Becker County, Minnesota - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 1 of those read), 1907 (part 15 of 16)

Jorgfn Dornbush

Runeberg- Township was first settled by white men in the year 1882. A few Finlanders. Norwegians and Swedes, were the first settlers. Jacob Greus. John Maunu, John Johnson, and a few more filed claims in the fall of 1881 and moved onto their land in the spring of 1882.

Paul Kuha erected the first house or shanty in Runeberg, on Section 34 in the spring of 1882, and in the spring and summer of that same year Paul Anderson. Siffert Karjala. Wilhelm Grangruth, ]\Iichael Marjama, John Lalle, Thomas Johnson, Ole Salmonson, John Kynsijarvi, Jacob Sarkiaho and a few others settled in the township.

The first settlers were obliged to get their groceries and provisions from New York Mills, that being the nearest railroad station for several years, but after the Great Northern Railroad was l)uilt and a station established at Menahga, the most of their trading was done at that place. The settlers, however, were in no danger of starving as the woods were full of game, such as deer, partridges, prairie chickens, ra1)l)its and a few bears and moose. There were also lots of wolves and a panther was seen and killed. In the fall of 1882 a panther attacked an Indian, and if he had been a white man death would have been the result, but it seems the panther did not like the smell of the Indian, so he stopped within two feet of him. The Indian drew his rifle on the panther, who seized the barrel in his mouth, and when the Indian had forced it into his mouth far enough and turned it in the right direction, he fired, killing the panther on the spot. The dead body was seen by many of the white settlers.

John Maunu had settled on Section 22, and on the 20th day of November, 1882, he saw two deer pass by his house, and after getting his gun he started in pursuit of the deer. He followed them straight north, but he got lost in the woods and did not know where he was. He wandered around until eleven o'clock at night, when he came to an Indian tepee, up in what is now the town of Green Valley. As he came to the tepee an Indian came out with his gun in his hands. Mr. Maunu could speak neither English nor Indian, but laid down his gun and shook himself, signifying that he was cold. The Indian l)eckoned to him to come in. When once inside Mr. Maunu took off his coat and boots and moved up to the fire, as he was cold and wet through. He then motioned to the Indian that he was hungry by putting his fingers in his mouth and chewing on them. The Indian understood this and spoke to his squaw, who soon brought a piece of venison which she roasted on the fire, and she also prepared a cup of tea for him. After Mr. Maunu had satisfied his hunger he was surprised to see six or eight Indians come in. They had a conversation with the friendly Indian, and began talking louder and louder, and seemed to be very angry, and crowded up nearer and nearer to Mr. Maunu. It made the hair stand straight up on his head, as he was sure the Indians intended to kill him. At last the friendly Indian rushed up between the Indians and Mr. Maunu and kept the savage fellows back, and in a little while they all departed, but the friendly Indian sat up all night and watched over him with his rifle across his lap. The next morning the Indian beckoned to Mr. Maunu to follow him, and to his delight, about ten o'clock they arrived at John Lalle's shanty on Section 10 in the town of Runeberg. There they rested for a short time and had a little lunch, but the Indian understood it was not the home of Mr. Maunu and would not leave him, but accompanied him to his own home where they were met by Mrs. Maunu and the children and a few of the neighbors, who had been out looking for Mr. Maunu. The Indian was backward about going into the house, but the wife had a feast prepared for her husband and the Indian was beckoned to help himself and partake of everything. All the victuals seemed to taste good to the Indian, as he ate more than Mrs. Maunu and the neighbors had ever seen a man eat before or since at one time, and when through he looked up towards heaven, saying something in a few words not understood by the Finlanders, but who thought he gave thanks to the Great Spirit. He then made a sign that he was satisfied and well paid for all his trouble. Before he started for home Mr. and Mrs. Maunu loaded him down with food to take home with him. If it had not been for this friendly Indian Mr. Maunu would have died, either from cold, hunger or exhaustion. After that day the white settlers had no trouble with the Indians. They came frequently to the white men's houses and visited for hours, luit never begged or disturbed anything". They were quite helpful, and instructed the settlers in many new things. Some of the Indians could speak a little English and so could some of the settlers, and they became quite friendly.

The township of Runeberg was organized, and the first township election was held at the house of August Peterson, on Section 28. on the 24th day of May, 1887. The following township officers were elected : Chairman of supervisors, Olof Leamatta ; supervisors, John Lalle and Thomas Ollila ; treasurer, A. J. Sarkiaho ; clerk, August S. Peterson ; assessor, Michael Marjama ; justices of the peace, Paul Kuha and John M. Olson; constables, Frederick Sarvi and August Errickson ; road overseer, Wilhelm Grangruth.

The first white children born in Runeberg were twins: John and August Kuha, children of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Kuha, born on the third day of February, 1882. They are now good, strong, health}- boys, and still live in the township with their parents.

The first death among the white settlers, so far as known, occurred in 1885, and was that of Johan Peter, infant son of Mr. and Mrs. Chris. Jacobson. The second death was that of Anna Stina, wife of Siffert Karjala on Dec. 21st, 1885.

The first marriage occurred in the year 1889, when Wilhelm Grangruth and Annie Kynsijarvi were united. They are still living on Section 24, and are industrious and well-to-do farmers blessed with a large family and have won the respect of their neighbors, and given proof of what industry, economy and good management will do towards becoming independent.

On the 20th day of Februar}-, 1898, the post-office in Runeberg was consumed b}- fire. The post-office was located on the northwest corner of Section 26. Olof Kortuna the postmaster, a man fifty-six years old and a native of Finland, was burned to death at the same time, together with his dog. Rumors were afloat that somebody murdered the postmaster and his dog, and then set fire to the building to cover up the crime, but nothing could be proven and the incident is now among the almost forgotten things of the past.

The town of Runeberg at the present time, (1906), has a population of 410 and casts a popular vote of 100. Has one church, one cemeterv, four school districts and four schoolhouses ; and

The present town officers are as follows : Supervisors, Peter Army, John Kastren and Andrew Karjala ; town clerk, A. P. Danielson ; treasurer, Carl J. Johnson ; assessor, Olof Junes ; constables, Gaston Jacob and T. E. Peterson; justices of the peace, A. P. Danielson and Isaac Keksi ; overseer of roads, Aug. Parviainen, Erick Koivuniemi, T. E. Peterson and Oscar Anderson.

The township is out of debt and is improving the roads every year; more land is being brought under cultivation, and every effort is being made to induce new settlers to come in and help improve the country and make Runeberg their home.

The soil in Runeberg is deep clay. Wheat, oats, barley, flax, potatoes, clover and timothy are raised to good advantage, consequently stock-raising" is a profitable industry.

The village of Menahga is only four miles east of Runeberg where there is a good market for all kinds of farm produce, including cord-wood and ties. A majority of the farmers are now the owners of cream separators, and are either selling their cream in Menahga or shipping it to the larger cities.

Eber Hought, the historian of Runeberg, was born in Norway in the year 1858, came to the United States in 1878, lived in Otter Tail County four years, then removed to Richwood in Becker County where he was married to Caroline Errickson in 1882. In January, 1883, they went to New York Mills to live, and in 1887 moved to Runeberg, where they have resided ever since. Mr. Hought came to Rune1)erg the same year the township was organized and has always taken a helping hand in the aft'airs of the town, both political and religious, has held several offices of trust, and is the present postmaster of Runeberg. Mr. Hought assisted in organizing the first school district in Runeberg, in the year 1889.

The History Of Green Valley

By F. M. Shepard. The author of the history of Green Valley reached Detroit one cold day in November, 1883, stayed over night and the next morning, bright and early, in company with Geo. Harrington, started for Osage with a pack sack weighing fifty pounds, a fortyfive-ninety Winchester rifle, five hundred cartridges, a compass, a knife and everything that makes a complete hunter's outfit, my intention being to kill a car-load of deer, ship them to St. Paul and return to my native home in Michigan. We arrived in Osage about 9:30 p. m., somewhat the worse for wear, as I had sprained my ankle trying to escape some of the many stumps along the crooked trail from Height of Land to Shell Lake. After eating supper I lay down on my weary cot and closed my eyes, only to see deer jumping over and around me, some even had wini^s and were sailing through the air. .And 1 with m_\' fort}-- five-ninety blazing away until my fiYe hundred cartridges were nearly e.xhausted. At last I awoke. iuni])ing out of bed. only to find I could stand on but one foot, my ankle being swollen so that it was impossible for me to get on my shoe. HoAvever, after eating breakfast I made a trip out into the country by the aid of an ox team, to Fred Harrington's, liaYing met him, together with his brother George, M. S. Leavitt, Hugh Alexander and Jacob Uaumgardner in the Dakota harYest fields.

