Freeborn County, Minnesota - Chapter 45, 1882

Chapter 45

Freeborn is on the southern tier of Minnesota counties, the fourth from the Mississippi, and next to Mower county; on the south it has Winnebago and Worth counties in Iowa; on the west it is the sixth from the Dakota line, and nest to Faribault; and Steele and Waseca are the northern neighbors.

There are thirty or more lakes in its territory, the most prominent among which are Lake Albert Lea, Geneva Lake, Kice Lake, . Freeborn Lake, Twin Lakes, and Pickerel Lake. It is well watered, being really on a divide, with waters flowing north and south. Among the more noted streams are the Shell Rook River, Cobb River, Goose Creek, Turtle Creek, Deer Creek, Bancroft Creek, Stewart's Creek, and State Line Creek, with several others. These, with the lakes and other topographical features, receive special mention in the geological sketch and in the town histories. The twenty townships all coincide with the government survey, and have corresponding political organizations.

Situation And Area

, Freeborn county borders on the state of Iowa, and is very near the center of the southern boundary line of Miunesota. It has the form of a rectangle, having a length, east and west, of five government towns, and north and south, a width of four, making an area of 720 square miles, or 449,23.5.63 acres, after deducting the areas covered by water.

Natubal Dbainage

With the exception of Freeborn, Hartland, and Carlston townships, the surface drainage is towards the south and southeast. The county embraces the headwaters of the Shell Rock and Cedar Rivers of Iowa, and those of the Cobb River which joins the Minnesota toward the north. Hence it lies on the watershed between two great drainage slopes. For the same reason none of its streams are large; the Shell Rock, where it leaves the State, being its largest. The streams have not much fall, but afford some waterpower, which has been improved in the construction of flouring mills. Such are found at Albert Lea and Twin Lakes. In these cases the body of water confined in the upjjer lake serves as the water-head and the reservoir, mills being constructed near their outlets. Tiiere is also an available water-power at Shell Rock village, but its use would cause the flooding of a large body of land adjoining the river.

Suefaob Featubbs

The surface of the county, although having no remarkable and sudden changes of level, yet is considerably diversified as a rolling prairie, more or less covered with sparse oaks and oak bushes. The plats of the United States surveyors, on file in the Register's office at Albert Lea, indicate considerably more area covered with timber, or as "oak openings," when the county was surveyed by them (1854), than is now the case. The following minutes are based on an examination of their plats, and will give a pretty correct idea of the distribution of the oak openings and the prairie tracts throughout the county.

London. - The most of this township is prairie, a belt of oak openings and timber entering it from the north, about three miles wide, in the center of the town, and extending to the center, bearing off to the southeast, and terminating in section twenty-four. The magnetic variation throughout the town was, when surveyed, from 8 deg. 20 min. to 10 deg. 42 min., the greatest being in sections thirty-three and thirty-four.

Oakland. - A little more than a half of this township consists of oak openings, an area in the eastern half only being prairie, with a small patch also in section thirty-one. Two large sloughs cross the town, one through sections thirty, thirtyone, and thirty-two, and the other through sections four, five, tight, seven, and eighteen. Magnetic variation about 9 deg., varying from 8 deg. 12 min. to 10 deg. 8 min.

Moscow. - Nearly the whole of this township is taken up with oak openings and marshes. Turtle Greek crosses it from northwest to southeast. A large portion of the northern half of the town is a floating marsh, containing a great quantity of peat. Magnetic variation 8 deg. 20 min. to 10 deg. 20 min.

Newrt. - There is a small patch of prairie in the north-east part of this town, in sections one, twelve, thirteen, and twenty-four, and a small area in sections twenty and twenty-one. There is another in the northwest corner, embracing sections six and seven and parts of five, thirteen, and eighteen. The rest is openings and marsh, particularly in the northwest corner. Magnetic variation, 8 deg. 20 min. to 9 deg. 40 min.

Shellrock. - A belt about one and one-half miles wide along the west side of this town, accompanying the Shellrock River, constitutes the only openings occuring in sections three, ten, and fifteen. The northwest part of the township is rolling, and the southeast is level and wet with marshes. Magnetic variation, 11 deg. 30 min. to 13 deg. 40 min.

Carlston. - This town is all prairie, except a narrow belt of sparse timber about Freeborn Lake. Long narrow marshes spread irregularly over the central and eastern portions of the town. In the southeast quarter of section thirty-six there is also a small area of sparse timber. Magnetic variation, 11 deg. 13 min. to 13 deg.

Bath. - An area of openings comprising about half of this town, in the central and eastern portion, is nearly surrounded by a belt of prairie. Small marshes are scattered through the town. Magnetic variation, 8 deg. 45 min. to 10 deg. 35 min.

NuNDA. - This town is also mostly openings, but an area of prairie occurs in sections four, five, nine, and three, and another lies southwest of Bear Lake. Considerable marsh land is embraced within the area of openings. Magnetic variation, 10 deg. 5 min. to 12 deg. 15 min., the latter in section thirty-one.

Pickerel Lake. - The west half of this township is prairie, and the eastern is devoted to openings with lakes and marshes. Magnetic variation. 9 deg. 45 min. to 11 deg. 50 min.

Manchester. - About one-half of this town is prairie, the remainder being oak openings. The prairie lies in the northwestern and southern portions. Small marshes occur both in the prairie and openings. Magnetic variations, 10 deg. to 12 deg. 15 min.

Hartl.^nd. - This town is almost entirely composed of prairie, the only timber being about Lake Mule, and in the southern portions of sections thirty-four, thirty-five, and thirty -six. There is not much marsh in the town. Magnetic variation, 9 deg. 45 min. to 12 deg. 25 min.

Hatward. - A wide belt of prairie occupies about two-thirds of this town, running north and south through the center. On the west of this is a rolling tract embracing a portion of Lake Albert Lea and some tributary marshes, while on the east a large marsh covers sections twelve and fourteen, and portions of thirteen, eleven, fifteen, twenty-two, and twenty-three. There is also a prairie tract in section one.

RiCEL,.\ND. - This township is about equally divided between prairie, openings, and marsh, the first being in the south central portion, the second in the northwest and central, bordering on Eice Lake, and the marsh in the northeastern part of the town. Magnetic variation, from 8 deg. 45 min. to 10 deg. 30 min.

Geneva. - There is but little prairie in this town, the southern portion being comprised in a large marsh which is crossed by Turtle Creek, the outlet of Walnut Lake. The central portion is occupied by oak openings which also extend to the northwest and west boundaries. The prairie is in the northern and eastern portions. Magnetic variation, 9 deg. 10 min. to 10 deg. 23 min.

Freeman. - This township contains no prairie. It is mostly devoted to oak openings, but a series of marshes, drained by the tributaries of the Shell Eock that crosses it toward the southeast, take up a considerable area in the central and eastern portion. Magnetic variation 9 deg. to 10 deg. 40 min., the greatest being in section thirty-one.

Albert Lea. - This township is nearly all taken up with oak openings, but a few small marshes, trending northwest and southeast., are found in different portions. There is also a small patch of prairie in section six, and another in the south east corner of the county. The western arm of Albert Lea Lake, through which the Shell Rock River runs, is in the central and eastern part of this town, and adds greatly to the variety and beauty of its natural scenery. Pickerel Lake is also partly in this township. Magnetic variation 8 deg. 46 min. to 10 deg. 8 min.

