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 70
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
On May 11, 1858, a meeting was held at the house of John H. Pell for the purpose of town organization and the election of town officers. George Bryant was appointed moderator and Robert C. Stillman clerk, and William Brown and John H. Pell judges of election.
At this election the town was named, each voter placing on the back of his ticket his choice of a name. The whole number of votes cast was fifty-four, of which the number naming the town Elgin was fifty ; but the question as to who first suggested the name seems to be in doubt.
Following is a list of the first town officers elected : O. P. Craw- ford, chairman board of supervisors ; Joseph Leatherman and Will- iam Cook, supervisors ; George Bryant, town clerk ; Robert C. Stillman, assessor ; C. W. Dodge, collector ; I. W. Rollins' and Morgan Culbertson, justices of the peace ; B. H. Gould and Jasper Elliott, constables ; John H. Pell, overseer of the poor. Thirteen days after this town meeting (May 24, 1858) the first meeting of the board of supervisors was held at the house of the town clerk, and they proceeded to divide the town into the following road districts : the north half of said town to comprise road district No. 1. The southwest quarter of said town to comprise road district No. 2. The southeast quarter of said town to comprise road district No. 3. The board then appointed the following overseers of roads : William Town, district No. 1; William Brown, district No. 2; Gurden Town, distriet No. 3.
The first assessment of taxes was then made by this board, who
893
TOWN OF ELGIN.
levied a tax of one-half of one per cent on every dollar of the assess- ment roll of the previous year, as received from the office of the register of deeds for the county of Wabasha, and also taxed each man liable to the same two days' labor on roads. This was doubt- less in addition to the district tax, but whether it was optional to commute for it or not does not appear.
The first election after the admission of Minnesota as a state was held in the fall of this year, October 12, 1858. Elgin participated in this election, which was to choose a senator and representatives to the legislature, a judge of probate, a county auditor and a coroner. The first petition for a public road was made to the board of super- visors at their first meeting. The petition was dated May 22, 1858, and was signed by twelve persons. By order of the supervisors the proposed road was regularly surveyed by one J. A. Sawyer, and on June 16, 1858, he made his report. The day following the board examined the route, and, having found the same well suited for a public road, declared it opened as such, and ordered all fences or obstructions on the route removed by December 1, 1859. This road, the first laid ont in the town, was known as town road No. 1, and was described as follows: "Commencing on the east line of the town, at a stake one hundred and six rods north of the section stake in the southeast corner of section 13, and running sonthwes- terly 314 rods, to a stake in latitude forty-three and one-half degrees ; thence southwest 272 rods to a stake by I. W. Rollins' land, in latitude fifty-two and one-half degrees ; thence southwest 48 rods to a stake on the south side of Dry creek, in latitude twenty-one degrees ; thence sonthwest 100 rods to a stake north of John Bryant's house forty-three degrees ; thence southwest 2419 rods to a stake south of George Bryant's house, in latitude forty-six and one-half degrees ; thence southwest 190 rods to a stake on the south side of the White Water, in latitude nineteen and one-half degrees; thence southwest 40 rods to a stake in latitude twenty-nine and one-half degrees ; thence southwest 80 rods to a stake in latitude twenty- eight and one-half degrees ; thence southwest 84 rods to a stake by W. D. Woodward's house, in latitude twenty-nine and one-half degrees ; thence southwest 29% rods to a stake by Woodward's bridge, in latitude fifty-two degrees ; thence west 6 rods to a stake west of the bridge ; thence southwest 106 rods to the quarter-stake in latitude twenty-eight degrees, where it meets the Olmsted county road; said road being five miles thirteen rods and twenty-four links in length."
894
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
The next road laid out, town road No. 2, was accepted by the board, and declared to be a public road on August 21, 1858. It ran north and south through the center of sections 5, 8, 17, 20, 29 and 32.
The first account against the town was allowed by the auditors as presented, on September 14, 1858, four months after organiza- tion. It included the fees and expenses of the supervisors, justices, assessor and town clerk, besides the surveyor's bill for surveying roads, and amounted to the modest total of thirty-three dollars and fifty cents.
The first postoffice in the town was established in 1857. The office was situated in George Bryant's log house, on section 27, and bore the same name as the town. Previous to this time the nearest office was Winona, forty miles distant, and the custom was for any person who was going to that place from the prairie to take a list of the names of the settlers with him and collect the mail for them. George Bryant was appointed first postmaster, and held the office for ten years, when he resigned. The present postmaster is Charles S. Richardson. Another postoffice was established in the northern part of the town in 1861, called Forest Mound, with William Town as postmaster. This office has since been discontinued.
