USA > Minnesota > Rice County > History of Rice County, including explorers and pioneers of Minnesota and outline history of the state of Minnesota > Part 49
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There were at first at least 100 Indian tee-pees here. Mr. Bush is now unfortunately insane and an inmate at St. Peter Asylum.
At the reunion of the old settlers in February, 1877, an interesting letter from Gen. H. H. Sibley
was read, and a brief resume of its contents will be presented: Mr. Alexander Faribault, who was the founder of the city, was for years connected with the American Fur Company, of which the General was the managing partner in this region, and he was always found to be a man of sterling worth and integrity. Jean Baptiste Faribault, the father of Alexander, came to this country when young, and was a fur trader who in the war of 1812, when the extreme Northwest was in the hands of the British, remained true to the American cause; he was of a highly respectable Canadian family. Years ago Mr. Faribault and Gen. Sibley used to hunt together with Little Crow, and Mr. Fari- bault pointed out this spot where he proposed to settle as soon as the title of the Sioux was extin- guished. Few men have responded as he has done to the demands upon him, to support so many of his wife's relations, but whatever his financial condition may be, he will go down to his grave honored and respected by all.
At the meeting of the old settlers in March, 1875, Hon. O. F. Perkins related his experience, an abstract of which is here given. He left Ver- mont in 1854, fell in with the great western bound flood tide of emigration, and traveled by rail to the western terminus of the railroad, at Galena, Illinois, and there took passage for St. Paul, on the Alhambra, which was two weeks making the trip. St. Paul then claimed 4,000 inhabitants. He went to St. Anthony and Minneapolis, spend- ing the-winter there. He had no business, but was invited to deliver an address on the Maine liquor law, which he then thought would be most admirable for this new country, which he did with such success that he supposed the whole commu- nity was converted to his views. About that time the first suspension bridge across the Mississippi, at Minneapolis, was completed, at Mr. Perkins, at the celebration and banquet which followed this event, was called upon for a speech, and although all the public men there were intensely democratic, he introduced his anti-slavery views, which, had he been a little older he might have been a little more cautious in doing in such a presence. This, however, proved to be a turning point in his career, for the Hon. J. W. North, hearing of the incident, invited him to go with him to Faribault, where just such daring men were wanted, and he accepted the invitation and rode out in a sleigh with him, being two days on the road. It was
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bitter cold, and arriving here the scene was in striking contrast with what would greet a visitor now. He remained a few days in mortal fear of having his scalp lifted, came back the following spring and opened a law office and studied up the claim business, boarded with Mr. Crump, and had his office up stairs. He afterwards moved into a blacksmith shop, but as business did not open up, he went to farming. He bought a bushel of pota- toes for $2.50, and carried them to a spot of ground he had procured north of D. W. Humphrey's house, and planted them with an axe; did nothing more with them until fall, when the crop was sold to Dr. Charles Jewett for $35. He also planted some corn on the bluff near the stone quarry; it came up two or three times, by the aid of the gophers, but finally got ready to grow, and in due time it was harvested by the cattle, and he concluded that raising corn was not his forte, that potatoes were his "best holt." Law being at a discount, he tried his hand at theology, and preached the first sermon, as far as he knew, in this region, from a book loaned him by Truman Nutting, and it was pure, unadulterated Calvin- ism, without any "sugar coating." He also as- sisted in the formation of the first Bible Society; he was the Secretary, and Frank Nutting local agent. According to his recollection, E. J. Crump, Esq., was the first Justice of the Peace, and the first case before him was a replevin case for a gun worth $2.50. Mr. Perkins was the pros- ecuting attorney, but the case was sworn out of the jurisdiction of the court. When at work as a horny-handed yeoman, carrying his potatoes to plant, he met John M. Berry and G. W. Batchel- der, and with his brother they all went to living together in a little board shanty.
That 4th of July was duly celebrated in Fari- banlt; Dr. Charles Jewett delivered the oration, and Frank Nutting sung one of Ossian E. Dodge's songs, "The Unfortunate Man."
In October, 1855, there was a severe snow- storm, but it soon melted, and November was a fine month. In the winter Berry, Batchelder, and the Perkins brothers kept a bachelor's hall, divid- ing the housework, and the devices resorted to, to get rid of washing the dishes, were often original and ingenious. Mr. Perkins went east and got his wife, and returned to remain in the county ever since.
