History of Wabasha County : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc. : gathered from matter furnished by interviews with old settlers, county, township, and other records, and extracts from files of papers, pamphlets, and such other sources, Part 46

Author: H.H. Hill and Company. 4n
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill & Co.
Number of Pages: 1176

USA > Minnesota > Wabasha County > History of Wabasha County : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc. : gathered from matter furnished by interviews with old settlers, county, township, and other records, and extracts from files of papers, pamphlets, and such other sources > Part 46

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The half-breed tract contained four hundred and fifty square miles. In 1854 the government appointed commissioners to enroll the half-breeds in order to divide the lands equally among them, and in the spring of 1857 Gen. Shields was sent on to issue land scrip to them, in place of these reserved lands, each half-breed receiving four hundred and eighty acres. This scrip made a nice haul for the sharpers, who in most cases figured them out of it. The French settlers at Wabasha received scrip for their wives and families.

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PEPIN TOWNSHIP.

Joseph Buisson had seven scrips, Alexis Bailley had seven, Rocque's family had thirteen, Mr. Cratte had nine, Monette had four, Trudell had seven ; Duncan and Scott Campbell had twenty-three, Francois la Batte had ten. Most of these have not a cent left.

Few of the old settlers remain, some have gone to other parts of the country, but most of them lie sleeping their last sleep, and the hunting-ground of the red man is now turned into fields of grain and flowering gardens. A beautiful city stands on the site of the old camping-ground, which a short time ago was lighted only by the council fires of the savage.

CHAPTER LVIII.

PEPIN TOWNSHIP.

THIS is the name given to a fractional township lying along the shores of Lake Pepin and the Mississippi river. It contains a little less than one-half the number of sections of land comprised in a full-sized township as determined and set off by United States gov- ernment survey. There are in Pepin township sixteen full sections, one fractional half-section, and five other fractions of sections that are mere strips along the shores of the river and the lake; the whole five forming less than one full section, or one mile square. Pepin township lies six miles in length along the shores of the lake from whence it derives its name, and the Mississippi river, and has an average width of three full sections, except in the southeast corner, where one section is cut off and attached to the corporation of the city of Wabasha. Lake Pepin is simply a broadening of the Mississippi river into a beautiful sheet of bluff-environed water, low lying in the basin of the hills which rise on all sides from four hundred to five hundred feet above its clear waters. The length of the lake is about thirty miles ; its width from two and one half miles to four miles. The origin of the name "Pepin " is matter of merest conjecture. Neill, in his history of Minnesota, queries whether or no it may not have been so named in honor of Pepin, the Seur de la Fond, who married the aunt of La Parriere, the builder of an old fort on the north side of the lake, in the fall of 1727. The name itself is one immortal in French history for over one thousand years.

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HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.

It was first brought into prominence by the old Carlovingian, Pepin le Vieux, whose grandson Pepin le Gros effectually checked the encroachments of the kingly line of the Merovingians in the seventh century. This Pepin le Gros was the father of the illus- trious Charles Martel, the mayor of the palace to the last of the Merovingian dynasty, whose power he also reduced, and who is celebrated as the deliverer of Western Europe from the rav- ages of the Saracens, whom he ronted at Poictiers in 732, and again in 738 at Lyons. This name of Pepin, so illustrious in those early days, has always had an honored place in French history ; and this fact taken with that other, namely, that the early Mississippi explorers were adventurous Frenchmen, may be all that is neces- sary to account for the name of the lake, Pepin, the origin of which has puzzled so many writers of early northwestern explorations. Pepin township is virtually a ridge or narrow tableland, lying be- tween the Mississippi river and the Zumbro, at an elevation of from three hundred feet to five hundred feet above the level of the Missis- sippi river. This tableland breaks off abruptly on the north or lake side, but descends more gradually on the south toward the valley of the Zumbro ; but this southern declension does not begin within the limits of Pepin township, so that the high character of the ground is preserved to its extreme southern limit. The surface of this table- land is quite rolling, at times even broken, but all lies elevated, and is, with the exceptions of some ravines jutting up from the lake, of tillable character. There are no streams crossing the face of the township, though a small one, in which water is found run- ning at nearly all seasons of the spring, summer and fall, empties into the lake near the northeastern corner of the township, through the ravine technically known as King's cooley. This term "cooley" is doubtless a corruption of the French "couler," to run or flow, and was applied to those ravines through which the water flowed from the tablelands downward to the lakes or larger streams. There are two of these "cooleys " within the limits of Pepin township- King's cooley in the northeast, and Smith's cooley in the south- west. Through both of these the water rushes, an impetuous torrent, after copious rains, or when the deep snows, lingering late on the uplands are suddenly melted by the ascending sun of late spring, but at other times they are dry, and in Smith's cooley for most of the time no water is found running. The soil of Pepin township is a friable clay, yellowish in color, and with a very slight admixture

