USA > Minnesota > Faribault County > The history of Faribault County, Minnesota : from its first settlement to the close of the year 1879 : the story of the pioneers > Part 41
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On the nineteenth day of January, the first number of the "Tedette," a small, neatly printed newspaper, was issued at Blue Earth City, by the Burleson Brothers, two boys, the eldest of whom was not eighteen years old. It was a religio-literary sheet, and it was much admired and well patronized.
During the latter part of January and through the month of February, considerable excitement existed in certain portions of the
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county. caused by the circulation of a petition to the legislature, praying the passage of an act granting the privilege of voting upon the removal of the county seat from Blue Earth City to some point on the Southern Minnesota Railroad. The canvass in behalf of the petition was quite active, and resulted in obtaining many names.
A committee was soon appointed by the board of trade, of Blue Earth City, to prepare and cirenlate a remonstrance. To this latter paper a majority of the legal voters of the county subscribed their names, and the remonstrance was sent to the legislature. But the petition was not presented to that body, and no act was passed in re- lation to the matter, and the whole affair fell to the ground for the time being. The question of the removal of the county seat was again brought up in the fall, when the friends of the measure sought to make it a political issue.
The Faribault County Leader published at Wells, on the four- teenth of April, passed into the hands of Col. C. A. Lounsberry. former owner.
FISH! FISH!
The State Fish Commissioner's report for this year, states, that there are in this county, about 7,680 acres of land covered by water. Probable 7.000 acres of which are suitable to the cultivation of fish. It is said that ten acres cultivated to fish, (to use the language of the report), are worth more than ten acres of any ordinary produet.
This was deemed a matter of great importance to the people of the county. Fish furnish a cheap, wholesome and palatable food. It was the opinion of many, that it would require but a short time to stock our numerous lakes and streams with the best kinds of fish. such as white fish, salmon, shoadic, bass, trout and others, that may prove adapted to our waters. This was the first year in which the matter was brought to the attention, fully, of our people. One thous- and Pacific salmon were put into Minnesota lake in the early part of the year.
The hopes entertained at the time were not realized.
The F. C. S. S. Association held its tifth annual meeting at Blue Earth City, on the 26th and 27th days of May. A. R. More. Sr .. was elected president; Rev. S. L. Rugg, vice-president; C. H. Pat- tin, secretary, and C. B. Miner, treasurer. Among the interesting questions discussed at this meeting were the following: "The Pioneer Sunday school and its relations to the Church." "Modes of teaching infant classes." "Sunday school singing."
DEBRIS.
Here is a handful of events occurring in the outside world dur- ing the year, which attracted much attention.
January Ist. The Spanish monarchy restored.
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FARIBAULT COUNTY, MINNESOTA.
January 11th. The trial of the great Beecher case began, which lasted nearly six mouths. Probably no cause ever brought before the courts of justice, in any age, elicited such a profound interest with so many millions of people as this.
February 25th. The French Republic definitely recognized.
March 20th. A tornado in Georgia, caused great loss of life and property.
May 18th. A terrible earthquake occurred in New Granada, S. A. The city of Cucute was destroyed. 3,000 lives lost and $8,000, - 000 of property destroyed.
July 31st. Ex President Andrew Johnson, died.
September 16th. A frightful cyclone appeared in the Gulf of Mexico-Galveston, Texas, threatened to be submerged.
November 22d. Henry Wilson, Vice President of the U. S., died.
HARD TIMES.
A word now in relation to the character of the times, financially and otherwise, is appropriate here. In consequence of the financial panic of 1873, and other causes, some of which were local, here. the whole condition may be described by the phrase "hard times." A fuller statement of the condition of things throughout the country, is found in the following extract form an address delivered by the writer in February, of this year:
And to lay aside our usual boasting and to deal in stern facts, our situa- tion as a people, at this time, is in many respects far from satisfactory.
Here are the first lines of the President's annual message, delivered to Con- gress but a few months ago: "Since the convening of Congress, one year ago, the nation has undergone a season of prostration in business and industries such as has not been witnessed with us for many years."
