USA > Minnesota > Stearns County > History of Stearns County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 26
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H. Z. Mitchell, J. E. West and partner, and the Taylor brothers, had gen- eral stores of merchandise in the lower town and with them and their families I early became acquainted. In the family of Mr. Mitchell, I first made the acquaintance of Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm. Henry Swisshelm, her brother-in- law, established a general store during that or the following year, and Stephen Miller subsequently became his partner. There were quite a number of enter- prising young men then in the lower town, who I thought had come through the influence of George F. Brott, one of the principal owners of lower St. Cloud. Among these were Mr. Bradley, afterwards a wealthy lumberman in Wisconsin, and Charles F. Powell.
Maine Prairie was already a thriving settlement, and among the settlers there whose names I remember were George W. Cutter and Mr. Greely. Joseph H. Linneman was the first trader in St. Joseph. Reuben M. Rich- ardson, who was elected to the state senate in 1857, lived at Richmond at the big bend of Sauk river. Mr. Lindberg was then, or soon after, a set- tler at Melrose. At Winnebago Prairie, twelve miles north of St. Cloud, were a number of thriving settlers, among them J. E. Hayward and the Libby brothers.
" 'All aboard for Puget Sound !' That is what conductors on a railroad passing through St. Cloud will call out in a few years." This is what I heard
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George F. Brott say at an outdoor public meeting in front of the Willis Hotel, St. Cloud, Governor Ramsey being present, in 1857 or 1858. His prediction literally came true not many years afterward. Mr. Brott was then a little over thirty years old, of medium size, had black eyes and black curly hair, and was a good-looking, generous and enthusiastic man. He was interested in a number of town sites, including Breckenridge. That following winter, 1857-58, Theodore H. Barrett was making a plat of the town of Breckenridge for Mr. Brott, and one day when I happened to be present with them, Mr. Brott turned to Barrett and said, "Name one of the streets for Andrews." That accounts for Andrews avenue in Breckenridge, which I am glad to say is a nice street, having on it many pleasant residences. Mr. Barrett's plat, which was handsome work, will be found hanging in one of the county offices at Breckenridge today.
The first school-house built in St. Cloud was finished about the first of July. At my suggestion, it was named after Edward Everett, and was dedi- cated in the presence of as large an auditnce as the building could hold on July 4. I delivered an address which was printed in full in the St. Cloud paper and which was nicely reviewed by the Boston Daily Advertiser. I sent a copy of the address with a letter to Mr. Everett, to which he kindly replied and stated that he had directed that two hundred dollars worth of books be selected and sent as a library for the school. These books were duly received, and formed, as I believe, the nucleus of the St. Cloud public library.
The first extensive trip I made from Stearns county was in the early part of September, 1857, a son-in-law of Rev. Thomas E. Inman (his name I cannot recall), being my driver. I went via Paynesville and Meeker and Wright counties, and was very favorably impressed by the fertility of the soil and handsomely diversified appearance of the surface, there being consid- erable hardwood timber as well as prairie. I was struck with the fact that fine fields of corn still stood green. My experience as a boy on a farm for sev- eral years, where I had done all kinds of farm work and watched the growth of different crops, enabled me, of course, to judge of the quality of the soil, which is something only a practical farmer can do. On this trip I returned by way of Anoka, where I delivered a political address.
I had considerable land office practice that summer in preemption con- tests, but I was not a prompt collector for myself. The worst hard times I ever knew came in the early part of that winter. Money all at once seemed to disappear and I found it about impossible to collect much of anything that was due me. These hard times improved but very little until the time of the Civil War.
We had, in the winter of 1857-58, severe and changeable weather. By about November 18, the temperature fell a good deal below zero. The Missis- sippi froze. Then in December there was a warm spell. The river opened and a gorge of broken ice formed, raising the water many feet, overflowing the upper town levee, and strewing the bluff sides with cakes of ice a foot or two thick. I remember that warm spell seeing one Sunday a cage of canary birds hanging out of the hotel window. The following spring was the most remark- able I have known. By the middle of March it was like summer. The glass
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was green, and at midday people sat out of doors. A steamboat arrived at St. Cloud from St. Anthony, March 26. I spaded up some of the ground on my lot and had radishes up in April. A fall of moist snow then came that month and covered them, but without doing any injury. That winter Mr. Hayes, receiver of the land office (and who had once been a member of Con- gress from Virginia), was enterprising enough to ship from his grist mill at the mouth of Sauk river, ten sled loads of flour to Superior, via Little Falls and the road north of Mille Lacs lake, connecting with the so-called Government road from St. Paul to Superior.
