Becker County, Minnesota - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 1 of those read), 1907 (part 12 of 16)

I did not run many of the section lines in the town of Holmesville as I went down to Sherman's at Oak Lake about the loth of December and was there a week or two writing up field notes, and Albert Daniels ran the compass during my absence. While I was at Sherman's, S. B. Pinney rented a log building of Sherman in which to store some goods and groceries. He had a contract for getting out the ties for the Northern Pacific road in Becker County. He brought with him a sleek looking young man by the name of Ole A. Boe to take charge of the supplies. It was not many days before the store house opened out as a full-fledged store.

There was no one living within the limits of the present town of Holmesville at that time, but early in the spring of 1871, Swan Olund located on the southwest quarter of Section 6, and is clearly the first settler in the township.

Chris Bjorge had cut a road around by the north shore of Cotton Lake and the south shore of Tamarack Lake. The swamps were not yet frozen hard enough to bear up a team and we could go no farther north without crossing a swamp, so all of Grand Park was surveyed from our camp on the east shore of Pine Lake.

We began work in the southeast corner of the township where the surveys of all the townships are supposed to commence, and as our camp was within a mile and a half of the west boundary it took nearly half of our time to go to and from our work. We generally ran lines all day long and as late in the evening as we could see to read the figures on the compass, usually getting farther away from camp all the time, and when it was too dark to survey any more we would start for camp, frequently having to travel four or five miles in the dark taking a good many chances of missing our way and all sleeping out in the woods or breaking into some treacherous spring hole, or walking into some air-hole in the ice, but we always found our way to the camp without serious accident. On the day after Christmas the weather turned intensely cold and remained so for ten days. The mercury must have been 30° to 45° below zero every day during that time. I ran the meander lines around Height of Land Lake during that spell of cold weather and one of my men froze his feet so badly that he had to stay in camp for a whole week. Every day some of us would freeze our faces and the nights were too cold for us to sleep comfortably in a tent. Frequently in the night someone would get up and build a fire and warm up a little, but I always got up and ate a lot of pork and beans when I was cold and went back to bed and let the fire go, finding that would warm me up better and more permanently than to sit around a fire on an empty stomach. A day or two before New Year's Day, I came near losing a man by the name of Shira. I had been running lines in the northwest part of the township and at dark came to Tamarack Lake on Section 18 a little south of where the Dahl family has. since lived for several years. We here struck across Tamarack Lake and traveled southwest across the bay on the ice around the point of land that projects out into the lake at the corner of Sections 13, 24, 18 and 19 and then followed the east shore to where the line between Sections 19 and 30 intersect the lake. Here we were about to leave the lake and follow the section line east through the woods to camp, when we discovered that Shira was missing. He was subject to epilepsy and as it was 40° below zero and a blizzard raging I became alarmed for his safety. I sent the other men on to the camp and went back to look for him. In doing so I was obliged to face a gale from the northwest and it was not long before my cheeks were frozen so hard that I could not shut my eyes. This was not the first time in my life, however, that this had happened, so I was not alarmed, but kept on around the point and back to where we left Shira, a distance of at least two and a half miles. I there found by his tracks that he had started through the woods in the direction of the camp preferring to tear through the brush and timber and take his chances on getting lost, than to face the storm on the lake. I did not attempt to follow him, but went back by the way of the lake. When I reached the camp, Shira was there, but he had run a narrow risk of freezing to death as he had broken through into some springs and got wet and also got lost afterwards, but as good luck favored' him, he ran across two of my other men who had been out correcting lines, and they brought him into camp badly frozen. That winter there was a large flock of grouse around the west shore of Height of Land Lake. They were seen feeding generally on the buds of the white birch. Partridges were also quite plentiful. There were a number of ravens about Height of Land Lake and I think there has been a few there ever since. There were not as many wild animals in the woods as there has been since. There were a few rabbits, and foxes were abundant ; in fact far more numerous than now. They were nearly all poisoned off years ago, while wolves are much more plentiful now than they were then. The Otter Tail River, which flows through this township and particularly both where it enters and where it leaves Height of Land Lake, was then a favorite resort of the Indians. There was a large cornfield near the inlet on the east side of the river and several graves on the brow of the hill fronting the river opposite where Charles Mitchell now lives. There was a camp of Indians half a mile below the outlet where they had a fish trap across the river and they were catching more fish than they could use. There was also a large burying ground, a little east of the outlet on the little prairie by the lake near the Indian mounds. A day or two after New Year's we moved south into Township 139, Range 40, or what is now the town of Erie. From near the south end of Tamarack Lake, we cut a road southwesterly across Section 31 of Grand Park, Sections i, 2, 13, 14 and 23 of Erie crossing the Otter Tail at the present crossing at the foot of the rapids below the Hubbell dam thence along down east of the river until we intersected the ravine that extends down to the river where the county bridge now stands. We turned away down this ravine and camped in the thicket of fir balsams where the east end of the county bridge is now. The next day we commenced the survey of the town of Erie. The second day I started to run the line between Sections 12 and 13 from west to east. At about fifteen chains we intersected the Otter Tail River at about the middle of the rapids, below where the Hubbell dam is now.

Usually about the first thing our cook would do after setting up in a new camp was to dig a bean hole ; as we had no cook stove we baked our bread before an open fire in a tin reflector and baked our beans in a hole dug in the ground. A fire was built in the hole something after the plan of heating an old fashioned brick oven. After the ground was made good and hot, the bean kettle was lowered into the hole and the hole covered over tight and the beans left in to bake. At this camp our cook who was a little Englishman named Wignel Gott from Elizabethtown in Otter Tail County, had dug his customary bean hole and baked an oversupply on the first day, and before we could eat them all up, a quantity of them soured on his hands. Sour beans are bad enough in warm weather, but with the thermometer at 30 below. One dose was enough, so the whole camp struck on eating them. The next day several Indians came down from the fish trap with fish to sell and the cook was not long in striking up a trade, exchanging a part of his baked beans for fish. He was very much elated at what he considered his shrewd bargain, but the next day the Indians came back with blood in their eyes. The cook who was entirely alone on both occasions was accused by the Indians of trying to poison them and they demanded indemnity for being driven out into the snow during the small hours of the night. Any one who has ever eaten sour beans can appreciate the situation. The Indians then commenced a sort of war dance around the Englishman, which was accompanied with a flourish of knives and guns around his head and an occasional war-whoop, during which time the poor fellow was frightened nearly to death. After an hour or so, they began to calm down and the cook began to recover his senses and the matter was

I started across on the ice with the head chainman at my heels and when about half way over, the ice gave way and we both went into the water to our waists. We were not long, however, in crawling out. The day was extremely cold, 30 below zero, at least, so that put an end to running lines that day. We all struck ofif down the river on the ice and were not long in making the two miles to the camp.

The morning after our misfortune in crossing the rapids, we went back and continued our line across the river without further accident. We had now been running lines for four months and a half, and during all the time we had been looking out for the Northern Pacific Railroad as we knew it was to be located somewhere in this part of the county ; and immediately after crossing the river we were delighted to find one of their surveyed lines. Several of my men were for taking homesteads right there and then. They considered themselves the most fortunate beings that had ever been born. Here was the railroad, and here was a magnificent water-power. There would certainly be a station here, around which a city would grow up right in the center of Becker County and it would assuredly become the county seat. After looking around a little longer they came to a tree with the bark hewed off on one side on which was written, "taken with Sioux half-breed Script," and signed George B. Wright. Thus the fond hopes of the boys and their visions of wealth came to naught. The railroad was not built there and the finest water power in Northwestern Minnesota, except perhaps Fergus Falls, is still idle. This was the first place where we had seen any sign of the Northern Pacific Railroad.

The large island in Cotton Lake was at that time one of the most beautiful and attractive natural parks in Becker County. It was alive with partridges.

In the top of an old oak tree there was the nest of an eagle, and that nest was since occupied each season by what is supposed to be the same pair of eagles, for more than thirty years ; the tree was blown down in 1901. About the 9th of January, I ran the line between Sections 31 and 32 in Erie Township which took me over the summit of Detroit Mountain. From the top of it I obtained my first view of the Detroit prairie and Detroit Lake. I had a telescope on my surveying instrument, so I spent several minutes in looking in that direction. I could see the Tyler House, the Fox house on the hill and another log house a little farther to the right, which I suppose was where Judge Rossman then held forth. These were all the signs of civilization to be seen where the city now stands. A\'e were undoubtedly the first white men to ascend Detroit ^^lountain.

