USA > Minnesota > Renville County > The history of Renville County, Minnesota, Volume I > Part 33
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Wellington. June 4. 1873, township 113, range 32, which since April 2, 1867, had been a part of Mind Lake (name changed to Cairo, July 8, 1869), was organized as Wellington and an elec- tion ordered for June 17, 1873, at the home of William Carson.
Winfield. A petition was presented to the board April 17, 1878, praying for the organization of township 116, range 35, as Liberty. The petition was granted and the first meeting ordered to be held at the home of Uriek Julson May 4, 1878. There was evidently some informality about this organization. as on Deceni- ber 3, 1878, another petition was granted, organizing and naming the town. Three days later the same petition was again granted and an election to be ordered to be held at the home of D. John Johnson. The board was notified by the state auditor that another township in the state had been given the name Liberty, therefore named Winfield. Under the general act of 1876 Winfield was attached to Henryville in 1875 and to Troy March 21, 1876.
Chippewa City. September 2. 1868, the election district of Chippewa City was established. Its eastern boundary was the present western boundary of Renville county, extended north to the northern line of township 117. Its northern boundary was the north line of township 117. Its other boundary was the Minnesota river. The election was to be held at the home of Daniel G. Wilkins. The counties of Chippewa, Lae qui Parle and Big Stone were each constituted election districts.
Changes in Names, Osceola was formerly known as Canton; Norfolk as Houlton, Benton and Marschner: Beaver Falls as Beaver ; Winfield as Liberty and Crooks as Aurora.
General Act. A resolution was passed by the board July 28, 1875, attaching all unorganized townships and territories to organized townships lying directly south of such unorganized territory. Under this act Martinsburg was attached to Welling- ton; Troy and Winfield to Henryville ; Winfield to Troy (March 21, 1876), and Crooks to Emmet.
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CHAPTER NIX.
PIONEER EXPERIENCES.
Stories of the Tribulations and Joys of Frontier Life Told by Men Who Underwent the Rigors of Early Settlement-Bliz- zards and Disasters-Long Trips in Wintry Weather-Sod Houses and Ox Teams-Grasshoppers and Indians.
Gunerus Peterson. There are many stories of the early days of which the younger people know nothing. Sometimes when 1 look over the landscape and see the cows grazing everywhere I think of the pioneer times when the settlers were fortunate even if they had one eow and when milk and cream and butter were luxuries highly esteemed. In the spring of 1872 our only cow died. leaving us with a young calf. We were used to getting along without much food ourselves, but how to keep the calf alive was a great problem. Finally my wife started out, and at a neighbor's house three miles to the southward she discovered that she could get skim milk for ourselves and for the calf. So for a month she made the six-mile trip every day, carrying a pail in each hand. The calf was kept from starving and we were kept alive ourselves, but it was such experiences as these that implanted the rheumatism into the muscles and bones of the pioneer women which causes them suffering even today.
In winter I took trips to the Minnesota river to get some green elm. I did not have a timepiece, but used the stars to tell the time. At one time I intended to start about four o'clock in the morning, but I made a mistake and started so early that I got to the river before daylight. It is a good thing I did, for I did not get back until after dark that night. I walked all the way, driv- ing the oxen. We did not have fur overcoats and warm over- shoes in those days. The warmest thing I had on was a pair of overalls. On my feet was a rough pair of cowhide boots.
Just after New Years, 1874, my neighbors had taken a con- tract to haul some grain to New Uhn for a farmer living on the river bluffs, and as I had just got hold of a pair of steers they gave me a chance to earn a little money by going with them. We started early in the morning. The roads were iey and as my steers had not been broken I had many difficulties. I wanted to keep the steers in the road and they wanted to make for a bare spot. Finally the sled I had borrowed was smashed and i had to stop for repairs, while the other men went on. When I got started again I had gone but a short distance when I saw a barn by the side of the road. The steers also saw the barn and made directly for it. Nothing I could do could get them away, they preferred the shelter of the barn to the trip to New Ulm. But
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finally a man came along with a good black snake whip and he got the steers back into the road for me.