Bancroft. - A little more than one-fourth of this township is prairie, situated in the center and southwestern portions. The rest of the town is covered with oak openings. The source of the Shell Eock is in the northwestern ends of Freeborn and Spicer Lakes, and a little adjoining Spicer Lake on the east. There are also some openings in section twenty-six, where the arms of the marsh protect the timber from the prairie fires. The rest is of prairie with spreading marshes. Magneitc variation 11 deg. 5.5 min. to 12 deg. 50 min. North and west of Albert Lea is a very broken and rolling surface of sparse timber.

This tract consists of bold hills and deep valleys wrought in the common drift of the country. On some of these hills are granitic boulders, but the country generally does not show many boulders. The drift is generally, in this broken tract, a gravel-clay. In some of the street-cuts for grading, a gravel is found, containing a good deal of limestone.

A great many of the marshes of the county are surrounded with tracts of oak openings, a fact which indicates that the marshes serve as barriers to the prairie fires. Such marshes are really filled with water, and quake with a heavy peat deposit on being trod on. They are very different from those of counties further west, as in Nobles county, which, in the summer, are apt to become dried, and are annually clothed with a growth of coarse grass, which feeds the fires that pass over the country in the fall. As a general rule, but little or no grass grows on a good peat marsh.

The county contains some of the highest land in the State. Some of the counties farther west, particularly Nobles and Mower counties on the east, rise from one to two hundred feet higher. There is also a high and rolling tract in the north central portion of the State, covering Otter Tail county, which rises to about the same level, as shown by railroad profiles. The greater portion of the State, however, lies several hundred feet lower than Freeborn county.

Soil And Timber

Throughout the county the soil depends on the nature of the drift, combined with the various modifying local circumstances. There is nothing in the county that can properly be designated a limestone or a sandstone soil. The materials of which it is composed have been transported, perhaps, several hundred miles, and are so abundantly and universally spread over the underlying rock that they receive no influence from it. The subsoil is a gravelly clay, and in much of the county that also constitutes the surface soil. In low ground this, of course, is disguised by a wash from the higher ground, causing sometimes a loam and sometimes a tough fine clay; the latter is particularly in those tracts that are subject to inundation by standing water. On an undulating prairie, with a close clay, or clayey sub-soil, such low spots are apt to leave a black, rich loam or clayey loam, the colored being derived from the annual prairie fires that leave charred grass and other vegetation to mingle with the soil. The same takes place on wide tracts of flat prairie. In these may l)e, but rarely, a stone of any kind - indeed that is usually the case - but below the immediate surface, a foot or eighteen inches, a gravelly clay is always met with. This at first doubtless formed the soil, the disintegrating forces of frost, rain, and wind, combined with the calcining effects of the prairie fires, having reduced the atones and gravel to powder, leaving a finely pulverized substance for a surface soil.

In a rolling tract of country, while the low ground is being filled slowly with the wash from the hills, and furnished with a fine soil, the hills are left covered with a coarse and stony surface soil. For that reason a great many boulders are sometimes seen on the tops of drift knolls. Along streams and about the shores of lakes, the action of the water has carried away the clay of the soil and often eaten into the original drift, letting the stones and boulders tumble down to the bottom of the bank, where they are often very numerous. Along streams they are sometimes again covered with alluvium - indeed are apt to be - but along the shores of lakes they are kept near the beach line by the action of the winter ice. After a lapse of time sufficient, the banks themselves become rounded off and finally turfed over or covered with trees. These lakes sometimes extend their limits laterally, but slowly become shallower. This county is furnished with a number of beautiful lakes. These are generally in the midst of a rolling country, and some of their banks are high.

The Geologicai, Stbuctube

There is not a naturrl exposure of the underlying rock in Freeborn county. Hence the details of its geological structure are wholly luiknown. It is only by an examination of outcrops in Mower county and in the adjoining counties of Iowa, together with a knowledge of the general geology of that portion of the State, that anything can be known of the geology of Freeborn county. In the absence of actual outcrops of rock within the county, there are still some evidences of the character of rock that underlies the county, in the nature and position of the drift materials. There is, besides, a shaft that has struck the Cretaceous

Although the drift is heavy it lies in such positions that it shows some changes in the surface of the bed rock. It is a principle pretty well established that any sudden great alternation in the rock from hardness to softness, as from a heavy limestone layer to a layer of erosible shales, or from shales to more enduring sandstone, each stratum having a considerable thickness, is expressed on the drift by changes from a rough and rolling, more or less stony surface, to a flat and nearly smooth surface, or viae verita. It sometimes happens that the non-outcropping line of superposition of one important formation with another, either above or below, can be traced across a wide tract of drift covered country by following up a series of gravel knolls or ridges that accompany it, or by some similar feature of the topography. Again, the unusual frequency of any kind of rock in the di'ift at a certain place, especially if it be one not capable of bearing long transportation, is pretty good evidence of the proximity of the parent rock to that locality.

Applying these principles to Freeborn county, we find throughout the county a great many boulders of a hard, white, compact magnesian limestone , that have been extensively burned for quicklime. These attracted the attention of early settlers, and before the construction of the Southern Minnesota railroad.supplied aU the lime used in the county. Although these boulders are capable of being transported a great distance, their great abundance points to the existence of the source of siipply in the underlying bed-rock. In the drift also are frequently found pieces of lignite or Cretaceous coal, which cannot be far transported by glacier agencies. This also indicates the existence of the Cretaceous lignites in Freeborn county. In regard to changes in the character of the natural surface, we see an evenly flat and prairie surface in the western tier of towns, and in the southeastern part of the county, and a hilly and gravelly tract of irregular shape in the central portion. There are two ridges or divides, formed superficially of drift, that occur in the central part of the county, one north of Albert Lea, and the other south of it, separated about eleven miles, as shown by a series of elevations from a preliminary railroad survey by Mr. William Morin. What may be their directions at points further removed from Albert Lea it is not possible to state with certainty, but on one side they seem to trend toward the northwest. Indeed there seems to be a northwest and southeast trend to the surface features of Freeborn county generally. Such rough surfaces, and especially the ridges of drift, are more stony and gravelly than the fiat portions of the county. They mark the location of great inequalities in the upper surface of the underlying rock, the exact nature of which cannot be known.

In addition to these general indications of the character of the rock of the county, the shaft sunk for coal at Freeborn, reveals the presence of the Cretaceous in that portion of the county, and examinations of the nearest exposures in the neighboring county of Iowa, discloses the Hamilton limestone of the Devonian age. This limestone is exactly like that found so abundantly in the form of boulders in Freeborn county. As the general direction of the drift forces was toward the south, and as the trend of the Hamilton in Iowa, according to Dr. C. A. White { see his map of the geology of Iowa, final Keport, 1870,) is toward the northwest, there is abundant reason for concluding that that formation also extends under Freeborn county. The preluninary geological map of the state of Minnesota, published in 1872, indicates Freeborn county almost entirely underlain by the Devonian, the only exception being in the northwestern corner. How much farther toward the northwest these limestone boulders can be traced with equal abundance, the explorations of the survey have not yet revealed.

