USA > Minnesota > Rice County > History of Rice and Steele counties, Minnesota, Vol. I > Part 9
USA > Minnesota > Steele County > History of Rice and Steele counties, Minnesota, Vol. I > Part 9
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In the western wooded portion of the county there is a greater
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HISTORY OF RICE AND STEELE COUNTIES
diversity of the immediate surface contour, but the average ele- vation is not so great as in the eastern, no known elevations being above 1,125 feet. The lakes that dot the surface here add much to the variety of topographic scenery. Some of these cover an area each of two to three square miles, and have a depth often to fifty feet.
The average elevation of the county may be estimated as follows: Northfield, 990 feet above the sea; Wheeling, 1,110; Richland, 1,175; Bridgewater, 1,010; Cannon City, 1,085; Wal- cott, 1,100; Webster, 1,060; Forest, 1,025; Wells, 1,025; Warsaw, 1,070; Wheatland, 1,075; Erin, 1,090; Shieldsville, 1,075; Morris- town, 1,045. From these figures the average elevation of the county becomes 1,065 feet.
Soil and Timber. The soil of the upland prairies in the south- eastern part of the county, including the towns of Richland, Wheeling, Cannon City, and much of Northfield, is a black loam, underlain by clay. In the low grounds along the valleys this black loam is increased in thickness, and on some exposed knolls the underlying clay becomes the surface soil. In the low prairies of Northfield the subsoil is gravelly, and the soil itself, while rich and dark, is apt to become sandy, particularly in the imme- diate neighborhood of the bluffs where the St. Peter sandstone has opportunity to mingle with it. In the western part of the county, while the soil is a dark loam and equally fertile, gen- erally, as that in the eastern, it has a subsoil mainly of stony blue clay or a yellow pebbly loam, but on the gravelly hills, and on some of the lower ridges, in Morriston and Shieldsville, and par- ticularly in Webster, the subsoil is gravel and sand. This is the case also in the terrace-flats that skirt the Cannon river. The soils in the western part of the county are much more stony than in the eastern.
In ascending the Cannon valley from Northfield there is a marked change in the character of the forest growth. About Northfield, and northwardly through Dakota county, the trees are mainly of oak and aspen. But ascending the Cannon these trees give place to sugar maple, butternut, ironwood, bass, ash, etc. The shrubs are also affected by the same change. Differ- ent species of hazelnut, ninebark and woodbine make their ap- pearance as undergrowth, sharing the shade with little aspens and wolfberries. The trees in the following list are arranged in the estimated order of frequency.
Basswood. Common throughout the county, and especially throughout the heavy timber in the flat or undulating tracts of Bridgewater, Forest, Erin and Shieldsville.
American or White Elm, Also Known as Water Elm.
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Black Oak. This is the usual oak. It is most abundant as small trees and shrubs; and in the high and rolling parts of Webster and Wheatland it is only found in this condition. Very large trees, however, are scattered numerously through the heavy timber everywhere.
Bur Oak. In exposed places, and particularly on the edges of the timber bordering the prairie, this is very abundant. It seems to endure fire better than the black oak, perhaps due to its more corky bark, but it does not succeed so well as the black oak on exposed and black hills or on poor soils. It occa- sionally furnishes a log for lumber and is apt to be confounded with the white oak, which is a much less common tree in the county.
Silver Maple. A common trec, sometimes growing very large and furnishing lumber, but generally not more than ten inches in diameter so far as now seen in the county. It is common as second growth after the cutting of the original forest.
American Aspen. Common on the outskirts of the timber, on exposed hillsides, as in Webster, and as second growth in all parts of the county; generally not exceeding ten inches in diameter.
Sugar Maple. This tree exhibits magnificent proportions in some heavily wooded tracts, as in western Shieldsville and Erin. It also sometimes starts up more numerous than any other tree as a second growth. It is common throughout the timbered portions of the county, and has been set for ornamental purposes in most of the prairie portions. It furnishes considerable quan- tities of syrup and sugar in Rice county, and is sometimes found among the saw-logs at the mills at Morristown.
Slippery Elm or Red Elm. This makes better lumber than the white elm, but it does not grow so large nor so straight.
Black or Water Ash. Some very large trees are found in western Shieldsville.
Ironwood, Wild Plum, Box-elder. Not found in the heavy timber, but along streams and lakes. This makes a low-branched, rather small, irregular tree, and if it lives long it sustains a broad, light-green mass of foliage supported generally by two or three or more trunks from one root. It grows rapidly, has a dense wood, but is not durable.
