Goodhue County, Minnesota - Chapter 7: Trials and Triumphs of Early Settlers, 1893

Among the hardships to which our early settlers were exposed, especially those who came to cultivate the soil, not the least, by any means, was that which enabled them to gain a recognized title to a quarter section of land. Townsites were occupied before farming began. Before the laud was surveyed and offered for sale by the government, no title could be obtained except that of being the first claimant. It frequently happened that when a man and his family arrived with their goods and chattels, and, iinding a suitable tract of unoccupied land, began to build a shelter, a prior claimant would appear and order them to leave. The prior claimant could show his name marked upon some tree or stake, and if the family retused to obey his order within twenty-four hours, a company of fifteen or twenty men armed with clabs, axes, and hammers, would appear upon the scene. The new settler had to take his choice either to abandon the claim immediately, or pay the lirrit claimant a sum of money, generally $50 or $100. This in many cases was a real hardship, greatly reducing the funds necessary for the subsistence of the family until the first crop could be raised upon the farm. A large number of farmers who came in the summer of 1854 and spring of the year 1855 were subjected to this annoyance. Occasionally, however, the bona fide settler was able to maintain his rights. Mr. C. C. Webster relates a case, which occurred near the village of Zumbrota, as follows:

"Several of the first settlers, members of the ( townsite) company, had not only selected claims for themselves, but as they claimed, for their friends. The proxy claims were for a time respected. Outsiders, however, soon found out about them. One day a load of lumber came in sight from Mazeppa. It was watched with curiosity. Presently it was unloaded on a claim which had been selected by Dr. Perry for a friend of his, and in a brief time a shanty was erected. This was considered a bold invasion upon the rights of the settlement. Next morning, at daylight, some twenty of us, armed with axes, clubs, etc., resolved to expel the invaders. Upon reaching the shanty a call for surrender was made and in a few moments the shanty was leveled to the ground. There was no one inside. A shout rang through the valley and the valiant heroes retired. During the day the fellow whose shanty had been demolished appeared upon the scene. At a distance he looked somewhat disconsolate and we fancied he would disappear and not return. Not so, however. The next day he returned with some companions. They seemed to carry something wliich looked very much like shotguns. The shanty \vas not again disturbed. We thought it best to bottle up our wrath, and not take any chances."

Exposure to the extreme cold of the winters was another very common trial. Mr. Nelson, of Wanamingo, relates the story of a man who stayed over night with him in the winter of 1855, on his way to Oronoco, 01m- stead county. The man started for his destination early the next morning with a yoke of oxen. The third day after, he drove his team into Mr. Nelson's yard again, having wandered three days and two nights on the open prairie in a snow storm. His feet and hands were badly frozen. There was a stage road running north and south through the county at an early day, called the St. Paul and Dubuque road. A party from Red Wing surveyed a branch road to connect with this in 1855. These and the old military road along the river were the only established highways in the county for some years. Consequently, the settlers were accustomed to take the shortest and easiest route toward any point where business or pleasure led them. No one was obliged to follow another's track if he thought he could find a better. So there were roads and roads, and it puzzled one to cross an uninhabited reach of prairie without wandering. It was really dangerous in the stormy season of Avinter to venture far from home. There were many cases of persons being lost within a few miles of their own home, and several perished by freezing while being thus lost.

Rev. J. G. Johnson says: "I built a claim house lGx23 in the town now called Biirnside, commencing it in January, 1855, and moving into it in Augi.st following. I found out that na-ked nature needed more clothing than a new born child; first a hen-roost, then a pig-sty, a stable, stack-yard, corn-yard, a forty acre pasture, one hundred acres encircled with a wooden fence, breaking costing five dollars an acre, school houses to be built, cemeteries laid out and enclosed, bridges everywhere to be built; highways surveyed and worked. The Avinter of 1855-0 was a rough winter. As a mem- ber of tho Minnesota Mothodist Conference I was trying to supply the work of preaching at a point five miles above Hastings in the forenoon, at Hastings two o'clock p. m., and at Ravenna, seven miles below, at "caudle light." Late in the fall, one of the darkest and most stormy nights known to men overtook me on the open prairie below Hastings. The only way to find the path and keep it, was to feel it out with the feet. After a while a distant light appeared in view, and thoroughly drenched I soon found shelter in a small house occupied by two families. Bat the poor pony had no shelter and scant feed.