The northwestern corner of Freeborn county has been regarded as underlain by a limestone of the age of Niagara, belonging to the Upper Silurian, that formation in the northwest coming directly below the limestones of the Devonian. That may be correct; but it is certain that there is in the neighborhood of Freeborn an area of the Cretaceous, which must, in that case, overlie the Silurian limestones. This Cretaceous area is believed to extend north and south across the west end of the county, and to be roughly coincident with the flat and prairie portion in the western part, in which case it overlaps the Devonian.

corner of the county, has famished from the drift pieces of cretacous lignite that resemble coal. These have, in a number of instances, incited ar dent expectations of coal, and led to the outlay of money in explorations. Such pieces are taken out in digging wells. The opinion seems to grow in a community where such fragments are found, that coal of the Carboniferous age exists in the rocks below. In sinking a drill for an artesian well at Freeborn village, very general attention wa.s directed to the reported occurrence of this coal in a regular bed, in connection with slate rock. This locality was carefully examined, and all the information gathered bearing on the subject that could l)e found. The record of the first well drilled is given below, as reported by the gentleman who did the work:

This indication of coal induced the drilling of another well, situated 100 feet distant, toward the northeast. In this the record was as follows, given by the same authority:

When the drill here reached the "conglomerated rock," it was supposed to have reached the "slate rock," No. 7 of the previous section. The amount of coal in the sand of No. 4 was also enough to cause it to be taken for No. 8 of the previous section. Hence the boring was stopped; and having thus demonstrated the existence of a coal-bed, to the satisfaction of the proprietors, the enterprise was pushed further in the sinking of a shaft. In sinking this shaft the water troubled

Three-quarters of a mile north of these drills a shaft was sunk 57 feet, but not finding the coal as expected, according to the developments of the last section above given, the explorers stopped here. In this shaft the overseer reports the same strata passed tlirough in the drift as met with in the first well drilled, l>ut the so called "conglomerated rock" was met at a depth of 45 feet. The sand below the " conglomerated rock " here held no water, but was full of fine pieces of coal. Before sinking a shaft at this place a drill was made to test the strata. These being found " all right " the shaft was begun. In that drill gas was first met. It rose up in the drill hole, and being ignited it Hamed up eight or ten feet with a roaring sound. The shaft was so near the drill hole that it drew off the gas gradually, allowing the intermixture of more air, thus preventing rapid burning. From this place the exploration was redirected to the first situation, where another shaft was begun. This was in search for the lower rock," so called, or the " slate rock," supposed to overlie the " coal." Here they went through the same materials, shutting off the water in the five foot sand-bed, and 60 feet of fine clay, when water rose so copiously from the second sand-bed (No. 6 of the first section given) as to compell a cessation of the work. In this shaft were found small pieces of the same coal, all the way. These pieces had sharp corners and fresh surfaces. The total depth here was 106 feet, and the water seems to have been impregnated with the same gas as that which arose in the drill at the point three-fourths of a mile distant. Such water is also found in the well at the hotel in Freeborn. With sugar of lead it does not present the reaction.'< for sulphurated hydrogen, and the gas is presumed to be carbonated hydrogen. This account of explorations for coal is but a repetition of what has taken place in numerous instances in Minnesota. The cretaceous lignites have deceived a great many, and considerable expense has been needlessly incurred in fruitless search for good coal.

In the early discovery of these lignites, some exploration and experimentation within the limits of the State, were justifiable, but after the tests that have already been made it can pretty confidently be stated that these lignites are at present of no economical value. This, not in ignorance of the fact that they will burn, or that they contain, in some proportion, all the valuable ingredients that characterize coal and carbonaceous shales, but in the light of the competing prices of other fuels, the cost of mining them, and the comparative inferiority of the lignites themselves. It they were situated in Greenland they would probably be pretty thoroughly explored, and extensively mined, and even then they would havea powerful competitor in the oil in use there.

The Drift

This deposit covers the entire county and conceals the rock from sight. It consists of the usual ingredients, but varies with the general character of the surface. In rolling tracts it is very stony and has much more gravel. In flat tracts it is clayey. It everywhere contains a great many boulders, and these are shown abundantly along the beaches of the numerous lakes of the county. The frequency of limestone boulders, and their signiflcancy, have already been mentioned. Thousands of bushels of lime have been made from such loose boulder masses, mainly gathered about the shores of the lakes. In general the drift of Freeborn county consists of a glacier hard-pan, or unmodified drift. Yet, in some places, the upper portion is of gravel and sand that show all the effects of running water in violent currents. The beds here are oblique, and subject to sudden transitions from one material to another. At Albert Lea the following section was

In a gravel bank at Albert Lea, according to Mr. Wiliam Morin, the jaw bone of a Mastodon was found a number of years ago. It was sent to St. Paul and is supposed to be preserved.

The average thickness of the drift in Freeborn county would not vary much, probably, from one hundred feet. In the survey of the county, considerable attention was paid to the phenomena of common wells, with a view to learn the nature and thickness of this deposit, and the following list is the result of notes made.

Wells of Freebokn County. - Good water is generally found throughout the county, in the drift, at depths less than eighty feet; but some deep wells that occur within the Cretaceous belt, in the western part of the county, are spoiled by carburetted hydrogen. This must rise from carbonaceous shales in the Cretaceous, and indicates the extent of that formation. Much of the information contained in the following tabulated list of wells was obtained of W. A. Higgins, well borer, of Albert Lea:

Owner'S Name

In some wells at Albert Lea a muck is struck, and such wells atTord a water that is unfit for use. This muck is reported to contain sticks, and is about thirty -eight or forty feet below the surface. It may indicate a former bed of the river, or an interglacial marsh, as Mr. James Geikie has explained in Scotland. (See "The Great Ice Age.") It is by some called slutsh, and seems not to uniformly hold sticks and leaves, but to be rather a fine sand of a dark color. The well-diggers call it (juicksaud. This indicates that it is either a bed of Cretaceous black clay, arenaceous, or Cretaceous debris. Dr. Wedge, of Albert Lea, thinks the site of the city was once covered by a lake, and that this uliisli was its sediment; and that the overlying gravel, which is about thirty -eight feet thick, has since been thrown onto it by a later force, perhaps by currents. There is no doubt that the overlying gravel was thus deposited, those currents being derived from the ice of a retiring glacier.

Wells at Geneva are generally not ov(m- twentv feet in depth. They also pass through a gravel that overlies a tjuicksaud. This village is situated with reference to Geneva Lake as Albert Lea is with Albert Lea Lake, both being at the northern extremities of those lakes. The phenomena of wells at the two places are noticeably similar, and

It would seem that the history of the drift at Albert Lea was repeated at Geneva. These tillages being both situated at the northern end of lake basins, are probably located where pre- glacial lakes existed. On all sides, both about Albert Lea and Geneva, the usual drift clay, hard and blue, is met in wells and has a thickness of about one hundred feet.

In addition to the soil, Freeborn county has very little to depend on as a source of material prosperity. As already stated, there is not a single exposure of the bed-rock in the county. All building stone and quicklime have to be imported. The former comes by the Southern Minnesota railroad from Lanesboro and Fountain in Fillmore county, though it is very likely that the Shakopee stone from Mankato will also be introduced. The latter comes from Iowa largely (Mason City and Mitchell ). and from kilns at Mankato and Shakopee. Some building stone

Material Resources

Lime. - At Twin Lakes three or four thousand bushels of lime have been burned by Mr. Carter from boulders picked up around the lake shores. This lime sold for seventy-five cents per bushel. It was a very fine lime, purely white. The construction of railroads put a stop to his profits, as the Shakopee lime could then be introduced and sold cheaper. The boulders burned were almost entirely of the same kind as those that are so numerous in McLeod county. They are fine, close grained, nearly white, on old weathered surfaces, and of a dirty cream color on the fractured surfaces. They very rarely show a little graniilar or rougher texture, like a maguesian limestone, though this grain is intermixed with the closer grain . They hold but few fossils. There are a few impressions of shells, and by some effort a globular mass of a course Pavusitoid coral was obtained.