I reached New Ihn abont dark and found the other men. The question was where we would stay for the night. We had no money to stop at the hotel, we could not sleep in the mill base- ment with the oxen. So we went to sleep in the boiler room. Finally the fireman came and drove us away. He said. however, that we could sleep on top of the boiler. While one side of us kept warm in that way the other side was cold, for while there was still a little steam in the boiler there was scarcely any roof overhead.
On our way home we were caught in a storm which lasted three days. So the trip at five cents a bushel for hauling the grain was not a very profitable one. During my absence my family had been having a hard time. Everything was covered with show. The door was snowed up solid and in order to get to the stable and also to get wood my family had to ent out the post in the window and get out that way. When I got back the only evidence of human habitation in all that vast streteh of snow was some smoke arising apparently from the snow. It was smoke coming from the stovepipe, the rest of the dng-out being buried.
At another time I had an interesting experience with a Mime- sota winter. One night after Ihad attended to my stork I did not close up all the openings in my sod stable. for the weather was so warm I feared that my stock would suffer. In the night a terrible storm broke. I went ont scantily clad and closed up the stable, but in going the few rods to my dng-ont I lost my way. Finally I took a big fall. As I righted myself I called out with all my strength, but could not make myself heard in the wind. I took a few steps, got the snow ont of my eyes and was surprised to see a light shining. It was the light in the only window in my dug-ont. I had fallen off the roof. Had it not been that I landed so near the window I would probably have lost my life.
E. J. Butler. A dug-out in the side of the ravine in Erie town- ship, Rice county, this state, was the scene of my birth. July 20. 1861. my parents having come from Worcester, Mass., the pre- vious spring. We lived there until the summer of 1869, when we moved to the township of West Newton, Nicollet county, Minn., making the trip with a team of oxen and a covered wagon. The trip took two weeks and I walked all the way, driving ten or twelve head of cattle which we took with us. After arriving at our destination we lived in the covered wagon until we conkl build a rude shanty. It was made of poles and banked with sod on the outside and covered with slough grass.
Early on the morning of February 22, 1874, when a terrible blizzard was raging. our shanty caught fire and we were driven out into the storm and had to seek refuge in the straw shed where
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we kept our stock. The younger children were not yet up when the fire broke out and we tried to keep them warm with blankets and covered them with hay. The older ones had to walk up and down behind the stock to keep warm. We lost everything we had. Abont five in the afternoon the storm had abated somewhat and my father hitched up the team and drove over to our nearest neighbor, Patrick Berry, to get help. He hitched up his team and, armed with all the blankets he could find, came to bring us to his home. We reached the Berry place at about eight o'clock in the evening, almost famished with hunger and very cold. The neighbors were very good to us and helped us as best they could. all being on the same level.
The next spring we built up another shack and sowed some erops, but in July of that year the grasshoppers came and destroyed nearly every crop that we had. We fought the grass- hoppers for four years and saw some very hard times during that time. but we managed to pull through, having quite a large mm- ber of cattle, which was a great help. We finally built a better house of logs, but in July, 1881, the cyclone struck us and took off the roof and four heights of logs. We fixed it up again and in the fall of 1882 sold what little we had and came to Renville county, settling on the southeast quarter of section 34. township 113 ( Wellington), range 32. I stayed with my parents until the summer of 1886, when I took up a homestead, on which I have resided over since.
Charles H. Hopkins. My parents and Family moved from Wisconsin to Cairo township. Renville county. in the spring of 1869 and settled on a quarter section of land on the Fort Ridgely Reserve. They selected one for me within one mile of their own : and Leame on and took possession of it in the latter part of Decem- ber the same year. When I arrived at my parents' home I was informed on the first evening that some other parties were claiming that they were going to have that piece of land : so before light the next morning I was on my way with a yoke of cattle to the Fort Ridgely creek ravine to get material to build a house, and in order that I might get it built that day I took poles that one man could handle easily. I eut the poles, hauled them and built the house the same day, except the shingling. and slept there that night with witnesses. The next morning a man called and asked me what I was doing on his land. I then asked him how it came to be his land, and he said that every one knew that he was going to take that piece. I told him that he could now tell every one that I had taken it, built a house on it and was living on it. Ile accepted the inevitable and took a claim for himself some three miles distant.