By the loth of January, my road engineer had completed a road from where we were camped on the Otter Tail River to the center of the Township 139, Range 39, or what is now Height of Land Township, and we moved our camp to a small pond on the land since owned by Louis Golke. This road was cut out very near where the Detroit and Shell prairie county road runs at present. In fact all my survey roads were the only roads used by the early settlers of those timbered towns for many years, and many of them are used today right where I cut them out thirt}'- six years ago.

We surveyed the whole township from this camp, and as the days were very short, we utilized about all the hours of daylight in running lines and traveled to and froiu our work in the dark, generally making a bee line for the camp as soon as daylight was gone. So accustomed was I to the woods that I could always make my way to almost any point in whatever direction it might be by night or by day without using the compass or having the sun or stars for a guide. I have been in the woods more or less ever since I was ten years old, and never was lost for a minute, and it always seems strange to hear anyone talk about getting lost in the woods or on the prairie.

Nothing of particular interest occurred while surveying this town, except an occasional visit from some of our red brethren. One evening when we were all in our tent, an Indian came who could talk fairly good English and announced himself as a good Indian. He said there were thirty of them at the fish-trap and they were going to have a dance the next night, but that they had nothing but water to drink, and he was afraid things would go rather slow ; so he came to see if I would sell him a pound of coffee, adding that he had no money, but he knew where there was a mink which he was going to kill in a day or two, and then he would pay. I accordingly let him have the coffee. He said that he had had no supper, so we fed him and he went to bed.

He ate breakfast next morning, and left. The second day afterwards, he came back with a mink just killed. He skinned the mink, stayed all night again, had supper and breakfast and then proposed to pay for his coffee with the mink skin. I supposed he intended to give me the skin and was a little surprised when he wanted $4 in cash for the difference. He went away, but came back after awhile with another mink, stayed all night and had supper and breakfast again and when he came to leave, he announced that the dance at the fish-trap had not come off yet and he would like to buy another pound of coffee, "If I was not objections." This time I was objections.

There was not a single settler in Height of Land, Erie, Grand Park or Holmesville at this time. AVe finished our survey on the 19th of January, 1871.

In Nov., 1870, I had selected the northwest quarter of Section 6, in what is now the town of Detroit for a homestead, so I took my team, wagon and camp outfit over there, and set up my tent and built a log house before I went below. I also discharged my men at this place, three of them going to St. Paul, and three to Elizabethtown in Otter Tail County. Erick Anderson and his father Andrew X'elson stayed and helped me to build my house. Erick afterwards settled on Section 32, in the town of Cuba and has lived there ever since. He was elected judge of probate in 1874, and held the otBce four years. His father settled in the town of Eglon, Clay County. Chris E. Bjorge went back to the west part of the county, and as he was not old enough to take a homestead bought some railroad land. He had not been in the country long, but had acquired a fair command of the English language. He had had an adventure with a sand-hill crane and the other men were never tired of hearing him relate the story. He had winged the l)ird with a shot from an old musket and w'ent to pick him up, when the crane showed fight, rushing at Chris with spread wings and open mouth. He had no time to reload, so he concluded to retreat to some safe place where he could reload and then open the fight again. The crane followed him, keeping close to his heels, and every time Chris looked over his shoulders the crane was right there taking "awful steps." Finally he concluded that it was too cowardly to run from a bird, so he stopped and "struck the crane right in the face," with the gun, which finished the fight.

After coming out of the woods, it did not take us long- to find the Northern Pacific Railroad. There were about forty men at work at the Oak Lake cut, Imt it was not located beyond there until the next summer. \\y the loth of February, I had my house finished all but the roof and then started for St. Paul, not having slept in a house for more than six months. There was a team going to St. Cloud, which at that time was the nearest point on the railroad, so I rode all the way in an open sleigh and a long cold ride it was. This team belonged to W. W. AIcLeod.

There were lively times in the Detroit woods that winter, clearing right of way, grading in the deep cuts and making ties in the woods for the Northern Pacific Railroad.

I came back to Becker County in April and brought Mrs. Wilcox with me. My brother, C. P. Wilcox and his wife came that same season. This time we came by way of Benson which was the end of the main line of the Great Northern Railway. From there we came by stage to Otter Tail City. With us in the stage were two men who were going to northwestern Minnesota, but had no particular place in view, and we pursuaded them to go to Becker County with us. Their names were Alonzo Fogg and John Dispennett and they both settled in the town of Lake Eunice.

Otter Tail City was then a thriving village. Old Donald Mc- Donald a relic of the Hudson Bay Company was there, still buying furs of the Indians. He was a grotesque looking figure, then nearly eighty years of age, and dressed in a costume half nabob and half Indian, with a high fur hat, military coat, leggings and moccasins ; he was suggestive of Washington Irving's high military officer at the top, and ragged Indian at the bottom. After visiting a store or two 1 went into one which was run by a pleasant, good looking young fellow with a very winning way by the name of E. G. Holmes. Of him I bought a window, a cooking stove, a wash tub, and a lot more goods, enough in all to make a wagon load to take home with us. As a proof of the fact that any and every one who ever deals with Holmes gets the worth of their money, I will state that that cook stove lasted thirteen years and the wash tub twenty-five years. On the i6th, we proceeded to the third crossing of the Otter Tail River, near where Frazee is now, where we stayed all night at the \\' eymouth Hotel, which stood on the hill on the south side of the river not far from where the late Mr. Martin resided. This house had been opened up since I went below in February and was doing a rushing business. This was Mrs. Wilcox's first night in Becker County. The house was filled with railroad men and homeseekers and the beds were all full. At first it looked as though we would both have to stand up in a corner all night, but finally Mrs. Weymouth, true to that generous good nature of hers, came to our relief and gave us her bed. The next day we drove up through the Detroit woods along the old Red River road, and where the club house is now, there had never been any road cut out, so we were obliged to drive along the gravel shore of Detroit Lake for about half a mile. Farther on the Indians were making maple sugar, and had hundreds of trees tapped. There was a large camp near the road where they were boiling sap.

We stopped at the Tyler Hotel for dinner and here for the first time 1 met J. O. Crummet and Swan Olund. We reached our homestead on the i8th of April. There were several inches of snow on the ground at that time. As our house was not finished, we lived in our tent for a month.

About the 25th of April, L. C. McKinstry arrived and stayed with us for a while. M. H. Davis, Mrs. Wilcox's nephew had arrived a short time before.

One evening about the last of the month, two young Swedes asked to be kept all night and the next day they both took homesteads next to mine. One of them was Frank A. Johnson, who has for many years been section foreman for the Northern Pacific Railroad at Frazee.

The native prairie hen or sharp-tailed grouse was very plentiful around our house that spring. The regular prairie chicken or pinnated grouse with the yellow legs was not known in the county then, but began to arrive a few at a time three or four years later. Wild pigeons were quite plentiful ; I shot three one morning before breakfast as they were flying over our house.

As there were no settlers with families in the vicinity, I exchanged my homestead for the southeast cjuarter of Section 8, and built a new house near the north end of Oak Lake. Nels Lofstrom has for many years lived on the place where I first settled. Our neighbors at Oak Lake were L. D. Sperry and the Sherman family. We were unable to procure any lumber that summer at any price, so we were obliged to live on the bare ground floor with a cross cut saw and a blanket for a door until the next October, About the 25th of May, I made a trip to Section two of Lake Park and made a survey of the south half of that section for OHver Taylor and John Johnson. This was my first job of private surveying in Becker County. I made the trip on foot and on my way home I overtook Erick P. Skaiem loaded down with about twenty big suckers. He was barefoot and armed with a big fish-spear and appeared to be very enthusiastic over his and the future prospects of the country in general. He had just become of age and was unmarried. On the last day of ]\Iay I started with an ox team for Morris, in Stevens County to begin the survey of a state road running from that place to the White Earth Agency, a distance of one hundred and twenty miles. On my way down I met George Jepson and two others going to Detroit for the first time. Nothing of particular interest occurred during the progress of this survey. We reached Fergus Falls, with our survey about the 12th of June, a place of forty houses. On reaching Elizabethtown I made a stop of two or three days and surveyed out the townsite of that village, eighty acres in extent. When we reached Pelican Rapids there were only three or four houses there and no townsite had been laid out. After finishing the state road, I rode a mule all the way back to Pelican Rapids, carrying my compass and chain on the saddle to survey out the town, but when I arrived there I found the proprietor, a man by the name of Tuttle, was in St. Paul in jail for selling whisky to the Indians. So I had my trip for nothing. This same Tuttle is said to be the inventor of the lightning drag tooth cross-cut saw.