Besides the above, which are distinguished as "white limestone," there are also a few bluish green limestone boulders. One of these, which now lies near Twin Lakes, is about seven feet long, by five or six feet broad, its thickness being at least two and one-half feet. It has been blasted into smaller pieces tor making quicklime; but nearly all of it yet lies in its old bed, the fragments being too large to be moved. This stone is also very close-grained. It is heavier than tlie other and more evidently crystalline. It holds small particles of pyrites. It is not porous, nor apparently bedded. On its outer surface it Invks like a withered dim'ite, and it would be taken, at a glance, for a boujder of that kind. It is said to make a very fine lime. Several hundred bushels of lime were formerly burned at Geiieva.

The clay used, which is about five feet below the surface, is fine and of a yellowish ashy color. It is underlain by gravel. The clay itself locally passes into a sand that looks like "the bluff." At other places it is a common, fine clay-loam, with a few gravel-stones. There is but little deleterious to the brick in the clay, although some of the brick are, on fractured surfaces, somewhat spotted with poor mixing, and with masses of what appear like concretions. The clay itself is apparently massive, but it is really indistinctly bedded, rarely showing a horizontal or oblique, thin layer of yellow sand. In other places the clay shows to better advantage, and is plainly bedded. It contains sticks, the largest observed being a little over half an inch in diameter. These sticks ore plainly endogenous in cellular structure, but have a bark. They are not oxydized so as to be brittle, but are flexible still, with small branches like rootlets hanging to them. It is uncertain whether they belong to the deposit, or are the roots of vegetation that grew on surface since the drift. There are no boulders of any size in the drift; but a few granitoid gravel-stones.

Brick was formerly made at Geneva, and at a point two and one-half miles east of that place. At Geneva the clay was taken from the bank of Allen Creek, about eighteen inches lielow the surface. It was a drift clay, with small pebbles. That used two and one-half miles east of Geneva was of the same kind. In both places snnd had to be mixed with the clay. About Geneva sand is abundant, taken from the gravel and sand knolls, and from the banks of the creek.

Peat. - In Freeborn county there is an abundance of peat. The most of the marshes, of which some are large, are peat-bearing. In this respect the county differs very remarkably from those in the western portion of the same tier of counties which were specially examined for peat in the season of 1873, and which, being entirely destitute of native trees, are most in need of peat for domestic fuel.

The peat of the county is generally formed entirely of herbaceous plants, thougli the marshes are often in the midst of oak-o])enings. The peat-moss constitutes by far the larger portion.

There is no observed difference in peat-producing qualities between the marshes of the prairie districts and those of the more rolling woodland tracts of the county.

.\t Alden village, in the midst of the open prairie, the peat of a large marsh rose to the surface and floated, when, for certain purposes, the marsh was flooded. The water now stand.s ten feet deep lielow the floating peat, which is about three feet thick.

At Freeborn, peat has been taken out on John Scovill's land. Here it is eight feet thick, two rods from the edge, and it is probably much thicker toward the center of the marsh. That below the surface of the water now standing in the drain is too pulpy to shovel out; and after being dipped out and dried on boards, it is cut into blocks and hauled to town. That above the water is more fibrous, and can be taken out with a spade and cut into convenient blocks. Yet the level of the water varies, and that datum is not constant. It appears as if there were here a stratum of more fibrous peat that separates from the lower, about twenty inches thick, and floats above it at certain times In tlie peat at this place a sound Elk horn was taken out at the depth of six feet.

As a kind of supplement to this account of the natural history and the geology of the county, an account of the " Freeborn Consolidated Coal and Mining Company " is added, for, notwithstanding the discouraging opinion of the State geologist, who, of course, deals with facts as he knows and stes them, with few conjectures as to what is not potent, there are men of discrimination, intelligence, and means, who believe there is valuable mineral there, and propose to test the question.

In November, 1879, Mr. E. B. Clark commenced prospecting for coal, and employed F. D. Drake to put down a four inch mining pipe. Mr. Drake had been prospecting more or less at Freeborn for five years. At one time, in connection with L. T. Scott and E. D. Rogers, he had partially organized a coal conpany and taken leases of several hundred acres of laud in that vicinity for coal purposes. This comjiany bored in several places as far down as the second vein of water, about 100 feet, where they struck quicksand, and not having any tubing could go no farther; oon8e([Uently, when they bored the last time they knew no more about the existence of coal than when they bored at first.

A man named A. Short, from La Crosse, Wisconsin, came to Freeborn and leased about 2,000 acres of laud for jirospecting purposes, worked a short time to make his leases hold good, and left. This was in 187t. After it became evident that he would do no more towards developing what coal or other substances might be there, Mr. E. B. Clark bought his interest in the leases, and in the fall of 1879, together with E. G. Perkins and W. W. Cargill of La Crosse, commenced prospecting, and hired Mr. Drake to put down the pipe. He not having had any experience in sinkiog such wells did not start the bore plumb, and after expending a large amount of labor, first by Drake and then by Mr. P. Morse, of Wells, and Geo. Cross, of Freeborn, the work in that well had to be abandoned in consequence of trouble in the fall of 1880. In April, 1881, Mr. E. B. Clark, together with E. G. Perkins and W. W. Cargill, organized the Freeborn Consolidated Coal and Mining Company, and in July following held its first meeting for election of officers, since which time there has been developed a vein of gypsum, eight feet thick, which is considered by experts to be a sure indication of coal. The company will soon sink a .shaft to the gypsum, and mine the same while they sink the shaft on down. The gypsum is 11.5 feet below the surface in the present well, as well as in the well put down in 1881; in the former well they went through a vein of mineral, supposed to be Galena, which lies about 130 feet below the surface. Experts who have been there generally concede that with the many indications found in the locality there must be large quantities of lead deposits underlaying the gypsum. The company held its annual meeting at Alden, where the general office is located, on the .31st of July, 1882, at which time the following officers were elected:

Great credit is due, and universally conceded to Mr. E. B. Clark, whose zeal and untiring energy and perseverance is the moving power through which all the present developments have been made, and in all future operations he will, in all probability, be prominently identified with what we hope will be the successful termination of further efforts.

