USA > Minnesota > Redwood County > The history of Redwood County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 52
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The Days that Tried Men's Souls. (By Charles W. Howe.) During the grasshopper years and afterwards for some time,
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the settlers who came to stay and did stay, were nearly at their wits end many times to know how to pull through.
Some years with no crops and other with bumper ones but prices so low that it would not pay to haul the grain to market.
Many a pioneer has staked his all on a crop of oats, has seen them growing from day to day, has changed work with his neigh- bor to get his harvesting done, and again the threshing, to find the price about seven cents per bushel on track.
Wheat was a good crop in those days, but there was nothing to keep the price up. The farmer would sow his seed, pray for rain, almost mortgage his life to get the crop harvested and threshed, to find that thirty-eight cents was a good price for No. 1 hard.
Those were the days that tried men's souls. Some farmers tried sheep but in the season for selling they could get nothing for their wool and possibly fifty cents a carcass for their dressed sheep. Those surely were dark days.
Then the year of the deep snows, when no trains passed; when no engine smoke was seen or familiar whistle was heard from fall until spring. No mail except someone went to New Ulm. Think of ourselves, sitting here in the lap of luxury, in the very center of civilization; enjoying our daily papers, with mail and express from four to six times a day, and then hark back in your mind to the days when the horse or ox team could not or dare not venture out.
Frank Schandera came to the present site of Lamberton in the early seventies and started a general store. He was the only one of the business men who settled here that stuck through the terrible days of grasshoppers and poor prices for crops; he alone braved the storms, making himself useful to his fellow man wherever he could. He broke roads through so that he could drive to New Ulm, for stock for his store. Frank stood by the settler, keeping his family in something to eat and wear when the crops were failures from one source or another for a number of years.
Some of the old settlers, now living, tell the writer that Schan- dera would go down east for a hundred miles or so where the crops were safe and procure work for the settlers of this community during the harvesting and threshing, thereby enabling them to pay up their arrearages, or nearly so, and then he would carry them another year, only to go through it again when the season came.
He drove to New Ulm through the inclement weather, some- times as often as once a week to bring back the mail for the sur- rounding country, because Uncle Sam could only bring it so far on its way. Think of that, reader, you who can go to the postoffice two or three times a day, or can see the postman, rural delivery,
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drive by in all kinds of weather, depositing the daily paper, pub- lished in the city the night before.
We surely have reason to be thankful that such men lived; that the old pioneers braved the storms, the trials and privations of the past that we may now enjoy the privileges of the present.
In a brief fifty years Lamberton has grown to its present proportions, and instead of the times when people lived on the bare necessities of life we are living where the luxuries have become the necessities.
We are living now in the days of $1.50 wheat; of 80 cent corn ; of $10.00 hay ; of $10.00 hogs; in fact, in the day when the farmer gets more for his product than ever before. We talk of the high cost of living, but that high cost comes from the advanced price of the farmer's crops and stock, and the farmer is the backbone of this great free country.
The writer can only touch on the old dark days; only show you of this day some of the trials that were undergone by the old set- tlers, but some of them are with us yet and can tell you more and more of those days that served to burn away the dross in the fires of trouble and bring out the man.
But those days were days that cemented friendships. Those were the days when every man was his neighbor's friend; when each one looked to the other's interests; when there was more of truth and less of sham; more of forgiveness and less of pride.
Those were the days of true community interests when the interests of one were the interests of all. Those were the days when we were nearer old Mother Earth; when we could reach out a greeting hand to all who came.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
COURTS, CASES AND ATTORNEYS.
On June 11, 1849, Alexander Ramsey, the first territorial gov- ernor of Minnesota, issued a proclamation dividing the territory into judicial districts. The Third District consisted of all of the territory south of the Minnesota and west of the Mississippi, and westward to the territorial line. The present Redwood county was included in the Third District with Judge David Cooper on the bench. The first term of court for the district was to be held at Mendota, on the fourth Monday in August.
Redwood county was at that time entirely without settlers.
By act of the legislature, October 27, 1849, the entire territory was divided into counties. Wabashaw county, as designated under the act, was comprised of practically the entire southern
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third of the present state of Minnesota, and the southwestern portion of South Dakota, and thus included the present Redwood county.
Itasca and Wabashaw (as it was then spelled) counties were, for judicial purposes, attached to Washington county, with Judge David Cooper on the bench.