Our road was surveyed around the west end of Pelican Lake to Peabody's old place in Otter Tail County, where we stopped for a day or two to explore the country in the south part of Lake Eunice as it w'as a difficult territory to locate a road through on account of the numerous lakes. While thus employed I took a stroll over into Section 35 in what is now Cormorant Township. Here I found a man l)y the name of Cornish, building a mill-dam across Spring Creek, a small stream five or six feet wide near the county line. He said he was going to build a sawmill and a gristmill. I thought at first he was joking and laughed at the idea of building mills on a little brook like that. I asked him where he was going to get water enough to run mills like them, as there was not then water enoueh in the creek to run one mill two months in the year. He replied that he was going to tap Lake Ida and had already started a ditch for that purpose. He took me up to see his ditch and while looking at that beautiful lake, he called my attention to the amount of water it would supply. I asked him what he would do when Lake Ida was run down so low that it would not yield a sufficient supply. He said it would not run down, but if it did there were seven feet of water in Big Cormorant Lake that would last forever as it was fed by springs that would never fail. I told him that in a few years he would run both lakes down and they would never fill again and that would be the end of his water-power. He built his dam and the mills were built. The water in the lakes were run down, and everybody in the southwestern part of Becker County knows the result.

In the fall of 1875 there was a thriving little village at Spring Creek. There was a sawmill, a grist-mill and a store or two, but where are they now and where is the water-power? Here for the first time I met L. G. Stevenson and the IMcDonalds. Stevenson was having trouble with the IMcDonalds about land. We ran the road around the east side of Lake Eunice where for the first time I met John McClelland walking on his wooden feet, and Warren Horton. We ran on and crossed over into Lake View where we ran the road along the west shore of Lake Sally. Here we found the two McDonoughs, William and Edward and succeeded in locating the road to their satisfaction. On the west shore of the next lake on Section 7 we found a camp consisting of several families of settlers who had taken land in the vicinity, but did not have their houses completed.

David Mix with a numerous family was occupying one tent. Sylvester Moore and family were living in another, and a man by the name of Stephen Woodworth was living with his wife in another. I had known Woodworth in New York where we were boys together. The next morning T. J. Martin appeared upon the scene, which was the first time I had ever seen him. We could not locate the road to suit them all, so we ran it up straight through the middle of Section 6, and then bore oft' westerly crossing the Northern Pacific Railroad a little west of the Oak Lake cut. Here was a village of about four hundred people, mostly living in cloth houses although there were several good log buildings. They were very enthusiastic about the future of their town. About the loth of July I saw the beginning of what for the next seven years proved to be the scourge of Becker County, large numbers of the army grasshoppers. Our road was located through Richwood very near where the prairie road from Detroit to White Earth runs now. The only Becker County man who helped me to survey this road was Robert Fairbanks of White Earth, who was one of the commissioners appointed to locate the road by the governor of the state. At White Earth I found my brother, C. P. Wilcox building a schoolhouse.

On the 2nd day of August, Oak Lake and the vicinity were visited by a violent tornado. Just before dark an Indian by the name of John Sloan asked permission to stay at our house over night as he said there was a bad storm coming and he did not feel safe to sleep out in the woods. About ten o'clock it began to rain and blow from the west. It was the hardest storm while it lasted I have ever experienced. It soon became almost as light as day from the continuous and intermingling flashes of lightning. Although my house was standing in a thick grove of oak timber not a tree could be seen standing anywhere in the vicinity. They were all either broken off or bent nearly to the ground. I supposed at the time that every tree was destroyed. The storm lasted for half an hour and after it abated I was happily surprised to find that about two-thirds of my trees had survived and straightened up ; the other one-third had been broken off. The water was blown out of Oak Lake and high up onto the east shore. I had two haystacks standing several feet higher than the lake, and they were soaked from the ground up as high as my head, while above that the hay was dry. The storm, however, was quite local in its character as it did not even blow hard at Detroit. My youngest brother, H. H. Wilcox had arrived from the state of New York just before the storm.

The 20th of August, I was appointed by the Northern Pacific Railroad Company as one of its land appraisers. As every old settler knows the Northern Pacific Railroad Company obtained an immense gift of land from the United States government, amounting in Minnesota to every alternate section of land for a width of twenty miles on each side of the railroad track and forty miles in width on each side in the territories. They had that summer commenced the examination and appraisement of their lands in IMinnesota. None but competent surveyors were employed and their duties were to examine each section by itself running- the lines around and looking" over each forty-acre tract and making a diagram of the whole showing the lakes ponds, marshes, swamps, meadows, groves of timber, prairies and so forth, and then placing on each forty acres a number representing its relative value, numbers i, 2, 3, 4, 5. Number i of course being the best, and number 5 nearly worthless. We always went singly and alone, running our lines with a small compass placed on a Jacob's-staff and counting out footsteps by way of measurement. After a little practice we were able to get this stepping business down to a fine art, seldom varying more than a rod in a distance of a mile, and even in the thickest woods and brush over logs and up and down steep hills by making a little allowance, we were able to come out at the established corners with a surprising degree of accuracy.

My first work was in what is now the town of Cuba right where I commenced surveying for the government in Becker County the year before. A wonderful change had come over the town in that space of time. In place of only three settlers nearly every quarter section of government land was taken up.

Among other settlers John Sullivan and his son-in-law, whose name was also John Sullivan, lived on Section 20, and Hugh Sullivan lived on Section 30, three natives of Old Ireland. Ole Kittelson was once asked if there were any Americans at all in Cuba and he replied, "That there were only three and they were all Irish."

I had only one associate in this work and that was William W. Howard who the year before had run the town lines in the western half of Becker County and subdivided Lake Park, Audubon, Lakeview, and Burlington.

We finished our work in Cuba early in September and began in Lake Park. The first Section I examined was Section 3 where Lake Park now stands. There was not a house on the whole section, although Jonas Erickson had pre-empted the northeast corner fraction. The railroad had been staked out and some men were setting up tents getting ready to commence grading. The contractor who did the grading where the village now stands was an old Scotchman by the name of James McCoy an old acquaintance of mine. We had railroaded together in Pennsylvania in

1865. On the 27th of July, 1872, when running into Detroit with a crew of men on a hand car he was run over by a train up in the Tamarack swamp, half a mile east of Detroit. The hand car was knocked off the track and McCoy was crippled for life. The railroad company afterwards built him a little house at the east end of the railroad bridge on the banks of the Crow Wing River near Alotley, and kept him watching the bridges for several years. Sometime about 1877 he was found lying on the ground dead near his house.

()ne Saturday afternoon, which was the 9th day of September, 1871. I happened to be home at Oak Lake. About three o'clock, I noticed quite a gathering of men across the lake at the residence of C. A. Sherman. Upon going round there I found myself at a county Republican convention. In those days elections were held every year, and the odd numbered years were the most important, as all the state officers were elected in odd numbered years. The place of holding the convention was in a grove of oak trees a little southeast of Sherman's house. This was the first convention for nominating county officers ever held in the county. The convention was organized when I arrived. L. S. Cravath was chairman and Archie iMcArthur was secretary. I cannot recall quite all the names of delegates present, but the following list is nearly correct: Rich wood: A. J. Haney, E. E. Abbott. W. W. McLeod, Hans Hanson, Iver Christenson ; Hamden, L. S. Cravath, Ward Bill, W^ A. Wilkins ; Lake Park, John Cromb, Oliver Taylor, M. L. Devereaux ; Audubon, John Beaver, James G. McGrew, David Pyle, F. K. Small; Detroit, L AL Thomas, J. O. Crummett. Josiah Delemeter, Archie ]\IcArthur ; Burlington, Charles Churchill ; Lake Eunice. John ^McClelland and L. G. Stevenson.