When prospecting, blue clay is found about fifteen feet from the surface, interspersed with pieces of coal and soapstone, slate, sulphur balls, and gas in abut: dance, as well as oil. When a distance of forty-five to fifty feet from the surface is reached, a vein of water is found in all places except one, in which dry sand was found, and a vein of gas came in so strong that it raised the rods being used for boring several feet. The men at work supjjosed they had struck a fiowing vein of water by the noise down in the well, a roaring, gurgling sound being heard. Mr. E. D. Rogers, who smokes occasionally, remarked that he would take a smoke, and scratched a match upon the bowl of his pipe; this ignited the gas which was the cause of all the noise, and it was thought by those present that a blaze the full size of the tube, which was six inches, shot up in the air about fifteen feet and gradually settled down to about six feet. It burned for an hour or two when it was smothered out by placing a sod over the hole. For several weeks afterward it was visited by people from the surrounding country, who would remove the sod and apply a match to see it burn. This vein of gas was found at the same depth that a vein of water is usually found in other localities where boring has been done, and water thus found is strongly impregnated with gas; in some places so much so that it is not fit for use, A tin pail was lost in one well and taken out in a few days after covered with a black greasy substance that could not be removed until subjected to a hard scouring with soap and sand. Coal has been found in every bore put down far enough to reach the blue clay. Mr. L. T. Scott says he found in a well put down on his place a piece of coal the length of a spade and handle, and about as large square as his spade blade was wide, which is the largest piece yet found. All those indications, with the gypsum found, are supposed to point to coal when a sufficient depth is reached.

Chapteb Xlvi Letter From Lookout Mountain General

In March, 1857, a letter was written to Samuel M. Thompson by Col. Albert M. Lea, in relation to the Black Hawk purchase, and so much of this autogram, as relates to the early history of Freeborn county, will be transcribed here :

Knoxville, Tenn., March 6th, 1857. Dear Sir - Your favor of the 26th of January reached me a few days since, and I may as well confess that I was both surprised and gratified by it. You ask for information about " Lake Albert Lea." In the year 1835, being a Lieutenant in the Twelfth Regiment, U. S. Dragoons, stationed at Fort Des Moines, now Montrose, on the Iowa side of the Mississippi, I accompanied an expedition from that part of the Sioux country, composed of three companies of troops under Lieut. Col. Kearney, afterwards a General and killed at Chantilly, Sept. 1st, 1862. The detachment marched up the tablelands laying east of the Des Moines River to the "neutral grounds," and then turning more eastwardly crossed the Iowa and Cedar Rivers and struck the Mississippi at Wabasha's village, below Lake Pej^in, and thence, taking a west course, touched some of the tributaries of the St. Peter's River, struck the Des Moines above the upper forks, and then followed the general course of the stream back to the fort.

Although during this long march I was the only officer attached to the command, I sketched the whole route topographically ,taking the courses with a pocket compass, and computing the distances by the time and rate of marching. On the return to quarters I made out a map of the country traversed, accompanied by a memoir which was sent by Col. Kearney to the Adjutant General, and the next year, having obtained additional material, I made a more full majj, and wrote an extended description of the country, which was published by H. S. Tanner, of Philadelphia, in 18 mo. form, under the title of "Notes on the Iowa District of Wisconsin Territory." I have one copy of this work that I will send you.

On our march westward from Wabasha's villagt we passed through that beautiful region of lakes, open woods, and prairie, in which the head waters of the Blue Earth and Cedar Rivers intertwine, and having passed one breezy day across a deep creek, connecting, as we supposed, two of these lakes, we came out upon an elevated promontory descending rather abruptly to the edge of the most beautiful sheet of water that we had ever seen. We stopped for an hour on that exquisite spot, and took a sketch of the lake as I could from that point. In making out my map, the form I gave the lake, but which the lithographer did not preserve, suggested to me the idea of a military chapeau, and I gave it that name.

In 1841, when Nicollet was making out his map of the region between the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers, he filled in a large part of it by copying mine, and in acknowledgement to me for such material, gave my name to the pretty piece of water I had called "Lake Chapeau" and which I had described to him somewhat enthusiastically. Several years since a friend sent me a slip from a newspaper containing an extract from a letter written by some one in lowa.stating that the writer had been all over where Lake Albert Loa ought to be, but fovind no sign of such water, and I concluded that either I had failed to give it the proper position on the map, or it had been so misplaced in the transfer to Nicollefs map, that the original would never again ba recognized. Hence my surprise and gratification on the receipt of your letter giving me the first information that my pet lake was not lost. * * -i; *

On referring to the map of Lieut. Lea, it is found that the Lake now called Albert Lea was originally Fox Lake, and is not the one originally called Albert Lea by Nicollet. The lake Lieut. Lea named Lake Chapeau, and changed by Nicollet, is that beautilul sheet of water, a short distance west of the village, known as White's Lake, near the residence of A. W. White.

The early settlers found, when they arrived at the camping spot of Lieut. Lea Und hia command near White's Lake, an inscription out on a tree which was deciphered as " Lake Aullolin." By whom this was cut, is very uncertain, as it oould hardly have been done by Lea, or any of his party, because he gave the name of Lake Chapeau to this channing sheet of water, and the name Albert Lea was proposed some years afterwards by Nicollet, as already mentioned.

Early Settlement

Up to the spring of 1853, as far as known, no white man liad planted a home in this county, now 80 well filled with a thriving population. The expansive prairies and beautiful groves bordering the placid lakes and beautiful streams, up to that time were in a state of repose, and only occupied by animal life and perhaps a few of the aboriginal race, which was in a condition of senility, ready to depart and give place to a superior race.

At the time above mentioned, Ole Gulbrandson, whose name reveals his nationality, with his family, entered in and took possassion of a moderate portion of this goodly land in section thirtythroe in the township of Hhell Rock, and rolled up some logs in the form of a cabin, whicli still stands on the farm of P. J. Miller, who is himself a well known old settler. Mr. Gulbrandson went to work, and when the next settler came along, two years afterwards, he had provided for himself and family, and could also siijiply liis neighbors witli the necessities of life. A passing notice should be made of the courage of this man, to thus plant himself so far beyond the confines of civilization, wliere, for aught he knew, they were liable to be devoured by wild boasts, and where the .savages might have blotted him and his araily from the face of the earth, with no one to follow on the avenging trail. And some credit is also due the Indians themselves, that thoy did not molest him as they certainly were aware of his presence. In the fall of 1854, a daughter was bom in their little log house, which must have been the very first, whatever rival claims may be put in.

In the early spring of 1855, Mr. William Rice came straggling along and secured a place in section eight in the same township, near where Joseph Landis now resides. In June Mr. Rice was followed by his family and his wife's relatives with families, and they placed their claims whore Shell Rock City now is, and during that summer settlements were made in various parts of the county.

LyBrand and Thompson located within the township of Albert Lea and laid out as a town site the village of St Nicholas, which was the fir.st of this brood that was soon hatched out in such rapid succession. Here the first store was opened with a large stock of goods, a hotel, a saw-mill, a blacksmith shop, and other improvements rapidly followed, and the impression went out that this was be the great metropolis of this section, the energy of its founders, with the wealth of Mr. Ly Brand, encouraging this idea. But to-day not a vestige of its greatness remains, not a relic can be picked up as a remainder of its ini|)rovement. Oblivion has marked -it for its own, and it remains only as a recollection.

In the fall of 1855, Lorenzo Merry and George S. Ruble located and founded Albert Lea, the shire town of the county. Geneva was also settled this year, and also Freeborn Lake and Moscow.

In November Willie Andrews, son of Oliver and Mary Andrews, was ushered into the light of this world, in the township of Hayward, his parents having come the July previous. This was the first son l)orn, and the second child.

We have thus rapidly sketched the earliest settlements in the county, and a continuation of when the various locations were peopled, will be found in the several town histories.