My father built his house out of green water elm lumber, and as the old settlers will remember, it would shrink and warp.
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Money was searee and hard to get and they did not have the wherewithal to buy lime and lath. The only protection they had in the cold winter of 1869 and 1870 was old newspapers pasted between the studdings onto the inch elm boards, which had shrunk and cracked np, making the air circulation very plentiful. It made a very healthy sanitorium and when we had those old-time blizzards it was dangerons to be out of doors. We would stand around the red hot stove, and while one side would be burning the opposite side would be freezing and part of the time we would be jumping around the room exercising to help keep warm. Going to bed early and getting up late was the court of last resort. and we were all obliged to take advantage of it. We want everything good to eat these days, but then many times our appetites were a long way ahead of our eatables.
Having been brought up in a part of New York state where the stones were so thick it was hard work sometimes to find dirt to cover the seed when planting, and where my father had paid $100 for one-half an acre to build him a home on, it was a privi- lege to come to the town of Cairo and find such rich and fertile land and all free. I was very much enthused with the future prospects of this county. I kept my little house, which was 9x11, one story, one door and half a window. supplied with furniture and eatables. When I was at home I tied the string on the inside to a nail and when I was away it was tied to a nail on the outside, literally carrying out the saying that the latch string was always ont. I also posted up a sign. "Go in and make yourselves at home, " and also kept a little dog, leaving a hole in the side for him to go in and out, so that when any one came along he would go ont and bark, which made a good appearance showing that some one was "on the job." As my folks only lived a mile away one of the children would go over two or three times a week and take him food, which made it possible for him to hold down the claim for me for two years until I prevailed upon Mrs. Hopkins to join issues with me. But many a time when I would come home after being away some time I would find a note reading something like this :
"Friend Charles-Did not find you at home. Accept thanks for your kind hospitality. Helped ourselves to supper and break- fast. Call and get even. Yours truly, (Signed.) "
I will give my first experience of one of the old time Mine- sota blizzards. There was fine timber on the Minnesota bottoms on goverment land that was free to all for their own personal use, but they could not sell any of it. I was very ambitions to get my share of it while it was going. That late fall and Decem- ber had been quite severe and abont two feet of snow had fallen
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upon the level. and as every one of the settlers went to the river for their wood those days the winter road had raised up about three feet.
About January 5, 1870, it commenced to thaw, and on the morning of the sixth I concluded that we were going to have a breakup and went to the woods that day in my shirt sleeves. As I had been here but a short time I had not made any acquaint- anees. That same day there were three other men with horse teams who came into the woods near me and commenced to ent their loads also. We had about got our loads ent, they not speaking to me or I to them, when I noticed that they had thrown off their loads as fast as they could, hitehed up their teams and hurried out of the woods. I could not understand what it meant until Iheard a roaring sound like thunder and wind storm in summer. I commeneed to look around and was looking off southwest through the tops of the trees when I saw what would be a wind and rain cloud in summer, ereamy white below and dark rolling clouds above. By the time I had gotten my load on and ready to start for home the storm was there, with a wind and snow blowing sixty miles an hour and getting colder and colder. By the time I was out of the woods I could not see a foot away from my face, but I had an old yoke of cattle and on that account I reasoned that it was best to let them do just as they wanted to, as the storm was so severe I could not tell where we were at any time. We used to lengthen ont our reaches so that we could hanl poles fifty or sixty feet long and load about four feet high, and when I eame to the Minnesota bluff I did as I had always done before, carried about half of the load of poles up the hill on my baek and then drove up the oxeu and loaded it on again and started for home, which was about three miles away. Now, while selfishness is the foundation for the most of all contentions in this world, and it is a hard matter to find a case where it is per- missible, it did serve me a good turn at this time, for on account of my selfishness and ambition to get that load home that day, and on account of it being a full load it made a wind break that I could walk back and forth behind and keep from freezing, and it made it possible for me to breathe, as no one could breathe in those blizzards without a wind break, the snow being so fine and the wind so strong. The cattle would stop sometimes and I would crawl up to find out the trouble and find their eyes crusted over with iee, and when I would break it off they would go again. Those times there were no groves around the houses and the snow had formed drifts as high as the roofs, but had left a clear space about eight feet elose around the house and clear to the ground. As long as the oxen kept going I knew they would bring up some- where. All at once we went down into a hole of some kind, and I knew we were at someone's home, though I could not see the
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house two feet away. To my surprise I found that it was our own place.