Some of the county offices had been filled by appointment during the first half of the year to serve until their successors were elected and qualified, and they were all I think candidates for re-election to their own or some other office. L. G. Stevenson w^anted to go to the legislature or at least to go as a delegate to the senatorial convention ; Becker County being entitled to one delegate. John McClelland was a candidate for register of. deeds, and Archie McAirthur, the present incumbent was a candidate also. Ole A. Boe was a candidate for re-election to the offtce of county treasurer, and John Cromb was a candidate for the same office. Charles E. Churchill wanted to be sheriff again and F. K. Small was also a candidate. Dr. Pyle insisted on holding" on to the office of county auditor, and Oliver Taylor was likewise a candidate. Balloting resulted in the nomination of the following candidates : Oliver Taylor, auditor ; Ole A. Boe, treasurer; Archie AIcArthur, register of deeds; F. K. Small, sheriff'; John Beaver, clerk of court ; Josiah Delemeter, county attorney ; J. O. Crummett, judge of probate; A. H. Wilcox, county surveyor, and for delegate to the senatorial convention, L. S. Cravath, who was there nominated for representative to the legislature. County commissioners, first district, L. JNI. Devereaux of Lake Park; second district, AA'. \\ . H. Howe; Detroit, third district, A. J. Haney, of Richwood. There was much dissatisfaction over the result of this convention and another was held, or at least that was the report, but when and where I never knew, at any rate a new ticket was put in the field. It retained a few of the names on the other ticket, but was mostly made up of new candidates. The new ticket swept the county. L. S. Cravath went to the legislature, and the following county officers were elected : Auditor, John Cromb ; treasurer, Ole A. Boe; sheriff', Peter Ebeltoft; register of deeds, John jNIcClelland ; clerk of court, John F. Beaver; judge of probate, E. E. Abbott; county attorney, Josiah Delemeter; county surveyor, A. H. Wilcox ; coroner, David Pyle ; county commissioner, first district, L. G. Stevenson; second district. A\\ W. H. Howe; third district, A. J. Haney. F. K. Small had withdrawn and Peter Ebeltoft was elected sheriff in his place, but as he had never declared his intentions to become a citizen he could not ciualify and Charles E. Churchill held over another year. E. E. Abbott did not serve as judge of probate and Isaiah Delemeter was appointed. A. J. Haney did not qualify as county commissioner as he left the county about that time, and J. E. Van Gorden was appointed in his place the next ]\Iarch. About the 12th of September, we were sent from Lake Park to examine the railroad company's land in Detroit Township which was just being surveyed by the government. W. W. AA'hitley of Brainerd was the government surveyor doing the work. We camped at my place at Oak Lake. About the same time we were notified that Colonel Loomis, the land commissioner of the Northern Pacific, accompanied by George B. A\' right, the general land agent, was on his way to Detroit.

AA'itli them was Lord Gordon, said to be a Scotch nobleman of high birth and immense wealth. They were attended by a large train of attendants and were moving by easy stages so it was several days before they reached Detroit. They did not stay there long, but moved on up to Oak Lake and pitched their camp in the grove near my house and remained there a week or two. Colonel Loomis had served as colonel in the Union army during the War of the Rebellion, and came out of the army with a fine military record, and was appointed to his present position undoubtedly more on the strength of that record than for an\' special executive ability, such as the head of the Xorthern Pacific land department should possess, and he had now fallen in with a boon companion, and Lord Gordon was making the most of his opportunity. In addition to Loomis, Wright and Gordon, there was James B. Power, afterwards general land agent, a man by the name of Swenson, a prospective heavy land purchaser and land colonizer, a cook imported from Boston, with three or four assistants, a man in charge of the commissary department, three or four lady friends of the Lord Gordon's ; and high land commissioner, who had left their husbands at home, several teamsters and a man or two to look after the tents and baggage, twenty-one persons in all. Thev were eating imported canned fruit and had their bread baked in Chicago and brought every day by express and team, and they were also drinking the choicest of imported wines and brandies. On one occasion Colonel Loomis and his lordship called at my house. They tried to be agreeable but were both considerably under the influence of liquor and did not appear to be at ease and did not stay long. Gordon was wanting to buy 30,000 acres of land and was going to bring a colony of 300 Scotch farmers to occupy the land which was a tempting proposition to the land commissioner. Finally the party after visiting several places farther west drifted ofl:' to Pelican Rapids where Gordon decided to locate, and as a consequence the little town took a boom, and prices of all kinds of property went soaring out of sight. In the meantime the directors of the Northern Pacific heard what was going on and called a halt, and the Lord Gordon carnival was brought to a close. He was found to be an imposter and a swindler. The land department was $30,000 out of pocket and the high land commissioner was dischareed from office. Gordon afterwards drifted back East, beat Jay Gould out of $200,000 United States bonds and then went to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he afterwards committed suicide as he was about to be arrested for crimes committed in Scotland previous to coming to America.

The [Minneapolis Journal of Oct. ist. 1905, published two years after the above was written, in a full page article, pictures Lord Gordon as "The man who tricked Jay Gould in the zenith of his financial career and who caused the relations between the governments of the two great English speaking races to become strained.

"There are few of the younger generation who ever heard of the Right Honorable Lord Gordon, yet the man who wrongfully made use of that title was, for cool, unadulterated nerve and cunning, and unparalleled affrontery, the most remarkable swindler the world has ever seen - the very king of confidence men."

From Oak Lake. Howard and I moved to Section 26 and pitched tents on the banks of the Pelican River, a little distance north of the present bridge on the Erie road. Captain C. K. Day and his family were living then in a snug log house a short distance from our camp having settled there early in the season. The family consisted of the captain, Mrs. Day and a little girl three or four years old by the name of Delia. She was not long in making the acciuaintance of our cook, a good natured Hollander by the name of Bemer, who used to load her up with sugar and canned fruit and other delicacies. Although the township of Detroit had only just been surveyed all the government sections except Sections 2, 4 and 12 had been taken up by actual settlers. It came to my lot to make a plat of Section 27, where the depot now stands and there was not a house on the section. What little village there was then was all down in Tyler Town on Section 34 near the Pelican River. The sale of the odd numbered sections in Detroit Township had been made previous to this time to a Boston company, of which company George H. Johnston was the head. Captain W^ C. Roberts, the advance agent, arrived about this time followed by Colonel Johnston, himself, a little later on. About the 5th of October we completed the examination of the Detroit lands and moved our camp to Section 20, in what is now Audubon Township near the residence of Henry Way.

On election day, I rode to Detroit on my little black pony to vote ; this was the first election ever held in Becker County. The judges were Alillard Howe, Frank Barnes and Josiah Delemeter.

Among the sections I examined were 10 and 15 where the village of Audubon now stands. There was was but one house there, the Henry J. Larson log house, where he had settled the year before. There was now a large force of men working on the railroad in this town and it was nearly completed, being finished early in Xovember.

Audubon Township was now pretty well settled up as far as government land was concerned. Near where we were camped was living a man by the name of Walter R. Gregory, a brother to J. J. H. Gregory, the famous garden seed man of Marblehead, JNIassachusetts. He was a single man of eccentric nature, but withal a man of more than ordinary general intelligence. Among other things he told us was that when a boy he and his brother took great interest in gardening and how they even then interested themselves in gathering and cultivating the seeds of choice vegetables, and how an old woman, a neighbor by the name of Hubbard had been raising some very extra fine squashes. They procured some of her squash seeds, and from those seeds originated the famous Hubbard squash. In a few years they were sending the seeds all over the United States. In both Detroit and Audubon Townships we were recpiired to examine and plat both odd and even numbered sections and also interview all the settlers with reference to the date of their settlement and amount of land under cultivation, all of which with their building we were to map down on our diagrams. On Section 22 which I examined was living a man by the name of John Cook with his wife and three children. Cook was a native of New Hampshire, six feet tall and well proportioned and about forty years old I should judge. His wife was several years younger, of medium height, rather stout and fleshy and a decidedly handsome woman. She was a native of Maine, and her maiden name was Washburn. The three children, a boy and a girl and a baby were very bright and pretty children and altogether they were an interesting family. Cook was then building a new house a short distance north of his old one on a handsome rise of ground, and here we leave him for the present.