After a few days of careful nursing and hot applications of wormwood and Yinegar I was able to take my rifle and start out on luy long anticipated hunt. After hunting six daYS and seeing se\eral dozen deer, shooting at them all (and I think until this day I wounded one). While I didn't find an}- blood, it ran like a deer that had been hit somewhere. Meeting with this success as a hunter and not ha\'ing money enough to return liome, I naturally turned my mind in another direction. About this time the first threshing machine was hauled into Osage and I was em- ]doYed as one of the crew. We mo\-ed onto a thirtY acre field of wheat, this being one of the largest fields west of Osage. We threshed from the thirty acres nine hundred bushels of Xo. i wheat. This turned m_\' mind in still another direction and I commenced to iuYCStigate the soil, as before this I had a Yery poor opinion of the country as far as the productiYC ([ualities of the soil was concerned. I dug up some of the soil and thawetl it out, yet I was not satisfied, but thought that there must be something that I could not see in it, as it looked Yery sandy to me. r>ut by this time, being determined to haYc a home and share m}' lot with the rest of the poor yet warm-hearted people whom 1 found here, by the aid of AI. S. LeaYitt, who told me of the northwest (juarter of Section 12, 'I'ownshi]) 139, Range 36 (now in the town of Green A^'alley) being Yacant. I cruised it o\er and being satisfied it was all right I turned my footsteps toward Detroit (the county seat), arri\ing there in time for sup])er, making tlie trip from Osage to Detroit on foot OYer the rough and crooked trail in fourteen hours, and filed on the aboYe named (|uarter. d'his brings me to my settling in Green A'allcy.

I found settled there at that time: J. J. Brewer, on northwest quarter of Section 4 ; Chas. Alexander, on northeast quarter of Section 4 ; Hugh Alexander, on southeast quarter of Section 4 ;

Joe Palmer, on southwest quarter of Section 4 ; Lee Cole, on northwest quarter of Section 2 ; Lou Cole, on southwest quarter of Section 2; D. Adams on northeast quarter of Section 2; M. S. Leavitt, on northeast quarter of Section 14; R. A. Hopkins, on southeast quarter of Section 14 ; Sam. Cole, on northeast quarter of Section 10; C. R. Burch, on southeast quarter of Section 10.

The first Green \''alley people to get married were Joseph J. Brewer and Angeline Kinney, who were married on the 9th of November, 1882, to whom three children were born.

A little later Mr. and Mrs. Sam Cole arrived. Miss Blanche Leavitt was the first girl born in Green Valley. She graduated in the class of 1902 from the Park Rapids High School and afterwards graduated from the St. Cloud State Normal. She is now teaching her third year in the Park Rapids High School. Edward Cole was the first boy born in the township and he now resides in the state of W^ashington. The first death on record was that of Mary Hellamer, daughter of Henry and Katarena Mattila, who died on the 17th day of September, 1886. Mr. Truman Thompson, father of Mrs. Sam Cole, was the first adult person to die in Green X'alley. He was born in Wisconsin. He was a blacksmith and shoemaker by trade, had homesteaded near Red Wing and when the Indians broke out he and his family returned to Wisconsin. In 1885 he settled in Green Valley and died there ]\Iay 31. 188S, at the age of 61.

The first schoolhouse was built of logs, on the southeast corner of Section 3, without any expense to the district, in fact it was built before the district was organized. The material and labor all being donated by the settlers. Miss Flora McKinley of Osage, daughter of S. S. McKinley was the first teacher. She taught two terms in succession. She was followed by Miss Eugenia Price of ( )sage, who also taught two terms. I might say right here, she is still teaching the author of this article and three children, as we were married on the 15th of September, 1897.

As I am writing my mind runs back to many very pleasant as well as some unpleasant and peculiar experiences while holding down mv claim. One was shortly after moving into my cabin.

It was on a dark, foggy morning that I took mv gun and started for a lake about three-quarters of a mile distant, thinking I might get a wild goose for dinner, as I had heard some there the day before. After traveling about what I supposed to be the required distance, I saw an opening in the brush which I took to be the lake, but when coming out to the opening I was somewhat surprised to find a clearing of a few acres and a log cabin. Thinking I had found a new settler whom I had not heard of, I walked boldly up to the door, set my gun down and was about to rap, when I spied a familiar looking lock and further observations brought me to my senses, and I found myself standing at my own cabin door. I never started out after that without the sun or a compass to guide me. I might also relate my experience with a lynx. One evening when coming home from Osage with a sack of flour and a week's provisions on my back, when within half a mile of my cabin, I heard an unmerciful yell which made the woods ring. It also made my hat raise so I could scarcely keep it on my head. I quickened my footsteps as much as possible under the circumstances, which was not very slow, until I reached mv own door, which was never more welcome. I laid down my burden and Mr. Howard, an old gentleman that stayed with mc, asked what was the matter. When I related to him the circumstance, we listened and we both thought we heard something outside the door. By this time my heart had got down out of my throat and had commenced its normal beating. I took down my Winchester and stepped outside, when not ten feet from me I could see two balls of fire and hear a hissing noise. I drew up my gun and fired. I then went back into the house took a light and went out to find I had made a very lucky shot, as there lay the monster dead. It was one of largest lynx I have ever seen. These animals v/ere very numerous at that time. There were also some wolves, and bear and deer were very plentiful.

This township when fully developed will be one of the leading townships of the county, as it is particularly adapted to stock-raising. The firm of Vanderpoel and Shepard have a farm of five hundred and twenty acres on Section ii that they are stocking with cattle and sheep. IMany other fine farms are to be found there.

The author of this article was born in Bainbridge, near Benton Harbor, Mich., July i6, i860. He came to Minnesota in 1883, and resided in Green Valley until 1894, when he moved to Park

Rapids and went into the real estate, loan and insurance business with F. A. Vanderpoel, under the firm name of Vanderpoel & Shepard. He was elected judge of probate of Hubbard County in 1900, which office he has held ever since and was reelected in November, 1906.

The township was organized on the 3rd of May, 1886, at a township election held at the house of Samuel Cole. The name of the town at first was Hope, but afterwards changed to Green Valley. The first set of township officers were : Chairman of board of supervisors, Frank M. Shepard ; supervisors, Henry Mattila, John Johnson ; township clerk, Joseph J. Brewer ; treasurer, C. R. Burch ; assessor, Peter Vosen ; justices of the peace, Joseph J. Brewer and John Mansikka ; constables, Samuel Cole and August Jacobson.

When the petition was first filed with the county auditor it included all of what is now Green Valley and Runeberg townships. Runeberg was then fairly well settled, but there was not an acre of taxable land in the township, while what is now Wolf Lake Township contained several large tracts of taxable land, chiefly pine. Mr. Wilcox, the county auditor, advised them to change what is now Runeberg for what is now Wolf Lake Township, which had many acres of land which could be taxed and did not have a person living within its borders. The petition was taken back and the change made accordingly. The township as first organized included what is now Green Valley and Wolf Lake.

By Andrew Jarvimaki. The first settler in this town was John \Mrkkanen. He arrived in this town on the 15th of \la.y, 1888, from Champion, Michigan. He came with his wife Minnie, and his two sons, Carl and David, came with him. He came to Xew York Mills by railroad and then he took an ox team and started north, and it took him six weeks to reach the place where he now resides. He had to cut a road through the woods a large part of the way. The distance was thirty-five miles, and the road had been opened up only a small part of the distance. He had to fight pretty hard in those first years to make his living. He is always thankful to the government. He says the government presented him with a good piece of land that he filed a homestead, and that is the place he says he does not want to sell no matter how much money he is going to get for it. His farm is on Section t,^- He was born in Finland in 1850. He says there is not much to say about his early life, that he always had to work and sufl:'cr pretty hard to make his living, because he was very poor in those earliest days, but that everybody should be happy to own the property he now has. and T guess there is not much more to say about him in this historv.

r)Ut there comes another fellow ; his name is Abel Kinunen. He came from Houghton, Michigan, in the year 1888, a little after Wirkkanen came, and he came with his wife, Kerttu, and he too had his two sons with him. The name of one was Gabriel and the name of the other boy was Charley. He too first came over to Xew York Mills, and there took an ox team and made his way up here, where he filed a homestead on Section 30, of one hundred and sixt}" acres, on the same place where he still lives. He too is a native of Finland, born and raised over in the western part of that country. He says he had to work hard in those days to get a living for himself and his family, but he too is a prettv prosperous farmer in our days.

somewhere in r^Iichigan, and the next newcomer was Jeremias Soronen, and from what I have heard he was Hving in Duluth before he came over here.

