History of Olmsted County, Minnesota, Part 5

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

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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).

James Bucklen, known as Esquire Bucklen, was a native of Ver- mont. born in 1805, but moved in his boyhood to Chatauqua county, New York. At the age of forty-nine he came, in 1854, to Cascade township, taking up a claim adjoining what is now the city of Rochester. He was a farmer but also an extensive practitioner in the courts of the justices of the peace, where most of the litiga- tion was done in those earliest days. He was elected Justice of the Peace in 1855 and held the office six terms. He was also, for some time, Treasurer of the township. The 'Squire was not learned Treatise, was a formidable competitor in those primitive courts in the law, but had hard common sense and had studied human nature thoroughly, and armed with the state statutes and Cowen's with lawyers of higher pretentions. He lived to a good old age and died in Crookston, Minn., at the home of his son, Dr. Forest Buck- len, since deceased, who was a lawyer of ability.

George C. Sheeks was one of the earliest settlers of Dover town- ship and one of the founders of the village of Dover Center. He was prominent in township affairs. He died in July, 1889.

Truman T. Olds was a farmer in the Whitewater valley in Quincy township, coming there in 1855. He later removed to St. Charles, where he lived a number of years, and died in 1890.

F. A. Coffin was a native of Massachusetts, born in 1811. He settled in Elmira township in 1854, and was a prosperous and in- fluential farmer. He died in Chatfield in May, 1892.

Cyrus Cornell, a farmer of Salem, was one of the early settlers of that township and influential in local affairs.

Captain William Russell came from Oswego, New York, to High Forest in 1855, and established a saw and flour mill on the Root river in that village. He was a man of excellent judgment and of business enterprise, and worked hard in building up that enterpris-

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ing village, but the mill was removed to Stewartville, and his life's labor was lost .. He died in 1883, respected by the whole community.

David Whitney came to Rochester township in 1855 from Ohio, and located a farm southwest of the city, which was later sold to the county for a poor farm, which it proved to be, and was traded for another no better, and that for the present valuable farm. He was a leading citizen of the township for years. He removed in his old age to Missouri, where he died.

Andrew Jackson Doty preempted a farm in Eyota township in the spring of 1856, and resided there till his death in August, 1908. He was born in the state of New York in 1826, was reared on a farm, and at the age of twenty-one left home to seek his fortune. He was engaged in the construction of the Erie canal and the Niagara railroad, and was Deputy Collector at Port Genesee. He was robust and of unusual strength, and in his working days he could easily lift with one hand and shoulder a two and a half bushel bag of wheat, and at a fair in Rochester lifted on the scales 1,136 pounds. He was prominent in the community and popular. His son, George B. Doty, was for several years cashier of the First National Bank of Rochester, and is now cashier of the First State Bank of Rochester.

Ezra A. Hadley belonged to a family of early settlers in Haver- hill township, from whom Hadley creek took its name, coming here from New York state about 1856. He became County Auditor, serving several years. He left this county and brought up in Arkansas, where, during the reconstruction period, he became Gov- ernor of the state. He left Arkansas and is now living in New Mexico.

During the territorial government the territory was under the jurisdiction of the United States Court, and Chief Justice William H. Welch, of Red Wing, whose term extended from 1853 to May 24, 1858, presided at a few sessions held at Rochester. When the state government was adopted in 1858 Olmsted was placed in the Third Judicial District, which included, besides it, Wabasha, Winona, Houston and Fillmore counties. The district now com- prises Olmsted, Winona and Wabasha counties, the two other coun- ties having been transferred to the Tenth District. The judges of the Third District and the periods of their service have been : Thomas Wilson, of Winona, May 24, 1858, to July 1, 1864; Lloyd Barber, of Rochester, September 12, 1864, to December 31, 1871 ; C. N. Waterman, of Winona, January 1, 1872, to February 18, 1873; John Van Dyke, of Wabasha, February 28, 1873, to January 8, 1874; William Mitchell, of Winona, January 8, 1874, to March 14, 1881 ; Charles M. Start, of Rochester, March 14, 1881, to January 7, 1895; O. B. Gonto, of Winona, January 7, 1895, to January 5, 1897; Arthur H. Snow, of Winona, January 5, 1897. His second term expired January 1, 1909.

