Redwood County, Minnesota - Chapter 33: Pioneer Experiences, 1916

McPhail - His Life, Times and Cabin. The starting of a town usually differs but slightly one from; another in the details of its procedure, but the beginning of Redwood Falls was sufficiently unique, so unlike in circumstances to other ventures of its kind and so closely associated with adventurous and dramatic occurrences and with the history and development of the upper Minnesota valley, that any record or relic of the story of its earliest days cannot fail to be of unusual interest.

At this time when so many modern residences have been completed, with conveniences and materials from many factories and other sources widely distributed, a very marked contrast is presented by the removal to Ramsey park of the first log house built in Redwood Falls, fifty-two years ago, constructed by crude means, of cruder materials, this being the first procedure in establishing the first settlement above New Ulm in the region devastated by the greatest slaughter of civilians ever perpetrated on the North American continent, the Indian massacre of 1862.

This building was constructed by Col. Sam McPhail, in the summer of 1864, at the time when he secured the site on which he platted the new town of Redwood Falls. This, with others of a small group of buildings, was protected from attacks from

Indians by a substantially built stockade of prairie sod, while a series of military camps provided a daily patrol of mounted soldiers along the frontier and a night watch sentinel was maintained as further precaution against surprise attacks.

The McPhail cabin was built of logs taken from an abandoned Indian house situated near the Sioux Agency headquarters, and there is some probability that this was the earliest boyhood home of Dr. Chas. A. Eastman, the Indian author and lecturer, which was located at about the same place. It was erected at the center of what was afterwards, and is now, the original plat of Redwood Falls, on a rise of ground gently sloping in all directions from the site of the cabin, which stood next to the alley, facing south, immediately in the rear of the present Palace Dry Goods store and this cabin served the purpose of securing a squatter's right to the future townsite tract. One feature of its construction, which probably was the only instance of its kind, was an inside wall of brick, which made it a safer protection from hostilities. The supply of brick was from a government brickyard in operation before the outbreak.

Col. McPhail began locating claims for landseekers in 1863, but the first group of families arrived in 1864, when other houses and the stockade was built and rooms were added to three sides of the cabin. The only person now living who assisted McPhail with his cabin and in the building of the stockade, is Win. Post, who occasionally still comes to Redwood Falls. Marion Johnson is the only resident who came to Redwood Falls during the first year of 1864 and he and his brother were the first to risk living outside the protection of the stockade.

In the spring of 1865 this building had been enlarged to a six-room house, occupied by three families, one of them being that of Dr. D. L. Hitchcock.

During the previous winter a teacher was employed by Col. McPhail, who also supplied the schoolroom for the few children of the stockade, including his own. Grant Martin and Elizabeth Hitchcock, still residents of the town, were born in the stockade.

McPhail also built the first frame residence of the town, outside the stockade, near the falls, which location still remains the most picturesque residence property of the town, owned now by Julius Melges. This building was removed in later years and is now a part of the Glasco cottage on the west side of the entrance to Redwood Falls park.

The stockade building was next occupied by the family of Wm. Mills, who supplied lodging accommodations to transient travelers. Mills had been mail carrier and tavern keeper at Fort Ridgely before the outbreak and according to a story of incidents previous to the siege of Fort Ridgely, he was the means of sav- ing the garrison at that place from complete annihilation by a timely warning of plans by the Indians which could have been easily executed had no warning been given.

The ownership of the lot on which this building stood passed later to Mr. Traugott Henze, and his family occupied it until Mr. Henze moved the original cabin part to his farm by the Minnesota river in Honnor township. Here it was occupied first by his son Richard, then continuously used as a farm building until Richard Henze presented it to Joe Tyson to be removed to the Ramsey state park.

The story of this primitive structure would be incomplete without more extended reference to the picturesque personality of its first owner, the proprietor of the original townsite and general manager of Redwood Falls, whose varied and aggressive part in its early affairs were indelibly fixed in the memory of every resident of that period. McPhail was a real Kentucky colonel, or rather a real colonel from Kentucky, where he was born. He received training in a southern military school and served as a soldier in the Mexican War. Following this, as a surveyor, he assisted in establishing the boundary line between Iowa and Minnesota which brought him into this state. He had already started two Minnesota towns, Caledonia and Brownsville, previous to his enlistment in a regiment across the border in Wisconsin, under Major Powell. McPhail was also one of the first townsite owners of Beaver Falls.

He was an army officer in the Indian campaign of 1862 which brought him to Redwood, and as he stood on the banks of the river, overlooking the falls and the government sawmill, he told a comrade that at the first opportunity he would establish a town at this point.

As a literary and advertising man he was the first editor of the first newspaper, the Redwood Falls Patriot; as a good roads man he was appointed by the first board of county commissioners as the first road overseer of the county ; as a financier he was authorized by this same board to supply funds for maintaining the first county government before it had income from first taxes and when its only financial resources were promises to pay ; as a humorist he was a continuous entertainer to his acquaintances ; as a Fourth of July orator he was always a main feature of this annual festival ; as a military man he attained the position and salary of a commissioned officer for two years after every other officer and private of his regiment had been mustered out of service ; as one of the widely known Minnesota men he was appointed by Governor Marshall to distribute government rations to needy frontier settlers and Redwood Falls received its allotment of beans and hard tack during a serious scarcity of food; as a surveyor and frontiersman he heeded the call to a farther frontier and removed to the prairies nearer the Dakota line and located many of the earliest settlers in Lyon and Lincoln counties, and as a lawyer and politician he was the first county attorney of Redwood and later was chosen by the voters to the same position in Lyon county.

The first building of the McPhail cabin, re-erected where the two park streams meet, marked the time when the whites first took possession of these reservation lands which up to that date had been in undisputed ownership and occupancy of the aboriginal Americans.

Here, it may be predicted, this relic and reminder of the early days, which has in turn served the purposes of an Indian house, a pioneer's cabin, military headquarters, the first schoolhouse and hotel, the first doctor's office and medicine supply house, town residence and farm building, will now stand for many years with its latch string out in welcome to any sojourner in these parts, as typical of the hospitality of log cabin days and with the genial Joe, representing the state of Minnesota, as chief host. - (By H. M. Hitchcock.)