The legislature of 1851, by Chapter 1 of the Revised Statutes, passed January 1, reapportioned the territory into new counties. The present county of Redwood, under the new distribution, was entirely embraced in Dakota county, which county was attached to Ramsey county for judicial purposes.
March 5, 1853, the present Redwood county was included in the county of Blue Earth, which county, by legislative act of that date, was endowed with all the rights of a fully organized county.
February 20, 1855, Brown county was constituted a fully organized county, and included within the boundaries the present Redwood county.
At that time the Indian reservation had been established, but Redwood county had no settlers outside of the government em- ployees, the Indians, and the traders at the Lower Sioux Agency.
Redwood county was created February 6, 1862, and its organi- zation affirmed February 23, 1865, the eastern boundary on the latter date being the same as at present, the western boundary being the state line.
The county then became a part of the Sixth Judicial District, and so remained until March 11, 1870, on which date it became a part of the Ninth Judicial District, the district in which it still remains.
Judge Horace Austin, of St. Peter, went on the bench of the Sixth Judicial district, January 1, 1865. He had jursdiction over Redwood county, but heard no Redwood county cases. He did, however, hold court in Redwood county to hear the so-called New Ulm cases.
Judge M. G. Hanscom, of St. Peter, who had been on the bench of the Sixth district since October 1, 1869, went on the bench of the Ninth district as its first judge, March 11, 1870. He presided over the annual September terms of 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874 and 1875, and the annual June term of 1876 and 1877.
Judge E. St. Julien Cox of St. Peter went on the bench of the Ninth district in 1877. His first official act for Redwood county was an order in chambers at St. Peter, May 23, 1878, dis- pensing with the services of the grand jury for the forthcoming June term. One of the early acts of Judge Cox was his appoint- ment, April 25, 1878, of a commission consisting of Bishop Gordon, Till Tibbetts and M. K. Butterfield, to determine the value of lands and damages incident to the building of the railroad from Sleepy Eye to Redwood Falls. During Judge Cox's term the legal
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business of the county was greatly increased. Two regular annual terms were inaugurated and several special terms were held. Judge Cox's last service in Redwood county was in presiding over the special terms at Redwood Falls, October 21, 1881, and at about this time charges were filed against him asking for his impeachment as judge, and the legislature next convening in January, 1882, heard the charges and he was impeached by it, the principal charge being that of alleged misconduct while sitting on the bench and hearing cases. After his impeachment he again took up the private practice of law at St. Peter, where he lived for about fifteen years thereafter, and subsequently moved to California where he since died.
Judge William Lochren of the Fourth Judicial district, and afterwards United States district judge for the District of Minne- sota, having been appointed such by Grover Cleveland, then president, presided over the term of December, 1881.
Judge Hial D. Baldwin, of Redwood Falls, was appointed to the bench of the Ninth district by Governor Lucius F. Hubbard, April 4, 1882. He held two general terms of court, those of June 6, 1882, and December 5, 1882.
Judge Benjamin F. Webber, of New Ulm, was elected judge of the Ninth Judicial district at the fall election of 1882, and as- sumed the office January 3, 1883, and first presided over a Red- wood county term of court at Redwood Falls, convening June 5, 1883. He continued as judge until October, 1906, when he re- signed, though this term would have expired December 31st fol- lowing. The events following his resignation were quite tragic; having served nearly twenty-four years on the bench of this dis- trict and practically without opposition, at the election in the fall of 1906 he again filed as a candidate. The opposition to his elec- tion was quite strong and he thereupon withdrew as a candidate and resigned his office ; and, after his successor had been appointed and immediately preceding the convening of the fall term of court at New Ulm, his home town, he took his own life, and thus passed one of the oldest judges, both in point of age and service, then upon the bench in the state.
Judge Oscar Hallam of St. Paul, one of the judges of the Second Judicial district, presided over the November, 1906, term, he having been appointed for that purpose by Governor John A. Johnson, pending the election of a successor to Judge Webber.
Judge I. M. Olsen of Sleepy Eye, the present judge, went on the bench of the Ninth Judicial district, by appointment of Governor John A. Johnson, November 15, 1906, he having just been elected judge of the district at the November election to succeed Judge Webber, then resigned. Judge Olson's first term in Redwood county was that of April, 1907.
The present officers of the court are W. G. Weldon, clerk;
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Albert H. Enersen, county attorney ; Frank J. Hassenstab, sheriff ; and W. T. Eckstein, official reporter.
