Wright County, Minnesota - Chapter 12: Pioneer Development, 1915

Pioneer Discomforts - By Allen Reinmuth - Early Days at Rockford - By George W. Florida - Claim Seekers and Various Types of Early Arrivals - Ginseng - Grasshopper Plagues - The Famine of 1867.

The pioneer development of this part of Minnesota dates from 1852, but the real impetus came in 1856 and 1857, when land in many of the townships was entered at the United States land office. The pioneers who settled in this great wilderness had to face many hardships and nerve-testing ordeals, and the experiences and privations they underwent should be related for the benefit of the countless generations yet unborn who will reap the fruits of the work done by their frontier ancestors and predecessors.

People of the present day, and especially those who have never lived on farms, have no idea of the hardships a farmer encounters in a new country. By the time he has cleared, paid for. and established a standard model farm, he has used a great deal of vitality, patience and energy.

Especially were difficulties encountered in the wooded portions, such as the "Big Woods," which included most of Wright county, where the timber had to be cleared off before a cabin could be built or a garden planted. The trees were so large and set so close together that a traveler could scarcely see a rod ahead, and in the summer the foliage was so thick that the sky was obscured. Many varieties were represented, such as the red, white and burr oak, hard and soft maple, white and black ash, hickory, basswood, box-elder, red and white elm, irouwood,

Cottonwood and others. These trees varied in size, the white elm and the white oak being the largest and tallest. One old white oak measured six feet in diameter, and a white elm which is standing today is four feet in diameter and a hundred and twelve feet high. There were only a few maple trees then, but after the great cyclone ruined and tore up by the roots all the large trees, the maples took their place, so that today the oaks and elms are few and the maples predominate.

The clearing away of the forest was no easy task. Saws were unknown, so the work was done with axes. There was no market for wood, and it had to be disposed of. The trees were felled, cut eight or ten feet long, then rolled into large heaps. This was done with the help of oxen when such could be secured, but those that could not afford oxen used wooden hand spikes, a slower and more difficult process. These heaps were then lighted, and since the wood was green and did not burn very readily, the piles had to be re-lighted time and again. The old pioneers, recalling the early clearing of the forest, have regretted many times that timber like oak, maple and ash had to be wasted by burning in such a manner, where today it would demand a good market and a high price. The process of felling trees was hazardous as well as tedious, for many a tree when falling would become lodged in the branches of a nearby tree, which would then have to be chopped also. Tliis was a very dangerous task, for the tree above might shake loose any time and fall and crush the man working beneath. Two acres was all that could be cleared by two men in one winter.

The mosquitoes were plentiful, for the shallow pools were kept from evaporating by tlie shading forest, and myriads of insects hatched out daily. Screens were unknown, hence very little rest did the pioneers have day or night during the summers of the tirst few years. After the timber was somewhat cleared away, the pools dried out and the mosquitoes became fewer in number. Some of the early settlers did not have the endurance to keep up the task they had begun, so left, driven away by discomforts in which the mosquitoes were an important factor.

Railroads did not span this country until ten years later. The train service was not as convenient in the early days as it is at the present time. The cars were not ballasted and they often jumped from the track. The engines were small and the grades were steep, hence slow time was made both in passenger and freight service. There were no through freights, and fast mail trains and fliers were not put on until twenty-five years later.

Industry was crude then, for the equipment was meagre. Labor was done mostly by hand. Horses were not to be had at that date. The oxen, though very strong, coidd not be handled like horses for several reasons. Tliey had no bridles, so they could go wherever they pleased, and sometimes they woidd even run away from their owners. They had not the intelligence horses have, therefore they could not be trained to do all the work horses do.

The early pioners had crudely constructed shacks built out of logs, about twelve by twenty feet, on an average, in size. These log houses were covered with elm bark for a roof, occasionally limbs and twigs were used. When the weather was dry the roofs did not leak, but when it rained the discomforts were intense. Everything got wet and the only thing to do was to wait until the rain stopped and then dry the clothes and bedding by the fire.

The chimneys were built of wood, plastered on the inside with clay to prevent them from burning, and like those of Lincoln's time, were small at the top and wide at the bottom. They were about six feet square at the bottom and three feet square at the top. Logs cut in suitable lengths were used as fuel, and as they were green a lai'ge fire had to be kept up.

There were few matches in tliose days, so fires were kindled by friction. To do this two dry sticks were rubbed together until they produced a spark, which would be dropped into a pile of sawdust and shavings to ignite them, and the glow induced would then have to be blown into a flame. When matches finally came into use on the farm this disagreeable task was done away with.

