USA > Minnesota > Wright County > History of Wright County, Minnesota > Part 2
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The elevation of this stretch of land above the sea, its fine drainage and the dryness of the atmosphere give it a climate of unusual salubrity and pleasantness. Its latitude gives it corre- spondingly longer days in summer and during the growing sca- sons about one and a half hours more of sunshine than in the lati- tude of St. Louis. The refreshing breezes and cool nights in sum- mer prevent the debilitating effect of the heat so often felt in lower latitudes. The winter climate is also one of the attractive features. Its uniformity and its dryness, together with the bright sunshine and the electrical condition of the air, all tend to en- hance the personal comfort of the resident, and to make outdoor life and labor a pleasure.
Embracing, as the county does, so pleasing a prospeet to the eye, and so fruitful a field for sueeessful endeavor, it is natural that the people who from the carliest days have been attraeted here should be the possessors of steady virtues, ready to toil and to sacrifice, that their labors might be crowned with the fruits of prosperity and happiness.
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
While there are no large cities, there are many thriving smaller places along the three lines of railroad. These places have had their share in the general commercial upbuilding of the commu- nity, furnishing excellent trading and shipping facilities for the rural districts as well as for their own people.
The agricultural neighborhoods are the scenes of peace, pros- perity and contentment. The homes are substantially built, and furnished with the comforts and conveniences of modern life; stoek is humanely housed and well pastured; the farm land is extensively tilled and productive; and the churches and schools which are seen on every side testify to an interest in the higher things of life by a law-abiding, progressive and prosperous people.
It is indeed in its men and women, rather than in its ereameries and commeree, its grains and vegetables, its live stock and fruits, that Wright county takes her greatest pride. From her hamlets, from her villages and from her farms have gone forth those who have taken an important part in the activities of the world, and who, whether in commerce or diplomacy, in the professions or in the trades, have maintained that steadfastness of purpose, and staunehness of character, that mark true Wright county men and women wherever they may be found.
Unusually blessed by nature with deep soil and abundant natural resources, and endowed with a wealth of historic and prehistoric lore, the county is a fitting home for the sturdy people who have here made their dwelling place. Hard-working, pro- gressive, educated and prosperous, they have appreciated the gifts which nature has spread for them, and have added their own toil, and the fruit of their intellect, to the work of the ele- ments, making the county one of the beautiful spots of the earth. On the slopes graze cattle and sheep, while the tilled lands respond to the efforts of the spring time sower and planter with a wealth of harvest in the summer and autumn. On nearly every quarter seetion is reared a comfortable home and commodious barns, while from the erest of every swell of land are visible the churches and schools wherein the people worship the Giver of All Gifts and educate their children. Thus blessed by God and beloved by man, the county today stands for all that is ideal in American life, and is forging ahead to wider influenee and more extended oppor- tunity.
Wright county, surpassed by few lands in the state for the fertility of its soil ; its bountiful supply of timber and pure water ; its numerous water powers; its surface of hills and rolling prairies ; and its adaptation to every variety of agricultural prod- uet, has furnished to the citizens material wisely improved by them for substantial wealth, good homes and sound publie insti- tutions, economieally and prudently administered ; where law and good order, industry and sobriety have always been upheld and
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
observed : where the comforts and provisions for the enjoyment of life are evenly distributed, and where, in the future, as in the past, "peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, will be established throughout all generations."
Wright eounty is situated in the east central portion of the state, on the right bank of the Mississippi river, by which it is separated from Sherburne and Anoka counties on the north. Its eastern boundary is Ilennepin county, most of which line is marked by Crow river. Carver and Mebeod counties south, and Meeker and Stearns west, the latter partly marked by Clearwater river, complete its boundary. With more than half its outline marked by streams, its shape is irregular. The length of Wright county from east to west is thirty-six miles, and its greatest width is thirty and a half miles. Its southern and western boundaries are straight lines, the former twenty-four miles and the latter twenty-two miles. The county includes fourteen whole Congressional townships and parts of eleven others, together con- stituting twenty organized townships, twelve of which are eaeh six miles square. Its area is 713.97 square miles or 456,939.32 acres, of which 32,585.50 is covered with water.
