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 69
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111
By the spring of 1855 there were many families residing here, and the population soon began to increase by natural augmentation, as well as by immigration. The earliest birth among Caucasian residents was that of Frank, son of H. P. Wilson, and occurred June 25, 1855. August 31 of the same year a son was born to Carl and Wilhelmina Stauff, and christened Frank Henry. He is now associated with his father in business at Lake City. On November 16 a son was added to the family of Levi Cook. Augustus was the name given to this child, and is now living in Dakota. Frank Wilson is also supposed to be living somewhere in Dakota.
Wherever youth of the opposite sexes are associated together, there the little god of the bow and arrow is sure to be found. He came to reside in Greenfield probably as early as 1857, for March 28, 1858, witnessed one of his triumphs in the nuptials of J. Henry Wehrenberg and Anna Frye. This couple still resides here, sur-
53
882
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
rounded by a large family of children. Some time during the same year Henry Stewart and Augusta Wildes went to Sand Prairie and were married without any previous knowledge of their friends that such was their intention. This mateh appeared to prosper, and the couple is now living in Dakota.
The number of births and deaths recorded by the town clerk sinee the law requiring such record went into effect -from 1871 to 1883, inelusive - is as follows :
Births
Deaths
81 S 16 14 17 | 24 | 17 5 8 9
45 25
51
1 | 23 | 8|17 | 8|11 | 13
FATALITIES.
The earliest deaths recorded in Greenfield were due to violent causes. The first was that of William B. T. Piers, whose demise occurred April 6, 1855, at Wabasha, and was the effect of inflam- mation caused by the bite of a dog inflicted here. Madison Wildes had two Indian dogs that were very savage, and poor Piers, by some means, ineurred their displeasure.
E. M. Wildes, the owner of these animals, was the second resident to bite the dust. Wildes and George Hayes had made claims on adjoining eighties, and these were "jumped " by two men named Henry Dresser and Aleck Beard. These latter built a shanty on the line between the elaims and jointly occupied it. This was in the fall of the year 1856. On a certain Friday Andrew Wildes, a young brother of Madison, with the assistance of another lad, tore down the shanty in the absence of its usurping occupants. On Saturday night following Hayes started for Wabasha from the residence of Ephraim Wildes, father of the boys above named, and was met by Dresser and Beard, who had just discovered the destruc- tion of their cabin. They told Hayes they would rebuild the shanty if they had to shoot every man in the settlement. These men were known to be desperate characters, and Hayes became frightened and returned to Wildes'. Next morning a posse of citi- zens was gathered and proceeded to the scene of action, on seetion 29, to induce the unlawful occupants to leave. When the party approached Dresser was on the roof and his companion inside. The former swore he would shoot the first one who touched a board of the building. Disregarding this threat, Wildes walked up and leaned against the building, whereupon Beard began firing at him with a revolver. Wildes was struck above the right groin by a
883
GREENFIELD TOWNSHIP.
bullet and sank to the ground. He was carried home by his friends and lingered in agony till the next day.
Dresser was known as the leader of a gang of lawless clain- jumpers, and was finally driven out of the country. Seven yokes of oxen were run off by the gang, and Levi Cook's life was saved from their attack only by a gun's missing fire. After their departure peace continued to reign in the valley.
A similar tragedy to that above described ocenrred on the site of Teepeota. Dr. Enwright had made a elaim there, and his rights were disputed by members of the same lawless fraternity. One night in the fall of 1856 a party set ont for Enwright's shanty, swear- ing that, if they could not find him, they would shoot any man found on the premises. An inoffensive man named Polhemus chanced to be staying there that night, in the absence of its owner, and received a bullet in his head. Death was instantaneous. A man named Weston eame to his death in a similar way from the same eause at Wabasha. He was reading a paper one evening in his house and was shot through the window. His murderer was never apprehended.
In 1866 a man was found one morning on the western border of the town, with his head hanging out of his buggy, life being extinet. It was ascertained that he was a book agent, and had displayed a sum of money on the morning of the day previons at Wabasha. It was supposed that he had been followed during the day by some covetous wretch, and killed under cover of darkness for his money. No clue to the murderer was ever found, and the name of the murdered man is unknown.