The first term of the District Court held in Redwood county was for the purpose of a grand jury inquiry into the New Ulm murder cases. The hearing was held above the store of Louis Robert, beginning June 18, 1867. Two soldiers, returning from a trapping expedition, had entered a saloon at New Ulm, an alter- cation ensued in which one of the merry-makers at the saloon was killed, the two soldiers had been taken to a hall, a mob verdict passed against them, and after being killed by stabbing had been thrust through the ice of the Minnesota river, their bodies being mutilated in the process. There being no opportunity for a fair trial at New Ulm, Judge Austin ordered the hearings heard at Redwood Falls, which was likewise in his jurisdiction. Later a trial in the same cases was held at St. Peter.
The attorneys employed in the case at Redwood Falls were: William Colville, attorney general; Sam McPhail, county at- torney, and S. A. Buel, for the prosecution ; Judge C. E. Flandrau of St. Paul, C. T. Clothier, Francis Baasen and John M. Dorman, all of New Ulm, for the defense. At the first hearing at Redwood Falls the citizens of New Ulm rallied in such numbers to the support of the prisoners that courthouse square was covered with their tents as they encamped during the hearing. They were present again at the adjourned hearing at Redwood Falls in September, but in small numbers.
The first regular term of the District Court of Redwood county opened in Redwood Falls, September 13, 1870, in a small building on Second street, between Washington and Mill streets, with Judge Horace Austin on the bench. The grand jury found no indictments. The case of William Beard v. J. Wilson Paxton, ap- pealed from the justice court, came for consideration and the judgment of the lower court was affirmed. A divorce case was also on the calendar.
A demurrer was filed in the case of Birney Flynn vs. the Board of County Commissioners. This case, which was afterward dismissed, was an interesting one. Mr. Flynn was clerk of court from January 1, 1866, to January 1, 1870. At that time no court was being held for Redwood county. Mr. Flynn, however, acted as clerk of the sessions held in Redwood Falls in June and Sep- tember, 1867, at which the New Ulm cases were tried. For serv- ices at these two sessions, and for the alleged use of his home as his office, he sued the county commissioners, and the case hung fire for some time before it was finally dropped.
The first jury trial before the district court in Redwood county was held in September, 1871. The case is interesting as a picture of pioneer life and law. Browning Nichols, of Rochester, on his way to a townsite in which he was interested in Lac qui Parle
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county, stopped over night at Redwood Falls, and fell in with D. L. Bigham. With Mr. Bigham, he traded his pair of horses and a harness for land in the village of Redwood Falls, on which many important business establishments are now located. Mr. Nichols secured the deed to the lots and continued on his way with his horses. One of the animals died on the trip. On his return, Mr. Nichols placed the remaining horse, the tail of the dead horse, and the harness, in Mr. Bigham's stable. On the advice of an attorney, Mr. Bigham turned the horse loose, and threw out the harness and tail. He then brought suit against Mr. Nichols. In the District court trial, Mr. Bigham was represented by M. E. Powell and Hial D. Baldwin, while Sam McPhail and E. St. Julien Cox appeared for Mr. Nichols. The jurors in the case were W. W. Byington (foreman), S. J. F. Ruter, Ezra Post, George Pryor, Sr., L. J. Russell, L. B. Newton, James Longbottom, Bishop Gordon, S. M. Stowell, J. P. O'Hara, Casper Stowell and J. M. Little. The whole case hinged on whether the horse had passed into Mr. Bigham's possession at the time of the transfer of the lots and before Mr. Nichols had taken the trip. The evidence tended to show that the delivery of the horses was not to take place until they were actually turned over to Mr. Bigham. After the trial the jury retired for deliberation to a small building near the room in which the court had met. Through the door and window their deliberations could plainly be seen by the specta- tors. While the deliberations were proceeding, the parties con- cerned reached an agreement by which Mr. Bigham was to be restored all his land except one lot, and he was to assist Mr. Nichols in locating the horse, which in the meantime had wan- dered away. The court records show a sealed verdict in favor of the plaintiff and a notice of an appeal, but this is often called the case with no verdict, owing to the fact that a compromise had been reached when the sealed verdict was opened.
THE BAR.
