History of Otter Tail County, Minnesota: Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I, Part 52

Author: John W. Mason
Publication date: 1916
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 765

USA > Minnesota > Otter Tail County > History of Otter Tail County, Minnesota: Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I > Part 52

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).

Digitized by Google

478

OTTER TAIL COUNTY, MINNESOTA.

Henning. Joy, Joyce. Leaf Mountain, Lida, Luce, Lyman, Maine, Mill Park, New York Mills, Norwegian Grove, Oscar, Otter Tail, Paddock, Parkers Prairie, Pelican Lake, Pelican Rapids, Perham, Phelps, Redington, Rich- dale. Roberts, Rumsey. St. Lawrence, St. Olaf, Spirit Lake, Squier, Star Lake, Stod, Sverre, Tordenskjold, Underwood, Vida, Vining, Wall Lake, Weggeland, Western, Woodland, Worden and Wrightstown.

In addition to these sixty-eight postoffices, just enumerated, there have been postoffices at the following places, all of which are now discontinued : Amboy, Ames, Dopelius, Bangor, Essex, Boardman, Hoff, Lake Sybil. Red Eye, Turtle Lake. Inman, Parkdale, Friberg and Aastad. Since 1904 there have been three postoffices established, Almora, Hill view and Vergas, the latter being formerly known as Altona. Hillview was discontinued in 1915. This gives a total of eighty-four postoffices which have been established in Otter Tail county since its existence, and since there are only twenty-four active at the present time it follows that sixty postoffices have been discon- tinued. Forty-three offices were discontinued between 1904 and 1906. The list of the present postoffices of the county, together with the postmasters' salaries and number of rural routes from each office, is as follow :

Following are the present postoffices in Otter Tail county, together with the salary received by the postmaster and the number of rural delivery routes maintained from each office :

PRESENT POSTOFFICES IN OTTER TAIL COUNTY.

Almora, $110; Battle Lake, $1,400, three; Bluffton, $320; Butler, $190; Carlisle, $90; Clitherall, $720, two; Dalton, $640, three; Deer Creek, $660, two: Dent, $790; Elizabeth, $440, one: Erhard, $780, two; Fergus Falls, $2,800, ten; Henning, $1,200, four; Luce, $150; New York Mills, $1.400, four; Ottertail, $450. two; Parkers Prairie, $1,300, six; Pelican Rapids, $1.600, six; Perham, $1,600, four; Richdale, $40: Richville, $560, one; Underwood, $840, three; Vergas, $840, two; Vining, $490, two.

The county rural free delivery (established August 15, 1906), makes it possible for daily mail to reach every farmer in the county and practically everyone receives his mail through the service. There are a total of fifty- seven rural routes in the county, the length of the routes ranging from 17.7 to 31.7 miles. Most of these carriers use horses, although a number of them make use of automobiles or motorcycles when the roads will permit. The rural carriers receive a uniform salary of twelve hundred dollars a year and have a vacation of fifteen days on full pay. It should be mentioned that there is still left one star route in the county, the one running from Rothsay to Pelican Rapids. The carrier on this route makes one trip a day and is required by law to distribute mail to those persons who live on the route he traverses.

Digitized by Google

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE CITY OF FERGUS FALLS.

Shakespeare said, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." As a theory in botanical lore this may be true but common usage has associated the name with the odor and it would be difficult to persuade the common mind to accept the theory. In other words, there is something in a name, if the name is appropriate to the object and is happily applied. Whether the founders of Fergus Falls had this thought in mind and gave due consideration to the sentiment or not, it is certain that they made no mistake when they gave to the primitive village on the Red river rapids the name it now bears. The name and the location is a significant combination, happily applied; it gives due honor to a pioneer and preserves a history that is worthy of perpetuation.

JAMES FERGUS.