I add. A million of workmen are out of employment-many manufactories are idle-commercial transactions deranged-mines have ceased to be operated, and bankruptcy stares the mercantile world in the face. But let us look fur- ther, are there not greater evils extant in the land? It is a sad truth, that the age in which we live is one of extraordinary moral degeneracy. A reckless dis- regard of the obligations of the moral and civil laws, alike, seems to provade all classes of society, to an alarming extent. It is an age which excuses an act of shrewd selfish villainy, but for an error, or an honest mistake, there is little for- giveness. It is the age of Credit Mobilers, Salary grabs, of gigantic monopolies, Congressional subsidies, rings and jobbery, an age of shoddy tinsel and pre- tense, or innumerable shams and cheats-an age characterized by a wild hunt after office, by extravagance and display, and an insane haste to get rich. This latter evil seems to be the root of the others, to get rich quick, by any means at hand, fair or foul, ignoring the old ways of steady, but slow, and honest accum- ulations.
But this is not all. Every newspaper is filled with the details of the most revolting crimes, but high over all, are the deeds of official and social corrup- tion and financial rottenness. When was there an age so characterized by bribery, defalcationsand breeches of trust, Demagogues everywhere buying their way into office by the grossest bribery, and men violate the most sacred trusts
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with shocking audacity. Corporations, publle and private, are constantly being robbed by their own officers, of enormous sums, and fraud stalks through the land at noon-day, and the deparvity of villainy, seems to be reaching its climax when it seeks, as in many late instances, to excuse it's decds, and make them respectable, by charging, with devilish ingenuity, like crimes upon those of high character, purity of life and honesty of purpose.
But the fact that these things are so, is not the worst feature of the case. As a citizen, and not as a moralist, I assert, that the depraved moral sentiment which excuses and winks at these things, so current over the land, is infinitely more to be deplored than the existence of the facts themselves.
It does seem as though we were cutting loose and drifting away form the ancient moorings.
The fact was that the stringency of the times was steadily in- creasing. For some reason the tide of immigration was turned to other regions further north and west, and two years of partial des- truction of the crops in this county, by grasshoppers, high rates of interest, the calling in of moneys loaned, the urgent collection of debts, all uniting with the general causes above stated, tended to bring about a very discouraging state of affairs here.
The currency, the contraction of the currency, silver, green- back money, strikes, wages of working men, the rights of the labor organizations, were the great political and industrial questions which occupied the public attention, from 1873 to 1879.
During these troublous times, thousands of patriotic hearts breathed the prayers expressed in the following lines:
"God give us men! a time like this demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and honest hands! Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy; Men who posses opinion and a will: Men who have honor, and who will not lie: Men who can stand before a demagogue, And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking. Tall men, sun crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty, and in private thinking, For while the rabble with their thumb-worn creeds, Their large professions and their little deeds Mingled in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps. Wrong rules the land, and waiting Justice sleeps."
MEMORIAL DAY, MAY 30TH.
The day of the dead.
The recurrence this year and every year, of the observance of this day at many places in the county, excuses some reference to it here.
This day is usually called Decoration Day from the principal ceremony incident to it. but by the decree of the society of the Grand Amy of the Republic, is known as Memorial Day. It is now a legal holiday observed in all the states and territories of the Union where the dead of the Union armies rest.
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This holiday grew out of the usages instituted as early as 1862, in a few localities, of decorating the graves of deceased soldiers and sailors.
The custom spread over the country by the force of its very appropriateness, until, finally, the society of the G. A. R. and state legislatures took order in relation to it, and it has met with almost universal approval and observance since.
This is a new red letter day in the American calendar. It bears some similarity, however, to the ancient Roman festival of the Floralia, but simply because of the profuse use of flowers, its an- nual occurrence and celebration in the spring of the year.
In France a custom has existed for some centuries, of decorat- ing the graves of deceased friends, with flowers and evergreens, on a stated day of the spring, and in Germany and England, the cus- tom has existed to some extent in localities.