Butternut or Hickory, White Oak. Furnishes a valuable and tough timber.
Cottonwood. Along the river bottoms, but not generally through the county.
Water Beech, White Ash. Used for lumber. Some large straight trees were seen in Shieldsvillc.
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HISTORY OF RICE AND STEELE COUNTIES
Red oak, red or swamp maple, black walnut, large-toothed aspen, hackberry, American crab-apple, tamarack, paper or canoe birch, juneberry, balm of Gilead, white pine, dogwood, hazelnut, smooth sumac, wild, redcherry, thorn, savin, American wood- bine, grape, Virginia creeper, speckled alder, nine-bark, red-osier dogwood, climbing bitter sweet, rose, dwarf wild rose, wolf- berry, highblackberry, red raspberry, New Jersey tea, false indigo.
The Bridgewater Kame. The most important phenomenon of the drift in Rice county is the kame in Bridgewater and Can- non City townships. It can be traced, with unimportant inter- ruptions, from the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of section 21, Bridgewater, to the northwest quarter of section 17. Cannon City, on the west side of the river, a distance of five and a half miles. It crosses the river twice, once in the northwest quarter of section 4 and once in the east half of section 8. It consists of gray gravel, with some larger stones, piled in a sharp ridge, about as steeply as such materials will lie. It is popu- larly known as a "horseback." It shows where the river ran during some portion of the ice-age, while the ice itself was present as a glacier and extended westward and northwestwardly indefinitely.
This ridge rises conspicuously, first, on section 21, Bridge- water, not far from Wolf creek. It is interrupted for about twenty rods. The country through which it passes is flat or slightly undulating. It rises again and has about the same direc- tion. It crosses the railroad near the southeast corner of section 20, and the north and south highway east of the railroad, and the east and west highway within a few rods of that. It has several short gaps then, but can be traced nearly to the Cannon river a little below the crossing on the northwest quarter of section 4, Cannon City, where it is very prominent. It re-appears in the southeast quarter of section 5. in the bottomlands of the river, but on the opposite side. This flat is seventy-five feet lower than the flat on which it lies in section 33. It is here lying on the Shakopee limestone, with occasional knobs of the St. Peter rising so as to be visible (one of them being visible under the gravel at the edge of the kame where it is cut by the river in section 8), but in section 33, at its most castern turn, it lies on a red till, though afterward, where it enters section 32, it lies apparently on a gray till, if not directly on the underlying Shako- pee. On the north half of the northeast quarter of section 8, Cannon City, its upper outline is broken by rather abrupt changes. It continues in the bottom lands (or flood-plain), the strike of the St. Peter passing under it just where it reaches the
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river and considerably increasing its elevation. It here meas- ures, by aneroid, ninety-two feet in height. The flood-plain is about 940 feet above the sea (eight feet above the river), and the same rises to 1,032. The red till and loam, about one-eighth mile farther east, here rise in a timbered bluff in which the lower Trenton limestone is probably included, to 1,075 feet. Where the kame ceases on the west side of the river in section 8, the descent is as steep, to the very water, as on either side of the kame itself. The direction of the kame at this point would cause it to be expected on the west side of the river in the lowest part of the old channel in the northwest part of section 17. Here are found, actually, two ridges, but of less definite characters, and neither of them can be affirmed to be the extension of the kame, since they seem to blend with the generally bluffy till area which here lies between the Milwaukee and the river. One of these lies on each side of the north and south highway (like- wise of the railroad). That on the east side, though capped and flanked with gravel, at a height above the lower gravel terrace. yet has a basis of St. Peter sandrock and red till with north- eastern boulders. Its length is about an eight of a mile. Fur- ther east and south the land soon rises into a rough morainc. Toward the west the surface also rises irregularly, though some- what in the resemblance of a ridge at first, on the west side of which runs a little creek northward.
The kame, the course of which has been described, consists entirely of gray gravel. It generally has not a sudden depres- sion immediately alongside, in the average level of the country, but the kame rises abruptly from the general flat, the angle being from 25° to 35° from the horizon. Yet, although there is not a sudden depression where it lies, there is perceptible in some cases, a broad, basin-shaped valley through the lowest parts of which it passes. This broad, smooth valley is from 100 to 120 rods in width. Such can be seen in section 21, Bridgewater. The height of the ridge is usually from thirty to forty feet, with a smooth exterior, but near the schoolhouse in the west part of section 33, Bridgewater, its height is from seventy-five to eighty feet, and in other places it has an average height of fifty feet.
