History of Olmsted County, Minnesota, Part 30

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

USA > Minnesota > Olmsted County > History of Olmsted County, Minnesota > Part 30

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St. Bridget's Catholic church is located in the northwest corner of the township. It was established in 1859 by Rev. Pendergast, of Winona, and is the place of worship of numerous Catholic families in the vicinity, mostly the descendants of Irish early settlers. It is a large stone edifice of pleasing proportions and pretty interior finish, with a priest's house and a well-kept cemetery attached. It was at first under the charge of St. John church at Rochester, but has had an independent existence since about 1882, when Father Stack became the resident priest. It is now in charge of Rev. Con- dron. A hall has been built for the use of the societies connected with the church.

: There is a large German Lutheran church, about the middle of the west line of the township, which was established at an early period in the settlement of the township.

The population of the township is given in the state census of 1905 as 998.

Mathew Fugh built a grist mill on the Root river near the middle

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ST. BRIDGET'S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, PLEASANT GROVE TOWNSHIP

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of the township in 1871; with a capacity of twenty-five barrels a day. It has changed millers several times, but has been kept run- ning, and is now conducted by Leonard Chase.

A view that is perhaps the most picturesque in the county is from a portion of a road from Marion to Pleasant Grove, that is known as the Hog Back. A ridge about a hundred feet high runs between the river and rocky cliffs overlooking wooded slopes of rare beauty.

Pleasant Grove Village .- When the route of M. O. Walker's stages was established from Dubuque to St. Paul, through the unset- tled country, in the spring of 1854, it ran through Pleasant Grove, and Philo S. Curtis built a hotel which was made the stage station, and Curtis was appointed postmaster. The location was in a beauti- ful piece of timber, and was given the appropriate name of Pleasant Grove.

The village was platted by Philo S. Curtis, Dudley Taylor and Samuel Barrows. W. H. Mills was the surveyor. A log store building was put up by E. B. Barrows and a large stock of goods brought in by F. A. Olds, who sold to Rumsey & Clough, by whom the store was conducted till 1862. Judge moved to Rochester, where he did much to build up the town.

Dr. Ira C. Bardwell, a native of the state of New York, located in Rochester in 1856 and in 1859 moved to Pleasant Grove and for a number of years was the only physician of the place.

A tragic event in the history of the new community occurred in the year 1860. Jacob D. Bunce was a storekeeper in the village, having come there in 1855; John C. Chandler, who had been in the village about four years, was a blacksmith; Chandler's age was about forty-five years, and Bunce's thirty-six. On the afternoon of the 22d of May, Chandler went into Bunce's store, and an alterca- tion followed about an account between the two. Each accused the other of lying, and Bunce ordered Chandler out of the store, and he refused to go, whereupon Bunce endeavored to put him out. The two men were pretty evenly matched, Chandler being rather tall and muscular, and Bunce shorter and stout. Bunce had picked up an iron weight. Bunce had succeeded in pushing Chandler out the door, and, when he was about three feet away, threw the weight at him, striking him on the temple and breaking the skull. Chandler fell unconscious and was taken home. The skull was trephined by Dr. E. C. Cross, of Rochester, without success, and Chandler died the next morning. Bunce had a preliminary examination before Justice Samuel Barrows, at Pleasant Grove, and was tried in the district court the next May, on an indictment for murder. He was prosecuted by J. A. Leonard, county attorney, and William H. Yale, of Winona, and defended by E. A. McMahon and Stiles P. Jones, of Rochester, and Benjamin Franklin, of Winona. The trial was closely contested and resulted in a verdict of guilty of manslaughter

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in the fourth degree, and a sentence by Judge Thomas Wilson of one year's imprisonment in the county jail and a fine of $1,000. The next November he was pardoned by Governor Ramsey, after about six months' imprisonment. The petition for the pardon was signed, among others, by six of the jurymen who had convicted him.

Mr. Bunce moved to Rochester, where he kept a grocery store till 1878. when he removed to Redwood Falls, Minnesota, where he died in 1882.

The first Masonic lodge in the county was organized in the village in 1856. It has had a prosperous existence and meets in a well furnished hall of its own. The first officers were : Worshipful mas- ter, George P. Budling; senior warden, George W. Green; junior warden, Jacob Ginter.

There is also a lodge of the Modern Woodmen of America.

The fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Christian church was celebrated in June, 1906. There was a very large attendance. The history of the church was read by W. W. Parkinson.

