USA > Minnesota > Minnesota as it is in 1870 : its general resources and attractions for immigrants, invalids, tourists, capitalists, and business men ; with special descriptions of all its counties and townsand inducements to those in quest of homes, health, or pleasure > Part 12
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
Tripoli .- He describes a bed of tripoli near Stillwater as of "very fine quality," "inexhaustible for all prac- tical purposes," and " a source of wealth to the State."
Granite .- " The most prevalent rocks," he says, "in the northern part of the State are granite, porphyry, hornblendic, silicious and talcose slate," &c.
White Sand for Glass .- He says of " the white sand- stone forming the banks of the river in Ramsey County, I have made some trials in regard to its adaptability for the manufacture of glassware, and find it produces glass of good quality, nearly colorless."
Dr. Owen's (U. S. Geologist) report says : "The St. Peter's (Minnesota River) country certainly can afford as pure a quality of sand as that obtained in Missouri, and now, I believe, extensively used in the glass houses of Pittsburg."
Slate .- Described by Dr. Owen and Clarke, geologists, on the north shore of Lake Superior, as " literally inex-
140
IRON AND COPPER.
haustible." Clarke says : "If one-fourth of this slate area in the St. Louis Valley proves available - and doubtless one-half will-we have ten sections of land producing slates which may be quarried to advantage fifty feet in depth, and will yield a thousand millions of tons."
Pine and Hard Woods .- For agricultural implements, tubs, buckets, barrels, furniture, matches, &c., the supply of hard wood is ample.
For lumber, our pineries are inexhaustible. (For the location and extent of these see "Pineries," pages 19 and 143.)
MANUFACTURES .- By the census of 1860, the number of establishments in the State was 511; capital invested, $2,007,551 ; annual product, $4,295,208. We have no report from the State, but at the Falls of St. Anthony alone the Secretary of the Board of Trade reports for 1868 : Capital invested, $2,563,050; annual product, $5,019,032. From this report of one point only, the immense increase in the State in eight years may be estimated, there being manufactories of flour in almost every county, of lumber at Stillwater, Anoka, and many other points, and other manufactories in every principal town. Flour is manufactured largely for export.
Lumber .- In 1861 the total product of the pine lumber manufacture of the State was, according to the Commis- sioner of Statistics, 69,950,000 feet. In 1868, according to the Governor's Message, 121,000,000 feet. In 1861 there were logs surveyed, 92,590,528 feet. In 1868, 249,267,- 918 feet. Value of the lumber product, $3,750,000.
IRON AND COPPER .- Of these minerals, whose presence in the Lake Superior country all our geologists have testified to, the report of the Commissioner of Statistics for 1860, says :
141
CHIEF JUSTICE CHASE.
" We possess in the mineral ranges of Lake Superior deposits of iron and copper which have been shown by the severest tests to be superior to any on the continent, and fully equal in tenacity and malleability to the best Swedish and Russian Iron."
Mr. Rawlings, the English author of " America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific," says :
" The whole basin of Lake Superior indicates the pres- ence of iron and copper. * * On the north shore of the lake, in Minnesota, near the western extremity of the lake, and in Canada, for a distance of 200 miles northwest from the Saut St. Marie, are well defined cop- per regions which are now attracting the attention of capitalists and will prove as productive as the Keewenaw, Portage Lake, Ontonagon and Cass Lake Districts" in Michigan.
Chief Justice Chase, Secretary of the United States Treasury for 1864, in his report, says :
"In 1862, the number of vessels engaged in the trade of Lake Superior was, schooners, 543; tons, 175,595. Propellers, 121; tons, 65,124. Steamers, 174; tons, 124,833. Total, 365,552 tons. These vessels carried outward 150,000 tons of iron and iron ore, and 9300 tons of pure or native copper, valued together at $12,000,000.
Shipments of copper from Lake Superior from 1858 to 1862.
Tons.
1858,
5,896
Value. . $1,610,000
1859,
6,041
1,932,000
1860,
8,614
2,520,000
1861,
10,347
3,180,000
1862,
10,000
4,000,000
Products of Iron Ore in Lake Superior Region.
Tons Ors.
Tons Pig.
Value.
1855,
1,445
$14,470
1860,
116,998
5,660
736,490
1861,
45,430
7,970
410,460
1862,
115,721
8,590
984,976
1
142
SLATE QUARRIES.
This of course is not given as Minnesota statistics, but as showing the capacity of the Lake Superior mineral ranges, which extend from Fond du Lac to Pigeon Point, nearly 200 miles within the limits of Minnesota.