G. W. Tower came from Chickasaw county,
Iowa, in 1854, with a team, in company with Messrs Carter, Robert Douglass, Sears, and two others, and after visiting various other places they finally struck Faribault, and Mr. Tower took a farm where Petitt's place now is; he afterwards built a store opposite the Barron House.
It should be remarked here, that the Old Set- tlers' Association of Rice county has proved to be quite a historical "bonanza," and, to add another mining term, has "panned out" well in the interest of preserved reminiscenses.
Hon. G. W. Batchelder arrived and planted him- self here in the spring of 1855, coming on foot with Judge Berry, who was not a judge then, ex- cept of a good thing when he saw it. They had traveled around prospecting, visiting St. Paul, Shakopee, Mankato, Cannon Falls, Zumbrota, and finally here, where, enchanted with the country, they resolved to halt. John Cooper was here at the time and there was talk about his jumping the townsite, but his claim proved a good one and became Cooper's addition. At first Berry and Batchelder boarded with Truman Nutting at $4 a week, and afterwards with Moses Cole at the "Ox Head Tavern."
Reuben Rundell, G. W. Bachelder, Judge Berry, and O. F. and C. C. Perkins afterwards established a hotel on the European plan, north of the meeting house. The great event the next year was the ar- rival of H. E. Barron, whose fame had preceded him as a man of wealth. He built the hotel, and at its opening there was a great celebration, a pro- cession, dinner, a dance, and speeches. The ar- rival of Maj. Dike created another sensation, his hair was then black and he was a fine looking young man, and when the people were told that he was going to stay and open a bank they began to feel the importance of the place and to contem- plate metropolitan airs. . The place above all others at an early day, for generous hospitality, was at the house of Col. J. C. Ide, on East Prairie, whose gates were always ajar, and the constant round of bountiful entertainment enjoyed there was an oasis in the experience of those who were fortunate enough to enjoy it, that compensated for the long journey through social deserts which so many at that day were obliged to travel.
Captain R. H. L. Jewett relates his first expe- rience coming here from Faribault on foot, in July, 1855, during a very hot day.
Captain E. H. Cutts came to the State in 1853,
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and stopped awhile in Red Wing, and when he came to Faribault, saw and heard a scalp dance where Turner's mill now stands. The Dakotas had some Chippewa scalps and were skulking through the monotonous contortions of this san- guinary dance, accompanied with the most blood curdling yells. He presided over the first deba- tiug club here, went back to Illinois, and secur- ing a wife, returned.
In June, 1854, John C. Cooper came from St. Paul, in company with the mail carrier, who had the whole mail for the week on his person; it con- sisted of one letter and Mr. Hulett's regular copy of the Tribune.
Mr. F. W. Frink relates a story as to the late Lieut. John C. Whipple, who was commissioned as a Justice of the Peace in and for Rice county, and in a certain case, the first one he had brought before him, he made a ruling to which exception was taken on account of its being directly in con- flict with the law, but the irate justice brought his fist down upon the table and emphatically de- clared that he did not care a continental whether it was law or not, that he proposed to administer justice. An appeal was taken and sustained, and in disgust he resigned.
Hon. H. M. Matteson, one of the pioneers, started for this section in February, 1854, and stopped with John Hoyt, where Dundas now is, made a claim of some land and began to improve it by changing work with Mr. Hoyt, giving him a day's work for a day's use of his oxeu. He caught a large cat fish that lasted him for meat quite a long time.
In a late number of the "Republican," Mr. F. W. Frink related his experience as a pioneer news- paper man, which may not be uninteresting read- ing, now that such changes in transportation, and in almost all else that pertains to human life, have taken place. An abstract of his story can only be presented here. On the 6th of September, 1856, he arrived at Hastings with a press and material to print a newspaper, and paid $1 a hundred to have it hauled to Faribault, and to save $5 stage fare traveled the distance himself on foot. On un- packing the type it was found to be all pied, except two forms that were left locked up. They had lots of trouble sorting "pi," and it was not until the 22d of October that the "Rice County Herald" flashed upon the benighted world. Major Cook, who afterwards fell gallantly fighting
for his country, made most of the wooden furni- ture for the office. Clark Turner, a brother of J. C. Turner, made the iron work, and he also gave his life to his country. Charley Decker paid the first dollar for subscription, and George W. & J. M. Tower paid the first advertising bills. The foreman of the office was Cal. Johnson; the com- positors were Andrews and Cressey. One of them is now a Baptist minister. A young Sioux used to hang around the office, but he cared more for "gosh-paps"-dimes-than for work, and he was afterwards in the massacre business. The "Fari- bault Republican," the outgrowth of this first at- tempt at journalism, has for years been one of the best printed and edited sheets in the State, and has never missed a day in its publication.