"The Territory of Minnesota had been organized, and its delegate to the National congress, Hon. H. H. Sibley, had been admitted to a seat in the National halls of legislation, and Freeborn county had been organized into a voting precinct, for the election of Territorial officers, and on the 3d day of November, A. D. 1856, the first election in the county was held at the house of Oliver Andrews, situated on the town line, between the townships of Hayward and Shell Rock. Said spot being the established voting place in this precinct. At this election the entire voting population of the county turned out, and a total of forty -four votes were polled. Post-offices were now established in various parts of the county, mail facilities being supplied by private enterprise from Mitchell, in Mitchell county, Iowa. On the 3d day of December, A. D. 1856, William Rice ( the second settler in Freeborn county ) , while carrying the mail across the broad and bleak prairie, lying between the Cedar and Shell Rock rivers, was caught in a severe snow storm and lost his way. He wandered around over the trackless prairie, without shelter or protection from the storm, iintil he froze to that extent that he died of his injuries some three or four days afterwards. This calamity was followed in quick succession, on the 20th day of the same month, by Byron Packard and Charles Walker ( a part of the company who laid out and founded Shell Rock City) being caught in a terrific storm on the same broad prairie, while hauling a steam boiler to its destination at Shell Rock, and both perished from the severity of the storm and the e.xtreme cold. Their bodies, frozen stiff and cold in deatb, were found four days afterwards, lying upon the frozen crust of the deep snow. Their bodies were carried to Shell Rock, and there buried upon the town site they had so lately helped to lay out and form. No relatives were there to attend their funeral obsequeis and mourn their sad fate, yet sorrowing and bereaved friends and brother pioneers, composing the then entire community, assisted in performing the last duty to the untimely departed. No preacher of the Gospel could be found in the county to speak words of consolation to sorrowing and bereaved friends and associates, and our friend Jacob Hostetter, one of Freeborn county's earliest pioneers, feelingly and eloquently addressed the early pioneers there gathered, upon the sadness and suddenness of their bereavement, upon the mysterious and inscrutable ways of an overshadowing providence, in which no one could tell why, in the prime of vigorous manhood, when hope, the ministry of life is most buoyant, and future expectations in the coming life of usefulness is most prominent, that a mysterious providence should step in with its dread mandates, and the brightest and most promising life should be consigned to oblivion and the grave. These sad bereavments and others which happened in the county about that time, caused by the unparalleled severity of the memorable winter of A. V). 1856, cast a sad and sorrowing gloom over the young settlement of Freeborn county. Some few of the settlers became disheartened and discouraged, and early the following spring returned to their former eastern homes."

About the first judicial proceedings in the county were in January, 1857, in which Henry Boulton was plaintiff, and C. T. Knapp, defendant, and the case came before William Andrews, who must have been the first Justice of the Peace. Mr. Bartlett was counsel for both parties, who were beaten by the decision of the court.

At Shell Rock City the first schoolhouse in the county was built and finished in the style of civilization, on the 18th of August, 1857, and immediately thereafter a common school therein was put in full blast, with Miss Emily Streeter as teacher, being the first school put in operation in the county. Great interest was taken by the early settlers in everything pertaining to a civilized life. Churches were organized and religious services held in the schoolhouses and private dwellings of the inhabitants. Thus the nucleus was formed from which our present proud position in the arts and sciences, moral and religious intelligence, and

The first permanent_bridge!.built in the county was at Shell Kock, I)y subscription, the document bearing date on the 9tli of June, 1857. The sums given were from two to twenty-five dollars, each designating as to whether it was to be paid in money, work, or material. The men who signed the paper were: Edward P. Skinner, A. M. Burnham, A. H. Bartlett, F. L. Cutler, G. Cottrell. J. W. Smith, C. W. Phillips, Lars Severson, David L. Phillips, Almon M. Cottrell, C. T. Kuapp, Jaraes LafF, I. S. Homing, George Gardner, William Andrews, Robert Budlong, Thomas Budlong, C. Tarbell, E. S. Anderson, William C. Ellsworth, Elijah Young, James Andrews, George P. Holmes,

Bids were received until June 15th, when it was begun and built by Dr. Burnham in nine days. The whole sum subscribed was S277. There can be no question as to these men being old settlers. Some of them are still living in the county, and some are in other counties or States, and many of them are well situated. In relation to the name of the founder of St. Nicholas, while it is said that he subseciuently wrote it differently, his sigature here is "Jacob LyBrand."

At an early day there was considerable trouble to have legal documents executed. Magistrates were often scores of miles apart, iind getting married involved difficulties we can hardly comprehend in these days. The first trouble arose from the scarcity of marriagable women, but having secured that indespensible pre-requisite, the trouble of finding a minister or a justice to legalize the union was often most exasperating to the victims of "loves young dream."

Mr. McReynolds had not been ordained, and therefore was not vested by the prospective State of Minnesota with authority to pronounce single ladies and gentlemen, husbands and wives, with the admonition that no man should put them asunder. But he was not iinfrequently called upon to perform this service, and on one occasion he was hailed as he passed a log house, on the way to fill an appointment, and requested to step as he came back and "join two hearts that beat as one." Several men were then just starting out to shoot some ducks for the wedding feast. This was near Bear Lake, and Mr. McRevnolds on his return brought a Justice, and the happy pair were duly and legally started in the journey of life hand in hand; and bo the society papers the next week might have read, "Marriage in high life - On the 7th inst., at the home of the bride's parents, by Frederick McOall, Esquire, assisted by Rev. Isaac W. McReynolds, Mr. J. H. Bluberson to Miss Mary Jane Clark, no cards.

A great many strories are told about securing timber by borrowing it when the owner was away, and while the stories that are told are for the most part fabrications, a large number of instances might be related that will never see the light. Dr. Burnham says that he owned thirteen acres of land near Albert Lea, and cut a lot of logs and hauled them out on the flat, and every one mysteriously disappeared. His idea was that the business men of Albert Lea thought it would be a good joke, after beating him for the county seat, to compel him involuntarily to furnish timber for the county buildings.

After the saw-mil] was in operation, Mr. Sheehan, who was a robust young man, was told by Mr. Ruble that he had a fine yoke of cattle, and if Sheehan would take them and haul in logs from where ever he could find them, they would go shares on the lumber after it was sawed out. So the young man went to work and did a good business, and when the settlement came in the spring, Sheehan was not quite satisfied nnth the lumber turned over to his share, and entered a mild protest at the inequality of the division: but Ruble politely invited him to take that or noth ing. Seeing no method of redress he accepted his allotment , which having secured, he got even by remarking "well Mr. Ruble you are not so far ahead as you may think, for I got every one of those logs off of your own land." This incident is related on account of its intrinsic merit, for both "George" and "Tim" declare that nothing of the kind ever happened.

George S. Ruble was one of the settlers of 1855. Tlie first time he visited Freeborn ccmnty was in .June, 1854, and slept under a tree near one of the little lakes in Albert Lea. At that time there was not a house in the county. The few people here lived in wagons, happy and contented, at least for a time.

