History of Olmsted County, Minnesota, Part 3

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

USA > Minnesota > Olmsted County > History of Olmsted County, Minnesota > Part 3

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).

By 1855 Olmsted county had become the land of promise (the Government land came into market that year) and much of the

Digitized by Google

HISTORY OF OLMSTED COUNTY

rich new land was taken up, most of it for homes by movers from older regions, but much of it by speculators, to be held for sale at higher prices.

Most of the movers arrived at their future homes in emigrant wagons. Those prairie schooners, those argosies of the frontier, were an every-day feature of the landscape wherever there was unclaimed land. A wagon covered with canvas, or, sometimes, oil- cloth, drawn by two or four horses or oxen, with a sturdy father driving and a family of generally a wife and several children, as passengers, and packed full of household belongings, with often a coop of chickens on behind and more or less stock, cows or horses or both, driven, as often as otherwise, by a barefooted and bare- headed, or sunbonneted girl, and a dog or two trudging along. There were the same class distinctions among the immigrants as among all people, everywhere. Some rigs were neat and cosy, others were dilapidated and impoverished looking; and nearly all were dusty and travel stained. Some well to do farmer, leaving a good home for a hoped for better new one, would have a houselike cover to his wagon, and, maybe, a sheet iron stove in it, prepared to live in the wagon till his claim shanty was built; and some poor fellow with a poor looking wife and tow-headed children, would pass along with a shabby wagon and lean horse, a sample of hard luck.

The wagons often had on their covers inscriptions giving their destination, generally coarsely traced and, maybe, with an attempt at wit, as likely as not, as badly spelled as by Artemus Ward or as ordered by President Roosevelt. For several years, until the com- ing of the railroad, there were few days in the summer that these nomadic outfits were not to be seen on the road, and as many as from one hundred to three hundred have passed through Rochester in a single day.

Some of the assumed best families of the Eastern States trace their genealogy back to the steerage of the emigrant ship. The future aristocracy of Olmsted county may run theirs back to the landing of a prairie schooner.

The immigrants were of various nationalities: Scandinavian, Irish, German and Americans, who, naturally, found companionship in settling in neighborhoods of their own kind. The townships of Rock Dell and Salem were settled almost entirely by Norwegians, parts of Marion and Haverhill by Irish and part of Farmington by Germans.

The life of the pioneer farmer was a rough and hard one; the creation of a home in a wilderness and the transmutation of the soil into a competency was a long and laborious process. The life of the pioneer man was hard, but that of the pioneer woman was

Digitized by Google

HISTORY OF OLMSTED COUNTY

harder. Many a farmer's wife did the hard work of both a woman and a man.

It is related that at a celebration of Forefathers' Day in a little town in Massachusetts, Gail Hamilton, the brilliant sister-in-law of James G. Blaine, being called upon, after excessive eulogies of the Pilgrim fathers by men, proposed the toast : "To the Pilgrim mothers-They had to endure all that the Pilgrim fathers endured and had, besides, to endure the Pilgrim fathers."

There was no homestead land then, the homestead law not passing till the year 1862, after a struggle of years in Congress. There have been very few homestead claims made in Olmsted county and they of late years. The early settlers bought their land by pre- emption, taking claims, generally of one hundred and sixty acres and paying the Government a dollar and a quarter an acre for them, or in most cases, turning in, in payment, a soldier's land warrant issued for services in some war and sold by the soldier for cash that he preferred to the land the warrant would have entitled him to. Around every Government land office were the signs of men calling themselves land agents or bankers, with land warrants for sale.

The United States Land office for the district including the southern tier of townships of this county was first at Brownsville, in Houston county, and then at Chatfield. and for the rest of the county at Winona and later removed to St. Peter.

Many of the first settlers sold out and pushed farther west and transfers of real estate were of daily occurrence in the early years.