The Frederick Holt Family. After serving through the Civil "War in Co. E, 22nd Ind. Vol. Inf., Frederick Holt came to Northfield, Minn., with Fred Steincamp, Herman Hackmann and Heinrich Schafer, young men he had known in Indiana before the war. From Northfield they camie to Redwood Falls in 1867, and here Mr. Holt bought 160 acres of reservation land on section 26, in what is now Swedes Forest township. This tract had meadow land, timber and running water, advantages which caused him to locate in Redwood county rather than on the open prairie of Renville county, where his friends took up homesteads. That year he returned to Northfield, and remained there until the spring of 1869, when he married Henrietta Moeller, a widow with three small children, the oldest not yet seven years of age.

Mrs. Holt is still living in the county and is one of its most honored and respected pioneers. After recounting the facts given above, Mrs. Holt, in speaking of pioneer times says:

"After our marriage we at once made preparations to move to Redwood county. We were soon ready, and left Northfield the last week in May, all our possesions in a prairie schooner, drawn by a yoke of oxen. We came through Dundas, St. Peter, New Ulm and Sleepy Eye and made the trip in a week. We carried a stove with us and at meal time would set it up to bake biscuits and cook coffee. One day on the journey I baked bread. At night we slept in the schooner except once when we were near St. Peter, a farmer's wife took us in. It was raining and she gave us supper and had us sleep in the house. It rained so much and the roads were so bad that we often got stuck and then we would have to unload our things and get out of the mudhole as best we could. The latter part of the journey we came along the old government stage road and arrived on our land on the second of June, 1869. Redwood was a beautiful country then, with its miles upon miles of untouched prairie lands and the grass taller than the backs of our oxen on every side of us. Mr. Holt's friends came over from Renville county and helped him cut down trees and build our log cabin. They put it up in a week.

"That first summer we raised potatoes, pumpkins and rutabagas on breaking, but no grain, so Mr. Holt drove back to Northfield to work in the harvest fields, leaving me and the children to look after our place. He brought back a milch cow he earned while there, and at St. Peter he bought enough rough unplaned six-inch boards to put floors upstairs and down in our little cabin. In the fall of that same year he made a trip to New Ulm for a load of wheat, which he had ground into flour at the old Rieke mill down near Franklin. During the first years we lived here our wheat had to be hauled to Sleepy Eye or to the equally distant Wilmar. From the latter town we hauled lumber to put up a frame house. A few tinges we took our grain to North Redwood and loaded it on a steamboat which came up from St. Peter, when the river was high enough.

"When we came here we had as neighbors, two Swede brothers, bachelors, Peter and Nels Swenson. Their land joined ours and from its heavily wooded timber the township was later named. There were also Indians encamped in these woods, eight or ten tepees of them. We had raised so bountiful a crop of pumpkins and rutabagas that we told the Indians to help themselves. They put pieces of pumpkin on sharp sticks, roasted them over the fire and ate them with mtuch relish. They asked for potatoes and an Indian brought me several rabbits and prairie chickens in return. Once when I was sick, two Indian women came to see me; they shook hands with me and said, 'Squaw sick, squaw sick ! ' Often I would see an Indian dragging a deer over the snow to the camp. It was not uncommon in those early years to see herds of eight or ten wild deer roaming about. These Indians remained in our woods for two years, then they moved to lower Rice creek, and later to the Agency. We never had any trouble with them whatever. My children visited their encampment. They often asked for things, especially if they were hungry, but I do not recall that they ever stole anything.

"When Swedes Forest township was organized, it included Kintire and part of Delhi. Mr. Holt was chairman of the board of supervisors for several years. He also helped organize school districts No. 10 and 55, and served a good many years on the schoolboard. He was a charter member of the German Methodist Episcopal church in Flora, Renville county, and a trustee of that church from the time it was established until his death. Together we fought fires in those dry early seventies and grasshoppers afterward. Over and above it all we saw a wilderness peopled, a fair country grow more fair.

"To furnish the cabin, besides the stove already mentioned, we bought in Northfield, a table, a bedstead and two or three chairs; and we made some benches and a bed for the children and put up a row of shelves in one corner of the cabin, which covered by a calico curtain, served as a general cupboard.

"As for clothing, I had some good worsted dresses, brought over from Germany, both for myself and the children. At Northfield I bought some calico for myself and German print for the little ones. I spun the wool and knitted the stockings and mittens we needed, and made the underwear from flannel or muslin, as the season required. The children went barefoot in summer.

"We brought with us some tea, coffee, flour, a ham and some live chickens. In the fall we got a milch cow. Soon we bought a few pigs and later two sheep. There was an abundance of wild fruit and hazlenuts in the woods, and plenty of game. The river was near for fishing. Old settlers had told us about using prairie tea, and finding it grew here we picked and dried the leaves and made the tea by pouring boiling water on them. I rather liked the taste of it. For coffee we roasted wheat or barley. The price of tea and coffee was almost prohibitive, but butter and eggs were very cheap, at least in summer. In the fall we would make pumpkin butter, without sugar. Mr. Holt had seen the Indiana settlers make it that way. In the late fall when we took a load of wheat to the mill for our winter's supply of flour, there was always a sack of well-dried shelled corn along so that we had corn bread and mush and milk to vary our fare. Then, too, we always had a good garden. I do not recall that we ever went hungry.

"Our cabin was right in the woods and so protected that we had less to endure either from the severe stormp or the prolonged cold than the prairie settlers. I do not remember that the blackbirds did us any especial damage. The mosquitoes were so thick at times, especially in the tall grass, you had to keep your mouth shut. We covered the windows with netting and built a smudge at dusk right near the door to keep them away."

Marion Johnson's Experiences. George Johnson and his son Marion, then a youth of fifteen years, arrived at the stockade in October, 1864, spent the first night in the stockade and then moved into an Indian hewed-log house, on the south shore of Tiger lake. This lake was so named from the fact that before the massacre the steamboat "Tiger," during the high water, had gotten out of the channel of the Minnesota river into this lake, and being unable to again reach the Minnesota, was beached

While the winter was hard, the man and boy were quite comfortable. The Indian cabin was snug and warm, having been well built by the government, with a good door and window. Their provisions consisted of flour, pork and tea, though the tea was used exclusively by the man. In the fall prairie chicken were plentiful. In the winter, deer and coon provided plenty of fresh meat. A deer was killed about once in two weeks and hung up in a tree, where it froze solid, and was thus preserved in the best condition for use. A maple tree felled in the yard provided more than four cords of wood, a great convenience during those weeks where the thermometer reached forty degrees below zero, and the snow lay four feet deep on the surface. Sometimes the winter was warm enough so that the man and boy could get out a few logs on the river bottoms. The horses were well cared for in a snug shed.