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PEPIN TOWNSHIP.

of sand, hardly sufficient to be discovered, yet it no doubt exists in sufficient quantities to temper the quality of the clay, and render it more easily worked. This soil is admirably adapted to the growth of wheat, oats, barley and other cereals. It is a common saying, that when wheat cannot be grown in Pepin township, it cannot be grown anywhere.

Comparatively little stock is raised by the farmers here, as the operation of the herd law, doing away with fences, compels every farmer to fence in especially for his stock, and this entails an expense more severely felt than it would be were the farms all fenced. To commence raising stock would require a very large outlay in the matter of fences alone by nine out of every ten farniers in the town- ship. The surface of the soil was originally covered with ouck, scrub-oak openings, and, once grubbed, no finer wheat lands or more productive are to be found in southern Minnesota, but it is doubtful if the soil is as well adapted to raising corn as the warmer and more alluvial soils of the valleys. There are no wells in the township ; water for stock and domestic purposes is generally supplied from the cisterns, with which every farm is abundantly provided. There are, however, in some locations, to be found most excellent springs of pure water, and these not confined to any one section of the township.

The rule of all early settlement in this section of the west, and probably in all others, has been that the valleys and lower levels are taken up first, leaving the uplands to those who should follow after. Wabasha county was no exception to this general custom of the northwestern pioneers, and the valleys of the Zumbro and its tribu- taries were dotted with flourishing farms before it could be fairly said that any settlement for farming purposes deserving the name had been made in Pepin township. Cook's valley, in Greenfield township, Mazeppa, Bear's valley, in Chester, and Plainview, had all been settled before agricultural operations had made any head- way in Pepin township. The Lager and Schmauss families are the oldest residents in the township, both coming here in 1859. Claims had been taken as early as 1857, but were not improved, and it can- not be said with strict fidelity to fact that the farming lands on the ridge were put under cultivation prior to 1859. Henry Schmauss' farm, taken by him in 1859, the N. W. } of section 30, was claimed originally by one Allen (first name not known), who laid a soldier's land warrant upon it, and of this man, Allen, Schmauss purchased,

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HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.

occupying the land in the season of 1859. Ben Lager, the present chairman of the board of supervisors for the township, who bought claim of F. Learey in 1859, and at that date settled on the northwest of section 28, says that in 1859 there was not, all told, more than fifty acres of ground broken on the ridge between Schmauss' and Read's Landing, which is virtually to say there was not more than that amount under cultivation in the entire township. The fact that the elevation above the lake was high, no streams affording water for stock, and the situation naturally exposed to the wind, seemed to overbalance the.considerations of productiveness of soil and near- ness to market, to such an extent that the lower-lying and well watered valleys of the interior of the county were settled from four to five years before Pepin was really taken for farming purposes. While this is true, however, of the uplands of the township, it is also true that the very earliest white settlement for permanent occu- pancy made in southern Minnesota was made within the geographi- cal limits of Pepin township. This was the settlement made by Charles R. Read, who as early as 1847 stuck his stakes in the north- east corner of the township, opened a trading and supply depot for traffic with the natives, half-breeds and lumbermen of the Chippewa valley, and announced his intention of staying despite all attempts to onst him from the land, which by treaty of 1830 belonged to the half-breeds and was known as the half-breed tract. The particulars of the bestowal of this tract upon their relatives of mixed blood by the M'dewakantonwan Dahkotahs, its extent and the consequent litigation when white settlers attempted to locate upon, as also the deleterious effect upon the early settlement of the county, are among the most interesting matters connected with this "history " and will be found fully treated of in another chapter.