A list of the old settlers with the date of their coming, as recorded in the Old Settlers Associa- tiou:
1853-Alexander Faribault, Mendota, February. W. R. Faribault, 66 66
Peter Bush, Canada, April.
Luke Hulett, Vermont, May.
E. H. Cutts.
1854-H. M. Matteson, Herkimer, N. Y., August. F. W. Frink, Vermont, October.
J. G. Scott, New Jersey, June.
J. R. Parshall, Ohio, June.
S. Benhaus, New Jersey, October.
A. S. Cromwell, New York, November.
John Cooper, England, July.
1855-Levi Nutting, Massachusetts, April. James Shants, New York, May.
G. S. Woodruff, Connecticut.
S. Atherton, Vermont, September. E. N. Leavens, Connecticut, October. George G. Howe, New York, June.
S. Barnard, Vermont.
J. S. Closson, New York, May. R. H. L. Jewett, Rhode Island, July.
G. W. Bachelder, Vermont, May. James Colleyers, England, May.
1856-E. E. Rogers, Massachusetts, October. W. H. Stevens, New York, June. John Mullin, New York, May.
J. B. Wheeler, Massachusetts, May.
C. M. Millspaugh, August. Lyman Tuttle, June. William McGinnis, Ireland, June.
A. Mortensen, Sweden, June.
C. A. Bailor, Indiana, June.
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.
S. C. Dunham, Connecticut, May.
C. D. Horn.
E. W. Dike.
D. O'Brien.
John Close, Ohio, June.
J. L. Dunham, New Jersey, April.
W. J. Goll, New Hampshire, July.
G. E. Skinner, New York, November.
P. E. Brown, New York, October.
F. G. Stevens, Michigan, June. John Jipson, New York, August.
G. W. Newell. T. H. Loyhed.
1857-H. Milson, Ohio, February. N. S. Flint, Vermont, April. S. A. Wiley, New York, June. Thomas Mee, New York, April. Gordon E. Cole, Massachusetts, January. W. H. Dike, Vermont, May. W. A. Shaw, New York.
On the occasion of the centennial celebration of the independence of the country in 1876, the gov- ernment requested every county in the country to have a historical sketch prepared up to that date. Rice county was particularly fortunate in this re- spect, and the sketch of the county was prepared and presented as an address on Independence Day, by F. W. Frink. For the sake of preserving it in this permanent form, and on account of its being a resume of what had occurred up to that time, and of some facts not found elsewhere in this work, it is reproduced here entire.
Fellow-Citizens-For an artist who has all his life confined his art to life-size painting to attempt a reproduction of his principal work in miniature, it must require all his skill to prevent his picture from proving a failure. Yet such is the task I attempt to-day. For twenty years, or ever since Rice county first took shape as a separate organ- ization, it has been either my duty or my pleasure, and sometimes both, to chronicle its progress and put upon record every forward step it has taken in the march of its destiny, and now I am to try to condense the work of this score of years into the space allotted for our page of the centennial history of the nation. Under the circumstances it will be a wonder, not if I fail, but if I succeed in reproducing from the abundant material at my. command anything which may not be without form, and void.
Rice county, unlike many ambitious places in
the western world, is not called by the name of some old hero renowned in song or story, nor has it assumed the name of anceint or modern place of proportions vast, or storied fame, but the Hon. Henry M. Rice, of St. Paul, an early settler in the State, and a warm friend of him who gave to the city of Faribault his local habitation and his name, is the man from whom our county takes its name, and the man who still feels a warm interest in everything pertaining to its welfare.
Although it was not until October, 1855, that Rice county held an election as a separate organ- ization, electing then for the first time its county officers, Mr. Alexander Faribault had established a trading post at the foot of what is now known as Cannon Lake, but then called by the Sioux, Te- ton-ka Tonah, or Lake of the Village, as early as 1826. While he was doubtless the first settler of Rice county, and according to the records of the Old Settler's Association, Mr. Peter Bush the next, it was not until May, 1853, when the Hon Luke Hulett, who still resides within the limits of the city of Faribault, removed here with his fam- ily, that the history of Rice county properly be- gins, for the first settlement of a farmer in an agricultural region is the beginning of its his- tory. Alexander Faribault, Luke Hulett, and Peter Bush should be considered the founders of the first settlement in Rice county.