The organization of the public school of the village is peculiar. In 1892, when H. E. Wolf was teacher, the district included in the village was united with one adjoining it, and they are known as a consolidated district. It extends six miles from the school house, and the scholars are taken to and from the school by team, at the expense of the district. George Fordham, the driver, has only been tardy once in the five years of all kinds of weather that the system has been in operation. This plan is not followed as yet by any other district in the county, and by not more than half a dozen in the state, but is very satisfactory to the Pleasant Grove district. The school house is one of the best in the county-a commodious and handsome frame structure, and finished throughout with all the latest appliances for teaching. There are two departments of the school, and eighty scholars, nearly all from outside the village. The school board has also the credit of paying the teachers higher salaries than are paid in other schools of the same grade in the county outside of Rochester. The principal is paid $60 a month.

The village now comprises about twenty-five houses, with one store, kept by Nutting & Benson; two blacksmith shops, an hotel, kept by Mr. Decker, and two churches-the Christian church, a brick building erected in 1862, and the Methodist Episcopal church, built a few years later.

Simpson .- The Winona & Southwestern Railroad Company in 1890 established a railroad station near the northwest corner of the township and named it after Thomas Simpson, of Winona, who was secretary of the company.

J. C. Haire, from Rochester, built a wind feed mill there in 1890, before the railroad reached there. Its altitude being one of

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the highest points in the county made it and the village conspicuous from afar. The mill, after a useful existence of nine years, was torn down.

A depot, elevators and warehouses were built and a village grew up. It is the junction of the Great Western Railroad and its Winona branch, and has a store, hotel, two churches-Methodist and Christian, a successful creamery, conducted by Tyler & McCoy, and a few residences.

QUINCY TOWNSHIP ( Township 107 North, Range 11 West). -In the spring of 1854 Mason and Irving Wetmore and D. D. Woodward built a saw mill on the Whitewater river in the northeast part of this township, and furnished the surrounding country with building material for several years. Truman T. Olds was the next settler, locating in the valley of the Whitewater. Jairus Richards and Norman Libby came in 1855 and Gideon Lewis, Samuel Ten- ney, Nicholas W. Murphy, T. L. Fay, George Hinton and John M. Weagant in 1856:

At an old settlers' reunion, held in Quincy in 1874, the following list was made of the earliest male settlers of the township, with the dates of their settlement: In 1855, Mason Hatfield, Harvey F. Bush, O. S. Ford, George P. Logan, Thomas Stevenson, N. M. Murphy, W. H. Hatfield, George W. Smith, Robert L. Stevenson, Alfred J. Olds; in 1856, Michael Kepner, Samuel B. Evans, George W. Kepner, John Bush, M. M. Kingsley, James Richards, Joseph Olds; in 1862, Thomas Wilson, Burr Deuel; in 1865, Thomas B. Vivyan.

The first birth in the township was of a son of D. D. Woodward, in 1855.

The township was organized May II, 1858. The first town offi- cers elected were : Supervisors, T. T. Olds, J. L. Williams, H. Hat- field; clerk, Jotham Holland; assessor, Samuel Loy; collector, J. S. Olds; overseer of poor, Robert Smith; justices, G. Lewis, D. B. Alvord; constables, J. S. Olds, Harvey Wood.

A good grist mill was built on the middle branch of the White- water in 1857 by Charles and Frederick Johnson, from Jackson, Michigan, and a store was established by a man named Spalding, in 1859, and a blacksmith shop by Joseph Mixture. The settlement was known as the Quincy Mills. The mill was sold in 1862 to a Mr. Barns and his son, Byram. In 1863 they sold to V. Simpson, of Winona, and Burr Deuel, and the mill was improved. The store changed hands several times and was sold to Mr. Jackson, who moved it to Eyota in 1864. There was at one time a village of eight families, with the mill, store, postoffice, blacksmith and repair shop and school, and a good business was done there till 1876, when a cloudburst took out the dam, wrecked the mill and washed away the

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blacksmith shop, which was at that time owned by Mr. Westfall. The dam and mill were rebuilt on an improved plan and in 1880 Mr. Deuel's interest was bought by Edward J. Dowling. In Janu- ary, 1899, the mill was burned down, and in 1901 Nicholas Feltes bought the property and has taken down the buildings, and there is now nothing there but the school, and what promised to be a thriving village is but a farm.

Quincy is a strictly agricultural township, there not being, now, any village within its limits. Postoffices were established in neigh- borhoods known as Six Oaks and Little Valley.

The state census of 1905 gives the population of the township as 590.