I enjoyed the winter very much for I was busy. Before leaving Wash- ington, I had contracted with Messrs. Little & Brown, law publishers of Bos- ton, to write and compile a practical treatise on the revenue laws of the United States, and I was occupied on that work, sometimes being up till eleven o'clock at night. I had in my library a complete set of Curtis's edition of the United States Supreme Court decisions, all the decisions of the United States Circuit Courts, the United States Statutes and all the circulars of instructions that had been issued on the revenue laws by the Treasury Department. The preparation of my digest of the opinions of the Attorneys General of the United States, which had been previously published in Washington, had given me experience in such work. My treatise on the revenue laws was duly com- pleted and was published by Little & Brown the following June.
In May, 1858, I made a trip to Long Prairie, just to see the county, with Mathias Mickley for driver. We went by the way of the beautiful Sauk valley, fording the river near the home of a lame German, about where Mel- rose now is. I first waded across the river which was about five feet deep, and we took the horse and buggy over separately. At Long Prairie we staid over night at the home of Horatio P. Van Cleve, who was in charge of build- ings which had been purchased at public sale by some Ohio people at the time the Winnebago Indians were removed from Long Prairie to Blue Earth county. Mr. Van Cleve was a graduate of West Point Academy, had resigned from the army as lieutenant several years previously, and became, as is well known, colonel of the Second Minnesota Regiment of Infantry, U. S. Volunteers, and brigadier and brevet major general. We returned via Swan river, passing through a country mostly covered with hardwood timber, thence down the east side of the Mississippi.
In the last half of July, I made a trip to the Red River of the North with a party of young men, among whom was William F. Mason, afterwards for many years a St. Paul business man, Alexander Kinkaid, and three others besides the driver whose names I cannot now recall, though one was the son of one of the publishers of the New York Journal of Commerce and who fur- nished one or two illustrated articles on his trip for Harper's Magazine. Our team consisted of three Indian pony horses and a wagon covered with white cloth, furnished by George F. Brott, and a young employe of his from Connecticut as driver. Our objective point was Mr. Brott's townsite of Breck- enridge. We had favorable weather and the trip on the whole was pleasant and instructive. One of our party was a young man from Indiana who had a violin, and towards noon of our second day out, when he was playing on
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it and we were feeling quite happy, we struck a big overflow of Getchell's brook in Sauk valley. The brook, which in ordinary stage is probably only twenty feet wide, was overflowed to a width of two hundred feet or more. The current was strong and as we undertook to ford it, our team was wrecked. We were about two hours getting our team and effects together and across on dry land. A fine navy revolver, which I had borrowed for the trip, sank, and when we had about finished our salvage work and I was getting across on a log with some of my clothing on my arm, my watch and an antique gold seal which I valued much, slipped out of my vest pocket into the stream. I hired a settler to dive for the articles, but he recovered only the revolver.
Sauk Centre then had but two buildings. We staid a day at a townsite called Kandotta, four or five miles west of Sauk Centre. After that we were on a trackless prairie. Mr. Kinkaid was our guide and several miles before reaching Alexandria, we turned southwesterly and approached Alexandria from the south. There were then only two log buildings on the site where the city of Alexandria now stands, and only eleven people living in the vicinity. We staid there a day or two as guests of Alexander and William Kinkaid, visiting, during the time, Long Prairie river, two miles distant, and a few of the beautiful lakes in the vicinity, and which were abundantly stocked with black bass. From thence on our party was reduced to only three, including the driver and myself. We first went south to strike the old Red river trail, and camped at a point where we had a view of White Bear lake. Thence our course was northwesterly, via Elbow lake. We crossed the upper fork of Red river over a bridge that had just been built by Mathew Wright, and staid over night at his house. He had come from Wisconsin and settled there the previous spring, and called his place Waseata. He brought his family there the following summer. He made valuable improvements, but was financially ruined by the Sioux Indian War in which he also lost a son.