Minerals from the Drift. Several pieces of native copper were found years ago in the southeast quarter of section 8, Cannon City, some in excavating for the foundation of a mill, and others along the road between sections 8 and 9. They are from the red till, which generally is there found lying in the eroded depres- sions of the St. Peter sandstone.
Several pieces of silicified wood have been found at North- field. These evidently are referable to the gravel and till of the gray drift derived from the northwestward.
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HISTORY OF RICE AND STEELE COUNTIES
Among the specimens obtained from the drift, now in the col- lections of Carleton college, has been preserved a boulder of very coarse porphyry. The crystals are apparently of albite, in a compact greenish diabase. They are about one and a half inches in length, the corners and edges rounded off, making the rock resemble a conglomerate.
In the same collection of drift stones are several pieces, about six inches long, of the felsite of the great palisades at Lake Supe- rior, with the disseminated crystals of quartz and translucent feldspar.
Small specimens of asbestos have been brought to Carleton college, once said to have come from near Shieldsville, and once from near Faribault. It is in silky threads that are fine and from a vein in some rock. This vein is two and a half inches wide. the threads running transverse to the direction of the vein, and pre- senting a faulted structure near the middle of the vein. None of the rock is preserved in the samples seen, but as both speci- mens have the same faulted structure they probably came from the same vein, if not from the same boulder. The grain of mineral, and its color, also indicate the same.
Mastodon Remains. The Minnesota Historical Society has in its collection the following letter, written some thirty years ago by Prof. L. B. Sperry : "Carleton College, Northfield, Minn., April 8, 1882. Prof. N. H. Winchell, Minneapolis, Minn. Dear sir : In reply to yours of the 3rd instant. making inquiries con- cerning some remains of a mastodon found in this city in 1879. and now in the cabinet of Carleton college, I would respectfully state that the remains found here consist only of a part of one tusk. This was exposed by some workmen while digging in a deposit of drift about ten feet below the surface.
"The portion of the tusk found measured eight and one-half feet in length and twenty-two inches in circumference at the base. When restored by continuing its general line of taper to a point, it measures nearly twelve feet. The broken extremity of the part found was so eroded and rounded as to render it evident that it had been broken and separated from the terminal portion before being deposited where it was found. Its whole appearance indicates that it had shared the rough-and-tumble experience of its associated drift material. Subsequent removal of much of the surrounding bank has not revealed the separated extremity. Exposure to the light and air has resulted in checking and slack- ing the discovered specimen, so that protection by the use of glue, sizing and varnish became necessary. Yours cordially. L. B. Sperry."
Old Wells in Rice County. In the following paragraphs there
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have been preserved a list of the early wells in Rice county, sunk previous to 1882. In later wells the same varieties of clay have been encountered at about the same depths.
Wheatland. Wells in Wheatland township are generally in blue clay after passing through two to four feet of yellow clay. The latter contains pebbles and bits of cretaceous shale, and if not a weathered condition of the blue till, is closely connected with it in origin. Southwest quarter section 16, well, 33 fect ; yellow clay. then blue clay.
Webster. Southeast quarter section 17, well, 38 feet; all yellow and blue clay except at the bottom, where water was found in gravel. Pieces of Cretaceous scale and lignite were found in this well. Section 14, well 42 feet ; yellowish-red clay, 18 feet; the rest was blue clay. Southeast quarter section 16; well 54 feet ; said to be all in gravel, finding no water. This is on land about twenty feet higher than the one on section 17. South half of section 8; well 68 feet; yellow and blue clay. Southeast quarter section 10; well 30 fect; yellow loam 8 to 10 feet, then blue clay and water in gravel. Northeast quarter section 14; well 25 feet ; only yellow loam and blue elay.
Forest. Northwest quarter section 13; well 73 feet; dug all the way; yellow clay, blue clay, quicksand, the blue clay making up the greater part of the depth, and the quicksand and gravel at the bottom furnishing water. The blue clay had considerable slate, and occasionally other stones as large as six inches. South- west quarter section 12 ; well 24 feet ; yellow and blue clay ; water in sand. East side of section 22; 25 feet deep ; mostly in yellow clay. Northeast quarter section 15; well 18 feet; all in yellow and blue clay, with pieces of Cretaceous shale. Northeast corner section 10; well 96 feet ; in clay all the way to the bottom, where quicksand was struck, furnishing water. This well was bored 18 inelies in diameter and planked with pine, thus rendering the water foul. Section 35; well 110 feet; a bored well, formerly good water.