The fellow who I tell you about now is by name Jacob Bakki. He was born in Finland, too. He was a youn,q' man, not over twenty years old when he left the country where he was born and went over to Sweden, where he worked in a coal mine, but as he wanted to see more of the world he came over to this side of the Atlantic and landed at Brainerd, because he had some friends there, but he did not like to stay there, so he made up his mind to come over to this town. Here he took up a homestead, but the poor living' and hardships and hard work upset his mind, and he became insane, and in 1891 or sometime like that had to be sent to the insane asylum at Fergus Falls. He was there a little over two years, or a little under, I forg'ct which, when he got over his trouble, and ran away and came back to see his homestead, and he is the same fellow who g"ot murdered about the first of November, 1898, on Section 19 in the town of Carsonville, and that is the end of his life.

The first girl was born on the 20th day of July, 1893, to Mr. and Mrs. Henning, and her name was Ida Aliina Henning. The name of the first person who died in our township was a son of Herman Larson. His name was Charlie and he died on the 2nd of September, 1895. The first wedding was that of Mr. and Mrs. Matt. Henrickson, who were married on the i8th of January, 1896. I do not know her maiden name. The first school teacher was Miss Mabell Newpolt, of Park Rapids.

The first township election was held on the 4th day of April, 1896. The first township officers were: Chairman of board of supervisors, William Isola ; supervisors, John Kangas and Henry Henning; clerk, Jacob Alio; assessor, Erick Sullivan; constable, Leander Suomela ; overseer of roads, Carl Wirkkanen ; justices of the peace, Henry Henrickson and Carl Komulainen. The first election was held at the schoolhouse on Section 20. Gabriel

Kiininen was the lucky fellow who killed the first wolf in the township and Henry Larson helped him, and the men who killed the first bear were Charlie Salmela and John Koskela, in the winter of 1896. These animals were killed on Sections 2 and 3 in Wolf Lake Township. Twelve or thirteen wolves have been killed since in our town ; it is hard to remember the exact number. There are a few hunters who killed a good many deer in those early days. One of them was Gabriel Kinunen.

The first wedding of our town people was that of Matt. Henrickson and his wife, but they were married in Menahga, over in Wadena County. The first marriage that actually took place in Wolf Lake Township was that of David Wirkkanen and Miss Ida Baso, who were married at the house of John Wirkkanen on December 3rd, 1896.

The post-office of Lonnrot was first opened in the spring of 1898, and Wm. Isola was the first postmaster. The first church was built by the Apostolic Lutherans in the summer of 1898, and another church was built by the Evangelical Lutherans two years afterwards. All the people in our township are Finns.

I was born at Washingland, Finland, on the 30th day of October, 1869, and came to America in 1888. I came to Wolf Lake township on the 6th of March, 1896, and took a homestead on Section 18, where I still reside.

Now I think I have told you all there is worth telling of our township history. Many good wishes to all who may read this history in the future.

The first settler in Toad Lake Township was Herman (Trififnow, who first came into the township on the 30th day of October, 1887, and took a homestead on the northwest quarter of Section 28. He l)uilt a house on this land that fall, which was the first built in the township. Five more settlers came into the township that same fall and took homesteads : John Neske on Section 26, Edward Reitz on Section 26, Chris. Reitz on Section 22, Antoine Pretz and William Worst on Section 28.

In the sprino- of 1888 John Detrich Glander, Sr., and Detrich dander, Jr., took homesteads on Section 18, and Henry Glander settled on Section 8 and is now^ living on Section 20. About the same time, August Anderson took a homestead on Section 28. Anderson is a son-in-law of J. D. Glander, Sr., and Mrs. Anderson and her mother, Mrs. Glander, were the first two wdiite women in Toad Lake Township. Li the fall of 1888 Wm. Lass took a homestead on Section 20 and Charles Hartkop took a homestead near by, and Henry Drewes took a homestead on the northeast quarter of Section 32. About all the government land in the township was taken up during the next few years. The early settlers of Toad Lake Township were nearly all foreigners, a few of them being Swedes, Norwegians and Finlanders, but a large majority of them were Germans. There have never been many incidents of an exciting character, such as murders, desperate encounters with wild animals or terrible accidents to record, and as the township has only been settled a few years, and the settlers being of a quiet and peaceable disposition, the history of the townshi]! will conseciuently be brief.

Jacob Bakki, who was murdered on Section 19 in the township of Carsonville in the fall of 1898, once owned some land on Section 15 of Toad Lake Township, and lived there for awhile.

Toad Lake Township takes its name from Toad Lake, a fine body of water in the northwestern part of the township, but how the lake came by the name I am unable to say. Toad Mountain, a magnificent elevation on Section 8 on the west side of Toad Lake, is undoubtedly the highest hill in Becker County. There is no other place in the county where so extensive a view of the surrounding country can be obtained as from the summit of Toad Mountain.

Toad Lake Township was organized in the month of January, 1892. The first special election was held at the house of Fred Alyers on the 5th day of January. 1892. A list of township officers was made out to be voted for at the annual election, March 8th, when the following officers were elected, being the first to hold office in the township : Chairman of board of supervisors, Henry Drewes ; supervisors, Henry Glander and Frank Oldrig ; township clerk, Hiram Harding ; treasurer, Herman Griffnow ; Hiram Harding justice of the peace and Detrich Glander constable.

The first people married in Toad Lake Township were Wm. Lass and Frida Schroder, wdio were married on the 9th day of December, 1891. The first birth was that of Anna Lass, daughter of Wm. and Frida Lass, born on the 13th day of October, 1892. The first boy born was John Anderson, son of August Anderson. The first death was that of Frank Oldrig. The first school taught in the township was by Millie Sandborn of Detroit.

August Czernetski located on the southwest quarter of Section 26 in October, 1894. Among the early settlers were Carl Albricht on the northwest quarter of Section 32, Michael Tessman on the southwest quarter of Section 32 and Ole Salmonson on Section 13.

On Section 26, in this town, is a hill about two hundred and fifty feet high and a man standing thereon can get a good bird'seye view of the whole township.

Mrs. Elizabeth C. Kxapp Chas. E. Spencer

ternary period, when nature was busy preparing this world for the dwelling place of man, and I saw where an ice boulder had been detached from that huge floe that swept our continent from north to south and as it was breaking up, formed a great crevasse, beginning up on the reservation and extending in a southeasterly direction from four to six miles in width, which, later on. formed the Shell River valley and prairies of that name. As this detached iceberg resting on our township gradually melted it left the sur- face of the land on which it rested broken and rolling", a sort of confused mass of stones, clay and sand, of which we have specimens of all varieties. Then, slowly, nature began the work of clothing in green, which went on until some of the finest forests of pine in Minnesota stood where desolation reigned supreme.

Father Hennepin crossed this township while returning from his exploration of the head waters of the Mississippi ; part of his trail is still in existence and is known as the Itasca Trail. To him belongs the honor of being the first white man to enter our township.

On April fifteenth, 1881, Elizabeth C. Knapp, a widow, with a family, decided that this would make a good home for her and her little ones, and she homesteaded the southeast quarter of Section 30. Shortly after making settlement on her claim, Mrs. Knapp had the misfortune to break a leg, which, coupled with pioneer hardships, made her bed not one of roses, but perseverance and grit enabled her to surmount all obstacles, and she is now living in Pa:rk Rapids enjoying life, though not in the best of health.

Mrs. Knapp's pioneer life and hardships were greatly mitigated by her son, a lad of thirteen, who had kept the larder well stocked with venison and bear meat, which was found in abundance, w^hile ducks and pheasants and rabbits were too numerous to mention, and could be found almost at the door.

Pioneer life is always a repetition of itself, joys and hardships S.O mingled as to make life a continuous succession of excitements which dispel the gloom of solitude, and buoy up the mind with an exhilaration known only to those who have lived on the frontier and entered into the strenuous struggle for existence there.

Widow Knapp, our pioneer settler, drank her cup and murmured not, happy now in her old age to think she won the fight, and is honored by all who know her.

For a number of years the southwest corner of the town was the only part settled. The next settlement formed was in the southeast, headed by M. W. Vanderwater and P. S. Dorsey, both of whom have had much to do with public aft'airs in Becker County. This settlement was later added to by the writer and others, until today there is but little vacant land left in this corner.

Settlement in the north side of the town was headed by the Bittman Brotliers, who were soon followed by Max Eischens and others. To-day there is a flourishing' settlement of Germans there, wdio are fast improving the country and building for themselves good homes. There is still quite a strip of land in the center of the town unsettled, wdiich is well adapted to diversified farming. There once stood in the township close to fifty million feet of pine which has mostly been cut and driven to the big sawmills. The soil is good and a settler here to-day can find vacant land containing" natural meadow and timl)er for building purposes, the question of fuel being too remote to consider.

There are two mills in active operation here. One owned by Mr. Eischens, in the north side, who cuts lumber, lath and shingles, also does a general flouring business, having good waterpower. The other is a general sawmill, owned and operated by the writer on the south side of the town. We have several fine lakes. The largest is Two Inlets, from which the town derives its name. One called Hungry Man's Lake in the northeast corner, took its name through the misfortune of an old man, one of the early settlers - a Mr. Christian, who got lost in the woods and wandered for two days and nights and was found by an Indian on its shores.

