Freeborn County, Minnesota - Chapter with an unread heading (no. 34 of those read), 1882 (part 2 of 2)

If I attempted to say to you all I would like to say ou this occasion, I kqpw I should tax your patience. I apprehend that my old pioneer friends wanted to see me more than they wanted to hear rne talk, and I am certain that I desired to see them once more before joining that memorable caravan that has gone before : and I want to hear some of them talk too, I see about me some faces that were familiar twenty years ago ; but alas, I miss from among you many who shared with us the trials and hardships, the hopes and the fears of that early period in the history of Freeborn county. They have passed away to the silent and mysterious future; some died battling in their country's cause, others surrounded by their families in the homes they liad builded for themselves in the wilderness, which they and you have made to bloom as a garden and blossom as the rose. Of my old friend and partner I have heard Eothing since the war, in which he was a soldier, either from choice or compulsion, on the Confederate side. I miss from among you my old and valued friend, Armstrong, who died in the meridian of a noble manhood; William Andrews, the good Dr. Blackmer, and others I might name, friends of my younger years, are not here to extend, as I know they would, if living, a friendly, cordial greeting. It may be tbat my old friend and partner still lives; I know not; but it is more than proable that he lies buried in an unknown grave, the unwilling victim of a cruel war. If indeed he be dead, sing, oh ye sirens, your saddest strains, and chant ye winds and birds a requiem over his tomb! Does he rest under a cairn of pebbles in the shadow of some grand old southern sierra, may some grieving Oread come by night to drop a tear of pity and place a garland ou his barren ss^pvilcbre. Nor do I know where the others sleep. Wherever it be, may tlie evening dews fall, oh so gently, and the Howers spread sweet perfume around ; may the tall trees make mournful music, and the forest songsters chant their evening hymns over the places where they rest. And whether they lie in the vast ocean, or somewhere in the broad bosom of this fair land of ours, may the crimson morning dawn softly, and the first rays of God's golden sunshine rest long and lovingly over the places where they sleep."

Mr. Botsford i)reseuted the obituaries, and some touching remarks were made l)y Father Lowry in relation to those who had passed away during the year. The song "No Night There" was sung. Forty-four joined the association this year. A letter from Rev. C. L Clausen was read and ordered on file. Messrs. Jones, Goward, Swineford, Botsford and others related stories of the olden time. Mr. Parker read some town histories. The assembly was dismissed with the bene diction by Rev. Father McReynolds.

The Fifth annual reunion. This unusually interesting aH'air took plaee on Tuesday, the IDth of June, 1879, at the Court House. At half past ten the procession formed, with the right in front of the building, and it is said that there were six hundred teams and not less than three thousand five hundred jieople present. Headed by the Albert Lea Cornet Band it marched to the picnic grounds where ample provision had been made for the exercises. After music by the band. President Stai'y made a few remarks expressing his satisfaction at seeing so many familiar faces, and feelingly alluded to those who had gone upon the last joxirney of this life, and called upon the chaplain to invoke the divine presence in prayer. Mr. Lowry came forward and asked the audience to join in singing, "Praise Crod from whom all blessings How." He then ofl'ered a fervent prayer, which was followed by the song "Wake the Song oE .Tubilee," by the Purdie family. .Judge Stacy i then introduced Lieut Governor Wakefield, who gave a most admirable address, paying a high tribute of respect to the early public meu with whom he was associated in the early legislation of the Territory and State, and especial commendations were jjreseuted to the memory of Augustus Armstrong. The address was received with great ai)j)lause. Then came the lunches and

It was the largest basket pic-nic, perhaps, ever held in the State, certainly in southernMinnesota. At half past one o'clock the assembly was called to order by the president, who announced that the proudest duty which had devolved upon him since his connection with the association, was the introducing of Colonel .\lbert Miller Lea, who, fortyfour years ago, conducted a military expedition across the territory which now constitutes Freeborn county, and who, without doubt, passed within one hundred feet of the spot where he now stands. The venerable and distinguished man now came forward, and was greeted with most hearty applause, and when it had subsided he made a most admirable address, which is preserved in the archives of the association.