Thomas Clarke, Assistant State Geologist (1864,) says : "To Minnesota belongs the furnishing of the entire Mississippi Valley demand for copper, and the upper portion with iron. 5000 tons of the former, and 25,000 of the latter, is estimated as the demand at the ordinary rates of consumption. To Minnesota belongs the manu- facturing of these crude materials."
SLATE QUARRIES .- Clarke's Geological Report locates the St. Louis quarries in sections 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, town 48, range 16, and the unsurveyed region north for two or three townships.
Aug. H. Hanchette, State Geologist, in his Report for 1864, says : " An inexhaustible quarry of argillaceous slate occurs above the falls of Pigeon River, that with trifling expense can be quarried and placed at a point of shipment thence to any point on the chain of lakes."
He speaks of the same quality of slates at other points, all " admirably adapted for tiling and other purposes, and susceptible of being economically wrought."
Cost of Quarrying and Value of Slate .- Mr. Clarke's report (1864,) says : "The cost of quarrying and dress- ing at the Vermont quarries is about $2.50 per square (100 feet,) or $7.50 per ton. The market value at Chicago is from $5.50 to $7.50 per square, or $18 per ton. At St. Louis it is third class freight higher."
"A ton (about four squares) may be transported from the St. Louis River Quarry to the Mississippi by railway at $3." It may be taken to all points in this State ac- cessible by boats or railway at an average cost of fifteen dollars per ton, or at most $4 per square-little, if any,
143
THE PINERIES.
more than pine shingles : the former as good for a century as the latter for a decade."
He estimates the annual demand for slates in the Mississippi Valley at one hundred thousand tons.
Brown Stone, which has been tested in the fire and found capable of resisting its influence, abounds in the Lake Superior country, and is already being exported to Chicago and Milwaukee.
Granite .- A company is incorporated in St. Paul, and is supplying the material from quarries near Sauk Rapids for building the United States Custom House.
Mineral Paint, equal to the best in use, has lately been developed in Redwood County ; Marl exists near Minneapolis and other places ; Porcelain Clay in Waba- sha County.
Salt Springs abound in the Red River country, of which twelve have been located by the State. (See map.)
Gold and Silver .- The most to be said of these is that capitalists from St. Paul and New York are now operating with quartz mills at Vermillion Lake, the tests that have been made being satisfactory to them.
THE PINERIES .- In addition to what has been said as to their extent and location, and their annual products, something as to their ability to stand the drafts of the future and the manner and style of working them may not be uninteresting,
Will They Fail ?- Of the St. Croix Pineries-only one section of the pine area-a correspondent of the Daily Wisconsin, estimating the amount of lumber already cut at one billion feet, says : "Old pine land explorers vary their estimates of the pine timber remaining from three to eight times the amount already cut. A mean estimate would bring it to five and a half billions. The present
144
LIFE IN THE PINERIES.
average of one hundred millions yearly cutting would exhaust the St. Croix pineries in fifty-five years. Two per cent. of growth would extend the measure to one hundred years. The amount of hard wood timber in the St. Croix is treble the amount of pine."
Capt. John P. Owens, for twenty years a resident of Minnesota, says, in a letter to the St. Paul Press, in February, 1869 : "It must be remembered that tracts from which all the suitable timber was cut ten or twelve years ago, are now ready to cut over again, so rapid is the growth of the younger pines. A man who owns pine land may, as a general thing, calculate that it is gaining in value ten per cent. annually by the growth. We don't hear so much now-a-days about the pineries giving out in a few years as we did twenty years ago."
LIFE IN THE PINERIES.
BY H. M. ATKINS, ESQ., PRINCETON.
Going in .- In November the "teams " and " crews" start into the woods. Large and strong wagons, drawn by two, four, or six horses, or four, six, or eight oxen to each, heavily laden with " supplies," which term, in lumberman's language, means all the necessaries, and some luxuries, for the support of the men, and "feed" for teams, escorted by crews of men, who are to cut the trees and prepare the logs, go winding their way up among the pine forests of the St. Croix, the Rum, and the Upper Mississippi rivers. The land has been pre- viously explored, and, arrived at the selected spot, the work of building a " camp" for the men and a stable for the teams at once begins.
Stumpage .- The lumbermen are not often the owners of the land operated upon. They usually buy the " stumpage" of the land owners, at a specified price per
145
H. M. ATKINS.
thousand feet of lumber cut, the amount being ascer- tained by "scaling," or measuring, after the logs are cut. The price paid for " stumpage" varies from $1 to $3 per thousand feet, according to the quality of the trees and their distance from streams of drivable water.