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In 1858 Emerson Hodges, of Marion, and Dr. Hector Galloway, of Oronoco, were elected State Senators, and Peter F. Lawshe, of Rochester; J. Swaine Sawyer, of Chatfield; David L. King, of Kalmar, and G. T. Covell, of High Forest, Representatives. That session of the Legislature was not called together and the Repre- sentatives were deprived of the honor of serving their constituents, but the Senators held over and met in 1860, with G. W. Green, of Pleasant Grove; Alfred J. Olds, of Quincy; Abraham Ozmun, of Cascade, and J. Swaine Sawyer, of Chatfield, as Representatives.

Dr. Hector Galloway was an educated physician and a scholarly gentleman of the highest character. He located at Oronoco in 1856 and acquired an extensive practice. He moved to Rochester and practiced his profession there several years. . He afterwards moved to Seattle, and still later came back to Rochester and to Minneapolis, where he died.

While living at Rochester he was nominated at a Democratic convention for State Senator, and being present told the convention that he was afraid they had made a mistake; that if they expected him to go around the county and admire the pigs and kiss the babies, they had nominated the wrong man. And so it proved; he was defeated.

Peter F. Lawshe was a carpenter, who came to Rochester from Indiana about 1856. He was energetic and conspicuous in local affairs. He knew everybody and everybody liked him. He became a dealer in chinaware in partnership with S. B. Clark. He moved to Tennessee, and afterwards to Atlanta, where he engaged in the insurance business. He died in 1905.

J. Swaine Sawyer was a resident of that portion of Chatfield in Olmsted county, coming there in 1856. He was a lawyer and real estate dealer, and was a highly respected citizen. He died in May, 1875, aged about fifty-eight years.

G. T. Covell was a pioneer settler of High Forest, locating there in 1854. and becoming one of the town site proprietors. He is still living adjoining the village, and is one of the most highly respected citizens.

George W. Green was a merchant in Pleasant Grove, coming there some time before 1858. He was an intelligent and popular citizen. He moved to California in 1872.

Alfred J. Olds located in the Whitewater valley in Quincy town- ship in 1855 and lived there some years after his legislative service and moved to St. Charles, where he practiced law and officiated as Justice of the Peace for a number of years and removed, a few years ago, from there to the State of Washington, where he is now living.

Abraham Ozman was born in Tompkins county, New York, in 1814. the grandson of a revolutionary soldier. He came to Illinois in 1856 and to Olmsted county in 1857, locating on a farm in

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Cascade township, adjoining the city of Rochester. In 1862 he became a hardware merchant in the city, buying a part of John R. Cook's stock, and in partnership with his son, Aaron M., built up a large business. He also served a term as Mayor of Rochester. He died in 1887, highly respected.

The first county officers under the state administration, begin- ning in 1858, were Emery Mapes, Register of Deeds; George W. Baker, Sheriff; Stiles P. Jones, County Attorney; William P. Brooks, Treasurer; Moses W. Fay, Judge of Probate-all Repub- licans. They took their offices the first of January, 1858, though the state organization did not take effect till May. George W. Baker held the office of Sheriff two terms; William P. Brooks was Treasurer two terms, and Hiram Thompson was Judge of Probate five years.

Emery Mapes was a farmer in New Haven township, coming from Wisconsin and settling there in 1856. After his services as Register he moved to Ripon, Wisconsin, and died at Kansas City in December, 1888, aged more than seventy years. He was of high character and greatly esteemed by a large circle of friends.

George W. Baker was born in Vermont in 1823 and moved with his parents, when nine years old, to Ohio, where he lived till 1853, when he went to Dixon, Illinois, and engaged in the furniture business. He came to Minnesota in 1856 and located on a farm in Kalmar township. After holding the office of Sheriff two terms he manufactured fanning mills in Rochester. He was postmaster from March to September in 1871, and then was appointed mes- senger in the Post Office of the United States Senate and after- wards. Collector of Customs at Bismarck, Dakota, and afterwards at Neeche, Dakota, for several years. Returning to Rochester he resided on a farm adjoining the city, where he died in December, 1900. He was of a very social disposition and had friends through- out the county, with whom he was very popular.

Stiles P. Jones was a native of Ohio, read law in the office of Joshua Giddings, the celebrated anti-slavery Congressman, and came to Rochester in 1856. He was elected State Senator in 1860, but died in 1861, when he had filled but half his term. He was a lawyer of much ability, of unusual general information, an elo- quent speaker and a genial gentleman. He had all the qualifications for a successful public career and his untimely death was an irrepa- rable loss to the community.

