USA > Minnesota > Rice County > History of Rice and Steele counties, Minnesota, Vol. I > Part 37
USA > Minnesota > Steele County > History of Rice and Steele counties, Minnesota, Vol. I > Part 37
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The first, and most prominent industry, however, was neces- sarily the manufacture of lumber, and numerous steam sawmills were early in operation, supplying Faribault and surrounding country with all the building material used in the crude struc- tures of early days. The completion of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul railway late in the year 1865, to Faribault, which was its terminus for nearly a year, brought supplies of lumber from other sources, and none too soon, for the timber in the
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"big woods" was rapidly disappearing under the demands of furniture factories, and fuel for towns and country along its borders.
As elsewhere stated, commissioners were elected at the October election, 1855, whose first business would be the or- ganization of the county by locating the county seat. After or- ganization. In January, 1856, the first business transacted by the board was granting the petition for laying out the St. Paul road, being the road now traveled from the northern terminus of Second avenue past Oak Ridge cemetery to intersect the Dodd road, and the formation of school district No. 1 (now Fari- bault school district) was next in the order of the day. In the summer of 1856, the first place of public worship, the First Con- gregational church, of Faribault, was erected where it still stands. used by the Presbyterians for church services. The first teacher in the public school of district No. 1 was the Hon. R. A. Mott; Rev. Lauren Armsby was the first occupant of the pulpit in the new church; while the writer had the pleasure of commending the work of the other two in the columns of the Rice County Herald, the first newspaper in Rice county, and one of the first in southern Minnesota.
I think it is an acknowledged truth, that society only begins to take shape when these three most potent forces in modern civilization, the common school, the church and public press, are firmly established. The first incorporation of any body politic in Rice county, was the incorporation of the Evangelical Congre- gational church and society of Faribault, July 16, 1856. July 8, of the same year, Truman Nutting, Alexander Faribault and Dr. N. M. Bemis, trustees of school district No. 1. received a deed for lots seven and eight of block forty-two, and began the erection of the first district school house in Faribault. That house, after serving its purpose until the multiplication of scholars required larger accommodations, was removed to the position it now occupies on the southwest corner of block thirty- four on Fourth street. After being used a short time as the German Catholic church, it is now used as a grocery store in front with a blacksmith shop in the rear. The method of levying and collecting taxes for building school houses and support of schools in Territorial times is very generally forgotten now. Then the voters in a school district assembled at the place where school was kept, if there was any such place, if not, at the resi- dence of some one of the school trustees, and voted to raise by tax on the property in the district such amount as they decined necessary for the purpose intended. and the clerk of the district, a copy of the assessed valuation of the district being furnished him, extended the tax, and, after collecting what he could, re-
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turned the delinquent to be entered on the tax roll of the county to be sold for taxes. The building in which the Rice County Herald first saw the light was built on block six of the southern addition fronting on Park place.
It must not be thought that there were neither schools nor churches prior to the dates above given, which only mark the time when these institutions first took legal form and became corporate bodies. Luke Hulett, the first farmer settler of Rice county after Mr. Faribault, and both of these pioneers having large families, hired a teacher who taught a school free to all before the survey of the town site in 1854. School was also taught in 1855 with a large attendance, but the legally organized district sehool, supported by the taxpayer and free to all, did not have an existence until July, 1856. It has always been a pleasing memory to the writer, in remembering that his last editorial notice, written for the Rice County Herald, was a paragraph calling attention to the first church bell in Minnesota south of St. Paul.