The money loaner and land speculator, generally one and the same individual, was a necessary evil to the settler. Many were unable to pay for their claims, and money or a land warrant must be had for the land or improvements, or both, and the land mort- gaged to pay for it. The money loaner was accommodating, but for a consideration. Interest was extortionate and after a while became oppressive. From two to five per cent a month was exacted and not a few of the pioneers found the problem of existence in working out from under an indebtedness of sixty per cent a year. Some of the best farms are today the homes of prosperous families who are enjoying them because their ancestral pre-emptor could not sell out for enough more than the mortgage to enable him to move on farther west. A map of the county with the mortgaged farms marked on it would have looked like a checkerboard. The burden of mortgage indebtedness became so oppressive to the people that the Supreme Court of the state came to their relief by a technical decision cutting down the rate of interest after the maturity of a note to seven per cent. The legal wisdom of the decision might be doubted, but "necessity knows no law." and it was necessary to relieve the debtors.

Digitized by Google

HISTORY OF OLMSTED COUNTY

The feeling of a mortgage debtor toward his creditor is one of the paradoxes of human nature. At the time of borrowing he looks upon the man of money as a genial benefactor; when called upon to repay, he, more often than not, thinks him a robber.

Looking back upon the experience of the luckless borrower, it seems a debatable question whether the money loaner was a blessing or a curse to the new country.

The winter of 1854-55, the first experienced by the pioneers, is spoken of by them as one of extraordinary severity. With houses miles apart and homes primitively poor, and few of the con- veniences of our later civilization and lack of money added in many cases to their isolation, the period before their farms had become self-sustaining was truly one of great privation. The first three or four winters were seasons of scarcity and poverty. The winter of 1855-56 is reported to have been colder than any since. There is said to have been ninety days in which the snow did not thaw and it is believed that if there had been any thermometers in the country their record would have lingered below zero. The winter of 1856-57 was one of deep snow-drifts covered with a hard crust that made roads impassable and deer could be killed with clubs. Wood had to be hauled on hand sleds.

The county government shared in the general poverty of the first few years of settlement and county orders were at a discount in the market till 1862, when the treasurer began paying them promptly at par. The Rochester Post, in noticing that fact, stated that Rice county was the only other county out of debt. In 1857 Olmsted county orders sold for from 40 to 70 cents on the dollar.

During the years that the country was passing from a region of wild prairie to one of cultivated farms, the prairie fire was a con- stant menace to the settler. In the fall and till snow-fall in the winter, the dry grass on the untilled quarter-sections of the prairie was liable to be set on fire by a careless hunter, or sometimes by a careless farmer, and then whole neighborhoods would have to turn out and fight the fire. The brilliant fire light against the sky was a frequent sight at night, and not a few farmers mourned the loss of stacks or buildings.

How incalculable has been the development of wealth from the soil since the first furrow was turned in America. This is well seen in this county. Farms transformed from wild land, valued by the government at $1.25 an acre, now selling for from $30 to $75 an acre, and all the increase in value has been wrought out of the soil. Who can realize or imagine what the total in billions would be if one could but ascertain such increase in value and de- velopment of wealth of the whole country. It is a problem defying all calculation. And that increase and development is but fairly under way. No wonder that ours is a billion-dollar nation.

Digitized by Google

EVENTS FROM 1855 TO 1857.

T HE Territorial Legislature held its first session in 1849, on the establishment of the territory, but it was not till the session of 1855 that Olmsted county arrived at the dignity of legislative representation. That year William D. Lowry, of Rochester, was elected Councilman and John H. Hartenbower, of Pleasant Grove township, Representative.

In the canvass for the election Oronoco and Rochester were in competition. The future of each of the settlements was greatly dependent on its success in having the county so shaped that its village should be the geographical center and consequent county seat. Reuben Ottman, of Oronoco, and William D. Lowry, of Rochester, were the candidates for Councilman. The campaign was a spirited one and Lowry won out by twenty more than twice as many votes as Ottman got.

William D. Lowry was a native of Pennsylvania, and came from there to Rochester in 1854. He became one of the town proprietors and prominent in local affairs and acquired a competency in real estate. As a member of the Legislature he was conspicuous as having introduced a bill for the removal of the capital from St. Paul to St. Peter, which passed both houses, but was killed by being withheld by Joe Rolette, to whom it was delivered as chairman of the committee on enrollment. Mr. Lowry died in 1863.

He was a keen and energetic man and very companionable. In an early period of hard times he, though well off, set up a cobbler's bench in his office, which was the first knowledge that his neighbors had that he had been a shoemaker. He mended his own shoes, but tired in a few days of being a Tolstoi before Tolstoi was heard of, and the shoe bench was banished.