With us it is a beautiful, but indeed, a solemn celebration, held in commemoration of the brave men who gave their services to the nation in the war for the Union, and fell in the struggle, or have since died.
It is not a holiday devoted to sports, or revelry, or rejoicing, but it is the day when loving remembrance writes upon the graves of its heroic dead in flowers and garlands and evergreens, the words, "In Memoriam."
"A nation mourns her dead to-day; The dead who died our land to save; And brings the freshest bloom of May To lay upon each honored grave."
And we have no national anniversary more worthy of perpet- uation and universal observance, none in which our people manifest a greater or juster pride, none more touching in sentiment, or more true and precious than this, and while the nation lives, and patriot- ism and heroic self sacrifice are honored in this land, it will continue to be celebrated from year to year.
What is the grand story of this day? It is the now old, old story of the war, but it is so great a story it may be often told. Do we even now fully realize and appreciate its vast import and awful grandeur? Let us try to realize its true significance, that as the years go by we forget it not.
That we may do so, it is necessary that we remember that great fact of history, that there arose in this western hemisphere, under the Providence of God, from out of the American Revolu- tion-the great republic. Nothing like it, in the character of its government, or in material, moral or educational progress, or in general beneficence to its people, had ever been seen before in the annals of time. This great nation was founded upon the principles
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of equality, of right, of civil and religious liberty, and self-govern- ment. The governed were declared to be under God, the source of all political power, and that civil government can justly be instituted only by the people and for the people.
Yet the strange anomaly appeared of the existence in the nation from its very foundation, of human chattel slavery in a large por- tion of its area. From this evil grew our bitter contentions and alienations between the two great sections of the Union known as the North and the South. Finally, after almost a century of national progress and prosperity-even in spite of this great evil of slavery -such as no other nation of ancient or modern times had ever known, these contentions, fostered by ambitious and designing men, ripened into open and armed rebellion, on the part of the South, against the authority of the general government.
They insolently defied the authority of the nation, and designed to destroy it by a dissolution of the Union of the States, and the es- tablishment of an adjacent, inimical, and rival nation, based upon the slavery of a large part of its people. No warrant in law, natural, civil, or revealed; nothing in the constitution, or in the nature of the union of the states, in reason or justice, or even in expediency, could be found or alleged as a justification of this act, and its success meant the destruction of the life of the nation.
It was the arm of hell, reached out of perdition, to throttle and strangle the last hope of man-for indeed, the great republic had become the last and only hope of man's political redemption-the refuge of the oppressed of all nations, and when the great shadow fell upon it, millions of hearts in all lands stood still with fear of the result; for they knew, all the world knew, that bound up with that result was the fate of civil and religious liberty, and popular gov- ernment. Ah! how much there was at stake! And how those millions waited, and watched, and prayed! They asked. "can this inconceivable great calamity be prevented?" Who will go forth and enter into the conflict to maintain the Union. the Constitution, the supremacy of the law, and preserve the nation's life-a cause as just and holy as any which ever summoned men to arms since the world began? And the nation's defenders came! From the north, and the west, and the east! From the mountain and the valley, loyal citi- zens, native and foreign born, protestant and catholic, republican and democrat, crowding to the front! It was in the fated year of 1861, the terrifie tempest of blood broke upon the nation, and for four years a war raged such as had rarely ever been seen among the nations of the earth. This great conflict cost billions of treas- sure, and what was of infinitely more importance, nearly half a million of our people, directly and indirectly, gave their lives that our nation might live.
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But for the Union soldiers and sailors, there would now be no national union, no republic, no liberty to enlighten the world. They not only stood for our national life, but they fought the battle of liberty for unborn millions who shall live long after their bones are dust. And in that terrible day of blood, when the heavens were black with the smoke of battle, and the earth trembled with the shock and strife of mighty armies, and deep anxiety was impressed on every heart, it was these brave men who stood between our northern homes, our great cities, our fertile fields, and vast indus- tries, and an insolent, powerful and desperate enemy, who would have laid all waste by fire and sword.