The surface of the county is gently undulating, with occasional portions somewhat hilly. A few beautiful prairies are found mostly in the northern part ; the remainder being originally timber and meadow land.
It is dotted with numerous lakes, whose clear, lueid waters enrich the scenery and furnish unlimited enjoyment to sportsmen and pleasure-seekers. No town in the county is destitute of lakes, while myriad streams, which, as well as the lakes, are fed by springs, afford ample attraction to stock growers and farmers, while serving the further purpose of drainage, thereby rendering its area free from the malarions influences existing in less favored localities. The soil is very fertile, and produces in abundance all the varied list of cereals and vegetables grown in the Northwest. Year by year the timbered area has lessened and fertile fields supplanted the primeval forests, as have pleasant rural homes the wigwam of the native, or the still more recent claim shanty of the early pioneer.
The soil on the prairies is mostly a dark red loam, with a gravelly or sandy subsoil. In the regions originally covered with timber, the soil is mostly alluvial with a strong clay subsoil. The natural meadows or grass lands almost always rejected by the first settlers, eame in time to be considered among the most valu- able on account of the production of large quantities of hay of a superior quality, and fertility in produeing the tame grasses such as timothy and red top.
Flora and Fauna, The flora and fauna of Wright county is that of Central Minnesota and the Big Woods region generally
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
and need not be treated at length in this work. The state of Min- nesota has issued many books and pamphlets on the subject which will well repay the thoughtful reader for a careful perusal.
Birds. Wright county with its lakes and trees-its tempting fields and barn yards, has its full share of birds each season. The permanent residents and winter visitors find more food here than further south where the tree trunks are often covered with iee, while during the spring and summer seasons practically all the birds found in Minnesota can be found in these parts.
As early as March before the snow has begun to melt many of the summer birds are seen. The meadow lark and the prairie horned lark, the blue-bird, robin, red-winged blackbird, phoebe and flieker come while we are still wearing our winter furs. These are followed in April by the yellow headed blackbird, the martin, graekle, eowbird, mourning dove, eatbird and the vesper and song sparrow.
Among the May birds are the rose-breasted grosbeak, the Bal- timore and orchard orioles, yellow warbler, red-start, northern yellow throat humming bird, swallows, thrush, house wren, bobo- link, king bird and pewee. Sometimes we have had snow storms in May and the birds have been fed with suet, bread erumbs and grain by the farmers and town people. In May the yellow bellied sapsneker taps the maple trees, riddling the trunks with holes not more than an ineh apart, and it is often neeessary to destroy the bird in order to save the tree. About the lakes are often found the great blue heron and the little green heron, the killdeer and sandpiper, while coots and loons are very plentiful.
Some winter visitants are the tree sparrows, often seen in floeks with the juneo in town and country, and the snow bird who lives on small seed and comes in barn yards when the fields are covered with snow. The most striking winter bird is the evening gros- beak, which is only seen occasionally and in small numbers near boxelder trees. It is large, with a buff, white and black color seheme, and is sure to exeite comment, both beeause of its rarity and its beauty.
With these winter birds are the permanent residents who re- ceive more attention then than in the summer months when the woods are filled with the brilliantly plumaged songsters. There are the two woodpeckers, hairy and northern downey, and the white-breasted nuthatch, who are easily attracted to our porches and window sills by suet or erumbs. The American gold finch loses its yellow color this time of year and looks like its buff female. The blaek capped chickadee is seen and heard through the entire year, as is the bob white or quail. It seems heartless to place these with game birds, as they so trustingly respond to a little kindness and will feed in yards except during the breeding season.
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
Hunters find snipe, prairie chickens, quail, plover, partridge and mallard, canvas back, teal, red head, spoon bill, blue bill and wood dueks, also wild geese.
SURFACE FEATURES.
The following notes are from Vol. II, of the Geological and Natural History Survey of Minnesota, and embody the observa- tions of Dr. Warren Upham, taken in 1879 and 1881.
Natural Drainage. The North branch of the Crow river enters Wright county near the middle of its west side, and erosses the county in a very meandering course, which has its general direc- tion a little to the south of east. The South branch flows north- erly through Franklin, the most southeast township of this county, and unites with the North branch at the east side of Rockford township, sixteen miles in a straight line southwest from the mouth of the Crow river at Dayton.