He began as follows : "Mr. President and old settlersof Freeborn county, your worthy president has told you who I am and why I am here. As I am expected to give you personal reminiscences, I must necessarily mingle them with some egotism and so I shall talk with you as familiarly as with old friends. There is not a face in all this large assembly I ever saw before last Saturday, and yet, I venture to flatter my.silf that there is not a heart among you that does not throb kindly toward the old man whom you have so generously welcomed. After many solicitations, repeated from year to year, and after disappointments not a few, at length, last Thursday morning, still feeble from recent illness, I took a train at my home in Central Taxes, to meet you here to-day in this genial reunion. Traveling continuously over a tliousand miles, across eleven degrees of latitude, in sixty-two hours I passed through five States; from green com and melons to the early ripening berries; from the land of cotton to the land of wheat. The glorious visions of fertility and prosperity have dispelled from my system all traces of disease; and your cordial greetings extended through your committee even beyonJ the limits of your State, have made my heart, at three score and eleven, beat as warmly as when, in my younger days, it was stirred by the lovely scenes of the fair country which you have since come to possess and enjoy, and still more to beautify and adorn."

description of the incident connected with the giving of his name to the lake is worth transcribing here. "I was brought in contact with J. N. Nicollet, then engaged in mapping the surveys made by him in the northern basin of the Mississippi. He had made free use of my map in filling up his owa, and invited me one morning to breakfast with him and to inspect his work. During a pleasant sitting I described the scene of that beautiful lake. He drank in tbe description enthusiastically, and exclaimed 'Ah zat is magniflque ! what you call him ? ' I replied 'Lake Chapeau' 'Ah, zat is not ze name, it is Lake Albert Lea,' and he thus wrote it on the map. And thus originated the name of the lake, that of the township, and of this beautiful city."

At the conclusion of this address, letters were read from Henry M. Rice, George S. Ruble, then at Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, and from Horace Greene. Thirty three new members joined the association this year. John L. Melder made a proposition looking toward the establishment of an old settlers' home which was referred to the President, Secretary, and Treasurer.

The officers elected for the year were: President, A. C. Wedge; Secretary, Augustus Peterson; Treasurer, Samuel Batchelder; and a Vice-Presidevt for each town; Financial Committee, H. D. Brown, Henry Thurston, with the three executive officers.

The sixth annual reunion was on the 8th of July, 1880. The longest procession ever seen in this city started from in front of the Court House at the appointed time. Two brass bands furnished the music, and the concourse proceeded to the grove north of Fountain Lake, where a varied programme was carried out. Twenty-six joined the association this year. Hon. M. S. Wilkinson was the orator of the occasion, and quite a long historical letter was read from George S. Ruble, the substance of which appears in our sketch of the early history of the county.

The following gentlemen were chosen as officers for the year: President, A. C. Wedge; Secretary Augustus Peterson: Treasurer, Samuel Batchelder; and Obituarian, H. Thurston.

The seventh annual reunion was held in Albert Lea on the 14th of .Tune, 1881, and its features were not unlike those of previous years. The Fireman's Band furnished the music, and the exercises were on the pic-nic grounds north of Fountain Lake. The Hon. David Blakely, of Minneapolis, delivered the annual address, the locally historic part of which is here given.

The officers for the year were: President, Francis Hall; Secretary, Isaac Botsford; Treasurer, D. G. Parker; Committee on Obituaries, H. Thurston, J. Goward, A. H. Bartlett, J. F. Jones, and S. N. Frisbie.

No apology is deemed necessary that so miich space is given to the Old Settlers' Association, and to the addresses that were made from time to time, because it is from just such sources as this that the present and the future historian must gather his material, and where we have found facts to record in the transactions of the association we have used them without hesitation.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Old Settlers and Old Friends: - Twenty -four years ago this coming fall there might have been seen coursing over the jsrairie a few miles north of this spot, a solitary prairie schooner, inhabited by a brace of gentlemen of whom many of you have heard, but few have ever seen. One of these gentlemen, you will already have anticipated me in guessing, was the pushing and energetic business agent of the town of Bancroft. The other was a young, unsophisticated, confiding companion of his, who, after a somewhat checkered career, of which this was the anticipated golden beginning, to-day, once more stands before you. I say once more, because there are many old settlers of Freeborn county within the sound of my voice, who will recall that twenty -three years, not far from this very spot, they suffered at my hands an afliiction akin to that with which they are again to-day threatened. The occasion was the fourth of July, and I was then, as I chance to be now, the honored orator of the day. I say they suffered on that occasion; and say it advisedly, because many of them were good, sound Democrats then, as they are good, sound Democrats now; and I was a red hot Republican then, and, if my fjnml old liii-uds will ])ardon me for saying it, I still obstinately continue to be. Well, those times were times that tried men's souls, at least in a political sense. They were the times of the Kansas -Nebraska struggle, and antedated but a too brief period, the raid of old John Brown into Virginia, and the doom of the infamous institution of slavery consequent upon the mad assault upon Sumter.