The history of the towns and villages of this county begins even earlier than that of the county itself, that is to say, before the county existed as a political organization with well defined boundary lines, the towns of Faribault, Northfield, Morris- town, and Cannon City were surveyed, platted and recorded in the order named. Alex. Faribault, F. B. Sibley, John W. North, and Porter Nutting, as proprietors, filed the plat of the town of Faribault in the office of the Register of Deeds in Dakota county, to which Rice county was then attached for judicial purposes, on the 17th day of Feb- ruary, 1855. Previous to this date, however, a preliminary survey had been made, and Walter Morris owned the share afterward represented by John W. North.
In August, 1855, Mr. North having disposed of his interest in Faribault, while in search of fresh fields and pastures new, selected the site of the present city of Northfield, and on the 7th of March, 1856, filed the plat in the office of the Register of Deeds in Rice county, which was then
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HISTORY OF RICE COUNTY.
an office a little over two months old. A plat of Cannon City had been made almost as early as that of Faribault, but owing to the fact that the plat had been made withont the usual formality of a preceding survey, it was thought best by the pro- prietors, after a vain attempt to harmonize con- flicting interests caused by conflicting boundary lines, to have a survey made, the plat of which was not filed for record until the 11th day of November, 1856, but previous to that date it was a town of sufficient force to give Faribault a lively race in a contest for the location of the county seat.
April 1st, 1856, Mrs. Sarah Morris, mother of Walter Morris, one of the first proprietors of the town of Faribault, and widow of Jonathan Morris, one of the first settlers of Morristown, filed and recorded the plat of Morristown. These were the first born towns of Rice county, but the times were then prolific in the birth of towns and cities, and the eye of the speculator saw beside every crystal lake or limpid stream a site for a city full of the possibilities of future glory. Numerous additions were surveyed and added to towns already re- corded. The new towns of Wheatland, Wedge- wood, Warsaw, Walcott, Shieldsville, Dundas, Millersburg, East Prairieville, and Lake City were added to the list. Of these, some are dead and some are dying, and nearly all remaining have from time to time, by vacations obtained through the courts, contracted their vast circumference in conformity with the request made at an early day to the Territorial Legislature to limit the area of town sites, and reserve certain portions of the pub- lic domain for agricultural purposes.
While, however, visionary speculators were creating town sites and multiplying town lots with almost as much facility as farmers increased the number of their pigs or chickens, the agricultural interest was also thriving until the year 1858, when occurred the nearest to a failure of crops that Rice county has ever experienced. The land office had been located in Faribault the year pre- vious, and the little store of money that most of the settlers had brought with them had been gen- erally used in payment for their lands. The pros- pect was gloomy, and many families anticipated actual want before the coming of another harvest; but the silver lining to the cloud was not long ob- scured, and relief came from a quarter as little looked for as was the mauua in the wilderness by
the Israelites. By somebody the happy discovery was made that our timbered lands were full of ginseng, the sovereign balm for every ill that Chi- nese flesh is heir to, and forthwith our population was transferred into a community of diggers, and many a man, and even woman, too, who had never earned more than a dollar a day before, received from two to four dollars for their day's labor in the woods. Thus was Rice county's darkest hour tided over, and from that day to this there has never been a time when its citizens have had reason to fear a lack of the necessaries of life.
The statistics of crops for 1860, previous to which no record is obtainable, show 18,000 acres under cultivation in various fruits and grains, with a product of 260,000 bushels of wheat. Five years later the cultivated area lad increased to 25,000 acres, with a product of 325,000 bushels of wheat; in 1872, 56,672 acres were cultivated, and 548,000 bushels of wheat produced, while the wheat crop alone, of Rice county, reached nearly 700,000 bushels in the year 1875. Yet, this county must not be judged as an agricultural district by the amount of wheat it raises, although that cereal is still the one the most relied upon by our farmers as a source of income; yet, as more than two-thirds of its area is or has been timbered laud, is not so well adapted to growing wheat extensively as a prairie country, its agricultural productions are necessarily more diversified.