We got the oxen in the barn and fed them and we could not get to the barn again for three days. That night I tried to chop up some of the ash poles for wood. and the wind whipped around the house with such foree that when I would try to strike down with the bit of the ax it would turn in my hand. It was the best I could do. and the head of the ax would strike the stick. In order to cut the wood we had to take poles into the house end ways. leaving one end out with the door partly closed and saw it up that way. and when you consider that it was thirty degrees below zero and blowing sixty miles an hour it was a very interest- ing time at our house, and it also convinced us that if we got through until spring we would do our part to give back the land to the Indians by moving away. Before the storm my folks had gotten nearly out of flour and had urged me not to wait too long before I should go to the West Newton mill for Hour. but those nice ash poles on the government land were going very fast and I was anxious to get my share of them, and had put it off one day more until the storm found us with the flour barrel about empty, and with a family of ten and all good feeders. We happened to have two sacks of bran in the house, so by sieving that over. we had some rather coarse bread, but it tasted as good to us as though it had been made of the best. We not only sieved it over once but three times before we got through the storm. and it still tasted good. The fourth morning we could get out on foot, but not with teams, so I started for a place where my father had built a house for a settler that summer and we had something coming for our work. This was about three and one-half miles away, and I started back with sixty pounds of flour on my back. Now the erust would just about hold me up without any load. but with the load on my back I would shunp through. Well I would carry it a ways slumping through the snow and would drag it a piece and repeat. and finally got home about sundown, which made it about the hardest stunt that I ever was mixed up in, but it was soon forgotten with the splendid appetites that we all had. and when mother had a big batch of biscuits that she excelled in. So we all went to bed that night at peace with all the world. Now this is only one of the many incidents of the early years of our settlement of this county. There is not an old settler that came to this country at that time but what could set down and after he had written up the history of his own experiences it would make a large book of very interesting reading.
O. T. Ramsland. C. Arestad and family and I moved from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to the town of Wang, this county, in March. 1876, where we bought a farm. one yoke of oxen and farm implements. One bright morning I started with oxen and
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wagon to Willmar (thirty-eight miles) after our household goods, shipped from Eau Claire. The weather was fine, the snow had melted and ereeks and sloughs were filled with water. The first day I got within nine miles of Willnar. The next day it snowed all day. Arriving at Willmar I found that the freight charges on our goods was $31. I had only $15 and could not get any of the goods without paying the freight on the whole. I was a stranger in a strange land ; not a soul did I know. I went into a store (Paulson & Sunde) and told them my trouble. Paulson said: "I feel like helping this boy out, I think he will pay us back." I promised to do so, and I did. I do not know that I ever met Paulson since, but his kindness to me I never forgot, and have in a small way tried to act like Paulson and help some who are in need. When the whole freight was paid I concluded to take all the goods. I had a wagon shipped from Eau Claire. Tying one wagon behind the other I loaded all the goods on and started for home. I got back to where I stopped the first night. It had snowed all day and froze hard in the night. I was abont twenty-nine miles from home and at every slough and creek I came to and had to eross I had to tramp and crush the ice before the oxen could cross. When I got to Hawk creek the water went up to my arms. It was dark and I lost the road. Wet, hungry and lost 1 unhitched the oxen and started for the nearest house. Arriving there they told me that I was only one and one-half miles from home, and directed me where to go. I said: "No, you must go with me, I am lost." A boy went with me, and after the change of clothes, food and rest I was all right.