Implements of labor were also crude. Most of them were made of wood and progress with these tools was very slow and work could not be done either well or skillfully. The plows were made something like modern potato hillers with a beam, two handles and two braces to hold the handles in position. In the middle of this crude tool was a straight "four b.y four" with an iron plate one-half inch thick, fastened to the beam by oldfashioned screws. The harrow used was a brush taken from the top part of a maple tree. These harrows were drawn by two yoked oxen with a chain fastened to the yoke and the butt end of the harrow. This kind of a harrow was easily made and could well stand the jerks and jars it was exposed to while dragged over the stumps. The harrow was somewhat etfective in smoothing the plowed ground. The cycle half-moon graincutter was the tool used to cut the grain. This was swung by one hand and the grain was caught in the other, which was very hard and slow work. As soou as scythes and cradles were invented and purchased the farmers made better time and raised more grain. The threshing in the early days was done by means of a flail. The method of seeding was most interesting, looked at from a present-day viewpoint. There were first placed three' sharpened poles ten feet long, a few inches in the ground in a vertical position, and in a straight line with each other across the field. Each stick had a red flag tied to the top of it as a sight to go by. The man had a few sacks of wheat placed conveniently here and there so he could get more seed whenever he needed it. To sow he carried a sack on his side, fastened over his right shoulder. One part of the sack was partly left open so he could reach in and get a handful of wheat. This wheat was scattered to right and left and in front of him. He would never carry more than a peck of wheat in the sack at one time as more would be too heavy.

The early settlers were very poor. Many had been here but a short time. Land was cheap under the preemption law, only costing about $1.25 per acre. Later, under the homestead law, the United States gave homesteads to any who applied and fulfilled the conditions. All that was required for a man who took a homestead was that he live on it five years, after which he could receive a deed for same. Each homestead had a hundred and sixty acres, except in certain cases (such as the immediate prospect of an adjoining railroad) where conditions made the laud of so much higher value that the claims were limited to eighty acres. No man could take more than one homestead. Although the land was cheap, tools and the other necessary articles were so high priced that farming was very expensive. The pioneers paid their debts in two ways, first by digging ginseng and secondly by selling the produce they raised.

The climatic conditions were more even and rains came at more regular periods than at present. The temperature was also more equitable, without the great and rapid changes known to the present time. The forest stopped the winds and kept the soil cool by shading it. Owing to those natural conditions the summers were not so extremely hot or the winters so extremely cold.

Aside from a little pork and beef, most of the meat was secured by hunting wild game, which was plentiful in the forest. At that time anyone could shoot all the game that fancy dictated. But now the big game has all departed, and even small game is not plentiful. Fish were also Yery numerous in the early days, but the number has now beeii so depleted that there would be little fishing in the county were it not for the thousands of fry supplied by the state and government hatcheries.

liave replaced the days when the early settler lived with his little family in a eabin, painfully cleared his land acre by acre, and often knew what it was to lack for provisions. Now the county is a settled, prosperous area, surrounded on all sides by a high civilization, antl with all frontier conditions long since removed. - By Allen Reinnuith.

Pioneer Days in Rockford. Let us go back to the fifties of 1800 and join the procession of emigration moving from the East, from ilaine to iliiuiesota. There were two nutans of transportation : one by the water route that led to the West, on the surface of which tlu' birchbark canoe smootlily glided and the majestic steamboat plowed its way through the currents, to the Northwest ; the other route, over which the greater number came, by laud. On this the prairie schooner (the covered wagon), often propelled by the noble ox, gallantly sailed towards the setting sini. This mode of travel was used diu'iug the fifties, with the added assistance of the Burbank stage-coaches that followed the trail of the ox team. In this manner of travel the people of Wright county had the same experience as the people of other counties of the territory of Minnesota.

It has been a great satisfaction that our mother came from Maine to Illinois in the early forties in a covered wagon drawn by one span of horses, with her father, her mother, five sisters and one brother.

In the fall of 1855 our father, with his brother-in-law, George F. Ames, visited Minnesota. On the way up the Mississippi river they met G. D. George, a gentleman from Boston, also visiting the territory. The three were congenial companions, and Mr. George joined them in prospecting the territory for a location. They located the present town of Rockford, on the Crow river, twentyone miles from its mouth and one and one-half miles from its north and south forks, at a place called by the Indians Big Rock, owing to the big rocks in the rapids at this place.