Camp .- The " camp" is usually placed near a river or stream for convenience in procuring water. The mate- rials for building, pine and oak, are always near by.
The camp is a large and well-built log house, with roof of pine or oak " splits " instead of shingles, and floor of small pines, hewed flat and smooth, or in some cases of boards. It is heated by a large box stove, while a large cooking stove at one side or end is managed by the cook. A large table is a fixture in the house, and the dishes for eating and drinking are of tin instead of crockery. Along one, or if the crew is large, along both sides of the camp, are the " bunks " for sleeping. These are shelves or stagings elevated a foot or two above the ground, six or seven feet wide, and as long as the length of the camp will allow them to be : usually nearly the whole length. Along the side towards the center of the camp is placed a board, plank, or timber, on edge, and rising nearly a foot above the staging. On this staging or " bunk," hay is spread to the depth of a foot, or more ; over this are spread, "spreads" so called, being heavy bed coverings like the " comforters " of old times. With one thickness of these the hay is covered, the men lie on this ; heads to the wall, feet towards the centre of the camp, as near together as they can lie, and are all covered by one heavy and thick " spread," as wide as the men are long, and as long as may be necessary. The day cloth- ing is not removed upon going to bed, and of course you see from the above, that they all sleep in one bed. There are from six to forty men in a crew. There are no
13
146
LIFE IN THE PINERIES.
chairs ; only benches made on the spot. At night the camp is lighted with kerosene lamps.
Stables, &c .- The stables are located near the camp ; are built of logs, the cracks tightly chinked, and the roof of poles covered with hay. They are well built, warm and comfortable. The teams are fed with hay which has been cut and stacked ready on some natural meadow near, the previous summer, and for provender, ground wheat, corn, rye, oats and barley and unground oats. Many a farmer might profitably take lessons in the art of stock-feeding from these lumbermen.
The Work .- Long before light in the morning, the " cook " and the " teamster " are astir-the former getting breakfast, the latter feeding his teams. All hands are called to breakfast ; not much time is needed for making toilet ; and the breakfast being eaten, all hands, except the cook, are off into the timber, the intention being to be on the spot ready for work as soon as it is light enough to see. Every man has his particular work to do, and every one knows his place. The " choppers " chop down the timber pines, trim off the branches, and cut off the tops ; the " sled-tenders" clear away around the tree- trunks and logs, fix the ropes, "tackles " and chains for loading, and help the teamster in that ; the " sawyers " with long, cross-cut saws, saw the tree-trunks into logs of suitable length, and cut into them with axes the let- ters, signs and symbols that constitute the proprietor's recorded " mark," and by which each log can be identified wherever it may be; the "swampers " cut out roads for the teams and clear them of all undergrowth; the " teamsters." manage the teams and the loading and un- loading of logs.
Large, wide and strong sleds are used, commonly called " bobs," they are short and used in pairs ; one hitched be-
147
H. M. ATKINS.
hind another as the hind wheels of a wagon are behind the forward ones. On these double sleds the logs are rolled and loaded, side by side, and on the top of each other, with the help of teams and pulleys and blocks, usually called " tackle," and securely chained, and so drawn to the " landing," on the bank of the river or large stream, which is a place of an acre or more, completely cleared of all trees, where they are easily unloaded on or over the steep bank and left lying in huge piles to await the spring freshets.
The men work in the timber till noon; then to camp for dinner ; then back again and work until dark ; then to camp for supper ; after that the time is spent as they please until bed time. The work is hard, but the men are almost universally hearty and healthy ; while at it, blessed with good appetite, are cheerful and seem to like it. They are so well protected by the pine forests that they are but little affected by the winter cold. The fare is of the very best. The old time pork and beans are still much used and liked ; but in addition to these, the rough tables are supplied abundantly with all the common and substantial articles of food and drink.
And so, from early winter until the time of melting snows in March, year after year, the merciless keen axes are plied among the pines.
River Driving .- With the spring freshets comes another phase of the lumberman's trade. The huge piles of logs at the numerous " landings" are all rolled into the water and set afloat, and the work of " river driving" is begun. It is the hardest of hard work-very wearing and ex- hausting, and commands the highest of wages-$2 to $5 per day and boarded. The men are almost continually wet. No Sundays are known, and five meals a day are invariably furnished. From dawn till dark, in and out
148
LIFE IN THE PINERIES.
of the cold snow water, it makes no difference which, for the logs must be kept moving with the current, and the continually forming "jams" broken.
