USA > Minnesota > Wright County > History of Wright County, Minnesota > Part 25
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In the afternoon the Sunday school, under the eare of our
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HISTORY OF WRIGHIT COUNTY
unele, William Sleight, its superintendent, and later, president of the Old Settlers' Association, took the field with an exhibition in singing and speaking that to my knowledge has not been sur- passed since.
The settlers were a very intelligent class, many from the New England states, and represented a cultivated people. It was these men that responded so nobly for the defense of the Union in 1861. 1 think all of Mr. Farnham's company enlisted.
The most important factor in the development of Wright county's resources was the extension, in 1868, of the St. Paul and Pacific Railway, from Long Lake, in Hennepin county, to Crow river. This afforded transportation and gave ready market for hardwood Inumber, stave bolts, hoop poles and farm products, that for twelve years had been hanled to market by teams or down the river by boats or rafts. The state had settled a prineely land grant for the construction and operation of the road, by giving it every other section six miles each side of the track. The road was chartered and built by a syndicate of English capitalists, who bequeathed their names to the new towns along the line. Mr. Delano, the first superintendent, gave his name to the Crow river crossing, Mr. Montrose to the Virginia settle- ment, Mr. Dassel to Collinswood, Mr. Darwin to the edge of the Big Woods, Mr. Litchfield to Foot Lake, and Chief Engineer Morris to the town west of the Pomme de Terre.
A large part of the money for construction and equipment was furnished by the Amsterdam bankers on first mortgage bonds. The company had sent samples of the soil to Holland by placing the stratas as they lay in the surface formation in casks, showing the rich loam at the top with the clay subsoil below. This had been analyzed as to its fertility, so they knew what they were secured with as to land.
In the spring of 1870 the end of the track was at Benson. An invitation had been sent to the Holland bond-holders to visit the line. They came the first part of April, before the grass or leaves started. The country looked desolate. The prairie had burned in the fall. But few settlers had taken land west of Litchfield, and only a few dng-outs and sod houses with hay and sod stables could be seen.
The day selected for the run from St. Paul out over the line was cold and rainy. Accustomed as they were to the highly cultivated land of Holland, these gentlemen, in their long blue coats and brass buttons, would stand on the back platform and gloomily scan this wide uncultivated landscape, then they would return to the coach and offer their bonds to the more optimistic members of their party at a large reduction. When the bankers reached St. Paul on their return, they informed the company that they could not furnish any more money to extend the line ;
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that in their opinion it would be fifty years before the road could pay interest on the bonds.
The road found it hard to extend its line and keep up the repairs, but Wright county had the benefit of a good market for her wood, both east and west. In a short time rich fields of wheat and corn had taken the place where heavy timber had stood, and Wright county was made to "blossom as the rose."- By George W. Florida, Secretary of the Wright County Old Settlers' Association.
Claim Seeking. During the early townsite days, not all of those who swarmed the country looking for elaims really desired to establish permanent homes, though all pretended that such was their object. The actual settlers were often imposed upon by these seekers after quickly earned wealth.
All who eame had in their minds the picture of an ideal farm. They wanted a place consisting of seventy aeres of prairie, level and elean; forty aeres of meadow, all timothy or red top, high and dry; forty aeres of thrifty timber; ten aeres in a lake with gravelly shores and elean soft water; a running brook, and never- failing springs.
One type of man would come into a community, live for weeks on the charity of the settlers, examine all the elaims in the neigh- borhood, and impress the people with the fact that he was a man of wealth in the eastern states, and that he and his family would be valuable assets to the social, educational and business life of the community. Wishing to seeure desirable citizens in their community, the settlers would take him about free of charge until at last the eritieal one would find something that suited him-usually the best for miles around. As soon as he obtained possession his enthusiasm would wane. The roads were too bad, the mosquitoes were too thiek, there were no sehools or churches, and he was sure that his family could not thrive in such a com- munity. And the settlers who had labored so hard to seeure for him a desirable elaim saw him dispose of it at a handsome price to a speeulator or non-resident.