How little we realize these tremendous facts now? But they were realized then with fear and trembling. And in the great struggle, victory came at last for the union cause. Our nation's life was saved! Its enemies destroyed! The curse of slavery abol- ished, four millions of people set free, and peace-oh, blessed peace! -was once more restored to this fair and united land.
But from Sumpter to Appomattox, what a bloody highway! From Ellsworth to Lincoln, what a sacrifice!
From all this it may be inferred, indeed, that this great and bloody contest was not a war of conquest, nor of subjugation, upon the part of the North-it was not a war for plunder, but a war for principles, for rights most sacred, and interests of incalculable value.
And it is a worthy and true remark to make, notwithstanding the sneer of the shallow and disaffected, that it was not the hope of plunder, or promotion, or sordid gain; but it was the deep sense of loyalty to duty and the country that led the soldiers of the republic, from the highest to the lowest, with but indeed few exceptions, to give their lives for this cause. It was this, that, in spite of many mistakes and defeats, gained our victories, and brought the final triumph.
And let us not forget, that, while we would not take one jot or tittle from the honors due the commanding officers during the war, it was, after all, mainly to the private soldiers, many of whom sleep in unknown graves, many of whom fell before they ever knew the victories they had won, that we are indebted for the grandest triumphs of the war. And it is indeed appropriate that in every cemetery decorated this day, there is placed a flower and evergreen tribute to "the unknown dead of the war."
Nor are those to be forgotten who returned to us from the en- sanguined field to enjoy in peace the blessings of a restored Union.
They, too, left all for the same cause for that, for which, by the fortunes of war, their comrades fell. They returned not as a rabble, demoralized and vicious, as some prophesied they would, but as
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peaceful citizens, glad to lay down, after the victory was won, the implements and insignia of war, and enjoy the quiet and rest of home, and the arts of peace.
A grateful country will not forget-has not forgotten them.
And it is now, annually, on this day, by beautiful ceremonies, we seek to honor the memory of the heroic men who went down to death in this holy cause.
Yet it is but little that they can be honored by any act of ours. They honored themselves. They won their own chaplets of immor- tal renown. We can but prove our remembrance, and attest our gratitude, for-
"On fame's eternal camping ground, Their silent tents are spread, And glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead."
It has been appropriately said that like all good deeds, sincerely done, the observance of this day comes to us like a beneficence, for it tends to the elevation of private and national life, and gives us better, clearer ideas of the duties of patriotism. It indeed appeals to our sense of the beautiful, nay, of the grand and sublime, awak- ening those sentiments and aspirations that are best in us all. It testifies our appreciation of the great lessons of heroic death and sacrifice, and the worth of the great boon won for us and the world. It proves, too, withal, our sympathy with the bereaved kindred whose dear ones in the hour of peril offered their lives a sacrifice upon the altar of their country.
It is written, that it is appointed once for all men to die. The soldiers of the Revolution have long since returned to dust. The men who fought the battles of the war of "12" have gone to their final rest. The heroes, who won the victories under the burning suns of Mexico, now living, are but few in number, and the time will come (may it long be delayed) when all the soldiers and sailors of the last war shall rest in
"The low, green tents Whose curtains never outward swing."
Many, weary with the lapse of years, burdened with age and infirmities, now march in the processions on this day to the ceme. teries, with feeble, halting and irregular step; day by day, the num- bers of their comrades here, grow less, and the armies on the other shore grow larger. Many of the great leaders, and thousands of the rank and file are already there. And, in the course of nature, it can- not be long, until, on the great muster roll in the hands of the Angel of Death, the names of those now living will be called, and the prompt response, "here," will be uttered for the last time on earth.
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But there will always, hereafter, be those who shall assemble on this day and strew upon their last resting places beautiful flow- ers and evergreens-symbols of affection and remembrance-sym- bols of the resurrection and of that hope of everlasting life which may await us all.
Yes, we shall come annually in the glorious spring-time, with our tribute of flowers to the memory of the dead, and we shall teach our children of the great work these men did for the Nation and the world, so that when this generation, who lived in the time of the war, shall have passed away, there shall be others to continue so worthy a commemoration.