On Section 18 I came across the residence of Father James Gurley, the pioneer preacher of Becker County, then about seventy years of age, but full of energy and ambition. I had heard him preach several times during the past summer at Oak Lake City. I

We moved into Lake Park Township just after the election in November. The winter was then setting- in and it was rather cold sleeping and cooking and eating in a tent. So we were glad to accept an invitation to move into John Cromb's house and live as a part of the family, or rather that he and his wife should live as a part of our family. They had no children at that time and they were both quite young. We had lots of provisions and a good cook, so we furnished all the eatables and the Cromb family furnished house room, fuel and the cook stove. About this time ni}' nephew Melville Davis joined the party as land examiner, and S. S. Stebbins who was one of a party that was examining the railroad land in Cormorant boarded a few days with us, as his party had disbanded for a short tinte. It is unnecessary to say that we had a good time for the next week. It is true we occasionally broke through the ice that was just forming on the lakes, but we had a comfortable jilace to stay at night and good lively surroundings, so what of it. After three or four days Stebbins received word that his party had returned and were going to operate in the town of Lake Eunice. So the next morning he left for Section 10 in that township. Pie went east around the north shore of Big Cormorant Lake to Section t,2 of Audubon, and down along the long peninsula that extends into Little Cormorant Lake, until he came to the end of the point ; then he undertook to cross over on the ice to what he supposed was the mainland on the other side of the lake. When about half way over, he broke through and went in nearly to his arms. He found he could easily break the ice ahead of him, and the water being only waist deep and being already half way across he decided to go ahead and after breaking ice for thirty or forty rods, reached the land nearly chilled to death. He always carried a fire-proof match-box. and soon built a fire and warmed up a little and then proceeded on his journey.

After traveling through the woods for a quarter of a mile or so. he discovered that he was on an island since called Hunt's Island, and that it was at least eighty rods across to the mainland. The ice would not hold him up and he was at a loss to know what to do. It was growing colder very fast so he built another fire and sat down awaitins: for the ice to strengthen.

He waited until nearly night and as he had had nothing to eat since morning he began to get hungry, and just before nightfall he again ventured upon the ice. It would not yet hold his weight while standing or walking, so he lay flat down on his appetite and crawled and wiggled along like a crippled lizard, the ice bending and cracking every foot of the way. He could see that the water was very deep. It was dark when he reached the shore, and after tearing through the brush and timber for nearly a mile he came to a new cabin with the roof on, door and window holes cut but no doors or windows, no flooring nor furniture nor anything else but a twelve inch plank. He was still wet and the night was bitterly cold, so he made a fire on the ground floor and leaned the plank against the wall, and over the fire and then stretched himself out on the plank to dry and smoke. This house was built by Joseph Shabeneau, and was the house he lived in for several years on Section 8, Lake Eunice. The next morning he made his way through the woods to Section 10, where a family by the name of Horton was living, where he found the rest of the party. Our next move was up to Section 20, Lake Park, where we lived in a house with Gilbert Sorrenson for a while and from there up to Oliver Taylor's place on Section 2. While camped here I examined Sections 5 and 6 in Audubon, and went in to see Gunder Carlson who had been shot by an Indian the year before. His brother Elling Carlson, who was also then living on Section 6, was there at the time. The old man was still suffering from the eft'ects of his wound. His elbow was shattered and he had constant pains in his side and back from buckshot that had never been extracted. He did not live very long afterwards. We wound up our work in these towns on the 5th day of December, 1871, and disbanded for the season. I was retained by the railroad company as timber agent, to keep an eye on their timber land, all the way from Red River to Detroit for twenty miles each side of the railroad, with a kind or roving commission to go where I thought proper, and look after trespass and see that no timber was stolen and to report all persons found cutting on railroad land. It was not very agreeable business, particularly among my neighbors and friends, but they let the timber alone remarkably well, and although I cruised the country thoroughly, I found but few cases of trespass after they found tliat I was watching. To help out the prairie fellows for firewood, I used to sell them dead and down timber, of which there was plent}' in the groves, and always sold it on time and very cheap and never asked for any pay afterwards ; and never received any, so matters went along quite smooth. The few that I did report were never molested afterwards. So while some of them were quite angry and others badly frightened at the time, the winter passed away without any very disagreeable incidents. The most of the settlers in my territory were Norwegians, and it was amusing to see how completely as a general thing they would lose all knowledge of the English language when I found them in the railroad timber. They would even forget their own names and where they lived. It will not do to mention any names, but there are several old settlers still living who yet smile out of the corner of their eye as they relate to me the tricks they used to play on me ; and how they would become frightened in turn at things that occurred that winter. The winter was a long, hard one, and I went on snowshoes most of the time. I had a pass on the railroad, but did not get a chance to use it all the winter as the cars only made two trips to Red River, and I walked the entire distance to Moorhead and back several times. There was not a house at Lake Park or Audubon, but a man by the name of Jerome Daniels kept a hotel and saloon in a tent about two miles west of where Lake Park is now, and it made a very comfortable place to stay. I remember one evening in February, I was staying there all night, when about lo o'clock a sleigh load of men drove up and came in to warm. They were Nels Nelson, O. B. Anderson, Ingel Ukestad and Lawrence Pederson. They had been to x^lexandria to prove up on their land. I don't remember whether they had driven all the way or whether the} had only driven from Detroit, but the night was very cold and the}' were cold themselves, so they proceeded to warm up outside and inside. They were in high glee at their success at the land office, because they had only been askd to pay $1.25 an acre, whereas they had expected to pay the double minimum price of $2.50. I think they were the first settlers to prove up in Becker County.

During the winter I made a trip to Spring Creek and Cormorant Lake. Cornish had his sawmill in operation, and quite a (piantity of logs were being hauled from Cormorant Lake, mostly bassw^ood and oak, and I had a hint that some parties at the northwest end of the lake were cutting: more than their share of logs, and were getting them on Section 5 which belonged to the railway company. I accordingly started for Section 5, and at dark put up at a house on Section 20, where a Norwegian by the name of Borie Tollickson or Willaim Thompson resided. He was an old bachelor, and an unmarried sister kept house for him. I stayed with them all night, but Bill said as we retired for the night, that he was obliged to go to Norwegian Grove the next day to buy some seed wheat, and as the snow was deep and the traveling was bad, he would be obliged to get an early start. So in the morning he got his own breakfast and went away, long before daylight.

The next day I proceeded to Section 5 and found a good man}' fresh stumps and tree tops and new roads where logs had been hauled away to the sawmill, but not a single man was to be found. Although it was about the middle of the week, a Sabbath day silence pervaded the vicinity. I waited around a good part of the day and no one appeared. I found out several years afterwards that Thompson had been up in the neighborhood before daylight, instead of going to Norwegian Grove and informed them all of my presence in the vicinity.

On another occasion a little farther west, I found a couple of young Norwegians making rails on a section of railroad land near the west line of the section. They claimed they were at work on their own land, upon which I told them to go with me and I would show them the section line. They mounted their Norwegian snowshoes or skees, while I was mounted on a pair of Indian snowshoes. We found the line and were tracing it through the brush and timber up towards where they had been at work, myself in the lead and they following on behind. After a Avhile, I stopped to set up my compass to take a new sight. I had observed that my friends had been very quiet for several minutes, when I looked round and saw them about a quarter of a mile away mounted on their skees and fast flying over the top of the hill with the speed of the wind, their coat tails protruding behind at an angle of 90 degrees. At another time while looking over Section 19 in Audubon, I found where some timber had been cut and trailed away to a house on Section 18 where Chris Olson was living. I found Chris at work at his wood-pile cutting up some of this same timber. I had know Chris before and took quite a liking to him and felt bad at the thought of catching him stealing timber. I told him I guessed I had caught him in a bad scrape, but as it was noon I would like to get some dinner, and we would talk it over. All right he said, "Come in." Chris was pleasant and sociable. We had a good dinner for which he would not take a cent, and as I was about to leave, he said he had something to show me and brought out a deed from the Northern Pacific Railroad Company which he had just received for the land where he had been cutting the timber.

I was now county surveyor and had an arrangement with the railroad company to take time to do such work as the settlers might require, and accordingly, on February 9th, 1872, 1 began the survey of the townsite of Detroit. Captain AA'. C. Roberts was the man who employed me to do the work, and he and Charles W. Rand who lived on Section 24 were my assistants. Roberts had a plat of the townsite already drawn up and sent on from Boston.