William P. Brooks was born in Delaware county, New York, in 1819. After becoming of age he moved to Crete, Illinois, and in 1855 he located on a farm in Salem township. He was a sub- stantial and respected farmer. He died in August, 1903.

Moses W. Fay came from Indiana in 1856, and practiced law. He had been a printer previous to becoming a lawyer. He was the

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first Mayor of the City of Rochester, and was again elected Judge of Probate in 1863, and was postmaster from 1866 to 1867, when he died at the age of forty-four years and his widow succeeded him in the office. He was a well informed lawyer, amiable and popular and had a degree of ability for which he failed to receive credit by reason of his unobtrusiveness of character.

In April, 1859, the county was organized into the following townships, eighteen in number: Cascade, Dover, Eyota, Elmira, Farmington, Haverhill, High Forest, Kalmar, Marion, New Haven, Orion, Oronoco, Pleasant Grove, Quincy, Rochester, Rock Dell, Salem and Viola.

In 1859 the following county officers were elected: Register of Deeds, Lowell B. Bliss, of Orion; Clerk of the District Court, Charles C. Jones, of Rochester; County Surveyor, McDowell; County Attorney, J. A. Leonard, of Rochester; Coroner, S. B. Clark, of Rochester; County Commissioner, B. F. Perry, of Kalmar. All Republicans.

Lowell B. Bliss held the office of Register ten years; five consecutive terms.

Charles C. Jones came to Rochester from Ohio in 1855. He was Clerk of the Court one term and, afterwards, was a clerk for some time in the Treasury Departments at Washington. He moved to Minneapolis, engaging in insurance and other business, and later to California, where he died in August, 1907, aged seventy-four years. He was an active business man and of very friendly manners.

Joseph A. Leonard was a native of Maryland, born in 1830, spent most of his boyhood in Philadelphia and graduated as a physician when six months under the legal age. He came to Illinois, to Michigan and to Wisconsin, where he became an editor. He came to Rochester in 1858, was admitted to the bar and became a member of the law firm of Fay & Leonard. He was County Attorney one term. In 1861 he was appointed by Lincoln the first Republican postmaster of Rochester. In May, 1864, he was appointed Captain and Commissary and assigned to the First Division of the Six- teenth Corps, serving on the staffs of Generals Mower and McArthur. He was breveted Major for meritorious service. He became editor of the Rochester Post in 1865, in partnership with Walter S. Booth, and was a proprietor of that paper more than thirty years. He was president of the State Editorial Association two terms. He served one term as State Senator. He was Register of the United States Land office at Jackson and Worthington part of one term. He was one of the first Board of Directors of the State Inebriate Asylum, now the Rochester State Hospital for Insane. He was appointed by President Hayes one of the visitors to the Naval Academy at Annapolis. He served three years as

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United States Consul at Edinburgh, and one year as Consul General at Calcutta and, later, four years as Consul General at Shanghai. He served three terms as Judge of Probate. He compiled this history. He died in 1908.

Stewart B. Clark was born in Cincinnati in 1834. After residing with his father's family at Chillicothe and Van Wert, he came to Iowa in 1853 and to Oronoco in 1855, where he started a black- smith shop, at which he made the first breaking plow, which was used in making the streets of Rochester. He moved to Rochester in 1858 and was a blacksmith there eighteen years, after which he engaged in merchandising with Peter F. Lawler as a partner, and later was a dealer in agricultural machinery. He was several years a member of the Rochester School Board. He was an unusually large and powerful man and well known by the name of Big Clark, and was very amiable and popular. He died on Christmas, 1894.

Benjamin F. Perry was a Canadian and came to Kalmar about 1857. He was representative in the Legislature in 1866 and 1867. He was a very energetic farmer and was actively interested in the local and state fairs. He left the county in 1875 and afterwards lived on a farm near White Bear Lake, Minnesota, where he was killed by being thrown from a load of hay and breaking his neck.

Orlen P. Whitcomb was made Assistant Secretary of the State Senate in 1859. He settled on a farm in Eyota township in 1855. He was elected County Treasurer in 1861 and served four terms of two years each. He moved to Rochester in 1864 and was Mayor, School Commissioner of the city and was president of the State Agricultural Society. He was elected State Auditor in 1872 and served three terms of three years each. He afterwards resided several years in Rochester, dealing in real estate, after which he went to Denver and was interested in mines. He died in Mankato in 1898. He was a man of fine business qualifications and very sociable.