The population of the county, as indicated by the number of votes cast at its first election, which, being a county seat contest, probably brought out as large a proportion of legal voters as could be summoned on any occasion, was in 1855, between 1,500 and 2,000, the number of votes cast heing 384. In 1860, the first census, it was 7,886; in 1865, 10,966; in 1870, 16,399, and the census of last year makes the number 20,622.
While Rice county, more fortunately situated than some of her western sisters, never experienced any of the horrors of Indian warfare, yet her his- tory would not be complete without mention of its terrible fright in the winter of 1857. There are doubtless some of the present audience who well remember how panic-stricken we were when the news came through some mysterious channel that the Indians had sacked and destroyed St. Peter, only forty miles away, and were in rapid march for Faribault. Then "there was running to and fro and gathering in pale distress, and cheeks
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all pale that but an hour ago blushed at the tale of their own loveliness." Gen. Shields, by reason of his military experience, was made commander- in-chief of all the forces in and around Faribault, with headquarters at the head of the stairs in the old Faribault House, and all of our brave young men who could be armed with shot-guns, rusty ,pistols, or anything having the appearance of fire- arms, were posted on guard at all the principal thoroughfares leading into town, and in front of the houses of the most timid and defenceless. This state of affairs lasted all of one night and until time of changing guard the next, when the relief, finding that the extreme cold had induced the guards to seek the inside of the houses they were defending, retreated in good order to more comfortable quarters, and our first Indian war was over. The cause of the panic was afterward ascer- tained to be the Spirit Lake massacre, more than a hundred miles away, by Inkpadutah and his band of outlawed Sioux. It should be here chronicled, however, that when the war actually came, although it came no nearer than Mason & Dixon's line, Rice county bore its full share of its responsibilities, losses, and calamities right man- fully. The war of the Rebellion found us nurtured in the arts of peace, a happy and home-loving peo- ple, and yet, before its close more than a thousand of its bravest and best had volunteered to defend the flag they loved so well. How well they boro themselves on the battle field, the number of the unreturning brave whose "graves are severed far and wide by mountain, stream, and sea," too well attests. The records show that more than one- eighth of the number shown by the census of the year before the breaking out of the great rebel- lion as the entire population of the county, had enlisted in the Union army before its close, a record of which our citizens may well be proud.
If I were asked what, in my opinion, has been the most notable events in the history of Rice county, I should answer that first in importance was its settlement in the beginning by a class of people who were intelligent tillers of the soil, men who came here imbued with the idea that labor, education, and religion are the true foundation stones upon which to build a perfect and perma- nent social fabric. In accordance with these ideas we find that in three years after its first settlement, and in a little more than one year after the rush of immigration begun, while the grass on the
prairie sod had scarcely withered under the newly turned furrow, schoolhouses, churches, and even a printing press had taken their places as permanent institutions of Rice county. In pursuance of this same idea, in 1858, Rev. Dr. Breck founded the mission schools of the Church of the Good Shep- herd, which were the germ from which has grown Seabury Hall, Shattuck School, and St. Mary's.
In 1863, the exertions of its citizens, who bought and paid for the land it occupies, secured the location of the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind within the borders of Rice county.
In 1868, was opened in Northfield the prepara- tory department of what is now known as Carleton College, and what in the near future will be known as the best college of its denomination in the Northwest. The location, establishment, and prosperity of Carleton College is due entirely to the energy and liberality of the citizens of North- field. While all the time from the establishment of district No. 1, in 1856, to that of No. 101, in 1876, the public schools have been nourished and cherished to a degree equalled by few countries in the Union. More than one-third of all taxes for all purposes levied in the county being devoted to the use of public education in the common schools.
From this brief sketch it will appear that the history of our county has not been eventful in the light in which the historian usually regards events. It has been the scene of no fierce conflict of arms. and within our borders no monumental marble rises to commemorate bloody victories won, or the heroic deeds of knightly chivalry, which contrib- ute so largely to the romance of history. Never- theless, is our history full of those "victories not less renowned than war," victories which in less than a quarter of a century after the extinguish- ment of the Indians' title to these lands, without bloodshed, swept away every vestige of their bar- barous life, and substituted the school, the church, and on every hand, happy and contented homes; victories which vanquished the hearts of our suf- fering people on the frontier when Rice county was the first to send relief after the devastation from hail and fire in the memorable year 1871. The suffering people of Chicago, northern Wis- consin, and Michigan were subjugated by the munificent donations sent to their relief in that terrible year of fire, and of those donations Rice county gave with no sparing hand. These are the victories not less renowned than war of which our
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