A dog furnished companionship and was also of much assistance. Marion Johnson tells, with great glee, of the day when the dog assisted in a fish hunt. The lake at that time was filled with pickerel and pike. So thickly was the ice frozen that the fish were in danger of extermination by suffocation. A bubbling spring beneath the water, however, kept the ice open at one point of the lake near a steep bank.

One morning the attention of Marion Johnson was attracted by the barking of the dog, greatly excited over the masses of fish in this open hole, where they had swarmed to get air. Cold as it was, the boy, after calling to his father, jumped into the water and began throwing the fish on to the bank, where his father quickly dispatched them. In this jpay several bushels of good food were secured and the open water at that spot became a source of constant fish supply throughout the winter. Thus, with many hardships, but with many interesting adventures as well, the winter was spent. In the spring the family arrived, consisted of two sons, Harris and James, Mahala, Eva and Delma. The male members of the family at once proceeded with farming operations and that year got in five acres of oats, five acres of corn, fifteen or sixteen acres of wheat, quite a few potatoes and a good garden. Somewhat more fortunate than many of the other pioneers, Mr. Johnson had some forty head of stock, including six yoke of oxen. His farming equipment consisted of a breaking plow, a stubble plow, a home-made "V" harrow, and the necessary hoes, shovels, and axes. He was fortunate in having had some of his land broken by the Indians. It was impossible to raise wheat the first year after breaking, the usual procedure being to break the land and then to raise potatos, rutabagas, or sod corn the first year. The procedure of planting potatoes and rutabagas was to place them in the furrow and to turn the sod of the next furrow over on them, which made digging them in the fall a long and laborious progress, but which affectively prepared the land for a wheat crop the next year.

In the early days the principal drawback were the cranes and blackbirds. Even as early as the late sixties the grasshoppers began to put in their appearance but not in such numbers as in 1873, when they almost entirely destroyed the crops.

During his boyhood days Mr. Johnson at one time entered the employ of Maj. Joseph R. Brown, who had a government contract to deliver provisions to Fort Wadsworth, which has since become Sisseton. A large number of soldiers were then located at the fort and camp provisions were brought to Redwood by boat and taken across the rest of the distance by ox trains, about two hundred teams usually being used in a train. The entire company was subject to military organization and supplied with scouts by the government. After the Dakota line was crossed and the region of the Kota hills entered this escort of the soldiers was very necessary, as there were still many hostile Indians in that section.

The trip was a tremendous undertaking considering there were no "good roads" and no bridges, every stream having to be forded, and sometimes wagons, teams and men swam the streams. Major Brown, who held the contract for the delivery of the goods, was the founder and sponsor of the present city of Brown's Valley.

Another vivid recollection of Mr. Johnson's is the grasshopper plague, which struck the country in 1865, and didn't entirely disappear until 1877, twelve long years when it took superhuman pluck to hang on, and the settlers would have starved utterly had it not been for the abundance of game. As it was, many of them moved away, and it took those who remained years to recover from the onslaught of the pests.

During this period, when starvation stared the pioneers straight between the eyes, Marion Johnson and his brother, two years younger, were sent by their father to Olmstead county, where crops were good, there were no grasshoppers and plenty of work. Upon their departure, the father gave each boy fifty cents, telling them to seek food and shelter from the farmers along the route. It speaks well for the humanity of these same farmers that the boys, when they reached Rochester each had a dollar and a half. Every one had helped, giving them lodging and food and occasionally small pieces of money.

At Rochester they attended P. T. Barnum's circus, which was exhibiting there that day, which only goes to prove that boy-nature is boy -nature, fifty years ago, today and forever! This was the first circus they had ever seen and the best they have ever seen.

After the season's work the boys stayed with the same farmer until frost made further work impracticable, when they returned home each the possessor of five dollars given him by their employer in addition to the summer's wages, which must necessarily be given to the support of the family. "I shall never forget those people and how kind they were to us," said Mr. Johnson, looking backward down the avenue of years, with a look that proved that no time can deaden the memory of a friend.

The game fifty years ago was a source of income as well as the basis of the food supply. Some buffalo were still to be found and there was an abundance of the small fur-bearing animals. Mr. Johnson has upon several occasions earned an income of eighty dollars per month from his traps. The occupation had one serious drawback : it necessitated early rising to get to the traps before the silent Redskin made them an early morning visit.

Mr. and Mrs. Ferris, who have been residents of Redwood Falls since 1876, have a store of delightful tales of the early days of Redwood Falls and vicinity.

In the year mentioned, Mr. and Mrs. Ferris made the trip from a Wisconsin town, ten miles southwest of Madison, to Redwood Falls, in a covered wagon, bringing with them their son, of three years, and their daughter of two months. The trip took three weeks, and during that time the family slept in the wagon every night except the last, when they stopped at the home of a farmer. However, the wagon was a large roomy one of the platform type and more comfortable than many used.

Just how valuable such a wagon and horses were in those days is shown by the fact that Mr. Ferris later traded the outfit for a hundred and twenty acres of land, which now lies in about the center of the Gilfillan farm. This land Mr. Ferris afterwards traded for land nearer Redwood Falls.

Two years after the arrival of the Ferris family the North Western railway was built to Redwood Falls. That spring looking from the windows of her home, Mrs. Ferris could see thirtysix new houses in process of building and scarcely a tree in sight ; nothing but flat rolling prairies everywhere.

Ferris saw no other woman from December until March, when Mr. and Mrs. Jones, then living on the Winn farm, drove across the fields for a visit. This was an exceedingly cold winter with an abundance of snow and traffic was almost impossible. About once in two weeks Mr. Baker sent a man to the farm with mail and provisions, and this was practically the only means of communication with the outside world. The rural telephone service was even less efficient in those days than it is today.

The good roads of Redwood county may be directly traced to the activities of Mr. Ferris, who was the first street commissioner, and is directly responsible for the graveling of Bridge, Mill and Main streets, doing most of the actual work himself. Mr. Ferris has always been connected with the best interests of the city and is at present one of the strong members of a strong council. With Mrs. Ferris he has always been identified with all movements that tended toward the uplift of the city and its people.