Bridgewater. At St. Olaf school, section 36, Bridgewater, near Northfield, the well is in sand 6 to 10 feet, sand rock 80 to 90 feet, Shakopee about 50 feet : water is raised by a windmill. Northeast quarter section 33; four wells ; all in blue clay ; 45 feet in blue clay, then limerock, then soapstone, there finding water, at least stopping there; probably secp water ; no red clay under the blue clay. In this well was found a log 35 feet under the surface in blue clay. Section 17. well 27 feet ; soil and yellow pebbly clay, 25 feet ; sand, 1 foot ; cemented yellow clay (hard- pan), 1 foot ; water rose abont 8 feet.
Shieldsville. Northeast quarter section 1; well 20 feet ; yel-
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low clay 10 feet, blue clay 10 feet ; both with small stones ; water from the clay. Another well was the same, though 8 feet higher at the surface. The lakes at Shieldsville do not supply the wells sunk near them, being in superficial basins in the impervious till. Some wells are sunk 70 feet or more, near these lakes, without getting a permanent supply of water.
Wells. Northeast quarter section 12; Well 47 feet ; yellow clay, 20 feet ; sand, 2 fect ; yellow, hard clay, 1 foot ; blue clay, 25 feet ; this well is about on the contour line of 1,000; the west limit of the gravely, terrace-like expanse that accompanies the Cannon valley. Southeast quarter section 6; well 33 feet ; yellow and blue clay, with gravel at the bottom. Section 21, well 45 feet ; yellow loam, 12 feet; blue clay, 28 feet ; gravel, 5 feet ; water. Section 21 ; well, on the brink of Roberds' lake ; 28 feet in blue clay ; though situated but 10 feet above the lake, this well had no water. Northwest quarter section 6; well 6 or 8 feet deep in gravel; near the lake, but about 25 feet above the lake.
Cannon City. A well at Cannon City village passed through soil and clay 30 feet and into limerock 3 feet. South part of sec- tion 18 (west of the river) ; well 38 feet ; yellow loam and clay, 4 feet ; blue clay, 30 feet ; sand, 4 feet ; no water ; small pieces of lignite.
Morristown. At Morristown village wells are from 12 to 15 feet in depth, in gravel. Northeast quarter section 33; well 70 feet deep; only in drift deposits. When the wind is west air comes into this well through the gravel near the bottom, and when it is cast air passes in the opposite direction through the gravel. The well becomes so cold by this circulation that in winter, at the depth of 70 feet, the bucket freezes fast if left in the water. This well is in the prairie country, about 1,100 or 1,125 feet above the sea, with a westward slope toward a marsh about a hundred rods from the well.
Warsaw. Southeast quarter section 34; well 13 feet; all in yellow clay ; water in a thin gravel bed. Northwest quarter sec- tion 34; well 90 feet ; yellow and blue clay ; no water. Another well ten or twelve feet west of the last, 50 feet deep, had a little water, but not enough.
Walcott. Southwest quarter section 21; well, 6 feet; soil and sand five and a half feet; then blue clay: water rises and falls with Mud creek but is unfailing. This well is situated on the terrace-flat that accompanies the Straight river, and is about twenty-five feet above the river. Wells in section 14 and 11 are shallow, and often in gravel.
Artificial mounds. At one-half mile north of the old Wheat- land postoffice, southwest quarter section 16, Wheatland, sev-
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eral artificial mounds appear. They lie along a small lake which is on the west side of the north-and-southi road. They are rather small, not exceeding two feet in height. Five or six are visible from the road. There are probably others.
In Webster township, section 17, an eighth of a mile north of Edward McFadden's, on the highest land, but yet surrounding a marsh, may be seen a number of mounds rising two and a half or three feet.
There was an Indian mound on section 2, Shieldsville, on the south side of the outlet of the middle lake. According to Patrick McKenna, one of the early settlers of Shieldsville, the Sioux In- dians used to fix their camp at this place. They had a scaffold- ing upon it where they placed their dead, and afterwards buried their bones in the mound. This mound was from 10 to 12 feet high. It was removed by the owner of the land that the surface might be tilled. Flint arrow-points have been found in that neighborhood.