The first schoolhouse was built of logs about 1890, and the first term of school was taught by Sam Dazell. A\'e now have three fully equipped, modern schoolhouses in the town, which are all in one school district. No. 67.

Our organization as a township was completed in 1898. The first town ofiicers were : Supervisors : Henry Bittman, chairman ; W. T. Devereaux. IJarney IHttman : and town clerk, A. K. Lewis.

Politics at that time were somewhat exciting here ; it was almost a solid demo-populist town, the writer casting the only republican vote in the township for the first five years of his residence therein.

This township has been the home of three old soldiers : John O'Neil, a member of the present town board ; B. H. Cool, who still lives here, and Louis Fuss, who occupies "a little green tent, whose curtain never outward swings," dying soon after taking his claim - the first death in the town.

This ends the story of our existence as a commonwealth. Many circumstances coulcl have been better - more could have been worse, but taking it altogether, I am glad I came here, and there is still roum for man}- more, who will receive a hearty welcome.

The History Of Savannah

As a political organization, Town 142, Range 36, began to breathe conjointly with Town 141 of the same range, on the 20th day of September, 1898. The whole was called Two Inlets, on account of the fine lake within its boundaries having two inlets.

Penn. W. Martin

Peter Dirkes, Andrew Gangl. Herman Schubert, Joseph Kruse, George Lang, M. J. Smith, W. F. Kelsey, George Kelsey, A. C. Burlingame, Peter Moos, Frank Pfeifer, Edward Pfetse, August Dickmann, Chas. Bollenbaugh, E. N. Youmans and M. D. Mc- Nulty prepared a petition, which, after some alterations and corrections, was presented to the board of county commissioners requesting that the Siamese arrangement of Towns 141 and 142 be discontinued, and that Town 142, Range 36 be detached and set up in business for itself

On September 26th, 190 1, the commissioners took final action upon the petition making of the congressional Town 142, Range 36, the organized town of Savannah and ordered notices posted calling for the first election of "said town to be held upon the 12th day of the succeeding October at the residence of Peter Dirkes."

The first officers were : Chairman of supervisors, Peter Dirkes ; supervisors, C. E. Smith and Willard Worden ; clerk, Henry Kalthofif; treasurer, Mike Dirkes; justices of the peace, C. E. Smith and P. W. Alartin ; constables Henry Schubert and Lon. Burlingame.

On March 22nd, 1902, School District No. 91 was organized, comprising the whole town, and a few months later school began in a frame schoolhouse with Town Clerk Henry Kalthoff as teacher. Mr. Kalthoff came to this town with the Stearns County contingent. He had taught in that county some time and is now in Canada where he and two sons own land. Two more schoolhouses have been built and a fourth will be required in a short time.

Long before all this, however, residences were established here by John Dines and one Mclntyre. They came from Canada and each located on a fine pine claim, proving up in six months or so and very soon thereafter returning to their native land. At least so tradition runs. Not one of the present settlers ever saw them, and as a settled community they made no impression upon the town.

Ten years later came Dickmann, the first bona fide settler in the town. John August Diekmann was born in Aldenburg. Germany, soon after the middle of the 19th century, and has not yet forgotten the German tongue. He lived for a time in Stearns County, Minnesota, and in the fall of 1895 he came to Park Rapids and from there to Mr. Bittman's in Two Inlets. He took a great fancy to this section of country because of the fine hunting and fishing, and finally concluded to buy some tracts of meadow land and make a home here. During the summer of '96 two families settled in the woods at the south angle of Boot Lake and began the erection of homes. Herman Lashwoski and Louis Strouve worked hard and skillfully, but gave up the struggle and with their families and some chattels moved away in the fall or winter succeeding. Mr. Diekmann bought the improvements of these gentlemen on Section 32, and somewhat later filed on one of the claims and established a very pleasant home there. Bachelor

Between the advent of "August," as Mr. Diekmann is commonly cahed, and the arrival of Lashwoski, came the writer with a crew of men, and a claim shanty was erected on a homestead adjoining Mr. Diekmann's tracts, which also consisted mostly of meadow land, made in an early day by the backwater from the dams of the beavers. There are still other meadows on Beaver Creek and elsewhere in the town, and it was these beautifully grassy reaches that furnished the suggestion for a name for the town which should have been spelled "Savanna" instead of like the city in Georgia.

It must not be inferred from the foregoing that this is a low country, mostly meadow and swamp. There are numerous swamps of spruce and tamarack, Imt there are also some long ridges and high hills and po])lar flats.

Almost every species of wood or shrub known to the Minnesota flora is found here, including the three cranberries, blueberry, trailing myrtle and arbutus, on up through the various deciduous trees to the stately white pine and beautiful yellow Norway.

Leaving out of account the millions of "Jack" or black pine there were perhaps originally in the town, five or ten millions of white pine and twenty or thirty millions of Norway pine. Nearly four luillion feet were cut last winter. The timber being a fair indication of the soil, you will see that we have a great variety.

The timber attracted some young men to the neighborhood and at irregular intervals during the nineties, claims were located and built upon by John ( )'Neil, Frank Pfeifer, A. T. Brennig, Messrs. Mansfield, Youmans, Lievi, Johnson and others. At the dawn of the twentieth century the town received an infusion of new blood. The Iowa colony in 1894 with C. E. Smith as patriarch, took possession of a large amount of land in the Boot Lake region. The Gaylords settled among them in 1901. The center of the town was settled by a number of German Americans from Stearns County, and the Wisconsin group settled to the east with Mr. Worden from South Dakota.

Three forces operated to lead trails to this direction at a very early period - the late seventies - the cranberries, the fish and game and the timber. The very earliest paths seemed to have been located by Indians. During the early eighties hunters from Osage and Linnell, worked roads in here from the south and west. The Moores, Witters and Stevens called it the Boot Lake country. Still others Long Lake. Roads were pushed further in during the early nineties by settlers from the south looking for ha}' privileges. It was while cruising for hay with C. W. Martin of Arago, Hubbard County, in 1895, that the writer's present homestead was discovered. Ten years have witnessed a change from a desolate wilderness to a fairly populous township, having two post-offices. Mrs. C. E. Smith was our first postmistress and she opened the Savannah post-office to the public at her home on the west shore of Boot Lake, September, 1902. In 1904 a post-office was established in the north central part of the town, John Schmit being postmaster. He also has a stock of groceries and settlers' supplies.

Stories of adventure do not come readily to my pen. A buffalo head was found in the creek by Mr. Schubert this spring. Some years ago Mr. Deikmann shot a swan. IMoose and the like are not so plentiful now as formerly, but we believe we are the only folk who boast of beaver, and this involves a technicality ; there are some beaver on the Itasca State Park, and four sections of the Park are within the boundaries of our township. We have bears too. One Sunday morning a youth went out into the woods to avoid distraction until he could con his catechism lesson. For comfort he climbed a tree, and sat in the fork thereof. While thus engaged he was startled by a peculiar noise at the foot of the tree. It was nothing but a bear standing on his rear pins trying to make out what the boy was reading. Finally Bruin gave up, but the boy showed fight. At any rate the boy's hair bristled up. A picture is inserted to take the place of our hunting story. Also our best fishing story will have to be told by P. O. Stevens as he got the nets.

Topographically we are if anything higher than Height of Land, being a part of the thirteenth or Itasca Moraine, and nearly 1,600 feet above sea level.

to Kankakee, 111. On June nth. 1861, he enlisted in the 42nd Illinois Volunteers and served durini;- the war. He was for five months in Andersonville prison where he was eruelh- treated. He came to Savannah in 1889.

Come to Ohio and find Ridpath dedicating- his universal history "to my father and mother, who upon the rough borders of civilization toiled."

Come to Savannah with the Stearns County Germans, and weep with them over the remains of their children, wdio w'ere carried ofi: 1j\ diphtheria the first summer.

We cannot begin to tell the hardships the people endured. Fortunately we are now too busy to repine over these things, and the prospects before are bright - even cheery.

It was the 4th of June. 1904, in the afternoon, that Annie Haider, nine years old, and her aunt, Lena Haider, aged thirteen, started for the cows. The girls with their folks lived on Section 10 in a very sparsely settled portion of the town. At no great distance on either side are dense swamps of tamarack, balsam and spruce.

By the time they found the cows they were turned half way round by the compass. The cows were not turned round, and refused to go in the dn-ection the girls were trying to drive them.

At last they gave up and set out for home as they thought. At four o'clock Annie's father heard of the errand the girls had gone on and set out at once to find the girls and cows. He found the cows. Becoming alarmed, he and six near neighbors Ijegan a search which they kept up past midnight, when they returned to the home of Andrew Haider, Lena's father.

Annie's mother had but a few weeks before been laid in the grave and now she and her aunt were expected to have been devoured by wolves in the mid-swami). And thus were the relatives tortured till the morrow.