All that has been said under the title Read's Landing from 1858 to 1868, when the village became duly incorporated as the village of Read's, properly belongs to the history of Pepin township, of which Read's Landing was virtually the capital until it took cor- porate honors upon itself and ceased to be an integral part of Pepin township for all political purposes. Prior to 1858, during the eleven years that Read's Landing had been stamping its identity into the trading consciousness of the upper Mississippi and the Chippewa, the Landing had been variously governed, ungoverned and misgoverned. The first attempt to introduce home government in the limits of Pepin township was made in 1850, when Charles R.

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Read was appointed justice of the peace by the then territorial governor, Alexander Ramsay.

Scenes of violence and bloodshed were not uncommon in those early days, and to the ordinary rough and ready ways of frontier life were not only added all the increase of lawlessness and disre- gard of life common to the rough raftsmen, who thronged the land- ing by the scores and even hundreds, but the savagery of Indian character as well. The river at Read's was the meeting-place of those hereditary foes the Chippewas and the Sioux, and to their mutual hate was often added a common enmity against their white neighbors, whose presence on both sides of the river was frequently reseuted. As illustrative of this latter fact take the following inci- dent : Late in November, 1856, two white men, Sam Sutton and Jerry Landerigan, were paddling down the river in a canoe past Nelson's Landing, where a party of whites, half-breeds and natives were sitting near the shore. Among the bucks was the son of old Ironcloud, second chief of Wacoutah's band. Young Ironcloud had for some time aspired to the honors of chieftainship, and on being taunted by the young men of his tribe with having done nothing to deserve such distinction, had declared he would shoot the first white man or Chippewa he met. The present seemed a fitting occasion to display his prowess, and remarking that he wondered if his gun would carry that far, drew bead on the men in the boat and shot them both. Sam Sutton was mortally wounded, surviving, however, about twenty-four hours. Jerry Landerigan was severely wounded in the breast, but recovered after being laid up several months. Wahshechah-Soppah (the white black man), now living and known by the English name of John Walker, was in the company with young Thundercloud, and immediately crossing the river to Read's Landing, gave information of the affair. As both the wounded men resided at Read's the excitement was intense. Sutton had made his home at Charlie Read's for more than a year, his principal occupa- tion being the manufacture of ox-bows for the lumbermen in the pineries. Landerigan had recently come to the landing. It was not considered prudent to allow the matter to pass, as young Thun- dercloud was known to be a dangerous character. A party was soon started across the river who captured the murderer and brought him to Read's for trial. He was arraigned before Squire Richards, but the justice was powerless in the case, the crime hav- ing been committed in another territory. To obviate this difficulty

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HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.

resort was had to Indian law. The culprit, of whose identity there was not the smallest doubt, was quietly escorted to the place from whence he came by a band of determined whites, led by Charlie Read, and there expiated his offense in a way not uncommon at this day on frontier settlements and in mining camps, Judge Lynch pronouncing sentence of death, which was speedily carried into exe- cution. The squaws tracked the party by their imprint in the snow, and the next day cuttingdown young Ironcloud's body, brought it across the river and buried it. The snow lay deep upon the ground at the time. The margin of the river was frozen on either side, the current in the main channel only open. Wrapping the body in blankets, the squaws tied a rope around the feet and dragged it to the margin of the stream, placed it in a canoe and brought it over to the Minnesota shore, where it was buried by them near the site of old Fort Perrot. A ball was in progress at Read's Landing the evening of the lynching, and the excitement was most intense among the young people there assembled, many of whom had only that sum- mer come to the county, and were totally unused to such scenes of blood, or to such a summary mode of dealing with a murderer. Charles R. Read, at that time one of the commissioners of the county, took a very active part in the affair above narrated, and as he was by some censured for his action, the reasons that induced him thereto are not ont of place. In 1844, just after Read came to Nelson's Landing, Sheriff Leister, of Prairie du Chien. who had been up the river to summon witnesses in an important case coming on at Prairie du Chien, returning down the river, was shot by an Indian in cold blood in much the same way that Sutton was. The sheriff's boat was opposite Fountain City at the time and no provo- cation was given for the murderous deed. The Indian who killed Mr. Leister was arrested, taken to Prairie du Chien, pnt upon his trial, and after two years discharged for want of evidence to convict. This Indian, upon his release, came up the river, was frequently at Nelson's Landing, where Read often heard him boasting of his deed, and Mr. Read determined if another case of the same kind happened it would not be his fault if the murderer escaped. The history of the early operations of the fur-traders and lumbermen in the vicinity of Read's, at an early day, is replete with incidents of a really thrilling character, illustrating the nature of both savage and (so called) civilized society, when removed from the usual restraints of law, and the safeguards that surround society in more