The winter of 1859-60 was remarkable for the lack of snow. There was so little of that road material that teaming was done the whole season on wheels.

The project of a railroad from Winona westward was the dream of the earliest settlers of that village, and as early as 1852 a route was explored and the building of a road recommended from Winona to Traverse des Sioux, on the Minnesota river, but the country was too new for such an enterprise. Railroads then followed. in- stead of, as now, preceding civilization. The project was revived in 1854 and a charter obtained from the Legislature for the Transit Railroad Company to construct a line from Winona to the Minne- sota river. The company was organized in 1856, and in 1857 Con- gress voted it 1.200,000 acres of public land to aid in the construc-

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tion of the road. The Legislature of 1858 also included the com- pany in the $5,000,000 loan of state aid to railroads, which was afterwards repudiated, the company getting $500,000 of the bonds. A contract was awarded to De Graff & Co. and the grading of the road was commenced at Winona in June, 1858. The line of the road runs almost directly across the center of Olmsted county from east to west. Work was pushed and the road was partially graded as far as Rochester in 1859, when the hard times and the agitation against the $5,000,000 loan made bonds unsalable and the contrac- tors suspended work, leaving a trail of indebtedness to farmers and others who had done work or furnished supplies along the line of the road.

In 1862 the company was reorganized under the title of the Winona & St. Peter Railroad Company, and work was re- sumed by De Graff & Co., and the road was really built, reaching Rochester in the fall of 1864, and bringing prosperity with it. The road has changed its name as often as a theatrical widow, and is now known as part of the Chicago & Northwestern railroad.

In the progress of the first grading in 1859 the line of the road ran across the claim of Thomas C. Cummings, one of the very first settlers of Rochester. He resisted the intrusion on his premises and got into an altercation with Bill Messler, the construction boss, in the course of which Messler shot Cummings in the chest. It was thought that the wound was fatal, and the community was aroused in Cummings' behalf. The streets were alive with angry men, and the probabilities of lynching Messler were so great that friends and a fast team spirited him into Winona that night. A riot was prevented and Cummings recovered in due time and was apparently none the worse for his wound.

Tom Cummings was for years one of the best known and best liked citizens of Rochester ; a busy contractor and house mover. He was a native of New Hampshire. He left Rochester in 1870 for the neighborhood of Fort Ridgely, where he ran a ferry several years, and died there in 1888, aged sixty-four years.

In 1860 the county government was changed back and the com- missioners divided the county into five commissioner districts, as follows, which is still the arrangement: First District. Rochester township and city of Rochester; Second District, townships of Salem, Rock Dell, High Forest and Kalmar; Third District, town- ships of Marion, Pleasant Grove, Orion and Elmira; Fourth Dis- trict, townships of Eyota, Dover, Quincy, Viola and Zumbrota (now Haverhill) ; Fifth District, townships of Oronoco, New Haven, Cascade and Farmington.

The first commissioners under the present arrangement, elected in 1860, were: Thomas Brooks, of Rochester; Zabina Handerson, of Salem; Richard Hull, of Elmira : Abram Harkins, of Viola, and William M. Pierce, of Oronoco.

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Thomas Brooks was a native of Pennsylvania, but spent his boy- hood in the state of New York. He became a clerk and bookkeeper in the city of New York. He came to Rochester in 1856. He was for several years clerk for Judge Olds. He made large real estate investments in Farmington township and lived at different times in that township. In 1858 he was elected town clerk of Cascade, Rochester and Haverhill townships. He was elected Register of Deeds in 1869 and served two terms. During the War of the Re- bellion he was a clerk for Captain Heaney in the Quartermaster's Department in Kentucky. In 1881 he became a clerk in the Treas- ury Department at Washington and served there a few years. He returned to Rochester and died there in 1902. He was a very com- petent clerk and expert accountant, was of exemplary habits and highly esteemed.

Zabina Handerson settled on a farm at Salem Corners in 1854, and was unanimously elected the first Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, and was for several years Postmaster at Salem Cor- ners. He was a Representative in the Legislature of 1863. He was a prominent and highly respected member of the community. He moved to Owatonna in 1873, and four years later to Wadena, Minn., where he was County Treasurer seven years, and died there in 1887.