Up to near the close of 1857 the country was prosperous, and Faribault grew rapidly. There was never an agricultural country whose pioneers brought with them so much means as the first settlers in Faribault and vicinity, and labor was the most valuable thing in the market and frequently not to be hired at any price. But resources continually drawn upon without anything to augment them diminish rapidly. It was not until the crop of 1859 was harvested that Rice county raised more than enough produce to supply the home market, and then the means of transportation were such as to afford no profit in any other, and the beginning of the year 1858 saw the beginning of hard times. The farming community had generally expended the money they brought with them, and had not yet a surplus; in fact, most of the farmers in the vicinity of Faribault were buying flour for their own use. The fall of 1858 saw something of a revival in business, occasioned by the grading of the Milwaukee railway, then known as Minnesota Central, stimulated by the five million loan bill, but as there was very little money expended in the operation so far as Faribault was concerned, the revival was more apparent than real, for the grading was generally paid for by orders on the various stores, and the merchants were obliged to wait nearly a quarter of a century for their pay. Gin- seng was the manna that provided food for the multitude, and was about the only product of the country that paid the laborer remunerative prices in the years of 1858 and 1859. Buyers were here from the cities of New York and Philadelphia, and the rivalry was spirited. There was just then a great demand for the root in China, and, fortunately for us, our "woods was full
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of it," and, by the time the supply was exhausted we had begun to get some revenue from other sources. But that year of pov- erty was not without its compensations, for the year 1858 saw the foundations laid for those educational institutions that with its common schools have given Faribault a reputation well nigh world-wide. About New Year's day, 1857, news came that the land office for this district was about to be removed from Winona to Faribault. Soon after the removal was effected a change in officers was made, and Samuel Plumer took the place of Captain Upman. Then began a rivalry between the north and south ends of town, but after causing much useless expense in dupli- cating bridges and expending public money so that one end of the town should have as much expended in it as the other, whether necessity demanded it or not. the establishment of free delivery of mails and the building of the Chicago Great Western Railway into the heart of the city has resulted in convincing its citizens that hostilty of one part of the cty to another is not conducive to the welfare of either. In 1857 the strife was at fever heat. and each upper and lower town was striving to in- duce the land office authorities to locate the registers' and re- ceivers' offices in their particular locality. Business men south of Second street purchased the lot on which the Central avenue school house now stands and built a commodious office for the register, while the men of the north end built an office for the receiver on block nineteen, corner of Sixth street and Central avenue.
In the month of March, 1857, we experienced in Faribault some of the excitement common to frontier life in the earliest years of the colonies. It will not seem much of a story now- the narration of the first Indian scare in Faribault-after the Indian massacre of 1862, but, in 1857. when the majority of the inhabitants had only such knowledge of Indian character as could be learned from early history, where the horrid barbarities of savages in New England, in Wyoming and the dark and bloody ground of Kentucky, are recorded, it is little wonder that when news came that Ink-pe-du-ta (Inkpadoota) and his band had devastated Mankato and St. Peter, only forty miles away, and were in full cry for Faribault, the excitement was something ter- rible. Ilow the news came, I think, was never definitely known. but as "Wah-chunk-a-maza" and his little band of relatives were then encamped about the town, I believe it came through them, and, as it was only about one hundred miles in error, as to dis- tance, was more nearly correct than rumors generally are. How- ever the news came, only a few who had experienced fruitless Indian scares in previous years treated the matter lightly. Gen- eral Shields being then a resident. and about the only resident
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who had seen warfare of any kind, naturally took command, and immediately set about organizing some kind of defense for our defenseless town. All guns of any description and all the am- munition the town possessed were hastily gathered in, and sentries were stationed within hailing distance of each other all along the southern and western boundaries of the town, those being the exposed points in the direction from which the Indians were expected to come. Our domicile was on one of the outer lines and the sentry on that station was the late Will Camp- bell. Notwithstanding it was the month of March it was bitterly cold, and the three feet of snow on a level which the winter had accumulated had scarcely diminished. Under such circumstances the sentry's duties were not enviable, for he was obliged to make frequent visits to our fireside