Before the Methodist church was built a revival was held in a room in Head's building at the corner of College and Main streets, Rochester, by Rev. Richardson. One night Lowry and a convivial companion dropped in on the revival toward the close of the meet- ing. The attendance was lighter than usual and there seemed to be a lack of enthusiasm. The preacher called upon all present who were friends of Jesus to stand up. But few rose and, last of all, Lowry got up also, and said to the revivalist: "I'm a friend of Jesus, Mr. Richardson, or of any other man with no more friends than he seems to have in this crowd."

John H. Hartenbower was a Pennsylvanian. He was an early settler in Pleasant Grove township, was a farmer who showed fine

Digitized by

Google

HISTORY OF OLMSTED COUNTY

business capacity, and was very popular with his neighbors. He moved to Missouri in 1860.

In the territorial session of 1857 Mr. Lowry remained in the Council and E. Brigham Barrows, of Pleasant Grove, was Repre- sentative.

Though the Territory of Minnesota was formed in 1849, it was not till the meeting of the Sixth Session of the Territorial Legisla- ture, in 1855, that the county of Olmsted was organized, it being taken from the counties of Winona, Fillmore and Wabasha, which had been, up to that time, of indefinitely defined area.

The symmetry of the new county was marred by the exigencies of Wabasha county, and the two townships that should have given Olmsted a full northeast corner were set over into that county. A comparison of the two counties shows that Wabasha would have been a small and poorer county without them.

The desire to bring the village of High Forest safely within Olmsted county led to the tacking on the south side of the county a range of twelve sections from Mower county. But no such appro- priation of real estate was made in the case of Chatfield, which is in the county of Fillmore, with its north end lapping over into Olmsted county.

The county received its oddly spelled name in compliment to Hon. David Olmsted, who was a prominent Minnesotan in the ter- ritorial times. The following biographical sketch is from the pen of J. Fletcher Williams, for several years Secretary of the Minne- sota Historical Society :

"David Olmsted was born in Fairfax, Franklin county, Vermont, May 5, 1822. At the age of sixteen years he left home to seek his fortune in the West. He finally located in the mineral region of Wisconsin, where he mined some time. In July, 1840, with his brother, Page, he moved over to northern Iowa, then unsettled by white men, and made a claim near the Winnebago Reservation, at a place now called Monona. Here they lived several years. In the fall of 1844, Mr. Olmsted sold his claim and embarked in the Indian trade near Fort Atkinson, Iowa, as clerk for W. G. and G. W. Ewing, licensed Winnebago traders. In the fall of 1845 he was elected from the district in which he lived (Clayton county ) to the convention to frame a constitution for Iowa. He was then only 24 years old. In the fall of 1847, Mr. Olmsted, in company with H. C. Rhodes, purchased the interest of the Ewings in the Winnebago trade and, in the summer of 1848, when the Indians were removed to Long Prairie, Minnesota, he accompanied them, opening a trading house at that point, and also in Saint Paul. On August 7, 1849, Mr. Olmsted was elected a member of the first Territorial Council of Minnesota, and, on its assembling, was chosen President. Mr. Olmsted's term extended also to the second session ( 1851), in which he took an active part.

Digitized by Google

HISTORY OF OLMSTED COUNTY

"In 1853 he abandoned the Indian trade and removed to Saint Paul, where he had lived at intervals for several years, and on June 29 purchased of Col. D. A. Robertson the Minnesota Democrat office. He edited that journal with much ability until September, 1854, when he sold it out. In the spring of 1854 Mr. Olmsted was elected first Mayor of Saint Paul, the city having just been incorporated. In 1855 he removed to the village of Winona. Dur- ing the summer of that year he was nominated by a portion of his party for Delegate to Congress, but failed to secure an election. Soon after his health began to decline and he spent a winter in Cuba in hopes of restoring it, but without avail. He continued to grow feebler until his death, February 2, 1861, which occurred at his mother's house, in Franklin county, Vermont. During his resi- dence in Minnesota he was one of the most popular men in public life."

The first division of the county was into three election precincts, in 1855, followed by the election of Capt. James George, of Oro- noco, E. Brigham Barrows, of Pleasant Grove, and James Rutan, of Marion, as County Commissioners.