Heroes "who sleep beneath the sod, And wait the trumpet call of God, Accept the gift we bring to-day."
THE LOCUSTS.
The grasshoppers did no material damage in this county during this year, nor did they lay any eggs. The damage done by them, however, in other parts of the State was very great.
In Blue Earth county, adjoining this on the north, much of the crop was destroyed. To prevent as much as possible their ravages, the county offered a bounty for their destruction. Other counties also offered liberal bounties. According to the official report of the auditor of Blue Earth county, 15,766 bushels were caught and de- stroyed, costing the county $31,255.66.
The following statement exhibits the deposit of eggs for this year:
THE GRASSHOPPER SITUATION. The Mankato Review.
"The grasshoppers have laid their eggs in portions of Brown, Redwood, Lyon, Watonwan, Cottonwood, Murray, Martin and Nobles counties, covering a larger area of country than they did last season.
Then their course was steadily northward, and while, in July their northerly line was in this county, before the season was over they had passed through Nicollet, Le Sueur, Sibley and into Scott and McLeod counties. This year their course is as positively in a southwesterly direction, and from Watonwan and Cottonwood they have advanced upon the northern towns of Martin, Jackson, and Nobles, and no doubt will work their way into Iowa. Measures might be instituted to largely destroy these eggs this fall, and thus the dangers of next year averted. It is not only possible to accomplish that result, but at very much less expense than if they are permitted to hatch."
BREVITES.
Independence Day was duly celebrated under the auspices of the grange at Blue Earth City, on the third day of July, the fourth be- ing Sunday. E. Ayers delivered the address and S. W. Graham was the reader of the Declaration. On the fifth, the day was com- memorated at Delavan.
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The day was very generally observed throughout the State.
A hail storm passed over the county on the twenty-fourth day of July, which did considerable damage, especially in Rome town- ship, where the entire crops of several farmers were destroyed.
The harvest of this year began about the first week in August, being nearly a week later than usual. There was much rain. The small grain was heavy and much of it badly lodged. Some had to be cut with the cradle or the seythe, the ground being so soft. The weather was not favorable, and about the twenty fourth of August, just when the grain was mostly in the shock, very heavy, continuous rains set in, and for quite a while prevented stacking, and did much damage. All kinds of crops were abundant and good prices were obtained. The people were much encouraged until the rains set in. Prices about harvest were as follows: Wheat, 95 @ $1.10, with upward tendency; oats, 40 @ 45; corn, 45 @ 50; potatoes, 40; eggs, 8; butter, 14 @ 15; flour, $2.50 @ $3.00; pork, 12}. Corn was a lit- tle backward, but the stand was good. and much more had been planted this year than for many years previous.
On the seventeenth of August articles of incorporation of the "Driving Park Association of Winnebago City," were adopted, and a certificate published.
A slight frost occurred in this county on the night of August 21st, which did but little injury except that it went down into the bottom lands, looking after the watermelons, which it nipped severely. In the eastern and northern portions of the State, this frost was very severe, and much injury was done in certain localities. A frost so early is quite unusual. It was nearly a month ahead of the ordinary time of frosts.
THE POLITICAL SYMPOSIUM.
The election of this fall was quite an important one, as the follow- ing State officers were to be elected: A Chief Justice of the Su- preme Court, a Governor and Lieutenant Governor. Secretary of State, Auditor of State, Treasurer of State, Attorney General and Railroad Commissioner. John S. Pillsbury, for Governor. and James B. Wakefield, a citizen of this county, for Lieutenant Govenor, were the republican candidates for those offices, and D. S. Buel, for Gov- ernor, and E. M. Durant, for Lieutenant Governor, were the demo- cratic candidates. Four amendments to the State constitution were to be voted upon.
The Republican County Convention was held at Blue Earth City on the fifteenth day of September, Fifty-eight delegates were au- thorized by the call. C. H. Slocum. of Blue Earth City, was chosen
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FARIBAULT COUNTY, MINNESOTA.
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