Breckenridge then had but one building, which was of logs. The soil all around looked very fertile. Some breaking was being done on the nearby prairie, and I had the pleasure of holding the plow for a few furrows. We had another young man for driver on the return trip-am sorry I cannot recall his name-the one who came with us having engaged to remain at Brecken- ridge. We returned by the old Red river trail. Somewhere east of Lake George, in crossing a sloughi, one of our Indian ponies sank down almost out of sight. We tried in vain both to pull and to pry him out. Finally we gave him a copious drink of none too good whiskey, which we happened to have along in case of accident, and in a few minutes, under the effect of the stimu- lant, he got out himself in good condition.
Previous to this trip, I had habitually shaved my face, but of course did not take a razor along. My beard had now gotten such a start in course of two weeks that I discontinued shaving.
The undulating surface of the new country I had seen, the black soil, the abundance of grass and variety of prairie flowers, the lakes skirted with timber and many fine bodies of hardwood timber, most favorably and strongly impressed me. I wrote letters descriptive of the country which were printed in the Boston Post. It may be that some letters were sent to the New York
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Evening Post, of which paper I was also later a correspondent; as I also was for a year of the New York World under Manton Marble's management.
Theodore H. Barrett, assisted, if I remember correctly, by William B. Mitchell and one of the Kinkaids, surveyed a state road from St. Cloud to Breckenridge, and which shortened the route very much. One winter after that I raised by subscription a small amount with which to purchase supplies and pay for labor in cutting out a portion at least of the roadway through the big timber immediately west of St. Joseph, and I employed Ephraim Curtis to do the cutting. I made one trip in a sleigh alone to where they were working.
We had a course of lectures every winter, and one of the best lectures of the first course was delivered by Rev. Mr. Hall, of Sauk Rapids, on the Chip- pewa Indians, and which he did at my solicitation. Mr. Hall had come from Andover Seminary in 1831 to be missionary among the Chippewas. He said the old men and chiefs received him in a friendly manner, promising him a comfortable home and security ; that they told him he might try and teach the young, but for themselves they would have to spend their time in hunting, as the traders would not take religion or education as pay for provisions.
We had a little music occasionally for diversion. Louis A. Evans and James H. Place were good players on the violin. P. Lamb played on the flute, Mr. Tuttle of the lower town on the piano, and there was a man at Watab who played either on a clarionet or bugle. I had the pleasure of being a guest frequently when they met to play at different places, sometimes at Mr. Tuttle's home, and the music was certainly very good.
Up to 1851, the Sionx Indians had for centuries owned and occupied the country including Stearns county. They received only a meagre sum for the vast and fertile domain they sold, and as had been their habit for years, some of them continued frequently to visit and hunt in different parts of Stearns county. They were indeed rather too frequent visitors of some of the settlers, as they generally wanted to be fed. Once during the hard times when a big Sioux Indian called on George W. Cutter of Maine Prairie and wished some flour, Mr. Cutter took him into his pantry where he had an ampty flour barrel, and removing the cover pointed into it. The Indian looked down into the empty barrel and gave an utterance of sympathy. In November of 1859, a large party of Sioux, engaged in hunting deer, established their camp a little south of Cold Spring. They were slaughtering the deer in all direc- tions. The settlers sent in to St. Cloud, requesting that Gen. S. B. Lowry and myself would go out to their camp and try to have them leave. This we did, arriving at their camp just before dusk. There were a good many large tepees and a number of wagons and ponies. A number of little Indian boys were practising target firing with bows and arrows. They laughed on seeing us as if they were accustomed to seeing white people. We were taken in to one of the tepees where some fire was burning in the center, a few fresh deer skins lying about, and had a talk with some of the older Indians, General Lowry being able to converse with them in their own dialect. They were told of the settlers' feelings in regard to their presenee, and they in a friendly manner promised to leave in a day or two, which they did.