James Aiken's Reminiscences. "My first acquaintance with Redwood Falls was formed about the first of May, 1880, two years after the North Western railroad was built into that town. My mother and myself put up at the Commercial hotel, occupying the same location as the McAllister, the old hotel having gone up in smoke many years ago. Mr. Bunce, father of George and Ed. Bunce, was the landlord, but was succeeded not long afterward by the late H. D. Everett, father of our present county treasurer. There were no business houses fronting on Washington street at that time, to the best of my recollections, except the blacksmith shop of Fred Hotchkiss, a livery barn south of the hotel, and Capt. Dunington's United States land office, a one-story frame shack, near the site of the present Asleson store. The Gazette building of that period was on the present Fred Thompson block corner, and was so open to winter's blasts that the office was removed that fall to the second floor of a frame block of two stores on Mill street (opposite the present Japs garage), which also went up in smoke many years ago, but long after the first-mentioned Gazette building had been removed to Third street, opposite the present Eumm block, had been converted first into a photo studio for N. B. Anderson, and later into ashes. I think at the time of the Commercial hotel fire.

"The winter of 1880-1881 was of a character so unique that I assume that it will be adequately described by some of your local pioneers, in detail. To have mails as well as all freight and express matter come at intervals of six weeks or so, was only one of the many extraordinary phenomena of that wonderful winter of snow blockades. I would rather take up the rest of my allotted space with more or less at random notes about the men and women, who, in Redwood Falls, dominated the busi-

"A group of the personalities that most strongly impressed me at that time, would include H. D. Chollar, a man of energy and ability, whose tragic death by a fall from) the eastern approach of the Redwood bridge to the rocks below, while leaning over the cliff to inspect the effect of a threshing separator passing over the bridge, was a decided loss to the progressive element of Redwood Falls. Mr. Chollar was mayor of our little city at the time of his death in 1888, or 1889 I think, and his widow, the late Mrs. Ella Chollar, was one of the lovely women of the Redwood Falls of that period.

"Mr. and Mrs. James McMillan constituted another couple who ranked as business and social favorites in the period I am trying to recall. 'Jim' McMillan was the owner of the pioneer Redwood Falls store, a genial and popular man. Mr. McMillan died prior to 1890, I think, but Mrs. McMillan disseminated sunshine and good deeds for quite a number of years later.

"W. P. and James Dunnington were prominent to some extent, during this decade, the former first as register of the United States land office for a time, and a local political leader, while J. M. continued in the grocery business from 1880 until comparatively recent years. The brothers were quite different in their outward characteristics, but alike in kindly traits as well as in certain combative tendencies. J. M. was best known to me, and I shall always cherish his memory as a loyal, kind-hearted friend and neighbor.

"Other business men of that period were: Philbrick, Francois, King Bros, and Robt. Wilson, in the dry goods line ; McKay and Race Lechner, and Ackmann, grocers; Dr. Hitchcock and Son, and C. C. Peck, druggists; Laird and Dornberg and E. A. Chandler, hardware dealers ; H. N. Bell, furniture ; Geo. Drake, and Leo Truesdell, harness makers. In the banking line W. F. Dickinson and G. W. Braley divided the business up to the time of the death of the latter, after which Clarence Ward and H. D. Baldwin organized the Redwood County Bank, and later 0. B. Turrell and associates organized the Citizens Bank. Aune and Ringdahl also opened their clothing store during this period, Mr. Thune succeeding Ringdahl a year or two later. Early in the eighties, C. W. George succeeded G. Bohn in the lumber and grain business, as a competitor to the Laird-Norton yards, managed by Mr. Chollar up to the time of his demise. Other oldtimers like the Tenney Bros., Geo. Crooks and Bishop Gordon, belong to the period antedating the eighties, rather than to the time I am trying to recall.

came district judge by appointment of the governor in 1880 or 1881, and Mr. Wallin, after an ineffectual canvass for the same position at the subsequent election, when Judge Webber of New Ulm begun his long judicial career in that district, moved to North Dakota and eventually became a supreme court justice of that state for a series of years. Morrill early removed to Minneapolis, later to California, where he led a checkered career. Mr. Bowers was a progressive and conscientious citizen, for some years associated with the late J. B. Robinson, his brotherin-law, in the real estate business. The writer remembers both of these men as loyal and helpful for many years.

"Perhaps the best-loved citizen of that decade was that good physician, W. D. Plinn. I doubt whether any other pioneer resident of Redwood Falls was ever able to serve so many people in so many beneficial ways as Dr. Flinn.

"In church organization work, Rev. R. E. Anderson was pastor at the time of the destruction by fire of the first church building of the Presbyterian denomination, the winter of 1882- 1883, remaining until after the erection of the new church on the present site, of which he was the first pastor. After him came that fine old soldier of the cross, Dr. J. G. Riheldaffer, and later Dr. John Sinclair early in the nineties. Dr. Riheldaffer and family were strong factors in the social and religious life of Redwood Falls in the eighties. In the M. E. church, I recall the ministry of Rev. C. S. Dunn, Rev. John Pemberton and Rev. Hanscomb, the latter being associated in my memory with the erection of the present M. E. church in the nineties.

"Notable events during the eighties were the big fire in the fall of 1884, which cleaned out the buildings on Second street, opposite the Gazette office of today, and was followed the next year by the erectioji of mtost of the brick buildings on Washington street, as well as those west of the Aune & Thune block on Second street; the entrance of the M. & St. L. Railway into Redwood county in 1884; the series of murder trials, beginning with the Alexander homicide on the streets of Redwood Falls and followed by the dramatic Rose trials - three of them - the last ending with the only hanging in Redwood county during my thirty-one years of residence ; the Holden murder trials, wherein Judge Baldwin did effective work for the defense, was the last of the series, both the accused and his victim being Morton residents.