At the sixth annual reunion of the old settlers, a letter was received from Mr. Ruble, who was then at Lookout Mountain, Tenneesee, and as it

"When, for the first time, I saw the country, I loved it well enough to make it my future home, with a few others to denote the energies of my life, to redeem it from its wild state, and help to lay the stepping stones into the garden spot of the Northwest. As I look around upon the general improvements, in both city and country, I conclude that I have never seen them equalled, and can scarcely realize that the days of my absence have witnessed it all. Those who have read "The Mysteries of Metropolisville " will understand my feelings in 1855, for I, of course, like hundreds of others, had sought the West to find a city destined in the future to l)e the "great business center." You certainly will remember the little towns that sprung up all around, and that in a few years, like Metropolisville, in Rice county, were compelled to yield to the force of circumstances, for they could not all be County Seats, and in this vitality alone seemed centered. I had come with my head full of towns, and with this all absorbing idea began hunting immediately for desirable locations. With such material at hand, it took me but a short time to find " just what I wanted. Having made all arrangements I left, and in the fall returned with my family and a gang of men, and began at once the erection of the old saw-mill, which was, by the way, when completed, the finest frame building ever erected in Minnesota. About this time St. Nicholas was founded, under the chief auspices of Jacob Ly Brand, as doubtless many will remember. One day I went and looked over the jsosition, and came to the conclusion that the situation of St. Nicholas was in every way equal to Albert Lea, and the mill power was ever so much better than tbe one I was improving. I therefore made a proposition to Ly Brand to unite town interests and influences, build the mill, procure the County Seat, and make the future metropolis at St. Nicholas, instead of Albert Lea. My proposition was received with indignation by that confident individual, who informed me that I might abandon my town if I chose to do so, at any rate he proposed to have both mill and County Seat at his place, and did not propose to have any partnership about it, either. So I left him and went my way. The intervening years tell the story with its results. Some may rem >mber tlie dances and very good entertainments we enjoyed for a short time at this point, at the hotel, which, like the one at Itasca, the old settlers will all remember, has long since been removed. In relation to Itasca, it should be remembered that it was the strongest opponent in the County Seat contest, and it was at one time hard to tell what the result would be. So the saw-mill progressed. I still have in my possession the old day book used in the transaction of this business, and I prize it as a choice relic. The first entry is as follows :

Webber was our first Attorney, and poor Adrianne came to a sad end. Under the same date was a charge to the printing office for seventeen and one half pounds of nails at 10 cents per pound, $1.75. The book runs up to May, 1859, and almost the last charge is :

On the fly leaf I find this memorandum: "Swineford and Gray arrived in Albert Lea on the 28th of March, 1857." Albert Lea was named not long after I arrived. Merry, WUlford, myself, and others were sitting in a tent one evening, and then and there the present name was decided upon, and the handsome li.ttle city with its peculiarly odd name has attained as wide-spread popularity as any place of its size in the country, and it is justly entitled to it. The principal object of the meeting in the tent was to make application for a Post-ofBce, and the name for it was arrived at after considerable discussion, when at my sugges- tion, Albert Lea was finally chosen, with Mr. Merry as Postmaster. How many of us will remember our first (lance in the old log house, with Charley Colby for our musician, and how we all enjoyed it. Calico was in demand then, and I venture to say that not a single lady complained of some awkward booby's treading on her train. It is true the old roughly hewn plank floor was not as smooth as the waxed affairs over which the dancers of the present day now glide, but it was the best the country afforded, and all participating had the good sense to appreciate the situation and find hearty enjoyment in the afTairs, as they then existed.

So also we remember the first fourth of July celebration, followed by the dance at the log house now standing on lot four, block twelve. In this same house old Uncle McReynolds, in his plain, earnest manner would expound to us the gospel, and always found an attentive and apj)reciative audience. In this house also was taught our first school, and I doubt not that many persons who have come to man's estate in these later years, have children as old as they themselves were when they attended our first school with Lucy Parker for a teacher. So will many remember the school that followed, taught in Clark's old log store room on Clark street. Certain I am, that the teacher of that school, if present, will remember it. * * *

On the occasion of oiir first celebration, our first liberty pole wsis raised near where Brown's bank now is, and a view of it was obstructed in no direction by buildings at that time. During those times we had a few old-fashioned camp, meetings over on what is now known as Ballard's Point, and the number that attended satisfied the faithful that our country was fast peopling. * *

Long years of plenty and prosperity could never obliterate from the minds of the old settlers of Freeborn county the days when hunger and want were daily in sight. No money to buy with and nothing to buy if money was plenty. Our only possessions were health and energy, with a determination to find in the end better days.

How we all looked forward to the completion of the saw-miU, with a longing intensified by inadequate house accommodations and the excitement on the day of starting was intense. After that got in operation it was found necessary to have a grinding aj)paratus also, and the old iron com cracker was then added. How quickly the mill sprung into popularity. Grists from all parts of the country came pouring in, and what grists they were, ranging from four quarts to two bushels, and usually far from first quaUty, not unfrequeutly being half rotten. I well remember one man who came on foot fifteen miles with a little less than a peck of corn in his grist; to this, instead of taking toll, was added two (juarts extra. On his return home some one remarked about the smallness of his grist, whereupon they were informed that Ruble had stolen threefourths of it while grinding. There is no doubt that the old corn cracker is entitled to membership in the old settlers' association.

Not a few will remember the big seine knitted by the old man ^\'ard, and the mighty hauls, we made with it below the dam. I well remember one haul made by us that filled a common wagon box. Suckers were largely in the majority sandwiched thinly with pickerel. Suckers and milk were the staples, with a scanty allowance of corn bread for desert. Hard fare it seems now, but providence gave us an appetite to enjoy even that, and I think I am safe in saying that those days witnessed some of the happiest ones in the history of Freeborn county.

The years '58 and '59 might be called the "sucker period." When I came, in July, 1855, there was no house in the county. Bill Rice, Cottrell, Gardner, and Hostetter were living in their wagons. While at Freeborn Lake I found Miller and Bickford camping out. When I started for St. Paul, in the winter of 1856-57, to do some County Seat log rolling, which was not altogether useless, I found it necessary to go down to Merry's Ford in Iowa, on the Cedar Kiver, then strike the Austin road. From Austin I went toChatfield, thence up to Red Wing,thence up the Mississippi River on the ice to St. Paul. The same circuitous route was followed in March, on my return. A few days later, with my wife and son C. N., then a lad of five years, I went to Geneva around by the Iowa route, and brought in E. C. Stacy, S. N. Frisbie, and Wm. Andrews, the three Commissioners appointed by Governor Gorman to organize Freeborn county. They met in the old log house situated on what was known for years as the "Island" and performed the work for which they had been appointed, and the county was organized with your humble servant as the first sheriff and tax collector. The bill to organize the county was rolled through in oppos. itiou to Morton S. Wilkinson, Ramsey, Emmett Smith, Brisbin, and others, and perhaps to its early passage Freeborn owes much of its advancement and prosperity.

Upon my arrival last month, as the train passed behind the woods into full view ot our little city, f could scarcely realize, as I looked upon the church spires rising above the town, and the other many evidences of a healthy growth and prosperity, that this was the same place I had visited twenty-tive years before, and found without even a wagon road to mark a degree in civilization. But though I did not then exactly locate a railroad, shortly after, when our town had been located, with a Post-oflice and a hotel, I began to feel the necessity of a railroad, and the idea settled into conviction, that at some future day not so far distant, we would have it, and I am going to do myself the credit to say that in that position I was nearly alone, for when I consulted A. B. Webber, for whose opinions we entertained much respect, he laughed and said, "Why Ruble, you are crazy on the subject of All)ert Lea, and are constantly imagining all sorts of impossible things about it ; you will never live to see a railroad in Albert Lea. But you see Webber was mistaken, as well as the others who, becoming dissatisfied, sold their property at a sacrifice and left, or what was worse, went away at a period when they should have stayed, leaving property here to the tender manipulation of those left behind."