Clearwater river, along the last fifteen miles of its course, is the boundary of this county on the northwest. Near the middle of this distanee it flows through Clearwater lake, four miles long and from a half mile to one and a half miles wide.
The only considerable tributaries of the Mississippi river from Wright county, besides the foregoing, are a small creek at Otsego; Otter creek, a mile above Monticello; and Silver ercek, which flows through the township of this name. These, and the tribu- taries to Clearwater river, and the branches of Crow river in this county, are all small, only draining areas that reach five to twelve miles from their mouths.
Lakes. The largest lakes of this country are Pelican and Clearwater lakes, covering respectively about six and four square miles. Others worthy of note are Maple and French lakes, the former about three miles and the latter one mile in length, which give their names to the townships in which they are situated; Pulaski lake in Buffalo, one and a half miles long from north to south ; Buffalo lake, one and a half miles in diameter, lying mostly in Chatham : Waverly, Iloward and Cokato lakes, each about one and a half miles long : Granite lake in Albion, of similar length ; Lake Ida and Limestone lake in Silver Creek, each about a mile long ; Sugar and Cedar lakes, each two miles long from north to south, and Pleasant lake, one and a half miles long from east to west, in Corinna; and Sylvia lake, about two miles in length, nearly divided by a peninsula one mile long, in South Side. About ninety lakes oeeur in this county with a length equal to or greater than a half mile, and more than a hundred and fifty of less dimen- sion appear on the map, while many others of small area are not delineated.
In many instanees, especially in the southwest part of the county, these lakelets are becoming silted up and are more or less
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
filled with marsh-grass, sometimes being nearly dry in summer. They thus show the various stages intermediate between a lake and a slough. Throughout the whole county, sloughs or marshes are also frequent, varying from a few rods to a half mile in length, and in some cases they extend one or two miles.
It has been observed by the older residents that the streams and lakes were gradually diminishing in volume during the two decades of years preceding 1880. Several lakes were noted in the exploration, in 1879, between Buffalo and Crow river, depressed five to seven feet below a high-water mark at which they had formerly stood. The three more rainy years from 1880 to 1882, inclusive, restored the lakes and sloughs of this region generally to their highest stage.
Ice-formed Ridges. Many of the lakes in this county, as like- wise in most other parts of the state, are partially bordered by a ridge, heaped four to eight feet in height, of gravel and sand, in which boulders, from two to five or six feet in diameter, frequently occur. This formation, when composed principally of gravel and sand, is commonly from thirty to seventy-five feet wide, having moderate slopes and a rounded top which varies a little in height. Again, when consisting chiefly of coarse gravel or boulders, the ridge may be quite steep, sometimes sloping at an angle of forty- five degrees upon the side away from the lake. These aecumula- tions are found mostly where lakes are bordered by lowland or a marsh, from which the water is divided by this low ridge, which often looks like an artificial rampart. The origin of these ridges is generally known to be from expansion of the iee upon the lakes in winter. Boulders lying in shallow water are frozen into the ice and pushed a very small distance each year toward the shore. This is repeated through centuries at the varying stages of the water, till the materials of these ridges, gathered from the lake-bed, have been piled along its margin. Sneh acenmulations were noted at the east side of Dean lake in Rockford; at the north side of Buf- falo lake; and about Howard lake, west of which the road runs about a half mile upon a ridge of this origin, five to six feet high and three rods wide. composed of gravel and sand, so aneient that it is covered with the same dark soil which generally forms the surface of this region.
The shores of the lakes of Wright county mostly have very gentle slopes, which are continued beneath the water's surface. The basin of Pelican lake is of this kind. Less frequently the shores have been worn away by the waves, and form bluff's ten to twenty feet high. Examples of such erosion are seen on the north- west side of Buffalo lake. Here, and usually at the foot of similar banks beside lakes, a pavement of large and small boulders extends several feet above the water. About a mile west of Buffalo this margin of boulders, some of them six feet in
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
diameter, lying at the foot of the bank undermined by the lake is quite noticeable in comparison with the usual scarcity of such rock-fragments. Most of these were contained in the mass of till that has been washed away at this place. A few of them may have been added from the lake-bed by the expansion of ice, which has pushed back to the receding shore the boulders of the whole area upon which the lake has eneroached, eroding its border of till.