"I am not at all satisfied with the crude outline of memories of thirty years ago, but realize that it is too long for a newspaper sketch. The development of the school system of Redwood county, to which S. J. Race as county superintendent, aided by his faithful helpmate, devoted twenty busy and fruitful years, deserves more than passing mention, and this is only one of many

"Memory at this time recalls many kind people I first knew in those ten years, which those of us who lived in Redwood Falls then 'have loved long since, and lost awhile.' Dear old Father Swift, Donald and big Archie Stewart, Dr. Riheldaffer, Aunt Ella McMillan, Father and Mother McKay, Jim Robinson, Nick Hunter, Mrs. Chollar, Squire Chapman, Robert Parker, Mr. and Mrs. Pond, Mr. and Mrs. Van Schaak, and others, but I must bring this to a close or be too late for next week's Gazette. - Jas. Aiken, Whittier, Cal., May 17, 1914." (In the Redwood Falls "Gazette."

John Mooer Killed. In May, 1865, a son of John Mooer was shot accidentally; this was the second death. The circumstances of his unfortunate death were nearly as follows: A number of government scouts were encamped, with their families, near Rice creek, at a point about seven miles northwest of the stockade, at Redwood Falls. John Mooer, Alexis La Frambois, Joe La Frambois, and Tom Robinson were the leaders and prominent men of the party. Though it is probable that they never had an encounter with the Indians, encamped as they were in a hostile attitude, it is not strange that they were on the alert and sometimes received a scare. One night John Mooer 's son was on guard, serving his turn, as a guard was constantly kept. Finding it cold he wrapped himself in a blanket and wore it on his beat. Coming into the tents at the end of his patrol, a squaw waking suddenly, screamed when she saw him dressed so much like the hostile Sioux, and Alexis La Frambois, who was lying on his gun, raised it, and, taking him for an Indian, shot and killed him, the charge passing through him from side to side. He was brought to the stockade and buried just outside. - (History of the Minnesota Valley.)

E. G. Pomroy, now living in Delhi, assisted in erecting some of the first buildings at Ft. Ridgely in 1853, was here during the building of the Lower Sioux Agency in 1854, and assisted in building the government saw mill at Redwood Falls in 1855. Mr. Pomroy was born in Hopkinton, St. Lawrence county, New York, and in August, 1852, arrived at St. Paul to join his brother, Jesse H., who had come to Stillwater in 1845, and had assisted in building Ft. Ripley and other pioneer landmarks. April 29, 1853, he hired out to the government at Fort Snelling as a carpenter.

In the meantime by the treaty of 1851, ratified in 1853, the Sioux Indians were being removed to their reservation on the upper Minnesota river. The concentration of so many Indians upon an area small in comparison to the vast sweeps over which they had ranged, and a radical change in the conditions under which they had lived for countless generations, were circumstances which the officials realized might result in situations which would require the firm hand of strongly entrenched authority.

For several reasons it was necessary that a military post be maintained in the vicinity of the new reservation. Whether the Indians would be reconciled to their new home was still a question, and it was realized that settlers, whose presence was needed to develop the country which the treaty opened, would not locate in any considerable numbers in the lower Minnesota valley, unless they were assured of some sort of protection from the Indians in the upper valley. It was also advisable that there should be constantly before the Indians a reminder of the strength and organization of the government.

It had already been decided that there were to be two Indian agencies for the Indians on the reservation. The Upper agency for the Sissetons and Wahpatons was established at the mouth of the Yellow Medicine, and the Lower for the Medawakanton and Wahpakoota bands was placed about six miles east of the mouth of the Redwood. Both agencies were on the south bank of the Minnesota river.

The matter of a new military post was called to the attention of C. M. Conrad, then secretary of war, and General Winfield Scott, then commanding the regular army, by Delegate Henry H. Sibley.

General Scott concurred in Sibley's recommendation and the secretary of war approved it and issued necessary orders. In the fall of 1852, Captain Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana, then of the quartermaster's department (later colonel of the First Minnesota Volunteer Infantry, and major general of volunteers), and Colonel Francis Lee of the Sixth United States Infantry, then in command at Fort Snelling, were ordered to select a suitable site for the new fort, "on the St. Peter's river, above the mouth of the Blue Earth."

In the latter part of November, with an escort of dragoons from Fort Snelling, and after a three-days' march in the snow, the officers reached Laframboise 's trading post, established about 1834, by Hazen Mooers, and placed in charge of Joseph Laframboise in 1837, and located at the mouth of the Little Rock creek. Five miles above the rock, just back of the crest of a high bluff on the north side of the Minnesota, the site was fixed, immediately west of the ravine of what is now called Fort Ridgely creek, and overlooking the beautiful Minnesota valley for many miles in each direction.

The Fort Ridgely reservation extended three miles on each side of the Minnesota river, being six miles each way, the boundary line jogging a mile north to every mile west.

Sometime during the winter Captain Dana with non-commissioned officers and men, erected a cabin on the banks of the river and the men started cutting timber.

The new post for a time was called simply ' ' The New Fort, ' ' or "The New Post," but shortly afterward was named Port Ridgely in honor of Major Randolph Ridgely, a gallant officer of the regular army from Maryland, who died of injuries received at the battle of Monterey. When Fort Ridgely was established. Port Riley, Kansas, was ordered built. At the time Fort Dodge, Iowa, and Fort Scott, Kansas, were ordered discontinued and broken up. Fort Ridgely took the place of Fort Dodge and Fort Riley was substituted for Fort Scott.

The first garrison at Fort Ridgely was composed of Companies C and K, of the Sixth Infantry. The first commander was Captain James Monroe, then of Company K, who died in the Civil War, as colonel of the Twenty-seventh New York Volunteer Infantry. The sutler was Major B. H. Randall, for many years prominent in Minnesota history. The adjutant was T. C. Kelton, afterward adjutant general of the United States army.

Companies C and K went up on the steamboat West Newton from Fort Snelling. The troops arrived at the landing on the evening of April 30, 1853. On Sunday, the first day of May, they disembarged and pitched their tents for a summer camp. Aside from the settlement of Joseph Laframboise, there were no white people within fifty miles.

To the people of the present generation it is puzzling that the officers should have selected the location they did west of the ravine, when east of the ravine there is a piece of high land overlooking all the surrounding country, so situated as to be almost impregnable, whereas the site selected was far from being an ideal spot for a fortification. Officers later explained this by stating that the fort was never intended for defense. At the present time, however, it is difficult to understand how a fort established for the purpose of exercising militai-y supervision over the Indians could have been built without some thought being taken of the possibility of defending it. The Indians had, as the officers said, promised perpetual peace, but the government had also made promises which it had broken. Whatever the thought of the military authorities may have been it is certain that the pioneers in settling in Renville county looked upon Fort Ridgely as a possible refuge and defense in case of emergency.