to keep from freezing. For three nights there were many sleepless eyes in Faribault, and many tearful mothers watching over sleeping children. On the first night of the excitement it was happily suggested, I think by Mr. Faribault, that a messenger be sent to St. Peter, or as near that place as circumstances would permit. Chaska, a young In- dian about sixteen years old, whom I had so far civilized as to employ him occasionally as the devil of my printing establish- ment, was the chosen messenger, and made the round trip over the deep snow inside of three days. Five years later, at the time of the greatest Indian massacre ever experienced in North America, that same Chaska, who had been the pet of my printing office and the playmate of the boys of Faribault, was one of the foremost in the atrocities of that terrible time. He brought the news that the massacre began at Spirit Lake, a settlement near the north line of Iowa, about 100 miles southwest of Fari- bault, and ended at Lake Shetek, in Murray county, Minnesota. Ink-pe-du-ta, the leader of the Indians engaged in the massacre, was an outlaw of the Wa-pa-cu-ta's (Wapakootas), outlawed for slaying a chief of that band twenty years before. A part of his band had preceded him and ravaged a settler's premises of every eatable. Ink-pe-du-ta, and one of his sons, coming soon after, demanded more food, which the settler was obliged to refuse, having just been despoiled of all he had. Ink-pe-du-ta told his sons that it was a shame to beg for food when they could take it without asking, whereupon the son shot the father and the murder of the whole family followed. In Spirit Lake and Lake Shetek and between, these Indians killed in all forty-seven people, and took four women prisoners. Two of these, they killed, and two were afterwards rescued by three Wahpeton Sioux who received $1,500 each as reward. Ink-pe-du-ta and his band, all told, numbered only twelve men, and Ink-pe-du-ta's two boys. It will be readily seen that this outbreak was near
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enough to Faribault to excite apprehension, in consideration of the circumstances. There were then no telegraph stations any- where in the state, excepting two or three on the river. The snow was still deep and drifts were impassable for anything but snow-shoes in many places. We were then sometimes three weeks at a time without any news from interior towns, only such news as rumors bring, and when such rumors are of wars and massacre they are disquieting to the nerves, especially of women and nerveless men. There was an intimate connection between this outbreak and the greater one of five years later, but a rehearsal of the facts establishing the connection does not properly belong to a history of Faribault. I may say, here, however, that the fright of many of the prominent citizens, some of whom were enthusiastic Indian lovers, was greater in 1862 than in 1857, and only the Provost Marshall and his aids pre- vented their departure for the east. Some, indeed, had already started and looked as if they were for sale cheap when the same stage by which they had started in the morning brought them back in the afternoon.
From 1857 to 1865 the population of Faribault increased slowly, being estimated by the assessor in 1857 at 1,520, and in 1865 at 2,234, but in those intervening years it is almost a wonder that there was no decrease. Wheat was the only cash product of the farm, and there being no railroad the Mississippi towns furnished the only market; consequently wheat was low and trade was dull. Within those years, too, were four years of the bloodiest conflict the world ever saw ; a war which took from Rice county nearly one-tenth of its entire population. Seven hundred of its best and bravest men enlisted when the population of the county the year before the war was but 7,860. Many, if not a majority of these men, enlisted from Faribault or its im- mediate vicinity. No town or city in this broad land outside the immediate scene of confict felt the horrors of war more keenly than Faribault, and the signs of mourning in church and street and every social meeting told to the world that Minnesota's men were in the thickest of the fight. It seemed as if all thought of gain or profit was abandoned for the time, and all that could be spared from the actual necessities of living was devoted to the soldier in the field or to the care of his loved ones at home. At the close of the war there was renewed activity in all branches of business. Building was resumed and many of the best dwell- ings and business houses of the present city were constructed be- tween 1865 and 1870. Business houses of brick or stone were taking the places of those destroyed by fire, or rendered out of fashion by reason of being too primitive for the times. In 1870 the population of the territory now within city limits, com-