James Fergus, after whom the pioneer village was named, was a Scotch- man, born in the parish of Glassford, Lanarkshire, Scotland, October 8, 1813. His parents were prosperous farmers and gave him a good educa- tion, along with excellent moral and religious training. In his youth he was noted for his thoroughness in whatever work he engaged; he was especially fond of reading good books. . At the age of nineteen he came to America with the idea of improving his fortunes. He located in Canada at first, where he spent three years and learned the trade of millwright. Becoming involved in some political troubles, just before the outbreak of the Papineau rebellion, he left Canada for the United States. For two or three years after coming to the United States he spent a kind of roving life, spending some time in Green Bay and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and at Buffalo Grove and Chicago, Illinois. He finally landed at Moline, Illinois, where he found employment in the foundry and machine shops of Buford, Sears & Whee- lock. In 1854 he removed to Little Falls, Minnesota, and, in company with C. A. Tuttle, built a dam across the Mississippi and platted a village. Here he remained for two or three years. During the townsite speculation fever. in the winter of 1856 and 1857. Joseph Whitford, a blacksmith and steam- boat engineer, a natural frontiersman, possessed of uncommon courage, energy and prudence, proposed to go out and take up a townsite at what was known as Graham's Point, on the Red river. Mr. Fergus furnished the necessary outfit for this expedition. Procuring a dog train and a half- breed guide. Whitford went to Graham's Point and staked out a town. On their way back, at Red river, an Indian family told them of a better place

Digitized by Google

480

OTTER TAIL COUNTY, MINNESOTA.

for a town, twenty miles distant. Leaving his half-breed to recruit, Whit- ford took an Indian as a guide and went to the place designated and staked off what is now Fergus Falls, the name being given by the exploring party in honor of the man who had furnished the outfit for the expedition. Mr. Fergus himself never visited the place.

In 1862 Mr. Fergus drove his own team from Little Falls, Minnesota, to Bannock, Montana territory. He became quite prominent in territorial affairs and was influential in the organization of the new county of Madi- son, in that territory, and held many positions of trust and responsibility. He served two terms in the Montana Legislature, and was a member of the constitutional convention of 1887. He continued to live in Montana, where his death occurred several years ago.

Mr. Fergus is described by his biographer as a man of strict integrity, an ardent lover of good books and study. He had an aptitude for mechani- cal enterprises and a sturdy independence of thought. He was a typical pioneer, with mechanical and intellectual ability above the average; one to whom much is due for the founding of enterprises that the later generation has developed among the great industries of the West.

THE FIRST SETTLER.

Although the site of Fergus Falls was located and given a name in the winter of 1856, as above stated, it was not until some time in the spring of 1857 that any white man attempted to make a settlement here. Whitford had gone back to Little Falls after locating the town and remained there until the early spring of 1857. when he returned to Fergus Falls with a team and supplies to make a settlement here. He built a log cabin on a claim which he had located and did something in the way of cultivating the ground, but his main dependence for a living was in hunting and fishing. There was an abundance of game and fish in the surrounding country. There were also numerous Indians who made occasional visits to his cabin during his absence and stole his teams and anything else to which they took a fancy. Sometimes Whitford had company and sometimes he was alone. Henry Edger, one of the discoverers of the Alder Gulch gold mine, in Montana. spent one winter with him. An eccentric Scotchman, named Smith, lived there for some years. He was killed by the Indians. Whitford was killed by Indians just below Ft. Ambercrombie, on his way up Red river during the Sioux massacre, in 1862.

The foregoing statements are based on an account of the location of Fergus Falls as a town site as related by James Fergus, himself. in a letter published in the Fergus Falls Advocate, June 29, 1872. After relating how. when and by whom the townsite was located and given the name which it bears, and correcting some misstatements as to his visit to the place, and

Digitized by Google

481

OTTER TAIL COUNTY, MINNESOTA.

what he had to do with its founding, he says: "This is all I know about Fergus Falls. It might have been named for a better man, but it might have been named for a worse."

It is related that in 1857 or 1858 a surveying party, headed by Gen. T. H. Barrett, of St. Cloud, visited this place and made a plat of the pro- posed town, although no record has been found to verify this statement. At the same time, it is also stated this same surveying party visited the town site of Breckenridge and made a plat of that town, naming it after the man who was at that time vice-president of the United States, and who was afterwards United States senator, and later joined the Confederate army and held the rank of major-general.

To Joe Whitford, therefore, belongs the distinction of being the first white man who made a settlement in the new town. Although in the midst of the Indians, who were not any too friendly with the whites at that time. Whitford lived in comparative peace until he was killed by the Indians in 1862. The census of 1860 gives the following data on Whitford: "Age, thirty-five; farmer; real property, five hundred dollars; born in Vermont; insane." If he was actually insane he must have recovered sufficiently to take care of himself.

THE SIOUX MASSACRE OF 1862.

