Waseca County, Minnesota - Chapter 32, 1905

Chapter 32

INTENSE COLD - J. B. JACKSON, CHAIRMAN OF BOARD - REMOVAL OP THE WINNEBAGOES - SETTLEMENT OF FREEDOM AND ALTON - FINANCES OF COUNTY, ORDERS ISSUED AT NINETY CENTS ON THE DOLLAR - REMOVAL OF JUDGE ENOS - DRAFT FOR 500,000 MEN- BIG SOLDIER BOUNTIES - NEGROES AND THE WAR - EXTENSIVE MAIL ROBBERIES BETWEEN WILTON AND MANKATO - B. A. LOWELL STATE SENATOR.

The year 1864 opened with a terrible storm and most intense cold. The remainder of the winter was cold and at times stormy. Winter continued until the latter part of March, and very little seeding was done prior to the middle of April. The season as a whole was a dry one, but the state was blessed with abundant crops. The harvest weather was all that could be desired, and notwithstanding a scarcity of harvest hands, the crops were all saved in good shape.

County Board Work

At the annual meeting of county commissioners, held Jan. 5th, 1864, the board was organized by the election of J. B. Jackson, chairman. No business beyond the ordinary was transacted at this session, except that the county auditor's salary was raised from $450 per year to $500. Each commissioner district, at that time, had a school examiner appointed by the county board. The examiners appointed for 1864 were as follows: M. S. Green, of Iosco ; B. A. Lowell of Otisco ; and Eugene A. Smith, of Wilton. The last refused to serve and Rev. E. S. Smith was appointed in his place, Jan. 27th, 1864. During the legisla- tive session of 1864, the office of county superintendent of schools was created and made appointive by the county board; and on the 9th of March, 1864, Hex. E. S. Smith was appointed county superintendent of schools at the magnificent salary' of $100 per year. At this March session another $100 was added to the county auditor's salarj-, making it $600 a year.

The Winnebago Indian Reservation

As a result of the Indian outbreak in 1862, the AVinnebago Indians were removed from their rcs(.'rvation in this state to a new reservation in Nebraska. In their reservation hin-e there were included the townships now known as Freedom and Alton, and the west tier of sections of the townships of Wilton and St. Mary - the larger portion of their reservation being in Blue Earth county adjoining.

After the Indians were removed, the lands were sold to white men imder sealed bids, the minimum price per acre, as the writer remembers it, being $2.r)0. The lands were taken very rapidly, and many farms were settled upon and improved in 1864.

At the meeting of the county board, ilarch 9, 1864, a petition was received to have the new territory organized as a township with township officers, etc. The county board passed an order organizing townships 106 and 107, range '2-i. which provided that "the first election should be held at the house of Stephen Robinson, situated at the place (then) known as Peddler's (irove, on the same day (April 5) and hour, in this year 18(i4, Mdiieh the law provides for the town elections in organized towns; and that when so assembled for their town election, the electors shall elect a name by which both townships shall hereafter be knowm until such time as it shall be found that a sufficient number of inhabitants shall have settled in each or either to entitle them to a separate organization, and that when svich separate organization shall talce place, town Xo. 106 shall retain the name agreed upon at this, their first election."

Thei'e was quite a struggle regarding the name, but "Freedom,' was finally adopted. According to the history issued by the Union Publi.shing Company in 1SS7, Air. F. D. Seaman had the casting vote, which s(4ect(Nl the name, he being one of the committee of three to decide on a name. At a special meetinu' of the

At a later meeting, April 30, the county board ordered the county attorney to notify all persons who were selling spirituous liquors to take out license or stop selling liquor. There was something of a temperance revival at the time, and the board increased the license fee from $25 to $50, except for hotels, which were permitted to deal in liquors by paying a license fee of $15. Fifty dollars was at that time considered a very high license fee.