Doctors visited this town in early days, but no lawyer has ever yet opened an office here. The first resident physician was Dr. Nathan Engle, now of Tower City, Dakota. W. T. Adams, M.D., administers to the sick at the present date.
In 1857 Benjamin H. Gould built and conducted the first black- smith-shop in town. It was erected on the northeast quarter of sec- tion 34. Mr. Gould afterward built a blacksmith-shop for D. R. Sweezy on the same section, which the latter occupied in 1858.
A flouring-mill was built on what is known as the mill lot, on section 27, on the north branch of the White Water, in 1860, by Parr & Ellis. They conducted it until 1866, when business was dis- continued on account of failure of sufficient water-power, and the machinery removed to Elba, Winona county.
Up to 1863 no person had opened a store for the sale of any kind of merchandise in Elgin. In the fall of that year D. F. Fer- guson went to Minneiska for Albert Glines, and brought over a load of goods, and the first store was opened in John Houghton's house, on section 27. During the following winter Mr. Glines moved his granary over from his farm, to what is now the northeast corner of
895
TOWN OF ELGIN.
Main and Mill streets, in the village of Elgin, fitted it up for a store, stocked it withi general merchandise, and commenced business in the spring of 1864.
This old building is still standing, and now forms the front part of the store conducted by H. G. Richardson & Co., dealers in dry- goods, groceries and clothing, besides being the building in which the postoffice is situated.
Nothing of historical interest in the way of business or other enterprise occurred until 1866 ; on October 6 of that year the Elgin circuit of the Methodist church, which had theretofore been connected with the Plainview circuit, being organized. It included the following appointments : Forest Mound, Farmington, Pleasant Prairie, Fitch's schoolhouse and Stone schoolhouse. A board of trustees were legally constituted, and the new circuit took imme- diate measures toward the erection of a parsonage at Elgin, for which George Bryant gave the land. Labor was commenced Oc- tober 15, and on November 10 the minister's goods were removed into the house when only a part of the roof was on. November 19 the building was completed. In 1878 the circuit contracted with J. W. Dickey for the erection of a church edifice, including foundation, for twenty-three hundred dollars, and this edifice was completed about September, 1878, but was totally demolished by the cyclone of July 21, 1883, an account of which is elsewhere given. The ministers of this church are given in the order of their succession, viz : Revs. Nahum Taintor, J. G. Teter, Geo. S. Innis, O. A. Phil- lips, J. W. Mower, J. W. Stebbins. Elgin cemetery is situated on section 27, but is not connected with any church organization.
Large quantities of grain are raised in and shipped from this town, the principal erops now being wheat and barley, there being but little difference at the present day in the amount of wheat and barley grown. But this was not the case a few years ago when wheat was by long odds the principal crop. The 1872 yield of wheat of this town statistics show to have exceeded that of any other town in the world, while the best wheat crop, as to quality, was that of 1877, which averaged as high as twenty-five busliels to the acre, while some acres produced forty bushels, all number one wheat. The first blighted wheat was the crop of the year following (1878), while the best crop since 1877 was that of 1883, with an average of about twenty busliels to the acre.
896
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
The first grain-buying of any account was commenced by the firm of Bryant Brothers & Johnson, of Elgin village, in the fall of 1877, before any railroad ran through the town. They bought from the farmers and conveyed the grain to Eyota, eleven miles distant, the nearest railroad station, with teams. During that year this firm bought and carried to Eyota one hundred and sixty-five thousand bushels of wheat.
During the fall of 1878 the railroad was built through from Eyota to Elgin and Plainview, and the grain-buying from this time has been carried on by Richardson Brothers and Bryant Brothers & Johnson, with the exception that the latter firm was dissolved in 1880, J. W. Bryant & Co. buying them out at that time and con- ducting business in their place since. John W. Bryant attends to all the buying and running the elevator for his firm in Elgin, while Thomas Mathieson acts in a similar capacity for Richardson Brothers. Since the year 1877 the average shipped by both these firms of all grains is about two hundred thousand bushels per year. Richardson Brothers, who handle the greater quantity, ship to the Chicago and Milwaukee markets. J. W. Bryant & Co. ship to these points and to Minneapolis also. Besides wheat and barley the farmers in this town raise a considerable amount of timothy, also oats, flax and clover ; but no more corn nor vegetables are grown than is necessary for home consumption. Hogs have of late years been raised and shipped in considerable quantities ; while the raising of sheep and cattle is carried on with success. In fact the farmers are now pay- ing much attention to stock-raising, and, from present indications, the day is not far distant when this will be a great stock-raising country.