Captain George achieved a fine military reputation. He was born in Jefferson county, New York, in 1819. He was a book- keeper in Buffalo and taught school in Canada. He moved to Ohio and was four years Register of Deeds in Butler county, and was four years Secretary of the State Board of Public Works. He served in the Mexican War as captain of an Ohio company, making a very creditable record, being wounded in the battle of Monterey. He settled in Oronoco township in 1854, preempting his farm with his soldier's bounty land warrant. After living four years on his farm he moved to Wasioja for the practice of his profession, the law. There, in 1861, he raised a company for the Second Regiment and was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the same. He served with the regiment three years, and after the battle of Mill Springs was made its Colonel. He showed distinguished courage in several engagements and was especially commended for his bravery and that of his regiment at Chickamauga.

We have this statement from Sergeant John J. Cassiday, of Company C, of an incident of that battle. While the regiment was in a most exposed position, at a critical point in the line, General Thomas, the commander, in reconnoitering the line, wishing to assure himself of the reliability of the regiment in the emergency, rode up to Colonel George and asked: "Colonel, how long can you hold this position?" The colonel answered, "We will do the best we can General." Again General Thomas asked the same question and receiving the same answer, said "I must know, Colonel, can you hold the place?" To this Colonel George answered, "General, if it is your orders, you will find this regiment here at the expiration

Digitized by Google

HISTORY OF OLMSTED COUNTY

of their term of service." And they not only held the position but drove the enemy.

At the close of his service he returned to Oronoco and in 1870 moved to Rochester, where he served as city justice till his death in 1882. He was for several terms commander of George H. Thomas Post, Grand Army of the Republic. He was of most social disposition and a popular favorite.

A monument to his memory adorns the beautiful Oakwood Ceme- tery at Rochester. It is a modest memorial of granite, secured by the contributions of the survivors of the regiment and erected over his grave. It was dedicated September 2, 1891, at a reunion of the regiment in which most of the survivors and many other veterans participated. The ceremony began with a march to the cemetery in which the regiment was escorted by Custer Post, of the Grand Army, with a band. At the grave eulogies were deliv- ered by Gen. J. W. Bishop, of St. Paul, the surviving colonel of the regiment, and Hon. Charles M. Start of Rochester. Both were eloquent in acknowledgment of his bravery and sympathetic in praise of his kindly character. The monument was unveiled by Mrs. Van Cleve, the venerable widow of the first colonel of the regiment, whose presence was a benediction.

E. Brigham Barrows was the son of Samuel Barrows, and came to Pleasant Grove village in 1855. He was not engaged in any business. He left there in a few years and his subsequent career is not known.

James Rutan was a native of the state of New York. After living in Ohio and Iowa he settled in Marion township as a farmer, in 1854. He was most highly esteemed by his neighbors. He moved to Missouri in 1864 and was killed there about 1866 in a runaway. Mr. Rutan, though not a prohibitionist, or even a teetotaler, was a very practical temperance man. At the election for the location of the county seat in 1857 James De Graff, a town proprietor deeply interested in Marion's success, opened a barrel of whiskey as an appeal to the voters. Rutan, who was one of the judges of election, though equally interested in Marion, protested and enforced his protest by knocking in the head of the barrel and spilling the whiskey on the ground. He further demonstrated his official integrity by refusing to certify to the returns of the election because suspicious of some of the votes counted.

The commissioners held their first meeting at Oronoco August 27, 1855. There was little for them to do and they adjourned to meet at Rochester September 13, when some election precincts and school districts were established. Unimportant meetings were held October I and November 12.

The County Commissioners for 1856 were E. Brigham Barrows, John Lowery, of New Haven, and James Rutan. John Lowery

Digitized by Google

HISTORY OF OLMSTED COUNTY

was a prominent farmer who settled in New Haven township in 1854 and died in 1862. He was highly esteemed by his neighbors. Several sessions of the board were held during the year and election precincts established and judges of election appointed. The first bills for viewing, surveying and establishing roads were allowed at the July session. The whole amount of taxable property in the county as assessed by the commissioners was $807,588. The whole amount assessed for 1906 was $10,085,508. It is a well known fact that property is not assessed at more than a quarter or a half of its real value. In 1856 the population of the county was esti- mated at 900, in 1858, at 11,000.