Early next morning' twenty men renewed the search. After beating along up the west side of the park, the teacher, Mr. Gaylord, went to the West Savannah settlement and recruited ten more volunteers for the hunt; all the men he saw - each man providing himself with a rifle, lantern and lunch. Just as the recruits arrived at the place to begin the search the children had been found.

Now to follow the children. Being afraid of Indians and Philistines they carefully avoided old shacks and even trails and struck for the deepest part of the forest. Fortunately, they had a hatchet with them and they thoughtfully marked a tree here and there, to be noticed later by the rescuers.

They also agreed to answer no calls except their own names. Shoirtly before nightfall a cold rain set in, which did not stop until daybreak. About this time the fugitives selected a large spruce with spreading branches and climbed up several branches and made themselves as comfortable as possible and remained till the Sabbath dawned. Their guardian angel sent two night-birds to the old spruce and their songs somewhat softened the dreariness of those hours.

Annie, by putting her head in Aunt Lena's arms, slept a while, but poor Lena kept sleepless vigil till morning. They again began wandering around in quest of home. At noon they were heard by John Gangl, Michael Gartner and Jerry Breitback. They were on the west shore of Lake Itasca, eight miles from home. The children were bewildered and afraid, but when they recognized their neighbors, vou can imagine their relief. And how they made away with that lunch. Then a tramp of six miles to the nearest house. Here a rest and refreshment gave strength to finish the journey, and at four o'clock, tired and wet and almost divested of clothing, they were folded to the hearts of relatives and playmates who had gathered to receive them. A volley from the rifles brought in the rest of the party, who as they came trooping out of the woods, presented the appearance of a small army, and it was an army of friends.

The first town election in the town of White Earth was held in the village of White Earth, March 30th. 1906, and the following officers elected: Town clerk, R. G. Beanlieu ; treasurer, B. S. Fairbanks ; assessor, R. P. Fairbanks ; supervisors, G. A. Morrison, Truman Beaulieu and Frank Warren ; justices, George Fox and John Heisler ; road overseer, Allan J\Iorrison.

The first township officers of Callaway Township are as follows : Geo. Bellefeuille, John Rodgers, and R. A. Preston, supervisors ; J. P. Ernster, clerk ; John Ernster, treasurer ; X. A. Granquist, justice of the peace ; Donald McDougall and Chas. Uran, constables. The first school board of Callaway school district No. 96: N. A. Granquist, clerk; John Ernster, treasurer; J. T. Porter, director. First postmaster of Callaway, j. T. Porter. First baby born in Callaway, Florence Granquist, January 4th. 1905. First building built by N. A. Granquist for the Bovy-Schute Lumber Co. in July, 1904. The first township election was held in J. Ernster's building in the village of Callaway on the 30th of ^larch, 1906.

The Maple, The Oak And The Pine

What I am going- to say about some of the different species of timber growing in Becker County will not be new and probably will not be very interesting to people now living, but I am not writing for this generation alone, but for the future as well, and perhaps the history of the maple and the oak and the pine and the many ways in which they were utilized and an account of what has become of them, will be of some interest to people who may read this article fifty or a hundred years hence.

Everybody in Becker County knows the sugar-making qualities of the maple family. The box-elder is very prolific in the production of sap. While it is not a maple it belongs to the same natural order or family, and yields large quantities of sugar when of sufficient size. Maple River in North Dakota, is so called not from the maple but from the box-elder that grows in abundance along its banks.

Alexander Henry, the fur trader, at his camp on the Red River says in his journal, March nth, 1801: "The bastard maple, or box-elder, is beginning to run. The sap yields a fine white sugar, but it is not so sweet as the real maple sap and it requires more to make the same quantity of sugar.''

The soft maple and the yellow birch are also good sap producers, but they are both too small and too scarce in Becker County to be serviceable. The so called wintergreen essence is made mostly from the twigs of the yellow and black birch. The white birch also produces sap in abundance, suitable for making molasses. When Becker County was first settled there was considerable hard maple distributed throughout the timbered portions of the county. It would not compare favorably with the maple in southern Minnesota or in the states farther east, but in Cormorant, Lake Eunice, Lake View, Burlington, Erie, Holmesville, Richwood, Detroit, the south part of Audubon and of Lake Park there was considerable maple of a fair quality. It was also quite plentiful on the White Earth Reservation and grew in some of the eastern towns in small amount. The hard maple, however, has been fast disappearing for a long time owing to the high price of that kind of wood, and from present indications there will be none left to tell the tale in a few more years, except small trees and brush. ^lost people of the present generation know how the maple sugar is made, but the time will come when it will be a matter of history or tradition, and it is as good a time now as ever to get it into history. The white man had two ways of tapping maple trees, one of which was to chop a notch in the tree and drive a circular spout under the notch into a hole made with a circular steel gouge, which carried the sap to a wooden trough or bucket. Another method was to bore two or three holes, and drive in round hollow spouts and hang a bucket or a pail on one of these spouts to catch the sap. The sap was then taken to the boiling camp in two pails, suspended from a neck-yoke carried on a man's shoulders. Then the sap was boiled down in kettles or sheet iron pans to either sugar or molasses, and in this county it was generally made into molasses by the whites. In New York, fifty years ago, the maple trees would average about two pounds of sugar in a season, but in Becker County it is doubtful if ever more than half that amount could be produced, as the sugar season is much shorter and the trees are smaller. It takes about fifteen pails full of sap to make a pound of sugar. After the sap has been boiled to molasses the further process of making it into sugar is simple. All that is necessary is to keep on boiling until the water is all Ijoiled out, when it will begin to grain when allowed to cool. After the water is all evaporated, there is danger of burning the sugar, so it should be taken from the fire at once as it will become very hot, the same as lard. Before finishing the batch it can be cleansed and made whiter by breaking an egg into the syrup, or putting in half a pint of sweet milk. This causes the dirt impurities to rise to the top in a thick scum which can be easily skimmed off. The usual method of ascertaining when the syrup was sufficiently boiled down for molasses was to dip some of the liquid up with a long handled dipper, then pour it back into the kettle and if the last drops would run together and accumulate in a mass, as they dropped from the edge of the dipper instead of falling in separate drops, it was said to be "syruped down," and was then taken out of the kettle, strained and stored away until suf^cient quantity was accumulated from several days' boilings for the final process of sugaring off. It was then thick enough to keep it from souring. When a sufficient quantity had been accumulated to fill the kettle about one-third full, it was all poured back into the kettle and boiled over a slow fire. In order to ascertain when all the water was boiled out of the sugar, a slender sprout or branch was usually cut from a willow or an elm, an open knot tied in the small end of the sprout making a loop about an inch in diameter. The loop end of the sprout was then dipped into the syrup and when taken out if a film remained, stretched across, filling the loop, like soap suds in an old fashioned clay pipe, when making soap bubbles, the water was all boiled out and the syrup was ready to harden as soon as cooled off. Stirring the syrup with a paddle gives it a finer grain. The Indians formerly made considerable sugar in this county. They notched the trees the same as the white man, and caught the sap in pans made of birch bark that would hold about a gallon apiece. After gathering the sap from the trees, they stored it away at the boiling camp in a long trough made by cutting the interior out of a large basswood log. The white man always selected the largest and the soundest tree he could find, but a big hollow tree was always selected by the Indian as it took less work to dig it out. The holes at the hollow ends of the trough were plugged up with wooden blocks and pine pitch. Some of these troughs would hold several barrels of sap. The Indians always boil their sap in kettles. In boiling sap it is liable to foam and boil over occasionally in which case the white man was accustomed to throw in a small piece of fat pork. The Indian instead of throwing in pork would generally throw in fish or a skinned muskrat, which answered the double purpose of checking the overflow of the sap and cooking the fish or the rat at the same time. Indian sugar camps were formerly quite numerous in the southern and central sections of the county, but they are now a thing of the past, outside the reservation.

The bur oak was originally very abundant in Becker County particularly in the southern and central parts, and nearly all the timber in the prairie groves in the western towns was bur oak. In the belt of timber stretching through Richwood, Detroit. Lake View, Lake Eunice, Cormorant and the south part of Lake Park and Audubon the oak was the principal timber and the most of it was of a very good quality. In passing from the west to the east, the entire breadth of the county, the oak becomes less and less in quantity until reaching the eastern tier of towns where there was but little to be found.

Tliere was a i^reat demand fur Dak for liiml)cr, tindicr. fencini;', railroad ties and fuel from the time the Xorthern Pacific Railroad was bnilt until the present time, and there is now l)ut little left. In the neighborhood of a million railroad ties have been made in liecker County and used on the Xorthern Pacific in the last thirty-three years. There was originally about one hundred and twenty-five million feet of oak timber in the county suitable for huuber. This is nearly all gone except what is on the A\diite Earth Reservation amounting to something like tw-enty-five million feet. In addition to the above ties and lumber about three hundred thousand cords of oak wood have been cut, two-thirds of which was used by the Northen Pacific Company or shipped to the prairie regions of Dakota.