The men are organized in " crews" of various sizes, according to the number of logs to be managed, each with a " boss driver" as working leader, and accompanied by a shed or roof-tent of sufficient size to shelter the men while sleeping on the ground, wrapped in " spreads" and blankets, at night ; a cook and one or two assistants ; a- batteaux, being a long, sharp boat, and a large, clumsy flat boat, called a "wongin," for carrying the supplies for cook and crew. The cook moves down the stream from day to day, as the "drive" of logs progresses, with the tent, batteaux, and wongin. The meals, except. morning and evening ones, are taken to the men at- their work in buckets and baskets, by the cookees or assistants.
If the water is very high, the cross currents are sure to carry many of the logs over low places in the banks, in among the trees and underbrush of the bottom lands, and into sloughs and gullies. The work of getting them back into the stream, called "sacking," is the severest. of all. The men must stand and work in the ice-cold water, often up to their waists where they work, and with the aid of "picks" and " cant-dogs" roll and push, and sometimes almost carry, the logs back to the streams.
They become very expert in the business of managing the logs. They will stand erect on one, and keep their feet while it goes rolling over and over in the rapid cur- rent, and with no other instrument than a "pick hand- spike," seven or eight feet long, cross deep, wide, and rapid streams, standing on a single log.
Occasionally, however, a green hand will make a slip and go into the water, and " shut the door" after him, or
149
SPORTS AND WAGES.
" pull the hole in behind him." Then great is the fun at his expense among his associates.
The point is to keep the logs moving continually. They are so numerous as to hide the water in the rivers for miles at times, and it is late in June before they are all safely " boomed," in the vicinity of the large mills, for manufacturing them into lumber, for distribution far and near, in this and the adjoining States.
To this a few items may be added.
Sports .- As would naturally be supposed, so many men brought together to remain four or five months in camp life must have amusements, and the lumbermen are not without them. Their evenings are made lively with music-vocal and instrumental-anecdotes, burnt cork minstrelsy, cards, &c., &c.
Wages .- Teamsters, $40 to $70 per month; cooks, $45 ; foremen, $70 to $100; good choppers, $35 to $40 ; swampers, $30; sawyers, $30; ordinary hands, $20 to $25 ; wages on rafts average $35 ; pilots, $1200 to $2000 for the season. Average price of logs at Stillwater, in 1868-9, $12 per 1000 feet. 225 rafts left Stillwater in 1868, each raft requiring 23 men to run it-giving em- ployment to 5000 men. The Pineries in the winter give employment to nearly 4000 men, and over 2000 horses and oxen. They also afford a fine home market for the produce of farmers.
150
AS A FRUIT COUNTRY.
:
CHAPTER XI.
MINNESOTA AS A FRUIT COUNTRY .- WILD RICE .- Wild Fruits .- Among these are strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, huckleberries, grapes, plums, cranberries, and cherries. The wild plum is so abundant that it is brought into the towns by the hundred bushels, and sold from fifty cents to $3 per bushel, according to the season. It is almost equal to the cultivated plum for eating raw or preserving. The huckleberry and grape are also most abundant, and from the latter the Minne- sota farmer makes his native wine and refreshes himself under his own vine and fig-tree, with no revenue col- lectors to molest or make him afraid. The huckleberries abound principally on the barren ridges of the northern and north-eastern parts of the State.
Cranberries .- From the cranberry marsh on his farm, many a farmer makes more money than on his crop. The extent of the growth of this fruit in Minnesota is wonder- ful-so remarkable that formerly we were called "The Cranberry State." While it is a native of the State, and to be found in every part of it, it is especially abundant in the northern and northeastern parts of it. David Dale Owen, United States Geologist, reports officially : " This staple native production of the Northwest is no where more abundant or of finer quality than in the region bordering on the St. Croix River."
Clarke, Geologist, says : "There are 256,000 acres of cranberry marsh in the triangle between the St. Croix and Mississippi, and bounded north by the St. Louis and Prairie rivers."
151
CRANBERRIES.