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PEPIN TOWNSHIP.

densely populated, and judicially organized districts. As it was, the necessities of the case, as each arose, demanded such prompt and vigorous action, as would at least render public opinion, the opinion of the better class of that public, a terror to evil-doers. Thus the forms of law grew to be a possibility, the fact of law even under the most adverse circumstances, as in the affair above nar- rated, having been duly demonstrated. As these forms of law became better understood, and their necessity recognized, a general acquiescence in their regulations and demands followed, until with the establishment of the state goverment in 1858, and the consequent organization of the several counties into townships, for electoral and locally judicial purposes, the era of lawlessness may be really said to have passed away and the reign of law, order and accepted government truly begun.

The formal organization of Pepin township was effected in com- mon with that of the other townships in the county, May 11, 1858. This meeting of the electors of the township for the purpose of for- mal organization was held in the hamlet of Read's Landing, in the extreme northeast section of the township, No. 24, at the office of S. A. Kemp. The number of votes polled was thirty- two, and the names of the officers-elect will be generally found in the tabulated list of Pepin township officers. In addition to those mentioned in that table, William Bain was elected overseer of the poor, William Perkins and J. Murray were elected constables, and Frank Berins overseer of the poor. The first recorded act of the new township was to settle the question of allowing or not allow- ing hogs to run at large. The vote on this occasion was so much larger than the vote upon the election of town officers that one is led to conclude that the expression of opinion on the hog question was not confined to the qualified electors of the township. The vote resulted in a decided majority against hogs being allowed to run as free commoners, being seventeen nay to fifty-one yea, a total vote of sixty-eight, as against thirty-two cast for town officers the same week. In 1860 the vote of the township, as evidenced at the regu- lar state election, held November 6 of that year, was ninety-eight. The vote for presidential electors standing sixty-five republican and thirty-two democratic, a vote of eighty-three to fifteen being cast for and against one of the candidates for state representative. In 1862 only seventy-one votes were polled ; two years later the vote

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HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.

rose to one hundred and twenty-six, declining again in 1866 to a maximum ballot of one hundred and eight, the vote cast for S. S. Kepler for state representative, he being a candidate on the demo- cratic ticket, against whom there was not a ballot cast in the town- ship. This was the last state election held in the township of Pepin prior to the incorporation of "Reads " as a village. The vote of 1868 shows a decline from one hundred and twenty-six in 1864 to fifty-two in that year, from which it would appear that the voting strength of the village was a little in excess of the rest of the town- ship. The vote of the township in 1870 was sixty ; in 1876 a total of seventy-three ballots was cast, and this was the highest ballot ever cast by the township since Reads was set off, the ballot for 1880 being recorded at sixty-four, and that for 1882 only reaching an aggregate of fifty-six.

The levy of the town board for town purposes, including roads, falls a little short of $250 annually, it being, in round num- bers, for 1880, $256; for 1881, $252, and for 1882, 8180. The voting returns of the township, as above given, will indicate with sufficient accuracy the statistics of population, if the years are taken into account in which the votes were cast ; that is, comparing the years of presidential elections with each other, and those in which only state elections were held with each other. The village of Reads being included in the enumeration district of Pepin township, by the commissioner for this census district, the population of the township and village can only be given in the aggregate. The re- turns for 1860 show a total population in both (Reads and Pepin townships) of four hundred and thirty. The population of both today will be about four hundred, as near as can be ascertained. It does not appear from the returns regularly made to the auditor's office for the county of Wabasha, that the valnation of property in Pepin has greatly changed since Reads was incorporated. The de- struction of the records by fire prevents any accurate statement of values prior to 1867, the year before " Reads " village was set off. The real and personal property returned for that year was as fol- lows : Real estate (not including the value of town lots in Reads), $39,109 ; town lots (in Reads), $42,665 ; personal property, includ- ing village and town, $44,666. The value of real and personal property in Pepin, at various dates since the incorporation of Reads, has been as follows:

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PEPIN TOWNSILIP.