The bur oak is a tree peculiar to the Northwest : it being very rare in the eastern and southern states. Of the nineteen different species of oak found in the northern states onlv three are found in Pecker County. The l)ur oak, the red or scarlet oak and the white oak. The latter is very scarce and like the yellow birch and the soft maple and the black cherry is more abuntlant in the southern part of the county than farther north, but all four of them are more plentiful and grow larger as you proceed south from Becker County.

In 1870 there were some fine tracts of pine tind^er in the eastern and central portions of Becker County. Nothing can excel the beauty and grandeur of a pine forest in a state of nature and some of the pine groves of Becker County would compare favorably with any in the state. There was a hundred and sixty acre tract in Section 13, Township of Height of Land from which four million eight hundred thousand feet of pine were cut. It was a beautiful sight wdien standing. It was about half white pine and half Norway. The trees were tall, straight and large withcnit any underbrush or fallen timber.

The grove of pine west of the Otter Tail River in Erie was a magnificent grove although many of the trees were unsound. There were about six million feet in this grove on about six hundred and forty acres, all white pine. About half of it was cut by George B. Wright in the winter of 1874-5 and floated down the Otter Tail River to Fergus Falls. Wright had taken seven forties of land in this grove with Sioux half-breed script, before it was surveved. AA'right also cut the best of the timber on Sec- tions 13, 24 and 25 in the town of Height of Land, x^lso the best of the timber on Sections 18 and 19 in Toad Lake and floated it down Toad River and the ( )tter Tail to Fergus Falls in 1875, 1876 and 1877.

N. P. Clark of St. Cloud afterwards cut the best of what was left in the vicinity of Toad River and floated the logs down Toad River and the Red River to Winnipeg, Afanitoba. This was about 1 88 1 -2-3. At one time there were thirteen logging dams on Toad River. A. H. Wilcox and R. L. Frazee cut nearly all the pine on the waters of the Otter Tail, south of the reservation that George B. Wright had not cut. The Commonwealth Lumber Company cut and hauled to the Otter Tail about thirty million feet of logs from the waters of the Shell River and from the country away east of the Toad River. Some of them were hauled as far as sixteen miles. The pine in Plolmesville nearly all went down the Buffalo River to Richwood and a few hundred thousand feet went there from the western part of Grand Park. The largest part of the pine on the waters of the Shell and Straight Rivers was cut by Weyerhauser and others and run down the Crow Wing River to Little Falls and iNIinneapolis, while the pine in Savannah and Two Inlets went down the Fish Hook River to Park Rapids and points lower down.

I think that the farthest west that any pine grew- to any size in Becker County and probably in the state of Minnesota was in the township of Detroit.

A small clump of five or six white pine trees stood near the center on Section 36, and were cut by Furber and Baldwin along about 1883 or 1884, and sawed up at their portable mill. This little group of pine trees was plainly visible from some parts of the village. One of the trees was three feet in diameter, another about two feet, wdiile the others were smaller. I think there was a big pine tree and a small one on the east shore of Rice Lake on Section 14, of Detroit, in an early day. There were also two large pine trees in the northeast part of the township, on Section 11, and these undoubtedly grew the farthest west of all. I passed close to these two trees in 1871 and they were plainly visible from the west side of Floyd Lake.

The following list will give approximate!}' the amount of white and Xorwa}' pine growing in Becker Countv before anv of it was cut. In the eastern tier of townships and in Carsonville it

One object in writing" this article is to show up Becker County as it was in the beginning; to present it to the present and the coming generations as it appeared in a state of nature. Already several of its former inhabitants, members of the animal kingdom have disappeared forever. Among the winged fraternity we may mention the wild pigeon, and of the quadrupeds, the elk, the antelope, the buffalo and the panther. Other species such as the deer, the moose, the bear, and the wolf are following in the same path, to the same destiny ; and with them the white pine and the Norway, the two species that for magnificence, nobility and utility stood at the head of the list of Becker County forest trees, are destined to share the same fate.

The county has been settled only thirty-five years and yet you can hardly find a white pine or a Norway of respectable dimensions outside of the reservation in the whole county. Even now the young pines are being cut as fast as they are large enough to make lath or shingles and before they are old enough to reproduce their own species. In fifty years a pine stump will be a curiosity as that is about the life time of a white pine stump. With the pine will go the logging industry and all its different belongings, including the big logging sleds, broad-gauge logging roads, the log drive, the boom, the sawmill and the lumber Jack. In a few

Before beginning logging operations for the winter, the first thing was to put up hay of which the natural meadows furnish an abundance, and all it cost was the making and the stacking and hauling it to the camp. The next thing was to build a camp ; they were usually built of logs and covered with earth, when used for the men, as no roof will keep a building as warm as a good covering of that material. The stables were usually covered by building haystacks on top of them. There was always a cookroom in the camp, a sleeping room or two. a warehouse and generally a blacksmith shop. A good cellar was always made under the cook-room and generally kept well stored with vegetables. The camp was usually built near a spring, but in the absence of a spring one or more wells was a necessity. There were usually froni twenty-five to one hundred men in one of these camps. The next move was to locate and grade the roads for the winter's work. The main road to the landing where the logs were to be hauled must be located with care. It must not be too crooked or the grades too steep.

They never expect to climb a grade steeper than five feet in a hundred if they can avoid it, although they frequently go down hills that are alarmingly steep by putting spruce brush or hay or coarse stable manure in the ruts. I have always looked for some serious accident in going down these steep hills with heavy loads but never knew one to happen. These roads are generally built twenty-five feet wide. The stumps should all be dug out, the surface of the ground ploughed down smooth and uniform and ruts made for both runners of an uniform width apart, generally seven or eight feet to correspond with the width of the sleds. These ruts are usually dug six or eight inches deep, the whole length of the logging roads, and are then sprinkled with water at intervals of two or three days. This sprinkling is usually done at night when the roads are not used, by means of a big box tank holding from fifteen to twenty barrels of water mounted on a pair of logging sleds and hauled over the road. The water freezes to the ruts of course and in a short time they are built up on each side with ice and soon become hard and glary. A load can be hauled twice as heavy as on an ordinary snow road. Each set of sleds is made with four runners of immense size. The runners are cut out of oak plank eight feet long, fourteen inches wide and four inches thick and are strengthened with iron plates and are held in place by beams or bunks of oak from fourteen to sixteen feet long and never less than a foot square. The ends of these bunks protrude four feet beyond the runners which are usually eight feet apart thus giving the sled a breadth of from fourteen to sixteen feet. The sled runners are of course kept well shod with steel shoes.

These main roads have branches running all through the woods where the logs are cut. After the logs are cut they are rolled up onto skidways of from one hundred to three hundred logs in a skidway.

These skidways are usual!}- made alongside the road in places where the ground is more or less sloping towards the road, thus giving a downhill roll towards the sled when they are being loaded. They are also made wdiere the road has somewdiat of a downhill grade, so that the load will have a slight downhill start when it is ready to go. These loads are usually hauled with four horses, although sometimes, when there is no uphill grade, only two are used. Now here is where the marvelous in the logging business comes in. It is almost incredible what loads can be hauled on these big sleds over an ice road.

The first tier of logs is always rolled onto the sled by hand, but the balance of the load is rolled up with horses, sometimes with one but usually with two. They always pull on the side of the sled opposite the skidway, a long rope called a parbuckle is used, which is thrown back over the load and passed under the log to be rolled up and hooked to some log in the load by means of a swamp hook with a sharp steel point fastened to the end of the parbuckle. The other end of the rope is then hooked to the team and the log rolled up onto the sled. The outside logs in the bottom of the load are chained to the four corners or the ends of the two bunks with great heavy chains and fastened with a key that can be readily knocked out when ready to unload at the river landing. The load is also bound by wrapping chains around the load fore and aft when built up six or seven feet above the sled. Above that the logs are rolled up to a peak as long as there is room for one to stay on the load. The top log is called a white cap. In this way from sixty to one hundred and fifty logs are loaded onto one sled. The logs usually average about one hun- dred feet to a log, so that a common load contains about eight thousand to twelve thousand feet when sawed into lumber. They look like young mountains moving through the woods. The load in the picture, however, is a scjuare load.