No railroad privileges were enjoyed by the town of Elgin until about November 16, 1878, when the Winona & St. Peter railroad completed its branch road from Eyota to Plainview. This railroad enters the town on section 33, and runs in a northeasterly direction through the village of Elgin, and leaves the town on section 13.
This railroad company and the town are engaged in considerable litigation over town bonds amounting to forty thousand dollars issued by the town to the company. It seems that previous to the building of the railroad the board of supervisors granted the company the right-of-way through the town. An act of the legislature was in force under the provisions of which a majority of the tax-payers of a town, by petition to their board of supervisors, could bond the
897
TOWN OF ELGIN.
town. Under this act petitions were circulated for the issue of town bonds of Elgin to the Winona & St. Peter Railroad Company in forty thousand dollars, with interest at seven per cent, payable on or before twenty years from January 1, 1879, upon the condition that the railroad company complete its road as agreed upon. After the completion of the road, and upon the petition mentioned, the town board issued the bonds, which were transferred by the company to parties outside the state. The town, claiming that the petition re- ferred to was not signed by a majority of tax-payers, refused to pay interest on the bonds, and the matter is now in the courts. The supreme court of the state has held that the act under which the bonds were issued is unconstitutional ; while the United States district court has held that the bonds having been transferred by the com- pany before the act was so declared unconstitutional, the holders of the bonds have a right to recovery against the town. Four judg- ments for interest and costs, amounting to $8,431.78, have so far been obtained against the town, and a fifth suit has just been brought, and in this unsettled state the matter now stands.
The first record of any vote being taken on the question of the licensing of intoxicating liquors is that of the town meeting held April 5, 1859, the record showing that it was then voted that "no license shall be granted by the county board to any individual for selling spirituous liquors in the town of Elgin during the ensuing year." No vote on the question appears to have been taken after this until 1876, for which year and the years thereafter the vote stood as follows :
1876, License 63
No license 95
1877, License No license 55
70
1881, License 74
No license 70
1878, License 51
No license 73 1879, License
102
1879, No license 48
1880. No vote taken
1882, License 79 No license 64
1883 No vote taken
On May 13, 1874, Elgin Lodge, No. 115, A.F.A.M., was organ- ized, and it worked under special dispensation until January 13, 1875, at which time the lodge received its charter from the grand lodge of the state. Following is a list of the first officers : George Bryant, W.M .; Enoch Dickerman, S. W .; H. G. Richardson, J. W .; George Farrar, Treas. ; J. Q. Richardson, Sec. ; D. A. Hart, S.D. ; Geo. Engle, J.D. ; Ezra Dickerman, S.S .; O. V. Rollins, J.S. ; R.
54
898
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
G. Richardson, Tyler. The lodge then numbered eighteen. The present membership is fifty-two, and the officers are as follows : H. C. Richardson, W.M. ; J. W. Bryant, S. W. ; H. W. Gilman, J. W .; H. G. Richardson, Treas. ; Alex. Scott, Sec. ; D. F. Ferguson, S.D .; Geo. Farrar, J.D. ; Arzio Lamb, S.S. ; William Barker, J.S. ; Frank Streeter, Tyler.
A lodge of Good Templars was organized here on November 28, 1883, by Col. Long, G.W.C.T. It is known as Elgin Lodge, No. 76, I.O.G.T. Following is a list of the officers : Wesley Lyon, W.C.T. ; George Farrar, P.W.C.T. ; Alice Lyon, W.V.T. ; Wm. D. S. Safford, Chaplain ; Frank Rollins, Rec. Sec. ; Pauline Sen- rick, Ass't Sec. ; Frank F. Farrar, Fin. Sec. ; Mary Rollins, Treas. ; Eugene Hutchinson, Marshal ; Jennie Seeley, W.I.G. ; Rufus Steb- bins, W.O.G. ; Flora Rollins, R.H.S. ; Guilford Pratt, L. H.S.