It is said that an unknown man died of cholera in the town immediately after coming off a Mississippi steamer in the spring of 1855. He was in search of land, and came out from Wabasha with a settler. He was struck the same evening with the dread malady, and succumbed to it within a few hours. Two others died abont the same time, from the same cause, in the town of Glasgow, just outside this town, and were buried here. While making their coffins, Garret Albertson was struck with a chill, through fear, and could not go on. It was only through the ridicule of his friends that he mustered sufficient will-power to recover.
An interesting incident of the great flood of 1859 is thus related : A very profane man, named Edward Deland, had lost two successive crops of small grain on the Zumbro bottoms by flood. In 1859 he
884
HISTORU OF WABASHA COUNTY.
planted forty acres to corn, and on the first of July it was large and looking very fine. He made the remark that morning to a passing neighbor, that he thought he had "got ahead of God Almighty this year by planting his whole farm to corn," which was now beyond damage by high water. In the morning of July 3d, a Wabasha party visited him and purchased his farm, the deed to be made and money turned over that afternoon at Wabasha. While cultivating corn during the forenoon, Deland heard the roar of the approaching flood, and looked up to see a great wall of water rolling toward him. He was barely able to reach his stable and mount to its top in time to escape being swept away. The house, fortunately, was beyond the reach of the rushing waters. Finding he could not circumvent the Lord, he set about "getting ahead " of his pur- chaser before news of the flood reached him. Taking his wife in a skiff, he reached terra firma by rowing a fourth of a mile. They reached Wabasha, signed the deed, received the money, and returned home well satisfied with the day's events on the whole.
PAUSELIM
Is another defunct village of this township. It was laid out in 1863 by William A. Johnson, and was located on the N. W. ¿ of Sec. 27, covering some forty acres. This was on land claimed by Orin A. Hancock, and the latter built a hotel on section 22 in 1857. He sold out to Johnson in 1861, and the latter secured a postoffice there in 1862, and proceeded to plat a village next year. Mr. Johnson was a shrewd business man and was worth much to the young town ot Greenfield. He foresaw the building of a railroad, but mistook its route and located too far west. He built a store in 1862, and soon after sold it to Henry Etting. The latter continued the mer- cantile business several years. A number of dwellings clustered about the "corners," but the advent of the railroad drew people farther east, and there are now only three or four dwellings to mark the ancient site of Pauselim. Mr. Johnson did not live to see the fulfillment of his railroad prophecies, nor the desertion of his pro- jected village.
KELLOGG
Rose as Pauselim fell. The first building on its site was erected in the fall of 1870 by John Huddleson. It now forms the office of Jung's Hotel. In the following year Clement Brass built and opened a store, now occupied by his son, J. A. Brass. In the fall
885
GREENFIELD TOWNSHIP.
of this year John Mealey built a blacksmith-shop. From this time the village steadily grew in size and thrift until the construction of the Midland railroad and the Plainview branch of the Winona & St. Peter railroad. The trade from a large tract of country in the Zumbro valley and on the prairies to the southwest was thus diverted, and no progress has been made since. Kellogg is only six miles from Wabasha, and is twenty-seven miles from Winona, on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul railway. It covers an area of two hundred and forty-seven and three-tenths acres, and lies on sections 22 and 27. The assessed valuation of property, according to the assessment of 1882-3, is nine thousand six hundred and twelve dollars, and the population in 1880 was two hundred.
Nearly all business except that of the elevators, of which there are two, is conducted on Belvidere avenne, running east and west. It comprises two dry goods, one drug, one hardware, one liquor and two millinery stores, one meat market and three hotels, Jung's Hotel being the first to establish in the incorporated village. The building is frame, as are all in the place excepting one, and was built in 1874. One solitary briek building, the only outcome of a brickyard venture, by Geo. Howe, of the same date, marks the architecture of Kellogg.
This village was incorporated by a legislative aet approved Feb- ruary 14, 1877. The railroad company had adopted the name of Kellogg, in honor of a Milwaukee gentleman who furnished the depot signs, and the village took the same cognomen. The act of incorporation named J. E. Gage, Joseph Ginthner and John Schou- weiler as judges of the first election, and they were elected village trustees, with Calvin Potter as president and Edward A. Tupper recorder. J. O. Junkin was elected treasurer. On July 24 C. H. Coleman was appointed recorder, to fill vaeaney caused by Tupper's removal from the town.
In 1878 Joseph Ginthiner was made president ; J. A. Schou- weiler, William Barton and T. C. O'Leary, trustees ; J. F. Schou- weiler, treasurer; and George Howe, recorder.