At the same session the first step in procuring a court house was taken. Up to that time the sessions of court were held in Morton's Hall, Rochester, and the County Commissioners met in a little office on Broadway, Rochester, built and occupied by Register of Deeds McLane. The commissioners appointed John Lowery, E. A. McMahon, of Rochester, and J. N. McLane a committee to arrange for erecting a suitable building for the use of the county. As the election for a permanent county seat did not take place till the next spring, it looks as if this action was intended to secure the location at Rochester.

The result was that Charles H. Lindsley built and rented to the county the large two-story frame building on Broadway in Roch- ester which was finished in 1858, and for several years used as a court house. The first story was occupied as the county offices and the second story as a court room and frequently as a public hall and by different denominations as a church, and even the basement was used for a while by the city as a school room. It was, for those times, a neat and commodious building, and was used by the county till the erection of the present court house in 1866. It was then purchased by Nick Peters, an estimable and popular citizen of German birth, and the upper story was used as a place of worship by the Catholic church. Mr. Peters kept it as a hotel, the Broadway House, till his death. It has since changed hands several times and was kept by Mrs. Margaret Lawler thirteen years, up to 1908, when its management was assumed by Mrs. R. B. Russell and Mrs. W. H. Mackey and the name changed to Northwestern Hotel.

Mr. Lindsley's object in securing that location for the court house was, doubtless, to assist in building up as a business location Lower Town, or North Rochester, then the rival of what is now the busi- ness portion of Rochester, but the fate that controls the destinies of frontier towns was against him.

Elza E. McMahon, known as Judge McMahon. was a lawyer residing in Rochester. He was at that time of more than middle age; a native of Ohio, and came to Rochester in 1855 from Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he had been judge of the Circuit Court.

Digitized by Google

HISTORY OF OLMSTED COUNTY

He was an able lawyer of the common law practice, with a con- tempt for the New York code, which was then coming into use in the territory, and the leader of the bar of the county; a forcible speaker, dignified and impressive in manner, and master of the keenest sarcasm. He was for years the leading Democrat. In 1876 he removed to Florida, where he was acting district judge at his death in 1879.

In 1855 Dr. J. N. McLane, of Rochester, was elected Register . of Deeds; Michael Pearce, of Oronoco, Assessor ; Philo S. Curtis, of Pleasant Grove, Sheriff; Alfred Kinney, of Marion, Treasurer; Reuben Ottman, of Oronoco, Judge of Probate.

Dr. J. N. McLane was from Indiana, and was a real estate speculator. He was a highly respected and popular gentleman. He removed to Florida, where he still lives and is proprietor of a saw mill.

Michael Pearce was a farmer in Oronoco, coming there from Ohio in 1854. He became a nurseryman, removed to Rochester in 1869, did a large business for a number of years and moved to Minneapolis in 1878, and died at Wayzata, Minn., in 1897.

Philo S. Curtis was one of the first settlers in Pleasant Grove, coming there in 1854. He was proprietor of the village, was ap- pointed Postmaster in 1854, and opened the first hotel in 1855. He was enterprising and public-spirited. He was killed by being crushed under a threshing machine in 1859.

Alfred Kinney was one of the original settlers of the village of Marion, coming there in 1854. He established the first store in the township and became a prominent and highly respected citizen. He died a number of years ago.

Reuben Ottman was a lawyer and speculator, who came to Oronoco from the State of New York about 1855 and lived there a few years. He made investments in the village and was a promi- nent citizen ; well educated and talented. He moved to Lake City in 1860 and practiced his profession there a few years. He went to the Pennsylvania oil regions, made a fortune and lost it. He then went west and became a rancher in Oregon, where he died a few years ago.

The first drove of fat cattle was sent from this county to the Eastern market as early as 1856 by Selathiel Olin; an indication of the rapid development of some of the new farms. Mr. Olin was then a stock buyer, of Indiana, but a few years later settled on the farm in Rochester township, now the county farm, and was one of the best farmers. He died in April, 1891. His son Mark Olin, is now a real estate dealer and insurance agent in Rochester.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Olmsted County, Minnesota, Part 3

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

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