Another type of man would likewise represent himself as a man of wealth from the eastern or middle states, but unlike the other type, he was in a great hurry. According to his story, his large family, his splendid household goods and his magnificent numbers of sheep, cattle, horses and swine, were waiting at St. Paul, and he must secure a location immediately. Every settler in the neighborhood would negleet his own work and turn out to find this citizen a location, ereet his house, clear some of his land, make suitable roads and build bridges. They were to receive their pay upon his return. With two false witnesses he would obtain his patent to the property, and the neighbors would wait with interest the coming of his family and possessions.
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But in a few days they would find that their erstwhile friend was merely the agent of some speculator, and that their hard work had gone to enrich the poeket of a non-resident, while the alleged man of large possessions would change his name and operate the same swindle elsewhere.
Another type was the grumbler and the fault-finder. A failure in his former home, he expected that Wright county was a land where wealth and ease were to be obtained for the asking. He found everything different from his selfish dreams, and after making himself a nuisance and abusing the hospitality of the settlers, he would go elsewhere to spread unfavorable reports of this locality. This was the class of men who expected to receive free from the government, in a county less than two years old, 160 acres of land, surrounded by all the comforts and advan- tages of New England.
In spite of these undesirable persons and their unsavory aets, families began to come who intended to make this their perma- nent habitation, and by the elose of the year 1857 much land in the east, north and south portions of the county had been taken. But during that year the great finaneial erash eame, and many elaims were abandoned as the settlers became a prey to diseour- agement. One reason for this was that many of the pioneers were poor, and had depended on their crops and day labor for others as a means of raising money with which to pay for their location. Consequently, when the land was put on the market and sold in 1859, many had no ready cash and were foreed to abandon their claims, with all the improvements that they had made. In some cases these settlers who were foreed to abandon their homes were on the odd-numbered sections along the railroad right of way, and their places reverted to the railroad. Some postponed the day of their leaving by borrowing money at three per eent a month, but the final result was the same, as they were unable to raise the interest money. Others had borrowed money with which to make improvements and the mortgages were foreclosed, thus depriving the settler of the results of his hard and weari- some toil.
Very few claims taken in 1856 and 1857 are now in the posses- sion of the families of the original settlers. The grasshoppers frightened many away. Others moved to the larger places to get work, finding that they were unable to support their large fam- ilies on the small amount of land that they eould clear and eulti- vate the first few years. They seldom returned. And even in after years they remembered with horror the sufferings of 1857 in the Big Woods.
The settlers of 1856 and 1857 were from all parts of the United States, Canada and Enrope. The towns along the Mississippi were located on prairies, and the first settlers were for the most
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part Americans. But in the central and western parts it was quite different, all nations were represented, and homes were being made by the sturdy sons and daughters of the Old World. Society was in a chaotic state. In every community there was very great difference in manners, customs, usages and languages.
In organizing towns or even school districts, there were almost as many forms as there were individuals. The eastern men did not agree with the settlers from the middle states in the manner of procedure. The southern men had a way of their own. So had the German, the Irish, the French and the Scandinavian. In social life it was the same, and in religious matters it would have required at least a dozen clergymen to satisfy the various relig- ions prejudices and opinions of a small settlement. It demanded a large amount of forbearance, patience and charity to harmonize all conflicting opinions. But the pioneers possessed these good qualities, and serious troubles on account of the varying opinions and customs were very few. The American soon learned to adopt some of the usages of the foreigner, and the European readily saw the advantages in following the superior skill and experience of the American in elearing land and building houses, and in many of the arts, customs and ways of New World civilization. A helping hand was extended to all and a new settler was assisted in building his house and in elearing his land. Thus harmony and brotherly love prevailed to a large extent. Social parties, dances and "chopping bees" increased friendly communication, and warm neighborly intercourse was the result.
The claim associations which had such an influence and took such a conspienous part in settling disputes about claims in other parts of the state had very little work to do in Wright county. Disputes about locations were usually settled without expense or trouble, and without recourse to the courts.