In the month of August, this year, two of the county commissioners resigned. John S. G. Honnor, of Iosco, removed to Redwood Falls, and J. B. Jackson emigrated to McLeod county, in this state. On the 15th of August, the appointing board, consisting of John C. Ide, county auditor, P. Brink Bnos, judge of probate, and H. P. Norton, register of deeds, met and appointed Fred W. Kittredge, then of Okaman, and Hon. "Warren Smith, of Wilton, to fill the vacancies. The new board met on the 22d of the same month and elected Mr. Smith chairman of the board.

"Be it ordered thar the county auditor tie authorized to settle with the parties holding tax certificates against lands illegally or irregularly issued, or on which taxes may have been paid and the same having been returned delinquent and sold, and to pay such parties in county orders .at ninety cents on the dollar."

Early in the fall Judge Enos moved to Nebraska, and at the meeting of the county board, Dec. 2, it was "ordered that James E. Child be appointed judge of probate to fill the vacancy caused by the removal of P. Brink Enos, Esq."

The War Op The Rebellion

Notwithstanding the victories of the Union forces during the year 1863, the Confederates with great courage and energy maintained their warlike attitude and aggressive movements. On the first day of February, the president ordered a draft of 500,000 men, each locality being permitted to furnish its quota of men by enlistment. On the 15th of March came an added call for 200,000 more - 700,000 in all. Every town became a recruiting station. Town bounties for soldiers to fill town quotas ran high - from $100 to $500 in this county. All sections of the country were equally anxious to secure volunteers, and in some towns resort to the draft was unavoidable. Scarcely had the first two calls for troops been filled before another half million men were called out. This third call was issued July 18th, 1864. And near the close of the year, Dec. 19th, another draft was ordered for 300,000 men to fill the depleted ranks of the great Union armies. As before noted, large bounties were oft'ered by the several townships and herculean efforts were put forth, especially after the fall election, to fill the ranks and crush the Kebellion, which everyone then realized would soon be accomplished.

The Negroes And The War

There was one condition of the public mind or existing prejudice at the time that the writer could never fully understand. "Up to the very close of the Rebellion, many people at the North protested against the enlistment of negroes in the Union armies. While the rebels were using them to build fortifications and roads, to serve as cooks and servants, to raise crops to support the rebels in the field; and while the negro slave was the innocent cause of the rebellion, and his personal liberty and rights depended wholly upon the success of the Union armies, nevertheless many people in the North raised their hands in holy horror at the mere suggestion that the negro should do some of the fighting in defense of those rights. "We did not hesitate to use h(jrse.s, mules, or asses in our military operations; we were willing to sacrifice our best blood, the flower of our youth and the strength of our noblest manhood, in defense of the nation, but the negro slave of the worst rebels that ever attempted the assassination of Liberty and Equal Eights in the world was too sacred to be enlisted to fight for his own personal liberty and those equal rights of all men, which Jefferson taught and the Revolutionary Fathers proclaimed to all nations and all men as the foundation principles upon which was builded our magnificent edifice. It was a fool prejudice that cost the nation rivers of blood and millions of treasure.

The Election Of 1864

men of both parties believed that the life of the nation hung in the balance. Over a million patriots were upon the battle fields far from their homes. They had made great sacrifices. Would they be sustained by the men at home at the ballot box? Should the nation live or perish? The struggle was a memorable one and Abraham Lincoln and the "boys in blue" were sustained. Waseca county was carried by the Union forces by a good working majority. Hon. B. A. Lowell was elected state senator - the representatives of the district going to Freeborn and Steele counties. W. G. Kennedy, of St. Mary, was re-elected county commissioner, John S. McKune, of Blooming Grove, and Rev. C. S. Luce, of Wilton township, being the other two members - all Union men. Col. J. C. Ide was again elected county auditor.

The eventful year closed with high hopes among the people of the North that 1865 would bring the end of the Slave-holders' Rebellion, and that before another Christmas the nation would be all free.