We bought one more yoke of oxen and seeded in about sixty acres of grain. When spring work was finished I started in breaking. I broke part of the farm that Ingvald Flaten now owns, and ten acres for Mr. Glenore. At the close of the break- ing season I got notice from the parties of whom we bought the farm to vacate, as they again had homesteaded the same. We had bought the farm from John and Olof Sundeen. JJohn had homesteaded but not proved up. We paid $500 for improvements and what property they had and John relinquished in my favor. When the papers came back from the land office I paid the filing fee. got certificate of my filing and felt secure, but trouble was brewing. The Sundeen brothers, of whom we bought the farm. learned that I had not my citizens papers and thereupon Olof Sundeen went to Litchfield and homesteaded on the same land. On learning this I started on foot to Willmar. To walk across the unsettled prairie, thirty-eight miles, in those days was nothing. I went to see John W. Arclander, who then practiced law there. I stated my case, showed him my filing papers and John said : "You are crazy my boy, you have perjured yourself." I answered : "I have sworn to nothing." He asked how I got the
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paper and I said I sent $2 to the land office, told them what I wanted and they sent them to me. Ile then swore at the land officers and said they ought to be behind the bars for letting a man file on land without knowing whether or not he was a citizen.
He then asked me where I had lived since coming to America. I told him and he said : "Have you ever lived in Chicago?" I told him I had not. lle said: "That is hell! If you had you conld swear your papers were burned in the great Chicago fire." Ile asked if I was afraid of the Sundeens and I said "No!" "Then you must bluff them out. Get your citizen papers at once. Go home and work as if nothing had happened. and if they come to drive you off say that you have come to stay." The bluff worked; after one or two attempts to get us off they left the county.
Ex-Governor Austin had a Hour mill in Minnesota Falls in those days. I agreed with his miller to take twenty barrels of flour, ten barrels in each load to Wilhnar.
I got stuck with one of my loads in a slongh and both teams could not pull it ont. I unloaded one load on dry ground, got the empty wagon alongside the one that was stnek and rolled seven barrels onto it. By hitching two teams to each wagon I got out. But the work of getting the ten barrels into the wagon again alone was a job I never will try to do again.
The fifth. sixth and seventh of July the grasshoppers came. We smoked and burned, and, I think, drove some away, but what was a fine sixty-acre field, gave us only 285 bushels of grain. When fall work was over I went to school in Granite Falls the following winter. Thus ended my first summer in Renville county.
James Drake. We came to Renville county in the fall of 1867, and it was the most desolate looking country we ever saw, not a tree in sight as far as the eye could reach and only four houses in sight of our elaim. The first two winters I trapped muskrats, as the skins were a medim of barter in those days, and I bought my first seed wheat with them, besides getting things for the house. Our nearest market was New I'hm, twenty miles away, and it took two days to go there and back with an ox team. 1 drove oxen for seven years and was getting along fairly well when we had the grasshopper plague for four years. Those were stremious times and we had hard work to keep the wolf from the door, but we managed to live through it all. There is always a silver lining to the darkest cloud. I would not like to go through those times again.
A. D. Corey. R. R. Corey and Family landed in Renville county August 5, 1865. The first white man we saw that after- noon was Carl Holtz, who had been in the timber there at Meyer's old shanty for wood. A little while after we had established our
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camp we heard some one peeking away with an ax. Thinking it might be Indians, my brother George and I each took a gun and crawled through the brush to investigate. We found the same Carl Holtz and he had caught a couple of little young skunks out of a cellar. We went up to him and he said that he thought they were kittens. My brother said: "If you didn't know any better than to catch a skunk you ought to be shot, whether an Indian or a white man." It amused our father to think a man was foolish enough to catch a skunk.
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