In the spring of 1856 our family party, consisting of our grandparents, uncles, cousins and aunts, came to Galena and took passage on the "War Eagle" to St. Paul. The trip up the Mississippi was most interesting, its scenery comparing favorably with the Hudson or the Rhine. We were treated to an exciting steamboat race through Lake Pepin, when our gallant War Eagle swung into the lake to pass a rival boat. All on board took a lively interest. The grates of the boilers were wide open and relays of firemen kept the furnace full of wood, and to increase the power, bacon, from a pile on deck, was thrown in. With the safety-valve tied down, we left our rival in the wake and cheered the War Eagle.

near where the university stands was Cheaver Tower. Over the door to the stairway to its top was "Cheaver Tower. Pay your dime and climb." From this tower one had a commanding view of the lakes and bluffs, with the smooth prairie stretching to the Minnesota river on the west side, the high, gradually ascending table land on the east, with the falls in their original grandeur plunging between. This view made a picture in my mind that fifty-nine years has not changed, though a teeming city has occupied the place.

Our people brought a steam sawmill to Rockford in 1856, cutting the road from where Hamel now stands. This mill cut material for a number of houses built in 1856. Three are now standing. The mill burned in the winter. In 1857 the dam was built. A flour mill, a feed mill and a sawmill were put in operation to accommodate the settlers that were then locating near the village in the Big Woods, as the belt of hardwood timber between forty and fifty miles wide was called. This belt extended from the Mississippi on the north side of the county in a circular form to the southeastern part of the territory, between Faribault and Mankato.

In 1857 the settlers were confronted with an unexpected setback. The wild land speculation of the previous years had precipitated what was known as the crash of 1857, a time when the bottom had dropped out of the financial system and a general depression followed. The money in circulation was largely issued by private banks and as this could not be redeemed, one after another fell in the financial whirlpool. Settlers who had means, as they supposed, to make improvements, found tlu^ir money worthless, and it was given the name of wildcat currency. To add to tlieir misfortunes, the grasshoppers appeared in July, so thick that they darkened the sun, and when they had gone, the small fields of corn, wheat and potatoes were nearly bare. Fortunately for the settlers, they hail no means to return to the' older settlements, and during 1857 and 1858 did the best they could.

Fish and game were plentiful. Material for building log cabins and barns was at hand. The spirit of the people was good. May 11, 1858, the territory was admitted as a state. The Indians were induced to remove to their agency on the Minnesota river, five miles below the Redwood river, and with their removal the game was more plentiful. The settlers had a neverfailing supply of venison, geese, ducks, pheasants, pigeons, fish and all kinds of fur-bearing animals. The Children of Israel were not better provided with manna in tlie Wilderness than the first settlers of this section. Deer was so plentiful that at Monticello, while Senator Sanuu4 Bennet was making his family prayer after breakfast, one of his little girls whispered that a deer was in tlie cabbage patch. Mr. Beiinet rose with alacrity, took a rifle from oviT tlie door, shot the deer, returned to his kneeling position and devoutly finished the prayer.

From St. Anthony two small steamboats, "The Cutter" and the little "Time and Tide,"" plied between the falls and Crow Wing on the upper Mississippi, stopping at Dayton, Monticello and Clearwater. The landing in St. Anthony was at the head of Nicollet Island, opposite the old Tremont House. Louis Robare was the captain of the "Time and Tide."' He would stand at the little wharf and call the time of starting. He would shout : "Time and Tide starts at seven. Time and Tide waits for no man, but one-half hour for one woman."" The Wright county ladies had plenty of time if they took passage with Captain Robare !

While we were supplied with many comforts from the hand of Nature, there were other things necessary to complete the list of comforts formerly enjoyed by the settlers. Clothing and groceries required mone.y, and this was so scarce that many families were destitute- and in the spring of 1859 were discoiiraged. On the evening of May 18 two gentlemen from Richmond, Va., Colonel Blaine and Major Goshorn, drove into the village. They asked if ginseng grew in the woods. They thought, from the maple and basswood, it would be plentiful in this timbered country, and they had come from Virginia to buy it. They would prepare it for the Chinese market at tliis place by washing, clarifying and drying, a process used at that time in preparing the roots for the Chinese trade.