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piled from the Unted States census rolls of that year by myself, assisted by the enumerator, numbered 4,130, being a little more than one-fourth of the population of the whole county, which then was 16,399. Prior to the adoption of city incorporation with well defined boundary lines there was never an accurate census taken of the village proper. In the adoption of the town- ship system of government, town 110 of range 20 was divided between Faribault and Cannon City in 1858, the dividing line be- tween the two towns being as nearly as possible the line between the timbered land and the prairie, Faribault retaining the timber. Prior to 1872 Faribault was not even a chartered village, but its municipal affairs were conducted by a board of supervisors, three in number, in fact, an ordinary township government ; con- sequently, when a census was had it included the whole sixteen sections and did not include that part of the village west of the C. M. & St. P. Ry. September 25, 1858, the road through Cooper ravine (now Ravine street) was opened, starting from the eastern terminus of Second street bridge. Before the opening of this road the only approach to Faribault from Cannon City, North- field or East Prairie was over Front street road, fording the river, or, when conditions were favorable, following Water street down to Second street bridge. That bridge was the pioneer among bridges, being the first to span Straight river in Rice county, and was built under the direction of the late Charles Wood, bet- ter known in Faribault as Sheriff Wood, he having been elected the first sheriff after county organization. That bridge, built over a fitful stream sometimes only a little rivulet fed and barely kept alive by springs along its course, and sometimes a roaring torrent with all the force of a swollen river, that unpretending bridge with its piers rough cribs of logs filled with stone, its stringers native trees, pinned to the piers, withstood all attacks of ice and flood. Even the great rise of July, 1858, the highest known to white men, surged under, around and over that bridge, but when the flood subsided that bridge was still there and there it stood until torn away to give place to a more ambitious structure.
Charles Wood was another pioneer of Faribault deserving more than passing notice. By virtue of his office as sheriff he had the collection of the first tax levied in Rice county, and was by law authorized to assess any property that had been over- looked or omitted by assessors. In some localities he found that more real estate had been overlooked by the assessor than had been listed. It not infrequently happened that Sheriff Wood en- tered a man's real estate on the tax list, levied the tax, collected it, and gave the receipt at one and the same time. Notwithstand- ing the excellent opportunity offered for making money on the
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sly, during twenty years that the tax rolls were in my custody no receipt of Charles Wood was presented without finding the corresponding description marked paid on the tax list and ac- counted for in the return. He died at the residence of his son- in-law, Lieut. J. C. Turner, in this city, January 29, 1899, at the ripe old age of eighty-seven.
It is a pleasure to record that there never has been denomina- tional quarrels between religious sects in Faribault. I believe much of the gratification which Bishop Whipple felt when Fari- bault offered him his first home in Minnesota was caused by the fact that scarcely half a score of his own churchmen were represented in the offer. While it may be true that in one or two instances there have been serious troubles within a church, such troubles were confined to the church in which they originated and never involved other societies.
Doubtless the fraternal feeling between different churches originated from the fact that in the first year or two of the set- tlement of town and vicinity there were not enough church mem- bers of any one denomination to organize separately, and that the feeling was perpetuated is due to the pastors of those early days. Rev. Lauren Armsby, the first Congregational minister, and Father Keller, first parish priest of the Catholic church in Faribault, were warm friends and assisted each other in tem- perance and charitable work. Rev. William McKinley, one of the first circuit riders of the Methodist church in this part of the state, told in an old settlers meeting in Northfield a few years ago of his first meeting with Elder Cressey, the pioneer preacher of the Baptist church. That meeting was in the middle of Cannon river at the ford near Northfield. Mr. Mckinley was on horseback on his way to fill an appointment to preach in the log cabin of H. M. Matteson, situated on land now occupied by the village of Dundas. Elder Cressy was in a buggy intently perusing a book with two or three of somebody's children that he had picked up on his way playing around him, entirely un- conscious that the horse had stopped in mid-stream and was enjoying a foot bath while the swiftly running water came nearly up to the bottom of the buggy, and they then and there made arrangements for alternating services in the neighborhood. Rev. Armsby was and still is the warm friend of all who knew him. Gentle and scholarly, he was modest and retiring in society and none knew the patriotic fire that coursed in his veins until the Civil War convulsed the nation. Accepting the chaplaincy of the Eighth regiment, tendered him in compliment for his patriotic encouragement of enlistment, his comrades love to tell how on Sherman's march to the sea, he never rode either of the two
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horses that were his by virtue of his rank, but they carried some poor, sick and weary soldier of the ranks instead, while chaplain was trudging along on foot, likely enough carrying the equipment of some other weary soldier. Though past his four score years he is still a soldier of the cross in distant Kansas.