Topography. Nearly all of Wright county is included in the morainie belt which extends from the Leaf hills south and south- east to this county and thenee southward into Iowa, where it bends in a loop like the letter "U," thence taking a northwest- ward course along the Coteau des Prairies in southwestern Minne- sota and eastern Dakota. It is well known that this long, looped moraine marks the sides and termination of a great lobe or tongue of the ice-sheet, and that it was contemporaneous with the Kettle moraine, which Professors Chamberlin and Irving traced in a similar looped course across Wisconsin in the geological survey of that state.
These hills within the limits of Wright county seldom exhibit the singularly rough, broken, and irregular contour, which may be called the typical development of a terminal moraine. They yet are very different from the gently undulating smooth area, a hundred miles wide, which lies next southwest, between this belt and the Coteau des Prairies. In contrast most parts of Wright county consisting of hills forty to seventy-five and sometimes one hundred or one hundred fifty feet high. These in nearly all cases have only moderate slopes, seldom rising abruptly or having a notably broken contour. No well-marked uniformity in trend is perceptible, though upon the average these elevations are more prolonged from north to south or northwest to southeast than in the opposite direction. In respect to material there is little dif- ference between the swells and hills of this county, or even the more roughly outlined Leaf hills, and the smoothed, slightly undu- lating expanse that stretches southwest from this moraine to the Coteau, all being the unstratified glacial drift, ealled till or boul- derelay. inclosing or rarely overlain by comparatively small de- posits of modified drift, that is, water-deposited gravel, sand, or olay. The till usnally contains, however, a much greater propor- tion of boulders upon its morainie belts than on its smoother areas.
The most conspicuous hills in this county occur at two points near the Mississippi. about two miles south of Clearwater, and about the same distance southeast of Monticello. These rise one hundred to one hundred fifty feet above the surrounding land. Another notably hilly area is the region for five miles northwest of Crow river, from its month to Rockford and Delano. These
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
hills are more massive, but of less altitude than the foregoing, rising seventy-five to one hundred twenty-five feet above the river.
In the east part of Silver Creek township, a very rough area of till reaches north to the river-road in section 14, a mile south- east from the month of Silver Creek. It forms hills fifty to sev- enty-five feet high, averaging fifty feet above the plains of mod- ified drift at each side. The most uneven contour seen anywhere in Wright county is found in crossing this tract from Silver lake to Lake Ida, where the surface is as rough and irregularly thrown up in a profusion of knolls, hillocks and ridges as it is commonly in the most broken portions of the most typieal morainie deposits. These acenmulations are coarsely roeky till, and apparently inelude but little modified drift. The course and trend of the elevations are very irregular, and no prevailing direction or parallelism is noticeable.
The contour about Buffalo is in gentle swells fifty to seventy- five feet high. These continue northwest and west through Maple Lake, Chatham and Albion, and southwest to Waverly and How- ard lake. These swells are round or irregular in form, trending in various directions. North of Cokato, massive, gently sloping hills rise forty to seventy-five feet or rarely one hundred feet above Cokato lake. The same rolling surface prevails northward through the west half of French lake township, and also extends westward into Meeker county.
Stockholm, at the southwest corner of the county, and most of Vietor, the township next east, are moderately rolling, the height of the swells decreasing from thirty to forty feet at the west to only ten or twenty feet at the east. From Smith lake to Waverly the south boundary of the hilly area is on the north side of the railroad, and the traet beginning here and extending southeast- ward to the south line of the county, including the east part of Victor, Woodland, and the southwest part of Franklin, is only slightly undulating or nearly level. It is, however, mainly eom- posed of till, like the hilly land northward.
With this exception, the only extensive level areas found in Wright county are those of modified drift which oeeur along the Clearwater and Mississippi rivers, consisting in large part, espe- cially along the Mississippi, of natural prairies. The topography of these traets, and the erosion which has been accomplished by the Mississippi river and its tributaries, will be again and more fully spoken of in deseribing the glaeial and modified drift of this county.