Since then the following have been chosen officers - the presi- dent being given first, trustees next, and recorder last :
1879 : T. C. O'Leary, J. C. Parkhurst, William W. Barton, Nich. Smith, J. E. Gage.
1880 : T. C. O'Leary, N. Smith, D. C. Sweet, J. F. Schouweiler, J. A. Schouweiler.
886
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
1881 : T. C. O'Leary, John Robinson, C. E. Wilcox, Peter Tibesar, J. F. Schouweiler.
1882 : J. O. Junkin, Louis Jung, J. C. Parkhurst, N. Smith, William Canfield.
1883 : J. O. Junkin, Louis Jung, J. C. Parkhurst, N. Smith, C. E. Wilcox.
1884 : J. O. Junkin, N. Smith, John Gorman, Allen Hobson, C. E. Wilcox.
One destructive fire occurred at Kellogg in March, 1880. At this time Calvin Potter's store was entirely consumed in the night ; noth- ing was saved, as the building was wrapped in flames before the fire was discovered. There was no insurance, and Mr. Potter lost his all. He is now in Dakota. A small blacksmith-shop burned pre- vious to this, but the loss was trifling.
A fine school-building stands on the north side of Belvidere avenue, at the west end of the village. About ninety-five pupils attended the school, which is divided into two departments, in the winter of 1883-4.
The assessable lands in the town of Greenfield numbered fifteen thousand three hundred and fifty-eight acres in 1860, and were valued by the assessor at sixty thousand six hundred and seventy dollars. Be- sides this, two thousand six hundred and forty-nine dollars were laid on town lots, which must have been included in Pauselim or Teepe- ota, neither of which had a tangible existence at that time. Personal property at that time was assessed four thousand nine hundred and seventy-three dollars, making the total basis of taxation sixty-eight thousand two hundred and ninety-two dollars. The population then numbered four hundred and fifteen. Ten years later it was found that one hundred and seventy-six persons had been added to its number, making five hundred and ninety-one. The next decade added one hundred and ten, and Uncle Sam found our people num- bered seven hundred and one in 1880.
In 1883 the assessment of real estate covered twenty-one thousand and seventy-two acres, with a value, including structures thereon, of eighty-six thousand six hundred and seventy-four dollars. Of this amount, nine thousand six hundred and twelve dollars covered town lots with their structures. Personal property was rated at twenty- eight thousand seven hundred and ten dollars, and the total assess- ment lacked but four dollars of reaching one hundred and twenty- five thousand dollars.
887
GREENFIELD TOWNSHIP.
The territorial election for this section was held in the spring of 1856, at the house, of Ephraim Wildes. The judges appointed to conduct this election were William Albertson, Henry Dresser and Aaron Cook. The latter was made clerk. At this election Garret Albertson was chosen justice of the peace. No record of this elec- tion can be found, and nothing further in relation to its action can be gleaned from the memories of early settlers.
On the organization of the town, May 11, 1858, F. J. Collier was chosen chairman of supervisors, and Seth C. Tennis town clerk.
At the gubernatorial election in 1883, the republican candidate received thirty-three votes, and the democratic ninety-five. This is said to be a fair index to the political sentiment of the town.
Kellogg Lodge, No. 122, A. F. A. M., was organized January 13, 1876. Work, under dispensation, was begun April 24, 1875, by the few Masons then resident here. The following were the first officers : M. O. Kemp, W.M .; J. E. Gage, S. W .; M. K. Wolfe, J.W .; J. O. Junkin, Treas .; Paul Miller, Sec .; John Mealey, S.D .; J. W. Moore, J.D .; G. B. Albertson, S.S .; William Albertson, J.S .; John Kins, Tyler.
The lodge is now out of debt, with money in its treasury. A handsome lodge-room is rented and fitted up in the second story of the building on the northeast corner of Winona street and Belvi- dere avenue. Since the organization thirty-five persons have been connected with the lodge, and its membership now includes twenty- three persons. The present officers are as follows : M. K. Wolfe, W.M .; J. F. Schouweiler, S.W .; L. O. Cook, J.W .; J. O. Junkin, T .; G. W. Foster, S .; J. Hendricks, S.D .; William Albertson, J.D .; Henry Graner, S.S., Charles La Rue, J.S .; W. J. Burns, T.
CHAPTER LXXXVI.
TOWN OF ELGIN.