But to resume: As the solitary prairie schooner of which I made mention, neared the fiourishi'ng town of Bancroft, the unsophisticated but confiding traveller aforesaid, might have been observed by tlie wayfarers along the road, if there had been any wayfarers along the road, or if indeed tliere had been any disceruable road, earnestly and perseveriugly peering into the airy labyrinths for a sight of the town. I say the town, because, having been pYevailed upoii by the seductive enticements of the energetic and enterprising business agent aforesaid, to join him and publish a news]>aper there, and having, by virtue of an exceedingly deficient education in western town sites, taken it for granted that where a big newspaper was to be published, there must necessarily be a big town; he kept straining his eyes through the hazy October atmo.sphere tor a sight of the town. Never did a poor Christian gaze with more intense longing for the sight of the golden gates and the beautiful temples of the everlasting city which was to be the end of his pilgrimage, than I through the curtains of that old prairie schooner for the lefty spires, the imposing edifices, and the smoke of a thousand manufactories that I proudly expected to see ascend to heaven from the noisy and |)opulous mart which I was soon to gratify and surprise by the publication of my new, and as a matter of course, my "able" newspaper.

I have often reflected upon the peculiar vealy character of the verdancy which distinguished this peculiar episode in my career. The limit of my western pioneering had been the city of Chicago, where, fresh from my eastern home and just forsaken text books, I was looking for a very small opening for a large young man. It was at this critical juncture that my friend, the energetic business agent of Bancroft, discovered me. We had been old friends in early years, for he was a Vermonter too, and well knew that I had been educated a printer before I entered the University.

Naturally enough, lie convinced me that I was just tlie talented youth for the opening that a beneficent providence had placed at his disposal. He was, he said, in Chicago to purchase a newspaper outfit for a Minne.sota town in which he had settled; and the landed interests of whose pro" prietors he happened to be agent. Then-followed a list of these landed proprietors and a titled list it was.

It contained the names of the Governor of the territory, of the Chief of .Justice, of Generals and Colonels, and bankers and capitalists, until my imagination peopled its streets with dignitaries, and its squares with sky reaching edifices: and so much a matter of cour.se did I take this condition of things to be. that it never entered my head to inquire into the actual facts. It is not strange then, that on the memorable day referred to I was still gazing anxiously into the distance for a sight of the spires of my anticipated Arcadia, when the schooner brought up by the side of a freshly built board shanty, and my friend, the agent, announced with a gravity that would have become one of Kip Van Winkle's ghostly mountain boblins, that we had arrived. Shades of Chuzz Crvit! I exclaimed, am I too the victim of a town site demon, and is this the Eden of the conspiracy '?

'Oh, no,' replied he with a calmness which would have done honor to the referee of a cookfight, 'this is no Eden, although if Eden equalled it in loveliness, you will admit it was a sad day for our luckless jmcestors when they wore expelled from it. No, this not Eden, but Bancroft!'

Oh, town site! town site! and sure enough it was a town "site", but in all the wide expanse of prairie and openings there was never a sight of a town.

A single board shanty, a screaming steam sawmill, and a grass covered prairie stretching away for miles, constituted the sad realization of my pictured spires, my sky-reaching edifices, and my great metropolitan squares peopled with Governors, poety, brave men, and beautiful women !