Cultivation of Cranberries .- The very high prices: ob- tained for the cranberry, from $3 to $8 per bushel, would make its cultivation profitable. While it is extensively cultivated in the Eastern States, some farmers having as much as ten acres or more devoted to it, and books writ- ten on it, among the number one by Estewood, published by Orange Judd & Co., 41 Park Row, New York, worth 75 cents,-very little attention has been paid to it in Minnesota. The high-bush variety is cultivated in most of the nurseries of the State, and sold for yards and gar- dens. Mr. Heinrich Hotz, of Watertown, Carver County, is cultivating the low vine cranberry with suc- cess, for profit and sale. Owen and Clarke both speak of its susceptibility for cultivation, and Clarke says : " The drainage of the cranberry marshes may be so ar- ranged that they may be cleared, all other plants and grasses eradicated, and then restocked with good thrifty vines-care being taken to select the gray fruit variety, as it is more prolific and withstands the frosts that sometimes occur before the fruit ripens. The drainage might be controllable, so that the cultivator could irrigate the vines when his experience taught the proper time."
There is a splendid field among these 240,000 acres of cranberries for some enterprising genius to carry out. this suggestion and make a fortune. There they are free to the first comer, open to homestead entry, without the cost of a dollar ; and besides these, tens of thousands of acres more, scattered over every portion of the State. Only a few hundred bushels are now exported from the State. The supply is sufficient to export thousands of bushels.
Apples and Cultivated Fruits .- All the small fruits, such as strawberries, currants, raspberries, gooseberries, and grapes, are successfully cultivated ; also several
152
AS A FRUIT COUNTRY.
varieties of plums, very fine and large, pears and cherries, the Siberian crab, Transcendant and Hyslop, and the best of apples of many varieties. Like most new countries, we have had to pass through a decade or more of experi- ments and failures, to learn the peculiarites of climate, soil, and exposures, and the varieties best adapted to these peculiarities. Our pathway for fifteen years had been strewn with failures. We knew the cause was not the cold climate, for apples are raised in Canada, New Brunswick, Russia, and higher latitudes and colder cli- mates. So we persevered in experiments, and the last two years have demonstrated that we can raise the largest and finest apples, for we have actually raised thousands of bushels the present year.
At the State Fair, in September, at Rochester, one. man from Minnesota City, in Winona County, exhibited fifty barrels of apples raised in that county, and said he had 200 more at home. Persons who claim to be well informed estimate that Winona County alone has raised 30,000 bushels of apples this year.
The Preston Republican gives a list of apple orchards in that county, occupying half a column, says all are doing well, and estimates that some of them will produce sixty or seventy bushels of apples.
Mr. L. R. Hawkins, of Maple Glen (P. O.,) Scott County, has apples this year of nearly a dozen varieties, besides cherries.
Truman M. Smith, of St. Paul, H. J. Brainard and W. E. Brimhall in the vicinity, raise over thirty varieties of apples, and several varieties of cherries, plums, and grapes, Smith having eighteen varieties of the grafted apples.
From Robertson's Monthly for October, 1869, we con- dense the following additional facts. The Le Sueur
153
APPLES AND OTHER FRUITS.
Courier says twenty-eight different varieties of apples are raised in Sharon township, in that county, and of the samples exhibited "a dozen kinds shown were large, luscious, and healthy looking." The trees were from the nursery of Amasa Stewart, of Minneapolis, who " assured us that over fifty different species of apples are now growing in Le Sueur and Blue Earth counties." This statement is corroborated by the Mankato Review (Blue Earth County,) which says : "Mr. Mills, of Garden City, was in our city last week, and had with him samples of fifty different varieties of fall and winter apples grown by himself this year." They were mainly seedlings. The editor estimates that there are 500 bearing trees in the county, Mills having 164, Mr. Laird, of South Bend, 25, &c.
Among the many persons who have succeeded in raising apples, and have bearing trees, are Col. D. A. Robertson, of St. Paul, Editor of the Minnesota Monthly; Hon. John M. Berry, of Faribault, Judge of the Supreme Court ; Dr. Kelly and H. Scriver, of Northfield ; A. W. Webster, Geo. W. Clark, Norman Buck, and M. K. Drew, of Winona ; John Hart, of Hillsdale, and Amos Shay, of Richmond, Winona County ; and J. Marthaler, of West St. Paul, besides numbers of nurserymen and individuals, too numerous to mention.
We have only space to sum up the whole subject in the comments of the St. Paul Press on the display of fruits in the two counties of Ramsey and Hennepin alone.
These two fairs have set at rest the long-mooted question whether Minnesota is an apple-growing State. Over two hun- dred varieties of the apple-exclusive of the crab species- were exhibited at Minneapolis, and a large number at St. Paul, of the finest development and flavor, and this fact will give an
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.