Before the county was divided into towns the laying out of roads and the assessment of taxes and nearly all other business of a public character was in the hands of the board of county commissioners. Every settlement and nearly every individual wanted a road, and much of the attention of the commissioners was devoted to the granting of petitions for these thoroughfares. The laying out of these roads entailed much expense, and resulted a few years later in the depreciation of the county orders to thirty cents on the dollar. When this depreciation came and the county was in financial straits, the early boards received much criticism, but later events have justified their course in covering the county with a network of these means of communication and commerce. Unlike many Minnesota counties where wagons could find a passage anywhere on the spreading prairies, the early settlers in Wright county could not easily reach the lands that were open to settlement, and trees must be felled, bridges built
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and trails made before the Wright county pioneer conld estab- lish his home in the wilderness.
Ginseng. The year 1859 in Wright county is marked by the advent of the ginseng buyers.
For a number of years the ginseng trade had been carried on with China by a few merchants in Philadelphia, and the supply of the artiele had been principally from western Virginia and eastern Kentucky. But the roots were growing less and less year by year.
Several persons who had moved from Virginia into Wright county reported to friends at home that ginseng was quite plenti- ful here, and the information brought Colonel Robert Blaine, from what is now West Virginia, an old ginseng trader, who com- meneed to buy the root. He paid for it in cash, which in this locality had been rather scarce for two years. The settlers' erops had been small and very low prices were paid for all farm prodnets. There was no home market, and no railroads or other means of transportation to an eastern market, there was very little lumbering or building, and no extensive public works or improvements. So it was almost impossible to support a family in the Big Woods, and it seemed that many settlers would be obliged to leave or starve.
But as soon as the ginseng trade opened everything was changed. Prosperity and plenty followed the trail of the ginseng buyers. They had established agents in nearly every town, and men, women and children turned their attention to digging the roots. They paid up old debts, cleared up mortgages, paid for their land, and in everything seemed prosperous and happy, when a few months before all had been dark and discouraging.
It has often been said, since that time, that the ginseng busi- ness was not a benefit to Wright county but that it was an actual injury ; that the early settlers neglected their farms and stopped elearing land, and did not make the progress in developing the country that they would have made if there had been no ginseng trade. But those who reason in this manner are ones who did not experience the hardships of 1859. It is a faet, indeed, that many of the early settlers were without means and could not have subsisted more than a short time, and many more would have abandoned their claims and farms if they could not have found temporary relief. That was not to be found in publie funds, for there were none. Credit was gone, and ready money was necessary in working the farms. Ginseng supplied the need.
The Locust Raids. August 19, 1856, is a date not likely to be forgotten by the early settlers of this eounty, for on that day arrived the advance guard of that all-devonring army of winged gourmands whose ravages spread terror and panie among the
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inhabitants, and almost depopulated the young settlements. The flying hoppers were seen going southeast about noon, and at 2 o'clock in the afternoon they began their work of destruction, eating every green thing. In Otsego and Monticello, about the only places in the county where wheat, oats and rye were raised to any extent, the loss was greatest. In attacking the oats the grasshoppers trimmed off every green leaf and then cut off the small stems on the heads, leaving the bare stalk standing and the oats all on the ground. Much of the wheat was of the Rio Grande variety and was partly protected by the heavy beards, but every leaf was ent off. The rye was hard and just ready to harvest, so to a large extent it escaped the general ravage.
The hope of relief occasioned by the sudden disappearance of the hoppers in the fall was blighted by their appearance in largely inereased numbers the following spring, and a number of families, overcome with fear and discouragement, gathered their personal effects together and took their final departure.