M. E. Powell, the Nestor of the bar in Redwood county, is not now in active practice, but is still a member of the bar. The next oldest in point of service is former Senator Frank Clague, of Redwood Falls. The other Redwood Falls lawyers are A. R. A. Laudon, the present judge of probate; and A. C. Dolliff. Albert H. Enersen, the county attorney practices at Lamberton as does Anthony J. Praxel. W. R. Werring practices at Morgan. A. F. Goblirsch has been until recently located at Wabasso. There are, therefore, but six active members of the bar in this county, and two of those are occupying county offices.
Sampson R. B. McPhail, usually called Sam McPhail, and some- times erroneously called Samuel McPhail, was the first lawyer in
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Redwood county. He founded Redwood Falls in 1864. He was the first judge of probate and first county attorney, and continued in active practice as long as he remained here.
The second attorney in Redwood county was Major M. E. Powell, who arrived in April, 1867, and is still the Nestor of the Redwood county bar. He was one of the early county attorneys.
Coulter Wiggins started the practice of law in Redwood Falls in 1868. He succeeded Col. McPhail, both as judge of probate and as county attorney.
W. H. Cook arrived in Redwood Falls in 1869, George H. Meg- quire in 1870, and Hial D. Baldwin in 1870. Mr. Megquire be- came a leading figure in Renville county affairs, while Mr. Bald- win served Redwood county as district judge, judge of probate, and clerk of court.
J. Wilson Paxton, who arrived in the early days, was a lawyer as well as clergyman, but his name appears in the district court records as a case attorney but once.
In 1878, the attorneys of Redwood Falls were Hial D. Bald- win, John H. Bowers, M. E. Powell and Alfred Wallin. In 1880, Frank L. Morrell had joined H. D. Baldwin of Redwood Falls and Samuel R. Miller of Beaver Falls, in the Redwood Falls con- cern of Baldwin, Miller & Morrell. In 1884 Clarence T. Ward had been added to the bar as a partner of H. D. Baldwin. In 1888 M. M. Madigan had become a member of the Redwood Falls bar. M. C. Roberts practiced a few months in the eighties. In 1894 the firm of (H. D.) Baldwin, (W. J.) McLeod & (B. F.) Fowler, appeared. In 1894 W. L. Pierce had been added to the bar. Two new firms, Baldwin (H.D.) & Patterson (E. C.) and Chadderdon (Joseph) & Stuart (David), appeared. E. E. Har- riott became a member of the bar in 1900. In 1902 the firm of Pierce (S. L.) & Harriott (E. E.) appeared, as did the firm of Bowers (J. H.) & Howard (C. T.), while Frank Clague (county attorney, Lamberton), A. C. Dolliff and A. R. A. Laudon had been added to the Redwood Falls bar. The name of S. L. Pierce was added to the bar in 1904. In 1906 C. T. Howard started in prac- tice alone. Wm. O. Owens appeared in 1910.
The first lawyer in Lamberton was Michael M. Madigan. In 1882 George Libby and the firm of Thorp (D. M.) & Whitney (B. H.) were added to the practitioners there. After Madigan moved to Redwood Falls in the late eighties, several years passed in which there were no attorneys in Lamberton. In 1894 the firm of Anderson (Christopher H.) & Clague (Frank) appeared. A. E. Edwards had joined the bar of the village in 1896 and in 1897 moved to Morgan. In 1898 Frank Clague was still in practice there, and Warren Miller and A. H. Mohler had been added to the list. In 1902 Albert H. Enersen had joined the bar of the county and he and Frank Clague constituted the only law firm
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in Lamberton, the firm name being Clague & Enersen. In 1910, Anthony J. Praxel had been added to the list. Senator Clague soon afterwards moved to Redwood Falls, leaving the Messrs. Enersen and Praxel as the only attorneys in that village.
D. M. Thorp was the first lawyer in Walnut Grove. In 1882 he had been succeeded by the firm of Thorp (D. M.), Quarton (J. M.) & Whitney (B. H.), which firm in 1884 had been succeeded by Thorp & Quarton. After that the village was without lawyers for several years. William H. Gooler was located there in 1900. He remained for several years. In 1904 William G. Owens and J. Ed. Rostad were the practicing attorneys there. In 1908 William G. Owens and Arthur M. Morfin were the lawyers there. Since that time Walnut Grove has had no attorneys.
The first lawyer in Morgan was Albert E. Edwards, in 1896-97, and was followed by Albert Hauser, who appeared in the directory of 1900. He was followed by the present Morgan attorney, Wayne R. Werring, whose name first appears in the directory of 1908.