On the original plat, all the blocks were three hundred feet square. The original townsite included all of the south half of Section 27, and the only building on the townsite at that time was the New England House or AA^aldorf, as it is now called, which belonged to Roberts himself and that was about half completed. We began at the southeast corner of Section 27 and laid out block after block until we came to the new building, and we found it now standing exactly in the middle of the street. We decided that the frame of the building could be easily moved, and that would be the easiest way out of the difficulty, and Roberts decided to solve the difficulty that way until he happened to think of the "blasted cellar," and as we could not contrive any way to move the cellar we concluded to let the building stand and move the townsite. We accordingly narrowed up the south tier of blocks by taking off 84 feet, and leaving a sixteen foot alley to run east and west through the middle of that line of blocks. When we came to stake out the blocks along the railroad right of way another question was finally settled by leaving a thirty foot strip on each side for a public "passageway" as we called it at that time, on each side of the 400 feet of right of way.

The first day while we were wallowing through the snow, we saw a man coming in our direction from Tylertown, all the village there was then, who proved to be the Rev. H. N. Gates, the new Congregational minister, who had just made his first advent into Detroit. He was hunting for Captain Roberts the same as everybody else did who came to Detroit for accommodations and information. I surveyed only about one quarter of the township that winter, and as we could not drive stakes into the frozen ground they fell down and many of them became misplaced and were driven into the ground in the spring several feet from where they belonged, which was the cause of considerable trouble afterwards.

The winter of 1871-72 was a long, cold and stormy one. There was a large tie camp on Section 13, town of Height of Land, that winter. Several thousand pine ties were made and floated down Toad River to Perham in the spring. A dam was built across the outlet of Little Toad Lake for that purpose. This was the first attempt to drive on Toad River in Becker County.

On the nth of April I was again at the residence of the John Cook family in the town of Audubon. They had just moved into their new house, that was built on a low hill where their cemetery now stands. Mrs. Cook appeared to be delighted with her new home.

On the i6th of April I started with a party of nine land examiners to examine the railroad land in the Wild Rice country. We left my house at Oak Lake in the morning and drove to the south part of what is now the town of Atlanta, crossing the Buffalo River on Section 16 in Cuba with difficulty. There were three settlers in Atlanta at that time. Nub Nelson Viger on Section 31, where we camped over night and another mian in the grove by the lake on Section 19, whose name I have forgotten and another single man between the two. Nelson was then an old man and had settled there the year before. I was particularly impressed with the beauty and fertility of the land along the south branch of the Wild Rice. We worked west from Atlanta taking a tier of townships in width for 18 miles, and then worked north and took a tier of townships back east to the reservation line. We then worked north and then west to Red River.

There was not a single settler at that time in the township of Walworth. A man by the name of Ulen and a son of Nub Nelson were breaking land where the present village of Ulen is now located, and they were living in a tent. There were seven families on the Wild Rice River, a few miles w^est of the reservation. Two families, Austinson and Peterson, were living a few miles west of Atlanta and a family by the name of Tatley lived several miles farther west and they were all the people we found living west of the reservation until we came to the Red River. I examined the section on which the village of Ada stands, and there was no living soul within ten miles of there at that time.

A short time afterwards I made a trip to the south branch of the Wild Rice with M. E. d'Engelbroner and Van Vlissingen as related in the history of Cuba Township, returning about the 25th of May, 1872, to where Lake Park village is now. A station had just been established and a building or two were just being started. There was, however, a large crowd of refugee settlers who had left their homes and gathered together from fear of the Indians. They had built a large stockade of railroad ties about 50 by 100 feet in extent and were now camping inside. Some of them thought we were foolhardy in running around the country and risking our scalps. A prominent man, who was at that time a member of the board of county commissioners and a veteran of the civil war, asked me if I was not afraid to run around over the country the way I had done. Another similar stockade was built about four miles south of Lake Park by the settlers in that vicinity. The whole country about Audubon and Lake Park was panic stricken, and woe be to the Indian who would have dared to venture into that neighborhood. The Indians were as badly scared as the whites. The next day after my return home, I went over to Section 4 in Detroit Township and while riding my pony along the shore of Floyd Lake I ran across three or four Indians in the woods, and as soon as they saw me coming they made a break for their canoe and paddled out into deep water as fast as they could go, calling out, "Bozhoo nitchee, bozhoo nitchee," until they were out of hearing.

Aljout the 26th, I was sent to Glyndon to examine the railroad land in that township. The Great Northern Railway line had just been located, crossing the Northern Pacific at that place, and a townsite had recently been laid out. There for the first time I met John A. Teague. .He had just arrived from Massachusetts and had taken a homestead a mile or two south of Hawley.

Northern Pacific Railway land agent to examine the odd numbered sections in what are now the towns of Hamden, Richwood, Holmesville, Erie, Height of Land, Burlington and Lake View in Becker County, and then take three townships in width. Ranges 40, 41, and 42 in Otter Tail County, and work south through the belt of timber then known as the "Otter Tail Woods," almost down to Fergus Falls.

I\'Iy outfit was an ox team and wagon with two tents, a cook and two assistant surveyors, Chester Coburn and my nephew, Melville Davis. The dry seasons of 1871 had reduced the cjuantity of surface water in Hamden and Richwood materially. It was particularly noticeable in the north part of Hamden in the big marsh on Sections 2, 3, 4, 10 and 11. In the fall of 1870, it was impossible to run lines through this marsh on account of high water. It was now so dry I could walk over it. In 1870 when surveying Hamden I thought I had found a mistake of about 80 rods on the south boundary of the reservation where it crossed this big marsh. This line had been run about ten years before, and is wdiat is called a standard parellel or correction line. We did not connect our lines with the corners in that line as you will observe on the government maps but established new corners for both township and section lines wherever we intersected the old line, and measured the distance to the nearest old corners. I was now able to verify my suspicions and found the south line of Section 34 on the reservation to be about a mile and a quarter long. AA'hen the surveyor, who subdivided this part of the reservation in 1871, came to find out this error, he corrected this line to an even mile in length, and tlirew the error into the west tier of sections in that township, where it shows to-day. By looking at the county map you will see that Sections 6, 7, 18, 19, 30 and 31, Township 141, Range 42, are a mile and a quarter wide east and west, and have a double tier of lots on the western border.

An interesting feature of Hamden at that time was the multitude of wild ducks and geese nesting around the lakes an^ ponds. While examining Section 9, I counted four separate broods of goslings floating on the surface of the little creek and duck nests were plentiful everyway. On the shore of one of the lakes an old mallard duck flew up leaving a brood of young ducks literally stacked up on the beach. I ran up and gathered up both not knowing what to do with them let them go and counted thir- teen altogether in the brood. Hamden was now fairly well settled, all the even numbered sections being taken but 2 and 4 ; however, as we were now looking over the odd numbered sections only I did not come in contact with many of the settlers. They had all now recovered from the Indian scare, but the young grasshoppers were hatching out by the million and were already destroying the young vv'heat both here and at Richwood. In Richwood the government prairie land was about all taken, but there were scarcely any settlers in the timber. The Richwood mill property had changed hands. Haney had sold out to W. W. McLeod and E. E. Abbott of Sauk Centre who had taken possession the fall before, and they were doing quite a business sawing pine lumber. Haney had cut quite an amount of logs in the winter of 1 870-1, and this new firm had cut still more the winter just past and floated them down the Buffalo River to their mill. Here for the first time I saw William Long and W. D. Hazelton, both of whom were youthful in appearance although I think they were both married. The mill-pond at Richwood was now full of water and the new proprietors manifested considerable anxiety as to what I would have to say, and what kind of report I would make with reference to their overflowing so much land, but I found that the meander lines as I had run them when I surveyed the country for the government fitted the present conditions of the lakes so completely that there was scarcely any difference between the government plats and the new diagrams that I made at this time. Richwood was now a lively little place. The Richwood sawmill was the first sawmill built in Becker County outside the White Earth reservation.

On the 1 8th day of June, the United States land office at Oak Lake was opened up and then a general rush of settlers from all over the county came to file on their land. W. H. Newton was the register and Reuben Reynolds was receiver, and John Comb, chief clerk. I went home and filed on my claim the day the land ofiice opened and met a bear on my way on Section 17 in Richwood.