-'One Monday morning of that winter, in trying to get home from my appointment, a blizzard commenced raging. Scarcely any travel on the road except one stage through. About forty degrees below zero of cold came on. The wife and two little children at home alone. Neighbors few and far between. Stern necessity says, You must get home; but that open bleak prairie in the town of AVelch, then unoccupied, was a precarious place for night to close in upon a wayfaring man with a dubious track to follow. Yet at about nine o'clock in the evening we were all made unusually glad that the storm had been weathered, and the harbor safely reached.

"In the summer of 1850 I raised two acres of wheat. Thirty miles away at Northtield there was a mill. With a one-horse load I reached it at sundown to find the mill full of grists; the water too low to run on full time. The only chance was to exchange a few bushels of my wheat for flour, receiving thirty pounds for each l)ushel. The rest of my grist I brought back as far as Cannon Falls and left to be ground without bolting. Winter soon came on and no roads opened on my route thither. I found my wheat, which was left there, the next spring, musty. My next milling was done at Kinnikiunick, eight miles beyond Prescott, Wis., a four days' journey going around through Cannon Falls and Hastings.

"The early settlers Avanted church privileges. A meeting was held at the house of Mr. More, near Cannon river bridge, in Burnside. More had an awfal poor house. He had also the inflammatory rheumatism. He lay flat on his back on the loose boards of the only floor except bare ground. The peoi)le had brought all their young dogs to the meeting. In the midst of services the dogs became unseemly unceremonious. More evidently felt his responsibility for better order and rising with difficulty, in apparent wrath, he took his own dog by the neck, dragged him to the door and with a toss and a kick sent him yelping out. At that all the dogs rushed in sympathy oat, and the man took liis lowly place again. All reverence and devotion fled, and appointment was not renewed at that place.

"We had frequent visits from the Sioux Indians who often killed deer in the neighborhood. On one occasion three of these animals were shot by an Indian without moving from his secluded position. Tliis occurred near where T. J. Bryan's house now stands.

Mr. John Stowe, one of the early settlers of the town of Goodhue, relates that he began farming under disadvantages which were common at the time. He had no team at first. Worked for a neiglibor to pay for the breaking of a few acres on bis claim. He planted corn on the sod which had been broken. One day, when he had nearly finished planting, he noticed that a striped gopher was following him. On examination . of the premises he found that his corn was being taken out of the ground before it sprouted. He soon commenced trapping. He had two daughters, who w^ere just old enough to enjoy such sport. They soon caught over one hundred of the little thieves. Finding them very fat they extracted from them oil enough to furnish the family light for the next winter. Notwithstanding the success of the girls in hunting, Mr. Stowe was obliged to plant his corn field over the second time.