The height of the Mississippi river along the northern bound- ary of this county, as determined by the United States engineer corps, under the direction of Capt. Charles J. Allen, is, at Clear- water, 938 feet above the sea; at the head of Bear island, about one mile east from the month of Silver creek, 924; at Monticello,
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
893; at Elk River, 853; and at Dayton, 843 feet. The river-shore at Dayton is the lowest land of Wright county. Its highest land, in Middleville, Cokato, Stockholm, and Vietor, its southwestern townships, and the tops of the prominent hills mentioned near Clearwater and Monticello, are about 1,100 feet above the sea. Crow river, at the junetion of its north and south branches, has an elevation of abont 900 feet ; and the south branch of this river, where it enters Wright county, is approximately 915 feet above the sea. At the west line of the county, the heights, above the same level, of both the north branch of the Crow river and Clear- water river are estimated to be about 1,000 feet.
Estimates of the mean heights of the townships of this county are as follows: Otsego, 925 feet above the sea : Monticello, 960; Frankfort, 940: Buffalo, 975; Rockford, 940; Franklin, 960; Silver Creek, 1,000; Maple Lake, 1,020; Chatham, 1,000; Marysville, 975: Woodland, 1,010: Clearwater, 1,020; Corinna, 1,020; Albion, 1,025; Middleville, 1,000; Victor, 1,040; South Side, 1,030; French Lake, 1,025; Cokato, 1,040; and Stockholm, 1,075. From these figures, the average elevation of Wright county is found to be 1,000 feet, very nearly, above the sea.
Soil and Timber. All portions of Wright eounty have a very fertile soil, blackened by decaying vegetation to a depth that varies from one to three feet. Fully nine-tenths of its whole area are adapted for cultivation, the only exceptions being the frequent sloughs, very steep knolls or hilloeks which oceur rarely, and the abrupt bluffs, twenty to fifty and rarely seventy-five or one hundred feet high, which border the ereeks and rivers and were formed by their erosion. The generally undulating and roll- ing surface has sufficient slopes to give excellent drainage. The water produced by snow-melting in spring is thus speedily carried off, permitting seed to be sown early ; and damage by excessive rains is prevented. The rainfall is usually quite uniformly dis- tributed through the successive seasons of spring, summer, and autumn ; and from it the somewhat porous soil, which is the glacial and modified drift, readily absorbs the moisture needed by grow- ing erops. The water of wells and springs in this region is eom- monly charged with the carbonates of lime and magnesia dis- solved from the drift through which it has filtered. Though this does not impair its excellence for drinking and cooking purposes, it is rendered less desirable than rain-water for use in washing with soap. The pulverized limestone in the drift, which thus makes the water that soaks through it hard, is one of the most useful elements of the soil for the production of wheat, corn, oats, potatoes, and hay, which, with dairy prodnets and stock, are the chief agricultural resources of this district.
The "Big Woods" covered nearly the whole of Wright county. The only exceptions to this. before its settlement and the conse-
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HISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
qnent clearing away of much of the timber to make farms, were Clearwater prairie, three miles long and one to two miles wide; Sanborn's or Moody's prairie, in Silver Creek ; Monticello prairie, six miles long and three miles wide, including the portion of this which is commonly called West prairie, lying northwest of Otter creek ; small areas of modified drift in Otsego, all the foregoing being portions of the valley drift of the Mississippi; a few small tracts bordering Crow river, as Butler and MeAlpine prairies; and Mooers' prairie, south of Cokato, three miles long and about a mile wide. The last-named prairies are undulating and in part even hilly, and consist mainly of till or unmodified drift. On Mooers' prairie the hills rise in moderate slopes, thirty to sixty feet high. To these traets are also to be added the numerous small sloughs, covered by marsh-grass, valuable for hay, and also the many small natural meadows, which are scattered here and there throughout the wooded area. Though the principal prairies of this county are modified drift, it is yet to be noted that consid- erable portions of this formation, bordering the Clearwater and Mississippi rivers at the north side of the county, are covered by a natural forest. This is the ease with large tracts of modified drift adjoining Clear lake and reaching from it southwest to Sylvia lake and east to Sugar lake, as also with much of the northwest part of Silver Creek township.
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