There were no settlers in the timber and no roads except my old survey road of 1870. So we drove our team into the present town of Holmesville and camped on Section 27 on the Buffalo River. Nothing of interest was found except that Swan Olund

We next moved into the present town of Height of Land as far east as the corner of Sections 14, 15, 22 and 23. There were no settlers in the town and no roads except the road I had cut a year before. A terrible fire had swept over the whole township and destroyed large quantities of timber, particularly aspen or poplar as it was commonly called. The southwest part of the township was nearly bare of timber and we could take sights with our compass for nearly a quarter of a mile at a time. The fire swept the whole of Erie Township east of the Otter Tail River, and nearly all the poplar there and in the west part of Height of Land has grown up since the spring of 1872.

We completed the examination of Township 139, Range 39, and moved out to Otter Tail River and spent our Fourth of July near where the Shoenberger sawmill was afterwards built. There were no settlers in that part of the town then nor for nine years afterward. At this time the little prairies and openings along the Otter Tail were red with strawberries. I have never seen anything like it before or since. The day after the Fourth we moved down into the town of Burlington and some of the wa)- our wagon wheels actually left two red trails behind them. In Burlington we camped on Section 14 on the edge of the big tamarack swamp on James Winram's claim. The up river road at that time ran along the west edge of the tamarack swamp opposite Tim Chilton's present residence. Winram was still very lame from the efifects of the gun-shot wound received the year before from Bachinana the Indian outlaw.

Charles Scott, a government surveyor, who had been appointed to survey the town of Silver Leaf was just coming out of the woods having completed the survey of that township.

Among the sections that I examined was Section 35 where the village of Frazee now stands. There was not a house on the present townsite, although there were two houses on the section. Patrick Ouinlan was living in a log house on the southwest quarter, of the southeast quarter of Section 35 on the south side of the river. He had a log house and stable and a small piece of land broken. Ouinlan was the first white settler in Becker County. This place is on the land now owned by Edward Briggs. There was another man living on the west side of the river by the name of Charles E. Churchill. His house stood on the side hill on the land now owned by William Schabbehar. Churchill was the second settler in the town of Burlington and was the first sheriff of Becker County.

At this time, July 8th. Carl Campbell and his father were building a sawmill and dam where the Commonwealth sawmill is now. Some of the Chiltons were part owners of the mill. The dam was nearly finished and the frame work of the sawmill was about ready for the machinery. There was then a fine grove of pine timber standing across the river from the sawmill, on Sections 26 and 35, probably 300,000 feet within half a mile of the mill. William Chilton was living in a log cabin on the west bank of the Otter Tail about 100 rods above the sawmill. He was not married at that time.

Our next camping place was on the east shore of Detroit Lake on Section 12 in the town of Lake View at the mouth of Sucker Brook. There was a Swiss Dutchman living there by the name of Anthony Miller with an Irish wife and a large family of children. On the 35th of June a man by the name of John Rutterman and his wife had been drowned nearly opposite where we camped. His body had been recovered only a day or two before our arrival, and that of his wife having been found a short time before. They had taken a place on Section 14 afterward homesteaded by George Martin and which still later came into the possession of Horneck and Bowman.

Our next move was to the outlet of Detroit Lake in the town of Lake View. I was surprised to see the improvements that had been made in Detroit since the last winter. E. G. Holmes and R. L. Frazee had formed a partnership and had purchased of S. J. Fox the forty acres of land in Section 34, since known as the Frazee and Holmes Addition. They tried to get me to stop and survey it out but I could not leave my other work ; yet I took time to survey out a square block which is now block No. 7, where Frazee had commenced to build a house. Frazee sold the house to John A. Bowman, and it is the place where G. E. Holmes has resided for the last twenty years. While here I attended church for the first time. Bishop Whipple preached in the Northern Pacific freight house, which had just been completed. The passenger depot was not yet finished. Frank A. Johnson was holding forth in a small portable building that had been brought in on the cars. ]\[ell. Davis and Coburn left at this place and went to Dakota to run lines for the government. JNI. H. Severance was with me, as was Sam A\'ales, the cook and teamster. I was here joined by Charles J. Wright at that time about nineteen years of age, and now the wealthiest man with perhaps one exception in C)tter Tail County. The C. H. Sturtevant family was then living on their homestead on Section 4, and Dock Brown had a house farther up the lake in the same section near the town line. While passing his house one day, the Thomas Corbett family was unloading from a wagon and taking possession of Brown's house, having rented it for a short time. They had just arrived from the East, although Corbett himself was here the year before. The Corbett boys were small then, but there was family enough to fill the wagon box.

There were a few settlers in the north part of Lake View, particularly on the prairie in the northwest corner, but there were few in the south part, except at Buck's mill, where William and Simeon Buck were then building their mill dam and sawmill on the Pelican River. The water had been recently shut off and the pond was now full which made it difficult to survey out Section 31.

Near the center of the township there stood a large oak tree with the nest of a bald eagle in the top. An eagle with a white head was soaring around over the tree, while perched on the edge of the nest were two eagles apparently as large as the parent bird, but entirely black. Severance brought down one of them with his revolver. It is a fact not known to everybody that young bald eagles are always black, and do not develop the bald head until they are about two years old.

Our next move was down to a little creek near the corner of Sections 21, 22, 27 and 28, which was as far as any road had been cut out. We built a bridge across this creek where the bridge now stands on the Candor road, and then cut a road down to the lake on Sections 9 and 16 in the town of Candor. There were but two or three settlers in the south part of Lake View at that time east of the Pelican River.

There was only one settler in the town of Candor in Otter Tail County. He was an Englishman with a family of twelve children. He had built a large log house of a very queer style of architecture on Section 6. Sauer had his place afterwards.

second crossing of the Otter Tail River, where Nicholas Hendry had opened a store two years before. L. D. Hendry, the present Mayor of Frazee was living on a homestead on Section 13. He was a big, husky, good natured looking youth, twenty-three years of age, and was running around barefooted over the prairies at the time.

From now until the 20th of November, I was at work in Otter Tail County, when I resumed my work of the previous winter as timber agent of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company, my territory extending from the Red River to New York Mills, and twenty miles each side of the railroad. The settlers made me but little trouble, but there was some lumbering going on in the eastern part of my territory that needed some looking after. A sawmill company was organized at Detroit and a sawmill put in operation in the western part of the village, on block 19.

A road was swamped out and a few loads hauled to Detroit, but it was soon found to be a losing enterprise as far as pine logs were concerned, so the logging business after that was confined to Oak and Basswood. Colonel Johnston cut and hauled a hundred thousand feet or so from Section 13 in Detroit, and that was about the extent of the winter's business. R. L. Frazee cut about one million feet on Sections 14 and 23 in Erie that winter and floated them down to his Frazee mill in the spring. The Buck brothers at Buck Mills cut and sawed up some fine oak timber that winter which they shipped to Moorhead. W. W. McLeod, Abbott and Van Gorden cut several hundred thousand feet of pine on Sections 10, 13 and 16 in Holmesville, which they floated down to the sawmill at Richwood. This was the third winter that lumbering had been carried on in that vicinity. Times were also lively at Spring Creek. Cornish's sawmill was not exactly in Becker County, but he had no conscientious scruples about sawing logs that were stolen over the county line. This completes

The winter of 1872-3 was the stormiest winter since the first settlement of Becker County. There was hardly a week during the whole winter without a blizzard. While Detroit was the recognized county seat, Oak Lake City was still a place of considerable importance. The United States land office was still there, and S. B. Pinney had moYed his store from C. A. Sherman's on the shore of Oak Lake two miles away. There were two other stores, two hotels, two or three saloons and nearly everything else that goes to make up a village was still there. As the laws of the state of Minnesota did not require county officers to hold their offices at the county seat for three years after the organization of their county, the Becker County officials were at this time scattered throughout the county. John Cromb, the county auditor was chief clerk in the United States land office, and Ole A. Boe, the county treasurer was clerking in the store of S. B. Pinney, and consequently they kept their officers at their respective places of business. The 20th day of December, 1872, was cold and stormy, too much so in fact for a man to be wandering around in the woods, so I put in the day at Oak Lake and having a little spare money concluded to go and pay my taxes. The treasurer had not yet received the tax books for the current year, so we went to the auditor's office to ascertain the amount of my tax. It was $3.79 and as the treasurer handed me the receipt he remarked that it was the first tax that had been paid, and as that year, 1872, was the first year any taxes had been levied, I found I had paid the first tax ever paid in Becker Count}'. I have the receipt yet, a facsimile of which appears on the following page.