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In 1860, Stephen Miller and I were candidates for presidential elector, he on the Republican ticket and I on the Donglas-Democratic ticket. At his invitation, I held with him over thirty joint political discussion in as many different places in the state, we both riding together in a one-horse buggy. In these discussion I argued that the Northern Democrats were as much op- posed to the extension of slavery as the Republicans, and were more patriotic in refraining from agitating the subject and thus creating bad feeling between the two sections of the country. Mr. Miller was a very impassioned and enter- taining speaker, and diversified his arguments with amusing anecdotes. He and I always remained good friends. I went into the war as a Democrat, but voted for Mr. Ramsey in 1861 for Governor; I also voted for Mr. Lincoln for President in 1864. It was in my tent in Texas in the summer of 1865, after reading a letter from the Chairman of the National Democratic Committee, recommending that all the negroes in the South be transported to Africa, that I decided to quit the Democratic party.
Immediately after the President's first call for volunteers in April, 1861, a public meeting was held in St. Cloud to promote enlistments, at which after a few remarks I subscribed my name as a volunteer. My six months resi- dence at Fort Leavenworth gave me some acquaintance with military disci- pline and drill, but in May, with a view to perfect myself in the manual of arms,-manner of handling the musket-I asked and received the permission of Captain Nelson H. Davis of the regular army, commanding at Fort Ripley, to visit that post and receive some instruction. Accompanied by Theodore H. Barrett, I went and spent about a week thicre in May. Captain Davis was kind enough to treat us as his guests. He put ns in charge of a bright Irish corporal, and we were drilled in handling the musket several hours a day. We also saw Captain Davis repeatedly drill his fine infantry company. Captain Davis became Inspector General of the army in the Civil War. With a view to raising a company, I had from the time of subscribing as a volunteer, en- deavored to raise recruits. Owing to the country being sparsely settled, it was slow work. Some of my recruits were mustered into the First Minnesota Regiment. Later in the summer, accompanied sometimes by James M. Mc- Kelvey, Damon Greenleaf or George W. Sweet, I travelled as far west as Lake Osakis and about to the eastern boundary of Benton county to obtain men who were willing to go to war. The following are the names of the young men who, in the early part of October, accompanied me from St. Cloud to Fort Snelling, and who with me were mustered into the service, October 11, and who with a larger squad from LeSuenr county were the nucleus of the com- pany in the Third Minnesota Regiment which I subsequently commanded : James Coates, Harry Collins, John O. Crummet, Edwin H. Garlington, Damon Greenleaf, Frank S. Green, William H. Gripman, David Hooper, Orlando W. James, Charles D. Lamb, Frank J. Markling, James E. Masterson, John Moore, William F. Morse, Frederick Schilplin, Orrin E. Spear, Charles H. Thoms and John L. Thompson.
Christopher C. Andrews was born at Hillsboro, Upper Village, New Hamp- shire, October 27, 1829. His parents were Luther and Nabby (Beard) Andrews and he was the youngest of four children. Attended the district school and
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worked on his father's farm, and in his fourteenth year went to work in a store, in Boston, of which his eldest brother was part owner, and there con- tinued three years, attending meantime three terms at the Franeestown, N. H., Academy. June 17, 1843, he heard Daniel Webster deliver his oration at the completion of the Bunker Hill monument. He was a member of the Mercantile Library Association of Boston and took part in its literary exereises. Studied law in the offices of Mr. Ayer in Hillsboro, Brigham and Loring in Boston, at the Harvard law school, and was admitted to the bar in 1850. Praetised law at Newton Lower Falls and in Boston. At the age of twenty-three, was elected one of the Superintending School Committee of Newton, Mass., his name being on both the Democratie and Whig tickets. January, 1854, he was junior counsel in a capital ease before the supreme court in Boston, in which Rufus Choate appeared as attorney general, and by whom his opening address to the jury was complimented.
He removed to Kansas, June, 1854, and at a public meeting a few weeks later declared that he would vote to make Kansas a free state. He was the regular correspondent of the Boston Post and wrote without pay a number of letters which were printed in other northern papers on the resources of Kansas, to encourage free state immigration. Offered by Governor Reeder office of secretary to the Governor, which he deelined. In the winter he went to Wash- ington, intending to stay only during the short session of Congress, but was im- mediately taken ill with typhoid fever and was unable to work till Mareh. This so redueed his finances that he obtained through President Pieree, his former townsman, an appointment as elerk, at $1,400 a year, in the treasury department.