But the enthusiasm of youtli is not easily dampened. My printing establishment was on the way, it had already been loaded upon the meandering ox-cart, wliich was thin the distinguish- ing avenue of freight transportation between the river and these sequestered parts. My friend, the agent, had a pushing and active spirit ; he assured me that out here in the far West, towns and villager sprang up like mushrooms in the night; that the saw-mill which I saw whirring and whizzing before me, was already cutting up and forming the material which was to enter into the construction of my printing office, several stores, dwellings, and buildings of divers and sundry uses, purposes, and ends; and he whispered into my of quickly reassured year as a matter of sacred confidence, but with the air and manner of a man who knew whereof he spoke, that Bancroft was to be the future county seat of the county; that the insignificant collection of board tenements and tumble down mill, known as George Ruble's at Albert Lea, would soon be transformed into rookeries for fowls, while the people would hock to the future metropolis, the procession headed by Morin, the Register of Deeds of this county, and by Swineford, the flamboy and editor of the weekly concern which my able metropolitan journal would very speedily swallow up and supplant. Moreover, while the Governor, the Chief Justice, the Generals, the Colonels, the bankers, and the capitalists were not actual residents of Bancroft, and possibly never would be, they were in a position of influence which would insure tor the town a mighty future. Indeed, it was not too sweet to anticipate that the dome of the State Capitol would some day glisten in the sun from the spot where we stood. To cap the climax I was presented with a deed to twenty of the lots of the town, and thus, in the twinkling of an eye, transformed from a seedy stripling in search of an opening, to a bloated town proprietor already entered into the possession of his wealth. My friends, it was enough ! From that hour I was a convert to the colossal possibilities of the future town and seat of the county, and the vindoubted final Capital of the State. From that hour I was the zealous heutenant and coadjutor of as sanguine a townsite devotee as ever builded from a rosy imagination a magnificent castle in Spain. From that hour the whirring and whizzing steam mill redoubled its efforts ; the lumber for my printing office, for the first store, tor the biggest dwelling house in the county, to be occupied by the business agent, his family and guests, was soon on the ground, and by the time the meandering ox -carts arrived from the river laden with my precious newspaper material, the roomiest office in the county awaited its reception. I set to work and put it in order. The election which was to transfer its county seat from Albert Lea to Bancroft was close at hand. At most I could issue but one copy of the new and "able" paper before the voters would decide the argument. I put my whole heart and soul into the event. I wrote nights and put the heated fulmination of my goose-qiiill in type daytimes, I scarcely ate or slept. I had no experienced help, and feeling that the eyes of the people of the county, if not the whole world were upon me, and that the issue of the appeal was in my keeping, I endeavored to be equal to the crisis. But alas, the fates were against me. For one man to lay the cases, to put up the press, to write editorials, to perambiilate the town and record the vast variety of local events, to receive and arrange the news and the commercial departments, and above all, to set up and classify the great crush of advertisements that crowded the columns of a newspaper published in a town of upwards of twenty thousand, or, I should rather say, upwards of twenty inhabitants, was too much ! My first paper did not appear imtil the very dawn of election day, too late to reach the rural districts - too late to influence, to persuade,to electrify the people, too late to frustrate the damnable plot concocted by tht Rubles, the Morins, the Wedges, the Armstrongs, of this city, and the wily Stacys, the sly Frisbies, and the festive Bartletts of the county ! Too late to secure the fondly anticipated transfer of the county seat from Albert Lea to Bancroft - too late to lay the foundation of a mighty emporium - too late to command the future location of the Capital of the State, and possibly of the nation - too late to e"?- tablish at the final hub of the Universe, a newspaper that should be read by the inhabitants of the globe.

But the fire of youth is not to be burned out at a single conflagration, and Agent Oliver and I were not long in finding compensations for our sorry disaster. During the progress of the campaign the town had trebled in growth. That is, where at the outset had been but a single board shanty, there were now two or three quite respectable buildings; and it must be admitted that any town whose buildings double and treble in a month, is an amazingly flourishing town. We soon rejoiced in the possession of the largest store and finest private mansion - that of Agent Oliver - in the county, and mv newspaper - well, modesty forbids my dwelling on the merits of that historical shee t. * * * *

The musical critic of the paper had little to contribute, although the town was really distinguished for its talent in this direction. Agent Oliver and wife were cultured New Englanders- he a superior pianist and organist, and she a soprano whose rare voice has since made her one of the finest concert singers in the country, and long a favored occupant of the first choir in New York. Then Mr. Charles Etheridge, at that time a skilful contracting carpenter, who erected the buildings on the town site, but who afterwards became a St. Paul insurance agent, and acquired sudden wealth by decamping with the money of his companies, and who thus proved the only successful financier ever conndcted with Bancroft history - was the base, and I the warbling tenor. The organization constituted the only opera the town ever boasted.