When spring comes the logs must be floated to the mill. If they are landed on a river, and there are no lakes to go through, all there is to be done is to keep the channel open so that the logs can pass through with the current of the stream. The logs, however, are bound to gorge and form a jam at narrow and shallow places. Here is where the science and skill of the lumber Jack come in play. It always takes a good man to break a jam and generally it takes three or four, and it is always a dangerous business. A passage is finally opened up through the jam while other jams form below, which in their turn have a passage opened through them much narrower than the natural breadth of the stream and consequently the depth of the water is correspondingly increased. In this way the river is finally winged up with logs for miles at a stretch after which the passage of the logs is but seldom interrupted. The rear of the drive is being continually worked ofif, and the logs sent on ahead through this narrowed up channel. Frequently the logs in these big gorges or jams are piled up many*feet higher than the water, and when the rear of the drive reaches the big jam the science of the lumber Jack is again brought into requisition. These gorges of logs are usually worked off by blocking the channel of the river w^ith logs lower down, and making another jam or dam which soon raises the water sufficiently to float off the logs in the old jam at the rear. Perhaps the logs in the new jam will have to be floated off in the same way, and the process may have to be repeated by continually making jams with the logs to float off the old ones until the logs are landed in the mill-pond.

If the logs are landed in a lake or if they pass through lakes they will have to be boomed. The logs are always unloaded from the sleds onto the ice as compactly as possible. They are then surrounded with boom sticks which are nothing more nor less than whole pine trees fifty or sixty feet in length. The ends are then chained together with short chains the links of which are made of iron five-eighths of an inch in diameter. The chains are inserted through a hole bored through the ends of the boom sticks with a three inch ausfer. There is a "T" at each end of these chains which are plugged into these holes with wooden plugs, good and tight. Some of the booms of the Nichols Chisolm Lumber Company cover a surface of one hundred and sixty acres in extent. Accompanying each log drive is a wanagan or houseboat thirtv or forty feet long and from six to ten feet wide on which is carried the camp outfit and the provisions. The wanagan is generally kept in the rear of the drive and is used exclusively as a storehouse and a kitchen. The men sleep in camps on shore and eat outside, sometimes around a temporary table and sometimes sitting around a big fire. The Nichols Chisolm Lumber Company pull their booms across Height of Land Lake with a small steamboat. I used to pull mine across by means of a windlass stationed on a big raft twenty-five feet in diameter connected with an anchor by a cable one thousand feet long. The anchor with the cable attached was sent on ahead in a boat and at the full length of the cable the anchor was thrown out into the lake, when by means of the windlass, the cable would be wound up and the boom drawn up to the anchor. This was comparatively easy wdien there was no wind, but it only took a slight head-wind to hold back a boom of that dimension, sometimes for several days at a time. AAHien these logs arrive at the sawmill they are sawn up at the rate of two hundred and fifty thousand feet or more in twenty hours.

A lumber Jack is a man who works in the lumber woods in the winter, on the log drives in the spring and in the sawmills in the summer and fall. They are a strong, good-natured set of men, generally good workers and a valuable class of men for the lumbermen.

Although they are shut off from the outside world, the lumber camp is a little world by itself. While the work is hard and the weather sometimes severe there is an excitement about the work that relieves the severity and the monotony to a great extent, and the days, weeks and months swiftly and pleasantly pass away, and when the spring comes and the winter's work is brought to a close, it brings many a feeling of regret at being obliged to leave their comfortable winter quarters which have been their home for so many months. There is an excitement connected with the felling of the huge pine trees, cutting them into logs and rolling them high on the skidways, loading them on the monstrous sleds and then watching the little mountains of logs as thev start on their icy road to the river or lake, that is fascinating in the extreme and goes a long way towards relieving the monotony of a long, cold winter. A favorite diversion is to play tricks or pranks on one another ; particularly on some tenderfoot who happens to be a little green by nature, or on some unsuspecting redskin. Sometimes they will send a newcomer to a neighboring camp to borrow a bean hole. \Mien once there they will tell him that they have none, but if he will go on to the next camp a few miles farther he will be sure to get one, and probably he will be kept going all day from one camp to another before he discovers the joke. Sometimes they send him to borrow a round turn which is the name of a circular road cut out in the thick underljrush or timber where they can turn a pair of big logging sleds around. A bean hole is a hole dug in the ground and used for baking beans.

At a lumber camp where I was once staying over Sunday, an Indian came with an ax that he wanted ground. The men told him all right the}' would grind the ax if he would turn the grindstone. They moved the grind stone up to the stove, built a big fire antl the grinding began about ten o'clock in the morning. They kept the poor Indian turning until two o'clock in the afternoon, during which time six or eight different white men had taken turns grinding the ax. The stove was kept hot, the Indian perspired until the sweat dropped off the corners of his breech-cloth and the ax was ground away until nearly ruined. The poor fellow never saw through the joke.

On the log drive, however, is where the courage, endurance and skill of the lumber Jack is put to the test. I have been around the world considerable and have worked a little at nearly everything myself, but I think the severest test of physical endurance and manhood and pluck, war only excepted, is the log drive. Working from daylight to dark, much of the time up to the middle in ice cold water, never stopping for rain or storm, continually breaking log jams or floating stranded logs from the rear, many of which have to be carried or sacked by the main strength of eight or ten men to the deep water and many a time not even having a chance to dry the wet clothes at night ; if all this is not a thorough test of a man's strength, tenacity and endurance, I would like to know where or in what occupation you will find it. When the log drive is over and the logs landed safely in the mill pond and the log drivers receive their cash, then trouble and cares are forgotten and many of them begin on what they call a "rattling good time." While some of them are strictly temperate and steady men a majority of them will indulge in a spree when their labors are done and in many instances it is kept up until every cent of their six months pay is gone. After a few days sobering up and resting, they scatter away to the sawmills and harvest fields to take a new start in the world and are sure to be on hand again for the woods for the next winter.

A few men, however, wdio formerly followed the river driving, are now prosperous farmers, among wdiom we ma}' mention William Pearce of Burlington, and Charles Romberg and John Stearns of Erie.

Every lumber camp has its foreman, who is generally a person of considerable importance and authority. He frequently has a room by himself and does not mix up with the other men very much, but this is not always the case. Another important person is the scaler who measures the logs. His visit to the camp is generally periodical, coming every few days or few weeks according to the amount of logs that are being cut. At some very large camps, however, the scaler is kept busy scaling logs at the one landing place all winter. Scaling logs in cold, wintery weather is disagreeable work, and it requires considerable skill and experience to become an expert scaler.

The scaler is looked up to by the ordinary lumber Jack and his profession is often the height of the ambition of most of the men of the woods. The personage, however, who towers above all other men who work in the pineries, is the cruiser. He is looked up to by the scaler, the foreman and the lumber Jack alike. His visits to the lumber camp are even less frequent than those of the scaler. The best of everything the camp afifords is at his service. In the lumber regions farther east, from Maine to Michigan, he is called an estimator. He is a sort of a compound of surveyor, woodsman, scaler and adventurer. He roams the woods over afoot and alone, looking up, estimating and locating timber lands for the lumberman. He carries his bed and provisions on his back, sleeps under a tree at night, is exposed to all the storms of the season, runs his lines with a small compass, and counts his foot-

He usually traces out the hues of each forty-acre tract and estimates the timber growing thereon by itself and it is surprising how near the estimates of some of them will correspond with the amount of timber actually cut and scaled on the same ground afterwards.

To facilitate his work and save a large amount of traveling he frequently climbs to the top of one of the tallest trees on the summit of the highest hill in the neighborhood. From there his eye can take in the country for miles around and he determines the location of any pine growing in the vicinity. The work of the cruiser is both fascinating and dangerous. In the fall of 1872, a man by the name of Kelly started out all alone to look for pine in the eastern part of Becker County and a part of Hubbard County, working from Red Eye River northward. As far as I know he never has been heard from to this day and it is supposed he was killed by falling from some tree or was so badly crippled that he was unable to reach civilization.

In the course of another generation there will be no big steam sawmill in Becker County and but very few in the state of ]\Iinnesota, and a description of the mill at Frazee will answer very well for that class of mills in general.

In mills of this class steam has superceded the water power altogether as nothing but steam has been found that can create the lightning-like speed required by some of the machinery in a modern sawmill. For instance, the log carriage instead of being propelled back and forth by cog or rope feed as of old, is now run by a device akin to the steam engine itself. A piston rod thirty feet or more in length and four inches in diameter working in a cylinder of about the same length is attached to the end of the carriage, working it to and fro by the stroke of the piston with a speed almost without limit, but is easily regulated by the lever in the hands of the head sawyer.

All logs are now sawed with a band saw, which runs on the same principle as any ordinary belt. These saws are thirt}' or forty feet in length and the ends brazen together forming a continuous steel belt or band which is run over two large pulleys one above and one underneath the carriage. The teeth usually occupy only one end of the saw working downward as nearly perpendicular as possible. I have, however, seen mills where there were teeth on both edges of the saw taking ofif a board while the carriage runs backward as well as forward.