The town offices of Elgin are filled by the below-named gentle- men, respectively, at the present date (February, 1884) : Col. Wm. H. Feller, chairman board of supervisors ; Joseph Richardson and John Gregor, supervisors ; Dorr Dickerman, town clerk ; August Ludke, treasurer ; Julius Radke, assessor ; J. B. Norton, justice of the peace ; Clark Champine and C. W. Westover, constables.
While this town has been generally free from crime, excepting that of self-murder, yet it has had its share of cases of this nature, as well as accidents and casualties. Below we append a list of these cases : On August 4, 1863, Samuel M. Thompson, a young man of twenty-eight years, who had resided in that state only two years, was struck by lightning and killed while driving home with his team. He was a native of Mercer county, Pennsylvania.
On the afternoon of January 19, 1866, Robert B. M. Bray, twenty-five years of age, a native of Anson, Maine, left the school where he had been teaching, about eight miles south of the village of Elgin, on his way homeward to that village, where he intended to spend Saturday and Sunday.
A heavy snowstorm was in progress, the weather was bitterly cold, and young Bray was not warmly clad. He never reached his destination. Evidently he lost his way on the trackless prairie, and, benumbed with the cold, he was forced to succumb to the unrelent- ing elements.
The next day his lifeless body, frozen stiff, was found by a search-party on section 35, southeast of the village.
899
TOWN OF ELGIN.
January 15, 1868, Jenny, infant daughter of David W. and Martha E. Lattimore, aged two years and two months, was fatally poisoned from eating matches.
On May 9, 1871, Iva Grace, daughter of Robert C. and Martha D. Stillman, aged four years and seven months, born in Elgin, was accidentally shot by a pistol in the hands of a man in her father's employ. The accident was the result of gross carelessness on the part of the man. The little girl lingered until the day following, when she passed away. August 26, 1873, Thomas S., son of Joseph and Ursula E. Richardson, a bright young lad. lacking one month of being fourteen years of age, was accidentally killed by running against a hay-rack ; while on September 21, 1877, Eddie Feller, a boy two years younger, son of Ezra and Maria Feller, now of Plainview, was killed by falling down stairs.
On July 24, 1870, John H. Winter, a single man, twenty-five years old, born in Indiana, and a farmer by occupation, committed suicide with a shotgun.
March 21, 1880, John D. Hedeman, a married man, thirty-six years of age, born in Germany, committed suicide by shooting him- self in the head with a revolver. He was a clerk in the employ of H. G. Richardson & Co., and used to sleep in their store nights, and it was in the morning on opening the store that his lifeless re- mains were found. On June 4, 1880, another German, named Peter H. Hansen, who was also married, forty-three years old, and a farmer by occupation, met his death, though accidentally. In crossing the White Water, which was considerably swollen by freshets, near his farm on section 25, he drove his team into the rushing current, and was drowned. This completes the sad list, with the exception of the death of Mrs. Z. S. Thayer, who was killed in the cyclone of July 21, 1883, more particular mention of which terrible event will be found in the separate account given in this work of the Elgin cyclone.
The population of this town is about one thousand.
As far as educational advantages are concerned, the town of Elgin can justly boast of having kept pace with her sister towns in the pro- gressive strides they have made toward giving to the young the most comfortable schoolhouses and advanced system obtainable. Six well-furnished schoolhouses presided over by competent and experi- enced teachers are conveniently located in different parts of the
900
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
town, while the one in Elgin village, erected in place of the building totally destroyed by the cyclone, and conducted by a principal and teacher also, is a model of modern school architecture.
ELGIN VILLAGE.
The history of this village is so intimately interwoven with the pre- ceding history of the town, and so many various matters pertaining to the village were necessarily treated therein, that a very brief sketch is all that remains to be penned in order to complete the record of the only settlement in the town that aspires to the title of village. The village of Elgin, as platted, is situated on section 27, commene- ing at a point near the center of the section, the exact center of the section being at the intersection of South and Main streets, in the southeastern part of the village,-the greater part of the village lying northwest of the center of the section. According to the census of 1880, which was taken from the old village plat, and did not include all the territory properly within the village limits, it had a population of one hundred and forty-four, while the present population is about two hundred. Elgin is a station on the Plain- view branch of the Winona & St. Peter railroad, eleven miles north of Eyota, and five miles southwest of Plainview, and is the only railroad station in the town. The village has never put on the dignity of incorporation, but has always been under the town government. The location of the village is all that can be desired, nestling as it does in the valley of the White Water, and shaded by handsome groves of young trees. The streets are generally wide and laid out at right angles, Park street, School street and Main street being the principal business streets.