John M. Berry came to Faribault in 1855 and was one of the famous quartette of lawyers who kept bachelor's hall the first winter, the culinary department presided over by that famous cook and housekeeper, Reuben Rundell, better known to the boys as "Uncle Rundell." After investing in some valuable real estate in Faribault and vicinity, Mr. Berry removed to Austin in this state, in which town he made his home for two or three years, during which he represented Mower county for one term in the Territorial legislature of 1857. Returning to Faribault he built the house on his farm now owned and occupied by O. F. Brand, of nursery fame. He was elected associate justice of the supreme court in 1864, a position which he held through suc- cessive elections until he died in 1887, respected and lamented by the whole state. The writer has more occasion than most men to hold his memory in grateful remembrance, for he is in- debted to him for assistance in more than one difficulty in his official career. On one occasion, in particular, when I applied to him for advice he could not advise me because it was a case that might come before him judicially, but he handed me a book with a leaf turned down and there I found the information I wanted.
In writing of men and things as they were when the civilization of Minnesota was in its infancy, prominent among memories stands the name of Michael Cook, first state senator in the Minne- sota legislature from Rice county. We first became acquainted in 1855 in a convention that nominated commissioners to organ- ize Rice county, but I love best to remember the kind assistance he gave me in setting up and furnishing the printig office of the Rice County "Herald." Indeed, without his help, I doubt if I could have succeeded in establishing my paper. Modest and unob- trusive although he was, his many sterling qualities and incor- ruptible honesty always gave him place at the head of the pro- cession. An architect of no mean ability as well as skilled work- man, several buildings of his construction, one of which is the present residence of Hon. Geo. A. Weston, are still standing as monuments of his industry and ability. While senator elect he quietly enlisted and was soon promoted. He was killed while major of his regiment at the battle of Nashville. Some years after the close of the war his body was brought home for burial, and he now lies with his kindred in Oak Ridge cemetery, but
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his most enduring monument is Michael Cook Post of the Grand Army of the Republic, named in his honor.
In the year 1871 a movement was made toward incorpora- tion as a city, under a law which then existed authorizing pro- ceedings before the probate court to that end. This method was not acceptable to many citizens, and knowing that the charters of cities of the state were in the custody of the county auditor, application was made to that office to select from them such a charter as would be suitable for Faribault, and after making a selection to report to a meeting of citizens to be called for the purpose of approval or rejection. Being assured that incorpora- tion was inevitable, in consideration of being allowed to fix the boundaries of the city and wards I assumed the task. After ex- amining the several charters in the office I finally took the great- er part of our charter from the general statutes of 1869, intro- duced by George F. Batchelder, senator from Rice county. Meet- ings were called at different times and places, but the boundaries as fixed by the charter, and especially the ward lines, provoked so iniich discussion that no time was left for anything else; so the charter went to the legislature without ever having been read by any citizen of Faribault other than the one who compiled it. Hon. H. M. Matteson, lately deceased, had charge of the charter in the house, and George W. Batchelder in the senate, and it became a law February 29, 1872. The city as incorporated em- braces nine square miles, its limits extending as nearly as pos- sible equal distances on every side from the platted portions of the town.
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