The logs are brought into the mill on an inclined plane by means of an endless chain. Once inside the mill they are rolled down a sloping skidway nearly to the carriage where they are handled by the "nigger," a large, strong lever which both pushes the log onto the carriage and turns it over and over afterwards. It is astonishing with what ease, precision and rapidity a big log can be knocked and cuffed around and turned over with one of these devices when manipulated by an expert sawyer.

The Frazee mill saws not less than 2,400 averaged sized logs in twenty hours, making about two hundred and forty thousand feet of lumber. As there are just twelve hundred minutes in twenty hours, the mill saws an average of two logs every minute during , that period of time.

After leaving the band saw, some of the lumber is split with the "re-saw" which is to say, a four inch plank is split into two two-inch planks and some of the tw'O-inch planks are in turn split into inch boards. The boards and plank are all then run through the gang edger where the uneven edges are trimmed off and some of the planks are ripped into joists and scantlings and some of the best boards into flooring. It then passes through the trimmer, where both ends are sawed off making the length of all boards and dimensions of any given length the same. It is then carried by endless chains to the platform where it is sorted and loaded into wagons ready to be hauled to the yard and piled. The Frazee sawmill is two hundred and ten feet long and sixty wude and is run by a three hundred horse power engine. The lumber yard covers fifteen acres of ground and the whole extent is frequently covered thick with lumber piles fifteen feet high.

The people of Frazee can thank Ray W. Jones for getting them the mill in the first place. The Commonwealth Lumber Company was organized early in the year 1897 with Thomas Monroe, president; James Monroe, vice-president; and Ray W, Jones, secretary and treasurer.

The company was re-organized in November, 1904, with James Nichols, president; F. H. Rawson, vice-president; and R. G. Chisolm, secretary and treasurer ; and the people of Frazee can thank Messrs. Chisolm and Nichols for its permanent and successful operation now and in the future.

The Nelson-Kindred Convention

"Hell reigneth. The Lord be praised. If tlie religious sentiments of these phrases seem to be mixed I can assure you that it corresponds to the political situation in the Fifth district."

That was the famous day when the double-headed convention was held at Detroit and evolved Knute Nelson and C. F. Kindred as Republican candidates for Congress. The Fifth district was a monster territorially and in number of counties, having twenty-eight, as follows:

It was the first election since the Fifth district had been constructed, and the rivalry for the nomination was intense. The leading candidates were Knute Nelson, of Alexandria, and C. F. Kindred, of Brainerd, though C. A. Oilman, of St. Cloud, and C. H. Graves, of Duluth, were in the field as well. Mr. Kindred was wealthy, and he spared no expense in materializing his boom. Kindred clubs were formed, brass bands were hired, printed matter was sent out, and sufificient paraphernalia gathered to run a national campaign. The Kindred forces went into the work with the enthusiasm born of youth and inexperience, while the Nelson forces stolidly relied upon his strength among his countrymen to carry him through.

At first the county conventions called to send delegates to the district convention at Detroit were conducted with some degree of fairness, though in every case the contest would be a sharp one. After one or two county conventions had split and sent double delegates, a spirit of recklessness broke out, and wdiichever side rightfully had control of the county convention the other proceeded to make an excuse for a split and send a contesting delegation.

There was absolutely no attempt to be fair in this contest for the Congressional nomination. This statement applies to both the Nelson and the Kindred forces, but a good deal more to the Kindred than to the Nelson men, because Nelson was really stronger, and had a more substantial backing than Kindred. Kindred in reality had but little backing but his money, and it was the deliberate plan whenever Nelson had carried a county for the Kindred men to come in and hold another convention, appointing a double delegation. Of course this bore the usual fruit of a split in the convention, and if the Scandinavian element had not been so enormously strong in Northern Minnesota it would have resulted in Knute Nelson's defeat, as well as Kindred's. As it was, Nelson proved invincible, and not only won in that campaign, but went on to win in the future, until he had achieved national renown.

In some cases an extra county convention was held without any pretense of authority, and it was very evident that Nelson and Kindred, or their friends, intended to make a double district convention. The result was that when the district convention was due to meet, there were only 18 out of 28 counties which could lay any claim to being "regular." When the Nelson and Kindred forces separated and held two conventions there were 20 counties represented in the Nelson convention and 23 in the Kindred department. Here was an aggregate of delegates from 43 counties in a district which contained but 28. The contests made the excess.

The call for the convention directed it to assemble at Bowman's hall, in Detroit, Minn., at i p. m., on the 12th of July. The interest and excitement were immense, and all signs pointed to a bloody riot as the result rather than to a harmonious convention. The delegates and the contestants aggregated 125, and it is no exaggeration to say that there were between three and four hundred outsiders present, as friends of the respective candidates. The little town was fairly wild, and I venture to say the five saloons never did so big business before nor since.

As usual the contestants began sparring for "regularity." The first point was to secure the temporary chairman, in order to capture the committee on credentials. It is usual for the chairman of the district committee to call the convention to order. Geo. H. Johnston, of Detroit, was the chairman, and though he professed friendship for Nelson, he was, in reality, a Kindred man. There were nine members of the committee present, and finding that they could not agree on any plan of organization, the Nelson men on the committee, by a vote of five, removed Johnston as chairman and appointed Lieut.-Gov. Barto, of Stearns, in his place. They considered three plans of organization: Admitting only uncontested delegates, admitting all and let them fight it out in convention, admitting those from counties which the chairman of the county committee would certify were "regular." The Nelson men on the committee insisted on absolutely naming the delegates who should be allowed to enter the hall, but this Johnston would not permit, and so it was a fight from the start. Detroit was a redhot Kindred town, and the sheriff swore in thirty deputies, mostly, perhaps all, favorable to Kindred. The hall would not contain the crowd, and the sherifif and his deputies were on hand to prevent any but delegates entering. The Nelson men had erected a tent near the town, and there they gathered to march to the hall. The Kindred men, to guard against accidents, had smuggled a force into the hall at 11 a. m., and they had lunch sent in and camped there. When the Nelson men marched in a body from the tent to the hall they were astonished to find all the front seats occupied. Tliere was great disturbance at the foot of the stairs. A good many Kindred delegates were still on the outside and all of the Nelson men. A Kindred and a Nelson man stood at the foot of the stairs and identified their respective delegates, and the sheriflfs would only allow those to go up who were vouched for. The early camping in the hall of the Kindred men gave them a good many outsiders who had come to fight, if necessary, and in a square battle, which was expected, the Nelson men would have been thrashed. I think the fact that the Kindred men had by their device, gotten their forces in the hall in such numbers was a peace measure. There were probably a hundred men present in the hall with pistols in their pockets, and it was a wonder some one did not fire the first shot. If any one had, it would have been gory before the last one was fired.

Johnston refused to be deposed from the chairmanship because he was appointed by the State Central Committee, and Capt. H. A. Castle, Secretary of the State Central Committee, was there to certify to the fact. It was i:iS when Johnston struggled through the crowd to get to the platform, and Barto was close behind. When they reached the platform Johnston announced that they had decided to clear the hall, and then he and Barto would issue tickets. Barto said they would give Nelson and Kindred lOO each and Oilman and Graves 26 each. The Kindred men objected on the ground that Oilman and Craves were really for Nelson, and hence it would give the Nelson men the largest number. The Kindred men were satisfied as it was. While the controversy was going on, a Kindred man nominated E. G. Holmes, of Detroit, for chairman. Johnston put the motion and declared it carried. Holmes bounded to the platform in a twinkling and started his convention. The Nelson men were a little behind, but not much. Some Nelson man made a motion to elect S. G. Comstock, of Moorhead, temporary chairman, and Barto put the motion so quickly that Comstock leaped to the platform and began the Nelson convention only a few seconds behind the Kindred. Then there was pandemonium let loose. Every one seemed to be yelling at the same time. Holmes and Comstock stood side by side and their respective adherents would rush to the front and make motions which the chairman would declare carried. After about five minutes of this scene, ex-Sherifif Mertz, of Brainerd, a very resolute man and a warm friend of Kindred, jumped on the platform and, grabbing Comstock, tried to pull him off, saying, "You have no business here." It was scarcely a second before 30 or 40 men were on the stage to aid Comstock and Mertz respectively, and they were a good deal hustled about. Comstock stood his ground well and resisted being dragged ofif the platform, but did not strike a blow. The crowd had overturned the reporters' table and we had mounted an extemporized table to get a view of the fight. As the excitement was at its highest, crash went our table and we were all tumbled promiscuously to the floor. I believe that little accident was providential. It made a laugh, and laughter and anger are not close friends. It also diverted attention for a moment and by the time we had picked ourselves up from the floor, the sheriff, with ten or twelve deputies, was on the platform commanding the peace and hustling men off the stage. Partial quiet was secured, when Johnston declared that he would recognize but one chairman, and that was Holmes. Barto, in reply, insisted that he (Barto) was chairman of the district committee by a vote of five out of nine. Capt. Castle's statement was then made, as already mentioned, and the Kindred men yelled.