Richard Hull was an early settler and prominent farmer of El- mira township. He removed to Alabama and died there in 1888. He was a most estimable man.

William M. Pierce was known as General Pierce, probably being so entitled because there was a President Pierce of that rank. He was a resident of the village of Oronoco and one of its best known citizens. The occupation by which he was best known was the trial of suits in justices' courts. Though not, correctly speaking, a law- yer, he had acquired a fund of such knowledge as was necessary to his branch of the profession and was shrewd and pertinacious in the interests of his clients and enjoyed a large neighborhood popularity. He became a pioneer settler of Watertown, Dakota, and died there in 1907.

A barrel of kerosene oil, probably the first in the market at Roch- ester, was received by J. S. Woodard, the druggist, in 1860. In 1865 the oil was sold by Harry B. Upman for $1.20 a gallon, and in September, 1865 Upman & Poole advertised that, notwithstand- ing the great advance in the price of the oil in the Eastern market, they continued to sell it at $1 per gallon. A better quality of the oil is now retailed at 13 cents a gallon.

For about twenty-five years in its early history Minnesota was celebrated as a sanatorium for the cure or relief of the disease then called consumption, but since christened by the doctors tuberculosis. The bracing climate was very beneficial to even confirmed invalids, and many town residents and farmers became Minnesotans in the

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hope of prolonging their lives. Olmsted county got its share of them, and there have been numerous cases of consumptives who have lived many years as the result of making this their home. But the fashion changed, the tide of invalidism was diverted to Cali- fornia, Colorado and other regions and, in the meanwhile, though the healing climate remained the same, consumptives were devel- oped among the native born, and now the once sanatorium is send- ing its quota of patients to those other states.

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STATE AND COUNTY FAIRS.

A COUNTY fair, probably the first one, was held in the fall of 1860, at the old court house in Rochester. It was a small affair, but creditable for the then undeveloped condi- tion of the agriculture of the county. Its principal dis- play was of vegetables, which in those days of the virgin soil, grew to mammoth proportions. Most of the exhibitors left their premiums in the treasury of the society to pay the expenses of the fair.

At the annual meeting of the Olmsted County Agricultural Society, held in 1861, the following officers were elected : President, David Lesuer ; vice presidents, W. K. Tattersall, E. Palmer; treas- urer, J. V. Daniels; secretary, C. C. Jones; delegate to State Agri- cultural Society, E. Hodges.

County fairs were held every year till 1866, when the State fair was first held at Rochester. The agriculture of this region was then much better developed than of the region tributary to St. Paul and attempts to hold a State fair there had not been satisfactory. The State fair was again held at Rochester in 1867 on the present fair grounds, but in 1868 it was held at Minneapolis, and a county fair was held at Rochester.

The greater advantages of Rochester as a site for the fair led to its location again at Rochester for the State fair of 1869.

These fairs were successful except as to weather. The exhibits in all lines were numerous and varied and the attendance on clear days ranged from ten and twelve thousand upwards, but at nearly every fair, the interposition of from one to three days of rainy autumn weather marred the pleasure and diminished the gate fees.

In 1870 the State fair again went north and from that time till 1880 the fairs at Rochester were local fairs, but hardly any the less on that account.

At the fair of 1870 several yokes of working oxen were shown; the last appearance at fairs, I think, of those useful but antiquated industrial animals. The display of horses was better than at pre- vious fairs; showing the development of the county as a horse- breeding center. There was a running race for boys at which the first and second prizes were taken by Maitland Cross and William Mayo; the only instance in which Dr. Mayo has been known to come out second best.

The advantage of Rochester as the location for such a fair was

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so apparent that a local association, the Southern Minnesota Fair Association, was organized in March, 1882. The association pur- chased the fair ground in April and with the expectation of securing the State fair for a succession of years, incurred an indebtedness of $20,000.

The State fair was again held at Rochester, and for the last time, in 1882, in co-operation with the Southern Minnesota Asso- ciation, and being favored with good weather, was highly successful. The exhibits, especially of stock, were the finest ever shown in the state up to that time and the attendance of people extraordinary, being estimated on the largest day at from 20,000 to 25,000. The receipts were ample and more than paid the expenses.

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History of Olmsted County, Minnesota, Part 5

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

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