After some general reflections Mr. Ruble closed his admirable letter with the hope that the meeting of the old settlers might be a source of pleasure and a harbinger of many more equally enjoyable in the years to come.

General Bemabks

To any one who has lived in an old community, there is something of surprise and admiration in the remarkable transition from an expanse of wildness, solitude, and natural helplessness, to a living civilization; from barbarism to enlightenment, as presented in this region, which, within the remembrance of the present generation has sprung from an unproductive domain into towns and cities equipped and enriched with all that makes life desirable. This wonderful change has been simply marvelous.

The pioneers of this whole region were particularly fortunate in their contact with the Indians. The scenes of the massacre, which began with the planting of the English colonies in Virginia and Massachusetts, and moved with the advancing civilization in a crimson line along the frontier with the most heart-rendering atrocities, seem to have stojiped at the Mississippi, although the terrible Sioux were reputed second to no others in bloodthirstiness, leaving this section in peace and quietness, to crop out, however, in all its original fierceness to the west of us in 1862, at that terrible Sioux massacre so forcibly depicted in the preceeding pages of this work.

Although the tomahawk and scalping-knife were not a constant menace to the early comers, it must not be imagined that there was not toil, privation, cold, and hunger to undergo, for there was absolutely nothing in these wilds of Minnesota, except the intrinsic merit of the location, to attract people from their more or less comfortable homes in the East, or on the other continent, from whence so many came. Those who first Rrrived were inspired with hope, which indeed " springs entemal in the liuman hooiii; ' but they were regarded by their friends, who were left behind, as adventui'ers, soldiers of fortune, who, if they got through alive would certainly never be able to return, as they would surely be anxious to do, unless they were particularly fortunate. They were a sturdy race, who realized the inequalities of the struggles in the old States or Countries, where humanity on the one hand, claiming "the inaleinable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of aappiness;" and on the other hand the accumulations ot labor in vast aggregations, in sordidly avaricious clutches, hedged in with traditional precedents and barriers, with every facility for receiving and gathering in, but with few and small outlets for distribution, and they resolved to establish themselves where merit would not be discarded and supplanted by the antiquated, but still protent relics of feudalism.

The men who come here to establish homes for themselves, their families, and their posterity, were as a rule, hard-working, open-hearted, clearheaded, and sympathizing. They were good neighbors, and so good neighborhoods were created, and they made a practical illustration of the great doctrine of the brotherhood of man, by actual example rather than by quoting creeds, or conforming to outward observances, which may or may not spring from motives of purity. With a bearing that never blanched in the presence of misfortune or danger, however appalling, they were nevertheless tender, kind, and considerate, when confronted by disaster and adversity, and it is certain that their deficiencies in the outward manifestations of piety, were more than compensated for by their love and regard for the claims of humanity.

We who enjoy the blessings resulting from the efforts of these hardy pioneers, many of whom are around us in actual life, would be less than human if we were not filled with gratitude to these early settlers, who paved the way and made the condition of things we find a reality. The value of what they accomplished cannot be overestimated, and it should be constantly remembered that whatever of romance attended the early colonists, was more than compensated for by hard work.

If this meed of praise is justly due the men, as it assuredly is, what shall be said in commendation of the heroic women, who learned the vicissitudes of frontier life, endured the absence from home, friends, and old associations, whose tender ties, that only a woman's heart can feel, must have wrung all hearts as they were severed. The devotion that would lead to such a breaking away to follow a father, a husband, or a son, into the trackless waste beyond the Mississippi, where dark and gloomy apprehensions must ha^-e overshadowed the mind, is above all praise. The nature of the part taken by the noble women who first came to this uninhabited region cannot be fully appreciated. Although by nature and education, liberal if not lavish, they prRotioed the most rigid economy, and secured comforts from the most meager means. They often at crtical times preserved order, reclaipiing the men from utter despair during gloomy periods; and their constant example of frugal industry and cheerfulness, continually admonished them to renewed exertions; the instincts of womanhood intermittingly encouraging integrity and manhood.

As to the effects of frontier life, socially and morally, upon those who have secured homes here in the West, a few observations may not be inappropriate. During the past generation a noted divine in the East, Dr. Bushnell, who will be remembered by those who came from there in the fifties, preached a sermon on the " barbarous tendencies of civilization in the West," and on this theme the reverend gentleman iiredicated au urgent and almost frantic appeal to Christianity to put forth renewed and strenuous exertions to save this region from a relapse into barbarism. This tendency, it was urged, must result from the disruption of social and religious ties, the mingling of heterogeneous elements, and the removal of the external restraints so common, and supposed to be so potent in older communities. It is evident, however, that Dr. liushnell did not have a sufficiently broad and extended view of the subject; for the arbitrament of time has shown that his apprehensions were entirely groundless, for if he had even carefully surveyed the history of the past, he would have seen that in a nomadic condition, which emigration temporarily involves, there is never any real progress in civilization or refinement. Institutions for the improvement and elevation of the race must be planted deep in the soil before they can raise their battlements in grandeur and majesty toward heaven, and bear fruit for the enlightenment of the nations. The evils of which Dr. Bushnell was so alarmed were without a lasting impression, because merely temporary in character. The planting of a new colony where so much labor is imperative, where everything has to be constructed, involves an obvious increase of human freedom, which is sometimes taken advantage of, and the conventionalities of society are necessarily disregarded to a great extent. But the elements composing a sincere regard for the feelings and welfare of others, and of self government, everywhere largely predominates; and the fusion of the races modifies the asperities and the idiosyncrasies of each, and certainly will in due time create a composite nationality, in which it is hoped in comformity with the spirit of this remarkable age, will produce a nationality or a race, as unlike as it must be superior to those that have preceded it. Even now, before the first generation has passed away, society here has outgrown the irritation of the transplanting, and there are not more vicious elements in it, if as many, as there are m the old communities, as the criminal statistics abundantly show.

In a large majority of cases the men and women coming here had at first to struggle to meet the physical wants of themselves and little ones, and they had no time, even if they had an inclination, to make protestations involving postulates of doctrinal faith, but the results of whatever teaching they had received was materialized in honest labor for the good of the whole community, and in special acts of beneficence whenever occasion presented. It is no exaggeration to say that what has been accomplished here in thirty years, in the planting of educational and moral institutions, has been almost equal to what has been realized in New England in two hundred and fifty years.

To one who has not been actually engaged in reclaiming a farm from a state of nature, and bringing it to a condition that will yield a comfortable support tor a family, it is difficult to conceive the amount of toil required, which is often not represented by the difference between the government price of the land and its market value to-day. And as time goes on the estimation in which the settlers who formed the management of this northwestern civilization will be held, will be higher and higher; and the generation now so rapidly taking their places should appreciate the presence of those who remain, and endeavor to strew with flowers the pathways that are shortening so certainly, and must all terminate at no distant day. Let kindness and consideration wait upon them while they are still with us, and not heedlessly postpone our substantial appreciation of their merits, and between our remembrances of the toil, the privations, and the suffering they endured which has redounded to our benefit, until they are all gone, and then erect cold and passionless monuments to their memory.