Young men while pre-empting and improving their claims were often obliged to do their own house-work. The mistakes made in cooking were sometimes amusing. A number whose claims were in the same neighborhood often took their meals together, each furnishing a portion of the raw material and doing his share of the cooking. It was at one of these club boarding houses that some corn meal was brought, and a desire expressed to have a Yankee hasty pudding that very day. The appointed cook filled his kettle partly with cold water and dropping in the meal slowly by handf uls, stirring together until the mixture was about the usual puddiug consistency. Then he started his fire beneath and brought the mixture as quickly as possible to a boiling point. This last process he considered essential. It was served hot, each guest sweetening it with molasses to his taste. But every one was soon satisfied with his first plate of that hasty pudding. It did not taste natural. What was left was jriven to the dog. The dog was hungry and ate it up. That dog left the shanty that afternoon and was never seen there again. His owner insisted that the pudding had killed his dog. The usual process in making bread from wheateu flour was by mixing the flour with water, kneading the same with the hands, and bakiug in the stove oven. One who came later to this boarding establishment expressed his desire to improve on that kind of bread. He was allowed the privilege of trying his hand. He knew how his mother made salt-rising bread and following her example produced an article that was pro.iounced good. This man was installed chief cook of the shanty from that time. Bat it proved afterward that even he was not familiar with all the branches of the culinary art. Some one furnished, for the sake of variety, a small sack of beans. He knew that his mother used to boil them for awhile then bake in the oven. He placed in the pot what he thought a sufficient quantity of beaas for the guests for one meal. Before the pot began to boil, he found the beans were crowding one another up and over the rim. He hastened for another vessel and divided the mess. Yet the quantity of beans kept on multiplying. He had no thought of beans swelling so. It was necessary to obtain another vessel and all three were filled when the boiling was ended. He had cooked beans enough to last the house several days. He learned some things by experience.

my father, we could get do other wagon than a truck with wheels made of four inch thick oak cylinders sawed oti* a log. A good wagon was made in this way. The wheels were only about twenty inches in diameter. Hence I had great trouble in getting over the stumps between John Day's ravine and Hay creek. The road was about where the Milwaukee railroad track is now. I often had to lift one end of the axle, to straddle the stump, one axle at a time of course, and as the steers were wild, and my assistants always newly arrived emigrants, who did not understand how to conciliate our steers by forcible English, I often had great trouble. The wagon was stronger than the steers, however, and that helped me. On that truck or wagon I carted out the goods and supplies for all the immigrants that arrived in Vasa township that year."

"In the first part of the year 1857, when the township of Goodhue was settled by few, and these far between, I located a piece of land for a home. The snow was then more than a foot deep on the prairie. We removed the snow and dug a hole in the ground, about 6k.S feet, which was intended for a future cellar. There we placed some bedding and covered the hole with boards. My father, my brother and myself, all used that apartment for our sleeping room, while we were building our first house, a building 12x16, which served as our family residence for niany years. Thus we began our pioneer life like many others in those days, without any other means of support, except good health and a willingness to work '^for anything and at anything as

"He served two years in the United States Navy. Afterward resided in New Jersey, where he learned the hatter's trade, and having found for himself a helpmeet, they emigrated to the west in 1852, settled first in Wisconsin and a feAv years later in the town of Holden, Goodhue Co., Minn., where he engaged in farming, and in the course of about fifteen ^ears became the possessor of 200 acres of land under cultivation. The log cabin had been exchanged for an elegant mansion. Barns and other suitable accommodations for stock and grain-raising, had been erected. A numerous stock of domestic animals surrounded the premises. In short, everything showed thrift and prosperity. Then he left his farm to the care of one of his sons and engaged in a successful business in a neighboring city. He says: 'When we had been living some time on our new farm without coffee, my Avife and myself having been accustomed to use that beverage in the east, we naturally desired to enjoy it again. Like most of our neighbor farmers we had a yoke of oxen. But the roads were very poor, almost impassable, especially in the spring, and so I undertook the journey to market, twelve miles, on foot. My load consisted of a basket containing eggs and a roll of butter. For fear of getting stuck in the mud, I left the road and went across lots. In doing so was obliged to climb over a number of fences. My load soon began to feel heavy and I put it on a stick and carried it across my shoulder. Very soon after I came to another fence. I got over all right, but not the eggs. The basket slipped from the stick and every egg was broken! The onl}' satisfaction I liatl was to sit down and make a meal of the raw eggs. I then continued my jonrney with the roll of butter. The cloth about it was of course badly colored by the broken eggs, but I succeeded in disposing of it at the low price of seven cents per pound. Thus we once more had coffee. A little later my wife got a ride to town with a neighbor wheu she carried seventeen dozen of eggs, which siie exchanged for seven yards of calico." Calico must have been rather high in those early years.