The grasshopper invasion in 1856 and 1857 was confined mostly to the upper Mississippi valley. The insects appeared near the end of July in the northern part of the state. As they moved' sonthward along both sides of the Mississippi their progress grew noticeably slower and they did not reach their southern limit, in Hennepin and Ramsey counties, until some time in Sep- tember. Every crop except the pea vines was devoured, and the unharvested grain, with the exceptions already noted, was destroyed suddenly and totally. Where eorn was too hard for them they devoured the blades and husks, leaving bare stalks and ears. They stripped the vines of potatoes, destroyed turnips, beets, onions, buckwheat and most garden vegetables. They nibbled clothing hanging upon lines, entered houses, attacked curtains and cushions, eating "tobaeeo, shoes and even thick cowhide boots." They probably deposited eggs in the fall of 1856 in all the region visited.
The following year the grasshoppers commenced hatching about May 10, and devoured the erops as fast as they appeared. Through May and the first part of June the number and damage increased, and in most cases the crops were entirely destroyed, so that in plowed ground not even a weed was seen. The time of hatching in 1857 seems to have been somewhat later than in other years. When they began to come out of the eggs the ground was fairly alive with them. Many settlers were disconr- aged from planting and seeding. The little hoppers began to eat and nearly everything, including the grass in the meadows, was eaten as fast as it grew. About the first of June the ones in Wright county began to move to the southeast by hopping and in a few days they began to fly in the same direction. Crow river was full of the little hoppers, but they did not stop at rivers or
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IHISTORY OF WRIGHT COUNTY
ereeks, but kept on their way, and by the first of July, after hay- ing devoured about half the erops, the whole greedy swarm had left Wright county. Large numbers continued to linger in other places until about the first of August. The direction of the depar. ture was generally southward; the flying swarms passed over southern Minnesota as far east as Winnebago City. No eggs were left behind them, and the state was free from grasshoppers for seven years.
In the early part of June, 1864, the grasshoppers were thiek in the Red river region, and over the plains of the Northwest. In June, 1865, the Sauk valley was invaded and vegetation almost entirely destroyed. But the chief seene of invasion in these two years was the Minnesota valley. They did no damage in Wright county. As before, the grasshoppers left no eggs behind them. There were slight loeust invasions in the state in 1868, 1871 and 1872.
There was another serious invasion in 1873 in the south- western part of the state. They deposited their eggs, and in 1874 the ravages were extended still further north and east, so that Wright county was again devastated. This eounty was one of the distriets where the eggs in separate localities were thiekly deposited. The hatehing of these eggs in the following spring did little damage, as the young hoppers were killed by cold and damp and parasites. But new swarms invaded the state, and Wright eounty again suffered in the summer of 1876. These swarms deposited eggs, and in 1877 Wright county onee more appeared on the lists of the counties which suffered heavily. Many deviees were tried to destroy the pests, but to little avail.
The year of 1878 opened with still greater danger of erop destruetion. But in April of that year the grasshoppers were totally annihilated by a frost. On the day preeeding the frost the religious people of the state had engaged in prayer in their various churches, the day having been set aside as a season of prayer for deliverance. Governor JJohn S. Pillsbury, who issued the proclamation ealling for this observanee, afterward said in relation to this day of prayer: "And the very next night it turned eold and froze every grasshopper in the state stiff; froze 'em right up solid, sir; well, sir, that was over twenty years ago, and grasshoppers don't appear to have been bothering us very mueh sinee." Money was raised to relieve the distress, and onee more Wright county started to repair its fortunes.
Famine of 1867. The settlements were slow in recovering the numerical loss sustained during the Indian troubles, and it was not until the dawn of our nation's peace, and the return of her eitizen soldiery, that material changes occurred. In the mean- time most of the odd-unmbered seetions had come into the pos- session of a railroad company. After the war, with the prospect
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of a railroad soon to be built through the county, these lands found ready sale to aetnal settlers, and with the homesteads taken during 1865-66, the census of Wright county was materially increased. As most of the late comers of 1866 were men of limited means, it was not strange that the spring of 1867 found many in destitute eireumstanees. Added to this embarrassment was the farther evil of an unusually wet spring, rendering early seeding impossible, and the roads, as yet unworked, nearly, and in many instances quite, impassable. May was scarce ushered in before rumors of destitution were afloat, and the press of the state informed the reading public that families were starving; that many were subsisting upon elm bark. The county commissioners were appealed to for aid, and accordingly sent out a committee of investigation, to aseertain and report the actual condition of the settlements where suffering was reported. The investigation diselosed the fact that in several of the western towns great destitution prevailed, and that prompt measures were necessary to prevent actual want and starvation.