It was the Sioux Indian War of 1862, when this band of savages created terror throughout this part of the state by their depredations and their brutal murder of men, women and children, that the peaceful condi- tions around the Joe Whitford cabin were changed. Both Whitford and his companion at that time were victims of the Indians' murderous toma- hawk, as has been stated. A writer in the Fergus Falls Journal, of July 24, 1873, speaking of this incident, says :

"The writer well remembers to have seen the Whitford cabin once, looking dim, dilapidated, ghastly; suggestive of that dark fearful day, in 1862, when, beneath the murderous tomahawk and knife of the savage, hun- dreds of dear lives passed away. The cellar of the cabin may yet be seen, near Whitford street, just inside the fence of Henry G. Page's block. The spot should be marked and carefully preserved with a tablet with this inscription :

" 'HERE DWELT JOE WHITFORD,

THE FIRST WHITE INHABITANT OF FERGUS FALLS; KILLED BY SIOUX INDIANS IN THE MASSACRE OF AUGUST, 1862.

"With much the same feeling that is inspired by the little iron disc, in the pavement on State street, in Boston, which marks the spot where fell the first martyrs of the American Revolution."

(31)

Digitized by Google

482

OTTER TAIL COUNTY, MINNESOTA.

THE FIRST PERMANENT SETTLER.

History gives to Joe Whitford the distinction of being the first white man to build a home and stake out a claim for a settlement in Fergus Falls, but to Ernest Buse belongs the distinction of being the first permanent set- tler. Whitford's untimely death at the hands of the murderous savages effaced whatever there might have been for him in the future prosperity of the town, in which his lonely cabin stood as an evidence of his courage and energy, and his faith in the future of the townsite he had located.

Few men in history of Otter Tail county in its first decade were more prominent than Ernest Buse. The career of this worthy old pioneer is typical of the thousands of frontiersmen who braved the dangers of settle- ment in a new and unsettled country. The following articles, written by Buse, appeared in the Fergus Falls Journal on December 21, 1890:

"In 1854 a colony of us left Buffalo, New York, bound for Red Wing, Minnesota. Galena, Illinois, was in those days the end of all railroads. From there by steamer to Red Wing was one hundred and twenty miles. The steamer rang the bell and Red Wing was reached. Seventeen families were in our party. We looked for the city and found six houses. Next day we struck out on foot, as there were no teams to be had, looking for good farms. We found plenty of farms but wolves, rattle-snakes and Sioux Indians scared ten families of our party back to the state of New York. The same Indians claimed the west bank of the Mississippi river, the Chip- pewa Indians claimed the east side and the two bands were then at war. However, we settled eight miles from Red Wing, on Hay creek. Minne- sota was a territory then. The Indians had a war between themselves at Red Wing. In 1857 the Sioux Indians killed a lot of white settlers west of us and in 1862 the Sioux Indians all went west to the Minnesota river where the big massacre took place. All over the western and northern part of the state the Indians rose and hundreds of white settlers were killed by the savage Sioux. All of our group of settlers organized themselves into a company and the government sent us old Belgian muskets to protect our- selves with. It was a very sad time among the settlers of our neighborhood.

"In a short time all the trouble was over, and times were good for money was not in the country. Every business man made his own money on a piece of paper or cardboard. It was all the money we knew of. A gold dollar was worth from two or three dollars in paper. About once a week we would go to a dance. We would take a yoke of oxen and sleigh, put plenty of hay in the box, take our fiddler along, all get in, and off we would go to some neighbors and have a good time. Ten or fifteen years passed and we look back and see what a lot of mistakes we made in not taking better advantage of frontier times. By 1865 the Civil War and Indian troubles

Digitized by Google

483

OTTER TAIL COUNTY, MINNESOTA.

were all over and we felt that the time had come to start out again and strike for a prospect of a new townsite. So a pair of ponies was hitched to a covered wagon, revolvers were strapped on and a pocket compass headed us for the northwest again. Everything went well. No bridges were across the streams, no roads across the beautiful prairie and only Indian canoes were on the lakes, but there was plenty of fish and fine game, ducks. geese and deer, bear, wild cats, lynx and rattlesnakes.

"In June, 1865, I reached Otter Tail county and found a settlement of Mormons on lake Clitherall, who had just settled among the Indians. It was surely something new and surprising. I went on traveling. While in the river trying to cross, there was a monster big black bear with two cubs on the north shore of the river. The same spot is now the village of Frazee City. I tried to scare the bear but as I saw that he would not scare I thought I had better scare and turned back and went west.

"The beautiful prairies, the fine groves of timber and the placid lakes I saw grew finer and finer every day. On the Fourth day of July, 1866, when I heard the roaring of water at the distance of two miles, I made up my mind that this was my home, live or die. By examining the coun- try around I found that at Dayton, where the Otter Tail Power Company now has its plant, five miles southwest of Fergus, a family had been living. but had gone to St. Cloud on account of the Indian war. It was Mr. Wright and family. The Indians had killed part of his family. So here I was twenty-five miles from any neighbor, but the prospects looked so good that I felt must settle here. Two lonely years were put in here. It was fifty miles to the nearest store. After three years the settlers came in like flocks of sheep.

"One day I went to Alexandria, a distance of fifty miles, to buy some goods. On my way back home I saw some settlers in St. Olaf township at work building a fort and throwing up breastworks. They informed me that the Indians had broken out again, and that they had killed everybody in Fergus Falls. As my family was the only one that lived there I was paralyzed with fear and dread. I put my horse to a full gallop and the fifteen miles were covered in a short time. I found my family all right. By investigation I was informed by a friendly Indian that the trouble was only between two of the Indian tribes and that my family was not in danger.

"A little later Hans Mattson, state auditor, came up with a load of Springfield muskets. Each of us received a musket and formed a company here for our protection. Ragnor Kalling was captain of this company. All the settlers at Fergus Falls at this time were: Ernest Buse, Herman Mathias, Edward Grussendorf. J. Greenagle. Henry Opperman. Peter John- son, three Kalling brothers, two Wessberg brothers, three Holdens, and a

Digitized by Google

484

OTTER TAIL COUNTY, MINNESOTA.

few others." One of these must have been Henry Hanigsen, the first post- master.

Edward Grussendorf, a German Lutheran minister, was the first preacher of the Gospel to settle in Fergus Falls. He was married in 1862, settled in Red Wing, Minnesota, and came to Fergus Falls in 1869, his family being the third to settle on the present site. The other families were Mrs. Grussendorf's brother, Ernest Buse, and his brother-in-law, Henry Hanigsen, they having settled here in June, 1868. In 1870 Rev. Grussen- dorf opened a small store, undoubtedly the first in the village, which he operated a short time. He was elected justice of the peace for Fergus Falls township in 1870, the first one to be elected in the township, and was one of the organizers of Buse township in 1871.

Quoting again from the article of Buse in the Journal of December 21, 1890, more light is thrown on the early history of Fergus Falls :

"In the fall of 1864, before any new settlements had been made west of Alexandria, the old settlers of 1862 having been all killed or driven away by the Indians, the surveyed lands in this region were offered for public sale in the St. Cloud land office. Whitford had not perfected his title; Fer- gus had gone off to Montana with Capt. Jim Fiske, and Fergus Falls remained without an owner for a year or two. This set it out of the world, worthless and would always remain so. Such was the popular idea.

"One day a surveyor, named Wright. lounging around the land office at St. Cloud, conceived the idea that the place might be worth a hundred dollars, and laid a piece of college scrip for that amount on one quarter sec- tion of the land for a friend of his. The friend offered the investment at cost, and the surveyor finally paid him the one hundred dollars with interest.

"Subsequently, Hon. H. C. Wait. of St. Cloud. thinking the surveyor might have secured a good location, made an investment of forty dollars . in land on which the mills and central part of the town are now located. But afterwards. becoming tired of his bargain, he sold the land to Wright at cost, one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. Before this time R. J. Mendenhall had entered the greater portion of the land south of the river. Various other parties. still later, entered the other lands in the vicinity. Even as late as 1870 there was good government land subject to entry within half a mile of the Falls."

The history of Fergus Falls for the first decade has been well pre- served by George B. Wright in two booklets which were issued by him in 1874 and 1881. respectively. He was identified with the history of the village for twelve years ( 1870-82), and during this time was actively inter- ested in the sale of lots in the city and of land in the county and also in other parts of this section of the state. During this period he issued two

Digitized by

Google

-- -

- -

485

OTTER TAIL COUNTY, MINNESOTA.

separate advertising booklets, both of which exhibit the unique originality of the man as an advertising genius. When it is remembered that at the beginning of his connection with Fergus Falls he actually gave away lots to all who would agree to build on them within one year, it may be seen that he was making use of unusual means to advertise his townsite. When the news was circulated throughout the state that the owner of a likely townsite was actually giving away lots there was an immediate influx of settlers to the embryonic city on the Red river of the North. How many were actually drawn thither because of this announcement is not known, although it is probably true that the offer induced a number of people to locate in the village who might otherwise have journeyed on and settled elsewhere. John W. Mason, who arrived in the metropolis on June 7, 1871, received the last gift lot of Wright.

The first sketch of the "Coming City" appeared in 1874, and is repro- duced exactly as Mr. Wright wrote it. It follows :

August 19. 1870, there was no Fergus Falls. Fergus was in Montana and the "Falls" were here; but there was no town. Our beautiful grove was filled with a jungle of undergrowth; the green prairie dotted over with patches of brush, that, along the north shore opposite where the saw-mills are, thickened into an almost impenetrable snarl of hazel and plum brush and vines.

There were piping times in the little frog pond north of Lincoln avenue, which has since been drained by a municipal despotism: a huge black bear of the "hug" species kept solitary watch and guard in a four-story mansion under the bank on the south shore: and the pickerel. sturgeon and catfish had it all their own way in the river.

At noon of that day a solitary grasshopper on the hill where Sims' store stands. might have signalled several heavily loaded teams coming over the brow of the ridge a mile to the south, the vanguard of our present "army of occupation." They camped on the north shore where the upper bridge now is, and before night had cleared the brush from the river bank and broken ground for the upper dam ( since rebuilt). The party were in charge of H. A. Dow, of St. Anthony, an experienced constructor of dams, and consisted of twelve or fifteen muscular American citizens of the maler sort. They built the old mill boarding house. the log part of which was the first building on the town site (the old cabin of Whitford built in 1856 or 7 excepted), and afterward the dam and saw-mill, and about December 1st the first log was made into lumber in Fergus Falls. A temporary grist-mill with one run of stone was during the succeeding winter placed in the saw-mill, and flour and feed were ground in Fergus Falls within six months after the first stroke of work on the town site. Preparations for a city were early made. On the morning of the 20th of August. 1870, about 18 hours after the com- mencement of the mills, a surveying force under charge of L. Grout, of St. Cloud. was put at work surveying the town site. About 280 acres was at the time surveyed and platted as the original town of Fergus Falls. Several additions have since been sur- veyed and platted by different parties, so that the whole amount now laid out is about 800 acres.

The town proprietors. Messrs. Wright & Mendenhall, of Minneapolis, advertised that they would give away lots for actual occupancy on condition that good buildings should be put up on the lots given. The first lot was taken by E. W. Sims. second from the corner of Lincoln avenue and Mill street, and in a few days after the commencement of the dam. Sims had the Pioneer Store in full blast. The old log store was looked up to

Digitized by Google

486

OTTER TAIL COUNTY, MINNESOTA.

in those days as the best building in Fergus Falls. What queer metamorphoses have three years wrought. A few weeks later Messrs. Picket & Abbott opened out on the cor- ner opposite Sims in a real pine covered building, the lumber of which was brought all the way from Otter Tail City. Their store was the first frame building in Fergus. Others followed, and by April, 1871, the nucleus of a village was formed. On the 15th day of April, 1871, O. S. King flung out his banner, the Advocate, and from that day to this Fergus has been known to the world through the columns of a regularly published news- paper. The first white child born at Fergus was Nelly D. Hartley, May 20th, 1871. Proof of scriptural inaccuracy is found in the fact that the first was not last in this case.

THE FERGUS OF 1873.

Three years have passed since the site of Fergus has been occupied by civilized man. The then wilderness of Otter Tail county now supports a population of not less than 6,000 people. In every direction broad fields of grain meet the traveler's eye. Fergus is the county seat and business center of this rich and powerful county.

The extensive flouring mills of Page & Scott are not excelled in completeness of appointments or perfection of work by any in the state. Half a mile above the upper bridge Jacob Austin has built a new dam and is engaged in putting in another first- class flouring-mill. The saw and planing-mills and furniture factory serve up all kinds of lumber in every style of high art and with the utmost expedition. We have a municipal government which, for modesty only and not for lack of powers, we call village authorities, and when we break ordinances we discover ourselves before the vil- lage justice and are fined with neatness and dispatch.

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 Otter Tail County, Minnesota: Its People, Industries and Institutions, Volume I, Part 52

Author: John W. Mason Publication date: 1916 Publisher: Number of Pages: 765

Author: John W. Mason
Publication date: 1916
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 765