THE town of Elgin, which occupies a central position in that portion of southeastern Minnesota known as Greenwood Prairie is, with the exception of the town of Plainview, the only one in the southern tier of towns in Wabasha county ; being bounded by the town of Oakwood and a part of Zumbro on the north. Plainview on the east, and Olmstead county on the west and sonth. Elgin is described on the government survey as T. 108 N., R. 12 W., and is a town of thirty-six sections, which come very near containing 640 full acres each, and thereby making the town exactly six miles square ; but the survey of H. Amerland, Jr., made in 1875, which is doubtless correct, shows that both the northern and western tiers of quarter-sections fall short by 278.14 acres of containing the requisite number for making a full township; being an average deficiency of about 5.92 acres to each of these quarter-sections. This deficiency, when taken as a whole, is but a slight one, and has been little noticed by the average resident, who generally describes Elgin as a "full government township, six miles square," and for all ordinary purposes we agree with him in saying that this descrip- tion is near enough correct.
The quality of the soil of this town is excellent ; a rich, dark loam, with sufficient sand mixed in with it to create that degree of warmth so necessary to productiveness ; while the land, viewed from an elevation, as it gradually rises and falls as far as the eye can reach, reminds the spectator of the huge billows of the far-distant ocean ; truly is it called "rolling prairie."
Its productive soil and pleasant location, with a surface suf- ficiently undulating to secure excellent natural drainage, renders Elgin's agricultural advantages second to none in the county. The north branch of the Whitewater river enters the town from Olmsted connty at section 33, and flows in about a northeasterly direction through section 33, and across the northwest corner of section 34 into section 27, south of the village of Elgin, when it takes an
889
TOWN OF ELGIN.
easterly course through sections 27, 26 and 25, into the town of Plainview. This stream, together with Dry creek, which empties into the north branch of the Whitewater on section 27, drains the southern part of the town, while the streams in the northern part are tributary to the Zumbro.
The town is fairly timbered in different portions, and since settle- ment of this section of the country has prevented the disastrous prairie fires that used to sweep every blade of grass and sprouting tree from its surface in bygone days, this growth has sprung np, while the constant irrigation of the soil starts new growth. The only timber of which Elgin can justly boast is a grove of oak covering about six hundred acres, located near its center.
During the first part of April, 1855, George Bryant, Henry H. Atherton, Curtis Bryant and George Farrar, four hardy sons of the Green Mountain state, set out from St. Charles, where they had been stopping a few days, to find a suitable place to locate farin- sites and establish homes for themselves on some of the land so generously offered by " Uncle Sam." When these energetic pioneers reached the portion of Greenwood Prairie where the town of Elgin now stands, they were struck with the great natural advantages the country afforded, and determined to seek no further, but to take all the necessary precautions toward securing their rights of pre- emption then and there ; and after camping out for the night they commenced bright and early with the dawn of the next day to get out logs for a house, in the construction of which George Farrar acted as "boss carpenter." This took place abont April 8, 1855, and was the first settlement made in the town. The log house referred to, being the first erected in the town, was shingled with elm bark, and put up on the claim of Henry H. Atherton, and not only served as a dwelling-place for the pioneers who built it, but also was the shelter of other early settlers and their families, who came later. The place where it stood is between the present resi- dence of John Q. Richardson and the Whitewater, but no vestige of the old house now remains.
On April 21, 1855, the following filings were made : George Bryant, on the N.W. 4, Sec. 27, in which section the village of Elgin now stands. Henry H. Atherton, on the N. W. }, Sec. 34, and Curtis Bryant on the N.E. 4, Sec. 28, where he still resides. George Farrar took a claim about April 9, 1855, consisting of an eighty on section 26, and an eighty on section 27, but neglected to
890
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
file, and during Mr. Farrar's absence in the east, where he went about December 6, 1855, his claim was jumped by Leonard Laird. This occurred in the early spring of 1856. Mr. Farrar had, however, filed on a claim in the timber-land during the fall of 1855, consist- ing of the E. ¿ of S. W. ¿ of Sec. 17.
Immediately after locating, George Bryant returned to his native state of Vermont for his family, returning to the prairie in May of the same year ; with him also came Leonard Laird and his family, when the female population of the little settlement was, in the presence of Mrs. Polly Bryant and Mrs. Laird, increased from zero to two.