The commissioners found it no easy matter to effect the neees- sary relief, with an empty treasury, and no time to arrange for the issue of bonds. Although the county was ont of debt, its bonds, in the event of an issue, were not likely to be sought after by outside parties, and there was no surplus wealth within its borders. Something, however, must be done, and that, too, with- ont delay. The only avenue of relief offered was the immediate issue of county orders, which was adopted, and a committee sent to St. Paul and Minneapolis to convert these into cash for the relief of the suffering. The banks, however, turned a deaf ear to the appeal of the committee, and utter failure seemed immi- nent. Just then W. B. Litchfield, prominent in railroad eireles, hearing by a mere chance of the vain attempts on the part of the committee to obtain aid, volunteered the loan of the necessary amount, and thus seeured to the committee the means of assist- ance. For this humane aet Mr. Litehfield will ever be held in kindly remembranee. On May 18, at a special meeting of the county commissioners, it was voted: "That a county bond be issued to W. B. Litehfield, of St. Paul, to the amount of five hundred dollars, payable one year after date, bearing interest at the rate of seven per cent per annum. The same being for money to be applied toward relieving the destitute persons in Wright county. Signed, T. C. Shapleigh, Chairman Board of Commis- sioners. Attest : Henry Kreis, Auditor."
Pending the foregoing transaction, the governor had, upon appeal to him by some of the citizens, sent out eighteen saeks of flour and other artieles of food, to meet the immediate require- ments of the distressed. But the difficulties of the county com- missioners did not end with the advance of money by Mr. Liteh-
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field. Flour in St. Paul was held at twelve dollars per barrel, and it was with great difficulty that a team was at last proeured to take a load to Rockford, the charge for transportation being two dollars per barrel. This seemingly extravagant priee was, after all, a questionable speculation on the part of the carrier. Rock- ford was made the distributing point, it being impossible to pro- ceed farther by team, but the settlers were glad of the provisions furnished, even though forced to carry them in some cases from fifteen to twenty miles upon their shoulders. Provisions, seeds and elothing were also distributed from Monticello, and a few visited the cities and seeured additional aid. Of the entire amount thus distributed, the county sustained an expense of about one thousand dollars.
The so-called famine of 1867 in the western part of Wright county attracted wide attention. In 1866 there was a large influx of new settlers. Reports came that the railroad was to be built at once, and that employment would be given to all who desired it. Consequently many people came in, took forty acres of rail- road land, made small gardens and awaited the time when the railroad should be paying them wages. But operations were delayed, little work was done, there was no money to buy pro- visions, and suffering resulted. Much of the destitution was in Moores Prairie township (now Cokato and Stockholm), and in Vietor and Middleville townships.
From that day to this old settlers have disputed as to the extent of real need in that region. Investigators from other parts of the state elaimed to have found many cases of actual suffering and discovered numerous persons on the verge of star- vation. Settlers in other parts of the county have been inelined to underestimate the privations which these new-comers experi- eneed, and to brand the reports of suffering as sensational. But to those immigrants in a new and strange country, out of funds and provisions. and with little prospeet of seeuring work, the need was very real.
Measures were taken to relieve the suffering by extending county aid for the purchase of flour, eorn meal, potatoes, seed eorn and garden seed. A destitute person was required to seeure from the town supervisors a certificate recounting the amount of property owned by him, and the number of people in his family, and containing the statement that the person named therein was destitute of means and in a suffering condition for laek of food. Upon presentation of these to the commissioners, county aid was obtainable. Between May 18 and 27, in the town of Mooers Prairie (now Cokato and Stockholm) alone, certificates were issued to thirty-three families embracing 151 persons. In 1865 the eensus had shown only sixty-two persons in the township, but in the year following there had been many additions.
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