Extensive Mail Robberies

For several weeks of the late summer and the fall months of 1864, there were frequent complaints that letters along the stage route between Mankato and Owatonna never reached their destination. Little was thought of the matter, however, until by mere accident a large number of letters, stolen from the mail sacks, were discovered at the Globe hotel at Wilton by Mr. Seth W. Long, who kept the stage house. As soon as he made the discovery, he informed James E. Child, who was then deputy United States provost marshal, of the county. Sheriff Whipple was also called in consultation and the letters were hastily examined and listed. Mr. Child at once proceeded to the Winnebago agency and, calling upon the Indian agent and the postmaster, instituted a search about the hotel and the stage barn. Nearly two bushels of letters were found in the barn hidden in a partition boarded up on each side, the letters having been dropped in from time to time between the studding. Mr. Child then went on to Mankato and notified the postmaster there.

iners that the letters had all been stolen by one of the Burbank stage drivers. Every letter was evidently taken on alternating days by some one between Wilton and the Indian, or Winnebago, agency. Only two men drove stage between those points - a youngish man, called "Jimmie" Burns, and an older man known as "Pat". One or the other of these must have stolen the letters.

Taking the last letters stolen and tracing the record backward, it was quite evident that Jimmie or an accomplice was the guilty person; but to make sure that "no guilty man escape," the authorities arrested both the men. There was really no evidence against Pat. Yet the popularity of Jimmie Burns was such that for a time suspicion rested heavily upon the other mail carrier. At the examination, however, Pat was exonerated, and Jimmie was held for trial.

As is often the case, a very worthy and influential j'oung lady was in love with the thief, and all her influence and the efforts of her friends M'ere put forth to prevent his conviction. Able attorneys were employed and everything that a devoted yoimg woman could say or do was done to save her thief-lover from conviction. She succeeded. Bvit the stage company having examined into the matter, had no further use for Jimmy.

Then it was that the rascal left for parts unknown and deserted the devoted girl that had saved him. Prom worry and disappointment or from some other cause, the young woman soon after fell ill and died - the victim of misplaced affection and confidence.

In all, over three bushels of the stolen letters were foimd, many of them having contained small amounts of money. It was estimated that nearly .+200 had been stolen from the letters, ilany drafts and checks were found and returned to the owners.

It was a sad case of miscarriage of justice, and shows that it is sometimes an easy matter to instill into the minds of a jury a "reasonable doubt" of the guilt of the guiltiest rascal on earth.

Capter Xxxiii, 1865

COLLAPSE OP SOUTHERN REBELLION - ENO SHACKLES POUND - LATE SPRING - ASSASSINATION OP LINCOLN - THE INDIANS AGAIN, MURDER OP THE JEWBTT FAMILY - JACK CAMPBELL, HALF-BREED HANGED - RETURN OF SOLDIERS - ELECTION OP 1865.

The year 1865 will go down the ages as the most noted in our history. It witnessed the collapse of the Southern Rebellion, the surrender of the Confederate armies, and the restoration of peace throughout the nation. And our citizen soldiery might well have said with the poet :

"Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths; Our bruised arms hung up for monuments; Our stern alarms changed to merry meetings; Our dreadful marches to delightful measures."

Our county commissioners met in annual session Jan. 11th, and organized by the election of W. G. Kennedy chairman. On the 12th it was "ordered that the license for retailing liquors in saloons or taverns, for the year 1865, in Waseca county, be $75 for each; and that N. B. Strong & Co. shall pay $10 for a license to retail liquors for medicinal purposes or as druggists." The county auditor's salary was increased to $700 per year at this meeting.

At the session of the board, March 31st, five dollars was appropriated to be tendered to Buel Welsh, Esq., who had found and returned the shackles worn by the horsethief, Eno, while in jail. Eno had broken jail in 1863 and made his escape by the assist-

Here is a peculiar entry made by Auditor Ide. It is especially so as every member of the board, as well as himself, was a total abstinence man. It reads as follows:

The spring of 1865 was much later than usual. A very few sowed wheat the last week in I\Iarch. Then the weather turned cold, and it was the middle of April before the majority could seed. In fact, it was a cold, backward spring.