In October, 1865, Warren Youmans, from New York state, and Patrick Callaghan, a native of Ireland, were neighboring farmers in Quincy. There had been trouble between them about Callaghan's cattle trespassing on Youmans' fields. Both Youmans and Calla- ghan disappeared, but nothing was thought of it at first, but after a few days search was made for Youmans, and his dead body was found on Callaghan's farm, near where the latter had been mowing when last seen, and a bloody scythe was found. It was evident that Youmans' death had been caused by a cut across the thighs, which had severed the femoral artery in both legs. An inquest was held by Coroner S. B. Clark. There was no doubt that Youmans had been killed by Callaghan, and search was made for the latter, and the governor offered a reward of $500 for his apprehension. But he successfully evaded all pursuit. He was believed to have been secreted in the neighborhood for a few days, and afterward worked as a laborer in various cities, being at one time as far away as Cali- fornia. He at last, after five years of wandering, located in Chi- cago, living with a brother, who kept a saloon, and working as a laborer. He was a very reticent man, but became intimate in Chi- cago with a fellow laborer, to whom he confided the fact that he was a fugitive from justice. As the result of a quarrel between them, the ex-friend denounced Callaghan to the police, and in May. 1872, nearly seven years after the homicide, Callaghan was arrested while at work on a building, and brought to Rochester. He was tried, arraigned before Judge Waterman, and prosecuted by County Attorney Start, and defended by Thomas Wilson, of Winona, and John Van Arman, a distinguished lawyer of Chicago. In view of the deficiency of proof after so long a lapse of time, Callaghan was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter in the second degree. In a statement to the court he claimed that on the fatal morning he was mowing and expecting to keep watch of his cattle, but a couple of them got on Youmans' land. He started to bring them back, when Youmans came toward him. driving them. A quarrel arose between the two, in which both were very abusive. Callaghan claimed that

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Youmans approached him threateningly and struck him on the mouth, making it bleed, and Callaghan struck him across the legs with the scythe and went home. Callaghan was sentenced to four years' imprisonment in the state penitentiary.

It is stated in Volume I of the Final Report of State Geologist N. H. Winchell that "In the museum of the University is a magnetic boulder of silicious iron ore, known as lodestone, presented in 1875 by James Hinton, said to have been found in the neighborhood of Quincy, Olmsted county."

ROCHESTER TOWNSHIP (Township 106 North, Range 14 West) .- Most of the northeast two sections of this township are included in the city of Rochester, and there is no village within its limits. The fair ground immediately south of the city is also in the township.

John Bamber was the original settler of the township, coming in December. 1854, from Ohio, and taking a claim on the Zumbro, near the city. His son, Archibald Bamber, was long the leading dentist of Rochester. He retired from business a few years ago. James Fitzpatrick also made a claim in 1854. Patrick Convey, Almon E. Hull, Michael Dee, Joel P. Dibble and Samuel P. Wheeler came in 1855. Hannah Williams, a widow, came in 1856. Her sons. William W. and Taliesen, are well-known residents of the city. George and Franz Joseph Stoppel settled on adjoining farms near the city in 1856. Their sons are now residents of the city. William C. Kent. William Dee, Laurence Fitzpatrick, Martin Purcell, Will- iam Rose and John Sheldon came the same season.

The first birth in the township was of Margaret V., daughter of Alexander J. Ferguson, in 1856. The first death was of William H., a nephew of John Bamber, in August, 1855.

The township was organized in May, 1858, at the court house in Rochester, and the following officers were elected: Supervisors, Peter F. Lawshe, chairman; Ozro A. Hadley, Samuel Storm; clerk, Thomas Brooks.

The county poor farm is in this township, on the claim pre- empted by Almon E. Hull. The poor house is one of the best and best kept in the state.

The population of the township, as given in the state census of 1905. was 603.

A curious geological incident occurred on the farm of Mr. Moun- tain in the summer of 1870. A bunch of five horses were huddled together in a pasture during a heavy July rain, and the next morning were found all at the bottom of a pit eighteen feet deep and twelve feet wide at the top, which had sunk under them. They were unhurt, though tumbled in a heap, and were lifted out.

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ROCK DELL TOWNSHIP (Township 105 North, Range 15 West) .- The appropriate name of this township, Rock Dell. is taken from a rocky ravine, not far from its center, which winds a crooked and picturesque course for about a mile and a half, between banks that in places are ragged cliffs of limestone, and at its bottom a small stream, fed by a live spring of cold water. It is a little stretch of rare beauty, and quite a picnic resort for the surround- ing country.

Several farmers of Norwegian birth or descent, living in Dane county, Wisconsin, looking for new homes, located with their fami- lies in the northwestern part of the township in 1854. Among them were Nels Nelson, Tollef Oleson, Ole Oleson, Ole Amundson, Guta Molson, I. Goldberg, Ole Tollefson and Tollef Goldberg. In 1855 Halvor Halvorson Stensond, Asle Erickson, Halver Oleson and Thomas Hennesy came, and in 1856 Amund Nelson Giere, Bottol Magneson and David S. Larson. Others followed, and most of the township was settled by Norwegians, whose descendants are today among the most substantial farmers of the county. There were but few of American descent among the earliest settlers.

In 1856 Rev. Leonard H. Humason, from Ohio, located, as a farmer, near the center of the township, with his son, John S. Humason, and family, and Mr. Fredenburg. Rev. Humason was at that time more than sixty years old, having been born in Cin- cinnati in 1794-an old man for a new country, but not lacking in energy. He preached the first sermons in High Forest and Rock Dell, married the first couple, baptized the first person and preached the first funeral sermon. On his eightieth birthday, in November, 1874, he preached from the same text as that of his first sermon, and was presented by his neighbors with a library chair and cane, and his wife with a photograph album. He was one of the first farmers of the county to make a specialty of dairying. He died in November, 1885. aged ninety-one years, and was buried at the same time as his wife, who had died three days previously. John S. Humason was a miller and a dealer in agricultural machinery a number of years at Rochester.

The first birth was of Ole T. Oleson, son of Tollef Oleson, in September, 1854; the first death, that of Guta Molson. The first couple married were Lyman Connor and Miss Sarah Gifford.

A meeting for the organization of the township was held May II, 1858. John A. Pierson was moderator and Jonas S. Cornish, clerk. The officers elected were: Supervisors, J. P. Powers, chair- man: H. A. Fox and N. Nelson; clerk. J. S. Cornish; assessor, Knudt S. Larson; overseer of poor, Hill Gillett; justices, John S. Pierson, J. W. Adkinson; constables, W. Croghan, Z. Shiper; col- lector, W. Croghan.

East St. Olaf's Norwegian Lutheran church was organized in

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EAST ST. OLAF'S CHURCH, DESTROYED

PRESENT EAST ST. OLAF'S CHURCH, ROCK DELL TOWNSHIP

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1855 by Rev. C. L. Clausen, who was succeeded in 1861 by Rev. L. Steen. Rev. J. A. Thorson became the pastor in 1869, and is still filling that position. A large and handsome stone edifice, with a seating capacity of 600, was commenced in 1867, and finished in 1875. It was destroyed by lightning in September, 1906. The construction of a more modern church, built better than the other, is finished and a cut of it is shown herein.

The Zion Lutheran church was built about 1894. Rev. Karlson has been the pastor for the past five or six years.

Antoine Johnson established a store near the church in 1876. It has been kept by Nels Magneson and Sander O. Sanderson, part of the time in partnership. Mr. Sanderson is the present proprietor.

A cheese factory in the same neighborhood was run successfully for a number of years, but suspended about five years ago, as a result of the greater convenience to farmers of dealing with cream- eries. Frank Graham, son of Joseph Graham, an early settler of Kalmar, and a graduate of the State Agricultural College, was the cheesemaker, and is now an inspector in the State Dairy and Food Department.

The Zumbro Creamery has been running successfully about nine- teen years. Ole Benson has been the buttermaker for the past seven years.

There is a cooper shop and a blacksmith shop and five residences in the village.

The Interurban Telephone Company, with its center at Rock Dell, is a co-operative company accommodating the farmers of the vicinity.

The state census of 1905 gives the population of the township as 825.

SALEM TOWNSHIP (Township 106 North, Range 15 West). -In June, 1854, Joseph B. Dearborn, from New Hampshire ; J. W. Hurd and wife and Albert B. Hurd reached Mantorville, and in their explorations for homes they selected the northwest part of this township and made their claims. The Hurds stayed dur- ing the winter, in hay shanties, and Dearborn went east after his family, returning and building a log house the next spring. In July, 1854, Asa Hurd, father of J. W. and Albert, came with his family and built a log house, and in 1855 there were eight families of the Hurds settled in the neighborhood. Frederick Enke, Ole C. Wegger, T. B. and Christopher Isaacson, brothers, Edward Alvord, E. A. Holton, George Hanson, and Aaron An- derson also settled in the township in 1854.

In 1855 Zabina Handerson, Cyrus and M. A. Holt and John Vos- burg came from Illinois, Darius Wilkins from Vermont, and John Lutzi from Switzerland, and C. Hellickson. The immigration of

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that season was largely Norwegian, and that nationality constituted a decided majority of the earliest settlers.