With the advent of spring my labors and troubles as timber agent came to a close. I had expected in the beginning to make enemies of the whole country, but I had treated the settlers squarely, and they in turn had refrained from appropriating railroad timber far better than could have been expected. I had sold them all the dead and down that they wanted for fuel at a very lowfigure, on time and never received a cent and never expected to receive a cent of pay for it, and they and the railroad company and myself were all well satisfied. When it was all over with, they concluded that it was better to have me watch them and the timber than some stranger. On the 13th day of April, 1873. I was looking up some trespass on lands in the vicinity of New York Mills, when I received a telegram from the Northern Pacific Railroad Company stating that a company of one hundred and fifty emigrants from England were coming on the afternoon train destined for Hawley, and I was directed to take the train and go with them and show them land in that vicinity until further orders. I took the train at the appointed time and proceeded to Hawley. I sat down in a seat that was occupied by a man by the name of Samuel Pearce, who had a boy with him by the name of Thomas at that time about thirteen years of age. It was a raw, disagreeal^le day in April, following a long cold winter, with some ice in the lakes and ponds and a few snow drifts still lingering around their borders. The emigrants were well pleased with the country through Becker County, with its lakes and groves, but a look of disappointment came over their faces as they looked out over the cheerless prairies in the vicinity of their destination. They had expected to find a fairly well cultivated country and a flourishing village at Hawley, instead of which there was nothing there but two tents and a freight depot. When the train stopped my friend Pearce looked out and enquired if this was the "rising town of Hawley," that they had heard so much about. He finally declared his belief that the whole thing was a "bloody sell." The party took possession of the freight depot and cooked and ate and slept there for some time. The next morning after our arrival I saw Mr. Pearce and Tom making a bee-line up along the railroad track in the direction of Becker Countv, and I never saw him again for a year and a half, when I found him at Frazee's lumber camp up on the Otter Tail River. He had taken a homestead on Section two (2) in Burlington Township and his whole family was living on the homestead. James Littlemore and Fred A. Southern of Detroit were offshoots from that same colonv.

Mosquitoes, Prairie Fires And Grasshoppers

The old settlers doubtless all remember the mosquitoes of the early seventies. They have been getting gradually and beautifully less year by year, especially in the older towns, and a generation or two hence it will be difficult for people to comprehend what the first settlers were obliged to endure from these bloodthirsty little villains. There are thousands of them to be found in the country now, but thirty-five years ago we had them by the million. The diflierence in these figures will fairly represent the ratio of difiference, between the mosquitoes in 1870 and in 1905, especially in the villages and some of the older townships.

A great many of the early settlers came from countries where there were but few if any of these insects, and were totally unprepared for their onslaughts, and as most of them were obliged to sleep in their wagons, or in the open air for several weeks, with now and then a tent, their sufferings were intense. Some of them were wise and fortunate enough to bring mosquito netting, and were thus enabled to escape to a large extent, especially at night. But many came without any, and the only way in which they could escape their endless persecutions at night w-as to build a smudge and sleep in the smoke all night, w^hich was almost as bad as to be tormented by the mosquitoes.

My surveying party in 1870 sufifered intensely. We had only one tent and that was used for a kitchen, dining room, storehouse and sleeping room. There was no way in wdiich we could close it up, and as we had no mosquito netting we were reduced to the expedient of sleeping all night long, night after night, in a cloud of smoke, and as the warm weather continued through the month of September, our sufferings were long drawn out. My experience in the early part of 1871 was the same, but later in the season we hit upon a scheme that worked to a charm, and since that time I have never been annoyed by mosquitoes at night when sleeping in a tent. We banked up our sleeping tent by shoveling sods and soil around the bottom of the tent, so that none could get in underneath, and after entering the tent, we would sew the front flaps together with a darning needle and coarse twine by taking a few long stitches and then placing a sod at the bottom to hold the front down. We now had our tent in shape so that no mosquitoes could enter. There would of course be a lot of them left inside, and to dispose of them we would light a candle and kill every last one of them in a few minutes. They would invariably alight on the walls of the tents, and by holding the candle under them one at a time, w-e soon cleared the tent ; zip, zip, they would fall dead to the ground. It was pretty tough on the little rascals, but they were trying their best to torture us to death, and most anything was honorable in that kind of warfare. They were as bad on the prairie as they were in the timber, but were generally the worst in the brush or where the timber and prairie came together. They were worse in a wet than in a dry season, and were w^orse in a warm season than in a cold one, and when it was both wet and hot life was a weary burden. On the prairie and in the openings they were worse in the evening and early part of the night than at any other period of time, but in the heavy timber they were not as bad at night as in the day time.

They were just as bad on the dry breezy prairies of Dakota as they w^ere in Minnesota, but the worst places of all on this earth, I think, were in the Red River and Missouri River bottoms the next summer after a spring overflow. I have worked all day long when I would be covered with them so thick that I could not tell the color of my clothes, and in the summer of 1878 the plastered walls in some of the hotels in Bismarck would be black with them for days and nights together.

The farther north you go, the worse the mosquitoes, and if you wish to see them in all their glory at the present time, take a trip up to the Lake of the Woods in the summer. The deer and moose and some of the domestic animals are obliged to spend a good part of the time in the lakes and rivers in the summer to save themselves from mosquitoes and flies.

People these days have no idea what a plague mosquitoes were then. In 1868 the Red river overflowed, and the trail to Pembina was lined with

One day that summer Billy Piper came down and stayed with me over night and next morning he found his horse dead from exhaustion and loss of blood from mosquito bites, and I had to lend him another to go on with. But civilization, assisted by the cattle and horses, has worked wonders in ridding our county of these pests.

Many years ago, before the prairies in the northwestern townships of Becker County were plowed up, they were occasionally visited by widespread and destructive prairie fires.

This was especially the case with Walworth, Atlanta and Cuba, and the two townships east of Walworth and Atlanta on the White Earth Indian Reservation. The prairie towns lying farther east and south, were partially protected by the numerous lakes and ponds wdthin their borders ; but notwithstanding this partial protection they were soinetimes overrun by fierce prairie fires that were driven in by the northwesterly winds from the Red River valley.

Such a fire swept down through Hamden and the western part of Richwood about the 25th day of October, 1870, when I was there surveying, and we only saved ourselves from a severe scorching by back-firing, which was done by setting the grass on fire where we stood and rushing in onto the burnt ground behind the fire.

In October, 1871, we had our entire camp outfit burned up in Audubon Township by one of these fires. That was a remarkably dry season, and the fire obtained a foothold in some of the dried out marshes, particularly on Sections 10 and 11 of Audubon, and it smoked and steamed up through the show in man\' places until after New Years, wdien it was a foot and a half deep.

Many an old settler of Becker County could relate to you sorrowing tales of loss and sufi^ering occasioned by these fires. It was only by eternal vigilance in back-firing and plowing around their homes and stacks of hay and grain, that anything \vas saved as a general rule.

was but little wind and the grass not very heavy nor very dry, a prairie tire was a tame afifair. We usually walked through them and stood around such fires with but little thought ; but when the grass is heavy and thoroughly dry and the wind blowing a gale, a prairie fire is one of the most terrible demons of destruction that can be pictured by the most vivid imagination.

To give you an adequate conception from my own experience, of what a red hot, rampant prairie fire will do when at its worst, I will be obliged to go outside of Becker County for fitting illustrations.

On the loth day of October, 1878, I was engaged in surveying and platting railroad lands in Dakota Territory west of the Sheyenne River, and a few miles south from where the village of Cooperstown now stands. On that day a fierce, raging prairie fire swept over the country where we were operating; jumped across the Sheyenne River, a stream nearly as large as the Otter Tail and was never checked in its career of destruction until it reached the Red River. The two men in our camp were more or less scorched, one of them quite severely. Our camp was pitched on the leeward side of a large pond and that was all that saved it from total destruction.