Pierce (Squire L.) & Harriott (Edw. E.) first appear in the Wabasso directory of 1902. The name of Albert W. Mueller ap- peared in 1904. The name of Albert F. Goblersch appeared in 1914. Mr. Goblersch recently left the county, leaving Wabasso without an attorney.
F. E. Sylvester, a banker, is an attorney, and until his recent removal to Morton, in this state, where he is now engaged in banking, was a member of the Redwood county bar at Seaforth, his name first appearing in the directory in 1908.
Thomas R. Brownlee practiced in Sanborn a short time, his name first appearing in the directory of 1898.
MURDERS.
Edward McCormick, in the early seventies, was found dead at his home, where he lived alone, and an autopsy revealed that he had died from strychnine poisoning. His brother, Patrick, was held for several months, but was discharged for lack of evidence.
Samuel T. Alexander shot and killed Charles Mower on the streets of Redwood Falls July 21, 1885. He was subsequently tried by the district court and acquitted. Mower lived in Mis- souri. His daughter was the wife of Alexander. Leaving Alexan- der in Missouri, Mower and his family started for Minnesota and had passed through Redwood Falls on their way toward points further northwest. On their return they located temporarily in Redwood Falls. With them was a man named Petit. To Redwood Falls Alexander followed the family and on a July Sunday morn- ing, when the streets were filled with people accosted Petit and a Mower boy on the street and began shooting at them. Later encountering Mower at the corner of Mill and Chestnut streets
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in front of the old Canada house, he emptied his revolver at him. Several shots taking effect and the last shot, one through the head, proving fatal. The shooting was witnessed by dozens of the county's leading citizens who testified to the cold blooded facts, but for some reason the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. Alexander himself acknowledged that he had no griev- ance against Mower and that his only anger was against Petit, of whom he was jealous and whom he alleged was planning to marry his wife.
John Gorres, a prominent farmer living in Willow Lake town- ship, killed a hired man, John Rosenkranz, with a pitchfork, in the spring of 1888. The story was that he went home much the worse for liquor, encountered Rosenkranz in the barn and there mur- dered him. He was tried before the district court, was sentenced to six and a half years at Stillwater, and after serving for a while he was parolled and eventually pardoned. He died in Willow Lake not long ago. His life, after his release, was an exemplary one and he became a respected member of the community as, in fact, he had always been before the crime.
Clifton Holden was indicted for murder November 28, 1888, was sentenced to death by hanging, had this commuted to life imprisonment by the government, went insane at state's prison at Stillwater and was taken to the insane asylum at Rochester and there died. Before the governor granted his reprieve, the Supreme Court had reviewed the case January 14, 1890, and had affirmed the sentence of the lower court.
The story of the crime is quickly told. At about 7 o'clock in the evening of Friday, November 23, 1888, the defendant and the deceased, Frank Dodge, left the village of Morton, to drive in a buggy to the village of Redwood Falls, a distance of seven miles. At a later hour of the same evening the defendant came, with the team, to a hotel in Redwood Falls, where he remained that night. At an early hour the following morning the dead body of Dodge was found lying at the side of a street in Redwood Falls. He had been shot, the ball having entered the head on the back side, and passed through the brain. Saturday evening, the 24th of Novem- ber, the defendant was arrested for the homicide, and imprisoned in a room used for the purposes of a jail. Subsequently, Holden told two different stories: One was that he had left Dodge in Redwood Falls and had never again seen him alive. The other was that Dodge killed himself while riding in a team with him and that he subsequently left his body by the side of the road. The testimony was voluminous but in substance showed as fol- lows: That the weapon was discharged very close to the head of the deceased, the hair being burned about the wound; the dis- covery of appearances of blood upon the defendant's overcoat, which the defendant said must have got on the coat when he was
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getting the body of the deceased out of the buggy; the appear- ance of blood, also, in the buggy, and on the robe used in the buggy; the fact that the deceased probably had a roll of money in bills, to the amount of about $100 including a new $20 bill, and that, while immediately after the homicide the defendant pro- fessed to have no more than about four or five dollars in money, he had in his possession some $80 in bills, including a $20 bill; that after his arrest he attempted to conceal this money, so that the sheriff should not find it; that appearances of blood were found on the money; that the defendant, according to his own statement, threw away the pistol which he had before the homi- cide, and it was not afterwards found; that the bullet was of the proper size to fit the defendant's pistol. The overcoat and robe and money were exhibited to the jury as evidence, and attention was called to the marks claimed to have been blood-stains.
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