On the morning of J\lay 19 Mrs. Beebe, my cousin, Prank Ames, and I went into the woods in search of ginseng. It was the writer's good fortune to find the first plant. We dug it and carried it to Colonel Blaine. He pronounced it a fine specimen, and said they would pay gold for all that could be dug. We passed the top and root from one to another, that they might know it in the woods. The digging was done with a narrow hoe made for the purpose. Agencies were established at Buffalo, Watertown and Hassen, for the convenience of the diggers. In a few days the chief occupation was digging ginseng. The price paid in the spring was five cents per pound, and eight and ten cents in the fall, for green roots. Whole families dug. Some good diggers would dig five dollars worth in a day. We dug like a lot of miners, with tlie expectation of finding rich digging every moment. Many of the settlers paid for their land with the money that came with the ginseng.

The Fourth of July had been observed appropriately in 1857 and 1858, but Minnesota now being a state over a year old, it was decided that July 4, 1859, must be celebrated in a royal manner. Invitations were sent to the towns of the county to join with us.

We must have a band. Uncle Cyrus Redlon and his two sous were musicians. They were from Boston. Uncle Redlon had a fife. Fred and Frank Redlon were good drummers, but we had no drums. Amos Denney made fine pork barrels of white oak. We asked him for a barrel to uuike a bass drum. We sawed off the ends to give it the right proportion, and covered them with heavy buckskin and strung it in such a way as to make it tight. The drum was a great success. It was a heavy bass. We then took a fish keg and made a snare or tenor drum in the same way. That proved a success. We were provided with drums.

When the war broke out in 1861, the Roekford drummers enlisted in the army, and each filled the same position in the military band that he had at the first celebration after the state was admitted to the Union.

D. R. Farnham was from Massachusetts and was well trained in military tactics. He had organized a company of young men known as the Roekford Militia or Home Guards These he trained in marching and the manual of arms. The ladies of the village had made a fine flag for this occasiou, to be carried at the head of the procession. We had also taken two widths of sheeting with which we made a banner by stitching them together and tacking to two poles to be carried by two men. The banner was sixteen feet long. On this Frank Redlon, a good sign painter, painted a backwoodsman carrying a ginseng hoe on his shoulder with a bag of ginseng attached; behind him a young man of twenty, carrying a hoe and bag; following him, a younger member and a little boy and the baby, each carrying a hoe and bag. Over all, in good, large letters was, "Big pig, little pig, root hog or die." This was our motto. Our procession was headed by the flag and drum corps, leading the militia. The Sunday school in marching line followed the militia. The banner was carried at the head of the citizens' column.

From all the country the people came to join this great celebration; from Monticello, Buffalo, Dayton, the Virginia settlement (now Montrose), Waveily, Marysville and Watertown, in Wright county ; Armstrong, Maple Plain, Long Lake, the Yankee settlement and Greenwood, in Hennepin county.

Our mother had brought a small melodeon from Illiuois, which accompanied the chorus that sang patriotic songs. The Declaration of Independence was read. An address was given. Then the dinner, that the oldest settlers have not forgotten ! Roast pigs on china platters brought from former homes ; pyramid cakes, that to us small boys looked like haystacks ! The long table in the shade of the majestic elms was a triumphal monument to the glory of ginseng, and our motto, "Root hog or die."

uncle, William Sleight, its superintendent, and later, president of the Old Settlers' Association, took the field with an exhibition in singing and speaking that to my knowledge has not been snrpassed since.

The settlers were a very intelligent class, many from the New England states, and represented a cultivated people. It was these men that responded so nobly for the defense of the Union in 1861. I think all of Mr. Farnham's company enlisted.

The most important factor in the development of Wright county's resources was the extension, in 186S, of the St. Paul and Pacific Railway, from Long Lake, in Hennepin county, to Crow river. This afforded transportation and gave ready market for hardwood liuuber, stave bolts, hoop poles and farm protluets, that for twelve years had been hauled to market by teams or down the river by boats oi' rafts. The state had settled a princely land grant for the construction and operation of the road, by giving it every other section six miles each side of the track. The road was chartered and built by a syndicate of English capitalists, who bequeathed their names to the new towns along the line. Mr. Delano, the first superintendent, gave his name to the Crow river crossing, Mr. IMontrose to the Virginia settlement, Mr. Dassel to Collinswood, Mr. Darwin to the edge of the Big Woods, Mr. Litchfield to Foot Lake, and Chief Engineer Morris to the town west of the Pomme de Terre.

A large jiart of the money for construction and equipnu^nt was furnished by the Amsterdam bankers on first mortgage bonds. The company had sent samples of the soil to Holland by placing the stratas as they lay in the surface formation in casks, showing the rich loam at the top with the clay subsoil below. This had been analyzed as to its fertility, so they knew what they were secvu'ed with as to land.