Company E marched across the country from Fort Dodge and arrived in June, 1853, when work on the buildings was begun. When Company E arrived, its captain, Brevet Major Samuel Woods, previously well identified with Minnesota history, took

With the party which arrived on the West Newton came the carpenters; also E. G. Pomroy, Jessie H. Pomroy, Oliver P. Wetmore of Plattville, Wisconsin, Cornelius C. Vandenburk of Hillsdale, Michigan, and Robert R. Craig, of Port Wayne, Indiana. The masons were Thomas Brannon and John Plynn. The brick maker was John Brinkman. Mr. and Mrs. Anton Bramyea boarded the boat near Bell Plain and became the cook and the Civilian workman.

Many interesting events happened along the way. When they reached the site of Fort Ridgely, they found the log cabin on the river bank of Sergeant Cressey and wife and about twelve soldiers. Two blanketed Indians watched the landing and then disappeared. The soldiers started to unload, and for a time lived in tents while the carpenters and masons made ready the various buildings.

That year the workmen completed three hewed log buildings for the officers, a cook house, a carpenter shop and a blacksmith shop, all of logs. They erected one framp building, completed the stone commissary and started the famous stone barracks.

November, 1853, officers gathered all the Indians scattered from Kaposia (South St. Paul) to Shakopee for the purpose of transporting them to the reservation. When the Indians reached the timber near Bell Plain they gradually returned to their former homes. It was not until June, 1854, that the officials succeeded in moving them to the agency.

Mr. Pomroy tells with relish of a trip which he and the Ft. Ridgely mail carrier took through Bell Plain while the Indians were still camped there and when, for lack of accommodation, the two white men were compelled to spend the night with the Indians.

During the year 1854 the various buildings of the Lower Agency were erected. Mr. Pomroy assisted in getting out the sash and doors for the agency in the carpenter shop in Ft. Ridgely, but did not work at the agency. In the spring of 1855 Alexander Hunter, John Nairn and E. G. Pomroy built the government saw mill at the Falls of the Redwood. They blasted out the granite on the east bank of the falls, put in a flume and an overshot water wheel and erected the frame work of a mill. Their contract with the government was then completed.

In 1858 Mr. Pomroy again visited this region. He with his friend, Sheldon Henderson, were to mieet an acquaintance at New Ulm and go on to Sioux Falls. Mr. Pomroy and Mr. Henderson came as far as the Carver Rapids in a steamboat. The steamer, unable to pass the rapids, went back to Shakopee, where Mr. Henderson and Mr. Pomroy disembarked. They crossed the river at Henderson and continued across Nicollet county and came to Redwood Falls. Their Iowa friend had become frightened by the Inkpaduta Massacre and failed to meet them. Mr. Pomroy and Mr. Henderson accordingly came to the Falls of the Redwood, carted boards to the Minnesota river, built a boat and thus reached Mankato, where they boarded a steamer.

Mr. Pomroy again visited Redwood county just before the massacre. He was then carpenter aboard the steamer "Frank Steele," which brought a pleasure excursion to the Lower Agency. Mr. Pomroy and others walked up the bank from the river and witnessed a savage Indian pow-wow.

J. S. Johnson's Experiences. In the fall of 1870 we were living at Mankato, having followed railroading mostly since we arrived from Denmark in 1867. There were at that time many that emigrated to Chippeway county, and also to Ottertail, where they found some timber, but when we found there was plenty of good prairie land in Redwood county we decided to make our claim here. I have since that time seen all the land in this region and never felt sorry that we settled in Sundown. We had some hard times - grasshoppers, and also blight, destroyed our crops, and parties that had been used to better times were compelled to "skip the country." We got a little assistance from the government, and the third year the state furnished each farmer with twenty-two bushels of seed wheat from which we harvested a big yield. Nobody knows what became of the grasshoppers. Our winters were most severe, and at least one man who lost the road froze to death. Four of my neighbors were completely lost until one of the oxen fell into a straw stable. They were then compelled to stay in a dugout, 12 by 12 until the third day. Another great trouble was the prairie fires. I myself once lost all my stables and hay for eighteen head of stock, but neighbors helped me with hay free of charge. I have also known of people being lost in the big grass in the summer. Very few know how we came to call our town Sundown. At the first organization several names were proposed. A man named Gasel claiming to be first settler, another said he was not. J. Lorens, getting tired of the discussion, said it was near sundown. Some one immediately said, "Let it be Sundown." So much about old times. The difference between now and then never was expected. I plowed corn with a two-year old steer, my son riding - now my son and sons-in-law come to town with autos and take father out for a pleasure trip. I served Redwood county as commissioner seven years. When I first drove over, my buggy was an old trap partly self-made and the compensation I received was one-twentieth of what commissioners receive nowadays. When I got $100 to build a bridge across the North Branch the neighbors would flock around offering to work for nothing. The old settlers are thinning out fast. Our oldest man, J. M. Christensen, is past 80. I myself, 71, live in Springfield, but my interest is mostly in Redwood county and especially in Sundown.

Early Days Near Walnut Grove. (By Charles W. Howe.) Too much credit cannot be given to the pioneers, who, with little else than a stout heart and good health, fought their way to a competence, through all kinds of troubles and trials, some of them strong enough to appall the stoutest hearts.

Among the honor names will be found Eleck C. Nelson, Thos. Allen, Chas. Lund, Lars Truedson, the Moses family, Andrew Thompson, Eric Wilson, Nathan Rawlings, Swan Peterson, Peter Westman, Andrew and Swan Swanson, James and N. M. Crow, W. J. Masters, Byron Knight, Martin Jacobs and a host of others who, coming here when the country was new, took up or bought land and struggled forward to make the wilderness "blossom like the rose."

Some of these pioneers are alive today, are with us, and the writer has had the pleasure of listening to the stories of life as they found it while making a home for their loved ones.

Some have passed away, but will always be remembered by those who knew them. How the great silent wastes make one feel of the friendships of the day and knit them together ! Such was the friendships of those great days when each man was a close neighbor even when they lived miles apart, one from the other. Those were the days when each man knew his neighbor by the name of Thomas, Andrew, Lars, Eleck or Peter, as the case might be ; when friendships were so closely knit together that every man and his family was ready to assist the other in his struggle.