The religious editor of the " Bancroft Pioneer " also found his occupation gone. This, I say, was a lamentable fact, because I am satisfied that if there had been religious services at Bancroft and Albert Lea in those days, and Morin and Ruble and Wedge and Stacy - let me never forget Stacy's finger in that unholy pie - and Colby and Lybrand and Bartlett and Frisbie and many other wicked conspirators had attended divine service on the memorable Sabbath before the county seat election was held, instead of being scattered about the county plotting the overthrow of Bancroft, there is not a peg on which to hang the shadow of a doubt that Bancroft would to-day have been the county seat of this beautiful county; and the sjrot whereon we stand, by an instance of rare poetic justice, would have been the site of the handsomest and most productive poor farm that ever fructified under the rays of a quickening June sun! I do not add, old settlers and old friends, I considerately and purposely do not add, that the wicked conspirators who plotted against Bancroft on that memorable " Sunday " above referred to, would to-day have been tilling the soil on the county's farm on this spot; but there is no law against your drawing whatever inference the circumstances warrant. But, to resume; while the religious editor of the Bancroft Pioneer, owing to circumstances beyond his control, had little to interfere with his main occupation, I will not say of playing poker, the interviewing Jiinil. who had then not become a regular adjunct of the weekly press, had quite as little. The truth is, the streets and offices did not swarm with peojile to interview. The town was full of office-holders, however. If my memory is not at fault, erei-y regular citizen played that beautiful role. Agent Oliver was Postmaster, genial Mose Comfort, the clerk in the store, was his deputy, and I, bv a rare instance of misplaced confidence, had become a school trustee. Shortly after, by a promotion, the suddenness of which almost turned my head, I was elected to the office of town Supervisor, and at the first meeting of the Board, demcmstrated my utter incapacity for the place by voting for Stacy for Chairman of the County Board. But this was a youthful indiscretion for which I ought not to be held to strict account. Bear in mind the letter by which a depraved son beguiled his father into following him to Minnesota, when he j wrote that "mighty mean men get oflioes out West." Offices were plenty in those days. There was a Supervisor to every town, and it often happened to youthful counties that there were more in the Board than outside of it. Don't wonder, then, that Stacy was honored, but rather accuse yourselves, for you subsequently promoted him to higher tnists, which, it seems, he never betrayed, a fact which, considering the past, he played in destroying the prospects of the town of Bancroft, is a cause of never ending amazement.

It was not long liefore overtures were made me to abandon the town of my first love and earliest adventures, and cast, my fortunes with those of the flushed adventurers who were already enjoying the results of their successful conspiracy. I resisted these bland enticementsf however, until resistance ceased longer to be a virtue; I stuck to the town of Bau'roft as long as a single subscriber remained ui)on its site, of tlie three which it originally contained. But when the store was closed, and Comfort departed, and Agent Oliver struck his colors, and I watched the schooner which bore him and his away from the town, until it disappeared among the oak openings in the distance, I felt

Old Settlers' Assoc Tat I On

The eighth annual reunion occurred on the 15th of September, 1882, in the grove north of the lake. The usual procession was formed at lialf past ten o'clock, made up of country delegations and city residents, with martial music, and proceeded to the pic-nic grounds. The day was most delightful and there was a laige concourse of old and young settlers, and it should be said that they made a remarkable good appearance, comparing favorably with any like number that can anywhere be found.

At the meeting Mr. Botsford presided, and the announcement was made that any persons who were here previous to the 1st of January, 1866, were entitled lo membership, and quite a list was added.

Hon. A. H. Bartlett delivered the annual address, which was replete with reminiscences relating to the early history of the county, and which has been largely drawn upoa to make ijp our portrayal of the first settlement.

The Purdie family were present, as they have been at every meeting since the orgnnization of the society, and enlivened the occasion with their songs, which were well rendered.