In the spring of 1870 the end of the track was at Benson. An invitation had been sent to the Holland bond-holders to visit the line. They came the first part of April, before the grass or leaves started. The country looked desolate. The prairie had burned in the fall. But few settlers had taken land west of Litchfield, and only a few dug-outs and sod houses with hay and sod stables could be seen.

The day selected for the run from St. Paul out over the line was cold and rainy. Accustomed as they were to the highly cultivated land of Holland, these gentlemen, in their long blue coats and brass buttons, would stand on the back platform and gloomily scan this wide uncultivated landscape, then they would retm-n to the coach and offer their bonds to the more optimistic members of their party at a large reduction. When the bankers reached St. Paul on their return, they informed the company that they could not furnish any more money to extend the line;

The road found it hard to extend its line and keep up the repairs, but Wright county had the benefit of a good market for her wood, both east and west. In a short time rich fields of wheat and corn had taken the place where heavy timber had stood, and Wright county was made to "blossom as the rose." - By George W. Florida, Secretary of the Wright County Old Settlers' Association.

Claim Seeking. During the early townsite days, not all of those who swarmed the country looking for claims really desired to establish permanent homes, though all pretended that such was their object. The actual settlers were often imposed upon by these seekers after quickly earned wealth.

All who came had in their minds the picture of an ideal farm. They wanted a place consisting of seventy acres of prairie, level and clean ; forty acres of meadow, all timothy or red top, high and dry ; forty acres of thrifty timber ; ten acres in a lake with gravelly shores and clean soft water ; a running brook, and neverfailing springs.

One type of man would come into a community, live for weeks on the charity of the settlers, examine all the claims in the neighborhood, and impress the people with the fact that he was a man of wealth in the eastern states, and that he and his family would be valuable assets to the social, educational and business life of the community. Wishing to secure desirable citizens in their connnunity, the settlers would take him about free of charge until at last the critical one would find something that suited him - usually the best for miles around. As soon as he obtained possession his enthusiasm would wane. The roads were too bad, the mosquitoes were too thick, there were no schools or churches, and he was sure that his family could not thrive in such a community. And the settlers who had labored so hard to secure for him a desirable claim saw him dispose of it at a handsome price to a speculator or non-resident.

Another type of man would likewise represent himself as- a man of wealth from the eastern or middle states, but unlike the other type, he was in a great hurry. According to his story, his large family, his splendid household goods and his magnificent numbers of sheep, cattle, horses antl swine, were waiting at St. Paul, and he must secure a location immediately. Every settler in the neigliborhood would neglect his ovm work and turn out to find this citizen a location, erect his house, clear some of his land, make suitable roads and build bridges. They were to receive their pay upon his return. With two false witnesses he would obtain his patent to the property, and the neighbors would wait with interest the coming of his family and possessions.

But in a few days they would fiud that their erstwhile friend was merely the agent of some speculator, and that their hai-d work had gone to enrich the pocket of a non-resident, while the alleged man of large possessions would change his name and operate the same swindle elsewhere.

Another type was the grumbler and the fault-finder. A failure in his former home, he expected that Wright county was a land where wealth and ease were to be obtained for the asking. He found everything dilferent from his selfish dreams, and after making himself a nuisance and abusing the hospitality of the settlers, he would go elsewhere to spread unfavorable reports of this locality. This was the class of men who expected to receive free from the government, in a county less than two years old, 160 acres of land, surrounded by all the comforts and advantages of New England.

In spite of these undesirable persons and their unsavory acts, families began to come who intended to make this their permanent habitation, and by the close of the year 1857 much land in the east, north and south portions of the county had been taken. But during that year the great financial crash came, and many claims were abandoned as the settlers became a prey to discouragement. One reason for this was that many of the pioneers were poor, and had depended on their crops and day labor for others as a means of raising money with which to pay for their location. Consequently, when the land was put on the market and sold in 1859, many had no ready cash and were forced to abandon their claims, with all the improvements that they had made. In some cases these settlers who were forced to abandon their homes were on the odd-numbered sections along the railroad right of way, and their places reverted to the railroad. Some postponed the day of their leaving by borrowing money at three per cent a month, but the final result was the same, as they were unable to raise the interest money. Others had borrowed money with which to make improvements and the mortgages were foreclosed, thus depriving the settler of the results of his hard and wearisome toil.

Very few claims taken in 1856 and 1857 are now in the possession of the families of the original settlers. The grasshoppers frightened many away. Others moved to the larger places to get work, finding that they were unable to support their large families on the small amount of land that they could clear and cultivate the first few years. They seldom returned. And even in after years they remembered with horror the sufferings of 1857 in the Big Woods.

The settlers of 1856 and 1857 were from all parts of the United States, Canada and Europe. The towns along the Mississippi were located on prairies, and the first settlers were for the most part Americans. But in the central and western parts it was quite different, all nations were represented, and homes were being made by the sturdy sons and daughters of the Old World. Society was in a chaotic state. In every community there was very great difference in manners, customs, usages and languages.

In organizing towns or even school districts, there were almost as many forms as there were individuals. The eastern men did not agree with the settlers from the middle states in the manner of procedure. The southern men had a way of their own. So had the German, the Irish, the French and the Scandinavian. In social life it was the same, and in religious matters it would have required at least a dozen clergymen to satisfy the various religious prejudices and opinions of a small settlement. It demanded a large amount of forbearance, patience and charity to harmonize all conflicting opinions. But the pioneers possessed these good qualities, and serious troubles on account of the varying opinions and customs were very few. The American soon learned to adopt some of the usages of the foreigner, and the European readily saw the advantages in following the superior skill and experience of the American in clearing land and building houses, and in many of the arts, customs and ways of New World civilization. A helping hand was extended to all and a new settler was assisted in building his house and in clearing his laud. Thus harmony and brotherly love prevailed to a large extent. Social parties, dances and "chopping bees" increased friendly communication, and warm neighborly intercourse was the result.

The claim associations which had such an influence and took such a conspicuous part in settling disputes about claims in other parts of the state had very little work to do in Wright county. Disputes about locations were usually settled without expense or trouble, and without recourse to the courts.

Before the county was divided into towns the laying out of roads and the assessment of taxes and nearly all other business of a public character was in the hands of the board of county commissioners. Every settlement and nearly every individual wanted a road, and much of the attention of the commissioners was devoted to the granting of petitions for these thoroughfares. The laying out of these roads entailed much expense, and resulted a few years later in the depreciation of the county orders to thirty cents on the dollar. When this depreciation came and the county was in financial straits, the early boards received much criticism, but later events have justified their course in covering the county with a network of these means of communication and commerce. Unlike many Minnesota counties where wagons could find a passage anywhere on the spreading prairies, the early settlers in Wright county could not easily reach the lands that were open to settlement, and trees must be felled, bridges built

For a number of years the ginseng trade had been cai'rietl on with China by a few merchants in Philadelphia, and the supply of the article had been principally from western Virginia and eastern Kentucky. But the roots were growing less and less year by year.

Several persons who had moved from Virginia into Wright county reported to friends at home that ginseng was quite plentiful here, and the information brought Colonel Robert Blaine, from what is now West Virginia, an old ginseng trader, who comnuuiced to buy the root. He paid for it in cash, which in this locality had been rather scarce for two years. The settlers' crops had been small and very low prices were paid for all fai'm products. There was no home market, and no railroads or other means of transportation to an eastern market, there was very little lumbering or building, and no extensive public works or improvements. So it was almost impossible to support a family in the Big Woods, and it seenu-d that many settlers would be obliged to leave or starve.

But as soon as the ginseng trade opened everything was changed. Prosperity and plenty followed the trail of the ginseng buyers. They had established agents in nearly every town, and men, women and children turned their attention to digging the roots. They paid up old debts, cleared up mortgages, paid for their laud, and in everything seemed prosperous and happy, when a few mouths before all had been dark and discouraging. It has often been said, since that time, that the ginseng business was not a benefit to Wright county but that it was an actual injury ; that the early settlers neglected their farms and stopped clearing land, and did not make the progress in developing the country that they would have made if there had been no ginseng trade. But those who reason in this manner are ones who did not experience the hardships of 1859. It is a fact, indeed, that many of the early settlers were without means and could not . have subsisted more than a short time, and many more would have abandoned their claims and farms if they could not have found temporary relief. That was not to be found in public funds, for there were none. Credit was gone, and ready money was necessary in working the farms. Ginseng supplied the need. The Locust Raids- August 19, 1856, is a date not likely to be forgotten by the early settlers of this county, for on that day arrived the advance guard of that all-devouring army of winged gourmands whose ravages spread terror and panic among the inhabitants, and almost depopulated the young settlements. The flying hoppers were seen going southeast about noon, and at 2 o'clock in the afternoon they began their work of destruction, eating every green thing. In Otsego and Monticello, about the only places in the county where wheat, oats and rye were raised to any extent, the loss was greatest. In attacking the oats the grasshoppers trimmed off every green leaf and then cut off the small stems on the heads, leaving the bare stalk standing and the oats all on the ground. Much of the wheat was of the Rio Grande variety and was partly protected by the heavy beards, but every leaf was cut off'. The rye was hard and just ready to harvest, so to a large extent it escaped the general ravage.

The hope of relief occasioned by the sudden disappearance of the hoppers in the fall was blighted by their appearance in largely increased numbers the following spring, and a number of families, overcome with fear and discouragement, gathered their personal effects together and took their final departure.

The grasshopper invasion in 1856 and 1857 was confined mostly to the upper Mississippi valley. The insects appeared near the end of July in the northern part of the state. As they moved' southward along both sides of the Mississippi their progress grew noticeably slower and they did not reach their southern limit, in Hennepin and Ramsey counties, until some time in September. Every crop except the pea vines was devoured, and the unharvested grain, with the exceptions already noted, was destroyed suddenly and totally. Where corn was too hard for them they devoured the blades and husks, leaving bare stalks and ears. They stripped the vines of potatoes, destroyed turnips, beets, onions, buckwheat and most garden vegetables. They nibbled clothing hanging upon lines, entered houses, attacked curtains and cushions, eating "tobacco, shoes and even thick cowhide boots." They probably deposited eggs in the fall of 1856 in all the region visited.

The following year the grasshoppers commenced hatching about May 10, and devoured the crops as fast as they appeared. Through May and the first part of June the number and damage increased, and in most cases the crops were entirely destroyed, so that in plowed ground not even a weed was seen. The time of hatching in 1857 seems to have been somewhat later than in other years. When they began to come out of the eggs the ground was fairly alive with them. Many settlers were discouraged from planting and seeding. The little hoppers began to eat and nearly everything, including the grass in the meadows, was eaten as fast as it grew. About the first of June the ones in Wright county began to move to the southeast by hopping and in a few days they began to fly in the same direction. Crow river was full of the little hoppers, but they did not stop at rivers or creeks, but kept on their way, ami by the first of July, after having devoured about half the crops, the whole greedy swarm had left Wright county. Large numbers continued to linger in other places until about the first of August. The direction of the depar ture was generally southward; the flying swarms passed over southern ^Minnesota as far east as Winnebago City. No eggs were left behintl them, and the state was free from grasshoppers for seven years.

In the early part of June, 1864, the grasshoppers were thick in the Red river region, and over the plains of the Northwest. In June, 1865, the Sauk valley was invaded and vegetation almost entirely destroyed. But the chief scene of invasion in these two years was the Minnesota valley. They did no damage in Wright county. As before, the grasshoppers left no eggs behind them. There were slight locust invasions in the state in 1868, 1871 and 1872.

There was another serious invasion in 1873 in the southwestern part of the state. They deposited their eggs, and in 1874 the ravages were extended still further north and east, so that Wright county was again devastated. This county was one of the districts where the eggs in separate localities were thickly deposited. The hatching of these eggs in the following spring did little damage, as the young hoppers were killed by cold and damp and parasites. But new swarms invaded the state, and Wright county again suffered in the summer of 1876. These swarms deposited eggs, and in 1877 Wright county once more appeared on the lists of the counties which suffered heavily. Many devices were tried to destroy the pests, but to little avail.

The year of 1878 opened with still greater danger of crop destruction. But in April of that year the grasshoppers were totally annihilated by a frost. On the day preceding the frost the religious people of the state had engaged in prayer in their various churches, the day having been set aside as a season of prayer for deliverance. Governor John S. Pillsbury, who issued the proclamation calling for this observance, afterward said in relation to this day of prayer: "And the very next night it turned cold and froze every grasshopper in the state stiff; froze 'em right up solid, sir; well, sir, that was over twenty years ago, and grasshoppers don't appear to have been bothering us very much since." Money was raised to relieve the distress, and once more Wright county started to repair its fortunes.

Fajnine of 1867. The settlements were slow in recovering the numerical loss sustained during the Indian troubles, and it was not until the dawn of our nation's peace, and the return of her citizen soldiery, that material changes occurred. In the meantime most of the odd-numbered sections had come into the possession of a railroad company. After the war, with the prospect of a railroad soon to be built through the county, these lauds found ready sale to actual settlers, and with the homesteads taken during 1865-66, the census of Wright county was materially increased. As most of the late comers of 1866 were men of limited means, it was not strange that the spring of 1867 found many in destitute circumstances. Added to this embarrassment was the farther evil of an unusually wet spring, rendering early seeding impossible, and the roads, as yet unworked, nearly, and in many instances quite, impassable. May was scarce ushered in before rumors of destitution were atloat, and the press of the state informed the reading public that families were starving; that many were subsisting upon elm bark. The county commissioners were appealed to for aid, and accordingly sent out a committee of investigation, to ascertain and report the actual condition of the settlements where suffering was reported. The investigation disclosed the fact that in several of the western towns great destitution prevailed, and that prompt measures were necessary to prevent actual want and starvation.