How many of us can still remember when sheep dotted the prairies; when each farmer had his little flock; when wool went down to almost nothing, because there was no market ; when large lamb carcasses were a drug on the market at 50 cents apiece ; when we ate lamb chops and mutton chops because we could not sell them. Those were days to try men's souls, but onward, ever onward the sturdy pioneer kept moving, holding to his property, only in a few instances giving up. Those were the days that showed how much of manhood there was in them.

Then again remember the time when you (I'm talking to the old settler, now) had put in that big field of oats, when you had harvested that bumper crop; some of which had measured out fifty bushels to the acre, had almost mortgaged your life to pay the threshing bill and haul it to the market, only to find that the price was seven or eight cents a bushel.

Then again, the spring wheat crop ; in those years always "No. 1, hard" that gave an average of twenty bushels, which you had such a time to get rid of at thirty-eight cents. No one who lived in those times can forget it.

But in all those days the indomitable will of the settler held him to the place, many of those farms are still in the name of the original filer. The owner is enjoying a much needed rest in a nice house in town, while his son or a tenant is working the old homestead.

Too much honor cannot be given to the old pioneer who through trials and privations made it possible for those who came later to enjoy the modern style, the modern life; without them here to carve the way none of us could enjoy the wonderful prosperity of the present.

Take off your hats to Mr. and Mrs. Pioneer, who had the nerve and dare that enabled them to subdue the vast prairies of the vicinity and make it habitable for man.

How vividly those days come back to us when we went through the grasshopper plague ; how we stood helpless at the side and saw the field change from green to black in so short a time. It really did seem that while we were looking on, the edge of the green field moved slowly along not only destroying the crops, but destroying our peace of mind, almost.

Then those days, when after feeding cattle on good pasture and corn, to find that from 1 to 3 cents a pound was fair price. Do you remember (of course you do) those four lean years when crops of all kinds were nearly a complete failure f As one of the old settlers expressed it to the writer. "There was nothing left but to put an extra shirt and pair of pants in a sack, put it on your shoulder and hike down east 65 or 70 miles and work in the harvest to earn enough to keep the family through the winter."

Then after the winter was over once again to take up the work on your own place and go through another summer, possibly finishing with another long hike in harvest time.

Well, those days are over, and, thanks to the old settler who had the nerve to stick, this particular end of the most fertile spot in Minnesota has been put in shape to attract people from all parts of the country. Rich land, good homes, successful farmers, made so in many instances by the discovery of that modern idea, rotation in crops, greet you on every hand. Through the furnace of affliction, trials, some of them so great that the stoutest heart would sometimes quail, has emerged the modern farmer, the dross of old ideas burned away, showing the pure gold of up-to-date styles of farming.

But those early days had their times of pleasure. The times when the neighbors drove for miles to picnics and house parties. Those were the days when, in lieu of the high powered automobiles, the farmer hitched up his ox team and drove miles to attend a church meeting, a picnic or toAvn meeting, when the day was spent in pleasant intercourse one with the other.

the strength to push forward towards the goal that each one was striving for, a home on the rolling prairies of southwestern Redwood county.

The soil in and around Walnut Grove is a dark rich loam from two to three feet deep resting on a clay subsoil. On account of the numerous creeks that traverse both townships the land is well drained, and excepting in some localities ditching was not needed.

The land in this locality is particularly adapted to the raising of corn and most cereals, and is especially good for stock. On nearly every farm in the locality the visitor will find good herds of cattle and hogs, and in many cases the cattle are grades of high order, Holsteins, Shorthorns and Red Durham are the prevailing breeds, while among the specimens of the hogs we find Duroc Jersey, Poland China and Chester Whites have the lead.

Walnut Grove takes the lead as a market for live stock, the local buyer and shipper handling hundreds of carloads each year. Fifty years ago this part of the domain of Uncle Sam was unknown to man, but today hundreds of farms with up-to-date modern homes cover the country.

In no other place can one find finer barns or finer stock buildings of any kind. The engravings we show in this little history prove this statement beyond a doubt.

This is essentially the home of corn, and southern Minnesota has proven time after time that her fields of corn are second to none in Iowa and Illinois. Thousands of bushels of the best matured corn ever grown are shipped every year from the stations along the Chicago & Northwestern, and Walnut Grove, with its four elevators, stands away in front with its share of shipments. Mrs. Roset A. SchmaM. The career of a remarkable woman came to an end in the demise of Mrs. Roset Apfel Schmahl, for many years, and earlier years, so closely identified with the history of Redwood county and of the entire Minnesota Valley. She first saw the light of day on February 29, 1828, at Mainz, Germany. She was a leap-year child, and enjoyed but twenty-one birthday anniversaries, the calendar makers have skipped one four year period during her lifetime in order to catch up with the time revolutions of the earth around the sun.

Mrs. Schmahl was one of a large family, she being the youngest child. Her father was a stonemason of Mainz, and struggled hard in the support of the family. Most of the elder children came to America as soon as they could secure funds for transportation, and when Mrs. Schmahl was but eleven years old, she and her father left for Havre France, from which city they sailed for London and Liverpool. At the latter city they secured passage on a sailboat clearing for New York.

secured passage was a small one, and with stormy weather and unfavorable winds, sixty days were required to make the journey from Liverpool to New York. Prom the latter city the two went to Galena, 111., where relatives from the fatherland had already found homes, but the father and daughter remained there only a short time, conning to Caledonia, Houston county, Minn., on a Mississippi river steamboat. At Caledonia they remained for several years, several of Mr. Apfel's family having previously located at' that place.

When St. Paul was still a village Mrs. Schmahl found employment in the home of Col. Robertson, then editor of the St. Paul Pioneer, and it was while thus employed that young Jacob Schmahl, who had met her in Mainz, and who had followed her to America, asked for and was given her hand. Jacob Schmahl became well acquainted with Gen. George Becker, Henry M. Rice, and other well-known men of that period, at a time when the proposition to remove the capitol of the state from St. Paul to St. Peter was receiving serious consideration, and he was advised to go to Traverse des Sioux, a mile out from the latter point, and establish a hotel. This was done, and during those early days when the annuities were being paid to the Indians the hotel at Araverse entertained many of the notables of that period. The house stood but a few rods from the spot where the celebrated Indian treaty of 1862 was consummated, the then living members of the Schmahl family all being present on that momentous occasion.