We append a list of the principal business houses : Richardson Bros., grain elevator and lumber-yard ; J. W. Bryant & Co., grain ele- vator and coal-yard ; E. Ordway & Son, hardware, tinware and pumps ; Landon, Burchard & Co., drugs and medicines ; II. G. Richardson & Co., drygoods, groceries, elothing, ete .; Fred. Meyer, blacksmith and horseshoeing ; M. H. Moody, harnessmaker and carpenter ; Alex. Scott, wagonmaker ; F. A. Amsden, harnessmaker; William Beantler, boots and shoes ; Frank Ressler, butcher ; E. O. Morton, carpenter, painter and windmills ; Mercer Bros., blacksmithing and horseshoeing ; John Graham, carpenter; Frank Kiernan, saloon and billiards, and E. Meilke, saloon and pool. There are two hotels in Elgin, the Eureka House, M. H. Safford, proprietor, and
901
TOWN OF ELGIN.
the Northwestern Hotel, E. Meilke, proprietor. Dr. W. T. Adams, who is one of the firm of Landon, Burchard & Co., above named, has his private office in the rear of their drugstore, while J. B. Norton, Esq., justice of the peace, maintains the dignity of the law in the office of Richardson Bros., west of the depot. Dorr Dicker- man, town clerk, has an office partitioned off in the rear of E. Ord- way & Son's store on Park street This village was almost entirely destroyed by the great cyclone of July 21, 1883, a full and com- plete account of which follows. For many of the details contained in our account of this terrible event we are indebted to the files of the "Plainview News " and the Rochester "Record and Union."
THE ELGIN CYCLONE.
From the manner in which Saturday, July 21, 1883, was ushered in, no one in Elgin would have imagined that anything remarkable was about to happen. The weather had been unsettled for some days previous, light rains had fallen, and the morning of the 21st was cloudy. School had been dismissed for the usual summer vacation, and before the hour of twelve arrived the business men, clerks, farmers and other occupants of the place, wended their way homeward to partake of their noonday meal. About this time the heavens commenced to darken greatly, the rain to fall, the wind to rise and the thunder to roll, and people began to quicken their steps in order to seek shelter from what they imagined would prove to be an ordinary midsummer thunder and rainstorm. Lucky for them it was that they did so; lucky it was that the school was closed ; providential it was that the devastating wind struck the village at a time when nearly all the people had reached their homes, and together with their wives and children, had been afforded a few seconds' time in which to fly for refuge to their cellars.
At about ten minutes past twelve o'clock the furious wind burst upon the village ; and here the imagination fails to find words which can convey, even in the slightest degree, an approximate idea of the circumstances attending the bursting of this wind-cloud. With the pent-up force of whirlwind and tornado, hurricane and cyclone com- bined, lashed up to a degree of fury indescribable, and hitherto wholly nnknown in this section of the country, whirling, twisting, wrenching and tearing, it broke upon the defenseless village, and in less than two minutes time literally blew it to atoms. So wholly unexpected was the frightful occurrence that there was no time for
902
HISTORY OF WABASHA COUNTY.
the exercise of any thought save that of personal safety, and but barely time for that. In far less time than it takes to write it, the prosperous little village was a scene of dire wreck and desolation. Within the brief space of two minutes' time whole rows of buildings were leveled to the ground, some piled on top of others ; houses lifted up bodily by the force of the wind, overturned, and their inmates violently thrown out and injured ; other houses crushed and actually ground to pieces, as though they had been run through a mill ; acres of crops throughout the town laid waste ; large trees twisted off at the trunk, five feet from the ground, leaving the roots in the soil ; every business house in the place wrecked or unroofed, not one escaping ; horses, cows and other cattle mangled and killed, and some of these, together with heavy timber from the lumberyard, parts of buildings and other weighty articles, picked up by the wind, lifted high in the air, and sent whirling through space, to come crashing to the earth at forty rods and more distant ; and when we consider that these few incidents give but a faint idea of the irresist- ible and unheard-of force and power of the wind, the reader can form in his own mind something like an approximate idea of what it really was. The general line the storm took through the town was from about west to east, bearing slightly toward the north, nor was its greatest degree of force attained until it reached the village of Elgin, where it burst and scattered in different directions.
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.