Victory And Peace At Last

The first week in April the whole country was made joyous by the glorious announcement that the Union armies had triumphed, and that peace wa.s at hand. No words at the command of the writer could give utterance to the unfeigned emotions of joy and hope and thankfulness which took possession of the loyal millions of the land. Even the Copperheads and the Secessionists were glad that brave men would no longer be called upon to sacrifice their lives in the camp and upon the battlefield.

The Assassination

AVhile the loyal people everywhere were expressing the utmost joy - while they were willing to forgive and forget - there flashed to every hamlet in the land the appalling announcement - "PRESIDENT LINCOLN IS ASSASSINATED!!"

The civilized world stood aghast! In the very hour of the final triumph of Liberty over Oppression - of Law and Order over Anarchy - he, the chief actor, the ablest, the most revered and beloved, the purest, the Avisest, the best, had fallen by the hand of the dastardly, drunken assassin, J. Wilkes Booth.

The murder of Lincoln by the rebel assassin was the crowning sacrifice of the war. It was the final culmination of that demoniac spirit of Slavocracy which sought to destroy the nation by organizing murder everywhere - murder upon land, murder upon the lakes and rivers, piracy and murder upon the high seas, murder by burning our cities, murder and highway robbery by organized guerillas, murder by starving thirty thousand helpless prisoners in Southern pens. Let us hope that the world may never again be disgraced by the production of another spirit so demoniacal.

Probably no man's death, in the history of the world, was ever so universally mourned by all classes of people as was that of Abraham Lincoln.

The Indians Again

Notwithstanding the defeat of the Indians in 1862-3, the redskins kept up a desultory war upon the western plains, and small bands of them occasionally ventured into sparsely settled neighborhoods for the purpose of murder and robbery. Their last raid into Minnesota was made this year. Judge Buck, in his "Indian Outbreaks," says: "On the second day of May, 1865, Andrew J. Jewett and wife, his father and mother, and a hired man named Charles Tj'ler, were murdered in the town of Rapidan (Blue Earth county) by Indians and a half-breed, named John Campbell, frequently called Jack Campbell. He was a brother of Baptiste Campbell, who was one of the thirty-eight hanged at Mankato. Dee. 26, 1862. Jack was at one time in the Union army and did some good service while there. But after his brother Baptiste was hanged he swore vengeance, and stated that he would burn Mankato. He had a comrade in the army by the name of Marshall Fall, who he knew had sent money to Jewett, and hence he had two objects in view, one the robbery of Jewett, and the other the burning of Mankato. With him were several Indians. Dr Welcome, then of Garden City, hearing of the murder, visited the place and found Jewett and wife, father and mother and young Tyler dead, and young Jewett, who recovered, badly

After the murder, Jack left the Indians, the latter gomg in another direction, and started for Mankato. He was caught on his way by an armed citizen named Dodge, who took him to Mankato, where he was put in jail. It was soon discovered that he had on Mr. Jewett's coat and pantaloons and a pair of shoes belonging to the Jewett family. The next morning Campbell was tried by a de facto court composed of a jury of twelve men, Lawyer Barney as judge, J. H. Willard prosecuting attorney, and 0. 0. Pitcher as defendant's attorney. He was found guilty and summarily hanged l)y the neck until dead. Before his death he confessed to the priest that he had robbed the Jewett family of $300, which he had put in his jail bed. This was found and returned to ^Marshall Fall, who had sent it to the Jewett family for safe keeping. The Indians, though hunted by soldiers and citizens, killed a soldier named James Jolly and a boy named Frank York, and made their way west, where they were finally killed by th(_> patrol scouts under the command of ]Major Robert H. R(jse.

This was a great year for AVaseca county. The return of our soldier boys, the large number of immigrants that took homes in the county, the rapid filling up of the towns of Freedom and Alton, all triided to make times prosperous and business good.