When the attempt to change the location of the capitol was abandoned, Traverse des Sioux declined and its little commerce was nothing. The Schmahl family moved on to a farm three miles east of Ft. Ridgely, and when the Indian outbreak of 1862 occurred Colonel Sheehan, at the head of the troops recalled from their march to Ft. Ripley, insisted that the family must take refuge in the fort. Mrs. Schmahl protested, but was finally persuaded to go with her husband and the children, and the troops and family had hardly entered the territory of the fort before it was surrounded by Indians, and that memorable ten days siege commenced.

It was during the crucial period that Mrs. Schmahl gave birth to a son - the late Emil Schmahl of Redwood Falls, and the day following his birth she left her bed and engaged in the work of caring for her brood, comforting other women and the injured, and above all, in moulding bullets for the troops. The soldiers were running short of ammunition, and it became necessary to cut nails, etc., and to mould this material into rough bullets. This was part of the work of Mrs. Schmahl, and for her heroic conduct during those days her name was given a place on the monument erected to the memory of soldiers and citizens who engaged in

Following the outbreak the Schmahl family returned to the old stone farm house east of the fort, only to find it entirely destroyed, the personal property stolen or destroyed, and an attempt was made to establish a new home at St. Peter. Hard struggling, without much personal gain, Jacob Schmahl came to Redwood Falls in 1869, where he determined to locate and establish a brewery, and in 1870, the family moved here. The head of the family was unsuccessful in his venture and Mrs. Schmahl devoted her time to the support of the children and in getting them established in various occupations in which she proved remarkable. Prior to 1876 the dancing parties of the town, with their bountiful suppers, were held in what was known as Schmahl's hall, and it was Mrs. Schmahl and her daughters that always superintended the cuisine. With the destruction of the old home in 1876, and the building of the new home, now on the corner of Second and Bridge streets, these parties were abandoned, and Mrs. Schmahl struggled in other lines until her children were able to assist her to make the latter years full of comfort. Several years ago she took up her residence with her youngest daughter, Mrs. John J. Palmer, at Duluth, and it was at this home that she

For a month prior to November 5, she and her daughter, Mrs. M. Liebenguth, visited with her son, Julius A. Schmahl, at St. Paul, and it was during this period that her decline in physical strength, although she was still strong mentally, became noticeable.

Mrs. Schmahl was rich in reminiscences of the fatherland, and of the city where she was born, although but eleven years old when she left that country, and frequently, to her family she would recall her early experiences in Germany, France, England, and on the high seas in her trip to America. She passed through the eastern states when they were young, and came into the wilderness of Minnesota and gave her mite towards building up a great commonwealth. A German minister but recently remarked of her, while he was engaged in laying the corner stone of a new hospital in St. Paul, that she had accomplished a greater work than that about to commence at that moment - the bringing of ten children into the world, and the bringing up of most of them into manhood and womanhood. Of the ten children four preceded her to the grave - Mrs. Julia Jaehning, Otto, Emil and an infant son. The six children surviving her are : Mrs. Geo. Wingett, Mrs. Matilda Liebenguth, Mrs. J. J. Palmer, Alex C, Herman G., and Julius A. Schmahl.

Many a pioneer has staked his all on a crop of oats, has seen them growing from day to day, has changed work with his neighbor to get his harvesting done, and again the threshing, to find the price about seven cents per bushel on track.

Wheat was a good crop in those days, but there was nothing to keep the price up. The farmer would sow his seed, pray for rain, almost mortgage his life to get the crop harvested and threshed, to find that thirty-eight cents was a good price for No. 1 hard.

Those were the days that tried men's souls. Some farmers tried sheep but in the season for selling they could get nothing for their wool and possibly fifty cents a carcass for their dressed sheep. Those surely were dark days.

Then the year of the deep snows, when no trains passed ; when no engine smoke was seen or familiar whistle was heard from fall until spring. No mail except someone went to New Ulm. Think of ourselves, sitting here in the lap of luxury, in the very center of civilization; enjoying our daily papers, with mail and express from four to six times a day, and then hark back in your mind to the days when the horse or ox team could not or dare not venture out.

Frank Schandera came to the present site of Lamberton in the early seventies and started a general store. He was the only one of the business men who settled here that stuck through the terrible days of grasshoppers and poor prices for crops ; he alone braved the storms, making himself useful to his fellow man wherever he could. He broke roads through so that he could drive to New Ulm, for stock for his store. Frank stood by the settler, keeping his family in something to eat and wear when the crops were failures from one source or another for a number of

Some of the old settlers, now living, tell the writer that Schandera would go down east for a hundred miles or so where the crops were safe and procure work for the settlers of this community during the harvesting and threshing, thereby enabling them to pay up their arrearages, or nearly so, and then he would carry them another year, only to go through it again when the season came.

He drove to New Ulm through the inclement weather, sometimes as often as once a week to bring back the mail for the surrounding country, because Uncle Sam could only bring it so far on its way. Think of that, reader, you who can go to the postoffice two or three times a day, or can see the postman, rural delivery,

We surely have reason to be thankful that such men lived; that the old pioneers braved the storms, the trials and privations of the past that we may now enjoy the privileges of the present.

In a brief fifty years Lamberton has grown to its present proportions, and instead of the times when people lived on the bare necessities of life we are living where the luxuries have become the necessities.

We are living now in the days of $1.50 wheat ; of 80 cent corn ; of $10.00 hay ; of $10.00 hogs ; in fact, in the day when the farmer gets more for his product than ever before. We talk of the high cost of living, but that high cost comes from the advanced price of the farmer's crops and stock, and the farmer is the backbone of this great free country.

The writer can only touch on the old dark days ; only show you of this day some of the trials that were undergone by the old settlers, but some of them are with us yet and can tell you more and more of those days that served to burn away the dross in the fires of trouble and bring out the man.

But those days were days that cemented friendships. Those were the days when every man was his neighbor's friend; when each one looked to the other's interests; when there was more of truth and less of sham; more of forgiveness and less of pride.

Those were the days of true community interests when the interests of one were the interests of all. Those were the days when we were nearer old Mother Earth ; when we could reach out a greeting hand to all who came.