Mr. Prisbie, in an extemporaneous way, gave an account of the organization of the county. Miss Maggie Purdie gave a recitation "A fiend and a man." Col. T. J. Sheehan being called upon made some comparisons between "Now, and then." And gave a list of the men from Freeborn county who defended Fort Ridgely in August, 1862.

So much of his speech as relates to the growth and prosperity of the county is reproduced here: "I will call your attention to the material increase of wealth of Freeborn county during the little over a quartee of a century that it has been organized, and I think you will see that we are the most prosperous county for the number of inhabitants in the State. In 1857, the date of the organization of the county, the amount of real and personal assessments covered only a few thousand dollars; I cannot give the exact sum, but it was less than many of you are worth to-day. Year by year its resources increased, until in the year 1864, I find we had an assessed valuation all told, of $920,687. The county has gradually increased in wealth from that time, and in this year of our Lord, 1882, it reaches the magnificent snm of $5,210,311 - assessor's measure, with the possibilities within our reach, during the next quarter of a century, of making it 150,000,000. The increasing population and the consequent occupancy and improvement of new lands, the excellent railroad facilities bringing the northern, southern, eastern, and western markets to our very doors, soliciting your produce for other lands, and your own indomitable perseverance and hard work makes it highly profitable that millions upon millions will be added to its wealth as the succeeding years roll by. The Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, the Minneapolis & St. Louis, the Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern, and the Albert Lea and Fort Dodge railways meet here at our county seat and make the heart of our county the third largest railroad center in the State. The population of the city of Albert Lea is about 2,500 and of the entire county over 18,000. The business of the county I believe has always been transacted honorably and uprightly by its officers, and its expenditures have been considerably less than those of its neighbors, as is shown year by year ia the annual appropriations tor the necessary expenses of its government. I will now allude to a less agreeable history of our county, to show you how willing our people are to pay their debts, when circumstances permit them to do so. For a few years following the war, there was a season of prosperity which stimulated our people with a laudable ambition for great accomplighments, and for a few years they rolled along ujjon a wave of plenty; but suddenly there swept over the land a cloud of adversity, and many felt the iron chains of debts incurred in the purchase of lands and Qiachinery, pressing hard and close upon them with a tyrant's power, and although they struggled long and honorably to meet its just demands, the continuing hard times, short crops, low prices and accumulating interest, were an army they could not withstand, and they sank beneath its overpowering weight. Honest men they were, and true, but they could not surmount impossibilities. The ravages of the creditor commenced, and the iron hand of the law was called upon to enforce his relentless demands. In 1876 there were 125 executions levied by the sheriff and his deputies; in 1877 there were 98, of which nearly all were paid; in 1878 there were 54; and since that time there has been a gradual decrease until the present year, during which I am sure you will all rejoice with me to learn there has been but four, and two of those have been settled.

The good behavior of our people is attested by the fact that there is not one person confined in the county jail at the present time. 'Tis true at times it is filled to overflowing, but I am gratified to 1)0 able to say to you tliat its ofcupauts are for the most part transient criminals representing a dangerous class of society, and but rarely one of our own citizens. Whoever they are, I say to you proudly as your Sheriff, that they are never the early settlers of Freeborn couuty, and at the risk of being accused of flattery I will add that it is largely due to the high order of intelligence you possessed, your virtuous teachings, and the excellent examples you set before the new and rising generations."

Dr. Ballard recited a poem, which was inimitable in its way, and described the celebrated horse race, upon the result of which all Biincroft and Albert Lea staked everything movable that tljey possessed, each with the idea that it was a sure tiling; but the Bancroftites were, to use a sporting phrase, " beautifully scooped."

The obituaries were read by several gentleman, and there were other recitations and remarks. Of course there was a recess of an hour to go through the baskets that were laden with good things. This was voted on all hands as being one of the most interesting reunions yet held, and it is likely that September will in future be the month for the old settler's reunion. The officers for 188.3 are: President, I. Botsford; Secretary, H. D. Brown ; Treasurer, Gilbert Gulbrandson, and a list of vice Presidents.

Judicial

It seems unfortunate, and it is a source of annoyance to us, that the record of those who joined in 1880 and in 1881 has not been preserved, and so our list is incomplete. In 1882, the date of the coming of a number was omitted; the names of those who joined are here given: