by the county
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commissioners : Supervisor, G. T. Covell; assessor, John Robinson; justice, T. H. Armstrong ; constable, Orson Lyon.
On the organization of the township, in 1858, the following offi- cers were elected: Supervisors, D. B. Coe, chairman, Charles Stewart, A. Horton; clerk, J. W. Whitney ; assessor, J. Pierce; jus- tices, Julius Smith, David Brainard ; collector, J. L. Rockwell; con- stables, M. D. Chamberlain, John De Nure.
John S. Pierson, who located in 1854 in the part of the town- ship in Mower county known as Pleasant Valley, was appointed postmaster for that region. The village of High Forest wanted the postoffice and tried hard to get it, but could not till Mr. Pierson resigned, when W. K. Tattersall was appointed.
The political conformation of this township, with twelve sections on its south taken off Mower county, has always been an incon- venience in the transaction of town business to those living farthest from the village, and a law was gotten through the legislature of 1869 to incorporate four sections, sections 5, 6, 31 and 32, which in- clude the village of High Forest, and also to set off in a separate township the west half of the township from a line running north from between sections three and four. This would have made High Forest and Stewartville the local capitals of the separate townships and would have given each a separate representation in the county party conventions, as they were then constituted. The proposition was submitted to the voters and carried, but Hon. Charles Stewart, of Stewartville, had its legality tested in the supreme court by a suit for an injunction to compel Thomas Kin- sella, the assessor, of the original township, to assess the property of the Stewartville half of the township, which he refused to do, assuming that the separation was valid and that the new township was outside his jurisdiction. The supreme court decided that the law of separation was unconstitutional because it embraced more than one subject. No further attempt was made at division of the township.
According to the state census of 1905 the population of the township was 669.
High Forest Village .- In the spring of 1855 John Robinson had a village plat surveyed on his pre-emption and the same season Capt. William Russell, from Oswego, New York, bought, and im- proved the water power within the village and erected a saw and flour mill.
In the fall of 1855 B. S. Reppy, from La Crosse, opened the first store in a building erected by Mr. Robinson and another store was started by Coe & Huddleston. Mr. Huddleston was a well educated young Englishman who also practiced law. He sought a wider field at Hastings, and afterwards at Minneapolis, and served as a lieutenant in the Union army.
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Dr. Alexander Grant came in 1855 or 1856. He was a native of New York, of Scotch parentage, born in 1825 and reared on a farm. He acquired an academic and collegiate education, attended the medical department of Michigan University and graduated at Buffalo Medical College. He taught school and practiced medicine in Wisconsin and came to High Forest as a physician. On the failure of the firm of Coe & Huddleston he acquired their stock of goods, and kept a store as well as practiced his profession. He moved to Bath, South Dakota, in 1881 and died there in 1907. He was thoroughly educated, of keen intellect and scholarly tastes and took an active interest in all matters of local enterprise.
In 1856 William K. Tattersall came from New York City and built a three-story frame hotel and was, for years, its landlord. He was postmaster twenty-six years.
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