Sanford Niles, Daniel S. Hebbard, Lorenzo McCoy, Mason Hicks, Jackson V. Hicks, Ole Seeverts Sattre, Andrew Seeverts, Ole A. Amundson, William P. Brooks, Thomas Donovan, George W. Gove, Nels Jacobson, T. Knudson, James Montague, Tharl Nelson and Sylvester O. Holt came in 1856.

The first child born in the township was Julia, daughter of Ed- ward A. Holton, born in 1854. The first death was of Ella, infant daughter of Darius Wilkins, in 1857. The first marriage was a double one, of Columbus Irish to Miss Frances Hurd and Hiram Fairbanks to Miss Emma Hurd, by Esquire Wilkins, in October, 1857. The brides were daughters of H. G. Hurd.

Zabina Handerson built the first frame house at Salem Corners, and Cyrus Holt opened a store there in 1856, but kept it only a short time, and the attempt to start a village failed, and it has since been simply a farming township. A store was established about six years ago by Smith Fuller, from Byron, which has been more suc- cessful. It has been sold recently to Henry Aaby.

The township was organized in 1858 and called Salem, having been previously known as Lexington. The following officers were elected : Supervisors, Zabina Handerson, chairman; William Waite, Jr., Ole S. Sattre; clerk, Samuel H. Nichols; assessor, A. P. Ever- est; collector, Hubbard G. Hurd; overseer of poor, Luther L. McCoy; justices, Darius Wilkins, Cyrus Holt.

In 1868 a two-story town hall was built at Salem Corners, near the geographical center of the township, the lower story being used as a schoolroom. At the first town meeting held in the hall the floor of the second story gave way, letting the crowd into the room below, but nobody was hurt.

The state census of 1905 gives 759 as the population of the township.

VIOLA TOWNSHIP (Township 107 North, Range 12 West). -In an exploration in search of a claim, in the summer of 1853, George Whitman, from Iowa, discovered the large spring in this township that was afterward the locality of the Morse Creamery. He returned to Iowa and in the spring of 1854 came back, with Carl H. Bierbaum and Michael Mark, a blacksmith. Whitman and Bier- baum made claims beside the spring and Mark opened a blacksmith shop. Luke Oaks and Zenas Swan also settled in 1854. In the fall of 1855 Abram and Lewis Harkins, brothers, and Jacob Ostrander came, and Whitman sold his interests to them and moved away. Mrs. Harkins was the first woman to settle in the township. John Robertson and George F. Evans came the same season. In 1856

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Joseph Calvert, Robert Cunningham, C. Schmidt, John Shea, Caleb Sawyer, David F. Mack and John Morrow located.

Bierbaum and Whitman raised thirty acres of oats and fifty acres of corn in 1855 and sold it the next winter, at the farm, for 75 cents a bushel for each kind of grain.

The first birth was of a daughter to Abram Harkins, in May, 1856. The first death was in the same family, in August, 1855. The first marriage was at the home of Jacob Ostrander, between Jere- miah Sweeney and Miss Ophelia Kitchell, a stepdaughter of Mr. Ostrander, in January, 1857.

The township was organized in May, 1858, at a meeting held at the home of Jacob Ostrander, and the officers elected were: Super- visors, Abram Harkins, chairman; Jacob Ostrander, Rufus M. Cordill; clerk, Robert F. Cunningham; assessor, Abner Whiton; collector and overseer of poor, Thomas S. Rutledge; justices, John J. Lovelace, Jeremiah Sweeney.

The township, which had been known as Washington, was re- named Viola, at the suggestion, it has been said, of Irwin N. Wetmore.

The first school in the township was taught in 1858 by Mrs. Doty, wife of E. A. Doty, at their home. She taught two seasons, when a public school house was built-a log school house, in the Morrow neighborhood.

There are two German Lutheran churches in the township, both in the southeastern portion.

Ludwig Friday was the first merchant, opening a small store in the southeast part of the township in 1860. He was the first and last seller of liquor in the township.

In a blizzard about the middle of February, 1866, Robert Bray, a young school teacher, was frozen to death on the road, while going on foot from Viola to his home in Elgin. Such deaths, which were very few, have not occurred since the country has been well settled.

A commodious town hall was built near the center of the town- ship in 1874. Since its erection the village of Viola has grown up less than two miles away, and efforts have been made to move the hall into the village, but they have been voted down.

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History of Olmsted County, Minnesota, Part 30

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

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