During the month of June, 1855, the settlement was further augmented by the arrival of E. L. Clapp and wife, Byron A. Glines and wife, Henry H. Stanchfield and family, and Carlos B. Emerson and family, and work was commenced in the erection of other log houses, the next being erected on Leonard Laird's eighty, on the S. W. part of Sec. 26. During the summer of this year two additional log houses were built, one on the claim of George Bryant, on the N. W. } of Sec. 27, and one on the claim of Henry H. Stanchfield, on section 26. A log house was afterward built by Carlos B. Emerson, on section 35. William D. Woodward had a claim on section 33, but did not move on it until the summer of 1856. In October, 1855, John Bryant, the father of George and Curtis Bryant, arrived and took a claim. In March, 1856, Orvis V. Rollins and Irving W. Rollins came over from Plainview, where they had first located, the former pre-empting on section 22 and the latter on section 27.
At this time the little settlement numbered thirty souls. Not a horse or a dog was in the town, while at the present day the town can justly boast of its blooded cattle, and as far as dogs are con- cerned, the records of 1864 showed twenty-three licensed. It is said that owing to the beauty of the country the early settlers first called the settlement " Paradise," but owing to the large prepon- derance of Vermont people, it was for awhile more generally known as "Yankee Neighborhood." The first white child born in the town was Arthur D., son of Byron A. and Zama M. Glines, who came into this world on June 30, 1856, but who never reached man- hood, dying about five years thereafter. On May 27, 1856, the little settlement was shocked with the sad intelligence that the first death had occurred in its midst, when Miss Matilda Bryant, aged twenty- nine years and three months, daughter of John and Lavinia Bryant,
891
TOWN OF ELGIN.
passed away, after having been for years a sufferer from that fatal discase consumption. At her funeral were performed the first services of a religious nature conducted in the town, a minister by the name of Blunt, from that part of the "Tumbleson Neighbor- hood," now known as Haverhill township, officiating. Thirty per- sons were present. On September 28, 1859, occurred the death of Wilber B., infant son of Carlos B. and Orissa A. Emerson, caused by dysentery. This was the first death of a white child born in Elgin. The first marriage of residents of the town was that of George Farrar to Miss Emeline Bryant, daughter of John and Lavinia Bryant. The ceremony took place at Winona, Minnesota, on Angust 13, 1856.
In the summer of 1856 the first frame house in the town was built by George and Waldo Farrar, on the N. W. } of Sec. 28. This house, which is still standing, was, after completion, opened by George Farrar for the accommodation of travelers until 1860, when it was closed to the public. It is therefore justly called the first hotel. Zebina Weld, shortly after the closing of Farrar's house, started a hotel on the N. W. { of Sec. 27, in the house where David Houghton now resides.
From the first settlement of the town the hardy pioneers showed their great regard for spiritual welfare by holding religious services in the little log cabins whenever the opportunity offered itself, and regular services were commenced some time during the summer of 1856, at which time Rev. Mr. Lloyd held a series of Methodist meetings at the house of George Bryant. The first church society organized was the Congregational, the organization being effected by Rev. Jonathan Cochrane, a Congregational clergyman, at the house of John Bryant, in the spring of 1857. In this connection, we may as well add, as the future history of this society, that after conducting services in private houses and in the schoolhouse on its erection, the society built a parsonage and began preparations for the erection of a church, in 1870, but the edifice was never com- pleted, and the society is virtually out of existence. Its clergymen, since Rev. Jonathan Cochrane officiated, were Revs. Palmer Litts, Holcomb and Henry Willard.
The early settlers, with a view to securing such education for the young as the new town could afford, moved over a claim shanty and placed it on the northwest corner of the present schoolhouse lot, on section 27, and here the first school was taught by Miss Almeria C.
892
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
Gould, in the summer of 1858. The building was in after-years for a long time occupied as a woodshed for the more commodious school building of the district.
Before the organization of the town, and as early as the month of August, 1856, the first circumstance of a political nature occurred in the shape of a caneus to choose delegates to attend a convention for the nomination of candidates to the territorial legislature. Mr. Irving W. Rollins was chosen one of the delegates and attended the convention, which was held at Winona, Minnesota, on September 1 of the same year. October 14 following, the election (then called the precinct meeting) took place at Greenwood (now Plainview), the towns of Plainview, Elgin, Highland and Oakwood comprising the precinct ; representatives to the territorial legislature, county and precinct officers were chosen at this election.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.