Wishing still to settle in the West, and troubles in Kansas preventing his returning there, he in October, 1856, visited Minnesota to see the territory. His letters in the Boston Post, descriptive of the trip, were later published in book form, entitled "Minnesota and Dakota." While in Washington, by his writ- ings, he assisted in passing the bill by Congress granting lands to Minnesota for railroads. In the spring of 1857, he voluntarily resigned his clerkship and began the practice of law at St. Cloud, Minnesota. He made a trip to the Red river of the North in the summer of 1858, and his letters descriptive of what he saw were published in the Boston Post. He later became a regular correspondent of the New York Evening Post and of the New York World. Was elected to the state senate as a Douglas-Demoerat in 1859. Was candidate for presidential eleetor, 1860, and held thirty joint discussion with Stephen Miller, Republican candidate.
At a publie meeting at St. Cloud, April, 1861, he inseribed his name as a volunteer and helped to raise recruits. Appointed Captain of Company I, Third Minnesota Regiment, in November, and spent the winter guarding rail- roads in Kentucky. Marehed over the Cumberland mountains in June; in action at Murfreesboro, July 13, and was one of three to earnestly oppose the surrender of the regiment. This later led to his promotion. Prisoner of war at Madison, Ga., and Libby prison three months, during which he wrote "Hints to Company Officers," published by Van Nostrand. Appointed lieutenant eol- onel of his regiment in December and was with it at Vieksburg. Promoted
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to be colonel and commanded his regiment in the campaign of Arkansas and battle of Little Rock, September, 1863. Commanded the post of Little Rock seven months and received a note of thanks from the free state constitutional convention of Arkansas. Appointed brigadier general January 1864. In battle of Fitzhugh's Woods, April 1, 1864, he led a decisive charge, his horse being killed under him. In command of second division seventh corps, with headquarters at Devall's Bluff July to December. In the battle of the Prairies, August 24, his forces defeated those of General J. Shelby. Commanded second division thirteenth corps in campaign of Mobile. Appointed by President Lincoln major general by brevet in March; in the storming of Fort Blakely, April 9, 1865, two of his brigades, numbering 5,200 men, captured three-quarters of a mile of Confederate breastworks and 1,400 prisoners in half an hour, losing 200 in killed and wounded. Was for some weeks in command of the districts of Mobile and Selma. In July, he was placed in command of a large district in Texas with headquarters at Houston. Honorably mustered out of the service, January, 1866. Same year he wrote the history of the campaign of Mobile, which was published by D. Van Nostrand. While at Washington finishing that history he was urged by the Congressional Com- mittee of Mr. Donnelly's district to come to Minnesota and make some ad- dresses in aid of his re-election as a Republican, which he did.
In 1867, he resumed the practice of law at St. Cloud, but devoted consid- erable of his time to public matters. He accompanied Edwin F. Johnson, Chief Engineer of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, on a trip through northwestern Minnesota, the Red river valley and a part of Dakota. He took part in political campaigns, advocating hard money and the reconstruction measures of Congress. He was president of the Grant Club at St. Cloud and was delegate to the National Republican Convention at Chicago, which nomi- nated Grant for President. He was the regular Republican candidate for Congress in the Second district in 1868, receiving after a short canvass 8,598 votes. Mr. Donnelly, classed in Greeley's Tribune Almanac as the "irregular" Republican candidate, also ran, and Eugene M. Wilson, Democrat, was elected.
December, 1868, General Andrews was married at Central City, Colo- rado, to Mary Frances Baxter, daughter of Hon. Enos K. Baxter, formerly of Cambridge, Mass. The following year he was appointed United States Min- ister Resident to Norway and Sweden, and entered upon his duties at Stock- holm, July, 1869. He remained in that capacity eight and a half years, or till about December, 1877. He negotiated treaties for the reduction of postage and for the better protection of emigrants on shipboard. He made many studies and reports to his government on important subjects, including agriculture, education, commerce, manufactures, forestry, civil service, labor, etc., etc., which were printed by the Department of State. Separate editions of some of these reports, including forestry, have been printed. His salary was $7,500 a year, the greater part of which he expended for house rent and living ex- penses. When ex-President Grant visited Sweden in 1878, King Oscar said to him that General Andrews was the best representative the United States had ever sent there. General Andrews naturally wished to retain his position,
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