1870. Real property. $42 047

Personal property 11 232

1875.

f Real property . 92 905

Personal property 11 572

1879.

f Real property . 85 760

¿Personal property 15 341

1882. Real property. 66 292

Personal property 13 321

There are no churches in the town of Pepin of any denomina- tion. The number and condition of the common schools in the township will be included in the general report of educational mat- ters for the county. The general character of the population of Pepin is such as is to be looked for in a plain agricultural commu- nity-thrifty, industrious, economical and virtuous. The people are mostly foreign born, or descendants from the German, Hano- verian and Luxembourgan families that first settled the township ; and, in religious faith, a majority of them members of the Roman Catholic church.

Methodist Episcopal Church .- The planting of the church in this place was a proceeding of no small difficulty, and it was more than a decade after the first attempts were made before the seed had germinated sufficiently to predicate a fact of life in the case at all. As Read's Landing and Wabasha have always been connected for church purposes, save during those years from 1856 to 1866, in which it does not appear that Read's Landing was even thought of in connection with the religious work of the Wabasha circuit, with which from 1854 to 1856 it was connected as a missionary station. In 1857, by vote of a quarterly conference held at Wabasha for the Lake City and Wabasha circuits of the Red Wing district, it was de- cided that the Wabasha circuit should include Wabasha, Read's Landing and Cook's valley, but there is no record of any services at Reads, nor, as before said, is there authentic account of further work there until 1866. The importance attached to Reads at this time may be inferred from the fact that in the fall of this year, when the annual estimates for minister's salary were made up, it was hoped that a deficiency of seventeen dollars, remaining after other appor- tionments had been allotted, might be supplied by Reads. Whether this modest hope was realized or not, does not appear from the record, and in fact for ensuing two years no promise of life appeared for church organizations at Reads. Its life as a lumber depot, and

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HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.

center of rafting operations, called together the wrong class of people for any very marked interest in church work. Exceptions of neces- sity there were, but so little hold had all attempts hitherto made taken upon the life of the place, that at this time the church had neither class nor organization of any kind, nor did it have for the ensuing two years. In 1868 Rev. S. G. Gale was transferred from the New York East conference to the Minnesota conference, and appointed to the Wabasha and Read's Landing circuit. His salary was fixed at eight hundred dollars, six hundred and fifty dollars of which to be paid by the churches, the remaining one hundred and fifty dollars from the missionary fund. In the following winter, 1868-9, Rev. Gale entered vigorously upon his work of building up a church at Reads, as the village incorporated the previous spring was called. A series of meetings was held with gratifying suc- cess, and steps taken to build a church. A lot was secured in a central location, one street back from the main business street of the village, and on this property, the gift of some generous-hearted Christian whose name is not recorded, a comfortable frame church, 30 × 60, with spire and bell, was erected. The contract price for the building was two thousand six hundred dollars. Furnaces were afterward put in, and these, with bell, raised the entire cost to a little over three thousand dollars, almost all of which was raised by con- tribution from the generous-hearted citizens of Reads. The original board of trustees, incorporated according to state law and church usage, were : W. W. Slocum, B. F. Welch, W. W. Cassady, W. B. James, S. Bullard, Geo. J. J. Crichton, W. F. Kennicott, Daniel Dansion and Franklin Berins. Rev. W. C. Rice was pastor of the church from the fall of 1869 to 1870. Rev. B. Y. Coffin was his successor, and in the fall of 1871, Rev. S. G. Gale was reappointed. During this, his second pastorate, a substantial frame parsonage was erected, at a cost of sixteen hundred dollars. It stands on the lot adjoining the church on the east, commands a pleasant view of the river and the Wisconsin bluffs, and is really a comfortable and com- modious residence for the incumbent of the church. Rev. Gale remained two years, leaving behind him as monuments of his three years' ministry, a commodious church, a comfortable parsonage and a flourishing "class." His successors have been : Revs. W. C. Shaw, M. O. M'Niff, W. H. Soule, James Door, W. A. Miles and D. J. Higgins, the present pastor.

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History of Wabasha County : together with biographical matter, statistics, etc. : gathered from matter furnished by interviews with old settlers, county, township, and other records, and extracts from files of papers, pamphlets, and such other sources, Part 46

Author: H.H. Hill and Company. 4n Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill & Co. Number of Pages: 1176

Author: H.H. Hill and Company. 4n
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : H.H. Hill & Co.
Number of Pages: 1176