Mounds also exist in various places in the county, as will be found by reading an earlier chapter in this work.
Material resources. Besides its fertile soil, and the large supply of timber that originally covered most of the western half of the county, Rice county has natural means of wealth derivable directly from the bedded rocks, viz., building stone and lime. Bricks have also been made in a number of places.
Building stone. Numerous stone-quarries occur in the east- ern half of the county. The bluffs throughout this region are capped by a layer of the Trenton limestone varying from two or three to twenty feet in thickness, and the same stratum outcrops favorably at many points along the Straight and Cannon valleys. This rock furnishes a useful stone for nearly all purposes ir common buildings, and is used throughout the county for walls and foundations.
Bricks of a uniformly red color have been made in Faribault at various times, and at one period assumed the proportions of an important industry.
Lime. The upper strata of the Lower Trenton formation, as exposed in this county, furnish tolerably good material for quicklime, though in some places they are too siliceous and aluminous. Lime has been made from this formation in every township of the county east of the Cannon river.
Note. Few counties surpass Rice county in geologie features, lying as it did at the edge of the ice cap of the last glacial period. Its drift and its till, the Cannon river and Straight river terraces, the gravel deposits and the morainic remains all offer a tempta- tion for extended discussion. Some thirty years ago, Prof. L. B.
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Sperry subjected the geologic formations of this county to minute study, and his work was ably supplemented by the explorations of Prof. N. H. Winchell and Dr. Warren Upham. The result of their researches appears in Volume I, of the "Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota," 1882-1885, which book, though containing a vast amount of information in regard to Rice county, is not commonly known to the people of this section. Its perusal will well repay even the most casual reader, while the student will find the book of immeasurable value.
CHAPTER II.
THE FARIBAULTS.
The Wapakootas-Early Explorations-Adventurers Who May Have Reached Rice County-Official Surveys-"After Eighty-four Years," an Interesting Paper by Stephen Jewett Relating to the Faribaults-Biography of Jean Baptiste Fari- bault-Biography of Alexander Faribault-He Begins Trad- ing on the Cannon River in 1826-Settlement of Indians at Present Site of Faribault in 1834-First Buildings-Distin- guished Services of Alexander Faribault-The Passing of the Red Men.
From time immemorial, until the signing of the treaty of Mendota in 1851, the Wapakoota band of the Sioux Indians had their habitation about the lakes of what is now Rice county, and although, Indian fashion, they doubtless had small settle- ments temporarily in various places, their permanent village in this county, for centuries before the coming of the white men, was probably in the vicinity of what is now Faribault. The earliest whites found a settlement on the northeast shore of Cannon lake, three miles west of the present site of Faribault. and archæological research reveals the same location as the site of a still more ancient village. Long before the signing of the treaty of 1851, the territory now embracing Rice county was well known to the white men.
Neither Father Louis Hennepin, who, with his companions, Pickard du Gay (Auguelle) and Michael Accault (or Ako), ex- plored the upper Mississippi in 1680, nor Du Luth and his fol- lowers who met Hennepin and ascended and later descended the Mississippi with him, so far as we know, explored the triangle of land lying between the Mississippi and the northeastwardly flowing Minnesota.
The names of Perrot, La Hontan and Le Sueur are, however, though vaguely and possibly incorrectly, associated with Rice county.
Perrot established a trading post on the Mississippi, close above the mouth of the Wisconsin, which he named Fort St. Nicholas. In 1685, to extend his trade with the Indians, he built a temporary trading post on the east side of the Mississippi river, near Trempeleau, and afterwards the post called Fort St. Antoine (Anthony), on the northwestern shore of Lake Pepin,
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about six miles from its mouth. He also had a post on the Min- nesota shore of this lake at its outlet, called Fort Perrot. From 1685 until 1699 he conducted various explorations up the Mis- sissippi and into the surrounding country. On May 8, 1689, Perrot issued a proclamation in which he took possession of a vast territory in the name of the king of France. This territory included the basins of "the Bay des Puants (Green Bay) ; of the lake and rivers of the Outagamis and Maskoutins ( Fox river and Lake Winnebago) ; of the river Ouiskonche ( Wisconsin) and that of the Mississippi; the country of the Nadouessioux (the Sioux or Dakota Indians) and the rivers of St. Croix and St. Pierre (the Minnesota) and other places more remote." All these places, Perrot declared he had visited, and there is a pos- sibility that he may have crossed Rice county.
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