The commissioners found it no easy matter to effect the necessary relief, with an empty treasury, and no time to arrange for the issue of bonds. Although the county was out of debt, its bonds, in the event of an issue, were not likely to be sought after by outside parties, and there was no surplus wealth within its borders. Something, however, must be done, and that, too, without delay. The only avenue of relief offered was the immediate issue of county orders, which was adopted, and a committee sent to St. Paul and Minneapolis to convert these into cash for the relief of the suffering. The banks, however, turned a deaf ear to the appeal of the committee, and utter failure seemed imminent. Just then W. B. Litchfield, prominent in railroad circles, hearing by a mere chance of the vain attempts on the part of the committee to obtain aid, volunteered the loan of the necessary amount, and thus secured to the committee the means of assistance. For this humane act Mr. Litchfield will ever be held in kindly remembrance. On May 18, at a special meeting of the county commissioners, it was voted : ' ' That a county bond be issued to W. B. Litchfield, of St. Paul, to the amount of five hundred dollars, payable one year after date, bearing interest at the rate of seven per cent per annum. The same being for money to be applied toward relieving the destitute persons in Wright county. Signed, T. C. Shapleigh, Chairman Board of Commissioners. Attest: Henry Kreis, Auditor."

Pending the foregoing transaction, the governor had, upon appeal to him by some of the citizens, sent out eighteen sacks of flour and other articles of food, to meet the immediate requirements of the distressed. But the difficulties of the county commissioners did not end with the advance of money by Mr. Litch- field. Flour in St. Paul was held at twelve dollars per barrel, and it was with great difficulty that a team was at last procured to take a load to Rockt'ord, the charge for transportation being two dollars per barrel. This seemingly extravagant price was, after all, a questionable speculation on the part of the carrier. Rockford was made tlu' distributing point, it being impossible to proceed farther by team, but the settlers were glad of the provisions furnished, even though forced to carry them in some cases from fifteen to twenty miles upon tlieii- shoulders. Provisions, seeds and clotliing were also distributed from Monticello, and a few visited the cities and secured additional aid. Of the entire amount thus distributed, the county sustained an expense of about one thousand dollars.

The so-called famine of 1867 in the western part of Wright county attracted wide attention. In 1866 there was a large influx of new settlers. Reports came that the railroad was to be built at once, and that employment would be given to all who desired it. Consequently many people came in, took forty acres of railroad land, made small gardens and awaited the time when the railroad sliould be paying them wages. But operations were delayed, little work was done, there was no money to buy provisions, and suffering resulted. Much of the destitution was in Moores Prairie township (now Cokato and Stockholm), and in Victor and Middleville townships.

From that day to this old settlers have disputed as to the extent of real need in that region. Investigators from other parts of the state claimed to have found many cases of actual suffering and discovered numerous persons on the verge of starvation. Settlers in other parts of the county have been inclined to underestimate the privations which these new-comers experienced, and to brand the reports of suffering as sensational. But to those immigrants in a new and strange country, out of funds and provisions, and with little prospect of securing work, the need was very real.

Measures were taken to relieve the suffering by extending county aid for the purchase of flour, corn meal, potatoes, seed corn and garden seed. A destitute person was required to secure from the town supervisors a certificate recounting the amount of property owned by him, and the number of people in his family, and containing the statement that the person named therein was destitute of means and in a suffering condition for lack of food. Upon presentation of these to the commissioners, county aid was obtainable. Between May 18 and 27, in the tovm of Mooers Prairie (now Cokato and Stockholm) alone, certificates were issued to thirty-three families embracing 151 persons. In 1865 the census had shown only sixty-two persons in the township, but in the year following there had been many additions.

In the summer of 1857 many of the new settlers raised good crops, some went to work on the railroad, and prosperity followed. The railroad reached Cokato village July 1, 1869. Since then Cokato has been a land of plenty. For many years wheat was raised almost exclusively on what had been wild prairie land. The farmers imported meat and butter from Minneapolis and other places. But the change gradually came, and the people are now engaged for the most part in diversified farming and dairying.